A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament

For the Use of Biblical Students

By The Late

Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener

M.A., D.C.L., LL.D.

Prebendary of Exeter, Vicar of Hendon

Fourth Edition, Edited by

The Rev. Edward Miller, M.A.

Formerly Fellow and Tutor of New College, Oxford

Vol. I.

George Bell & Sons, York Street, Covent Garden

Londo, New York, and Cambridge

1894

[Preface To Fourth Edition.]
[Description Of The Contents Of The Lithographed Plates.]
[Addenda Et Corrigenda.]
[Chapter I. Preliminary Considerations.]
[Chapter II. General Character Of The Greek Manuscripts Of The New Testament.]
[Chapter III. Divisions Of The Text, And Other Particulars.]
[Appendix To Chapter III. Synaxarion And Eclogadion Of The Gospels And Apostolic Writings Daily Throughout The Year.]
[Chapter IV. The Larger Uncial Manuscripts Of The Greek Testament.]
[Chapter V. Uncial Manuscripts Of The Gospels.]
[Chapter VI. Uncial Manuscripts Of The Acts And Catholic Epistles, Of St. Paul's Epistles, And Of The Apocalypse.]
[Chapter VII. Cursive Manuscripts Of The Gospels. Part I.]
[Chapter VIII. Cursive Manuscripts Of The Gospels. Part II.]
[Chapter IX. Cursive Manuscripts Of The Gospels. Part III.]
[Chapter X. Cursive Manuscripts Of The Acts And Catholic Epistles.]
[Chapter XI. Cursive Manuscripts Of St. Paul's Epistles.]
[Chapter XII. Cursive Manuscripts Of The Apocalypse.]
[Chapter XIII. Evangelistaries, Or Manuscript Service-Books Of The Gospels.]
[Chapter XIV. Lectionaries Containing The Apostolos Or Praxapostolos.]
[Appendix A. Chief Authorities.]
[Appendix B. On Facsimiles.]
[Appendix C. On Dating By Indiction.]
[Appendix D. On The ῥηματα.]
[Appendix E. Table Of Differences Between The Fourth Edition Of Dr. Scrivener's Plain Introduction And Dr. Gregory's Prolegomena.]
[Index I. Of Greek Manuscripts.]
[Index II. Of Writers, Past Owners, And Collators Of Mss.]
[Footnotes]

[pg iv]

Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener

In templo Dei offert unusquisque quod potest: alii aurum, argentum, et lapides pretiosos: alii byssum et purpuram et coccum offerunt et hyacinthum. Nobiscum bene agitur, si obtulerimus pelles et caprarum pilos. Et tamen Apostolus contemtibiliora nostra magis necessaria judicat.

Hieronymi Prologus Galeatus.

Dedication

[In The Third Edition]

To His Grace

Edward, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.

My Lord Archbishop,

Nearly forty years ago, under encouragement from your venerated predecessor Archbishop Howley, and with the friendly help of his Librarian Dr. Maitland, I entered upon the work of collating manuscripts of the Greek New Testament by examining the copies brought from the East by Professor Carlyle, and purchased for the Lambeth Library in 1805. I was soon called away from this employment—ἑκὼν ἀέκοντί γε θυμῷ—to less congenial duties in that remote county, wherein long after it was your Grace's happy privilege to refresh the spirits of Churchmen and Churchwomen, by giving them pious work to do, and an example in the doing of it. What I have since been able to accomplish in the pursuits of sacred criticism, although very much less than I once anticipated, has proved, I would fain hope, not without its use to those who love Holy Scripture, and the studies which help to the understanding of the same.

Among the scholars whose sympathy cheered and aided my Biblical labours from time to time, I have had the honour of including your Grace; yet it would be at once unseemly and fallacious to assume from that circumstance, that the principles of textual criticism which I have consistently advocated have [pg vi] approved themselves to your judgement. All that I can look for or desire in this respect is that I may seem to you to have stated my case fairly and temperately, in earnest controversy with opponents far my superiors in learning and dialectic power, and for whom, in spite of literary differences, I entertain deep respect and true regard.

My Lord, you have been called by Divine Providence to the first place in our Communion, and have entered upon your great office attended by the applauses, the hopeful wishes, and the hearty prayers of the whole Church. May it please God to endow you richly with the Christian gifts as well of wisdom as of courage: for indeed the highest minister of the Church of England, no less than the humblest, will need courage in the coming time, now that faith is waxing cold and adversaries are many.

I am, my Lord Archbishop,

Your obliged and faithful servant,

F. H. A. Scrivener.

Hendon Vicarage,

Whitsuntide, 1883.

Preface To Fourth Edition.

At the time of the lamented death of Dr. Scrivener a new edition of his standard work was called for, and it was supposed that the great Master of Textual Criticism had himself made sufficient corrections and additions for the purpose in the margin of his copy. When the publishers committed to me the task of preparation, I was fully aware of the absolute necessity of going far beyond the materials placed at my disposal, if the book were to be really useful as being abreast of the very great progress accomplished in the last ten years. But it was not till I had laboured with absolute loyalty for some months that I discovered from my own observation, and from the advice of some of the first textual critics, how much alteration must at once be made.

Dr. Scrivener evidently prepared the Third Edition under great disadvantage. He had a parish of more than 5,500 inhabitants upon his hands, with the necessity of making provision for increase in the population. The result was that after adding 125 pages to his book he had an attack of paralysis, and so it is not surprising that his work was not wholly conducted upon the high level of his previous publications. The book has also laboured under another and greater disadvantage of too rapid, though unavoidable, growth. The 506 pages of the First Edition have been successively expanded into 626 pages in the Second, 751 in the Third, and 874 in the Fourth; while the framework originally adopted, consisting only of nine chapters, was manifestly inadequate to the mass of material ultimately gathered. It has therefore been found necessary, as [pg viii] the work proceeded, to do violence, amidst much delicate embarrassment, to feelings of loyalty to the author forbidding alteration. The chief changes that have been made are as follows:—

The first intention of keeping the materials within the compass of one volume has been abandoned, and it has been divided into two volumes, with an increase of chapters in each.

Instead of 2,094 manuscripts, as reckoned in the third edition under the six classes, no less than 3,791 have been recorded in this edition, being an increase of 236 beyond the 3,555 of Dr. Gregory, without counting the numerous vacant places which have been filled up.

Most of the accounts of ancient versions have been rewritten by distinguished scholars, who are leaders in their several departments.

The early part of Volume I has been enriched from the admirable book on “Greek and Latin Palaeography,” by Mr. E. Maunde Thompson, who with great kindness placed the proof-sheets at my disposal before publication.

Changes have been made in the headlines, the indexes, and in the printing, and sometimes in the arrangement, which will, I trust, enable the reader to find his way more easily about the treatise.

And many corrections suggested by eminent scholars have been introduced in different places all through the work.

A most pleasing duty now is to tender my best thanks to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Salisbury and the Rev. H. J. White, M.A., for the rewriting of the chapter on Latin Versions by the latter under Dr. John Wordsworth's supervision, with help from M. Samuel Berger; to the Rev. G. H. Gwilliam, B.D., Fellow of Hertford College, now editing the Peshitto for the University of Oxford, for the improvement of the passages upon the Peshitto and the Curetonian; the Rev. H. Deane, B.D., for additions to the treatment of the Harkleian; and the Rev. Dr. Walker, Principal of St. John's Hall, Highbury, for the results of a collation of the Peshitto and Curetonian; to the Rev. A. C. Headlam, M.A., Fellow of All Souls College, for a revision of the [pg ix] long chapter upon Egyptian Versions; to F. C. Conybeare, Esq., M.A., late Fellow of University College, for rewriting the sections on the Armenian and Georgian Versions; to Professor Margoliouth, M.A., Fellow of New College, for rewriting the sections on the Arabic and Ethiopic Versions; to the Rev. Ll. J. M. Bebb, M.A., Fellow of Brasenose College, for rewriting the section upon the Slavonic Version; to Dr. James W. Bright, Assistant-Professor in the Johns Hopkins University, for rewriting the section on the Anglo-Saxon Version, through Mr. White's kind offices; to E. Maunde Thompson, Esq., D.C.L., LL.D., F.S.A., &c., for kindness already mentioned, and other help, and to G. F. Warner, Esq., M.A., of the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, for correction of some of the notices of cursive MSS. belonging to the Museum, and for other assistance; to J. Rendel Harris, Esq., M.A., Fellow of Clare College and Reader in Palaeology in the University of Cambridge, for much help of a varied nature; to Professor Isaac H. Hall, Ph.D., of New York City, for sending and placing at my disposal many of his publications; to the lamented Professor Bensly, for writing me a letter upon the Syriac Versions; to the Rev. Nicholas Pocock, M.A., of Clifton, for some results of a collation of F and G of St. Paul; to Professor Bernard, D.D., Trinity College, Dublin, for a paper of suggestions; to the Rev. Walter Slater, M.A., for preparing Index II in Vol. I; and to several other kind friends, for assistance of various kinds freely given. The generosity of scholars in communicating out of their stores of learning is a most pleasing feature in the study of the present day. Whatever may be my own shortcomings—and I fear that they have been enhanced by limitations of time and space, and through the effects of ill-health and sorrow—the contributions enumerated cannot but render the present edition of Dr. Scrivener's great work eminently useful to students.

Edward Miller.

9, Bradmore Road, Oxford,

January 17, 1894.

[Transcriber's Note: This book contains much Greek text, which will not be well-rendered in plain text versions of this E-book. Also, there is much use of Greek characters with a vertical bar across the tops of the letters to indicate abbreviations; because the coding system used in this e-book does not have such an “overline”, they are rendered here with underlines.]

Description Of The Contents Of The Lithographed Plates[1].

[Transcriber's Note: The plates have been all placed in this section so that the extended comments for each can be with the plates themselves.]

Plate I

Plate I.

1. (1) Alphabet from the Rosetta Stone [b.c. 196], a specimen of capitals.

2. (2) Alphabet from Cod. Sinaiticus, specimen of uncials.

3. (3) Alphabet from Cod. Alexandrinus, specimen of uncials.

Plate II

Plate II.

1. (4) Alphabet from the Cotton Fragment (Evan. N) and Titus C. xv [vi],

2. (5) And from Cod. Nitriensis (Evan. R, Brit. Mus. Add. 17,211).

Plate III

Plate II.

1. (6) Alphabet from Cod. Dublinensis (Evan. Z).

2. (7) From Brit. Mus. Harl. 5598 (Evst. 150), [a.d. 995].

3. (8) From Brit. Mus. Burney 19 (Evan. 569). Note that above psi in 2 stands the cross-like form of that letter as found in Apoc., B. [viii].

Plate IV

Plate IV.

1. (9) Extract from Hyperides' Oration for Lycophron, col. 15, 1. 23, &c. (Ὑπερίδου Λόγοι, ed. Babington, 1853). Dating between b.c. 100 to a.d. 100, on Egyptian papyrus, in a cursive or running hand. λυντας τινα των πο|λιτων αδικως δεο|μαι υμων και ετωι|και αντιβολωι κε|λευσαι καμε καλεσαι|τους συνερουντας >. See pp. [44], [51].

5. (11c) Cod. Sin., 1 Tim. iii. 16, το τησ ευσεβειασ | μυστηριον οσ ε with a recent correction. See II. 391. There are no capital letters in this Plate.

Plate V

Plate V.

1. (12) Cod. Alexandrinus, A [v], Gen. i. 1-2, Septuagint. These four lines are in bright red, with breathings and accents[3]. Henceforth capital letters begin to appear. Εν ἀρχῆ ἐπόιησεν ὁ θσ τὸν ὀυ|ρανὸν και τὴν γῆν ἡ δὲ γῆ ἦν ἀό|ρατοσ κὰι ἀκατασκεύαστοσ; | και σκότοσ ἐπάνω τῆσ αβύσσου.|

3. (14) Cod. Cotton., Titus C. xv, Evan. N, with Ammonian section and Eusebian canon in the margin. John xv. 20: του λογου ου | εγω ειπον υ|μιν; ουκ εστιν | δουλοσ μιζῶ | του κυ αυτου.

Plate VI

Plate VI.

1. (15) Cod. Burney 21 [a.d. 1292], Evan. 571. See p. [257]. John xxi. 17-18: πρόβατά μου; ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω σοι; | ὅτε ἦσ νεώτεροσ, ἐζώννϋεσ ἑ|αυτὸν; καὶ περιεπάτησ ὅπου ἤθε|λεσ; ὅταν δε γηράσησ, ἐκτενεῖσ|.

3. (17) Cod. Nitriensis, R of the Gospels, a palimpsest [vi]. Luke v. 26: ξαζον τον θν | και επλησθη|σαν φοβου λε|γοντεσ οτι|.

Plate VII

Plate VII.

2. (19) Cod. Cyprius, K of the Gospels [ix], John vi. 52-3: Ἐμάχοντο ὀῦν προσ ἀλλήλουσ ὁι ϊουδαῖοι; λε|γοντεσ; πῶσ δύναται ὁῦτοσ ἡμῖν τὴν σάρ|κα δοῦναι φαγεῖν; ἐῖπεν ὀῦν ἀυτοῖσ ὁ ισ; ἀ|. It has the Ammonian section in the margin (ξς = 66), and a flourish in the place of the Eusebian canon. See p. [137].

Plate VIII

Plate VIII.

Plate IX

Plate IX.

2. (22) Cod. Nanianus, Evan. U, retraced after Tregelles. Burgon (Guardian, Oct. 29, 1873) considers this facsimile unworthy of the original writing, which is “even, precise, and beautiful.” Mark v. 18: Βάντοσ αυτου | ἐισ τὸ πλοῖο | παρεκάλει ἀυ|τὸν ὁ δαιμο|νισθεισ ἵνα. The Ammonian section (μη = 48) is in the margin with the Eusebian canon (Β, in error for Η) underneath. The ν on the other side is by a much later hand. See p. [149].

3. (23) Cod. Basil. of the Gospels, Evan. 1 [x?]. See p. [190]. Luke i. 1, 2. (the title: ἐυαγγέ[λιον] κατὰ λουκᾶν: being under an elegant arcade): Επειδήπερ πολλοὶ ἐπεχείρησαν ἀνατάξασθαι | διήγησιν περὶ τῶν πεπληροφορημένων | ἐν ἡμῖν πραγματων. καθὼς παρέδοσαν ἡμῖ | ὀι ἀπαρχῆσ αὐτόπται καὶ ὑπηρεται γενόμενοι|. The numeral in the margin must indicate the Ammonian section, not the larger κεφάλαιον (see p. [57]).

Plate X

Plate X.

1. (24) Cod. Ephraemi, C, a palimpsest [v], from Tischendorf's facsimile. The upper writing [xii?] is τοῦ τὴν πληθῦν τῶν | ἐμῶν ἁμαρτημά || σομαι; οἶδα ὅτι μετὰ | τὴν γνῶσιν ἥμαρτον. Translated from St. Ephraem the Syrian. The earlier text is 1 Tim. iii. 15-16: ωμα τησ αληθείασ; | Και ομολογουμενωσ μέγα ἐστιν το τησ ἐυσεβειασ μυ|στηριον; θσ ἑφανερωθη εν σαρκι; εδικαιωθη ἑν πνϊ. For the accents, &c., see p. [123].

2. (25) Cod. Laud. 35, E of the Acts [vi], Latin and Greek, in a sort of stichometry. Acts xx. 28: regere | ecclesiam | domini || ποιμενειν | την εκκλησιαν | του κυ. Below are specimens of six letters taken from other parts of the manuscript. See p. [169].

3. (26) Matt i. 1-3, Greek and Latin, from the Complutensian Polyglott, a.d. 1514. See II. 176.

Plate XI

Plate XI.

1. (27) Cod. Basil., Evan. E [vii], from a photograph given by Dean Burgon, Mark i. 5-6: Προσ αὐτὸν. πᾶσα ἡ ϊουδαία | χωρα. και οἱ ἱεροσολυμῖται; | και ἐβαπτιζοντο παντεσ, | ἐν τὠ ἰορδάνη ποταμῶ ὑ|π᾽ ἀυτοῦ. ἐξομολογόυμε|νοι τὰσ ἁμαρτίασ αυτῶν; | Ἦν δε ὁ ϊωάννησ ενδεδυμένοσ. The harmonizing references will be found underneath, and some stops in the text (see p. [48]). The next two specimens are retraced after Tregelles.

4. (30) Cod. Bodleian., Λ of the Gospels [x or ix], in sloping uncials, Luke xviii. 26, 27, and 30: σαντεσ; κὰι Τίσ, | δύναται σωθῆναι; | ὁ δὲ ἰσ. ἐῖπεν; || τοῦτω; κὰι ἐν | τῶ ἀιῶνι τῶ ἐρ|χομένω ζωὴν|. See p. [160].

Plate XII

Plate XII.

1. (31) Cod. Wolfii B, Evan. H [ix], John i. 38-40: τοὺσ ἀκολουθοῦντασ λέγει ἀυτοῖσ + τί ζη|τεῖτε + ὁι δε. ἐῖπον ἀυτῶ + ραββεί; ὃ λέγε|ται ἐρμηνευόμενον διδάσκαλε ποῦ μέ|νεισ + λέγει ἀυτοῖσ + ἔρχεσθε και ϊδετε + ἦλ|. Retraced after Tregelles: in the original the dark marks seen in our facsimile are no doubt red musical notes.

3. (33) Cod. Emman. Coll. Cantab., Act. 53, Paul. 30 [xii]. See p. [288]. This minute and elegant specimen, beginning Rom. v. 21, χυ τοῦ κυ ἡμων; and ending vi. 7, δεδικαίωται ἀ, is left to exercise the reader's skill.

5. (35) Cod. Bodleian., Evan. Γ of the Gospels [ix]. See p. [155]. Mark viii. 33: πιστραφείσ καὶ ἰδὼν τουσ μα|θητὰσ ἀυτοῦ. ἐπετίμησεν τῶ | πέτρω λέγων. ὕπαγε ὁπίσω μυ|.

Plate XIII

Plate XIII.

1. (36) Parham. 18, Evst. 234 [a.d. 980], Luke ix. 84: γοντοσ ἐγένετο νε|φέλη κὰι ἐπεσκίασεν | ἀυτοὺσ ἐφοβήθησᾱ|. Annexed are six letters taken from other parts of the manuscript.

2. (37) Cod. Burney 22, Evst. 259 [a.d. 1319]. The Scripture text is Mark vii. 30: βεβλημέν ον ἐ|πὶ κλίνην κ | τὸ δαιμόνιον ἐξε|λἠλυθῶσ:—The subscription which follows is given at length in p. [43], note 3.

3. (38) Cod. Monacensis, Evan. X [ix], retraced after Tregelles. See p. [152]. Luke vii. 25-6: τίοισ ἠμφιεσμένον; ϊδου ὁι | ἐν ϊματισμώ ἐνδοξω και τρυ|φῆ ὑπάρχοντεσ έν τοισ βασιλεί | οισ ἐισὶν; άλλὰ τί ἐξεληλυθα|.

4. (39) Cod. Par. Nat. Gr. 14, or Evan. 33: from a photograph of Burgon's. See p. [195]. Luke i. 8-11: ξει τῆς ἐφημερίασ ἀυτοῦ ἔναντι τοῦ κυ κατὰ τὸ ἔθοσ τῆς ἱερατείασ. ἔλαχεν τοῦ θυμιᾶ|σαι εἰσελθὼν εἰς τὸν | ὤρα τοῦ θυμιάματοσ. ὤφθη δε ἀυτῶ ἄγγελος κυ ἐστὼσ ἐκδεξιὼν τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου, τοῦ θυ|.

5. (40) Cod. Leicestrensis, Evan. 69, Paul. 37 [xiv]. See p. [202]. 1 Tim. iii. 16: τῆς εὐσεβε(?)ίας μυστήριον; ὁ θό ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρ|κί; ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι; ὤφθη ἀγγέλοις; | ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔπιςεύθη ἐν κόσμω; ἀνελή—.

Plate XIV. Contains specimens of open leaves of the two chief bilingual manuscripts

Plate XIV.

1. (41) Cod. Claromontanus or Paul. D (1 Cor. xiii. 5-8), p. [173].

2. (42) Cod. Bezae or Evan, and Act. D (John xxi. 19-28), p. [124]. Observe the stichometry, the breathings, &c., of the Pauline facsimile (which we owe to Dean Burgon's kindness). These codices, so remarkably akin as well in their literary history as in their style of writing and date (vi or v), will easily be deciphered by the student.

3. (43) Cod. Rossanensis or Evan. Σ (p. [163]), is one of the most interesting, as it is amongst the latest of our discoveries. Our passage is Matt. vi. 18, 14: πονηρου οτι | σου εστιν η βα|σιλεια και η δυ|ναμισ και η δο|ξα εισ τουσ αιω|νασ αμην.| Εαν γαρ αφητε | τοισ ανοισ τα | παραπτωματα|. In the margin below the capital Ε is the Ammonian section μδ (44) and the Eusebian canon ς (66): ανοισ is an abbreviation for ἀνθρώποις. All is written in silver on fine purple vellum.

Plate XV

Plate XV.

Cod. Beratinus or Evan. Φ, Matt. xxvi. 19-20: ως συνεταξεν | αυτοις ϊς και ητοιμασαν το | πασχα; | Οψιας δε γενομενης ανε|κειτο μετα των | δωδεκα μαθη|των; και αισθι|. Observe the reference given for the paragraph to the Ammonian section and Eusebian canon on the left: σοθ = 279, δ = 4. The MS. is written in two columns, and the initial letters of each line are exhibited on the right, with Am. and Eus., σπα = 279, and β = 2; which as in the other case are in a different hand.

Addenda Et Corrigenda.

Pages 1-224, passim, for reasons given in Vol. II. 96 note, for Memphitic read Bohairic; for Thebaic read Sahidic.

P. [7], l. 25, for Chapter XI read Chapter XII.

P. [14], l. 20, for Chapter X read Chapter XI.

P. [87], l. 19, for Synaxaria read Menologies.

P. [119], ll. 11 and 12 from bottom, for 93 read 94; for Memoranda in our Addenda read ingenious argument in n. 1.

P. [149], Tf Horner, add now in the Bodleian at Oxford.

P. [214], l. 3 from bottom, for 464 read iv. 64.

P. [224], Evan. 250, l. 3, for p. 144 read p. 150.

P. [226], Evan. 274, l. 2 from end, for Chapter IX read Chapter XII.

P. [255], l. 6 from bottom, for Bibl. Gr. L. read Bibl. Gr. d.

P. [335], l. 1, for 41 read 4.

P. [343], l. 12, for Ev. 1 (2) read Ev. 1 (1).

Chapter I. Preliminary Considerations.

1. When God was pleased to make known to man His purpose of redeeming us through the death of His Son, He employed for this end the general laws, and worked according to the ordinary course of His Providential government, so far as they were available for the furtherance of His merciful design. A revelation from heaven, in its very notion, implies supernatural interposition; yet neither in the first promulgation nor in the subsequent propagation of Christ's religion, can we mark any waste of miracles. So far as they were needed for the assurance of honest seekers after truth, they were freely resorted to: whensoever the principles which move mankind in the affairs of common life were adequate to the exigences of the case, more unusual and (as we might have thought) more powerful means of producing conviction were withheld, as at once superfluous and ineffectual. Those who heard not Moses and the prophets would scarcely be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

2. As it was with respect to the evidences of our faith, so also with regard to the volume of Scripture. God willed that His Church should enjoy the benefit of His written word, at once as a rule of doctrine and as a guide unto holy living. For [pg 002] this cause He so enlightened the minds of the Apostles and Evangelists by His Spirit, that they recorded what He had imprinted on their hearts or brought to their remembrance, without the risk of error in anything essential to the verity of the Gospel. But this main point once secured, the rest was left, in a great measure, to themselves. The style, the tone, the language, perhaps the special occasion of writing, seem to have depended much on the taste and judgement of the several penmen. Thus in St. Paul's Epistles we note the profound thinker, the great scholar, the consummate orator: St. John pours forth the simple utterings of his gentle, untutored, affectionate soul: in St. Peter's speeches and letters may be traced the impetuous earnestness of his noble yet not faultless character. Their individual tempers and faculties and intellectual habits are clearly discernible, even while they are speaking to us in the power and by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

3. Now this self-same parsimony in the employment of miracles which we observe with reference to Christian evidences and to the inspiration of Scripture, we might look for beforehand, from the analogy of divine things, when we proceed to consider the methods by which Scripture has been preserved and handed down to us. God might, if He would, have stamped His revealed will visibly on the heavens, that all should read it there: He might have so completely filled the minds of His servants the Prophets and Evangelists, that they should have become mere passive instruments in the promulgation of His counsel, and the writings they have delivered to us have borne no traces whatever of their individual characters: but for certain causes which we can perceive, and doubtless for others beyond the reach of our capacities, He has chosen to do neither the one nor the other. And so again with the subject we propose to discuss in the present work, namely, the relation our existing text of the New Testament bears to that which originally came from the hands of the sacred penmen. Their autographs might have been preserved in the Church as the perfect standards by which all accidental variations of the numberless copies scattered throughout the world should be corrected to the end of time: but we know that these autographs perished utterly in the very infancy of Christian history. Or if it be too much to expect that the autographs of the inspired writers should escape the fate which has overtaken [pg 003] that of every other known relique of ancient literature, God might have so guided the hand or fixed the devout attention both of copyists during the long space of fourteen hundred years before the invention of printing, and of compositors and printers of the Bible for the last four centuries, that no jot or tittle should have been changed of all that was written therein. Such a course of Providential arrangement we must confess to be quite possible, but it could have been brought about and maintained by nothing short of a continuous, unceasing miracle;—by making fallible men (nay, many such in every generation) for one purpose absolutely infallible. If the complete identity of all copies of Holy Scripture prove to be a fact, we must of course receive it as such, and refer it to its sole Author: yet we may confidently pronounce beforehand, that such a fact could not have been reasonably anticipated, and is not at all agreeable to the general tenour of God's dealings with us.

4. No one who has taken the trouble to examine any two editions of the Greek New Testament needs be told that this supposed complete resemblance in various copies of the holy books is not founded on fact. Even several impressions derived from the same standard edition, and professing to exhibit a text positively the same, differ from their archetype and from each other, in errors of the press which no amount of care or diligence has yet been able to get rid of. If we extend our researches to the manuscript copies of Scripture or of its versions which abound in every great library in Christendom, we see in the very best of them variations which we must at once impute to the fault of the scribe, together with many others of a graver and more perplexing nature, regarding which we can form no probable judgement, without calling to our aid the resources of critical learning. The more numerous and venerable the documents within our reach, the more extensive is the view we obtain of the variations (or various readings as they are called) that prevail in manuscripts. If the number of these variations was rightly computed at thirty thousand in Mill's time, a century and a half ago, they must at present amount to at least fourfold that quantity.

5. As the New Testament far surpasses all other remains of antiquity in value and interest, so are the copies of it yet existing in manuscript and dating from the fourth century of our [pg 004] era downwards, far more numerous than those of the most celebrated writers of Greece or Rome. Such as have been already discovered and set down in catalogues are hardly fewer than three thousand six hundred, and more must still linger unknown in the monastic libraries of the East. On the other hand, manuscripts of the most illustrious classic poets and philosophers are far rarer and comparatively modern. We have no complete copy of Homer himself prior to the thirteenth century, though some considerable fragments have been recently brought to light which may plausibly be assigned to the fifth century; while more than one work of high and deserved repute has been preserved to our times only in a single copy. Now the experience we gain from a critical examination of the few classical manuscripts that survive should make us thankful for the quality and abundance of those of the New Testament. These last present us with a vast and almost inexhaustible supply of materials for tracing the history, and upholding (at least within certain limits) the purity of the sacred text: every copy, if used diligently and with judgement, will contribute somewhat to these ends. So far is the copiousness of our stores from causing doubt or perplexity to the genuine student of Holy Scripture, that it leads him to recognize the more fully its general integrity in the midst of partial variation. What would the thoughtful reader of Aeschylus give for the like guidance through the obscurities which vex his patience, and mar his enjoyment of that sublime poet?

6. In regard to modern works, it is fortunate that the art of printing has wellnigh superseded the use of verbal or (as it has been termed) Textual criticism. When a book once issues from the press, its author's words are for the most part fixed, beyond all danger of change; graven as with an iron pen upon the rock for ever. Yet even in modern times, as in the case of Barrow's posthumous works and Pepys's Diary and Lord Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, it has been occasionally found necessary to correct or enlarge the early editions, from the original autographs, where they have been preserved. The text of some of our older English writers (Beaumont and Fletcher's plays are a notable instance) would doubtless have been much improved by the same process, had it been possible; but the criticism of Shakespeare's dramas is perhaps the most delicate and difficult problem in the whole history of literature [pg 005] since that great genius was so strangely contemptuous of the praise of posterity, that even of the few plays that were published in his lifetime the text seems but a gathering from the scraps of their respective parts which had been negligently copied out for the use of the actors.

7. The design of the science of Textual criticism, as applied to the Greek New Testament, will now be readily understood. By collecting and comparing and weighing the variations of the text to which we have access, it aims at bringing back that text, so far as may be, to the condition in which it stood in the sacred autographs; at removing all spurious additions, if such be found in our present printed copies; at restoring whatsoever may have been lost or corrupted or accidentally changed in the lapse of eighteen hundred years. We need spend no time in proving the value of such a science, if it affords us a fair prospect of appreciable results, resting on grounds of satisfactory evidence. Those who believe the study of the Scriptures to be alike their duty and privilege, will surely grudge no pains when called upon to separate the pure gold of God's word from the dross which has mingled with it through the accretions of so many centuries. Though the criticism of the sacred volume is inferior to its right interpretation in point of dignity and practical results, yet it must take precedence in order of time: for how can we reasonably proceed to investigate the sense of holy writ, till we have done our utmost to ascertain its precise language?

8. The importance of the study of Textual criticism is sometimes freely admitted by those who deem its successful cultivation difficult, or its conclusions precarious; the rather as Biblical scholars of deserved repute are constantly putting forth their several recensions of the text, differing not a little from each other. Now on this point it is right to speak clearly and decidedly. There is certainly nothing in the nature of critical science which ought to be thought hard or abstruse, or even remarkably dry and repulsive. It is conversant with varied, curious, and interesting researches, which have given a certain serious pleasure to many intelligent minds; it patiently gathers and arranges those facts of external evidence on which alone it ventures to construct a revised text, and applies them according to rules or canons of internal evidence, whether suggested by [pg 006] experience, or resting for their proof on the plain dictates of common sense. The more industry is brought to these studies, the greater the store of materials accumulated, so much the more fruitful and trustworthy the results have usually proved; although beyond question the true application even of the simplest principles calls for discretion, keenness of intellect, innate tact ripened by constant use, a sound and impartial judgement. No man ever attained eminence in this, or in any other worthy accomplishment, without much labour and some natural aptitude for the pursuit; but the criticism of the Greek Testament is a field in whose culture the humblest student may contribute a little that shall be really serviceable; few branches of theology are able to promise, even to those who seek but a moderate acquaintance with it, so early and abundant reward for their pains.

9. Nor can Textual criticism be reasonably disparaged as tending to precarious conclusions, or helping to unsettle the text of Scripture. Even putting the matter on the lowest ground, critics have not created the variations they have discovered in manuscripts or versions. They have only taught us how to look ascertained phenomena in the face, and try to account for them; they would fain lead us to estimate the relative value of various readings, to decide upon their respective worth, and thus at length to eliminate them. While we confess that much remains to be done in this department of Biblical learning, we are yet bound to say that, chiefly by the exertions of scholars of the last and present generations, the debateable ground is gradually becoming narrower, not a few strong controversies have been decided beyond the possibility of reversal, and while new facts are daily coming to light, critics of very opposite sympathies are learning to agree better as to the right mode of classifying and applying them. But even were the progress of the science less hopeful than we believe it to be, one great truth is admitted on all hands;—the almost complete freedom of Holy Scripture from the bare suspicion of wilful corruption; the absolute identity of the testimony of every known copy in respect to doctrine, and spirit, and the main drift of every argument and every narrative through the entire volume of Inspiration. On a point of such vital moment I am glad to cite the well-known and powerful statement of the great [pg 007] Bentley, at once the profoundest and the most daring of English critics: “The real text of the sacred writers does not now (since the originals have been so long lost) lie in any MS. or edition, but is dispersed in them all. 'Tis competently exact indeed in the worst MS. now extant; nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost in them; choose as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design, out of the whole lump of readings.” And again: “Make your 30,000 [variations] as many more, if numbers of copies can ever reach that sum: all the better to a knowing and a serious reader, who is thereby more richly furnished to select what he sees genuine. But even put them into the hands of a knave or a fool, and yet with the most sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter, nor so disguise Christianity, but that every feature of it will still be the same[4].” Thus hath God's Providence kept from harm the treasure of His written word, so far as is needful for the quiet assurance of His church and people.

10. It is now time for us to afford to the uninitiated reader some general notion of the nature and extent of the various readings met with in manuscripts and versions of the Greek Testament. We shall try to reduce them under a few distinct heads, reserving all formal discussion of their respective characters and of the authenticity of the texts we cite for the next volume (Chapter XI).

(1) To begin with variations of the gravest kind. In two, though happily in only two instances, the genuineness of whole passages of considerable extent, which are read in our printed copies of the New Testament, has been brought into question. These are the weighty and characteristic paragraphs Mark xvi. 9-20 and John vii. 53-viii. 11. We shall hereafter defend these passages, the first without the slightest misgiving, the second with certain reservations, as entitled to be regarded authentic portions of the Gospels in which they stand.

(2) Akin to these omissions are several considerable interpolations, which, though they have never obtained a place in the printed text, nor been approved by any critical editor, are [pg 008] supported by authority too respectable to be set aside without some inquiry. One of the longest and best attested of these paragraphs has been appended to Matt. xx. 28, and has been largely borrowed from other passages in the Gospels (see below, class [9]). It appears in several forms, slightly varying from each other, and is represented as follows in a document as old as the fifth century:

“But you, seek ye that from little things ye may become great, and not from great things may become little. Whenever ye are invited to the house of a supper, be not sitting down in the honoured place, lest should come he that is more honoured than thou, and to thee the Lord of the supper should say, Come near below, and thou be ashamed in the eyes of the guests. But if thou sit down in the little place, and he that is less than thee should come, and to thee the Lord of the supper shall say, Come near, and come up and sit down, thou also shalt have more glory in the eyes of the guests[5].”

We subjoin another paragraph, inserted after Luke vi. 4 in only a single copy, the celebrated Codex Bezae, now at Cambridge: “On the same day he beheld a certain man working on the sabbath, and said unto him, Man, blessed art thou if thou knowest what thou doest; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed and a transgressor of the law.'”

(3) A shorter passage or mere clause, whether inserted or not in our printed books, may have appeared originally in the form of a marginal note, and from the margin have crept into the text, through the wrong judgement or mere oversight of the scribe. Such we have reason to think is the history of 1 John v. 7, the verse relating to the Three Heavenly Witnesses, once so earnestly maintained, but now generally given up as spurious. Thus too Acts viii. 37 may have been derived from some Church Ordinal: the last clause of Rom. viii. 1 (μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα) is perhaps like a gloss on τοῖς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ: εἰκῆ in Matt. v. 22[6] and ἀναξίως in 1 Cor. xi. 29 might have been inserted to modify statements that seemed too strong: τῇ ἀληθείᾳ [pg 009] μὴ πείθεσθαι Gal. iii. 1 is precisely such an addition as would help to round an abrupt sentence (compare Gal. v. 7). Some critics would account in this way for the adoption of the doxology Matt. vi. 13; of the section relating to the bloody sweat Luke xxii. 43, 44; and of that remarkable verse, John v. 4: but we may well hesitate before we assent to their views.

(4) Or a genuine clause is lost by means of what is technically called Homoeoteleuton (ὁμοιοτέλευτον), when the clause ends in the same word as closed the preceding sentence, and the transcriber's eye has wandered from the one to the other, to the entire omission of the whole passage lying between them. This source of error (though too freely appealed to by Meyer and some other commentators hardly less eminent than he) is familiar to all who are engaged in copying writing, and is far more serious than might be supposed prior to experience. In 1 John ii. 23 ὁ ὁμολογῶν τὸν υἱὸν καὶ τὸν πατέρα ἔχει is omitted in many manuscripts, because τὸν πατέρα ἔχει had ended the preceding clause: it is not found in our commonly received Greek text, and even in the Authorized English version is printed in italics. The whole verse Luke xvii. 36, were it less slenderly supported, might possibly have been early lost through the same cause, since vv. 34, 35, 36 all end in ἀφεθήσεται. A safer example is Luke xviii. 39, which a few copies omit for this reason only. Thus perhaps we might defend in Matt. x. 23 the addition after φεύγετε εἰς τὴν ἄλλην of κἂν ἐν τῇ ἑτέρᾳ διώκωσιν ὑμᾶς, φεύγετε εἰς τὴν ἄλλην (ἑτέραν being substituted for the first ἄλλην), the eye having passed from the first φεύγετε εἰς τήν to the second. The same effect is produced, though less frequently, when two or more sentences begin with the same words, as in Matt. xxiii. 14, 15, 16 (each of which commences with οὐαὶ ὑμῖν), one of the verses being left out in some manuscripts.

(5) Numerous variations occur in the order of words, the sense being slightly or not at all affected; on which account this species of various readings was at first much neglected by collators. Examples abound everywhere: e.g. τὶ μέρος or μέρος τι Luke xi. 36; ὀνόματι Ἀνανίαν or Ἀνανίαν ὀνόματι Acts ix. 12; ψυχρὸς οὔτε ζεστός or ζεστὸς οὔτε ψυχρός Apoc. iii. 16. The order of the sacred names Ἰησοῦς Χριστός is perpetually changed, especially in St. Paul's Epistles.

(6) Sometimes the scribe has mistaken one word for another, which differs from it only in one or two letters. This happens chiefly in cases when the uncial or capital letters in which the oldest manuscripts are written resemble each other, except in some fine stroke which may have decayed through age. Hence in Mark v. 14 we find ΑΝΗΓΓΕΙΛΑΝ or ΑΠΗΓΓΕΙΛΑΝ; in Luke xvi. 20 ΗΛΚΩΜΕΝΟΣ or ΕΙΛΚΩΜΕΝΟΣ; so we read Δαυίδ or Δαβίδ indifferently, as, in the later or cursive character, β and υ have nearly the same shape. Akin to these errors of the eye are such transpositions as ΕΛΑΒΟΝ for ΕΒΑΛΟΝ or ΕΒΑΛΛΟΝ, Mark xiv. 65: omissions or insertions of the same or similar letters, as ΕΜΑΣΣΩΝΤΟ or ΕΜΑΣΩΝΤΟ Apoc. xvi. 10: ΑΓΑΛΛΙΑΣΘΗΝΑΙ or ΑΓΑΛΛΙΑΘΗΝΑΙ John v. 35: and the dropping or repetition of the same or a similar syllable, as ΕΚΒΑΛΛΟΝΤΑΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΑ or ΕΚΒΑΛΛΟΝΤΑΤΑΔΑΙΜΟΝΙΑ Luke ix. 49; ΟΥΔΕΔΕΔΟΞΑΣΤΑΙ or ΟΥΔΕΔΟΞΑΣΤΑΙ 2 Cor. iii. 10; ΑΠΑΞΕΞΕΔΕΧΕΤΟ or ΑΠΕΞΕΔΕΧΕΤΟ 1 Pet. iii. 20. It is easy to see how the ancient practice of writing uncial letters without leaving a space between the words must have increased the risk of such variations as the foregoing.

(7) Another source of error is described by some critics as proceeding ex ore dictantis, in consequence of the scribe writing from dictation, without having a copy before him. One is not, however, very willing to believe that manuscripts of the better class were executed on so slovenly and careless a plan. It seems more simple to account for the itacisms[7] or confusion of certain vowels and diphthongs having nearly the same sound, which exist more or less in manuscripts of every age, by assuming that a vicious pronunciation gradually led to a loose mode of orthography adapted to it. Certain it is that itacisms are much more plentiful in the original subscriptions and marginal notes of the writers of mediaeval books, than in the text which they copied from older documents. Itacisms prevailed the most extensively from the eighth to the twelfth century, but not by any means during that period exclusively:—indeed, they are found frequently in the oldest existing manuscripts. In the most ancient manuscripts the principal changes are between ι and ει, αι and ε, [pg 011] though others occur: in later times η ι and ει, η οι and υ, even ο and ω, η and ε, are used almost promiscuously. Hence it arises that a very large portion of the various readings brought together by collators are of this description, and although in the vast majority of instances they serve but to illustrate the character of the manuscripts which exhibit them, or the fashion of the age in which they were written, they sometimes affect the grammatical form (e.g. ἔγειρε or ἔγειραι Mark iii. 3; Acts iii. 6; passim: ἴδετε or εἴδετε Phil. i. 30), or the construction (e.g. ἰάσωμαι or ἰάσομαι Matt. xiii. 15: οὐ μὴ τιμήσῃ or οὐ μὴ τιμήσει Matt. xv. 5: ἵνα καυθήσωμαι or ἵνα καυθήσομαι 1 Cor. xiii. 3, compare 1 Pet. iii. 1), or even the sense (e.g. ἑταίροις or ἑτέροις Matt. xi. 16: μετὰ διωγμῶν or, as in a few copies, μετὰ διωγμόν Mark x. 30: καυχᾶσθαι δὴ οὐ συμφέρει or καυχᾶσθαι δεῖ; οὐ συμφέρει 2 Cor. xii. 1: ὅτι χρηστὸς ὁ Κύριος or ὅτι χριστὸς ὁ Κύριος 1 Pet. ii. 3). To this cause we may refer the perpetual interchange of ἡμεῖς and ὑμεῖς, with their oblique cases, throughout the whole Greek Testament: e.g. in the single epistle of 1 Peter, ch. i. 3; 12; ii. 21 bis; iii. 18; 21; v. 10. Hence we must pay the less regard to the reading ἡμέτερον Luke xvi. 12, though found in two or three of our chief authorities: in Acts xvii. 28 τῶν καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς, the reading of the great Codex Vaticanus and a few late copies, is plainly absurd. On the other hand, a few cases occur wherein that which at first sight seems a mere itacism, when once understood, affords an excellent sense, e.g. καθαρίζων Mark iii. 19, and may be really the true form.

(8) Introductory clauses or Proper Names are frequently interpolated at the commencement of Church-lessons (περικοπαί), whether from the margin of ordinary manuscripts of the Greek Testament (where they are usually placed for the convenience of the reader), or from the Lectionaries or proper Service Books, especially those of the Gospels (Evangelistaria). Thus in our English Book of Common Prayer the name of Jesus is introduced into the Gospels for the 14th, 16th, 17th, and 18th Sundays after Trinity; and whole clauses into those for the 3rd and 4th Sundays after Easter, and the 6th and 24th after Trinity[8]. To this cause may be due the prefix εἶπε δὲ ὁ Κύριος Luke [pg 012] vii. 31; καὶ στραφεὶς πρὸς τοὺς μαθητὰς εἶπε Luke x. 22; and such appellations as ἀδελφοί or τέκνον Τιμόθεε (after σὺ δέ in 2 Tim. iv. 5) in some copies of the Epistles. The inserted prefix in Greek Lectionaries is sometimes rather long, as in the lesson for the Liturgy on Sept. 14 (John xix. 6-35). Hence the frequent interpolation (e.g. Matt. iv. 18; viii. 5; xiv. 22) or changed position (John i. 44) of Ἰησοῦς. A peculiarity of style in 1, 2 Thess. is kept out of sight by the addition of Χριστός in the common text of 1 Thess. ii. 19; iii. 13: 2 Thess. i. 8, 12.

(9) A more extensive and perplexing species of various readings arises from bringing into the text of one of the three earlier Evangelists expressions or whole sentences which of right belong not to him, but to one or both the others[9]. This natural tendency to assimilate the several Gospels must have been aggravated by the laudable efforts of Biblical scholars (beginning with Tatian's Διὰ τεσσάρων in the second century) to construct a satisfactory Harmony of them all. Some of these variations also may possibly have been mere marginal notes in the first instance. As examples of this class we will name εἰς μετάνοιαν interpolated from Luke v. 32 into Mark ii. 17: the prophetic citation Matt. xxvii. 35 ἵνα πληρωθῇ κ.τ.λ. to the end of the verse, unquestionably borrowed from John xix. 24, although the fourth Gospel seldom lends itself to corruptions of this kind. Mark xiii. 14 τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπὸ Δανιὴλ τοῦ προφήτου, is probably taken from Matt. xxiv. 15: Luke v. 38 καὶ ἀμφότεροι συντηροῦνται from Matt. ix. 17 (where ἀμφότεροι is the true reading): the whole verse Mark xv. 28 seems spurious, being received from Luke xxii. 37. Even in the same book we observe an anxiety to harmonize two separate narratives of the same event, as in Acts ix. 5, 6 compared with xxvi. 14, 15.

(10) In like manner transcribers sometimes quote passages from the Old Testament more fully than the writers of the New Testament had judged necessary for their purpose. Thus ἐγγίζει [pg 013] μοι ... τῷ στόματι αὐτῶν καί Matt. xv. 8: ἰάσασθαι τοὺς συντετριμμένους τὴν καρδίαν Luke iv. 18: αὐτοῦ ἀκούσεσθε Acts vii. 37: οὐ ψευδομαρτυρήσεις Rom. xiii. 9; ἤ βολίδι κατατοξευθήσεται Heb. xii. 20, and (less certainly) καὶ κατέστησας αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὰ ἔργα τῶν χειρῶν σου Heb. ii. 7, are all open to suspicion as being genuine portions of the Old Testament text, but not also of the New. In Acts xiii. 33, the Codex Bezae at Cambridge stands almost alone in adding Ps. ii. 8 to that portion of the previous verse which was unquestionably cited by St. Paul.

(11) Synonymous words are often interchanged, and so form various readings, the sense undergoing some slight and refined modification, or else being quite unaltered. Thus ἔφη should be preferred to εἶπεν Matt. xxii. 37, where εἶπεν of the common text is supported only by two known manuscripts, that at Leicester, and one used by Erasmus. So also ὀμμάτων is put for ὀφθαλμῶν Matt. ix. 29 by the Codex Bezae. In Matt. xxv. 16 the evidence is almost evenly balanced between ἐποίησεν and ἐκέρδησεν (cf. ver. 17). Where simple verbs are interchanged with their compounds (e.g. μετρηθήσεται with ἀντιμετρηθήσεται Matt. vii. 2; ἐτέλεσεν with συνετέλεσεν ibid. ver. 28; καίεται with κατακαίεται xiii. 40), or different tenses of the same verb (e.g. εἰληφώς with λαβών Acts xiv. 24; ἀνθέστηκε with ἀντέστη 2 Tim. iv. 15), there is usually some internal reason why one should be chosen rather than the other, if the external evidence on the other side does not greatly preponderate. When one of two terms is employed in a sense peculiar to the New Testament dialect, the easier synonym may be suspected of having originated in a gloss or marginal interpretation. Hence caeteris paribus we should adopt δικαιοσύνην rather than ἐλεημοσύνην in Matt. vi. 1; ἐσκυλμένοι rather than ἐκλελυμένοι ix. 36; ἀθῶον rather than δίκαιον xxvii. 4.

(12) An irregular, obscure, or incomplete construction will often be explained or supplied in the margin by words that are subsequently brought into the text. Of this character is ἐμέμψαντο Mark vii. 2; δέξασθαι ἡμᾶς 2 Cor. viii. 4; γράφω xiii. 2; προσλαβοῦ Philem. 12 (compare ver. 17), and perhaps δῆλον 1 Tim. vi. 7. More considerable is the change in Acts viii. 7, where the true reading πολλοὶ ... φωνῇ μεγάλῃ ἐξήρχοντο, if translated with grammatical rigour, affords an almost impossible sense. Or an elegant Greek idiom may be transformed into simpler language, [pg 014] as in Acts xvi. 3 ᾔδεισαν γὰρ πάντες ὅτι Ἕλλην ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ ὑπῆρχεν for ᾔδεισαν γὰρ ἅπαντες τὸν πατέρα αὐτοῦ ὅτι Ἕλλην ὑπῆρχεν: similarly, τυγχάνοντα is omitted by many in Luke x. 30; compare also Acts xviii. 26 fin.; xix. 8, 34 init. The classical μέν has often been inserted against the best evidence: e.g. Acts v. 23: xix. 4, 15; 1 Cor. xii. 20; 2 Cor. iv. 12; Heb. vi. 16. On the other hand a Hebraism may be softened by transcribers, as in Matt. xxi. 23, where for ἐλθόντι αὐτῷ many copies prefer the easier ἐλθόντος αὐτοῦ before προσῆλθεν αὐτῷ διδάσκοντι, and in Matt. xv. 5; Mark vii. 12 (to which perhaps we may add Luke v. 35), where καί is dropped in some copies to facilitate the sense. Hence καὶ οἱ ἄνθρωποι may be upheld before οἱ ποιμένες in Luke ii. 15. This perpetual correction of harsh, ungrammatical, or Oriental constructions characterizes the printed text of the Apocalypse and the recent manuscripts on which it is founded (e.g. τὴν γυναῖκα Ἰεζαβὴλ τὴν λέγουσαν ii. 20, for ἡ λέγουσα).

(13) Hence too arises the habit of changing ancient dialectic forms into those in vogue in the transcriber's age. The whole subject will be more fitly discussed at length hereafter (vol. ii. c. x.); we will here merely note a few peculiarities of this kind adopted by some recent critics from the oldest manuscripts, but which have gradually though not entirely disappeared in copies of lower date. Thus in recent critical editions Καθαρναούμ, Μαθθαῖος, τέσσερες, ἔνατος are substituted for Καπερναούμ, Ματθαῖος, τέσσαρες, ἔννατος of the common text; οὕτως (not οὕτω) is used even before a consonant; ἤλθαμεν, ἤλθατε, ἦλθαν, γενάμενος are preferred to ἤλθομεν, ἤλθετε, ἦλθον, γενόμενος: ἐκαθερίσθη, συνζητεῖν, λήμψομαι to ἐκαθαρίσθη, συζητεῖν, λήψομαι: and ν ἐφελκυστικόν (as it is called) is appended to the usual third persons of verbs, even though a consonant follow. On the other hand the more Attic περιπεπατήκει ought not to be converted into περιεπεπατήκει in Acts xiv. 8.

(14) Trifling variations in spelling, though very proper to be noted by a faithful collator, are obviously of little consequence. Such is the choice between καὶ ἐγώ and κἀγώ, ἐάν and ἄν, εὐθέως and εὐθύς, Μωυσῆς and Μωσῆς, or even between πράττουσι and πράσσουσι, between εὐδόκησα, εὐκαίρουν and ηὐδόκησα, ηὐκαίρουν. To this head may be referred the question whether ἀλλά[10], γε, δέ, [pg 015] τε, μετά, παρά &c. should have their final vowel elided or not when the next word begins with a vowel.

(15) A large portion of our various readings arises from the omission or insertion of such words as cause little appreciable difference in the sense. To this class belong the pronouns αὐτοῦ, αὐτῷ, αὐτῶν, αὐτοῖς, the particles οὖν, δέ, τε, and the interchange of οὐδέ and οὔτε, as also of καί and δέ at the opening of a sentence.

(16) Manuscripts greatly fluctuate in adding and rejecting the Greek article, and the sense is often seriously influenced by these variations, though they seem so minute. In Mark ii. 26 ἐπὶ Ἀβιάθαρ ἀρχιερέως “in the time that Abiathar was high priest” would be historically incorrect, while ἐπὶ Ἀβιάθαρ τοῦ ἀρχιερέως “in the days of Abiathar the high priest” is suitable enough. The article will often impart vividness and reality to an expression, where its presence is not indispensable: e.g. Luke xii. 54 τὴν νεφέλην (if τήν be authentic, as looks probable) is the peculiar cloud spoken of in 1 Kings xviii. 44 as portending rain. Bishop Middleton's monograph (“Doctrine of the Greek Article applied to the Criticism and Illustration of the New Testament”), though apparently little known to certain of our most highly esteemed Biblical scholars, even if its philological groundwork be thought a little precarious, must always be regarded as the text-book on this interesting subject, and is a lasting monument of intellectual acuteness and exact learning.

(17) Not a few various readings may be imputed to the peculiarities of the style of writing adopted in the oldest manuscripts. Thus ΠΡΟΣΤΕΤΑΓΜΕΝΟΥΣΚΑΙΡΟΥΣ Acts xvii. 26 may be divided into two words or three; ΚΑΙΤΑΠΑΝΤΑ ibid. ver. 25, by a slight change, has degenerated into κατὰ πάντα. The habitual abridgement of such words as Θεός or Κύριος sometimes leads to a corruption of the text. Hence possibly comes the grave variation ΟΣ for ΘΣ 1 Tim. iii. 16, and the singular reading τῷ καιρῷ δουλεύοντες Rom. xii. 11, where the true word Κυρίῳ was first shortened into ΚΡΩ[11], and then read as ΚΡΩ, [pg 016] Κ being employed to indicate ΚΑΙ in very early times[12]. Or a large initial letter, which the scribe usually reserved for a subsequent review, may have been altogether neglected: whence we have τι for Οτι before στενή Matt. vii. 14. Or overscores, placed over a letter (especially at the end of a line and word) to denote ν, may have been lost sight of; e.g. λίθον μέγα Matt. xxvii. 60 in several copies, for ΜΕΓΑ [with a line over the final Α]. The use of the symbol [symbol composed of Pi and Rho together], which in the Herculanean rolls and now and then in Codex Sinaiticus stands for προ and προς indifferently, may have produced that remarkable confusion of the two prepositions when compounded with verbs which we notice in Matt. xxvi. 39; Mark xiv. 35; Acts xii. 6; xvii. 5, 26; xx. 5, 13; xxii. 25. It will be seen hereafter that as the earliest manuscripts have few marks of punctuation, breathing or accent, these points (often far from indifferent) must be left in a great measure to an editor's taste and judgement.

(18) Slips of the pen, whereby words are manifestly lost or repeated, mis-spelt or half-finished, though of no interest to the critic, must yet be noted by a faithful collator, as they will occasionally throw light on the history of some particular copy in connexion with others, and always indicate the degree of care or skill employed by the scribe, and consequently the weight due to his general testimony.

The great mass of various readings we have hitherto attempted to classify (to our first and second heads we will recur presently) are manifestly due to mere inadvertence or human frailty, and certainly cannot be imputed to any deliberate intention of transcribers to tamper with the text of Scripture. We must give a different account of a few passages (we are glad they are only a few) which yet remain to be noticed.

(19) The copyist may be tempted to forsake his proper [pg 017] function for that of a reviser, or critical corrector. He may simply omit what he does not understand (e.g. δευτεροπρώτῳ Luke vi. 1; τὸ μαρτύριον 1 Tim. ii. 6), or may attempt to get over a difficulty by inversions and other changes. Thus the μυστήριον spoken of by St. Paul 1 Cor. xv. 51, which rightly stands in the received text πάντες μὲν οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα, πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγησόμεθα, was easily varied into πάντες κοιμηθησόμεθα, οὐ π. δὲ ἀλ., as if in mere perplexity. From this source must arise the omission in a few manuscripts of υἱοῦ Βαραχίου in Matt. xxiii. 35; of Ἱερεμίου in Matt. xxvii. 9; the insertion of ἄλλου ἐκ before θυσιαστηρίου in Apoc. xvi. 7; perhaps the substitution of τοῖς προφήταις for Ἡσαΐᾳ τῷ προφήτῃ in Mark i. 2, of οὔπω ἀναβαίνω for οὐκ ἀναβαίνω in John vii. 8, and certainly of τρίτη for ἕκτε in John xix. 14. The variations between Γεργεσηνῶν and Γαδαρηνῶν Matt. viii. 28, and between Βηθαβαρᾶ and Βηθανίᾳ John i. 28, have been attributed, we hope and believe unjustly, to the misplaced conjectures of Origen.

Some would impute such readings as ἔχωμεν for ἔχομεν Rom. v. 1; φορέσμεν for φορέσομεν 1 Cor. xv. 49, to a desire on the part of copyists to improve an assertion into an ethical exhortation, especially in the Apostolical Epistles; but it is at once safer and more simple to regard them with Bishop Chr. Wordsworth (N. T. 1 Cor. xv. 49) as instances of itacism: see class [(7)] above.

(20) Finally, whatever conclusion we arrive at respecting the true reading in the following passages, the discrepancy could hardly have arisen except from doctrinal preconceptions. Matt. xix. 17 Τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν? οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἶς, ὁ Θεός; or Τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ? εἶς ἐστὶν ὁ ἀγαθός: John i. 18 ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός or μονογενὴς Θεός: Acts xvi. 7 τὸ πνεῦμα with or without the addition of Ἰησοῦ: Acts xx. 28 τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ or τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Κυρίου: perhaps also Jude ver. 4 δεσπότην with or without Θεόν. I do not mention Mark xiii. 32 οὐδὲ ὁ υἱός, as there is hardly any authority for its rejection now extant; nor Luke ii. 22, where τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ αὐτῆς of the Complutensian Polyglott and most of our common editions is supported by almost no evidence whatever.

11. It is very possible that some scattered readings cannot be reduced to any of the above-named classes, but enough has [pg 018] been said to afford the student a general notion of the nature and extent of the subject[13]. It may be reasonably thought that a portion of these variations, and those among the most considerable, had their origin in a cause which must have operated at least as much in ancient as in modern times, the changes gradually introduced after publication by the authors themselves into the various copies yet within their reach. Such revised copies would circulate independently of those issued previously, and now beyond the writer's control; and thus becoming the parents of a new family of copies, would originate and keep up diversities from the first edition, without any fault on the part of transcribers[14]. It is thus perhaps we may best account for the omission or insertion of whole paragraphs or verses in manuscripts of a certain class [see above [(1)], [(2)], [(3)]]; or, in cases where the work was in much request, for those minute touches and trifling improvements in words, in construction, in tone, or in the mere colouring of the style [[(5)], [(11)], [(12)]], which few authors can help attempting, when engaged on revising their favourite compositions. Even in the Old Testament, [pg 019] the song of David in 2 Sam. xxii is evidently an early draft of the more finished composition, Ps. xviii. Traces of the writer's curae secundae may possibly be found in John v. 3, 4; vii. 53-viii. 11; xiii. 26; Acts xx. 4, 15; xxiv. 6-8. To this list some critics feel disposed to add portions of Luke xxi-xxiv.

12. The fullest critical edition of the Greek Testament hitherto published contains but a comparatively small portion of the whole mass of variations already known; as a rule, the editors neglect, and rightly neglect, mere errors of transcription. Such things must be recorded for several reasons, but neither they, nor real various readings that are slenderly supported, can produce any effect in the task of amending or restoring the sacred text. Those who wish to see for themselves how far the common printed editions of what is called the “textus receptus” differ from the judgement of the most recent critics, may refer if they please to the small Greek Testament published in the series of “Cambridge Greek and Latin Texts[15],” which exhibits in a thicker type all words and clauses wherein Robert Stephen's edition of 1550 (which is taken as a convenient standard) differs from the other chief modifications of the textus receptus (viz. Beza's 1565 and Elzevir's 1624), as also from the revised texts of Lachmann 1842-50, of Tischendorf 1865-72, of Tregelles 1857-72, of the Revisers of the English New Testament (1881), and of Westcott and Hort (1881). The student will thus be enabled to estimate for himself the limits within which the text of the Greek Testament may be regarded as still open to discussion, and to take a general survey of the questions on which the theologian is bound to form an intelligent opinion.

13. The work that lies before us naturally divides itself into three distinct parts.

I. A description of the sources from which various readings are derived (or of their external evidence), comprising:

(a) Manuscripts of the Greek New Testament or of portions thereof.

(b) Ancient versions of the New Testament in various languages.

(c) Citations from the Greek Testament or its versions made by early ecclesiastical writers, especially by the Fathers of the Christian Church.

(d) Early printed or later critical editions of the Greek Testament.

II. A discussion of the principles on which external evidence should be applied to the recension of the sacred volume, embracing

(a) The laws of internal evidence, and the limits of their legitimate use.

(b) The history of the text and of the principal schemes which have been proposed for restoring it to its primitive state, including recent views of Comparative Criticism.

III. The application of the foregoing materials and principles to the investigation of the true reading in the chief passages of the New Testament, on which authorities are at variance.

In this edition, as has already been explained in the preface, it has been found necessary to divide the treatise into two volumes, which will contain respectively—

I. First Volume:—Ancient Manuscripts.

II. Second Volume:—Versions, Citations, Editions, Principles, and Selected Passages.

It will be found desirable to read the following pages in the order wherein they stand, although the chief part of Chapters VII-XIV of the first volume and some portions elsewhere (indicated by being printed like them in smaller type) are obviously intended chiefly for reference, or for less searching examination.

Chapter II. General Character Of The Greek Manuscripts Of The New Testament.

As the extant Greek manuscripts of the New Testament supply both the most copious and the purest sources of Textual Criticism, we propose to present to the reader some account of their peculiarities in regard to material, form, style of writing, date and contents, before we enter into details respecting individual copies, under the several subdivisions to which it is usual to refer them.

1. The subject of the present section has been systematically discussed in the “Palaeographia Graeca” (Paris, 1708, folio) of Bernard de Montfaucon [1655-1741[16]], the most illustrious member of the learned Society of the Benedictines of St. Maur. This truly great work, although its materials are rather too exclusively drawn from manuscripts deposited in French libraries, and its many illustrative facsimiles are somewhat rudely engraved, still maintains a high authority on all points relating to Greek manuscripts, even after more recent discoveries, especially among the papyri of Egypt and Herculaneum, have necessarily modified not a few of its statements. The four splendid volumes of M. J. B. Silvestre's “Paléographie Universelle” (Paris, 1839-41, &c. folio) afford us no less than 300 plates of the Greek writing of various ages, sumptuously executed; though the accompanying letter-press descriptions, by F. and A. Champollion Fils, seem in this branch of the subject a little disappointing; nor are the valuable notes appended to his translation of their work by Sir Frederick Madden (London, 2 vols. 1850, 8vo) sufficiently numerous or elaborate to supply the Champollions' defects. Much, however, may also be learnt from the “Herculanensium [pg 022] voluminum quae supersunt” (Naples, 10 tom. 1793-1850, fol.); from Mr. Babington's three volumes of papyrus fragments of Hyperides, respectively published in 1850, 1853 and 1858; and especially from the Prolegomena to Tischendorf's editions of the Codices Ephraemi (1843), Friderico-Augustanus (1846), Claromontanus (1852), Sinaiticus (1862), Vaticanus (1867), and those other like publications (e.g. Monumenta sacra inedita 1846-1870, and Anecdota sacra et profana 1855) which have rendered his name perhaps the very highest among scholars in this department of sacred literature. What I have been able to add from my own observation, has been gathered from the study of Biblical manuscripts now in England. To these sources of information may now be added Professor Wattenbach's “Anleitung zur griechischen Palaeographie” second edition, Leipsic, 1877, Gardthausen's “Griechische Palaeographie,” Leipsic, 1879; Dr. C. R. Gregory's “Prolegomena” to the eighth edition of Tischendorf, and especially the publication of “The Palaeographical Society Greek Testament,” Parts I and II, Leipsic, 1884, 1891, “Facsimiles of Manuscripts and Inscriptions” edited by E. A. Bond and E. M. Thompson, Parts I-XII, London, 1873-82, and a Manual on “Greek and Latin Palaeography” from the hands of Mr. E. Maunde Thompson, of which the proof-sheets have been most kindly placed by the accomplished author at the disposal of the editor of this work, and have furnished to this chapter many elements of enrichment. It may be added, that since manuscripts have been photographed, all other facsimiles have been put in the shade: and in this edition references as a rule will be given only to photographed copies.

2. The materials on which writing has been impressed at different periods and stages of civilization are the following:—Leaves, bark, especially of the lime (liber), linen, clay and pottery, wall-spaces, metals, lead, bronze, wood, waxen and other tablets, papyrus, skins, parchment and vellum, and from an early date amongst the Chinese, and in the West after the capture of Samarcand by the Arabs in a.d. 704, paper manufactured from fibrous substances[17]. The most ancient manuscripts of the New Testament now existing are composed of vellum or parchment (membrana), the term vellum being [pg 023] strictly applied to the delicate skins of very young calves, and parchment to the integuments of sheep and goats, though the terms are as a rule employed convertibly. The word parchment seems to be a corruption of charta pergamena, a name first given to skins prepared by some improved process for Eumenes, king of Pergamum, about b.c. 150. In judging of the date of a manuscript on skins, attention must be paid to the quality of the material, the oldest being almost invariably written on the thinnest and whitest vellum that could be procured; while manuscripts of later ages, being usually composed of parchment, are thick, discoloured, and coarsely grained. Thus the Codex Sinaiticus of the fourth century is made of the finest skins of antelopes, the leaves being so large, that a single animal would furnish only two (Tischendorf, Cod. Frid.-August. Prolegomena, §. 1). Its contemporary, the far-famed Codex Vaticanus, challenges universal admiration for the beauty of its vellum: every visitor at the British Museum can observe the excellence of that of the Codex Alexandrinus of the fifth century: that of the Codex Claromontanus of the sixth century is even more remarkable: the material of those purple-dyed fragments of the Gospels which Tischendorf denominates N, also of the sixth century, is so subtle and delicate, that some persons have mistaken the leaves preserved in England (Brit. Mus. Cotton, Titus C xv) for Egyptian papyrus. Paper made of cotton[18] (charta bombycina, called also charta Damascena from its place of manufacture) may have been fabricated in the ninth[19] or tenth century, and linen paper (charta proper) as early as 1242 a.d.; but they were seldom used for Biblical manuscripts sooner than the thirteenth, and had not entirely displaced parchment at the era of the invention of printing, about a.d. 1450. Lost portions of parchment or vellum manuscripts are often supplied in paper by some later hand; [pg 024] but the Codex Leicestrensis of the fourteenth century is composed of a mixture of inferior vellum and worse paper, regularly arranged in the proportion of two parchment to three paper leaves, recurring alternately throughout the whole volume. Like it, in the mixture of parchment and paper, are codd. 233 and Brit. Mus. Harl. 3,161—the latter however not being a New Testament MS.

3. Although parchment was in occasional, if not familiar, use at the period when the New Testament was written (τὰ βιβλία, μάλιστα τὰς μεμβράνας 2 Tim. iv. 13), yet the more perishable papyrus of Egypt was chiefly employed for ordinary purposes. This vegetable production had been used for literary purposes from the earliest times. “Papyrus rolls are represented on the sculptured walls of Egyptian temples.” The oldest roll now extant is the papyrus Prisse at Paris, which dates from 2500 b.c., or even earlier, unless those which have been lately discovered by Mr. Flinders Petrie reach as far, or even farther, back[20]. The ordinary name applied in Greek to this material was χάρτης (2 John 12), though Herodotus terms it βύβλος (ii. 100, v. 58), and in Latin charta (2 Esdr. xv. 2; Tobit vii. 14—Old Latin Version). Papyrus was in those days esteemed more highly than skins: for Herodotus expressly states that the Ionians had been compelled to have recourse to goats and sheep for lack of byblus or papyrus; and Eumenes was driven to prepare parchment because the Alexandrians were too jealous to supply him with the material which he coveted[21]. Indeed, papyrus was used far beyond the borders of Egypt, and was plentiful in Rome under the Empire, being in fact the common material among the Romans during that period: and as many of the manuscripts of the New Testament must have been written upon so perishable a substance in the earliest centuries since the Christian era, this probably is one of the reasons why we possess no considerable copies from before the second quarter of the fourth century. Only a few fragments of the New Testament on papyrus remain. We find a minute, if not a very clear description of the mode of preparing the papyrus for the scribe in the works of the elder Pliny (Hist. Nat. xiii. 11, 12). The plant grew in Egypt, also [pg 025] in Syria, and on the Niger and the Euphrates. Mainly under Christian influence it was supplanted by parchment and vellum, which had superior claims to durability, and its manufacture ceased altogether on the conquest of Egypt by the Mohammedans (a.d. 638).

4. Parchment is said to have been introduced at Rome not long after its employment by Attalus. Nevertheless, if it had been in constant and ordinary use under the first Emperors, we can hardly suppose that specimens of secular writing would have failed to come down to us. Its increased growth and prevalence about synchronize with the rise of Constantinopolitan influence. It may readily be imagined that vellum (especially that fine sort by praiseworthy custom required for copies of Holy Scripture) could never have been otherwise than scarce and dear. Hence arose, at a very early period of the Christian era, the practice and almost the necessity of erasing ancient writing from skins, in order to make room for works in which the living generation felt more interest, especially when clean vellum failed the scribe towards the end of his task. This process of destruction, however, was seldom so fully carried out, but that the strokes of the elder hand might still be traced, more or less completely, under the more modern writing. Such manuscripts are called codices rescripti or palimpsests (παλίμψηστα[22]), and several of the most precious monuments of sacred learning are of this description. The Codex Ephraemi at Paris contains large fragments both of the Old and New Testament under the later Greek works of St. Ephraem the Syrian: and the Codex Nitriensis, more recently disinterred from a monastery in the Egyptian desert and brought to the British Museum, comprises a portion of St. Luke's Gospel, nearly obliterated, and covered over by a Syriac treatise of Severus of Antioch against Grammaticus, comparatively of no value whatever. It will be easily believed that the collating or transcribing of palimpsests has cost much toil and patience to those whose loving zeal has led them to the attempt: and after all the true readings will be sometimes (not often) rather uncertain, [pg 026] even though chemical mixtures (of which “the most harmless is probably hydrosulphuret of ammonia”) have recently been applied with much success to restore the faded lines and letters of these venerable records.

5. We need say but little of a practice which St. Jerome[23] and others speak of as prevalent towards the end of the fourth century, that of dyeing the vellum purple, and of stamping rather than writing the letters in silver and gold. The Cotton fragment of the Gospels, mentioned above (p. [23]), is one of the few remaining copies of this kind, as are the newly discovered Codex Rossanensis and the Codex Beratinus, and it is not unlikely that the great Dublin palimpsest of St. Matthew owes its present wretched discoloration to some such dye. But, as Davidson sensibly observes, “the value of a manuscript does not depend on such things” (Biblical Criticism, vol. ii. p. 264). We care for them only as they serve to indicate the reverence paid to the Scriptures by men of old. The style, however, of the pictures, illustrations, arabesques and initial ornaments that prevail in later copies from the eighth century downwards, whose colours and gilding are sometimes as fresh and bright as if laid on but yesterday[24], will not only interest the student by tending to throw light on mediaeval art and habits and modes of thought, but will often fix the date of the books which contain them with a precision otherwise quite beyond our reach.

6. The ink found upon ancient manuscripts is of various colours[25]. Black ink, the ordinary writing fluid of centuries (μέλαν, atramentum, &c.) differs in tint at various periods and in different countries. In early MSS. it is either pure black or slightly brown; in the Middle Ages it varies a good deal according to age and locality. In Italy and Southern Europe it is generally blacker than in the North, in France and Flanders [pg 027] it is generally darker than in England; a Spanish MS. of the fourteenth or fifteenth century may usually be recognized by the peculiar blackness of the ink. Deterioration is observable in the course of time. The ink of the fifteenth century particularly is often of a faded grey colour. Inks of green, yellow, and other colours, are also found, but generally only for ornamental purposes. Red, either in the form of a pigment or fluid ink, is of very ancient and common use, being seen even in early Egyptian papyri. Gold was also used as a writing fluid at a very early period. Purple-stained vellum MSS. were usually written upon in gold or silver letters, and ordinary white vellum MSS. were also written in gold, particularly in the ninth and tenth centuries, in the reigns of the Carlovingian kings. Gold writing as a practice died out in the thirteenth century: and writing in silver appears to have ceased contemporaneously with the disuse of stained vellum. The ancients used the liquid of cuttle-fish. Pliny mentions soot and gum as the ingredients of writing-ink. Other later authors add gall-apples: metallic infusions at an early period, and vitriol in the Middle Ages were also employed.

7. While papyrus remained in common use, the chief instrument employed was a reed (κάλαμος 3 John ver. 13, canna), such as are common in the East at present: a few existing manuscripts (e.g. the Codd. Leicestrensis and Lambeth 1350) appear to have been thus written. Yet the firmness and regularity of the strokes, which often remain impressed on the vellum or paper after the ink has utterly gone, seem to prove that in the great majority of cases the stilus made of iron, bronze, or other metal, or ivory or bone, sharp at one end to scratch the letters, and furnished with a knob or flat head at the other for purposes of erasure, had not gone wholly out of use. We must add to our list of Writing materials a bodkin or needle (acus), by means of which and a ruler the blank leaf was carefully divided, generally on the outer side of the skin, into columns and lines, whose regularity much enhances the beauty of our best copies. The vestiges of such points and marks may yet be seen deeply indented on the surface of nearly all manuscripts, those on one side of each leaf being usually sufficiently visible to guide the scribe when he came to write on the reverse. The quill pen [pg 028] probably came into use with vellum, for which it is obviously suited. The first notices of it occur in a story respecting Theodoric the Ostrogoth, and in a passage of Isidore's “Origines”[26] (vi. 13).

8. Little need be said respecting the form of manuscripts, which in this particular (codices) much resemble printed books. A few are in large folio; the greater part in small folio or quarto, the prevailing shape being a quarto (quaternio or quire) whose height but little exceeds its breadth; some are in octavo, a not inconsiderable number smaller still: and quires of three sheets or six leaves, and five sheets or ten leaves (Cod. Vaticanus), are to be met with. In some copies the sheets have marks in the lower margin of their first or last pages, like the signatures of a modern volume, the folio at intervals of two, the quarto at intervals of four leaves, as in the Codex Bezae of the Gospels and Acts (D), and the Codex Augiensis of St. Paul's Epistles (F). Not to speak at present of those manuscripts which have a Latin translation in a column parallel to the Greek, as the Codex Bezae, the Codex Laudianus of the Acts, and the Codices Claromontanus and Augiensis of St. Paul, many copies of every age have two Greek columns on each page; of these the Codex Alexandrinus is the oldest: the Codex Vaticanus has three columns on a page, the Codex Sinaiticus four. The unique arrangement[27] of these last two has been urged as an argument [pg 029] for their higher antiquity, as if they were designed to imitate rolled books, whose several skins or leaves were fastened together lengthwise, so that their contents always appeared in parallel columns; they were kept in scrolls which were unrolled at one end for reading, and when read rolled up at the other. This fashion prevails in the papyrus fragments yet remaining, and in the most venerated copies of the Old Testament preserved in Jewish synagogues.

9. We now approach a more important question, the style of writing adopted in manuscripts, and the shapes of the several letters. These varied widely in different ages, and form the simplest and surest criteria for approximating to the date of the documents themselves. Greek characters are properly divided into “majuscules” and “minuscules,” or by a subdivision of the former, into Capitals, which are generally of a square kind, fitted for inscriptions on stones like Ε; Uncials, or large letters[28], and a modification of Capitals, with a free introduction of curves, and better suited for writing, like Ε; and Cursives, or small letters, adapted for the running hand. Uncial manuscripts were written in what have frequently been regarded as capital letters, formed separately, having no connexion with each other, and (in the earlier specimens) without any space between the words, the marks of punctuation being few: the cursive or running hand comprising letters more easily and rapidly made, those in the same word being usually joined together, with a complete system of punctuation not widely removed from that of printed books. Speaking generally, and limiting our statement to Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, Uncial letters or the Literary or Book-hand prevailed from the fourth to the tenth, or (in the case of liturgical books) as late as the eleventh century; Cursive letters were employed as early as the ninth or tenth century, and continued in use until the invention of [pg 030] printing superseded the humble labours of the scribe. But cursive writing existed before the Christian era: and it seems impossible to suppose that so very convenient a form of penmanship could have fallen into abeyance in ordinary life, although few documents have come down to us to demonstrate the truth of this supposition.

Besides the broad and palpable distinction between uncial and cursive letters, persons who have had much experience in the study of manuscripts are able to distinguish those of either class from one another in respect of style and character; so that the period at which each was written can be determined within certain inconsiderable limits. After the tenth century many manuscripts bear dates, and such become standards to which we can refer others resembling them which are undated. But since the earliest dated Biblical manuscript yet discovered (Cursive Evan. 481, see below Chap. [VII]) bears the date May 7, a.d. 835, we must resort to other means for estimating the age of more venerable, and therefore more important, copies. By studying the style and shape of the letters on Greek inscriptions, Montfaucon was led to conclude that the more simple, upright, and regular the form of uncial letters; the less flourish or ornament they exhibit; the nearer their breadth is equal to their height; so much the more ancient they ought to be considered. These results have been signally confirmed by the subsequent discovery of Greek papyri in Egyptian tombs especially in the third century before the Christian era; and yet further from numerous fragments of Philodemus, of Epicurus, and other philosophers, which were buried in the ruins of Herculaneum in a.d. 79 (“Fragmenta Herculanensia,” Walter Scott). The evidence of these papyri, indeed, is even more weighty than that of inscriptions, inasmuch as workers in stone, as has been remarked, were often compelled to prefer straight lines, as better adapted to the hardness of their material, where writings on papyrus or vellum would naturally flow into curves.

10. While we freely grant that a certain tact, the fruit of study and minute observation, can alone make us capable of forming a trustworthy opinion on the age of manuscripts; it is worth while to point out the principles on which a true [pg 031] judgement must be grounded, and to submit to the reader a few leading facts, which his own research may hereafter enable him to apply and to extend.

The first three plates at the beginning of this volume represent the Greek alphabet, as found in the seven following monuments:

(1) The celebrated Rosetta stone, discovered near that place during the French occupation of Egypt in 1799, and now in the British Museum. This most important inscription, which in the hands of Young and Champollion has proved the key to the mysteries of Egyptian hieroglyphics, records events of no intrinsic consequence that occurred b.c. 196, in the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes. It is written in the three several forms of hieroglyphics, of the demotic or common characters of the country, and of Greek Capitals, which last may represent the lapidary style of the second century before our era. The words are undivided, without breathings, accents, or marks of punctuation, and the uncial letters (excepting [symbol like capital Roman I] for zeta) approach very nearly to our modern capital type. In shape they are simple, perhaps a little rude; rather square than oblong: and as the carver on this hard black stone was obliged to avoid curve lines whenever he could, the forms of Ε, Ξ and Σ differ considerably from the specimens we shall produce from documents described on soft materials. Plate [I]. No. (1).

(2) The Codex Friderico-Augustanus of the fourth century, published in lithographed facsimile in 1846, contains on forty-three leaves fragments of the Septuagint version, chiefly from 1 Chronicles and Jeremiah, with Nehemiah and Esther complete, in oblong folio, with four columns on each page. The plates are so carefully executed that the very form of the ancient letters and the colour of the ink are represented to us by Tischendorf, who discovered it in the East. In 1859 the same indefatigable scholar brought to Europe the remainder of this manuscript, which seems as old as the fourth century, anterior (as he thinks) to the Codex Vaticanus itself, and published it in 1862, in facsimile type cast for the purpose, 4 tom., with twenty pages lithographed or photographed, at the expense of the Emperor Alexander II of Russia, to whom the original had been presented. This book, which Tischendorf calls Codex Sinaiticus, contains, besides much more of the Septuagint, the whole New Testament [pg 032] with Barnabas' Epistle and a part of Hermas' Shepherd annexed. As a kind of avant-courier to his great work he had previously put forth a tract entitled “Notitia Editionis Codicis Bibliorum Sinaitici Auspiciis Imperatoris Alexandri II susceptae” (Leipsic, 1860). Of this most valuable manuscript a complete account will be given in the opening of the fourth chapter, under the appellation of Aleph (א), assigned to it by Tischendorf, in the exercise of his right as its discoverer. Plate [I]. No. 2.

(3) Codex Alexandrinus of the fifth century (A). Plate [I].

(4) Codex Purpureus Cotton.: N of the Gospels, of the sixth century. Plate [II].

(5) Codex Nitriensis Rescriptus, R of the Gospels, of the sixth century. Plate [II].

(6) Codex Dublinensis Rescriptus, Z of the Gospels, of the sixth century. Plate [III].

(7) Evangelistarium Harleian. 5598, dated a.d. 995. Plate [III].

The leading features of these manuscripts will be described in the fourth and fifth chapters. At present we wish to compare them with each other for the purpose of tracing, as closely as we may, the different styles and fashions of uncial letters which prevailed from the fourth to the tenth or eleventh century of the Christian era. The varying appearance of cursive manuscripts cannot so well be seen by exhibiting their alphabets, for since each letter is for the most part joined to the others in the same word, connected passages alone will afford us a correct notion of their character and general features. For the moment we are considering the uncials only.

If the Rosetta stone, by its necessary avoiding of curve lines, gives only a notion of the manner adopted on stone and not in common writing, it resembles our earliest uncials at least in one respect, that the letters, being as broad as they are high, are all capable of being included within circumscribed squares. Indeed, yet earlier inscriptions are found almost totally destitute of curves, even Ο and Θ being represented by simple squares, with or without a bisecting horizontal line (see theta, p. [35])[29]. [pg 033] The Herculanean papyri, however (a specimen of which we have given in Plate [iv]. No. 10), are much better suited than inscriptions can be for comparison with our earliest copies of Scripture[30]. Nothing can well be conceived more elegant than these simply-formed graceful little letters (somewhat diminished in size perhaps by the effects of heat) running across the volume, thirty-nine lines in a column, without capitals or breaks between the words. There are scarcely any stops, no breathings, accents, or marks of any kind; only that >, < or [right-pointing triangle] are now and then found at the end of a line, to fill up the space, or to join a word or syllable with what follows. A very few abbreviations occur, such as [symbol like Pi with Rho] in the first line of our specimen, taken from Philodemus περὶ κακιῶν (Hercul. Volum. Tom. iii. Col. xx. ll. 6-15), the very manuscript to which Tischendorf compared his Cod. Friderico-Augustanus (Proleg. § 11). The papyri, buried for so many ages from a.d. 79 downwards, may probably be a century older still, since Philodemus the Epicurean was the contemporary and almost the friend of Cicero[31]. Hence from three to four hundred years must have elapsed betwixt the date of the Herculanean rolls and that of our earliest Biblical manuscripts. Yet the fashion of writing changed but little during the interval, far less in every respect than in the four centuries which next followed, wherein the plain, firm, upright and square uncials were giving place to the compressed, oblong, ornamented, or even sloping forms which predominate from the seventh or eighth century downwards. While advising the reader to exercise his skill on facsimiles of entire passages, especially in contrasting the lines from Philodemus (No. [10]) with those from the oldest uncials of the New Testament (Nos. [11-14]; [17]; [18]; [20]; [24]); we purpose to examine the several alphabets (Nos. [1-7]) letter by letter, pointing out to the student those variations in shape which palaeographers have judged the safest criteria of their relative ages. Alpha, delta, theta, xi, pi, omega, are among the best tests for this purpose.

Alpha is not often found in its present familiar shape, except in [pg 034] inscriptions, where the cross line is sometimes broken into an angle with the vertex downwards ([Symbol]). Even on the Rosetta stone the left limb leans against the upper part of the right limb, but does not form an angle with its extremity, while the cross line, springing not far from the bottom of the left limb, ascends to meet the right about half way down. Modifications of this form may be seen in the Herculanean rolls, only that the cross line more nearly approaches the horizontal, and sometimes is almost entirely so. The Cod. Frid.-August.[32] does not vary much from this form, but the three generating lines are often somewhat curved. In other books, while the right limb is quite straight, the left and cross line form a kind of loop or curve, as is very observable in the Nitrian fragment R, and often in Codd. Alex., Ephraemi, Bezae, the newly discovered Rossanensis, and in the Vatican more frequently still, in all which alpha often approximates to the shape of our English a. And this curve may be regarded as a proof of antiquity; indeed Tischendorf (Proleg. Cod. Sin. p. xxx, 1863) considers it almost peculiar to the papyri and the Coptic character. Cod. N (which is more recent than those named above) makes the two lines on the left form a sharp angle, as do the Cotton fragment of Genesis (see p. [32], note 1) and Cod. Claromontanus, Plate [xiv]. No. 41, only that the lines which contain the angle in this last are very fine. In later times, as the letters grew tall and narrow, the modern type of A became more marked, as in the first letter of Arundel 547 (No. [16]), of about the tenth century, though the form and thickness seen in the Cod. Claromontanus continued much in vogue to the last. Yet alpha even in Cod. Claromontanus and Cotton Genesis occasionally passes from the angle into the loop, though not so often as in Cod. A and its companions. Cod. Borgianus (T), early in the fifth century, exaggerated this loop into a large ellipse, if Giorgi's facsimile may be trusted. In Cod. Laudianus E of the Acts and Cureton's palimpsest Homer too the loop is very decided, the Greek and Latin a in Laud. (No. [25]) being alike. Mark also its form in the papyrus scrawl No. [9] (from one of the orations of Hyperides edited by Mr. Babington), which may be as old as the Rosetta stone. The angular shape adopted in Cod. Z (Nos. [6], [18]) is unsightly enough, and (I believe) unique.

Beta varies less than Alpha. Originally it consisted of a tall perpendicular line, on the right side of which four straight lines are so placed as to form two triangles, whereof the vertical line comprises the bases, while a small portion of that vertical line entirely separates the triangles ([Symbol]). This ungraceful figure was modified very early, even in inscriptions. On the Rosetta stone (No. [1]) the triangles are rounded off into semicircles, and the lower end of the vertical curved. Yet the shape in manuscripts is not quite so elegant. The lower curve is usually the larger, and the curves rarely touch each other. [pg 035] Such are Codd. ANRZ, Rossanensis (sometimes), and the Cotton Genesis. In the Herculanean rolls the letter comes near the common cursive β; in some others (as Cod. Rossanensis at times) its shape is quite like the modern Β. When oblong letters became common, the top (e.g. in Cod. Bezae) and bottom extremities of the curve ran into straight lines, by way of return into the primitive shape (see No. [36], dated a.d. 980). In the very early papyrus fragment of Hyperides it looks like the English R standing on a base (No. [9], l. 4). But this specimen rather belongs to the semi-cursive hand of common life, than to that of books.

Gamma in its simplest form consists of two lines of equal thickness, the shorter so placed upon the longer, which is vertical, as to make one right angle with it on the right side. Thus we find it in the Rosetta stone, the papyrus of Hyperides, the Herculanean rolls, and very often in Cod. A. The next step was to make the horizontal line very thin, and to strengthen its extremity by a point, or knob, as in Codd. Ephraemi (No. [24]), RZ: or the point was thus strengthened without thinning the line, e.g. Codd. Vatican., Rossanensis, N and most later copies, such as Harl. 5598 (No. [7]) or its contemporary Parham 18 (No. [36]). In Cod. Bezae (No. [42]) gamma much resembles the Latin r.

Delta should be closely scrutinized. Its most ancient shape is an equilateral triangle, the sides being all of the same thickness ([symbol]). Cod. Claromontanus, though of the sixth century, is in this instance as simple as any: the Herculanean rolls, Codd. Vatican., Sinait., and the very old copy of the Pentateuch at Paris (Colbert) or “Cod. Sarravianus” and Leyden, much resemble it, only that sometimes the Herculanean sides are slightly curved, and the right descending stroke of Cod. Vatican, is thickened. In Cod. A begins a tendency to prolong the base on one or both sides, and to strengthen one or both ends by points. We see a little more of this in Cod. Rossanensis and in the palimpsest Homer of the fifth century, published by Cureton. The habit increases and gradually becomes confirmed in Codd. Ephraemi (No. [24]), the Vatican Dio Cassius of the fifth or sixth century, in Cod. R, and particularly in N and E of the Acts (Nos. [4], [14], [25]). In the oblong later uncials it becomes quite elaborate, e.g. Cod. B of the Apocalypse, or Nos. [7], [21], [36]. On the Rosetta stone and in the Cod. Bezae the right side is produced beyond the triangle, and is produced and slightly curved in Hyperides, curved and strongly pointed in Cod. Z.

Epsilon has its angular form on the Rosetta marble and other inscriptions in stone; in the oldest manuscripts it consists as an uncial of a semicircle, from whose centre to the right of it a horizontal radius is drawn to the concave circumference. Thus it appears in the Herculanean rolls (only that here the radius is usually broken off before it meets the circle), in Codd. Frid-August., Vatican., the two Paris Pentateuchs (Colbert-Leyden fifth century, Coislin. sixth) and the Cotton Genesis. In Cod. Alex. a slight trace is found of the more recent practice of strengthening each of the three extremities with [pg 036] knobs, but only the radius at times in Cod. Rossanensis. The custom increases in Codd. Ephraemi, Bezae, and still more in Codd. NRZ, wherein the curve becomes greater than a semicircle. In Hyperides (and in a slighter degree in Cod. Claromon. No. [41]) the shape almost resembles the Latin e. The form of this and the other round letters was afterwards much affected in the narrow oblong uncials: see Nos, [7], [16], [36].

Zeta on the Rosetta stone maintains its old form ([Symbol rather like a Roman capital I]), which is indeed but the next letter reversed. In manuscripts it receives its usual modern shape (Z), the ends being pointed decidedly, slightly, or not at all, much after the manner described for epsilon. In old copies the lower horizontal line is a trifle curved (Cod. R, No. [5]), or even both the extreme lines (Cod. Z, No. [6], and Cod. Augiensis of St. Paul). In such late books as Parham 18 (a.d. 980, facsim. No. [36]) Zeta is so large as to run far below the line, ending in a kind of tail.

Eta does not depart from its normal shape (Η) except that in Cod. Ephraemi (No. [24]) and some narrow and late uncials (e.g. Nos. [7], [36]) the cross line is often more than half way up the letter. In a few later uncials the cross line passes outside the two perpendiculars, as in the Cod. Augiensis, twenty-six times on the photographed page of Scrivener's edition.

Theta deserves close attention. In some early inscriptions it is found as a square, bisected horizontally ([Symbol]). On the Rosetta stone and most others (but only in such monuments) it is a circle, with a strong central point. On the Herculanean rolls the central point is spread into a short horizontal line, yet not reaching the circumference (No. [10], l. 8). Thence in our uncials from the fourth to the sixth century the line becomes a horizontal diameter to a true circle (Codd. Vatican., Sinait., Codd. ANRZ, Ephraemi, Claromont., Rossanensis, and Cureton's Homer). In the seventh century the diameter began to pass out of the circle on both sides: thence the circle came to be compressed into an ellipse (sometimes very narrow), and the ends of the minor axis to be ornamented with knobs, as in Cod. B of the Apocalypse (eighth century), Cod. Augiensis (ninth century), LX of the Gospels, after the manner of the tenth century (Nos. [7], [16], [21], [36], [38]).

Iota would need no remark but for the custom of placing over it an upsilon, when they commence a syllable, either a very short straight line, or one or two dots. After the papyrus rolls no copy is quite without them, from the Codex Alexandrinus, the Cotton Genesis and Paris-Leyden Pentateuch, Cod. Z and the Isaiah included in it, to the more recent cursives; although in some manuscripts they are much rarer than in others. By far the most usual practice is to put two points, but Cod. Ephraemi, in its New Testament portion, stands nearly alone with the Cotton Genesis (ch. xviii. 9) in exhibiting the straight line; Cod. Alexandrinus in the Old Testament, but not in the New, frequently resembles Codd. Ephraemi and the Cotton [pg 037] Genesis in placing a straight line over iota, and more rarely over upsilon, instead of the single or double dots; Cod. Sinaiticus employs two points or a straight line (as in Z's Isaiah) promiscuously over both vowels, and in Wake 12, a cursive of the eleventh century, the former frequently pass into the latter in writing. Codd. Borgianus (T) and Claromont. have but one point; Codd. N and Rossanensis have two for iota, one for upsilon.

Kappa deserves notice chiefly because the vertex of the angle formed by the two inclined lines very frequently does not meet the perpendicular line, but falls short of it a little to the right: we observe this in Codd. ANR, Ephraemi, Rossanensis, and later books. The copies that have strong points at the end of epsilon &c. (e.g. Codd. NR and AZ partly) have the same at the extremity of the thin or upper limb of Kappa. In Cod. D a fine horizontal stroke runs a little to the left from the bottom of the vertical line. Compare also the initial letter in Cod. M, No. [32].

Lambda much resembles alpha, but is less complicated. All our models (except Harl. 5598, No. [7]), from the Rosetta stone downwards, have the right limb longer than the left, which thus leans against its side, but the length of the projection varies even in the same passage (e.g. No. [10]). In most copies later than the Herculanean rolls and Cod. Sinaiticus the shorter line is much the thinner, and the longer slightly curved. In Cod. Z (Nos. [6], [18]) the projection is curved elegantly at the end, as we saw in delta.

Mu varies as much as most letters. Its normal shape, resembling the English M, is retained in the Rosetta stone and most inscriptions, but at an early period there was a tendency to make the letter broader, and not to bring the re-entering or middle angle so low as in English (e.g. Codd. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus). In Cod. Ephraemi this central angle is sometimes a little rounded: in Codd. Alex. and Parham 18 the lines forming the angle do not always spring from the top of the vertical lines: in Arund. 547 (No. [16]) they spring almost from their foot, forming a thick inelegant loop below the line, the letter being rather narrow: Harl. 5598 (No. [7]) somewhat resembles this last, only that the loop is higher up. In the Herculanean rolls (and to a less extent in the Cotton Genesis) the two outer lines cease to be perpendicular, and lean outwards until the letter looks much like an inverted W (No. 10). In the papyrus Hyperides (No. [9]) these outer lines are low curves, and the central lines rise in a kind of flourish above them. Mu assumes this shape also in Cod. T, and at the end of a line even in Codd. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. This form is so much exaggerated in some examples, that by discarding the outer curves we obtain the shape seen in Cod. Z (Nos. [6], [18]) and one or two others (e.g. Paul M in Harl. 5613, No. [34]), almost exactly resembling an inverted pi. So also in the Isaiah of Cod. Z, only that the left side and base line were made by one stroke of the pen.

Nu is easier, the only change (besides the universal transition from the square to the oblong in the later uncials) being that in a few cases [pg 038] the thin cross line does not pass from the top of the left to the bottom of the right vertical line as in English (N), but only from about half-way or two-thirds down the left vertical in the Cotton Genesis, Codd. A, Rossanensis, Harl. 5598 (No. [7]), and others; in Codd. אNR Parham 18 it often neither springs from the top of one, nor reaches the foot of the other (Nos. [4], [5], [11b], [12], [36]); while in Cod. Claromont. (No. [41]) it is here and there not far from horizontal. In a few cursives (e.g. 440 Evan. at Cambridge, and Tischendorf's loti or 61 of the Acts), H and N almost interchange their shapes: so in Evan. 66 and Wake 34 at the end of a line only.

Xi in the Rosetta stone and Herculanean rolls consists of three parallel straight lines, the middle one being the shortest, as in modern printed Greek: but all our Biblical manuscripts exhibit modifications of the small printed ξ, such as must be closely inspected, but cannot easily be described. In the Cotton Genesis this xi is narrow and smaller than its fellows, much like an old English [Symbol: yogh] resting on a horizontal base which curves downwards: while in late uncials, as B of the Apocalypse, Cod. Augiensis (l. 13 Scrivener's photographed page), and especially in Parham 18 (No. [36]), the letter and its flourished finial are continued far below the line. For the rest we must refer to our facsimile alphabets, &c. The figures in Cod. Frid.-August. (Nos. [2], [11a], ll. 3, 8) look particularly awkward, nor does the shape in Cod. Rossanensis much differ from these. In Cod. E, the Zurich Psalter of the seventh century, and Mr. W. White's fragment Wd, xi is the common Z with a large horizontal line over it, strengthened by knobs at each end.

Omicron is unchanged, excepting that in the latest uncials (No. [16], [36]) the circle is mostly compressed, like theta, into a very eccentric ellipse.

Pi requires attention. Its original shape was doubtless two vertical straight lines joined at top by another horizontal, thinner perhaps but not much shorter than they. Thus we meet with it on the Rosetta stone, Codd. R, Vatican., Sinaiticus, Ephraemi, Claromontanus, Laud. of the Acts, the two Pentateuchs, Cureton's Homer, and sometimes Cod. A (No. [12]). The fine horizontal line is, however, slightly produced on both sides in such early documents as the papyri of Hyperides and Herculaneum, and in the Cotton Genesis, as well as in Cod. A occasionally[33]. Both extremities of this line are fortified by strong points in Codd. N and Rossanensis, and mostly in Cod. A, but the left side only in Cod. Z, and this in Cod. Bezae occasionally becomes a sort of hooked curve. The later oblong pi was usually very plain, with thick vertical lines and a very fine horizontal, in Arund. 547 (No. [16]) not at all produced; in Harl. 5598 (No. [7]) slightly produced on both sides; in Parham 18 (No. [36]) produced only on the right.

Rho is otherwise simple, but in all our authorities except inscriptions is produced below the line of writing, least perhaps in the papyri and [pg 039] Cod. Claromont., considerably in Codd. AX (Nos. [12], [38]), most in Parham 18 (No. [36]): Codd. N, Rossanensis, and many later copies have the lower extremity boldly bevelled. The form is [Symbol like sans-serif bold Roman capital P] rather than [Symbol like serif Roman capital P] in Codd. אA. In Cod. D a horizontal stroke, longer and thicker than in kappa, runs to the left from the bottom of the vertical line.

Sigma retains its angular shape ([Symbol] or Σ) only on inscriptions, as the Rosetta, and that long after the square shapes of omicron and theta were discarded. The uncial or semicircular form, however, arose early, and to this letter must be applied all that was said of epsilon as regards terminal points (a knob at the lower extremity occurs even in Cod. א, e.g. Acts ii. 31), and its cramped shape in later ages.

Tau in its oldest form consists of two straight lines of like thickness, the horizontal being bisected by the lower and vertical one. As early as in Cod. Sinaiticus the horizontal line is made thin, and strengthened on the left side only by a point or small knob (Nos. [3], [11]): thus we find it in Cod. Laud. of the Acts sometimes. In Cod. Alex. both ends are slightly pointed, in Codd. Ephraemi, Rossanensis, and others much more. In Cod. Bezae the horizontal is curved and flourished; in the late uncials the vertical is very thick, the horizontal fine, and the ends formed into heavy triangles (e.g. No. [16]).

Upsilon on the Rosetta stone and Herculanean rolls is like our Υ, all the strokes being of equal thickness and not running below the line: nor do they in Hyperides or in Codd. XZ and Augiensis, which have the upper lines neatly curved (Nos. [6], [9], [18], [38]). The right limb of many of the rest is sometimes, but not always curved; the vertical line in Codd. Vatican. and Sinaiticus drops slightly below the line; in Codd. A, Ephraemi, Cotton Genesis, Cureton's Homer, Laud. of the Acts and Rossanensis somewhat more; in others (as Codd. Bezae NR) considerably. In the subscription to St. Matthew's Gospel, which may be by a somewhat later hand, a horizontal line crosses the vertical a little below the curved lines in Cod. Rossanensis. In later uncials (Nos. [7], [36]) it becomes a long or awkward Y, or even degenerates into a long V (No. [16]); or, in copies written by Latin scribes, into Y reversed. We have described under iota the custom of placing dots, &c. over upsilon. But in Tischendorf's Leipzig II. (fragments from Numbers to Judges of the seventh or eighth century) upsilon receives two dots, iota only one. Once in Cod. Z (Matt. xxi. 5) and oftener in its Isaiah a convex semicircle, like a circumflex, stands over upsilon.

Phi is a remarkable letter. In most copies it is the largest in the alphabet, quite disproportionately large in Codd. ZL (Paris 62) and others, and to some extent in Codd. AR, Ephraemi, Rossanensis, and Claromont. The circle (which in the Cotton Genesis is sometimes still a lozenge, see above, p. [32], note 1), though large and in some copies even too broad (e.g. No. [18]), is usually in the line of the other letters, the vertical line being produced far upwards (Cod. Augiens. and Nos. [16], [41]), or downwards (No. [10]), or both (No. [36]). On the Rosetta stone the circle is very small and the straight line short.

Chi is a simple transverse cross (Χ) and never goes above or below the line. The limb that inclines from left to right is in the uncial form for the most part thick, the other thin (with final points according to the practice stated for epsilon), and this limb or both (as in Cod. Z) a little curved.

Psi is a rare but trying letter. Its oldest form resembled an English V with a straight line running up bisecting its interior angle. On the Rosetta stone it had already changed into its present form (Ψ), the curve being a small semicircle, the vertical rising above the other letters and falling a little below the line. In the Cotton Genesis psi is rather taller than the rest, but the vertical line does not rise above the level of the circle. In Codd. ANR and Rossanensis the under line is prolonged: in R the two limbs are straight lines making an angle of about 45° with the vertical, while oftentimes in Hyperides and Cod. Augiensis (Scrivener's photograph, ll. 18, 23) they curve downwards; the limbs in N and R being strongly (slightly in Rossanensis) pointed at the ends, and the bottom of the vertical bevelled as usual. In Cod. B of the Apocalypse, in Evan. OWdΞ, and even in Hyperides, the limbs (strongly pointed) fall into a straight line, and the figure becomes a large cross (No. [7]). In Evan. 66 the vertical is crossed above the semicircle by a minute horizontal line.

Omega took the form Ω, even when omicron and theta were square; thus it appears on the Rosetta stone, but in the Hyperides and Herculaneum rolls it is a single curve, much like the w of English writing, only that the central part is sometimes only a low double curve (No. [10], l. 6). In the Cotton Genesis, Codd. Vatican., Sinaiticus, Alex., Ephraemi, Bezae, Claromont., Nitriens., Rossanensis, there is little difference in shape, though sometimes Cod. Vatican. comes near the Herculanean rolls, and Cod. Alex, next to it: elsewhere their strokes (especially those in the centre) are fuller and more laboured. Yet in Cod. N it is often but a plain semicircle, bisected by a perpendicular radius, with the ends of the curve bent inwards (No. [14], l. 2). In the late uncials (Nos. [7], [16]) it almost degenerates into an ungraceful W, while in Cod. Augiensis (photograph, l. 18) the first limb is occasionally a complete circle.

These details might be indefinitely added to by references to other codices and monuments of antiquity, but we have employed most of the principal copies of the Greek Testament, and have indicated to the student the chief points to which his attention should be drawn. Three leading principles have perhaps been sufficiently established by the foregoing examples:

First, that the uncials used in writing differ from the capitals cut in stone by the curved shapes which the writing hand naturally adopts[34].

Secondly, that the upright uncials of square dimensions [pg 041] are more ancient than those which are narrow, oblong, or leaning[35].

Thirdly, that the simpler and less elaborate the style of writing, the more remote is its probable date.

Copies of a later age occasionally aim at imitating the fashion of an earlier period, or possibly the style of the older book from which their text is drawn. But this anachronism of fashion may be detected, as well by other circumstances we are soon to mention, as from the air of constraint which pervades the whole manuscript: the rather as the scribe will now and then fall into the more familiar manner of his contemporaries; especially when writing those small letters which our Biblical manuscripts of all dates (even the most venerable) perpetually crowd into the ends of lines, in order to save space.

11. We do not intend to dwell much on the cursive handwriting. No books of the Greek Scriptures earlier than the ninth century in this style are now extant[36], though it was prevalent long before in the intercourse of business or common life. The papyri of Hyperides (e.g. No. [9]) and the Herculanean rolls, in a few places, show that the process had then commenced, for the letters of each word are often joined, and their shapes prove that swiftness of execution was more aimed at than distinctness. This is seen even more clearly in a petition to Ptolemy Philometor (b.c. 164) represented in the “Paléographie Universelle” (No. 56). The same great work contains (No. 66) two really cursive charters of the Emperors [pg 042] Maurice (a.d. 600) and Heraclius (a.d. 616). Other instances of early cursive writing may be found in two Deeds of Sale, a.d. 616, and 599, a Manumission in 355, an Official Deed in 233, a Deed of Sale in 154, in Aristotle on the Constitution of Athens, about 100, in a Farm Account in 78-79, in a Receipt in a.d. 20, in the Casati contract in b.c. 114, in a Letter on Egyptian Contracts in 146, a Treasury Circular in 170, in a Steward's letter of the third century b.c., in various documents of the same century lying in the British Museum, at Paris, Berlin, Leyden, and elsewhere, of which the oldest, being amongst the papyri discovered by Dr. Flinders Petrie at Gurob is referred to b.c. 268, and the Leyden papyrus to 260[37]. Yet the earliest books of a later age known to be written in cursive letters are Cod. 481 (Scholz 461, dated a.d. 835) the Bodleian Euclid (dated a.d. 888) and the twenty-four dialogues of Plato in the same Library (dated a.d. 895)[38]. There is reason to believe, from the comparatively unformed character of the writing in them all, that Burney 19 in the British Museum (from which we have extracted the alphabet No. 8, Plate [iii]), and the minute, beautiful and important Codex l of the Gospels at Basle (of which see a facsimile No. [23]), are but little later than the Oxford books, and may be referred to the tenth century. Books copied after the cursive hand had become regularly formed, in the eleventh, [pg 043] twelfth and thirteenth centuries, are hard to be distinguished by the mere handwriting, though they are often dated, or their age fixed by the material (see p. [23]), or the style of their illuminations. Colbert. 2844, or 33 of the Gospels (facsim. No. [39]), is attributed to the eleventh century, and Burney 21 (No. [15])[39], is dated a.d. 1292, and afford good examples of their respective dates. Beta (l. 1 letter 4), when joined to other letters, is barely distinguishable from upsilon[40]; nu is even nearer to mu; the tall forms of eta and epsilon are very graceful, the whole style elegant and, after a little practice, easily read. Burney 22 (facsimile No. [37]) is dated about the same time, a.d. 1319, and the four Biblical lines much resemble Burney 21[41]. In the fourteenth century a careless style came into fashion, of which Cod. Leicestrensis (No. [40]) is an exaggerated instance, and during this century and the next our manuscripts, though not devoid of a certain beauty of appearance, are too full of arbitrary and elaborate contractions to be conveniently read. The formidable list of abbreviations and ligatures represented in Donaldson's Greek Grammar (p. 20, third edition)[42] originated at this period in the perverse ingenuity of the Greek emigrants in the West of Europe, who subsisted by their skill as copyists; [pg 044] and these pretty puzzles (for such they now are to many a fair classical scholar), by being introduced into early printed books[43], have largely helped to withdraw them from use in modern times.

12. We have now to describe the practice of Biblical manuscripts as regards the insertion of ι forming a diphthong with the long vowels eta and omega, also with alpha long, whether by being ascript, i.e. written by their side, or subscript, i.e. written under them. In the earliest inscriptions and in the papyri of Thebes ι ascript (the iota not smaller than other letters) is invariably found. In the petition to Ptolemy Philometor (above, p. [41]) it occurs four times in the first line, three times in the third: in the fragments of Hyperides it is perpetually though not always read, even where (especially with verbs) it has no rightful place, e.g. ετωι και αντιβολωι (facsimile No. [9], ll. 3, 4) for αἰτῶ καὶ ἀντιβολῶ. A little before the Christian era it began to grow obsolete, probably from its being lost in pronunciation. In the Herculanean Philodemus (the possible limits of whose date are from b.c. 50 to a.d. 79) as in Evann. 556, 604 (Matt. ii. 12, 13), it is often dropped, though more usually written. In Codd. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus it is probably not found, and from this period it almost disappears from Biblical uncials[44]; in Cureton's Homer, of the fifth or perhaps of the sixth century, ι ascript is sometimes neglected, but usually inserted; sometimes also ι is placed above Η or Ω, an arrangement neither neat nor convenient. With the cursive character ι ascript came in again, as may be seen from the subscriptions in the Bodleian Euclid and Plato (p. 42, note 1). The semicursive fragment of St. Paul's Epistles in red letters (M of St. Paul, Plate [xii] No. 34), used for the binding of Harleian 5613, contains ι ascript twice, but I have tried in vain to verify Griesbach's statement (Symbol. Crit. ii. p. 166) that it has ι subscript “bis tantum aut ter.” I can find no such instance in [pg 045] these leaves. The cursive manuscripts, speaking generally, either entirely omit both forms, or, if they give either, far more often neglect than insert them. Cod. 1 of the Gospels exhibits the ascript ι. Of forty-three codices now in England which have been examined with a view to this matter, twelve have no vestige of either fashion, fifteen represent the ascript use, nine the subscript exclusively, while the few that remain exhibit both indifferently[45]. The earliest cursive copy ascertained to exhibit ι subscript is Matthaei's r (Apoc. 502 [x]), and after that the Cod. Ephesius (Evan. 71), dated a.d. 1160. The subscript ι came much into vogue during the fifteenth century, and thus was adopted in printed books.

13. Breathings (spiritus) and accents[46] were not applied systematically to Greek Texts before the seventh century. But a practice prevailed in that and the succeeding century of inserting them in older manuscripts, where they were absent primâ manu. That such was done in many instances (e.g. in Codd. Vatican. and Coislin. 202 or H of St. Paul) appears clearly from the fact that the passages which the scribe who retouched the old letters for any cause left unaltered, are destitute of these marks, though they appear in all other places. Cod. א exhibits breathings, apparently by the original scribe, in Tobit vi. 9; Gal. v. 21 only. The case of Cod. Alexandrinus is less easy. Though the rest of the book has neither breathings (except a few here and there) nor accents, the first four lines of each column of the book of Genesis (see facsimile No. [12]), which are written in red, are fully furnished with them. These marks Baber, who edited the Old Testament portion of Cod. A, pronounced to be by a second hand (Notae, p. 1); Sir Frederick Madden, a more competent judge, declares them the work of the original scribe (Madden's Silvestre, Vol. i. p. 194, note), and after repeated examination we know not how to dissent from his view[47]. So too in the Sarravian Pentateuch of the fifth century [pg 046] we read ΤΟΝΥΝ [with several symbols written over the Υ] (Lev. xi. 7) by the first hand. The Cureton palimpsest of Homer also has them, though they are occasionally obliterated, and some few are evidently inserted by a corrector; the case is nearly so with the Milan Homer edited by Mai; and the same must be stated of the Vienna Dioscorides (Silvestre, No. 62), whose date is fixed by internal evidence to about a.d. 500. In the papyrus fragment of the Psalms, now in the British Museum, the accents are very accurate, and the work of the original scribe. These facts, and others like these, may make us hesitate to adopt the notion generally received among scholars on the authority of Montfaucon (Palaeogr. Graec. p. 33), that breathings and accents were not introduced primâ manu before the seventh or eighth century; although up to that period, no doubt, they were placed very incorrectly, and often omitted altogether. The breathings are much the more ancient and important of the two. The spiritus lenis indeed may be a mere invention of the Alexandrian grammarians of the second or third century before Christ, but the spiritus asper is in fact the substitute for a real letter (H) which appears on the oldest inscriptions; its original shape being the first half of the H ([symbol like the left half of a Roman capital letter H]), of which the second half was subsequently adopted for the lenis ([symbol like the right half of a Roman capital H]). This form is sometimes found in manuscripts of about the eleventh century (e.g. Lebanon, B.M. Addit. 11300 or kscr, and usually in Lambeth 1178 or dscr) ed. of 1550, but even in the Cod. Alexandrinus the comma and inverted comma are several times substituted to represent the lenis and asper respectively (facsimile No. [12]): and at a later period this last was the ordinary, though not quite the invariable, mode of expressing the breathings. Aristophanes of Byzantium (keeper of the famous Library at Alexandria under Ptolemy Euergetes, about b.c. 240), though probably not the inventor of the Greek accents, was the first to arrange them in a system. Accentuation must have been a welcome aid to those who employed Greek as a learned, though not as their vernacular tongue, and is so convenient and suggestive that no modern scholar can afford to dispense with its familiar use: yet not being, like the rough breathing, an essential portion of the language, it was but slowly brought into general vogue. It would seem that in Augustine's age [354-430] the distinction between the smooth and rough breathing in the manuscripts was just such a point as a careful reader would [pg 047] mark, a hasty one overlook[48]. Hence it is not surprising that though these marks are entirely absent both from the Theban and Herculanean papyri, a few breathings are apparently by the first hand in Cod. Borgianus or T (Tischendorf, N. T. 1859, Proleg. p. cxxxi). One rough breathing is just visible in that early palimpsest of St. John's Gospel, Ib or Nb. Such as appear, together with some accents, in the Coislin Octateuch of the sixth or seventh century, may not the less be primâ manu because many pages are destitute of them; those of Cod. Claromontanus, which were once deemed original, are now pronounced by its editor Tischendorf to be a later addition. Cod. N, the purple fragment so often spoken of already, exhibits primâ manu over certain vowels a kind of smooth breathing or slight acute accent, sometimes little larger than a point, but inserted on no intelligible principle, so far as we can see, and far oftener omitted entirely. All copies of Scripture which have not been specified, down to the end of the seventh century, are quite destitute of breathings and accents. An important manuscript of the eighth or ninth century, Cod. L or Paris 62 of the Gospels, has them for the most part, but not always; though often in the wrong place, and at times in utter defiance of all grammatical rules. Cod. B of the Apocalypse, however, though of the same age, has breathings and accents as constantly and correctly as most. Codices of the ninth century, with the exception of three written in the West of Europe (Codd. Augiensis or Paul F, Sangallensis or Δ of the Gospels, and Boernerianus or Paul G, which will be particularly described afterwards), are all accompanied with these marks in full, though often set down without any precise rule, so far as our experience has enabled us to observe. The uncial Evangelistaria (e.g. Arundel 547; Parham 18; Harleian 5598), especially, are much addicted to prefixing the spiritus asper improperly; chiefly, perhaps, to words beginning with H, so that documents of that age are but slender authorities on such points. Of the cursives the general tendency is to be more and more accurate as regards the accentuation, [pg 048] the later the date: but this is only a general rule, as some that are early are as careful, and certain of the latest as negligent, as can well be imagined. All of them are partial to placing accents or breathings over both parts of a word compounded with a preposition (e.g. ἐπὶσυνάξαι), and on the other hand often drop them between a preposition and its case (e.g. ἐπάροτρον).

14. The punctuation in early times was very simple. In the papyri of Hyperides there are no stops at all, in the Herculanean rolls exceeding few: Codd. Sinaiticus and Vaticanus (the latter very rarely by the first hand) have a single point here and there on a level with the top of the letters, and occasionally a very small break in the continuous uncials, with or (as always in Cod. Ib of the sixth century) without the point, to denote a pause in the sense. Codd. A N have the same point a little oftener; in Codd. C Wa (Paris 314) Z and the Cotton Genesis the single point stands indiscriminately at the head, middle, or foot of the letters, while in E (Basil. A. N. iii. 12) of the Gospels and B of the Apocalypse, as in Cod. Marchalianus of the Prophets (sixth or seventh century), this change in the position of the point indicates a full-stop, half stop, or comma respectively. In Cod. L, of the same date as Codd. E and B (Apoc.), besides the full point we have the comma (::.) and semicolon (::), with a cross also for a stop. In Codd. Y Θa (of about the eighth century) the single point has its various powers as in Cod. E, &c., but besides this are double, treble, and in Cod. Y quadruple, points with different powers. In late uncials, especially Evangelistaria, the chief stop is a cross, often in red (e.g. Arund. 547); while in Harleian 5598 [symbol like three ovals] seems to be the note of interrogation[49]. When the continuous writing came to be broken up into separate words (of which Cod. Augiensis in the ninth century affords one of the earliest examples) the single point was intended to be placed after the last letter of each word, on a level with the middle of the letters. But even in this copy it is often omitted in parts, and in Codd. ΔG, written on the same plan, more frequently still. Our statements refer only to the Greek portions of these [pg 049] copies; the Latin semicolon (;) and the note of interrogation (?) occur in their Latin versions. The Greek interrogation (;) first occurs about the ninth century, and (,) used as a stop a little later. The Bodleian Genesis of this date, or a little earlier, uses (,) also as an interrogative: so in later times B-C. iii. 5 [xii], and Evan. 556 [xii]. In the earliest cursives the system of punctuation is much the same as that of printed books: the English colon (:) not being much used, but the upper single point in its stead[50]. In a few cursives (e.g. Gonville or 59 of the Gospels), this upper point, set in a larger space, stands also for a full stop: indeed (·) is the only stop found in Tischendorf's loti or 61 of the Acts (Brit. Mus. Add. 20,003): while (;) and (·) are often confused in 440 of the Gospels (Cantab. Mm. 6. 9). The English comma, placed above a letter, is used for the apostrophus, which occurs in the very oldest uncials, especially at the end of proper names, or to separate compounds (e.g. απ᾽ ορφανισθεντες in Cod. Clarom.), or when the word ends in ξ or ρ (e.g. σαρξ᾽ in Cod. B, θυγατηρ᾽ in Codd. Sinait. and A, χειρ᾽ in Cod. A, ὡσπερ᾽ in the Dioscorides, a.d. 500), or even to divide syllables (e.g. συριγ᾿γας in Cod. Frid.-August., πολ᾿λα, κατεστραμ᾿μενη, αναγ᾿γελι in Cod. Sinaiticus). In Cod. Z it is found only after αλλ and μεθ, but in Z's Isaiah it indicates other elisions (e.g. επ). This mark is more rare in Cod. Ephraemi than in some others, but is used more or less by all, and is found after εξ, or ουχ, and a few like words, even in the most recent cursives. In Cod. Bezae and others it assumes the shape of > rather than that of a comma.

15. Abbreviated words are perhaps least met with in Cod. Vatican., but even it has θσ, κσ, ισ, χσ, πνα for θεός, κύριος, ἰησοῦς, χριστός, πνεῦμα, &c. and their cases. [Transcriber's Note: In this e-book, underlines are used to represent the overlines used in the paper book.] The Cotton Genesis has θου ch. i. 27 by a later hand, but θεου ch. xli. 38. Besides these Codd. Sinaiticus, Alex., Ephraemi and the rest supply ανοσ, ουνοσ, πηρ (πρ Cod. Sarrav. Num. xii. 14, &c., πτηρ Cod. [pg 050] Rossanensis), μηρ, ιλημ or ιηλμ or ιλμ or ιηό (ιελμ Cod. Sarrav.), ιηϊ or ισλ or ισηλ, δαδ, and some of them σηρ for σωτήρ, υσ for υἱός, παρνξς [with a theta above the line] for παρθένος (Bodleian Genesis), σρσ for σταυρός: Cod. L has πνευ, and Cod. Vatican. in the Old Testament ανοσ and πρσ occasionally, ἐθν and ιλημ or ιλμ often[51]; Evan. 604 has σηρ for σωτήρ, and ἐθν for ἐθνῶν[52]. Cod. Bezae always writes at length ανθρωπος, μητηρ, υἱος, σωτηρ, οὐρανος, δαυειδ, ἰσραηλ, ἱερουσαλημ; but abridges the sacred names into χρσ, ιησ[53] &c. and their cases, as very frequently, but by no means invariably, do the kindred Codd. Augiens., Sangall., and Boerner. Cod. Z seldom abridges, and all copies often set υἱος in full. A few dots sometimes supply the place of the line denoting abbreviation (e.g. θσ [with dots over the letters] Cotton Genesis, ανοσ [with dots over the letters] Colbert. Pentateuch). A straight line over the last letter of a line, sometimes over any vowel, indicates N (or also M in the Latin of Codd. Bezae and Claromont.) in all the Biblical uncials, but is placed only over numerals in the Herculanean rolls: κ [with tilde below and to the right], τ [with tilde below and to the right], and less often θ [with tilde below and to the right] for καί (see p. [16], note 1), -ται, -θαι are met with in Cod. Sinaiticus and all later except Cod. Z: [symbol somewhat like Arabic number 8] for ου chiefly in Codd. L, Augiensis, B of the Apocalypse, and the more recent uncials. Such compendia scribendi as [symbol like Pi with Rho] in the Herculanean rolls (above p. [33]) occur mostly at the end of lines: that form, with ΜΥ [with small circle between the letters] (No. [11] a, l. 4), and a few more even in the Cod. Sinaiticus; in Cod. Sarrav. Μ [with small circle over the letter] stands for both μου and μοι; in Cureton's Homer we have Πς for πους, Σς for -σας and such like. In later books they are more numerous and complicated, particularly in cursive writing. The terminations [small raised circle] for ος, [horizontal line] for ν, [symbol like left single quotation mark] or [symbol like two left quotation marks] for ον, [symbol like right double quotation mark] for αις, [symbol like tilde] for ων or ω or ως, [symbol like raised small sigma] for ης, [symbol like raised small upsilon] for ου are familiar; besides others, peculiar to one or a few copies, e.g. τγ for ττ in Burney 19, and Burdett-Coutts i. 4, h for αυ, b for ερ, — for α, [symbol like horizontal line with circle at right edge] for αρ in the Emmanuel College copy of the Epistles (Paul 30, No. [33]), and [symbol like colon] for α, [symbol like small raised capital sigma] or [symbol like raised small sigma] for αν, [symbol like square root symbol] for ας in Parham 17 of the Apocalypse. Other more rare abridgements are [symbol like two raised small sigmas] for εις in Wake 12, [square root sign] (Burdett-Coutts I. 4) or < or [raised small alpha] for εν, [symbol like two dots] for ι and [symbol like Hebrew letter Tet with two dots over it] for εσ (B-C. iii. 37), [symbol like two dots with comma below them] for εσ and ε for σε and [symbol like tilde over Rho over Tau] for τησ (B-C. [pg 051] ii. 26), [symbol] for ται and [symbol] for ωσ (B-C. iii. 42), [symbol] for ην (B-C. iii. 10), [symbol] for ισ and ὀ or [symbol] for ουν (B-C. iii. 41), [symbol] for ιν or ἐστι, [symbol] for αν, [symbol] or [symbol] for οις, [symbol] for ας, [symbol] or [symbol] for οις, [symbol] for τε or -τες or τθν or τον, [symbol] for ειν, [symbol] for ους or ως (Gale O. iv. 22). The mark > is not only met with in the Herculanean rolls, but in the Hyperides (facsimile [9], l. 6), in Codd. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, the two Pentateuchs, Codd. Augiensis, Sangall. and Boernerianus, and seems merely designed to fill up vacant space, like the flourishes in a legal instrument[54].

16. Capital letters of a larger size than the rest at the beginning of clauses, &c. are freely met with in all documents excepting in the oldest papyri, the Herculanean rolls, Codd. Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, the Colbert Pentateuch, Isaiah in Cod. Z, and one or two fragments besides[55]. Their absence is a proof of high antiquity. Yet even in Codd. Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Sarravianus, which is the other part of the Colbert Pentateuch (in the first most frequently in the earlier portions of the Old Testament), the initial letter stands a little outside the line of writing after a break in the sense, whether the preceding line had been quite filled up or not. Such breaks occur more regularly in Codex Bezae, as will appear when we come to describe it[56]. Smaller capitals occur in the middle of lines in Codd. Bezae and Marchalianus, of the sixth and seventh centuries respectively. Moreover, all copies of whatever date are apt to crowd small [pg 052] letters into the end of a line to save room, and if these small letters preserve the form of the larger, it is reasonable to conclude that the scribe is writing in a natural hand, not an assumed one, and the argument for the antiquity of such a document, derived from the shape of its letters, thus becomes all the stronger. The continuous form of writing separate words must have prevailed in manuscripts long after it was obsolete in common life: Cod. Claromont., whose text is continuous even in its Latin version, divides the words in the inscriptions and subscriptions to the several books.

17. The stichometry of the sacred books has next to be considered. The Greeks and Romans measured the contents of their MSS. by lines, not only in poetry, but also artificially in prose for a standard line of fifteen or sixteen syllables, called by the earliest writers ἔπος, afterwards στίχος[57]. Not only do Athanasius [d. 373], Gregory Nyssen [d. 396], Epiphanius [d. 403], and Chrysostom [d. 407] inform us that in their time the Book of Psalms was already divided into στίχοι, while Jerome [d. 420?] testifies the same for the prophecies of Isaiah; but Origen also [d. 254] speaks of the second and third Epistles of St. John as both of them not exceeding one hundred στίχοι, of St. Paul's Epistles as consisting of few, St. John's first Epistle as of very few (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vi. 25, cited by Tischendorf, Cod. Sinait., Proleg. p. xxi, note 2, 1863). Even the apocryphal letter of our Lord to Abgarus is described as ὀλιγοστίχου μέν, πολυδυνάμου δὲ ἐπιστολῆς (Euseb. H. E. i. 13): while Eustathius of Antioch in the fourth century reckoned 135 στίχοι between John viii. 59 and x. 41. More general is the use of the word in Ephraem the Syrian [d. 378], Ὅταν δὲ ἀναγινώσκῃς, ἐπιμελῶς καὶ ἐμπόνως ἀναγίνωσκε, ἐν πολλῇ καταστάσει διερχόμενος τὸν στίχον (tom. iii. 101). As regards the [pg 053] Psalms, we may see their arrangement for ourselves in Codd. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, wherein, according to the true principles of Hebrew poetry, the verses do not correspond in metre or quantity of syllables, but in the parallelism or relationship subsisting between the several members of the same sentence or stanza[58]. Such στίχοι were therefore not “space-lines,” but “sense-lines.” It seems to have occurred to Euthalius, a deacon of Alexandria, as it did long afterwards to Bishop Jebb when he wrote his “Sacred Literature,” that a large portion of the New Testament might be divided into στίχοι on the same principles: and that even where that distribution should prove but artificial, it would guide the public reader in the management of his voice, and remove the necessity for an elaborate system of punctuation. Such, therefore, we conceive to be the use and design of stichometry, as applied to the Greek Testament by Euthalius[59], whose edition of the Acts and Epistles was published a.d. 490. Who distributed the στίχοι of the Gospels (which are in truth better suited for such a process than the Epistles) does not appear. Although but few manuscripts now exist that are written στοιχηδόν or στιχηρῶς (a plan which consumed too much vellum to become general), we read in many copies, added usually to the subscription at the foot of each of the books of the New Testament, a calculation of the number of στίχοι it contained, the numbers being sufficiently unlike to show that the arrangement was not the same in all codices, yet near enough to prove that they were divided on the same principle[60]. In the few documents written στιχηρῶς that survive, the length of the clauses is very unequal; some (e.g. Cod. Bezae, see the description below [pg 054] and the facsimile, No. [42]) containing as much in a line as might be conveniently read aloud in a breath, others (e.g. Cod. Laud. of the Acts, Plate [x]. No. 25) having only one or two words in a line. The Cod. Claromontanus (facsim. No. [41]) in this respect lies between those extremes, and the fourth great example of this class (Cod. Coislin. 202, H of St. Paul), of the sixth century, has one of its few surviving pages (of sixteen lines each) arranged literatim as follows (1 Cor. x. 22, &c.): εσμεν | παντα μοι εξεστι | αλλ ου παντα συμφερει | παντα μοι εξεστιν | αλλ ου παντα οικοδομει | μηδεισ το εαυτου ζη | (ob necessitatem spatii) τειτω | αλλα το του ετερου | παν το εν μακελλω πω | (ob necessitatem) λουμενον | εσθιετε μηδεν ανα | κρινωντες δια την | συνειδησιν | του γαρ κυ η γη και το πλη | ρωμα αυτης. Other manuscripts written στιχηρῶς are Matthaei's V of the eighth century (though with verses like ours more than with ordinary στίχοι), Bengel's Uffenbach 3 of St. John (Evan. 101), Alter's Forlos. 29 (36 of the Apocalypse), and, as it would seem, the Cod. Sangallensis Δ. In Cod. Claromontanus there are scarcely any stops (the middle point being chiefly reserved to follow abridgements or numerals), the stichometry being of itself an elaborate scheme of punctuation; but the longer στίχοι of Cod. Bezae are often divided by a single point.

18. In using manuscripts of the Greek Testament, we must carefully note whether a reading is primâ manu (*) or by some subsequent corrector (**). It will often happen that these last are utterly valueless, having been inserted even from printed copies by a modern owner (like some marginal variations of the Cod. Leicestrensis)[61], and such as these really ought not to have been extracted by collators at all; while others by the second hand are almost as weighty, for age and goodness, as the text itself. All these points are explained by critical editors for each document separately; in fact to discriminate the different corrections in regard to their antiquity and importance is often the most difficult portion of such editor's task (e.g. in Codd. Bezae and Claromontanus), and one on which he often feels it hard to satisfy his own judgement. Corrections by the original scribe, or [pg 055] by a contemporary reviser, where they can be satisfactorily distinguished, must be regarded as a portion of the testimony of the manuscript itself, inasmuch as every carefully prepared copy was reviewed and compared (ἀντεβλήθη), if not by the writer himself, by a skilful person appointed for the task (ὁ διορθῶν, ὁ διορθωτής), whose duty it was to amend manifest errors, sometimes also to insert ornamental capitals in places which had been reserved for them; in later times (and as some believe at a very early period) to set in stops, breathings and accents; in copies destined for ecclesiastical use to arrange the musical notes that were to guide the intonation of the reader. Notices of this kind of revision are sometimes met with at the end of the best manuscripts. Such is the note in Cod. H of St. Paul: εγραψα και εξεθεμην προσ το εν Καισαρια αντιγραφον τησ διδλιοθηκησ του αγιου Παμφιλου, the same library of the Martyr Pamphilus to which the scribe of the Cod. Frid.-August. resorted for his model[62]; and that in Birch's most valuable Urbino-Vatican. 2 (157 of the Gospels), written for the Emperor John II (1118-1143), wherein at the end of the first Gospel we read κατὰ Ματθαῖον ἐγράφη καὶ ἀντεβλήθη ἐκ τῶν ἐν ἱεροσολύμοις παλαιῶν ἀντιγράφων τῶν ἐν ἁγίω ὄρει [Athos] ἀποκειμένων: similar subscriptions are appended to the other Gospels. See also Evan. Λ. 20, 164, 262, 300, 376; Act. 15, 83, in the list of manuscripts below.

[pg 056]

Chapter III. Divisions Of The Text, And Other Particulars.

We have next to give some account of ancient divisions of the text, as found in manuscripts of the New Testament; and these must be carefully noted by the student, since few copies are without one or more of them.

1. So far as we know at present, the oldest sections still extant are those of the Codex Vaticanus. These seem to have been formed for the purpose of reference, and a new one always commences where there is some break in the sense. Many, however, at least in the Gospels, consist of but one of our modern verses, and they are so unequal in length as to be rather inconvenient for actual use. In the four Gospels only the marginal numerals are in red, St. Matthew containing 170 of these divisions, St. Mark 62, St. Luke 152, St. John 80. In the Acts of the Apostles are two sets of sections, thirty-six longer and in an older hand, sixty-nine smaller and more recent[63]. Each of these also begins after a break in the sense, but they are quite independent of each other, as a larger section will sometimes commence in the middle of a smaller, the latter being in no wise a subdivision of the former. Thus the greater Γ opens Acts ii. 1, in the middle of the lesser β, which extends from Acts i. 15 to ii. 4. The first forty-two of the lesser chapters, down to Acts xv. 40, are found also with slight variations in the margin of Codex Sinaiticus, written by a very old hand. As in most manuscripts, so in Codex Vaticanus, the Catholic Epistles follow the Acts, and in them also and in St. Paul's Epistles there are two sets of sections, only that in the Epistles the older sections are the more numerous. The Pauline Epistles are reckoned throughout as one book in the [pg 057] elder notation, with however this remarkable peculiarity, that though in the Cod. Vatican. itself the Epistle to the Hebrews stands next after the second to the Thessalonians, and on the same leaf with it, the sections are arranged as if it stood between the Epistles to the Galatians and Ephesians. For whereas that to the Galatians ends with § 58, that to the Ephesians begins with § 70, and the numbers proceed regularly down to § 93, with which the second to the Thessalonians ends. The Epistle to the Hebrews which then follows opens with § 59; the last section extant (§ 64) begins at Heb. ix. 11, and the manuscript ends abruptly at καθα ver. 14. It plainly appears, then, that the sections of the Codex Vaticanus must have been copied from some yet older document, in which the Epistle to the Hebrews preceded that to the Ephesians. It will be found hereafter (vol. ii) that in the Thebaic version the Epistle to the Hebrews preceded that to the Galatians, instead of following it, as here. For a list of the more modern divisions in the Epistles, see the Table given below. The Vatican sections of the Gospels have also been discovered by Tregelles in one other copy, the palimpsest Codex Zacynthius of St. Luke (Ξ), which he published in 1861.

2. Hardly less ancient, and indeed ascribed by some to Tatian the Harmonist, the disciple of Justin Martyr, is the division of the Gospels into larger chapters or κεφάλαια majora[64]. It may be noticed that in none of the four Gospels does the first chapter stand at its commencement. In St. Matthew chapter A begins at chap. ii. verse 1, and has for its title περὶ τῶν μάγων: in St. Mark at chap. i. ver. 23 περὶ τοῧ δαιμονιζομένου: in St. Luke at chap. ii. ver. 1 περὶ τῆς ἀπογραφῆς: in St. John at chap. ii. ver. 1 περὶ τοῦ ἐν Κανᾶ γάμου. Mill accounts for this circumstance by supposing that in the first copies the titles at the head of each Gospel were reserved till last for more splendid illumination, and were thus eventually forgotten (Proleg. N. T. § 355); Griesbach holds, that the general inscriptions of each Gospel, Κατὰ Ματθαῖον, Κατὰ Μάρκον, &c., were regarded as the special titles of the first chapters also. On either supposition, however, it would [pg 058] be hard to explain how what was really the second chapter came to be numbered as the first; and it is worth notice that the same arrangement takes place in the κεφάλαια (though these are of a later date) of all the other books of the New Testament except the Acts, 2 Corinth., Ephes., 1 Thess., Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1 John, and the Apocalypse: e.g. the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans opens ch. i. ver. 18 Πρῶτον μετὰ τὸ προοίμιον, περὶ κρίσεως τῆς κατὰ ἐθνῶν τῶν οὐ φυλασσόντων τὰ φυσικά. But the fact is that this arrangement, strange as it may seem, is conformable to the practice of the times when these divisions were finally settled. Both in the Institutes and in the Digest of Justinian the first paragraph is always cited as pr. (i.e. principium, προοίμιον, Preface), and what we should regard as the second paragraph is numbered as the first, and so on throughout the whole work[65].

The τίτλοι in St. Matthew amount to sixty-eight, in St. Mark to forty-eight, in St. Luke to eighty-three, in St. John to eighteen. This mode of division, although not met with in the Vatican and Sinaitic manuscripts, is found in the Codices Alexandrinus and Ephraemi of the fifth century, and in the Codex Nitriensis of the sixth, each of which has tables of the τίτλοι prefixed to the several Gospels: but the Codices Alexandrinus, Rossanensis, and Dublinensis of St. Matthew, and that portion of the purple Cotton fragment which is in the Vatican, exhibit them in their usual position, at the top and bottom of the pages. Thus it appears that they were too generally diffused in the fifth century not to have originated at an earlier period; although we must concede that the κεφάλαιον spoken of by Clement of Alexandria (Stromat. i) when quoting Dan. xii. 12, or by Athanasius (contra Arium) on Act. ii, and the Capitulum mentioned by Tertullian (ad Uxorem ii. 2) in reference to 1 Cor. vii. 12, contain no certain allusions to any specific divisions of the sacred text, but only to the particular paragraphs or passages in which their citations stand. Except that the contrary habit has grown inveterate[66], it were much to be desired that the term τίτλοι should be applied to these longer [pg 059] divisions, at least in the Gospels; but since usage has affixed the term κεφάλαια to the larger chapters and sections to the smaller, and τίτλοι only to the subjects or headings of the former, it would be useless to follow any other system of names.

3. The Ammonian Sections were not constructed, like the Vatican divisions and the τίτλοι, for the purpose of easy reference, or distributed like them according to the breaks in the sense, but for a wholly different purpose. So far as we can ascertain, the design of Tatian's Harmony was simply to present to Christian readers a single connected history of our Lord, by taking from the four Evangelists indifferently whatsoever best suited his purpose[67]. As this plan could scarcely be executed without omitting some portions of the sacred text, it is not surprising that Tatian, possibly without any evil intention, should have incurred the grave charge of mutilating Holy Scripture[68]. A more scholar-like and useful attempt was subsequently made by Ammonius of Alexandria, early in the third century [a.d. 220], who, by the side of St. Matthew's Gospel, which he selected as his standard, arranged in parallel columns, as it would seem, the corresponding passages of the other three Evangelists, so as to exhibit them all at once to the reader's eye; St. Matthew in his proper order, the rest as the necessity of abiding by St. Matthew's order prescribed. This is the account given by the celebrated Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, the Church [pg 060] historian, who in the fourth century, in his letter to Carpianus, described his own most ingenious system of Harmony, as founded on, or at least as suggested by, the labours of Ammonius[69]. It has been generally thought that the κεφάλαια, of which St. Matthew contains 355, St. Mark 236[70], St. Luke 342, St. John 232, in all 1165, were made by Ammonius for the purpose of his work, and they have commonly received the name of the Ammonian sections: but this opinion was called in question by Bp. Lloyd (Nov. Test. Oxon. 1827, Monitum, pp. viii-xi), who strongly urges that, in his Epistle to Carpianus, Eusebius not only refrains from ascribing these numerical divisions to Ammonius (whose labours in this particular, as once seemed the case with Tatian's, must in that case be deemed to have perished utterly), but he almost implies that they had their origin at the same time with his own ten canons, with which they are so intimately connected[71]. That they were essential to Eusebius' scheme is plain enough; their place in Ammonius' parallel Harmony is not easily understood, unless indeed (what is nowhere stated, but rather the contrary) he did not set the passages from the other Gospels at full length by the side of St. Matthew's, but only these numerical references to them[72].

There is, however, one ground for hesitation before we ascribe the sections, as well as the canons, to Eusebius; namely, that not a few ancient manuscripts (e.g. Codd. FHY) contain the former, while they omit the latter. Of palimpsests indeed it might be said with reason, that the rough process which so nearly obliterated the ink of the older writing, would completely remove the coloured paint (κιννάβαρις, vermilion, prescribed by Eusebius, though blue or green is occasionally found) in which the canons were invariably noted; hence we need not wonder at their absence from the Codices Ephraemi, Nitriensis (R), Dublinensis (Z), Codd. IWb of Tischendorf, and the Wolfenbüttel fragments (PQ), in all which the sections are yet legible in ink. The Codex Sinaiticus contains both; but Tischendorf decidedly pronounces them to be in a later hand. In the Codex Bezae too, as well as the Codex Cyprius (K), even the Ammonian sections, without the canons, are by later hands, though the latter has prefixed the list or table of the canons. Of the oldest copies the Cod. Alex. (A), Tischendorf's Codd. WaΘ, the Cotton frag. (N), and Codd. Beratinus and Rossanensis alone contain both the sections and the canons. Even in more modern cursive books the latter are often deficient, though the former are present. This peculiarity we have observed in Burney 23, in the British Museum, of the twelfth century, although the Epistle to Carpianus stands at the beginning; in a rather remarkable copy of about the twelfth century, in the Cambridge University Library (Mm. 6. 9, Scholz Evan. 440), in which, however, the table of canons but not the Epistle to Carpianus precedes; in the Gonville and Caius Gospels of the twelfth century (Evan. 59), and in a manuscript of about the thirteenth century at Trinity [pg 062] College, Cambridge (B. x. 17)[73]. These facts certainly seem to indicate that in the judgement of critics and transcribers, whatever that judgement may be deemed worth, the Ammonian sections had a previous existence to the Eusebian canons, as well as served for an independent purpose[74].

In his letter to Carpianus, their inventor clearly yet briefly describes the purpose of his canons, ten in number. The first contains a list of seventy-one places in which all the four Evangelists have a narrative, discourse, or saying in common: the second of 111 places in which the three Matthew, Mark, Luke agree: the third of twenty-two places common to Matthew, Luke, John: the fourth of twenty-six passages common to Matthew, Mark, John: the fifth of eighty-two places in which the two Matthew, Luke coincide: the sixth of forty-seven places wherein Matthew, Mark agree: the seventh of seven places common to Matthew and John: the eighth of fourteen places common to Luke and Mark: the ninth of twenty-one places in which Luke and John agree: the tenth of sixty-two passages of Matthew, twenty-one of Mark, seventy-one of Luke, and ninety-seven of John which have no parallels, but are peculiar to a single Evangelist. Under each of the 1165 so-named Ammonian sections, in its proper place in the margin of a manuscript, is put in coloured ink the number of that Eusebian canon to which it refers. On looking for that section in the proper table or canon, there will also be found the parallel place or places in the other Gospels, each indicated by its proper numeral, and so [pg 063] readily searched out. A single example will serve to explain our meaning. In the facsimile of the Cotton fragment (Plate [v]. No. 14), in the margin of the passage (John xv. 20) we see ΡΛΘ over Γ, where ΡΑΘ (139) is the proper section of St. John, Γ (3) the number of the canon. On searching the third Eusebian table we read MT. [symbol], Λ. νη, ΙΩ. ρλθ and thus we learn that the first clause of John xv. 20 is parallel in sense to the ninetieth ([symbol]) section of St. Matthew (x. 24), and to the fifty-eighth (νη) of St. Luke (vi. 40). The advantage of such a system of parallels to the exact study of the Gospels is too evident to need insisting on.

4. The Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles are also divided into chapters (κεφάλαια), in design precisely the same as the κεφάλαια or τίτλοι of the Gospels, and nearly like them in length. Since there is no trace of these chapters in the two great Codices Alexandrinus and Ephraemi, of the fifth century (which yet exhibit the τίτλοι, the sections, and one of them the canons), it seems reasonable to assume that they are of later date. They are sometimes connected with the name of Euthalius, deacon of Alexandria, afterwards Bishop of Sulci[75], whom we have already spoken of as the reputed author of Scriptural stichometry (above, p. [53]). We learn, however, from Euthalius' own Prologue to his edition of St. Paul's Epistles (a.d. 458,) that the “summary of the chapters” (and consequently the numbers of the chapters themselves) was taken from the work of “one of our wisest and pious fathers[76],” i.e. some Bishop that he does not wish to particularize, whom Mill (Proleg. N. T. § 907) conjectures to be Theodore of Mopsuestia, who lay under the censure of the Church. Soon after[77] the publication of St. Paul's Epistles, on [pg 064] the suggestion of one Athanasius, then a priest and afterwards Patriarch of Alexandria, Euthalius put forth a similar edition of the Acts and Catholic Epistles[78], also divided into chapters, with a summary of contents at the head of each chapter. Even these he is thought to have derived (at least in the Acts) from the manuscript of Pamphilus the Martyr [d. 308], to whom the same order of chapters is ascribed in a document published by Montfaucon (Bibliotheca Coislin. p. 78); the rather as Euthalius fairly professes to have compared his book in the Acts and Catholic Epistles “with the copies in the library at Caesarea” which once belonged to “Eusebius the friend of Pamphilus[79].” The Apocalypse still remains. It was divided, about the end of the fifth century, by Andreas, Archbishop of the Cappadocian Caesarea, into twenty-four paragraphs (λόγοι), corresponding to the number of the elders about the throne (Apoc. iv. 4); each paragraph being subdivided into three chapters (κεφάλαια)[80]. The summaries which Andreas wrote of his seventy-two chapters are still reprinted in Mill's and other large editions of the Greek Testament.

5. To Euthalius has been also referred a division of the Acts into sixteen lessons (ἀναγνώσεις) and of the Pauline Epistles into thirty-one (see table on p. [67]); but these lessons are quite different from the much shorter ones adopted by the Greek Church. He is also said to have numbered in each Epistle of St. Paul the quotations from the Old Testament[81], which are [pg 065] still noted in many of our manuscripts, and is the first known to have used that reckoning of the στίχοι which was formerly annexed we know not when to the Gospels and Epistles, as well as to the Acts. Besides the division of the text into στίχοι or lines (above, p. [52]) we find in the Gospels alone another division into ῥήματα or ῥήσεις “sentences,” differing but little from the στίχοι in number. Of these last the precise numbers vary in different copies, though not considerably: whether that variation arose from the circumstance that ancient numbers were represented by letters and so easily became corrupted, or from a different mode of arranging the στίχοι and ῥήματα adopted by the various scribes.

6. It is proper to state that the subscriptions (ὑπογραφαί) appended to St. Paul's Epistles in many manuscripts, and retained even in the Authorized English version of the New Testament, are also said to be the composition of Euthalius. In the best copies they are somewhat shorter in form, but in any shape they do no credit to the care or skill of their author, whoever he may be. “Six of these subscriptions,” writes Paley in that masterpiece of acute reasoning, the Horae Paulinae, “are false or improbable;” that is, they are either absolutely contradicted by the contents of the epistle [1 Cor., Galat., 1 Tim.], or are difficult to be reconciled with them [1, 2 Thess., Tit.].

The subscriptions to the Gospels have not, we believe, been assigned to any particular author, and being seldom found in printed copies of the Greek Testament or in modern versions, are little known to the general reader. In the earliest manuscripts the subscriptions, as well as the titles of the books, were of the simplest character. Κατὰ Μαθθαῖον, κατὰ Μάρκον, &c. is all that the Codd. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus have, whether at the beginning or the end. Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ματθαῖον is the subscription to the first Gospel in the Codex Alexandrinus; εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μάρκον is placed at the beginning of the second Gospel in the same manuscript, and the self-same words at the end of it by Codices Alex. and Ephraemi: in the Codex Bezae (in which St. John stands second in order) we merely read εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μαθθαῖον ἐτελέσθη, ἄρχεται εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην. The same is the case throughout the New Testament. After a while the titles become more elaborate, and the subscriptions afford more [pg 066] information, the truth of which it would hardly be safe to vouch for. The earliest worth notice are found in the Codex Cyprius (K) of the eighth or ninth century, which, together with those of several other copies, are given in Scholz's Prolegomena N. T. vol. i. pp. xxix, xxx. ad fin. Matthaei: Τὸ κατὰ Ματθαῖον εὐαγγέλιον ἐξεδόθη ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐν ἱεροσολύμοις μετὰ χρόνους ἡ [ὀκτὼ] τῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἀναλήψεως. Ad fin. Marci: Τὸ κατὰ Μάρκον εὐαγγέλιον ἐξεδόθη μετὰ χρόνους δέκα τῆς τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἀναλήψεως. Those to the other two Gospels exactly resemble St. Mark's, that of St. Luke however being dated fifteen, that of St. John thirty-two years after our Lord's Ascension, periods in all probability far too early to be correct.

7. The foreign matter so often inserted in later manuscripts has more value for the antiquarian than for the critic. That splendid copy of the Gospels Lambeth 1178, of the tenth or eleventh century, contains more such than is often found, set off by fine illuminations. At the end of each of the first three Gospels (but not of the fourth) are several pages relating to them extracted from Cosmas Indicopleustes, who made the voyage which procured him his cognomen about a.d. 522; also some iambic verses of no great excellence, as may well be supposed. In golden letters we read: ad fin. Matth. ἰστέον ὅτι τὸ κατὰ Ματθαῖον εὐαγγέλιον ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτωι γραφὲν ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ; ἐν ἱερουσαλὴμ ἐξεδόθη; ἑρμηνεύθη δὲ ὑπὸ ἱωάννου; ἐξηγεῖται δὲ τὴν κατὰ ἄνθρωπον τοῦ χυ γένεσιν, καί ἐστιν ἀνθρωπόμορφον τοῦτο τὸ εὐαγγέλιον. The last clause alludes to Apoc. iv. 7, wherein the four living creatures were currently believed to be typical of the four Gospels[82]. Ad fin. Marc. ἰστέον ὅτι τὸ κατὰ Μάρκον εὐαγγέλιον ὑπηγορεύθη ὑπὸ Πέτρου ἐν ῥώμηι; ἐποιήσατο δὲ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ προφητικοῦ λόγου τοῦ ἐξ ὕψους ἐπιόντος τοῦ Ἡσαΐου; τὴν πτερωτικὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ εὐαγγελίου δεικνύς. Ad fin. Luc. ἰστέον ὅτι τὸ κατὰ Λουκᾶν εὐαγγέλιον ὑπηγορεύθη ὑπὸ Παύλου ἐν ῥώμηι; ἅτε δὲ ἱερατικοῦ χαρακτῆρος ὑπάρχοντος [pg 067] ἀπὸ Ζαχαρίου τοῦ ἱερέως θυμιῶντος ἤρξατο. The reader will desire no more of this.

8. The oldest manuscript known to be accompanied by a catena (or continuous commentary by different authors) is the palimpsest Codex Zacynthius (Ξ of Tregelles), an uncial of the eighth century. Such books are not common, but there is a very full commentary in minute letters, surrounding the large text in a noble copy of the Gospels, of the twelfth century, which belonged to the late Sir Thomas Phillipps (Middle Hill 13975, since removed to Cheltenham), yet uncollated; another of St. Paul's Epistles (No. 27) belongs to the University Library at Cambridge (Ff. 1. 30). The Apocalypse is often attended with the exposition of Andreas (p. 64), or of Arethas, also Archbishop of the Cappadocian Caesarea in the tenth century, or (what is more usual) with a sort of epitome of the two (e.g. Parham No. 17), above, below, and in the margin beside the text, in much smaller characters. In cursive manuscripts only the subject (ὑπόθεσις), especially that written by Oecumenius in the tenth century, sometimes stands as a Prologue before each book, but not so often before the Gospels or Apocalypse as the Acts and Epistles. Before the Acts we occasionally meet with Euthalius' Chronology of St. Paul's Travels, or another Ἀποδημία Παύλου. The Leicester manuscript contains between the Pauline Epistles and the Acts (1) An Exposition of the Creed and statement of the errors condemned by the seven general Councils, ending with the second at Nice. (2) Lives of the Apostles, followed by an exact description of the limits of the five Patriarchates. The Christ Church copy Wake 12 also has after the Apocalypse some seven or eight pages of a Treatise Περὶ τῶν ἁγίων καὶ οἰκουμενικῶν ζ συνόδων, including some notice περὶ τοπικῶν συνόδων. Similar treatises may be more frequent in manuscripts of the Greek Testament than we are at present aware of.

	Vatican MS. Older Sections	τίτλοι	κεφάλαια Ammon	στίχοι	ῥήματα	Modern chap
Matthew	170	68	355	2560	2522	28
Mark	62	48	236	1616	1675	16
Luke	152	83	342	2740	3803	24
John	80	18	232	2024	1938	21

	Vatican MS. Older Sections	Vatican MS. Later Sections	Euthal. κεφ λ.	στίχοι[83]	Modern chapters	Modern verses
Acts	36	69	40	2524	28	1007
James	9	5	6	242	5	108
1 Peter	8	3	8	236	5	105
2 Peter	desunt	2	4	154	3	61
1 John	14	3	7	274	5	105
2 John	1	2	2	30	1	13
3 John	2	desunt	3	32	1	15
Jude	2	desunt	4	68	1	25

In Vatican MS. older sections, there are 93 sections in Rom. 1, 2 Corinth. Gal. Eph. Coloss. 1, 2 Thess. to Hebr. ix. 14.

	Vatican MS. Later Sections	Euthal. κεφ λ.	στίχοι	Modern chapters	Modern verses
Romans	8	19	920	16	433
1 Corinth	10	9	870	16	437
2 Corinth	9	11	590	13	256
Galat	3	12	293	6	149
Ephes	3	10	312	6	155
Philipp	2	7	208	4	104
Coloss	3	10	208	4	95
1 Thess	2	7	193	5	89
2 Thess	2	6	106	3	47
1 Tim		18	230	6	113
2 Tim		9	172	4	83
Titus		6		3	46
Philem		2	38	1	25
Hebrews	5 to ch. ix. 11	22	703	13	303
Apocalypse		72	1800	22	405