Six lectures on the text of the New Testament and the ancient manuscripts which contain it, chiefly addressed to those who do not read Greek
ce -I UU V »^ XC-TOrT-rtslKTo 3enm c Korrovc- I nrn tNi e K K XM c I jwM P I eTTOI M OXTTOJ^I X TX>VtA.IOY ose ON me ro ith "IT" her •or ni; 'A lole JMAf '^'^'^ ith ves o-ro'noc&'noYeeHK*- ^y -r o^^ iLx A. A-Y" n jJ. re -re ei n ^-re-T~6»c M AeHT*!' f,y-rd Y '<,^ ' T«X> n e'-rjf a> 6-ri nf>o>>'r6« YMiceic TON OS'" 6C ee K A,oa>9«i n 6 r^rf M I N K i. I e i.GAQ*r c A. 1 6 «±>*t: ro N jC n oToy MNHM6 lO^elxCNT^p A. Y XA C ThO »>jI O C K AJ f K s. cT:^ciciCA.dv>^eNloy T A.€NeinoNe<pofcoYN TC£)YAA'nMONON AAAeNTCDTAATI KA/TCpAJ MKTJKN I OnNACCTINTO HjKTTYrOTNOTIT- hNAeCTIHHAAH oejAOTioiTpei'^f CI NoiMAprrpoT: 7 eCTOnNAKAf Toy ACDfKAlTOAJMA KAfo/TPejcejcT" (12) 110 THceyceRei^c MycTHpioMoce (*) "I ^TPoc exe-re e xv-roi c Kx iTrxMTm" xr I o M e © e -roenTi c i ccrrrovc- T-rOi M A.l^Jel rvi-rmNjeKKXnciAM nX)VI<V'^ »"ri"^^PieTTOI HOXTOA.! X TTOYXi A^x-rOC'roviA.ioY MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 57 The subscription "After Mark" is by a later Land, as the shape of the letter M compared with those in the text abundantly proves. We have no stops at all in the body of the passage, but : and the follow- ing > >- seem to be original, although the arabesque (which, as well as the subscription, is touched with vermilion) was subsequently added. Like all other good copies. Cod. B omits "quickly" in ver. 8. Al- though Codex Vaticanus ends S. Mark's Gospel with ver. 8, at the 31st line of the second column of a page (its columns, when full, containing 42 lines), it leaves the third column entirely blank, this being the only instance of a vacant column throughout the whole manuscript. To illustrate Codex Sinaiticus we employ another passage of the deepest interest {facsimile, No. 8), 1 John V. C (part) — 9 (part) : THEWATERONLY BUTBYTHEWATER ANDTHEBLOODAND THESPlTSTHE WITNESSINGFORTff SPTISTHETRU THFORTHETHRE^^R ETHEWITNESS INGTHESPTANDTHEWA TERANDTHEBLOOD ANDTHETHREEINTOTH^ ONEAREIFTHEWIT NESSOFGDREC 58 ON THE PRINCIPAL GREEK There is no vestige in Codex Sinaiticus, nor indeed in any other manuscript worth naming, of the famous interpolation of what are called the Three Heavenly Witnesses in vers. 7, 8, which yet deforms our Authorised translation, and will call for our special attention here- after: but we here observe an instance of correction by a later hand of about the seventh century, amending one of the original scribe's countless blunders, caused by his eye having wandered two lines down the papy- rus he was copying (p. 39), which led him to write "God" for "men." Here again we perceive no marks of punctuation, but ought to notice a peculiarity, com- mon to all Biblical manuscripts though seen least in the earliest, of abridging the names of the Divine Persons after a fashion we should think a little irreverent. We shall meet with other examples in Codex Alexandrinus, from which we select the single verse Acts xx. 28 {facsimile, No. 4). Takeheedtoyoueselyesandtoallt"^ flockinwhichyouthesptt"" holymadeoverseers- tofeedthecongregation oftheldwhichhepurchasedthrough thebloodhisown" "The Lord" in the room of "God" we shall here- after see cause to reject as a false variation from the Received text. Here, however, in the compass of a few lines, we meet with as many as three stops, two of them over against the middle of the letters, and apparently of less power than the final one which is MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 59 set higher up. As a further mark of lower date we should notice the initial capital, about double the size of the rest, and standing out in the margin by itself. The lines in our translation could not, of course, be made as nearly of the same length as in the Greek, where the letters are often written smaller at the end of a line, and in less ancient documents than these are compressed in shape. Speaking generally, the cha- racters in Codex B are somewhat less in size than those of Codex A, considerably smaller than those in Cod. ^s, though they all vary a little in this respect in different parts. Finally, the Sinaitic manuscript is written with four columns on a page (p. 17), each rather more than two inches broad, with from 12 to 14 letters in each. Although the Vatican manuscript has but three columns on a page (p. 27), yet the volume being somewhat smaller, the breadth of each column is about the same as those of its rival, though the letters vary from 16 to 18. The columns of Codex Alexan- drinus are but two on a page, and, having an average breadth of 3J inches, allow room for twenty letters and upwards in each. The attempt to keep up a resem- blance to the style of the old writing on papyrus (p. 16) was by this time given over^: in fact the poetical books of the Old Testament are necessarily arranged in pages of two columns even in Codices B and K. 1 Tiie Utrecht Latin Psalter, wliicli contains the Athanasian Creed, •and has been assigned by some to the sixth, by others to the ninth or tenth century, is also written in three columns, but bears marks of having been transcribed from an archetype which had but two eoUnnns on a page. It would seem probable indeed that the three- column an-angement is less a presumption of great antiquity in Latin manuscripts than in Greek. LECTUEE III. THE PRINCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT: — Continued. The next great manuscript of the Holy Bible wliich calls for our attention is the Codex of Ephraem, or Codex C of our critical notation, now No. 9 in the Greek department of the National Library at Paris, having been brought into France from Florence, to- gether with several other copies of less value, by Queen Catharine de' Medici, of evil memory. It was imported from the East by Andrew John Lascar, a learned Greek patronised by Lorenzo de' Medici, and for a while belonged to Cardinal Nicolas Eidolphi of the same illustrious house. This document is a palimpsest, such as has been described to you before (pp. 17, 18), and the primitive writing (which dates from the fifth century) being first washed out as far as might be, the vellum received in about the twelfth century some Greek works of the celebrated Syrian Father S. Ephraem, from which it derives its distinctive name. The portions of the Old Testament in the Septuagint version which yet survive cover only G4 leaves. Far more precious are 145 leaves of fragments of every part of the New Testament, although more than one- PRINCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS : CONTINUED, 61 third of the volume has utterly perished, comprising some 37 chapters of the Gospels, 10 of the Acts, 42 of the Epistles (2 John and 2 Thessalonians are entirely lost), and 8 of the Apocalypse. Even of what remains much the greater part is barely legible under the modern writing. I had this document chiefly in view, though the remark would apply to at least one other, when I complained of attempts to revive the nearly ob- literated characters by means of chemical washes (p. 18). Fleck tried the experiment on it in 1834, and has defaced it with dark stains of various colours, from green or blue to brown or black. The older writing was first noticed by Peter Allix two centuries ago ; various readings extracted from it were communicated by Boivin to Kuster, who published them in 1710 in his edition of Mill's Greek Testament. As their high value was readily perceived by our great Bentley, he employed Wetstein, then young in spirit and in eye-sight, to collate the New Testament fully in 1710. To Wetstein's manuscript report now pre- served with Bentley's other books in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, is affixed in the Master's hand-writing the grumbling note, "this collation cost me £50." It might very well have done so and yet have been worth the money, since it often takes two hours or more to read a single page. Complete editions of the New Testament from this manuscript in 1843, of the Old in 1845, were among the earliest and best of Tischendorf 's labours, and leave biblical scholars not much more to desire in regard to it. From the four-column arrangement of Codex Sinai- ticus, the three columns of Codex Vaticanus, and the 02 TUE PRINCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS OF THE two of Codex Alexandrinus, we come to the single column in a page of the Codex Ephraem, which, with but few exceptions, was the fashion adopted in Greek Biblical manuscripts in later times, save that Leciion- aries or Church lesson-books were mostly written in two columns down to the period that printing was invented. In shape Codex C is about the same size as Cod. A, but the vellum, though sufficiently good, is hardly so fine as that of its predecessors. The characters too are a little larger than those of B or A, and somewhat more elaborate, the latter circumstance always being a token of someAvhat lower date. Our facsimile (No. 5) is chosen from another famous passage to which we must return by and by, being portions of 1 Timothy iii. 15, 16. The writing in dark ink and double columns in the cursive or running hand belongs to Ephraem's treatise, and affects us nothing. undofthetruth: Andconfessedlygreatistheofgodlinessmy stery- wasmanifestedinfleshjustifiedinsp We have left a vacant space in the third line where the primitive reading is quite uncertain: the word of two letters may either have been WHO (OC) or GD i. e. GOD (@C), the difference in sense being evidently a considerable one. Here again we observe the capital letter in the margin, as in Cod. A, and two middle stops in the last line : the double stop before the para- graph break in the first line may be of later date, as the Greek breathings and accents certainly are. The stranffe marks under SC in the Greek compose a Pl.TI, ^OKICAHClAW 6c:y © s|^ J J f \^„. J, ' _- jce9eKe no/MetvieiN e c c /,es I xcn nrHn eic icam cian 6 OCX) I M I ^oyicy (10) yZxsriL^^ir6i\-^^^^f^ojifr^\)\ui .\in^TroLf-TiTir^K4T>iyilJ-«r^XouuTrpocr^rv^li6|P|ftjoo-Tt c:«w^«.j^»<^^'^9-r«^<y>i'- C'Wf^.r'^^'^*'*^*;'-**"'- -^ »r«.A^' GREEK TESTAMENT : CONTINUED. 63 musical n-^te, inserted by some one who understood the word to be GD. Codex C should be regarded as slightly junior to Codex A, and may be referred to the first half of the fifth century. An ancient reviser, who went through the manuscript about a hundred years after it was written, has preserved readings which ar^ sometimes hardly inferior to those of the first hand, but two or three later correctors deserve little con- sideration for their labours. Here asjain, as in Cod. A, there are no traces of chapter divisions in the Acts, Epistles, or Apocalypse ; but titles (p. 53), or tables of the contents of the larger Greek chapters are j^refixed to the several Gospels, the Ammonian sections being set in the margin without the Eusebian canons, which latter, being usually written in vermilion paint, may have been washed out by the rough process to which this palimpsest has been subjected. The critical value of Cod. C, where its evidence is to be had, is very highly prized. It stands in respect of text about midway between A and B, and is evidently quite independent of both, to an extent which could not be asserted of Cod. ^^ in reference to B ; so that the support, whether of A or C, or better still, of the two united, lends an authority to the readings of B, which it is not easy to gainsay or set aside, / Codex Bez^ or Cod. Codex Bezae has been twice edited ; in 1793 by Thomas Kipling, afterwards Dean of Peterborough, in two folio volumes and in type imitating the style of the primi- tive writing, in 1864 by myself in a less costly, but not, I hope, a less useful form. The manuscript is now splendidly bound and forms a quarto of 406 original and nine later vellum leaves : about 128 leaves have been lost, containing portions of the Gospels of S. Matthew and S. John, and no inconsiderable part of the Acts of the Apostles, some of the missing passages being supplied on the more recent leaves in a hand more modern by at least 300 years. A Latin fragment of the third epistle of S. John, from ver. 11 to the end, stands on the first page of a leaf on the reverse of which the Acts commence, so that the Catholic Epistles or some of them must have preceded that book when the Codex was yet perfect. The order also in which the Gospels stand is uncommon, though not unexampled in the West, those of the two apostles S. Matthew and S. John taking precedence of the writings of the Apostolic men S. Luke and S. Mark. Three of the best codices of the Old Latin versions exhibit the same arrangement, to us a very strange one, — Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. In Codex Bezoe, as our facsimile (No. 6) will shew, ToVToNQYMP'-^«>f^o^expocAe£ei>V"rtoJHV- j<e oYTocAcT I AereiAYTCDOJHc eAHAYTor>» ©eA<J3 Mer-ie I^4 oy Tcoc ecDcepAOMAiTinpocce cyMoiAKoAoyeei PI. III. hxjM cej i^Qoxi 1 d e m jjeTjj.tJj' d i c it Ad^Thcn dmehi cAXJTecnquid- diciTiUnHs ^»euor»>jolo5iccnAKjejL6 <JS3^Gc lucnxjefNi I o cjui dAdTeTucne^yes uejte OYKA.CXHM OMei pYXMTeiTXeAYTHC oynApoXYNerAi OYAori'zeTAlTOKAKON o^ X A I r e re n IT H X Ai K I A e> RXAipeiAeTHAAHoVA (7) MOMXmblTl OSX65T MONqXJAGRVTquxesuxsUMT MO KI 7 KIUl T\n u T?. KJ o Ki CO y 1 TXT mxl u m KiO KJCXudeTsupe ri ki iqu i TXTem cowou deTXTjTecnxjeRi-rvTi GREEK TESTAMEXT: COXTIXUED. 65 the Greek text stands on the left page of each open leaf, the Latin translation on the right, opposite to it, and corresponding with it line for line ; the whole being distributed into paetrical lines of not very un- equal length, which in the venerable archetype from which it was derived doubtless suited the sense closer than it does at present. There are thirty-three such lines on every page, that in our specimen 'being taken from John xxi. 21, 22. HIMTHEREFORESEEINGPETERSAITHTOJS- LDANDTHISMANWHATSAITHTOHIMIS IFIWISHHIMTOREMAINTHUS TILLICOMEWHATTOTHEE FOLLOWTHOUME The insertion of THUS in the third line enables us to trace a little of the history of this remarkable manuscript before it fell into Beza's hands. William a Prato, Bishop of Clermont in the Auvergne, is known to have produced to the Council of Trent in 1546* "a very ancient Greek codex," which confirmed the reading of the Latin Yulgate " Thus I wish" instead of " If I wish." Since Cod. D is the only known Greek which even seems to do so (as it reads both "if" and "thus" with some other Latin authorities), the inference is a natural one that a Prato had brought it to Trent from his own country. In or about the same year 154G, Henry Stephens collated what cannot but be the self-same copy " in Italy," for the use of his father Robert Stephens' celebrated Greek Testament of 1550. All else we know about the book is told by Beza in his letter to the University of Cambridge which ac- companied his noble gift, and in an autograph note of S.L. 5 G6 THE PRINCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS OF THE his still to be seen in it, whose statements are 3^et more explicit. Hence we learn that he obtained this precious treasure from the monastery of S. Irenseus in Lyons, at the first breaking out of the French religious wars in 15G2 ; and since we learn from the annals of those miserable times that Lyons was sacked and the monastery desecrated by the Huguenots that very year, we need not'go far to conjecture how it came into the possession of Beza, who was serving as chaplain general of the Reformed army during that very campaign. He adds indeed that it had long lain there buried in the dust, which might be true enough in the main, for Beza is little likely to have heard of the loan made to the Bishop of the neighbouring Clermont sixteen years before. Nothing is more likely than that this most venerable document, a relic of the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century, was a native of the country in which it was found. The Latin version bespeaks its western origin ; its style and diction are exactly suitable to a province like Gaul, where the classical language was fast breaking up into the vernacular dialect from which the modern French derives its origin, to whose usage indeed a few of its words and phrases approximate in a manner which can- not well be accidental. For it will be observed that the Latin version of Cod. D has less affinity to the Vulgate than any other yet known. It seems to have been made either from the existing Greek text of the manuscript, or from a yet earlier form very closely alUed with it. But for the character of its parallel Latin trans- lation, the Codex Beza; might have been dated a little GREEK TESTAMENT: CONTINUED. C>7 earlier than we have ventured to place it. Its uncials are firm, simple, and elegant ; the punctuation consists mainly of a single point over against the middle of the letters ; the capitals are not much larger than the other letters, though they sometimes occur in the middle of a line, a practice we have not had to notice before. The text has none of the usual divisions into chapters or sections, but is distributed into paragraphs peculiar to this copy, indicated by the initial letters running slightly into the margin. In some parts this manu- script is quite fresh, the red ink especially being as bright as if it were new : in others it is barely legible. It has suffered many emendations by numerous hands, some of which have dealt with it very violently. The Ammonian sections v/ere placed in the margin by a scribe of about the ninth century. The chief interest attached to Codex Bezae arises from the very peculiar character of its Greek text, which departs much further from that of the common editions than does that of any other manuscript. No known copy contains so many bold and extensive in- terpolations, either absolutely unsupported, or counte- nanced only by some Old Latin manuscript or Syriac version. In the Acts of the Apostles we seem in many places to be reading a kind of running commentary on the narrative as given by other authorities, rather than S. Luke's history itself, and some of its additions are very interesting, from whatever source they were de- rived, though we must not venture to regard them as authentic. Such, for example, is the touching circum- stance preserved by Cod. D and the margin of a late Syriac version, and by these alone, that Simon Magus, 5—2 G8 THE PRIXCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS OF THE after liis earnest request for S. Peter's intercession that his sin might be forgiven him (Acts viii. 24), ceased not to shed many a bitter tear. But the most remarkable passage in this manuscript, in regard to which it stands quite alone, is that which follows Luke vi. 4, on the leaf which is usually kept open at Cambridge for the inspection of visitors. It runs thus : "On the same day he beheld a certain man work- ing on the sabbath, and said unto him, Man, blessed art thou if thou know^est what thou doest; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed and a transgressor of the law." I was present when this passage was shewn at Cambridge to a learned Greek Archimandrite, Philippos Schulati of Kustandje. He had never heard either of it or of the manuscript before, but after a moment's thought his comment was ready : " This cannot be : the Lord cursed no man." Codex Claromontanus, or Cod. D of S. Paul's /Epistles, now No. 107 in the National Library at Paris, bears a strange resemblance to Cod. D of the Gospels and Acts in regard to its country, its history, its date, genius, and general appearance. This copy also was brought to light by Beza, who first mentions it in 1582, the year after he had sent its fellow to Cam- bridge. He had obtained it, he says not how, at the other Clermont near Beauvais, and from him it passed into the hands of those distinguished scholars, Claude Dupuy, Councillor of Paris, and his sons Jacques and Pierre. Jacques, who was the king's librarian, sold it in 165G to Louis XIV, to form part of the great collec- tion which it still adorns. In 1707 John Aymont, an GREEK TESTAMENT : CONTINUED, G9 apostate priest, stole 35 of its 533 leaves, of the thinnest and finest vellum known to exist. One leaf, which he disposed of in Holland, ^vas restored in 1720 by its pos- sessor Stosch ; the rest were sold to the bibliomanist Harley, Earl of Oxford, Queen Anne's Lord Treasurer, but were sent back to Paris in 1729 by his son, who had learnt their shameful story. This noble volume, like the other Cod. D, is in two languages, the Greek and Latin being on different pages in parallel lines, the Greek on the left side of the open leaf. It contains all S. Paul's Epistles except a few missing leaves, that to the Hebrews standing last as in our modern Bibles, rather than as in Codd. ^5ABC (p. 27). Each page is covered with about 21 lines of uncial writing, the words being continuous both in Greek and Latin, the letters square, regular and beautiful, perhaps a little simpler than those in Codex Beza3. Our facsimile (No. 7) contains 1 Cor. xiii. 5, 6 : ISNOTUNSEEMLY SEEKETHNOTHEROWX ISNOTIRRITATED THINKETHNOTEVIL REJOICETHNOTINWRONG BUTREJOTCETHINTRUTH Here again, but more correctly and clearly than in Codex Beza3, we have an example of what is technically called stichometri/, that is, the division of prose sentences into lines of about equal length corresponding as nearly as possible to the sense. This elegant but artificial arrangement, though not unknown in the third and fourth centuries, ^vas first formally applied to S. Paul's 70 THE PRINCIPAL MANUSClllPTS OF THE writings by Euthalius the deacon, A. D. 458. The pre- cious fra<:jment Cod. H of S. Paul, once belonmn^: to Coislin, Bishop of Metz, and now also in the National Library at Paris, is similarly divided to Cod. In connection with the Codex Claromontanus we are bound to name another Greek and Latin copy. Codex Sangermanensis or Cod. E of S. Paul, if only to point out its utter uselessness. In the worst days ©f the first French Revolution the Abbey of S. Ger- main dcs Prez by Paris, which had been turned into a saltpetre manufactory, was burnt down, and many of its books were lost in the act of removal. Out of their number Cod. E and two leaves of Cod. H of S. Paul, which M'e just now referred to, have turned up, together with others, in the Imperial Library at St Petersburg, GREEK TESTAMENT: CONTINUED. 71 that common receptacle of literary property "wliicli has gone astray. AYe may wish the Russians joy of a purchase which is of no value to any one. Cod. E is a large volume, written in coarse uncial letters of about the tenth century, with breathings and accents by the first hand, the two lansfua^^es standinsf on the same page, but the Greek still on the left hand. In respect to the Greek column, it is demonstrably nothing but a servile transcript from Cod. D made by a very ignorant scribe after Cod. D had suffered its more violent correc- tions, which are incorporated with the text of Cod. E in- as blunderiug a fashion as can be conceived. The Latin too is derived from that of Cod. D, but is a little more mixed with the new or Vulgate Latin, and may be of some service in criticism, whereas the Greek cannot possibly be of any. Another manuscript in which the prose text of the Acts of the Apostles is broken up into stichometry was given to the Bodleian Library by its gTeat Chancellor and benefactor, Archbishop Laud. It is designated Cod. E of the Acts, which book alone it contains, though with a serious gap of the 73 verses between ch. xxvi. 29 and ch. xxviii. 26. This copy also is in Greek and Latin, or more properly in Latin and Greek, for here the two languages are found in parallel columns on the same page (not on different pages as in the two Codd. D), the Latin in the post of honour on the left, in which particular it is almost unique amon^ Biblical manuscripts. It was, therefore, manifestly written in the West of Europe. An edict of Flavins Pancratius, Duke of Sardinia, which with the Apostles' Creed in Latin is annexed to it, shews that it must have been 72 THE FRIXCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS OF TEE in that island not earlier than the sixth century. The very peculiar readings which he cites from it suffi- ciently prove that it was in the possession of our Vener- able Bede, who died A.D. 735, and the conjecture is a probable one that it is one of the Greek books brought from Kome to England A.D. C68 by our great Arch- bishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus, the fellow- countryman of S. Paul. The style of this manuscript shews that its date is somewhat lower than those we have yet considered (except of course the S. Germain's transcript of Codex Claromontanus), perhaps early in the seventh century or late in the sixth. The charac- ters are large and somewhat rude, the vellum thick and coarse, the 22G extant leaves have from 23 to 26 lines each, every line containing one or two words only, so that the stichometrical arrangement is rather one of name than of fact. Capital letters, running into the margin, occur after a break in the sense, but there are no formal paragraphs or indications of chapter divisions. Our facsimile (No. 8) comprises a portion of Acts XX. 28, with the same various reading as w^e noted above (p. 58) in Cod. A. TOFEED THECHURCH OFTHELE The Laudian manuscript (E) has been twice edited, by Thomas Hearne the antiquarian in 1715, by Tischen- dorf in 1870. Its text exhibits numberless rare and bold variations from that of ordinary copies, and in places is near akin to that of Cod. Bezse (D), but has a yet stronger affinity than the latter to the Greek GREEK TESTAMENT: CONTINUED. 73 margin of the later Syriac version. One cursive manu- script of the eleventh century in the Ambrosian Library at Milan (137 of Scholz's notation) resembles it so closely in the latter part of the Acts, that it may almost serve as a substitute for D or E, where either of them is mutilated. Cod. E is our earliest and chief Greek authority for the interesting verse Acts viii. 87, " And Phihp said, If thou believest from all thine heart, thou niayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." This verse is familiar to the Eno-lish reader from having^ been brouoht into the Received Greek text by its first editor Eras- mus, who frankly confesses that he found it not in his Greek copies, save in the margin of a single one. Hence its authenticity cannot be maintained, although Irenseus, who wrote in Gaul in the second century, recognised it without hesitation, as did Cyprian in the third century, Jerome and Augustine in the fourth. Many forms of the Latin version also contain the verse, which at any rate vouches for the undoubted practice of the early Church, of requiring a profession of faith, whether in person or by proxy, as ordinarily an essential preliminaiy to Baptism. Two other considerable Greek-Latin manuscripts, which contain S. Paul's Epistles, merit a brief and passing notice, although they are neither of them prior to the latter part of the ninth century ; namely, the Codex Augiensis (F), once Richard Bentley's, and bequeathed by his nephew to Trinity College, Cambridge, and the Codex Boernerianus (G) in the Royal Library at Dres- den. The former member of this pair I liad the pleasure of editing in 1859, the latter was published by the 74 THE PEIXCIPAL MAXUSCRIPTS OF THE great critic Matthaei as far back as 1791. Cod. Angi- ensis derives its name from tlie monastery of Augia Dives, Reiclienau, the rich meadow, on a fertile island in the lower part of tbe Lake of Constance, to which it long appertained, and where it may even have been written about a thousand years ago. The origin of Cod. Boernerianus (so named from a former owner, and Professor at Leipsic, C. F. Boerner) is yet better ascer- tained, inasmuch as wdiat is demonstrably the earlier portion of it, comprising the four Gospels, was disco- vered at the great monastery of S. Gall, and published in 183G by Rettig, being known as the very curious and weighty Cod. A {delta, p. 43) of the Gospels. On a leaf now at Dresden were found a stanza or two of Irish verse, doubtless written by one of the students of that nation who crowded to S. Gall in the middle ages, which, as translated by Dr Reeves, the eminent Celtic scholar, may suggest that his countrymen had hardly yet be- come the blind slaves of the Papal court that unhappy circumstances have made them since. To go to Eome, to go to Eome, Much trouble, little good, The King thou seekest there To find, thou must bring with thee. The connection between the Greek text as exhibited by Cod. F and that of Cod. G is of the most intimate character. That of Augia has all the defects of the sister copy and two peculiar to itself, since its first seven leaves are completely lost ; both break off at Philemon ver. 20, thus omitting the Epistle to the Hebrews, although Cod. F affixes the Vulgate Latin version of that letter, while Cod. G has at the end of GREEK TESTAMENT: CONTINUED. 75 Philemon the title "Here be^inneth the EjDistle to the Laodiceans," which, had it been preserved, would have been very interesting. Since the Epistle to the Colossians had already been given in its proper place, it could not have been that letter under another name. But the Greek text in both copies is chiefly to be noticed. On comparing Matthaei's edition of G with the original of F, I could count only 1982 places wherein they differ, whereof only 200 were true various readings, the rest being mere blunders of the respective scribes, slips of the pen, or interchanges of vowels by reason of itacisms (pp. 39, 41). This affinity between the two has but one parallel, and that a less complete one, in this branch of literature, for Cod. E of S. Paul is only an unskilful transcript of Cod. D after it had suffered ex- tensive corrections (p. 71). The truth is, that they were both taken from the same archetype by scribes who were miserably ignorant of Greek, and in that archetype the words must have been written continuously as in Codd. NABC, the two Codd. D, and E of the Acts. But a habit had long been growing which in the ninth century be- came confirmed, of setting a space between the words, and to this habit the scribes of both copies wished to conform, and even put a single point or stop at the end of each word {see p. 20), as if to shew that the practice was not yet familiar. Now the thing to be noticed is this; while in their almost complete darkness as to the meaning of the Greek they both made most ludicrous errors in the process of separating the words, the blun- ders of the one are by no means identical Avith those of the other, though just as gross and absurd. Hence it 7G THE PRINCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS OF THE follows tliat both F and G were transcribed separately from the same older codex, and, except in the places where they differ from 'each other, must be regarded not as two witnesses but one. The text thus pre- served is both ancient and valuable, marked by many peculiarities of its own, and not to be rejected, if re- jected at all, without much thought and some hesi- tation. In respect to their Latin versions the two are quite independent. Cod. F has a pure form of the Latin Vulgate, as current at the period, in parallel columns on the same page with the Greek, but so arranged that the two Latin should alw^ays stand in the outward columns of each open leaf, the two Greek inside, and next to each other. In Cod. G the Latin is of an older type, set over the Greek and much conformed to it. Cod. G also preserves, by mexins of capital letters in the middle of the lines, the stichometrical arrange- ment of the archetyi^e from which it was taken. It would be too much to tire your patience by de- scribing other uncial manuscripts of lower date and less eminent merit. For their age, history, and character- istics I must be content to refer you to works which have been specially devoted to the subject, among which the second edition of my *' Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament," whatever be its other merits, is at least the most recent. Suffice it to say that the palimpsest fragments (p. 17) Codd. P and Q at Wolf- enbiittel, Cod. R (Nitriensis, see p. 90) of S. Luke in the British Museum, Cod. Z of S. Matthew at Trinity College, Dublin, must be assigned to the sixth century, or the opening of the seventh, and, so far as they carry GREEK TESTAMENT: COSTINUED. 77 us, are only less weighty than Codd. KABCD. But the coryphjBus of these lesser authorities, though not earlier than the eighth century, is Codex L, or No. 62 in the National Library at Paris, of which we have had occasion to speak in connection with Codex B (pp. 42, 43, 49). In number the uncials amount to fifty-six in the Gospels, far the greater part of which are fragments, and many of them inconsiderable fragments ; in the Acts and Catholic Epistles to six ; in the Pauline Epistles to fifteen, chiefly fragments ; in the Apocalypse to only five ; to eighty-two in all. "We do not here include Church lesson-books or Lectionaries, of which about sixty-eight survive in uncial characters ; inasmuch as this style of writing, which became obsolete in other books towards the end of the ninth century, was in volumes used for reading^ in Churches, for motives of obvious convenience, kept up about two hundred years longer. I have just said that much of our elder and uncial writing is merely fragmentary. This arises in part from the nature of the case. A few leaves, or per- haps a single leaf, of precious Biblical vellum, had been barbarously mangled to make up the binding of some comparatively modern book. Thus a portion of the beautiful Codex Ruber or Cod. M of S. Paul has been made up into fly-leaves for a volume of small value in comparison, among the Harleian manuscrijots in the British Museum : Griesbach identified it at a glance as belonging to a fragment at Hamburg, by the exquisite semicursive writing and the bright red ink. Again, that interesting leaf of S. Mark's Gospel (W*^) which is now arranged on glass at Trinity College, Cambridge, consists 78 TILE FRINCIPAL MANUSCRIPTS OF THE of 27 several shreds, picked out of the binding of a vokime of Gregory Nazianzen in 1862 by the University Librarian, Mr Bradshaw. Too often, however, the scat- tering of various parts of the same manuscript is the Avork of mere fraud or greed. Of Avhat was once a very fine copy of the Gospels written late in the sixth cen- tury on thin purple-dyed vellum in letters of silver and gold, four leaves are among the Cotton manuscripts in the British Museum, six are in the Vatican, two in the Imperial Library at Vienna. Thirty-three more leaves of the self-same codex (known as N of the Gospels) have lately been discovered at the monastery of S. John at Patmos, whence the other twelve were no doubt stolen, then divided for the purpose of getting a higher price for them from three several purchasers than from one. One would be sorry indeed to utter a word of disparagement about a person who has done so much for Biblical learning as Tischendorf, yet it is hard to acquit him of blame for having dispersed needlessly the several portions of certain documents he has brought to liofht. The case of Codex Sinaiticus seems to have admitted of no alternative. He was glad to get posses- sion of its separate parts when and how he could. Yet the effect abides, that the 43 leaves wliich go by the name of the Codex Friderico-Augustanus (p. 32) are now at Leipsic, the remainder of the manuscript at St Petersburg, But it is hard to account in this way for his procedure in another matter. In 1855 he sold to the University of Oxford for the Bodleian, at a good price, two uncial codices of some importance, probably written in the ninth century, and each containing about half of the Gospels. Tliey are known as Codd. T {(/amma) and A GREEK TESTAMENT: CONTINUED. 79 (lambda), and were stated by him to have been found in some eastern monastery — he is in the habit of describ- ing in this general Avay the original locality of treasures which he met with on his various journeys. Four years later, on his return from the expedition during which he lighted on Codex Sinai ticus, he took to St Petersburg the remaining half of each of these documents, which are thus separated from their other portions by the breadth of Europe, and that without giving Oxford a chance of acquiring the whole, so far at least as w^e are aware. Without doubt the course wdiich Tischendorf adopted was the more advantageous to liimself, but to the Biblical student it is vexatiously inconvenient. Little can here be said about manuscripts written in the cursive or running hand, which style from the tenth century downwards (p. 20) was almost exclusively employed in copying manuscripts of the New Testa- ment. They are very numerous — sixteen hundred at least having been entered in formal Catalogues, whereof hardly a hundred have been collated or even examined as they ought — but they will not enter largely into discussion when we come to apply our materials to the solution of critical difficulties. A very brief account of a few of them is all we shall find time for. As the uncials are designated by letters of the alphabet, so are the cursives for the most part by the Arabic numerals. Cod. 1 contains the Gospels, Acts, and all the Epistles, written in an elegant and minute hand, and on account of certain beautiful miniatures which have now been abstracted from it was assigned to the tenth century: the handwriting might lead us to think that it is a little more recent. Our facsimile (No. 0, Plate 1) represents 80 THE PIUXCIPAL MAXUSCBIPTS OF THE the title and first words of S. Luke's Gospel, and tlie graceful illuminations are set off by bright colours and gilding. It is deposited in the Public Library of Basle, in which city it was used, only too slightly, by Erasmus, when he was preparing the first published edition of the Greek New Testament, 1516. The Apocalypse, or Book of the Revelation, is not often contained in the same volume as the Gospels ; so that Cod. 1 of the Apocalypse is quite a different manu- script, of less value and antiquity, and being the only one to which Erasmus had access when forming his Greek text, its manifold errors and its defect in the six concluding verses rendered his text of this book the least satisfactory portion of his great work. This Cod. 1 then belonged to John Beuchlin (or Capnio, as he was called, after the fanciful humour of his times), the famous scholar whose death in 1522 was bewailed by his loving friend Erasmus in one of the most exquisite of his Colloquies. It was subsequently lost, but was happily re-discovered by Professor Delitzsch in 1861, in the library of the Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein, to the great gain of sacred literature. Cod. 33 of the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, although much less beautiful than the Basle Cod. 1, is in respect of its contents far more valuable. For its store of excellent various readings, and its textual resemblance to the most venerable uncials, it has been justly styled " Queen of the cursives." It once belonged to the great French minister Colbert, and is now in the National Library at Paris, No. 14. It is written in a fine round hand of the eleventli century, ^\\i\\ 52 long lines on each page {nee facsimile No. 10, Luke i. 8 — 11), but has GREEK TESTAMENT: CONTINUED. 81 been shamefully misused in former times. By reason of the damp, the ink has in many places left its proper page blank, so that, to the dismay of Tregelles, who persistently collated it anew in 1850, the writing can only be read as set off on the opposite page. The next copy we shall speak of, Cod. 69 of the Gospels, is one of the comparatively few cursives — some twenty-five in all — which embrace the whole New Testament, although with numerous defects. It is a folio volume, peculiar for having been written, apparently with a reed, on inferior vellum and coarse paper, arranged in the proportion of two parchment to three paper leaves, recurring at regular intervals : the handwriting is a wretched scrawl, always tiresome and sometimes difficult to decipher. Our facsimile (No. 11) contains 1 Tim. iii. 15 — 16, selected for the sake of a reading to which we have previously made reference, and shall have occasion to speak more about hereafter. Its wide variations from the Received text have drawn much attention to this document, which was presented to the Town Council of Leicester in 1640 by a neigh- bouring clergyman, Thomas Hayne. Its present owners allowed both Tregelles and myself to take it home with us for the laborious task of complete collation, but it is ordinarily kept with reverent care in the Town Library by those who take an honest pride in their treasure. A few years since some friends of mine were in- specting it with strangers' curiosity, while the old lady appointed to exhibit it expatiated loudly on its merits. 