V. THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON.

13. The author of this book personages Solomon, and speaks in his name, Solomon being to the ancient Jews the representative of all wisdom. Keil gives the summary of its contents in three divisions, as follows; (1.) "The book begins with a forcible exhortation to the rulers of the earth to strive after wisdom as the fountain of righteousness and the guide to immortality and happiness. With this it connects a warning against the folly of unbelieving men who rebel against the law, oppress the righteous, and thus bring upon themselves just punishment, distraction, and everlasting shame. Chaps. 1-6. (2.) After the example of King Solomon, who is introduced as speaking, the way to obtain wisdom is next pointed out, and she is described in her nature as the spirit that formed and sustains the world, and is the author of all that is good, true, and great. Chaps. 7-9. (3.) Then follows a long historical discourse (interrupted in chaps. 13-15 by a copious discussion concerning the origin and nature of idolatry), in which the blessed effects of wisdom and the fear of God, and the unhappy consequences that come from the folly of idolatry are illustrated by the opposite fortunes of the righteous and the wicked of past ages, especially of the people of God as contrasted with the idolatrous Canaanites and Egyptians." The different parts of the book constitute a well connected whole.

14. The book was originally composed in Greek by an Alexandrine Jew, who is generally placed by biblical scholars somewhere in the second century before Christ. Though possessing no canonical authority, it is very interesting and valuable for the view which it gives of the progress of Jewish thought in both religion and philosophy. This writer is the first who expressly identifies the serpent that deceived Eve with the devil: "Through envy of the devil came death into the world." Chap. 2:24. He teaches also the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and of a future judgment. In a passage of great beauty he personifies Wisdom, after the example of the book of Proverbs, as the worker of all things, and the teacher and guide, of men. "She is the breath of the power of God, and a pure efflux from the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled can find entrance into her. For she is the effulgence of the everlasting light, and the unspotted mirror of the divine might, and the image of his goodness. And being but one she can do all things; and remaining in herself [unchanged] she makes all things new. From age to age entering into holy souls, she makes them friends of God and prophets." Chap. 7:25-27. But along with this true development of doctrine on the basis of the Old Testament he holds the unscriptural doctrine of the preexistence of souls (chap. 8:20), whether borrowed from the Platonists, or taken from some other source. Some have thought that he also holds matter to be eternal. But when he speaks of God's almighty hand as having "created the world out of formless matter" (chap. 11:17), he may have reference simply to the chaotic state described in Gen. 1:2.

Jerome left the Latin translation of this book unrevised. The text, therefore, of our Latin Bibles is that of the "Old Latin" version, as it existed before his day.

VI. ECCLESIASTICUS.

15. The Greek title of this book is, The Wisdom of Jesus the son of Sirach, or more briefly: The Wisdom of Sirach. The Latin title, Ecclesiasticus, that is, Ecclesiastical book, designates it as a book that was read for edification in the churches, though not included in the Hebrew canon. We give, mainly from Keil, the summary of its contents: This copious book is rich in its contents, embracing the whole domain of practical wisdom, and, what is inseparable from this, the fear of God. These virtues it describes, commends, and inculcates according to their origin and nature, their characteristics and results, and their realization in life, in a rich collection of proverbs, with rules and counsels for the regulation of life in all its manifold relations. The whole is after the manner of the Proverbs of Solomon, only with much greater particularity of details, extending to all the spheres of religious, civil, and domestic life, and giving rules of conduct for the regulation of the same. This collection of wise maxims, moral precepts, and rules of life constitutes a united whole, in which the particular proverbs, counsels, and warnings are strung together in accordance with an association of ideas that is often quite loose. Interwoven with these are a number of connected discussions and prayers. The author closes his instructions with two extended discourses, in the former of which he celebrates the works of God in creation (chaps. 42:15-43:33); in the latter, the praises of the famous men of Scripture from Enoch to Simon the high priest, the son of Onias (chaps. 44-50). He then adds in the final chapter a thanksgiving and prayer (chap. 51). This book, like that of Wisdom, is of great value for the insight which it gives into the theology and ethics of the Jews at the time of its composition.

16. It is undoubtedly genuine, having been written in Hebrew by the man whose name it bears, and translated into Greek in Egypt by his grandson, as stated in the prologue. But the age of the translator, and consequently of the author, is a matter of dispute. The last of the worthies described by him is "Simon, the son of Onias, the high priest." There were two high priests of this name, both sons of Onias, but the author's eulogy is applicable only to the former, who flourished about 310-290 B.C. It is a natural inference that Jesus, the son of Sirach, wrote not many years afterwards. The translator, again, speaks of himself as coming into Egypt "in the eight and thirtieth year, when Euergetes was king." Does he mean the eight and thirtieth year of his own life, or of Euergetes' reign? If the latter, then of the two kings that bore the surname Euergetes the latter only (B.C. 170-117) can be understood, since the former reigned only twenty-five years. If the former, as is most probable, then we naturally understand Euergetes I., who reigned B.C. 217-222, during which period the translation must have been executed.

The Greek text, as exhibited in manuscripts, is in a very corrupt and confused state, with many variations and transpositions. The Latin text is that of the "Old Latin," which Jerome left, as he did that of the book of Wisdom, without revision.

VII. BARUCH AND THE EPISTLE OF JEREMIAH.

17. This is the only apocryphal book which assumes the character of prophecy. It is formed after the model of Jeremiah, and ascribed to Baruch his friend. But its spuriousness is generally admitted. Besides historical inaccuracies, such as are not conceivable in the case of Baruch, the fact that its author employed the Septuagint translation of Jeremiah and Daniel mark it as of a later date. Keil assigns it to about the middle of the second century B.C. The book professes to be a letter written by Baruch in the name of the captive Jews in Babylon to their brethren at Jerusalem, and consists of two well-marked divisions, the first of which, extending to chap. 3:8, is, in the opinion of some, a translation from an original Hebrew document. This part contains, after an introductory notice, a confession of sin with prayer for deliverance. The second part begins with an address to the covenant people, in which they are rebuked for neglecting the teachings of divine wisdom, and encouraged with the hope of returning prosperity when they shall obey her voice. Chaps. 3:9-4:8. Zion is then introduced lamenting over the desolations which God has brought upon her and her children (chap. 4:9-4:29), and afterwards comforting them with the hope of certain deliverance and enlargement (chaps. 4:30-5:9). It is generally agreed that the second part was originally written in Greek, and some think that the same is true of the first part also.

18. There is another Epistle of Baruch preserved to us in the Syriac, which is inserted in the London and Paris Polyglotts. It is addressed to the nine and a half tribes, and "made up of commonplaces of warning, encouragement, and exhortation." Smith's Bib. Dict., Art. Baruch.

19. There is a spurious Epistle of Jeremiah which appears in the Vulgate and our English version as the sixth chapter of Baruch. It is entitled: "Copy of an epistle which Jeremiah sent to those who were to be led captives into Babylon by the king of the Babylonians to make announcement to them, as it was commanded him by God." It purports to be a warning to these captives against the idolatrous practices which they shall witness in Babylon, and is made up of a long discourse on the impotence of the idols which the heathen worship, written in a rhetorical style, in imitation of Jer. 10:1-16. Its author is supposed to have been a Hellenistic Jew who lived towards the end of the Maccabean period.

VIII. ADDITIONS TO THE BOOK OF DANIEL.

20. The Greek version of the book of Daniel, besides many departures from the Hebrew and Chaldee original, contains three large additions. The first of these is: The Prayer of Azarias, and the Song of the Three Children in the Fiery Furnace, which is appended to the third chapter. The second is: The History of Susanna, who is exhibited as a pattern of chastity, and was delivered from the machinations of her enemies through the wisdom of Daniel. This is placed sometimes before the first chapter of Daniel, and sometimes after chapter 12. The third addition is: The Story of Bel and the Dragon, which stands at the end of the book, and is falsely ascribed in the Septuagint to the prophet Habakkuk. Its design is to show the folly of idolatry. According to Keil, these three pieces were composed in Egypt towards the end of the third, or the beginning of the second century before Christ.

IX. THE PRAYER OF MANASSES.

21. A genuine prayer of Manasseh, king of Judah, existed at the time when the books of Chronicles were composed. 2 Chron. 33:18, 19. But the existing prayer of the Apocrypha, though upon the whole beautiful and appropriate, cannot claim to be a true representative of that prayer. "The author," says Keil, "was a pious Jew who lived at all events before Christ, though his age cannot be more accurately determined."

X. THE BOOKS OF THE MACCABEES.

22. These are five in number. The first two passed from the Greek into the early Latin versions, and thence into the Vulgate and the English versions, and were received as canonical by the Council of Trent. Two others are found in some manuscripts of the Septuagint. The fifth exists only in Arabic. "If the historic order were observed, the so-called third book would come first, the fourth would be an appendix to the second, which would retain its place, and the first would come last; but it will be more convenient to examine the books in the order in which they are found in the MSS., which was probably decided by some vague tradition of their relative antiquity." Smith's Bible Dict., Art. Maccabees. The name Maccabees is applied to the family and posterity of the illustrious Jewish priest Mattathias, who maintained a long and successful struggle with the Syrian kings, and finally succeeded in establishing for a period the independence of the Jews. The origin of the term has been variously explained; but the most common account of it is, that it comes from a Hebrew word signifying hammer, so that the adjective Maccabee (Greek [Greek: Makkabaios]) will denote Hammerer. According to Josephus (Antiq. 12, 6, 1) Mattathias was descended from one Asmonaeus: Hence the family of the Maccabees are also called Asmoneans.

23. The first book of the Maccabees. This is one of the most important of all the apocryphal books. It contains a narrative of the long and bloody struggle of the Jews, under their Maccabean leaders, for the preservation of their religion, and the deliverance of the nation from the yoke of their Syrian oppressors. The history bears the internal marks of authenticity and credibility, being distinguished by simplicity and candor. It is only when speaking of foreign nations that the writer falls into some inaccuracies. These do not detract from his trustworthiness in relating the affairs of his own nation through a period of forty years of the most eventful character (B.C. 175-135). The book is pervaded throughout by the Jewish spirit, and must have been written by a Palestinian Jew. Its date is uncertain, but may probably be placed somewhere during the government of the high priest John Hyrcanus (B.C. 135-106). According to the testimony of Origen, the book was originally written in Hebrew. With this agrees its internal character; for the Greek version of it contains many Hebraisms, as well as difficulties which are readily accounted for upon the supposition of a Hebrew original.

21. The second book of Maccabees. This book opens with two letters purporting to have been written by the Jews of Palestine to their brethren in Egypt, in which the former invite the latter to join with them in the celebration of "the feast of tabernacles in the month Caslen," that is, the feast of dedication established to commemorate the purification of the temple after its pollution by Antiochus Epiphanes. To the latter of these is appended an epitome of the five books of Jason of Cyrene, containing the history of the Maccabean struggle, beginning with Heliodorus' attempt to plunder the temple, about B.C. 180, and ending with the victory of Judas Maccabeus over Nicanor, B.C. 161. Both of the letters are regarded as spurious. The second of them abounds in marvellous legends—how, upon the destruction of the first temple, the sacred fire of the altar was hid in a hollow pit without water; how, at the close of the captivity, it was found in the form of thick water, which being by the command of Nehemiah sprinkled on the wood of the altar and the sacrifices, there was kindled, when the sun shone upon it, a great fire, so that all men marvelled; how Jeremiah, at God's command, carried the tabernacle, the ark, and the altar of incense to the mountain "which Moses ascended and saw the heritage of God," that is, mount Nebo (Deut. 34:1), and hid them there in a hollow cave, where they are to remain until the time that God shall gather his people together again, and be gracious to them.

The epitome of Jason's history begins some five years earlier than the history contained in the first book, and covers a period of about nineteen years; so that it is partly anterior to that history, partly supplementary, and partly parallel. Alexander's Kitto, Art. Maccabees. The two books are entirely independent in their sources of information; and although the second cannot lay claim to the same degree of trustworthiness as the first, yet the general judgment of biblical scholars is that it is, in its main facts, authentic. But these are set forth with embellishments and exaggerations, in which the author manifests his love for the marvellous. Where the history of the two books is parallel, it agrees in its general outlines, but the details are almost always different, and sometimes they present irreconcilable discrepancies. In its religious aspect this book is very interesting. In the account of the martyrdom of a mother and her seven sons for their refusal to eat swine's flesh (chap. 7) the doctrine of the resurrection is plainly announced: "It is a thing to be desired," says the fourth son to the king Antiochus, "that one being put to death by men should wait for the hope of God that he shall be again raised up by him; but for thee there is no resurrection unto life" (v. 14). Where Jason composed his work cannot be determined. He cannot have lived long after the events which he describes, else he would have taken notice of the important events that followed. The author of the epitome contained in this book is believed to have been a Hellenistic Jew living in Palestine, who probably wrote in the first century before Christ.

25. The third book of Maccabees. This book does not belong to the Maccabean age, but to the earlier time of Ptolemy Philopator (B.C. 221-204). Its title seems to have come simply from the similarity of its contents. It relates in a pompous and oratorical style how Ptolemy Philopator, being enraged at his failure to enter the sanctuary at Jerusalem, determined to wreak his vengeance on the Jews in Egypt, and assembled them for this purpose in the circus, that they might be trampled under foot by drunken elephants, but was hindered by the miraculous interposition of God; whereupon the king liberated the Jews, prepared for them a sumptuous feast, and gave them permission to take vengeance on their apostate countrymen. The narrative probably has a groundwork of truth with legendary embellishments, after the manner of the later Jews. Its author is believed to have been an Alexandrine Jew, but his age cannot be determined. It was never admitted into the Romish canon.

26. The fourth book of Maccabees opens with a philosophical discussion respecting the supremacy of devout reason over the passions, which is then illustrated by the history of the martyrdom of Eleazar and the mother with her seven sons, an account of which we have in 2 Macc., chaps. 6 and 7. The author of this book was a Jew imbued with the spirit of the stoical philosophy. It has been falsely ascribed to Josephus.

27. The fifth book of Maccabees exists only in Arabic. We draw our notice of it from Alexander's Kitto, according to which "it contains the history of the Jews from Heliodorus' attempt to plunder the treasury at Jerusalem till the time when Herod revelled in the noblest blood of the Jews;" that is, from 184-86 B.C., thus embracing a period of 98 years. The book is a compilation made in Hebrew, by a Jew who lived after the destruction of Jerusalem, from ancient Hebrew memoirs or chronicles, which were written shortly after the events transpired. In the absence of the original Hebrew, the Arabic versions of it, printed in the Paris and London Polyglotts, give the text upon which we must rely.



PART III.

INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT.

FIRST DIVISION, GENERAL INTRODUCTION.



CHAPTER XXIV.

LANGUAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

1. In the character of the original languages of the Bible, as in every thing else pertaining to the plan of redemption, God's hand is to be reverently acknowledged. It was not by chance, but through the provident care of Him who sees the end from the beginning, that the writers of the Old Testament found the Hebrew, and those of the New Testament the Greek language ready at hand, each of them so singularly adapted to the high office assigned to it. The stately majesty, the noble simplicity, and the graphic vividness of the Hebrew fitted it admirably for the historical portions of the Old Testament, in which, under the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the direct intuition of God's purposes and of the deep springs of human action superseded the necessity of philosophical argument and deduction. The historians of the Old Testament did not pause to argue concerning their statements of men's motives and God's designs. They saw both with wonderful clearness of vision; and they found in the simplicity and directness of the Hebrew syntax, so far removed from all that is involved and complex, a suitable vehicle for their simple and direct statements of truth. How congenial the Hebrew language is to poetic composition, as well in its rugged and sublime forms as in its tender and pathetic strains, every reader of the Old Testament in the original understands. The soul is not more at home in the body than is sacred poetry in the language of the covenant people. As the living spirit of the cherubim animated and directed the wheels of the chariot in Ezekiel's vision, so does the spirit of inspired poesy animate and direct the words and sentences of the Hebrew language: "When the cherubim went, the wheels went by them; and when the cherubim lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the same wheels also turned not from beside them. When they stood, these stood; and when they were lifted up, these lifted up themselves also: for the spirit of the living creatures was in them." Ezek. 10:16, 17. The same characteristics fitted the Hebrew language most perfectly for prophetic vision, in which the poetic element so largely prevails.

2. Turning now from the Hebrew of the Old Testament to the Greek of the New, we have a language very different in its structure; elaborate in its inflections and syntax, delicate and subtle in its distinctions, rich in its vocabulary, highly cultivated in every department of writing, and flexible in an eminent degree; being thus equally adapted to every variety of style—plain unadorned narrative, impassioned oratory, poetry of every form, philosophical discussion, and severe logical reasoning: in a word, a language every way fitted to the wants of the gospel, which is given not for the infancy of the world but for its mature age, and which deals not so much with the details of particulars as with great principles, which require for their full comprehension the capacity of abstraction and generalization. In the historical records of the Old Testament, and in its poetic and prophetic parts, the Hebrew language was altogether at home. But for such compositions as the epistle to the Romans the Greek offered a more perfect medium; and here, as everywhere else God's providence took care that the founders of the Christian church should be furnished in the most complete manner.

3. We find, accordingly, that centuries before our Lord's advent, preparation began to be made in the providence of God for this change in the language of the inspired writings. One result of the Babylonish captivity was that Hebrew ceased to be the vernacular of the masses of the people, and a form of Aramaean took its place. Chap. 14, No. 4. After the return of the Jews from this same captivity and their reestablishment in their own land, the spirit of prophecy was also withdrawn, and the canon of the Old Testament brought to a close. Thus the cessation of Hebrew as the spoken language of the people, and the withdrawal of the spirit of prophecy were contemporaneous events. The canon was locked up in the sacred language, and the interpreter took the place of the prophet. "The providential change of language suggested a general limit within which the voice of inspiration might be heard, as the fearful chastisements of the captivity turned men's minds to the old Scriptures with a devotion unknown before." Westcott's Introduc. to the Study of the Gospels, chap. 1.

4. But the conquests of Alexander the Great (B.C. 334-323) brought the Greek language and the Greek civilization into Asia and Egypt, as a sure leaven destined to leaven the whole mass. To this influence the Jews could not remain insensible. It reached even Palestine, where they naturally clung most tenaciously to the Aramaean language and to the customs of their fathers. But out of Palestine, where the Jews were dispersed in immense numbers, it operated more immediately; especially in Egypt, whose metropolis Alexandria was, after the age of Alexander its founder, one of the chief seats of Grecian learning. To the Jews of Alexandria the Greek language was vernacular. By them was executed, as we have seen, under the patronage of the Egyptian king, the first version ever made of the Hebrew Scriptures, namely, that called the Septuagint (Chap. 16, Nos. 1-7), which was begun, if not completed, in the latter part of the third century before Christ. Though this version encountered bitter opposition on the part of the unbelieving Jews after the establishment of the Christian church, in consequence of the effective use made of it against them by Christian writers, it was received from its first appearance and onward with general favor. The Hellenistic Jews—those using the Greek language and conforming themselves to Grecian civilization—made constant use of it, and the knowledge of it was very widely diffused beyond the boundaries of Egypt. In our Saviour's day it was in very general use, as the abundant quotations from it in the New Testament show; and it must have contributed largely to the spread of the knowledge of the Greek language among the Jewish people in and out of Palestine. Though the Roman empire succeeded to that of the Greeks, the Roman could not supplant the more polished Greek tongue, with its immense and varied literature. On the contrary, the Greek language penetrated into Italy, and especially into Rome, the metropolis of the civilized world, where, in our Saviour's day, Greek literature was in high repute, and the Greek language was very generally understood. Thus, in the good providence of God, the writers of the New Testament, also, found ready at hand a language singularly adapted to their service.

Biblical scholars have noticed the significant fact that of the long list of names in the sixteenth chapter of Romans, the greater number belongs to the Greek language, not to the Latin. "The flexibility of the Greek language gained for it in ancient time a general currency similar to that which French enjoys in modern Europe; but with this important difference, that Greek was not only the language of educated men, but also the language of the masses in the great centres of commerce." Westcott in Smith's Bible Dict., Art. Hellenist.

5. Respecting the character of the New Testament Greek there was in former times much controversy, often accompanied with unnecessary heat and bitterness. One class of writers seemed to think that the honor of the New Testament was involved in their ability to show the classic purity and elegance of its style; as if, forsooth, the Spirit of inspiration could only address men through the medium of language conformed to the classic standard of propriety. Another class went to the opposite extreme, speaking in exaggerated terms of the Hebraisms and solecisms of the New Testament writers. The truth lies between these extremes. The style of the New Testament is neither classical nor barbarous. Its characteristics are strictly conformable to the history of its origin. (1.) Its basis is not the Greek of Plato and Xenophon, but the so-called Hellenic or common dialect which arose in the age of Alexander the Great, when "the previously distinct dialects, spoken by the various sections of the Hellenic nation, were blended into a popular spoken language." Winer, Gram, of the New Test., sec. 2. The Alexandrine Jews doubtless learned it not so much from books as from the daily intercourse of life, and it probably had its provincial peculiarities in Alexandria and the adjacent region. (2.) In Jewish usage this common Greek dialect received an Hebraic coloring from the constant use of the Septuagint version, which is a literal rendering of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, of course with the retention of many Hebrew idioms. Only such thorough Greek scholars as Josephus and Philo could rise above this influence. The New Testament writers manifest its power in different degrees; for, as it respects Hebraisms, they do not by any means stand on a common level. (3.) As the Aramaic—the so-called Syro-Chaldaic—was the language of the mass of the people, the style of the New Testament writers received a tinge from this also. (4.) More than all, the style of the New Testament receives a peculiar impress from the fact that the authors were Jews writing under the full influence of a Jewish education and a Jewish faith, with the superadded element of Christianity. It is the phenomenon of the spirit and thoughts of Jewish Christians embodied in the language of Greece; and this at once separates the writings of the New Testament by a wide interval from all purely classic compositions. The apostolic writers imposed on the Greek language an arduous task, that of expressing ideas foreign to the conceptions of the most cultivated among the pagan authors; ideas partly common to the old Jewish and the Christian religions, partly peculiar to Christianity. This could only be done by giving to existing terms a new and higher meaning, whereby they assumed a technical character wholly unknown to the classic writers.

"Compare particularly the words: works (to work, Rom. 4:4), faith, to believe in Christ, or to believe absolutely, confession, righteousness, to be justified, to be chosen, the called, the chosen, the saints (for Christians), edification and to edify in a figurative sense, apostle, to publish the good tidings and to publish absolutely for Christian preaching, the adoption of baptisma, baptism, for Christian baptism, perhaps to break bread for the holy repast (the Agape with the communion), the world, the flesh, fleshly, in the known theological sense," etc. Winer's Gram, of the New Test., sec. 3.

6. From all the abovenamed causes the language of the New Testament received a form differing widely from the classic style, but admirably adapted to the high office assigned to it. To those who study the New Testament in the original, the peculiarities of its language offer a wide and interesting field of inquiry. But for the common reader the above hints will be sufficient.



CHAPTER XXV.

EXTERNAL FORM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

1. The writings of the New Testament fall into three main divisions; the historical, the epistolary, and the prophetical, the latter including only the Apocalypse. This distinction is not to be understood in an absolute sense; since, as every reader knows, there are prophetical passages in the historical books, and both historical and prophetical in the epistles; but it gives with accuracy the general character of each division. In outward form the Apocalypse is epistolary, being addressed, with the apostolic greeting, to the seven churches of Asia, and containing messages to each. But its contents, after the first three chapters, are so wholly prophetical, that it is entitled to stand by itself in any general division.

2. The order of these main divisions is natural and appropriate. The gospel, as was remarked at the outset (Chap. 1, No. 1), is not a mere system of philosophy or ethics, but rests on a basis of historic facts. On these its whole system of doctrines and duties is built; so that to destroy the foundation would be to destroy the superstructure also. It is suitable, therefore, that the record of the facts should hold the first place. The apostolic epistles, which unfold the doctrines and duties involved in the gospel, and make a practical application of them to all the manifold relations of life, naturally follow the historic record. The mighty system of prophecies contained in the book of Revelation, which stretches over the whole future history of the church to the end of time, forms an appropriate close to the entire collection of writings.

3. Equally appropriate is the order of the two subdivisions of the historic part—first, the four Gospels, containing the history of our Lord's life; secondly, the Acts of the Apostles. In the general arrangement of the epistles, the thirteen which bear the name of Paul stand first in order. The seven so-called catholic epistles occupy the last place. Intermediate between these two subdivisions stands the epistle to the Hebrews, which is anonymous, though generally ascribed to Paul. The epistles which bear the name of Paul fall into two groups—nine addressed to Christian churches, which occupy the first place; then four to particular persons. Of these last, the first three, being addressed to Timothy and Titus, the apostle's companions in travel and in the gospel ministry, are appropriately named from their contents the pastoral epistles. The letter to Philemon, a private member of the church in Colosse, naturally stands last of all.

We add from Bleek (Introduc. to New Test., secs. 18 and 254) the following additional notices:

The present order of the Gospels is very ancient. Only in some manuscripts of the Old Latin version, in one Greco-Latin manuscript (the so-called Codex Bezae or Cambridge Codex), and in the manuscript of the Gothic version, the two apostles Matthew and John stand first; then the two companions of apostles, Luke and Mark, or sometimes Mark and Luke. In the very ancient Curetonian-Syrian manuscript the order is Matthew, Mark, John, Luke.

The Acts of the Apostles stand in some manuscripts after the Pauline or after the catholic epistles.

In the oldest Greek manuscripts, and generally in the greatest number of Greek manuscripts which contain the whole New Testament, the catholic epistles stand before the Pauline; an arrangement which some modern editors, as Lachmann and Tischendorf, have followed. In many manuscripts, the oldest Greek included, the epistle to the Hebrews stands after 2 Thessalonians, immediately before the pastoral epistles. Luther placed together, at the end of his version, the epistles to the Hebrews, the epistles of James and Jude, and the Apocalypse. But this arrangement rested on no authority of manuscripts. It was only an expression of his private judgment respecting their canonical authority, which he placed below that of the other books of the New Testament.

4. We have seen (Chap. 13, No. 4) that in the arrangement of the books of the Old Testament, the order of time is followed only very partially. The same is true respecting the order of books in the New Testament, a fact which the biblical student ought always to bear in mind. If we look to the several divisions and subdivisions of the New Testament writings, it is obvious that the arrangement is not chronological. It is generally admitted that the Gospel according to John was written after the death of Peter and Paul; consequently, after the Acts of the Apostles (which were written during the life of Paul, Chap. 5, No. 5), after all the Pauline epistles, and probably after all the Catholic epistles except those which are ascribed to John himself. The Acts of the Apostles, again, are of later date than several of Paul's epistles. Finally, neither the Pauline nor the catholic epistles are arranged in chronological order. See below, Chap. 30, No. 6. The intelligent student of the New Testament will avail himself of all the means at his command to ascertain the date, proximately at least, of each particular book; that he may thus connect it with the development of Christianity in the threefold line of doctrine, practice, and polity.

5. The present distinction of large letters (capitals) and small did not come into use before the ninth century. In conformity with ancient usage, the manuscripts executed before this period are written in large disconnected letters (the so-called uncial), without any marks of interpunction, or even division of words. This is called the continuous writing (scriptio continua), in which it is left to the reader's discretion to make the necessary division of words and sentences; as if the beginning of the Gospel according to John were written thus in Latin and English:

Latin. English.

INPRINCIPIOERATVERBUMET INTHEBEGINNINGWASTHEWORDAND VERBUMERATAPUDDEUMETDEUSE THEWORDWASWITHGODANDGODW RATVERBUMHOCERATINPRINCIPI ASTHEWORDTHESAMEWASINTHEBEGIN OAPUDDEUMOMNIAPERIPSUMFA NINGWITHGODALLTHINGSBYHIMWEREMA

Writers before our Saviour's time do indeed speak of signs of interpunction; but they seem to have been in use only in the grammatical schools, and with a limited application to certain doubtful passages in the ancient writers. That they were unknown in the older manuscripts of the New Testament is evident from the discussions that arose among the church fathers respecting the right division of certain passages, in which they never appeal to the authority of manuscripts, but argue solely from the nature of the connection. The reader may see a collection of examples in Hug's Introduction to the New Testament, Sec. 43, where are also some curious examples of the wrong division of words.

6. To obviate the inconvenience of this continuous mode of writing, there was introduced, about the middle of the fifth century, what is called the stichometrical mode (Greek stichos, a row or line, and metron, a measure). This consisted in arranging in a single line only so many words as could be read, consistently with the sense, at a single inspiration.

The invention of stichometry has been generally ascribed to Euthalius, a deacon in Alexandria, who, in the year 458, set forth a copy of Paul's epistles stichometrically arranged; but Tregelles is inclined to the opinion that he borrowed the system from an earlier writer, Pamphilus the martyr. However this may be, the original conception doubtless came from the stichometry of Hebrew poetry. Hug (Sec. 44) and Tregelles (Horne's Introduct., vol. 4, chap. 4) give an example in Greek from a fragment of the Pauline epistles. This example (Titus 2:2, 3), when literally translated into English according to the Greek order of words, reads as follows:

THEAGEDMENTOBESOBER GRAVE SOBERMINDED SOUNDINTHEFAITH INLOVE INPATIENCE THEAGEDWOMENLIKEWISE INBEHAVIORASBECOMESHOLYWOMEN NOTSLANDERERS NOTGIVENTOMUCHWINE TEACHERSOFGOODTHINGS

Though the design of stichometry was not interpunction according to the connection of thought, yet it seems to have led to this result. The expensiveness of this mode of writing, owing to the waste of parchment, naturally suggested the idea of separating the lines by a simple point, thus:

THEAGEDMENTOBESOBER. GRAVE. SOBERMINDED. SOUNDINTHEFAITH. INLOVE. INPATIENCE. THEAGED WOMENLIKEWISE. INBEHAVIORAS BECOMETHHOLYWOMEN. NOTSLAN DERERS. NOTGIVENTOMUCHWINE. TEACHERSOFGOODTHINGS.

As these divisions were mainly rhythmical, and often broke the true connection of thought, men sought to introduce a more logical system of interpunction. Thus was laid the foundation of our present system; which, however, was not perfected till after the invention of the art of printing.

In the opinion of some, the use of the dot, at least to some extent, was earlier than stichometry. From the eighth or ninth century punctuation in manuscripts became more common and systematic. In cursive manuscripts—those that employ the running hand with large and small letters and the separation of the words, a style of writing that became the common one from the ninth century and onward—punctuation also prevails, though not according to any one established system. Tregelles, ubi sup. Various other particulars interesting to those who study the Greek text in the original, as those relating to the accents, the smooth and rough breathing, and the iota subscript, are here omitted.

7. We come next to consider the ancient divisions made in the contents of the sacred text. Chapters are very early mentioned, as by Tertullian and Dionysius of Alexandria. But it is uncertain whether any thing more is meant than parts or sections of given contents. The earliest formal division of the four gospels that has come down to us consists of the Ammonian sections (Greek kephalaia, heads or chapters), so named from Ammonius of Alexandria, who, about the middle of the third century, prepared a harmony of the four gospels—the Gospel by four, as Eusebius calls it. His plan was, to arrange in the order of Matthew the parallel passages side by side, interpolating those that were wanting in Matthew. To this end, he divided each of the gospels into sections the length of which was very various, being wholly determined by the parallelisms of the other gospels. Of these sections Matthew contained 355; Mark, 234 (in Wordsworth's Greek Testament, 236 are given); Luke, 342; John, 231 (in Wordsworth's Greek Testament, 232). The infelicity of this arrangement was that, with the exception of the first gospel, the true order of the evangelists was broken up—"The train of sequence of the three was destroyed in respect to the orderly course of reading," as Eusebius says (Letter to Carpianus, given in Wordsworth's Greek Testament).

To remedy this evil, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, in the following century connected with these Ammonian sections his ten canons. These are ten tables, arranged according to the order of Matthew, or where sections are wanting in Matthew, according to the order of the next evangelist that contains them, in such a way as to show at a glance what sections of the other evangelists answer to any given section of that gospel which stands first in order in each canon.

Numbering the four gospels in order—1, 2, 3, 4—the ten canons of Eusebius contain as follows:

I. Sections common to 1, 2, 3, 4. II. " 1, 2, 3. III. " 1, 3, 4. IV. " 1, 2, 4. V. " 1, 3. VI. " 1, 2. VII. " 1, 4. VIII. " 2, 3. IX. " 3, 4. X. Sections peculiar to one.

A couple of examples will make this matter plain. Turning to what is now the beginning of the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, we find (the Greek numerals being exchanged for those in common use) the sign 131/II that is, the 131st Ammonian section of Matthew with the second canon of Eusebius. Turning to the table of the second canon, we find, corresponding to the 131st section of Matthew, the 36th of Mark and the 76th of Luke, which contain the parallel passages concerning the sower. Again, connected with Mark 1:23, is the sign, 14/VIII whence we learn, by reference to the eighth canon, that the fourteenth section of Mark answers to the 25th of Luke. By a repetition of the canons as often as necessary, so as to allow each gospel in turn to take the lead, Wordsworth has greatly facilitated the work of comparing parallel passages.

"The Codex Vaticanus B, contains a distribution into sections wholly peculiar. Of these, St. Matthew contains 170, St. Mark 61, etc. The length of these divisions is very unequal; the sense being the reason of the breaks occurring when they do. In the gospels, at least, the sections are perhaps the best that were ever devised; and this system of capitulary division is probably the earliest of which we have the means of knowing any thing." Horne's Introduction, vol. 4, chap. 4, revised edition, 1860.

8. Different from the Ammonian-Eusebian sections, and later in their origin, are the divisions of the gospels called titles, because each of them received a title from one of the first or principal subjects mentioned in it. They are thought to have been connected with the public reading of the gospels. Of these, Matthew contains 68; Mark, 48; Luke, 83; John, 18. They are, therefore, larger than the Ammonian sections, and resemble more nearly our modern chapters.

These titles are called by the Latins briefs (breves), and the tables of their contents breviaries (breviaria). They did not come into common use before the fifth century, and are commonly annexed to manuscripts along with the Ammonian-Eusebian sections. But they are the only divisions known to some of the church fathers, as Euthymius and Theophylact.

9. The divisions of the other books of the New Testament are thought to be of later origin. Euthalius introduced into a copy, which he sent to Athanasius the younger, divisions called chapters. He has sometimes been considered the author of those in the Acts and catholic epistles; but he probably took them from an older source. Those in the Pauline epistles he expressly ascribed to "one of the wisest and most Christ-loving of our fathers." He also gave headings to the chapters, descriptive of their contents, but collected from previous sources. The Apocalypse was divided into twenty-four larger sections and seventy-two smaller—a work ascribed to Andreas of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Tregelles, in Horne's Introduction, vol. 4, chap. 4.

10. Our present division of chapters was made in the thirteenth century, by Cardinal Hugo, from whom proceeded also that in the Old Testament. It was first introduced into the Latin copies, and afterwards into the Greek. Our present division of verses was made by Robert Stephens, in 1551. It was preceded by some earlier divisions, as that of Pagninus, in which the verses were longer than those of Stephens.

Distinct from all the above divisions are the church-lessons, made very early, in imitation of the Jewish Haphtaroth, or sections from the prophets. Chap. 13, No. 6. The beginning of these seems to have been in special selections for the church festivals. But the usage was afterwards extended so as to include selections for all the Sabbaths and feast-days of the year. Hence from the fifth century and onward the whole New Testament was no longer publicly read, as in the primitive days of Christianity, according to the free judgment of those who conducted the church-services; but these selected sections (pericopae). Collections of these lessons were called by the general name of lectionaries (lectionaria). Those from the gospels or Acts and epistles received special names indicative of their contents. See Bleek, Sec. 265; Horne's Introduction, vol. 4, chap. 4, end.

11. From the above brief survey, it is manifest that none of the external divisions of the sacred text rest on any divine authority. They are the work of uninspired men, and are to be treated accordingly. For convenience of reference, a division of the Scriptures into chapters and verses is indispensable; and we may well rest contented with that which now prevails, though it cannot claim perfection. But in the interpretation of the inspired word we must go behind human divisions, carefully inquiring after the true connection of thought, according to the acknowledged laws of interpretation. To give one example out of many, we must not infer that the last verse of the eleventh chapter of the book of Revelation belongs to the preceding and not the following context, because of its separation from the latter in the division of chapters; but we must determine its true connection independently of this division.

A very good arrangement is that of Paragraph Bibles, in which the distinctions of chapter and verse are thrown into the margin, the text being broken into longer or shorter sections according to the true course of thought. Yet this mode of division also is human, and cannot be infallible.

12. The titles of the several books of the New Testament did not proceed immediately from the authors themselves. In form they present some diversity; for example: The Gospel according to Matthew; according to Matthew; the holy Gospel according to Matthew, etc., the shorter and simpler titles being, as a rule, the more ancient. For substance, however, the different forms are the same. They represent the ancient church tradition, and are of very high authority. The subscriptions, on the other hand, which stand at the end of the epistles of Paul, that to the Hebrews included—are confessedly the work of later copyists. They are of no authority, and are sometimes manifestly incorrect.



CHAPTER XXVI.

THE NEW TESTAMENT TEXT AND ITS HISTORY.

The history of the New Testament text naturally falls into two main divisions, that of the manuscript text, and that of the printed text. A few remarks will be added on the principles of textual criticism. See PLATES at the beginning of this book.

[Transcriber's Note: Transcriptions of the Plates are at the end of this e-book.]

I. THE MANUSCRIPT TEXT.

1. The preservation of the primitive text of the gospels from all essential corruptions, additions, and mutilations has already been shown at some length (Part 1, Chap. 3). The same line of argument applies substantially to the other books of the New Testament. Though the text of different books varies in respect to purity, there is no ground for supposing that if we had the autographs of the evangelists and other sacred writers, they would present to us a gospel differing in any essential particular from that which we now possess. We should see in them the same glorious Saviour, and the same holy system of doctrines and duties.

2. But it has not pleased God to interpose in a miraculous way for the purpose of keeping the primitive text in a state of immaculate purity. He has left it subject to those common influences which produce what are called various readings in all works that are perpetuated from age to age by transcription. Compared indeed with any other ancient writings, the text of the New Testament has immensely the advantage in regard to uncorruptness of preservation and means of verification. This arises from the early multiplication of copies, as well as from the high value attached by the primitive churches to their sacred books, and their consequent zeal for their uncorrupt preservation. But the same multiplication of copies which constitutes a sure guarantee against essential mutilations and corruptions increases also the number of various readings. Suppose, for example, that of two books equal in size the second has been, from the first, copied a hundred-fold oftener than the first. It is plain that, while the means of ascertaining and verifying the true text of the second will abound, the number of variations among the different manuscripts will abound also. The greater the number of copies, the greater will be the number of various readings, but this will make the true text not more but less uncertain; for by diligent collation a text may be produced which, though not absolutely immaculate, is very near to the primitive autograph, and which can be certainly known to agree with it in every essential respect. God does not rain down upon men bread and raiment from heaven, as he could do with infinite ease; but he imposes upon them the necessity of gaining both by hard labor. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread" is the stern law. God does not miraculously communicate to the missionary who goes to Syria or India or China a knowledge of the vernacular in his field of labor; but he must learn it by years of patient study. And when he begins the work of translating, God does not keep him in a supernatural way from all errors. He must find out and correct his errors by the diligent use of the means at his disposal. Just so it is the will of God that we should have a pure text of the New Testament—pure in a critical sense—not without hard labor, but by years of patient toil in the study and collation of the abundant materials which his good providence has preserved for us.

3. Various readings have arisen in the manuscripts of the New Testament, as elsewhere, from the mistakes, and sometimes from the unskilful corrections of the copyists and those subsequently employed to compare and correct the copies. They are commonly divided into the three classes of substitutions, insertions, and omissions.

Substitutions from similarity of sound would naturally arise among the vowels when, as was sometimes the case, the copyist wrote from dictation, being guided by the ear instead of the eye. Most of these, however, are mere matters of orthography. It is only when they affect the sense that they come under the head of various readings. Synonymous words, or those of kindred meaning, are frequently put for one another, or the order of words is altered; sometimes a different word is made through inadvertence by the change of a single letter or a couple of letters; compound words are interchanged with simple; contracted words are confounded with each other; plainer or more grammatical readings are substituted for those that are difficult or less grammatical, etc. Especially are parallel passages in one writer altered, so as to be brought into conformity with the same in another.

Insertions are the most frequent mode of variation. The copyist fills out the text of his author from a parallel passage, inserts marginal notations in the text, repeats clauses through inadvertence, etc.

Of amplification from parallel passages many undoubted examples could be given. A single one must suffice. In Acts 9:5, the words, It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks, have been added from Acts 26:14.

The most fruitful source of omissions is the similar termination of two adjacent words, lines, or sentences, causing the eye of the copyist to overlook the word, line, or sentence intervening between the two similar endings. The same error may be caused by the circumstance of two sentences beginning in the same way. It should be remembered that in the ancient manuscripts the text was written continuously in uncial—that is, capital—letters, without any division between the words, which made it more difficult for the copyist to follow the manuscript before him, and for both the copyist and collater to discover the errors made in transcription.

By far the greatest number of various readings had their origin in simple inadvertence. Some of them, however, are due to unskilful criticism; as when the copyist or the corrector sought to bring a passage in one writer into more exact agreement with the corresponding passage in another, to supply supposed deficiencies or correct supposed errors in his copy, or to substitute smoother and more grammatical forms of expression. Wilful falsifications in the interest of a particular sect or party cannot with any show of justice be imputed to the men who have perpetuated to us the text of the New Testament.

4. The materials for textual criticism are much more abundant in the case of the New Testament than of the Old. A vast mass of manuscripts has been collected from different and distant regions, dating from the fourth century and onward. Of these, part are in the original Greek, part in ancient versions, or bilingual, that is, containing the original and a version of it side by side. In addition to these are the quotations of the early fathers, which are so abundant that a large part of the New Testament text might be collected from them alone. The question of the history of the text, as gathered from this rich mass of materials, is very interesting, but is foreign to the plan of the present work. To give even a history of the controversies respecting the proper classification of the manuscripts of the New Testament according to their characteristic readings would require a volume, and the question must be regarded as yet unsettled. There are, however, some general results, a few of the more important of which are here given from Tregelles (in Horne, vol. 4, chap: 8).

The variations in the form of the sacred text are not due to any general recensions or revisions by ecclesiastical authority, but arose gradually from the causes above considered (No. 3). These variations exhibit such gradations of text that it is impossible to draw definite lines of classification, without admitting so many exceptions as almost to destroy the application of such a system.

There is a general difference in characteristic readings between the more ancient manuscripts, versions, and citations, and the copies of general circulation in more recent times. This gives rise to the general line of demarcation between the more ancient and the more recent texts; each of these two classes, however, having, in turn, its own points of difference among the texts belonging to it.

The more ancient manuscripts, versions, and citations which we possess range themselves under what we know from their combined testimony to be the more ancient text. Among the manuscripts and documents so allied there are such shades of difference and characteristic peculiarities, that the versions and manuscripts might be easily contemplated as ramifying into two subclasses.

The most ancient documents in general are sufficiently dissimilar to enable us to regard their testimony, when combined, as cumulative.

5. Respecting the materials for writing in ancient times—papyrus and parchment, afterwards paper made from linen or cotton; the form of manuscripts—the roll with papyrus, and the book-form with leaves when parchment was used; the use of palimpsests; the uncial and cursive styles of writing; and the means of determining the age of manuscripts, see in Chap. 3, No. 2. The existing manuscripts have been all numbered and catalogued. The custom since the time of Wetstein has been to mark the uncial manuscripts by capital letters, and the cursives by numbers or small letters. We append a brief notice of a few of the more celebrated manuscripts.

There are four very ancient and important manuscripts, all of which originally contained the entire Greek Bible of the Old and New Testament, and which belong to a time when the arrangements of Euthalius, especially his stichometrical mode of writing (Chap. 25, Nos. 6-9), had either not been introduced or not come into common use. These are the following:

(1.) The Codex Vaticanus, Vatican manuscript, marked by the letter B, and so called from the Vatican library at Rome to which it belongs. It is written continuously (without any division of words) on very fine vellum—one of the marks of high antiquity—in small but neat uncial letters, very much like those of the manuscript rolls of Herculaneum, and has three columns to the page, which is of the quarto size. Originally it had at the end of particular sections a small empty space of the breadth of a letter or half a letter, but no ornamental capitals, marks of punctuation, or accents, though some of these have been added by later hands. The divisions into sections made by the empty spaces above named are peculiar to this codex, not agreeing with those of any other system. Of these Matthew has 170; Mark, 62 (so says Cardinal Mai, but others say 72 or 61); Luke, 152; John, 80. Most of the books have also brief titles and subscriptions. The manuscript contained originally the whole Bible, the Apocrypha included, as also the epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. The order of the books in the New Testament, if entire, would be the same as in the Alexandrine manuscript, the Catholic epistles preceding the Pauline, and the epistle to the Hebrews coming in between 2 Thessalonians and 1 Timothy. See below. At present the Old Testament wants the greater part of Genesis and a part of the Psalms. In the New Testament the epistle to Philemon, the three pastoral epistles, the latter part of the epistle to the Hebrews, and the Apocalypse are wanting. This manuscript is generally referred to the fourth century. Its authority is very high, but through the jealousy of its Roman conservators it has been of late years, for all practical purposes, inaccessible to biblical scholars. Cardinal Mai's edition of it in 1858, and the revision of this in 1859, are unreliable. Tischendorf has published an edition of the New Testament part of it. No. (3) PLATE II.

(2.) The Codex Sinaiticus, Sinai manuscript, designated by Tischendorf, its discoverer, by the Hebrew letter aleph ([Hebrew: A]). One of the most interesting events of the present century, in the department of biblical science, is the very unexpected discovery of a complete manuscript of the New Testament, belonging, as is generally agreed, to the fourth century; therefore as old, at least, as the Vatican manuscript, perhaps older, and of very high authority in biblical criticism. In a visit to Mount Sinai in 1844, Tischendorf had found at the convent of St. Catharine on Mount Sinai forty-three beautiful parchment leaves belonging to a manuscript of the Septuagint not before known to biblical scholars. In a subsequent visit to the same convent in February, 1859, it was his high privilege to find of the same manuscript all the Greek New Testament entire, part of the Old, the so-called epistle of Barnabas, and part of the writing called the Shepherd of Hermas, the whole contained in one hundred and thirty-two thousand columnar lines, written on three hundred and forty-six leaves. This precious manuscript Tischendorf managed to obtain for the emperor Alexander of Russia as the great patron of the Greek church, and it is now at St. Petersburg. It is written on parchment of a fine quality in large plain uncial letters, with four columns to a page. It contains, as is commonly the case with ancient manuscripts, revisions and so-called corrections by a later hand; but, as it proceeded from the pen of the original writer, it had neither ornamented capitals, accents, nor divisions of words or sentences. The style of writing is plain, and every thing about it bears the marks of high antiquity. The order of the books is as follows: (1) the gospels; (2) the epistles of Paul, that to the Hebrews included, which stands after 2 Thessalonians; (3) the Acts of the Apostles; (4) the Catholic epistles; (5) the Apocalypse. It has the Ammonian sections and Eusebian canons, but whether from the first or a subsequent hand is doubtful. A splendid edition of this Codex was published at St. Petersburg in 1862, which seeks to preserve with the greatest possible accuracy the form of writing, columns, corrections, etc. The Leipsic edition is adapted to popular use. See No. (1), PLATE I.

(3.) We will consider next in order the Codex Alexandrinus, Alexandrine manuscript, placed first in the list of uncial manuscripts, and accordingly marked A. It is now in the British Museum, London. In the year 1628 it was sent as a present to Charles I., king of England, by Cyrillus Lucaris, patriarch of Constantinople, by whom it was brought from Alexandria in Egypt, where Cyrillus had formerly held the same office. Hence the name Alexandrine. Cyrillus himself, in a notice attached to it, says that tradition represented a noble Egyptian woman of the fourth century named Thecla as the writer of it (an Arabic subscription makes her to have been Thecla the martyr). These external notices are not so reliable as the internal marks, all of which show it to be of a great age. Some assign it to the fourth century, but it is more commonly assigned to the fifth, and Egypt is generally regarded as the place where it was written. It is on parchment in uncial letters, without divisions of words, accents, or breathings, and with only occasional marks of interpunction—a dot to indicate a division in the sense. The lines are arranged in two columns, and the sections begin with large letters, placed a little to the left of the column—outside the measure of the column. The order of the books is: (1) the gospels; (2) the Acts of the Apostles; (3) the Catholic epistles; (4) the epistles of Paul, with that to the Hebrews between 2 Thessalonians and 1 Timothy; (5) the Apocalypse. In the gospels, the Ammonian sections with the Eusebian canons are indicated, and at the top of the pages the larger sections or titles. In the Old Testament it is defective in part of the Psalms. In the New it wants all of Matthew as far as chap. 25:6; also from John 6:50 to 8:52; and from 2 Cor. 4:13 to 12:6. It has appended at the end the genuine letter of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, and a fragment of a second spurious letter. To these apocryphal additions we owe the preservation of the Apocalypse in an entire state. Until the discovery of the Sinai codex, the Alexandrine exhibited the text of the New Testament in far the most entire state of all the uncial manuscripts. See No. (2), PLATE I.

(4) The fourth manuscript of this group is the celebrated palimpsest called Codex Ephraemi, Ephraem manuscript, preserved in the Imperial library of Paris, and marked in the list of uncials with the letter C. Originally it contained the whole of the New Testament, and apparently the Old also, elegantly written on thin vellum, with a single column to a page. The writing is continuous, without accents or breathings, and the letters are rather larger than in the Alexandrian manuscript, the first letter of each section being of larger size than the rest, and standing, as in that manuscript, a little to the left of the column. The Ammonian sections stand in the margin, but without the Eusebian canons. The gospels were preceded by the list of titles, or larger sections, of which those of Luke and John alone are preserved. The titles and subscriptions are short and simple. The date of the manuscript is supposed to be the first half of the fifth century. It has undergone corrections at the hand of at least two persons, possibly a third. These can be readily distinguished from the original writing. The critical authority of this codex is very high. Tregelles (in Horne, vol. 4, chap. 13) places it next to the Vatican manuscript.

A few words on its history. About the thirteenth century, being regarded as a worn-out and obsolete manuscript, the vellum on which it was written was taken for a new purpose, that of receiving the Greek works of Ephraem the Syrian saint, a celebrated theologian of the old Syrian church, who flourished in the fourth century. "For this purpose the leaves were taken promiscuously, without any regard to their proper original order, and sewed together at hap-hazard, sometimes top end down, and front side behind, just as if they had been mere blanks, the sermons of Ephraem being the only matter regarded in the book." Stowe, Hist. of the Books of the Bible, p. 75. In the latter part of the seventeenth century, Allix first observed the older writing under the works of Ephraem. It was very illegible, but a chemical preparation applied in 1834-5 revivified it to a certain extent. It has been diligently collated by eminent scholars, and in 1842 Tischendorf printed an edition of it page for page and line for line. Of the two hundred and nine leaves contained in this manuscript, one hundred and forty-five belong to the New Testament, containing not quite two-thirds of the sacred text. The order of the books is the same as in the Alexandrine codex. See No. (4), PLATE III.

Besides the abovenamed four manuscripts, a few others may be briefly noticed.

An interesting palimpsest of great critical value is the Codex Dublinensis rescriptus, Dublin palimpsest manuscript, in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, designated by the letter Z. It contains with other writings thirty-two leaves of the gospel by Matthew. They were edited, as far as legible, in 1801, by Dr. John Barrett, Fellow of Trinity College. In 1853 Dr. Tregelles made a new and thorough examination of the manuscript, and, by the aid of a chemical process, brought all that exists of the gospel text to a legible condition. This manuscript is assigned to the sixth century. Its letters are written in a singularly bold style, which unites the three qualities of ease, elegance, and symmetry.

A celebrated bilingual manuscript (in this case Graeco-Latin, containing the Greek and Latin texts) is the Codex Bezae, Beza's manuscript, called also Codex Cantabrigiensis, Cambridge manuscript, from the place of its deposit, which is the public library of the University of Cambridge, England. It is designated by the letter D, and contains the four gospels and Acts of the Apostles in Greek and Latin on opposite pages, stichometrically written. The account of Theodore Beza, its former possessor, was that he found it during the French civil wars in 1562, in the monastery of St. Irenaeus, at Lyons. In 1581 he sent it as a present to the University of Cambridge. The interest felt in this manuscript arises in great part from the very peculiar character of its readings. "The text of this codex," says Bleek (Introduc. to New Test., sec. 270), "presents much that is peculiar—many additions and alterations that have even an apocryphal character, but are yet not uninteresting. Its native country is the West, and more definitely the south of Gaul." See No. (5), PLATE IV.

Among the fragments of manuscripts of high antiquity is one called Codex purpureus, Purple manuscript. Four leaves of this are in the Cotton Library in the British Museum, six in the Vatican, two in the Imperial Library at Vienna. The manuscript to which they belonged was written in silver letters (the names of God and Christ in gold) on purple vellum. The writing is in two columns with large and round letters. It is referred to the end of the sixth or beginning of the seventh century.

Many other uncial manuscripts, or fragments of manuscripts, some of them of great critical value, might be described; but the above brief notices must suffice. Of those which contain ancient versions, a few of the more important will be noticed in the following chapter.

The cursive manuscripts of the Now Testament are numbered by hundreds. In general their authority is less than that of the more ancient uncials. But a cursive manuscript may give indirectly a very ancient text. There are some cursives which, from their characteristic readings, were manifestly executed from codices of high antiquity, and are for this reason very valuable. As such Tregelles specifies those numbered 1 and 33. For further notices of these, as also of the lectionaries, containing selections for church readings, the reader may consult the works devoted to biblical criticism.

II. THE PRINTED TEXT.

6. The primary editions of the Greek New Testament, whence is derived what is called the received text (Textus receptus) are the following: (1) the Complutensian; (2) the Erasmian; (3) those of Robert Stephens; (4) those of Beza and Elzevir. Their authority in textual criticism depends wholly upon that of the manuscripts from which their text was formed. As no stream can rise higher than its fountains, so no printed text can obtain a just weight of influence above that of its manuscript sources. It becomes, then, a matter of interest to inquire what was the basis of these early printed editions.

(1.) The entire New Testament was printed for the first time in Greek in the fifth volume of the Complutensian Polyglott (so called from Complutum, that is Alcala in Spain, where it was printed under the patronage of Cardinal Ximenes). It bears the date of 1514, but was not published until 1522, when Erasmus had already printed three editions of his Greek Testament. Its editors professed to have formed their text from manuscripts sent to them from the papal library at Rome. What these manuscripts were cannot now be ascertained; but that they were very ancient and correct, as alleged by these editors, is contradicted by the character of the text, which agrees with the modern in opposition to the most ancient manuscripts.

(2.) At the request of Froben, a celebrated printer and publisher of Basle, Erasmus, who was then in England, where he had devoted some time to a revised Latin translation of the New Testament with annotations, went to Basle in 1515, and began the work of editing a Greek New Testament. "By the beginning of March, 1516," says Tregelles, "the whole volume, including the annotations as well as the Greek and Latin texts, was complete; in less, in fact, than six months from the time that the first sheet was begun." The design of this haste was to anticipate the publication of the Complutensian edition. The critical apparatus in Erasmus' possession was quite slender. It consisted of such manuscripts as he found at Basle, with the help of the revised Latin translation already prepared in England and Brabant. For the Apocalypse he had but one manuscript, and that defective at the end. In his four subsequent editions—1519, 1522, 1527, 1535—he made many corrections. In that of 1527 he availed himself of the Complutensian text. This edition, from which the fifth and last published during his life differs but slightly, is the basis of the common text now in use.

(3.) In 1546, 1549, 1550, appeared the three editions of Robert Stephens, the celebrated Parisian printer. In the first two of these the text is said to have been formed from the Complutensian and Erasmian. In the third edition, although he had the aid of thirteen Greek manuscripts, his text is almost identical with that of Erasmus' fifth edition.

(4.) In 1565, Theodore Beza published at Geneva his first edition of the Greek Testament with his own Latin version, and also the Vulgate with annotations. Three other editions followed in 1576, 1582, 1588-9. He had the use of the Codex Bezae above described, the Codex Claromontanus (an ancient Graeco-Latin manuscript of the Pauline epistles), the Syriac version then recently published by Tremellius, with a close Latin translation, and Stephens' collations. But he is said not to have made much use of these helps.

The first of the Elzevir editions, so celebrated for their typographical beauty, was issued in 1624, its text being mainly copied from that of Beza. This is the text that has acquired the name of Textus receptus, the Received Text, as it was for more than a century the basis of almost all subsequent editions. The genealogy of this Textus receptus is thus succinctly given by Bishop Marsh: "The Textus receptus, therefore, or the text in common use, was copied, with a few exceptions, from the text of Beza. Beza himself closely followed Stephens; and Stephens (namely, in his third and chief edition) copied solely from the fifth edition of Erasmus, except in the Revelation, where he followed sometimes Erasmus, sometimes the Complutensian edition. The text, therefore, in daily use, resolves itself at last into the Complutensian and the Erasmian editions." Divinity Lectures, part I, p. 111.

7. It requires but a moderate acquaintance with the history of textual criticism to understand that the Elzevir text is not only not perfect, but is more imperfect than that which has been elaborated by the help of the abundant manuscripts, versions, and citations of the early fathers, of which modern criticism has availed itself. It is no reproach to the editors of the primary editions that, with their comparatively scanty materials, they could not accomplish as much as we can with the rich and varied means at our disposal. The essential integrity of the received text, we do indeed thankfully acknowledge and firmly maintain. Our fathers had presented to them in this text the same divine and glorious Saviour, the same way of salvation, the same holy system of doctrines and duties, as we now find in the most carefully revised modern text. Nevertheless, a true reverence for the inspired word must impel us to the diligent use of all the means at our command for setting forth a pure text, that is, a text conformed as nearly as possible to that of the original autographs. Viewed in this light the modern critical editions of the New Testament must possess a deep interest for all who are able to read it in the original tongue. But to discuss the merits of these would be foreign to the design of the present work.

Examples of the more important various readings occur in John 1:18; Acts 20:28; 1 Tim. 3:16. The passage 1 John 5:7, 8, in heaven—in earth, is generally rejected on the testimony of the manuscripts (see the full discussion in Horne, vol. 4, ch. 36). Among the passages which are regarded as more or less doubtful may be mentioned John 5:4; 8:3-11; Acts 8:37. In regard to all these the biblical scholar must be referred to the critical commentaries. So also for the questions connected with the text of Mark 16:9-20, which are of a peculiar character.

III. PRINCIPLES OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM.

8. The end proposed by textual criticism is to restore the sacred text as nearly as possible to its primitive purity (Chap. 7, No. 1). To this work the biblical scholar should come in a candid and reverential spirit, prepared to weigh carefully all the evidence which is accessible to him, and decide, not as an advocate, but as a judge, in the simple interest of truth. The three great sources of evidence for the original text of the New Testament are Greek manuscripts, versions, and the citations of the fathers. Of these, Greek manuscripts hold the first place. But all manuscripts are not of equal value. Other things being equal, the oldest manuscripts have the highest authority. "If the multiplication of copies of the New Testament had been uniform, it is evident that the number of later copies preserved from the accidents of time would have far exceeded that of the earlier, yet no one would have preferred the fuller testimony of the thirteenth to the scantier documents of the fourth century. Some changes are necessarily introduced in the most careful copying, and these are rapidly multiplied." Westcott in Smith's Bible Dict.; Art. New Test. Yet, as the same writer remarks, we may have evidence that a recent manuscript has been copied from one of great antiquity, and thus has preserved to us very ancient readings. Revisions and corrections by a later hand are to be carefully distinguished from the primitive writing. Yet these may be valuable, as testifying to the prevailing reading of the age to which they belong. The general class or family to which a given manuscript belongs is also to be taken into the account. In a word, so many elements of judgment are to be taken into account in determining the relative weight of authority that belongs to a given manuscript, that the right decision of the question requires large observation combined with much critical tact.

9. Ancient versions are of great value in textual criticism; for some of them, as the old Latin and Syriac, to which may be added the old Egyptian versions, are based on a text more ancient than that preserved to us in any manuscript. In textual criticism, the testimony of a version is valuable in proportion to its antiquity, its fidelity—not its elegance or even its correctness of interpretation, but its literal closeness—and the purity of its text. Versions are liable to all the corruptions of text incident to Greek manuscripts, and far more liable to interpolations by explanatory glosses. The difference of idiom, moreover, frequently prevents such a literal rendering as shall be a sure indication of the form belonging to the original text.

10. The citations of the church fathers, which are immensely numerous, constitute another source of testimony. But less authority belongs in general to these, because they are often made loosely from memory alone. Their testimony is chiefly valuable as corroborative. "Patristic citations alone have very little weight; such citations, even when in accordance with a version, have but little more; but when a citation is in accordance with some ancient MSS. and translations, it possesses great corroborative value. It is as confirming a reading known independently to exist, that citations are of the utmost importance. If alone, or nearly alone, they may be looked at as mere casual adaptations of the words of the New Testament." Tregelles in Horne, vol. 4, ch. 34.

11. The application of the above sources of criticism to the sacred text demands very extensive research and much sound judgment. "Canons of criticism," as they are called are valuable in their proper sphere; but, as Westcott remarks (ubi supra), "they are intended only to guide and not to dispense with the exercise of tact and scholarship. The student will judge for himself how far they are applicable in every particular case; and no exhibition of general principles can supersede the necessity of a careful examination of the characteristics of separate witnesses, and of groups of witnesses."

We bring this subject to a close by an enumeration of the last six of the thirteen rules laid down by Westcott.

8. "The agreement of ancient MSS., or of MSS. containing an ancient text, with all the ancient versions and citations marks a certain reading."

9. "The disagreement of the most ancient authorities often marks the existence of a corruption anterior to them."

10. "The argument from internal evidence is always precarious." This canon he illustrates by several examples: "If a reading is in accordance with the general style of the writer, it may be said on the one side that this fact is in its favor, and on the other that an acute copyist probably changed the exceptional expression for the more usual one," &c.

11. "The more difficult reading is preferable to the simpler." This canon rests on the obvious ground that a copyist would be more apt to substitute an easy reading for a difficult than the reverse.

12. "The shorter reading is generally preferable to the longer." Because of all corruptions of the text, additions from parallel passages, or to meet its supposed wants, are the most common.

13. "That reading is preferable which explains the origin of the others."



CHAPTER XXVII.

FORMATION AND HISTORY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON.

1. Respecting the canon of the New Testament there are two distinct but related fields of inquiry. The first has reference to the origin and gradual accumulation, of the materials which enter into the canon; the second, to the collection of these materials into a volume or series of volumes possessing cooerdinate authority with the books of the Old Testament, and constituting with them the sum of written revelation. The first of these questions has been already discussed in great measure. In Chs. 2-4, the genuineness, uncorrupt preservation, authenticity, and credibility of the four gospels were shown at some length; in Ch. 5 the same was done in respect to the Acts of the Apostles and the acknowledged epistles; in Ch. 6 was considered the position of the disputed books in respect to the canon; and in Ch. 7 the inspiration of the canon was demonstrated. Connected with these inquiries were some general notices respecting the date of the several books of the New Testament; but the fuller consideration of this latter question is reserved for the second division of the present Part—that of Particular Introduction. It will be sufficient to state here in a general way that, if we leave out of account the writings of the Apostle John, the remaining books of the New Testament were written somewhere between A.D. 45-70 (according to the commonly received opinion, between A.D. 50-70); while the most probable date of John's writings is A.D. 70-100. The composition of the books of the New Testament, then, spreads itself over a period of about half a century.

2. Turning our attention, now, to the second question, that of the collection and arrangement of these writings in a volume or series of volumes cooerdinate in authority with the books of the Old Testament, we have a succession of periods, not sharply separated from each other, but each of them possessing, nevertheless, its prominent characteristics in relation to the canonical writings.

3. First in order is the apostolic age, extending to about A.D. 100, especially the first half of it when many of the apostles still survived. This is the period of the composition of the books of the New Testament, but we have no certain evidence that they were then collected into a whole. The writings of apostles and apostolic men had of course the same authority as their spoken word: that is, an authority that was supreme and decisive, according to the principle laid down by the Saviour: "He that receiveth you, receiveth me; and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me." Matt. 10:40. But so long as the churches had the presence of the apostles they could not feel, as we do now, the need of an authoritative written rule of faith and practice; nor is there any proof that the apostles themselves understood in the beginning of the gospel God's purpose to add, through them, a second part to the canon of revelation that had been for so many centuries closed. A considerable number of years elapsed after the ascension before it was thought necessary to give to the churches under apostolic sanction a written account of our Lord's life and teachings. The Acts of the Apostles were not composed till about A.D. 61-63. The apostolic epistles were for the most part written on special occasions and to meet special exigencies, the greater number of them not till between A.D. 50-70, those of John still later. The Christians of this age drew their knowledge of the gospel mainly from the same sources to which Luke refers in the preface to his gospel; from oral tradition, namely, received directly or indirectly from them "who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word."

4. After the death of the apostles came what may be called the age of the apostolic fathers; men who, like Ignatius, Polycarp, and others whose names have not come down to us, had been the disciples of the apostles. Ignatius suffered martyrdom at Rome, A.D. 107 or 116. Polycarp survived beyond the middle of the second century. The literary remains of this period are very scanty, the genuine writings of the apostolic fathers being confined to a few epistles—one of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, seven of Ignatius, one of Polycarp to the Philippians, to which we may add the so-called epistle of Barnabas; since whoever was the author, it does not date from later than the early part of the second century. From these writings we gather in general that the gospels and apostolic epistles were in current use in the churches, but nothing definite in regard to the collection of these writings into a whole.

"With the exception of the epistles of Jude, 2 Peter and 2, 3 John, with which no coincidences occur, and 1, 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, Titus, and Philemon, with which the coincidences are very questionable, all the other epistles were clearly known, and used by them; but still they are not quoted with the formulas which preface citations from the Old Testament (The Scripture saith, It is written, &c.), nor is the famous phrase of Ignatius (To the Philadelphians 5: Betaking myself to the gospel, as to the flesh of Christ, and to the apostles, as the eldership of the church) sufficient to prove the existence of a collection of apostolic records as distinct from the sum of apostolic teaching. The coincidences with the gospels on the other hand are numerous and interesting, but such as cannot be referred to the exclusive use of our present written gospels." Westcott, in Smith's Bible Dict.; Art. Canon. The reason of this, as the writer goes on to show, was that "the details of the life of Christ were still too fresh to be sought for only in written records." There is, however, one remarkable passage in the epistle of Barnabas, the Greek text of which has been recently discovered appended to the Sinaitic manuscript, in which he says (ch. 4): "Let us take care that we be not found as it is written, many are called, but few are chosen." This formula, "as it is written," distinguishes the gospel from which it is quoted as a part of the inspired word; for it is the customary formula employed by Christ and his apostles in accordance with the usage of their age, when they appeal to the Old Testament as of divine authority; and is never applied to writings of mere human authority.

5. Next in order comes what may be called the period of transition between the age of the apostolic and that of the early church fathers. The most distinguished writer of this period is Justin Martyr. It is now generally conceded that the "Memoirs" of which he so often speaks were our canonical gospels. Chap. 2, No. 7. Besides the abundant use of these he mentions the Apocalypse by name, and ascribes it expressly to the apostle John—"a certain man among us named John, one of the apostles of Christ, prophesied, in the revelation given him, that those who have believed in our Christ will spend a thousand years in Jerusalem," etc. Dialogue with Trypho, chap. 81. He has also some apparent allusions to the Pauline epistles, but how far he possessed and used a collection of the New Testament writings, we have no means of judging. Towards the middle of the second century, however, events occurred which had a powerful influence, not indeed, for establishing the authority of the apostolic writings (since that existed from the beginning), but for bringing home to the consciousness of the churches their supreme importance as an authoritative rule of faith and practice, and also the necessity of carefully defining their extent as well as their true interpretation. Heretical teachers arose who sowed in the Christian church the seeds of gnosticism. Of these some, as Marcion, rejected on dogmatical grounds a portion of the apostolic writings, and mutilated those which they retained; others, as Valentinus, sought by fanciful principles of interpretation to explain away their true meaning. Chap. 2, No. 12. The reaction upon the churches was immediate and effectual. They set themselves at once to define and defend the true apostolic writings as well against Marcion's false and mutilated canon, if canon it may be called, as against the false interpretations of Valentinus, Heracleon and others. The occasion had now come for the recognition of a New Testament canon cooerdinate in authority with that of the Old Testament, and from this time onward we find the idea of such a canon clearly developed in the writings of the church fathers. What aided essentially in this work was the execution, about this time, of versions of the New Testament books, such as the Old Latin and Syriac; for the authors of these versions must of necessity have brought together the writings, which, in their judgment, proceeded from the apostles and their companions.

6. We find, accordingly, when the age of the early church fathers opens, about A.D. 170, a clearly recognized canon—sometimes described in two parts, the gospels and the apostles—which is placed on a level with that of the Old Testament as the inspired word of God, and cited in common with it as the Scriptures, the divine Scriptures, the Scriptures of the Lord, etc. Both canons are mentioned together as The entire Scriptures both prophetical and evangelical; The prophets, the gospel, and the blessed apostles; the law and the prophets, with the evangelical and apostolical writings; the Old and the New Testament; the entire instrument of each Testament, etc. Irenaeus, against heresies, 2. 46; 5. 20; Letter to Florinus in Eusebius' Hist. Eccl., 5. 20: Clement of Alexandria, Strom., 7, p. 757; Tertullian, against heretics, chap. 30. 36: against Marcion, 4. 6, etc. The canon was not, however, completed in its present form; for the right of certain books—the so-called antilegomena, chap. 6. 6.—to a place in it remained for a considerable time an open question, which, in its application to particular books was answered differently in the East and the West. See chap. 6. On the other hand, certain writings of the apostolic fathers (as the so-called epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians), being read in certain of the early churches, found their way into some codices of the New Testament. Chap. 6, No. 4.

To the latter part of the second century belong two important canons, that of the Syriac Peshito, and the Muratorian canon. The former of these represents the judgment of the Eastern churches; the latter apparently that of the Western.

The canon of the Peshito has, of the seven disputed books, Hebrews and James. It wants the other five, namely, 2 Peter, 2, 3 John, Jude, Revelation.

The Muratorian canon is in such an imperfect state that its testimony on some points is doubtful. It contains Jude and Revelation; perhaps also 2, 3 John. It wants Hebrews, and 2 Peter, and it adds the apocryphal book called the Apocalypse of Peter.

Origen in the third century (as quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., 6. 25) and Eusebius in the fourth, Hist. Eccl., 3. 25, give each a review of the New Testament canon with a statement of the differing judgments as to the disputed books. The details will come up hereafter in connection with the books in question.

The Synodical Council of Loadicea, which was probably held between A.D. 343-381, gives in its 60th canon (the genuineness of which, however, has been called in question by some) a list of the books of the Old and New Testaments. That of the New Testament wants the Apocalypse.

The third Council of Carthage, held A.D. 397, contains all the books of our present canon. So also the Latin fathers, as Jerome, Rufinus, etc. But the Syrian churches still adhered to the canon of the Peshito.

7. The history of Christian opinion in regard to the canon of the New Testament, of which a very brief outline has been given, has all the marks of naturalness and truthfulness. The Biblical student should carefully remember the two following important considerations:

(1.) The books of the New Testament were not received as a whole, but separately upon the evidence that each gave of its apostolic origin. Doubts in respect to certain books throw no shadow of suspicion upon the rest, the genuineness and authenticity of which were acknowledged by all from the beginning. The question, therefore, is not concerning the truth of revelation, but simply concerning the claims of certain books to be a part of the record of revelation. However it may be decided in particular cases, the apostolic authority of the universally acknowledged books, which constitute the main body of the New Testament, remains perfectly sure.

(2.) The early diversities of judgment in respect to certain books furnish satisfactory evidence of the freedom of thought and discussion among the primitive Christians, and of the sincerity and earnestness of their investigations. It was precisely because they would not accept any book without full evidence of its apostolic authority, that these diversities of judgment prevailed.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

ANCIENT VERSIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

In the present chapter those versions of the Old Testament also that were made in connection with versions of the New, and in the interest of Christianity, will be briefly considered.

I. LATIN VERSIONS.

1. A peculiar interest attaches to the early Latin versions. The "Old Latin" translation of the New Testament, in connection with which one of the Old Testament was executed from the Septuagint, is perhaps the earliest that exists in any language. The Old Syriac alone can rival it in antiquity, and if either may claim the precedence, it is probably the Latin. This version, and afterwards the revision of it by Jerome, was the grand medium through which the Holy Scriptures were known to the Western or Latin churches for more than twelve centuries. It has exercised no small influence on the popular modern versions of Christendom, and it is the great storehouse of theological terms for both Catholic and Protestant Christianity.

The English version of Wiclif (1324-1384) is a literal translation of the current text of the Latin Vulgate. The Psalter of the English Prayer Book is taken from Cranmer's Bible called the "Great English Bible:" and the version of the Psalms follows the Gallican Psalter, the second of the revisions made by Jerome from the Old Latin. See below, No. 4.

2. How early the ante-Hieronymian Latin version (that current before the days of Hieronymus, that is, Jerome), was executed is unknown; but the writings of Tertullian furnish satisfactory proof that it was in popular use in North Africa (the place where it was made) in the last quarter of the second century. According to the testimony of the ancient church fathers, its text existed in a great variety of forms, and the same variety has come down to us in the old manuscripts that contain it. Some, indeed, have maintained that several independent versions existed. But the sum of the evidence from both the early fathers and the manuscripts goes to show that there was never more than one that could be called independent. The copies of this were subjected to multiplied emendations or revisions from the Greek original, till the text had fallen in the days of Augustine and Jerome into a state of great confusion.

The language of Augustine is very strong: "The translators of the Scriptures from the Hebrew tongue into the Greek can be numbered, but the Latin interpreters can by no means be numbered. For whenever, in the first ages of Christianity, any one had gained possession of a Greek manuscript, and imagined himself to possess some little skill in the two languages, he ventured to become an interpreter." De Doct. Christ. 2. 16. According to the received opinion the so-called Itala (Italian) was not an independent version, but one of these revisions, apparently made in Italy, and as some think, under ecclesiastical auspices. This, Augustine recommends as more faithful and perspicuous than the rest.

3. The canon of the Old Latin version seems to have wanted, in the New Testament, Hebrews, James, and 2 Peter. In the Old Testament it followed the Septuagint. It contained, therefore, the apocryphal books of that version, to which was also added the second of Esdras. Appendix to Pt. 2, No. 6. The text of this version is known to us from two sources, quotations and manuscripts. For our knowledge of the Old Testament we are dependent mainly on the quotations of the early Latin fathers, since only a few fragments remain in the shape of manuscripts. The same is true of some parts of the New Testament, particularly the Apocalypse. But of the gospels as well as other parts of the New Testament, we have some very ancient manuscripts which are of high value in textual criticism. The agreement of this version in many characteristic readings with the oldest known Greek manuscripts has already been noticed. Chap. 3, No. 3. Such agreement is the strongest possible testimony for the genuineness of the readings in question. Chap. 26, No. 2.

The Codex Vercellensis, belonging to the fourth century, and said to have been written by Eusebius, bishop of Vercellae (now Vercelli) in Northern Italy where the manuscript is preserved, is one of the oldest manuscripts of the sacred text in existence. The Codex Veronensis at Verona, the Graeco-Latin Codex Claromontanus in the Imperial Library at Paris, the Codex Vindobonensis at Vienna, the Codex Bobbiensis at Turin, and others that might be named, are also very ancient. Among the codices that contain what is called the Italic version, is the Brixianus of the sixth century.