Page images
PDF
EPUB

are by a later hand (see p. 86), and most of the errors in spelling may fairly be imputed to Silvestre's artist. (21) COD. REGIUS 62 (L of the Gospels) [VIII], see pp. 108-109: retraced after Tregelles (see p. 37, note 1). John xii. 13, 14. +ὁ βασιλευσ τοῦ | τηλ + | Ευρων δὲ ὁ ισ· ἐναριον εκαθεισεν επ αυτο· καθωσ ἐστιν γεγρα| In the margin stand the greater κεφάλαιον ιδ (14, see p. 48), the Ammonian section pa (101, see p. 50) and the Eusebian canon (7, see p. 52). (22) Cod. NANIANUS, U of the Gospels [Ix or x], retraced after Tregelles. Mark vi. 18. Βάντοσ αυτού | εισ τὸ πλοιο | παρεκάλει ἀυ τὸν ὁ δαιμονισθεισ ἵνα]. For the margin see p. II7. (23) COD. BASIL. I of the Gospels [x], see pp. 37, 142, retraced after Tregelles. Matth. xv. I, 2. Προσέρχονται αὐτῶι φαρισαῖοι καὶ γραμματεῖς ἀπὸ ἱεροσολύμων. λέγοντεσ· διατί οἱ μαθηταί σου παραβαίνουσι τὴν παράδοσιν τῶν πρεσβυτέρων· οὐ γὰρ νίπτονται τὰς χεῖρασ |.

PLATE IX. (24) COD. EPHRAEMI, C, a palimpsest [v] from Tischendorf's facsimile: see pp. 22, 94, 452. The upper writing [xi?] is τοῦ τὴν πληθῦν τῶν ἐμῶν ἁμαρτημά || σομαι· οἶδα ὅτι μετὰ τὴν γνῶσιν ἥμαρτον. translated from St Ephraem the Syrian. The earlier text is r Tim. iii. 15, 16. ωμα τησ αληθείασ | Και ομολογουμενω μέγα ἑστιν το τησ ευσεβειασ μυστηριον θα φανερωθη εν σαρκι· εδικαιωθη ἐν πνῖ. For the accents &c. see p. 96. (25) COD. LAUD. 35, E of the Acts [vi] Latin and Greek, see pp. 128-129, in a sort of stichometry (p. 45). Act. xx. 28, regere | ecclesiam | domini || ποιμενειν | την εκκλησιαν | του κυ] Below are specimens of six letters taken from other parts of the manuscript.

VV

(37) Matth. i. 1-3, Greek and Latin, from the Complutensian Polyglott, 1514: see pp. 288-294, especially p. 290.

a

PLATE X. (26) COD. BASIL., E of the Gospels [VIII] retraced after Tregelles, as are (27), (28), (29). See pp. 103-104, and for the stops p. 42. Luke xxii. 2, 3. Και ἐζήτουν οἱ ἀρχιερεῖσ και οἱ | γραμματεῖσ, τὸ πῶσ ἀνέλωσιν αὐτὸν, ἐφοβουντω γαρ | τὸν λαόν· εἰσῆλθεν δὲ σα] The Ammonian sections σέα, σεβ (261, 262) and Eusebian canon α (r) are in the margin. (27) COD. BOREELI, F of the Gospels [IX or x], see pp. 104, 105. Mark x. 13 (Ammonian section only, ps or 106). Καὶ προσέφερον | αὐτῶ παιδία | ἵν ̓ ἅψηται ἀυτῶν· ὁι δὲ μαθηται ἐπετίμων. (28) COD. HARLEIAN. 5684, G of the Gospels [x], see p. 106. Matth. v. 30, 31. βληθη· εισ γεεν ναν τε τησ λε [see p. 1o7]. | Ερρηθη δὲ· Οτι ὃσ ] ἀνὰ ἀπολυση την | γυναῖκα αυτου | άρ (ἀρχὴ) stands in the margin of the new lesson. (29) COD. CYPRIUS, Κ of the Gospels [ix], see pp. 107, 108. Luke xx. 9 (with the larger κεφάλαιον Ο οι τ7o in the margin). Γειν την παραβολην ταύτην ἀνοσ ἐφύτευσεν ἀμπελῶνα· καὶ ἐξέδοτο ἀυτὸν γεωργοίσ' (8. b.) COD. BODLEIAN., Λ of the Gospels [x or Ix], in sloping uncials, see pp. 36 note I, 124. Luke xviii. 26, 27 and 30. σαντεσ και Τίσ, | δύναται σωθῆναι· ] ὁ δὲ ἴσ. εἶπεν· τοῦτω και ἐν | τῶ ἀιῶνι τῶ ἐρχομένω ζωὴν.

Λ

PLATE XI. (30) COD. WOLFII B, H of the Gospels [IX], see p. 106. John i. 38-40. τοὺσ ἀκολοθοῦντασ λέγει ἀυτοῖσ + τί ζητεῖτε+ οι δε· ἔἶπον ἀυτῶ +ραβεί δ λέγεται ἐρμηνευόμενον διδάσκαλε που μένεισ+ λέγει ἀυτοῖσ + έρχεσθε και ίδετε + *λ. Retraced after Tregelles, as is No. 3r: in the originals of both codices the dark marks seen in our facsimiles are no doubt red musical notes. (31) COD. CAMPIANUS, M of the Gospels [IX], see pp. 109, 110. Matth. iii. 11. 'Eyŵ μèv• βαπτίζω | ὑμᾶσ ἐν ὕδατι ἐισ | μετάνοιαν + ὁ δὲ ὃ ¦ πίσω μου ερχόμε|. In the margin stand the Ammonian section ια (II), and the Eusebian canon a (r). (3Ι. b)

COD. EMMAN. COLL. CANTAB. Act. 53, Paul. 30 [x11], see pp. 44, 191. This minute and elegant specimen, beginning Rom. v. 21, χυ τοῦ κυ ἡμων' and ending vi. 7, δεδικαίωται ά, is left to exercise the reader's skill. (38) COD. RUBER, Μ of St Paul [x], see pp. 138-140. 2 Cor. i. 3-5, παρακλήσεωσ· ὁ παρακαλων | ἡμᾶσ ἐπὶ πάση Τῆι θλίψει. ἐισ τὸ ¦ δύνασθαι ἡμᾶσ παρακαλεῖν | τοὺς ἐν πάση θλίψει διὰ τῆσ παρακλήσεωσ ἧσ παρεκαλούμεθα ἀυτοὶ ὑπὸ του θῦ· ὅτι καθὼσ. (8. a) CoD. BODLEIAN., I of the Gospels [rx], see pp. 36 note 1, 121—122. Mark viii. 33, πιστραφεισ καὶ ἰδὼν τουσ μαθητὰς ἀυτοῦ· ἐπετίμησεν τῷ | πέτρω λέγων. ὕπαγε οπίσω με .

PLATE XII. (32) PARHAM. 18 Evangelistarium [dated 980], see pp. 37 note 3, 220. Luke ix. 34. γοντοσ ἐγένετο νεφέλη και ἐπεσκίασεν ἡ ἀυτοὺσ ἐφοβήθησα. Annexed are six letters taken from other parts of the manuscript. (33) COD. MONACENSIS, X of the Gospels [ix], see pp. 118, 119: retraced after Tregelles, as also is (34). Luke vii. 25, 26. τίοισ ἠμφιεσμένον· ϊδου δι ¦ ἐν ἵματισμώ ἐνδόξω και τρυφῆ ὑπάρχοντεσ ἐν τοις βασιλεί | οισ εισιν· άλλα τί ἐξεληλυθα ]. (34) COD. REGIUS 14, 33 of the Gospels, Paul. 17 [X1], see pp. 37, 145. Coloss. i. 24, 25. παθήμασιν ὑπερ ὑμῶν· καὶ ἀνταναπληρῶ τὰ ὕστερήματα των θλίψεων του χυ ἐν | τη σαρκί μου ὑπερ του σώματος αυτου ὅ εστιν ἡ ἐκκλησία· ἦσ ἐγενόμηω ἐγὼ παυλοσ διά . (35) COD. LEICESTRENSIS, 69 of the Gospels, Paul. 37 [XIV], see pp. 24, 38, 151. I Tim. iii. 16. τῆς εὐσεβε(?)ίας μυστήριον· ὁ θ5 ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί· ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι· ὤφθη αγγέλοις· | ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν· ἐπιςεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ ἀνελή— (36) COD. BURNEY 22, Evangelistar. [dated 1319], see pp. 38, 220. The Scripture text is Mark vii. 30. βεβλημέν ον ἐπὶ τὴν κλίνην καὶ τὸ δαιμόνιον ἐξεληλυθῶσ:-The subscription which follows is given at length in p. 38, note 1.

The reader will have observed throughout these specimens that the breathings and accents are usually attached to the first vowel of a diphthong.

[blocks in formation]

1.

WHEN God was pleased to make known to man His

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

2. And as it was with respect to the evidences of our faith, so also with regard to the volume of Scripture. God willed that His Church should enjoy the benefit of His written word, at once as a rule of doctrine and as a guide unto holy living. For

this cause He so enlightened the minds of the Apostles and Evangelists by His Spirit, that they recorded what He had imprinted on their minds or brought to their remembrance, without the risk of error in anything essential to the verity of the Gospel. But this main point once secured, the rest was left, in a great measure, to themselves. The style, the tone, the language, perhaps the special occasion of writing, seem to have depended much on the taste and judgment of the several penmen. Thus in St Paul's Epistles we note the profound thinker, the great scholar, the consummate orator: St John pours forth the simple utterings of his gentle, untutored, affectionate soul: in St Peter's speeches and letters may be traced the impetuous earnestness of his noble yet not faultless character. Their individual tempers and faculties and intellectual habits are clearly discernible, even while they are speaking to us in the power and inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

3. Now this self-same parsimony in the employment of miracles which we observe with reference to Christian evidences and the inspiration of Scripture, we might look for beforehand, from the analogy of divine things, when we proceed to consider the methods by which Scripture has been preserved and handed down to us. God might, if He would, have stamped His revealed will visibly on the heavens, that all should read it there: He might have so completely filled the minds of His servants the Prophets and Evangelists, that they should have become mere passive instruments in the promulgation of His counsel, and the writings they have delivered to us have borne no traces whatever of their individual characters: but for certain causes that we can perceive, and doubtless for others beyond the reach of our capacities, He has chosen to do neither the one nor the other. And so again with the subject we propose to discuss in the present work; namely, the relation our existing text of the New Testament bears to that which originally came from the hands of the sacred penmen. Their autographs might have been preserved in the Church as the perfect standards by which all accidental variations of the numberless copies scattered throughout the world should be corrected to the end of time: but we know that these autographs perished utterly in the very infancy of Christian history. Or if it be too much to expect that the autographs of the inspired writers should escape the fate which has over

taken that of every other known relique of ancient literature, God might have so guided the hand or fixed the devout attention of copyists during the long space of fourteen hundred years before the invention of printing, and of compositors and printers of the Bible for the last four centuries, that no jot or tittle should have been changed of all that was written therein. Such a course of Providential arrangement we must confess to be quite possible, but it could have been brought about and maintained by nothing short of a continuous, unceasing miracle: by making fallible men (nay, many such in every generation) for one purpose absolutely infallible. If the complete identity of all copies of Holy Scripture prove to be a fact, we must of course receive it as such, and refer it to its sole Author: yet we may confidently pronounce beforehand, that such a fact could not have been reasonably anticipated, and is not at all agreeable to the general tenour of God's dealings with us.

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

5. As the New Testament far surpasses all other remains of antiquity in value and interest, so are the copies of it yet existing in manuscript and dating from the fourth century of our

« PreviousContinue »