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uncial characters will prove of more weight than comparatively modern copies in cursive letters, and all these uncial MSS. have been collated and used, as far as they are known to exist. But the statement that the juniors are scarcely needed, “because the Uncials are numerous," is severely criticised by Mr. Scrivener, and not without reason, for it evidently was made without due consideration. "Numerous" is indeed a relative term, for "one person will think it a 'long distance' from London to Lancashire, another uses the expression when speaking of the space between this earth and 61 Cygni, some sixty-three billions of miles." But if we come to simple "numerous," what does Dr. Davidson's "numerous" mean? In the Apocalypse the uncial MSS. are three; in the Acts three are very old, and there are, in all nine, some composed of mere fragments; in the Catholic Epistles there are four entire MSS. and one fragment; the Pauline Epistles claim thirteen, not one of which is complete. If Dr. Davidson was thinking more of the Gospels, the state of the case with regard to them is not much better. The list of Uncials extends, indeed, to thirty-two, as the catalogue is supplied by Tischendorf, but only one of these is complete, and serious deductions must be made from the others. This is rather a discouraging state of things for the advocates of the sufficiency of the Uncials, and Mr. Scrivener says, very appropriately, "I cannot imagine that many will judge this apparatus criticus so comprehensive as to render further investigation superfluous." Yet Mr. Scrivener softens his dissent from Dr. Davidson, by saying that, on other occasions, the latter expresses himself differently as to the value of the cursive manuscripts, and that his proposal to confine collations to the Uncials, arose from his despairing of a thorough examination of existing materials by the languid students of our age.

With regard to Tischendorf, Mr. Scrivener confesses that in his edition of the Greek Testament, in 1849, the great critic was. adverse to him, since his list of authorities in the Gospels is limited to the uncial MSS., and to a few of the cursive, whose variations from the common standard text are most conspicuous. But then the edition of 1849 is now quite superseded by another, now issuing from the Leipsic press. This is far more comprehensive in its plan, and, we are assured by Mr. Scrivener, more accurate in execution than its predecessor. In its compilation he has availed himself freely of the labours of others, has cited the cursive manuscripts more frequently, and his text is far nearer the Textus Receptus than it was before. Dr. Wordsworth, in his late volume on the Gospels and Acts, has observed this change in the views of Tischendorf, and although it is denied

in the Journal of Philology for March, 1858, the fact is established, we think, by the instances adduced by Mr. Scrivener. He has, therefore, reason to consider Tischendorf more on his side than formerly, and he says, "I cannot help believing this gradual, and (as it would appear) almost unconscious approximation to the views I am advocating, into which more exact study and larger experience have led so eminent a scholar, to be no slight assurance that those views are founded in reasonableness and truth." And even when the Prolegomena of Tischendorf's edition of 1849 are examined, his opinions do not seem so discrepant as might seem at first sight, for he only affirms, what all acknowledge, that the true text is to be sought only from ancient witnesses (antiquis testibus), and not from the Textus Receptus. To this Mr. Scrivener says, "Very true; I, for one, see nothing in the history or sources of the received text to entitle it, of itself, to peculiar deference. I esteem it so far as it represents the readings best supported by documentary evidence, and no further. If, in my judgment, the Elzevir text approaches nearer, on the whole, to the sacred autographs than that formed by Tischendorf, it is only because I believe that it is better attested to by the very witnesses to whom Tischendorf himself appeals: the MSS., the Versions, and the primitive fathers. I enquire not whether this general purity (for it is but general) arises from chance or editorial skill, or (as some have piously thought) from providential arrangement; I am content to deal with it as a fact." thinks, on the whole, the best plan to adopt with regard to the text is that of Dean Alford, who, when testimony seems evenly balanced, would give the benefit of the doubt to the Textus Receptus.

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Mr. Scrivener devotes much more space to Dr. Tregelles, because that critic avows, as a principle, that the cursive manuscripts should be excluded from all real influence in determining the sacred text. Taking the "Account of the Printed Text of the New Testament" as a correct expression of the views of Dr. Tregelles, Mr. Scrivener presumes that his theory may be fairly enunciated in the following terms:

"The genuine text of the New Testament must be sought exclusively from the most ancient authorities, especially from the earliest uncial copies of the Greek. The paramount weight and importance of the last arises not from the accidental circumstance of their age, but from their agreement with the other independent and most ancient authorities still extant, viz., the oldest versions and citations by the Fathers of the first four centuries.

"To which proposition must be appended this corollary as a direct and necessary consequence :

"The mass of recent documents [i. e. those written in cursive characters from the tenth century downwards] possess no determining voice in a question as to what we should receive as genuine readings. We are able to take the few documents, whose evidence is proved to be trustworthy, and safely discard from present consideration the eighty-nine ninetieths, or whatever else the numerical proportion may be' (Tregelles, p. 138)."

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Here Mr. Scrivener joins issue, and disputes the correctness of the critical principle of Dr. Tregelles. And is it not reasonable that he should do so? Is he not right in affirming, that in the ordinary concerns of social life, we should form no favourable estimate of the impartiality of a judge, which is the real position of a critical editor, who would feel justified to discard unheard eighty-nine witnesses out of ninety brought before him, unless, indeed, it were perfectly certain that the eighty-nine had means of information except what they derived from the ninetieth; for only on that supposition could the judge be thought to act wisely or fairly. "That mere numbers should decide a question of sound criticism never ought to have been asserted by any one; never has been asserted by a respectable scholar," says Mr. Scrivener. "Tischendorf himself cannot condemn such a dogma more emphatically than the upholders of the general integrity of the Elzevir text. But I must say that the counter proposition, that numbers have no determining voice,' is to my mind fully as unreasonable, and rather more startling." What Dr. Davidson asserts as to what may be the preferable value of a more modern manuscript to that of an older one is quite correct; for while, cæteris paribus, the reading of an ancient document is more likely to be effective than that of a more modern one, yet "the reading of a more modern copy may be more ancient than that of an ancient one." And why? For the obvious reason, that " a modern copy may itself be derived, not from an extant one more ancient, but from one still more ancient no longer in existence." Mr. Scrivener thinks that a careful examination of the readings of cursive manuscripts, as represented in any tolerable collection, will bear out this hypothesis of Dr. Davidson; and he justly observes, that it is not essential to the argument that the fact of being derived from ancient sources now lost should be established, but that it is enough that such an origin is possible. Grant this, and then it becomes unreasonable and unjust to shut them out from a "determining voice," on questions of doubtful reading.

So far as to principles, à priori. But Mr. Scrivener comes to facts, and examines the bearing of the question as illustrated by passages adduced by Dr. Tregelles. We will allow him to

state the case himself, and then give the substance of his conclusions from the premises.

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"Now, Dr. Tregelles produces no less than seventy-two passages from various parts of the New Testament as a kind of sample of two or three thousand which he reckons to exist there, wherein the more valuable ancient versions (or some of them) agree in a particular reading, or in which such a reading has distinct patristic testimony, and the mass of MSS. stand in opposition to such a section, (while) there are certain copies which habitually uphold the older reading.' Of course I cannot follow him step by step through this long and laboured catalogue; an adequate specimen, taken without unfair selection, will amply suffice to shew my opponent's drift and purpose. I will therefore transcribe all the places he cites from the Gospel of St. Mark (they amount to seven), making choice of that Gospel partly for its shortness, partly because I wish, in justice to Dr. Tregelles, to discuss in preference those texts which remain unmutilated in the four uncial codices of the first class; in the following list they are all complete, except C in Mark xiii. 14 alone. As Tregelles, for the sake of brevity,' has laid before us those passages without any attempt to state the balance of evidence,' I have endeavoured to supply within brackets an omission which I cannot help considering a little unfortunate."

After a careful examination of the texts, Mr. Scrivener passes on to an analysis of the state of the evidence regarding them, so as to try the validity of Dr. Tregelles' principle. First, as to the Uncials, it is obvious that even the earliest of them are much divided in all the passages cited. The Alexandrine MS. (A) and the Codex Vaticanus (B) come first, the former being placed in the fifth, and the latter in the fourth century. Now in each of the seven texts under examination, A sides with the Elzevir text against B. "While I confess," says Mr. Scrivener, "the great importance of B, I see not why its testimony ought, in the nature of things, to be received in preference to that of A. I cannot frame a reason why the one should be listened to more deferentially than the other."

In the next rank among uncial manuscripts stand the Codex Ephræmi (C) and the Codex Beza (D). The latter is generally considered the least weighty of the four great MSS. of the Gospels just enumerated, not so much on account of its later date, about the middle of the sixth century, as from its abounding with violent corrections and strange interpretations. "Its singularly corrupt text," says Dr. Davidson, "in connexion with its great antiquity, is a curious problem, which cannot be easily solved." In relation to the texts before us, the evidence is stated by Mr. Scrivener as follows:- "In the seven passages under consideration, C accords with B in four cases, with A once; once its reading is doubtful, once its text has perished. Codex D agrees with B five times; much resembles it once, and once sides with

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A. Thus these documents of the second class favour B rather than A; C, however, less decidedly than B." There remain only the Uncials of the third rank, from the eighth century downwards; with them the case is reversed. One of them, (L of the eighth or ninth century), is here and elsewhere constantly with B; A also supports B five times, A only twice; while all the rest extant unanimously support A.

Mr. Scrivener thus thinks that Dr. Tregelles has failed in shewing that the readings of B, and its adherents, are preferable to those of the received text in the passages cited. On coming from the uncial to the cursive MSS., he affirms that the resemblance of them to A or B, or to each other, is but general. No one who has at all studied the cursive MSS. can fail to be struck with the individual character impressed on almost every one of them. It is rare that we can find grounds for saying of one manuscript that it is a transcript of some other now remaining. The fancy which was once taken up, that there existed a standard Constantinopolitan text, to which all copies written within the limits of that Patriarchate were conformed, has been swept away at once and for ever by a closer examination of the copies themselves. "Surely then," continues Mr. Scrivener, "it ill becomes us absolutely to reject as unworthy of serious discussion, the evidence of witnesses (whose mutual variations vouch for their independence and integrity) because their tendency, on the whole, is to uphold the authority of one out of the two most ancient documents against the other.”

As Dr. Tregelles lays much stress on the accordance of the oldest Versions with Codex B rather than with A, Mr. Scrivener closely investigates the subject in connection with the same passages from St. Mark. So far as the Latin versions are concerned, it is admitted that he has established his assertion; and there seems also reason to make the same concession as to the Coptic and Armenian, though from ignorance of these languages, neither Dr. Tregelles nor Mr. Scrivener can speak with due authority. But when we turn to " the Queen of the ancient versions, the graceful and perspicuous Peschito-Syriac," there is no ambiguity as to the preference shewn to the Alexandrine MS., or Codex A. Nor is this the case only in the Gospel of St. Mark, the same likeness is steadily maintained throughout the New Testament. Here, then, is a venerable translation, assigned by some eminent scholars to the first century of our era, and undoubtedly not later than the second, which habitually upholds the readings of one of the two oldest uncial copies, of the later Uncials, and of the vast majority of the Cursives. We do not wonder that Mr. Scrivener, conscious of the great

VOL. IX.-NO. XVII.

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