uncials is formidable enough at a rapid glance. Tischendorf's catalogue (N. T. 7th edition, 1856) extends to thirty-two: let us briefly analyse its contents. In the first place we notice ten which consist of only a few leaves, some of but a few verses (FaJNOR1TWY1OA): they are beyond all price as specimens of the state of the text at periods varying from the sixth to the tenth century, yet I doubt whether all put together contain as much matter as St Luke's Gospel. PQZ exhibit larger fragments, Z indeed a considerable portion of the single Gospel of St Matthew: these three may contain about as much as the sum of the other ten. The Nitrian palimpsest R consists of fragments of St Luke on 45 leaves: the two Bodleian MSS. I' and A are considerable, and between them contain about as much matter as one complete copy (see Tischendorf. Anecdota Sacra et Profana, pp. 4-6). Then we must in fairness deduct six, which, being not earlier and some of them decidedly later than the tenth century (GHMSUX), are entitled to no more weight than many "junior copies" of the same age. This observation applies, though with diminished force to five (FKVTA) ascribed to the ninth, and even to three (ELA) of about the eighth century. There will then remain but the four primary authorities ABCD, of which B alone is complete, A and C being seriously mutilated. I cannot imagine that many will judge this apparatus criticus so comprehensive, as to render further investigation superfluous.

Notwithstanding the sentiments on which I have commented, it were wrong to regard Dr Davidson as a willing advocate for the suppression of all manuscript evidence not written in uncial letters. I shall presently have occasion to confirm my own argument by statements of his respecting the importance of the cursive or later codices, quite as full as anything I could hope to say. The fact is that Davidson, himself no mean example of the dignity of intellectual toil, despairs of a thorough collation of all existing materials from the languid students of our age. "It is sufficient for one man to collate well several important documents, whether they be versions, MSS., or patristic citations. It exhausts his patience and energy" (Davidson, p. 105). So discouraging a representation of energy and patience exhausted by a few slight efforts cannot, must not, be true of the younger school of Biblical critics in our two great Universities; I will leave Dr Dobbin, the editor of the Codex Montfortianus, to speak for that of Dublin. These men will not surely much longer suffer the manuscript treasures of their public libraries to lie neglected or unapplied. The very repulsiveness of this task, at its first aspect, is to the earnest student only one reason the more for prosecuting it with ever-growing interest;

Et non sentitur SEDULITATE labor.

II. The reputation of Tischendorf is so firmly grounded on his editions of the famous Codices Ephraemi and Claromontanus, on his Monumenta Sacra Inedita and other learned works, that his opinion on the great questions of

sacred criticism cannot fail to be regarded with considerable interest. In his manual edition of the N. T. 1849 his practice must be regarded on the whole as adverse to me. 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 (e.g. 1, 13, 33, 69, 102, 131). Occasionally indeed he estimates (very roughly of course) the number of later copies supposed to countenance a reading of his uncials, yet I nowhere perceive that he gives much weight to such testimony in the arrangement of his text. The edition of 1849, however, must be considered as quite superseded by another (which, reckoning several little known in England, Tischendorf calls his seventh), now issuing in parts from the Leipsic Press. This, the latest fruits of his persevering toil, is far more comprehensive in plan and (experto credite) more accurate in execution than its predecessor. In compiling it he has freely availed himself of the labours of others in this field of Biblical research, has cited the cursive MSS. as much perhaps as is expedient in a volume intended for general use, and in exercising his judgment on the materials he has brought together, has produced a text (as Dr Wordsworth has observed before me) much more closely resembling the textus receptus than that he had formed before1. 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 truth2.

1 Thus, for example, Tischendorf's 7th edition, in St Matthew alone, returns to the received readings he had rejected in 1849 in no less than 187 passages. The instances in which he abided by the common text in 1849, but subsequently deserts it, are 56 in St Matthew's Gospel, but about nine-tenths of them consist of Alexandrine forms (e. g. eldav, elπav,

av &c.) which he now prefers to the common ones. It has been said indeed ("Journal of Philology, Vol. IV. March 1858, p. 207") that "the impression that Tischendorf is now beginning to entertain some respect for the textus receptus is quite unfounded. Many of his present readings accidentally coincide with the 'received' readings, but that is all. It is not that he prefers the bulk of late evidence to the weight of early evidence : but that he makes the worst or at least very bad evidence, if supported by a canon of probability, outweigh the best evidence standing alone." On a point of this kind there is nothing like coming to the test of facts. I select the third chapter of St Matthew partly for its brevity, partly because the loss of cod. A (the first-rate authority which most resembles the later text) in this chapter, will so far

assist the learned reviewer's case. Exclusive of his constant use of v εφελκυστικον and ούτως (ν. 15), Tischendorf in his edition of 1849 departs from the textus receptus 13 times in his seventh edition he returns to it seven times out of the thirteen. Now one of these seven instances I think favourable to the reviewer: certainly there is considerable, perhaps even preponderating evidence (for versions can be relied on in such a variation) for adding ποτάμῳ to Ἰορδάνῃ in v. 6 ; Tischendorf now rejects it, as if it were borrowed from Marc. i. 5. The other six passages seem fatal to the notion that internal evidence, not diplomatic authority, is the operating cause which is bringing Tischendorf's text so much nearer what we believe to be the true one. These passages are v. 2 Kal restored before λέγων ; ν. 7 αὐτοῦ restored after βάπτισμα; ν. 14 Ιωάννης restored ; v. 15 πρὸς αὐτὸν of the common text replaces αὐτῷ ; ν. 16 καὶ βαπτισθεὶς replaces βαπτισθεὶς δέ; v. r6 καὶ is restored before ἐρχόμενον. In each of these texts Tischendorf in 1849 rejected the common reading on the slender testimony of a single uncial B, countenanced by one or more of the Egyptian and Latin versions or Fathers, and

Yet even in the Prolegomena to his edition of 1849 (no critical Introduction to his 7th edition has yet appeared) I find little from which I should withhold my assent. "Textus" he observes "petendus est unicè ex antiquis testibus, et potissimum quidem e græcis codicibus, sed interpretationum patrumque testimoniis minimè neglectis” (Proleg. p. XII). The drift of this self-evident proposition appears from the next sentence: "Itaque omnis textûs nostri confirmatio ab ipsis testibus proficisci debebat, non a receptâ quam dicunt editione." 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, 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. Perhaps Dean Alford's plan is preferable (N. T. Proleg. p. 69, Vol. I. 1st edition), who, in difficult cases, where testimony seems evenly balanced, would give "the benefit of the doubt" to the Textus Receptus; but the practical difference between the two principles will be found, I imagine, very slight indeed.

And now recurs the question what we shall understand by "antiqui testes” in the case of Greek Manuscripts? In the first rank Tischendorf justly places those dating from the fourth to the ninth century; and among them, to the oldest he attributes the highest authority. "Hæc auctoritas ut magnoperè augetur si interpretationum ac patrum accedunt testimonia, ita non superatur dissensione plurimorum vel etiam omnium codicum recentiorum, i.e. eorum qui a decimo sæculo usque ad decimum sextum exarati sunt" (p. x11). If this canon is to extend only to cases wherein the most ancient witnesses in competent numbers unanimously support a variation from the common text, I do not conceive that any judicious critic would object to its temperate application: though he may reasonably suspect that where the earliest available evidence is thus overwhelming, a portion of the later manuscripts will always be found to accord with it. What we do resist is a scheme, which, however guardedly proposed, shall exclude the cursive MSS. from all real influence in determining the sacred text. This is Dr Tregelles' avowed principle: that it is not Tischendorf's (however much he may have once seemed to countenance it by his practice) plainly appears from his own distinct assertions: "codices post octavum vel nonum sæculum scriptos

by a very few cursive MSS., sometimes by none at all! Surely it is because he has seen the insufficiency of such evidence, that he has judiciously retraced

his steps, rather than from "an increasing tendency to set private canons above the authority of manuscripts, versions, and Fathers."

negligendos aut parvi æstimandos non esse......recentiorum codicum lectiones quas easdem antiquissimi interpretes ac patres testimonio suo confirment, antiquitatis commendatione minimè destitutas esse" (Proleg. p. x). On this ground he praises the design of Reich, "præstantissimis codicibus minusculis denuo examinandis," declaring of it "ea perquam utilia fore arbitror et ad historiam et AD EMENDATIONEM TEXTUS (p. XXXIII. not.).

III. I am unfeignedly anxious to present to the reader a clear and even forcible statement of the principles of textual criticism maintained in Dr Tregelles' "Account of the Printed Text of the Greek Testament:" I assure him I do not criticise his book unread1, or reject his theory without patient examination. I presume he would wish it to be enunciated in such terms as the following:

The genuine text of the Greek 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).

In the ordinary concerns of social life, one would form no favourable estimate of the impartiality of a judge (and such surely is the real position of a critical editor) who deemed it safe to discard unheard eighty-nine witnesses out of ninety that are tendered to him, unless indeed it were perfectly certain that the eightynine had no means of information, except what they derived from the ninetieth: on that supposition, but on that supposition alone, could the judge's reputation for wisdom or fairness be upheld. That mere numbers should decide a question of sacred criticism never ought to have been asserted by any one; never has been asserted by a respectable scholar. Tischendorf himself (Proleg. p. XII.) 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

1"Let me request any one who may wish to understand the principles of textual criticism which I believe to be true, to read what I have stated,

&c." (Tregelles, Addenda, p. 2). A moderate request certainly, but I should hope it was hardly needed.

numbers have "no determining voice," is to my mind full as unreasonable, and rather more startling. I agree with Dr Davidson (p. 333) in holding it to be "an obvious and natural rule" that the reading of the majority is so far preferable. Not that a bare majority shall always prevail, but that numerical preponderance, especially where it is marked and constant, is an important element in the investigation of the genuine readings of Holy Scripture. For on what grounds shall we justify ourselves in putting this consideration wholly aside? Is the judge convinced to a moral certainty that the evidence of the eighty-nine is drawn exclusively from that of the ninetieth? It has never I think been affirmed by any one (Dr Tregelles would not be sorry to affirm it, if he could with truth) that the mass of cursive documents are corrupt copies of the uncials still extant: the fact has scarcely been suspected in a single instance, and certainly never proved. I will again avail myself of Davidson's words, not only because they admirably express my meaning, but because his general bias is not quite in favour of the views I am advocating. "Cæteris paribus," he observes, "the reading of an ancient copy is more likely to be authentic than that of a modern one. But the reading of a more modern copy may be more ancient than the reading of an ancient one. A modern copy itself may have been derived not from an extant one more ancient, but from one still more ancient no longer in existence. And this was probably the case in not a few instances” (p. 101). No one can carefully examine the readings of cursive documents, as represented in any tolerable collation, without perceiving the high probability that Davidson's account of them is true. But it is not essential to our argument that the fact of their being derived from ancient sources now lost should be established, though internal evidence points strongly to their being so derived: it is enough that such an origin is possible, to make it at once unreasonable and unjust to shut them out from a "determining voice" (of course jointly with others) on questions of doubtful reading. I confess that Tregelles is only following up his premises to their legitimate conclusion in manfully declaring his purpose in this respect; but we are bound to scutinize with the utmost jealousy and distrust a principle which involves consequences so extensive, and he must forgive me if I add, so "perilous."

It is agreed then on all hands that the antiquity of a document is only a presumption, a primâ facie ground for expectation, that it will prove of great critical importance. "The oldest MSS." writes Dr Davidson again, "bear traces of revision by arbitrary and injudicious critics. GOOD READINGS MAKE GOOD MANUSCRIPTS" (p. 101). "It ought to be needless for me to have to repeat again and again," insists Dr Tregelles, whose reviewers I suppose were dvoμabéσтepo, "that the testimony of very ancient MSS. is proved to be good on grounds of evidence (not mere assertion); and that the distinction is not between the ancient MSS. on the one hand, and all other witnesses on the other, but between the united evidence of the most ancient documents-MSS., versions, and early citations—