dispose of the immense number of various readings collected by Mills, by classing his manuscripts by the Vulgate, and forming a corrected text, which should literally accord with that translation, as corrected by St. Jerome. But this scheme has been surpassed and superseded by the more elaborate system of Griesbach. Instead of the authority of Jerome, who flourished in the fifth century, he builds upon that of Origen, who flourished in the third, whose testimony seems entitled to this respect, from the attention which he above all the ancients bestowed on Biblical criticism; and instead of the existence of two texts, one of which corresponds with the Vulgate, and the other with the generality of Greek manuscripts, and which is adopted in the printed Testament; he maintains the existence of three, which he terms the Alexandrine, the Western, and the Byzantine, from the different regions in which he supposes them to have prevailed. 1. The Alexandrine, or Egyptian edition, or recension, is found in the Vatican manuscript for the Gospels; in the other books in the Alexandrine; it is followed by the Coptic, Ethiopic, and Armenian versions, and coincides with the quotations of Origen and Clement of Alexandria. 2. The Western coincides with the Latin version, more especially as it stood before the time of Jerome, and is thought to be cited by the Latin Fathers; it very seldom varies from Beza's manuscript, and in the Acts and Catholic Epistles accords chiefly with the Alexandrine recension. 3. The Byzantine edition is found in the gospels of the Alexandrine manuscript, and is the received text; it is cited by Chrysostom, Theophylact, and the other Greek Fathers, and is the original of the old Russian version. Each recension has its characteristics. The western preserves harsh readings, Hebraisms, and solecisms, which the Alexandrine has exchanged for others more conformable to classical usage. The western is marked by readings calculated to relieve the text from difficulties; and the Byzantine preserves the Greek idiom still purer than the Alexandrine, and resembles the western in its explanatory readings. Each of these classes he considers an independent witness, and decides upon the value of a reading, not according to the individual manuscript in which it is found, but according to the number of classes by which it is supported. It is to the first recension that Griesbach ascribes the highest rank, the authority of a few of these outweighing, in his estimation, that of a multitude of the Byzantine. The peculiar readings which he selects from this class, he endeavours to confirm by a variety of collateral testimony, principally drawn from the collation of the Fathers, and the versions made in the primitive ages. To the authority of Origen, however, he ascribes a preeminent weight, taking it as the standard whereby his collateral testimony is to be estimated. His theory has affected the credit of the received text, but this has found a defender on the continent in Matthæi, and at home in Mr. Nolan, who strenuously maintains its doctrinal integrity. The latter, although he opposes Griesbach's conclusions, agrees with him in the existence of the three classes of texts, which he conceives are still extant in the Latin translations which existed in the age of Jerome,† namely, the old Italic as preserved in a manuscript at Brescia, a copy of the same as corrected by St. Eusebius of Vercelli, the contemporary of Athanasius, at the desire of Pope Julius II.; and the vulgate. Griesbach's Alexandrine, Western, and Byzantine texts according to him, coincide respectively with those of Palestine, Egypt, and Constantinople. A manuscript which harmonizes with the Vatican manuscript, must be referred to the first class, and agrees with the Vulgate. The Cambridge manuscript is an exemplar of the second, and is represented by the manuscript of Vercelli. The Moscow manuscript, and the Harleian G. 5684. are standards of the third. Mr. Nolan denies that Griesbach can claim the support of Origen, but he allows that the extraordinary agreement of the manuscripts of the class which he prefers, not only with each other, but with the western and oriental versions, has produced a conviction with many, that they contain the genuine text. The force of this he endeavours to remove, by supposing that the Syriac and Italic have both been corrected by this recension. The manuscripts of the Byzantine are much the most numerous, and possess the most extraordinary conformity in their peculiar readings. Of the Egyptian text there is scarcely a second copy, and we should almost doubt its existence, if it were not confirmed by the Sahidic version, the Vercelli manuscript, and the manuscripts * Inquiry into the integrity of the Greek Vulgate, 1815. † "Alexandria et Ægyptus in Septuaginta suis Hesychium laudat auctorem. Constantinopolis usque ad Antiochiam Luciani Martyris exemplaria probat, Mediæ inter has provinciæ Palestinos codices legunt quos ab Origene elaboratos, Eusebius et Pamphilus vulgaverunt. Totusque orbis hac inter se triforia varietate compugnat." Adv. Rufinum. It is confessed that Jerome is here speaking of the Septuagint, but Mr. Nolan conceives that his testimony is to be extended to the New Testament, as well as the Old, and he maintains that whatever may be thought of this conjecture, the fact of three Latin translations is made out. So general was the influence of the revisal of Eusebius of Vercelli, that pro bably, on account of it we retain only, in the Brecía manuscript, a specimen of the antecedent translation. collated by Thomas Heraclensis, for the Philoxenian Syriac, in 616. It is material to observe, that whichever recension we prefer, or if rejecting the scheme altogether as not sufficiently established, (and even Griesbach allows, that no manuscript preserves any recension in a pure state, but is said to be of one, or of the other, as the readings of that recension predominate,) we consider the variations as accidental: the more the subject is investigated, the more reason we shall find to be satisfied, that though the literal identity of the received with the original text, is abandoned by all, the doctrinal identity is established; and that even the most faulty manuscript extant, supposing all others to have perished, would not pervert one article of our faith, nor destroy one moral precept. The Greek Testament was not published till 1516, near a century after the invention of printing, by Erasmus, who superintended five editions. That of 1519 is the most esteemed. It had been printed two years earlier, as a part of the first Polyglot Bible, which great work was undertaken and accomplished under the patronage of Cardinal Ximenes, at Alcala, the ancient Complutum, from which it receives the appellation of Complutensian to distinguish it from those of Paris and London. This was not allowed to be sold, till 1522. Colinæus is the next editor, 1534; then follow the five editions of the Stephenses, 1546-1569; that of Beza, 1565; and that of Elzevir, Leyden, 1624; which adopts the text of Stephens' third, and where it varies from that, follows Beza. This is considered as the received text, having grown into general use, the deviations from which in manuscripts constitute various readings. Stephens noted a variety of of these in his margin, having collated fifteen manuscripts, and the Complutensian edition. In those of Curcellæus and Bishop Fell, the number was considerably augmented. But the celebrated edition of Mills, printed 1707, Oxford, the labour of thirty years, containing 30,000 various readings, being all collected up to his time, formed an æra in Biblical criticism. Dr. Mills had the highest veneration for the Vulgate, and undervalued the Alexandrine manuscript. The edition of Wetstein, which appeared in 1751, is allowed to be a most important one, even by his opponent Michaelis, and Bishop Marsh considers it as invaluable. His enumeration of various readings, far surpasses that of his predecessors; and his Prolegomena, which have been published apart, contain a treasure of sacred criticism, A valuable critical edition was published by Birch at Co penhagen, 1788, and one by Matthæi, with readings from Moscow manuscripts, which had not been previously collated. But of all the critical editions, that of Griesbach, 1796, is universally allowed to be the most complete. His object was a critical arrangement of the readings which had been discovered up to his time; but as from the number of his discriminating marks, it is difficult for one imperfectly acquainted with his work, to ascertain their respective merits, Dr. White has supplied us in his Criseos Griesbachiensis Synopsis, with a convenient index. The division of the Bible into chapters and verses with which we are familiar, is a modern invention. The first was made for both Testaments, in the middle of the thirteenth century by Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Claro, when he projected a concordance. His smaller division by letters of the alphabets, has been superseded by that into verses, which, for the New, was invented by Robert Stephens, and first introduced in his edition of 1551. The Geneva English Testament, printed in that city, 1557, is the first of our translations in which it appears. The punctuation appears to have been commenced by Jerome; who introduced the comma and the colon; the note of interrogation was not used till the ninth century. The editors of printed editions have placed the points arbitrarily, and Stephens, in particular, varied his in every edition; and as they form no part of the original, we are of course entitled to vary them according to our judgment. Some interesting remarks upon this subject, may be seen in Bowyer's Critical Conjectures on the New Testament. † SECTION II. On the Language in which the New Testament is written. HAVING shown that the authenticity of the New Testament may be established by the strongest evidence, and that the text as handed down to us is sufficiently correct, we have next to examine the language in which it is written. That * The ancients had a double division of the New Testament into longer and shorter sections TITλol and xεQaλaia. The former were called in Latin, breves. + It is well known, as an instance of this, that not only Augustine, but all the Greek Fathers, from Irenæus to Chrysostom, who introduced the present punctuation of the passage, marked the third and fourth verses of the first chapter of John's Gospel in the following manner, παντα δι αυτου εγενετο και χωρις αυτου εγενετο ουδε εν ; Ο γεγονεν εν αυτῷ ζωή, ην. language it is well known is Greek; it is, however, Greek of a peculiar character, as all who are conversant with the classical authors will allow, and to distinguish it from that in which they wrote, it has been termed Hellenistic. It is not a distinct dialect, because it differs not in grammar, but in idiom, that is, the inflection of nouns and verbs is the same, but the phrases are different; it is, in short, precisely the same sort of difference as exists between the English composition of a native and of a foreigner, who, though he understands the rules of grammar, thinks in his own language what he afterwards writes down in the other. Thus in the New Testament the phraseology is Hebrew, but the words are Greek. When the Apostles went beyond the Holy Land to preach the gospel, it was necessary that they should make use of another language, their own being confined to Syria; and Greek, which seens then to have been spoken over the Roman empire even more than French in modern Europe, had many advantages over Latin, especially to those whose missions were chiefly directed to the eastern provinces. It had also become the adopted language of the Jews, to whom the gospel was always first proposed. Their persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes, the encouragement held out by the Ptolemies, and other concurring causes, had occasioned a considerable dispersion of the nation, not only in Asia and Africa, but even in Achaia and Italy, as appears from their historian Josephus, from the Acts of the Apostles, and from Roman authors. The gradual loss of their own tongue, and the adoption of Greek naturally followed among these colonists, and this was much promoted by the translation of the Bible into the Alexandrian dialect; which being used in * It is so called, because it is said to be the work of seventy-two translators, sent for that purpose, by the high-priest from Jerusalem to Alexandria, at the desire of Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, who wished to enrich with a copy of the Scriptures, the library which he was then founding at Alexandria. This history, believed by Josephus and Philo, and mentioned with marvellous additions by the early Christian authors, is now regarded as a fable. It is the received opinion, that the Pentateuch was first translated for the use of the Alexandrian synagogue, and as it is in the idiom of that city, by Jews resident there; and afterwards the remaining books. The Pentateuch and Proverbs are the best executed: the Psalms and Prophets, especially Isaiah, were undertaken by men unequal to the task. Its variations from the original, indicate that it must have been translated from manuscripts without points; and in the Pentateuch it comes nearer the Samaritan than the Hebrew text. Being earlier than the Christian ага, it is of the highest critical value, particularly in the passages prophetic of the Messiah; though Dr. Smith (Scripture Testimony to the Messiah) considers that the translators themselves had faint ideas of the doctrine and promise of a Saviour. It is often cited, though not invariably, in the New Testament; and was in the Eastern and Western church the only Bible used for many centuries, as none of the fathers, except Origen and Jerome, were acquainted with Hebrew. Its use in the Church ruined its reputation with the Jews, who adopted the version |