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 EDITIONS

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EDITIONS

pure form is found nowhere, but the readings of N and some of the oldest uncials, especially of B, give us the nearest approach to it. As to the value of the several classes of readings, Hort believes that most of the Western and Alexandrian, and all the SjTian must be rejected; these latter he finds nowhere before the mid- dle of the third century. All the necessary explana- tions have been collected in a volume accompanying Westcott and Hort's "New Testament in the Original Greek" (Cambridge and London, ISSl). The volume contains an introduction (324 pages) and an appendix (173 pages). The introduction treats of the necessity of Textual New-Testament Criticism (pp. 4-lS), of its various methods (19-72), of the application of its prin- ciples to the restoration of the New-Testament text (73-287), and finally of the character, the aim, and the arrangement of the new edition (288-324). The appendix contains critical comments on difficult pas- sages (pp. 1-140), notes on certain orthographic and grammatical discrepancies lietween the ancient codi- ces (pp. 141-173), and finally a complete list of the Old-Testament passages employed in the New (pp. 174-188). The volume containing the text of West- cott and Hort's edition was printed also separately in the year of the first appearance. In 1885 (1887, etc.) the text appeared separately in a volume of smaller size, and in 1895-96 both volumes of the original work were published anew in their larger form.

(7) Westcott and Hort's Greek New Testament, though hailed with delight by a great number of textual critics, did not meet with unchallenged praise. Among the dissenters were Godet, Wunderlich, Dobschiitz, Jiilicher, Bousset, and Burgon (The Revision Revised; The Quarterly Review, 1881-82; 2nd edit., London, 1885). Of these, some object to Westcott and Hort's method, others to their appreciation of Codex B, others to their attitude towards the so-called AA'estern readings, others, finally, uphold the claims of the Received Text. In the third and fourth editions of his "Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Tes- tament", F. H. Scrivener writes against the views of Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott-Hort -he favours the readings of the later manuscripts in the reconstruc- tion of the Greek New-Testament text, and advocates the return to a text-form similar to the Received Te.xt. Among his various publications we may notice "The New Testament in the Original Greek, together with the Variations Adopted in the Revised Version" (New Edition, London, 1894) and his various collations of texts CTwenty Manuscripts of the Gospels, London, 1853; Collation of Codex Sinaiticus with the Received Text, Cambridge and London, 1863, 1867). Here may be mentioned also " The Greek Testament with a critically revised text, a digest of various readings, marginal references to verbal and idiomatic usage, prolegomena, and a critical and exegetical commen- tary" etlited by Henry Alford, afterwards Dean of Canterbury (London, 1849-1857; si.xth edition, 1871). Tischendorf was of opinion that Alford's revision of the text was not satisfactory. Again, "The New Tes- tament in the Original Greek, with Notes and Intro- duction" (London, 1856-(50: newly edited with index, 1867), by Christopher Wordsworth, Canon of West- minster, is a mixture of the texts of Griesbach, Lach- mann, 'Tischendorf, and Elzevir. Finally, in connex- ion with the Revised Edition, Professor C. Palmer, of Oxford, published "The Greek Testament, with the Readings adopted liy the Revisers of the Authorised Version"' (Oxford, 1881 ; Clarendon Press).

(8) Among the chief works dealing with the textual restoration of the Greek New Testament which have appeared in recent years, we miist mention the edition of B. Weiss: Part I, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Apoca- lypse (I^ipzig, 1894, Ilinriohs); Part II, The Pauline Epistles together with Hebr. (1896); Part III, The Gospels (1900). A manual edition of this text ap- peared 1902-05, in three volumes; the mistakes of the

first issue were corrected as far as possible. Richard Francis Weymouth edited in a handy form " The Re- siJtant Greek Testament" (London, 1886, Elliot Stock; cheap edition, 1892 and 1896; third edition, 1905) ; in it lie gives us the text on which the majority of modern editors are agreed, together with all the readings of Stephens (1550), Lachmann, Tregelles Lightfoot, Ellicott, Alford, Weiss, the Bale Edition (1S80), Westcott-Hort, and the Revision Committee, with an introduction by J. J. St. Perowne. The editor may not give the reader anj'thing of his own, but he furnishes an amount of textual erudition which the Bible student can hardly afford to neglect. Dr. E. Nestle has edited a "Novum Testamentum Gra?ce cum apparatu critico" (Stuttgart, 1898, 1899, 1901, 1903, 1904, 1906) based on the four most prominent of the recent texts: Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort, Wey- mouth, and Weiss. All the variants of the four edi- tions, excepting as to minor details, are noted, so that the reader obtains at a glance the results of the fore- most textual criticism on any given text. It would be difficult indeed to contrive a handier and more com- plete edition of the Greek text than this of Nestle's, which seems likely to become the Received Text of the twentieth centurj-.

(9) It is, therefore, all the more to be regretted that Nestle's text cannot be recommended to the general Catholic reader. Not to mention other shortcomings, it places John, v, 4, and vii, 53-viii, 11, among the foot-notes, and represents Mark, xvi, 9-20, together with an alternative ending of the Second Gospel, as a "Western non-mterpolation", suggesting that it is an ancient Eastern interpolation of the sacred text. The rules of the new Index enumerate with precision those classes of Catholics who may read texts like that of Nestle; others must content themselves with one or another of the following editions: P. A. Gratz re- edited the Complutensian text (Tubingen, 1821 ; Fiis); L. Van Ess published a combination of the Complu- tensian and the Erasmian text (Tiibingen, 1827; Fiis); Jaumann adheres closely to the edition of Titt- mann (Munich, 1832; Lindauer); we have already mentioned Tischendorf's text prepared for Catholic readers under the influence of I. M. Jager (Paris, 1S47, 1851, 1859); Reithmayr produced a combination of this latter edition and that of Lachmann (Munich, 1847; Ratisbon, 1851); V. Loch derived his text, as far as possible, from the Code.x Vaticanus (Ratisbon, 1862); Tauchnitz published, with the approbation of the proper ecclesiastical authority of Dresden, Theile's text almost without change, together with the te.xt of the Latin Vulgate; Brandscheid edited the Greek text and the Latin Vulgate of the New Testament in such a way as to bring tlie former as much as possible into agreement with the latter (Freiburg, 1901, etc.); finally, M. Hetzenauer published his "Novum Testa- mentum Grxce" (Innsbruck, 1904, Wagner), repro- ducing in separate form the Greek te.xt of his Greek- Latin edition (1896-98). He is more independent of the Vulgate text than Brandscheid, and he adds the more important variants in the margin, or in foot- notes, or again in an appcndir rn'tirn.

(10) It must not be imagined that the textual crit- icism of the New Testament has arrived at a state that can be regarded as final. Without doing injustice to the splendid results attained by the labours of the scholars enimierated in this article, it must be con- fessed that the condition of the textual criticism of the New Testament is more uncertain to-tlay than it was t wenty years ago. The imcertainty springs mainly from the doubts of our critics as to the real value of the A\'estern readings. Professor Ulass may exagger- ate the importance of these Western readings, at least with regard to the Book of .Acts, when he consid- ers them as the transcript of the inspired writer's first or rough copy, while he ident ifies the Eastern with the copy actually sent out to Antioch. Even if stu-