Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - 1881.djvu/73

 OfTRODl'CTKiX To THE AMERICAN EDITION', lit

initiating for three hundred years. We are now able to go back from the cursive text of the fifteenth century to a text at least a thousand years older a text of the Nicene and ante-Nicene age.

It has taken a long time for scholars to become emanci- pated from the tyranny of the Teztua Rtceptua, and it will be a long time before the people can be weaned from the authority of the vernacular versions based upon it But the truth will prevail at last over tradition and habit. Amicus Sttphanua, amicua /fora, sed magia arnica veritaa.

The loss of the traditional text is more than mode up by the gain. The substance remains, the form only is changed. The true text is shorter, but it is also older, purer, and stronger. By that we must abide until new discoveries bring us still nearer to the inspired original.

��in. THE PRINTED EDITIONS OF THE GREEK TEXT.

The history of the printed text of the Greek Testament may be divided into three periods :

(1.) The period of the unlimited reign of the Received Text, so called, from 1516 to 1750 or 1770.

(2.) The transition period from the Received Text to the Uncial Text, 1770 to 1830.

(3.) The restoration of the oldest and purest text, 1830 to 1881.

Dr. Rcuss, of Strasburg, who is in possession of the largest private collection of editions of the Greek Testa- ment, gives a chronological list of 584 distinct and 151 title editions of the Greek Testament, printed from 1514

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