Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - 1881.djvu/77

 INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. Uix

lUhed till 1520, four years after the first edition of Erasmus (who did not see the Polyglot till 1522), and three yean after the cardinal's death (who died 1517, at the age of eighty-one). Pope Leo would not give his approbation till March 22, 1520; even then there was somo delay, and the work did not get into general circulation before 1522.

The New Testament forms vol. v., and gives the Greek and the Latin Vulgate. Vols. ii., iii., and iv. contain the Old Testament with the Apocrypha. The canonical books of the Old Testament are given in three languages : the Latin Vulgate characteristically holds the place of honour in the middle, between the Greek Scptuagint and the Ilebrew orig- inal. This signifies, according to the Prolegomena, that Christ, i. e. the Roman or Latin Church, was crucified be- tween two robbers, i. e. the Jewish Synagogue and the schismatical Greek Church ! The sixth vol. contains lexica, indexes, etc. Only six hundred copies were printed ; hence the work is very rare.

The liberal cardinal spent on his Polyglot 50,000 ducats, or about $115,000. But it was only one fourth of his yearly income.*

The text of the New Testament is mostly derived from late MSS. not specified, and not described except in the general terms " very ancient and correct," and procured from Rome.f

Text, etc., pp. 1-19.
 * See a full description in Tregelles, Account of the Printed

\ On the textual sources of the Complutcnsian Polyglot, see Tregelles, loc. fit. , pp. 13-18. Reuss (RiMioth. pp. lft-24) gives a list of the readings peculiar to this Greek Testament. An ac- curate reprint was edited by P. A. Oratz, Tubingen, 1821 ; 2d ed. Mayence, 1827, with changes in the orthography and punctua-

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