Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - 1881.djvu/85

 INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. Isxiii

against the received reading, but lie did it only in rare instances. "The peculiar importance of Bengel's New Testament is due to the critical principles developed there- in. Not only was his native acuteness of great service to him when weighing the conflicting probabilities of internal evidence, but in his fertile mind sprang up the germ of that theory of families or recensions which was afterwards expanded by J. S. Semler (1725-91), and grew to such for- midable dimensions in the skilful hands of Griesbach."*

(9.) Jo. JAC. WETSTEisf (1093-1754): Novum Testa- menlum Gnccttm Editionis Receptce cum Lcctionibus, etc., Amstel. 1751-52, 2 torn. fol. The text is mainly from the Elzevir editions, with some readings from Fell's text. He made large additions to the apparatus, and carefully de- scribed the MSS. and other sources in the Prolegomena, i. 1-222; ii. 3-15, 449-454, 741-43. His magnificent edition contains also a learned commentary, with illustra- tions from Hebrew, Greek, and Latin authors.

\Vetstein was far inferior to Bengel in judgment, but surpassed him in the extent of his resources. He was nei- ther a sound theologian nor a safe critic, but a most in- dustrious worker and collator. His New Testament repre-

(1831) and WEchter (1865), and an article in Hcrzog, ii. 295-801 (new ed.).
 * Scrivener, p. 403. Comp. on Bengel the biographies of Burk

f His family name was Wtttitein (see Hagcnbach's art. in Herzog, vol. xviii. p. 74); but he signed himself in Latin Wet- gttntu* ; and hence English. Dutch, and most German writers spell the name Wttttein. He was a native of Basle, and for some time assistant pastor of his father at St. Lconhard'H; but. being suspected of Arian and Socinian heresy, he was deposed and exiled from his native city (1730). He obtained a profMP orehip at the Arminian College at Amsterdam (1733).

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