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important revision about the end of the third century, resulting in the translation known as the Peshito (Simple), which was widely used in the most flourishing period of the Syrian Church (as the Vulgate was in the Churches of the West), and still holds a place of honour in the East. Its oldest MS. is Cod. Additionalis in the British Museum. It contains all the books of the New Testament except 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. Another Syriac Version called the Philoxenian, of a very literal character, was made by one Polycarp, under the auspices of Philoxenus, Bishop of Hierapolis, about 508 A.D. A century later it was revised, and enriched with valuable marginal notes from Greek MSS. by Thomas of Harkel—this edition being hence called Harklensian, or Harklean. Many copies of it are still extant. The Jerusalem Syriac (peculiar in its dialect), of which only a few meagre fragments remain, was probably made in the fifth or sixth century. In general the value of the Syriac testimony is greatly impaired by the paucity of ancient MSS. as well as of Patristic quotations. Quite recently a Palimpsest of the Gospels has been discovered, of which a facsimile specimen is prefixed to this volume. It is supposed to represent the oldest form of the Syriac text, but the examination of it is not yet completed.

(3) Egyptian. There are three versions to which this name may be applied―(1) Memphitic, the version of Lower Egypt, of which Memphis was the capital (sometimes erroneously called Coptic, which is a designation common to all); (2) Thebaic or Sahidic, of Upper Egypt, Thebes being the capital; and (3) Bashmuric, a rude adaptation of the Thebaic for the huntsmen in the Delta of the Nile. The two former date as early as the second century, although perhaps not completed till the third; and contain all the books of the New Testament-the Apocalypse, however, being kept apart in an appendix. The MSS. of the Thebaic are ancient, but few and fragmentary; those of the Memphitic are numerous, but mostly as late as the twelfth century. The text varies; but in the best MSS. it is wonderfully pure, being of the early Alexandrian type, and of great value for critical purposes. (4) Gothic. This version, which is said to have been at one time the vernacular translation of a large portion of Europe, was made from the Greek by Ulfilas, bishop of the Goths, about the middle of the fourth century, "written in an alphabet he constructed for the purpose out of Greek, Latin, and Runic characters." It is preserved in the beautiful Cod. Argenteus of Upsala, and other MSS. of the sixth century, and contains the Gospels and Pauline Epistles (without Hebrews); but it shows more departures from the true text than the Egyptian version.

(5) Ethiopic. This version, which is considered to be on the whole an excellent rendering of the original, was probably made from the Greek in the fourth or fifth century, for the use of the Abyssinian

Church. It contains the whole New Testament; but its surviving MSS. are very late (fifteenth century), and exhibit considerable diversity.

(6) Armenian. The text of this version, which was made from the Greek about the middle of the fifth century, shows considerable traces of readings derived both from the Peshito and the Vulgate the result, it is supposed, of revision in the sixth century, when the Armenian and Syrian Churches were brought into closer relations, and in the thirteenth century, when the Armenians came under the influence of the Church of Rome. It contains the whole New Testament; but few of its MSS. are earlier than the thirteenth century.

NOTE C on Textual Criticism.

Textual Criticism is essentially of the nature of a judicial process. It is the work of the critic to collect and weigh all the evidence that can be obtained by the collation of MSS., Versions, and Patristic quotations, with the view of determining as far as possible the precise words of the original writer.

This evidence is of two kinds :

I. External, being the testimony, on the passage in question, of the various extant documents.

II. Internal, relating to the probability attaching to various readings, having regard on the one hand to the mind of the author, and on the other to the work of the copyist or scribe.

I. External Evidence.-Owing to the great diversity in the age and derivation of the various documents in which the text of the New Testament is contained, it becomes necessary to form some estimate of the general character of each before dealing with its evidence in a particular case. As in a court of justice the evidence of a number of witnesses who had obtained their information at second hand from a common source would be reckoned of little or no value if the original witness could be produced, and, in any case, would have far less weight than if it had been derived from several independent sources; so, in Textual Criticism, it is essential for a right adjudication on the various readings to ascertain as far as possible the historical relations of the different MSS., and the sources from which they were derived. Not only may their age generally be inferred with confidence from their handwriting, &c., but it is also possible, by comparing their respective testimony in certain test-passages in which they have to range themselves on one side or another, to discover traits of family likeness among them which enable us to arrange them into groups. The first to employ this method of classification was Bengel (1752), who divided

the more ancient MSS. into two groups, the African and the Asiatic. He was followed by Griesbach (1812), who made out three groups, the Alexandrian, the Western, and the Byzantine. More recently the same principle has been worked out by (among others) Lachmann, who divided MSS. into the African and the Byzantine; and by Tischendorf, who sub-divided them into Alexandrian and Latin, Asiatic and Byzantine.

This arrangement has been somewhat modified by Westcott and Hort, who distinguish the various groups as Neutral, Western, Alexandrian, and Syrian. The last named group (so called because its text can be distinctly traced in the New Testament quotations in Chrysostom and other Church Fathers trained at Antioch of Syria) corresponds to Griesbach's Byzantine, and represents the latest and most corrupt form of text. According to Westcott and Hort it was the result of successive Syrian recensions in the third and fourth centuries; but perhaps it may have been due rather to the great demand in Constantinople for fresh copies of the Scriptures, in a smooth and polished style, which was occasioned by the adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Empire in the early part of the fourth century. This Syrian or Byzantine text finds no support in the most ancient MSS., nor in any Version or Church Father before the middle of the third century; and it is characterized by what are called conflate readings, due to the amalgamation of readings derived from the other and older texts. Of the three remaining groups the Western is of least value for critical purposes (although supported by the Old Latin Version, and many Uncial MSS., as well as Patristic writings of the second century), because it bears evidence of great liberties having been taken with the original text, in the way of paraphrasing and interpolating, under the influence of oral tradition, before the canonical character of our New Testament books had been fully realized. Of the two others the Neutral is superior to the Alexandrian, the latter being marred by numerous trifling alterations in the supposed interests of grammar on which much attention was bestowed at Alexandria.

A great drawback in the working out of this system of genealogical grouping is found in the fact that in most MSS. there is a considerable mixture of texts, many MSS. having been corrected and re-corrected with the help of other exemplars than those from which they were originally copied. Hence of the Neutral there is only one pure representative extant-viz., Codex Vaticanus (B) in the Gospels, Acts, and Catholic Epistles, its Pauline Epistles exhibiting a Western text. Of the Western the purest representatives are Cod. Bezae in the Gospel and Acts (D), Cod. Claromontanus (D2, Paul's Epistles), and Cod. Boernerianus (G, Paul's Epistles), with the addition perhaps of the African Latin Version.

To compensate for the disadvantage arising from the prevailing

mixture of texts, another means has been resorted to for ascertaining the collective value of evidence in any particular case. The several witnesses in favour of the reading in question are regarded as a separate group, and the general value of their united testimony appraised by a series of experiments in disputed passages where the true reading has been already ascertained. As the result of this mode of examination it has been found that any combination of documents in which B is found may generally be relied on, while and B together form a combination of the highest value. The collective value of a number of MSS. thus combined is called the Internal Evidence of Groups, just as the general character of an individual MS., when similarly ascertained by continuous experiments, is reckoned among Internal Evidence of Documents.

II. With regard to Internal Evidence, properly so called, it is of two kinds (1) Intrinsic, having reference to the probability or improbability attaching to a reading, in view of what is otherwise known of the mind of the author, more especially in the light of the context; and (2) Transcriptional, being the evidence afforded by the known habits or tendencies of the copyist. A careful examination of MSS. has brought to light certain forms of error into which copyists were more or less liable to fall; and these liabilities have to be kept in view in judging of a various reading. In the case of Uncial MSS. the risk of error was particularly great, as the whole page presented the appearance of one solid block without any separation even between different words. Transcriptional errors may be roughly distinguished as Intentional or Unintentional. Of the latter the most common are:

(a) Mistaking of one word or syllable for another closely resembling it in sound (called Itacism).

(6) Repetition, by mistake, of a letter or syllable or word.

(c) Making one word into two, or two into one.

(d) Omission of a clause-frequently of a line-owing to its having a similar ending to the one before it (Homoioteleuton).

(e) Failure of memory in the act of transcribing a number of words just seen or heard.

(f) Unconscious assimilation of words to those of a parallel passage, or of one word to its neighbour-in its termination or otherwise.

Among Intentional changes may be reckoned :

(a) Insertion of marginal glosses in the text.

(b) Introduction of liturgical phrases.

(c) Alteration of the text for the purpose of improving its language or doctrine.

For general guidance the following Canons of Criticism are found useful, when applied with discretion :

(1) The shorter reading is to be preferred to the more verbose

B

(Brevior lectio præferenda verbosiori, Griesbach). This is owing to the tendency of copyists to insert and expand.

(2) A difficult reading is to be preferred to an easy one (Proclivi lectioni præstat ardua, Bengel)-owing to the tendency of copyists to simplify and smooth.

(3) A reading characteristic of the author or of the New Testament, is generally to be preferred to one of a more common or classical nature, owing to the tendency of copyists to remove solecisms or other peculiarities.

(4) In a parallel passage the more independent reading is to be preferred, owing to the tendency of copyists to assimilate in such

cases.

5) The true reading is that which will account for the origin of the other readings. This is a fundamental principle.

(In this connection the reader may be referred to Scrivener's Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament as well as to the kindred works already mentioned.)

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