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THE PROLEGOMENA TO TISCHENDORF'S

NEW TESTAMENT.

It was a sad loss to the science of New Testament textual criticism when its two magistri facile principes were smitten down together, some ten years ago, both leaving the texts of their great editions of the Greek Testament, without the necessary complement of prolegomena. It soon became known that in neither case was any important body of notes left behind from which the lack could be measurably supplied; and the loss thus seemed irreparable. The prolegomena and addenda which the friendly piety of Drs. Hort and Freane prepared for Tregelles' New Testament in 1879, welcome though they were, only served to emphasize the loss that criticism had sustained, and to exhibit in clear proportions the magnitude of the task that lay before any one who should undertake to furnish adequate prolegomena, such as the author himself would have prepared had he been spared to the work, to either edition. No wonder that the work of thus completing Tischendorf's great eighth edition went begging for eighteen months throughout Germany and, indeed, the world-for proposals were made to a scholar even in distant America-without finding anybody able and willing to undertake it. No wonder that Dr. Scrivener speaks of it as a gallant thing that the grand

1 NOVUM TESTAMENTUM GRAECE ad antiquissimos testes denuo recensuit apparatum criticum apposuit CONSTANTINUS TISCHENDORF. Editio octava critica major. Volumen III. PROLEGOMENA scripsit CASPARUS RENATUS GREGORY. Additis curis + EZRAE ABBOT. Pars Prior [initial ornament]. Leipzig, J. C. Hinrichs, 1884.

2 Tischendorf died December 7th, 1874, and Tregelles on April 24th, 1875. It is a curious illustration of the slips that all are liable to, that so considerable a scholar as Dr. B. H. Kennedy could publish in 1882 a sentence like the following: "Others [besides Dr. Scrivener] have worked with honour in the same field at the same time, two of whom are gone to their rest, Tregelles and Alford; three survive, Tischendorf, Westcott, Hort." (Ely Lectures on the Revised Version of the New Testament. By B. H. Kennedy, D.D. London, Bentley, 1882, p. v.)

3 Plain Introduction, etc., Ed. iii., 1883, p. 48, note 1.

American scholar whose name now appears on the title page of the finished work, did when he allowed himself to be selected for the task. It belongs to the knight-errancy of scholarship. He had taken, however, the preliminary precaution of enlisting in his aid the ripe learning and untiring accuracy of so great a critic as Dr. Ezra Abbot, and conscious of his own energy and industry, he was able to look the labour before him in the face with some satisfaction. That was in the summer of 1876. For eight years the two scholars worked steadily and quietly together, while the occasional rumours of what was doing that reached the outside world whetted its appetite more and more, and gradually taught it what to expect, until no book, except only the Greek Testament of Westcott and Hort, was looked for with keener interest.

Even the first half of it, however, saw the light, unhappily, a fortnight too late to gladden the eyes of one of the co-workers, as the sadly-significant obelus before the name of Ezra Abbot on the title page advertises to every reader. It is a pleasure to note that the whole of the present issue-which has been in type since 1881-and much else besides, have been in advance sheets and proofs in Dr. Abbot's hands, although he was not permitted to see it in the hands of the public. It is, of course, impossible to determine—perhaps impertinent too closely to inquire— just what elements or portions of the book are due to his care. One long section-including most of the discussion. De Capitibus and all of that De Versibus-is specially accredited to him; and doubtless the proofs of the whole did not pass under his revising and ever-watchful eye without visible result. Certainly no one could be before Dr. Gregory in full acknowledgment of the extent and ubiquity of his aid. It was due to his insistance over-riding Dr. Abbot's objections, that the latter's name appears on the title-page. And a sense of personal gratitude very strongly colours

the words in which Dr. Abbot's readiness to give aid to those who deserved it is described on p. 276: "Ipse minime præterire possum partem illam laborum Abboti, quæ ad aliorum scripta attinet; iudicio, erudicione, accuratione, amicitia, omni modo per multos annos multis et in primis iuvenibus textus sacri studiosis subvenit, corrigens, suggerens, restringens, incitans." And something more than a scholar's regret is evident in the brief postscript announcement attached to the Ad Interim: "Tristis nuntius allatus est. EZRA ABBOTUS vir clarissimus doctissimus amicissimus, die vicesimo1 mensis martii apoplexi obiit. Have pia anima!" At the same time, it is important to remember that the book is Dr. Gregory's: "Scripsit C. R. Gregory," while it is only "additis curis + Ezra Abbot." And this, on the other hand, Dr. Abbot was solicitous to have understood and was forward to assert. In The Harvard Register for July, 1881-after a hundred and sixty pages of the work had been printed off-he writes as follows concerning his part in the labour:-"The writer has been in constant correspondence with Dr. Gregory concerning the matter, from the beginning, and has revised his manuscript so far as it has been prepared. The proof sheets have also been sent to him regularly from Leipzig for revision. The results of some special investigations will appear in the Prolegomena under the writer's name; but whether any contributions he may have made or may make to the work will permit him to allow his name to stand on the title-page in connexion with that of Dr. Gregory, as he has been urged to do by that all too modest scholar, to whom the chief credit will in any event be due, is yet to be determined. however, of this opportunity to express his admiration of the indefatigable industry, patience, and care with which Dr. Gregory has devoted himself to the performance of his task, aiming throughout at a very high ideal of excellence,

1 It should read " twenty-first."

He is glad,

while perfectly aware that he can receive only the most meagre and utterly inadequate pecuniary return for the vast amount of time and labour spent in the work." It is a pleasant sight to see these two scholars vying with one another in their joint work.

As to the character of the work itself, Dr. Abbot writes: "While the hand of Tischendorf will, of course, be missed in certain parts, it will contain a vast amount of new matter as compared with Tischendorf's Prolegomena to his edition of 1859, and will be printed in a way to make it incomparably more convenient for consultation on any particular point." The justice of this statement is now evident to all; and the two chief characteristics of Dr. Gregory's volume may be well declared to be its fulness in point of matter and its exceedingly convenient arrangement. At the same time, Dr. Abbot's estimate is very characteristically guarded and is indeed under rather than over the truth. We can adopt it only if we may be allowed to throw a very strong emphasis on the words "in certain parts.' In other parts and in other particulars, it must be counted a distinct gain that Tischendorf was not permitted to write his own Prolegomena: and, save that scholars have had to wait a dozen years for them, we are not sure but that we distinctly prefer those that have last come to us to any that he would have been likely to give us.

It must not be inferred that Tischendorf is sharply criticised and great shortcomings exhibited in his work, in these new Prolegomena. The opposite is the fact. And one of the gains that accrue to us from them is the marked rehabilitation of Tischendorf as a critic that results from Dr. Gregory's calm and dispassionate criticism of his work from without. How the magnitude of his labours, the extent and accuracy of his investigations, the exactness of his work, loom up before the reader of these quiet pages ! Tischendorf becomes visibly again "the greatest

VOL. I.

L

critic of his day." His literary activity was marvellous : the mere catalogue of his publications occupy some fourteen closely printed pages; five and a half of which are devoted to works which appeared subsequently to the issue of his seventh edition. His unparalleled activity in textual criticism is exhibited less adequately even in his numerous editions of the New Testament itself than in his work on the Uncial MSS., of which he edited twenty-one, transcribed four, collated thirteen, first brought into critical use twenty-three, and actually discovered fifteen,-among them the Sinaiticus. Between the seventh and eighth editions he increased his uncial apparatus by no less than thirty copies. The extent of his work was matched by its trustworthiness and accuracy-in which qualities he has been surpassed by no critic, as Dr. Gregory very often silently shows and occasionally openly proves against current expressions of doubt and detraction.

Nor would it be fair to compare Dr. Gregory's work with Tischendorf's Prolegomena to his seventh edition, to the disadvantage of the latter. In the interval, the times have changed, knowledge has advanced, and the science of criticism has not been the only thing (though some would like to persuade us of it) that has stood still. The Prolegomena of the seventh edition, moreover, were evidently put together in some haste. But after all allowance is made, the difference remains greater than the time alone will account for, and we should scarcely have been justified in expecting from Tischendorf so extensive, complete, and convenient a treatise as Dr. Gregory has given us. This one part alone, although it carries us only through the description of the Uncial MSS., reaches a length one half greater than the whole of the Prolegomena of the seventh edition. Whatever was of permanent value in the old Prolegomena has been incorporated into these. But this amounts to little more than the section De legibus in textu