ed. Now the investigation of this previous question is a work of immense labour. The Greek manuscripts of St. Paul's Epistles (or, as we should rather say in the present stage of our inquiry, of the Epistles ascribed to St. Paul,) amount, as far as we know them, to more than an hundred and fifty: and the Greek manuscripts of the Gospels, with which we are acquainted, amount to more than three hundred and fifty. But among all these manuscripts there is none, which is so far entitled to precedence, as to be received for the true copy, of which we are in search. In fact the truth lies scattered among them all and in order to obtain the truth, we must gather from them all. Nor is an examination of these manuscripts, numerous as they are, alone sufficient for the object, which we have in view. The quotations from the Greek Testament in the voluminous writings of the Greek fathers, must likewise be examined, that we may know what they found in their Greek manuscripts. The ancient versions must also be consulted, in order to learn what the writers of those versions found in their copies of the Greek Testament. When all these collections from manuscripts, fathers, and versions, have been formed, and reduced into proper order, we have then to determine in every single instance, which among the various readings is probably the genuine reading. And that we may know how to determine, we must establish laws of criticism, calculated to counteract the causes, which produced the variations, and, by these means, to restore the true copy, of which we are in search.

Now it cannot be supposed that labours, for which, when taken collectively, no single life is sufficient, would be recommended even by a zealot in his profession, as forming a regular part of theological study. Those labours are unnecessary for us; they have been already undertaken, and executed with success. But if the industry of our predecessors has removed the burden from our shoulders, we must not therefore become indifferent spectators, unconcerned whether the burden be well or ill supported. must at least inform ourselves of the nature and extent of those labours; or we shall never know, whether the object has been obtained, for which they were undertaken. We must make ourselves acquainted with the causes, which produced the variations in question, or we shall never know, whether the laws of criticism, which profess to remedy that evil, are founded in truth or falsehood.

We

We must inquire therefore, first, into the causes of the evil, and then into the remedies, which have been applied to it; remedies, which we shall find hereafter to have been applied with great success.

The manuscripts of the Greek Testament, during the fourteen hundred years, which elapsed from the apostolic age to the invention of printing, were exposed, like all other manuscripts, to mistakes in transcribing and as every copy had unavoidably √some errors, those errors multiplied with the multiplication of the copies. Letters, syllables, words, were added, omitted, or transposed, from mere carelessness in writing, whether the writer transcribed from a

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manuscript before him, or wrote, as was frequently the case, from the dictation of another. In the latter case, his ear might be deceived by a similarity in the sound of different words; in the former case, his eye might be deceived by a similarity in their form, by different words having the same final syllable, or by different sentences having the same final word. At other times, a transcriber misunderstood the manuscript, from which he copied, either falsely interpreting its abbreviations, or falsely dividing the words, where they were written (as in the most ancient manuscripts) without intervals. Or the fault might be partly attributable to the manuscript itself, in cases, where its letters were wholly or partly effaced or faded.

But the greatest variations arose from alterations made by design. The transcribers of the Greek Testament were not bound, like the transcribers of the Hebrew Bible, by rules prescribed to them in a Masora, or critical law book. Hence they often took the liberty of improving, as they supposed, on that manuscript, of which it was their business to have given only a copy; a liberty similar to that, which is now taken in a printing-office, where a compositor often improves on the manuscript of an author. Hence, a native of Greece, accustomed to hear his own lan. guage without an admixture of Oriental idioms, and regarding therefore a Hebraism or a Syraism, in the light of a solecism, would accordingly correct it, not considering or not knowing, that these Hebraisms and Syraisms are the very idioms, which we should ex

pect from Greek writers, who were born or educated in Judea, idioms therefore which form a strong argument for the authenticity of their writings. At other times, these same improvers, when they remarked that one Evangelist recorded the same thing more fully than another, (a circumstance again of great importance, as it shews there was no combination among the Evangelists,) regarded this want of perfect coincidence as an imperfection, which they deemed it necessary to remove, by supplying the shorter account from the longer. Nor did they spare even the quotations from the Old Testament, whether those quotations were transcripts from the Septuagint, or translations from the Hebrew by the author himself. they only differed from the transcriber's Septuagint, he concluded, that they were wrong, and required amendment.

If

But the most fruitful source of designed alterations was the removal of marginal annotations into the text. Indeed to this cause may be ascribed the alterations from parallel passages, whenever those parallel passages had been written in the margin. Other marginal notes consisted of explanations, or applications of the adjacent text: and, when a manuscript, with such notes, fell into the hands of a transcriber, he either supposed, that they were parts of the text, accidentally omitted, and supplied in the margin, or considered them as useful additions, which there would be no harm in adopting. In either case he took them into the text of that manu, script, which he himself was writing.

The latter case may indeed be referred to that class of various readings, which derive their origin from wilful corruption, being introduced for the sole purpose of obtaining support to some particular doctrine. That such things have been done, and done by all parties, is not to be denied: for we have examples on record. But as we have received our manuscripts of the Greek Testament, not out of the hands of the ancient heretics, but from the orthodox members of the Greek church, we have less reason to apprehend, that they have suffered, in points of doctrine, from heretical influence.

Having thus taken a general review of the causes, which operated, till the invention of printing, in producing the variations of the Greek Text, I have now to undertake the more agreeable office of recording the attempts, which have been made in later ages, to restore it to its original purity.

For this purpose it is necessary to give a description, or history of the critical editions of the Greek Testament; that is, a description of all those editions, which were printed either wholly from Greek manuscripts, or with emendations from Greek manuscripts, or with a critical apparatus, for the purpose of emendation. In this description, an account of the materials employed by each editor, and of the use which he made of them, must form an essential part for hence only can we determine the value of his edition. We must observe also the influence of preceding on subsequent editions, and trace the progress of the Greek text throughout its several stages.