IX.

WESTCOTT AND HORT'S EDITION OF THE

GREEK TESTAMENT.*

[From the Sunday School Times for Nov. 5, 1881.]

THIS edition of the Greek Testament will mark an epoch in the history of New Testament criticism. Dr. Schaff accepts its text enthusiastically as "the oldest and purest which has yet been published. Many in England, and still more, probably, in Germany, will heartily welcome it as a work bearing everywhere the stamp of independent, original research, and the most painstaking care. But, in some quarters, it cannot fail to encounter deadly hostility, and before its conclusions are generally adopted there will be much discussion. Though the work will now be more fairly judged than if it had been published twenty years ago, the charge of extreme rashness will doubtless be brought against the editors by such critics as Dean Burgon and the Rev. J. B. McClellan; and Dr. Scrivener, who had the use of their "provisional" text, has already, in the second edition of his Introduction (1874), strongly expressed his dissent from many of their conclusions. Even scholars who have become emancipated from the superstitious worship of the so-called "Received Text," and who are ready to decide critical questions on purely critical principles, and not by their "infallible instincts," may be startled at the boldness of the editors in the use of the pruning-knife, which in their hands cuts deeper than even in those of Tischendorf and Tregelles. Westcott and Hort, for exam

The New Testament in the Original Greek: the Text revised by Brooke Foss Westcott, D.D., Canon of Peterborough, and Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge, and Fenton John Anthony Hort, D.D., Hulsean Professor of Divinity, Cambridge. American Edition, with an Introduction by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D. Crown 8vo. pp. xc., 580 New York: Harper &

Brothers. Price $2.00.

ple, regard as later additions to the text not only the last twelve verses of Mark, the account of the descent of the angel into the pool of Bethesda (or "Bethzatha," as they read), and the story of the woman taken in adultery (John vii. 53 to viii. 11), but the passages noted in the margin of the Revised Version at Matt. xvi. 2, 3; Luke xxii. 19, 20, 43, 44; xxiii. 34; xxiv. 3, 6, 12, 36, 40, 51, 52; and John iii. 13, as "omitted by some [or "many"] ancient authorities." Other readings of theirs will seem to many, at first sight at least, very questionable.

But the last charge which can be justly brought against the editors is that of rashness. They may have erred in judgment, but they have come to their conclusions with great deliberation. The history of the work entitles it, not, indeed, to immediate, unquestioning acceptance as final in its decisions, but to the most respectful consideration. It "was projected and commenced in 1853, and the work has never been laid more than partially aside in the interval, though it has suffered many delays and interruptions. The mode of procedure adopted by the editors from the first was to work out their results independently of each other, to hold no counsel together except upon results already provisionally obtained, and to discuss on paper the comparatively few points of initial difference until either agreement or final difference was reached." (Circular of the publishers.) To this, it may be added that a large part of the text, the Gospels at least, appears to have been in type for more than ten years, during which period it has been revised and re-revised with great care, as deeper investigations have led the editors to modify here and there their earlier decisions. As to the character of the editors, none who are acquainted with the writings of Professor Westcott and Dr. Hort will question their eminent intellectual and moral qualifications for the task they have undertaken,— the great moral qualification, in studies such as these, being the single aim to ascertain the truth.

It is important, however, to observe that the present volume exhibits only the results of their critical investiga

tions. It takes no notice of the text of any previous edition, so that there is nothing to show the extent of its divergence from the so-called "Received Text," or of its agreement with the great critical editions of Tischendorf and Tregelles, with which, notwithstanding many differences, it does agree in the main. There is no discussion of any reading, no statement of the authorities (MSS., etc.) which, in any questionable case, support the text. Alternative readings, indeed, are given, where the editors regard the true reading as more or less uncertain; also, certain noteworthy rejected readings appear in the text in double brackets, or in the margin with certain marks; and at the end of the volume there is a list of still other rejected readings "which have been thought worthy of notice in the appendix [to the second volume] on account of some special interest attaching to them." This list also includes a few passages in which the editors (or one of them) suspect "some primitive error," and propose conjectural emendations. But it is a mere list. There is also a very condensed sketch (pp. 541-562) of the conclusions of the editors in regard to the true principles of criticism, the history of the text, the grouping of our chief documentary authorities in accordance with their peculiar characteristics, and the determination of the relative value of the several documents and groups of documents, in estimating which "the history and genealogy of textual transmission have been taken as the necessary foundation." To this is subjoined a most appetizing and tantalizing summary of the contents of their elaborate "Critical Introduction," which, with an appendix, containing notes on select readings, notes on orthography, and a list of passages of the Old Testament quoted or alluded to, forms the second or accompanying volume of their work. This was announced more than a month ago in the Academy and elsewhere as to appear immediately, but does not seem as yet to have found its way across the Atlantic.

It is this critical "Introduction" which will give the edition of Westcott and Hort its distinctive value, and which,

whether all their conclusions prove firmly established or not, will be most heartily welcomed by scholars, and cannot fail to contribute greatly to the advancement of New Testament criticism. They have undertaken a very difficult and delicate task; but their method is the true one. Some pioneering had been done by Griesbach and others; but no such comprehensive and scientific investigation of the character and relative value of our external authorities for settling the text has been hitherto attempted. It is on this introduction that the whole structure of the editors rests; and any criticism of particular readings which they have adopted, should, in fairness, be reserved till the facts and reasonings on which their system of criticism is founded, have been carefully studied and weighed.

To describe the four types of text, "the Western," "the Alexandrian," "the Neutral," and "the Syrian" (earlier and later), which they find represented in our critical documents, would require more space than can here be allowed. It may be enough to say that the text which they designate as "neutral," and regard as in general approximating most closely to the original autographs, is represented in its greatest purity by the Vatican MS. (B), to which they assign superlative value; the Sinaitic () being, in their judgment, next in importance, but far less pure. But "with certain limited classes of exceptions, the readings of N and B combined may safely be accepted as genuine in the absence of specially strong internal evidence to the contrary, and can never be safely rejected altogether" (p. 557). Nay, every combination of B with one other primary MS., as in the Gospels L, C, or T, "is found to have a large proportion of readings, which on the closest scrutiny have the ring of genuineness, and hardly any that look suspicious after full consideration." "Even when B stands alone, its readings must never be lightly rejected" (Ibid.). This estimate differs somewhat from that of Professor T. R. Birks of Cambridge, who conceives himself to have proved by mathematical calculations "that on the hypothesis most favourable to the early manuscripts, and specially to the Vatican, its

weight is exactly that of two manuscripts of the fifteenth century, while the Sinaitic weighs only one-third more than an average manuscript of the eleventh century." (Essay on the Right Estimation of Manuscript Evidence in the Text of the New Testament, London, 1878, p. 66.)

The present volume is issued in such a form that it may be used independently of the second; and it is apparently supposed that there will be some or many theological students whose want of a convenient manual edition will be met by this volume alone. It certainly is one which every theological student may well desire to possess, and should possess if possible; but the question may arise how far it will serve as his only edition. If he is ready to accept the conclusions of the editors without further inquiry or examination of evidence, and without comparison with those of other critics, and if he does not care to have a text furnished with references to parallel or illustrative passages, or to the quotations from the Old Testament, this volume may be perfectly satisfactory. It is beautifully printed, though the type is not large; the lines are well leaded; its form is convenient; and it may be read with great delight. Indeed, there is no other existing edition of the Greek Testament in which so much is done to aid the mind of the reader by the form in which the matter is presented to the eye. The great natural divisions of the larger books are marked by a wide space, and by the printing of the initial words in capitals; the minor subdivisions, but such as comprise many paragraphs, are separated by a smaller space; the paragraphs, when they include a series of connected topics, as, for example, Matt. v. 17-48, are broken up by short but well-marked spaces into sub-paragraphs, as in Herbert Spencer's writings, a most excellent device, worthy of general introduction. "Uncial type" is employed for quotations from the Old Testament, and also to mark phrases borrowed from it; rhythmical passages, like Luke i. 46–55, 68– 79, as well as poetical quotations from the Old Testament, are printed in a metrical form. The chapters and verses are numbered only in the margin. This sometimes leaves