Introduction, by Westcott and Hort

[John Reece]

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105.....This large amount of present ignorance respecting the contents of cursives is much to be lamented. Valuable texts may lie hidden among them ; many of them are doubtless sprinkled with relics of valuable texts now destroyed ; and fresh collations always throw more or less light on the later history of the text generally, and sometimes on its earlier history. But enough is already known to enable us to judge with reasonable certainty as to the proportional amount of valuable evidence likely to be buried in the copies as yet uncollated. If we are to trust the analogy thus provided, which agrees with what might have been anticipated from the average results of continued transcription generally, nothing can well be less probable than the discovery of cursive evidence sufficiently important to affect present conclusions in more than a handful of passages, much less to alter present interpretations of the relations between existing documents.

[John Reece]

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106.....The nominal list of uncials needs hardly any appreciable deductions to make it a true representation of the uncial evidence completely available. With the exception of the lately discovered Σ, all the older and more important uncials, some fragments excepted, have now been published in continuous texts, and the various readings of the rest are included in the apparatus critici of Tischendorf and (with unimportant exceptions) Tregelles.

[John Reece]

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B. ...107―122...... Versions

107.....The second class of documents consists of Versions, that is, ancient translations of the whole or parts of the New Testament, made chiefly for the service of churches in which Greek was at least not habitually spoken. Besides some outlying Versions, there are three principal classes, the Latin, the Syriac, and the Egyptian. The history of all is still more still more or less obscure.

[John Reece]

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108.....The Latin manuscripts are usually classified under two heads, 'Old Latin' (sometimes miscalled 'Italic') and 'Vulgate'. For some purposes the distinction is convenient and almost necessary : but it disguises the fact that there is a wider difference between the earlier and the later stages of the 'Old Latin' (in this comprehensive sense of the term) than between the later stages and the Vulgate. The statements of Tertullian leave no doubt that when he wrote, near the beginning of the third century, a Latin translation of the New Testament was already current in North Africa. How much earlier it came into existence, and in what manner, cannot be ascertained ; but it may be reasonably assumed to have originated in Africa. An exact and authentic transcript of portions of the African text is conveyed to us by the early Latin patristic quotations. The rich evidence supplied by Tertullian's works is indeed difficult to disentangle, because he was fond of using his knowledge of Greek by quoting Scripture in immediate and original renderings, the proportion of which to his quotations from the existing version is indeterminate but certainly large. This disturbing element is absent however from Cyprian's quotations, which are fortunately copious and carefully made, and thus afford trustworthy standards of African Old Latin in a very early though still not the earliest stage.

[John Reece]

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109.....In the fourth century we find current in Western Europe, and especially in North Italy, a second type of text, the precise relation of which to the African text of the second and third centuries has not yet been clearly ascertained. These two Latin texts have very much in common, both in the underlying Greek text and in language ; and many of the differences are fully compatible with the supposition that the African was the parent of the European text, having undergone revision when it travelled northwards, and been in some measure adapted to the needs of a more highly cultivated population. On the other hand, other differences, not so easily accounted for by this process, afford some justification for the alternative view that Italy had an indigenous version of her own, not less original than the African. The distinctively African renderings which occur not infrequently in some of the best European documents may be explained in conformity with either view ; as survivors from an earlier state, or as aliens introduced by mixture. Recent investigations have failed to solve this difficult problem, and it must be left for further examination : fortunately the value of the two early forms of the Latin text is not appreciably affected by the uncertainty. The text name 'Old Latin', in its narrower and truer sense, may properly be retained for both the European text, where the African is not extant or never existed ; the special designations 'African Latin' and 'European Latin' being employed where they bear a divided testimony.

[John Reece]

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110.....After the middle of the fourth century we meet with Latin texts which must be referred to a third type. They are evidently due to various revisions of the European text, made partly to bring it into accord with such Greek manuscripts as chanced to be available, partly to give the Latinity a smoother and more customary aspect. In itself the process was analogous to that by which the European text must have been formed, on the supposition it was of African parentage : but, as we shall see presently, the fundamental text now underwent more serious challenges, owing to the character of the manuscripts chiefly employed. The fact that the Latin text found in many of Augustine's writings is of this type has long been used with good reason to show what he meant by the Itala which he names in a single laudatory notice ([i]De doct. Chr. ii 15). Without doubt this name was intended to distinguish the version or text with which he was likewise familiar (''codices Afros' [i]Retr. i 21 3). The only open question is whether he had definitely before his mind a special text due to a recent North Italian revision, as has been usually assumed by those who have interpreted rightly the general bearing of his words, or was merely thinking of the text of Italy in such a comprehensive sense as would include what we have called the European text. The former view was a necessary inference from the assumption that the best known Old Latin manuscripts of the Gospels had a strictly African text : but much of its probability is lost when it is seen how far removed they are from a Cyprianic standard. But whatever may be the precise force of the term as used by Augustine, such revised texts as those which he himself employed constitute an important stage in the history of the Latin New Testament : and it can hardly lead to misunderstanding if we continue to denote them by the convenient name 'Italian'.

[John Reece]

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111.....The endless multiplicity of text in the Latin copies at length induced Jerome, about 383, to undertake a more thorough revision of the same kind. We learn from his on account nothing about his Greek manuscripts except that they were "old" ; or about his mode of proceeding except that he made no alterations but such as were required by the sense, and that he kept specially in view the removal of the numerous interpolated clauses by which the Gospels were often brought into factitious similarity to each other in parallel passages. Internal evidence shows that the Latin manuscripts which he took as a basis for his corrections contained an already revised text, chiefly if not wholly 'Italian' in character. In the Gospels his changes seem to have been comparatively numerous ; in the other books of the New Testament, which he left without any explanatory preface, but which he must have taken in hand as soon as the Gospels were finished, his changes were evidently much scantier and more perfunctory. It is worthy of notice that readings distinctly adopted in his own writings are not seldom at variance with the revised text which bears his name. These discrepancies may possibly be due to a change of view subsequent to the revision : but in any case it would be rash to assume that Jerome deliberately considered and approved every reading found in his text, even of the Gospels, and much more of the other books which passed through his hands. The name 'Vulgate' has long denoted exclusively the Latin Bible as revised by Jerome ; and indeed in modern times no continuous text of any other form of the Latin version or versions was known before 1695.

[John Reece]

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112.....Generations not a few had passed before the Hieronymic revision had even approximately displaced the chaos of unrevised and imperfectly revised Latin texts ; and during the period of simultaneous use the Latin Vulgate, as we may now call it, suffered much in purity by the casual resumption of many readings expelled or refused by Jerome. Scribes accustomed to older forms of text corrupted by unwitting reminiscence the Vulgate which they were copying ; so that an appreciable part of Jerome's work had been imperceptibly undone when the Vulgate attained its final triumph. Partly from this cause, partly from the ordinary results of transcription, the Vulgate text underwent progressive deterioration till long after the close of the Middle Ages, not withstanding various partial attempts at correction. At length the authoritative 'Clementine' revision or recension of 1592 removed many corruptions. Many others however were left untouched, and no critically revised text of the Latin Vulgate New Testament founded systematically on more than one or two of the best manuscripts has yet been edited. The text of at least two of the best as yet known, and a very few others comparatively good, has however been printed at full length.

[John Reece]

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113.....The existing manuscripts of the Old Latin Gospels, distinguished by small letters, belong for the most part to the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries : one however (c), strange to say, was written as late as the eleventh century. Hardly any are quite complete, and those which contain more than inconsiderable fragments amount to about fourteen, of which on an average scarcely more than half are extant in any one passage : in this computation Ante-Hieronymic texts of all types are included. Among the few fragments not counted are two leaves which agree closely with one of the comparatively complete manuscripts : but with this exception all known manuscripts show more or less textual individuality, and there are many traces of sporadic and casual mixture. Two of the manuscripts (e k) are substantially African, a large proportion of their texts being absolutely identical with that of Cyprian, where he differs from European manuscripts and Fathers ; but each has also an admixture of other readings : both are unfortunately very imperfect, e having lost above two-fifths of its contents, chiefly in Matthew and Mark, and k above three-fourths, including the whole of Luke and John. Two other manuscripts (f q), and one or two fragments, must be classed 'Italian.' The remaining ten, though African readings are found to a certain extent in some of them, and Italian readings in others, have all substantially European texts.

[John Reece]

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114.....Various modifications of late revision and mixture are represented in some Latin manuscripts of the Gospels which do not properly fall under any one of the preceding heads. Four of them are usually marked as Old Latin (ff¹ g^1.2 l) ; but most of the number pass simply as copies of the Vulgate. With few exceptions their texts are as yet imperfectly known and the relations of their texts to each other, and to the Hieronymic or any other late revisions, have still to be investigated. They are certainly however in most cases, and not improbably in all, monuments of the process described above (§ 112) by which Old Latin readings, chiefly European but in few cases African, found their way into texts fundamentally Hieronymic. The chief worth of these Mixed Vulgate manuscripts for the criticism of the Greek text consists in the many valuable particles of Latin text antecedent to the Vulgate which have thus escaped extinction by displacing Jerome's proper readings. Mixed texts of this class are not confined to the Gospels ; but in other books, so far as they are yet known, their Ante-Hieronymic elements contain a much smaller proportion of valuable materials.

[John Reece]

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115.....The Gospels alone are extant in a series of tolerably complete Old Latin manuscripts. For most of the other books we have, strictly speaking, nothing but fragments, and those covering only a small proportion of verses. The delusive habit of quoting as Old Latin the Latin texts of bilingual manuscripts has obscured the real poverty of evidence. These manuscripts are in Acts Cod. Bezae (D, d; as in the Gospels) and Cod. Laudianus (E₂, e), and in St Paul's Epistles Cod. Claromontanus (D₂ d) and Cod. Boerneriannus (G₃, g; without Hebrews). The origin of the Latin text, as clearly revealed by internal evidence, is precisely similar in all four manuscripts. A genuine (independent) Old Latin text has been adopted as the basis, but altered throughout into verbal conformity with the Greek text by the side of which it was intended to stand. Here and there the assimilation has accidentally been complete, and the scattered discrepant readings thus left are the only direct Old Latin evidence for the Greek text of the New Testament which the bilingual manuscripts supply. A large proportion of the Latin text of these manuscripts is indeed, beyond all reasonable doubt, unaltered Old Latin : but where they exactly correspond to the Greek, as they do habitually, it is impossible to tell how much of the accordance is original, and how much artificial ; so that for the criticism of the Greek text the Latin reading has here no independent authority. The Latin texts of Δ in the Gospels and F₂ of St Paul's Epistles are Vulgate, with a partial adaptation to the Greek. Besides the Græco-Latin manuscripts there are four Gothico-Latin leaves of Romans.

[John Reece]

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116.....The relics of Old Latin manuscripts of the books after the Gospels are as follows. For Acts: a few palimpsest leaves of an African text (h); a complete European copy (g) and also the story of Stephen from a Lectionary (g₂), both agreeing closely with the quotations of Lucifer; and some palimpsest fragments of the later chapters (s), with a text of the same general type. For the Catholic Epistles: one (?European) manuscript of St James, and some fragments of the next three epistles in a later (?Italian) text (q): the palimpsest fragments of James and 1 Peter accompanying s of Acts are apparently Vulgate only. For the Pauline Epistles: considerable Italian fragments of eight epistles (r), with leaves from two other manuscripts having similar texts (r₂ r₃). For the Apocalypse: two palimpsest leaves of a purely African text (h) and a late European text of the whole book (g). Other portions of Ante-Hieronymic texts of different books are said to have been discovered in Italy; and doubtless others will in due time be brought to light.

[John Reece]

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117.....This is the fitting place to speak of the quotations made by Latin Fathers, for they constitute a not less important province of Old Latin evidence than the extant manuscripts; not only furnishing landmarks for the investigation of the history of the version, but preserving numerous verses and passages in texts belonging to various ages and in various stages of modification. Even in the Gospels their aid is always welcome, often of the highest value; while in all other books they supply not only a much greater bulk of evidence than our fragmentary manuscripts, but also in not a few cases texts of greater antiquity. Some books and parts of books are of course much worse represented than others, more especially such books as formed no part of the original North African Canon. But in the Apocalypse Primasius, an African writer of the sixth century, has preserved to us an almost uninterrupted text, which is proved by its close similarity to the quotations of Cyprian to be African Latin of high purity. Thus, singularly enough, the Apocalypse possesses the unique advantage of having been preserved in a Latin text at once continuous and purely African. The quotations of other late African Fathers from various books exhibit an African text much altered by degeneracy and mixture, but preserving many ancient readings.

[John Reece]

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118.....The SYRIAC versions are, strictly speaking, three in number. The principal is the great popular version commonly called the Pe[color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color]o or Simple. External evidence as to its date and history is entirely wanting: but there is no reason to doubt that it is at least as old as the Latin version. Till recently it has been known only in the form which it finally received by an evidently authoritative revision, a Syrian 'Vulgate' answering to the Latin 'Vulgate'. The impossibility of treating this present form of the version as a true representation of its original text, without neglecting the clearest internal evidence, was perceived by Griesbach and Hug about the beginning of this century: it must, they saw, have undergone subsequent revision in conformity with Greek manuscripts. In other words an Old Syriac must have existed as well as an Old Latin. Within the last few years the surmise has been verified. An imperfect Old Syriac copy of the Gospels, assigned to the fifth century, was found by Cureton among manuscripts brought to the British Museum from Egypt in 1842, and was published by him in 1858. The character of the fundamental text confirms the great antiquity of the version in its original; while many readings suggest that, like the Latin version, it degenerated by transcription and perhaps also by irregular revision. The rapid variation which we know the Greek and Latin texts to have undergone in the earliest centuries could hardly be absent in Syria; so that a single manuscript cannot be expected to tell us more of the Old Syriac generally than we should learn from any one average Old Latin manuscript respecting Old Latin texts generally. But even this partially corrupted text is not only itself a valuable authority but renders the comparatively late and 'revised' character of the Syriac Vulgate a matter of certainty. The authoritative revision seems to have taken place either in the latter part of the third or in the fourth century. Hardly any indigenous Syriac theology older than the fourth century has been preserved, and even from that age not much available for textual criticism. Old Syriac readings have been observed as used by Ephraim and still more by Aphrantes: but at present there are no means of supplying the lack of Old Syriac manuscripts to an appreciable extent from patristic quotations. Of the Old Syriac Acts and Epistles nothing as yet is known. The four minor Catholic Epistles and the Apocalypse, not being included in the Canon of the Syrian Churches, form no part of the true Syriac Vulgate, but are extant in supplementary versions. None of the editions of the Syriac Vulgate come up to the requirements of criticism: but considerable accessions to the evidence for the Greek text are hardly to be looked for from this source.

[John Reece]

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119.....A second version, closely literal in its renderings, was made by Polycarpus for Philoxenus of Mabug in 508. Little is known of it in this its original condition. We possess a revision of it made by Thomas of Harkel in 616, containing all the New Testament except for the Apocalypse. The margin contains various readings taken from Greek manuscripts, which must either have been ancient or have had ancient texts. A third version, written in a peculiar dialect, is found almost exclusively in Gospel Lesson-books, and is commonly called the Jerusalem Syriac. The text is of ancient character: but there is no other evidence to show when the version was made. Besides one almost complete Lesson-book known for some time, a few considerable fragments have lately come to light. They include a few verses of Acts. Various signs render it likely that both these versions were in some sense founded on one or other of the two forms of the Pe[color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color][color=red]EDITME[/color]o. But the whole subject awaits fuller investigation.