The Criticism of the New Testament. Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener
Peter
In Vatican MS. older sections, there are 93 sections in Rom. 1, 2 Corinth. Gal. Eph. Coloss. 1, 2 Thess. to Hebr. ix. 14.
| Vatican MS. Later Sections | Euthal. κεφ λ. | στίχοι | Modern chapters | Modern verses | |
| Romans | 8 | 19 | 920 | 16 | 433 |
| 1 Corinth | 10 | 9 | 870 | 16 | 437 |
| 2 Corinth | 9 | 11 | 590 | 13 | 256 |
| Galat | 3 | 12 | 293 | 6 | 149 |
| Ephes | 3 | 10 | 312 | 6 | 155 |
| Philipp | 2 | 7 | 208 | 4 | 104 |
| Coloss | 3 | 10 | 208 | 4 | 95 |
| 1 Thess | 2 | 7 | 193 | 5 | 89 |
| 2 Thess | 2 | 6 | 106 | 3 | 47 |
| 1 Tim | 18 | 230 | 6 | 113 | |
| 2 Tim | 9 | 172 | 4 | 83 | |
| Titus | 6 | 3 | 46 | ||
| Philem | 2 | 38 | 1 | 25 | |
| Hebrews | 5 to ch. ix. 11 | 22 | 703 | 13 | 303 |
| Apocalypse | 72 | 1800 | 22 | 405 |
9. We have not thought it needful to insert in this place either a list of the τίτλοι of the Gospels, or of the κεφάλαια of the rest of the New Testament, or the tables of the Eusebian canons, inasmuch as they are all accessible in such ordinary books as Stephen's Greek Testament 1550 and Mill's of 1707, 1710. The Eusebian canons are given in Bishop Lloyd's Oxford Greek Test. of 1827 &c. and in Tischendorf's of 1859. We exhibit, however, for the sake of comparison, a tabular view of “Ancient and Modern Divisions of the New Testament.” The numbers of the ῥήματα and στίχοι in the Gospels are derived from the most approved sources, but a synopsis of the variations of manuscripts in this respect has been drawn up by Scholz, Prolegomena N. T. vol. i. Cap. v, pp. xxviii, xxix84. A computation of their number, as also of that of the ἀναγνώσματα, is often given in the subscription at the end of a book.
10. On the divisions into chapters and verses prevailing in our modern Bibles we need not dwell long. For many centuries the Latin Church used the Greek τίτλοι (which they called breves) with the Euthalian κεφάλαια, and some of their copies even retained the calculation by στίχοι: but about a.d. 1248 Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro, while preparing a Concordance, or index of declinable words, for the whole Bible , divided it into its present chapters, subdividing them in turn into several parts by placing the letters A, B, C, D &c. in the margin, at equal distances from each other, as we still see in many old printed books, e.g. Stephen's N. T. of 1550. Cardinal Hugo's divisions, unless indeed he merely adopted them from Lanfranc or some other scholar, such as was very probably Stephen Langton the celebrated Archbishop of Canterbury, soon took possession of copies of the Latin Vulgate; they gradually obtained a place in later Greek manuscripts, especially those written in the West of Europe, and are found in the earliest printed and all later editions of the Greek Testament, though still unknown to the Eastern Church. They certainly possess no strong claim on our preference, although they cannot now be superseded. The chapters are inconveniently and capriciously unequal in length; occasionally too they are distributed with much lack of judgement. Thus Matt. xv. 39 belongs to ch. xvi, and perhaps ch. xix. 30 to ch. xx; Mark ix. 1 properly appertains to the preceding chapter; Luke xxi. 1–4 had better be united with ch. xx, as in Mark xii. 41–44; Acts v might as well commence with Acts iv. 32; Acts viii. 1 (or at least its first clause) should not have been separated from ch. vii; Acts xxi concludes with strange abruptness. Bp. Terrot (on Ernesti's Institutes, vol. ii. p. 21) rightly affixes 1 Cor. iv. 1–5 to ch. iii. Add that 1 Cor. xi. 1 belongs to ch. x; 2 Cor. iv. 18 and vi. 18 to ch. v and ch. vii respectively: Col. iv. 1 must clearly go with ch. iii.
In commendation of the modern verses still less can be said. As they are stated to have been constructed after the model of the ancient στίχοι (called “versus” in the Latin manuscripts), we have placed in the Table the exact number of each for every book in the New Testament. Of the στίχοι we reckon 19241 in all, of the modern verses 795985, so that on the average (for we have seen that the manuscript variations in the number of στίχοι are but inconsiderable) we may calculate about five στίχοι to every two modern verses. The fact is that some such division is, simply indispensable to every accurate reader of Scripture; and Cardinal Hugo's divisions by letters of the alphabet, as well as those adopted by Sanctes Pagninus in his Latin version of the whole Bible (1528), having proved inconveniently large, Robert Stephen, the justly celebrated printer and editor of the Greek Testament, undertook to form a system of verse-divisions, taking for his model the short verses into which the Hebrew Bible had already been divided, as it would seem by Rabbi Nathan, in the preceding century. We are told by Henry Stephen (Praef. Concordantiae) that his father Robert executed this design on a journey from Paris to Lyons “inter equitandum86;” that is, we presume, while resting at the inns on the road. Certain it is that, although every such division must be in some measure arbitrary, a very little care would have spared us many of the disadvantages attending that which Robert Stephen first published at Geneva in his Greek Testament of 1551, from which it was introduced into the text of the Genevan English Testament of 1557, into Beza's Greek Testament of 1565, and thence into subsequent editions. It is now too late to correct the errors of the verse-divisions, but they can be neutralized, at least in a great degree, by the plan adopted by modern critics, of banishing both the verses and the chapters into the margin, and breaking the text into paragraphs, better suited to the sense. The pericopae or sections of Bengel87 (whose labours will be described in their proper place) have been received with general approbation, and adopted, with some modification, by several recent editors. Much pains were bestowed on their arrangement of the paragraphs by the Revisers of the English version of 1881.
11. We now come to the contents of manuscripts of the Greek Testament, and must distinguish regular copies of the sacred volume or of parts of it from Lectionaries, or Church-lesson books, containing only extracts, arranged in the order of Divine Service daily throughout the year. The latter we will consider presently: with regard to the former it is right to bear in mind, that comparatively few copies of the whole New Testament remain; the usual practice being to write the four Gospels in one volume, the Acts and Epistles in another: manuscripts of the Apocalypse, which was little used for public worship, being much rarer than those of the other books. Occasionally the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles form a single volume; sometimes the Apocalypse is added to other books; as to the Pauline Epistles in Lambeth 1186, or even to the Gospels, in a later hand (e.g. Cambridge University Libr. Dd. 9. 69: Gospels No. 60, dated a.d. 1297). The Apocalypse, being a short work, is often found bound up in volumes containing very miscellaneous matter (e.g. Vatican. 2066 or B; Brit. Mus. Harleian. 5678, No. 31; and Oxon. Barocc. 48, No. 28). The Codex Sinaiticus of Tischendorf is the more precious, in that it happily exhibits the whole New Testament complete: so would also the Codices Alexandrinus and Ephraemi, but that they are sadly mutilated: no other uncial copies have this advantage, and very few cursives. In England only five such are known, the great Codex Leicestrensis, which is imperfect at the beginning and end; Butler 2 (Evan. 201) Additional 11837, dated a.d. 1357, and (Evan. 584) Additional 17469, both in the British Museum; Canonici 34 (Evan. 488) in the Bodleian, dated a.d. 1515–16. Additional MS. 28815 (Evan. 603, and Paul 266, and Apoc. 89) in the British Museum and B-C. ii. 4 at Sir Roger Cholmely's School, Highgate, are separated portions of one complete copy. The Apocalypse in the well-known Codex Montfortianus at Dublin is usually considered to be by a later hand. Besides these Scholz enumerates only nineteen foreign copies of the whole New Testament88; making but twenty-four in all, as far as was then known, out of the vast mass of extant documents.
12. Whether copies contain the whole or a part of the sacred volume,