The Criticism of the New Testament. Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener
spoken of (p. xiv), it would seem that the Preface was written by his new colleague, who acknowledges the help of U. Ubaldi and the Basilian monk Ant. Rocchi, all three “adjutoribus et administris miratis equidem se tantis viris adjutores et successores datos” (p. xv). This Preface consists of twenty-two pages, and contains almost nothing that is interesting to the critic, much that displays superficial and newly-acquired acquaintance with the whole subject. Fabiani assigns the end of the fourth century as the date of the manuscript, regarding it as only a few years older than the Sinaitic copy158, whose discovery he hails without a vestige of ungenerous jealousy: “Quorum tale est demum par, ut potius liber Vaticanus gaudere debeat quod tam sui similem invenerit fratrem, quam expavescere quod aemulum” (p. viii). Since that time a splendid edition has been issued of the New Testament in 1889, and the Old in 1890, under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi, in which the whole is beautifully exhibited in photograph: so that all students can now examine for themselves the readings and characteristics of this celebrated manuscript with all but the advantage which is given in an examination of the original vellum itself (Novum Testamentum e Codd. Vat. 1209, &c. Rom. 1889, 4to): and gratitude is due from all textual scholars to the authorities of the Vatican.
Those who agree the most unreservedly respecting the age of the Codex Vaticanus, vary widely in their estimate of its critical value. By some it has been held in such undue esteem that its readings, if probable in themselves, and supported (or even though not supported) by two or three other copies and versions, have been accepted in preference to the united testimony of all authorities besides: while others, admitting the interest due to age, have spoken of its text as one of the most vicious extant. Without anticipating what must be discussed hereafter we may say at once, that, while we accord to Cod. B at least as much weight as to any single document in existence, we ought never to forget that it is but one out of many, several of them being nearly (and one quite) as old, and in other respects not less worthy of confidence than itself. One marked feature, characteristic of this copy, is the great number of its omissions, which has induced Dr. Dobbin to speak of it as presenting “an abbreviated text of the New Testament:” and certainly the facts he states on this point are startling enough159. He calculates that Codex B leaves out words or whole clauses no less than 330 times in Matthew, 365 in Mark, 439 in Luke, 357 in John, 384 in the Acts, 681 in the surviving Epistles; or 2,556 times in all. That no small proportion of these are mere oversights of the scribe seems evident from the circumstance that this same scribe has repeatedly written words and clauses twice over , a class of mistakes which Mai and the collators have seldom thought fit to notice, inasmuch as the false addition has not been retraced by the second hand, but which by no means enhances our estimate of the care employed in copying this venerable record of primitive Christianity160. Hug and others have referred the origin of Codex B to Egypt, but (unlike in this respect to Codex A) its history does not confirm their conjecture, and the argument derived from orthography or grammatical forms, is now well understood to be but slight and ambiguous161. Dr. Hort, on no very substantial grounds, is “inclined to surmise that B and א were both written in the West, probably at Rome” (Introduction, pp. 265–7).
C. Codex Ephraemi, No. 9, in the Royal Library of Paris, is a most valuable palimpsest containing portions of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament on sixty-four leaves, and fragments of every part of the New on 145 leaves, amounting on the whole to less than two-thirds of the volume162. This manuscript seems to have been brought from the East by Andrew John Lascar [d. 1535], a learned Greek patronized by Lorenzo de' Medici; it once belonged to Cardinal Nicolas Ridolphi of that family, was brought into France by Queen Catherine de' Medici of evil memory, and so passed into the Royal Library at Paris163. The ancient writing is barely legible, having been almost removed about the twelfth century to receive some Greek works of St. Ephraem, the great Syrian Father [299–378]. A chemical preparation applied at the instance of Fleck in 1834, though it revived much that was before illegible, has defaced the vellum with stains of various colours, from green and blue to black and brown. The older writing was first noticed by Peter Allix nearly two centuries ago; various readings extracted from it were communicated by Boivin to Kuster, who published them (under the notation of Paris 9) in his edition of Mill's N. T., 1710. A complete collation of the New Testament was first made in 1716 by Wetstein, then very young, for Bentley's projected edition, for which labour (as he records the fact himself) he paid Wetstein £50. This collation Wetstein of course used for his own Greek Testament of 1751–2, and though several persons subsequently examined the manuscript, and so became aware that more might be gathered from it, it was not until 1843 that Tischendorf brought out at Leipsic his full and noble edition of the New Testament portion; the Old Testament he published in 1845. Although Tischendorf complains of the typographical errors made in his absence in the former of these two volumes, and has corrected them in the other, they probably comprise by far the most masterly production of this nature up to that date published; it is said too that none but those who have seen Codex C can appreciate the difficulty of deciphering some parts of it164, in fact, whatever is not patent at first sight. The Prolegomena are especially valuable; the uncial type does not aim at being an imitation, but the facsimile faithfully represents the original, even to the present colour of the ink. In shape Codex C is about the size of Cod. A, but not quite so tall; its vellum is hardly so fine as that of Cod. A and a few others, yet sufficiently good. In this copy there is but one column in a page, which contains from forty to forty-six lines (usually forty-one), the characters being a little larger than those of either A or B, and somewhat more elaborate165. Thus the points at the ends of sigma, epsilon, and especially of the horizontal line of tau are more decided than in Codex A; delta, though not so fully formed as in later books, is less simple than in A, the strokes being of less equal thickness, and the base more ornamented. On the other hand, alpha and pi are nearer the model of Codex B. Iota and upsilon, which in Cod. A and many other copies have two dots over them when they commence a syllable, and are sometimes found with one dot, have here a small straight line in their place (see p. 36). There are no breathings or accents by the first hand: the apostrophus is found but rarely, chiefly with Proper names, as δαδ᾽ The uncial writing is continuous; the punctuation of Cod. C, like that of A and B, consisting only of a single point, mostly but not always put level with the top of the preceding letter; wherever such a point was employed, a space of one letter broad was usually left vacant: these points are most common in the later books of the N. T. The κεφάλαια are not placed in the upper margin of the page as in Cod. A, but a list of their τίτλοι preceded each Gospel: the so-called Ammonian sections stand in the margin, but not at present the Eusebian canons; though, since lines of the text written in vermilion have been thoroughly washed out, the canons (for which that colour was commonly employed) may easily have shared the same fate (see p. 61). There is no trace of chapters in the Acts, Epistles, or Apocalypse, and both the titles and subscriptions to the various books are very simple. Capital letters are used quite as freely as in Cod. A, both at the commencement of the (Ammonian) sections, and in many other places. All these circumstances taken together indicate for Cod. C as early a date as the fifth century, though there is no sufficient cause for deeming it at all older than Cod. A. Alexandria has been assigned as its native country, for the very insufficient reasons stated when we were describing A and B. It is carefully transcribed, and of its great critical value there is no doubt; its text seems to stand nearly midway between A and B, somewhat inclining to the latter. Two correctors have been very busily at work on Cod. C, greatly to the perplexity of the critical collator: they are respectively indicated by Tischendorf as C**, C***. The earliest, or the second hand, may have been of the sixth century, and his corrections are for some cause regarded by Dr. Hort as almost equally valuable for critical purposes with the manuscript itself: the second corrector, or the third hand, is perhaps of the ninth century, and he revised such portions as were adapted to ecclesiastical use, inserting many accents, the rough breathing, and some vocal notes. By him or more probably by a fourth hand (who did not change the text, but added some liturgical directions in the margin) small crosses were interpolated as stops, agreeably to the fashion of their times.
D of the Gospels and Acts, Codex Bezae Graeco-Latinus, belongs to the University Library at Cambridge, where the open volume is conspicuously exhibited to visitors in the New Building (Nn. ii. 41). It was presented to the University in 1581 by Theodore Beza, for whom and his master Calvin the heads of that learned body then cherished a veneration which already boded ill for the peace of the English Church166. Between the Gospels (whose order