HOLY.

Scripture. Under this title are commonly designated the sacred books of the Jews and the Christians, in which are contained the revelation of God's will to mankind, and the principles of that religion which He has inculcated upon us. In other parts of this work the reader will find articles elucidatory of the claims preferred and of the doctrines taught in these books. (See especially Inspiration, Miracles, Prophecy, and Theology.) In the present article it is proposed to furnish an outline of what may be denominated the historic-critical knowledge of these books. In treating of this we have to do with the composition, the history, the reputation, and the literary characteristics of the sacred writings viewed simply as remains of ancient literature.

This department of investigation is comparatively of recent date. In the earlier ages of the church the same necessity for such inquiries did not exist as now, in consequence especially of the efforts which have been made in more recent times to impugn the authenticity of the sacred documents; nor is it probable that the early fathers, from the views which they entertained of the sole agency of the Holy Spirit in the composition of these, would have deemed any inquiry into their peculiarities, as the products at the same time of human agency, other than impious and absurd (1). Since the time, however, when Spinoza issued his attack upon the authenticity of the Pentateuch and the general inspiration of the Scriptures (1670), and Richard Simon, a presbyter and fellow of the oratory at Paris, followed with his acute, learned, and liberal investigations into the critical history of the Old Testament (1678), this subject has occupied the attentive study of critics and theologians of all confessions, and may now be said to have reached the dignity of a science (2). The path opened by Spinoza was followed by J. S. Semler in Germany, who may be said to have founded the school of neologic criticism in that country. He was succeeded by Eichhorn, Bertholdt, Augusti, and De Wette, in whom the rationalistic and sceptical school culminated (3). On the orthodox side appeared J. D. Michaelis, Jahn, Hug, and, more recently, Scholz, Schott, Henngstenberg, Hävernick, Credner, Feilmoser, Guericke, and others (4). In England, besides the older works of Walton, Mill, and Harwood, the only productions in this department of any value are those of Horne, Davidson, Tregelles, Porter, Westcott, and Scrivener (5).

1. The prevailing notion among the Jews and the early Christians respecting inspiration was, that the faculties of the person inspired were completely suspended and superseded during the afflatus so that the only parts of him actively engaged in the work of composition were his hands and his eyes. Philo speaks of God as "using the organs of the prophets for the manifestation of His will" (Quaerens quae sunt prophetarum operae, id est, quae sunt de illis, De Mosaarch. lib. I, ed. Mangey, t. ii., p. 222): Justin Martyr compares them to the strings of a lyre, which produce sounds just as they are touched by the hand of the player (Cohort. ad Graecos, c. 8); and Augustine frequently speaks of the Scriptures as the "Chirograph of Deity," and of their writers as "the stylix or pen of the Holy Spirit." The tendency of such exclusive views in discouraging any inquiries of a historical nature is seen in the following sentence of Gregory the Great:—Quid liberum Job scripsit, valde superfluo quaestur, cum tamen annis liber Sanctus fideli erudatur. Ipse scriptit, qui et in ejus opera inscriptus est et per scribentis vocem imitandus ad nos facta transmittit. (Moral. in Job, t. i., p. 7.) Ideas of a similar kind are found in the writings of several of the elder divines subsequent to the Reformation. (For the opinions most generally received among Protestant divines in the present day, see Henderson's Lectures on Inspiration, London, 1830, 3d ed. 1832; Lee on Inspiration.)

2. Spinoza's work is entitled Tractatus Historico-Politicus, containing Dissertations aliquot, quibus examinatur, Libertatem Philosophandi non solum subeunt praetores, sed republicana pace possunt consiliari; sedemque nisi cum pace republicana tranquilla pietate tolli non posse, Hamburgi, 1670, 4to. Simon's Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament appeared in 1 vol. 4to, in 1678, at Paris; but a fuller and more correct edition was published at Rotterdam in 1685, superintended in all probability by the author. It produced numerous replies and strictures, from the pens both of Catholic and Protestant divines, of which the most important were those of Spanheim (Lettres sur l'Hist. Crit. du V. T. de R. Simon); Du Pin (Dissert. prél. sur Prolégomènes sur la Bible), and Le Clerc (Sentiments de quelques Théologiens d'Hel-land sur l'Hist. Crit. du V. T. composés par le R. Simon). Both Du Pin and Le Clerc, but especially the latter, whilst reproving Simon's indulgence certain speculations of their own, which were considerably free for the age in which they lived, and which drew down upon them, along with the object of their strictures, the censure of the acute and learned Scaliger (see Brucker, Hist. des R. Simon, Du Pin et autres, Études Portantées, n. li., 1753). By far the ablest reply to Spinoza was furnished by Carpius (Introductio ad Libros Canonici V. T. omnes, 4to, Lips., 1721, 3d ed. 1741).

3. Semler, Apparatus ad libellorum Vet. Test. Interpretationes, Halle, 1773; Abhandlung von Freier untersuch. des Canones, 4 vols., 1771-75. Eichhorn, Einleitung in das A. T., 4th ed., 5 vols., Göttingen, 1820-24; in Die Apokryphenischen Schriften des A. T., Leipzig, 1795; in Das N. T., 5 vols., Leipzig, 1804-27. Bertholdt, Histor. Kritische Einl. in systematische Kanonische und Apoc. Schriften des A. und N. T., 6 vols., Erlangen, 1812-19. Augusti, Grundriss einer Hist. Krit. Einl. ins A. T., Leipzig, 1827, 2d ed.; Versuch einer Hist. Dogm. Einl. in die Heilige Schriften, Leipzig, 1832. De Wette, Lehrbuch der Kritik, Einl. in das Bibel A. und N. T., 2 vols., Berlin, 1849, 6th ed. (translated by Thomas, Edinburgh, 1849; Bonn, 1843).

4. Michaelis, Einl. in die Gött. Schriften des A. Bundes, 4to, Hamburg, 1784; in Die Gött. Schriften des N. B. 2 bde, 4to, Gottingen, 4th ed. 1788 (translated by Bishop Marsh, in 6 vols. 8vo, with considerable additions, 3d ed., Camb., 1818). Jahn, Einl. in die Gött. Bücher des A. Bundes, 3 vols., 8vo, 2d ed., Wien, 1802-3; Introductio in Bibl. Sacr. V. T. in epistolis redacta, ed. 2d, Wien, 1814, 8vo. Hug, Einl. in die Schriften des N. T., 2 vols., 3d ed., Stuttgart and Tubingen, 1827 (translated by the Rev. D. G. Wait, LL.D., 2 vols., Svo, 1827, and with much greater accuracy by D. Foulsham, junior, Andover, United States, 1837). Scholz, Einl. in die Hist. Schriften des A. und N. T., 2 vols., Köln, 1845. Schott, Josephus, Comment. in libros N. T. Sacrorum, Jena, 1830, 8vo. Hengstenberg, Einl. zur Einl. ins A. T., 2 vols., Berlin, 1831, 1833; translated by J. J. Ryland, Dissertations on the Genesis of the Pentateuch, 2 vols., and on the Geometrical Design and the Integrity of Zechariah (1 vol., Edin.). Haevernick, Handbuch der Hist. Krit. Einl. in das A. T., 4 parts, Erlangen, 1836-44. (A General Histor. Crit. Introduction to the O. T., translated by W. L. Alexander, D.D., Edin. 1852; An Histor. Crit. Introd. to the Pentateuch, translated by A. Thomson, A.M., Edin.) Cremer, Beiträge zur Einl. in die Bibl. Schriften, 2 vols., Halle, 1838; Einl. in das N. T., 2 parts, Halle, 1839. Feilmoser, Einl. in die Bücher des N. T., Teil 1830; Guericke, Histor. Krit. Einl. ins N. T., 1843, of which an improved edition has lately appeared.

5. Walton, Prolegomena in Biblias Polyglotas, Lond., 1657, of which a separate edition was published, with a preface by J. A. Dathe, at Leipzig, in 1 vol. Svo, 1777, and republished, with improvements and additions, by Archdeacon Wrangham, in 2 vols. 8vo, Cambridge, 1828. Mill, Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Holy Scripture, 2nd ed., Lond., 1767-1771. Marsh, Lectures on the Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible, Camb., 1828. Horne, Introduction to the Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, 10th edition, revised, corrected, and brought down to the present time, by the Rev. T. H. Horne, B.D., Rev. S. Davidson, D.D., LL.D., and S. Pr. Tregelles, LL.D., 4 vols. 8vo, Lond., 1856. Davidson, Biblical Criticism, 2 vols. 8vo, Edin., 1852; Introduction to the New Testament, 3 vols., 1848-61. Porter, Principles of Textual Criticism, with their Applications to the Old and New Testaments, London, 1847. Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament, with Remarks on its Revision upon Critical Principles, &c., London, 1852. Westcott, History of the Codex of the New Testament, Cambridge, 1855; Scrivener, Synopsis to the Authorized Version of the New Testament, &c., Cambridge, 1855; For an Exact Collection of about Twenty Greek MSS. of the Holy Gospel, with Critical Introduction, Camb., 1853. To these may be added Kitto's Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, 2 vols. 8vo, 2d ed.

Many valuable treatises upon separate portions of the general subject are extant in different languages, but these it would be out of place to attempt to enumerate here. (See the Bibliographical Appendix to Horne's Introduction, Orme's Bibliotheca Biblica, and Winter's Handbuch der Theologischen Litteratur.) This subject divides itself into two parts, a general and a special,—the former having reference to the sacred volume as a whole, the latter to the separate books of which it is comprised. In the present article we shall confine ourselves to the former of these, and offer a few general observations on the collected Scriptures, as such.

**Sect. I.—The Name.**

Various designations have been affixed to the sacred volume. As a whole, it bears the name of *The Bible*, τα βιβλία; *Holy Scriptures*, ἁγιον γράφων, θεοῦ γράφη, ἀγαθα γραφή; *Bibliotheca Sancta*. The Jews called their part of it by such terms as *תנ"ך*, *i.e.*, *Four-and-twenty*, with reference to the number of separate books; or *כתוב*, *i.e.*, *Writing*, a term borrowed from Exodus xxviii. 16; *τό εὐαγγέλιον τῆς ἁγιότητος*, *i.e.*, *Books of Holiness*; *τοὺς νόμους καὶ προφητεύς*, *i.e.*, *Law, Prophets, and Hagiographia*. In the Apocrypha they are styled ὁ νόμος, ὁ προφήτης, καὶ ἡ ἁγιογραφία, καὶ ἡ ἁγιογραφία τῆς Βαβυλῶνος, *Jesus Sirac*, Proleg.sub.intr. So also in the New Testament, ὁ νόμος καὶ προφήτης, Matt. v. 17; ὁ νόμος, προφήτης, καὶ ψαλμοί, Luke xxiv. 44; frequently ὁ προφήτης and ὁ νόμος; τὸ ἐπίσημον γραφήματος, 2 Tim. iii. 15. At an early period of the Christian era, the term διαθήκη began to be affixed to the Scriptures as the documents unfolding God's covenant; and their two great divisions to be designated as ἡ παλαιὰ διαθήκη and ἡ νεώτερα διαθήκη respectively. This usage seems to have been drawn from the language of Paul, 2 Cor. iii. 6 and 14, though it is only in the writings of Origen that it makes its appearance for the first time. The Latins rendered the word διαθήκη by *Testamentum* or *instrumentum* (1), according to its primary meaning, though not that in which it is employed by Paul, who uses it evidently in the sense of *Factus*; and from this we have the appellation employed by almost all the versions of modern Europe (2).

1. Tertull. Adv. Marc., iv. 1; Aug. De Civ. Dei, xx. 4. 2. Horne's Introduction, vol. i., p. 39; Michaelis, Einl., bd. i., s. 1; and in Marsh's translation, vol. i., p. 1; Augusti, Grundriss, p. 16, 2d ed.; De Wette, Lehrbuch, p. 7, 6th edition.

**Sect. II.—Genuineness and Authenticity of the Sacred Volume.**

As ancient literary documents, the Scriptures lay claim to be regarded as both *genuine* and *authentic* or *credible*. A book is *genuine* when it really is what it professes to be, as the composition of a particular individual, or as produced under particular circumstances, and at a certain place and time; as opposed to a book which appears under a *forged* title. A book is *credible* when the statements it contains are physically true; as opposed to a book the contents of which are *false* or *fictitious*. Both these qualities may meet in the same work, or they may exist separately in separate works. Thus the book of Genesis may be the composition of Moses, yet be fabulous; or it may be true in all its statements, and yet not be the work of Moses; or it may be, as it is generally believed to be, both the production of Moses and true, both genuine and credible.

The genuineness and credibility of the sacred books form matter of separate investigation and proof. At the same time, they are so connected that the proof of the one paves the way for the proof of the other; for, in the case of such works it is highly improbable that truth would be issued under a forged name, or that such men as Moses, Samuel, or the evangelists would or could issue fictitious narratives as true. It is not, however, matter of indifference which of them we establish first. Before we can set ourselves to prove their credibility we must be in circumstances to show their genuineness; for unless we can do this, a preliminary difficulty will lie in the way of the former, from the suspicion that these books appear with a Scripture, falsehood, or at least what has not been shown to be a truth, upon their front; a work of supposititious authorship being always *prima facie* less credible than one which is the genuine production of the writer to whom it is ascribed.

The proof of the genuineness of the Sacred Scriptures rests upon the following considerations:

1. There is no antecedent impossibility that they should be genuine. It cannot be shown that it is impossible for Moses to have written the Pentateuch, Isaiah and the other prophets their prophecies, the evangelists their gospels, the apostles their epistles, or for the books which are anonymous to have been composed under the circumstances which they profess; nor that, being composed, it is impossible for them to have been preserved and handed down from generation to generation.

2. Circumstances were favourable to the preservation of these books, supposing them written. The Old Testament books professedly form the national literature, as well as the sacred documents of the Jews, and would naturally be carefully preserved by them. The New Testament books constitute the religious archives and statute-books of the Christian church, and would from their first publication be sacredly conserved by those for whom they were so deeply interesting.

3. It is matter of undeniable history that both Jews and Christians did possess certain sacred books, which they regarded with the utmost reverence, and preserved with the greatest care. The only question then is, Are the books which we possess the same as those thus reverenced and preserved? And, first, with respect to those of the Old Testament.

i. These are the books which were recognised in the early church as the sacred books of the Jews. This is placed beyond doubt by the early versions of Scripture, and by the catalogues of Athanasius, Epiphanius, Jerome, Origen, and Melito, Bishop of Sardis. (Lardner, Works, vol. iv., p. 290, 8vo ed.)

ii. The books of the Old Testament which we possess must have been extant at the commencement of the Christian era. This is evident from the allusions to them, and the quotations from them, in the New Testament, but especially from the testimony of Philo, an Egyptian Jew, who at the latest was contemporary with the apostles, and also of Josephus, himself a priest of the Jews, and consequently accurately informed on all matters relating to their sacred books, and who lived in the latter part of the first century of the Christian era. Philo gives no formal catalogue, but quotes from or refers to nearly all the books of the Old Testament, while no other is mentioned by him as of accredited authority. Josephus, besides frequent quotations and allusions, gives (*Contra Apionem*, lib. i., c. 8) a catalogue of the sacred books of his nation, assigning five to Moses, thirteen to the prophets, and four to the writers of hymns and moral maxims. This, if we regard Judges and Ruth as one book, and add the Lamentations to the Prophecies of Jeremiah, which there is good reason to believe was the case in the days of Josephus, gives exactly the number of the books now extant.

Schmidtii Historia Antiqua et Vindicatio Canonici Sacri Veteris et Novi Testamenti, pp. 129-189, Lips. 1775; Eysenm. Eusebii sententiae Flor. Josephi de libris Vet. Test., Wittenberg, 1787; Horne-manni, Obs. ad Illustrationem Doctrinae de Canone Vet. Test. ex Philone, Haambi, 1778; Henderson's Lectures on Inspiration, p. 488, Lond. 1836.

iii. These books must have been written long before the Christian era. This is plain from the fact of targums or explanations of them into the Syro-Chaldaic dialect, which was the language of the people, having been made for a long course of years antecedent to the times of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel, by whom they were collected. iv. Under such circumstances, the forgery of these books was morally impossible. If such a thing took place, it must have been during the 140 years which elapsed between the death of Malachi, the last of the prophets, and the execution of the Septuagint version. But, first, it is inconceivable that, in so short a period, and in an age when literature was not a trade, a set of men (for the agency of only one man is out of the question) should have appeared in the land of Judea, all endowed with genius sufficient to share in the composition of such works, and all infected with the spirit of literary dishonesty, so as to act the part of forgers. Secondly, even supposing such a piece of deception attempted, it is inconceivable how it should have succeeded, as, by the holders of this hypothesis, it must be allowed to have done. As the whole nation of the Jews acknowledged these books, we must suppose, either that they were all imposed upon in the matter, or that they all agreed to impose upon the rest of the world. But no ingenuity can suffice to persuade a nation that they have for ages possessed sacred books, when they know they have not; and a national agreement to sanction a forgery and tell the world a lie, is a hypothesis too extravagant to be for a moment entertained. Thirdly, the opinions expressed in these books, the doctrines taught, and the duties enjoined, are so averse from those most cherished by the Jews at the time the supposed forgery must have taken place, and the facts recorded are so little flattering, upon the whole, to the pride of the nation, that it is quite incredible, either that any should have been found to write them, or that, being written, they should have been received by the people with any other feelings than those of execration and abhorrence. The respect in which they were held can be accounted for only on the principle that it was rendered to the venerable antiquity and indisputable authority with which they were invested.

v. The force of this conclusion is heightened by the circumstance, that while all testimony is in favour of the genuineness of these books, not one witness can be produced whose evidence is incompatible with this.

vi. When we apply to the contents of these books such tests as are best fitted to try their genuineness, the result is such as to confirm our previous conclusion. 1. They display just such a diversity of talent, style, and character as we should expect in works composed by different authors at different times. 2. They are written, with a few slight exceptions, in pure Hebrew, a language which we know to have been that of the Jews before the captivity, but the knowledge of which as a vernacular tongue was entirely lost very shortly afterwards. 3. Whilst they use the same language, there are certain grammatical and linguistic differences between the early and the later writers, indicative of such changes as all languages experience in the lapse of time, but less extensive than those found in others of the ancient tongues; which is exactly what might have been expected in the case of persons using, through a long interval, a language which, though exposed to causes of change, was, from the fixed and exclusive habits of those speaking it, less liable to be affected in this way than the languages of more versatile and cosmopolitan nations. 4. The narratives occurring in these books are marked by that minute accuracy and circumstantiality of detail which a forger generally endeavours to avoid, but into which a true witness naturally falls, from having all these details present to his mind as integral parts of the occurrence which he attests, as it presented itself to his senses. 5. There is, amidst the greatest elevation of thought and sublimity of conception, a chastened simplicity of language, and, amidst the utmost variety of manner, style, and illustration, an essential unity of doctrine, which comport well with the claims of these books to be regarded as the sacred books of the Jews, and seems strongly incompatible with the supposition that they are forgeries.

For these reasons, it is affirmed that the books which we now possess are the same as those which were always possessed and held genuine by the Jews. We turn, secondly, to the New Testament, and inquire whether the same evidence of its genuineness can be furnished.

i. No person doubts the existence of the New Testament books from the close of the fourth century of the Christian era downwards, because the fact is so notorious that to deny it would be to discredit all historical testimony.

ii. As little can it be doubted that they were extant from the commencement of that century. Not only are they frequently quoted by writers who lived during that period, but we possess ten distinct catalogues of the New Testament books, issued during this century, of which six are identical with our present canon (1), three omit only the book of Revelation (2), and one omits this book and the Epistle to the Hebrews (3), though both are mentioned in other parts of the author's writings.

1. Those of the forty-four bishops at the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397), of Augustin (A.D. 394), of Jerome (A.D. 392), of Rufinus (A.D. 380), of Ephraimius (A.D. 376), and of Athanasius (A.D. 315).

2. Those of Gregory of Nazianzus (A.D. 375), of the bishops at the Council of Laodicea (A.D. 354), and of Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 316).

3. That of Phillaster or Philastrius, Bishop of Brixia or Breseca (A.D. 380).

Lardner, Works, vol. iv., pp. 280-601, and vol. v., pp. 1-123.

iii. Their existence in the third century is placed equally beyond doubt, from the careful and explicit testimony of Eusebius, who wrote A.D. 315; from the references to them in the writings of the apologists Arnobius Afer and Lactantius (cir. A.D. 300); from the testimonies contained in fragments preserved from numerous writers in that century, especially Victorinus, Bishop of Pettau in Germany, who refers to nearly every book in the New Testament; from the commentaries upon them and quotations from them of Origen (A.D. 233); from the quotations of Cyprian (A.D. 258); and from references to them in the remains of a number of writers who lived during the first thirty years of the third century.

Lardner, Works, vol. ii., pp. 397-430.

iv. For their existence in the second century we have abundant evidence, in the quotations from them and allusions to them in the writings of Tertullian (A.D. 200), Clement of Alexandria, Athenagoras (A.D. 180), Irenaeus (A.D. 170), Justin Martyr (A.D. 150), and Papias (A.D. 113), and in the Harmony of the Gospels by Tatian (A.D. 170).

v. Collateral with these testimonies of the orthodox fathers are those of the early heretics, Cerinthus, the Ebionites, the Basilidians, Marcion, and others, who, by denouncing the writings of the apostles as containing error, thereby attest the existence and genuineness of these writings; and of the early opponents of Christianity, Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian, who, by the notice they take of these books, show how much in their day their genuineness was matter of public notoriety.

vi. We have thus traced up the existence of these books to the close of the first century. To say nothing of the testimony in their favour of the apostolic fathers, Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, who flourished during that century, and reached up to the days Scripture of the apostles, the supposition of a forgery at that time is clearly absurd. Whilst men were still alive whose fathers were the contemporaries of the evangelists and apostles, how could any one impose upon the community as the production of the latter what was only forged in their name? or whilst the churches at Rome, Colossae, Corinth, and other places were still existing, who could have persuaded them to receive as Paul's letters to them what they knew Paul had never sent to them? or how can we conceive that an attempt so audacious would have been allowed to pass without a single voice being raised in any quarter to denounce the imposture?

vii. The conclusion thus gained by the consideration of external testimony is forcibly confirmed by the contents of the books themselves. The language in which they are written is exactly such as a Jew of the first century would naturally fall into in attempting to write Greek, and such as could hardly have been thought of or imitated by a later writer. The style of composition is such as a forger could not possibly have hit upon; it has so much of a prevailing simplicity and earnestness, and at the same time is so suitably diversified in the different books, that it bears every indication of having flowed from the pens of the simplest-minded, unambitious, uneducated, and honest men to whom it is ascribed. The sentiments are such as we cannot suppose men of sufficiently degraded moral habits to act the part of forgers, to have conceived or inculcated. And above all, the minute circumstantiality of the narrative is such as, on the one hand, strikingly indicates the agency of an eye and ear witness in the composition of it, and on the other, affords too many tests of the author's personal familiarity with what he narrates to have been ventured on by a forger.

The striking coincidence of one part of the volume with another may also be mentioned as a further evidence of its genuineness.

For these reasons it is concluded that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the genuine productions of those to whom they are ascribed. They are reasons which must satisfy every person familiar with such inquiries, that we possess in favour of the genuineness of these books a far larger and more unquestionable body of proof than we have in favour of the genuineness of any of the ancient classics, and indeed of much even of comparatively modern literature.

See on the whole of this section, Horne's Introduction, vol. i., pp. 35-90; Lardner's Credibility, Works, vol. i.-v.; Svo i., and ii., 4to; Paley's Evidences of Christianity, and Horne's Pauline; Michaelis's Introduction by Marsh, vol. i., pp. 4-54; Marsh's Lectures on the Authenticity and Credibility of the New Testament, London, 1840; Cook's Inquiry into the Books of the New Testament; Taylor's Essay on the Translation of Ancient Books to Modern Times; Schott's Poggio, pp. 518-542.

Sect. III.—Integrity of the Sacred Books.

Closely connected with the question of the genuineness of the Scriptures is the question of their integrity or uninterrupted preservation. Infidels have often asserted that extensive and important changes have been made upon the original documents, especially upon those of the Old Testament. But,

1. Of this there is no proof. It is a mere unsupported assertion on their part, resting upon nothing but certain a priori conclusions to which they profess to have come as to the probability of such a thing. To prove it, we should require some competent historical testimony to the fact, or an articulate comparison of the alleged interpolations with the original text.

2. Such interpolations could have been perpetrated only by universal consent on the part of all possessing these documents. Had one man altered his own copy, and published his alterations, the only result would have been certain discrepancies between the readings of that family Scripture, of manuscripts of which his copy was the parent, and those of other families, unless he could have persuaded the whole nation of the Jews, or the entire body of the Christians, as the case might be, to adopt his innovations,—a supposition plainly impossible.

3. Had extensive alterations taken place, the harmony of Scripture would have been destroyed. A number of separate books are written by different persons, for the purpose of unfolding under different aspects and modifications one harmonious system of truth. The result is a harmonious work. But some person, for purposes of his own, sets about interpolating these books. Is it conceivable that this should have been accomplished with such exquisite skill and adroitness, that the original harmony of the work should have been preserved, and all vestiges of a spurious intermixture concealed?

4. It is morally certain that, previous to the Christian era, the Jews did not alter their sacred books. For this we have sufficient security in the habits and circumstances of the people. The Bible was their national statute-book; on it the whole of their civil economy, and all their political and judicial procedure, rested. They were in the habit of giving the utmost publicity to its contents; kings were required to study it continually, priests were appointed to teach it to the people, and fathers were enjoined to inculcate it upon their children; so that the idea of connivance among the members of any class in the community for the purpose of falsifying it is entirely precluded. Their law contains a solemn prohibitory statute against any, the slightest, alterations of these books, Deut. v. 2, xii. 32. The rival sects which arose among them after their return from Babylon served the same purpose, by acting as mutual checks upon each other. And, finally, in the absence of any censure by our Lord upon the Jews, whose crimes He faithfully exposed, for their treatment of the sacred text, and in His continual references to the Old Testament in the state in which it was then extant, as containing an accurate record of God's will, we have the best assurance that no liberty affecting its perfect integrity had been taken with it previous to His advent.

5. Since the commencement of the Christian era it is equally certain that no intentional corruption of the Old Testament Scriptures can have taken place. The Jews have not corrupted them, for they have ever shown too deep a reverence for every word and letter of these books to have done so; they have been too much scattered and disunited to have agreed upon any such attempt; they would not have left so many statements condemnatory of themselves and favourable to Christianity had they set about altering their own Scriptures; and they have since that time been so much under the eye of Christians that any such attempt on their part would immediately have been detected and denounced by the latter. Christians have not done it; for, to say nothing of the fact that hardly any Christian has been sufficiently master of the Hebrew language to execute skilfully any such alterations, the attempt on their part to do such a thing would have been immediately discovered and exposed by the Jews.

6. As impossible is it that any corruption has taken place in the Christian Scriptures. It is plain that this could not have occurred during the lives of their authors, nor whilst the autographs of their works were extant. But in some cases before, and in others immediately after, the death of the inspired writers, copies of their writings were multiplied to a great extent, and disseminated over the whole Christian world. It could only therefore have been by the general consent of all Christians that any material alterations could have been made on these writings; for if one sect or party had interpolated their copies, this could not have affected the copies of others, and would have been detected HOLY SCRIPTURE.

But the idea of a general consent of Christians in all parts of the world to falsify their own documents, is one too extravagant to be admitted.

7. The agreement of versions and of manuscripts, both of the Old Testament Scriptures and of the New, is a corroborative evidence of their integrity. The number of early versions is considerable, and among them so great a harmony prevails that it is undeniable they must have been made from a common original, and that that original must have been the same as we now possess. The same conclusion is attested by the agreement of the manuscripts. Of these, more than 1100, containing the whole or parts of the Old Testament, and about 1400, containing the whole or parts of the New Testament, have been collated, without any material discrepancy having been elicited (1); a fact which is utterly irreconcilable with the supposition of any designed interpolations having been so much as attempted by any class or party, either of Jews or of Christians (2).

1. Rosenmuller observes, respecting the codices of the Old Testament, "Hi qui hodie existant codices omnes inter se concupiscunt, ut singulos continent variis lectionibus vis una deprehendatur qua sensum mutet. Circumstans danturque vel Latinae litterae, Vocales vel Accentuum praesentia. Quod quidem argumentum est, Veteris Testamenti libros, prout eis none legimus, ex usu, quam dicant, recensentis codicibus ad nos transmissos esse, atque unnes codices, antiquiores sequi perferant, ac recentiores quo habemus tanquam a communi fonte fluississe." (Prof. ad Edit. Stereotypam Hebraic Bib. Heb., p. iv.) Language no less strong may be justly held regarding the New Testament.

2. See Horne's Introduction, vol. i., pp. 100-108; Michaelis's Introduction, vol. i.; Walton's Prolegomena, vii.; Nolan's Inquiry into the Integrity of the Greek Vulgate, London, 1815; (Bentley's) Remarks on Freethinking, by Philolethrum Lippisium, Nos. xxxi.-xxxiii.; Dr. J. Pye Smith's Answer to the Manifesto of the Christian Evidence Society, 4th ed., and Rejoinder by Taylor, 2d ed., London, 1830; Ernesti's Principles of Biblical Interpretation, translated by Charles H. Tertol, vol. ii., pp. 1-24, Edinburgh, 1833.

SECT. IV.—Credibility of the Sacred Scriptures.

That these books, in their narrative parts, contain statements of actual facts, is sufficiently established by various considerations.

1. The things narrated are such as their writers were fully competent to attest. For the most part they were eye and ear witnesses of what they recorded; and where this was not the case, they were placed in circumstances the most favourable for gaining information from first sources as to the facts they narrate. They are in fact, with one or two partial exceptions, what very few of the ancient historians are, annalists of their own times.

2. The matters which they record are such as they could not possibly be deceived about. They are such as any man with the use of his senses, and an ordinary portion of discrimination, was as fully competent to judge of as the most profound philosopher. The passage of the Red Sea, for instance, or the re-appearance of our Lord after His death, was a fact respecting which no man in his senses could be deceived. Unless the sacred writers were the wildest enthusiasts (of which, however, no trace is discoverable in any other part of their conduct, but the contrary), they could not have been misled into the belief that they had seen such things, if they had not seen them.

3. The blameless character and disinterested fidelity of these witnesses show that they were not themselves deceivers. The mind of man is subject to certain laws, upon which we may calculate with the same security as upon the laws of matter; and one of these is, that no man of generally irreproachable character will deliberately and pertinaciously propagate a falsehood, save under the influence of very strong temptation. Now the sacred writers were men of respectable character; so that if their narrative be false, it can only have been under the stress of very urgent necessity or sinister inducement that they can be supposed to have promulgated it. But where was this stress in their case? What evil had they to shun, what prodigious advantage to gain, by falsehood? On the contrary, did not their adherence to their story expose many of them to the severest privations and the cruellest sufferings, even to death itself? Do men, then, ever so fail in love with falsehood as to consecrate their lives to its propagation, and willingly to endure every species of contumely, persecution, and oppression, rather than relinquish it? Would not such a thing be a moral miracle, infinitely more incredible than any of those which the sacred writers narrate, because, unlike theirs, performed not only without the affirmation of divine agency, but in direct opposition to the law of the God of truth?

4. Their narratives were published at a time when the events they record were so recent that it outrages all probability to suppose, either that they would have had the audacity to publish what was false, or that their falsehoods would have been allowed to descend to posterity uncontradicted. Who can for a moment imagine that, had the Israelites not crossed the Red Sea in the manner described by Moses, he could have persuaded them to believe that they had? or that the facts of our Lord's history could have been palmed upon the world when there were so many still alive both interested in and competent for their refutation, had they not really occurred?

5. These histories account satisfactorily for numerous undeniable facts that are otherwise unaccountable, such as the existence and present state of the Jews, the existence and propagation of Christianity, and the prevalence of certain rites and ceremonies among Jews and Christians, such as circumcision in its religious aspect, the weekly Sabbath, the Lord's Supper, &c. They further tally with the testimony of profane history, in as far as the field is common to both. They "interweave themselves," as Dr. Channing has well observed, "with real history so naturally and intimately as to furnish no clue for detection, as to exclude the appearance of incongruity and discordance, and as to give an adequate explanation, and the only explanation, of acknowledged events of the most important revolutions of society." That such narratives should be fictitious, the same writer justly concludes, "is a supposition from which an intelligent man at once revolts, and which, if admitted, would shake a principal foundation of history." (Discourse on the Evidences of Revealed Religion, p. 34, 4th [English] edition, Liverpool, 1831.)

6. The credibility of the sacred historians is strikingly confirmed by the traditions and histories of all the ancient nations, by many facts of natural history, and by numerous monuments of human art which are still existing, such as coins, medals, and inscriptions.

See Faber's Horae Mosis, vol. i.; Bryant's Ancient Mythology, 3 vols. 4to, 1774; Edwards on the Truth and Authority of Scripture, vol. i.; Gray's Connection of Sacred and Profane Literature; Lardner's Credibility, and Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, &c., Works, vols. i.-viii.; Redford's Lectures on the Divine Authority of the Bible, as confirmed by Science, History, and Human Consciousness, 1837; Horne's Introduction, vol. i., 116-20; Alexander's Christ and Christianity, part i.

SECT. V.—Canon of the Sacred Scriptures.

The Greek word ἐκκλησία signifies originally a straight line or rod; hence tropically a rule, and hence a list or catalogue, as that which contains the rule or order of the things contained in it.

In this last sense it is applied to the Scriptures, but with a different reference, according as it is used in inquiries of a dogmatical or in inquiries of a historic-critical nature. In the former, it means the list of books deemed inspired; in the latter, the list of books recognised as genuine by Jews and Christians. In either case, such books are opposed to those that are apocryphal (ἀποκρύφα, "ea scripta In regard to the sacred writings, both these lists are identical; for all the books which are found in the former are found also in the latter, no book having been inserted simply on the ground of its Jewish authorship, but only such as were the production of a prophet or inspired man.

See the striking testimony of Josephus, *Contra Apionem*, i. 8, confirmed by that of Philo, by whom no writing is referred to as sacred unless it be the production of a prophet; by which term he intended one whose organs are used by God for the showing of what He wills. (De Musarum, opp. ii. 222, ad. Mangey.)

It is the opinion of some that Nehemiah, who is said to have collected a βιβλοποιησις of the sacred books (2d Macc. iii. 13), and Malachi, the last of the prophets, closed the canon by adding to it their own writings; though others affirm that the list was not finally made up until about the time of the Syrian invasion under Antiochus Epiphanes, in the third century n.c. By much the most probable, because best-supported hypothesis, however, is that which ascribes the final and authoritative making up of the Old Testament canon to Ezra and the men of the Great Synagogue. This is formally affirmed in one of the oldest books of the Talmud, the Pirke Aboth, or Sayings of the Fathers, and it is repeated in other Jewish writings; it is, besides, in full accordance with all we know of Ezra's personal history and his position among his people, and there is nothing of any weight that can be urged against it. Before the time of Ezra there was a succession of prophets by whom the integrity and purity of the sacred canon was guarded; and Ezra and his associates simply declared finally what always had been, and were to be thenceforward, held as the sacred books. Certain it is that by the third century n.c. all the books now extant had been composed and arranged in order,—as they not only were then translated into Greek, but were spoken of by Jesus Siracides, who lived about two hundred years n.c., as divided into three classes, and as of considerable antiquity. Even if we admit that the closing of the canon took place as late as the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, it must have consisted only of such books as were notoriously reputed among the Jews to be sacred, as having come down to them from the prophets; for it would have been impossible at that time to have induced the nation to accept as of Divine authorship, books which they knew must have been produced since the succession of the prophets and inspired men had ceased.

The classes into which the books of the Old Testament are spoken of by the son of Sirach as divided, are three,—the law, the prophets, and the other writings. This division is still retained, only the last class are denominated Chethubim or Hagiographa. To the first division belong the five books of Moses; to the second the historical books, with the exception of Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, and the prophetical books, with the exception of Daniel; to the third the poetical books, Daniel, and the excepted historical books. This arrangement, however, was by no means uniformly preserved. In the LXX. Daniel is placed next to Ezekiel; Josephus and the New Testament writers seem to have regarded the third division as comprising only the poetical books; and there is considerable discrepancy among the Jewish rabbis in their statements as to the arrangement of the sacred books. All this seems to indicate that the Talmudical arrangement now followed was not the original arrangement, but was one which, probably for liturgical purposes, the Jews adopted at a later period.

At what time the canon of the New Testament was made up we have not the means of accurately determining. We are sure, however, that from a very early age these writings were separately referred to as divine and authorita-

tive, and as on these grounds quite *sui generis*; and it is certain that they were at an early period collected, and were referred to in their collected character as the received documents of the Christian community. Tertullian does so repeatedly in his writings, denominating them sometimes "the New Testament," and sometimes "the Divine Instrument," in the singular number; and Clement of Alexandria speaks of "the Scriptures of the Lord" under the title of "The Gospel and the Apostles." The collection was doubtless made gradually; and from what we learn from Eusebius respecting a distinction between books ἁπολογούμεναι and books διαδεχόμεναι (*Hist. Ecclesiast.*, lib. iii., c. 25, ed. Heinichen, vol. i., p. 244), it would appear that the claims of every book were carefully weighed before its canonicity was admitted.

See Conin's *Scholastical History of the Canon of the Holy Scripture*, London, 1672; Jones's *New and Full Method of Setting the Canonical Authority of the New Testament*, Oxford, 1798; Alexander's *Canon of the Old and New Testaments Annotated*, London, 1823; Ch. F. Schmidt's *Historia Antiqua et Vindicatio Canonis Veteris et Novi Testamenti*, Lipsiae, 1775; Haenelin's *Einleitung in die Schriften d. N. T.* bds. I. & 341, Erlangen, 1801; Henderson's *Lectures on Inspiration*, lect. ix.; Stuart, *Critical History and Defence of the Old Testament Canon*, Lond. 1849; Westcott's *History of the New Testament Canon*.

The apocryphal books of Scripture may be divided into two classes, the one containing those that are simply dogmatically, the other those that are both dogmatically and historico-critically apocryphal. To the former belong the books of Maccabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and perhaps those of Tobit and of Judith, which are genuine, though not inspired; to the latter all the rest of the apocryphal books, both of the Old Testament and the New, none of which are inspired, or can be shown to be genuine.

Horne's *Introduction*, vol. i., Appendix, p. 457; Ralmold *Curae Leborum Veteris Testamenti Apocryphorum*, 1611; Elckhorn, *Einl. in die Apocryphen*, Schr. d. A. T.; Bretschneider, *In Libri Sapientiae*, &c., 1804; Josephus, *Contra Apionem*, i. 8; Hieronymi, *Prefat. in libb. Salomonis*, et in Judith et Tobias.

**Sect. VI.—Languages of the Scriptures.**

The greater part of the Old Testament Scriptures is composed in pure Hebrew, the most ancient language of which we have any specimen extant. This language belongs to a class of tongues formerly called, by way of eminence, the Oriental, but now more generally discriminated by the term Semitic or Shemitic, from Shem, the great progenitor of the races by which they are spoken (1). This class embraces three leading tongues, corresponding in general character and relation to the geographical situations of the respective nations by which they are used; the Aramaic, abounding in combinations of consonants, and consequently marked by considerable harshness of pronunciation, employed by the nations of the northern and more mountainous districts of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia; the Arabic, remarkable for richness, mellifluousness, and the preponderance of vowels, spoken by the inhabitants of the warm and open plains of Arabia and Ethiopia; and the Hebrew, the language of the middle district, possessing an intermediate character between the other two, richer than the Aramaic, poorer and harsher than the Arabic (2).

Of the Aramaic in its original form we have no remains. The biblical Chaldaic is a mixture of it, as used in Babylon, with the Hebrew; the Syriac is a more recent dialect, formed by the Christians of Edessa and Nisibis (3). The opinion, that Hebrew was the original language of the world, and the mother of all the other Semitic tongues, is now generally relinquished by scholars, who content themselves with the more moderate hypothesis, that it is the oldest daughter of the primeval tongue, and that which re- HOLY SCRIPTURE.

Scripture, bears the most striking resemblances to the mother speech of the antediluvian period (4). The term Hebrew some derive from אֶבְרִי, Eber, over or across, as if = advena, foreigner, immigrant; but others, with far more probability, from אֶבְרִי, Eber or Heber, the ancestor of Abraham. In the earliest books of the Bible, those of Moses, this language appears in its greatest purity; nor did it sustain any decided deterioration till after the Babylonian captivity. The attempts of some Hebraists to divide its history into a golden, a silver, a brazen, and an iron age, are by the most accurate scholars rejected, as much more fanciful than sound (5). The Hebrew of the Scriptures is the pure classical Jerusalem Hebrew, the language of the Temple and of the court. That there were dialects more or less corrupt in the provinces is attested by the sacred writers themselves. Thus they tell us that the Ephraimites could not distinguish between the ו and the ד in pronunciation (Judges xii. 6); Nehemiah was indignant that part of the people should speak “in the speech (dialect) of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab” (Nehem. xiii. 23–25); and the dialect of Galilee is mentioned in the New Testament (Matt. xxvi. 73) (6).

1. The first to use this term seems to have been Nicolas Fuller in his Miscellanea Sacra. He was followed by Eliehorn, and ultimately by nearly all the orientalists of Germany. Havermick contends for retaining the term Oriental. Introduction to Old Testament, p. 82.

2. Ewald’s Hebrew Grammar, translated by Nicolson, p. 1; Gesenius, Grammatik, § 1.

3. See Havermick, Gen. Introd., p. 99.

4. Morinus, De Lingua Primaeva; Jahn, Einleitung, i. th. s. 244.

5. As the language appears to us at present in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, there are only two distinct periods characteristically discriminated,—the one comprehending the books written before, and the other those written during and subsequent to the exile.

6. Compare Horne’s Introd., v. ii., p. 2–14, and the works referred to by him.

The portions of the Old Testament not in pure Hebrew are Ezra iv. 8, vii. 18, and vii. 12–25; Jer. x. 11; and Daniel ii. 4, vii. 28. These are in Chaldaic or eastern Aramaic, and have reference chiefly to the history of the Captivity, and the events following its close.

On the Biblical Chaldaic, see Walton’s Prolegomena, chap. xii. §§ 2, 3; Ll. Hirzel, De Chaldaeis Biblicis Origine et Auctoritate Comment. Crit., Lips., 1830; F. Dietrich, De Sermonis Chaldaici Proprietate, Lips., 1839; Winer, Grammatik des Biblisch und Targumischen Chaldaimus, Leipzig, 1842, 2nd edit.; Chald. Lexebuch, 1855.

The language of the New Testament is the σοῦργον Ἑβραϊκόν of the classical Greek, with many Aramaic words and idioms interspersed, and a few Latinisms.

Horne’s Introd., vol. ii., pp. 12–50; Schott, Imagae Hist. Crit., pp. 495–617; Stuart’s Grammar of the New Testament Language; Winer’s Grammatik der N. Testamentlichen Sprachidioen, translated by E. Masson, 2 vols., Edin., 1838; Michaelis, Introd., vol. i., p. 97 (English translation), &c.; Davidson’s Biblical Criticism.

SECT. VII.—History of the Original Text of the Old Testament Scriptures.

The history of the Hebrew text properly begins after the completion of the canon; antecedent to that, we have no materials for arriving at any conclusions. Starting from this point, the history of the Hebrew text may be divided into three great epochs. The first of these reaches from the completion of the canon to the times of Origen, Jerome, and the Talmud, B.C. 300—A.D. 500. During this period we observe,—(1.) Attention paid to the calligraphy of the text, and the adoption of the square character from the Aramaic or Babylonian usage, in place of the old Hebrew or Samaritan. (2.) The attempt to ascertain the correct reading of the text, and the collection of various readings. Of these, it is natural that a considerable number should have accumulated; for, without resorting to the supposition of any blameable carelessness on the part of the transcribers, still less of any intention to alter the text, there were sufficient causes at work to occasion numerous varieties between one manuscript and another; such as mistakes of eyesight or of hearing, leading to the substitution of one letter for another resembling it, the transposition of letters and even of words, the omission of letters and even clauses, the substitution of like-sounding words for each other, &c.; mistakes of memory, when the transcriber trusted to recollection, leading to substitutions and omissions, the confusion of synonyms, and the exchanging of familiar parallel passages; and mistakes of judgment, where two words are sometimes read as one, abbreviations are wrongly construed, marginal glosses are introduced into the text, and such-like. When the LXX. is compared with the extant Hebrew text, it is evident that its authors must have used manuscripts in many respects differing from those which have come down to us from the Palestinian Jews, and by which the extant text has been determined. With the LXX. agrees the Samaritan Pentateuch, which contains also some variations peculiar to itself, but of no critical value, as they are plainly occasional glosses or unskilful corrections. Nor can any great value be attached to the various readings of the LXX., the most of which are arbitrary and uncritical, though there may be some which are worthy of being considered. Among the Jews of Palestine, the most reverential care was exercised upon the sacred text to preserve its purity; and it would appear from the Talmudists that at an early period the text was fixed very much as we now have it; the variations being adduced merely as herr (read) upon chethibh (written); i.e., what, for critical, exegetical, or euphemistic reasons, was in the reading to be substituted for what was written. (3.) Attention came to be paid to the correct pronunciation of the words and the reading of the text. As Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language, and as the manuscripts of Scripture were without vowels, it became necessary to call in the aid of tradition to fix the form and meaning of the words; and accordingly in this period commenced those attempts which ultimately culminated in the elaborate system of the Masoretes. Besides this, care was taken to determine one word from another, and to mark the ending of clauses and sentences. (4.) Of the Hebrew text as it existed among the Palestinian Jews some judgment may be formed from the extant fragments of the Hexapla of Origen, and from the Targums. It differs but slightly from the existing Masoretic text. Of great value also is the testimony of Jerome, by means of his translation and his commentaries, to the substantial identity of the text in his day with that now extant.

In the Talmud, Hieroclet, Ptolemy, Philo, &c., it is said of certain various readings that “they have come down from the time when the Temple was yet standing.” Capellii Critica Sacra, tom. i., p. 444–458; Walton’s Prolegomena, viii., §§ 20–28; Kennicott, Dissert. Generalis, p. 275; Horne’s Introduction, vol. ii., p. 35, 38; Buxtorf’s Tiberias; Havermick’s Introd., §§ 41–61; Tr.; De Wette, Einl., §§ 85–89; p. 126, ff.; Porter’s Textual Criticism, p. 43, ff.

The second epoch reaches from the times of Jerome and the Talmud to that of Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali; that is, from the sixth to the eleventh century. About the commencement of this period the Masorah, or collection of traditional observations, orthographical, critical, grammatical, and exegetical, which had been accumulating for upwards of three centuries among the Jewish rabbins, began to be made by a college of learned Jews at Tiberias in Palestine. These were originally written on the margin of manuscripts, but as this led to confusion and error, they were ultimately collected in separate books. Of these annotations, some are the result of the comparing of manuscripts, and to this the various lections belong; others are the result of private Scripture, judgment, and are chiefly of a grammatical or exegetical nature. The Masorah is distinguished into great and little, according as the remarks are given in full or in an abridged form. The former, from being put by itself at the end, was called final, the latter marginal. To this mass of scholia additions were continually made, as well as corrections proposed on it, by the Lords of the Massorah (משורר), as they were called, until the time of Jacob Ben Ha-yim, by whom the whole was completed, and printed along with the Hebrew text, in the year 1526. The commencement of the eleventh century is memorable in the history of the Hebrew text, from the circumstance of two recensions having been issued by the heads, as is supposed, of two celebrated Jewish academies: by Aaron Ben Asher, principal of the academy of Tiberias, and Jacob Ben Naphtali, principal of the academy of Babylon. These, taken in connection with a list appended by Ben Ha-yim, from some unknown source, to the second Bomberg Bible, have given rise to the various readings denominated the occidental and the oriental respectively. By them also the last hand was put to the pointing of the Hebrew text.

Capelli Crit. Sacrae, t. i., pp. 439-443; Simon, Historie Critique, ch. I., pp. 21-26; Kennicott, Dissertations, ii., p. 279; Buxtorf, Tiberias, 1610; Marsh's Lectures, lect. viii., ed. 1828; Walton, Prolegomena, viii. 12; Horne, vol. ii., pp. 39, 40. Hävernick and De Wette as above.

The third epoch reaches from the beginning of the eleventh century to the middle of the eighteenth. About the year 1040 many learned Jews, banished from the East, took refuge in Europe, and brought with them their Scriptures and their critical learning. Maimonides, Jarchi, Eben Ezra, Kimchi, and others, rendered additional service as to the interpretation, so also to the criticism, of the sacred text. In the thirteenth century, R. Meir Hallévi, called commonly Todrosi, and in the sixteenth, Menachem and Sal. Norzi, collected various readings. In 1477 the first scriptural book in Hebrew, in 1488 the entire Hebrew Bible, for the first time, was printed; the latter at Soncino, the former at some place unknown. That of 1488 is the first principal edition of the Hebrew Bible; the second is the Complutensian polyglott, 1514-17; and the third, which is of great importance, is the so-called Rabbinical Bible, printed at Venice in 1526, and edited by Ben Ha-yim. Among Christian editors, Sebastian Münster was the first who issued an edition of the Hebrew Bible, with various readings, Basil, 1535. The editions of Joseph Athias, Amsterdam, 1661, Manasseh Ben Israel, Amsterdam, 1630, are worthy of notice as critical editions. In 1630 Jablonski published his edition, in which the text follows that of Athias, with some aid from manuscripts. John Henry Michaelis published his edition at Halle in 1720, for which he collated five manuscripts and nineteen editions. In 1753, at Paris, appeared the edition of Charles Francis Houbigant, for which twelve manuscripts were collated, but the value of which is greatly impaired by the editor's propensity to conjectural emendation, and by his attaching such undue importance to the readings of the Septuagint. The splendid work of Kennicott (Oxford, t. i. 1776, ii. 1780) presents the largest mass of various readings yet collected; but the want of scientific discrimination as to their relative value has impaired the usefulness of the collection. The same may be said of the various readings collected by De Rossi, Parma, 1784-1788.

Marsh's Lectures, lect. ix.; Horne, ii., pp. 27-45; Augusti, Einleitung, §§ 85-92; De Rossi, De Heb. Typog. origine et primitio, Parma, 1776; Hävernick, §§ 66, 67.

Sect. VIII.—History of the Original Text of the New Testament Scriptures.

Of the autographs of the New Testament writers no notices have come down to us; what have been supposed to be allusions to them by some of the fathers are only by Scripture mistake so interpreted; while the stories of some of the later writers, such as Theodorus Lector, Philostorgius, Nicephorus, and the Chronicon Paschale, are to be referred to the head of fables. Written on papyrus (3 John 13), they were not calculated to endure long, and as copies of them had been made, no special effort was probably made to preserve them. Of these copies, there is reason to believe the number soon came to be very considerable. But in making them, it was hardly possible to avoid mistakes more or less serious. The text ran on in an unbroken current, without separation of words, without punctuation, and without any of those diacritical marks which appear in printed Greek books: it was in the ancient character where many of the letters resemble each other closely, and the transcription was executed by scribes, who were subject to all the errors arising from imperfect seeing, imperfect hearing, or misunderstanding. Sometimes, also, alterations were intentionally introduced for dogmatical or grammatical reasons. Hence, as early as the second century, it is clear that varieties of reading existed, and these would naturally accumulate during the long period that intervened before the discovery of printing. That attempts were made at an early period to arrive at a correct text is certain, but it is not easy to determine of what kind or value these were. We have the testimony of Jerome, confirmed by that of the decree of Gelasius, that Lucian, a presbyter of Antioch, and Hosychius, an Egyptian bishop, undertook some sort of recension of the New Testament, but we are left in the dark both as to what they really effected, and as to what influence, if any, their labours had on the accredited documents of the Christians. It is certain also that the labours of Origen were directed with beneficial effect upon this object; and though Jerome sometimes allowed merely arbitrary preferences to overrule his critical judgment, there can be no doubt of his eminence as a textual critic, and of the value of his services towards a just settling of the text of the New Testament.

Modern critics have endeavoured to facilitate and settle critical inquiries by arranging the documents containing the original text of the New Testament into classes or recensions, as they have been called. Of these documents, some more, and others less, closely resemble each other as respects the nature and selection of their readings, and not unfrequently traces of a common origin in the older codices and versions are apparent. This has led to the idea of arranging these into classes, or families, or recensions, an idea first started by Bengel and Semler (1), and which has been carried out by several more recent inquirers. Bengel concluded that there are two families of manuscripts, the African and Asiatic, of the former of which the Alexandrian manuscript is the sole representative (with which agree the Ethiopic, the Coptic, and the ancient Latin versions), whereas the latter is very numerous. After Bengel came Griesbach (2), who contended for a threefold recension, the Western, the Alexandrian or Eastern, and the Constantinopolitan or Byzantine. Of these, the two former are the oldest, and are by him attributed to the same age. They differ, in that the Western text is more replete with Hebraisms, with explanatory additions, and with occasional substitutions of a perspicuous formula for one more difficult; whilst the Eastern prefers those readings that are accommodated to the classic Greek, corrects phrases that are less pure, and is less deformed by errors of the transcriber, through particles and synonymes are occasionally omitted through haste. The Constantinopolitan has arisen from the mingling of the readings of the other two. It properly consists of two recensions: a senior (fourth century), even more fond of pure Greek forms, and richer in glosses, than the Alexandrian itself; and a junior (fifth or sixth century), which appears to have been formed after a new collation of Scripture, the senior with the Eastern and Alexandrian recensions, by the labours of some learned men of the Syrian Church. Griesbach defends his system with great learning and ingenuity; but it is open, as Schott observes, to the following objections:—1st, His positions respecting the origin assigned to both recensions are destitute of a solid basis; 2dly, Many reasons concur to prevent our admitting that any state of the text of the New Testament peculiar to the Western Church, such as could, from its singular character, be entitled to the name of a recession, existed (3); 3dly, The features of the text followed by the very ancient Peschito version cannot well be accounted for on the principles of Griesbach; and, in fine, all who seek accurately to arrange codices, versions, and extracts found in the fathers, according to different recessions, labour under this difficulty, that none of those documents of the New Testament which are of great age exhibits any such pure and perfect recession (4).

1. Bengel, Apparatus Criticus ad Novum Test., p. 425, Tubingen, 1763; Eysdenus, Introductio in Critin N. T., § 28, 8c., p. 385, Tubingen, 1734; Semler, Vorberichten zur Hermeneutik, Halle, 1760-1769. The term recession, though now generally used, is a misnomer; the manuscripts may be reduced to different classes, but there is no evidence that any of these is the result of a recession.

2. Griesbach, Opuscula Academica, ed. Graeber, vol. i.

3. From the writings of the fathers of the third century, we learn that those various readings which are said to be peculiar to the western and to the eastern texts respectively, do not, as respects their origins, belong to different recessions. (See Eichhorn, Einl., bd. iv., pp. 235 and 269, &c.) Nor is it probable that the doctors of the Western Church, who were but little skilled in Greek, should have thought of preparing a recession of the New Testament.

4. Schott, Inseges, pp. 562-565.

A different theory of recessions has been adopted by Hug. He thinks that the text which we find in those early codices which Griesbach referred to the Western recession, in the oldest Latin versions, in the Sahidico-Coptic version, in the quotations of the fathers till the time of Origen, and in Origen himself, was the κοινὸν ἐκδόσις, or common edition, conforming to no recession in particular, and containing various readings of different sorts and of different origins mingled together, especially such as serve to explain the text. At the same time those codices which were written in Syria and other parts of the East (the inhabitants of which understood better than most others the Hebrew-Greek dialect of the New Testament) preserved the primitive text more correctly; and hence it happened that the oldest Syriac version, though upon the whole belonging to this common edition, not unfrequently dissents from the readings of the other documents of the same edition. About the middle of the third century, Hesychius, an Egyptian bishop, first set about correcting the errors of the recession of the common edition used in Egypt, purging out all interpolations and glosses, restoring words that had been omitted, but aiming too much at producing a text that should be remarkable for its Greek purity and elegance. Almost at the same time Lucian, a presbyter of Antioch in Syria, revised the common edition as it appeared in the Peschito version, following chiefly the authority of this version, but at the same time comparing other codices found in Syria, and produced a text differing from that of Hesychius in this, that it showed less desire to amend the Greek of the New Testament. Besides these, a third recession was undertaken by Origen in Palestine, based upon the common edition used by the Christians there, which conformed in some respects to that of Hesychius, in others to that of Lucian, whilst frequently it differed from both, and which subsequently became the one commonly used in Palestine and the adjoining districts. Of these recessions none is preserved in any of those documents which we now possess, as the transcribers frequently compared their recession with the common edition and with other recessions. Hug's theory rests so far on an historical basis that it appears certain that, as already observed, Hesychius and Lucian did undertake some such labour as he ascribes to them; but that codices of their recessions were either very numerous or very highly esteemed, cannot be shown. The labour attributed to Origen is more than doubtful.

Hag, Einleitung, bd. i., § 126 (Eng. trans. vol. i., p. 134, &c.); Schott, Inseges, p. 366; Horne, ii., p. 56.

Matthaei thinks that no recessions of the text of the New Testament were anciently made, and he prefers dividing the documents from which the text is to be determined into, 1st, Codices textus perpetui, in which there are neither scholia nor commentaries, and which excel all the others in the purity of the text they exhibit; 2d, Lectoria, which contain the lessons read in churches, and exhibit a text less free from scholary interpolation than the preceding; 3d, Codices mixti, which contain scholia and interpretations partly on the margin, but chiefly interpolated. Matthaei thought the Moscow manuscripts, which he had himself diligently collated, the best; and this perhaps led him to a very unjust estimate of the worth and authority of many other documents of the text of the New Testament.

Schott, Inseges, p. 570; Horne, ii., p. 50.

Scholz, a recent editor of the Greek New Testament, adopts neither the opinion of Griesbach nor that of Hug. He concludes that there are two classes of critical witnesses for the text of the New Testament, the Alexandrian and the Constantinopolitan or Byzantine; to the former of which belong all the codices executed in Egypt and Western Europe, the most of the Coptic and Latin versions, the Ethiopic version, and the quotations by ecclesiastical writers of these districts; and to the latter all the codices written in Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Eastern Europe, the Philoxenian Syriac version, the Gothic, the Georgian, the Slavonian, the quotations by the fathers living in these regions, and all printed editions. The former he infelicitously calls occidental, the latter oriental. To manuscripts of the latter class he attributes superior value, because of their greater harmony, and of their having been more faithfully copied from original documents than those of the former, which often exhibit a text altered at the will of grammarians; and especially because they present the text used in the public services of the church. But this last position is far from being certain; and, besides, a twofold difficulty presses upon the theory of Scholz; for, first, the Western text of the New Testament has a character considerably different from that of the Alexandrian; and, secondly, the text divulged at Constantinople by order of Constantine and Constans was, as Scholz himself admits, collated with the Alexandrian text; so that the readings of both recessions were intermixed. It is, moreover, rather assumed than proved that that form of the text which, during the first three centuries, prevailed in Asia Minor and Greece, was the same which was afterwards divulged principally in the Constantinopolitan codices; nor is it sufficiently clear that Alexandria was the primary seat of the arbitrary corruption of the New Testament text.

Scholz, Proleg. ad editionem N. T., vol. i.; Schott, Inseges, p. 570; Horne, ii., pp. 58-66.

The theory of Eichhorn approximates that of Hug. He grants that from a very early age different readings, derived from various sources, existed, and were vastly augmented in the third century by various efforts of an exegetical nature, so that as early as the second century there were two species of texts, the Asiatic and the African, but neither of them was determined by any very certain critical laws. He denies that Origen was the author of a peculiar recession, but admits the services of Hesychius and Lucian in this respect, although he questions the possibility of ascertaining accurately the primitive character of either recession from ancient documents. There thus arose a three- Scripture, fold text of the New Testament, the African (Alexandrian), the Asiatic (Constantinopolitan), and a mixed, which had its source from this, that many, notwithstanding the authority acquired by the recensions of Hesychius and Lucian in the churches of Africa and Asia, preferred following the authority of older codices. No change of a critical kind took place upon the text thus formed until editions of the New Testament began to be printed. No opinion so fully accords with what may be regarded as best ascertained as this of Eichhorn, though it is still doubtful whether the efforts of Hesychius and Lucian exerted a very wide or lasting influence upon the form of the text of the New Testament.

Eichhorn, Einleitung in das N. T., bd. iv., § 183, &c.; Schott, Ioseph, p. 572, from which work the above account has been principally taken; Horne, iii., p. 57.

Of late, a disposition has showed itself in some quarters to rest the text solely on the authority of the oldest or uncial codices. This principle, suggested first by the illustrious Bentley, has been embraced and rigidly applied by Lachmann, a recent editor of the New Testament, who has sought to produce, as near as may be, not the best text of the New Testament, but a contribution towards the ascertaining of that, by the reproduction of the text as it was recognised by the church in the fourth century. Lachmann's attempt is generally considered to be a failure, from the extremely narrow basis on which he forced himself to build; but his principle of confining himself to diplomatic evidence alone, to the exclusion of all considerations of the nature of internal evidence, and to diplomatic evidence drawn from the oldest sources, has been eagerly adopted by several critics. Its principal defender and follower in this country is Mr Tregelles, who is at present (1869) engaged in carrying through the press an edition of the New Testament, of which the text is to be based on ancient authorities alone, with various readings from the ancient manuscripts, the ancient versions, and the early fathers. This principle would be unimpeachable, if it could be shown that a reading found in an ancient authority is therefore older than a reading found in a later codex; but so long as it is possible that a later codex may have been transcribed from one more ancient than the oldest of the extant codices, this cannot be done; and, consequently, to restrict authority to the oldest documents is to narrow arbitrarily the field within which evidence may be legitimately sought for the formation of the text. Hence Tischendorf, the most recent, and on the whole the ablest editor of the Greek New Testament, has in his editions allowed himself a much wider range. Whilst he bases his text on the authority of the older witnesses, he includes among these codices as late as the ninth century, and maintains that the lections furnished by codices of the eighth and ninth centuries are often older than those furnished by codices of the fourth, fifth, and sixth, as tested by concurrence with the testimony of the old versions and the early fathers. Hence he concludes that when "it cannot be determined by learned reason and judgment what the authors themselves wrote, that reading which we know to be best supported by ancient witnesses is faithfully and alone to be followed; but wherever causes of a grave nature, and remote from arbitrariness, conspire to recommend and confirm one rather than another, that is to be preferred; not that which is most attested, but that which is attested and probable."

With the exception of some detached portions, the first printed editions of the New Testament were those of the Complutensian Polyglott, 1514, and of Erasmus, Basle, 1516. The next possessing any critical value were those of Robert Stephen, viz., that of 1546, 12mo, commonly called, from the first words of the preface, the "O Mirificum" edition, that of 1549, 12mo, and that of 1550, folio. Beza was the first to issue an edition of the New Testament with a copious critical apparatus; and his edition many of the minor editions for several years followed. The beautiful editions of the Elzevirs, which conform partly to the text of Stephen, partly to that of Beza, became so famous that they formed what has been called the textus receptus. In 1707 the edition of Mill was published at Oxford, in which not only is there a larger collection of various readings furnished, but also a more scientific discrimination of these aimed at, than in any preceding edition. His example was followed by Bengel in Germany and Weistain in Holland, both of whom have rendered important service to the text of the New Testament. All these, however, have been outstripped in diligence, learning, and acuteness by Griesbach, who issued his first edition, which embraced only the historical books of the New Testament, at Halle, 1774-75. In the meantime, the researches of Matthias Altor, Birch, and others, had greatly enlarged the mass of materials for a critical revision of the New Testament, and of these Griesbach eagerly and ably availed himself in preparing a critical edition of the whole New Testament. This he published in two volumes large octavo, the former in 1799, and the latter in 1806, at Halle. A new and carefully revised edition was undertaken after Griesbach's death by Dr David Schulz, of which the first volume appeared in 1827. It is to be regretted that this very valuable edition went no further. Passing over those who have merely reprinted the text of Griesbach, or worked solely on his materials, the following editions deserve to be noticed:—Scholz, Nov. Test. recensuit, lect. familiae subj., &c., 2 vols. 4to, Lips. 1830-36; Lachmann, Nov. Test. Graec et Latine, &c., 2 vols., Berol. 1832-50; Tischendorf, Nov. Test. ad antiquos testes denuo recensuit, &c., seventh edition, Lips. 1859. Two useful editions of the New Testament have been recently issued in this country: the one by Dr S. T. Bloomfield, formed upon a careful collation of all previous critical recensions, of which the ninth edition, 2 vols. 8vo, appeared at London in 1855; the other, not yet finished, by H. Alford, B.D.

Marsh's Lectures, lects. ii.-vii.; Schott, Ioseph, pp. 634-642; Horne's Introduction, vol. ii., part iii., pp. 11-35; Michaelis, Introduction, by Marsh, vol. ii., pp. 159 and 429; Ernesti's Principles of Interpretation, vol. ii., p. 47; Tregelles On the Printed Text of the Greek N. T.; Davidson's Biblical Criticism, p. 534, &c.

Sect. IX.—Manuscripts of the Sacred Text.

Hebrew manuscripts are of two classes, the rolled and the square: the former prepared for the use of the synagogues, and written only on parchment; the latter for private use, and written sometimes on parchment and sometimes on paper. In all the ancient manuscripts the words are written continuously without any division, and in the square Chaldaic character. They are divided by De Rossi into three classes,—viz., 1. The more ancient, or those written before the twelfth century; 2. The ancient, or those of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; 3. The more recent, or those written at the end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century. The number of manuscripts collated by Dr Kennicott was about 630, and by De Rossi 479.

Kennicott: Dissert. Generales; Tychean Tentamen de variis Codic. Heb. MSS., 1772; Horne, vol. iii., pp. 76-90, pp. 86-103, ed. 1856. Scripture. Manuscripts of the Greek New Testament were written first on Egyptian papyrus, and then, as this was found too subject to decay, on skins. Subsequent to the twelfth century, silk paper was used for this purpose, until the thirteenth century, when cotton or linen paper came into use (1). For the first eight centuries the manuscripts were written in uncial letters, large, erect, and not united either by strokes or hooks. From the beginning of the ninth century the cursive letters were employed, which are smaller, more inclined, and united with strokes; they have, moreover, the iota subscribed (2). At first all the words were written without any diacritical marks or separation; but as this was found inconvenient and productive of mistakes, especially in the public reading of the New Testament, a plan was introduced to remedy it by Euthalinus, then a deacon at Alexandria, in the fifth century, which consisted in so arranging those words that make one sense as that they should compose one stich (στίχος) or line (3). To save room, subsequent transcribers, instead of arranging these in distinct lines, marked the conclusion of each by a colon or point; and thus by degrees arose a complete grammatical punctuation, which is presented in manuscripts from the tenth century downwards, though it was not till the sixteenth century that it was subjected to fixed rules in the editions then printed. From a very early period the custom prevailed of dividing the text into sections (κεφάλαια), but until the time of Euthalinus no uniform order was observed in this respect. About the middle of the third century, Ammonius of Alexandria, in preparing a Diatesseron or Harmony of the Evangelists, divided the text into a number of very short sections; and these having been adopted with slight variations by Eusebius (4) (whence they are frequently denominated Ἀμμωνιανο-Ευσέβεια), they were in many manuscripts combined with the Euthalian divisions. In the sixth century, some finding use for a division of the text into larger portions, introduced the arrangement by τίτλοι or breves; but in the course of time these two modes led to so much confusion that in the thirteenth century Hugo de Santo Caro, a Spanish cardinal, introduced as a remedy the division into chapters and verses, which was afterwards perfected by Robert Stephen into that now in use. Besides these divisions, there was another for church purposes into προσκοπα, διαγραμματα, or διαγραμματα, containing the sections of the New Testament appointed for lessons in the public service of the church on Sundays and festivals. The commencement of each of these was marked with an α (ἀρχη), and the close with a τ (τελος) (5).

1. Montfaucon, Palaeographia Graeca, p. 15. 2. Ibid., pp. 161–177, 268, 93, 134. 3. Zacagni, Collectanea Monument. Vet. Eccl. Graecae, 1698, tom. i., p. 164; Tischendorf, Ebditio, ed. iv., p. 164; Marsh's Notes to Michaelis, vol. i. 4. See Mill's New Testament, p. 181. 5. Marsh's Michaelis, vol. ii., p. 883, et seq.; Horne's Introduction, vol. ii., p. 71; Schott, Imagines, pp. 577–584.

These historical facts are of service in determining the age of the New Testament codices.

The MSS. containing the New Testament, in whole or in part, at present known to scholars is very great, upwards of 1400, including Evangelistaria, or copies of the Gospels transcribed for use in the churches, and containing the προσκοπα, or portions to be read in the service; and Lectionaria, which differ from the Evangelistaria only in that they contain portions from the Acts and the Epistles, in some cases along with those from the gospels. Of these codices, 41 are uncials, written from the fourth to the tenth century. The oldest is believed to be the Codex Vaticanus (B), containing the Gospels, Acts, Catholic and Pauline Epistles, of which a facsimile has been issued at Rome, edited by the famous Cardinal Mai, and published in 1858 in 4 vols. folio, which comprise also the LXX. version of the Old Testament. Next to this in age comes the Codex Alexandrinus (A), long believed to be the oldest; it is preserved in the British Museum, and has been published in facsimile under the editorship of Charles Godfrey Weisle, London, 1786; and still more accurately, along with the Old Testament, by Henry H. Baber, 4 vols. folio, London, 1816–28. This MS. contains the whole of the New Testament except Matthew i.–xxv. 5; John vi. 50, viii. 52; and 2 Corinthians iv. 13, xii. 6. It is ascribed to the second half of the fifth century. To the same century belong three others: the Codex Ephraemi (C), or the Parisian palimpsest (Cod. Par. Rescript. Cod. Reg. 9), so called because over the original writing some treatises of Ephraim the Syrian have been inscribed, and because it is preserved in the Royal Library at Paris; edited in facsimile by Tischendorf, Lips. 1843. A palimpsest containing 28 leaves, over-written in Armenian characters, comprising the Gospels, Acts, and fragments of Paul's Epistles, brought by Tischendorf from the East, and published by him; and a MS. (T) belonging to the college of the Propaganda at Rome, containing fragments of three chapters of John's Gospel. Of the other MSS. it may suffice here to mention only the following:—Codex Bezae, or Cantabrigiensis (D), a MS. of the middle of the sixth century, formerly in the possession of the reformer Beza, and sent by him as a gift to the University of Cambridge, containing the Gospels and Acts, edited in facsimile by Th. Kipling, Cantab. 1798, 2 vols. folio; Cod. Claromontanus (††D), also formerly possessed by Beza, containing the Pauline Epistles, belonging to the second half of the sixth century, edited in facsimile by Tischendorf, Lips. 1852; three fragments of a MS. (N), on purple parchment with gold letters, preserved at Rome, London, and Vienna respectively, edited by Tischendorf; Mon. Sac. Ined.; Cod. Basilicensis (E), containing the four Evangelists, with a few gaps; Cod. Augiensis (F inter Cod. Paulinos), purchased by Richard Bentley, and presented after his death by Thomas Bentley to Trinity College, Cambridge, containing the Pauline Epistles, nearly entire, in Greek and Latin; Cod. Coislinianus (H int. Cod. Paul.), belonging to the Imperial Library at Paris, of the sixth century; Cod. Cyprus, formerly Colberthus (K), containing the four Gospels, belonging to the ninth century; Cod. Basilensis (B vi. 27), and Cod. Basil. (B vi. 25), two MSS. belonging to the library at Basle, much used by Erasmus for his edition of the New Testament, of the tenth and fifteenth centuries respectively; Cod. Dublinensis (Z), a palimpsest belonging to Trinity College, Dublin, of the sixth century, edited in facsimile, splendidly but carelessly, by Dr Barrett in 1801.

See prolegomena to Tischendorf's last edition of the Greek New Testament; prolog. to Alford's do.; Scott, Imagines, pp. 591–599; Hug, Introduct., p. 156, &c.; Bodleian's trans.; Horne, Introduct.

Sect. X.—Ancient Versions of the Sacred Scriptures.

These may be arranged either with respect to their history, as immediate and mediate, according as they have been made directly from the originals or from other translations; or with respect to the languages in which they exist, as Oriental and Occidental. We shall follow the latter arrangement, as the more convenient; at the same time intimating, when it is possible, what place each version has in the former.

I. Oriental Versions.—1. Chaldaic Targums. After the return of the Jews from Babylon they brought with

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1 These letters refer to the nomenclature of the manuscripts adopted by Tischendorf. Scripture, them so much of the language of Chaldaea that they were unable to understand their own Scriptures. Hence arose the necessity of accompanying the reading of these in the synagogues with an interpretation; a practice first introduced by Ezra (Nehem. viii. 8), and which continued to be followed as long as the Jewish service was maintained. These interpretations were at first merely oral, and confined to a literal version of the original into the popular dialect; but gradually they became more paraphrastic, and the idea naturally arose of committing the more valuable of them to writing. From this sprang the Chaldaic Targums, or paraphrastic versions of the Hebrew Scriptures. There is reason to believe that there were written Targums as early as the time of Christ. The oldest now extant is that of Onkelos on the Pentateuch, composed according to some in the first, and to others in the third century of the Christian era. It is the least paraphrastic and the most correct of any we possess. Next in point of age and value is that of Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Prophets. The Jews make him a disciple of Hillel, and in this case he must have flourished shortly before the Christian era; it is probable, however, that he was somewhat later. His Targum is more diffuse and paraphrastic than that of Onkelos, but contains much that is valuable. Both of these are printed in Walton's Polyglott. The remaining Targums, nine in number, are of comparatively recent date, and of little value. Their renderings are very harsh; and they are filled with idle and foolish talk.

Winer, De Onkelos ejusque Paraphrasi Chaldaicae, Lips. 1820; Jahn's Einleitung, I., §§ 46, 47; Basser, Chronomathia e Paraphrasi bus Chaldaici et Talmudicis detecta, 1792; Horne, vol. ii., p. 198, pp. 69-75, 10th ed.; Hävernick, p. 328.

2. Syriac Versions. Eight versions of the whole or parts of Scripture into the ancient Syriac tongue are known to critics, but of these only two deserve particular notice. These are,—1. The Peschito,—that is, simple in the sense of literal as opposed to allegorical,—not later than the third century, probably as early as the second. It contains the whole Bible, is pure in diction and faithful in version, and appears to have been made immediately from the original. 2. The Philoxenian, so called from Philoxenus, Bishop of Hierapolis, under whose direction it was executed by Polycarp, rural bishop of the same district, A.D. 508. About 100 years later it was revised by Thomas of Harkel (Hieraclea), from whom this recension came to be called the Harklean. Among the MSS. lately brought from the Nitrian monasteries is one containing parts of the four Gospels in Syriac of a version differing considerably from the Peschito, and supposed by some to be still older than it. This has been published by Mr Cureton, Lond. 1858. It contains only the New Testament, and is literal to servility; but its renderings are not good. Its chief value is to the critic, in helping him to judge of various readings.

Hirzel, De Pentateuchi Vers. Syr. indole, Lips. 1825; Michaelis, Introd., vol. ii., pp. 4-76; Horne, vol. ii., pp. 329, 75-77, 10th ed.

3. The Samaritan Pentateuch. This must not be confounded with "the Pentateuch of the Samaritans," which is merely a copy of the original Hebrew in Samaritan characters; whereas the other is a translation of the Hebrew into the Samaritan dialect. This version bears a strong resemblance to the Targum of Onkelos, and some have even deemed it a translation of that. It is probably, however, from the original, with interpolations from Onkelos, but cannot be dated earlier than the second century.

Winer, De Versionibus Pent. Samarit. indole, Lips. 1817; Horne, II., p. 42; Gesenius, De Pent. Samarit. origine, indole, ac antiquitate, Halle, 1815; De Sacy, Memo sur l'état actuel des Samaritains.

4. Other Oriental Versions. These are,—1. The Egyptian, embracing the Coptic or Memphitic, in the dialect of Lower Egypt, probably of the third century; the Sahidic, or Thebaic, in the dialect of Upper Egypt, ascribed to Scripture, the second century, and, with the exception of fragments, still existing only in manuscripts; and the Bashmuric, in the dialect of the province of the Delta, Bashmur, on the east side of the Nile. 2. The Ethiopic, ascribed to the fourth century, and printed in Walton's Polyglott, but with many inaccuracies. 3. The Armenian, made by Moses in the beginning of the fifth century,—very faithful, but supposed to be in many places interpolated from the Vulgate. 4. The Arabic, comprising the Pentateuch and Isaiah, translated by Rabbi Saadias, Haggason (called from his birthplace Fajum, the ancient Pithom, Phihumensis), in the tenth century; the Pentateuch in Samaritan-Arabic by Absalud; the anonymous version of Joshua in the London Polyglott; and the Acts and Epistles published by Epiphanus. 5. The Persian version of the Pentateuch, by Jacob Ben Joseph, surnamed Dawusi, a learned Jew of the ninth century. All these are mediate versions from the Septuagint or Syriac, with the exception of the Arabic and Persic.

Horne, vol. ii., pp. 225-234; Comp. Walton, Prolegomena, ix.-xv.

II. Western Versions.—1. Greek Versions of the Old Testament. The most important of these is the Septuagint, as it is commonly called, or more properly the Alexandrian. Respecting the origin and early history of this version much uncertainty prevails, of which advantage has been taken to clothe the whole in the mist of fable. The common story of Ptolemy Philadelphus having sent, at the instigation of his librarian Demetrius Phalerus, to Judea for a correct copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, and for seventy-two men of learning (six out of each of the twelve tribes) to translate these into Greek; of his having shut them up in the Isle of Pharos, apart from each other; and of their having produced versions verbatim et literatim the same, is now rejected by all scholars. All are agreed that the date of the version is to be referred to the time of Ptolemy Lagus and his son Philadelphia; but there is a difference of opinion as to whether a religious or a purely literary motive led to its production. Those who take the latter view adopt the testimony of Aristobulus, who attributes this to the literary taste and desires of Demetrius Phalerus. Those who take the other view are of opinion that the motive prompting to it was the multitude of Jews in Alexandria and throughout Egypt, who were ignorant of Hebrew, and needed the Scriptures in Greek; and that it was undertaken under the auspices of the Alexandrian Sanhedrin or council of the Jews, who probably consulted their brethren in Judea about it, and from whom, being seventy-two in number, in all likelihood the version took its name. It seems evident that the different books were executed at different times and by different persons, from the varieties in point of accuracy and purity which they present; the Pentateuch being the first executed; and that the translators of the Pentateuch were Egyptian Jews, from their introducing into their version many Coptic words, and rendering many Hebrew expressions, not into their Greek equivalents, but so as to give an Egyptian hue to the idea. The version thus executed soon acquired great vogue, not only in Egypt, but also in Palestine, where, in the days of our Lord and His apostles, it had mostly superseded the use of the original Hebrew. In the Christian church it acquired the same reputation. Few of the Fathers understood Hebrew, and consequently almost all their quotations from the Old Testament are made through the medium of the Septuagint. The best editions of this version are those of Grabe, Oxon. 1707, 1709, 1719, 1720, 4 vols. folio and 8 vols. 8vo, reprinted, with the addition of various readings from the Vatican manuscript, by Breitinger, Tiguri Helvet., 1730-31-32, 4 vols. 4to; of Bos, Franquerna, 1709, 4to; of Holmes, vol. i., Oxon. 1798, vols. ii.-v., edited Of the other Greek versions, eleven in number, we have only fragments or traditionary information. That of Aquila, a proselyte Jew of Sinope, a city of Pontus, was executed in the first century, and was preferred by the Jews to the Septuagint; it is very literal and Hebraistic. That of Symmachus, an Ebionite, time uncertain, seems to have aimed chiefly at elegance and purity of style; it is very free. Between these stands that of Theodotion, also an Ebionite, and nearly contemporary with Aquila; more elegant and idiomatic than that of Aquila, more literal and correct than that of Symmachus. All of these aim at greater closeness to the original than the LXX.; sometimes they all three agree against the LXX. These, with three anonymous versions, enumerated as editio quinta, sexta, and septima respectively, were included by Origen in his splendid work the Hexapla, a sort of Polyglott, which that distinguished Biblical scholar drew up for the use of those who wished to understand accurately the Old Testament, and which contained in parallel columns the Hebrew in the original character, the same in Greek characters, and the Greek versions above enumerated, including the Septuagint. The versions designated as ὁ Ἀβεβος, ὁ ἐπιστολης, το ἀναπαραστασις, ὁ Ἀλλαγης, are known to us only from being occasionally referred to on the margins of manuscripts. The extant fragments of these versions may be found in the sixth volume of the London Polyglott, under the title of Flaminii Nobilii Notae, and in the edition of the Septuagint by Bos.

2. Latin Versions. Translations of the Scriptures into the Latin tongue from the LXX. began to be executed at a very early period, for the benefit chiefly of the Christians in Africa, and those parts of Europe where that language was used. Some have supposed that, as early as the second century, there was a commonly received or authorized version in the Latin churches, but this opinion is hardly tenable. All we know for certain is, that there was one which bore the name of Itala which was preferred by Augustin to the rest. Of this ancient version a few fragments are still extant. Towards the close of the fourth century Jerome set himself to revise and correct these versions, and in pursuance of this design issued revised editions of the Psalter, the books of Chronicles, Job, and the writings of Solomon. Unfortunately, the manuscripts containing his revised copies of the other books were lost, either through negligence or fraud on the part of some one to whom he had entrusted them. Satisfied, however, that something more than a correction of existing versions was necessary, he undertook a new translation from the original; and this he executed at intervals, and in the order in which particular books were requested by his friends. At first his undertaking was viewed with no small jealousy, and even St. Augustin sought to discourage it, from a fear that a new translation, especially one from the Hebrew, would shake the faith of the ignorant in the certainty of Scripture; nor was it till the sanction of Gregory the Great had been given to it that the version of Jerome was able entirely to supersede the old Itala (1). This version is that commonly denominated the Vulgate, of which the Council of Trent decreed an immaculate edition; a decree which gave rise to a Papal dissension, to which Christians have not been slow to point as fatal to the claims of the supreme pontiff to infallibility (2).

3. The Gothic Version. Of this, which was executed by Ulphilas, bishop of the Gothic tribes in Wallachia, about the middle of the fourth century, only the four Gospels, part of the Epistle to the Romans, and fragments of the other Epistles and of the Old Testament, are extant; the first in the famous Codex Argenteus, a manuscript in silver letters of the fifth or sixth century; the second in a Codex Rescriptus belonging to the library of Wolfenbüttel; and the third in certain Codices Rescripti recently discovered by Mai in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. This version appears to have been made from the Greek, and particularly from the Constantinopolitan text, but to have been subsequently altered after the Vulgate. The best edition of the gospels is that of Lye, Oxon, 1750, 4to. The fragments were edited by Knittel in 1762, 4to, and by Ihre, Upsal, 1763, 4to, by Mai in 1819, and by Castiglioni in 1829-39, and the whole by Gabelentz and Loeb, 1836-46.

Horne's Introduction, vol. ii., p. 240; Hug's Introduction (Eng. trans.), vol. i., p. 487; Schott, Isagoge, p. 613.

4. The Anglo-Saxon Versions. The history of these is by no means accurately known. It appears that, as early as the year 709, the Psalter was rendered into Saxon by Adeline, Bishop of Sherborne. A few years later Aldred, who styles himself "Presbyter indignus et miserrimus," "over-glossed in English" the Latin of a copy of the four Gospels, which had been written by Eadfrith, bishop of the church of Lindisfarn, "out-attired, and blazoned as well as he could," by Ethilwold, bishop of the land of Lindisfarn, and "smoothed, ornamented, and overgilded," by Bilfrith the anchorit (1). Nearly about the same time Beda translated the whole Bible into Saxon-English. About two hundred years after this the Psalter was translated by King Alfred. A Saxon translation of the Pentateuch, Joshua, part of the books of Kings and Esther, is attributed to Eadfric, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 995. The entire Anglo-Saxon Bible has never been published. Alfred's Psalter was edited by Spelman in 1640; and a translation of the Gospels made from the old Latin of the Itala has been thrice edited (2). The best edition is that of Thorpe, London, 1842.

1. See Henshall's Disquisition prefixed to his edition of the Gothic Gospel of St. Matthew, with the corresponding English or Saxon, &c., London, 1807, 8vo.

2. Newcome's Historical View of the English Biblical Translations, p. 1, Dublin, 1792; Horne's Introd., vol. ii., p. 246.

5. The Slavonic Version. Authors of this version were Cyril of Thessalonica, and his brother Methodius, who in the ninth century introduced the gospel among the Slavonians inhabiting Moravia. It seems to have been made from the Greek, and from manuscripts having the Constantinopolitan text. It embraces the whole Bible, and has been frequently printed.

Henderson's Biblical Researches and Travels in Russia, pp. 69-102, London, 1825; Horne's Introd., vol. iii., p. 245.

These ancient versions are useful, both to the critic and the exegete; to the former, as supplying not a few various readings which are wanting in all or in most of the codices containing the original text, as serving to determine more accurately the age and country of any particular form of the text, and as helping to confirm or refute particular readings occurring in the Greek codices; to the latter, inasmuch as every faithful version is not only a perpetual Besides the object to which these have been already applied, as showing the authenticity of the sacred documents, they serve also a useful purpose to the critic, in furnishing him with numerous readings, in assisting to determine the age, origin, and country, of remarkable readings, and in illustrating the whole history of the Greek texts of Scripture. Care, however, must be taken to discriminate between passages quoted freely from memory, or adapted to the construction and sentiment of the writer himself who quotes, and those which are formally cited from the codex. We must also be sure that the work in which the quotation occurs is genuine, and that the common text of the places in which the citation occurs is correct.

Sect. XII.—Laws for the Determination of various Readings.

1. That reading is to be regarded as true which is supported by far the greater number of copies and witnesses; but still readings supported by a few books are not entirely to be disregarded, especially when they harmonize with the usus loquendi of the author. 2. That reading which the better copies exhibit, unless special reasons prohibit it, is to be preferred to the one which the inferior copies exhibit, although most numerous. Neither the antiquity nor propriety of a reading, solely considered, always proves it to be a true one. 3. That reading which is more harsh, obscure, difficult, unusual, or delicately chosen, if supported by the authority of a proper witness, is preferable to one which is plain, easy, usual, and common. 4. That reading which approaches nearest to the popular and familiar method of speaking, if it be supported by external testimonies, is preferable to one which is more artificial and subtle. 5. The shorter reading, when supported by testimony of importance, and if not incongruous with the style and design of the writer, is preferable to a more verbose one. Still there are cases where the more copious reading is to be preferred. 6. That reading which gives the best sense is peculiarly preferable. But to determine this, the nature of the whole passage, and the genius of the writer, not the mere opinions and sentiments of particular interpreters, are to be consulted. 7. The reading which produces an unworthy or incongruous sense is to be rejected. Good care, however, must be taken not to condemn a reading as unworthy or incongruous which a more correct grammatical and historical investigation would prove to be true reading, or at least a probable one. 8. A reading which agrees with the usus loquendi of the writer is preferable to that which disagrees with it. It must be remembered in judging here that the style of an author sometimes varies with increasing age. 9. A reading is to be rejected in respect to which plain evidence is found that it has undergone a designed alteration. Such alteration may have taken place, first, from doctrinal reasons, Mat. i. 18; Mark viii. 31, xiii. 32; second, from moral and practical reasons, Mat. v. 22; third, from historical and geographical doubts, Mat. viii. 28, comp. Mark v. 1; fourth, from the desire of reconciling passages inconsistent with each other, Mark viii. 31; fifth, from desire to make the discourse more intensive,—hence many emphatic readings have originated; sixth, from the comparison of many manuscripts, the readings of which have been amalgamated; seventh, from a comparison of parallel passages. Corrections of the more celebrated manuscripts have been sometimes detected. 10. Various readings are to be rejected which spring from the mere negligence of copyists, and from those errors which are very common in all kinds of books. To these belong, first, the commutation of unusual forms for those of the common dialect; the Alexandrine or common form, however, has the preference over others in the New Testament; and this dialect itself also admitted some Attic forms; second, the commutation of single letters and syllables, by an error of either the eye or the ear; the former resulting from obscure and compendious methods of writing, or from the similarity of certain letters, such as Α Δ Λ Ο Θ, &c.; the latter from copying after the reading of one who was misunderstood, or who read erroneously; third, the commutation of synonyms; fourth, from transferring into the text words written in the margin of copies, and thus uniting both readings, James v. 2; fifth, from the omission or insertion of a word or a verse, by an error of the sight; sixth, from the transposition of words and passages, whence it may have happened that some error has crept into most of our books; seventh, from words which ended with the like sound, or appeared alike; and from proximate words, one ending and the other beginning with the same syllable; eighth, from incorrectly uniting or separating words, which naturally resulted in some cases from the ancient method of continuous writing; and, ninth, from an erroneous interpunction and distinction of passages. 11. A reading is to be rejected which plainly betrays a gloss or interpretation. This may be a word or a whole passage. Sometimes these glosses are united to the true text, and sometimes they have thrust it out. All interpretations, however, are not spurious glosses; for authors themselves sometimes add them, in order to explain their own language. 12. Readings deduced merely from versions or the commentaries of interpreters are to be rejected.

To these which are taken with a few alterations from Beck's Monogrammata Hermeneutices, Libb. Nov. Test., Lips. 1803, may be added the rules laid down by Tischendorf, the greatest living authority on such points, for his own guidance as an editor of the New Testament. These are:

1. Readings are to be held doubtful which are peculiar to one or other of the codices, or which betray in what seem classes the predominant influence of some learned man. 2. Those are to be rejected which, though supported by several witnesses, are manifestly or probably the result of an error on the part of the scribes. 3. In parallel passages, as well of the Old as of the New Testament, and especially of the synoptical Gospels, which the ancients were very anxious to render uniform, those witnesses which preserve a discrepancy are to be preferred to those which present a consent, unless some grave reason persuade otherwise. 4. That reading is to be preferred which seems to have given occasion for the others, or which contains the elements of them in itself. 5. Those are to be studiously retained which are commended by the analogy of the Greek dialect proper to the authors of the New Testament, and not less those that are commended by the usage of any one of them. (Prolegomena, p. 32.)

See also Michaelis' Introd., vol. I., pp. 246-289; Ernesti's Principles of Interpretation, by Terrot, vol. II., p. 114; Marsh's Lectures, lect. iii.; Horne's Introd., vol. II., pp. 251-260; Davidson's Bib. Crit., p. 820, &c.

(For remarks upon particular books of the Bible, see the articles in this work under the names of the different books, or their authors, as Pentateuch, Moses, Joshua, Paul, Peter, &c.)