the lines. They are respectively marked and in Hebrew Bibles. Like divisions are also to be found in the other parts of Scripture. The larger Perashioth, 54 in number, one of which was to be read every sabbath-day, are of much later origin than those just noticed. They are mentioned for the first time in the Masorah; while the smaller divisions are certainly prior to the Talmud, and have, even by some modern scholars, been carried up to the very sacred writers themselves.' Where the larger correspond with the smaller divisions, DDD and DDD are used to denote the open and closed Perashioth. The ni were paragraphs or reading-lessons taken from the Prophets. They are mentioned in the Mishna. Most likely, according to Vitringa's opinion, they were introduced from a desire to improve the public services by adding the reading of the Prophets to that of the Law.2

In the poetry of the Old Testament we find DD, rhythmical members marked off into separate lines. And a division into periods with the same name was introduced into the prose. These divisions, mentioned in the Mishna, were nearly coincident with modern verses. Whether any marks were at first used to denote these periods is a question. After the Talmud, Soph-pasuk (:), was employed; and this sign is certainly older than the vowel-points and accents.

The Dp were divisions adopted in R. Jacob Ben Chayim's edition of the Bible (the second Bomberg). They are 447 in number, and are a kind of distinction into chapters.3] 4

III. The divisions of the Old Testament, which now generally obtain, are four in number: namely, 1. The Pentateuch, or five books of Moses; 2. The Historical Books, comprising Joshua to Esther inclusive; 3. The Doctrinal or Poetical Books of Job, Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon; and, 4. The Prophetical Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah with his Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets. These are severally divided into Chapters and Verses, to facilitate reference, and not primarily with a view to any natural division of the multifarious subjects which they embrace: but by whom these divisions were originally made is a question, concerning which there exists a considerable difference of opinion.

See Keil, Einleitung, § 170. Of these divisions we have evident traces in the New Testament; thus, the section (epioxǹ) of the prophet Isaiah, which the Ethiopian eunuch was reading, was, in all probability, that which related to the sufferings of the Messiah (Acts viii. 32.). When St. Paul entered into the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia, he stood up to preach, after the reading of the Law and the Prophets (Acts xiii. 15.); that is, after reading the first lesson out of the Law, and the second lesson out of the Prophets. And, in the very discourse which he then delivered, he tells the Jews that the Prophets were read at Jerusalem on every sabbath-day, that is, in those lessons which were taken out of the Prophets (Acts xiii. 27.).

2 See Carpzov, Critica Sacra, pars i. cap. iv. pp. 148, 149.

See Keil, Einleitung, §§ 170, 171.; Davidson, Bibl. Critic. vol. i. chap. v.; Kitto, Cycl. of Bibl. Lit., arts. Scripture, Holy, Verse; Dr. M'Caul, Reasons for holding fast the Authorized English Version of the Bible, 1857, pp. 5., &c.

In Vol. iii. Part iii. Chap. i. Sect. 4. we have given a table of the Perashioth or sections of the Law, together with the Haphtaroth, or sections of the Prophets, as they are read in the different Jewish synagogues for every sabbath of the year, and also showing the portions corresponding with our modern divisions of chapters and verses.

That they are comparatively a modern invention is evident from its being utterly unknown to the ancient Christians, whose Greek Bibles, indeed, then had Tirλo and Kepáλaia (Titles and Heads); but the intent of these was rather to point out the sum or contents of the text, than to divide the various books. They also differed greatly from the present chapters; many of them containing only a few verses, and some of them not more than one. The invention of chapters has by some been ascribed to Lanfranc, who was archbishop of Canterbury in the reigns of William the Conqueror and William II.; while others attribute it to Stephen Langton, who was archbishop of the same see in the reigns of John and Henry III. But the real author of this very useful division was cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro, who flourished about the middle of the 13th century, and wrote a celebrated commentary on the Scriptures. Having projected a concordance to the Latin Vulgate version, by which any passage might be found, he divided both the Old and New Testaments into chapters, which are the same we now have: these chapters he subdivided into smaller portions, which he distinguished by the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, which are placed in the margin at equal distances from each other, according to the length of the chapters. The facility of reference thus afforded by Hugo's divisions having become known to Rabbi Mordecai Nathan (or Isaac Nathan, as he is sometimes called), a celebrated Jewish teacher in the fifteenth century, he undertook a similar concordance for the Hebrew Scriptures; but, instead of adopting the marginal letters of Hugo, he referred to the Masoretic verses by Hebrew numerals, retaining, however, the cardinal's division into chapters.

The concordance of Rabbi Nathan was commenced A.D. 1438 and finished in 1445. The Latin chapters are found in Bomberg's edition of the Hebrew Bible published in 1518. The verses of the several psalms were marked with figures by Jaques le Fevre in his edition of the "Quincuplex Psalterium, Gallicum, Romanum, Hebraicum, Vetus et Conciliatum," printed at Paris by Henry Stephen in 1509, in fol. In 1528 Santes or Xantes Pagninus published his Latin version of the Bible at Lyons, which is the first that is divided throughout into verses marked with Arabic numerals in the margin both in the Old and New Testaments. The text runs on continuously, except in the Psalms, where each verse commences the line. The whole Bible was marked with figures, according to the divisions now in use, by Robert Stephen in his editions of the Latin Vulgate published in 1555 and 1557; in which he followed Pagninus except in the New Testament and Apocrypha. His Latin oncordance, to which he adapted these figures, was published in 1555. The introduction of figures into the printed editions of the Hebrew Bible was commenced in the Hebrew Pentateuch, Megilloth, and Haphtaroth, published at Sabionetta in Italy in 1557. In this edition every fifth verse is marked with a Hebrew numeral. Each verse of the Hebrew text is marked with an Arabic numeral in the Antwerp Polyglott published in 1569.2 Athias, in his celebrated edition of the Hebrew Bible published in 1661 and reprinted in 1667, also marked every verse with the figures now in use, except those which had been previously

These divisions of cardinal Hugo may be seen in any of the older editions of the Vulgate, and in the earlier English translations of the Bible, particularly in that usually called Taverner's Bible. London, 1539, folio.

Buxtorf, Præf. ad Concordant. Bibliorum Hebræorum; Prideaux, Connection, sub anno 446, vol. i. pp. 332-342.; Carpzov, Introd. ad Libros Biblicos Vet. Test. cap. ii. § 5. pp. 27, 28.; Leusden, Philol. Hebr. Diss. iii. pp. 23-31.; Ackermann, Introd. in Libros Sacros Vet. Fod. pp. 100-104.; Kitto, Cycl. of Bibl. Lit. art, Verse (by the Rev. Dr. Wright); Pettigrew, Bibliotheca Sussexiana, vol. i. part ii. p. 388.

marked in the Sabionetta edition with Hebrew letters, in the manner in which they at present appear in our Bibles.

The first English Bible divided into verses is that executed at Geneva by William Whittingham, Anthony Gilby, and Thomas Sampson, and published in 1560. (The New Testament, divided into chapters and verses, was previously published at Geneva in 1557, and again in 1560.) Of the authorized English versions, Archbishop Parker's, or the "Bishops' Bible," is the first that has the divisions of chapters and verses, which were subsequently adopted in King James's, or the Authorized English version, published in 1611, and now in use.

CHAP. III.

ON THE CRITICISM OF THE TEXT OF SCRIPTURE.

Necessity of the Criticism of the Text.

SINCE the editions of the Sacred Text very often differ from each other, and some also contain spurious readings, besides which great numbers of other readings are extant; the exhibition of a correct text becomes a very important object of attention with those who are desirous of understanding the Holy Scriptures: in other words, the interpreter and the divine stand equally in need of the art of criticism, by the aid of which a proper judgment may be formed of various readings, the spurious may be discerned, and the genuine, or at least the most probable, may be restored. This subject, which involves an inquiry respecting the fact, what the author wrote, has not inaptly been compared by Dr. Jahn to a judicial procedure, in which the critic sits upon the bench, and the charge of corruption in the reading is brought against the text. The witnesses from whom evidence is to be obtained respecting what the author wrote, or, in other words, the SOURCES of the text of Scripture, are, MANUSCRIPT COPIES, ANCIENT VERSIONS, THE EDITIONES PRINCIPES AND OTHER EARLY PRINTED EDITIONS, and other BOOKS OF ANTIQUITY, THE AUTHORS OF WHICH QUOTED THE TEXT FROM MANUSCRIPTS. But, since these witnesses are often at variance with one another, and very frequently it is impossible to ascertain the truth from their evidence, it further becomes necessary to call in the aid of internal arguments, or those which are drawn from the very nature of the case. Such are the facility or the difficulty of a more modern origin, the absence of any sense, or at least of one that is suitable, the agreement or disagreement of a reading with the series and scope of the discourse, the probability or improbability of any particular word or expression having arisen from the author, and the correspondence or discrepancy of parallel places; lastly, the laws by which, on such evidence, the critic is guided in pronouncing sentence, are the rules of criticism.'

Jahn, Introductio ad Libros Canonicos Veteris Foederis, § 115.

These topics it is proposed severally to discuss in the following

sections.

I. Different classes of Hebrew manuscripts.-II. The rolled manuscripts of the synagogues.-III. The square manuscripts used by the Jews in private life.-IV. Age of Hebrew manuscripts.-V. Of the order in which the Sacred Books are arranged in manuscripts.-Number of books contained in different manuscripts. - VI. Modern families or recensions of Hebrew manuscripts.-VII. Notice of the most ancient manuscripts. VIII. Brief notice of the manuscripts of the Indian and Chinese Jews. IX. Manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch.

ALTHOUGH, as we have already seen', the Hebrew text of the Old Testament has descended to our times uncorrupted, yet, with all the care which the ancient copyists could bestow, it was impossible to preserve it free from mistakes, arising from the interchanging of the similar letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and other circumstances incident to the transcription of ancient manuscripts. The rabbins boldly asserted, and, through a credulity rarely to be paralleled, it was implicitly believed, that the Hebrew text was absolutely free from error, and that in all the manuscripts of the Old Testament not a single various reading of importance could be produced. Father Morin was the first person who ventured to impugn this notion in his Exercitationes in utrumque Samaritanorum Pentateuchum, published at Paris in 1631; and he grounded his opinion of the incorrectness of the Hebrew manuscripts on the differences between the Hebrew and the Samaritan texts in the Pentateuch, and on the differences between the Hebrew and the Septuagint in other parts of the Bible.

1 Vol. i. pp. 104-107.

Morinus was soon after followed by Louis Cappel (whose Critica Sacra was published in 1650), who pointed out a great number of errors in the printed Hebrew, and showed how they might be corrected by the ancient versions and the common rules of criticism. He did not, however, advert to the most obvious and effectual means of emendation, namely, a collation of Hebrew manuscripts; and, valuable as his labours unquestionably are, it is certain that he neither used them himself, nor invited others to have recourse to them, in order to correct the sacred text. Cappel was assailed by various opponents, but chiefly by the younger Buxtorf in his Anticritica, published at Basil in 1653, who attempted, but in vain, to refute the principles he had established. In 1657 Bishop Walton, in his Prolegomena to the London Polyglott Bible, declared in favour of the principles asserted by Cappel, acknowledged the necessity of forming a critical apparatus for the purpose of obtaining a more correct text of the Hebrew Bible, and materially contributed to the formation of one by his own exertions. Subsequent biblical critics acceded to the propriety of their arguments; and, since the middle of the seventeenth century, the importance and necessity of collating Hebrew manuscripts have been generally acknowledged.1

I. HEBREW MANUSCRIPTS are divided into two classes, viz. autographs, or those written by the inspired penmen themselves, which have long since perished; and apographs, or copies made from the originals, and multiplied by repeated transcription. [Existing MSS. differ little from each other, exhibiting generally the Masoretic text the older retaining possibly the pre-Masoretic in substance, while the later are cast more exactly into the Masoretic mould. They may be divided into synagogue rolls, and private copies, the last of which are some in the square, some in the rabbinical character.2]

II. The Pentateuch was read in the Jewish synagogues from the earliest times; and, though the public reading of it was intermitted during the Babylonish captivity, it was resumed shortly after the return of the Jews. Hence numerous copies were made from time to time; and, as they held the books of Moses in the most superstitious veneration, various regulations were made for the guidance of the transcribers, who were obliged to conform to them in copying the rolls destined for the use of the synagogue. The date of these regulations is not known, but they seem posterior to the Talmud. [The earliest notice of them is in the Tract Sopherim, a later appendage to the Babylonian Talmud.] Though many of these rules are ridiculous, yet the religious observance of them, which has continued for many centuries, has certainly contributed in a great degree to preserve the purity of the Pentateuch. The following are a few of the principal.

The copies of the law must be transcribed from ancient manuscripts of approved character only, with ink of peculiar quality, on parch

1 Jahn et Ackermann, Introductio ad Libros Canonicos Veteris Fœderis part i. ch. vi. § 104.; Bp. Marsh, Lectures, part ii. lect. xi. pp. 99, 100.

2 Keil, Einleitung, § 173. pp. 588, 9.