and at the same time exemplify the abbreviations frequent in Greek manuscripts of the 12th and 13th centuries. Our specimen comprises the ten first verses of the first chapter of Saint John's Gospel : the abbreviations, though very numerous, being uniformly the same, do not interpose any material difficulty to the easy perusal of the manuscript. Wetstein, though he has admitted it into his catalogue, has made use of it only in the eighteenth chapter of Saint John's Gospel; Michaelis has classed it among the uncollated manuscripts of the New Testament. It is to be hoped that some learned member of the University of Oxford will publish a collation of the various readings which may be found in this manuscript.

XX. The limits assigned to this work forbid any further detail respecting the other manuscripts of the New Testament. Referring the reader therefore to the elaborate volumes of Michaelis, who has given a catalogue raisonné of two hundred and ninety-two manuscripts, to which his annotator Bishop Marsh has added one hundred and seventy-seven,2 we proceed briefly to notice two collations of manuscripts, which in the seventeenth century produced a warm contest between biblical critics of different denominations.

1. In 1673, Pierre Poussines (Petrus Possinus), a learned Jesuit, published3 extracts from twenty-two manuscripts, which, he said, were in the library of Cardinal Barberini at Rome, and had been collated by order of Pope Urban VIII., by John Matthæus Caryophilus. Dr. Mill inserted these extracts among his various readings; but as it was not known for a long time what had become of the Barberini manuscripts, and as the readings of the Barberini collation are for the most part in favour of the Latin Vulgate version, Wetstein, Semler, and other Protestant divines, accused Poussines of a literary fraud. Of this, however, he was acquitted by Isaac Vossius, who found the manuscript of Caryophilus in the Barberini Library; and

1 See Wetstein's N. T. Proleg. p. 58. Bishop Marsh's Michaelis, vol. ii. part i. p. 258. De Murr's Memorabilia Bibliothecæ Norimb. part ii. pp. 100-131. where the Codex Ebnerianus is minutely described and illustrated with thirteen plates of illuminations, &c. which are very curious in an antiquarian point of view. Our engraving is copied from one of De Murr's fac-similes.

Michaelis, vol. ii. part i. pp. 185-361. part ii. pp. 649-835. Professor Beck, in his Monogrammata Hermeneutices Librorum Novi Fœderis (part i. pp. 42-100) has given a catalogue of all the manuscripts (394 in number) which are certainly known to have been collated, exclusive of Lectionaria Euchologia, or prayer books of the Greek church, and Menologia or Martyrologies. In pp. 91-93. he has specified, by numbers referring to his own catalogue, what manuscripts are written in uncial letters; what contain the entire New Testament, and how many contain the greater part, or particular books of the New Testament. It seems to be precisely that sort of catalogue which Michaelis recommends biblical students to make, in order that they may be enabled (when consulting Mill or Wetstein) to judge of the proportion of manuscripts which are in favour of a reading to those which decide against it. The total number of manuscripts collated by Griesbach for his edition of the New Testament, was three hundred and fifty-five. He has given a list of them in his Prolegomena, tom. i. pp. ci.-cxxvi. and also critical accounts of the most important manuscripts in the two volumes of his Symbole Critica.

3 At the end of his Catena Patrum Græcorum in Marcum. Poussines prefixed to these extracts the title of Collationes Græci Contextus omnium Librorum Novi Testamenti juxta editionem Antverpiensem regiam, cum xxii. Antiquis Codicibus Manuscriptis. Ez Bibliotheca Barberini.

the imputation against the veracity of that eminent Greek scholar has been completely destroyed by M. Birch, a learned Danish divine, who recognised in the Vatican Library six of the manuscripts from which Caryophilus had made extracts.1

2. Another Jesuit, John Louis De la Cerda, inserted in his Adversaria Sacra, which appeared at Lyons in 1696, a collation of sixteen manuscripts (eight of which were borrowed from the library of the king of Spain) which had been made by Pedro Faxardo, Marquis of Velez. From these manuscripts, the marquis inserted various readings in his copy of the Greek Testament, but without specifying what manuscripts in particular, or even how many in general, were in favour of each quoted reading. The remarkable agreement between the Velesian readings and those of the Vulgate excited the suspicions of Mariana (who communicated them to De la Cerda) that Velez had made use only of interpolated manuscripts, that had been corrected agreeably to the Latin Vulgate, subsequently to the council of Florence. However this may be, the collation of Velez will never be of any utility in the criticism of the New Testament, unless the identical manuscripts, which he made use of, should hereafter be discovered in any Spanish library. But this discovery must be considered as hopeless after the laborious and careful researches made by Bishop Marsh, relative to the collation of Velez, who (he has proved to demonstration), did NOT collate one single Greek or Latin manuscript, but took his various lections from Robert Stephen's edition of the Latin Vulgate, published at Paris in 1540: that the object which the marquis had in view, in framing this collection of readings, was to support, not the Vulgate in general, but the text of this edition in particular, wherever it varied from the text of Stephen's Greek Testament printed in 1550; and that with this view he translated into Greek the readings of the former, which varied from the latter, except where Stephen's Greek margin supplied him with the readings which he wanted, where he had only to transcribe, and not to translate.2

1 Michaelis, vol. ii. part i. pp. 212-216. part ii. pp. 666, 667. Birch, Quatuor Evangelia, Prolegom. p. 36. Ejusdem, Variæ Lectiones ad Text. iv. Evangel. Proleg. p. xlii. Hafniæ, 1801, 8vo.

2 Michaelis, vol. ii. part i. pp. 351–354. part ii. pp. 824, 825. Mr. (now Bishop) Marsh's Letters to Archdeacon Travis, p. 67, and the Appendix to that work, (pp. 253-344.) in which a minute detail of the Velesian readings is given, as also in Christian Benedict Michaelis's Tractatio Critica de Variis Lectionibus Novi Testamenti, §§ 87-89. (pp. 96-101.) 4to. Halæ Magdeburgica, 1749.

CHAPTER III.

ON THE EDITIONS OF THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT.

SECTION I.

A CRITICAL NOTICE OF THE PRINCIPAL EDITIONS OF THE

HEBREW BIBLE.

BISHOP WALTON,1 Carpzov, and particularly Le Long, have treated at great length on the various editions of the Hebrew Scriptures. These have been divided by De Rossi and others into Masoretic and Non-Masoretic editions, a distinction, the utility of which is not perceived. In the present section, Dr. Masch's improved edition of Le Long's Bibliotheca Sacra3 has been chiefly followed. According to that eminent bibliographer, the various impressions of the Hebrew Bible may be divided into the four following classes, viz.

i. Editiones Principes, or those first printed.

ii. Editions, whose text has been literally adopted in subsequent impressions.

iii. Editions, whose text is accompanied with rabbinical commentaries.

iv. Polyglotts, or editions of the Bible with versions in several languages.

v. Editions, which are furnished with critical apparatus.

i. Editiones Principes.

1. Psalterium Hebraicum, cum commentario Kimchii. Anno 237. (1477) 4to.

The first printed Hebrew book. It is of extreme rarity, and is printed with a square Hebrew type, approaching that of the German Jews. The text is without points, except in the four first psalms, which are clumsily pointed. The commentary of Rabbi Kimchi is subjoined to each verse of the text in the rabbinical character, and is much more complete than in the subsequent editions, as it contains all those passages which were afterwards omitted, as being hostile to Christianity. 2. Biblia Hebraica, cum punctis. Soncino, 1488, folio.

The first edition of the entire Hebrew Bible ever printed. It is at present of such extreme rarity, that only nine copies of it are known to be in existence. One of these is in the library of Exeter College, Oxford. At the end of the Pentateuch there is a long Hebrew subscription, indicating the name of the editor (Abraham Ben Chajim,) the place where it was printed, and the date of the edition. This very scarce volume consists, according to Masch, of 373 (but Brunet says 380) folios, printed with points and accents, and also with signatures and catchwords. The initial letters of each book are larger than the others, and are ornamented. Dr. Kennicott states, that there are not fewer than twelve thousand verbal

1 Prolegom. cap. iv. De Bibliorum Editionibus præcipuis.

2 Critica Sacra, pars i. cap. 9. pp. 387-428.

3 Bibliotheca Sacra, post. cl. cl. V. V. Jacobi Le Long et C. F. Boerneri iteratas curas ordine disposita, emendata, suppleta, continuata ab Andrea Gottlieb Masch. Hala, 4to. 1778-85-90. 4 vols. with Supplement. The account of Hebrew editions is in the first volume, pp. 1-186. 331-424. De Bure's Bibliographie Instructive, tom. i. (Paris 1763,) and Brunet's Manuel du Libraire, et de l'Amateur de Livres, (4 vols. 8vo. Paris 1820. 3d edit.) have also been consulted occasionally. 15

VOL. II.

differences between this edition and that of Vander Hooght; his assertion is questioned by Masch. The researches of biblical critics have not succeeded in ascertaining what manuscripts were used for this Hebrew Bible. It is, however, acknowledged that these two very antient editions are equal in value to manuscripts. ii. Editiones Primaria, or those which have been adopted as the bases of subsequent impressions.

1. Biblia Hebraica, Svo. Brixiæ, 1494.

This edition was conducted by Gerson, the son of Rabbi Moses. It is also of extreme rarity, and is printed in long lines, except part of the Psalms, which is in two columns. The identical copy of this edition, from which Luther made his German translation, is said to be preserved in the Royal Library at Berlin. This edition was the basis of, 1. The Complutensian Polyglott; 2. Bomberg's first Rabbinical Bible, Venice, 1518, in 4 vols. folio; 3. Daniel Bomberg's 4to. Hebrew Bible, Venice, 1518; 4. His second Hebrew Bible, 4to. Venice, 1521; and, 5. Sebastian Munster's Hebrew Bible, Basil, 1536, in 2 vols. 4to.

2. Another primary edition is the Biblia Hebraica Bombergiana II. folio, Venice, 1525, 1526, folio.

This was edited by Rabbi Jacob Ben Chajim, who had the reputation of being profoundly learned in the Masora, and other branches of Jewish erudition. He pointed the text according to the Masoretic system. This edition is the basis of all the modern pointed copies.

iii. Editions of the Bible with Rabbinical Commentaries. Besides the Biblia Rabbinica I. et II. just mentioned, we may notice in this class the two following editions, viz.

1. Biblia Hebraica, cum utraque Masora, Targum, necnon commentariis Rabbinorum, studio et cum præfatione R. Jacob F. Chajim, Venetiis, 1547-1549, 4 tomes in 2 vols. folio.

This is the second of Rabbi Jacob Ben Chajim's editions; and according to M. Brunet, is preferable to the preceding, as well as to another edition executed in 1568, also from the press of Daniel Bomberg.

2. Biblia Hebræa, cum utraque Masora et Targum, item cum commentariis Rabbinorum, studio Joannis Buxtorfii, patris; adjecta est ejusdem Tiberias, sive commentarius masoreticus. Basilew, 1618, 1619, 1620, 4 tomes in 2 vols. folio.

This great work was executed at the expense of Lewis Koenig, an opulent bookseller at Basle; on account of the additional matter which it contains, it is held in great esteem by Hebrew scholars, many of whom prefer it to the Hebrew Bibles printed by Bomberg. Buxtorf's Biblia Rabbinica contains the commentaries of the celebrated Jewish Rabbins, Jarchi, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, Levi Ben Gerson, and Saadias Haggaon. An Appendix is subjoined, containing, besides the Jerusalem Targum, the great Masora corrected and amended by Buxtorf, the various lections of the Rabbis Ben Ascher and Ben Naphtali. Buxtorf also annexed the points to the Chaldee paraphrase. The Tiberias, published by Buxtorf in 1620, was intended to illustrate the Masora and other additions to his great Bible.

iv. Polyglott Bibles.

The honour of having projected the first plan of a Polyglott Bible is due to the illustrious printer, Aldus Manutius the elder; but of this projected work only one sheet was ever printed, in collateral columns of Hebrew, Greek and Latin, in the year 1501. A copy of it (perhaps the only one that is extant) is preserved among the manuscripts in the Royal Library at Paris, No. 3064. The text of the typography is exceedingly beautiful.1

In 1516 there was printed at Genoa, by Peter Paul Porrus (in Edibus Nicolai Justiniani Pauli) the Pentaglott Psalter of Augustin

1 Renouard, Annales de l'Imprimerie des Aldes, tom. ii. pp. 27, 28.

Justiniani Bishop of Nebo. It was in Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldee, and Greek, with the Latin Version, Glosses, and Scholia. In 1518 John Potken published the Psalter in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Ethiopic, at Cologne. But the first Polyglott edition of the entire Hebrew Bible was that printed at Alcala in Spain, viz.

Biblia Sacra Polyglotta, complectentia Vetus Testamentum, Hebraico, Græco, et Latino Idiomate; Novum Testamentum Græcum, et Latinum; et Vocabularium Hebraicum et Chaldaicum Veteris Testamenti, cum Grammaticâ Hebraicâ, nec non Dictionario Græco; Studio, Opera, et Impensis Cardinalis Francisci Ximenes de Cisneros. Industria Arnaldi Gulielmi de Brocario artis impressorie magistri. Compluti, folio. 1514, 1515. 1517. 6 vols.

The printing of this splendid and celebrated work, usually called the Complu tensian Polyglott, was commenced in 1502; though completed in 1517, it was not published until 1522, and it cost the munificent Cardinal Zimenes 50,000 ducats. The editors were Ælius Antonius Nebrissensis, Demetrius Ducas, Ferdinandus Pincianus, Lopez de Stunica, Alfonsus de Zamora, Paulus Coronellus, and Johannes de Vergera, a physician of Alcala or Complutum. The last three were converted Jews. This Polyglott is usually divided into six volumes. The first four comprise the Old Testament, with the Hebrew, Latin, and Greek in three distinct columns, the Chaldee paraphrase being at the bottom of the page with a Latin interpretation; and the margin is filled with Hebrew and Chaldee radicals. The fifth volume contains the Greek Testament, with the Vulgate Latin version in a parallel column; in the margin, there is a kind of concordance, referring to similar passages in the Old and New Testaments. And at the end of this volume, there are, 1. A single leaf containing some Greek and Latin verses; 2. Interpretationes Hebræorum, Chaldæorum Græcorumque Nominum Novi Testamenti, on ten leaves: and 3. Introductio quam brevis ad Græcas litteras, &c. on thirty-nine leaves. The sixth volume contains, 1. A separate title; 2. Vocabularium Hebraicum totius Veteris Testamenti, cum omnibus dictionibus Chaldæis, in eodem Veteri Testamento contentis, on one hundred and seventy-two leaves; 3. An Alphabetical Index, on eight leaves, of the Latin words occurring in different parts of the work; 4. Interpretationes Hebraicorum, Chaldaicorum Græcorumque nominum, Veteris ac Novi Testamenti, secundum Ordinem Alphabeti; 5. Two leaves entitled Nomina que sequuntur, sunt illa, quæ in utroque Testamento vicio Scriptorum sunt aliter Scripta quam in Hebræo et Græco, et in aliquibus Bibliis nostris antiquis, &c. 6. Fifteen leaves entitled Introductiones artis Grammatica Hebraica et primo de modo legendi et pronuntiandi. These several pieces are sometimes placed in a different order from that above indicated. It is not known what is become of the manuscripts that were consulted for this edition. The impression was limited to 600 copies; three were struck off on vellum. One of these was deposited in the Royal Library at Madrid; and another in the Royal Library at Turin. The third (which is supposed to have been reserved for Cardinal Ximenes), after passing through various hands, was purchased at the Pinelli sale, in 1789, for the late Count M'Carthy of Thoulouse, for four hundred and eighty-three pounds. On the sale of this gentleman's library at Paris, in 1817, it was bought by George Hibbert, Esq. for 16,100 francs, or six hundred and seventy-six pounds three shillings and four pence. Copies of the Complutensian Polyglott, on paper, are in the Libraries of the British Museum and Sion College, and also in several of the College Libraries in the two Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

2. Biblia Sacra Hebraice, Chaldaice, Græce, et Latine, Philippi II. Regis Cathol. Pietate et Studio ad Sacrosanctæ Ecclesiæ Usum, Christophorus Plantinus excudebat. Antwerpiæ, 1569–1572, 8 vols.

folio.

Five hundred copies only were printed of this magnificent work; the greater part of which being lost in a voyage to Spain, the Antwerp Polyglott has become of extreme rarity. It was printed in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Chaldee; and contains, besides the whole of the Complutensian Polyglott, a Chaldee paraphrase of part of the Old Testament, which Cardinal Ximenes had deposited in the Public Library at Alcala, having particular reasons for not publishing it. This edition also has a Syriac version of the New Testament, and the Latin translation of Santes