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Additional examples, finely illustrative of the above remark, may be seen in Bishop Lowth's notes on Isa. viii. 6—8. xi. 6—8. xxix. 7. xxxi. 4, 5. xxxii. 2. xlv. 2. and xlix. 2.

The great benefit which is to be derived from Jewish and Heathen profane authors in illustrating the Scriptures, is excellently illustrated by the Rev. Dr. Robert Gray, in his work entitled:

The Connection between the Sacred Writings and the Literature of Jewish and Heathen authors, particularly that of the Classical Ages, illustrated; principally with a view to evidence in confirmation of the truth of Revealed Religion. London, 1819, in two volumes 8vo. The first edition of this valuable work, which is indispensably necessary to the biblical student who cannot command access to all the classic authors, appeared in one volume 8vo. in 1817. A multitude of passages of Scripture is illustrated, and their truth confirmed. Classical literature is here shown to be the handmaid of sacred literature, in a style and manner which cannot fail to instruct and gratify the reader. Independently of the main object of Dr. Gray's volumes, the illustration of the Scriptures, his general criticisms on the classic writers are such as must commend them to the student. "The remarks" (it is truly said by an emi nent critic of the present day,)" are every where just, always impressed with a candid and sincere conviction of the blessing for which our gratitude to God is 80 eminently due, for His revealed word, whose various excellencies rise in value upon every view, which the scholar or divine can take, of what have been the best efforts of the human mind in the best days which preceded the publication of the Gospel. There is no one portion of these volumes that is not highly valuable on this account. The praise is given which is due to the happiest fruits of human genius, but a strict eye is evermore preserved for the balance of preponderation, where the Word of Truth, enhanced by divine authority, bears the scale down, and furnishes the great thing wanting to the sage and the teacher of the heathen world. Their noblest sentiments, and their obliquities and deviations into error, are alike brought to this test, and referred to this sure standard. The concurrent lines of precept or instruction, on this comparative survey, are such as establish a sufficient ground of evidence, that all moral goodness, and all sound wisdom, are derived from one source and origin, and find their sanction in the will of Him, of whose perfections and of whose glory they are the manifest transcripts." British Critic (New Series) vol. xiii. p. 316., in which Journal the reader will find a copious and just analysis of Dr. Gray's volumes.

Grotius and other commentators have incidentally applied the productions of the classical writers to the elucidation of the Bible: but no one has done so much in this department of sacred criticism, as Elsner, Raphelius, Kypke, and Bulkley, the titles of whose works are subjoined.

1. Jacobi Elsner Observationes Sacræ in Novi Fœderis Libros, quibus plura illorum Librorum ex auctoribus potissimum Græcis, et Antiquitate, exponuntur, et illustrantur. Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1720. 1728. In two volumes 8vo.

2. Georgii Raphelii, Ecclesiarum Lunenburgensium Superintendentis, Annotationes in Sacram Scripturam; Historice in Vetus, Philologicæ in Novum Testamentum, ex Xenophonte, Polybio, Arriano, et Herodoto collectæ. Lugduni Batavorum, 1747. In two volumes Svo.

3. Georgii Davidis Kypke Observationes Sacræ in Novi Fœderis Libros, ex auctoribus potissimum Græcis et Antiquitatibus. Wratislaviæ, 1755. In two volumes 8vo.

4. Notes on the Bible, by the late Rev. Charles Bulkley, published from the author's Manuscript. London, 1802. In three volumes 8vo. This is a work of very considerable research: the plan upon which it is executed is calculated to throw much light on the Scriptures, by assisting the scholar in apprehending the precise meaning of the words and phrases employed in them. For a full account, with copious specimens, of these volumes, see the monthly Review (New Series) vol. xlvii. pp. 401-411

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CHAPTER VIII.

ON THE VARIOUS READINGS OCCURRING IN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS.

I. The Christian Faith not affected by Various Readings. - II. Nature of Various Readings.-Difference between them and mere errata.III. Causes of various readings; -1. The negligence or mistakes of transcribers; -2. Errors or imperfections in the manuscript copied ;-3. Critical conjecture; - 4. Wilful corrup copied;-3. tions of a manuscript from party motives. IV. Sources whence a true reading is to be determined; -1. Manuscripts; 2. Antient Editions;-3. Antient Versions;-4. Parallel Passages ;5. Quotations in the Writings of the Fathers;-6. Critical conjecture.-V. General Rules for judging of Various Readings. -VI. Notice of Writers who have treated on Various Readings. 1. THE Old and New Testaments, in common with all other antient writings, being preserved and diffused by transcription, the admission of mistakes was unavoidable: which, increasing with the multitude of copies, necessarily produced a great variety of different readings. Hence the labours of learned men have been directed to the collation of manuscripts, with a view to ascertain the genuine reading: and the result of their researches has shown, that these variations are not such as to affect our faith or practice in any thing material: they are mostly of a minute, and sometimes of a trifling nature. "The real text of the sacred writers does not now (since the originals have been so long lost) lie in any single manuscript or edition, but is dispersed in them all. It is competently exact indeed, even in the worst manuscript now extant; nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost in them." It is therefore a very ungrounded fear that the number of various readings, particularly in the New Testament, may diminish the certainty of the Christian religion. The probability, Michaelis remarks, of restoring the genuine text of any author, increases with the increase of the copies; and the most inaccurate and mutilated editions of antient writers are precisely those, of whose works the fewest manuscripts remain. Above

1 Dr. Bentley's Remarks on Free-thinking, rem. xxxii. (Bp. Randolph's Enchiridion Theologicum, vol. v. p. 163.) The various readings that affect doctrines, and require caution, are extremely few, and easily distinguished by critical rules; and where they do affect a doctrine, other passages confirm and establish it. See examples of this observation in Michaelis, vol. i. p. 266, and Dr. Nares's Strictures on the Unitarian Version of the New Testament, pp. 219–221.

2 Michaelis's Introduction to the New Testament, vol. i. pp. 263–268. “In profane authors," says Dr. Bentley, " (as they are called) whereof one manuscript only had the luck to be preserved,-as Velleius Paterculus among the Latins, and Hesychius among the Greeks--the faults of the scribes are found so numerous, and the defects so beyond all redress, that notwithstanding the pains of the learnedest and acutest critics for two whole centuries, those books still are, and are likely to continue, a mere heap of errors. On the contrary, where the copies of any author are numerous, though the various readings always increase in proportion, there the text, by an accurate collation of them made by skilful and judicious

all, in the New Testament, the various readings show that there could have been no collusion; but that the manuscripts were written independently of each other, by persons separated by distance of time, remoteness of place, and diversity of opinions. This extensive independency of manuscripts on each other, is the effectual check of wilful alteration; which must have ever been immediately corrected by the agreement of copies from various and distant regions out of the reach of the interpolator. By far the greatest number of various readings relate to trifles, and make no alteration whatever in the sense, such as Δαβιδ for Δαυιδ; Σολομωντα for Σολομωνα; και for δε ; καγω for και εγω (ας for and I); ελαττων for ελάσσων, Κύριος for Θεος ; λαλωσιν for λαλησωσιν; Μωσης for Μωυσης ; and γινεσθω for yever; all which in most cases may be used indifferently.

In order to illustrate the preceding remarks, and to convey an idea of their full force to the reader, the various readings of the first ten verses of Saint John's Gospel are annexed in Greek and English; and they are particularly chosen because they contain one of the most decisive proofs of the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

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hands, is ever the more correct, and comes nearer to the true words of the author." Remarks on Free-thinking, in Enchirid. Theol. vol. v. p. 158.

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Authorities.

The MSS. ofthe old Latin Version, denominated the Codices Veronensis, Vercellensis, Brixiensis, and Corbeiensis, edited by Blanchini and Sabatier, Ireneus, Cyprian, Ambrose once, Augustine repeatedly.

On the whole, these various readings. though not selected from any single manuscript, but from all that have been collated, together with the antient versions and the quotations from the fathers,—no where contradict the sense of the evangelist; nor do they produce any material alteration in the text.1

The principal collators and collectors of various readings for the Old Testament, are Dr. Kennicott and M. de Rossi, of whose labours an account has already been given. As the price of their publications necessarily places them out of the reach of very many biblical students, the reader, who is desirous of availing himself of the results of their laborious and learned researches, will find a compendious abstract of them in Mr. Hamilton's Codex Criticus.3 For the New Testament, the principal collations are those of Erasmus, the editors of the Complutensian and London Polyglotts, Bishop Fell, Dr. Mill, Kuster, Bengel, Wetstein, Dr. Griesbach, and Matthæi, described in the preceding pages of this volume; and for the Septuagint, the collations of the late Rev. Dr. Holmes, and his continuator, the late Rev. J. Parsons.5

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II. However plain the meaning of the term Various Reading' may be, considerable difference has existed among learned men concerning its nature. Some have allowed the name only to such readings as may possibly have proceeded from the author; but this restriction is improper. Michaelis's distinction between mere errata and various readings appears to be the true one. "Among two or more different readings, one only can be the true reading; and the rest must be either wilful corruptions or mistakes of the copyist." It is often difficult to distinguish the genuine from the spurious; and whenever the smallest doubt can be entertained, they all receive the name of VARIOUS READINGS; but, in cases where the transcriber has evidently written falsely, they receive the name of errata.

III. As all manuscripts were either dictated to copyists or transcribed by them, and as these persons were not supernaturally guard1 Christian Observer for 1807, vol. vi. p. 221.

2 See pp. 122, 123. supra.

3 Codex Criticus of the Hebrew Bible, wherein Vander Hooght's text is corrected from the Hebrew manuscripts collated by Kennicott and De Rossi, and from the antient versions; being an attempt to form a standard text of the Old Testament. To which is prefixed an Essay on the nature and necessity of such an undertaking. By the Rev. George Hamilton, A. M. London, 1821, 8vo.

4 See pp. 127. 130. 132, 133, 134. 136. supra. Michaelis has given a list of authors who have collected various readings, with the remarks on their labours. Introd. vol. ii. part i. pp. 419-429. See also Pfaff's Dissertatio de Genuinis Novi Testamenti Lectionibus, pp. 101-122.

5 See an account of their edition of the Septuagint, supra, p. 132. of this volume,

ed against the possibility of error, different readings would naturally be produced:-1. By the negligence or mistakes of the transcribers; to which we may add, 2. The existence of errors or imperfections in the manuscripts copied; 3. Critical emendations of the text; and 4. Wilful corruptions made to serve the purposes of a party. Mistakes thus produced in one copy would of course be propagated through all succeeding copies made from it, each of which might likewise have peculiar faults of its own; so that various readings would thus be increased, in proportion to the number of transcripts that were made.

1. Various readings have been occasioned by the negligence or mistakes of the transcribers.

(1.) When a manuscript is dictated, whether to one or to several copyists, the party dictating might not speak with sufficient clearness; he might read carelessly, and even utter words that were not in his manuThe script; he might pronounce different words in the same manner. copyist, therefore, who should follow such dictation, would necessarily produce different readings. One or two examples will illustrate this remark.

In Eph. iv. 19. Saint Paul, speaking of the Gentiles, while without the Gos pel, says, that being past feeling, they gave themselves over to lasciviousness. For aznλynkores, past feeling (which the context shows to be the genuine reading), several manuscripts, versions, and fathers read annλzikores, being without hope. Dr. Mill is of opinion, that this lection proceeded from some ignorant copyist who had in his mind Saint Paul's account of the Gentiles in Eph. ii. 12. where he says that they had no hope, sλzida μn exovtes. But for this opinion there is no foundation whatever. The antient copyists were not in general men of such subtle genius. It is therefore most probable that the word anλKOTEs crept in, from a mis-pronunciation on the part of the person dictating. The same remark will account for the reading of no, young children, instead of no, gentle, in 1 Thes. ii. 7., which occurs in many manuscripts, and also in several versions and fathers. But the scope and context of this passage prove that no cannot be the original reading. It is the Thessalonians, whom the apostle considers as young children, and himself and fellow labourers as the nurse. He could not therefore with any propriety say that he was among them as a little child, while he himself professed to be their nurse.

(2.) Further, as many Hebrew and Greek letters are similar both in sound and in form, a negligent or illiterate copyist might, and the col lation of manuscripts has shown that such transcribers did, occasion various readings by substituting one word or letter for another. Of these permutations or interchanging of words and letters, the Codex Cottonianus of the Book of Genesis affords the most striking examples.

Thus, B and M are interchanged in Gen. xliii. 11. repepivdov is written for περεβινθον. ·г and K, as yvvпyos for kurnyos, Xx. 9.; and é contra pader for padey, xi. Γ and X, as δραχματα του 16. - r and N, as συγκόψουσιν for συγκόψουσιν, χχχίν. 30. ¿paypara, xxxvii. 6. Δ' and A, as Κελμοναιους for Κεδρωναίους, χν. 19. ; and & contra -A and T, as Arat Λεδωμ for Αιλωμ, χχχνί. 2. - Δ and N, as Νεβρων for Νεβρώδ, Χ. 9. for Arad, x. 10., &c. -Z and E, as Xaoad for Xaçad, xxii. 22.; and pakapilovoir for Θ and T, αποςραφήτε μια καρισουσιν, ΧΧΧ. 13. e and X, Oxofax for Oxelad, xxvi. 26. for απογραφηθι, χνί. 9. . K and X, as Kadax for Xalax, x. 11.; and ovx for ovs, xiii. 9.- and 4, as voenpnrai for uzežnenrai, xxxix. 9. Sometimes consonants are added to the end of the words apparently for the sake of euphony; as Xwbal for χωβα, χίν. 15. -- γυναικων for γυναικα, xi. 13. - Evilar for Eviλa, x. 7.—M is generally retained in the different fexions of the verb λαμβανω, in the future λημψομαι, Anpforrai, xiv. 23, 24, &c. and in the aorist, Anμponto, xviii. 4. And also in the word evμzapadnμpons, xix. 17. This also is common in the Codex Vaticanus. Sometimes a double consonant is expressed by a single one, and vice versa; for instance, evεvnkovTa for εννενήκοντα, ν. 9., and Σεννααρ for Σενααρ, Χ. 10. ; ψελια for ψελλία, χχίν. 47., δε

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