lings fac-simile edition of the Codex Bezæ, published at Cambridg in 1793, of which an account is given in p. 89. infra. We hav placed the Latin under the Greek, in order to bring the whole with: the compass of an octavo page. The following is a literal Englis version of this fac-simile.

Sixty-six leaves of this manuscript are much torn and mutilated and ten of them have been supplied by a later transcriber.

The Codex Bezæ is noted with the letter D. by Wetstein and Griesbach. In the Greek it is defective, from the beginning to Matt. i. 20., and in the Latin to Matt. i. 12. In the Latin it has likewise the following chasms, viz. Matt. vi. 20. ix. 2.; Matt. xxvii. 1-12.; John i. 16. ii. 26.; Acts viii. 29.. -x. 14.; xxii. 10— 20.; and from xxii. 29. to the end. The Gospels are arranged in the usual order of the Latin manuscripts, Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. It has a considerable number of corrections, some of which have been noticed by Dr. Griesbach; and some of the pages, containing Matt. iii. 8-16. John xviii. 13. xx. 13. and Mark xv. to the end, are written by a later hand, which Wetstein refers to the tenth century, but Griesbach to the twelfth. The Latin version is that which was in use before the time of Jerome, and is usually called the Old Italic or Ante-Hieronymian version. In the margin of the Greek part of the manuscript there are inserted the Ammonian sections, evidently by a later hand; and the words agxn, Teλos, xx λays, wds ornxs, are occasionally interspersed, indicating the beginning and end of the Avayvwouara, or lessons read in the church. The subjects discussed in the Gospels are sometimes written in the margin, sometimes at the top of the page. But all these notations are manifestly the work of several persons and of different ages. The date of this manuscript has been much contested. Those critics who give it the least antiquity, assign it to the sixth or seventh century. Wetstein supposed it to be of the fifth century. Michaelis was of opinion, that of all the manuscripts now extant, this is the most antient. Dr. Kipling, the editor of the Cambridge fac-simile, thought it much older than the Alexandrian manuscript, and that it must have heen written in the second century. On comparing it with Greek inscriptions of different ages, Bishop Marsh is of opinion that it cannot have been written later than the sixth century, and that it may

+ Contracted for SPIRIT. The Greek is IINI, for INEYMATI; and the Latin SPU, for SPIRITU.

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have been written even two or three centuries earlier and he finally considers it prior to all the manuscripts extant, except the Codex Vaticanus, and refers it to the fifth century, which perhaps is the true date, if an opinion may be hazarded where so much uncertainty prevails.

Wetstein was of opinion, from eleven coincidences which he thought he had discovered, that this was the identical manuscript collated at Alexandria in 616, for the Philoxenian or later Syriac version of the New Testament; but this is a groundless supposition. It is however worthy of remark, that many of the readings by which the Codex Bezæ is distinguished are found in the Syriac, Coptic, Sahidic, and in the margin of the Philoxenian-Syriac version. As the readings of this manuscript frequently agree with the Latin versions before the time of St. Jerome, and with the Vulgate or present Latin translation, Wetstein was of opinion that the Greek text was altered from the Latin version, or, in other words, that the writer of the Codex Bezæ departed from the lections of the Greek manuscript or manuscripts whence he copied, and introduced in their stead, from some Latin version, readings which were warranted by no Greek manuscript. This charge Semler, Michaelis, Griesbach, and Bishop Marsh have endeavoured to refute; and their verdict has been generally received. Matthæi, however, revived the charge of Wetstein, and considered the text as extremely corrupt, and suspected that some Latin monk, who was but indifferently skilled in Greek, wrote in the margin of his New Testament various passages from the Greek and Latin fathers, which seemed to refer to particular passages. He further thought that this monk had noted the differences occurring in some Greek and Latin manuscripts of the New Testament, and added parallel passages of Scripture and that from this farrago either either the monk himself, or some other person, manufactured his text (whether foolishly or fraudulently is uncertain,) of which the Codex Bezæ is a copy. But this suspicion of Matthæi has been little regarded in Germany, where he incurred the antipathy of the most eminent biblical critics, by vilifying the sources of various readings from which he had it not in his power to draw, when he began to publish his edition of the New Testament; giving to the Codex Beza, the Codex Claromontanus (noticed in p. 90. infra,) and other manuscripts of unquestionable antiquity, the appellation of Editio Scurrilis. Bishop Middleton, however, considers the judgment of Michaelis as approximating very near to the truth, and has given a collation of numerous passages of the received text with the Codex Beza; and the result of his examination, which does not admit of abridgment, is, that the Codex Bezæ, though a most venerable remain of antiquity, is not to be considered, in a critical view, as of much authority. He accounts for the goodness of its readings, considered with regard to the sense, by the natural supposition of the great antiquity of the manuscript, which was the basis of the Codex

1 Bp. Marsh's Lectures, part ii. pp. 30, 31

Beza; but while its latinising is admitted, he contends that we have no reason to infer that its readings, considered in the same light, are therefore faulty. The learned prelate concludes with subscribing to the opinion of Matthæi somewhat modified. He believes that no fraud was intended; but only that the critical possessor of the basis filled its margin with glosses and readings chiefly from the Latin, being a Christian of the Western Church; and that the whole collection of Latin passages was translated into Greek, and substituted in the text by some one who had a high opinion of their value, and who was better skilled in calligraphy than in the Greek and Latin languages. The arguments and evidences adduced by Bishop Middleton, we believe, are by many, at least in England, considered so conclusive, that, though the antiquity of the manuscript is fully admitted, yet it must be deemed a latinising manuscript, and consequently is of comparatively little critical value.

At the time Beza presented this manuscript to the university of Cambridge, it had been in his possession about nineteen years; and in his letter to that learned body he says, that it was found in the monastery of Saint Irenæus at Lyons, where it had lain concealed for a long time. But how it came there, and in what place it was written, are questions concerning which nothing certain is known. The most generally received opinion is, that it was written in the west of Europe.

The Cambridge manuscript has been repeatedly collated by critical editors of the New Testament. Robert Stephens made extracts from it, though with no great accuracy, under the title of Codex 6, for his edition of the Greek Testament, of 1550; as Beza also did for his own edition published in 1582. Since it was sent to the university of Cambridge, it has been more accurately collated by Junius, whose extracts were used by Curcellæus and father Morin. A fourth and more accurate collation of it was made, at the instigation of Archbishop Usher, and the extracts were inserted in the sixth volume of the London Polyglott, edited by Bishop Walton. Dr. Mill collated it a fifth and sixth time; but that his extracts are frequently defective, and sometimes erroneous, appears from comparing them with Wetstein's New Testament, and from a new collation which was made, about the year 1733, by Mr. Dickenson of Saint John's College; which is now preserved in the library of Jesus' College, where it is marked O, C, 2. Wetstein's extracts are also very incorrect, as appears from comparing them with the manuscript itself.

In concluding our account of this antient manuscript, it only remains to notice the splendid fac-simile of the Codex Beza, published by the Rev. Dr. Kipling at Cambridge, under the patronage and at the expense of the university, in 2 vols. atlas folio. Its title is as follows:

1 Bishop Middleton on the Greek Article, pp. 677-698.

2 Millii Prolegomena, §§ 1268-1273. Griesbach, Symbole Criticæ, tom. i. pp. Iv. lxiv. Michaelis, vol. iii. part i. pp. 228–242, and part ii. pp. 679–721.