xxvii. 4 for ἀθῶον he indicates the mere gloss δίκαιον as equal or

preferable (though in his _later_ manual edition of 1805 he marks it as an inferior reading), on the authority of the _later_ margin of Cod. B, of Cod. L, the Sahidic Armenian, and Latin versions and Fathers, and Origen in four places (ἀθῶον once). He adds the Syriac, but this is an error as regards the Peshitto or Harkleian; the Jerusalem may countenance him; though in such a case the testimony of versions is precarious on either side. Here, however, Griesbach defends δίκαιον against all likelihood, because BL and Origen are Alexandrian, the Latin versions Western.

228 Reuss (p. 198) calculates that in his second edition out of Reuss’ thousand chosen passages Griesbach stands with the Elzevir text in 648, sides with other editions in 293, has fifty-nine peculiar to himself. The second differs from the first edition (1774-5) in about fifty places only.

229 Laurence, in the Appendix to his “Remarks,” shows that while Cod. A agrees with Origen against the received text in 154 places, and disagrees with the two united in 140, it sides with the received text against Origen in no less than 444 passages.

230 David Schulz published at Berlin, 1827, 8vo, a third and much improved edition of his N. T., vol. i (Gospels), containing also collations of certain additional manuscripts, unknown to Griesbach.

231 One of Porter’s examples is almost amusing. It was Scholz’s constant habit to copy Griesbach’s lists of critical authorities (errors, misprints, and all) without giving the reader any warning that they were not the fruit of his own labours. The note he borrowed from Griesbach on 1 Tim. iii. 16, contains the words “uti docuimus in Symbolis Criticis:” this too Scholz appropriates (Tom. ii. p. 334, col. 2) so as to claim the “Symbolae Criticae” of the Halle Professor as his own! See also p. 217, Evan. 365; p. 253, Act. 86, and Tischendorf’s notes on Acts xix. 25; 2 Pet. i. 15 (N. T., eighth edition). His very text must have been set up by Griesbach’s. Thus, since the latter, by a mere press error, omitted με in 2 Cor. ii. 13, Scholz not only follows him in the omission, but cites in his note a few cursives in which he had met with με, a word really absent from no known copy. In Heb. ix. 5 again, both editors in error prefix τῆς to δόξης. Scholz’s inaccuracy in the description of manuscripts which he must have had before him when he was writing is most wearisome to those who have had to trace his steps, and to verify, or rather to falsify, his statements. He has half filled our catalogues with duplicates and codices which are not Greek or are not Biblical at all. After correcting not a few of his misrepresentations of books in the libraries at Florence, Burgon breaks out at last: “What else but calamitous is it to any branch of study that it should have been prosecuted by such an incorrigible blunderer, a man so abominably careless as this?” (_Guardian_, Aug. 27, 1873.)

232 Some of these statements are discussed in Scrivener’s “Collation of the Greek Manuscripts of the Holy Gospels,” Introd. pp. lxix-lxxi.

233 The following is the _whole_ of this notice, which we reprint after Tregelles’ example: “De ratione et consilio hujus editionis loco commodiore expositum est (Theol. Studien und Kritiken, 1830, pp. 817-845). Hic satis erit dixisse, editorem nusquam judicium suum, sed consuetudinem antiquissimarum orientis ecclesiarum secutum esse. Hanc quoties minus constantem fuisse animadvertit, quantum fieri potuit quae Italorum et Afrorum consensu comprobarentur praetulit: ubi pervagatam omnium auctorum discrepantiam deprehendit, partim uncis partim in marginibus indicavit. Quo factum est ut vulgatae et his proximis duobus saeculis _receptae lectionis_ ratio haberi non posset. Haec diversitas hic in fine libri adjecta est, quoniam ea res doctis judicibus necessaria esse videbatur.” Here we have one of Lachmann’s leading peculiarities—his absolute disregard of the received readings—hinted at in an incidental manner: the influence he was disposed to accord to the Latin versions when his chief authorities were at variance is pretty clearly indicated: but no one would guess that by the “custom of the oldest Churches of the East” he intends the few very ancient codices comprising Griesbach’s Alexandrian class, and not the great mass of authorities, gathered from the Churches of Syria, Asia Minor, and Constantinople, of which that critic’s Byzantine family was made up.

234 These are _d_ for Cod. Bezae, _e_ for Cod. Laud. 35, _f_ being Lachmann’s notation for Paul. Cod. D, as _ff_ is for Paul. Cod. E (whose Latin translation is cited independently), _g_ for Paul. Cod. G.

235 We must now except the seventh century corrector of Cod. א called by Tischendorf Ca, who actually changes the original reading εκδ. into ενδ., to be himself set right by a later hand Cb. This is one out of many proofs of something more than an accidental connexion between Codd. א and B at a remote period. _See_ vol. i. p. 96, and note.

236 In dedicating the third volume of his “Monumenta sacra inedita” in 1860 to the Theological Faculty at Leyden, Tischendorf states that he took to these studies twenty-three years before, that is, at about twenty-two years of age.

237 Tischendorf left almost no papers behind him. Hence the task of writing Prolegomena to his eighth edition, gallantly undertaken by two American scholars, Dr. Caspar René Gregory of Leipzig, and Dr. Ezra Abbot of Cambridge, U. S., but for their own independent researches, might seem to resemble that of making bricks without straw.

238 Through his haste to publish Cod. E of the Acts, in which design he feared to be forestalled by a certain Englishman, Tischendorf postponed to it vols. vii and viii, which he did not live to resume. Oscar von Gebhardt, now of Berlin, will complete vol. vii; Caspar René Gregory hopes to do what is possible for vol. viii.

239 For further information respecting this indefatigable scholar and his labours we may refer to a work published at Leipzig in 1862, “Constantin Tischendorf in seiner fünfundzwanzigjährigen schriftstellerischen wirksamkeit. Literar-historische skizze von Dr. Joh. Ernst Volbeding.” I have also seen, by Dr. Ezra Abbot’s courtesy, his paper in the _Unitarian Review_, March, 1875.

240 A pamphlet of thirty-six pages appeared late in 1860, “Additions to the Fourth Volume of the Introduction to the Holy Scriptures,” &c., by S. P. T. Most of this industrious writer’s other publications are not sufficiently connected with the subject of the present volume to be noticed here, but as throwing light upon the literary history of Scripture we may mention his edition of the “Canon Muratorianus,” liberally printed for him in 1867 by the Delegates of the Oxford University Press. Burgon, however, on comparing Tregelles’ book with the document itself at Milan, cannot overmuch laud his minute correctness (_Guardian_, Feb. 5, 1873). Isaac H. Hall made the same comparison at Milan and confirms Burgon’s judgement. The custodian of the Ambrosian Library at Milan, the famous Ceriani, had nothing to do with the work or with the lithograph facsimile.

241 As a whole it may be pronounced very accurate as well as beautiful, with the conspicuous drawback that the Greek accents are so ill represented as to show either strange ignorance or utter indifference about them on the part of the person who revised the sheets for the press.

242 He gave the same assurance to A. Earle, D.D., Bishop of Marlborough, assigning as his reason the results of the study of the Greek N. T.

243 Dr. Hort (Introd. p. 277) hardly goes so far as this: “Those,” he says, “who propose remedies which cannot possibly avail are not thereby shown to have been wrong in the supposition that remedies were needed; and a few have been perhaps too quickly forgotten.”

244 I hope that the change made in the wording of the above sentence from what stood in the first edition will satisfy my learned and acute critic, Mr. Linwood (Remarks on Conjectural Emendations as applied to the New Testament, 1873, p. 9, note); although I fear that the difference between us is in substance as wide as ever. At the same time I would hardly rest the main stress of the argument where Dr. Roberts does when he says that “conjectural criticism is entirely banished from the field, &c., simply because all sober critics feel that there is no need for it” (Words of the N. T., p. 24). There are texts, no doubt, some of those for example which Dr. Westcott and Dr. Hort have branded with a marginal [+] in their edition; e.g. Acts vii. 46; xiii. 32; xix. 40; xxvi. 28; Rom. viii. 2; 1 Cor. xii. 2 (where Eph. ii. 11 might suggest ὅτι ποτέ); 1 Tim. vi. 7, and especially in the kindred Epistles, 2 Pet. iii. 10; 12; Jude 5; 22, 23, wherein, whether from internal difficulties or from the actual state of the external evidence, we should be very glad of more light than our existing authorities will lend us. What I most urge is the plain fact, that the conjectures, even of able and accomplished men, have never been such as to approve themselves to any but their authors, much less to commend themselves to the judgement of scholars as intuitively true.

245 Bentley, the last great critic who paid much regard to conjectural emendations, promised in his Prospectus of 1720 that “If the author has anything to suggest towards a change of the text, not supported by any copies now extant, he will offer it separate in his Prolegomena.” It is really worth while to turn over Wm. Bowyer’s “Critical Conjectures and Observations on the N. T.,” or the summary of them contained in Knappe’s N. T. of 1797, if only to see the utter fruitlessness of the attempt to illustrate Scripture by ingenious exercise of the imagination. The best (_e.g._ συναλιζομένοις Acts i. 4; πορκείας for πορνείας _ibid._ xv. 20, 29), no less than the most tasteless and stupid (_e.g._ νηνεμίαν for νηστείαν Acts xxvii. 9), in the whole collection, are hopelessly condemned by the deep silence of a host of authorities which have since come to light. Nor are Mr. Linwood’s additions to the over-copious list likely to fare much better. Who but himself will think πρώτη in Luke ii. 2 corrupted through the intermediate πρώτει from πρώτω ἔτει (_ubi supra_ p. 5); or that τὰ πολλά in Rom. xv. 22 ought to be ἐτη πολλά (p. 13)? Add to this, that he gives up existing readings much too easily, even where his emendations are more plausible than the foregoing, as when he would adopt ὅς ἄν for ὅταν in John viii. 44 (p. 6); and this is perhaps his best attempt. His worst surely is ΟΣ for _ΘΣ_ (θεός) Rom. ix. 5, which could not be endured unless ἐστιν followed ὅς, as it does in the very passage (Rom. i. 25) which he cites in illustration (p. 13).

246 “VII. Inter duas variantes lectiones, si quae est εὐφωνότερος aut planior aut Graecantior, alteri non protinus praeferenda est, sed contra saepius. VIII. Lectio exhibens locutionem minus usitatam, sed alioqui subjectae materiae convenientem, praeferenda est alteri, quae, cum aeque conveniens sit, tamen phrasim habet minus insolentem, usuque magis tritam.” Wetstein’s whole tract, “Animadversiones et Cautiones ad examen variarum lectionum N. T. necessariae” (N. T., vol. ii. pp. 851-874) deserves attentive study. See also the 43 Canones Critici and their Confirmatio in N. T. of G. D. T. M. D.

247 So even Dr. Roberts, whose sympathies on the whole would not be the same as the Bishop of Lincoln’s: “Of course occasions might occur on which, from carelessness or oversight, a transcriber would render a sentence obscure or ungrammatical which was clear and correct in his exemplar; but it is manifest that, so far as intentional alteration was concerned, the temptation all lay in the opposite direction” (“Words of the New Testament,” p. 7). So again speaks E. G. Punchard on James iii. 3 in Bp. Ellicott’s Commentary, “The supporters of such curious corrections argue that the less likely is the more so; and thus every slip of a copyist, either in grammar or spelling, becomes more sacred in their eyes than is the Received text with believers in verbal inspiration.” Sir Edmund Beckett (“Should the Revised New Testament be Authorised?” 1882) writes in so scornful a spirit as to neutralize the effects on a reader’s mind of his native acuteness and common sense, but he deals well with the argument “that an improbable reading is more likely right, because nobody would have invented it.” “I suppose,” he rejoins, “an accidental piece of carelessness can produce an improbable and absurd error in copying as well as a probable one.” (p. 7.)

248 In his seventh edition, not in his eighth.

249 One other example to illustrate this rule, so difficult in its practical use, may be added from Alford on Mark ii. 22, where the reading καὶ ὁ οἶνος ἀπόλλυται καὶ οἱ ἀσκοί (whether the verse end or not in these words) appears to have been the original form, since “it fully explains all the others, either as emendations of construction, or corrections from parallel places.” The reader may apply this canon, if he pleases, to Aristotle, Ethic. iv. 9, in selecting between the three different readings ὀκνηροί or νωθροί or νοεροί to close the sentence οὐ μὴν ἠλίθιοί γε οἱ τοιοῦτοι δοκοῦσιν εἶναι, ἀλλα μᾶλλον ... having careful reference to the context in which it stands: or to the easier case of καίτοιγε and its variations in Acts xvii. 27: or to Rom. viii. 24, where the first hand of B and the margin of Cod. 47 (very expressly), by omitting τί καί, appear to present the original text.

250 “Though the theory of explanatory interpolations of marginal glosses into the text of the N. T. has been sometimes carried too far (e.g. by _Wassenberg_ in ‘Valcken.’ Schol. in N. T., Tom. i), yet probably this has been the most fertile source of error in some MSS. of the Sacred Volume.” (Bp. Chr. Wordsworth, N. T., on 2 Cor. iii. 3.) Yes, in _some_ MSS.

251 On this passage Canon Liddon justly says, “The question may still perhaps be asked ... whether here, as elsewhere, the presumption that copyists were always anxious to alter the text of the New Testament in theological interests, is not pressed somewhat excessively” (Bampton Lectures, 1866, p. 467, note).

252 Griesbach’s “etiam manifestò falsas” can allude only to 1 John v. 7, 8; yet it is a strong point against the authenticity of that passage that it is _not_ cited by Greek writers, who did not find it in their copies, but only by the Latins who did.

253 The clause might have been derived from Gen. ii. 23, yet the evidence against it is strong and varied (אAB, 17, 67, Bohair., &c.).

254 Alford’s only _definite_ example (and that derived from Wetstein, N. T., vol. ii. p. 11) is found but in a single cursive (4) in Rom.