Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener

“ The importance of the study of Textual criticism is sometimes freely admitted by those who deem its successful cultivation difficult, or its conclusions precarious; the rather as Biblical scholars of deserved repute are constantly putting forth their several recensions of the text, differing not a little from each other. Now on this point it is right to speak clearly and decidedly. There is certainly nothing in the nature of critical science which ought to be thought hard or abstruse, or even remarkably dry and repulsive. ”

“ Bentley, at once the profoundest and the most daring of English critics: “The real text of the sacred writers does not now (since the originals have been so long lost) lie in any MS. or edition, but is dispersed in them all. 'Tis competently exact indeed in the worst MS. now extant; nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost in them; choose as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design, out of the whole lump of readings.” ”

“ But this anachronism of fashion may be detected, as well by other circumstances we are soon to mention, as from the air of constraint which pervades the whole manuscript: the rather as the scribe will now and then fall into the more familiar manner of his contemporaries; especially when writing those small letters which our Biblical manuscripts of all dates (even the most venerable) perpetually crowd into the ends of lines, in order to save space. ”

“ We must now describe the Lectionaries or Service-books of the Greek Church, in which the portions of Scripture publicly read throughout the year are set down in chronological order, without regard to their actual places in the sacred volume. In length and general arrangement they resemble not so much the Lessons as the Epistles and Gospels in our English Book of Common Prayer, only that every day in the year has its own proper portion, and the numerous Saints' days independent services of their own. ”

“ If we extend our researches to the manuscript copies of Scripture or of its versions which abound in every great library in Christendom, we see in the very best of them variations which we must at once impute to the fault of the scribe, together with many others of a graver and more perplexing nature, regarding which we can form no probable judgement, without calling to our aid the resources of critical learning. ”

“ The very large, bold, thick, rude uncials, without break in the words and without accents, lead us up to the end of the sixth century as its date. The Latin is not of Jerome's or the Vulgate version, but is made to correspond closely with the Greek, even in its interpolations and rarest various readings. The contrary supposition that the Greek portion of this codex Latinised, or had been altered to coincide with the Latin, is inconsistent with the facts of the case. ”

“ The Codex Bezae is a quarto volume 10 inches high by 8 broad, with one column on a page, the Greek text and its Latin version being parallel, the Greek on the left, or verso of each leaf, and the Latin on the right, opposite to it, on the recto of the next. Notwithstanding the Alexandrian forms that abound in it as much as in any other copy, and which have been held by some to prove the Egyptian origin of Codd. ABC, the fact of its having a Latin version sufficiently attests its Western origin. The vellum is not quite equal in fineness to that of a few others. ”

“ Luke, the first verse of St. John, the opening of the Acts down to δι, and so on for other books, are in vermilion. At the end of each book are neat and unique ornaments in the ink of the first hand: see especially those at the end of St. Mark and the Acts. As we have before stated this codex is the earliest which has the κεφάλαια proper, the so-called Ammonian sections, and the Eusebian canons complete. Lists of the κεφάλαια precede each Gospel, except the first, where they are lost. ”

“ The earliest formal Menologium, or Table of proper lessons, now extant is prefixed to the Codex Cyprius (K) of the eighth or ninth century; another is found in the Codex Campianus (M) , which is perhaps a little later; they are more frequently found than the contrary in later manuscripts of every kind; while there are comparatively few copies that have not been accommodated to ecclesiastical use either by their original scribe or a later hand, by means of noting the proper days for each lesson (often in red ink) at the top or bottom or in the margin of the several pages. ”

“ Nor can Textual criticism be reasonably disparaged as tending to precarious conclusions, or helping to unsettle the text of Scripture. Even putting the matter on the lowest ground, critics have not created the variations they have discovered in manuscripts or versions. They have only taught us how to look ascertained phenomena in the face, and try to account for them ”

“ Since that time a splendid edition has been issued of the New Testament in 1889, and the Old in 1890, under the care of the Abbate Cozza-Luzi, in which the whole is beautifully exhibited in photograph: so that all students can now examine for themselves the readings and characteristics of this celebrated manuscript with all but the advantage which is given in an examination of the original vellum itself (Novum Testamentum e Codd. Vat. 1209, &c. Rom. 1889, 4to) : and gratitude is due from all textual scholars to the authorities of the Vatican. ”

“ The writing is continuous in full line without stichometry. Quotations from the Old Testament are marked with a kind of inverted comma. There are no breathings, or accents. Punctuation is made only with the single comma or double comma, consisting of a point slightly elongated much like a modern written comma, and placed at about mid-height, or else with a vacant space, or by passing to the next line. The apostrophe is not always used to mark elisions, but is generally put after Ρ final. Abbreviations are of the most ancient kind. ”

“ As they are stated to have been constructed after the model of the ancient στίχοι (called “versus” in the Latin manuscripts) , we have placed in the Table the exact number of each for every book in the New Testament. Of the στίχοι we reckon 19241 in all, of the modern verses 795985, so that on the average (for we have seen that the manuscript variations in the number of στίχοι are but inconsiderable) we may calculate about five στίχοι to every two modern verses. The fact is that some such division is, simply indispensable to every accurate reader of Scripture ”

“ The independent [pg 137] collations of Tischendorf and Tregelles have now done all that can be needed for this copy. It is an oblong quarto, in compressed uncials, of about the middle of the ninth century at the latest, having one column of about twenty-one lines on each page, but the handwriting is irregular and varies much in size. A single point being often found where the sense does not require it, this codex has been thought to have been copied from an older one arranged in στίχοι; the ends of each στίχος may have been indicated in this manner by the scribe. ”

“ The letters are in a plain, steady, beautiful hand: they yield in elegance to none, and are never compressed at the end of a line. The shape of alpha (which varies a good deal) , and especially that of mu, is very peculiar: phi is inordinately large: delta has an upper curve which is not usual: the same curves appear also in zeta, lambda, and chi. The characters are less in size than in N, about equal to those in R, much greater than in AB. In regard to the text, it agrees much with Codd. אBD: with Cod. A it has only twenty-three verses in common: yet in them A and Z vary fourteen times. ”

“ Mark's Gospel represents a text different from that of the other [pg 158] Evangelists, and the Latin version (which is clearly primâ manu) seems a mixture of the Vulgate with the older Italic, so altered and accommodated to the Greek as to be of little critical value. The penmen seem to have known but little Greek, and to have copied from a manuscript written continuously, for the divisions between the words are sometimes absurdly wrong. There are scarcely any breathings or accents, except about the opening of St. Mark, and once an aspirate to ἑπτα; what we do find are often falsely given ”

“ The Apocalypse is often attended with the exposition of Andreas (p. 64) , or of Arethas, also Archbishop of the Cappadocian Caesarea in the tenth century, or (what is more usual) with a sort of epitome of the two (e.g. Parham No. 17) , above, below, and in the margin beside the text, in much smaller characters. In cursive manuscripts only the subject (ὑπόθεσις) , especially that written by Oecumenius in the tenth century, sometimes stands as a Prologue before each book, but not so often before the Gospels or Apocalypse as the Acts and Epistles. ”

“ The Latin is exquisitely written, the Greek uncials are neat, but evidently the work of an unpractised hand, which soon changes from weariness. The shapes of eta, theta, pi, and other testing letters are such as we might have expected from the date; some others have an older look. ”

“ The Cotton fragment of the Gospels, mentioned above (p. 23) , is one of the few remaining copies of this kind, as are the newly discovered Codex Rossanensis and the Codex Beratinus, and it is not unlikely that the great Dublin palimpsest of St. Matthew owes its present wretched discoloration to some such dye. But, as Davidson sensibly observes, “the value of a manuscript does not depend on such things” (Biblical Criticism, vol. ii. p. 264) . We care for them only as they serve to indicate the reverence paid to the Scriptures by men of old. ”

“ When once it is stated that the type was set up from the common Elzevir or from some other printed Greek Testament, the readings of the Codex itself being inserted as corrections, and the whole revised by means of an assistant who read the proof-sheets to the Cardinal while he inspected the manuscript; no one will look for accuracy from a method which could not possibly lead to it. ”

“ Besides the broad and palpable distinction between uncial and cursive letters, persons who have had much experience in the study of manuscripts are able to distinguish those of either class from one another in respect of style and character ”

“ The Codex Friderico-Augustanus of the fourth century, published in lithographed facsimile in 1846, contains on forty-three leaves fragments of the Septuagint version, chiefly from 1 Chronicles and Jeremiah, with Nehemiah and Esther complete, in oblong folio, with four columns on each page. The plates are so carefully executed that the very form of the ancient letters and the colour of the ink are represented to us by Tischendorf, who discovered it in the East. ”

“ An admirable autotype facsimile of the New Testament was published in 1879, and afterwards of the Old Testament, by Mr. E. Maunde Thompson, then the Principal Keeper of Manuscripts, now the Principal Librarian, of the British Museum.
The Codex Alexandrinus has been judged to be carelessly written; many errors of transcription no doubt exist, but not so many as in some copies (e.g. Cod. א) , nor more than in others (as Cod. B) . ”

“ In the margin of the Greek text the Ammonian sections stand in minute characters over the numbers of the Eusebian canons. The text agrees but slightly with א or B, and rather with the main body of uncials and cursives, which it favours in about a proportion of three to one. With the cognate purple manuscript Cod. N it accords so wonderfully, that although one of them cannot have been copied directly from the other, they must have been drawn directly or indirectly from the same source. Strong proofs of the affinity between N and Σ are Matt. xix. ”

“ In judging of the date of a manuscript on skins, attention must be paid to the quality of the material, the oldest being almost invariably written on the thinnest and whitest vellum that could be procured; while manuscripts of later ages, being usually composed of parchment, are thick, discoloured, and coarsely grained. Thus the Codex Sinaiticus of the fourth century is made of the finest skins of antelopes, the leaves being so large, that a single animal would furnish only two (Tischendorf, Cod. Frid.-August. Prolegomena, §. 1) . ”

“ We have now to describe the practice of Biblical manuscripts as regards the insertion of ι forming a diphthong with the long vowels eta and omega, also with alpha long, whether by being ascript, i.e. written by their side, or subscript, i.e. written under them. In the earliest inscriptions and in the papyri of Thebes ι ascript (the iota not smaller than other letters) is invariably found. ”

“ A complete collation of the New Testament was first made in 1716 by Wetstein, then very young, for Bentley's projected edition, for which labour (as he records the fact himself) he paid Wetstein £50. This collation Wetstein of course used for his own Greek Testament of 1751-2, and though several persons subsequently examined the manuscript, and so became aware that more might be gathered from it, it was not until 1843 that Tischendorf brought out at Leipsic his full and noble edition of the New Testament portion ”