the Vulgar Latin between the Hebrew and the LXX, as Jesus Christ was crucified between two malefactors. This partiality has led them to adopt several readings against the authority of all the MSS. which they were possessed of. Thus Luc. ii. 22, for pépaι тỡ xalagious ATTON, the days of THEIR purification, they read AYTHE, of HER purification; which our version follows to this day, from a needless timidity that the other reflects on the purity of Christ's nature. See Mill and Whitby. This reading is supported by no Greek MS. Dr. Mill cites Steph. a. which is no other than the Complutensian edition, and MS. Vel. which are only the various readings of different Latin copies in Spain, collected by Petrus Fracardus, Marquis of Valois, and which he was obliged to express in Greek terms (though often unskilfully), to conceal his labours from the knowledge of the Inquisition.

So again, 2 Cor. v. 10, for rà dià re odpalos, things done in the body, they read τὰ ΙΔΙΑ το σώματος, propria corporis, as the Vulgar Latin has it; which Mill, who favours that reading, owns is AIA in the MSS. and that the Iota was expunged jam inde ab initio.

Matt. v. 47. Ἐὰν ἀσπάσησθε τὸς ΦΙΛΟΥΣ is the reading of the Complutensian edition, and of most of the Greek MSS. as Erasmus testifies, and in all, as Stephens; yet in their edition, and in almost all afterwards, from the authority of the Vulgate, it is changed into AAEAPOTE; and the like of many others.

Erasmus, in general, was free from this bias against almost the whole world besides, presuming even to censure the Vulgate whenever occasion offered; from whence arose an adage against him, which does him more honour than his own collection from the antients, viz. Vult corrigere MAGNIFICAT, applied to such as attempt to mend what the monks thought could not be altered for the better. But notwithstanding this, where his MSS. deserted him, being close pressed by his adversaries, he owns, in his Apology to Lee, he supplied, by a translation from the Vulgar Latin, one or two verses in the last chapter of the Revelations; which Wetstein, on examination, found to be no less than six; faultily translated too, by leaving out the article (as an inattentive translator from the

*See Bishop Bull's Sermons, vol. I. serm. vi,

+ Prolegomena, p. 126; and see Michaelis's Introductory Lectures, sect. xxxi. p. 74; Simon's Hist. Crit. des Vers, & des Comm. du Nov. Test.

Latin easily might), against the genius of the Greek tongue. Thus ver. 16, ῥίζα for ἡ ῥίζα, λαμπρὸς for ὁ λαμπρὸς; ver. 18, προφητείας βιβλίs for τῆς προφητείας το βιβλίο, ἐν βιβλίῳ for ἐν τῷ βιβλίῳ twice; ver. 19, βίβλs for το βιβλία, ζωῆς for τῆς ζωῆς, πόλεως ἁγίας for τῆς πόλεως τῆς ἁγίας. And from the Comment of Andreas, out of a faulty copy, c. v. 14, after agoσsúvyσav προσεκύνησαν he added ζώνι εἰς τὰς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων, for τῷ ζώλι, from the Vulgate, which reads adoraverunt viventem in secula seculorum, against the most antient Latin copies. xvii. 4, for peolòv axatúgilos he has printed, by a feigned word, μeolov axabágins, from the Vulgate, which has plenum abominatione, instead of what the most antient copies read, plenum abominationum, &c. In short, he has been so unhappy in translating from the Latin as to make at least thirty variations from the Greek in so small a compass. Some of these errors he corrected in his second and third editions from the Complutensian, and partly made worse by joining the true reading to his own, which has occasioned a jumble of corrections and corruptions in the six last verses in most of the editions to this day. Thus ver. 16, Stephens from him retains opgivòs for païvos. Ver. 17, ënde twice for exe, ei for iày twice, which in Erasmus was av ei, corruptly from the Complutensian ἐὰν. Ver. 18, συμμαρτυρομαι for μαρτυρομαι, because the Latin version renders it contestor, which yet is no other than the usual term for paglupeuas, as Acts xx. 26, Heb. vii. 8, 17, x. 15. Ver. 19, βίβλο twice for βιβλίs, and ἀφαιρήσει for ἀφελεῖ. Matt. ii. 11, he has admitted into his edition sugov for sloov, only from lighting on a faulty copy of Theophylact agreeing with the Vulgar Latin; which reading, as Mill observes, is followed by most of the subsequent editions.

I shall enter no farther into a detail of the errors of the primary editions, because the Complutensian and the three of Erasmus were probably the basis of all which followed: for though several were printed with the assistance of fresh MSS. it was by comparing such MSS. with one or other of these editions; and when the MS. so compared differed from the printed editions, the editors were often induced to think they had sometimes the better reading, or had at least the authority of other MSS. from whence it was first printed, and which they would not presume to alter. Hence, it is observed, R. Stephens, in his first and second editions, followed Erasmus in general, and deviated from him only where all his MSS. did so too.

But

But in his famous edition, 1550, deserted his MSS. to conform to him, except in about twenty places.

How strangely errors are propagated from any one copy, I have now a remarkable instance before me (for I deal not in rarities), in an edition of the N. T. Aurelia Allobrogum, 1610, which, even so late, has preserved most of the typographical errors which Wetstein has selected out of the Complutensian edition, Prolegomena, p. 117; and has followed several of the same omissions; and some of the same readings received by that edition from Latin copies only. I subjoin them under each of these heads, distinguishing by an asterisk those errors in the Complutensian which this Geneva edition has NOT followed.

READINGS FROM LATIN COPIES AGAINST ALL THE GREEK MSS.

To remove such strange inconsistencies in the several editions, Professor Wetstein, having collated most of the MSS. afresh, thought it advisable to make an edition out of them all, adopting in general those readings, which had the authority of the greatest number of MSS. Accordingly, he has marked in the margin those readings which by this rule should be received, and has signified in his text what should be omitted; not that he thought that reading to be always the true one, but that sometimes another, not to be found in any of our present Greek MSS. had a better title to be preferred; which instances, however, are rare, and ought to be discussed in the notes *. Accordingly, it is observed, with respect to the two famous texts, 1 Tim. iii. 16, and 1 John v. 8, that in the latter he rejects a reading supported by no one Greek MS. by no version before Jerom, and contrary to the scope of the writer; and in the former rejects a reading supported by above fifty MSS. after the tenth century, for another upon the authority of the earliest versions, the writers of the first five centuries, one Cambridge MS. and the construction of the place: which, perhaps, would incline Michaelis to alter his opinion, that it is always expedient to decide in favour of that reading which is supported by the majority of MSS.†

* Licet existimaverim lectionem plurium codicum in textu esse reponendam, non tamen statuerem lectionem illam semper esse genuinam: quin largier aliquando lectionem, quæ in nullis codicibus Græcis hodie reperitur, esse præferendam; sed contendo tum illud non nisi rarissimè accidere, tum de eâ re cautè & accuratè in notis esse disputandum.

Introductory Lectures, sect. xxviii. p. 58.

Bengelius,

Bengelius, to restore the true text of the N. T. took a different method, by collating from all the printed editions (though all of them faulty) such readings as he judged would make one true text, bidding defiance to all the manuscripts from contributing any reading which had not the sanction of a printed edition. However different this may seem from Wetstein's plan, yet it is less so than would be at first imagined; for though the printed editions were his basis, yet the superstructure was formed from them all, and he gave a secret preference to such readings as the MSS. confirmed. What, for instance, should determine him to read, in the above-cited Matt. ii. 11, sidov for supov, where the sense is as good whichsoever word we admit? No natural sagacity could suggest that the Complutensian edition had the true reading, and Erasmus's the false, with which the subsequent editions concurred. It must therefore be the weight of MSS. which swayed him, though he pays his court to the printed editions. Ne syllabam quidem, etiamsi mille MSS. mille critici juberent, antehac [in editionibus] non receptam adducar ut recipiam, is what he says in his Prodromus; which surely is the greatest deference that was ever paid to the press.

But what shall we do for want of older MSS. which might give us the true readings before corruptions crept in? Shall we sometimes trust to versions which are older than any MSS. now remaining? Too precarious, I fear, is that foundation, though Michaelis asserts, "that the versions are "sometimes preferable to copies of the original; especially the Syriac and "Latin versions*." Morinus, Harduin, and others of the Romish Church, carry this principle to a boundless length, and maintain that the Greek text has been so totally corrupted that the Latin is to be solely relied on, as having been formed from the best copies.

But, 1. Where shall we find the Old Vulgate or Italic Version? Father Simon thought he had discovered it in the Latin of Beza's copy, presented to the University of Cambridge. The late Mr. Baker of St. John's differed from him, and has given his reasons. Michaelis observes, that the celebrated Boerner, at Leipsick, has a copy of all St. Paul's Epistles of

that version; of which Wetstein, vol. II. p. 9, gives no such advantageous

* Introductory Lectures, sect. xxix. p. 61.

+ Ibid. sect. xxxii. Wetstein's Prolegomena, vol. I. p. 127.

Reflections on Learning, c. xvi. p. 132.

§ Introductory Lectures, sect. xxiv.

character.