Introduction In his masterly book Storia della Tradizione e Critica de - PDF document

1 Introduction In his masterly book Storia della Tradizione e Critica del Testo (Le Monnier, Firenze, 1962) – rightly described by Martin L. West as “a wise opus” (Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique, Teubner, Stuttgart 1973, p. 6) – Giorgio Pasquali highly recommends (p. 10) another book, Johann Jakob Griesbach’s second edition of the NewTestament (Novum Testamentum Graece, Halle, 1796). Pasquali had in mind, not Griesbach’s text of the NewTestament itself, but the prefatory material that Griesbach added to it and in particular the third section of the Prolegomena (Pasquali indicates in a note that his attention was drawn to these Prolegomena by another author, Dom Henri Quentin, Essais de Critique Textuelle, Picard, Paris 1926, pp. 30ff). This third section of Griesbach’s Prolegomena is entitled Synopsis of the Main Critical Observations and Rules to which we have Conformed ourJudgment about Discrepant Readings (Conspectus Potiorum Observationum Criticarum et Regularum, ad Quas Nostrum de Descrepantibus Lectionibus Iudicium Conformavimus). About it Pasquali writes: “Also in my view the rules formulated by him in the Sectiotertia (pp. LIX ff.) would deserve to be reprinted and diffused among scholars and students of philology as a sort of catechism” (Anche secondo me le regole da lui formulate nella Sectio tertia (p. LIX sgg.) meriterebbero di essere ristampate e diffuse tra studiosi e studenti di filologia quasi un catechismo). In particular Pasquali notes that Griesbach was the first to enunciate clearly and accurately the rule of lectiodifficilior (the rule to choose the more difficult reading over the easier, stated and amplified in points 1-3 of the Synopsis), though he also properly notes that Griesbach was indebted for some of his rules, and in part indeed for the lectiodifficilor rule, to Johann Jakob Wettstein, Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Graeci Editionem Accuratissimam (Amsterdam, 1730). Thanks to Google books, Griesbach’s old text is now available online: (Accessed 10/31/2010. Search under: novum testamentum graece. Result: http://books.google.com/books?id=ra0- AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=novum+testamentum+graece&hl=en&ei=ctLNTJ L8NIL58AaQ5Mi7BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDwQ6AE wAw#v=onepage&q&f=false ). Pasquali’s judgment is exact though Griesbach’s rules, as will be evident from reading them and is anyway true in general of rules in most matters, need to be used with due care and prudence. In addition Griesbach seems not to be altogether without partisan commitment (as perhaps in rule 6 and some of his comments in rule 8). The Prolegomenaare, of course, directed to the textual criticism of the NewTestament and the examples all relate to that topic. But these examples, while particular in their nature, are general in their significance; hence the principles they illustrate apply to the textual criticism of all ancient texts. Even those matters where Griesbach seems to have erred, as in particular in his classification (or stemmata) of NewTestament manuscripts and recensions, retain their general significance, because they are fine instances of the sort of thing that any critic must do when dealing with manuscripts and judging their divergent readings. One may, therefore, if one wishes, treat his classification as an imaginative reconstruction and just read it by way of test case for what sort of rules to apply when and where and how. 2 Pasquali was thus not wrong to wish Griesbach’s Prolegomena to be distributed as a sort of catechism among lovers of philology and textual criticism. A partial translation of the first 15 rules in the Prolegomena is already available online, at http://www.bible- researcher.com/bib-g.html , but a full translation of the whole, including what it contains in addition to those rules, is not. Accordingly, I have decided, now that modern technology and Google have bestowed on us a world so easily and so richly furnished with materials for learning of all kinds, to do my part in realizing Pasquali’s proposal by translating into English the whole of the third section of Griesbach’s Prolegomena and uploading it here to my website for “scholars and students of philology” to profit from and enjoy to the full. Notice of errors and suggestions for improvement will be most welcome. Peter L.P. Simpson. Feast of All Saints. 2010. psimpson@gc.cuny.edu 3 Synopsis of the Main Critical Observations and Rules to which we have Conformed ourJudgment about Discrepant Readings. J.J.Griesbach. In balancing discrepant readings against each other, one ought to have regard to the intrinsic goodness of each reading and also of the witnesses that are produced for each reading, and their weight and agreement. A reading is commended by its own inherent goodness when: Either it is most of all in agreement with the author’s manner, style, scope of thought and feeling, and with the other circumstantial features, whether exegetic (as context, adjuncts, opposites, etc.) or historical; Or is so composed that, once it has been posited as primitive, one can easily understand how all the other readings may have been generated from it, either by an error of the copyists or by the inept attention of scribes, grammarians, commentators, or critics. A second criterion of a genuine reading that we should place before our eyes so that we can rightly apply it in judging readings of the text of the New Testament is, on the one hand, the causes by which any copyist in transcribing originals of any kind could be carried off into errors, and, on the other, the rocks on which those copyists more than others would run aground who devoted themselves to making apographs of the books of the New Testament, and even first of all the huge distance which separates the style of the Evangelists and Apostles from the style of writing of the best Greek authors. He who attentively considers these points will discern that, from the law of criticism which bids 4 that that reading is to be preferred before others whence the origin of the others may most easily be explained, the following rules can be derived: 1.The briefer reading is to be preferred to the more wordy, unless it is entirely devoid of the sanction of ancient and weighty witnesses. For copyists were much more prone to add than to omit. They scarcely ever of set purpose passed over anything and added a great deal; by chance, however, some things got missed out, but also not a few things were added to the text by the error allowed in by the copyists of their eyes, ears, memory, imagination, and judgment. Now in the first place, the briefer reading, even if it is inferior to a second in the authority of its witnesses, is to be preferred: a) if it is at the same time harder, more obscure, ambiguous, elliptical, Hebraizing, or a solecism; b) if the same thing, expressed in differing phrases, is read in diverse codices; c) if the order of the nouns is inconstant and varying; d) if it is at the beginnings of sections or pericopes; e) if the fuller reading has the flavor of a gloss or interpolation, or agrees word for word with parallel loci, or seems to have migrated thither from the lectionaries. But, on the contrary, we prefer the fuller reading to the briefer (unless many and distinguished witnesses preserve the briefer): ) if homoeoteleuton could furnish reason for omission; ) if what is omitted could seem to the copyists obscure, hard, superfluous, unusual, paradoxical, offensive to pious ears, erroneous, contrary to parallel loci; ) if the things omitted could be omitted without loss of sense or word structure, of which kind are the propositions which they call incidental, especially the briefer ones, and other things whose absence the copyist, 5 upon re-reading what he had written, would not easily notice; ) if the briefer reading is less agreeable to the genius, or style, or scope of the author; ) if it utterly lacks sense; ) if it is probable that it has crept in from parallel loci or the lectionaries. 2.The more difficult and obscure reading is to be preferred to that in which everything is so open and uncomplicated that any copyist could easily understand it. Now those readings most vexed unlearned copyists by their obscurity and difficulty: a) whose meaning could not easily be perceived without a more intimate knowledge of Graecisms, Hebraisms, history, archaeology, etc.; b) which, when admitted, the thought would seem to be impeded in the wording by difficulties of several kinds, or a fitting connection of the parts of speech to be dissolved, or the nerve of the arguments proffered by the author for confirming his thesis to be severed. 3.Let a harder reading be preferred to one where, when it is posited, the writing flows sweetly and smoothly. A reading is harder that is elliptical, Hebraizing, a solecism, abhorrent to the way of speaking usual to the Greeks, or offensive to the ears by sound of words. 4.The more unusual reading is superior to one wherein nothing unusual is contained. Therefore let rarer words, or at any rate those more rarely employed in the sense that must be allowed in the place the question is about, and phrases and There is no need for us to go on repeating time and time again that readings which, considered in themselves, we judge to be superior are only to be preferred to the rest in case they have the commendation of the votes of at least some ancient witnesses. For what rests on no suitable authority but only on recent and cheap ones does not enter into the reckoning. But the more the intrinsic indications of excellence are on which any reading rests, the fewer the witnesses are that there is need of for its vindication. It can therefore happen that some reading stands out with so many and so manifest criteria of its goodness that two witnesses, provided they belong to different groups or families, nay a single one, may be sufficient support. 6 constructions of words less worn by use, be preferred to the more vulgar ones. For copyists snatch eagerly at things more usual in lieu of things more recherché, and are accustomed to substitute glosses and interpretations in their stead (especially if such are supplied in the margin or parallel passages). 5.Less emphatic locutions, unless the context and scope of the author demands emphasis, come closer to genuine scripture than readings discrepant from them that have or seem to have greater force in them. For copyists of a little learning, like commentators, loved and seized at emphases. 6.A reading which, more than others, expresses a meaning apt for fostering piety (especially monastic piety), is suspect. 7.A reading is to be preferred to others wherein lurks a sense apparently indeed false but which, when the thing is more carefully examined, is found to be true. 8.Among several readings for one passage, that reading is deservedly held to be suspect which, more than others, manifestly favors the dogmas of the orthodox. For since most, not to say all, codices today surviving were completed by monks and other men given to the Catholic party, it is not credible that they neglected in the codex they were each writing out any reading whereby some dogma of the Catholics seemed to be lucidly confirmed or heresy forcefully strangled. For we know of certain readings, even manifestly false ones, provided only they supported what was pleasing to the orthodox, that from the beginnings of the third century were mordantly defended and sedulously propagated, while the remaining When I say copyists, both here and elsewhere, I wish to be understood critics as well as possessors of codices who in their books, from which others were then written out, either changed the text itself or at any rate inserted in the margin certain of their own remarks and emendations. 7 readings of the same passage, which brought no support to ecclesiastical dogma, were rashly attributed to the perfidy of heretics. 9.Since scribes were inclined to repeat at foreign points the same terminations of words and sentences which they had just written, or which, their eyes running ahead of their pens, they foresaw were soon to be written, readings that are to be explained very easily by a deception of the same pattern are of no value. 10.Similar to these inducements to error are others. Copyists, who had already read over the whole sentence before they began to write it, or were, while writing it, looking with hasty eye at the model presented to them, often seized wrongly a letter or syllable or word from what preceded or followed and thus forged new readings. If, for instance, two neighboring words began from the same syllable or letter, it not seldom happened that either the first was completely omitted or that what was specific to the first was rashly attributed to the second. Such hallucinations he will scarcely avoid who is devoting himself to writing out a somewhat more verbose little book, unless he applies his whole mind to the task, a thing which few copyists seem to have done. Readings, therefore, which flowed from this fount of error, however ancient they may be and as a result suffused into many books, are rightly rejected, especially if codices otherwise cognate are discovered to be pure of contagion from this fault.11.Among the several readings of the same passage that reading is preferable which lies as a sort of mean between the rest, that is, the one which so contains the threads as it were of all the rest that, with it admitted as primitive so to say, one 8 may easily see by what reason, or rather by what sort of error, all the rest might have sprung forth from it. 12.Let readings be rejected that smell of gloss or interpretation, which sort of interpolations the critic will sniff out with no effort of his more cleanly wiped nose. 13.Critics teach, with considerable agreement, that readings are to be rejected which have been imported into the text from the commentaries of the Fathers or from ancient scholia. But to this precept there are several caveats which have not been sufficiently noted by those who declare that interpolations, only not all, are to be principally derived from this source, and not only in the Greek codices, even the most ancient, namely our codices ABCDL, but maintain that into the old Latin version too the innumerable corruptions on any page of it whatever have been inserted from the Fathers and the Greek scholia. But what I myself think of this general cause I will briefly expound: a.I grant that no codex, however ancient, is immune from interpretations and glosses. b.I confess too (a thing which Mill and other critics long ago perceived) that not a few corruptions of this kind have emanated from the commentaries and compilations of the Fathers written in the margin of many codices. c.I warrant that the younger codices have been especially deformed by this sort of blemish; but that the most ancient ones have been corrupted from Chrysostom and the scholia today surviving one may be permitted to deny until the contrary is proved (as no one has yet managed to do) by 9 invincible arguments and sufficiently numerous examples admitting of no exception. For, first, there are not hidden other sources whence corruption has flowed into the most ancient codices, nor is the hypothesis in question needed for explaining the character of these books. Second, the most ancient codices, in those very places where they are said to be have been corrupted from the Fathers, have a great many very ancient versions agreeing with them, Coptic, Sahidic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Italic, and others, which no one will be able to show were all similarly interpolated from the commentaries, compilations, and scholia of the Greeks. The more recent Vulgate, indeed, which has of course been reworked in many places by reference to the younger Greek codices (a thing that has also happened I think to the Syriac), has perhaps imbibed some elements from the interpretations of the Greek Fathers; but the old Latin translation, which Tertullian, Cyprian, the interpreter of Irenaeus, Lucifer and other Latin Fathers used who flourished in the third and fourth centuries, whose most precious fragments are extant in the Vercellensis, Veronensis, Colbertinus, Cantabrigensis, etc. codices – this old Latin translation, therefore, although in many ways corrupt, seems yet to be sufficiently pure of this type of corruption, nor does it offer manifest evidence of such perversion. Lastly, the old books lack the most enlightening interpretations which the commentaries and scholia of the Fathers with liberal hand provide for clearing up any whatever of the most difficult loci. But who would persuade himself that the copyists had interpolated into the text 10 interpretations of no moment, which could to the reader be of scarcely any use, to the neglect of others, more worthy by far of note, whereby not a little light could really be brought to obscure places? d.For this reason neither I do not think that those ancient codices have been corrupted from the commentaries of Origen that we know of, although I would not wish to enter on a denial that some things from this man’s notices, which are praised by the ancients and seem once to have overlain the margins of the codices, had already in the most ancient times crept everywhere into the text. e.I grant that the text of the Greek codices furnished with scholia has been vitiated here and there by these very scholia. A copyist who was rather a little careless and who had the text and the scholia together before his eyes, and was looking now at that and now at these, could very easily be deceived so as to mix in with the text a reading of the scholia. For I judge that the text was rarely interpolated by these of set decision. But however that may be, you will seek in vain for manifest errors of this sort in our oldest codices and ancient versions. f.I confess that codices furnished with scholia often agree among themselves and that they are sometimes even consonant with our oldest ones. But the cause of neither consensus is located in the intention of the interpolators, who have, from similar reason, corrupted all these books from the scholia. But first as to what concerns the agreement of codices among themselves furnished with scholia, it is in no case so great that they 11 agree in all readings of the text. The codices which have the same scholia added, or to which the same commentary of Chrysostom or Theophylact or Euthymius is attached, not seldom present discrepant readings of the text. But I willingly concede that these books altogether belong to the same family. Nevertheless almost all the codices into whose text compilations and scholia have been diffused, even though they are diverse from each other, do sufficiently border in close relationship on each other and do exhibit a text that is not indeed altogether the same but yet very similar and in many places at variance with the text of the younger rank and file books. But the reason for this fact is not far to seek. For it is evident that the scholiasts and later authors of compilations almost always set in place as foundation the more ancient compilations of this sort and built their new ones on top of these. Hence it has happened that for the most part they have even retained the same text; whence, further, what results is understood, that the codices furnished with scholia have preserved many ancient readings which have disappeared from other codices of the same era. Although, therefore, they labor under several vices that are more or less proper to this family, to which, as happens, new errors, whether by the carelessness or rashness of the copyists, have even accrued, nevertheless by no means are these books, whose faults the critic may easily remove, to be spurned, but are rather to be preferred to the other rank and file ones. But as concerns the agreement of codices furnished with scholia with our most ancient codices and versions – which 12 is evident however not in the general form of the text but only in individual places – the reason for this agreement is already manifest from what we have just said. For the codices in which not a few ancient readings survive cannot fail to agree in many things with the other ancient witnesses. g.They therefore err who think that from the agreement of, for example, the codex Cantabrigiensis with the codices of the scholia they can force the conclusion that the Cantabrigiensis has been interpolated from the scholia. Those who make this determination ought to teach that the readings common to both could not have arisen otherwise than in the scholia and could not have migrated into the Cantabrigiensis from anywhere else than from these scholia. But until this is confirmed by just arguments it does not shame me to maintain the opinion opposite to it, namely that readings of this sort became known to the authors of the scholia from books that were ancient and in part similar to the Cantabrigiensis. Besides, if it can be established by examples the most appropriate possible, which I scarcely credit, that some readings, imported from the scholia or the commentaries of the Fathers, have been admixed with our most ancient codices, very little fresh help is to be expected therefrom for the discernment of genuine readings. For several that are held to have crept into those books from the scholia are so composed that they can scarcely deceive the experienced critic. On the other hand, to say how it really is, those who proclaim that so many readings have been imported into the text from the scholia are 13 chiefly doing it, not to bring assistance to the sacred text (which no danger threatens) or to be on guard lest it be vitiated by interpretations (easy to diagnose) of this sort, but much more so that they may undermine the authority of the most ancient and most excellent codices and extol rank and file books. 14.We repudiate readings first arising in the lectionaries, which are very often added at the beginnings of the assigned selection and sometimes also in the endings and the middle of it for the sake of clarity (because supplementation from the passage’s sequence was needed), and they cut short and alter that which, separated from what precedes or what follows, would seem scarcely able to be understood with sufficient correctness. However, in applying this canon there is need of almost the same cautions as are in place in judging readings born from scholia. For not all the discrepant readings met with in the lectionaries have sprung from the Ecclesiastical use of assigned selections, but many have passed into the lectionaries from the more ancient codices, displaying the complete context; nor should the oldest codices, if they anywhere agree with the lectionaries, be held for interpolations because of this consensus alone; but instead one must also examine whether there are probable causes on account of which some reading might be determined to have originally arisen in the selection, or could indeed with equal right be attributed to the genius of the copyists who were writing out the complete codices. For things which had necessarily to be supplemented at the beginning of the assigned selections could, as serving for clarity, come into the mind of copyists already of older age and be at once inserted by them in the text, 14 especially if from the words with which the selection begins a new chapter as well or a new lesson might begin. 15.Readings are to be condemned that have been brought from the Latin version into Greek books. This rule, most certain and most true, the use of which however is very rare when judging the readings of Greek codices, has been very badly abused by learned men to diminish the trustworthiness not only of Graeco-Latin codices but also of many others, even of books distinguished for age and excellence. For as often as they found a reading, discrepant from the reading of the rank and file books, in some Greek codex, which was in agreement with the Latin version, they said that the codex was Latinizing. But mere consensus, unless other indications are joined thereto, does not in any way argue that an interpolation has been made from the Latin version. But I do not wish to repeat here the admonishments of Semler, Woidius, and Michaelis for removing these unjust suspicions, or my own disputations elsewhere on this matter (Symbol. Crit. tom. 1. p. 110). For now that I have illustrated sufficiently, in accord with our brevity and counsel, those matters whereby a reading, viewed by itself, is recognized to be a good one, I must proceed now to the declaration of that on which the authority of witnesses most especially depends. Now trust is to be placed in witnesses on condition that they are not only suitable and weighty but are also in agreement among themselves.The weightiness or gravity of witnesses is judged partly from their age and partly from other things that can secure for them trustworthiness and authority. The age of 15 witnesses is not solely nor principally to be judged from the antiquity of the parchments; for in the fourteenth century, for example, an apograph from by far the oldest codex could be made that would reproduce its exemplar with the greatest accuracy; while, on the other hand, there arises even already in the fifth century, to which scarcely one or two of the codices surviving today could be referred, another codex, beside the ancient and genuine text, wherein not a few younger readings had crept into the place of the original ones. Therefore the age of the text itself rather than that of the copyist is to be looked for. But this is judged from the text’s repeated agreement with other witnesses (first of all with the translations and the Fathers) of whose age we have definite certainty, and from the abundance of the sort of readings that, like ancient coinage, betray their age, as it were by a certain verdigris, to skilled arbiters. However, one must hold on to the fact that codices exist whose text is made up of ancient and of more recent readings, so that now these and now those predominate. When it comes to use, therefore, caution is needed lest, on the basis of a few readings, culled either by chance or by design, a judgment is passed about the age of the whole text. Further, as to what concerns those things that confer greater authority on witnesses, to this head we refer repeated agreement with other witnesses of tested faithfulness and abundance of readings commendable for their native goodness. But, next, this is not so to be understood as if a codex, marred everywhere by a certain type of vice, were altogether of no authority. For a text, otherwise very outstanding and very ancient, could, in individual places, be interpolated from the lectionaries, nay even from the Latin version; yet neither for this cause is it licit utterly to spurn it or to cast the whole of it away. A codex of this sort has no validity in that type of reading which is touched by suspicion of interpolation; in the rest it can carry great weight. Nevertheless, 16 books marred a great deal by very many vices of various kinds, provided the basic text, which interpolators have deformed, was ancient and good, may sometimes abound with excellent readings to be met with in very few codices. Such a codex, indeed, is per se and on its own of small and at any rate dubious value; but if a reading be outstandingly good, and the votes of other old and weighty witnesses, although few, agree with it, the consenting testimony of that codex ought in no way to be held as nothing. Critics in addition advise that codices transcribed faithfully, carefully, diligently by a skilled and learned copyist from a good and ancient exemplar are beyond others of great importance in judging readings. But this precept cannot be applied in practice without multiple cautions. For, first, from what codex another was transcribed we very rarely know from anywhere else than from the character of the apograph. Next, a copyist could have used an exemplar ancient and yet corrupt. Besides, the faithfulness of a copyist, if indeed we are sufficiently certain about it, deserves altogether the highest praise; but a codex copied down however faithfully, but from a recent and corrupt exemplar, is of no value; while, on the contrary, a book written out by a scribe indulging his extravagant genius too much in particular places and changing the text at will, clearly does not have no authority. For you may easily discern places of this sort, corrupted by a rather audacious copyist, if you call on other witnesses, especially the more ancient ones, for assistance, and you may separate readings peculiar to that codex from the rest which are common to several. Nevertheless such a codex should be held of great value if, from definite indications, it can be inferred that the text, where the rash copyist has prowled, proceeded from an exceedingly old and good exemplar. 17 Finally, those codices are not to be preferred indiscriminately to the rest which are discovered to have been written out by a learned and expert copyist, well skilled, for instance, in the rules of orthography and sedulously guarding against the more weighty of overlooked errors. For a learned copyist will indeed not easily admit new errors; but he cannot make the text other than he has found it in his exemplar, whether good or even perverted. Since things stand thus, critics who bestow the first place on codices accurately written and spurn other books that have been defaced with various faults by the copyists, turn as equally aside from the truth as the admirers of the Elsevir editions who, by a childish error, call a text good that they have heard the typographer never or rarely made mistakes in the printing of. Let them, I beg, compare the text of the Apocalypse from the Elsevir edition with the text of this book in the Complutensian, everywhere spoilt by the laziness of the workers, and let them learn how much difference there is between a carefully written out copy and a text commendable for the abundance of its good readings. We indeed profess ourselves to belong to that heresy which trusts to no book or kind of books alone, but voluntarily embraces pieces of the genuine text wherever (the critical art bearing the torch ahead) they may be revealed. It remains for us to give some advice about judging the agreement of witnesses. For many are accustomed to confound agreement with the number of witnesses that exhibit the same reading. But that should ultimately be considered to be an agreement securing authority for witnesses where witnesses that could truly be held to be diverse are in friendly harmony among themselves. But if we bring a hundred times onto the stage “Codices of a single kind, however many, are often erroneous. Codices of not just any sort, ancient, good, and many, come into the reckoning; rather what is of value is a diversity of witnesses that are as close as possible to the source, the first hand, and are as distant as possible from each other, and show, precisely by their agreement, a genuine reading.” Bengel, App. Crit. P. 1. sect. 32. obs. 31. 18 the same authority, although it be a little changed in its dress, and it always repeat the same things, we do indeed hear an authority stable with itself, but we will be able to glory very little in a consensus of witnesses. Yet the same accounts holds of the witnesses we use in the business of criticism. Over a hundred Greek codices of the Gospels are extant, derived from one and the same common source, and they are (if you except writing errors, omissions because of homoeoteleuton, glosses picked up from the margin, and changes in words that are synonymous) for that reason harmonious in almost every syllable. He who cried up the consonance of these for a consensus of so many witnesses could enumerate six hundred codices even of the Vulgate version as so many witnesses that confirm a certain reading. But as this version is held for a single authority alone and individual exemplars are examined only with this intention, to open up a way in for establishing the primitive reading of this translation, so the same is valid also for the Greek codices which are conjoined among themselves by the bond of a closer kinship. Therefore all those codices whose testimony we use in judgment of the sacred text should be rightly separated into their classes. But in the discriminating and arranging of classes account should principally be taken of the different recensions of the sacred text. That several recensions of the text of the New Testament existed in ancient times, and still survive in the codices, versions, and asseverations of the Fathers, will not seem strange to any one who is not unaware that in very many of the books, both manuscripts and editions, even of pagan authors, Greek and Latin, the same thing has long been noticed by the most learned critics, nay more, referred to by the same term that we are “A heap of codices, written in more recent centuries at Constantinople and its vicinities, are of little value even if they be disseminated throughout all Europe and beyond. A whole class of documents, from which various readings can be collected and decided, are divided into as it were two nations, the Asiatic and the African. If there were not so few ancient Greek exemplars from Africa, the excellence of which is greatly overcome in mere number by the Asiatic crowd, it would be permitted to rely a little more on the plurality of codices.” Bengel, ibid., P. IV., num. 4., sect. 31 19 using. We request beginners, desirous of learning what the difference is between several recensions of the same book, to contrast the first Erasmian edition of the New Testamentwith the Complutensian, or, if this seem too troublesome, or an example is demanded that is sufficiently obvious even to duller eyes, to compare Bengel’s edition of the Apocalypsewith the Elsevir edition or the Curcellaean or the Maastricht edition. He who wants three or four recensions of the same book, now agreeing and now disagreeing among themselves, let him turn over the Complutensian, the Aldine, the Roman, and the Grabian editions of the Septuagint version of the OldTestament, or, if these be not to hand, let him attack Horneman’s Specimen Secundum Exercitationum Criticarum in Versionem LXX Interpretum, Haunia, 1776, where he will find, displayed in a synoptic table, a collection of varying readings from those editions. The origin of the various recensions of the text of the New Testament, in the absence of documents and testimonies sufficiently old, cannot historically be explained, nor does it belong in this place to make good the defect with conjectures. But that there existed already two recensions at least by the beginning of the third century is manifest from a collation of loci of the New Testament in Greek praised by Origen with the asseverations of Tertullian and Cyprian. For these assume a Greek text different in its whole manner and universal complexion from that which Origen used and already before him Clement of Alexandria. The former text usually agrees with the Graeco-Latin codices, with the books of the Latin version before Jerome, and (in the GospelofMatthew) with the very old Vatican B and with codices 1, 13, 69, 113, 124, 131, 157 and the Sahidic and Syro-Jerusalem versions; the latter usually agrees with codices CL 33, 102, 106 of the Gospels and (in the final chapters of Matthew, in Mark, Luke, and John) with Vatican B, with the Coptic (to wit, the Memphitic), Ethiopic, 20 Armenian, Syrian, Philoxenian versions and with the asseverations of Eusebius, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Isidore of Pelusium, and others. This latter text which, after Clement and Origen, the Alexandrians and Egyptians especially used and disseminated you would not improperly call Alexandrian. The other, used from the time of Tertullian by the Africans, Italians, Gauls, and others in the West, could not unsuitably be distinguished by the name of Western, although it did not at all confine itself within the boundaries of the Western Empire, as is clearly apparent from the agreement, though not continuous yet nevertheless frequent, of the Syrian, Jerusalem, and Sahidic versions. From each of these two very ancient recensions in the Gospels, of which alone I am here speaking, the text of codex A differs, now agreeing with the Alexandrian ones, now with the Western, now with both at once, but very often also disagreeing from both, and coming a little closer to our vulgar text. With this codex the codices EFGHS are cognate, but deformed by several more recent readings, and they are much closer than A to the vulgar text. All these (AEFGHS) seem to agree in the Gospels generally with those Fathers (as far as one may gather from the imperfect collations of them) who flourished at the close of the fourth century and in the fifth and sixth centuries in Greece, Asia Minor, and the neighboring provinces, and this recension, which from the following fact we may name the Constantinopolitan, was especially propagated in the patriarchate of Constantinople and thereafter disseminated far and wide by innumerable copyists, and was even transfused into the Slavonic version (the codices of which, however, are themselves not seldom in mutual disagreement). To none of these recensions is the Syriac version similar (so far indeed as it has been printed), but neither is it altogether dissimilar to any. In many cases it is in accord with the Alexandrian recension, in several with the 21 Western, in some even with the Constantinopolitan, but in such a way that it repudiates most of what was eventually imported into this last in later centuries. At diverse times, therefore, it seems to have been checked again and again against clearly diverse Greek codices. The text of the Gospels of Chrysostom is to this extent not unlike the Syriac version, that it too draws something from different recensions. It admits certain things from the Western recension, more from the Alexandrian, most from the Constantinopolitan, but from an older form of it and one not yet deformed by later interpolations; the reason for which mixture I suspect to have been located principally in the fact that Chrysostom consulted or, if you prefer, compiled several commentaries of previous interpreters which were fitted, not to one and the same text, but to texts varying and discrepant among themselves. Besides, no one expert in these things could be caused trouble by readings to be met with in the text and the interpretation of Chrysostom, which were born of this man’s negligence or his custom of enlivening the text rather a little freely and expressing its sense, no matter how, in his own words. Besides codices that exhibit one of these old recensions there are some extant whose text is conflated of readings from two or three recensions; of which sort are the fragments of codices PQT, which agree now with the Alexandrian codices and now with the Western ones. To this class could also perhaps be referred those which we above attached, in their greater part, to either the Alexandrian or Western ones, the codices 1, 13, 33, 69, 106, 118, 124, 131, 157, with the Ethiopic, Armenian, Sahidic, Syro-Jerusalem versions and the margin of the Philoxenian. For in all these are admixed Alexandrian readings with Western ones and This fact can be illustrated by the example of certain Latin codices which reproduce a version, certainly early, fitted to the Western recension but everywhere reworked in view of younger Greek books. Of this sort is the Brixian Latin codex which not seldom is the only one that departs from all the Graeco-Latin and older Latin codices and passes over to the side of the Greek ones. 22 vice versa. But there are also some codices in which, if you regard the universal form of the text, Constantinopolitan readings indeed are regnant, sprinkled however with more or fewer readings, whether Alexandrian or Western, to which belong the codices (to be removed from the number of the rank and file ones albeit not all endowed with the same authority): KM, 10, 11, 17, 22, 28, 36, 40, 57, 61, 63, 64, 72, 91, 108, 127, 142, 209, 229, 235, and the BooksofGospels 18, 19, 24, 36. But so what we have said about discriminating diverse recensions may more safely be transferred to the judgment of readings, either proper to one recension or common to several, it seems not inexpedient to give the reader advice about certain things that pertain to this cause. a)The critic should, with constant attention, hold as a thing known and evident what the things are whereby any recension surpasses or is inferior to the rest. The Western recension for instance is wont to preserve genuine readings that are harder, abhorrent to the nature of the Greek language, Hebraizing, ungrammatical, ill sounding – which of course would less offend any Western readers; but the Alexandrian recension studies to avoid and change whatever could be annoying to Greek ears. The Western recension tries with interpretations, circumlocutions, additions hunted out from everywhere, transpositions of words and sentences, to render the sense clearer and less inaccessible; but the Alexandrian strives to highlight phrases and words rather than the sense. The Western recension loves readings indeed that are fuller and more verbose and loves also supplements begged from parallel places; but it also sometimes omits things which seem to render the sentence obscure or repugnant to the context or to other places; in all 23 these matters the Alexandrian is wont to be more chaste. In a word, the Alexandrian censor has acted the grammarian, the Western the interpreter. But the latter often enough has unhappily administered the province of interpreter, and handled the text much more freely than was lawful; but he is not to be denied the praise of sagacity. For not seldom, for example in the history of the resurrection of the Lord, he has sniffed out difficulties and apparent inconsistencies which most commentators, not noticing the snake hidden in the grass, have walked over dryfoot, but which our age has at last more carefully judged. – In all these matters we have just touched on the Constantinopolitan recension is wont to work with the Alexandrian, being diverse from it in this respect alone, that it is still more studious of Graecisms, admits several glosses into the text, and everywhere mixes in Western readings either dissonant from the Alexandrian ones or conflated from the Alexandrian and Western. – He who desires to adjudicate the authority of witnesses alleged for each reading should have observations of this sort ready to hand. For the importance of each recension is diverse for diverse kinds of readings. In one kind the Western recension should have more weight, in another kind the Alexandrian. b)No recension in any codex still surviving is found as it originally was without taint. In the interval of time which has intervened between the origins of recensions and the births of the codices today extant, the individual codices of all recensions have been corrupted in many places. Each copyist in writing down his apograph committed a number of errors; new interpretations, glosses, additions crept in from the margin or elsewhere; the negligent and hasty scribe everywhere 24 omitted certain things; readings from another recension were brought into books of another family, etc. Therefore in the fifth and sixth centuries, codices of, for example, the Alexandrian recension could not fail to be different in many places from the primitive Alexandrian text as it had been at the beginning of the third century. But since these sort of corruptions have in no way invaded all the codices of the same recension but only deformed individual ones, it is evident not only that the reasoning of those is unsound who attribute the vices found in one codex universally to a certain recension, but it is also understood— c)—that it is of very great moment that the original reading of each recension be searched out. The codices and the Fathers and all the versions displaying the same recension must certainly be compared, and that reading must be selected from the readings to be met with in them which both the older witnesses and the intrinsic marks of goodness commend above the rest. The primitive readings in the Gospels indeed of the Alexandrian recension are dug up for the most part by easy labor when the codices CL and (in Mark, Luke, and John) B agree, especially if Clement or Origen along with the Coptic version and the other Alexandrian ones concur. It is a matter of a little deeper investigation to recognize the original reading of the Western recension, since fewer ancient witnesses, and these more corrupted, survive from this family. Where the Western codices, therefore, disagree among themselves, judgment must be made above all from internal criteria as to which one from the several readings is to be held for original. But when the primeval reading in some recension has become known, it is to be 25 attributed to this recension viewed in its generality, and the other readings neglected that have been imported into some of the codices of the same recension. d)Before it can be defined which of several readings is genuine, one must consider to what recension any reading is to be referred; nor do we particularly ask how many codices today surviving agree in some reading, but we study especially to hunt out how many ancient recensions originally had that reading. For all the witnesses whatever in agreement with themselves that pertain to the same recension ought to be held for a single authority. Therefore in practice it can happen that two or three codices have the same value as a hundred others. For some ancient recensions survive in no more than a few codices, others have overtaken innumerable handwritten books. In the Western provinces after the fourth century, and in Egypt after the sixth, very few Greek codices were written out; but in the patriarchate of Constantinople, on the other hand, Greek monks paid untiring attention to multiplying exemplars of the NewTestament right up to the fifteenth century. e)A reading in which all the ancient recensions had primitively agreed is indubitably true, even if another reading afterward invaded as many younger codices as possible. f)If all the recensions have not primitively agreed in the same reading, that reading is superior which is supported by the votes of the older ones, unless the advice we gave above, under a), about the genius of individual recensions stands in the way. g)From the consensus of the Alexandrian recension with the Western it is most firmly collected that the reading common to both is by far the most ancient; nay 26 more, if it shines with its own internal goodness at the same time, it is genuine. But if a reading of this sort seem destitute of internal criteria of truth, the importance of these criteria is to be carefully weighed, so that it may appear whether the lack of them has more weight than the consenting testimony of the Alexandrian and Western recension. h)If the Alexandrian recension agrees with the Constantinopolitan, but the Western differs from both, one must inquire whether the Western reading is of the sort where this recension is wont more often to go wrong, and at the same time the internal marks of the true and false are to be diligently weighed. i)A similar reasoning is to be used in adjudicating readings in which the Western recension agrees with the Constantinopolitan against the Alexandrian. j)[non datur] k)If some recension exhibits a reading discrepant from the readings of the remaining recensions, in no way does the number of the individual witnesses but the internal criteria of goodness determine what reading is to be preferred to the rest. We embrace, therefore, the outstandingly good reading even if supported by the votes of very few witnesses, provided it can be shown that it is the primitive reading of some ancient recension no matter which, nor does the singular condition of that recension stand in the way, note a) above. Having now expounded the things which the critic ought to attend to in judging the consensus of witnesses because of the fact that the witnesses of the sacred text do not set 27 up the same recension, let me add, in three words: one should direct one’s attention also to that distinction of witnesses whereby some are handwritten books, some authors of versions, others the Fathers enlivening places of the NewTestament. We confer the first place indeed on the handwritten codices, nor do we easily approve a reading reliant only on the trustworthiness of the versions and the Fathers. But yet an exceedingly good reading, found in very many versions and the Fathers, provided it be supported by the consensus of some ancient and outstanding codices, however few you like, is in no way to be spurned, especially if those codices are descended from diverse recensions. Finally I deem it necessary to be kept in mind that some codices are conflated from parts by far very different. For example the Alexandrian codex follows one recension in the Gospels, another in the PaulineEpistles, another in the ActsoftheApostles and the CatholicEpistles. Thus the Vatican codex also works with the Western ones in the earlier part of the GospelofMatthew, but in the last chapters of Matthew, and in Mark, Luke, and John, it agrees with the Alexandrian. To mixed codices of this sort the critic ought honestly to attend in judging the consensus of witnesses. Some things which I have been able to touch on in very few words in this place, I have declared a little more copiously in Dissert. De codicibus Evangeliorum Origenianis, Halle 1771, and in Curis in historiam textus epistolarum Paulinarum graeci, Jena 1777.