9. We have not thought it needful to insert in this place either a list of the τίτλοι of the Gospels, or of the κεφάλαια of the rest of the New Testament, or the tables of the Eusebian canons, inasmuch as they are all accessible in such ordinary books as Stephen's Greek Testament 1550 and Mill's of 1707, 1710. The Eusebian canons are given in Bishop Lloyd's Oxford [pg 069] Greek Test. of 1827 &c. and in Tischendorf's of 1859. We exhibit, however, for the sake of comparison, a tabular view of “Ancient and Modern Divisions of the New Testament.” The numbers of the ῥήματα and στίχοι in the Gospels are derived from the most approved sources, but a synopsis of the variations of manuscripts in this respect has been drawn up by Scholz, Prolegomena N. T. vol. i. Cap. v, pp. xxviii, xxix[84]. A computation of their number, as also of that of the ἀναγνώσματα, is often given in the subscription at the end of a book.
10. On the divisions into chapters and verses prevailing in our modern Bibles we need not dwell long. For many centuries the Latin Church used the Greek τίτλοι (which they called breves) with the Euthalian κεφάλαια, and some of their copies even retained the calculation by στίχοι: but about a.d. 1248 Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro, while preparing a Concordance, or index of declinable words, for the whole Bible, divided it into its present chapters, subdividing them in turn into several parts by placing the letters A, B, C, D &c. in the margin, at equal distances from each other, as we still see in many old printed books, e.g. Stephen's N. T. of 1550. Cardinal Hugo's divisions, unless indeed he merely adopted them from Lanfranc or some other scholar, such as was very probably Stephen Langton the celebrated Archbishop of Canterbury, soon took possession of copies of the Latin Vulgate; they gradually obtained a place in later Greek manuscripts, especially those written in the West of Europe, and are found in the earliest printed and all later editions of the Greek Testament, though still unknown to the Eastern Church. They certainly possess no strong claim on our preference, although they cannot now be superseded. The chapters are inconveniently and capriciously unequal in length; occasionally too they are distributed with much lack of judgement. [pg 070] Thus Matt. xv. 39 belongs to ch. xvi, and perhaps ch. xix. 30 to ch. xx; Mark ix. 1 properly appertains to the preceding chapter; Luke xxi. 1-4 had better be united with ch. xx, as in Mark xii. 41-44; Acts v might as well commence with Acts iv. 32; Acts viii. 1 (or at least its first clause) should not have been separated from ch. vii; Acts xxi concludes with strange abruptness. Bp. Terrot (on Ernesti's Institutes, vol. ii. p. 21) rightly affixes 1 Cor. iv. 1-5 to ch. iii. Add that 1 Cor. xi. 1 belongs to ch. x; 2 Cor. iv. 18 and vi. 18 to ch. v and ch. vii respectively: Col. iv. 1 must clearly go with ch. iii.
In commendation of the modern verses still less can be said. 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 7959[85], 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; and Cardinal Hugo's divisions by letters of the alphabet, as well as those adopted by Sanctes Pagninus in his Latin version of the whole Bible (1528), having proved inconveniently large, Robert Stephen, the justly celebrated printer and editor of the Greek Testament, undertook to form a system of verse-divisions, taking for his model the short verses into which the Hebrew Bible had already been divided, as it would seem by Rabbi Nathan, in the preceding century. We are told by Henry Stephen (Praef. Concordantiae) that his father Robert executed this design on a journey from Paris to Lyons “inter equitandum[86];” that is, we [pg 071] presume, while resting at the inns on the road. Certain it is that, although every such division must be in some measure arbitrary, a very little care would have spared us many of the disadvantages attending that which Robert Stephen first published at Geneva in his Greek Testament of 1551, from which it was introduced into the text of the Genevan English Testament of 1557, into Beza's Greek Testament of 1565, and thence into subsequent editions. It is now too late to correct the errors of the verse-divisions, but they can be neutralized, at least in a great degree, by the plan adopted by modern critics, of banishing both the verses and the chapters into the margin, and breaking the text into paragraphs, better suited to the sense. The pericopae or sections of Bengel[87] (whose labours will be described in their proper place) have been received with general approbation, and adopted, with some modification, by several recent editors. Much pains were bestowed on their arrangement of the paragraphs by the Revisers of the English version of 1881.
11. We now come to the contents of manuscripts of the Greek Testament, and must distinguish regular copies of the sacred volume or of parts of it from Lectionaries, or Church-lesson books, containing only extracts, arranged in the order of Divine Service daily throughout the year. The latter we will consider presently: with regard to the former it is right to bear in mind, that comparatively few copies of the whole New Testament remain; the usual practice being to write the four Gospels in one volume, the Acts and Epistles in another: manuscripts of the Apocalypse, which was little used for public worship, being much rarer than those of the other books. Occasionally the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles form a single volume; sometimes the Apocalypse is added to other books; as to the Pauline Epistles in Lambeth 1186, or even to the Gospels, in a later hand (e.g. Cambridge University Libr. Dd. 9. 69: Gospels No. 60, dated a.d. 1297). The Apocalypse, being a short work, is often [pg 072] found bound up in volumes containing very miscellaneous matter (e.g. Vatican. 2066 or B; Brit. Mus. Harleian. 5678, No. 31; and Oxon. Barocc. 48, No. 28). The Codex Sinaiticus of Tischendorf is the more precious, in that it happily exhibits the whole New Testament complete: so would also the Codices Alexandrinus and Ephraemi, but that they are sadly mutilated: no other uncial copies have this advantage, and very few cursives. In England only five such are known, the great Codex Leicestrensis, which is imperfect at the beginning and end; Butler 2 (Evan. 201) Additional 11837, dated a.d. 1357, and (Evan. 584) Additional 17469, both in the British Museum; Canonici 34 (Evan. 488) in the Bodleian, dated a.d. 1515-16. Additional MS. 28815 (Evan. 603, and Paul 266, and Apoc. 89) in the British Museum and B-C. ii. 4 at Sir Roger Cholmely's School, Highgate, are separated portions of one complete copy. The Apocalypse in the well-known Codex Montfortianus at Dublin is usually considered to be by a later hand. Besides these Scholz enumerates only nineteen foreign copies of the whole New Testament[88]; making but twenty-four in all, as far as was then known, out of the vast mass of extant documents.
12. Whether copies contain the whole or a part of the sacred volume, the general order of the books is the following: Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles, Apocalypse. A solitary manuscript of the fifteenth century (Venet. 10, Evan. 209) places the Gospels between the Pauline Epistles and the Apocalypse[89]; in the Codices Sinaiticus, Leicestrensis, Fabri (Evan. 90), and Montfortianus, as in the Bodleian Canonici 34, the copy in the King's Library Brit. Mus. (Act. 20), and the [pg 073] Complutensian edition (1514), the Pauline Epistles precede the Acts. The Pauline Epistles stand between the Acts and the Catholic Epistles in Phillipps 1284, Evan. 527; Parham 71. 6, Evan. 534; Upsal, Sparfwenfeldt 42, Acts 68; Paris Reg. 102 A, Acts 119; Reg. 103 A, Acts 120. In Oxford Bodl. Miscell. 74 the order is Acts, Cath. Epp., Apocalypse, Paul. Epp., but an earlier hand wrote from 3 John onwards. In Evan. 51 Dr. C. R. Gregory points out minute indications that the scribe, not the binder, set the Gospels last. In the Memphitic and Thebaic the Acts follow the Catholic Epistles (see below, vol. ii, chap. iii). The Codex Basiliensis (No. 4 of the Epistles), Acts Cod. 134, Brit. Mus. Addl. 19388, Lambeth 1182, 1183, and Burdett-Coutts III. 1, have the Pauline Epistles immediately after the Acts and before the Catholic Epistles, as in our present Bibles. Scholz's Evan. 368 stands thus, St. John's Gospel, Apocalypse, then all the Epistles; in Havniens. 1 (Cod. 234 of the Gospels, a.d. 1278) the order appears to be Acts, Paul. Ep., Cath. Ep., Gospels; in Ambros. Z 34 sup. at Milan, Dean Burgon testifies that the Catholic and Pauline Epistles are followed by the Gospels; in Basil. B. vi. 27 or Cod. 1, the Gospels have been bound after the Acts and Epistles; while in Evan. 175 the Apocalypse stands between the Acts and Catholic Epistles; in Evan. 51 the binder has set the Gospels last: these, however, are mere accidental exceptions to the prevailing rule[90]. The four Gospels are almost invariably found in their familiar order, although in the Codex Bezae (as we partly saw above, p. [65]) they stand Matthew, John, Luke, Mark[91]; in the Codex Monacensis (X) John, Luke, [pg 074] Mark, Matthew (but two leaves of Matthew also stand before John), also in the Latin k; in Cod. 90 (Fabri) John, Luke, Matthew, Mark; in Cod. 399 at Turin John, Luke, Matthew, an arrangement which Dr. Hort refers to the Commentary of Titus of Bostra on St. Luke which accompanies it; in the Curetonian Syriac version Matthew, Mark, John, Luke. In the Pauline Epistles that to the Hebrews immediately follows the second to the Thessalonians in the four great Codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Ephraemi[92]: in the copy from which the Cod. Vatican. was taken the Hebrews followed the Galatians (above, p. [57]). The Codex Claromontanus, the document next in importance to these four, sets the Colossians appropriately enough next to its kindred and contemporaneous Epistle to the Ephesians, but postpones that to the Hebrews to Philemon, as in our present Bibles: an arrangement which at first, no doubt, originated in the early scruples prevailing in the Western Church, with respect to the authorship and canonical authority of that divine epistle.
13. 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. These Lectionaries consist either of lessons from the Gospels, and are then called Evangelistaria or Evangeliaria (εὐαγγελιστάρια)[93]; or from the Acts and Epistles; termed Praxapostolos (πραξαπόστολος) or Apostolos[94]: the general name of Lectionary is often, though incorrectly, confined to the latter class. A few books called ἀποστολοευαγγέλια have lessons [pg 075] taken both from the Gospels and the Apostolic writings. In Euchologies, or Books of Offices, wherein both the Apostolos and the Gospels are found, the former always precede in each Office, just as the Epistle precedes the Gospel in the Service-books of Western Christendom. The peculiar arrangement of Lectionaries renders them very unfit for the hasty, partial, cursory collation which has befallen too many manuscripts of the other class, and this circumstance, joined with the irksomeness of using Service-books never familiar to the habits even of scholars in this part of Europe, has caused these documents to be so little consulted, that the contents of the very best and oldest among them have until recently been little known. Matthaei, of whose elaborate and important edition of the Greek Testament (12 tom. Riga 1782-88) we shall give an account hereafter, has done excellent service in this department; two of his best copies, the uncials B and H (Nos. 47, 50), being Evangelistaria. The present writer also has collated three noble uncials of the same rank, Arundel 547 being of the ninth century, Parham 18 bearing date a.d. 980, Harleian 5598, a.d. 995. Not a few other uncial Lectionaries remain quite neglected, for though none of them perhaps are older than the eighth century, the ancient character was retained for these costly and splendid Service-books till about the eleventh century (Montfaucon, Palaeogr. Graec. p. 260), before which time the cursive hand was generally used in other Biblical manuscripts. There is, of course, no place in a Lectionary for divisions by κεφάλαια, for the so-called Ammonian sections, or for the canons of Eusebius.
The division of the New Testament into Church-lessons was, however, of far more remote antiquity than the employment of separate volumes to contain them. Towards the end of the fourth century, that golden age of Patristic theology, Chrysostom recognizes some stated order of the lessons as familiar to all his hearers, for he exhorts them to peruse and mark beforehand the passages (περικοπαί[95]) of the Gospels which were to be publicly read to them the ensuing Sunday or Saturday[96]. All the information [pg 076] we can gather favours the notion that there was no great difference between the calendar of Church-lessons in earlier and later stages. Not only do they correspond in all cases where such agreement is natural, as in the proper services for the great feasts and fasts, but in such purely arbitrary arrangements as the reading of the book of Genesis, instead of the Gospels, on the week days of Lent; of the Acts all the time between Easter and Pentecost[97]; and the selection of St. Matthew's history of the Passion alone at the Liturgy on Good Friday[98]. 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. Not only in the margin, but even in the text itself are perpetually interpolated, mostly in vermilion or red ink, the beginning (ἀρχή or αρχ) and ending (τέλος or τελ) of each lesson, and the several words to be inserted or substituted in order to suit the purpose of public reading; from which source (as we have stated above, p. [11]) various readings have almost unavoidably sprung: e.g. in Acts iii. 11 τοῦ ἰαθέντος χωλοῦ of the Lectionaries ultimately displaced αὐτοῦ from the text itself.
We purpose to annex to this Chapter a table of lessons throughout the year, according to the use laid down in Synaxaria, Menologies, and Lectionaries, as well to enable the student to compare the proper lessons of the Greek Church with our own, as to facilitate reference to the manuscripts themselves, which are now placed almost out of the reach of the inexperienced. On comparing the manner in which the terms are used by different scribes and authors, we conceive that Synaxarion (συναξάριον) is, like Eclogadion, a name used for a table of daily lessons for the year beginning at Easter, and that these have varied but slightly in the course of many ages throughout the whole Eastern Church; that tables of Saints' day lessons, called Menologies, (μηνολόγιον), distributed in order of the months from September (when the new year and the indiction began) to August, differed widely from each other, both in respect to the lessons read and the days kept holy[99]. While the great feasts remained entirely the same, different generations and provinces and even dioceses had their favourite worthies, whose memory they specially cherished; so that the character of the menology (which sometimes forms a larger, sometimes but a small portion of a Lectionary) will often guide us to the country and district in which the volume itself was written. The Parham Evangelistarium 18 affords us a conspicuous example of this fact: coming from a region of which we know but little (Ciscissa in Cappadocia Prima), its menology in many particulars but little resembles those usually met with[100].
14. It only remains to say a few words about the notation adopted to indicate the several classes of manuscripts of the Greek Testament. These classes are six in number; that containing [pg 078] the Gospels (Evangelia or Evan.), or the Acts and Catholic Epistles (Act. and Cath.), or the Pauline Epistles (Paul.), or the Apocalypse (Apoc.), or Lectionaries of the Gospels (Evangelistaria or Evst.), or those of the Acts and Epistles (Apostolos or Apost.). When one manuscript (as often happens) belongs to more than one of these classes, its distinct parts are numbered separately, so that a copy of the whole New Testament will appear in four lists, and be reckoned four times over. All critics are agreed in distinguishing the documents written in the uncial character by capital letters; the custom having originated in the accidental circumstance that the Codex Alexandrinus was designated as Cod. A in the lower margin of Walton's Polyglott. Lectionaries in uncial letters are not marked by capitals, but by Arabic numerals, like cursive manuscripts of all classes[101]. Of course no system can escape some attendant evils. Even the catalogue of the later manuscripts is often upon its first appearance full of mis-statements, of repetitions and loose descriptions, which must be remedied and supplied in subsequent examination, so far as opportunity is granted from time to time. In describing the uncials (as we purpose to do in the two next chapters) our course is tolerably plain; but the lists that comprise the last eight chapters of this volume, and which respectively detail the cursive manuscripts and the Lectionaries of the Greek Testament, must be regarded only as an approximation to what such an enumeration ought to be, though much pains and time have been spent upon them: the comparatively few copies which seem to be sufficiently known are distinguished by an asterisk from their less fortunate kindred.
For indeed the only method of grappling with the perplexity produced by the large additions of manuscripts, especially of the cursive character, which constant discovery has effected during late years, is to enumerate arithmetically those which have been supplied from time to time, as was done in the last edition of this work, carefully noting if they have been examined by a competent judge or especially if they have been properly collated. In the Appendix of the third edition, the late Dean Burgon continued his work in this direction by adding a list of some [pg 079] three hundred and seventy-four cursives, besides the others with which he had previously increased the number before known. That list, as was stated in the Postscript to the Preface, awaited an examination and collation by competent persons. Such an examination has been made in many instances by Dr. C. R. Gregory, who also, whether fired by Dean Burgon's example as shown in his published letters in the Guardian or not, has in his turn added with most commendable diligence in research a very large number of MSS. previously unknown. Some more have been added in this edition, but much work is still required of scholars, before this mass of materials can be used with effect by Textual students.