2. Erasmus' New Testament was by six years the earlier published, though it was printed two years later than the Complutensian. Its editor, both in character and fortunes, presents a striking contrast with Ximenes; yet what he lacked of the Castilian's firmness he more than atoned for by his true love of learning, and the cheerfulness of spirit that struggled patiently, if not boldly, with adversity. Desiderius Erasmus (ἐράσμιος, i.e. Gerald) was born at Rotterdam in 1465, or, perhaps, a year or two later, the illegitimate son of reputable and (but for that sin) of virtuous parents. Soon left an orphan, he was forced to take reluctantly the minor orders, and entered the priesthood in 1492. Thenceforward his was the hard life of a solitary and wandering man of letters, earning a precarious subsistence from booksellers or pupils[158], now learning Greek at Oxford (but αὐτοδίδακτος)[159], now teaching it at Cambridge (1510); losing by his reckless wit the friends his vast erudition had won; restless and unfrugal, perhaps, yet always labouring faithfully and with diligence. He was in England when John Froben, a celebrated publisher at Basle, moved by the report of the forthcoming Spanish Bible and eager to forestall it, made application to Erasmus, through a common friend, to undertake immediately an edition of the N. T.: “se daturum pollicetur, quantum alius quisquam,” is the argument employed. This proposal was sent on April 17, 1515, years before which time Erasmus had prepared numerous annotations to illustrate a revised Latin version he had long projected. On September 11 it was yet unsettled whether this, improved version should stand by the Greek in a parallel column (the plan actually adopted), or be printed separately: [pg 183] yet the colophon at the end of Erasmus' first edition, a large folio of 1,027 pages in all, is dated February, 1516; the end of the Annotations, March 1, 1516; Erasmus' dedication to Leo X, Feb. 1, 1516; and Froben's Preface, full of joyful hope and honest pride in the friendship of the first of living authors, Feb. 24, 1516. Well might Erasmus, who had besides other literary engagements to occupy his time, declare subsequently that the volume “praecipitatum fuit verius quam editum;” yet both on the title-page, and in his dedication to the Pope, he allows himself to employ widely different language[160]. When we read the assurance he addressed to Leo, “Novum ut vocant testamentum universum ad Graecae originis fidem recognovimus, idque non temere neque levi opera, sed adhibitis in consilium compluribus utriusque linguae codicibus, nec iis sane quibuslibet, sed vetustissimis simul et emendatissimis,” it is almost painful to be obliged to remember that a portion of ten months at the utmost could have been devoted to his task by Erasmus; while the only manuscripts he can be imagined to have constantly used are Codd. Evan. 2, Act. Paul. 2 and Paul. 7, with occasional reference to Evan. Act. Paul. 1 and Act. Paul. 4 (all still at Basle) for the remainder of the New Testament, to which add Apoc. 1, now happily recovered, alone for the Apocalypse. All these, excepting Evan. Act. Paul. 1, were neither ancient nor particularly valuable, and of Cod. 1 he professed to make but small account[161]. As Apoc. 1 was mutilated in the last six [pg 184] verses, Erasmus turned these into Greek from the Latin; and some portions of his self-made version, which are found (however some editors may speak vaguely) in no one known Greek manuscript whatever, still cleave to our received text[162]. Besides this scanty roll, however, he not rarely refers in his Annotations to other manuscripts he had seen in the course of his travels (e.g. on Heb. i. 3; Apoc. i. 4; viii. 13), yet too indistinctly for his allusions to be of much use to critics. Some such readings, as alleged by him, have not been found elsewhere (e.g. Acts xxiv. 23; Rom. xii. 20), and may have been cited loosely from distant recollection (comp. Col. iii. 3; Heb. iv. 12; 2 Pet. iii. 1; Apoc. ii. 18).
When Ximenes, in the last year of his life, was shown Erasmus' edition which had thus got the start of his own, and his editor, Stunica, sought to depreciate it, the noble old man replied, “would God that all the Lord's people were prophets! produce better, if thou canst; condemn not the industry of another[163].” His generous confidence in his own work was not misplaced. He had many advantages over the poor scholar and the enterprising printer of Basle, and had not let them pass unimproved. The [pg 185] typographical errors of the Complutensian Greek have been stated; Erasmus' first edition is in that respect the most faulty book I know. Oecolampadius, or John Hausschein of Basle [1482-1531], afterwards of some note as a disputer with Luther on the Sacramentarian controversy, had undertaken this department for him; and was glad enough to serve under such a chief; but Froben's hot haste gave him little leisure to do his part. No less than 501 itacisms are imported from the manuscripts into his printed text, and the ν ἐφελκυστικόν is perpetually used with verbs, before a consonant beginning the next word. We must, however, impute it to design that ι subscript, which is elsewhere placed pretty correctly, is here set under η in the plural of the subjunctive mood active, but not in the singular (e.g. James ii. ἐπιβλέψῃτε, εἴπῃτε bis, but ver. 2 εἰσέλθη bis). With regard to the text, the difference between the two editions is very wide in the Apocalypse, the text of the Complutensian being decidedly preferable; elsewhere they resemble each other more closely, and while we fully admit the error of Stunica and his colleagues in translating from the Latin version into Greek, 1 John v. 7, 8, it would appear that Erasmus has elsewhere acted in the same manner, not merely in cases which for the moment admitted no choice, but in places where no such necessity existed: thus in Acts ix. 5, 6, the words from σκληρόν to πρὸς αὐτόν are interpolated from the Vulgate, partly by the help of Acts xxvi[164].
Erasmus died at Basle in 1536, having lived to publish four editions besides that of 1516. The second has enlarged annotations, and very truly bears on its title the statement “multo quam antehac diligentius ab Er. Rot. recognitum;” for a large portion of the misprints, and not a few readings of the first edition, are herein corrected, the latter chiefly on the authority of a fresh codex, Evan. Act. Paul. 3; The colophon to the Apocalypse is dated 1518, Froben's Epistle to the reader, Feb. 5, 1519. In this edition ι subscript is for the most part set right; Carp., Eus. t., κεφ. t., τίτλοι, Am., Eus. are added [pg 186] in the Gospels; Dorotheus' “Lives of the Four Evangelists” (see Act. 89) stood before St. Matthew in 1516; but now the longer “Lives” by Sophronius, with Theophylact's “Prologues,” are set before each Gospel. Κεφάλαια (not the Euthalian) are given in both editions in Rom. 1, 2 Corinth. only, but the Latin chapters are represented in the margin throughout, with the subdivisions A, B, C, D. Of these two editions put together 3,300 copies were printed. The third edition (1522) is chiefly remarkable for its insertion of 1 John v. 7, 8 in the Greek text[165], under the circumstances described above, Vol. I. p. 200, in consequence of Erasmus' controversy with Stunica and H. Standish, Bp. of St. Asaph (d. 1534), and with a much weaker antagonist, Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York, who objected to his omission of a passage which no Greek codex was then known to contain. This edition again was said to be “tertio jam ac diligentius ... recognitum,” and contains also “Capita argumentorum contra morosos quosdam ac indoctos,” which he subsequently found reason to enlarge. The fourth edition (dated March, 1527) contains the text in three parallel columns, the Greek, the Latin Vulgate, and Erasmus' recension of it. He had seen the Complutensian Polyglott in 1522, shortly after the publication of his third edition, and had now the good sense to avail himself of its aid in the improvement of the text, especially in the Apocalypse, wherein he amended from it at least ninety readings. His last edition of 1535 once more discarded the Latin Vulgate, and differs very little from the fourth as regards the text[166].
A minute collation of all Erasmus' editions is a desideratum we may one day come to see supplied. The present writer hopes [pg 187] soon to publish a full comparison of his first and second editions with the Complutensian text[167], as also with that of Stephen 1550, of Beza 1565, and of Elzevir 1624. All who have followed Mill over any portion of the vast field he endeavoured to occupy, will feel certain that his statements respecting their divergences are much below the truth: such as they are, we repeat them for want of more accurate information. He estimates that Erasmus' second edition contains 330 changes from the first for the better, seventy for the worse (N. T., Proleg. § 1134); that the third differs from the second in 118 places (ibid. § 1138)[168]; the fourth from the third in 106 or 113 places, ninety being those from the Apocalypse just spoken of (ibid. § 1141)[169]. The fifth he alleges to differ from the fourth only four times, so far as he noticed (ibid. § 1150): but we meet with as many variations in St. James' Epistle alone[170].
3. In 1518 appeared the Graeca Biblia at Venice, from the celebrated press of Aldus: the work professes to be grounded on a collation of many most ancient copies[171]. However true this must be with regard to the Old Testament, which was now published in Greek for the first time, Aldus follows the first edition of Erasmus so closely in the New as to reproduce his very errors of the press (Mill, N. T., Proleg. § 1122), even those which Oecolampadius had corrected in the list of errata; though Aldus is stated to differ from Erasmus in about 200 places, for the better or worse[172]. If this edition was really [pg 188] revised by means of manuscripts (Cod. 131) rather than by mere conjecture, we know not what they were, or how far intelligently employed.
Another edition out of the many which now began to swarm, wherein the testimony of manuscripts is believed to have been followed, is that of Simon Colinaeus, Paris, 1534, in which the text is an eclectic mixture of the Complutensian and Erasmian[173]. Mill states (Proleg. § 1144) that in about 150 places Colinaeus deserts them both, and that his variations are usually supported by the evidence of known codices (Evan. 119, 120 at Paris, and Steph. ια᾽, i.e. Act. 8, Paul. 10, have been suggested), though a few still remain which may perhaps be deemed conjectural. Wetstein (N. T., Proleg. vol. i. p. 142) thinks that for Bogard's Paris edition of 1543 with various readings Evan. 120 or Steph. ιδ᾽ might have been used, but his own references hardly favour that notion.
4. The editions of Robert Stephen (Estienne), mainly by reason of their exquisite beauty, have exercised a far wider influence than these, and Stephen's third or folio edition of 1550 is by many regarded as the received or standard text. This eminent and resolute man [1503-59], “whose Biblical work taken altogether had perhaps more influence than that of any other single man in the sixteenth century[174],” early commenced his useful career as a printer at Paris, and, having incurred the enmity of the Doctors of the Sorbonne for his editions of the Latin Vulgate, was yet protected and patronised by Francis I [d. 1547] and his son Henry II. It was from the Royal Press that his three principal editions of the Greek N. T. were issued, the [pg 189] fourth and last being published in 1551 at Geneva, to which town he finally withdrew the next year, and made public profession of the Protestant opinions which had long been gathering strength in his mind. The editions of 1546, 1549 are small 12mo in size, most elegantly printed with type cast at the expense of Francis: the opening words of the Preface common to both, “O mirificam Regis nostri optimi et praestantissimi principis liberalitatem...” have given them the name by which they are known among connoisseurs. Erasmus and his services to sacred learning Stephen does not so much as name, nor indeed did he as yet adopt him for a model: he speaks of “codices ipsa vetustatis specie pene adorandos” which he had met with in the King's Library, by which, he boldly adds, “ita hunc nostrum recensuimus, ut nullam omnino literam secus esse pateremur quam plures, iique meliores libri, tanquam testes, comprobarent.” The Complutensian, as he admits, assisted him greatly, and he notes its close connexion with the readings of his manuscripts[175]. Mill assures us (Proleg. § 1220) that Stephen's first and second editions differ but in sixty-seven places. My own collation of the two books gives 139 cases of divergence in the text, twenty-eight in punctuation. They differ jointly from the third edition 334 times in the text, twenty-seven in punctuation. In the Apocalypse the first and second editions are close to the text of Erasmus, differing from each other but in eleven places, while the third edition follows the Complutensian or other authorities against the first in sixty-one places. In the folio or third edition of 1550 the various readings of the codices, obscurely referred to in the Preface to that of 1546, are entered in the margin. This fine volume (bearing on its title-page, in honour of Henry II, the inscription Βασιλεῖ τ᾽ ἀγαθῷ, κρατερῷ τ᾽ αἰχμητῇ) derives much importance from its being the earliest ever published with critical apparatus. In the Preface or Epistle to the Reader, written after the example of the Complutensian editors both in Greek and Latin, his authorities are declared to be sixteen; viz. α', the Spanish Polyglott; β', which we have already discussed (above, [pg 190] p. [124], note 3), γ᾽, δ᾽, ε᾽ ϛ᾽, ζ᾽, η᾽, ι᾽, ιε᾽ taken from King Henry II's Library; the rest (i.e. θ᾽, ια᾽, ιβ᾽, ιγ᾽, ιδ᾽, ιϛ᾽) are those ἂ αὐτοὶ πανταχόθεν συνηθροίσαμεν, or, as the Latin runs, “quae undique corrogare licuit:” these, of course, were not necessarily his own, one at least (ιγ᾽, Act. 9, Paul. 11) we are sure was not. Although Robert Stephen professed to have collated the whole sixteen for his two previous editions, and that too ὡς οἷόν τε ἦν ἐπιμελέστατα, this part of his work is now known to be due to his son Henry [1528-98], who in 1546 was only eighteen years old (Wetstein, N. T., Proleg., vol. i. pp. 143-4). The degree of accuracy attained in this collation may be estimated from the single instance of the Complutensian, a book printed in very clear type, widely circulated, and highly valued by Stephen himself. Deducting mere errata, itacisms, and such like, it differs from his third edition in more than 2,300 places, of which (including cases where π. or πάντες stands for all his copies) it is cited correctly 554 times (viz. 164 in the Gospels, ninety-four in St. Paul, seventy-six in the Acts and Catholic Epistles, 220 in the Apocalypse), and falsely no less than fifty-six times, again including errors from a too general use of πάντες[176]. I would not say with some that these authorities stand in the margin more for parade than use, yet the text is perpetually at variance with the majority of them, and in 119 places with them all[177]. If we trust ourselves once more to the guidance of Mill (Proleg. § 1228), the folio of 1550 departs from its smaller predecessors of 1546, 1549, in 284 readings[178], chiefly to adopt the text of Erasmus' fifth [pg 191] edition, though even now the Complutensian is occasionally preferred (e.g. εὐλογήσας Matt. xxvi. 26), most often in the Apocalypse, and that with very good reason. Of his other fifteen authorities, ια᾽ (= Act. 8) and ιϛ᾽ (= Apoc. 3) have never been identified, but were among the six in private hands: β᾽ certainly is Cod. D or Bezae; the learned have tried, and on the whole successfully, to recognize the remainder, especially those in the Royal (or Imperial, or National) Library at Paris. In that great collection Le Long has satisfied us that γ᾽ is probably Evan. 4; δ᾽ is certainly Evan. 5; ε᾽ Evan. 6; ϛ᾽ Evan. 7; η᾽ Evan. L; ζ᾽ he rightly believed to be Evan. 8 (above, p. [191], note); ι᾽ appears to be Act. 7. Of those in the possession of individuals in Stephen's time, Bp. Marsh (who in his “Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis,” 1795, was led to examine this subject very carefully) has proved that ιγ᾽ is Act. 9; Wetstein thought θ᾽ was Evan. 38 (which however see); Scholz seems to approve of Wetstein's conjecture which Griesbach doubted (N. T., Proleg., Sect. 1. p. xxxviii), that ιβ᾽ is Evan. 9: Griesbach rightly considers ιδ᾽ to be Evan. 120; ιε᾽ was seen by Le Long to be Act. 10: these last four are now in the Royal Library. It has proved the more difficult to settle them, as Robert Stephen did not even print all the materials that Henry had gathered; many of whose various readings were published subsequently by Beza[179] from the collator's own manuscript, which itself must have been very defective. With all its faults, however, the edition of 1550 was a foundation on which others might hereafter build, and was unquestionably of great use in directing the attention of students to the authorities on which alone the true text of Scripture is based. This standard edition contains the following supplementary matter besides the Epistle to the reader: Chrysostom's Hom. I in S. Matthaeum (then first [pg 192] published): Carp., Eus. t.: Πίναξ μαρτυριῶν of O. T. passages cited in the N. T. being (1) literal, (2) virtual: seventy-two Hexameter lines, headed Ερρικος ο Ρωβερτου Στεφανου, φιλοθεω παντι: prol. by Theophylact following “Lives” by Sophronius and Dorotheus of Tyre, with κεφ. t. before each Gospel: τίτλ., κεφ., Am., Eus. Before the Acts stand Ἀποδημία Παύλου and Euthalius περὶ τῶν χρόνων, κεφ. t. Before the Epistles is a new title-page. Chrysostom's prol. on the Pauline Epistles begins the new volume. Each separate Epistle has prefixed prol. (chiefly by Theodoret) and κεφ. t. The Acts and Epistles have κεφ., but the Apocalypse no prol. or κεφ., except the ordinary Latin chapters, which are given throughout the N. T., subdivided by letters.
R. Stephen's smaller edition (16mo), published in 1551 at Geneva, though that name is not on the title-page, is said to contain the Greek Text of 1550 almost unchanged[180], set between the Vulgate and Erasmus' Latin versions. In this volume we first find our present division of the N. T. into verses: “triste lumen,” as Reuss calls it (p. 58), “nec posthac extinguendum.”
5. Theodore de Bèze [1519-1605], a native of Vezelai in the Nivernois, after a licentious youth, resigned his ecclesiastical preferments at the age of twenty-nine to retire with the wife of his early choice to Geneva, that little city to which the genius of one man has given so prominent a place in the history of the sixteenth century. His noble birth and knowledge of the world, aided by the impression produced at the Conference at Poissy (1561) by his eloquence and learning, easily gained for Beza the chief place among the French Reformed on the death of their teacher Calvin in 1564. Of his services in connexion with the two Codd. D we have already spoken: he himself put forth at intervals, besides his own elegant Latin version published in 1556, ten editions of the N. T. (viz. four in folio in the years 1565, 1582, 1588, 1598, and six in octavo in 1565, 1567, 1580, 1591, 1604, and 1611), the Latin Vulgate, and Annotations[181]. A better [pg 193] commentator perhaps than a critic, but most conspicuous as the earnest leader of a religious party, Beza neither sought very anxiously after fresh materials for correcting the text, nor made any great use of what were ready at hand, namely, his own two great codices, the papers of Henry Stephen, and Tremellius' Latin version of the Peshitto. All his editions vary somewhat from Stephen and from each other, yet there is no material difference between any of them[182]. He exhibits a tendency, not the less blameworthy because his extreme theological views would tempt him thereto, towards choosing that reading out of several which might best suit his own preconceived opinions. Thus in Luke ii. 22 he adopts (and our Authorized English version condescends to follow his judgement) τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ αὐτῆς from the Complutensian, for which he could have known of no manuscript authority whatever: ejus of the Vulgate would most naturally be rendered by αὐτοῦ (see Campbell in loc.). Wetstein calculates that Beza's text differs from Stephen's in some fifty places (an estimate we shall find below the mark), and that either in his translation or his Annotations he departs from Stephen's Greek text in 150 passages (Wetst. N. T., Proleg., Tom. ii. p. 7).
6. The brothers Bonaventure and Abraham Elzevir set up a printing-press at Leyden, which maintained its reputation for [pg 194] elegance and correctness throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century. One of their minute editions, so much prized by bibliomanists, was a Greek Testament, 24mo, 1624, alleging on the title-page (there is no Preface whatever) to be ex Regiis aliisque optimis editionibus cum curâ expressum: by Regiis, we presume, Stephen's editions are meant, and especially that of 1550. The supposed accuracy (for which its good name is not quite deserved) and the great neatness of this little book procured for it much popularity. When the edition was exhausted, a second appeared in 1633, having the verses broken up into separate sentences, instead of their numbers being indicated in the margin, as in 1624. In the Preface it seems to allude to Beza's N. T., without directly naming him: “Ex regiis ac ceteris editionibus, quae maxime ac prae ceteris nunc omnibus probantur.” To this edition is prefixed, as in 1624, a table of quotations (πίναξ μαρτυριῶν) from the Old Testament, to which are now added tables of the κεφάλαια of the Gospels, ἔκθεσις κεφαλαίων of the Acts and all the Epistles. Of the person entrusted with its superintendence we know nothing; nearly all his readings are found either in Stephen's or Beza's N. T. (he leans to the latter in preference[183]); but he speaks of the edition of 1624 as that “omnibus acceptam;” and boldly states, with a confidence which no doubt helped on its own accomplishment, “textum ergo habes nunc ab omnibus receptum, in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus.” His other profession, that of superior correctness, is also a little premature: “ut si quae vel minutissimae in nostro, aut in iis, quos secuti sumus libris, superessent mendae, cum judicio ac cura tollerentur.” Although some of the worst misprints of the edition of 1624 are amended in that of 1633 (Matt. vi. 34; Acts xxvii. 13; 1 Cor. x. 10; Col. ii. 13; 1 Thess. ii. 17; Heb. viii. 9; 2 Pet. i. 7), others just as gross are retained (Acts ix. 3; Rom. vii. 2; xiii. 5; 1 Cor. xii. 23; xiii. 3; 2 Cor. iv. 4; v. 19; viii. 8; Heb. xii. 9; Apoc. iii. 12; vii. 7; xviii. 16), to which much be added a few peculiar to itself (e.g. Mark iii. 10; Rom. xv. 3; 1 Cor. ix. 2; 2 Cor. i. 11; vi. 16; Col. i. 7; iv. 7; Apoc. xxii. 3): ἐθύθη in 1 Cor. v. 7 should not be reckoned as an [pg 195] erratum, since it was adopted designedly by Beza, and after him by both the Elzevir editions. Of real various readings between the two Elzevirs we mark but seven or eight instances (in six of which that of 1633 follows the Complutensian); viz. Mark iv. 18; viii. 24; Luke xi. 33; xii. 20; John iii. 6 bis; 2 Tim. i. 12; iv. 51[184]; Apoc. xvi. 5: and in 2 Pet. i. 1 (as also in ed. 1641) ἡμῶν is omitted after σωτῆρος[185].