Since Stephen's edition of 1550 and that of the Elzevirs have been taken as the standard or Received text[186], the former chiefly in England, the latter on the Continent, and inasmuch as nearly all collated manuscripts have been compared with one or the other of these, it becomes absolutely necessary to know the precise points in which they differ from each other, even to the minutest errors of the press. Mill (N. T., Proleg., 1307) observed but twelve such variations; Tischendorf gives a catalogue of 150 (N. T., Proleg., p. lxxxv, seventh edition). For the first edition of the present work a list of 287 was drawn up, which, it is hoped, will soon be reprinted, in a more convenient shape, in a volume now in preparation[187].

The Science of Sacred Textual Criticism was built up in successive Critical Editions of the Greek Testament, and to a brief description of those this chapter will be devoted. It will not include therefore any notice of editions like that of Valpy, or of Bloomfield, or Alford, or Wordsworth, in which the textual treatment did not assume prominence or involve advancement in this province. Still less is there space for such a list of general editions of the New Testament as the very valuable one compiled by Dr. Isaac H. Hall, and found in Schaffs “Companion to the New Testament,” to which notice has been already directed. The progress of Textual Science has involved two chief stages; the first, in which all evidence was accepted and registered, and the second, when a selection was made and the rest either partially or totally disregarded. Lachmann was the leader in the second stage, of which to some extent Griesbach was the pioneer. It is evident that in the future a return must be made, as has been already advocated by many, to the principles of the first stage[188].

1. R. Stephen was the first to bring together any considerable body of manuscript evidence, however negligently or capriciously he may have applied it to the emendation of the sacred text. A succession of English scholars was now ready to follow him in the same path, the only direct and sure one in criticism; and for about eighty years our countrymen maintained the foremost place in this important branch of Biblical learning. Their van [pg 197] was led by Brian Walton [1600-61], afterwards Bishop of Chester, who published in 1657 the London Polyglott, which he had planned twelve years before, as at once the solace and meet employment of himself and a worthy band of colleagues during that sad season when Christ's Church in England was for a while trodden in the dust, and its ministers languished in silence and deep poverty. The fifth of his huge folios was devoted to the New Testament in six languages, viz. Stephen's Greek text of 1550[189], the Peshitto-Syriac, the Latin Vulgate, the Ethiopic, Arabic, and (in the Gospels only) the Persic. The exclusively critical apparatus, with which alone we are concerned, consists of the readings of Cod. A set at the foot of the Greek text, and, in the sixth or supplementary volume, of Lucas Brugensis' notes on various readings of the Gospels in Greek and Latin; of those given by the Louvain divines in their edition of the Vulgate (Walton, Polygl., Tom. vi. No. xvii); and especially of a collation of sixteen authorities, whereof all but three, viz. Nos. 1, 15, 16[190], had never been used before (Walton, Tom. vi. No. xvi). These various readings had been gathered by the care and diligence of Archbishop Ussher [1580-1656], then living in studious and devout retirement near London[191]. They are as follows:—(1) Steph. the sixteen copies extracted from Stephen's margin: (2) Cant. or Evan. D: (3) Clar. or Paul. D: (4) Gon. or Evan. 59: (5) Em. or Evan. 64, and also Act. 53: (6) Goog. or Evan. 62: (7) Mont. or Evan. 61: (8) Lin. or Evan. 56, and also Act. 33: (9) Magd. 1 or Evan. 57: (10) Magd. 2 or Paul. 42: (11) Nov. 1 or Evan. 58: (12) Nov. 2 or Act. 36: (13) Bodl. 1 or Evan. 47: (14) Trit. or Bodl. 2, Evan. 96: (15) March. Veles., the Velesian readings, described above, Vol. i. p. 209: (16) Bib. Wech., the Wechelian readings, which deserve no more regard than the Velesian. They were derived [pg 198] from the margin of a Bible printed at Frankfort, 1597, by the heirs of And. Wechel. It is indifferent whether they be referred to Francis Junius or F. Sylburg as editors, since all the readings in the New Testament are found in Stephen's margin, or in the early editions.

Walton was thus enabled to publish very extensive additions to the existing stock of materials. That he did not try by their means to form thus early a corrected text, is not at all to be regretted; the time for that attempt was not yet arrived. He cannot, however, be absolved from the charge to which R. Stephen had been before amenable, of suppressing a large portion of the collations which had been sent him. The Rev. C. B. Scott, Head Master of Westminster School, found in the Library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, the readings of Codd. D. 59, 61, 62, prepared for Walton (Dobbin, Cod. Montfort., Introd. p. 21), which Mill had access to, and in his N. T. made good use of, as well as of Ussher's other papers (Mill, Proleg. § 1505).

2. Steph. Curcellaeus or Courcelles published his N. T. at Amsterdam in 1658, before he had seen Walton's Polyglott. The peculiar merit of his book arises from his marginal collection of parallel texts, which are more copious than those of his predecessors, yet not too many for convenient use: later editors have been thankful to take them as a basis for their own[192]. There are many various readings[193] (some from two or three fresh manuscripts) at the foot of each page, or thrown into an appendix, mingled with certain rash conjectures which betray a Socinian bias: but since the authorities are not cited for each separate reading, these critical labours were as good as wasted[194].

3. A more important step in advance was taken in the Greek Testament in 8vo, issued from the Oxford University Press in 1675. This elegant volume (whose Greek text is mainly that of Elzevir 1633[195]) was superintended by John Fell [1625-86], Dean of Christ Church, soon afterwards Bishop of Oxford, the biographer of saint-like Hammond, himself one of the most learned and munificent, if not quite the most popular Prelate, of that golden age of the English Church, in whose behalf Anthony à Wood designates him “the most zealous man of his time.” His brief yet interesting Preface not only discusses the causes of various readings[196], and describes the materials used for his edition, but touches on that weak and ignorant prejudice which had been already raised against the collection of such variations in the text of Scripture; and that too sometimes by persons like John Owen[197] the Puritan, intrusive Dean of Christ Church under Cromwell, who, but that we are loth to doubt his integrity, would hardly be deemed a victim of the panic he sought to spread. In reply to all objectors the Bishop pleads the comparative insignificance of the change produced by various readings in the general sense of Holy Writ, and especially urges that God hath dealt so bountifully with His people “ut necessaria quaeque et ad salutis summam facientia in S. literis saepius repeterentur; ita ut si forte quidpiam minus commode alicubi expressum, id damnum aliunde reparari possit” (Praef. p. 1). [pg 200] On this assurance we may well rest in peace. This edition is more valuable for the impulse it gave to subsequent investigators than for the richness of its own stores of fresh materials, although it is stated on the title-page to be derived “ex plus 100 MSS. Codicibus.” Patristic testimony, as we have seen, Bishop Fell rather undervalued: the use of versions he clearly perceived, yet of those at that time available, he only attends to the Gothic and Coptic as revised by Marshall: his list of manuscripts hitherto untouched is very scanty. To those used by Walton we can add only R, the Barberini readings, then just published (see p. [210]); B, twelve Bodleian codices “quorum plerique intacti prius,” in no-wise described, and cited only by the number of them which may countenance each variation; U, the two Ussher manuscripts Evan. 63, 64 as collated by H. Dodwell; P, three copies from the Library of Petavius (Act. 38, 39, 40); Ge., another from St. Germains (Paul. E): the readings of the last four were furnished by Joh. Gachon. Yet this slight volume (for so we must needs regard it) was the legitimate parent of one of the noblest works in the whole range of Biblical literature, of which we shall speak next.

4. Novum Testamentum Graecum of Dr. John Mill, Oxford, 1707, in folio. This able and laborious critic, born in 1645, quitted his native village in Westmoreland at sixteen for Queen's College, Oxford, of which society he became a Fellow, and was conspicuous there both as a scholar and as a ready extemporary preacher. In 1685 his College appointed him Principal of its affiliated Hall, St. Edmund, so honourably distinguished for the Biblical studies of its members; but Mill had by that time made good progress in his Greek Testament, on which he gladly spent the last thirty years of his life, dying suddenly in 1707, a fortnight after its publication. His attention was first called to the subject by his friend, Dr. Edward Bernard, the Savilian Professor at Oxford, whom he vividly represents as setting before him an outline of the work, and encouraging him to attempt its accomplishment. “Vides, Amice mi, opus ... omnium, mihi crede, longè dignissimum, cui in hoc aetatis tuae flore, robur animi tui, vigilias ac studia, liberaliter impendas” (Proleg. § 1417). Ignorant as yet both of the magnitude and difficulty of his task, [pg 201] Mill boldly undertook it about 1677, and his efforts soon obtained the countenance of Bishop Fell, who promised to defray the expense of printing, and, mindful of the frailty of life, urged him to go to press before his papers were quite ready to meet the public eye. When about twenty-four chapters of St. Matthew had been completed, Bishop Fell died prematurely in 1686, and the book seems to have languished for many following years from lack of means, though the editor was busy all the while in gathering and arranging his materials, especially for the Prolegomena, which well deserve to be called “marmore perenniora.” As late as 1704 John Sharp [1644-1714], Archbishop of York, whose remonstrances to Queen Anne some years subsequently hindered the ribald wit that wrote “A Tale of a Tub” from polluting the episcopal throne of an English see, obtained from her for Mill a stall at Canterbury, and the royal command to prosecute his New Testament forthwith. The preferment came just in time. Three years afterwards the volume was given to the Christian world, and its author's course was already finished: his life's work well ended, he had entered upon his rest. He was spared the pain of reading the unfair attack alike on his book and its subject by our eminent Commentator, Daniel Whitby (“Examen Variantium Lectionum,” 1710), and of witnessing the unscrupulous use of Whitby's arguments made by the sceptic Anthony Collins in his “Discourse of Free Thinking,” 1713.

Dr. Mill's services to Biblical criticism surpass in extent and value those rendered by any other, except perhaps one or two men of our own time. A large proportion of his care and pains, as we have seen already, was bestowed on the Fathers and ancient writers of every description who have used or cited Scripture. The versions are usually considered his weakest point, although he first accorded to the Vulgate and to its prototype the Old Latin the importance they deserve. His knowledge of Syriac was rather slight, and for the other Eastern tongues, if he was not more ignorant than his successors, he had not discovered how little Latin translations of the Ethiopic, &c., can be trusted. As a collator of manuscripts the list subjoined will bear full testimony to his industry: without seeking to repeat details we have entered into before under the Cursive MSS., it is right to state that he either himself re-examined, or otherwise [pg 202] represented more fully and exactly, the codices that had been previously used for the London Polyglott and the Oxford N. T. of 1675. Still it would be wrong to dissemble the fact that Mill's style of collation is not such as the strictness of modern scholarship demands. He seldom notices at all such various readings as arise from the transposition of words, the insertion or omission of the Greek article, from homoeoteleuta, or itacisms, or from manifest errors of the pen; while in respect to general accuracy he is as much inferior to those who have trod in his steps, as he rises above Stephen and Ussher, or the persons employed by Walton and Fell. It has been my fortune to collate not a few manuscripts after this great critic, and I have elsewhere been obliged to notice these plain facts, I would fain trust in no disparaging temper. During the many years that Mill's N. T. has been my daily companion, my reverence for that diligent and earnest man has been constantly growing: the principles of internal evidence which guided his choice between conflicting authorities were simple (as indeed they ought to be), but applied with rare judgement, sagacity, and moderation: his zeal was unflagging, his treatment of his sacred subject deeply reverential. Of the criticism of the New Testament in the hands of Dr. John Mill it may be said, that he found the edifice of wood, and left it marble.

The following Catalogue of the manuscripts known to Mill exhibits the abridged form in which he cites them, together with the more usual notation, whereby they are described in this work, and will tend, it is believed, to facilitate the use of Mill's N. T.

Alex. Cod. A