B. M. Trin. Coll. Camb. B. X. 4 (T, ibid.),
B. M. lind. (Y: as in B. XVII. 5),
B. M. Camb. Univ. Lib. Kk. I. 24 (χ).
Westcott further appropriates B. M. Cotton, Otho B. ix, as Bentley's D; Cotton Tib. A. ii (“the Coronation book”) as his ε; Cotton Otho C. v as his φ; C. C. C. Camb. 197 as his C; King's Library 1 D. ix as his A. His ξ in B. xvii. 14 seems unrecognized.
These, of course, are no more than the rough materials of criticism. Another copy of the N. T. has been carefully and curiously made available for my use by the goodness of my friend Edwin Palmer, D.D., Archdeacon of Oxford. It is numbered B. xvii. 6, and is a duplicate copy (without its title-page) of the same printed book as B. xvii. 5. It is interleaved throughout, and was prepared very early in the course of this undertaking, inasmuch as Bentley describes it in an undated letter to Wetstein, which the latter answered Nov. 3, 1716. In the printed [pg 209] text itself, both Greek and Latin, as they stand in parallel columns, Bentley makes the corrections which he at that period was willing to adopt. There is no critical apparatus to justify his changes in the Latin version, but on the blank leaves of the book he sets down his Greek authorities, always cited by name, as Alex., Cant., Rom. (Cod. B.), Ox. in the Acts (Cod. E), θ in St. Paul for Cod. Augiensis (F), though this last did not reach him before 1718. Cod. C is sometimes called Eph., sometimes it is mixed up with Wetstein's other copies (1 Wetstein, 2 Wetstein, &c.). This most interesting volume, therefore, contains the first draft of Bentley's great design, and must have been nearly in its present state when the 'Proposals' were published in 1720, since the specimen chapter (Apoc. xxii) which accompanied them is taken verbatim from B. xvii. 6, save that authorities are added to vindicate the alterations of the Latin text, which is destitute of them in the printed book. Mr. Ellis too has printed the Epistle to the Galatians from the same source, and this specimen also produces much the same impression of meagreness and imperfection. It was doubtless in some degree to remedy an apparent crudeness that cursive copies were afterwards called in, as in B. xvii. 5 and in Walker's Oxford collections. The fact is that Bentley's main principle, as set forth by him from 1716 to 1720, that of substantial identity between the oldest Greek and Latin copies, is more favoured by Cod. A, which he knew soonest and best, than by any other really ancient documents, least of all by Cod. B, with which he obtained fuller acquaintance in or about 1720. Our Aristarchus then betook himself at intervals to cursive codices in the vain hope of getting aid from them, and so lost his way at last in that wide and pathless wilderness. We cannot but believe that nothing less than the manifest impossibility of maintaining the principles which his “Letter” of 1716 enunciated, and his 'Proposals' of 1720 scarcely modified, in the face of the evidence which his growing mass of collations bore against them[205], could have had power enough to break off in the midst [pg 210] that labour of love from which he had looked for undying fame[206].
7. The anonymous text and version of William Mace, said to have been a Presbyterian minister (“The New Testament in Greek and English,” 2 vols. 8vo, 1729), are alike unworthy of serious notice, and have long since been forgotten[207]. And now original research in the science of Biblical criticism, so far as the New Testament is concerned, seems to have left the shores of England, to return no more for upwards of a century[208]; and we must look to Germany if we wish to trace the further progress of investigations which our countrymen had so auspiciously begun. The first considerable effort made on the Continent was:—
8. The New Testament of John Albert Bengel, 4to, Tübingen, 1734[209]: his “Prodromus N. T. Gr. rectè cautèque adornandi” had appeared as early as 1725. This devout and truly able man [1687-1752], who held the office (whatever might be its functions) [pg 211] of Abbot of Alpirspach in the Lutheran communion of Württemberg, though more generally known as an interpreter of Scripture from his invaluable “Gnomon Novi Testamenti,” yet left the stamp of his mind deeply imprinted on the criticism of the sacred volume. As a collator his merits were not high; nearly all his sixteen codices have required and obtained fresh examination from those who came after him[210]. His text, which he arranged in convenient paragraphs, as has been said, is the earliest important specimen of intentional departure from the received type; hence he imposes on himself the strange restriction of admitting into it no reading (excepting in the Apocalypse) which had not appeared in one or more of the editions that preceded his own. He pronounces his opinion on other select variations by placing them in his lower margin with Greek numerals attached to them, according as he judged them decidedly better (α), or somewhat more likely (β), than those which stand in his text: or equal to them (γ); or a little (δ), or considerably (ε), inferior. This notation has advantages which might well have commended it to the attention of succeeding editors. In his “Apparatus Criticus” also, at the end of his volume, he set the example, now generally followed, of recording definitely the testimony in favour of a received reading, as well as that against it.
But the peculiar importance of Bengel's N. T. is due to the critical principles developed therein. Not only was his native acuteness of great service to him, when weighing the conflicting probabilities of internal evidence, but in his fertile mind sprang up the germ of that theory of families or recensions, which was afterwards expanded by J. S. Semler [1725-91], and grew to such formidable dimensions in the skilful hands of Griesbach. An attentive student of the discrepant readings of the N. T., even in the limited extent they had hitherto been collected, could hardly fail to discern that certain manuscripts, versions, and ecclesiastical writers have a manifest [pg 212] affinity with each other; so that one of them shall seldom be cited in support of a variation (not being a manifest and gross error of the copyist), unless accompanied by several of its kindred. The inference is direct and clear, that documents which thus withdraw themselves from the general mass of authorities, must have sprung from some common source, distinct from those which in characteristic readings they but slightly resemble. It occurred, therefore, to Bengel as a hopeful mode of making good progress in the criticism of the N. T., to reduce all extant testimony into “companies, families, tribes, and nations,” and thus to simplify the process of settling the sacred text by setting class over against class, and trying to estimate the genius of each, and the relative importance they may severally lay claim to. He wished to divide all extant documents into two nations: the Asiatic, chiefly written in Constantinople and its neighbourhood, which he was inclined to disparage; and the African, comprising the few of a better type (“Apparatus Criticus,” p. 669, 2nd edition, 1763). Various circumstances hindered Bengel from working out his principle, among which he condescends to set his dread of exposing his task to senseless ridicule[211]; yet no one can doubt that it comprehends the elements of what is both reasonable and true; however difficult it has subsequently proved to adjust the details of any consistent scheme. For the rest, Bengel's critical verdicts, always considered in relation to his age and opportunities, deserve strong commendation. He saw the paramount worth of Cod. A, the only great uncial then much known (N. T., Apparat. Crit., pp. 390-401). The high character of the Latin version, and the [pg 213] necessity for revising its text by means of manuscripts (ibid., p. 391), he readily conceded, after Bentley's example. His mean estimate of the Greek-Latin codices (Evan. Act. D; Act. E; Paul. DFG) may not find equal favour in the eyes of all his admirers; he pronounces them “re verâ bilingues;” which, for their perpetual and wilful interpolations, “non pro codicibus sed pro rhapsodiis, haberi debeant” (ibid., p. 386)[212].
9. The next step in advance was made by John James Wetstein [1693-1754], a native of Basle, whose edition of the Greek New Testament (“cum lectionibus variantibus Codicum MSS., Editionum aliarum, Versionum et Patrum, necnon Commentario pleniore ex scriptoribus veteribus, Hebraeis, Graecis, et Latinis, historiam et vim verborum illustrante”) appeared in two volumes, folio, Amsterdam, 1751-2. The genius, the character, and (it must in justice be added) the worldly fortunes of Wetstein were widely different from those of the good Abbot of Alpirspach. His taste for Biblical studies showed itself early. When ordained pastor at the age of twenty he delivered a disputation, “De variis N. T. lectionibus,” and zeal for this fascinating pursuit became at length with him a passion—the master-passion which consoled and dignified a roving, troubled, unprosperous life. In 1714 his eager search for manuscripts led him to Paris, in 1715-16 and again in 1720 he visited England, and was employed by Bentley in collecting materials for his projected edition, but he seems to have imbibed few of that great man's principles: the interval between them, both in age and station, almost forbade much sympathy. On his return home he gradually became suspected of Socinian tendencies, and it must be feared with too much justice; so that in the end he was deposed from the pastorate (1730), driven into exile, and after having been compelled to serve in a position the least favourable to the cultivation of learning, that of a military chaplain, he obtained at length (1733) a Professorship among the Remonstrants at Amsterdam (in succession to the celebrated Leclerc), and there continued till his death in 1754, having made his third visit to England in 1746. His “Prolegomena,” [pg 214] first published in 1730, and afterwards, in an altered form, prefixed to his N. T.[213], present a painful image both of the man and of his circumstances. His restless energy, his undaunted industry, his violent temper, his love of paradox, his assertion for himself of perfect freedom of thought, his silly prejudice against Jesuits and bigots, his enmities, his wrongs, his ill-requited labours, at once excite our respect and our pity: while they all help to make his writings a sort of unconscious autobiography, rather interesting than agreeable. Non sic itur ad astra, whether morally or intellectually; yet Wetstein's services to sacred literature were of no common order. His philological annotations, wherein the matter and phraseology of the inspired writers are illustrated by copious—too copious—quotations from all kinds of authors, classical, Patristic, and Rabbinical, have proved an inexhaustible storehouse from which later writers have drawn liberally and sometimes without due acknowledgement; but many of the passages are of such a tenor as (to use Tregelles' very gentle language respecting them) “only to excite surprise at their being found on the same page as the text of the New Testament” (Account of Printed Text, p. 76). The critical portion of his work, however, is far more valuable, and in this department Wetstein must be placed in the very first rank, inferior (if to any) to but one or two of the highest names. He first cited the manuscripts under the notation by which they are commonly known, his list already embracing A-O, 1-112 of the Gospels; A-G, 1-58 of the Acts; A-H, 1-60 of St. Paul; A-C, 1-28 of the Apocalypse; 1-24 Evangelistaria; 1-4 of the Apostolos. Of these Wetstein himself collated about one hundred and two[214]; if not as fully or accurately as is now expected, yet with far greater care than had hitherto been usual: about eleven were examined for him by other hands. On the versions and early editions he has likewise bestowed great pains; and he improved upon quotations from the Fathers. His text is that of Elzevir (1633), not very exactly printed[215], and immediately below it he [pg 215] placed such readings of his manuscripts as he judged preferable to those received. The readings thus approved by Wetstein (which do not amount to five hundred, and those chiefly in the Apocalypse) were inserted in the text of a Greek Testament published in London, 1763, 2 vols., by W. Bowyer, the learned printer, with a collection of critical conjectures annexed, which were afterwards published separately.
Wetstein's Prolegomena have also been reproduced by J. S. Semler (Halle, 1764), with good notes and facsimiles of certain manuscripts, and more recently, in a compressed and modernized form, by J. A. Lotze (Rotterdam, 1831), a book which neither for design nor execution can be much praised. The truth is that both the style and the subject-matter of much that Wetstein wrote are things of the past. In his earlier edition of his Prolegomena (1730) he had spoken of the oldest Greek uncial copies as they deserve; he was even disposed to take Cod. A as the basis of his text. By the time his N. T. was ready, twenty years later, he had come to include it, with all the older codices of the original, under a general charge of being conformed to the Latin version. That such a tendency may be detected in some of the codices accompanied by a Latin translation, is both possible in itself, and not inconsistent with their general spirit; but he has scattered abroad his imputations capriciously and almost at random, so as greatly to diminish the weight of his own decisions. Cod. A, in particular, has been fully cleared of the charge of Latinizing by Woide, in his excellent Prolegomena (§ 6). His thorough contempt for that critic prevented Wetstein from giving adequate attention to Bengel's theory of [pg 216] families; indeed he can hardly be said to have rejected a scheme which he scorned to investigate with patience. On the other hand no portion of his labours is more valuable than the “Animadversiones et Cautiones ad examen variarum lectionum N. T. necessariae” (N. T., Tom. ii. pp. 851-74). In this tract his natural good sense and extensive knowledge of authorities of every class have gone far to correct that impetuous temperament which was ever too ready to substitute plausible conjecture in the room of ascertained facts.