During the twenty years immediately ensuing on the publication of Wetstein's volumes, little was attempted in the way of enlarging or improving the domain he had secured for Biblical science. In England the attention of students was directed, and on the whole successfully, to the criticism of the Hebrew Scriptures; in Germany, the younger (J. D.) Michaelis [1717-91] reigned supreme, and he seems to have deemed it the highest effort of scholarship to sit in judgement on the labours of others. In process of time, however, the researches of John James Griesbach [1745-1812], a native of Hesse Darmstadt and a pupil of Semler, and J. A. Ernesti [1707-81] (whose manual, “Institutio Interpretis N. T.,” 1761, has not long been superseded), began to attract general notice. Like Wetstein, he made a literary tour in England early in life (1769), and with far more profit; returning to Halle as a Professor, he published before he was thirty (1774-5) his first edition of the N. T., which contained the well-defined embryo of his future and more elaborate speculations. It will be convenient to reserve the examination of his views until we have described the investigations of several collators who unknowingly (and in one instance, no doubt unwillingly) were busy in gathering stores which he was to turn to his own use.
10. Christian Frederick Matthaei, a Thuringian [1744-1811], was appointed, on the recommendation of his tutor Ernesti, to the Professorship of Classical Literature at Moscow: so far as philology is concerned, he probably merited Bp. Middleton's praise, as “the most accurate scholar who ever edited the N. T.” (Doctrine of the Greek Article, p. 244, 3rd edition.) At Moscow he found a large number of Greek manuscripts, both Biblical and Patristic, originally brought from Athos, quite uncollated, [pg 217] and almost entirely unknown in the west of Europe. With laudable resolution he set himself to examine them, and gradually formed the scheme of publishing an edition of the New Testament by the aid of materials so precious and abundant. All authors that deserve that honourable name may be presumed to learn not a little, even on the subject they know best, while preparing an important work for the public eye; but Matthaei was as yet ignorant of the first principles of the critical art; and beginning thus late, there was much, and that of a very elementary character, which he never understood at all. When he commenced writing he had not seen the volumes of Mill or Wetstein; and to this significant fact we must impute that inability which clave to him to the last, of discriminating the relative age and value of his own or others' codices. The palaeographical portion of the science, indeed, he gradually acquired from the study of his documents, and through the many facsimiles of them he represents in his edition; but what can be thought of his judgement, when he persisted in asserting the intrinsic superiority of Cod. 69 of the Acts to the great uncials AC (N. T., Tom. xii. p. 222)[216]? Hence it results that Matthaei's text, which of course he moulded on his own views, must be held in slight esteem: his services as a collator comprehend his whole claim (and that no trifling one) to our thankful regard. To him solely we are indebted for Evan. V; 237-259; Act. 98-107; Paul. 113-124; Apoc. 47-502 (i.e. r); Evst. 47-57; Apost. 13-20; nearly all at Moscow: the whole seventy[217], together [pg 218] with the citations of Scripture in thirty-four manuscripts of Chrysostom[218], being so fully and accurately collated, that the reader need not be at a loss whether any particular copy supports or opposes the reading in the common text. Matthaei's further services in connexion with Cod. G Paul, and a few others (Act. 69, &c.) have been noticed in their proper places. To his Greek text was annexed the Latin Vulgate (the only version, in its present state, he professes to regard, Tom. xi. p. xii) from the Cod. Demidovianus. The first volume of this edition appeared in 1782, after it had been already eight years in preparation: this comprised the Catholic Epistles. The rest of the work was published at intervals during the next six years, in eleven more thin parts 8vo, the whole series being closed by SS. Matthew and Mark in 1788. Each volume has a Preface, much descriptive matter, and facsimiles of manuscripts (twenty-nine in all), the whole being in complete and almost hopeless disorder, and the general title-page absurdly long. Hence his critical principles (if such they may be termed) must be picked up piecemeal; and it is not very pleasant to observe the sort of influence which hostile controversy exercised over his mind and temper. While yet fresh at his task (1782), anticipating the fair fame his most profitable researches had so well earned, Matthaei is frank, calm, and rational: even at a later period J. D. Michaelis is, in his estimation, the keenest of living judges of codices, and he says so the rather “quod ille vir doctissimus multis modis me, quâ de causâ ipse ignoro, partim jocosè, partim seriò, vexavit” (Tom. ii, 1788, p. xxxi). Bengel, whose sentiments were very dissimilar from those of the Moscow Professor, “pro acumine, diligentiâ et religione suâ,” would have arrived at other conclusions, had his Augsburg codices been better (ibid., p. xxx). But for Griesbach and his recension-theory no terms of insult are strong enough; [pg 219] “risum vel adeo pueris debet ille Halensis criticus,” who never saw, “ut credibile est,” a manuscript even of the tenth century (ibid., p. xxiii), yet presumes to dictate to those who have collated seventy. The unhappy consequence was, that one who had taken up this employment in an earnest and candid spirit, possessed with the simple desire to promote the study of sacred literature, could devise no fitter commencement for his latest Preface than this: “Laborem igitur molestum invidiosum et infamem, inter convicia ranarum et latratus canum, aut ferreâ patientiâ aut invictâ pertinaciâ his quindecim annis vel sustinui, vel utcunque potui perfeci, vel denique et fastidio et taedio, ut fortasse non nulli opinantur, deposui et abjeci” (Tom. i, Praef. p. 1): he could find no purer cause for thankfulness, than (what we might have imagined but a very slight mercy) that he had never been commended by those “of whom to be dispraised is no small praise;” or (to use his own more vigorous language) “quod nemo scurra ... nemo denique de grego novorum theologorum, hanc qualemcunque operam meam ausus est ore impuro suo, laudeque contumeliosâ comprobare.” Matthaei's second edition in three volumes (destitute of the Latin version and most of the critical notes) bears date 1803-7[219]. For some cause, now not easy to understand, he hardly gave to this second edition the advantages of his studies during the fifteen years which had elapsed since he completed his first. We saw his labours bestowed on the Zittau N. T. in 1801-2 (Evan. 605). On the last leaf of the third volume of his second edition, writing from Moscow in May, 1805, he speaks of a book containing collations of no less than twenty-four manuscripts, partly fresh, partly corrected, which, when he returned into Russia, he delivered to Augustus Schumann, a bookseller at Ronneburg (in Saxe Altenburg), to be published in close connexion with his second edition against the Easter Fair at Leipzig in 1805. Another book contained extracts from St. Chrysostom with a commentary and index, to be published at the same time, and both at Schumann's risk. “Utrum isti libri jam prodierint necne,” our author adds pathetically, “nondum factus sum certior. Certe id vehementer opto.” But in 1805 evil times were hastening upon Germany, [pg 220] and so unfortunately for the poor man and for textual students these collections have disappeared and left no trace behind.
10.a The next, and a far less considerable contribution to our knowledge of manuscripts of the N. T., was made by Francis Karl Alter [1749-1804], a Jesuit, born in Silesia, and Professor of Greek at Vienna. His plan was novel, and, to those who are compelled to use his edition (N. T. Graecum, ad Codicem Vindobonensem Graecè expressum, 8vo, Vienna, 2 tom., 1786-7), inconvenient to the last degree. Adopting for his standard a valuable, but not very ancient or remarkable, manuscript in the Imperial Library (Evan. 218, Act. 65, Paul. 57, Apoc. 83), he prints this copy at full length, retaining even the ν ἐφελκυστικόν when it is found in his model, but not (as it would seem) all the itacisms or errors of the scribe, conforming in such cases to Stephen's edition of 1546. With this text he collates in separate Appendices twenty-one other manuscripts of the same great Library, comprising twelve copies of the Gospels (Codd. N, a fragment, 3, 76, 77, 108, 123, 124, 125, 219, 220, 224, 225); six of the Acts, &c. (3, 43, 63, 64, 66, 67); seven of St. Paul (3, 49, 67-71); three of the Apocalypse (34, 35, 36), and two Evangelistaria (45, 46). He also gives readings from Wilkins' Coptic version, four Slavonic codices and one Old Latin (i). In employing this ill-digested mass, it is necessary to turn to a different place for every manuscript to be consulted, and Alter's silence in any passages must be understood to indicate resemblance to his standard, Evan. 218, and not to the common text. As this silence is very often clearly due to the collator's mere oversight, Griesbach set the example of citing these manuscripts in such cases within marks of parenthesis: thus “218 (108, 220)” indicates that the reading in question is certainly found in Cod. 218, and (so far as we may infer ex Alteri silentio) not improbably in the other two. Most of these Vienna codices were about the same time examined rather slightly by Andrew Birch.
11. This eminent person, who afterwards bore successively the titles of Bishop of Lolland, Falster, and Aarhuus, in the Lutheran communion established in Denmark, was one of a company of learned men sent by the liberal care of Christian VII to examine Biblical manuscripts in various countries. Adler [pg 221] pursued his Oriental studies at Rome and elsewhere; D. G. Moldenhawer and O. G. Tychsen (the famous Orientalist of Rostock) were sent into Spain in 1783-4; Birch travelled on the same good errand in 1781-3 through Italy and Germany. The combined results of their investigations were arranged and published by Birch, whose folio edition of the Four Gospels (also in 4to) with Stephen's text of 1550[220], and the various readings contributed by himself and his associates, full descriptive Prolegomena and facsimiles of seven manuscripts (Codd. S, 157 Evan.; and five in Syriac), appeared at Copenhagen in 1788. Seven years afterwards (1795) a fire destroyed the Royal Printing-house, the type, paper, and unsold stock of the first volume, the collations of the rest of the N. T. having very nearly shared the same fate. These poor fragments were collected by Birch into two small 8vo volumes, those relating to the Acts and Epistles in 1798, to the Apocalypse (with facsimiles of Codd. 37, 42) in 1800. In 1801 he revised and re-edited the various readings of the Gospels, in a form to correspond with those of the rest of the N. T. Nothing can be better calculated to win respect and confidence than the whole tone of Birch's several Prolegomena: he displays at once a proper sense of the difficulties of his task, and a consciousness that he had done his utmost to conquer them[221]. It is indeed much to be regretted that, for some cause he does not wish to explain, he accomplished but little for Cod. B; many of the manuscripts on his long list were beyond question examined but very superficially; yet he was almost the first to open to us the literary treasures of the Vatican, of Florence, and of Venice. He more or less inspected the uncials Cod. B, Codd. ST of the Gospels, Cod. L of the Acts and Epistles. His catalogue of cursives comprises Codd. 127-225 of the Gospels; Codd. 63-7, 70-96 of the Acts; Codd. 67-71, 77-112 of St. Paul; Codd. 33-4, 37-46 [pg 222] of the Apocalypse; Evangelistaria 35-39; Apostolos 7, 8: in all 191 copies, a few of which were thoroughly collated (e.g. Evan. S, 127, 131, 157, Evst. 36). Of Adler's labours we have spoken already; they too are incorporated in Birch's work, and prefaced with a short notice (Birch, Proleg. p. lxxxv) by their author, a real and modest scholar. Moldenhawer's portion of the common task was discharged in another spirit. Received at the Escurial with courtesy and good-will, his colleague Tyschen and he spent four whole months in turning over a collection of 760 Greek manuscripts, of which only twenty related to the Greek Testament. They lacked neither leisure, nor opportunity, nor competent knowledge; but they were full of dislike for Spain and its religion, of overweening conceit, and of implicit trust in Griesbach and his recensions. The whole paper contributed by Moldenhawer to Birch's Prolegomena (pp. lxi-lxxxiv) is in substance very disappointing, while its arrogance is almost intolerable. What he effected for other portions of the N. T. I have not been able to trace (226, 228 Evan., which also contain the Acts and Epistles, are but nominally on Scholz's list for those books); the fire at Copenhagen may probably have destroyed his notes. Of the Gospels he collated eight codices (226-233), and four Evangelistaria (40-43), most of them being dismissed, after a cursory review, with some expression of hearty contempt. To Evann. 226, 229, 230 alone was he disposed to pay any attention; of the rest, whether “he soon restored them to their primitive obscurity” (p. lxxi), or “bade them sweet and holy rest among the reliques of Saints and Martyrs” (p. lxvii), he may be understood to say, once for all, “Omnino nemo, qui horum librorum rationem ac indolem ... perspectam habet, ex iis lectionis varietatem operose eruere aggredietur, nec, si quam inde conquisiverit, operae pretium fecisse a peritis arbitris existimabitur” (p. lxxiv). It was not thus that Matthaei dealt with the manuscripts at Moscow.
12. Such were the materials ready for Griesbach's use when he projected his second and principal edition of the Greek Testament (vol. i. 1796, vol. ii. 1806). Not that he was backward in adding to the store of various readings by means of his own diligence. His “Symbolae Criticae[222]” (vol. i. 1785, vol. ii. 1793) [pg 223] contained, together with the readings extracted from Origen, collations, in whole or part, of many copies of various portions of the N. T., Latin as well as Greek. Besides inspecting Codd. AD (Evann.), and carefully examining Cod. C[223], he consulted no less than twenty-six codices (including GL) of the Gospels, ten (including E) of the Acts, &c., fifteen (including DEH) of St. Paul, one of the Apocalypse (Cod. 29) twelve Lectionaries of the Gospels, and two of the Apostolos, far the greater part of them being deposited in England. It was not, however, his purpose to exhibit in his N. T. (designed, as it was, for general use) all the readings he had himself recorded elsewhere, much less the whole mass accumulated by the pains of Mill or Wetstein, Matthaei or Birch. The distinctive end at which he aims is to form such a selection from the matter their works contain, as to enable the theological student to decide for himself on the genuineness or corruption of any given reading, by the aid of principles which he devotes his best efforts to establish. Between the text (in which departures from the Elzevir edition of 1624 are generally indicated by being printed in smaller type[224]) and the critical notes at the foot of each page, intervenes a narrow space or inner margin, to receive those portions of the common text which Griesbach has rejected, and such variations of his authorities as he judges to be of equal weight with the received readings which he retains, or but little inferior to them. These decisions he intimates by several symbols, not quite so simple as those employed by Bengel, but conceived in a similar spirit; and he has carried his system somewhat further in his small or manual edition, published at Leipzig in 1805, which may be conceived to represent his last thoughts with regard to the recension of the Greek text of the N. T. But though we may trace some slight discrepancies of opinion between his earliest[225] and his latest works[226], as might [pg 224] well be looked for in a literary career of forty years, yet the theory of his youth was maintained, and defended, and temperately applied by Griesbach even to the last. From Bengel and Semler he had taken up the belief that manuscripts, versions, and ecclesiastical writers divide themselves, with respect to the character of their testimony, into races or families. This principle he strove to reduce to practice by marshalling all his authorities under their respective heads, and then regarding the evidence, not of individuals, but of the classes to which they belong. The advantage of some such arrangement is sufficiently manifest, if only it could be made to rest on grounds in themselves certain, or, at all events, fairly probable. We should then possess some better guide in our choice between conflicting readings, than the very rough and unsatisfactory process of counting the number of witnesses produced on either side. It is not that such a mode of conducting critical enquiries would not be very convenient, that Griesbach's theory is universally abandoned by modern scholars, but because there is no valid reason for believing it to be true.
At the onset of his labours, indeed, this acute and candid enquirer was disposed to divide all extant materials into five or six different families; he afterwards limited them to three, the Alexandrian, the Western, and the Byzantine recensions. The standard of the Alexandrian text he conceived to be Origen; who, although his works were written in Palestine, was assumed to have brought with him into exile copies of Scripture, similar to those used in his native city. To this family would belong a few manuscripts of the earliest date, and confessedly of the highest character, Codd. ABC, Cod. L of the Gospels, the Egyptian and some lesser versions. The Western recension would survive in Cod. D of the Gospels and Acts, in the other ancient copies which contain a Latin translation, in the Old Latin and Vulgate versions, and in the Latin Fathers. The vast majority of manuscripts (comprising perhaps nineteen-twentieths of the whole), together with the larger proportion of versions and Patristic writings, were grouped into the Byzantine class, as having prevailed generally in the Patriarchate of Constantinople. To this last class Griesbach hardly professed to accord as much weight as to either of the others, nor, if he had done so, would the result have been materially different. The joint testimony [pg 225] of two classes was, ceteris paribus, always to prevail; and since the very few documents which comprise the Alexandrian and Western recensions seldom agree with the Byzantine even when at variance with each other, the numerous codices which make up the third family would thus have about as much share in fixing the text of Scripture, as the poor citizens whose host was included in one of Servius Tullius' lower classes possessed towards counterbalancing the votes of the wealthy few that composed his first or second[227].
Inasmuch as the manuscripts on which our received text was based must, beyond question, be referred to his Byzantine family, wide as were the variations of Griesbach's revised text from that of Elzevir[228], had his theory been pushed to its legitimate consequences, the changes it required would have been greater still. The very plan of his work, however, seemed to reserve a slight preference for the received text as such, in cases of doubt and difficulty; and this editor, with a calmness and sagacity which may well be called judicial, was usually disposed to relax his stern mechanical law when persuaded by reasons founded on internal probabilities, which (as we cheerfully admit) few men have been found able to estimate with so much patience and discrimination. The plain fact is, that while disciples like Moldenhawer and persons who knew even less than he were regarding Griesbach's system as self-evidently true, their wiser master must have had many a misgiving as to the safety of that imposing structure his rare ingenuity had built upon the sand. The very essence of his theory consisted in there being not two [pg 226] distinct families, but three; the majority deciding in all cases of dispute. Yet he hardly attempted, certainly neither he nor any one after him succeeded in the attempt, to separate the Alexandrian from the Western family, without resorting to arguments which would prove that there are as many classes as there are manuscripts of early date. The supposed accordance of the readings of Origen, so elaborately scrutinized for this purpose by Griesbach, with Cod. A, on which our editor lays the greatest stress, has been shown by Archbishop Laurence (Remarks on Griesbach's Systematic Classification, 1814) to be in a high degree imaginary[229]. It must have been in anticipation of some such researches, and in a partial knowledge of their sure results, that Griesbach was driven to that violent and most unlikely hypothesis, that Cod. A follows the Byzantine class of authorities in the Gospels, the Western in the Acts and Catholic Epistles, and the Alexandrian in St. Paul.
It seems needless to dwell longer on speculations which, however attractive and once widely received, will scarcely again find an advocate. Griesbach's text can no longer be regarded as satisfactory, though it is far less objectionable than such a system as his would have made it in rash or unskilful hands. His industry, his moderation, his fairness to opponents, who (like Matthaei) had shown him little forbearance, we may all imitate to our profit. His logical acuteness and keen intellectual perception fall to the lot of few; and though they may have helped to lead him into error, and have even kept him from retracing his steps, yet on the whole they were worthily exercised in the good cause of promoting a knowledge of God's truth, and of keeping alive, in an evil and unbelieving age, an enlightened interest in Holy Scripture, and the studies which it serves to consecrate.
13. Of a widely different order of mind was John Martin Augustine Scholz [d. 1852], Roman Catholic Dean of Theology in the mixed University of Bonn. It would have been well for the progress of sacred learning and for his own reputation had [pg 227] the accuracy and ability of this editor borne some proportion to his zeal and obvious anxiety to be useful. His first essay was his “Curae Criticae in historiam textûs Evangeliorum,” in two dissertations, Heidelberg, 4to, 1820, containing notices of forty-eight Paris manuscripts (nine of them hitherto unknown) of which he had fully collated seventeen: the second Dissertation is devoted to Cod. K of the Gospels. In 1823 appeared his “Biblisch-Kritische Reise,” Leipsic, 8vo, Biblio-Critical Travels in France, Switzerland, Italy, Palestine and the Archipelago, which Schulz laid under contribution for his improved edition of Griesbach's first volume[230]. Scholz's “N. T. Graece,” 4to, was published at Leipsic, vol. i, 1830 (Gospels); vol. ii, 1836.
The accession of fresh materials made known in these works is almost marvellous: Scholz was the first to indicate Codd. 260-469 of the Gospels; 110-192 of the Acts, &c.; 125-246 of St. Paul; 51-89 of the Apocalypse; 51-181 Evangelistaria; 21-58 Lectionaries of the Apostolos; in all 616 cursive codices. His additions to the list of the uncials comprise only the three fragments of the Gospels Wa Y and the Vatican leaves of N. Of those examined previously by others he paid most attention to Evan. KX (M also for its synaxaria), and G (now L) Act., Paul.; he moreover inspected slightly eighty-two cursive codices of the Gospels after Wetstein, Birch, and the rest; collated entire five (Codd. 4, 19, 25, 28, 33), and twelve in the greater part, adding much to our knowledge of the important Cod. 22. In the Acts, &c., he inspected twenty-seven of those known before, partially collated two; in St. Paul he collated partially two, slightly twenty-nine; in the Apocalypse sixteen, cursorily enough it would seem (see Codd. 21-3): of the Lectionaries he touched more or less thirteen of the Gospels, four of the Apostolos. On turning to the 616 codices Scholz placed on the list for the first time, we find that he collated entire but thirteen (viz. five of the Gospels, three of the Acts, &c., three of St. Paul, one each of the Apocalypse and Evangelistaria): a few of the rest he examined throughout the greater part; many in only a few chapters; while some were set down from printed [pg 228] Catalogues, whose plenteous errors we have used our best endeavours to correct in the present volume, so far as the means were within our reach.