1. The number of manuscripts which passed down through the middle ages, in the modes which have been described in the preceding chapters.
About fifteen manuscripts of the history of Herodotus are known to critics: and of these, several are not of higher antiquity than the middle of the fifteenth century. One copy, in the French king’s library (there are in that collection five or six), appears to belong to the twelfth century; there is one in the Vatican, and one in the Florentine library, attributed to the tenth century: one in the library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, formerly the property of Archbishop Sancroft, which is believed to be very ancient: the libraries of Oxford and of Vienna contain also manuscripts of this author. This amount of copies may be taken as more than the average number of ancient manuscripts of the classic authors; for although a few have many more, many have fewer.
To mention any number as that of the existing ancient manuscripts, either of the Hebrew or Greek Scriptures, would be difficult. It may suffice to say that, on the revival of learning, copies of the Scriptures, in whole or in part, were found wherever any books had been preserved. In examining the catalogues of conventual libraries—such as they were in the fifteenth century, the larger proportion is usually found to consist of the works of the fathers, or of the ecclesiastical writers of the middle ages; next in amount are the Scriptures—sometimes entire; more often the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles, or the Psalms, separately; and last and fewest are the classics, of which, seldom more than three or four, are found in a list of one or two hundred volumes. The number of ancient manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, or parts of it, which hitherto have been examined by editors, is nearly five hundred.
If in the case of a classic author, twenty manuscripts, or even five, are deemed amply sufficient (and sometimes one, as we have seen, is relied upon), it is evident that many hundreds are redundant for the purposes of argument. The importance of so great a number of copies consists in the amplitude of the means which are thereby afforded of restoring the text to its pristine purity; for the various readings collected from so many sources, if they do not always place the true reading beyond doubt, afford an absolute security against extensive corruptions.
2. The high antiquity of some existing manuscripts.
A Virgil (already mentioned) in the Vatican, claims an antiquity as high as the fourth century: there are a few similar instances; but generally the existing copies of the classics are attributed to periods between the tenth and fifteenth centuries. In this respect the Scriptures are by no means inferior to the classics. There are extant copies of the Pentateuch, which, on no slight grounds, are supposed to have been written in the second, or the third century: and there are copies of the Gospels belonging to the third, or the fourth, and several of the entire New Testament, which unquestionably were made before the eighth. But the actual age of existing manuscripts is a matter of more curiosity than importance; since proof of another kind carries us with certainty some way beyond the date of any existing parchments.
3. The extent of surface over which copies were diffused, at an early date.
The works of the most celebrated of the Greek authors always found a place in the libraries of opulent persons, in all parts of Greece, and in many of the colonies, soon after their first publication; and a century or two later they were read, wherever the language was spoken. But a contraction of this sphere of diffusion took place at the time when the eastern empire was being driven in upon its centre; and during a long period these works were found only in the countries and islands within a short distance of Constantinople. As for the Latin classics, how widely soever they might have been diffused during three or four centuries, the incursions of the northern nations, and the consequent decline of learning in the West, went near to produce their utter annihilation. Many of these authors were actually lost sight of during several centuries.
It is a matter of unquestioned history that the Jews, always carrying with them their books, had spread themselves throughout most countries of Asia, of southern Europe, and of northern Africa, before the commencement of the Christian era; nor is it less certain that, wherever Judaism existed, Christianity rapidly followed it. Carried forward by their own zeal, or driven on by persecutions, the Christian teachers of the first and second centuries passed beyond the limits of the Roman empire, and founded churches among nations that were scarcely known to the masters of the world. Nor were the Christian Scriptures merely carried to great distances in different directions;—they were scattered through the mass of society, in every nation, to an extent greatly exceeding the ordinary circulation of books in those ages: these books were not in the hands of the opulent, and of the studious merely; for they were possessed by innumerable individuals, who, with an ardour beyond the range of secular motives, valued, preserved, and reproduced them. And while many copies were hoarded and hidden by private persons, others were the property of societies, and, by continual repetition in public, the contents of them were imprinted on the memories of their members.
The wide, and—if the expression may be used—the deep circulation of the Scriptures, preserved them, not merely from extinction, but, to a great extent, from corruption also. These books were at no time included within the sphere of any one centre of power—civil or ecclesiastical. They were secreted, and they were expanded far beyond the utmost reach of tyranny or of fraud.