[Sidenote: Position of Bible in 16th century]
It is naturally impossible to give a full account of all the products of sixteenth century genius. In so vast a panorama only the mountain peaks can be pointed out. One of these peaks is assuredly the Bible. Never before nor since has that book been so popular; never has its study absorbed so large a part of the energies of men. It is true that the elucidation of the text was not proportional to the amount of labor spent on it. For the most part it was approached not in a scientific but in a dogmatic spirit. Men did not read it historically and critically but to find their own dogmas in it. Nevertheless, the foundations were laid for both the textual and the higher criticism.
{564} [Sidenote: The Greek Text]
The Greek text of the New Testament was first published by Erasmus in March, 1516. Revised, but not always improved, editions were brought out by him in 1519, 1522 and 1527. For the first edition he had before him ten manuscripts, all of them minuscules, the oldest of which, though he believed it might have come from the apostolic age, is assigned by modern criticism to the twelfth century. In the course of printing, some bad errors were introduced, and the last six verses of the Apocalypse, wanting in all the manuscripts, were supplied by an extremely faulty translation from the Latin. The results were such as might have been anticipated. Though the text has been vastly purified by modern critics, the edition of Erasmus was of great service and was thoroughly honest. He noted that the last verses of Mark were doubtful and that the passage on the adulteress (John vii, 53 to viii, 11) was lacking in the best authorities, and he omitted the text on the three heavenly witnesses (I John v, 7) as wanting in all his manuscripts.
For this omission he was violently attacked. To support his position he asked his friend Bombasius to consult the Codex Vaticanus, and dared to assert that were a single manuscript found with the verse in Greek, he would include it in subsequent editions. Though there were at the time no codices with the verse in question—which was a Latin forgery of the fourth century, possibly due to Priscillian—one was promptly manufactured. Though Erasmus suspected the truth, that the verse had been interpolated from the Latin text, he added it in his third edition "that no occasion for calumny be given." This one sample must serve to show how Erasmus's work was received. For every deviation from the Vulgate, whether in the Greek text or in the new Latin translation with which he accompanied it, he was ferociously assailed. His {565} own anecdote of the old priest who, having the misprint "mumpsimus" for "sumpsimus" in his missal, refused to correct the error when it was pointed out, is perfectly typical of the position of his critics. New truth must ever struggle hard against old prejudice.
While Erasmus was working, a much more ambitious scheme for publishing the Scriptures was maturing under the direction of Cardinal Ximénez at Alcalá or, as the town was called in Latin, Complutum. The Complutensian Polyglot, as it was thence named, was published in six volumes, four devoted to the Old Testament, one to the New Testament, and one to a Hebrew lexicon and grammar. The New Testament volume has the earliest date, 1514, but was withheld from the public for several years after this. The manuscripts from which the Greek texts were taken are unknown, but they were better than those used by Erasmus. The later editors of the Greek text in the sixteenth century, Robert Estienne (Stephanus) and Theodore Beza, did little to castigate it, although one of the codices used by Beza, and now known by his name, is of great value.
[Sidenote: Hebrew text]
The Hebrew Massoretic text of the Old Testament was printed by Gerson Ben Mosheh at Brescia in 1494, and far more elaborately in the first four volumes of the Complutensian Polyglot. With the Hebrew text the Spanish editors offered the Septuagint Greek, the Syriac, and the Vulgate, the Hebrew, Syriac and Greek having Latin translations. The manuscripts for the Hebrew were procured from Rome. A critical revision was undertaken by Sebastian Münster and published with a new Latin version at Basle 1534-5. Later recensions do not call for special notice here. An incomplete text of the Syriac New Testament was published at Antwerp in 1569.
[Sidenote: Latin versions]
The numerous new Latin translations made during {566} this period testify to the general discontent with the Vulgate. Not only humanists like Valla, Lefèvre and Erasmus, but perfectly orthodox theologians like Pope Nicholas V, Cajetan and Sadoletus, saw that the common version could be much improved. In the new Latin translation by Erasmus many of the errors of the Vulgate were corrected. Thus, in Matthew iii, 2, he offers "resipiscite" or "ad mentem redite" instead of "poenitentiam agite." This, as well as his substitution of "sermo" for "verbum" in John i, 1, was fiercely assailed. Indeed, when it was seen what use was made by the Protestants of the new Greek texts and of the new Latin versions, of which there were many, a strong reaction followed in favor of the traditional text. Even by the editors of the Complutensian Polyglot the Vulgate was regarded with such favor that, being printed between the Hebrew and Greek, it was compared by them to Christ crucified between the two thieves. [Sidenote: 1530] The Sorbonne condemned as "Lutheran" the assertion that the Bible could not be properly understood or expounded without knowledge of the original languages. [Sidenote: April 8, 1546] In the decree of Trent the Vulgate was declared to be the authentic form of the Scriptures. The preface to the English Catholic version printed at Rheims [Sidenote: 1582] defends the thesis, now generally held by Catholics, that the Latin text is superior in accuracy to the Greek, having been corrected by Jerome, preserved by the church and sanctioned by the Council of Trent. [Sidenote: 1592] In order to have this text in its utmost purity an official edition was issued.