The Armenian Version.—The early history of this version is obscure, but it seems probable that there were two translations made in the 4th century: (1) by Mesrop with the help of Hrofanos (Rufinus?) based on a Greek text; (2) by Armenian. Sahak, based on Syriac. After the council of Ephesus (A.D. 430) Mesrop and Sahak compared and revised their work with the help of MSS. from Constantinople. The general character of the version is late, but there are many places in which the Old Syriac basis can be recognized, and in the Acts and Epistles, where the Old Syriac is no longer extant, this is sometimes very valuable evidence.
[See Scrivener (ed. Miller) vol. ii. pp. 148-154; Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, article on “The Armenian Versions of the New Testament,” by F.C. Conybeare; J.A. Robinson, “Euthaliana” (Texts and Studies, iii. 3), cap. 5; on the supposed connexion of Mark xvi. 8 ff. with Aristion mentioned in this version, see esp. Swete’s The Gospel according to St Mark (London, 1902), p. cxi.]
Other secondary versions which are sometimes quoted are the Gothic, Ethiopic, Georgian, Arabic, Anglo-Saxon, Frankish and Persic. None has any real critical importance; details are given in Gregory’s Prolegomena and in Scrivener’s Introduction.
(C) Quotations in Patristic Writings.—The value of this source of evidence lies in the power which it gives us to date and localize texts. Its limitations are found in the inaccuracy of quotation of the writers, and often in the corrupt condition of their text. This latter point especially affects quotations which later scribes frequently forced into accord with the text they preferred.
All writers earlier than the 5th century are valuable, but particularly important are the following groups:—(1) Greek writers in the West, especially Justin Martyr, Tatian, Marcion, Irenaeus and Hippolytus; (2) Latin writers in Italy, especially Novatian, the author of the de Rebaptismate and Ambrosiaster; (3) Latin writers in Africa, especially Tertullian and Cyprian; (4) Greek writers in Alexandria, especially Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius and Cyril; (5) Greek writers in the East, especially Methodius of Lycia and Eusebius of Caesarea; (6) Syriac writers, especially Aphraates and Ephraem; it is doubtful whether the Diatessaron of Tatian ought to be reckoned in this group or in (1). None of these groups bears witness to quite the same text, nor can all of them be identified with the texts found in existing MSS. or versions, but it may be said with some truth that group 2 used the European Latin version, group 3 the African Latin, and group 6 the Diatessaron in the gospels and the Old Syriac elsewhere, while group I has much in common with cod. Bezae, though the difference is here somewhat greater. In group 4 the situation is more complex; Clement used a text which has most in common with cod. Bezae, but is clearly far from identical; Origen in the main has the text of א B; Athanasius a somewhat later variety of the same type, while Cyril has the so-called Alexandrian text found especially in L. Group 4 has a peculiar text which cannot be identified with any definite group of MSS. For further treatment of the importance of this evidence see the section Textual Criticism below.
[There is as yet but little satisfactory literature on this subject. Outstanding work is P.M. Barnard’s “Clement of Alexandria’s Biblical Text” (Texts and Studies, v. 5), 1899; Harnack’s “Eine Schrift Novatians,” in Texte und Untersuchungen, xiii. 4; Souter’s “Ambrosiaster” in Texts and Studies, vii. 4; the Society of Historical Theology’s New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers; an article by Kostschau, “Bibelcitate bei Origenes,” in the Zeitschrift f. wissenschaftliche Theologie (1900), pp. 321-378; and on the general subject especially Nestle’s Einführung in das griechische Neue Testament (Göttingen, 1909), pp. 159-167.]
(K. L.)
3. Textual Criticism.
The problem which faces the textual critic of the New Testament is to reconstruct the original text from the materials supplied by the MSS., versions, and quotations in early writers, which have been described in the preceding section on the apparatus criticus. His object, therefore, is to discover and remove the various corruptions which have crept into the text, by the usual methods of the textual critic—the collection of material, the grouping of MSS. and other authorities, the reconstruction of archetypes, and the consideration of transcriptional and intrinsic probability. No book, however, presents such a complicated problem or such a wealth of material for the textual critic.
In a certain wide sense the textual criticism of the New Testament began as soon as men consciously made recensions and versions, and in this sense Origen, Jerome, Augustine and many other ecclesiastical writers might be regarded as textual critics. But in practice it is general, and certainly convenient, to regard their work rather as material for criticism, and to begin the history of textual criticism with the earliest printed editions which sought to establish a standard Greek Text. It is, of course, impossible here to give an account of all these, but the following may fairly be regarded as the epoch-making books from the beginning to the present time.