approximating as nearly as possible to the original. The utility of this is too obvious to need either proof or illustration.

The Received Text of the New Testament is that which is in general use.

The degree of credit which is due to the accuracy of the Received Text will appear from the following brief detail of facts.

The New Testament was originally written in Greek: perhaps with the exception of the Gospel of Matthew, and the Epistle to the Hebrews; of which books, however, the earliest copies extant are in the Greek language.

Previously to the Reformation in the sixteenth century, the Greek copies were grown into disuse: the priests used an imperfect Latin translation in the public offices of religion, and all translations into the vulgar tongue for the use of the common people were prohibited or discouraged.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Cardinal Ximenes printed, at Alcala in Spain, a magnificent edition of the whole Bible in several languages. In this edition was contained a copy of the New Testament in Greek; which was made from a collation of various manuscripts, which were then thought to be of great authority, but which are now known to have been of little value. This edition, which is commonly called the Complutensian Polyglot, from Complutum, the Roman name for Alcala, was not licensed for publication till A. D. 1522, though it had been printed many years before. The manuscripts from which it was published are now irrecoverably lost, having been sold by the librarian to a rocket-maker about the year 1750.

A. D. 1516, Erasmus, residing at Basle in Switzerland, for the purpose of superintending the publication of the works of Jerome, was employed by Froben the printer, to publish an edition of the Greek Testament, from a few manuscripts which he found in the vicinity of that city, all of which were modern and comparatively of little value. Erasmus was not allowed time sufficient to revise the publication with that attention and care, which the importance of the work required: he complains that the persons whom he employed to correct the press, sometimes altered the copy without his permission, and he acknowledges that his first edition was very incorrect. He published a fourth edition A. D. 1527, in which, to obviate the clamor of bigots, he introduced many alterations to make it agree with the edition of Cardinal Ximenes.

A. D. 1550, Robert Stephens, a learned printer at Paris, published a splendid edition of the New Testament in Greek; in which he availed himself of the Complutensian Polyglot, and likewise of the permission granted by the king of France to collate fifteen manuscripts in the Royal Library. Most of these manuscripts are to this day in the National or Imperial Library at Paris, and are found to contain only parts of the New Testament; and few of them are either of great antiquity or of much value. They were collated and the various readings noted by Henry Stephens, the son of Robert, a youth about eighteen years of age. This book, being splendidly printed, with great professions of accuracy by the editor, was long supposed to be a correct and immaculate work but upon closer inspection it has been discovered to abound with errors. The text, excepting the Revelation, in which he follows

the Complutensian edition, is almost wholly copied from the fifth edition of Erasmus, with very few and inconsiderable variations.*

A. D. 1589, Theodore Beza, professor of theology at Geneva, and successor to John Calvin, published a critical edition of the Greek Testament, in which he made use of Robert Stephens's own copy, with many additional various readings from the manuscripts collated by Henry Stephens. Beza was also in possession of two most ancient and most valuable manuscripts; one of which, containing the Gospels and the Acts in Greek and Latin, he afterwards gave to the University of Cambridge; and the other, called the Clermont manuscript, which contained the Epistles of Paul, was transferred to the Royal Library at Paris. Beza took but little pains, and exercised but little judgment, in the correction of the text and the selection of the best readings. Nevertheless the text of Beza being esteemed the most accurate of those which had then been published, was selected as the standard of the English version published by authority. Beza's text, however, appears in fact to be nothing more, than a republication of Robert Stephens's with some trifling variations.

A. D. 1624, an edition of the Greek Testament was

* Robert Stephens was the person who divided the New Testament into verses. He performed this task while he was upon a journey from Lyons to Paris, in order to adapt it to a Greek Concordance which he was then preparing for the press. He placed the figures in the margin of his page. The first edition, in which the verses were printed separate with the number prefixed to each, was the English New Testament, printed at Geneva, A. D. 1557. The division into chapters had been made in the thirteenth century by Cardinal Hugo, to adapt the New Testament to a Latin Concordance.

published at Leyden, at the office of the Elzevirs, who were the most eminent printers of the time. The editor who superintended the publication is unknown. This edition differs very little from the text of Robert Stephens. A few variations are admitted from the edition of Beza, and a very few more upon some unknown authority; but it does not appear that the editor was in possession of any manuscript. This edition however being elegantly printed, and the Elzevirs being in high reputation for correctness of typography, it was unaccountably taken for granted that it exhibited a pure and perfect text. This, therefore, became the standard of all succeeding editions, from which few editors till very lately have presumed to vary and this constitutes the 'Received Text.'

Thus it appears, that the Received Text stands upon the authority of the unknown editor of the Elzevir edition, who copied the text of Robert Stephens, introducing a few variations from that of Beza. The edition of Beza was also taken from that of Robert Stephens, with a few trifling and sometimes even arbitrary alterations. But Robert Stephens's famous edition of A. D. 1550 is a close copy of the fifth edition of Erasmus, with some alterations in the book of Revelation from the Complutensian Polyglot, and the addition of a few various readings, collected by a youth of eighteen, from fifteen manuscripts of little value. And, finally, Erasmus's edition itself, which is the prototype of them all, was formed hastily and negligently from a few manuscripts of little authority, which accidentally came into his possession at Basle, where he was engaged by Froben in editing the works of Jerome, and where he had no further assistance, than what he could derive from the Vul

gate Version, and from inaccurate editions of some of the early ecclesiastical writers.

From the few advantages which were possessed, and from the little care which was taken, by the early editors, it may justly be concluded, not only that the Received Text is not a perfect copy of the apostolic originals, but that it is still capable of very considerable improvement, by the same means, which are adopted by men of learning and sagacity, for correcting and restoring the text of other ancient writers.

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SECTION III.

MEANS OF IMPROVING THE RECEIVED TEXT.-ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS.-VATICAN, ALEXANDRINE, CAMBRIDGE, CLERMONT,

EPHREM.

THE books of the New Testament, having been more highly valued, more generally circulated, more attentively studied, more accurately transcribed, and more frequently cited, than the works of any other ancient author, the Text is consequently less corrupted, and the means of correcting and restoring it are far more abundant, than of any other work of equal antiquity.

I. The first and best source of materials for improving the Text is the collation of Ancient Manuscripts. The early editors of the New Testament possessed but few manuscripts; and those of inferior value. Those of the Complutensian editors are destroyed, but they were not numerous, nor of great account. Erasmus consulted only five or six ; and R. Stephens fifteen.