612 BIBLE the 4th century papyrus had given place to parchment, and the form of the roll to that of the book. Breaks in the line and simple points were used. To meet the convenience of the public lecture, the books were measured off into pauses and sentences by lines, after the same manner with the poetical books of the Old Tes- tament. It was not long, however, before other divisions of the text were adopted. In the 3d century Ammonius in making his har- mony of the gospels had broken up the text into 1,165 sections, and after the 5th century his arrangement was indicated upon the mar- gin of nearly all the MSS. The gospels were divided into chapters from a very early period, but the present arrangement originated in the 13th century with Cardinal Hugo, who devised it while making a Latin concordance. Erasmus noted it in the margin of his Latin translation, and it was repeated in the Oomplutensian Polyglot. The subdivision of the chapters into verses was introduced by Robert Stephens in 1551. Cursive or small letters were not gen- erally substituted for the uncial till the 10th century. Uncial MSS. of the New Testament are numerous when compared with the ancient MSS. of other works ; and year by year new ones are being discovered. The ages of these to within half a century have been ascertained. To the 4th century belong two or three : the Sinaitic codex (K), now at St. Petersburg, ob- tained by Tischendorf from the convent of St. Catharine, Mt. Sinai, in 1859, and since pub- lished in facsimile at the expense of the empe- ror of Russia (1862) ; the Vatican codex (B), containing all the New Testament except the Apocalypse, the epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, and the last four and a half chapters of Hebrews. This MS. was published by Ti- schendorf at Leipsic in 1867 and by papal au- thority at Rome in 1868. To this century per- haps belongs a palimpsest in the British mu- seum containing fragments of John xiii. and xvi., published by Tischendorf. To the 5th century belong seven MSS. : the Alexandrian codex (A), presented by the patriarch of Con- stantinople to Charles I. in 1628, and preserved in the British museum, and published in 1786 and 1860 ; the Ephrem palimpsest (C), in the imperial library at Paris, containing in 64 leaves fragments of the Septuagint, and in 145 two thirds of the New Testament, over which had been written the works of St. Ephrem the Syr- ian, deciphered and published by Tischendorf in 1 843 ; and five other fragmentary MSS. To the 6th century belong 18 MSS. ; among them Beza's codex (D), a Greek-Latin MS. of part of the New Testament presented byBezain 1581 to the university of Cambridge ; the Codex purpurem (N) written with stiver letters on purple vel- lum ; and other MSS. of great interest. From the 7th century we have only several frag- ments of MSS. To the 8th century are as- signed 9, one of the most valuable being the MS. (L) 62 in the imperial library at Paris used by Robert Stephens. The 9th century has left us 20 MSS., besides four which are as- signed to the 9th or 10th. From the 10th century we have five. These uncial MSS. (about 75) have been deciphered, some of thum with great difficulty ; most of them have been accurately collated, and the text of many has been published. Of them all, only one, the recently discovered Sinaitic MS., now has the New Testament complete, though three others originally had the whole, hut now lack some parts. Four others have the gospels complete, and four nearly; and about 40 others have portions of the gospels, larger or smaller. The other New Testament books are found more or less complete in some, while in others they are wanting. Besides the 75 uncial MSS. above noticed, there are some 65 lectionaries, or se- lect portions of the gospels or epistles for church services, written in uncial letters, and 1,215 MSS. of some portions of the New Testa- ment and 248 lectionaries in cursive letters. Most eminent scholars have aided in establish- ing the text of the New Testament : among the Greeks, Irenseus, Clement, Origen, Athanasius, Eusebius, Epiphanius, the Cyrils, Chrysostom, and Theodoret; among the Latins, Cyprian, Tertullian, Ambrose, Augustine, and Rutinus. The name of Bede brings us nearer home. Alcuin endeavored to purify the Latin text, and Photius labored in the 9th century, Suidas in the 10th, and Theophylact, CEcumenius, and others in subsequent ages. Yet 50 years after the invention of printing no attempt had been made to print the original text of the New Testament. The fifth volume of the Compln- tensian Polyglot contained the original Greek based on MSS. of no special value, so far as may be judged. This volume was printed first of the whole set in 1514, but was not issued until the rest were finished in 1522. Before this, in 1516, Erasmus had issued the first Greek and Latin edition of the New Testament at Basel, constructing his text from five J1SS. there. A second edition, changed in some hundred passages, appeared in 1519, a third in 1522, and a fourth in 1527, further altered to conform to the Complutensian, and repeated in 1535 with little change. For 100 years the Complutensian and Erasmian texts were often reprinted with slight alterations. Famous editors of the text were Robert Stephens, a learned printer of Paris (1539-'51), and Theo- dore Beza (1565-'98). The Elzevirs at Ley- den (1624-'41) and at Amsterdam (1656) gave what is known as the "received text," relying upon Stephens and Beza. Bishop Walton's Lon- don Polyglot of 1657, Bishop Fell's Greek Tes- tament (Oxford, 1 658) and Dr. John Mill's Greek New Testament (Oxford, 1707) gave various readings and versions from many ancient MSS. under the received text. These were the pre- cursors of modern critical editions. Bengel (Tubingen, 1734), Wetstein (Amsterdam, 1751), and Griesbach (Halle, 1744 and 1806) made great advances in critical perfection. The edU tions of Knapp, Tittmann, Hahn, and Theile
