Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/339

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EDITIONS


291


EDITIONS


New Testament, called "Editio secunda"; in 1827 David Schulz added the first volume of a third edition. Griesbach is not always faithful to his principles, being too much under the sway of the Received Text ; more- over, he did not sufficiently utilize the codices most important for his purpose. His text has been fol- lowed by Schott, Knapp, Tittmann, Hahn, and Theile.

(2) It suffices to mention the editions of Mace (Lon- don, 1729), Harwood (London, 1776), Matthaei (Ri£;a, 1782-1788), Alter (Vienna, 1786), and Scholz (Leip- zig, 1830-1836); the last named scholar (a Catholic, and professor of exegesis in the University of Bonn) reduced Griesbach's first two recensions to one, dis- tinguishing it only from the Constantinopolitan text- form, which he derived from the more correct copies circulating in Asia Minor, Syria, and Greece during the first centuries. Scholz himself had industriously collected manuscripts in the East. The labours of Hug and Eichhorn may also be mentioned briefly. The former substituted his so-called Common Edition, and the latter the uncorrected text of Asia and Africa, for Griesbach's Occidental class. Both Hug and Eichhorn assign the Alexandrian text-form to Hesychius, and the Byzantine to Lucian; finally, Hug assigns to the labours of Origen in his old age a fourth text-form identical with a middle class favoured by Griesbach and Eichhorn. Rinck (18.30) divided the Occidental manuscripts into African and Latin, both of which are surpassed in purity by the Oriental.

(3) Carl Lachmann was the first critic who tried to reconstruct a New Testament text independent of the Receiver!. Believing that the autograph text coidd not be found, he endeavoured to restore the text-form most common in the Oriental Church during the course of the fourth century. He published his small stereotype edition in 1831 (Berlin), and his large Latin-Greek text in 1842-50 (Berlin) ; this latter is ac- companied by P. Buttmann's list of authorities for the Greek readings. Though Laehmann's text is prefer- able to the Received, his apparatus and the use he made of it are hardly satisfactory in the light of our present-day methods.

(4) Among the editors of the New Testament text, Tischendorf deserves a place of honour. During the thirty years which he devoted exclusively to textual studies, he published twenty or twenty-one editions of the Greek Testament; the most noteworthy among them belong to one or another of the following five re- censions: (a) In 1841 (Leipzig) he issued an edition in which he surpassed even Lachmann in his departure from the Received Text; the ancient manuscripts, the early versions, and the citations of the Fathers were regarded as the highest authorities in the selection of his reading. In 1.S42 Tischendorf published in Paris an edition destined for the French Protestants (Di- dot), and in the same year and place, at the instance of the Abbe I. M. Jager, another for the French Catho- lics, which he dedicated to Archbishop Affre. In this he received the Greek readings most in keeping with the Latin Vulgate, (b) The seconrl recension con- sists of four stereotype editions (12mo, 1842-59) con- taining the Greek text brought into agreement with the Latin Vulgate, (c) Tischendorf's third recension is represented by his fourth (Lipsiensis secunda, 1849; Winter), his fifth (stereotype; Leipzig, 1850, Tauch- nitz), and his sixth edition (with corrected Latin Vul- gate and Luther's translation; Leipzig, 1854, Avena- rius and Mendelssohn). A separate pritit of the Greek text of this last edition (1855) constitutes the first of Tischendorf's so-called "academic" editions. In the .seventh reprint of the academic edition, as well as in the third of Tauchnitz's stereotj'pe text, the readings were changed according to Tischendorf's fifth recension, (d) The fourth recension is found in Tischendorf's "Editio Septinia Crifica Maior" (Leip- zig, 1856-59; Winter). The work contains valuable prolegomena and a detailed critical apparatus, (e)


Tischendorf's fifth recension is found in his "Editio OctavaCriticaMaior" (Leipzig, 1864-72, Giesecke and Devrient). In his first recension Tischendorf is fur- ther removed than Lachmann from the Received Text; in his second he favours the Latin Vulgate; in the third, and still more in the fourth, he returns to the readings of the Received Text of Elzevir and Griesbach ; but in the fifth he again follows the princi- ples of Lachmann and favours the readings of his first recension rather than those of his third and fourth. Tischendorf will always occupy a high rank among the editors of the Greek text ; but he is rather a student of the text than a textual critic. The "Prolegomena" to the eighth edition had to be supplied by C. R. Greg- ory on account of the great editor's untimely death (7 Dec, 1874). Gregory published these " Prolegom- ena" in three instalments (Leipzig, 1884, 1890, 1894), giving the reader a most satisfactory and complete summary of the information necessary or useful for the better understanding of the Greek text and its apparatus.

(5) The discrepancy between the text of Scholz's edition (Leipzig, 1830-36) and the readings of the early documents stimulated Tregelles to study the textual questions more thoroughly in order to relieve the existing uncertainty. The favourable reception of his " Book of Revelation in Greek . . . with a new English Version" published with a "Prospectus of a Critical Edition of the Greek New Testament, now in Preparation" encouraged him to continue the arduous course of studies he had begun. After collating all the more important manuscripts which were to be found in England, he visited the libraries of Rome, Flor- ence, Modena, Venice, Munich, Basle, Paris, Hamburg, Dresden, Wolfenbilttel, and Utrecht for an accurate study of their respective codices. It has been noted that when the results of Tregelles differ from those of Tischendorf, the former are usually correct. He was enabled to publish the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark in 1857; those of St. Luke and St. John in 1861 ; the Acts and the Catholic Epistles in 1865; the Pauline Epistles in 1869-70. While engaged on the last chap- ters of the Apocalypse, he had a stroke of apople.xy, so that this part had to be finished by the hand of a friend (1872). Seven years later, Hort and Streane added "Prolegomena" to the work of Tregelles. A reprint of the text without its critical apparatus ap- peared in 1887. The character of the work is well described by its title, "The Greek New Testament, Edited from Ancient Authorities, with their Various Readings in full, and the Latin Version of Jerome" (London, 1857-79).

(6) The textual laboiu's of Tregelles and Tischen- tlorf were, to a certain extent, overshadowed by the work achieved by the two eminent Cambridge scholars, Brook Foss Westcott and Fenton John Anthony Hort. Like their predecessors, they acknowledged and fol- lowed the principles of Lachmann; but they differed from Lachmann as well as from Tischendorf and Tre- gelles in utilizing and systematizing the genealogical grouping of the ancient readings, thus connecting their labours with the views of Bengel and Griesl>ach. They distinguished four branches of textual tradition, (a) The Western has a tendency to paraphrase the text and to interpolate it from parallel passages and other sources. It is found mainly in Codex D, the old Latin Version, and partly in Cureton's Syriac manuscript, (b) The Alexaiulrian is purer than the Western, but contains changes of a grammatical character. It is found in the oldest uncial codices, e.xcept in B (and part of N), a number of cursive manuscripts, and the Egj-ptian versions, (c) The .Syrian is a mixture of all the other texts, or at least it contains some of the characteristics of all the others. It is found in the later uncials, anil in most of tlie cursive manuscripts and versions, (d) The neutral text comes nearest to the original text, being almost identical with it. Ita