Dr. Westcott (born 1825; educated at Trinity College, Cambridge) is Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge (since 1870), and Canon of Peterborough (since 1869). He is the author of several able and useful works, as a History of the English Bible; a History of the Canon of the New Testament; an Introduction to the Study of the Gospels; and a Commentary on the Gospel of John, which ranks among the best parts of the Speakers Commentary. These two scholars have been in constant correspondence with each other, and kept a journal of their discussions of all the important textual questions. Few works have ever been prepared with so much labour, care, and devotion as this edition of the Greek Testament, begun in 1853 and finished in 1881.
The Introduction and Appendix, which the editors promise to publish shortly in a separate volume, will contain a full exposition of the principles and results of textual criticism. Without anticipating their elaborate treatise, which I have not yet seen, I propose, with their consent, to furnish the readers of this volume with such preliminary information as is necessary for an intelligent use of this or any other critical edition of the Greek Testament.
Literature.
The chief authorities for the topics discussed in this introduction are the following works:
Jo. Jac. Wetstein: Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη. Novum Testamentum, Græcum editionis receptæ cum lectionibus variantibus, etc. Amstel. 1751–52, 2 tom. fol. Prolegomena in tom. i. pp. 1–222.
Jo. Jac. Griesbach: Novum Testamentum Græce. Ed. 2da. Halæ Sax. et Lond. 1796–1806, 2 vols. 8vo. Ed. tertiam emend. et auctam cur. David Schulz. Vol. i. Berolini, 1827. Præfationes et Prolegomena, vol. i. pp. iii.–lvi. i.–cxxvii. Also his Symbolæ Criticæ (1785–93), with his Meletemata, and Commentarius Criticus in Textum Græcum N. T. (1798 and 1811).
