Ixxii INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN* EDITION.
(5.) The brothers BONAVENTUKE and ABRAHAM ELZEVIR, enterprising publishers in Holland, issued, with the aid of unknown editors, several editions at Leyden, 1624, 1633, 1641 ; originally taken (not from Stephens, but) from Beza's smaller edition of 1565, with a few changes from his later editions. Xeatly printed, and of handy size, they were popular and authoritative for a long period. The preface to the second edition boldly proclaims : " Textum ergo kabes, nunc ab omnibus receptum : in quo nihil immutatum out corruptum damns.' 1 Hence the name Textus fieceptus, or commonly received standard text, which became a part of orthodoxy on the Continent; while in England Stephens's edition of 1550 acquired this authority; but both agree substantially.* Erasmus is the first, Elzevir's editor the last author, so to say, of the Textus Receptus. All the Holland editions were scrupulously copied from the Elze- vir text, and Wetstcin could not get authority to print his famous Greek Testament (l 751-52) except on condition of following it.f
with Beza (ed. 1589) against Stephens (ed. 1550) in about ninety places, with Stephens against Beza in about forty, and differs from both in thirty or forty places. Beza's Latin version,wnich was superior to the preceding ones, and his notes, had also con- siderable influence, which was misleading in many instances, but, on the whole, beneficial. See B. F. Westcott, History of the English Bible (Lond. 1868), p. 294.
- Mill observed but twelve variations. Tischendorf (p.lxxxv.
7th ed.) gives a list of 150 changes; Scrivener (p. 392) states the number At 287. These variations are as unimportant as the va- riations of the different editions of King James's English ver-^ sion, which number over 20,000.
f For a history of the Elzevir family and a list of their publi- cations, see Les Elzevier. Histoire et Annales typographiques, par
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