Bezae Codex Cantabrigiensis: Being an Exact Copy, in Ordinary Type, of the ...

reconcile wpa y here with John xix. 14, which of course it does very effectually. It is supported by ff. k. n. only. With epulaooov Tregelles compares ernpovv, Matth. xxvii. 36. This case too much resembles Luke iii. 23; Mark ii. 26 supra.

Aces xiii. 33 τω πρωτω ψαλμω for τω ψαλμω τω δευτερω is read by D alone of the manuscripts (46 p. m. omits the numeral), by Erasmus in his N. T. (who pleads the authority of some codices which omit the number and of Jerome), very expressly by Origen, Hilary, Eusebius, Jerome, Latin copies known to Bede, Euthymius (who all take pains to explain the difficulty), by Justin Martyr, Tertullian, manuscripts of Cyprian, Petilian in Augustine, Cassiodorus: Wetstein illustrates the subject by shewing that the Rabbinical writers reckoned the first two Psalms as but one.

At the end of this verse the citation from Psalm ii. 7 is needlessly carried into v. 8 (airnoal Tаρ аιμоν к.т..) by D and syr. p. mg. only. Codex D never elsewhere falls into the familiar error of many copies, in thus enlarging quotations from the Old Testament. It even abridges them in Matth. iv. 4; xv. 8; John xii. 40 (by oμoloréλEUTOV?); Luke iv. 18; Acts ii. 17-20.

Acts xv. 20, 29. Here кaι Tov TVIKтOV Or Kaι TVIKTOV is omitted by D alone among the Greeks (all the versions containing the clause), and in Latin by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Pacian, Jerome (who speaks of it as found in nonnullis exemplaribus), Augustine, Gaudentius, Fulgentius, Eucherius; Ambrosiaster (who may possibly have lived in the third century) ventures to say that the Greeks adulterarunt scripturas quartum mandatum addentes. In ch. xxi. 25 also Kaι TVLKTOV is omitted by D, the Thebaic, Jerome and Augustine only. It does not much matter that in the Peshito Syriac, Erpenius' Arabic, and Platt's Aethiopic, the order of the words is Topvelav Kaι TVLKTOV και aqua. The gloss of D in vv. 20, 29 of ch. xv. is upheld (in substance) in one or both places by 7. 25. 27. 29. 32. 42. 57. 60. 69. 98 marg. 105. 106. 137., in Scrivener's abeo, the Thebaic, both Aethiopic, the Slavonic, Irenaeus in Latin and Cyprian: in v. 29 by the later Syriac (with an asterisk) and the Complutensian edition.

και πνικτον αιμα.

Acts xxi. 16. The elegant but not very simple construction ayovтeo Tap w έevioOwμev uvaowvi TIVI KUTρt is found with little or no variation in all other manuscripts (only that has ïaoovi for the host's name, with the Memphitic, Sixtine Vulgate and demid.; B. 1. 18. gser, uvaow; 34 μνάσσω ; kser μνάσσωνι ; D fuld. tol. vaowvi), but D inserts a whole clause, the Latin of which may be seen on p. 409, but the Greek (now lost) must be recovered from the several collations set down in our Adnotationes. The sole support of Cod. D is derived from syr. p. mg., which (if our collators may be trusted, see p. 446) varied from the words of D, though not from its sense, in adding to ξενισθωμεν + και παραγενομενοι εισ την πολιν εγενόμεθα παρα κ. τ. λ. According to this account Paul's company must have rested twice on the road from Caesarea to Jerusalem (full 60 miles, see Smith's Dictionary of the Bible under Caesarea and Antipatris), on the second occasion at Mnaso's, on the first with one or more persons unknown (apud quem in d, but poo ovo in D prima manu, on Wetstein's evidence).

We may now draw our general draw our general conclusion from this prolonged investigation. Credner (Beiträge, 1. p. 466) has well observed that the strong contrast between the excessive freedom of the Greek text and the anxious strictness of the Latin betokens for their respective births different ages, actuated by very different principles of criticism. Bitter experience had taught the men of the fourth and fifth centuries a lesson which the Fathers of the second (we may name Justin Martyr as a conspicuous example) had yet to learn, that it is not safe to neglect the letter of Scripture, satisfied if only we abide by its spirit; or to mingle the sacred text with glosses from the parallel Gospels or with narratives (however edifying they may seem) drawn from uncanonical and uninspired writings.

While we assign therefore to the Latin version of Codex Bezae a Western province (most probably Gaul) as its native country, and a date not higher than the fifth century, we must further confess that the manuscript now in our possession, as well by reason of the errors of transcription lying under the present text (see p. xxiii), as from its not following all the corrupt readings of the Greek as it now stands (see p. xxxiv, note 1), is removed one step from the actual translator, who need not, however, have been other than a contemporary of the scribe whose work is yet extant. The Greek text, on the other hand, we believe to bear distinct traces of an origin far more remote. Itself immediately derived from a manuscript whose stichometry was arranged just like its own (see p. xxiii), it must ultimately be referred to an exemplar wherein the verses, now so irregular and confused, were first distributed according to an orderly system (see p. xvii), and such an original would most likely belong to the third century at the latest. In respect, moreover, to its rare and peculiar readings, the close resemblance. of Codex Bezae to the text of the Syriac versions (with which it could hardly have been compared later than the second century), and to that of the Old Latin, yet unrevised by Jerome, as employed by Cyprian and Augustine in Africa, by the translator of Irenaeus, by Hilary and Lucifer and Ambrose in the North-west, such resemblance (far too constant to be the result of chance) persuades us to regard with the deepest interest this venerable monument of Christian learning; inasmuch as the modification of the inspired writings which it preserves, whatever critics may eventually decide respecting its genuineness and purity, was at once widely diffused and largely received by the holiest men in the best ages of the Primitive Church.

P.S. George Dyer's Prologue on Ignoramus, pp. 18-21 (1797) may be added to the hostile notices of Kipling's edition mentioned in p. xiii, note 2. Dyer is especially severe on the Latinity of the Preface, which indeed is faulty enough.

At p. xxxii, 1. 14, after ellada ibid. xx. 2; add tristego ibid. xx. 9;

ADDENDUM.

I WOULD fain crave the reader's indulgence for a brief expression of private feeling, which, in mere gratitude, I cannot suppress. My other labours relating to the textual criticism of the New Testament have been carried on chiefly in a remote corner of Cornwall, whither the liberality of their owners has permitted me to bring many manuscripts for thorough and leisurely examination. Since it was not right to remove so precious a volume as Codex Bezae from its place in the University Library, I have enjoyed during the last three years the privilege of being much at Cambridge, after having ceased to reside there for more than a quarter of a century. This pleasing necessity has proved to me a source of deep satisfaction; it was like the renewal of youth to partake again of opportunities for improvement once too lightly prized; while my daily toil was sweetened by the good will of not a few who were pleased to esteem me for my work's sake, and by the generous hospitality, the unwearied kindness of a friend, whom I know not how to thank, the Rev. G. Williams, B.D. Senior Fellow of King's College.

To the officers of the University Library also I am largely indebted: to the Rev. A. W. Hobson, M.A. Assistant Librarian, and (more recently) to the Rev. J. E. B. Mayor, M.A., now the Principal Librarian. I could not easily tell how much my work owes to H. Bradshaw, Esq. M.A. Fellow of King's College, both for his readiness to aid my progress to his own serious inconvenience, and for the varied instruction which no one who is so happy as to converse with him can fail to derive, save through his own fault.