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Introduction
In his masterly book Storia della Tradizione e Critica del Testo(Le Monnier, Firenze,
1962) rightly described by Martin L. West as a wise opus (Textual Criticism and
Editorial Technique, Teubner, Stuttgart 1973, p. 6) Giorgio Pasquali highly
recommends (p. 10) another book, Johann Jakob Griesbachs second edition of the NewTestament(Novum Testamentum Graece, Halle, 1796). Pasquali had in mind, not
Griesbachs text of theNewTestamentitself, but the prefatory material that Griesbachadded to it and in particular the third section of the Prolegomena(Pasquali indicates in a
note that his attention was drawn to these Prolegomenaby another author, Dom Henri
Quentin,Essais de Critique Textuelle, Picard, Paris 1926, pp. 30ff).This third section of Griesbachs Prolegomenais entitledSynopsis of the Main
Critical Observations and Rules to which we have Conformed ourJudgment aboutDiscrepant Readings (Conspectus Potiorum Observationum Criticarum et Regularum, ad
Quas Nostrum de Descrepantibus Lectionibus Iudicium Conformavimus). About itPasquali writes: Also in my view the rules formulated by him in the Sectiotertia(pp.
LIX ff.) would deserve to be reprinted and diffused among scholars and students ofphilology as a sort of catechism (Anche secondo me le regole da lui formulate nellaSectio tertia (p. LIX sgg.) meriterebbero di essere ristampate e diffuse tra studiosi e
studenti di filologia quasi un catechismo). In particular Pasquali notes that Griesbach was
the first to enunciate clearly and accurately the rule of lectiodifficilior(the rule to choosethe more difficult reading over the easier, stated and amplified in points 1-3 of the
Synopsis), though he also properly notes that Griesbach was indebted for some of his
rules, and in part indeed for the lectiodifficilorrule, to Johann Jakob Wettstein,Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Graeci Editionem Accuratissimam(Amsterdam, 1730).Thanks to Google books, Griesbachs old text is now available online:
(Accessed 10/31/2010. Search under: novum testamentum graece. Result:http://books.google.com/books?id=ra0-
AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=novum+testamentum+graece&hl=en&ei=ctLNTJ
L8NIL58AaQ5Mi7BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false).
Pasqualis judgment is exact though Griesbachs rules, as will be evident from reading
them and is anyway true in general of rules in most matters, need to be used with duecare and prudence. In addition Griesbach seems not to be altogether without partisan
commitment (as perhaps in rule 6 and some of his comments in rule 8). The Prolegomena
are, of course, directed to the textual criticism of theNewTestamentand the examples allrelate to that topic. But these examples, while particular in their nature, are general in
their significance; hence the principles they illustrate apply to the textual criticism of all
ancient texts. Even those matters where Griesbach seems to have erred, as in particular inhis classification (or stemmata) ofNewTestamentmanuscripts and recensions, retain
their general significance, because they are fine instances of the sortof thing that any
critic must do when dealing with manuscripts and judging their divergent readings. Onemay, therefore, if one wishes, treat his classification as an imaginative reconstruction and
just read it by way of test case for what sort of rules to apply when and where and how.
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Pasquali was thus not wrong to wish Griesbachs Prolegomenato be distributed as a sort
of catechism among lovers of philology and textual criticism. A partial translation of thefirst 15 rules in the Prolegomenais already available online, at http://www.bible-
researcher.com/bib-g.html, but a full translation of the whole, including what it contains
in addition to those rules, is not. Accordingly, I have decided, now that modern
technology and Google have bestowed on us a world so easily and so richly furnishedwith materials for learning of all kinds, to do my part in realizing Pasqualis proposal by
translating into English the whole of the third section of Griesbachs Prolegomenaanduploading it here to my website for scholars and students of philology to profit from
and enjoy to the full. Notice of errors and suggestions for improvement will be most
welcome.
Peter L.P. Simpson. Feast of All Saints. 2010.
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Synopsis of the Main Critical Observations and Rules to which we have Conformed our
Judgment about Discrepant Readings.
J.J.Griesbach.
In balancing discrepant readings against each other, one ought to have regard to the
intrinsic goodness of each reading and also of the witnesses that are produced for each
reading, and their weight and agreement.
A reading is commended by its own inherent goodnesswhen:Eitherit is most of all in
agreement with the authors manner, style, scope of thought and feeling, and with the
other circumstantial features, whether exegetic (as context, adjuncts, opposites, etc.) or
historical; Oris so composed that, once it has been posited as primitive, one can easily
understand how all the other readings may have been generated from it, either by an error
of the copyists or by the inept attention of scribes, grammarians, commentators, or critics.
A second criterion of a genuine reading that we should place before our eyes so that we
can rightly apply it in judging readings of the text of theNew Testamentis, on the one
hand, the causes by which any copyist in transcribing originals of any kind could be
carried off into errors, and, on the other, the rocks on which those copyists more than
others would run aground who devoted themselves to making apographs of the books of
theNew Testament, and even first of all the huge distance which separates the style of the
Evangelists and Apostles from the style of writing of the best Greek authors. He who
attentively considers these points will discern that, from the law of criticism which bids
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that that reading is to be preferred before others whence the origin of the others may most
easily be explained, the following rules can be derived:
1. The briefer reading is to be preferred to the more wordy, unless it is entirelydevoid of the sanction of ancient and weighty witnesses. For copyists were much
more prone to add than to omit. They scarcely ever of set purpose passed over
anything and added a great deal; by chance, however, some things got missed out,
but also not a few things were added to the text by the error allowed in by the
copyists of their eyes, ears, memory, imagination, and judgment. Now in the first
place, the briefer reading, even if it is inferior to a second in the authority of its
witnesses, is to be preferred: a) if it is at the same time harder, more obscure,
ambiguous, elliptical, Hebraizing, or a solecism; b) if the same thing, expressed in
differing phrases, is read in diverse codices; c) if the order of the nouns is
inconstant and varying; d) if it is at the beginnings of sections or pericopes; e) if
the fuller reading has the flavor of a gloss or interpolation, or agrees word for
word with parallel loci, or seems to have migrated thither from the lectionaries.
But, on the contrary, we prefer the fuller reading to the briefer (unless many and
distinguished witnesses preserve the briefer): ) if homoeoteleuton could furnish
reason for omission; ) if what is omitted could seem to the copyists obscure,
hard, superfluous, unusual, paradoxical, offensive to pious ears, erroneous,
contrary to parallel loci; ) if the things omitted could be omitted without loss of
sense or word structure, of which kind are the propositions which they call
incidental, especially the briefer ones, and other things whose absence the copyist,
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upon re-reading what he had written, would not easily notice; ) if the briefer
reading is less agreeable to the genius, or style, or scope of the author; ) if it
utterly lacks sense; ) if it is probable that it has crept in from parallel loci or the
lectionaries.
2. The more difficult and obscure reading1is to be preferred to that in whicheverything is so open and uncomplicated that any copyist could easily understand
it. Now those readings most vexed unlearned copyists by their obscurity and
difficulty: a) whose meaning could not easily be perceived without a more
intimate knowledge of Graecisms, Hebraisms, history, archaeology, etc.; b) which,
when admitted, the thought would seem to be impeded in the wording by
difficulties of several kinds, or a fitting connection of the parts of speech to be
dissolved, or the nerve of the arguments proffered by the author for confirming
his thesis to be severed.
3. Let a harder reading be preferred to one where, when it is posited, the writingflows sweetly and smoothly. A reading is harder that is elliptical, Hebraizing, a
solecism, abhorrent to the way of speaking usual to the Greeks, or offensive to the
ears by sound of words.
4. The more unusual reading is superior to one wherein nothing unusual iscontained. Therefore let rarer words, or at any rate those more rarely employed in
the sense that must be allowed in the place the question is about, and phrases and
1There is no need for us to go on repeating time and time again that readings which, considered in
themselves, we judge to be superior are only to be preferred to the rest in case they have the commendation
of the votes of at least some ancient witnesses. For what rests on no suitable authority but only on recent
and cheap ones does not enter into the reckoning. But the more the intrinsic indications of excellence are on
which any reading rests, the fewer the witnesses are that there is need of for its vindication. It can therefore
happen that some reading stands out with so many and so manifest criteria of its goodness that two
witnesses, provided they belong to different groups or families, nay a single one, may be sufficient support.
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constructions of words less worn by use, be preferred to the more vulgar ones. For
copyists snatch eagerly at things more usual in lieu of things more recherch, and
are accustomed to substitute glosses and interpretations in their stead (especially
if such are supplied in the margin or parallel passages).
5. Less emphatic locutions, unless the context and scope of the author demandsemphasis, come closer to genuine scripture than readings discrepant from them
that have or seem to have greater force in them. For copyists2of a little learning,
like commentators, loved and seized at emphases.
6.
A reading which, more than others, expresses a meaning apt for fostering piety
(especially monastic piety), is suspect.
7. A reading is to be preferred to others wherein lurks a sense apparently indeedfalse but which, when the thing is more carefully examined, is found to be true.
8. Among several readings for one passage, that reading is deservedly held to besuspect which, more than others, manifestly favors the dogmas of the orthodox.
For since most, not to say all, codices today surviving were completed by monks
and other men given to the Catholic party, it is not credible that they neglected in
the codex they were each writing out any reading whereby some dogma of the
Catholics seemed to be lucidly confirmed or heresy forcefully strangled. For we
know of certain readings, even manifestly false ones, provided only they
supported what was pleasing to the orthodox, that from the beginnings of the third
century were mordantly defended and sedulously propagated, while the remaining
2When I say copyists, both here and elsewhere, I wish to be understood critics as well as possessors of
codices who in their books, from which others were then written out, either changed the text itself or at any
rate inserted in the margin certain of their own remarks and emendations.
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readings of the same passage, which brought no support to ecclesiastical dogma,
were rashly attributed to the perfidy of heretics.
9. Since scribes were inclined to repeat at foreign points the same terminations ofwords and sentences which they had just written, or which, their eyes running
ahead of their pens, they foresaw were soon to be written, readings that are to be
explained very easily by a deception of the same pattern are of no value.
10.Similar to these inducements to error are others. Copyists, who had already readover the whole sentence before they began to write it, or were, while writing it,
looking with hasty eye at the model presented to them, often seized wrongly a
letter or syllable or word from what preceded or followed and thus forged new
readings. If, for instance, two neighboring words began from the same syllable or
letter, it not seldom happened that either the first was completely omitted or that
what was specific to the first was rashly attributed to the second. Such
hallucinations he will scarcely avoid who is devoting himself to writing out a
somewhat more verbose little book, unless he applies his whole mind to the task,
a thing which few copyists seem to have done. Readings, therefore, which flowed
from this fount of error, however ancient they may be and as a result suffused into
many books, are rightly rejected, especially if codices otherwise cognate are
discovered to be pure of contagion from this fault.
11.Among the several readings of the same passage that reading is preferable whichlies as a sort of mean between the rest, that is, the one which so contains the
threads as it were of all the rest that, with it admitted as primitive so to say, one
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may easily see by what reason, or rather by what sort of error, all the rest might
have sprung forth from it.
12.Let readings be rejected that smell of gloss or interpretation, which sort ofinterpolations the critic will sniff out with no effort of his more cleanly wiped
nose.
13.Critics teach, with considerable agreement, that readings are to be rejected whichhave been imported into the text from the commentaries of the Fathers or from
ancient scholia. But to this precept there are several caveats which have not been
sufficiently noted by those who declare that interpolations, only not all, are to be
principally derived from this source, and not only in the Greek codices, even the
most ancient, namely our codices ABCDL, but maintain that into the old Latin
version too the innumerable corruptions on any page of it whatever have been
inserted from the Fathers and the Greek scholia. But what I myself think of this
general cause I will briefly expound:
a. I grant that no codex, however ancient, is immune from interpretations andglosses.
b. I confess too (a thing which Mill and other critics long ago perceived) thatnot a few corruptions of this kind have emanated from the commentaries
and compilations of the Fathers written in the margin of many codices.
c. I warrant that the younger codices have been especially deformed by thissort of blemish; but that the most ancient ones have been corrupted from
Chrysostom and the scholia today surviving one may be permitted to deny
until the contrary is proved (as no one has yet managed to do) by
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interpretations of no moment, which could to the reader be of scarcely any
use, to the neglect of others, more worthy by far of note, whereby not a
little light could really be brought to obscure places?
d. For this reason neither I do not think that those ancient codices have beencorrupted from the commentaries of Origen that we know of, although I
would not wish to enter on a denial that some things from this mans
notices, which are praised by the ancients and seem once to have overlain
the margins of the codices, had already in the most ancient times crept
everywhere into the text.
e. I grant that the text of the Greek codices furnished with scholia has beenvitiated here and there by these very scholia. A copyist who was rather a
little careless and who had the text and the scholia together before his
eyes, and was looking now at that and now at these, could very easily be
deceived so as to mix in with the text a reading of the scholia. For I judge
that the text was rarely interpolated by these of set decision. But however
that may be, you will seek in vain for manifest errors of this sort in our
oldest codices and ancient versions.
f. I confess that codices furnished with scholia often agree amongthemselves and that they are sometimes even consonant with our oldest
ones. But the cause of neither consensus is located in the intention of the
interpolators, who have, from similar reason, corrupted all these books
from the scholia. But first as to what concerns the agreement of codices
among themselves furnished with scholia, it is in no case so great that they
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agree in all readings of the text. The codices which have the same scholia
added, or to which the same commentary of Chrysostom or Theophylact
or Euthymius is attached, not seldom present discrepant readings of the
text. But I willingly concede that these books altogether belong to the
same family. Nevertheless almost all the codices into whose text
compilations and scholia have been diffused, even though they are diverse
from each other, do sufficiently border in close relationship on each other
and do exhibit a text that is not indeed altogether the same but yet very
similar and in many places at variance with the text of the younger rank
and file books. But the reason for this fact is not far to seek. For it is
evident that the scholiasts and later authors of compilations almost always
set in place as foundation the more ancient compilations of this sort and
built their new ones on top of these. Hence it has happened that for the
most part they have even retained the same text; whence, further, what
results is understood, that the codices furnished with scholia have
preserved many ancient readings which have disappeared from other
codices of the same era. Although, therefore, they labor under several
vices that are more or less proper to this family, to which, as happens, new
errors, whether by the carelessness or rashness of the copyists, have even
accrued, nevertheless by no means are these books, whose faults the critic
may easily remove, to be spurned, but are rather to be preferred to the
other rank and file ones. But as concerns the agreement of codices
furnished with scholia with our most ancient codices and versions which
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is evident however not in the general form of the text but only in
individual places the reason for this agreement is already manifest from
what we have just said. For the codices in which not a few ancient
readings survive cannot fail to agree in many things with the other ancient
witnesses.
g. They therefore err who think that from the agreement of, for example, thecodex Cantabrigiensis with the codices of the scholia they can force the
conclusion that the Cantabrigiensis has been interpolated from the scholia.
Those who make this determination ought to teach that the readings
common to both could not have arisen otherwise than in the scholia and
could not have migrated into the Cantabrigiensis from anywhere else than
from these scholia. But until this is confirmed by just arguments it does
not shame me to maintain the opinion opposite to it, namely that readings
of this sort became known to the authors of the scholia from books that
were ancient and in part similar to the Cantabrigiensis. Besides, if it can be
established by examples the most appropriate possible, which I scarcely
credit, that some readings, imported from the scholia or the commentaries
of the Fathers, have been admixed with our most ancient codices, very
little fresh help is to be expected therefrom for the discernment of genuine
readings. For several that are held to have crept into those books from the
scholia are so composed that they can scarcely deceive the experienced
critic. On the other hand, to say how it really is, those who proclaim that
so many readings have been imported into the text from the scholia are
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chiefly doing it, not to bring assistance to the sacred text (which no danger
threatens) or to be on guard lest it be vitiated by interpretations (easy to
diagnose) of this sort, but much more so that they may undermine the
authority of the most ancient and most excellent codices and extol rank
and file books.
14.We repudiate readings first arising in the lectionaries, which are very often addedat the beginnings of the assigned selection and sometimes also in the endings and
the middle of it for the sake of clarity (because supplementation from the
passages sequence was needed), and they cut short and alter that which, separated
from what precedes or what follows, would seem scarcely able to be understood
with sufficient correctness. However, in applying this canon there is need of
almost the same cautions as are in place in judging readings born from scholia.
For not all the discrepant readings met with in the lectionaries have sprung from
the Ecclesiastical use of assigned selections, but many have passed into the
lectionaries from the more ancient codices, displaying the complete context; nor
should the oldest codices, if they anywhere agree with the lectionaries, be held for
interpolations because of this consensus alone; but instead one must also examine
whether there are probable causes on account of which some reading might be
determined to have originally arisen in the selection, or could indeed with equal
right be attributed to the genius of the copyists who were writing out the complete
codices. For things which had necessarily to be supplemented at the beginning of
the assigned selections could, as serving for clarity, come into the mind of
copyists already of older age and be at once inserted by them in the text,
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especially if from the words with which the selection begins a new chapter as well
or a new lesson might begin.
15.Readings are to be condemned that have been brought from the Latin version intoGreek books. This rule, most certain and most true, the use of which however is
very rare when judging the readings of Greek codices, has been very badly abused
by learned men to diminish the trustworthiness not only of Graeco-Latin codices
but also of many others, even of books distinguished for age and excellence. For
as often as they found a reading, discrepant from the reading of the rank and file
books, in some Greek codex, which was in agreement with the Latin version, they
said that the codex was Latinizing. But mere consensus, unless other indications
are joined thereto, does not in any way argue that an interpolation has been made
from the Latin version. But I do not wish to repeat here the admonishments of
Semler, Woidius, and Michaelis for removing these unjust suspicions, or my own
disputations elsewhere on this matter (Symbol. Crit. tom. 1. p. 110). For now that
I have illustrated sufficiently, in accord with our brevity and counsel, those
matters whereby a reading, viewed by itself, is recognized to be a good one, I
must proceed now to the declaration of that on which the authority of witnesses
most especially depends.
Now trust is to be placed in witnesses on condition that they are not only suitable and
weighty but are also in agreement among themselves.
The weightinessor gravity of witnesses is judged partly from their age and partly
from other things that can secure for them trustworthiness and authority. The ageof
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witnesses is not solely nor principally to be judged from the antiquity of the parchments;
for in the fourteenth century, for example, an apograph from by far the oldest codex could
be made that would reproduce its exemplar with the greatest accuracy; while, on the other
hand, there arises even already in the fifth century, to which scarcely one or two of the
codices surviving today could be referred, another codex, beside the ancient and genuine
text, wherein not a few younger readings had crept into the place of the original ones.
Therefore the age of the text itself rather than that of the copyist is to be looked for. But
this is judged from the texts repeated agreement with other witnesses (first of all with the
translations and the Fathers) of whose age we have definite certainty, and from the
abundance of the sort of readings that, like ancient coinage, betray their age, as it were by
a certain verdigris, to skilled arbiters. However, one must hold on to the fact that codices
exist whose text is made up of ancient and of more recent readings, so that now these and
now those predominate. When it comes to use, therefore, caution is needed lest, on the
basis of a few readings, culled either by chance or by design, a judgment is passed about
the age of the whole text. Further, as to what concerns those things that confer greater
authority on witnesses, to this head we refer repeated agreement with other witnesses of
tested faithfulness and abundance of readings commendable for their native goodness.
But, next, this is not so to be understood as if a codex, marred everywhere by a certain
type of vice, were altogether of no authority. For a text, otherwise very outstanding and
very ancient, could, in individual places, be interpolated from the lectionaries, nay even
from the Latin version; yet neither for this cause is it licit utterly to spurn it or to cast the
whole of it away. A codex of this sort has no validity in that type of reading which is
touched by suspicion of interpolation; in the rest it can carry great weight. Nevertheless,
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books marred a great deal by very many vices of various kinds, provided the basic text,
which interpolators have deformed, was ancient and good, may sometimes abound with
excellent readings to be met with in very few codices. Such a codex, indeed, is per se and
on its own of small and at any rate dubious value; but if a reading be outstandingly good,
and the votes of other old and weighty witnesses, although few, agree with it, the
consenting testimony of that codex ought in no way to be held as nothing.
Critics in addition advise that codices transcribed faithfully, carefully, diligently
by a skilled and learned copyist from a good and ancient exemplar are beyond others of
great importance in judging readings. But this precept cannot be applied in practice
without multiple cautions. For, first, from what codex another was transcribed we very
rarely know from anywhere else than from the character of the apograph. Next, a copyist
could have used an exemplar ancient and yet corrupt. Besides, the faithfulness of a
copyist, if indeed we are sufficiently certain about it, deserves altogether the highest
praise; but a codex copied down however faithfully, but from a recent and corrupt
exemplar, is of no value; while, on the contrary, a book written out by a scribe indulging
his extravagant genius too much in particular places and changing the text at will, clearly
does not have no authority. For you may easily discern places of this sort, corrupted by a
rather audacious copyist, if you call on other witnesses, especially the more ancient ones,
for assistance, and you may separate readings peculiar to that codex from the rest which
are common to several. Nevertheless such a codex should be held of great value if, from
definite indications, it can be inferred that the text, where the rash copyist has prowled,
proceeded from an exceedingly old and good exemplar.
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the same authority, although it be a little changed in its dress, and it always repeat the
same things, we do indeed hear an authority stable with itself, but we will be able to glory
very little in a consensus of witnesses. Yet the same accounts holds of the witnesses we
use in the business of criticism. Over a hundred Greek codices of the Gospelsare extant,
derived from one and the same common source, and they are (if you except writing
errors, omissions because of homoeoteleuton, glosses picked up from the margin, and
changes in words that are synonymous) for that reason harmonious in almost every
syllable.4He who cried up the consonance of these for a consensus of so many witnesses
could enumerate six hundred codices even of the Vulgate version as so many witnesses
that confirm a certain reading. But as this version is held for a single authority alone and
individual exemplars are examined only with this intention, to open up a way in for
establishing the primitive reading of this translation, so the same is valid also for the
Greek codices which are conjoined among themselves by the bond of a closer kinship.
Therefore all those codices whose testimony we use in judgment of the sacred text should
be rightly separated into their classes. But in the discriminating and arranging of classes
account should principally be taken of the different recensions of the sacred text.
That several recensionsof the text of theNew Testamentexisted in ancient times,
and still survive in the codices, versions, and asseverations of the Fathers, will not seem
strange to any one who is not unaware that in very many of the books, both manuscripts
and editions, even of pagan authors, Greek and Latin, the same thing has long been
noticed by the most learned critics, nay more, referred to by the same term that we are
4A heap of codices, written in more recent centuries at Constantinople and its vicinities, are of little value
even if they be disseminated throughout all Europe and beyond. A whole class of documents, from which
various readings can be collected and decided, are divided into as it were two nations, the Asiatic and the
African. If there were not so few ancient Greek exemplars from Africa, the excellence of which is greatly
overcome in mere number by the Asiatic crowd, it would be permitted to rely a little more on the plurality
of codices. Bengel, ibid., P. IV., num. 4., sect. 31
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using. We request beginners, desirous of learning what the difference is between several
recensions of the same book, to contrast the first Erasmian edition of theNew Testament
with the Complutensian, or, if this seem too troublesome, or an example is demanded that
is sufficiently obvious even to duller eyes, to compare Bengels edition of theApocalypse
with the Elsevir edition or the Curcellaean or the Maastricht edition. He who wants three
or four recensions of the same book, now agreeing and now disagreeing among
themselves, let him turn over the Complutensian, the Aldine, the Roman, and the Grabian
editions of the Septuagint version of the OldTestament, or, if these be not to hand, let him
attack Hornemans Specimen Secundum Exercitationum Criticarum in Versionem LXX
Interpretum,Haunia, 1776, where he will find, displayed in a synoptic table, a collection
of varying readings from those editions. The origin of the various recensions of the text
of theNew Testament, in the absence of documents and testimonies sufficiently old,
cannot historically be explained, nor does it belong in this place to make good the defect
with conjectures. But that there existed already two recensions at least by the beginning
of the third century is manifest from a collation of loci of the New Testamentin Greek
praised by Origen with the asseverations of Tertullian and Cyprian. For these assume a
Greek text different in its whole manner and universal complexion from that which
Origen used and already before him Clement of Alexandria. Theformertext usually
agrees with the Graeco-Latin codices, with the books of the Latin version before Jerome,
and (in the GospelofMatthew) with the very old Vatican B and with codices 1, 13, 69,
113, 124, 131, 157 and the Sahidic and Syro-Jerusalem versions; the latterusually agrees
with codices CL 33, 102, 106 of the Gospelsand (in the final chapters ofMatthew, in
Mark,Luke, andJohn) with Vatican B, with the Coptic (to wit, the Memphitic), Ethiopic,
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Armenian, Syrian, Philoxenian versions and with the asseverations of Eusebius,
Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Isidore of Pelusium, and others. This latter text which,
after Clement and Origen, the Alexandrians and Egyptians especially used and
disseminated you would not improperly callAlexandrian. The other, used from the time
of Tertullian by the Africans, Italians, Gauls, and others in the West, could not unsuitably
be distinguished by the name of Western, although it did not at all confine itself within
the boundaries of the Western Empire, as is clearly apparent from the agreement, though
not continuous yet nevertheless frequent, of the Syrian, Jerusalem, and Sahidic versions.
From each of these two very ancient recensions in the Gospels, of which alone I am here
speaking, the text of codex A differs, now agreeing with the Alexandrian ones, now with
the Western, now with both at once, but very often also disagreeing from both, and
coming a little closer to our vulgar text. With this codex the codices EFGHS are cognate,
but deformed by several more recent readings, and they are much closer than A to the
vulgar text. All these (AEFGHS) seem to agree in the Gospels generally with those
Fathers (as far as one may gather from the imperfect collations of them) who flourished
at the close of the fourth century and in the fifth and sixth centuries in Greece, Asia
Minor, and the neighboring provinces, and this recension, which from the following fact
we may name the Constantinopolitan, was especially propagated in the patriarchate of
Constantinople and thereafter disseminated far and wide by innumerable copyists, and
was even transfused into the Slavonic version (the codices of which, however, are
themselves not seldom in mutual disagreement). To none of these recensions is the Syriac
version similar (so far indeed as it has been printed), but neither is it altogether dissimilar
to any. In many cases it is in accord with the Alexandrian recension, in several with the
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Western, in some even with the Constantinopolitan, but in such a way that it repudiates
most of what was eventually imported into this last in later centuries. At diverse times,
therefore, it seems to have been checked again and again against clearly diverse Greek
codices.5The text of the Gospels of Chrysostom is to this extent not unlike the Syriac
version, that it too draws something from different recensions. It admits certain things
from the Western recension, more from the Alexandrian, most from the
Constantinopolitan, but from an older form of it and one not yet deformed by later
interpolations; the reason for which mixture I suspect to have been located principally in
the fact that Chrysostom consulted or, if you prefer, compiled several commentaries of
previous interpreters which were fitted, not to one and the same text, but to texts varying
and discrepant among themselves. Besides, no one expert in these things could be caused
trouble by readings to be met with in the text and the interpretation of Chrysostom, which
were born of this mans negligence or his custom of enlivening the text rather a little
freely and expressing its sense, no matter how, in his own words. Besides codices that
exhibit one of these old recensions there are some extant whose text is conflated of
readings from two or three recensions; of which sort are the fragments of codices PQT,
which agree now with the Alexandrian codices and now with the Western ones. To this
class could also perhaps be referred those which we above attached, in their greater part,
to either the Alexandrian or Western ones, the codices 1, 13, 33, 69, 106, 118, 124, 131,
157, with the Ethiopic, Armenian, Sahidic, Syro-Jerusalem versions and the margin of the
Philoxenian. For in all these are admixed Alexandrian readings with Western ones and
5This fact can be illustrated by the example of certain Latin codices which reproduce a version, certainly
early, fitted to the Western recension but everywhere reworked in view of younger Greek books. Of this
sort is the Brixian Latin codex which not seldom is the only one that departs from all the Graeco-Latin and
older Latin codices and passes over to the side of the Greek ones.
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vice versa. But there are also some codices in which, if you regard the universal form of
the text, Constantinopolitan readings indeed are regnant, sprinkled however with more or
fewer readings, whether Alexandrian or Western, to which belong the codices (to be
removed from the number of the rank and file ones albeit not all endowed with the same
authority): KM, 10, 11, 17, 22, 28, 36, 40, 57, 61, 63, 64, 72, 91, 108, 127, 142, 209, 229,
235, and theBooksofGospels18, 19, 24, 36.
But so what we have said about discriminating diverse recensions may more
safely be transferred to the judgment of readings, either proper to one recension or
common to several, it seems not inexpedient to give the reader advice about certain
things that pertain to this cause.
a) The critic should, with constant attention, hold as a thing known and evident whatthe things are whereby any recension surpasses or is inferior to the rest. The
Western recension for instance is wont to preserve genuine readings that are
harder, abhorrent to the nature of the Greek language, Hebraizing, ungrammatical,
ill sounding which of course would less offend any Western readers; but the
Alexandrian recension studies to avoid and change whatever could be annoying to
Greek ears. The Western recension tries with interpretations, circumlocutions,
additions hunted out from everywhere, transpositions of words and sentences, to
render the sense clearer and less inaccessible; but the Alexandrian strives to
highlight phrases and words rather than the sense. The Western recension loves
readings indeed that are fuller and more verbose and loves also supplements
begged from parallel places; but it also sometimes omits things which seem to
render the sentence obscure or repugnant to the context or to other places; in all
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these matters the Alexandrian is wont to be more chaste. In a word, the
Alexandrian censor has acted the grammarian, the Western the interpreter. But the
latter often enough has unhappily administered the province of interpreter, and
handled the text much more freely than was lawful; but he is not to be denied the
praise of sagacity. For not seldom, for example in the history of the resurrection of
the Lord, he has sniffed out difficulties and apparent inconsistencies which most
commentators, not noticing the snake hidden in the grass, have walked over
dryfoot, but which our age has at last more carefully judged. In all these matters
we have just touched on the Constantinopolitan recension is wont to work with
the Alexandrian, being diverse from it in this respect alone, that it is still more
studious of Graecisms, admits several glosses into the text, and everywhere mixes
in Western readings either dissonant from the Alexandrian ones or conflated from
the Alexandrian and Western. He who desires to adjudicate the authority of
witnesses alleged for each reading should have observations of this sort ready to
hand. For the importance of each recension is diverse for diverse kinds of
readings. In one kind the Western recension should have more weight, in another
kind the Alexandrian.
b) No recension in any codex still surviving is found as it originally was withouttaint. In the interval of time which has intervened between the origins of
recensions and the births of the codices today extant, the individual codices of all
recensions have been corrupted in many places. Each copyist in writing down his
apograph committed a number of errors; new interpretations, glosses, additions
crept in from the margin or elsewhere; the negligent and hasty scribe everywhere
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omitted certain things; readings from another recension were brought into books
of another family, etc. Therefore in the fifth and sixth centuries, codices of, for
example, the Alexandrian recension could not fail to be different in many places
from the primitive Alexandrian text as it had been at the beginning of the third
century. But since these sort of corruptions have in no way invaded all the codices
of the same recension but only deformed individual ones, it is evident not only
that the reasoning of those is unsound who attribute the vices found in one codex
universally to a certain recension, but it is also understood
c)
that it is of very great moment that the original reading of each recension be
searched out. The codices and the Fathers and all the versions displaying the same
recension must certainly be compared, and that reading must be selected from the
readings to be met with in them which both the older witnesses and the intrinsic
marks of goodness commend above the rest. The primitive readings in the
Gospelsindeed of the Alexandrian recension are dug up for the most part by easy
labor when the codices CL and (inMark,Luke, andJohn) B agree, especially if
Clement or Origen along with the Coptic version and the other Alexandrian ones
concur. It is a matter of a little deeper investigation to recognize the original
reading of the Western recension, since fewer ancient witnesses, and these more
corrupted, survive from this family. Where the Western codices, therefore,
disagree among themselves, judgment must be made above all from internal
criteria as to which one from the several readings is to be held for original. But
when the primeval reading in some recension has become known, it is to be
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attributed to this recension viewed in its generality, and the other readings
neglected that have been imported into some of the codices of the same recension.
d) Before it can be defined which of several readings is genuine, one must considerto what recension any reading is to be referred; nor do we particularly ask how
many codices today surviving agree in some reading, but we study especially to
hunt out how many ancient recensions originally had that reading. For all the
witnesses whatever in agreement with themselves that pertain to the same
recension ought to be held for a single authority. Therefore in practice it can
happen that two or three codices have the same value as a hundred others. For
some ancient recensions survive in no more than a few codices, others have
overtaken innumerable handwritten books. In the Western provinces after the
fourth century, and in Egypt after the sixth, very few Greek codices were written
out; but in the patriarchate of Constantinople, on the other hand, Greek monks
paid untiring attention to multiplying exemplars of theNewTestamentright up to
the fifteenth century.
e) A reading in which all the ancient recensions had primitively agreed is indubitablytrue, even if another reading afterward invaded as many younger codices as
possible.
f) If all the recensions have not primitively agreed in the same reading, that readingis superior which is supported by the votes of the older ones, unless the advice we
gave above, under a), about the genius of individual recensions stands in the way.
g) From the consensus of the Alexandrian recension with the Western it is mostfirmly collected that the reading common to both is by far the most ancient; nay
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more, if it shines with its own internal goodness at the same time, it is genuine.
But if a reading of this sort seem destitute of internal criteria of truth, the
importance of these criteria is to be carefully weighed, so that it may appear
whether the lack of them has more weight than the consenting testimony of the
Alexandrian and Western recension.
h) If the Alexandrian recension agrees with the Constantinopolitan, but the Westerndiffers from both, one must inquire whether the Western reading is of the sort
where this recension is wont more often to go wrong, and at the same time the
internal marks of the true and false are to be diligently weighed.
i) A similar reasoning is to be used in adjudicating readings in which the Westernrecension agrees with the Constantinopolitan against the Alexandrian.
j) [non datur]k) If some recension exhibits a reading discrepant from the readings of the remaining
recensions, in no way does the number of the individual witnesses but the internal
criteria of goodness determine what reading is to be preferred to the rest. We
embrace, therefore, the outstandingly good reading even if supported by the votes
of very few witnesses, provided it can be shown that it is the primitive reading of
some ancient recension no matter which, nor does the singular condition of that
recension stand in the way, note a) above.
Having now expounded the things which the critic ought to attend to in judging the
consensus of witnesses because of the fact that the witnesses of the sacred text do not set
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up the same recension,6let me add, in three words: one should direct ones attention also
to that distinction of witnesses whereby some are handwritten books, some authors of
versions, others the Fathers enlivening places of theNewTestament. We confer the first
place indeed on the handwritten codices, nor do we easily approve a reading reliant only
on the trustworthiness of the versions and the Fathers. But yet an exceedingly good
reading, found in very many versions and the Fathers, provided it be supported by the
consensus of some ancient and outstanding codices, however few you like, is in no way
to be spurned, especially if those codices are descended from diverse recensions.
Finally I deem it necessary to be kept in mind that some codices are conflated
from parts by far very different. For example the Alexandrian codex follows one
recension in the Gospels, another in the PaulineEpistles, another in theActsofthe
Apostlesand the CatholicEpistles. Thus the Vatican codex also works with the Western
ones in the earlier part of the GospelofMatthew, but in the last chapters ofMatthew, and
inMark,Luke, andJohn, it agrees with the Alexandrian. To mixed codices of this sort the
critic ought honestly to attend in judging the consensus of witnesses.
6Some things which I have been able to touch on in very few words in this place, I have declared a little
more copiously inDissert. De codicibus Evangeliorum Origenianis, Halle 1771, and in Curis in historiam
textus epistolarum Paulinarum graeci, Jena 1777.