TEXT OP THE NEW TESTAMENT

Empire, even in Italy. Tlie educated classes spoke and wrote Greelc freely; tlie uneducated classes were largely recruited from the East, and spoke Greek more naturally than Latin. The evidence of the predominantly Greek character of the primitive Roman Church is clear. St. Paul wrote to it in Greek. The names of those whom he salutes are mainly Greek. The first twelve bishops in the list of the Roman episcopate (down to a.d. 189) are Greek. Clement, the third in the list after St. Peter, writing in the name of the Roman Church to their brethren in Corinth, wrote in Greek. All the early literature of the Roman Church is Greek. The same may be said, so far as our knowledge goes, of the Church in Gaul. The report on the martyrdoms at Vienne, which the Christians of that province sent to their brethren in other countries, was written in Greek. IrenEeus {c. 135-202), the most famous representative of the Galilean Church in the 2nd cent., came from Asia Minor, and wrote his works in Greek. All the traditions of Gallia Narbonensis were Greek, not Latin.

19. The need for a Latin version of the Christian books was consequently not so pressing as might be supposed. Nevertheless there was one large and important province in which Greek had no place, and where Latin was alike the literary and the spoken language. This was Africa, where the Mediterranean coast, and especially the district which is now Tunis, was inhabited by a large Latin-speaking population. When Christianity was first introduced into the province is uncertain; but in the 2nd cent, it was strong and flourishing there, and had for its spokesman the most eloquent of early Christian writers, Tertullian (c. 150-220). Two lines of argument combine to .show that the earliest Latin version of the NT known to us had its home in Africa. The first mention of the existence of a Latin version occurs in Tertullian; and that type of text which, of all those represented by our extant OL MSS, appears on Internal grounds to be the earliest, is identical with the Biblical quotations in the writings of Tertullian's junior contemporary and compatriot, Cyprian (c. 200-258). Whether the version was actually made in Africa cannot be determined with certainty. It is true that its Latinity agrees with that of certain African writers of the 2nd cent. (Apuleius, Arnobius, Lactantius, besides Tertullian and Cyprian); but it so happens that there is very little non-African Latin of that period in existence for comparison with it. The kinship which the text of the OL has with the Old Syriac has caused Antioch to be suggested (by Sanday) as the original home of the version, that being a metropolis where Syrian and Latin elements met, and whence versions of the Scriptures in either tongue might radiate from a common centre. But with a strong general resemblance between the two versions, there is also a considerable amount of divergence in details, so that one cannot be certain that the connexion is not more remote. What is certain is that the earliest form of Latin version known to us was circulating in Africa in the first half of the 3rd century.

20. The extant MSS of the OL are mainly fragments; for after the supersession of this version by the Vulgate its MSS naturally fell into neglect, and survived only fortuitously. The number of them is a little over 40, and they are habitually indicated by the small letters of the Latin alphabet. The following are the most important:

a. Codex Vercellensis, at Vercelli, containing the Gospels (Mt., Jn., Lk., Mk., the usual Latin order), somewhat muti-lated, assigned to the 4th century.

h. Codex Veronenais, at Verona, containing the Gospels on purple vellum; 5th century,

a. The Latin text of Codex Bezae in the Gospels and Acta, and of Cod. Claromontanus in the Pauline Epistles.

c. Codex Paiatinus, at Vienna, containing the Gospels, considerably mutilated; 5th century. One leaf is at Dublin. In the Acts, e is the Latin text of Cod. Laudianus; in Paul., that of Cod. Sangermanensis.

TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

/. Codex Brixianus, at Brescia, of the Gospels, on purple vellum; 6th century.

ff'. Codex Corbeiensis, at Paris, containing the Gospels, but imperfect. Generally assigned to the 6th cent., but by its latest editor (E. S. Buchanan, Journ. of Theol. Studies, 1905-6) to the 5th.

g. Codex Gigas, at Stockholm; a complete Bible, of the 13th cent., with Acts and Apoc. in an OL text. Written in Bohemia, and a remarkalDle example of a late survival of OL.

h. Palimpsestus Floriacensis, at Paris; palimpsest frag-ments, formerly at Fleury, of Acta, Cath. Epp., Apoc, in an African text.

k. Codex BobienaiSt at Turin, where it fortunately escaped from the recent fire with sUght injury. Contains Mk 8-16 (ending at 16'), Mt 1-15; probably 5th cent, (according to Burkitt, 4th cent.), Contains the OL version in its earlieat form, closely alsin to that found in the writings of Cyprian.

m. The Speculum of paeudo-Auguatine, which contains copioua quotationa from the NT. It is probably of Spanish origin, and should be reckoned rather with the Fathers than with the MSS.

q. Codex Monacensis, at Munich, containing the Goapels; 6th or 7th century.

The remaining MSS are, for the most part, only small fragments, of a few leaves each. The Apoc. ia also found, almoat complete, in the commentary of Primaaius, written in Africa in the 6th century.

21. With these MSS must be reckoned the quotations of the early Latin Fathers, notably Tertullian (who, however, appears often to have made his own transla-tions, and is also too inexact to be of much service in this respect), Cyprian, Hilary, Lucifer of Cagliari, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Tyconius, Priscillian, and (as just noted) Primasius. It is usual to classify all these authorities (MSS and Fathers) under the three heads of (1) African, (2) European, (3) Italian; the African type of text being the earliest and also the roughest in style and vocabulary, the European being so far modified in both these respects as to be supposed by some scholars to be due to a fresh translation, and the Italian being a revision of the European, and itself providing the basis for Jerome's Vulgate.

The question is complicated by the fact that no two MSS represent quite the same type of text. All (except perhaps k) have undergone modification in nome respect, either by the correctiona introduced by scribes in early times, or by contamination with the Vulgate. Cyprian and k, so far aa they go, represent the African text of the Gospels in what appears to be a fairly pure form; e and m come next to them; A ia a good African authority in Acts and Apoc, and Priscillian, Tyconius, and Primasiua in the Epp. and Apoc. a and b are the leading representatives of theEuropean family in the Gospels, with the Latin version of Irenseus; in Acts, g and Lucifer. Of the Italian group, f is the moat pronounced, and haa been taken by Wordaworth and White aa the best representative of the OL text which Jerome had before him when he undertook hia reviaion of the Latin NT; next to / in thia character comes 9. The Latin texts in the bilingual MSS have to be used with caution, astiiey show signs of assimilation to the Greek. The remaining MSS are either too fragmentary to be of much service, or too mixed in their text to be classified definitely with any family.

In general character, as already indicated, the OL version (especially in its earliest form) belongs to the same class of authorities as the Old Syriac and Codex Bezae, the class, namely, which is distinguished by rather striking divergences from both the TR and the text represented by BN. The character and claims of this type of text will be considered later; here it will be sufficient to point out the high antiquity which can be established for it through the OL (and still more through the consensus, so far as it exists, between OL and OS), and the great amount of divergence which exists between the several MSS which contain it. It is not possible, even approximately, to reconstruct the original OL text; it is even a matter of dispute whether it had one original or more. What is certain is that it underwent constant revision and alteration, and that the few and fragmentary MSS which have come down

921