TEXT OP THE NEW TESTAMENT

to us, and of which no two agree even approximately with one another, do but reiiect a state of textual con-fusion which was rampant in the Latin Bibles of the 4th century.

22. The Vulgate. — This state of contusion is described in emphatic terms by the great Latin Fathers of the 4th cent., Jerome (c. 34S-420) and Augustine (354-430), and it was to the former that the task fell of attempting to reduce the chaos to order. The credit of inspiring the work which was to become the Bible of the West for a thousand years is due to Pope Damasus (pope, 366-84). At his request, Jerome, the leading Biblical scholar of the day, who had devoted many years to the study of the Scriptures in the East in their original tongues, undertook, as he says in his preface to the NT, to ' make a new work out of an old one ' by revising the existing Latin texts with reference to the original languages. He began with the Gospels, about the year 382; and at first his revision was on conservative lines. Where the existing text fairly represented the sense of the original, he let it stand, without enforcing complete accuracy; only where errors affected the sense did he feel bound to make alterations. The Greek manuscripts which he employed as his guides appear to have been similar in character to Bn. The revision of the Gospels was completed in 383; that of the Epistles followed, but was conducted more superficially than the previous work, partly, no doubt, because the divergences in the extant texts were less pronounced in these books. At about the same time he was commencing his work on the OT by a revision of the Psalter; but for the history of this see Text of the OT, 15 (7).

23. The later history of the Vulgate (as Jerome's version eventually came to be called) is the subject of a separate article. Here it is only necessary to mention that the received text of it, which is found in all ordinary Latin Bibles, is that which was officially sanctioned by Pope Clement viii. in 1592; and that the one critical edition of it is that now being produced by Bishop Wordsworth of Salisbury and Prof. H. J. White, in which the Gospels and Acts have already been published (1889-1905). Their estimate of the principal MSS of the Vulgate is the necessary basis of the following description of a selection from among them:

A.CodexAmiatinus,in the Lauren tian Library at Florence, containing the whole Bible. Its history (which was only established in 1887) is unusually well known. It was written in the north of England, at Wearmouth or Jarrow, by order of Ceolf rid, abbot of these monasteries, early in the 8th cent., and was taken by him in 716 as a present to Pope Gregory. Ceolfrid died on the way, but hia companions completed the gift, and in Italy the MS has since remained; for some time it was at Monte Amiata, whence its name. Its text was probably derived from one or more MSS brought to England from Italy; and it is generally regarded as the best extant MS of the Vulgate.

C. Codex Cavensis, at La Cava, near Naples; 9th century. Contains the whole Bible, written in Spam, and is the best representative of the Spanish family of Vulgate MSS.

A. Codex DunelTnensis, in Durham Cathedral Library; 7th or 8th century. Contains the Gospels, with a text akin to that of A.

F. Codex Fuldensis, at Fulda in Germany; between 541 and 546. Written by order of Bishop Victor of Capua. Contains the whole NT, the Gospels being arranged in the same manner as in Tatian's Diatessaron, on the basis of a copy of a Latin version of that work accidentally found by Bishop Victor.

H. Codex Huberiianits,a,nd®yCodex Theoduliianus, contain the edition of the Vulgate produced by Bishop Theodulf of Orleans, for which see art. Vulgate.

K. Codex KaroUnus, and V, Codex ValUcellianus^ similarly represent the edition of Alcuin. (See ib.)

O. Codex Oxoniensis, in the Bodleian (formerly at St. Augustine's, Canterbury): 7th century. Contains the Gospels, in a text affected by Irish influences.

Q. Codex Kenanensis, the Book of Kells, at Trinity College, Dublin; prob. 8th century. Contains the Gospels, lavishly decorated in the Celtic style. Its text, naturally, is of the Irish type.

S. Codex Stonyhurstensis, at Stonyhurst College; 7th

TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

century. Coiitains Jn. alone, in a text akin to that of A> Formerly at Durham, and probably written in that neigh-bourhood.

V. See K, above.

Y. Codex Lindisfamensis, in the British Museum; con-tains the Gospels; written at the end of the 7th cent., in honour of St. Cuthbert (d. 687^, with beautiful Anglo-Celtic ornamentation. Some hturgical directions inserted in it show that it was copied from a MS written in Naples, no doubt one brought to England by Hadrian, abbot of a monastery near Naples, who came to England with Arch-bishop Theodore in 669. Closely akin in text to A.

Z. Codex Harleianus, in the British Museum; 6th, or 7th century. A well-written copy of a good text, but of a different family from A.

These are the principal MSS of the Vulgate in the Gospels . A, C, F, ®, K, T, V are also used by Wordsworth and White in the Acts. To them may be added —

G. Codex Sangermanensis, at Paris; 9th century. Con-tains the whole Bible, but is particularly good in Acts, so that Wordsworth and White state that their text agrees with it oftener than with any other MS.

O. Codex Oxoniensis, in the Bodleian Library; 8th century. Known as the ' Selden Acts.' The text is of the Irish type.

The MSS of the Pauline Epistles and Apocalypse have not yet been classified, but the MSS described above as containing the whole NT will no doubt re-appear among the principal authorities for these books also.

24. As indicated above, the Codex Amiatinus (A) is regarded aa the best MS of the Gospels, and with it go the other Northumbrian MSS, ASY, witn F in attendance. A second group of MSS, which, generally speaking, is of inferior merit, is headed by Z, and includes several MSS not described above. CT represent the Spanish type of text, which had an important mfluence on the history of the Vulgate, and Q the not less important Irish type. In Acts, Wordsworth and White give the first place to G, with CA and F in close attendance. These three last-named MSS represent different groups, the A group being generally preferable to the F group; out no one MS or group has a monopoly of merit. In general character, as stated above, the Vulgate tends to agree with the type of Greek text represented by Bn> It is clear that the Greek authorities which Jerome regarded as the most trustworthy were of this type; but since(in the NT_)his revision retained a considerable quantity of the OL version, which is largely of a different type, the result, as it now stands, is of a composite character. By reason of this composite character, and also of its relatively late date, the Vulgate is not of the same textual importance as OS or OL; nevertheless it is to be remembered that Jerome must have made use of Greek MSS at least as old as the oldest which we now possess. The historical import-ance of the Vulgate will be dealt with in a separate article.

Of the OL version the most comprehensive account is that given by H. A. A. Kennedy in Hastings' DB. See also Burkitt, The Old Latin and the Itala (Cambridge, 1896), the prefaces by Wordsworth, Sanday, and White to their editions of Old Latin Biblical Texts (parts i.-iv., Oxford, 1883-97), and articl'es by Gebhardt (in PRE^, 1897J and Corssen (in Bursian's Jahresbericht uber die Fortschntt der classischen Altertumswissenachaft, bd. 101, 1899). On the Vulgate see Westcott's art. in Smith's DB, White's chapter in Scrivener's Introduction, ed. 4 (which deals with both versions), and the prefaces to Wordsworth and White's edition of the Vulgate, now in progress (Oxford, 1889 ff.).

C. Coptic Versions. —

25. Coptic is the literary form of the vernacular language of Egypt, the descendant of the ancient tongue which we know first in its hieroglyphic, and later in its demotic form, but differing from them in adopting the Greek alphabet, with the addition of certain letters to represent sounds not employed in Greek. Coptic is the outcome of the Greek settlement in Egypt, which took place under the empire of the Ptolemys and con-tinued under that of Rome; and along with the Greek characters the native tongue adopted also a consider-able number of Greek words. When this form of writing came into being is uncertain. It appears in a primitive form in a certain horoscope, now in the British Museum, the date of which is probably a.d. 95; and it is reasonable to suppose that it became established as a literary medium in the course of the 2nd century. It is quite possible that its growth was promoted by the need of its services in making the gospel known to native converts. Christianity was no doubt Intro-

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