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Homer], The Coptic Version of the NT in the northern dialect (Oxford, 1898-190S) ; W. E. Crum, Catalogue of CopticMSS in the British Museum (London, 1905); Hyvemat, 'Etude aur les veraiona coptes de la Bible' in RB 1896—97.

31 . Patristic Quotations. — The third class of evidence available for textual purposes is that which is derived from the quotations from the NT in the writings of the early Fathers. It we can be sure that a writer is quoting from a MS lying before him, then his quotation gives us the reading of a MS which in many cases must have been earlier than any which we now possess. Some-times we can be fairly sure of this, as when the quotation occurs in a continuous commentary on a single book; or when the writer expressly emphasizes a certain reading as against other variants; or when he quotes the same passage several times in the same way. In other cases it is impossible to be certain that he is not quoting from memory; and this makes quotations from the Synoptic Gospels especially fallacious, since it is so easy to confuse the wordings of the different Evangelists. There is always the danger also that a copyist may have assimilated the wording of a quota-tion to the form with which he was himself familiar. Consequently evidence of this class, though highly valuable when its surroundings guarantee it from suspicion, has to be handled with great caution. In one respect Patristic quotations have a special value, because they can be both dated and placed. The dates of the earliest MSS and versions are uncertain, within half a century or more, while the date of any given Patristric work can generally be fixed within a few years. The advantage of being assignable to a certain country is one which Patristic quotations share with versions, but it is of great importance in fixing the origin and range of certain types of text. In both respects it will be found that the evidence of the Fathers is of great value in elucidating the textual history of the NT. It is impossible to treat the subject at length here, but the names and dates of some of the most important Fathers may be mentioned, and subsequent sections will show what sort of part they play in the operations of textual criticism.

32. The earliest Patristic writings, such as the Epistles of Clement, Barnabas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, and the ' Shepherd ' of Hermas, contain very few quotations from the NT, and those few are inexact (see NT in Apost. Fathers [Oxf. Soc. of Hist. Theol.]). In the third quarter of the 2nd cent, we have the vnritings of Justin Martyr and Tatian, and we know something of the Gospel text used by the heretic Marcion. From about 180 onwards the evidence becomes much fuller. Irenaeus (whose principal work was written between 181 and 189) worked mainly at Lyons, though his home was in Asia Minor. Western texts are also represented by TertuUian (about 150-220), Cyprian (about 200-258), and Hippoly-tus (flourished about 220) ; the two former being African writers, and the last-named of Rome. In Egypt there are the two very important theologians, Clement of Alexandria (about 160-220) and Origen (185-253), and the two scholars who succeeded to the latter's literary inheritance, and founded the library of Caesarea largely upon the basis of his works, Pamphilus (d. 309) and Eusebius (about 270-340). In Syria the most notable names are those of Aphraates (flourished about 340) and especially Ephraem (d. 378); in Asia Minor, Gregory Thaumaturgus (d. 265), Basil of Caesarea (329-79), Gregory of Nyssa (flor. about 370), and Gregory of Nazianzus (d. 389); in Palestine, Cyril of Jerusalem (bishop, 351-86), and especially Chrysostora (347-407). Returning to the West, the important writers, from a textual point of view as well as from others, are Hilary of Poitiers (bishop, 354^68), Lucifer of Cagliari (d. 371), Ambrose of Milan (bishop, 374-97), Tyconius (an African writer of the end of the 4th cent.), Priscillian (a Spaniard, d. 385) ; and, finally, the two great

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Fathers of the Western Church, Jerome (about 345-420) and Augustine (354-430). Later than the first quarter of the 5th cent, it is not necessary to go; for the settle-ment of the great issues in the textual history of the NT had taken place before this date.

A list of ecclesiastical writers and their principal works is given by Gregory ^Prolegomena and Textkritik). An index of Patristic quotations was compiled by Dean Burgon and is now in the British Museum, Critical texts of the Latin andGreek Fathers are beingissued under the direction of the Vienna and Berlin Academies respectively.

33. Such are the materials — MSS, Versions, Patristic Quotations — with which the textual critic has to deal; but it is only within comparatively recent years that his resources have become so extensive. Two centuries of diligent work were spent in the collection of the evidence of Greek MSS; the most important of all, the Codex Vaticanus (B), has become fully known only within the last forty years, and the next most important (X) was discovered only in 1859 and published in 1862. Of the two most important versions, the Old Syriac was wholly unknown before 1848, and quite inadequately known until 1894; while the Old Latin, though known and studied in the 18th cent, (when Sabatier published his Bibliorum sacrorum Latinae versiones antiquae, Rheims, 1743), cannot be said to have been rightly understood and classified before the publications of several scholars who are still living. For many of the Fathers, we still are without editions which can be trusted with regard to their Scripture quotations. The textual criticism of the NT, as now understood, is consequently a science of comparatively modern growth. As was shown above (§ 1), the earliest editions of the Greek NT were in no sense critical texts. It is true that MSS were collated for them, but only such MSS as chanced to be easily at the disposal of the editor. No search was made for specially good or old MSS, and (except for a very slight use of Cod. Bezae by Stephanus) the TR was made and established before any of the great uncial MSS had been examined. This is the more remarkable because B was used as the main basis of the text which became the standard text of the Septuagint, that, namely, which was printed at Rome in 1587; but it chanced that no Roman edition of the NT was issued, and consequently the great Vatican MS was little knovra and less used until the 19th cent, was far advanced.

34. At stated in § 1, the TR of the NT took final shape in the editions of Stephanus in 1550 and the Elzevirs in 1624. It was not until after the latter date that the scientific collection of evidence began. The Codex Alexandrinus (A) was brought to England in 1627, and a collation of it (with D Th, and several minuscules) first appeared in the great Polyglot Bible edited by Brian Walton in 1657. Walton's Polyglot (modelled, so far as its plan and scope were concerned, on the Antwerp Polyglot of 1571-72, and the Paris Polyglot of 1630-33, but greatly superior to both in its textual material) may be said to be the fountain-head of the textual criticism of the NT. It was followed during the next century and a half by a series of editions in which, while no attempt was made to modify the actual text, an increasing number of MSS was laid under contribution to supply materials for the apparatus criticus. The first of these was that of Dean Fell in 1675; the greatest was that of John Mill in 1707, which was remarkable not only for the number of Greek MSS quoted in it, but for its use of the versions, its collection (for the first time) of Patristic quotations, and its valuable prolegomena. In the 18th cent. Bentley (whose first appearance in the field of Biblical criticism was stimulated by Mill's great work) made large collec-tions for a new edition, but was unable to make use of them. J. J. Wetstein, a Swiss assistant of Bentley, produced in 1751-52 an edition in which our present notation of the MSS was first introduced; and the list