NATURE AND LIMITS OF THE INQUIRY.

1. By the integrity of an ancient book is meant its wholeness, or its uncorrupted preservation. The integrity of a book is preserved when it has been transmitted without material change; that is, change which affects its meaning. We may also affirm the integrity of a document, when, though material changes have been made in it, we shall have detected these and restored the original readings. The branch of science which treats of this subject is called Textual Criticism, and sometimes, when applied to the books of the Bible, Biblical Criticism. Its province is to ascertain, first, what differences of reading, if any, are to be found in the various copies of the book; and second, to determine which of the various readings is the original one.

2. This inquiry became necessary from the fact that all books of which many copies were made before the invention of printing, underwent changes through the mistakes of copyists, and were liable to intentional alterations. There is not a writing of antiquity which has come down to our age without many such changes. A largo part of the labor of the editors of Greek and Latin classics consists in correcting as best they can the erroneous readings thus introduced into these works. It was stated by Dr. Bentley, a celebrated English scholar of the eighteenth century, that he had himself seen in a few copies of the comedies of Terence, a Latin writer of the second century before Christ, as many as 20,000 various readings, although the work is not near so large as the New Testament, and the few copies compared were not examined with very great minuteness. Yet Terence, he declared, was in a better condition in this respect than almost any other classic.1 The same writer mentions several smaller works in which the variations are as numerous as the lines, and some which on this account have become a "mere heap of errors."2 Ancient authors were well aware of this liability to change, and they had a wholesome dread of it when publishing their books. Thus, Irenaeus of the second century appended to one of his books an earnest entreaty in the name of the Lord, that his transcriber shall correct his copy by the original, and transmit this entreaty to subsequent copyists; and this entreaty is quoted by Eusebius of the fourth century, and adopted with reference to his own books.3 The Jewish copyists of the Old Testament were aware of the same danger, and, as stated in the Talmud published about A. D. 350, they adopted for themselvess very minute regulations to preserve the purity of the sacred text. They numbered the verses, words and letters of the Scriptures, by books and sections, marking the middle verse and letter of each, so that by counting these in any copy they could determine whether a word or a letter had been added or omitted.4 We have no account of the rules adopted by copyists of the New Testament, but we know that they had every inducement to copy with care. The author of the Book of Revelation had given the warning, that to anyone who should add a word to his book God would add the plagues written in it, and that if any one should take away a word God would take his name out of the book of life; and that this solemn warning was accepted by Christians at an early date as applying to other books as well as to this, is known by the fact that Irenaeus thus applied it to some who were charged with altering the text, though he expresses the opinion that those who do so without evil intent may receive pardon.5 But notwithstanding the vigilance of Jewish copyists, and the solemn warnings addressed to Christian copyists, a large number of erroneous readings found their way into the manuscript copies of both Testaments, and the existence of these gave rise to the science of Biblical Criticism.

3. It was known, from a very early period of Christian literature, that errors of transcribers had crept into the sacred writings,6 but it was not until after printed copies had come into circulation, and the copies issued by different publishers had been compared, that scholars began to realize the magnitude of the evil and to search for the means of correcting: it. Printing from movable types was invented in 1438, and the first book printed was the Latin Bible about 1452."7 In the last quarter of the same century several editions of the Hebrew Bible were printed by wealthy Jews in Italy,8 but it was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that the Greek New Testament was given to the world in this form. It was first printed at Complutum (Alcala) in Spain, under the direction of Cardinal Ximenes, in the year 1514; but on account of delay in obtaining the consent of the Pope, this edition was not published until 1522. In the meantime an edition was prepared by Erasmus and published at Basle in Switzerland, in 1516. After this, editions and copies were multiplied rapidly; the Protestant Reformation, which began about the lime, stimulated the work, and the attention of scholars was drawn more and more to the differences among the printed editions, and between them and the manuscripts, until Biblical Criticism, to which printing gave birth, grew to its present maturity. As a result of these investigations, the number of various readings, that is, readings different from those in the text commonly used, which are to be found in the hundreds of existing manuscripts, is now estimated at not less than 120,000.9

A. But while the art of printing brought into clearer light the various readings of manuscripts, and gave rise to the inquiries of Biblical critics, it also brought the multiplication of various readings to an end, and fixed a limit to the field in which these inquiries are to be prosecuted. Such is the perfection to which the art of printing has attained, that when the types for a book are once set, and stereotyped plates are made from them, all the copies printed therefrom, however numerous, are alike in every word and letter; consequently, the mere multiplication of copies, which is the chief source of error in manuscripts, originates no errors in printed copies. It is also practicable, by means of proof-reading, which is a part of the art of printing, to secure perfect accuracy in the types or plates from which the printing is done, and to perpetuate this accuracy in making duplicates of the plates. It is claimed, for instance, by the American Bible Society, that there is not a single misprint in any of the myriads of copies of the English Bible which they are annually printing in various editions. It follows, that since the art of printing has been perfected, the multiplication of various readings in the original Scriptures has ceased, and that when the errors which crept in before the invention of printing shall have been corrected, the Bible will be no longer exposed to such errors, the Science of Biblical Criticism will have completed its task, and the subsequent generations of men will have no care concerning the purity of the sacred text. Our inquiry into the integrity of the New Testament is therefore limited to the period which preceded the invention of printing, or to the first fifteen centuries of our era. 

1 "Terence is now in one of the best conditions of any of the classic writers; the oldest and best copy of him is now in the Vatican Library, which comes nearest to the poet's own hand; but even that has hundreds of errors, most of which may be mended out of other exemplars that are otherwise more recent and of inferior value. I myself have collated several, and do affirm that I have seen twenty thousand various lections in that little author, not near so big as the whole New Testament; and am morally sure that, if half the number of manuscripts were collated for Terence with that niceness of minuteness which has been used in twice as many for the New Testament, the number of variations would amount to above fifty thousand." (From Phileleutherus Lipsiensis, quoted by Tregelles, Hist. of Printed Text, 51.)

2 "In the late edition of Tibulus, by the learned writer Mr. Broukhuise (1708), you have a register of various lections in the close of that book, where you may see, at the first view, that they are as many as the lines. The same is visible in Plautus, set out by Pareus. I myself, during my travels, have had the opportunity to examine several MSS. of the poet Manilius, and can assure you that the variations I have met with are twice as many as all the lines of the book." (Ib., 52.)

"In profane authors (as they are called) whereof one manuscript only had the luck to be preserved, as Velleius Paterculus among the Latins and Hesychius among the Greeks, the faults of the scribes are found so numerous, and the defects so beyond all redress, that, notwithstanding the pains of the learnedest and acutest critics for two whole centuries, these books still are, and are like to continue, a mere heap of errors." (Ib., 51.)

3 "Irenaeus also wrote the treatise on the Ogdoad, or the number eight. . . . At the close of the work we found a most delightful remark of his, which we shall deem incumbent upon us also to add to the present work. It is as follows: 'I adjure thee, whoever thou art that transcribest this hook, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by His glorious appearance when He shall come to judge the quick and dead, to compare what thou hast copied, and to correct it by this original manuscript from which thou hast carefully transcribed, and that thou also copy this adjuration and insert it in the copy.'" (Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., c. 20.)

4 Davidson, Biblical Criticism, I. 116).

5 He is speaking of a change which had been made in some copies, by which 616 was found in Rev. xiii. 18, instead of 666; and he says of those who had made the change or had received it: "Now, as regards those who have done this in simplicity, and without evil intent, we are at liberty to assume that pardon will be granted them by God. But as for those who, for the sake of vainglory, lay it down for certain that names containing the spurious number are to be accepted, and affirm that this name, hit upon by themselves, is that of him who is to come; such persons shall not come forth without loss, because they have led into error both themselves and those who have confided in them. . . . As there shall be no light punishment upon him who either adds to or subtracts anything from the Scripture, under that such a person must necessarily fall." (Against Heresies, B. V., c. xxx., § 1.)

6 Origen, at the beginning of the third century, says: "But now great in truth has become the diversity of copies, be it from the negligence of scribes, or from the evil daring of some who correct what is written, or from those who in correcting add or take away what they think tit." (Com, on Matthew, quoted in Scrivener's Int., 509.)

7 It was published at Mentz, by Gutenberg (the inventor of printing) and Faust; and Scrivener states that eighteen copies of the edition are still preserved, "a splendid and beautiful volume." (Int., 351.) One of these was sold at auction in London, in March, 1885, for the enormous price of $19,500.

8 For an account of these, see Davidson's Bib. Crit., I., 137-141; Tregelles, Hist. of Printed Text. 1,2.

9 This is Scrivener's estimate higher by some other authors. (Int. 3). The number is placed