MEANS OF RESTORING THE ORIGINAL TEXT.

The materials employed by Biblical critics for the restoration of the original text are the same ancient documents in which the various readings are found. Though imperfect and conflicting they contain the evidence by which the perfect original is to be restored. These materials are

I. Ancient Greek Manuscripts,

II. Ancient Translations,

III. Quotations made by Ancient Writers,

IV. Internal Evidence.

We will consider these materials or sources of criticism separately in the order in which we have named them, and will then show briefly and in general terms the manner in which a decision is reached by means of their combined testimony.

I. ANCIENT GREEK MANUSCRIPTS.

The autographs of the New Testament writers perished in all probability at an early day. Unless they were written on the best of parchment or vellum,1 and were kept with special reference to long-continued preservation, their destruction was inevitable. While parchment was certainly used by the apostle Paul, as we see from a remark in II. Tim. iv. 13, yet paper (the Egyptian papyrus, made from the inner bark of a reed), was used by the apostle John in writing his shorter epistles. II. John i. 12. It is highly probable that on this latter material, which is quite brittle and perishable, much of the New Testament was written; and although some specimens of very ancient papyrus manuscripts, having been buried in Egyptian tombs or in the ruins of Herculaneum, have been preserved, yet documents like the apostolic writings, which must have passed rapidly from hand to hand, for the purpose both of reading and copying, could scarcely fail to perish in a short time. Even those written on parchment would soon be defaced by this process and cease to be prized on account of the superior freshness of the copies taken from them. The thought of serious errors in the copies was not entertained, and consequently the idea of preserving the originals as a standard of accuracy was not suggested.

Not only have the autographs most probably perished, but all the copies made directly from them, and indeed all made during the first three hundred years of the church's history have met with the same fate so far as we know. Multitudes of the sacred books were hunted and destroyed by the heathen in the various persecutions through which the early church passed, and this must have created a tendency to the use of cheap and perishable materials in making copies of them.

As we have remarked in a previous chapter, the earliest Greek manuscripts were written entirely with capital letters; but during the ninth and tenth centuries a change in the size and form of the letters was gradually introduced to lessen the labor of copying. The new style was called the cursive, or running hand, while the old was named uncial, or inch long, an exaggeration of the size of the letters.2 Manuscripts written in the old form are called Uncials; those in the new form, Cursives. The cursive style of writing seems to have been employed on other works much earlier than on the Scriptures; for the earliest cursive manuscript of the New Testament now known to exist bears date A. D. 978.3

Of uncial MSS. of the New Testament only eighty-three are now known to critics;4 but this is a large number compared with that of classical works of like antiquity. Of Homer, for example, only a few fragments exist in this form, while the oldest complete copy of his works is a cursive of the thirteenth century."5 There is but one uncial copy of Virgil, and one each of Æschylus and Sophocles.6

Of these eighty-three uncial MSS. there are but few that originally contained the whole New Testament, and only one that contains it now. Much the greater part were originally copies of single books, or of groups of books, and most of these are now fragmentary. The four Gospels are found in a good degree of completeness in four of them, Acts in nine, the Catholic epistles in seven, the epistles of Paid in nine, and the Apocalypse in five.7

The cursive MSS. are far more numerous. Scrivener gives a catalogue and description of 1,997;8 and of these about thirty contain all of the New Testament,9 while the remainder, like the uncials, are copies of single books, or of groups of books, many of them in a mutilated condition. Thus we see that while the Scriptures existed only in manuscript, the number of complete copies was comparatively small.

Besides the manuscript copies of New Testament books, a class of works called Lectionaries (reading lessons), were anciently in common use, which serve the purposes of criticism in a similar way. These consisted of passages selected from the historical books and the epistles, for public reading in the churches on consecutive Sundays throughout the year. Of these about 540 have been preserved, of which about eighty are uncials.10 The cursives of this class are included in the 1,997 mentioned above, but the uncials must be added to the eighty-three mentioned before, making all the uncial MSS. of portions of the New Testament about 163.

Ancient manuscripts were preserved through the dark ages, not so much by the care as by the neglect of their owners. After being used for a comparatively short time, they were laid away in libraries, because their owners had ceased to read them, and their very existence in many cases passed out of human knowledge. The immense library of the Vatican palace in Rome, founded in 1448, now occupying a room 2,100 feet in length, is one of the largest depositories of such documents, but the most of them have been found in the neglected libraries of convents and monasteries which were established in large numbers throughout southern Europe, northern Africa, and western Asia, during the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries. In these places they have been found by Biblical critics, who have made their contents known to the learned world.

Manuscripts when thus discovered were named after their discoverers, or after the places in which they had been kept; or they were distinguished by the numbers which they bore in the library catalogues. Most of the cursives are now designated by numerals, though some are known by the small letters of the Roman alphabet. The uncials, while still bearing the names first given, are now more conveniently designated by the capital letters of the Roman and Greek alphabets, while one of them is known by the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In some instances one capital letter is made to stand for several MSS. by appending small letters to its upper right hand curve. Thus, O O^a O^b O^c O^d O^e O^f represent seven distinct MSS. Unfortunately the letters are not applied to them in the order of their age or that of their discovery. The age of an ancient MS. is not determined, like that of a modern book, by a date on its title page; for the custom of dating books did not originate till the tenth century. The earliest Biblical manuscript bearing a date is the copy of the Gospels known as S in the Vatican library, which was written A. D. 949. But an uncial MS. shows by the very fact that it is one, that it was written previous to the tenth century, while a cursive shows in the same way that it was written since that century. This is the most general classification of MSS. with respect to age. But while all scripture MSS. before the tenth century were written in capital letters, the forms of the letters underwent some changes from time to time, and by these changes the dates of MSS. can be proximately determined.11 The gradual introduction of punctuation marks, of abbreviations for words of frequent occurrence,12 of larger letters at the beginning of sections, and of spaces between the words, are among the other marks of date. By such means, and the use of the skill acquired by protracted and minute observation, a critic is enabled to determine, within very narrow limits, the date of any MS. There is a striking analogy to this in the history of printed books. If we open a book in which the letter s is printed ƒ, we know that it was printed not later than about the year 1830, after which this form of the letter passed out of use. If we open one, however old in appearance, and find steel engravings in it, we know that it can not have been printed earlier than the beginning of the present century, for engraving on steel was first invented in the year 1805.13 Again, if we find in a book the capital V used for both v and u, the small u used for both u and v, we know that it belongs to the earliest period of printing; for such was then the custom in regard to these two letters. So accurately are the indications of date in ancient MSS. now interpreted, that there is no serious disagreement among competent critics regarding the century, or even the half century in which any well known MS. was written.

There are four uncials whose antiquity is so great and whose value is so preeminent that every student of the Scriptures should have at least a general knowledge of them, and this we now proceed to give:

1. The Codex Sinaiticus, or Sinaitic Manuscript, usually designated by א (aleph) the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This is the one uncial MS. which contains all the books of the New Testament. It also contains a large portion of the Greek version of the Old Testament, and it has appended to the New Testament the Epistle of Barnabas, and a portion of The Shepherd by Hernias, two documents of which we shall have occasion to speak in Part Second of this work. It is written on vellum, and its leaves are 13½ inches wide by nearly 15 in length. It is supposed that before it lost the absent portions of the Old Testament and of The Shepherd, it contained 730 leaves, or 1460 pages--a very large book. But now it contains only 790 pages. It was found by Tischendorf in the Convent of St. Catharine at the foot of Mt. Sinai, in the year 1859, and it is now kept in the imperial library at St. Petersburg; but through the munificence of the late Czar Alexander three hundred fac simile copies of it have been distributed among the public libraries of Europe and America.14 Biblical critics unite in ascribing it to the middle or the first half of the fourth century. In point of value it has but one rival for the highest place among all existing manuscripts of the New Testament.  

2. Codex Alexandrinus, or the Alexandrian Manuscript, designated by A. It is in four volumes, of which the first three contain the Septuagint version of the Old Testament almost complete, and the fourth the New Testament with some wide gaps. It lacks all of Matthew up to xxv. 6, two leaves of John's Gospel, including vi. 50--viii. 52, and three leaves from II. Corinthians, including iv. 13--xii. 6. Appended to the New Testament are the first Epistle of Clement, and a portion of the second. Its leaves, of which there are 793, are about 13 inches long and 10 broad, and the writing is in two columns to the page. It was sent as a present to Charles I. of England, in 1628, by Cyril Lucar, the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople, who had previously brought it from Alexandria. It is kept in the British Museum, where the open volume of the New Testament portion can be seen under glass by every visitor. Its date is assigned by the common judgment of critics to the beginning of the fifth century or the close of the fourth. It occupies the third place in point of value among the great manuscripts.

3. Codex Vaticanus, or the Vatican Manuscript, known as B. This, like the two preceding, was originally designed for a complete Greek Bible; but it now lacks the first forty-six chapters of Genesis, and thirty-two of the Psalms (cv.cxxxvii.); and the New Testament part terminates at Heb. ix. 14. The remainder of the New Testament has been appended by a later hand. It is written on very thin and delicate vellum, supposed to have been made from the skins of antelopes, and it makes a volume ten and a half inches long, ten broad, and four and a half thick, with 1518 pages. It was placed in the Vatican library shortly after its first establishment in 1448, and there it is still very carefully preserved. Of its previous history nothing is known. Few persons have been allowed to handle it, though the open volume is kept on exhibition under glass in a magnificent hall filled with other rich treasures of the Vatican. In point of antiquity, it is the rival of the Sinaitic, both belonging to the middle or the first half of the fourth century, and the opinions of scholars being divided as to which is the older. The narrow jealousy of the Popes and their Councils has prevented minute examination of it by Protestant critics, and it was not until the year 1881 that a printed edition of the New Testament portion, marked by many imperfections, was given to the world by some Italian scholars.15 But notwithstanding the imperfect knowledge of it which has been obtained it is now regarded by some critics as the most reliable of all existing manuscripts.

4. Next in point of antiquity and value is Codex Ephraemi, C, in the National Library of Paris. It contains a small portion of the Old Testament in Greek, and fragments of every book of the New Testament except II. Thessalonians and II. John, amounting to about two-thirds of the whole New Testament. It is written, like the three preceding, on vellum, and its leaves are about the size of those in A. It is what is called a palimpsest manuscript, or a codex rescriptus; that is, a copy on which another work has been written over the faded letters of the original writing. This MS. consists of detached leaves of an ancient Greek Bible written over with some works of a Syrian Christian of the fourth century called St. Ephraem, whence its name. The new writing was done about the twelfth century, but it did not entirely efface the original. Where the latter had faded too much to be read it has been restored by the use of chemicals, and the contents of the manuscript have been copied and printed. Its date is about the same as that of A, and it is believed by some to be more accurate. It was brought from some unknown library in the East to Florence in 1535, and was soon afterward brought to Paris together with a number of other ancient MSS. which are still kept in the National Library of France.

It is evident at a glance that the ancient Greek MSS. which we have now mentioned, and especially the four which we have just described, must constitute the most reliable class of witnesses concerning the exact reading of the original Scriptures. Where they all agree, as they do according to Dr. Hurt's estimate quoted in a former chapter, in seven-eighths of the whole New Testament, there can be no room for doubt that we have the original perfectly preserved. Where they differ in sense, it is the business of the critic to estimate the preponderance of their testimony in favor of this reading or that. In most instances this preponderance is so great as to leave little if any room for doubt. In estimating it reference is had not merely to the number of MSS. on either side, but also to their antiquity and their known accuracy. When a MS. has been found by comparison with others to be generally accurate, its testimony in a particular place has greater weight, and vice versa. And when a MS., though not very ancient itself, contains evidence of having been copied from one that is ancient, its readings are enhanced in value. It has also been found that MSS. are distributable into groups called families, each family having sprung from a parent copy of more ancient date. Those of the same family are known by having certain variant readings in common which are not found in members of other families. Critics are on this account led to the study of the genealogy of MSS.; for it is evident that the testimony of a whole family in favor of a certain reading, is no stronger than that of the parent of the family.16 These remarks are sufficient to show that many years of study, combined with a well balanced judgment, are necessary to proficiency as a Biblical critic.

II. ANCIENT VERSIONS. A translation of the Scriptures from Greek into another language, enables a scholar who understands both languages to determine approximately the wording of the Greek text from which the translation was made. It enables him especially to determine whether a given clause or sentence, or a leading word in a sentence, was absent or not from the Greek copy that was used.17 The MSS. of ancient translations, however, have suffered, like the Greek MSS., at the hands of transcribers; and consequently in the use of them the critic has to make due allowance for the changes thus introduced. Though this detracts from what would otherwise be the authority of these witnesses, it still leaves them with an authority second only to that of the Greek MSS., and the authority of some of them is enhanced by the fact that they are older than any known MS., and testify to readings correspondingly more ancient. Modern versions are of no value for this purpose, seeing that they are made either from comparatively modern MSS., or from ancient MSS. which can themselves be consulted.18

The ancient versions, which are chiefly used by critics, are the following:

1. The Peshito Syriac. This is a translation of both the Old and the New Testament into Syriac or Aramean, the language anciently spoken in Northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. Many evidences combine to prove that it was made in the second century of our era, and that it was therefore derived, as regards the New Testament, from a Greek text which had been transmitted not quite one hundred years from the pens of the original writers.19 From its date to the present time it has been the common Bible of the Syrian Christians, and they have used it exclusively in their public worship. It must have received the name Peshito (simple) from a comparison with some versions not so simple, yet there is another and later Syriac version that is more literal.20 It lacks four of the smaller Epistles (II. Peter, II. and III. John, and Jude) and also the Apocalypse. It is the most valuable of all versions for the purposes of Biblical Criticism.

2. The Old Latin. This is a translation of the Bible into Latin, made in the second century, as is known from its being cited by Latin writers as far back as Tertullian, who lived from about 150 to 220 A. D. It was made, not in Italy, as would be naturally supposed, but in North Africa, where the Latin language prevailed, and where there was a vast multitude of Christian converts at a very early day. It was superseded in both public and private use by a later Latin version, and consequently it has not been preserved entire; but thirty-eight fragments of it, representing portions of almost every book of the New Testament, are yet in existence,21 and large portions of it are quoted in the writings of the early Latin fathers. It was made about the same time as the Syriac version, and they both represent Greek copies two hundred years older than the oldest existing Greek manuscripts, the one answering to the Greek scriptures current in Syria, and the other to those current in Africa.

3. The Latin Vulgate. When the old Latin version had been in use about two hundred years, it was found that different copies of it contained many variations, and to remedy the evil Damasus, Bishop of Rome, ordered a revision of it to be made. The task was entrusted to Jerome, in the year 382, and he completed it in 385. This version gradually took the place of the Old Latin, and at length acquired the title Vulgate, or Common Version. This is the version, which, after passing through some later revisions, was canonized in 1546 by the Council of Trent, which decreed that "in public readings, disputations, preaching and exposition it should be held as authentic." Since that time all Roman Catholic translations into other tongues are made from it, and not from the original Greek. As Jerome, in preparing it, made use of what he then called "ancient Greek manuscripts," it represents a Greek text much older than itself, and older than the earliest MSS. now extant. The manuscript copies of it of which many have been preserved, are considered more valuable than the Old Latin, as aids to criticism.22

4. The Egyptian or Coptic Versions. When the Arabs conquered Egypt in the seventh century, they gave the name Copts to the Egyptian Christians, and their language has been called Coptic ever since. It had been written in alphabetic characters since about the time of the first establishment of Christianity in Egypt. Before that time the common written language of the people had been partly alphabetic and partly hieroglyphic. The language was spoken in two dialects, one in Lower Egypt, called the Bahiric, from Bahirah, the Egyptian name of Lower Egypt, and the Memphitic, from Memphis, the principal city; and the other, in Upper Egypt, called Sahidic, from Sahid, the name of the district, and Thebaic, from Thebes, the principal city. The scriptures were translated at a very early period into both of these dialects, and it is the opinion of Bishop Lightfoot, the most proficient student of the Coptic dialects in Great Britain, that at least portions of them were thus translated before the close of the second century.23 Both these versions contain all the books of the New Testament, though the Apocalypse is usually in a separate volume, as if it were not considered an undoubted part of the New Testament. They are almost as ancient as the Peshito Syriac and the Old Latin, and Lightfoot regards them as of superior value in Biblical criticism to those venerable versions.24 Thus it appears that we have four translations of the New Testament that were made previous to the date of our oldest existing Greek copies.

5. The Æthiopic Version. The Æthiopia language is closely related to the Arabic, and was anciently spoken in the country now called Abyssinia, where the Christian religion became prevalent in the fourth century. A vernacular translation of the New Testament soon became a necessity, and one was made near the end of the fourth century or the beginning of the fifth. All the books of both Testaments were included in it.

6. The Gothic Version. While the Goths were invading Southern Europe, they were in turn invaded by the missionaries of the cross, and so many of them were turned to the faith, that Ulphilas, a Cappadocian, who had gone among them in the year 345, made an alphabet of their language and translated into it both the Old Testament and the New. As he died in the year 388 his version belongs to the latter half of the fourth century. There is still extant an uncial manuscript of this version, made near the beginning of the sixth century, written on purple vellum in letters of silver with occasionally some in gold. It belongs to Sweden, and is kept in the library of the University of Upsal.

7. The Armenian Version. The Armenians claim to have been the first people who accepted the gospel as a national faith, but they were then without an alphabet of their own language. They read the Scriptures in Syriac, using the Peshito version until the fifth century, when Miesrob, one of their own countrymen, invented an Armenian alphabet, and with the assistance of other scholars, translated into the native tongue the whole Bible. Unfortunately, no very ancient manuscripts of this version have been preserved.

The versions which we have now named represent in the aggregate the copies of the Greek Scriptures which were known and used in every part of the world that had been evangelized up to the close of the fourth century. Their value for the purpose of determining the condition of the original during the two hundred and fifty preceding years can scarcely be overestimated.

III. Quotations made by Ancient Authors. Ancient Christian writers were in the habit of quoting the scriptures in their writings very much as we quote them now, and it is clear that every literal quotation made by one of them from the Greek Testament shows the reading in that place of the manuscript which he used. Even an allusion to a certain passage may sometimes enable the critic to determine whether a clause now in doubt was present in the passage or not. In a few instances these writers expressly mention differences of reading, and then their testimony is explicit, and, to the extent of their information, reliable. This source of evidence, so far as it can be safely used, is of very great value, and the more so from the fact that some of these writers lived at a period preceding the date of our earliest manuscripts. Had their writings come down to us entire they would have been still more valuable, but 6ome of the best of them have reached our day in a very fragmentary form.25 Their value has been further depreciated by the fact that their MSS., like those of the scriptures and of the versions, have undergone some changes, and that none of a very early date have been preserved.26 Much has yet to be done in the way of thoroughly searching those that remain to us, before all the evidence from this source will be in hand.

IV. Internal Evidence. The evidence furnished by the readings of Greek manuscripts, ancient versions, and quotations made by ancient authors is called external evidence. When it is decisive, that is, when the preponderance of evidence for a certain reading from all of these sources is .so great as to leave no room for doubt, there is no occasion for evidence from any other source. But when the evidence from these three sources is indecisive resort must be had to what is called internal evidence. This is the evidence found by exercising the judgment on two questions of probability; first, which of two conflicting readings is the more likely to have been substituted for the other by a transcriber; and second, which is the more likely to have been employed by the original writer. In judging of the former question, we are to consider all the sources of error to which copyists were exposed. In judging of the latter, we are to consider the usual style and mode of thought of the writer, and also the bearing of the context. Dr. Hort, with fine discrimination, styles this kind of evidence internal evidence of readings, and he distinguishes the two questions of probability just mentioned by the terms intrinsic probability, referring to what the author would have written, and transcriptional probability, referring to the work of the transcriber.27 When these two kinds of probability are in conflict they tend to neutralize each other; but when they unite, that is, when the reading which is most likely to have been used by the author is at the same time most likely to have been exchanged by transcribers for the other, the internal evidence exists in its strongest form, and it is often indispensable in determining questions in which the external evidence is conflicting. Recent critics are agreed, however, that corrections of the text should seldom or never be made on this kind of evidence alone.28

We now have before our minds all the materials which are employed by Biblical critics in restoring the original text, and it is evident that a large amount of patient labor and a sound judgment are necessary in order to the skillful application of them all to the noble end proposed. For examples of this application the student is referred to the critical works to be mentioned in the following chapter.

1 The term "parchment" is confined to the writing material made from the skins of sheep and goats, and "vellum" to that from the skins of very young calves or antelopes. The latter is the more costly and the more durable.

2 "Speaking generally, and limiting our statement to Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, uncial letters prevailed from the fourth to the tenth or (in the case of liturgical hooks) as late as the eleventh century; cursive letters were employed as early as the ninth or tenth century, and continued in use until the invention of printing superseded the humble labors of the scribe." (Scrivener, Int., 58.)

3 Ib. 40, note I.

4 This is the whole number of distinct manuscripts given in Scriveners list (Int. 87-177), though the number as he counts them, repeating several times the count of those containing large portions of the New Testament, is 97.

5 Scrivener, Int. 4.

6 Dr. Philip Schaff, Int. to American Edition of Greek Testament by Westcott and Hort, p. xiv.

7 Westcott and Hort, Int. 75.

8 Introduction, 307 cp. Appendix xxx. note.

9 Westcott and Hort, Int. 76.

10 Scrivener's Int. 280 cp. Appendix xxx. note.

11 See Scrivener's Introduction, § 10, pp. 29-39, where these changes are minutely traced with respect to every letter of the alphabet.

12 Among the most common of these are θς, κς, ις, χς, πνα, for θεός, κύριος, ἰησοῡς, χριστός, πνεῡμα.

13 New American Cyclopedia, ART. Engraving.

14 There is a copy each in the Congressional Library at Washington, the Astor Library. New York, the libraries of the Union Theological Seminary, Harvard University and the Andover Theological Seminary.

15 In Scrivener's Introduction, 105-116, there is a full account of the futile efforts made during nearly half a century to obtain an accurate acquaintance with the readings of this venerable document. The jealousy of the Papal authorities has to this day excluded Protestant scholars from the privilege of carefully collating it, and the collations made by Catholics' have proved unsatisfactory.

16 Dr. Hort has given more attention to the subject of genealogies than any other critic since Griesbach, and the student who wishes to be fully informed on the subject should consult his Introduction to the Greek New Testament of Westcott and Hort, Sec. iii.

17 "While versions are always of weight in determining the authenticity of sentences or clauses inserted or omitted by Greek manuscripts, and in most instances may be employed even for arranging the order of words, yet every language differs so widely in spirit from every other, and the genius of one version is so much at variance with that of others, that too great caution can not be used in applying this kind of testimony to the criticism of the Greek" (Scrivener, Int., 310).

18 Tregelles rejects the use of all versions made this side of the seventh century (History of the Printed Text, § 13). But the majority of critics allow the readings of some versions of more recent date to be considered.

19 Dr. Hort has propounded the theory that the original underwent a revision in the third century, and that the Peshito is the result of this revision, while a MS. in the British Museum known as the Curetonian Syriac represents the original unrevised Syriac Version (Int. to Greek New Testament, 84, 132135). This theory, though accepted by some critics, is strongly contested by others, especially by Scrivener (Int. 319 ff, 533 ff); but while the question at issue is one of importance, its decision either way will not modify materially the statements which we make concerning the version in this treatise.

20 The Philoxenian, or Harclean (Scrivener, Int. 318-325).

21 A catalogue and description of these fragments is given in Scrivener's Introduction, 342 ff.

22 Scrivener, Int., 360.

23 The section on The New Testament in Coptic, in Scrivener's Introduction, was prepared by Lightfoot, then a Professor at Oxford, and from it the above account of the Coptic versions is derived. He expresses the opinion quoted above on p. 371.

24 He says: "Of all the versions, the Memphitic is perhaps the most important for the textual critic. In point, of antiquity it must yield the palm to the Old Syriac and the Old Latin; but, unlike them, it preserves the best text as current among the Alexandrian fathers, free from the corruptions which prevailed so widely in the copies of the second century" (Page 392). Of the Thebaic he says: "Its textual value is perhaps only second to the Memphitic among the early versions. It unquestionably preserves a very ancient text, but it is less pure, and exhibits a certain infusion of those readings which were so widely spread in the second century, and which (for want of a better term) are often called Western, though to nothing like the same extent as the Old Latin and the Old Syriac" (Page 400).

25 For example, of Origen's continuous Commentary on the Greek New Testament, written at the beginning of the third century, only about one sixth has been preserved in the original Greek. The whole of it would now be invaluable (Hort, Int., 88.)

26 "Codices of the Fathers are for the most part of much lower date than those of the Scriptures which we desire to amend by their aid; not many being older than the tenth century, the far greater part considerably more modern." (Scrivener, Int., 418.)

27 Dr. Hort's own words on these distinctions are remarkably clear. After introducing the expression Internal Evidence, he says: "As other kinds of Internal Evidence will have to be mentioned, we prefer to call it more precisely Internal Evidence of Readings. Internal Evidence of Readings is of two kinds, which can not be too sharply distinguished from each other; appealing respectively to Intrinsic Probability, having reference to the author, and what may be called Transcriptional Probability, having reference to the copyists. In appealing to the first, we ask what an author is likely to have written; in appealing to the second, we ask what copyists are likely to have made him seem to write" (New Testament in Original Greek, Int. 20).

28 On this point Dr. Scrivener speaks very positively: "It is now agreed among competent critics that Conjectural Emendation must never be resorted to even in passages of acknowledged difficulty; the absence of proof that a reading proposed to be substituted for the common one is actually supported by some trustworthy document being of itself a fatal objection to our receiving it" (Int. 490). Dr. Hort expresses himself less positively. Speaking of Transcriptional Probability he says: "But even at its best this class of Internal Evidence, like the other, carries us but a little way toward the recovery of an ancient text, when it is employed alone. The number of variations in which it can be trusted to supply by itself a direct and immediate decision is very small, when unquestionable blunders, that is, clerical errors, have been set aside" (Int. 25).