found in the Received Text, are genuine readings of the Greek Vulgate; while we urge the plea of consistency in favour of their companions, which have been rejected against pretty nearly equal evidence, we cannot, consistently with our own professions, deny them our suffrage.

To sum up in few words the decision to which we were ultimately led by our investigation: We consider the text published by Mr. Valpy, as far as essentials are concerned, an edition of the GREEK VULGATE; corrected in many places, in coincidence with the common testimony of the Greek manuscripts, but corrupted in some others, against the concurrent weight of the same evidence.

Having passed this decision upon a work, to which we feel some tenderness to be due, as it was wholly designed and in part executed before the agitation of the important questions which its subject involves, and in which we have taken so prominent a part in this decision we would have rested, but for an im prudent attempt to give currency to a text,-which to pass on it à sufficient condemnation, is new, and has no other authority than what it derives from the will of the editor,-by publishing it in a form more compendious, and professedly intended-in usum scholarum. However painful the task, it is therefore a duty which we owe to the public and ourselves, to inquire with more jea lous care into the grounds of the pretensions which it makes, in this portable shape, to a more extensive popularity, than it has any right to demand, or than we feel justified in allowing it.

On investigating the grounds on which many passages are rejected, to which (we are weak or vulgar enough, to confess our attachments,) we pertinaciously adhere, if on no other account, on that of hereditary prejudice; we were surprized to find the editor influenced by principles purely arbitrary. It was natural, that in this uncertainty of opinion, we should expect to find him shelter himself under the authority of Dr. Griesbach ; but however sanguine our hopes, in this expectation, we were wholly disappointed. On inquiry we perceived, that as he was wrong in deserting his guide when he adhered to the beaten track, and adopted the genuine text; by an unaccountable waywardness or fatality, he was not less wrong, in following him when he wandered out of the same track, and rejected the authorised reading: in some instances, though rare, we perceived he had the good fortune to desert him, when he was wrong, in striking out of the direct path, and correcting the common edi. tion. Again limiting our attention to the first ten chapters of St. Matthew, we refer the reader for an exemplification of the first count in this charge to Mat. i. 1a. vi. 24o. vii. 14°. viii. 13.; of the second, to Mat. v. 47. vi. 1. viii. 15. 25°. 92.

x. 8. 10°. 33°. : and of the third to Mat. iv. 4'. viii. 29. S1". ix. 139 *.

Our curiosity having led us still further to investigate, on what ground or canon, proceedings so apparently arbitrary could be justified; we need not declare, that our surprize rather rose than abated to find, that the disciple was again discovered at variance with his master. It was indeed amusing to perceive the retributive justice which our author now drew down on himself; when it was observed, that as Mr. Valpy had deserted Dr. Griesbach when he advanced towards the same common end; Dr. Griesbach now abandoned Mr. Valpy, even while he professed to tread in his footsteps. As this is an assertion to which we cannot hope to gain credit until it be satisfactorily proved; we shall proceed to establish it by one or two apposite instances; and that we may again avoid the imputation of partiality, in making a selection, confining our attention to the Gospels, we shall take one of the first and last of Mr. Valpy's corrections. Plurimi Codices Istam igitur lectionem GriesbaValp. n. in l.

"Matt. vi. 1. Liberalitatem exerceatis.] habent δικαιοσύνην pro ἐλεημοσύνην. chius plane pro genuina habet."

"

Had the state of the case been such as is here represented, we should have very little room to quarrel with either of the revisers before us. But on referring the difference between us, from Mr. Valpy to Dr. Griesbach, it appears that these plurimi codices," amount precisely to four, DB. 1. 209. So much for Dr. Griesbach's testimony to the fact on which this conclusion is formed, and if we know any thing of his critical bias, he would have utterly disclaimed the principle on which this con

clusion is formed.

The emendation of the second place, which we examined, is ushered in with a little more parade of criticism.

« Joh. viii. 59. Verba διελθὼν διὰ μέσω αὐτῶν καὶ παρἶδεν ὅπως quas vulg. lect. reperiuntur omnino sunt delenda: diendŵr dia péoe aûteY.. videntur addita ex Luc. iv. 30. ut et quod sequitur agner Ts ex initio capitis sequentis: nam et vetustissimi codices Græci non habent, et in Latinis desunt." Valp. n. in l.

We dwell not on the improbability which sends the imaginary interpolator of this text as far as St. Luke for so simple a phrase as "he passed through the midst of them:" and which

In

+ These references are made to the text of Dr. Griesbach. the second list of examples, Mr. Valpy adopts the reading of Dr. Griesbach's text; in the first and third he adopts the reading of his margin.

immediately

immediately represents him as snatching at a piece of the next verse to complete the remainder of a sentence, which no scribe, however wretched a bungler, could be at a loss to express, aud which there could be no possible object in inventing. Had the corrector, in examining the context, but given himself as much trouble to turn his eyes to the left as the right, he would have probably seen, that the source of this defalcation, which the concurrence of the Cambridge MS. and Sahidic Version appropriates to the Egyptian text, existed in the phrase Inos de ingúfn. It having been a favourite notion of the Egyptian monks, (who were infected with the errors of Origen *, and who formed the text and version before us,) that our Lord' concealed himself, not by passing through the midst of a crowd,' but by metamorphosing his bodily appearance †, they well knew how to dispose of a passage, which made against their favourite dogma. But this by the way. We are at present engaged in pointing out the coincidence betweeen the disciple and his preceptor. As far as we understand the latter, our author is not more fortunate in his calculation respecting those "codices," which he deems "vetustissimi," than those which he pronounced "plurimi." The whole of the Greek manuscripts of all ages and descriptions which support his correction, amount precisely to two, D. Barb. 1.; the Cambridge MS. which is ascribed, by the very highest authority, the learned Bishop of Landaff, to the fifth century, and a Barberini MS. which is referred by M. Griesbach to the eleventh or twelfth: while the passage occurs in St. a. Wetst. ABC, Mt. V.;-the Complutensian Codex, the Alexandrine, Vatican, Ephrem, and Moscow MSS. which possess the very highest antiquity. And with respect to the testimony of Latin manuscripts, which are silent respecting this passage, it is not only found in the Codex Brixianus, the oldest MS. of the antient Italic, but partly acknowledged by the Codex Toletanus, one of the oldest and best MSS. of the modern Vulgate. For so much information we are indebted merely to Dr. Griesbach; whom Mr. Valpy has professedly taken as his guide and di

rector.

One instance more and we have done with Mr. Valpy's cor rections. Having possessed some curiosity to discover on what grounds a critic felt himself authorized to expunge a whole verse; who, to give him barely his due, has been withheld by a respectful restraint from moving any passage of the sacred text from its place, which affects any point of doctrine or morals;

*S. Epiph. Hær. Orig. § iv. p. 527. b.

+ Vid. Orig. contr. Cels. Lib. II. cap. lxiv. Tom. I. P. Tom. III. p. 906. e. f.

485, f.

we

we cannot refrain opposing the note which specifies his reasons, to that which states Dr. Griesbach's, for dismissing this verse from the text to the margin.

“Luc. xvii. 36. Hoc loco additur versiculus in textu recepto: δύο ἔσονται ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ· ὁ εἷς παραληφθήσεται, καὶ ὁ ἕτερος ἀφεθήσεται, qui certissime delendus: non dubitandum quin ista verba e Matthæo traducta huc irrepserint." Valp. n. in l.

Dr. Griesbach, with somewhat less dogmatism, on the subject of a verse, which is not only found in the MSS. of the Greek, Latin and Syriac Vulgate, but which exists, with one exception, in all the MSS. of the old Italic Version, delivers himself in the following terms:

"Omissum ob posolineuter, vel quod probabilius est adjectum e Matthæo." Griesb. n. in l.

Having discharged our conscience in making these observations, which we will not deny, have been forced from us in a splenetic moment; the reader may be now left to take his own course, in appropriating his money to the purchase of Mr. Valpy's duodecimo edition. The notes of the larger work carry with them some correction to the errors of the text, as they frequently specify the readings of the Received Text, which are rejected as spurious. But this plea will not serve the purpose of the smaller; he must be a skilful diviner, indeed, who could form any the remotest idea of Griesbach or Elzevir's editions, from the text "of shreds and patches" with which it presents us. We wish well enough to the octavo edition, for the sake of the notes, which we have scrutinized with some care, to hope that the editor may be induced to incorporate the text of the editio princeps in his second impression. Were this object carefully effected, and the notes extended with copious extracts from the Bishop of Calcutta's profound and learned volume, which we place in the very first rank of those works with which sacred literature has been enriched by modern ingenuity, we could safely recommend it, as the very best book of the kind, with which we are acquainted, for the use of the student in divinity. And in introducing this improvement into his original plan, Mr. Valpy need not give up any thing in the principle, and very little in the execution, of his present edition. He has, indeed, only to collate the inner margin of Dr. Griesbach with Wetstein's collections, in order to perceive, that the text of the Complutensian Codex, which we so strenuously recommend, possesses scarcely one of those readings which he has judiciously rejected that it wants scarcely one of those, which he has as judiciously retained; and that a great portion of his observations

OR

on the text, may stand as in his present notes, as they are ot less applicable to the Complutensian than to the Corrected Edition.

As we can have no hope, that our feeble voice, if it reach the curators of our University presses, will have any weight in influencing them to reprint a text, of which Dr. Mills is even a more strenuous advocate than of that which he adopted; we should wish to see the Complutensian text from the correct and classical press of Mr. A. J. Valpy, having previously received the requisite sanction of the Lambeth Imprimatur. The objection which Father Morin urged, and with too much justice, against the Received Text, as at variance with the authority of the Greek MSS. would be thus effectually done away; and while a seasona ble check would be thus given to the circulation of a text which creates an inconsistency in the principles and practice of our Church, as approving a Greek Text which is at variance with its Authorised Version; an effectual bar would be opposed to the encroachment of future innovation upon the foundation on which we have so long and so firmly stood, unless through the proper avenue of constituted authority. In seeing this plan realized, we should at the same time behold in it a demonstrative proof of the stability of the foundation, on which we have thus perseveringly stood; for thus we should find, that the first edition of the Greek Text is more than abundantly confirmed by the last collation of manuscripts.

As the most pure and venerable monument of the Greek Vulgate, which we have undertaken to vindicate, exists in the Complutensian Codex, we shall make no apology for extending this article with a few additional observations, the professed object of which is to recommend its adoption.

It is not at present necessary to enter into a vindication of the Complutensian Text from the unfounded insinuations, and gratuitous assumptions of Dr. Griesbach. The brief attention bestowed upon it by the present Bishop of Llandaff, in a work which would have placed its justly celebrated author in the first rank of critics, had he displayed on no other subject, that rare combination of attainments which unite in a mind not less distinguished by the depth of its views than the nicety of its discernment, is abundantly adequate to its vindication from the only charge deserving of attention *. It will be sufficient to observe in its commendation, that it was faithfully taken from a MS. which possessed the reputation of being, at the time, the most antient in Europe; and that it was committed to the

*Marsh. Lett. to Trav. p. 264 n. Griesb. Prolegomm. N. T. Sect. 1. p. xix.

press,