Textus Receptus
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ENGLISH SUMMARY Chapter I. The Discovery of Family 13 XVIth–XVIIth cent.: A Settled Text, the “Textus Receptus” As the history of the printed text of the Greek New Testament starts at the beginning of the XVIth century, and as the rst mention of a Family 13 witness dates back to the end of the XVIIth century, we provide here, as an introduction, some of the high points of those two centuries. Considering the rst printed editions of the Bible, it is noteworthy to keep in mind the Alcalà Polyglot (or Complutensian), and the Antwerp, Paris and London Polyglots. It seems that none of the known Family 13 members were ever used by those editors and we could suggest a similar judgment for the editions published by Simon de Colines and Henri and Robert Estienne. The “Textus Receptus”, as printed in the Elzeviers’ 1624 edition, is rmly settled in the Greek New Testament editions of the XVIth and XVIIth centuries. 1700–1788: The First Witnesses (Minuscules 13, 69, 124) The rst Family 13 witness to be mentioned, in a printed catalogue of Greek manuscripts, was min. 124 (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbiblio- thek, Theol. gr. 188), in 1670, by Pierre Lambeck of Hamburg. The manuscript is briey described, without textual features, and remains for the next few decades in the shadow of Lambeck’s physical description. Around the same date, possibly before then, another Family 13 manuscript was well-known, studied and celebrated for its peculiar readings: min. 69 (Leicester, The Record O ce for Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland, 6 D 32/1). In spite of numerous inquiries, it is hard to conclude that min. 69 was used by Erasmus. The third manuscript to be brought to light for the very rst time, in 1709, was min. 13 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, gr. 50). It was rst men- tioned by Christoph Matthaus Pfaf, soon followed one year later by Ludolph Kuster from whom is a short description of the manuscript, both physical and philological. Those three manuscripts appeared in several publications during the XVIIIth century with better descriptions and more accurate col- lations. 364 english summary 1788–1881: Some New Manuscripts (Min. 174, 230, 346) At the end of the XVIIIth century, in 1788, a collation campaign managed by Andreas Birch allowed two others witnesses to emerge: min. 174 (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. gr. 2002), and minuscule 230 (El Escorial, Real Biblioteca, Gr. 328). A few years later, in 1823, min. 346 (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, S 23 sup.) is mentioned in Scholz’s Biblisch-Kritische Reise. So, at the beginning of the XIXth century, six Family 13 manuscripts were known, either for their peculiar readings (min. 13, 69, 124), or merely as documents described in a Greek manuscripts catalogue (min. 174, 230, 346), or both. That illustrates a double recognition process where some witnesses are carefully described, both physically and philologically. Dur- ing the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries, biblical scholarship added new and more reference works where Family 13 codices are more and more present (Wettstein, Semler, Griesbach, Birch, Alter, Hug, Tischendorf). In that way, it seems clear that, from the very beginning, the history of the discovery of the extant Family 13 witnesses embraced the history of Greek New Testa- ment textual criticism. During the last quarter of the XIXth century, an Irish scholar, named William Hugh Ferrar, was the rst to edit the text of minus- cules 13, 69, 124 and 346, which he entitled: A Collation of Four Important Manuscripts of the Gospels: With a View to Prove their Common Origin, and to Restore the Text of their Archetype (1877). That reference work represented the rst synthesis of those minuscule manuscripts after nearly two centuries of study. Unfortunately, due to a severe illness, Ferrar passed away in 1871, leaving his friend and colleague Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, the hard task to bring his work to conclusion. In 1874, Scrivener’s second edition of A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament for the Use of Biblical Students mentioned a new Family 13 witness: min. 543 (Ann Arbor, University Library, MS 15), included among the author’s list of 1277 manuscripts. 1881–1941: An Enlarged Group (Min. 543, 788, 826, 828, 983, 1689, l547) In 1883, Scrivener expanded the description of min. 543 and emphasized the connections of this manuscript with minuscules 13, 69, 124 and 346. In the same edition, the author inserted also two newly described documents: min. 826 (Grottaferrata, Biblioteca Statale del Monumento Nazionale, Gr. 346) and min. 828 (Grottaferrata, Biblioteca Statale del Monumento Nazionale, Gr. 219). Those two appeared the same year in Antonio Rocchi’s Codices Cryptenses. Nevertheless, neither of those authors demonstrated any con- nection at all between the Grottaferrata documents and the other extant.