THE THEOLOGICAL EDUCATOR. EdiUd by tlit REV. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., Editor of " The Expositor." PROFESSOR WARFIELD'S TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXXXVII. AN INTRODUCTION.. TO THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. BY niE REV. BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, D.D., Professor of New Testament Criticism in the Western Theological Seminary, Allegheny, U.S.A. HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXXXVI. \All fights reset ved.} PKEFACE. r 1HIS little treatise purports to be a primer, and I -L a primer to the art of textual criticism rather than to the science. Its purpose will be served if the reader is prepared by it to exercise the art in the usual processes, and to enter upon the study of the science in such books as Dr. Hort's '' In- troduction," and Dr. Gregory's " Prolegomena " to Tischendorf's eighth edition. In such a primary treatise, and where no claim to originality is made, obligations to previous works can scarcely be acknow- ledged. The author hopes that his general confession of having made use of everything that he could lay his hands upon that served his purpose, will be deemed sufficient acknowledgment of the many debts he is conscious of, and would like, if occasion served, to confess in detail. Allegheny, Midsicmmcr 188G. CORRIGENDA. Page 25, line 5 (and often elsewhere, as, e. g., pp. 26, 216, 217, 220, 224), for " Sclioltz" read "Scholz." Page 25, line 16, for "it"" read "it"'." Page 25, line 18, for ' read p'. Page 30, line 13, after " 13" insert " of the Acts." Page 36, line 13, for " Wesserlv," read " Wessely." Page 37, line 2. This statement is misleading. The Arabs appear to have brought cotton paper to the Western world about the eighth century. The oldest dated Arabic MSS. , on cotton paper come from the ninth century, e. g., the Leiden Gharibu ']-Hadith from 866. The earliest examples in European languages come from the countries which were most closely in contact with the Arabs, e. g., Sicily (1102. 1145, and the like). The oldest dated Greek MS., on cotton paper, is the Vienna Codex dated 1095 ; next we have a Euchologium (No. 973 of Gardthausen's Catalogus Codd Oro'corinn Sinaiticoruin), dated 1153 ; and by the middle of the thirteenth century they are somewhat numerous. The Lectioiiary referred to in the text is No. 191 of the lists (Scrivener, III., p. 292). An Asceticum (No. 468 of Gardthausen's Catalogus, just quoted), on cotton paper, is written in uncials of ilie tenlh or eleventh century. Page 42, lines 11 and .SI, for ''' HF.qjdXfia" read " HEq^dXaia." " Page 60, line 6, for " Wesserly read " Wessely." Page 60, line 15, for " Evangelaria" read "Evangeliaria." Page 67, line 12. The ago of the European Latin may be more accurately set from Prof. Sanday's investi- gations. He shows that it was certainly used by Novatian (fl. 251), and hints that it may be older than Tertullian (see Stvdia Bihlica, p. 245). Pag-e 70, last line. This exception may probably be deleted. Page 78, list of fathers : correct tlie spelling of C'YPRIANUS, and the date from .J- 247 to 4. 258 ; and write Hilarvis, HiLARIUS, and correct the date from 449 to •!" 368. (Hilary of Poictiers is intended.) Page 86, line 18, for "Maclellan" read "McClellan." Page 95, last line, for " Acts ix. 56," read "Acts ix. 5, 6." Page 98, last line but one, the dash over oic ought to stand over ic only. Page 100, last line but one, for " ou " read " 01'." " Page 102, line 8, for " terms " read " turns Page 170, last line but two, for "thsue pport " read " the support." Page 172, line 21, insert {< before B, L, A, etc., in those copies from which it has fallen out. Page 179, line 6, omit " C" after "D." Page 202, line 16, after "rarely" insert "in Greek MSS." Ji /Cl. CONTENTS. pi.eB Introductory ' 1 CHAPTER I The Matter of Criticism 16 CHAPTER II. The Methods of Criticism 82 CHAPTER III. The Praxis of Criticism 182 CHAPTER IV. The History of Criticism 211 INTRODUCTORY. rr^HE word "text" properly denotes a literary -L work, conceived of as a mere thing, as a texture woven of words instead of threads. It designates neither, on the one side, the book which contains the text, nor, on the other side, the sense which the text conveys. It is not the matter of the discourse, nor the manner of it, whether logical, rhetorical, or grammatical. It is simply the web of words itself. It is with this understanding that the text of any work is concisely defined as the ipsissivui verba of that work. The word, which came into Middle English from the French where it stands as the descendant of the Latin word textum, retains in English the figurative sense only of its primitive, yet owes it to its origin that it describes a composition as a woven thing, as a curiously interwoven cloth or tissue of words. Once a part of the English language, it has grown with the growth of that tongue, and has acquired certain special usages. We usually need to speak of the exact words of an author only in contrast with something else, and thus " text " has come to designate a composition upon which a commentary has been written, so that it distinguishes the words commented on from the 1 2 TEXTUAL CRITICISM. comments that have been added. Thus we speak of the text of the Talmud as lost in the comment. And thus, too, by an extreme extension, we speak of the text of a sermon, meaning, not the ipsissima verba of the sermon, but the little piece of the original author on which the sermon professes to be a com- ment. By a somewhat similar extension we speak of texts of Scripture, meaning, not various editions of its ipsissima verba, but brief extracts from Scripture, as for example proof texts and the like ; —a usage which appears to have grown up under the conception that all developed theology is of the nature of a comment on Scripture. Such secondary senses of the word need not disturb us here. They are natural develop- ments out of the ground meaning, as applied to special cases. We are to use the word in its general and original sense, in which it designates the ipsissima verba, the woven web of words, which constitutes the concrete thing by which a book is made a work, but which has nothing directly to do with the sense, correctness, or the value of the work. There is an importan t distinction, however, which we should grasp at the outset, between the text of a document and the text of a work. A document can have but one text ; its ipsissima verba are its ipsissima verba, and there is nothing further to say about it. But a work may exist in several copies, each of which has its own ipsissima verba, which may, or may not, tally with one another. The text of any copy of Shakespeare that is placed in ray hands is plainly before me. But the text of Shakespeare is a different matter. No two copies of Shakespeare, —or now, since INTRODUCTOHY. ?, we have to reckon with the printijig press, we must rather say no two editions, —have precisely the same text. There are all kinds of causes that work differ- ences : badness of copy, carelessness of compositors, folly of editors, imperfection of evidence, frailty of huma.nity. We' know what the text of Karl Elze's Hamlet is. But what is the text of Hamlet ? We cannot choose any one edition, and say that it is the text of Hamlet ; it is one text of Hamlet, but not necessarily the text of Hamlet. We cannot choose one manuscript of Homer, and say that it is the text of Homer. It is a text of Homer, but the text of Homer may be something very different. We note, then, that the text of a document and the text of a work may be very different matters. The text of a document is the ipsisslma verba of that document, and is to be had by simply looking at it ; whatever stands actually written in it is its text. The text of a work, again, is the ipsissima verba of that woi'k, but it cannot be obtained by simply looking at it. We cannot look at the work, but only at the documents or " copies" that represent it ; and what stands written in them, individually or even collectively, may not lie the ipsissima verba of the work, —by exactly the amount, in each case, in which it is altered or corrupted from what the author intended to A\T.nte, is not the i])sissiina verba of the work. If, then, the text of a document or copy of any work is the ipsissima verba of that document or copy, the text of the Avork is what ought to be the ipsissima verba of all the documents or copies that profess to represent it, —it is the original, or, better still, the intended i]mssima verba of the 4 TEXTUAL CRITICISM. author. It may not lie in the document before us, or in any document. All existing documents, taken collectively, may fail to contain it. It may never have lain, perfect and pure, in any document. But if an element of ideality thus attaches to it, it is none the less a very real thing and a very legitimate object of search.