"Which," referring to a feminine (the Queen), is here employed before the vowel "a"; but "who" is employed before a consonant in verse 27, line 3, where we find :— "Unto the presence of that gracious Queen Who sate on high.” In verse 40, line 3, he returns, however, to "which applied to a female (Duessa), before an aspirate: "The false Duessa which had wrought great care." In accordance with this principle, "which" is employed before the vowel "a" in "Our father which art," and it is used before the vowel "i" in Matthew v. 16, "Glorify your Father which is in heaven." "Which" is also used before "w" in Matthew xviii. 23, "A certain King, which would take account" &c.; and also in Acts, Felix and his wife “Drusilla, which was a Jewess." It is employed before an aspirate in Matthew ix. 8, " And glorified God, which had given such power," &c., while "who" is used before a consonant in John i. 27, "He it is, who coming after me,' &c. There are, however, numerous exceptions to this principle, but they are exceptions. The principle above illustrated is still in daily operation in our own language, in which "a" becomes "an" before a vowel or a silent "h"; and it is in constant employment in continental languages, such as the French and Italian, in which a consonant is interposed between two words, if one ends and the next begins with a vowel; and every Welsh scholar is familiar with the manner in which b, f, and v are changed one into the other, according to the first letter of the succeeding word. THE GREEK TEXT. We come now, however, to a much more serious con sideration than any mere question of elegance in the English employed by the Revisionists, or alleged archaisms retained by them; for the question has lately been raised, and demands the most anxious attention, whether the Revisionists have not really given us a translation of a New Testament of their own framing, instead of merely an improved version of the old one, which they were appointed simply to revise where it was absolutely necessary. A recent article in the Quarterly Review (October, 1881) has made a serious assault upon the Greek text itself put forward by the Revisers; and unless it receives a reply which is more intelligible and convincing than any yet before the public, the character of the new text, and its claim to be received as simply a more trustworthy form of the old one, will be seriously doubted. The "Notes on Select Readings," in Westcott & Hort's "Introduction," furnish a reply in a limited number of instances; and other works, such as those by Alford, Tischendorf, etc., may supply an answer in other cases convincing to scholars trained in such studies as textual criticism; but even to a person of more than average classical education, they are often barely intelligible, from their peculiar form and the special training necessary for understanding them; and to an ordinary reader they are perfectly unintelligible and unconvincing. When such a person finds a marginal note, " many ancient authorities," or "some ancient authorities," "omit," or "insert," a passage in the New Testament which he has been accustomed, and justly so, to regard as of high importance, none of the works alluded to would enable him to learn what is the weight of this indefinite number of "many" or "some" "ancient" authorities, and a doubt is cast in his mind which there are no means of his solving. If the altered text had been addressed only to scholars, they might have been able to judge of its value, but the 6,000 textual alterations are put before the general reader with doubts appended to many of them, and no means whatever of answering the doubt. A weighty reply has been made by the Rev. W. Sanday to some of the criticisms (Contemp. Rev., Dec., 1881), and it is impossible for any one with less attainments than the authors of both these articles to express an opinion as to whether the others may or may not admit of a full reply; but they call for one if the revised text is to hold a secure position in general estimation in the future.* The general character of the charges against the revised text is, that the Revisionists have accepted errors from the more newly-discovered MSS., and have either incorporated them with the text, or given countenance to them by marginal notes; that they have made numerous and important omissions without any note to warn the reader; and that they have frequently thrown doubt upon the authority of what they have still retained in the text, by marginal notes implying doubt, without any sufficient reason assigned for doing so. In order to appreciate the grounds upon which the attacks and the defence of the new text are based, it will not be out of place to inquire into the character and authority of what is called the "Textus Receptus," from which the Authorised Version of the New Testament was made, and to examine the materials for judging of its accuracy and value. ORIGIN OF THE 66 TEXTUS RECEPTUS.” The first published edition of the Greek Testament was * Since this paper has been in the printers' hands, a still more valuable reply has been made in a pamphlet, entitled "The Revisers and the Greek Text of the New Testament." The moderation and gravity of its tone contrast favourably with some of the defences put forward, and the authors (two annonymous members of the New Testament Company) may advantageously amplify their reply, and extend it to many cases which they have not touched upon. edited by Erasmus, in Basle, in 1516, from five MSS. now in the public library of Basle, and a sixth in the library of the Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein, not one of which was ancient or contained the whole of the New Testament, though, from the six together, Erasmus did obtain the whole, except the last six verses of the Apocalypse, which he supplied from the Vulgate. In 1550, the learned printer, Robert Stephen, published a new edition in Paris, for which he used the Complutensian Polyglot, and also fifteen MSS., of which two were ancient, one being now known as Beza's Codex, attributed to the fifth or sixth century, the other being of the eighth or ninth century, while the remainder were comparatively modern. After the death of Stephen, Beza brought out some fresh editions, but chiefly from the materials already contained in those of Erasmus and Stephen, and the Complutensian Bible; and in 1633 the celebrated printer, Elzevir, of Leyden, brought out an edition, based upon the foregoing, in which he informed the reader that he had before him "the text now received by all," from which circumstance the name "Textus Receptus" arose. The translators of the Bible in King James's reign, in 1611, do not specify carefully the sources from which they obtained their text, which is chiefly that of Beza, with occasional preference for Stephen's; but in some few instances. their text differs from both without the sources being mentioned from which the differences were taken. The so-called Textus Receptus, from which the Authorised Version was made, appears, therefore, to have been obtained from a very limited number of manuscripts, very few of these being known to be ancient. Under these circumstances it is a wonderful proof of the almost incredible care that must have been exercised in making MS. copies of the Scriptures, that after all the ingenuity of captious critics for the purpose of finding faults, and all the care and research of reverend ones for the purpose of eliminating errors or supplying omissions, scarcely a single change of vital importance has had to be made, as the result either of their hostile or friendly criticism. It is, however, a matter of interest to learn that the MSS. used by Erasmus, although not themselves ancient, correspond so closely with the general mass of Cursives, which are generally about the ninth and tenth century, as to carry the actual date of his authorities to that remote period. And here again it is to be noted that these Cursives correspond in all substantial particulars with the readings followed by Chrysostom; which takes the date further back to his timethe end of the fourth century. The conclusion, therefore, at which criticism appears to have arrived is, that Erasmus's text was substantially that which was prevalent in Antioch and Constantinople in the end of the fourth century.* DESCRIPTION OF THE PRINCIPAL UNCIAL CODICES. Since the date of the Authorised Version, a very large addition has been made to the number and weight of MS. copies of the whole or of portions of the New Testament, the most important of which may be here enumerated. When they are Greek, they are generally described by a capital letter, A, B, &c., or by an Arabic numeral, 1, 2, 3, &c., or by small Italics when they are in other languages, and they are spoken of as "Uncials," or "Cursives," according as they are written in large capital letters (uncia, an inch,) or in smaller running hand (curro, to run). They are also generally called "Codex A," + &c., instead of "MS. A," &c., * Condensed from Westcott & Hort, "Introduction," § 130, pp. 91, 92, and "Revisers and the Greek Text," pp. 11-14. + Codex means originally, in Latin, the trunk of a tree, and thence a thin piece of wood which, being covered with wax, was used for writing upon with a "style." It thus became the term for a single sheet of manu |