expensive editions and collations, of Houbigant, Kennicott and De Rossi.

Those who extend their Biblical researches to the Chaldee Paraphrases and Rabbinism, are recommended, by the learned in those too much neglected branches of Biblical literature, to the Biblia Rabbinica of Bomberg and Burtorf, to the Biblia Rabbinica of Rabbi Moses, published at Amsterdam, in four volumes, folio, in 17241727; and particularly to that printed at Mantua in 1742—1744, by Rabbi Jediah Solomon Moses. It is in four volumes 4to. but little known; and contains a collation of some ancient Manuscripts, and of the oldest printed editions of the Hebrew text, extracts from both the Thalmuds, the Medraschim, the most ancient Jewish annotators, an excellent critical commentary, and much other useful matter. The purchasers of the Biblia Rabbinica of Rabbi Moses should see, that the copy offered to them contains the treatise of the Rabbi Abdias Sporno, de Scopo Legis, which, in the copies designed for sale to Christians, is generally omitted.

IX.

IX. 1. With respect to the GREEK MANUSCRIPTS, it should be premised, that there is no reason to suppose, that the Autographs, or Original manuscripts of the sacred Penmen of the

New Testament, existed in the third century. See Griesbach, Historia Textus Epistolarum Pauli. Various readings of the New Testament were noticed as early as St. Clement of Alexandria: he remarks the double reading of ivdurάuevo, and inducáμevos, in 2 Cor. v. 3. Oecumenius, who copied the ancients, observes, that, in 1 Cor. xv. 51, some manuscripts read οὐ before αλλαγησόμεθα, and omit οὐ before κοιμηθησόμεθα.

IX, 2. The Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, which have reached us, are, according to Wetstein's account, written either on parchment or vellum, or paper. The parchment or vellum is either purple-coloured, or of its natural colour; and either thin or thick. The paper is either silken, or of the common sort; and either glazed, or of the ordinary roughness. The letters are either capital, (generally called uncial), or small. The capital letters are either unadorned and simple, and the strokes of them very thin and straight; or they are of a thicker kind, uneven and angular. Some of them are supported on something like a base, others are ornamented, or rather burthened, with a top. Letters of the first description are of the kind generally found on the ancient monuments of Greece; those of the last, resemble the paintings of half barbarous times. Manuscripts, therefore, written in the first kind of letter, are generally supposed to be of the sixth century, at the latest; those, written in the second kind of

letter, are generally supposed to be of the tenth century. The manuscripts written in the small letters are of a still later age. But the Greek manuscripts, copied by the Latins, after the reign of Charlemagne, are in another kind of alphabet; the the E, and the Y, in them, are inflected, in the form of the letters of the Latin alphabet. Even in the earliest manuscripts, some words are abbreviated. At the beginning of a new book, the four or five first lines are often written in vermilion. Few manuscripts of the entire New Testament have been discovered. The greater part contain the Gospels only; very few have the Apocalypse. In almost all, (and this is particularly the case of the older manuscripts), several leaves are wanting; sometimes they are replaced in a writing of a much later date. All the manuscripts have obliterations and corrections. But here a material distinction is to be attended to: some of the alterations are made by the writer himself, others by other persons and at a subsequent time. The first are said to be a primá manu, the second a secundá manu.

IX. 3. The curious and extensive collations, which have been made of manuscripts within this century, have shewn, that certain manuscripts have an affinity to each other, and that their text is distinguished from others by characteristic marks. This has enabled the writers on the subject to arrange them under certain general classes. They have observed, that, as different countries had

different versions, according to their respective languages, their manuscripts naturally resembled their respective versions, as the versions, generally speaking, were made from the manuscripts in common use. Pursuing this idea, they have supposed four principal editions: 1st, the Western edition, or that used in the countries where the Latin language was spoken ;-with this, the Latin versions coincide: 2d, the Alexandrine edition ;-with this, the quotations of Origen coincide: 3d, the Edessene edition, from which the Syriac version was made and 4th, the Byzantine or Constantinopolitan edition: the greatest number of manuscripts written by the monks on mount Athos, the Moscow manuscripts, the Slavonian or Russian versions, and the quotations of St. Chrysostom and Theophylact bishop of Bulgaria, are referrible to this edition. The readings of this edition are remarkably different from those of the other editions; between those, a striking coincidence appears. A reading supported by three of them is supposed to be of the very highest authority; yet the true reading is sometimes found only in the fourth: and it should always be remembered, that a reading may have many manuscripts in its favour, but that, if they all belong to the same family, or recension, they are to be regarded as a single testimony.

IX. 4. From the coincidence observed between many Greek manuscripts and the Vulgate, or some other Latin translation, a suspicion arose in the

minds of several writers of eminence, that the Greek text had been altered throughout, to the Latin. This seems to have been first suggested by Erasmus; but it does not appear that he supposed the alterations were made before the fifteenth century so that the charge of Latinizing the manuscripts did not, in his notion of it, extend to the original writers of the manuscript, or, as they are called, the writers a primá manu, as it affected only the subsequent interpolators, or, as they are called, the writers a secundá manu. Father Simon and Mill adopted and extended the accusation; and it was urged by Wetstein with his usual vehemence and ability; so that it came to be generally received. Bengel expressed some doubts of it; and Semler formally called it in question. He was followed by Griesbach and Woide; and finally brought over Michaelis, who, in the first edition of his Introduction to the New Testament, had taken part with the accusers; but, in the fourth edition of the same work, with a candour, of which there are too few exemples, declared himself persuaded, that the charge was unfounded, and totally abandoned his first opinion. Carrying the proof to its utmost length, it only shews, that the Latin translations, and the Greek copies, were made from the same exemplars. This rather proves the antiquity of the Latin translations, than the corruption of the Greek copies. It is also observable, that St. Jerom corrected the Latin from the Greek: a circum