New York Times Review of Westcott-Hort

Exactly 143 years ago to the day, America's paper of record (aka The New York Times) published a review of a recently published introduction to a Greek New Testament by two Cambridge scholars named Westcott and Hort. It is not signed and my online source (ProQuest) does not give an author, but your best guesses are welcome in the comments.

Why I Cite Westcott and Hort’s Introduction As a Joint Work

It’s fairly common practice among text critics who have actually read Westcott and Hort’s famed Introduction to introduce citations from it as “Hort writes...” or the like. The reason for this is from p. 18 where, after acknowledging the benefits of their joint effort, we read: 

It was however for various reasons expedient that their exposition and illustration should proceed throughout from a single hand; and the writing of this volume and the other accompaniments of the text has devolved on Dr Hort.

Despite this note and despite the habit to cite the work as Hort’s, I have always cited it as the work of both. In my dissertation, for example, my first citation footnotes the following, “Although Hort is known to have penned this introduction, I refer to both authors throughout in order to reflect Hort’s concern that Westcott’s contribution to their thinking be represented” (Critical Examination, p. 36 n. 3). 

The reason for that is the letters that we have between them in which Hort was shocked to find that Westcott had apparently instructed the publisher to cut (or reduce?) Westcott’s royalties for the Introduction. Here is Hort’s initial letter and the reason why I insist on citing as I do. Hort even references the note on p. 18, which Westcott, in an earlier letter, had insisted on and approved in its final form.

To the Rev. Dr. Westcott
6 St Peter’s Terrace, Cambridge, Oct. 12., 1882

My dear Westcott,

A note has just come from Macmillan [their publisher] which distresses me much. It had never occurred to me that any question could arise as to a difference between the two volumes of our text in the matter of division of profits, and now that the question is raised, I fail to recognise the justice of the suggested difference. It is a mere accident that the Introduction and Appendix are disjoined from the text proper: till a few months before publication they were always intended to be included within the same boards, and to us at least the book remains one whole. But, apart from any considerations of this kind, the substance as distinguished from the form of Volume II is a join work, as simple matter of fact. That you entrusted me with the final redaction is an altogether subsidiary circumstance: What belongs to a part of the last two or three years must vanish in the sum of the twenty-eight. You last of all men should wish to make equality the true criterion of justice.

Nor indeed is it possible for me to forget that nothing but a difference in our scale of note-writing prevented you from contributing a large share of the Appendix; and it would be inexpressibly painful to me to be obliged to associate my acceptance of your withdrawal with such a result as you now propose. I cannot be too thankful for the generous way in which you have taken responsibility for the whole work (you must, I think, by this time be satisfied that the reference to my own special share at p. 18 has not escaped notice!); and it would be too grievous if there were a breach of solidarity now.

Ever yours affectionately
F. J. A. Hort

I’m not saying everyone else has to follow my lead. But since the two eventually agreed to split the royalties and Hort himself was pretty adamant that the work was both of theirs, I have chosen to honor Hort’s feelings on the matter in the way I cite it.

(The letter is from Cambridge University Library Add. MS 6597, letter 191)

On the Essence of a Byzantine-priority Method

I do not mean to flog the Byzantine method on this blog, I promise. But I am writing on the topic of method right now and some things just fit better on a blog than in a footnote and I want to record them before I forget. 

In this case, I want to set two sets of quotes side-by-side to show what I think is the flaw in the Byzantine priority method. Recall, first, however, that in my last post on the subject, I pointed out that the Byzantine method rests on a fundamental historical claim and that it should stand or fall on that claim. I think that is crucial. 

The method is not to be judged on its occasional (mis)assocation with various disreputable “onlyisms” or whether it’s held by a minority of scholars or whether it accepts the two famous large variants (Mark 16:9–20; John 7:53–8:11) or whether it’s the underdog or whether Maurice Robinson has an enviable rock ’n’ roll CD collection (which he does). It is to be judged on its historical claim. 

What is that claim? Here is what Robinson says is the “essence” of the method in his seminal essay (emphasis his).

12. The real issue facing NT textual criticism is the need to offer a transmissional explanation of the history of the text which includes an accurate view of scribal habits and normal transmissional considerations. Such must accord with the facts and must not prejudge the case against the Byzantine Textform. That this is not a new procedure or a departure from a previous consensus can be seen by the expression of an essential Byzantine-priority hypothesis in the theory of Westcott and Hort (quite differently applied, of course). The resultant methodology of the Byzantine-priority school is in fact more closely aligned with that of Westcott and Hort than any other. Despite his myriad of qualifying remarks, Hort stated quite clearly in his Introduction the principles which, if applied directly, would legitimately support the Byzantine-priority position:

As soon as the numbers of a minority exceed what can be explained by accidental coincidence, ... their agreement ... can only be explained on genealogical grounds[. W]e have thereby passed beyond purely numerical relations, and the necessity of examining the genealogy of both minority and majority has become apparent. A theoretical presumption indeed remains that a majority of extant documents is more likely to represent a majority of ancestral documents at each stage of transmission than vice versa.

13. There is nothing inherently wrong with Hort’s “theoretical presumption.” Apart from the various anti-Byzantine qualifications made throughout the entire Introduction, the Westcott-Hort theory would revert to an implicit acceptance and following of this initial principle in accord with other good and solid principles which they elsewhere state. Thus, a “proper” Westcott-Hort theory which did not initially exclude the Byzantine Textform would reflect what might be expected to occur under “normal” textual transmission.

It is this claim to a “normal transmission” that I take issue with. But more than that, it is what Westcott and Hort take issue with and they do so on the very page that Robinson quotes. Also, they do so not because they jump to anti-Byzantine qualifications. Instead, the very next sentence after the section Robinson quotes says, “But the presumption [i.e., the essence of the Byz position] is too minute to weigh against the smallest tangible evidence of other kinds.” Why is this? Because 

At each stage of transmission the number of copies made from each MS depends on extraneous conditions, and varies irregularly from zero upwards: and when further the infinite variability of chances of preservation to a figure age is taken into account, every ground for expecting a priori any sort of correspondence of numerical proportion between existing documents and their less numerous ancestors in any one age falls to the ground. This is true even in the absence of mixture; and mixture, as will be shown presently (§§ 61, 76), does but multiply the uncertainty. (p. 45).

Robinson writes that only the activity of a “formal recension” would undermine the principle behind the Byz priority position. That is, of course, exactly what WH did with the Syrian text and Robinson is right to reject it, as do most of us today. But, importantly, a formal recension is not what WH here say undermines their “theoretical presumption.” What they point to instead is a factor that is just as serious and happens to be well documented for the NT, namely, contamination or mixture. Contamination, as we know, can wreak havoc on a simple genealogy and the notion that a majority of later manuscripts reflects a majority of early ones is nothing if not simple (NB: I did not say simplistic or dumb or naïve). In other words, the NT text does not follow a normal transmission process. 

The implication for WH is that, “For all practical purposes the rival probabilities represented by relative number of attesting documents must be treated as incommensurable.” (pp. 45–46). The theory of a majority of later manuscripts reflecting a majority of earlier ones does not fit the facts. There is no safety in numbers. Contamination does not allow for it. 

The Byzantine priority position, then, is not wrong because it gives preference to the Byzantine witnesses; it is wrong because of why it does so.

Caring about the ‘infinitesimal points’

One of the marks of a good editor of the Greek New Testament is a near-obsessive attention to detail. There are so many decisions to be made about the little things like punctuation, paragraphing, spelling, etc. How (or if!) an editor chooses to handle these small details often says a lot about the overall quality of the work. As a famous man once said, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.”

Because of this, one of the pleasures of working on Westcott and Hort’s correspondence is watching them discuss the tiniest of details, sometimes at great length. Today, I came across this portion of a letter from Westcott to Hort in July 1880. The edition was entering its final phase before publication the next year. Here, Westcott, more often the one to tire of minutiae, is still thinking about the details. 

I have been growing anxious about our text, but I have no doubt that Macmillan will push on the printers. Just lately it has occurred to me (an infinitesimal point) that in Hebrews 6.7 βοτάνην should be uncial. The reference to Genesis 1 really helps the understanding of a very hard passage more than appears at first and I cannot doubt that there is a reference. If you agree and the change can be made, I should like it; but I can be quite satisfied as things are.

Sure enough, βοτάνην was set in regular type in their privately circulated installment of the Pauline epistles. But Westcott got his way. Hort replied, “I am glad you have mentioned βοτάνην in Hebrews 6.7: of course you would add γῆ: not more I fear can be marked. There will be no difficulty.” The final edition prints the two words in “uncials” to mark them as an OT allusion. What’s the allusion? Westcott’s commentary says that βοτάνην means “the simplest natural produce: Gen. 1:11ff. Hence the word is used in a bad sense for wild plants, weeds.” 

Westcott and Hort’s 1875 installment (left) and 1881 final edition (right)

This is the kind of attention to detail that their correspondence reveals in letter after letter. It nearly pushed their publisher to the edge, I should add. But it did not go unnoticed. Another great editor of the Greek New Testament, Eberhard Nestle, told Westcott after its publication that “I never handled a book made up with so much care and thoughtfulness in the smallest details as your edition.”

Tregelles’s Mustard Seed

In his delightful book American Greek Testaments: A Critical Bibliography of the Greek New Testament as Published in America, Isaac Hall has this to say about the importance of S. P. Tregelles:

The University Presses of Oxford and Cambridge have issued many a work of which the English nation is justly proud, and for which the Christian world is grateful; but since the noble edition of Mill, no work of either press has done more to bring back from Germany to England her former pre-eminence in New Testament critical study [than WH’s]. In the greatest contribution to that end hitherto, not to say the greatest work of this nature in England for a century and a half, the University Presses had scarcely any share. That was the work of Dr. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, accomplished in the face of the wealth and power that mostly clung to blind tradition; in toil almost single-handed, in privation, and later with the disadvantage of failing eyes, under far too much misappreciation, perverse opposition, and even obloquy — until his mustard seed had grown to a great herb in which the fowls of the air might build their nests. But had Tregelles lived to see the present day, no man would more heartily have rejoiced than he, to see this cap-stone put by Westcott and Hort upon his building. The present state of things in England bears testimony, indeed, to Tregelles’s labors, but it bears equal testimony to the numbers that, conspicuously or humbly, have entered into those labors. It belongs to all human progress that “one soweth and another reapeth;” and in this instance, surely, there is abundant cause that “ he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.” (p. 58)

Where did the Byzantine text come from?

In my occasional interactions with Byzantine-text-preferring folks, I have been puzzled by how many of them are unaware of modern research on the Byzantine text and its development. Some of these folks sincerely seem to think that Westcott and Hort’s views of the matter are still what modern textual critics believe. This is not the case. I know of no text critic today who would argue that the Byzantine text as we find it promulgated in the minuscules is the result of a concerted fourth-century recension.  

So, what do scholars think? The most serious work on the Byzantine text’s development has been done by Klaus Wachtel, especially in his 1995 dissertation. But few Byzantine advocates seem aware of it, probably because it remains untranslated into English (sadly).

Fortunately, a number of Wachtel’s papers from over the years are easily accessible online—and in English. So, I thought I would point out just one of the places where he has explained his view. This is in the hope that those who hold to a Byzantine priority position, a Majority text position, or an Ecclesiastical text position (I realize there are differences in these views) will see that modern eclecticism has developed since 1881 on the question of the Byzantine text. In fact, Wachtel’s animating goal in his dissertation was refuting the view of a fourth-century recension.

In any case, here is Wachtel talking about the Gospels:

The term “text-type”, however, still carries along relics of the old division of the New Testament manuscript tradition into three or four “recensions”. If we take the whole evidence into account, a picture emerges that is far more complex. The external criteria applied when variants are assessed have to be re-defined accordingly. To this end we have to focus on individual manuscripts and explore their relationships with other manuscripts. Assigning them to text-types has become obsolete.

You may ask, why then I am still referring to the “Byzantine text” myself. I am doing so, because the term aptly denominates the mainstream text form in the Byzantine empire. This mainstream has its headwaters in pre-Byzantine times, in fact in the very first phase of our manuscript tradition, and it underwent a long process of development and standardization. The final phase began with the introduction of the minuscule script in the 9th century and ended up in a largely uniform text characterized by readings attested by the majority of all Greek manuscripts from the 13th - 15th centuries counted by hundreds and thousands.

Standardization means editorial activity, and in fact, a text form so similar to the late majority text as represented by Codex Alexandrinus cannot have emerged from a linear copying process without conscious editing. It is indeed likely that the text in Codex Alexandrinus is the result of editorial activity which may have been carried out in one or, more likely, several steps. Likewise, the text of the 6th century purple codices N 022 and Σ 042 certainly was not just copied from some manuscript picked at random. Diorthosis, correction, was an integral part of the copying process. Yet the assumption that a recension stood at the beginning of the formation of the Byzantine text and then penetrated the whole manuscript tradition reflects a categorically different view of the transmission history. I am going to focus on the differences between five manuscript texts to show that despite intense editorial activity the Byzantine majority text is the result of a process of reconciliation between different strands of transmission.*

I myself have found this view persuasive at least as far as the Catholic Letters are concerned (though I have tweaked it just slightly). You, of course, may or may not agree with this view, but it is the most detailed and substantiated view of the Byzantine text’s origin on offer. And it is now cited as such in both the major introductions to the field (Metzger-Ehrman’s, and Parker’s).

Kirsopp Lake’s diagram of WH’s view of textual history. He rejected this too.

No major textual critic, to my knowledge, holds to Westcott and Hort’s fourth-century revision view anymore though it may well linger among those in the wider NT guild. My point here is only to say that Byzantine prioritists (of whatever stripe) need to address Wachtel’s arguments not Westcott and Hort’s.

Here ends my public service announcement.

———
* Klaus Wachtel, “The Byzantine Text of the Gospels: Recension or Process?” paper delivered at SBL in 2009, online here.

Why Westcott and Hort gave special treatment to the woman caught in adultery

Not long ago, we discussed on the blog whether or not the story of the woman caught in adultery (John 7.53–8.11) should be read and taught as Scripture. I remain somewhat torn myself though I lean toward a negative answer. Regardless of that larger question, one of the issues that came up in the discussion was whether Mark 16.9–20 and John 7.53–8.11 raise distinct canonical questions that are not warranted for other widely-attested variant texts like John 5.4.

The Pericope Adulterae
in Westcott and Hort’s GNT

Regarding this question, I was intrigued by how Hort explained his and Westcott’s unique handling of the Pericope in their edition. As you may know, they printed it in double brackets just like Mark 16.9–20 but then went a step further by placing it after John’s Gospel with its own separate heading. (Note, however, that it is not listed in the table of contents.)

In a letter to his good friend A. A. Vansittart dated May 4, 1865, Hort explained this decision as follows:

I firmly adhere to the Pericope so treated, though conscious that it may cause scandal. Let me repeat more clearly than before. This is one of many passages which belong in a sense to the New Testament, and which we feel we cannot expel from it, and yet which do not belong to the originals of its component books. The other such passages or clauses we leave (in at least one case, Mt 27.49b we insert) in their proper places for two reasons: those passages could not stand independently from their very nature, and the contexts are little or not at all injured by the interpolation, which of course is plainly marked. Here both conditions are reversed: the Pericope can very well stand by itself, and St John’s narrative is miserably interrupted by its insertion. To put it in the appendix would be to expel it from the New Testament: we can therefore only place it as an omitted chapter of the ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ. It will, I trust, like the other passages stand within ⟦ ⟧.

Thus, Hort explains why the Pericope could neither be expelled from the NT altogether but could and should be left out of the Gospel according to John proper, even with its double brackets. Hort, of course, was well aware that this might cause scandal which itself is interesting given that on theological matters, the two editors typically eschewed public controversy.

Vaticanus’s ‘least doubtful’ Byzantine impurity

The familiar text of Rom 11.6 as read in NA/UBS is found in P46 01* A C D F G P 1739 1881 lat co as follows:

εἰ δὲ χάριτι, οὐκέτι ἐξ ἔργων, ἐπεὶ ἡ χάρις οὐκέτι γίνεται χάρις
and if by grace, then it [election] is no longer of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace

However, 01c (B) 33vid Byz vg(ms) (sy) add the corollary to Paul’s axiom which is

ει δε εξ εργων, ουκετι εστιν χαρις, επει το εργον ουκετι εστιν εργον
and if it is from works, then it is no longer grace, otherwise the work is no longer work

Sanday and Hedlam say of this longer reading that “there need be no doubt that it is a gloss” (Romans, p. 313). I think they are right in this.

Rom 11.6 in Vaticanus (photo link).
Note the marginal dots.

What is surprising is to see B line up with Byz here against P46 01* etc. The agreement is not perfect, however, because B lacks the first εστιν and has χαρις instead of the final εργον. It would be worthwhile to consider whether Byz preserves a reading earlier than B here. B’s text could explain the shorter reading as a case of parablepsis (χαρις ... χαρις), but B’s reading doesn’t make much sense in the context.

Either way, B shows a striking agreement with Byz and one that receives a special mention from Westcott and Hort. They refer to this reading on p. 150 of their Introduction where they admit that it may be the one exception to B’s consistent purity from “Syrian” (= Byz) influence. They write:

...B is found to hold a unique position. Its text is throughout Pre-Syrian, perhaps purely Pre-Syrian, at all events with hardly any, if any, quite clear exceptions, of which the least doubtful is the curious interpolation in Rom. xi.6.

Did you notice the tortured circumlocution there? They don’t say that Rom 11.6 is a possible case of B’s Syrian corruption. Instead, they say it is “the least doubtful” of possibly clear exceptions to B’s pre-Syrian purity. It’s as if they can’t quite bring themselves to say that B might, even in this one case, be corrupted by the Syrian text-type. So a “possible impurity” becomes “the least doubtful exception to B’s purity.” I suppose this is akin to their infamous phrase “Western non-interpolations” which are just as easily termed “Alexandrian additions.” Which, of course, brings us back to the importance of rhetoric in textual criticism.

In Praise of Westcott and Hort’s Uncertainty

It’s not uncommon today to read criticisms of past textual scholars for their overconfidence. First among the guilty in this regard is often Westcott and Hort who titled their edition The New Testament in the Original Greek. Eldon Epp recently referred to this title as “arrogant” and one that, along with their term “Neutral” text were “soon considered overstatements and have been abandoned.”*

Of course, Westcott and Hort did not think they could always attain the original Greek text of the NT and this fact explains many of their marginal readings, especially those discussed in the Appendix.

What I find interesting is that the charge of overconfidence seems to be of recent vintage. Closer to their own time, the much maligned editors were actually praised on occasion for their hesitance and uncertainty about attaining the original text. Here is Edward A. Hutton, for example, writing in 1911:

Our final text must therefore often be difficult of determination, and here Drs Westcott and Hort have shown their wisdom in giving a much larger number of alternative readings than any other critic, and thus better representing the present state of New Testament criticism. In other words, while the principles of criticism are satisfactory enough, the paucity of authorities makes it unsafe to be too confident in all cases. Hesitation is the truest wisdom, and in the New Testament best represents the present state of the case. Infallibility is the mark of the ignoramus, or of the charlatan. (An Atlas of Textual Criticism, p. 9).

So which is it? Were Westcott and Hort arrogant and overstated in their edition or wise and rightfully hesitant? Whatever your answer, it can't be because they thought they could always identify the original text.

———
*Eldon J. Epp, “Critical Editions and the Development of Text-critical Methods, Part 2: From Lachmann (1831) to the Present,” in The New Cambridge History of the Bible: From 1750 to the Present, edited by John Riches (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 27.

Colwell’s Reversal of Westcott and Hort on Singular Readings

E. C. Colwell (source)

Westcott and Hort and E. C. Colwell are often connected in discussions of singular readings as they should be. But it’s not often appreciated how Colwell inverted WH’s primary purpose for studying singular readings. 

For WH, their main interest in singular readings was that their two prized manuscripts (01 and 03) often stood alone from the rest of the textual tradition as they knew it. Singular readings did give them access to the proclivities of 01 and 03 (a la Colwell), but this was not then aimed at elucidating transcriptional probability like it was for Colwell. Instead, this exercise was aimed squarely at determining which of 01 and 03’s singular readings had “a better title to consideration,” i.e., of being original (Intro, p. 233).

For Colwell, the study of singular readings is not only to “increase skill in the evaluation of that manuscript” (a la WH), but also “to gain knowledge of the habits of a scribe in general ... and thus to increase skill in the evaluation of readings.”* For Colwell, such a study was not aimed at identifying which singulars may claim originality. Rather, it was to give us access to those readings that we can be sure are the scribe’s rather than the author’s. 

Thus, unlike WH, Colwell’s interest in singulars hinges entirely “on the assumption that these readings are the creation of the scribe.” As such, they give us access to the work of the scribe as opposed to the author. In this, Colwell has reversed WH for whom the study of singular readings was aimed precisely at identifying those singulars that are the work of the author rather than the scribe. 

In other words, both recognize that singular readings can attune us to the scribe’s habits, but each uses this fact to focus on opposite sides of the scribe/author divide. WH are ultimately interested in authorial readings whereas Colwell is really interested in scribal readings. Obviously, this has to do with whether each thinks that singulars may be original. But the difference is still important especially as it comes to “skill in the evaluation of readings.” WH have their own view of how to best attain that and it has nothing to do with singular readings. But more on that another time.

---

*E. C. Colwell, “Method in Evaluating Scribal Habits: A Study of P⁴⁵, P⁶⁶, P⁷⁵,” in Studies in Methodology in Textual Criticism of the New Testament, NTTS 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1969), 108.

135 Years Ago Today

Today marks the 135th anniversary of the publication of Westcott and Hort’s momentous edition The New Testament in the Original Greek. The date was May 12, 1881 (see FB discussion here). Later in the same year they would publish their introduction and appendix justifying and explaining their text critical method.

Though certainly dependent on the work of many pioneers before them, it was especially the clarity and power of the argument in their introduction that established Westcott and Hort’s work as not only the high water mark of 19th century NT textual criticism, but, in many ways, the tipping point for the textus receptus. In 1904 the British and Foreign Bible Society would stop publishing the textus receptus and, even before Westcott and Hort went to press, their edited text was being used by the translators of the Revised Version, itself published just days later. Since then, most English translations of the New Testament have followed an eclectic Greek text.

Today, our critical editions typically vary less from the text of Westcott and Hort than they do from the textus receptus. To some, this might suggest that we have made little progress. From another perspective it is a testament to Westcott and Hort’s skill. As Gordon Fee has said, “If all of this means that we still appear to be crossing the Atlantic in an 1881 ship, it may be that they built them better in those days.”*

In all, work on their Greek New Testament took 28 years. Initially they were much more optimistic about the time such an edition would take. On April 19, 1853 Hort wrote to tell Westcott that the publisher, Macmillan, had agreed to print their edition. Here’s part of that letter:

I promised to let you know Macmillan’s answer about the Greek Testament. It has been slow in coming, but is quite favorable. He fully approves of the plan, but leaves all to our own discretion, saying that they will be delighted to “do their part, that is to say, to take all risk and publish, and push.” Besides describing our plan, I told him of my own schemes of examining and restoring (if possible) the texts of the several versions (beside the Peshito, in which we both hoped to effect something), so soon as I should have learned the languages sufficiently: and likewise my intention to go through such of the earlier Fathers as have been examined but cursorily: and likewise to see whether anything can be gleaned from the Latin or cursive Greek MSS at Cambridge. I told him at the same time that these were schemes which might very probably not be realized; and indeed several times urged that there must be no definite agreement, as we might wish to desist for various reasons; I referred in particular to the change in the Greek Professorship which (if Thompson were elected) might cause a good text to be published by authority, and to swamp our edition. He says that no text is published by the Pitt Press [= Cambridge University Press] under the Greek Professor’s authority; but that the Pitt Press merely reprints Lloyd, and Scholefield published a text of his own. He adds that, if I carry out my scheme, our book will be worth publishing, whatever any one else may do. He likewise want to know whether a MS of Photius on St Paul’s Epistles, which Hardwick quotes in a note to his Church History, would be of any use to you. If I were at Cambridge, I would examine it myself, and probably shall do so when I get there. But meanwhile I must tell him that the chances are very small—certainly not enough to make it worth your while to get a Grace of the Senate. He reports that Lightfoot is very much pleased with the proposal to him, and will evidently do the Lexicon and Grammar, though he has not formally undertaken them: he insists on the utmost silence till the books are ready: and Macmillan promises us the same in the strongest terms.

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*Gordon Fee, “The Myth of Early Textual Recension in Alexandria,” in Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism, p. 273.

Warfield’s Review of Westcott & Hort

Princeton Seminary has put their old journals online. These go back to 1825 with the Biblical Repertory. There are plenty of essays from the bright lights of Old Princeton. Among the articles is Warfield’s 32-page (!) review of Westcott and Hort’s GNT.

The PDF is available at https://commons.ptsem.edu/id/presbyterianrevi3101unse-dmd007. Here’s a great diagram offered as an illustration of WH’s genealogy of the NT text (p. 340):

Update

Yesterday I also came across some of Warfield’s reviews of Burgon, Scrivener, Kenyon, and a few others. These are from a 1932 reprint. You can download them here.

Historic editions of the Greek New Testament online

Over on Facebook it was observed that Brill was offering a collection of historic editions of the New Testament for sale.

The Critical Editions of the New Testament Online
The Greek Text, Versions, and Transcriptions of Manuscripts
...
This series, earlier published in a microfiche collection by IDC Publishers, makes available for the first time in a single online collection the principal critical editions, lists of variant readings and collections of manuscript transcriptions and collations from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century. In addition, a number of the most useful editions of the ancient versions and of ancillary materials have been included. It begins with the first large collection, compiled by John Mill and published in 1707, and ends with von Soden’s huge work of 1902-13.

The most surprising thing was the price:

As Brill notes, this was previously published (before Brill’s acquisition of IDC Publishers) in a microfiche collection - contained in 853 fiche (Brill uses the same brochure):

But most of them are available for free somewhere on the internet, so I thought it would be helpful to see how many links we could collect here (with help from commenters): (I’ll start with abbreviated titles):

Greek New Testament

Erasmus (1516) (on later editions see Krans): Basel (e-rara): images & pdf; cspmt (pdf); images CSNTM

Complutensian Polyglot (vol five = NT) (1520?): cspmt (pdf)

Aldine (1518): cspmt (pdf)

Colines (1534): cspmt (pdf)

Stephanus (1551): images and PDFs at e-rara
Stephanus (1550): images CSNTM; Bibles online (nice images but fiddly orientation)

Beza: for links to the different editions (and other works of Beza) go here (Jan Krans).
Beza (1588): good individual images at CSNTM
Beza (1598): cspmt (pdf)

Elzevir (1624): cspmt (pdf)

Elzevir (1633): cspmt (pdf)

Fell (1675): hathitrust

Mill (1707) good individual images at CSNTM and PDF at Google Books
Mill (rev. by Kuster) (1710) [Google Books] (BSB images & pdf) (SLUB: nice images and pdf) [HT Jan Krans]
Mill (2nd ed. Kuster) (1723) Google Books (BSB images & pdf)

Richard Bentley (1720), Proposals for Printing and his specimen of Rev 22 are at Google Books.

J. A. Bengel (1734) at archive.org (google books) (NB. 1763 Apparatus criticus also at archive.org)

J.J. Wettstein, Prolegomena In Novum Testamentum: Cum Quibusdam Characterum Graecorum Et Latinorum In Libris Manuscriptis Exemplis (1730) [pdf at archive.org] (1764 rev by Semler at Google Books [images & pdf @ mdz])

J.J. Wettstein (1751-2), vol one (1751) at Marburg: images & pdf; vol two (1752) at Marburg: images & pdf [HT Jan Krans]; vol one at archive.org; vols 1(?) & 2 at Stanford/Google Books; hathitrust

J.J. Griesbach, Synopsis Evangeliorum Matthaei, Marci et Lucae. Textum Graecum ad fidem codicum versionum et patrum emendavit et lectionis varietatem adiecit Io. Iac. Griesbach (Halle: Io. Iac. Curt., 1776)  (Synopsis = NT vol 1) [Google Books]
J.J. Griesbach,  Libri historici novi testamenti graece: Epistolas Omnes Et Apocalypsin complectens. Novum Testamentum Graece Volumen II (Halle: Curt, 1775) [GB]
J.J. Greisbach, Novum Testamentum Graece. Textum ad fidem codicum versionum et patrum emendavit et lectionis varietatem adiecit Io. Iac. Griesbach (Halle: Io. Iac. Curt., 1777): vol 1 Evangelia et Acta Apostolorum (= Gospels & Acts) [Google Books]

J.J. Griesbach, Symbolae Criticae ad supplendas et corrigendas variarum N.T. lectionum collectiones (Halle) vol. 1 (1785) [Google Books]; vol. 2 (1793) [Google Books]

J.J. Griesbach, Novum Testamentum Graece. Textum ad fidem codicum versionum et patrum recensuit et lectionis varietatem adiecit D. Io. Iac. Griesbach (Halle: Io. Iac. Curt. & London: P. Elmsly, 1796, 2nd edition): vol 1 Evangelia (Google Books); vol. 2: Acta et Epistolas Apostolorum cum Apocalypsi (Halle: Io. Iac. Curtii Haeredes & Londno: Payne & MacKinlay, 1806, 2nd edition) (Google Books) (BSB images & pdf)
Griesbach, Synopsis (1797, 2nd ed.) [Google Books]
J.J. Griesbach, Commentarius Criticus in Textum Graecum Novi Testamenti (Halle) vol. 1 (1798) & vol. 2 (1811) [bound together] [Google Books]
J.J. Griesbach, Synopsis evangeliorum Matthaei, Marci et Lucae una cum lis Joannis pericopis quae omnino cum caeterorum evangelistarum narrationibus conferendae sunt / textum recensuit et selectam lectionis varletatem adjecit D. Jo. Jac. Griesbach. (Halle: Libraria Curtiana, 1809, third edition). [hathitrust]

(Griesbach NT vol 1, 1809 at archive.org; vol. 2, 1809)
(Griesbach NT vol 1, 1818 and vol 2, 1818)
J.J. Griesbach, Synopsis evangeliorum Matthaei Marci et Lucae: una com iis Joannis pericopis quae omnino cum ... (Halle: Officina Libraria Curtiana, 1822, fourth edition). [archive.org]
J.J. Griesbach,  Novum Testamentum Graece. Textum ad fidem codicum versionum et patrum recensuit et lectionis varietatem adiecit D. Io. Iac. Griesbach (rev. D. Schulz; Berlin: F. Laue, 1827, 3rd edition): vol 1 IV Evangelia  [Google Books] [second volume never published]

Harwood, The New Testament (1776; 2 vols) [GoogleBooks] [Biblioteca Nacional de España: good images and dowloadable PDFs]
[also issuu.com/9853355/docs/harwood_vol1
issuu.com/9853355/docs/harwood_vol2 ]

Matthaei (1782-1788) vol. 11: Matthew (1788); vol. 12: Mark (1788); vol 10: John (1786); vol. 1: Acts (1782); vol 5: Catholic Epistles (1782); vol. 3: 1&2 Corinthians (1783); vol. 6: Gal, Eph & Phil (1784); vol. 4: Hebrews & Col (1784); vol. 7: 1&2 Thess and Timothy);  vol.8: Apocalypse (1785).
Matthaei, Novum Testamentum Graece (vol. 1, 1803 [Google Books]; vol. 2, 1804 & vol. 3, 1087 [Google Books]) 

F.C. Alter, Novum Testamentum ad codicem vindobonensem graece expressum (Vienna)
vol. 1 (1787) [Google Books]; vol. 2 (1786) [Google Books] [HT Jan Krans]

J.M.A. Scholz, Novum Testamentum Graece. Textum ad fidem Testium Criticorum recensuit, Lectionum Familias subjecit, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1830; 1836). Biblioteca Nacional de España (both vols)

K. Lachmann, Novum Testamentum Graece (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1831) [archive.org/Google Books]
Lachmann-Buttmann (vol. 1, 1842 [Google Books]; vol. 2, 1850 [Google Books]) (hathitrust)

Tregelles (1857) good individual images at CSNTM     Tyndale House
BNE Tregelles (http://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/bdh0000007427 (all volumes)

Tischendorf (NTG, vol. 1, 1869 [Google Books]; vol. 2, 1872 [Google Books]; Prolegomena (C.R. Gregory, 1890), Part 1 [archive] and Part 2 [archive])
Westcott & Hort (1881) text [GB]; Intro [GB] (US edition with forward by P. Schaff, 1881: archive)
von Soden (1902-13) good individual images of four volumes at CSNTM: one, two, three, four. Also pdfs at cspmt (vol one, two)

Nestle 1899 2nd edition (pdf)

Catalogues

• List of other catalogues
• BL: early printed Bibles
• Darlow & Moule, Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scripture (London: BFBS, 1903-1911) (hathitrust)
• E. Reuss, History of the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testament
• E. Reuss, Bibliotheca Novi Testamenti Graeci (1872)
• M.Vincent, A History of the Textual Criticism of the New Testament

Major Sites

• Müncheler Digitalisierungs Zentrum Digital Bibliothek
• E-rara (rare books in Swiss Libraries)
• Hathitrust
• Zentrales Verzeichnis Digitalisierter Drucke
• Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek
• Münster Bibelmuseum digitized collection

Worth checking

• Online Books
• Gallica
• Early English Books Online
• Early European Books
• Eighteenth Century collections online 

A Question for Cambridge Scholars

It is well known that Westcott and Hort supplied pre-publication fascicles of their in-progress Greek New Testament to the members of the English Revision Committee during the period 1870-1881, specifically as follows (from Hort, Introduction, p. 18):

The Gospels, with a temporary preface of 28 pages, were thus issued in July 1871, the Acts in February 1873, the Catholic Epistles in December 1873, the Pauline Epistles in February 1875, and the Apocalypse in December 1876.

These preliminary fascicles obviously were subject to comment and criticism from the Revision Committee, with the accepted and reasoned results of such being implemented into the final 1881 W-H edition. Hort notes (p. 18 once more) that “many corrections dealing with punctuation or otherwise of a minute kind, together with occasional modifications of reading, have been introduced into the stereotype plates within the last few months” prior to actual publication.

The question I have (knowing that certain of W-H’s letters and papers are stored within the Cambridge University Library) is whether any of these preliminary fascicles also are part of the Cambridge collection. If so, it would seem a fascinating study for someone first to reproduce in full the text of their “temporary preface”, and then to compile a collation of differences between the Greek text of the preliminary fascicles and that which actually was published.

(An added bonus would be the record of any handwritten notes that may have been placed on those fascicles by either Westcott or Hort).

Sounds like a good project for someone at Tyndale House to undertake.

Westcott and Hort as Manuscript Scholars

In his interesting but rather unsatisfactory book, A History of the Synoptic Problem: The Canon, the Text, the Composition, and the Interpretation of the Gospels (Doubleday, 1999), David Laird Dungan misjudges the contribution of textual criticism to the synoptic problem in a number of different ways. He also makes several extraordinarily incorrect statements about Westcott and Hort. I’d like to focus here on his assertion of ‘the fact that neither Westcott nor Hort ever personally examined a single ancient manuscript. Working entirely from previous editions (e.g. Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf), where the task of comparison had been done for them, Westcott-Hort’s contribution came in the application of a systematic approach to the mass of data others had collected.’ (p. 295).

Dungan here misunderstands and exaggerates the rather misleading if not equally incorrect statement in the Aland’s description of Westcott and Hort’s method (‘neither Westcott nor Hort ever actually collated a single manuscript but worked completely from published material, i.e. critical editions (viz., Tischendorf)’ (Aland & Aland, The Text of the New Testament, p. 18).

It is certainly true that Westcott & Hort depended on the work of other scholars, but this does not preclude first-hand examination of manuscripts (easily documented in e.g. Hort’s comments on his own claim that F, a codex located in his own college library, was a copy of G in ‘On the End of the Epistle to the Romans’ in Journal of Philology III(1871), 51-80, here in a note at pp. 67-68, Codex F was (and still is) located in Trinity College Cambridge), nor was the work dependent on editions. The primary resources were published collations and complete texts and facsimiles (as is detailed in the chart on p. 15 of their Introduction; although without notes), a number of which were in Hort’s personal library as can be demonstrated in the catalogue of Hort’s library (Catalogue of the Valuable Library of Books Cambridge: John Swan & Son, 1893). Further confirmation, if such is needed (!) of Hort’s interest in the actual manuscript resources can be found in his published letters. At an early stage of planning for the edition Hort wrote to J. Ellerton: ‘Lachmann and Tischendorf will supply rich materials, but not nearly enough’ (19.4.1853); he later enthusiastically discussed Tregelles work on Zacynthius: ‘It is inferior to B, but scarcely, if at all, inferior to C and L’ (letter to J.B. Lightfoot 18.2.1859) and indeed finished the editorial work for Tregelles edition of the Greek New Testament with its very complete apparatus (for these letters (see A.F. Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort (London: Macmillan & Co., 1896; 2 vols); I.250 and I.404 - the unpublished letters further document Hort’s interest in particular manuscripts, not least in visits to foreign libraries while on vacation).

Hort’s intimate knowledge of the important manuscript witnesses is demonstrated in his spectacular observation about the exemplar of Ephraimi Rescriptus in Revelation: ‘In the MS of the Apocalypse from which C was taken some leaves had been displaced, and the scribe of C did not discover the displacement. It thus becomes easy to compute that each leaf of the exemplar contained only about as much as 10 lines of the text of the present edition; so that this one book must have made up nearly 120 small leaves of parchment, and accordingly formed a volume either to itself or without considerable additions.’ Westcott & Hort, Introduction, 268.

As far as I can tell there is no evidence that Hort (or Westcott) ever travelled to Paris to see this manuscript; but a moment’s thought (or a look at the fuller discussion of this displacement in H.H. Oliver, ‘A Textual Transposition in Codex C (Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus)’ JBL 76(1957), pp. 233-236) reveals something of the detailed work on the manuscript witnesses that underlies this brief comment.

Are writers supposed to know what they are talking about or not?

Up-date

Maurice Robinson offered more published evidence for Hort’s acquaintance with manuscripts in a comment, which I have (with his permission) added here:

For the record, regarding Hort and collation of MSS, cf. Scrivener, Plain Introduction, 2nd ed (1874), 432:

“So far as it appears from their Preface [circulated privately to members of the ERV Committee], the editors [W-H] have not made any great additions of their own to the mass of collated materials for the revision of the sacred text. Those which exist ready at hand have been verified as far as possible, and the whole mass of evidence, both documentary and internal, has been thoroughly and deliberately weighed by them, separately and in conference, with an amount of care and diligence that have been hitherto unexampled.”

Within the same volume, Scrivener speaks regarding Hort’s direct examination of MS 339 while in Turin:

“Found by Mr Hort to contain John, Luke (with Titus of Bostra’s commentary), Matthew, hoc ordine” (p. 68).

“Mr Hort informs me that on examining this copy he found it written in three several and minute hands” (p. 200n1).

As to the Apocalypse in MS 339: “Much like Cod B [046] and other common-place copies, as Mr Hort reports, who collated five chapters in 1864, and sent his papers to Tregelles” (p. 248).

Regarding MS 133 of Acts [Gtreg.-Al. 611]: “Mr Hort noticed good readings in the Catholic Epistles” (p. 231).

Regarding a Vulgate MS (B. x. 5)at Trinity College, Cambridge, containing 1Co-1Thess, “readings [were] sent by the Rev. F. J. A. Hort to Tregelles” (p. 314)

So Hort, at least, was to some extent engaged in direct manuscript examination and collation.

[End of Maurice Robinson’s comment]

Update 2 (PJG, Nov 2016)

Here is the relevant section from the privately-circulated preface mentioned above by Scrivener. (Sorry about the rough images.)

Update 3 (PJG, Oct. 20, 2020)

One wonders if the Alands got their opinion from Kenyon who has a very similar statement on p. 251 of his Handbook: “Westcott and Hort did not themselves collate or edit manuscripts, but devoted themselves to the study of the materials collected by others, and to the elaboration of a theory of the history of the early transmission of the New Testament text, which might serve as a guide to the discovery of the true text among the multitude of divergent witnesses that have come down to us.”