Tischendorf knew in his 7th edition (the last which he fully completed) for the Gospel 52 uncial MSS or fragments of such, at the head of them the codex Sinaiticus, ascribed by him to the middle of the 4th cent.* When Gregory completed the Pro- legomena to Tischendorf's editio octava, lie counted for the Gospels alone about 25 uncials more ; and in the most recent work on the subject, Gregory's German revision of the said Prolegomena {Text- kritik des Neuen Testamentes : Erster Band, 1900), he describes 97, promising the description of 4 more for the appendix. It is similar with the other parts of the NT. And while hitherto very few MSS had been known oa papyrus (the writing material of Apostolic times), and none earlier than the age of Constantine, now several fragments on papyrus have been found recently, and two at least are assigned to the 3rd cent, (see Writing, p. 952").
Of cursive or niinuscle MSS (see on them art. Writing, p. 954') about 3000 are now known, if we include the Lectionaries ; and 2000, go it is esti- mated by Gregory, wait for description and classi- fication. As a whole the cursive MSS are less valuable than the uncials, but several of them are very important, even more than uncials, because the text of a cursive MS, in spite of t)ie recent date of the MS, may be much older than that of an uncial. It is impossible to give here a list either of the uncials or, still less, of the cursives ; some of the former have been treated in separate articles, see A, Aleph, B, C, D, L ; we must refer to Tregelles' revision of Home's Introduction (vol. i. 1856), Tischendorf - Gregory, Scrivener- MiUer*, Gregory, i. (see Literature).
' Compare also the table in WH, } 19, showing the lat« d*,t» at which primary MSS have become available.
Special attention b due, though they have not received it hitherto, to tlie Lectionanes, i.e. the manuscripts of ecclesiastical lessons taken from the NT (WH, §§ 103, 104 ; S.rivener, i. 74 «"., .327 If. ; Gregory, Tcxtkritik, i. 32711'.). 'Comparatively few of them have as yet been collateil. Some of these have been found to contain it-.-idings of sufiicient value and interest to encourage further inquiry in what is as yet an almost unexplored region of textual hi.-ilory , but not to promise con- siderable assistance in the recovery of tlie apostolic text' (WH, ^.c). Liturgical books are always con- servative, are official books, and can be localized with much more certainty than other MSS of the NT. Gregory is inclined to believe that the order of lessons read on Sundays originated perhaps as early as the first half of the 2nd cent., that for the Saturdaj-s towards the end of the tliird quarter of this century, and that for the week - days towards the end of the same century (p. 337). In the Apostolic Constitutions, ii. 57, it is prescribed that, after the Lessons from the OT, are to be read the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of Paul, and after this, by the deacon or presbyter, the Gospels of Matthew and John, Luke and Mark. No mention is here made at all of the Catholic Epistles and the Apocalypse. Tliis is exactly the old Canon of the Syriac Church (see Syriac Versions, p. 647). The redactor of the Constittitions knows, apparently, the First and Second Epistle of Peter, but he does not make use of James, 1-3 John, Jude, and Rev. ; for the refer- ences to Ja 1«- ' and Rev 22>8- '» (ed. Lag. p. 203, 10. 204, 9) must be changed into Diclache, ch. 4, Dt 4* (see Zahn, Geschichte des Kanons, ii. 182 f.). Up to the present day no lessons from Kev. are found in the system of the Greek Church ; and there seem to be preserved Lectionaries which even do not contain lessons from the Catliolic Epistles either; see Apost. 65 (Scriv. = 68 Greg.), a MS in the possession of the Baroness Burdett - Coutts, iii. 25, though it may be only of the 14th cent, (according to Gregory ; 12-13th ace. to Scrivener). A MS like this, which has preseri-ed such an old system of lessons, is likely to contain also a text of ancient character. Up to the present, liowever, these MSS have not been examined on this point.
2. Similarly the second class of our documents has been enriched, namely, the ancient Versions.
See WH, {} 107-122 ; art. Vbrsioss, and the separate artt. Arabic, vol. i. p. 136; Arme.via.n, ib. 153; Eqtptia.v, ib. 668; Exniopic, ib. 741 ; Latu,', vol ilL p. 47 ; Steiac, p. 645 ; Vuloatb, p. 873.
The very first edition of the Gr. Test., the Com- plutensian Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes (1514-17), placed side by side with the Greek Text the Latin Vulgate,* and even remodelled the former after the latter in various places (especially 1 Jn 5' ; see art. Septuagint, p. 440*). On Erasmus see above (p. 732»). Beza (1519-1605) made a modest begin- ning \vith the use of Oriental Versions, publishing a triglot edition of the NT, 1569 fol., Greek, Latin, and Sj-riac, the latter edited by Immanuel Tremellius, and using for Acts and 1 and 2 Cor. an Arabic Version, put at his disposal by Franciscus Junius. These versions were presented in a con- venient combination by the 'Polyglots', especially that of Walton, 1657 (Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, and, for the Gospels only, Persian). J. Fell (1675) took care to insert in his apparatus the Gothic and the Coptic, as versiones antiquissimas et a regioni- bus qua patet orbis maxime distantibus orientes. But the older of the Egyptian Versions, the Sahidic, was first mentioned m 1778, and edited in 1799 ;