(2) In estimating the value of the evidence of Versions it may be assumed tliat they are based directly or incfirectly on MS.S of the original text, and therefore allowance has not to be made, as in the case of Patristic Quotations, for the possibility of quotations from memory. I'urther, if they preserve for us the readings of MSS of the original text, then those MSS in the case of the earliest and most important Versions are consider- ably older than any which have come down to us. Thus the MSS of the Hebrew on which the LXX was based must be about 1000 years older than any Hebrew MS which survives to the present day, and the MSS which were used by the earliest translators of the NT into Syriac, Latin, or Egyptian, if they are assigned to the 2nd cent.,
• See Westcott »nd Hort. .Vo(« on Select Reading; Ac 11». Aa Ijctween ' KA>*irau uriil ' li^.k^^trrttt, * versions ore iuuliit{uou8 : they express only " Greeks." but would naturolly b« at ft loss to provide a distinctive rendering for sn rare and to peculiar a word us ■ Ei>.>i.i»T .'I.' Sec also Ac 61 B*.
t See Greifory, PnUaoiiuna, p. 80.'. ; Uludia DMica, II. 212 f.; and what has beea aaiu above on * Editious.'
will be nearly 200 years older than K or B. The primary Versions may therefore, with the limita- tions already noticed, be regarded as MSS of the original text, and used to correct the readings of those MSS of the original text which have come down to us.
(3) But, from what has been already said above, great caution has always to be used in estimating the value of their evidence and drawing conclu- sions, and in a largo number of cases their evi- dence, without the corroboration of other autho- rities, has to be ignored or discounted, because the introduction of the readings they support can be sufficiently explained. Thus we may lind in them additions to the original text, but these may be inserted for grammatical reasons,* or may be explanations necessary for the readers. On the other hand, we may lind omissions ; but these maj' be due to a desire for compression, or may have been left out because of their dilliculty.t Again, in the case of synonyms, the evidence of Versions must be regarded and treated as ambigu- ous, unless an inductive examination has shown that the usage allows a positive conclusion. J
The history of the use of the Versions for critical purposes goes back to the first great textual critic, Origen, who in his Hexapla compared the Hcb. text with that of the LXX derived from it. Similarl}-, Jerome makes many references to the evidence to be drawn from Versions. One in- stance may suffice, lie refuses to use a certain recension of text, cum multarum gentium linguit Scriptura ante translata duceat falsa esse qu<B addita sunt.
After the invention of printing, the first Version to be used critically was the Latin Vulgate, from wliicli the Complutensian edition derived the text 1 Jn 5'- ". Erasmus also used the same Version to make good the deficiencies of his Greek MS of the Apocalyp-se. A little later Beza (1.519-1605) for his Geneva edition quoted Tremellius' edition of the Syriac of 1509, and for part of the NT (Acts, 1 2 Cor.) used also the readings of an Arabic Ver- sion. In the Polyglots of Antwerp (l.')69-72) and Paris (1030-33) we do not find more than the Versions already mentioned, tlie Antwerp edition having only the Latin and Syriac. ^\alton in the Lontlon Polyglot (1654-7) printed in the fifth volume, which contains the NT, the Ethiopic as Well as the Syriac, Vulgate, and Arabic, and, for the Gosjiels, the Persian Version. A few years later Bishop Fell, in his edition of the NT of 1675, professes to give variants ex plus centum MSS codicihus et anlir^uis versionibus. Among the latter he quotes, and is the first to quote, the I'ohairio and Gothic, but he uses them only here and there, and not systematically. The Versions were used more fully by Mill in his famous edition of 1707. He lirst 'accorded to the Vulgate and the Old Latin the importance they deserve,' § and had a slight knowledge of Syriac, but for the other Versions had to he content to rely on Latin trans- lations often inexact, and so his use of the Versions may well have bein 'the weakest part' in his monumental contribution to biblical criticism. The name of Bentley (1662-1742) is imiiortant foi our present purpose because of the attention he
• Thus Jerome, ijuoted by Alford at Eph &2a^ says, hoc ijuotl in lat. exemptia addttxim ftrC sulKlitio sint in gracig editionibxu non habetur ted hoe vwgin in grteco inteiiigilur quam in latino.
t So Jerome (quoted by lUirpon) at 1 Co 7*^ says, I7i Latinit codicibuji ob dij/lcuitaUm traiuttationij hoc penilxu non in. venitur.
t Of this the Index at tlie end of tlie Hflh /asciculujt to the Oxford Vuliiate would K^ve itluulrittions. Thus (rciin two successive words we Hud tnat iy*f*.ZifiUi is rendered by several Latin words, and, OD the other hand, *aiiin eemper redditui tcpculu7n.'
i Scrivener, ii. 201.
S54
VERSIONS
VERSIONS
fave to a <:ritical edition of the Latin Version.* he next critic who needs to be noticed in con- nexion vith the use of the Versions is Wetscein (1693-1754), who in his Prolegomena (IV.'iO), besides giving us the ordinarily used notation for our MSS, ' bestowed great pains on the Versions.' Alter, in his edition of the Greek Testament of 1786-7, be- sides some readings from Wilkins' edition of the Bohairic, quotes also from four MSS of the Slavonic Version and i of the Old Latin. Before we leave the IStli cent., reference must be made to the labori- ous work of Holmes and Parsons on the LXX, for their edition of which they quoted the Old Latin, Syiiac, Egyptian, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian, and Slavonic. In every case the help of experts in tlie several languages was procured, out the permanent value of the work bears no relation to the time and labour expended on it, because the time had not yet come when the material was adequately or scientifically collected, and the collators were not all equally trustworthy.