LiTKRATURE.— Ramsay, Hist. Com. on Galatians, p. 349 ff.; \\e%tcott, Hebrews, p. 298 ff.; Hastings' DB, artt. 'Covenant,' 'Testament.' F. S. RaNKEN.
TETRARCH {rerpdpxv^ is the classical form, but in NT the MS evidence is strongly in favour of TeTpadpxv^ [Tisch., WH, and Nestle]). — The title is used in the Gospels of Antipas (Mt 14^, Lk S'- ^^ 9^), and of Philip and Lysanias (Lk 3'). Originally it denoted the ruler of a fourth part of a country or province. Euripides (Air. 1154) is the earliest writer to use the term rerpapxia, and applies it to Thessaly, which in primitive times was divided for civil administration into four districts. This ar- rangement was restored in the constitution given by Philip of Macedon (Demos. Philipp. iii. 26, where the word is clearly technical and free from the doubt in which Euripides leaves it). A .similar system was met with in Galatia, where each of the three tribes had its four tetrarchs (Strabo, 430, 566 f.). Pompey afterwards reduced the number to three, one for each tribe, but retained the original title (Appian, Mithridat. 46). Thence- forward, if not at an even earlier date, the name lost its etymological meaning, and could be applied to any petty dependent prince, .subordinate in rank to kings but enjoying some of the prerogatives of .sovereignty (Cic. pro Milone, xxviii. 76 ; Hor. Sat. I. iii. 12; Tac. Ann. xv. 25; et al.). Such tetrarchs seem to have been numerous, especially in Syria. Antony conferred the title upon both Herod and his brotlier Phasael (Jos. Ant. XIV. xiii. 1, BJ I. xii. 5) ; but the rank Avas almost purely titular, and left them inferior in dignity to the high priest, Hyrcanus ii. In B.C. 30 another brother, Pheroras, was made tetrarch of Pera'a (Jos. Ant. XV. x. 3), the nominal honour being maintained on an income granted by Herod him- self. In the Gospels the etymological signification
of the term has evaporated. For, though Herod divided his kingdom into four parts, the one assigned to Salome consisted merely of a palace with the revenue of certain so-called free towns, and was in no sense a tetrarchy. With this excep- tion, his kingdom was divided into three parts, and the title of ' tetrarch ' was conferred by the will of Rome upon Antipas and Philip, whilst that of ' ethnarch,' or recognized head of a nation, was similarly bestowed upon Archelaus. On two occasions Antipas is styled ' king' (Mt 14^, cf. 14^ Mk 6"- ^^- -^^■) ; and the obvious explanation is that his subjects were encouraged, and some of them perhaps disposed, to speak of him by the higher title, for which Rome had substituted a lower, without any allusion to its strict meaning. Simi- larly in the ca.se of Lysanias. He was ruler of the district of Abila in the Lebanon, which had been severed from the kingdom of Itur.nea on the execu- tion of Lysanias 1. in B.C. 36. That kingdom was in the course of time broken up into three parts, of which Abilene formed one, with another Lysanias as its tetrarch (Jos. Ant. XVlli. vi. 10, xix. v. 1 ; CIG 4521, 4523). The term may have been selected because of the smallness of the district in com- parison M'ith the earlier kingdom, but it preserves no record of the division of a country or associa- tion of tribes into four parts. In the Gospels the tetrarch is merely a petty prince, dependent ujjon Rome for the retention of his few emblems of sovereignty, whilst encouraged to self-repression and loyal service by an occasional promotion to a higher dignity. R. W. Moss.
TEXT OF THE GOSPELS.— 1. The problem.—
All true criticism must begin by taking cognizance of, and as far as possible accounting for, existing facts. The leading facts in regard to the text of the Gospels may be briefly stated as follows :
(i.) A Greek text substantially the same as the text underlying the AV has been almost univer- sally accepted by Christendom as the authentic Greek text from about the year A.D. 350 till the development in modern times of the critical study of the text of the NT. This text is found in the great mass of existing Greek MSS, and was used by almost all ecclesiastical writers from Chrysos- tom onwards. Translated into Syriac, under the name of the Peshitta ver.sion, it was used by most of the Syriac-speaking Churches from at least the 4th cent, onwards. It was the only Greek text printed on the revival of learning in the AVe.st, and received the name of Textus Receptns (TR) from an expression used in the preface to the second Elzevir edition, 1633 : ' textum ergo babes nunc ab omnibus receptum, in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damns.'
(ii.) Against this general unanimity in regard to the Greek text must be set the fact that the Churches of the West read the Gospels in the Latin translation of Jerome (A.D. 384), according to a text .substantially different from the TR. Moreover, existing MSS and Patristic quotations of the earlier Latin versions differed from the TR even more fundamentally, and similar types of text are found to have been very widely spread, speaking in a geographical sense, and occur in some important MSS, in many ancient Versions, and in the quotations of many Christian writers, especially in tlie earliest times. This text (or, more correctly speaking, texts of this type) has been named ' Western ' ; and, although it has long been well known that the term is not exclusively applicable in a geographical sense (indeed, it is quite possible that at least some members of this family may have had their rise in the East), yet for the sake of convenience it must for the present be employed.