RECENSIONS
950
RECENSIONS
thought suggested itself to Bengel that the mass of ma- te rials might be definitely classified in conformity with such peculiarities. The same idea afterwards occurred to Semler. Bengel classified all the documents from which various readings are collected into two nations or families the Asiatic and the African. To the former belonged the Codex Alexandrinus as the chief; to the latter the Greeco-Latin codices. At first thai eminent critic does not seem to have had a very distinct appre- ol the subject; ami i berefore he speaks in gen- eral i' mi- of it iii hi- edition <>f the Greek Testament published in 1734; but in the posthumous edition of the Apparatus Criticus (1763, edited by Burkius) lie is more explicit. Semler was the tirst thai used the term of a particular class of MSS., in his ffermeneu- tische Vorfo r> itung \ 1765). This critic, however, though acquainted with Wetstein's labors on the text of the New Test, had nothing more than a dim notion of the subject, lie followed Bengel without clearly under- standing or enlarging his views. Griesbach was the first scholar who treated the topic with consummate learning and .-kill, elaborating it so highly that it lie- came a prominent subject in the criticism of the New Test But he had the benefit of Wetstein's abundant treasures. The term recension applied to MS. quota- tions by ancient writers, ami versions of the Creek Testament bearing an affinity to cue another in charac- teristic readings, became a classical word in his hands, and has continued so. The appellation is not happily chosen. Family, nation, class, or ord\ r would have been more appropriate: because re<en-<i>>n su^ests the idea of revision, which is inapplicable. If it bo remembered, however, that the word denotes nothing more than a certain class of critical documents characterized by dis- tinctive peculiarities in common, it matters little what designation be employed.
The sentiments of Griesbach, like those of Bengel, developed and enlarged with time. Hence we must not look tor exactly the same theory in his different publi- cations, in his Dissertatio Critica dt Codicibus Quatuor Evangeliorum Origenianis (pars prima, published in 1771 1. he says that there are. perhaps, iht-ee or four re- censions into which all the codices of the New Test.
might be divided I Opuscula Academica, edited by Gab-
ler, i. 239). In the preface to his first edition of the Greek Testament <1777i. he states that at. the begin- ning of the 3d century there were two recensions of the gospels, the Alexandrian and the Western. In the
prolegomena to the tirst volume of his second editi f
the Greek Testament, the matured sentiments of this able critic are best set forth. There lie illustrates the Alexandrian recension, the Western, and the Constanti- nopolitan. The first two are the more ancient, belong- ing to the time in which the two collections of the New-Test, writings, the evayyeXiov and fl d7rdoroXo£, were made. The Alexandrian was an actual recension arising .at the time when the two portions in question wi re put together; the Western was simply the acci- dental result of carelessness and arbitrary procedure on the part of transcribers and Others in the MSS. current before the air0OT0\0C., or epistle-, were c, | Heeled. Tile
Constantinopolitan arose from the intermingling of the
other two. .-111. 1, like the Western, is no proper recension, but was rather the result of a condition of the docu- ments brought about by the negligence and caprice of copyists or meddling critics. The Alexandrian i- pre- sented by the mss. C. I.. :;:;. 102, [06, and by B in the last chapters of the four gospels; by the Memphitic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Philoxenian versions; and the
quotations ol CI ins Vlexandrinus, Origen, Eusebius,
Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, and Isidore of lviu-
Sium. The Western accords with tin' GrtBCO-Latin cod- ices, with the \nie-IIieronymian Latin version.;,,,,! With I! in the gospel of .Matthew; also with I. 13,69,
lis. L24, 131, 157; with the Thebaic and Jerusalem- Syriac versions, and the quotations of Irenaeus in Latin. Cyprian, Tertullian, Ambrose, and Augustine. The third
I or Constantinopolitan is shown in A, E, F, G, H, S, of the gospels, the Moscow codices of the Pauline epistles, the Gothic and Slavonic versions: and in the quotations of such fathers as lived during the 1th. 5th, and 6th cen- turies in Greece, Asia Minor, and the neighboring prov- inces. The text ill ChrySOStora e described by CTies- bach as a mixed one: and of P,Q,and T he says that they accord sometimes with the Alexandrian, -mi. times with the Western. The Alexandrian recension sought to avoid and change whatever might be offensive to Greek ears; km the Western preserved the harsher gen- uine readings when opposed to the genius of the Greek language; Hebraizing ones; readings involving sole- cism or unpleasant to the ear. The Alexandrian sought to illustrate word- and phrases rather than the sense; the Western endeavored to render the sense clearer and less involved by means of explanations, circumlocutions, additions gathered from every side, as well as by trans- positions of words and sentences. It also preferred the readings which are more full and verbose, as well as supplements taken from parallel passages, sometimes omitting what might render the sense obscure or seem repugnant to the context or parallel passages, in all which respects the Alexandrian i- purer, The Alexan- drian critic acted the part of a grammarian, the West- ern that of an interpreter. In all these point- Cries- bach asserts that the Constantinopolitan commonly agrees with the Alexandrian : but with this difference, that it is still more studious of (1 reek propriety, admits more glosses into the text, and intermingles either Western readings, which differ from the Alexandrian. or else readings compounded of Alexandrian and West- ern. Xo recension is exhibited by any codex in its original purity {Prolegomena ■ nnentum