I have introduced additional notes of three kinds : I. Brief
1 Author of " Sermons," Devotional and Practical," " Lufra," and " Milton Davenant."
EDITOR'S PREFACE. vii
notes explanatory of Bengel's meaning, where, avoiding diffuse- ness, he falls into the opposite error, " Brevis esse laboro, Ob- scurus fio." II. Where he differs from the Received Text, I have given the authorities, viz. MSS. Versions and Fathers on both sides, leaving the decision to the reader, except where I have thought the probabilities on one side decided. III. Where Bengel gives differences of Greek synonyms, I have stated what I conceive to be the true distinctions, by a comparison of Bengel's views with those of able writers of more recent date.
As to the second class of notes, affecting the Greek Text, it is remarkable how Bengel, with intuitive sagacity, discerned the high value of the Vulgate, and laid hold of the true principle of textual criticism, so generally now recognised, whereby the few ancient authorities are preferred to the numerous MSS., etc., which support the " Textus Receptus." It is true the passages in question are few, yet the more firmly that we uphold the plenary inspiration of all Scripture, the more does it become us to seek by all legitimate means to make the closest approxima tion possible to the very words of the Sacred Autographs.
The Edition of the Gnomon which the present Translation follows, is that brought out originally by Ernest Bengel, the son of J. Albert Bengel, our author, and subsequently revised by J. C. F. Steudel.1 The initials E. B. mark the notes of Ernest Bengel ; V. g. mark the notes extracted from the Ger man Version of the Gnomon ; Harm., those from the Harmony of the Evangelists ; Not. Crit., those from the " Notulae Criticse" (Appar. crit. Ed. ii. p. 4, No. 14) ; ED., my own original notes ; ( J. B.), the notes of the Translator of St Matthew : B. G. V., Mr Bandinel's translation from the German Version, and B. H. E., those from the Harmony.
The technical terms and figures, which recur so frequently in
1 Several misprints in this Edition I have corrected from the 2 Ed. quarto, published at Tubingen, 1759 ; also misprints in the Latin translation of pas sages extracted from the German Version, I have corrected by the help of the German original.
viii EDITOR'S PREFACE.
the Gnomon, are not a mere empty parade of scholastic termi nology to confound the unlearned, but are really notes con densed into a word, to save periphrasis and attain brevity. The reader will do well to consult the Appendix at the end, which explains fully the force of these terms. The sketch of the life of Bengel (in the 5th Vol. of this translation), drawn up by me, partly from that written by Ernest Bengel, partly from other sources, will, I trust, be read with interest by all who revere devoted piety, combined with profound scholarship.
May He, for whose glory this work was originally written, bless the present translation of it, to the promotion of sound Scripture-criticism and practical edification among the many in England who have heretofore been deprived of the benefit of it by the language in which it was veiled !
I append an Index, First, of the MSS. quoted by me in the notes. They are all uncial, i.e. written in capitals, not in cursive characters ; the latter being of comparatively modern date. Secondly, an Index of the Versions, all of a date as early as about the first five centuries, and some of them as far back as the second century — centuries before our oldest Greek MS. They follow literally not only the words, but for the most part the very order, of words of the Greek text. They are, therefore, an accurate reproduction of the Greek text of the MSS. which they then used. It is strikingly confirmatory of the correctness of the few old MSS. we have, as contrasted with the host of modern MSS. on which the received text is based, that, the more fully we have restored the genuine text of the Versions (as in the Vulgate by the Amiatinus Codex ; the pre-Jerome Latin by the Vercellensis MS. ; and the Syriac by the Cure- tonian MSS.), the more does their text agree with that of the old Greek MSS. in our possession, rather than with the more recent MSS. and the received text. Thirdly, the Fathers of the first four centuries quote nearly all the Greek text, as they then had it. Even though some quotations be from mere memory, yet others must be trustworthy, viz. where they expressly and