which embrace different parts of the New Testament, for MSS. of the whole New Testament, pp. 600, 617, 618, 636. In the Oxford Excerpts,1 which Maastricht has subjected to his Crisis, one, two, three, or four MSS. are often said to have a read ing, which is in reality supported by many witnesses. With Maestricht himself, the reading of the text, however weak, can never lose — that of the margin, however genuine, can never gain — the cause.
As far as the Ninth Canon is separately concerned, in cases where the number of MSS. is small, a single MS. may make a various reading ; nay, as in the case of Erasmus's2 edition of the Apocalypse, a single MS. has been known to sustain the whole text. The greater, however, that the number of MSS. is, the more rarely can a single MS. support a Various Reading with any show of probability. Maestricht has, however, frequently mentioned only one MS. when in reality there are many. This Canon is cited, for instance, on Matt. xxvi. 35, and Mark ix. 40, though the marginal reading in those passages is supported not merely by one MS., but by nearly all. In llev. iii. 12, all the MSS. known, and all the editions printed before Beza,3 have va& ; those, therefore, who have compared the MSS., have not indicated any various reading in this place. In Beza's edition was substituted for f«ui by an error of the press : Beza
1 " Wetstein and Smith, publishers and printers at Amsterdam — in the year 1711 had brought out an edition of the Greek Testament, in which a selec tion of the various readings [called by Bengel Excerpta Oxonicnsia] given by Mill and Kiister were repeated ; and at the end an attempt was made to repudiate the greater part of them, as not worthy of notice by means cf the application of certain canons of Gerard von Maestricht, the editor." — TREGELLES. — (I. B.)
2 Erasmus's first edition of the Greek New Testament appeared 1st March 1516. For the Apocalypse he had but one mutilated MS., bor rowed from Reuchlin, in which the text and commentary were intermixed almost unintelligibly. And thus he used here and there the Latin Vulgate for his guide, re-translating into Greek as well as he could. This was the case with regard to the last six verses, which, from the mutilated condition of his MS., were wholly wanting. — (I. B.)
3 Theodore Beza, the successor of Calvin at Geneva, was born at Vezelay, in France, A.n. 1519. — His first edition was published at Geneva in 1555, and was repeated in 1576. A third appeared in 1582, a fourth in 1589, and a fifth in 1598.— (I. B.)