uncommonly catching to intellectual persons, who are not esta- blished in personal religion.” He had prepared materials for editing Ovid’s Tristia and Persius, but was prevented publishing them by being called to undertake works of a more congenial kind. u Daily relish (said he) for the sweet language of Divine inspiration had now superseded with me that of all other dainties, though I was not in- sensible of their charms.” In the midst of his classical occupations in 1717 he confessed, that he often u found his spiritual strength at a very low ebb among the dead heathen.”
His next work was an Edition of Gregory’s Panegyric on Origen, for the use of his pupils (Greek and Latin), 1772. His reason for selecting it was because Gregory has shown, by his own example, that an inquiring youth can find no solid satisfaction in all the heathen philosophical systems, but is compelled, by a sense of his needs, to seek refuge in the substantial truths of Christianity.
In 1725 he published his Edition of Chrysostom de Sacerdotio, Gr. and Lat., at Stuttgart. He pronounces that work decidedly the best production of Chrysostom’s pen. To it he added a Prodromus Nov. Test. Gr^ci recti cauteque adornandi , i.e. a prospectus of a new critical edition of the Greek Testament. Besides, he wrote “ Annotations upon Macarius ;” also on “ Ephrem Syrus.”
Bengel, as has been already said, even whilst yet a student, had felt an intense interest about the various readings of the New Tes- tament. Before the publication of Mill, the believer had to con- tent himself with the axiom, that the Providence of God would not have allowed any such corruptions of the Sacred Record, as would endanger the essential truths of our faith. Bengel now desired to put the question on such a footing, that the Christian henceforth might not only believe, but see, that such was the case. After hav- ing collated numerous printed editions and MSS. (24 in all, besides Latin ones) and versions, he published, in 1734, as he had pre- viously announced in his Prodromus , his Greek New Testament, in two forms, the one quarto, and the other octavo subsequently ; 1 and simultaneously with the former, his Apparatus Criticus, in which he unfolds the true principles of criticism, the value of his authorities, and the various readings in order. In the read- ings of his Greek text he did not admit a single expression that had not been embodied in the existing printed editions, excepting a few readings in the Apocalypse, a book peculiarly circumstanced ; but in the margin he inserted some readings heretofore confined to MSS. Research had convinced him, that any reading not found in any former printed Edition was of minor importance, and it introduced, might only cause offence to the weak. His cardinal four-worded canon wras, u Proclivi lectioni praestat ardua,” the dif-
1 The Quarto Ed., which came first, was published at Tubingen, 1734 ; the octavo later in the same year, at Stuttgart. The former is called in this transl. notes, “ the Larger Ed. the latter, “ the Smaller Ed.”