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I. ) Erasmus had only one manuscript on the Apocalypse, the Reuchlinian.
II. ) The Reuchlinian copy was the commentary of Andreas of Caesarea upon the Apocalypse, and this had rb ztfasvov, or the text inserted amidst the commentary.
III. ) Erasmus wonderfully extols the antiquity of this manuscript. It undoubtedly had a good text, and that in some places of singular excellence ; but that it was likewise mutilated, is understood from this, that Erasmus was both ignorant of the author of the commen- tary, and supplied a part of chapter xxii. from Latin editions. He himself acknowledges the former point in his Annotations upon the New Testament, and the latter in his Epistles.
IY.) The edition of Erasmus is often so different from the Com- plutensian edition, and from all the MSS., especially those which have been duly collated, and from all the versions and fathers whose opinions are on record, and from the remaining copies of Andreas himself, that it agrees with the Latin MSS., and those of an inferior character, and which are refuted by the Latin MSS. of a better class, sometimes also with Ticonius, or his faulty edition ; and it introduces into the text Greek words which are at variance with the usage of the Greek language.
Y.) Not a few of such passages occur to us while we make these remarks ; and in such passages, there is no doubt that the Reuch- linian MS. was worn out by its antiquity, and that Erasmus patched up its deficiency from Latin copies. In this passage, therefore, Erasmus has given nXriputovrai from the Latin compleantur , and he has easily laid hold of the middle voice, answering to the nearest verb uMKuvffuvTai. As often as anything of this kind occurs to Erasmus, his revision has not even the weight of a single MS. ; nor do any centuries of subsequent editions make his conjecture better, in opposition to all the MSS. I sometimes speak roX/xriporspov , more boldly and confidently, not indeed through want of modesty, but that they may be excited to perceive the truth, who too supersti- tiously defend the particular edition, whatever it is, to which they have once been accustomed. WkripwOobgi is used in this passage with reference to the completing of the number of the martyrs.
12. Tj \v exrqv, the sixth) See notes at ver. 9. D. Lange, Comm.
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