Gospels and Acts, the codex is marked." Yet the Apocalypse stands between the Gospels and Acts in this manuscript. All the printed editions of the Syriac version of the Book of Revelation have been, up to the present time, based upon very modern manuscripts of the Harklensian type ; and that version was not made nntil the seventh century (A.D. 616). It evidently follows that 1'he testimony of the Syriao version, as at present published, possesses no great value ; the case may be quite different when the older exemplars of the earlier and closely literal Philoxenian translation become better known. 2. Latin. The Latin version, in its various forms, is by far the most valu • able of all that are yet published, for the text of this book: perhaps it i11 also intrinsically and absolutely the best. In its latest form it is known as the Vnlgate, and dates from the end of the fourth century. But we fortunately possess continuous texts of the Apocalypse in two earlier ( ante- Hieronymian or Old-Latin) forms, known respectively as the African Old- Latin and the European Old-Latin. The African form of this version is chiefly to be derived from the writings of Primasius (fl.. 550), Bishop of Adrumetnm, or Justinianopolis, in North Africa, whose commentary on the Apocalypse (in which the text of the book is given piecemeal) is printed in the sixty-eighth volume of Migne's ' Patrologia Latina.' A purely African text is also found in the Paris mana.- script numbered "Lat., 6400 G," a palimpsest fragment, of which only parts of three pages of the Apocalypse are legible; it dates from the fifth or sixth century, was transcribed by Mr. Vansittart, and published in the' Journal of Philology,' vol. ii. It is usually designated by the italic letter k. The European Old-Latin exists in two manuscripts-one continuous, and the other giving detached passages. The whole book is found in g, i.e. Codex: Gigas Holmiensis, at Stockholm, of the thirteenth century, published by Belsheim in 1879. Bishop John Wordsworth intends indicating this wpy by the Greek letter 'Y· The extracts a.re given in m, which is at Rome, "Bihl. Sessor. 58," published by Mai, in 1852, and often spoken of as Mai's 3pe,:nlum; it was formerly, wrongly, ascribed to St. Augustine; it was written in the sixth or seventh century. Of St. Jerome's Vulga.te Latin version .the manuscripts a.re innumerable, md even the printed editions ( especially the Clementine of 1592) are often ~erred to in critical matters. The manuscripts which have been selected >y Bishop John Wordsworth for use in his forthcoming critical edition of ,he Vnlgate, and which contain the Book of Revelation, are the following:- (1) F, or Ju. = Codex Fuldensis, at Fulda, in Hesse Cassel; written for Victor, Bishop of Capua, and corrected by him, A.D, 541-6; published by Ranke in 1868. (2) A, or am. = Codex Amiatina.s, in the Laurentian Library at Florence; written in the county of Durham, at either Jarrow or Wearmouth, by order of the Abbot Ceolfrid, between A.D. 690 and 716; published by Tischendorf in 1850, and again 1854, and also by Tregelles in his Greek Testament ; generally considered the best copy of the Vulgate. THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE. xvii
= (3) Z 2 , or harl. Harleian., 1772, in the British Museum; eighth century; Bentley's M; from Rev. xiv. 16 to the end is lost. 'fhe Vulgate text of this copy is so much mixed with Old-Latin readings that it ought, perhaps, to be called an Old-Latin manuscript. . (4) D 2 , or arm.= The Book of Armagh, at Trinity College, Dublin; of the eighth or ninth century; the .Apocalypse stands between the Catholic Epistles and the Acts; represents the British recension of the Vulgate. (5) G, or germ. =" Germanum Latum," or "Lat., 11553," at Paris; ninth century; called J.1 by Walker, who collated it for Bentley; exhibits a mixed text, some- times cited as Old-Latin under the notation g; considered by Wordsworth to represent the Gallican recension of the Vulgate. = (6) C, or ca11. Cavensis, at the .Abbey of the Holy Trinity, close to Corpo di Cava, near Salerno; probably ninth century ; collated by Wordsworth, who classes this and the next in our list together as representatives of the .Spanish recension. = (7) T, or tol. Toletanus, now in the National Library at Madrid; tenth century; collated in 1588 by Palomares, whose papers were published by Bianchini, in 1740 ; re-collated by Wordsworth in 1882. (8) K, or kar. = Karolinus, the noble ~olume called "Charlemagne's Bible," in the British Museum, Addit., 10548 ; ninth century; exhibiting the Alcuinian revision executed by order of Charlemagne in 797. - = (9) V, or wll. Vallicellianus, in the Library of Sta. Maria in Vallicella at Rome; ninth century; also Alcuinian. . . . (10) e, or theod. (N.B. This is quite distinct from Tischendorrs theo. or tneotisc., which signifies some fragments of a bilingual manuscript, in Latin and Old- German, of St. Matthew) = Theodulfianus, Lat. 9380 in the National Library at Paris ; ninth century; of great value, as a text thoroughly revised by Theodnlfns, Bishop of Orleans from A,D. 788 to 821. " ··
3. Egyptian;. The Apocalypse was comprised, a,s an appendix rather than an integral part of the canonical New Testament, in each of the two great Egyptian versions. These versions were made at so early a date that they would be of first-rate importance if they were well known ~nd care- fully published, but unfortunately they are not; and the Latin translations of them, from which alone critical editors ha.ve usually drawn their material, are very untrustworthy. The Egyptian text of the Apocalypse has never yet been critically edited, so far as we are aw.are ; it is printed in the S.P.C.K. edition (Tattam's) of the New Testament in Coptic (Memphitic) and Arabic. The best-known Egyptian version, sometimes loosely designated the Coptio, is now generally ca.lled the Memphitic ; it Mi in the dialect formerly spoken by the inhabitants of Lower Egypt, of which the Arabic name was Bahirah, and the ancient capital Memphis. Bishop Lightfoot has devoted much attention to this version, and states that there is not a single authen• tica.ted case of a manuscript of it in which the Apocalypse is treated as of eqll.lLl authority with the other canonical books. In the majority of casea the Apocalypse is contained in a separate manuscript; and in the two known exceptions, where it is bound up with other books, it is distinguished from them in some marked way. Lightfoot enumerates twelve Memphitio copies of the Apocalypse, but they are all of very late date, the earliest being dated A.D. 1321 ; all but, one, if not that one also, are written on paper; and all but one are bilingu.q,.i, giving the book in .A.rabic as well as in Memphitio. Xviii INTRODUCTION '1'0