W etatein, in 1752, increased the- number to thirty-one, and among the additions was the Vatican uncial B of the Apocalypse. :Matthmi's edition of the Apocalypse, published at Riga in 1785, was the 6ut that was prepared (since the Complutensian) from Greek manuscripts only, without reference to previous printed editions. But, unfortunately, Matthmi's apparatus for this book was limited to five cursiv~s ( 47, 48, 49, 50, and 90), and he ignored the collations published by'previous scholars. In an appendix he gave collations of two other cursives (80 and 82), and in this way increased the stock of materials for fntnre editors. Similarly, F. K. Alter, a German Jesuit, by his independent work, provided additional material, but cannot be said to have used it himself; he collated four copies of the Ap008.lypse (33, 34, 35, 36), all at Vienna. Also the Lutheran Bishop; Birch, a Dane, published, in 1800, collationa, more or less complete, of ten other clll'8ives (37--46), all in Italian libraries. Grieshach, in 1806; took account of all th~se materials, besides adding a fresh collation (29) of his own. Scholz, in 1836, ma.de known the e:eistence of about forty previously unknown manuscripts, but he only gave a thorough collation of one (51). Lachmann's celebrated edition of the Greek Testament was weakest in the Apocalypse, which was published in 1850. He so restricted himself in the use of authorities that for a hundred and sixty-five verses of this book his sole Greek witness is the uncial manuscript A. Tregelles, in many respects an imitator of Lachmann, used only thirteen manuscripts in preparing his edition, published in 1872. But most other recent editors, e.g. Tischendorf, Alford, and Wordsworth, have made use of all the material previously published. Probably the most carefully prepared texts of our own day are those edited (1) by Westcott and Hort, and (2) by the company of Revisers, both of which were published in 1881 ; as may be expected, they are very much alike. Westcott and Hort say (ii. 262}, "We are by no means sure that we have done all for the text of the Apocalypse that might be done with existing materials. But we are convinced that the only way to remove such relative insecurity as belongs to it would be by a more minute and complete examination of the genealogical relations of the documents than we have been able to accomplish, nor have we reason to suspect that the result would: make any considerable change." · We ought to mention that the Greek text of the Apocalypse has been several times published apart from the rest of the New Testament. The best known of these special editions are those by Tregelles (1844), Words- worth (1849), and Kelly (1860).
§ 9. CIU..RACTER 011' THR GREBX. The Greek of the Apocalypse presents wider and more frequent deviations from the ordinary style of classical Greek than that of any other book of THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DIVINE. xxiii
the New Testament. It may be generally described as Hellenistic Greek, but it has so many distinctive features that Winer considered it t.o need special treatment at the hands of any writer on the grammar of the New Testament. Most, if not all, of its peculiarities may be due to the Hebrew training of the author of the book; and, on the other hand, many of them have parallels in profane Greek literature; but their frequency in this book, and (in some cases) their extreme form, give it a unique character. The writer gives ample proof that he was acquainted with the rn.les and even the subtleties of Greek grammar ; yet he departs from those rules and neglects those subtleties with such apparent carelessness that he has been accused of the grossest ignoranee of the Greek language. But to students acquainted with Hebrew, the style of the Apocalyptic Greek presents very little difficulty, and its so-called roughnesses occasion little surprise. Bengel's explanation of the character of the Greek of this Book is as satisfactory as it is simple: "Johannem tibi, lector Apocalypseos, propone Hebra.ice cogitantem, Grrece scribentem; et tute, qu.oo Gra,ce legis, Hebraice recogita : omnia senties expedita.'' Without discussing the equally remarkable though less obvious peculi- arities in the use of the tenses, the order of the words, and the concatena- tion of clauses, we will enumerate some of the most easily recognized deviations from ordinary Greek that are found in this book ; and for the purpose of this examination we will use the text which has been adopted and published by the recent Revisers. For the sake of convenience we will arrange these deviations in two divisions, which we will term respectively "solcecisms '' and "Hebraisms." But we must not be understood to use these terms in any rigidly scientific or etymologically accurato sense. We acknowledge that many of our so- called solaicisms are capable of being brought under well-known usages, whereby even the best classical authors are held to be justified in departing from ordinary grammatical laws. And we freely allow that Greek _writers who never felt any direct Semitic influences are occasionally fon:nd to use tbe particular forms of expression which we are here denominating Hebraism.s. We further admit that our classification is not logically defensible, and that our divisions are not mutually exclusive. But we hope that our nomenclature is convenient, and our aITangement practically useful, and therefore we make no further apology for it. The following are the chief superficial peculiarities of the Greek of the Apocalypse:- I. Solrecisms: deviations from the ordinary rules of Greek grammar. 1. Discords of gender: ins~ces where pronouns, adjectives, and par- ticiples, possessing distinction of gender, have not been made to agree with the substantives to which they severally refer; e.g.- Ch. ii. 27, a./i.,.obs, referring k le,,«. Oh. iii. 4, ,,,., • . • lwoµ,a.Ta.. Ch. iv. 1, A.E"f"'" •.• f/10,111,. So eh. ix. 14; xi. 15. 8, 1,.J.,ov'l'es • , • vii«- Ch. v. 6, 0,1r<U'l'rl.ll./'ll'OI • • 'lrJlf6jAO.'l'll. xxiv INTRODUCTION TO