One of these was the “Donation of Constantine,” a forgery easy to detect when attention was once drawn to it, but yet a monument whose apparent importance was so great that the fate of Uzzah might have seemed likely to await the man who first laid hands upon it. The other was the group of works which passed under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. We have seen something of the popularity of these books, as attested by the multiplicity of versions in which they were current; and indeed so important are they in themselves as a meeting-ground of Christian theology and Greek philosophy that they may be considered not unworthy of the pains lavished upon them by Erigena, Saracenus, Grosseteste, and Traversari. The last word has not yet been said as to their origin and history; but it is clear enough that the first word was spoken by Lorenzo Valla. No one before him had questioned the claim of these writings to be regarded as works of the Apostolic age. Hardly any one since his time has had a word to say in defence of that claim. The story of Grocyn’s relation to them, of the high value he set upon them at first, and of his later conviction that Valla’s estimate of them was the true one,—a conviction which, with characteristic honesty, he hastened to make public,—forms as good an illustration as any that could be found of the spirit that was abroad. New estimates of the old documents were being formed, as a direct result of the accession of new materials for study.
One question of the highest importance to our subject has been left out of consideration in the preceding remarks. What was the condition of things as regards the text of the Scriptures, the fountain-head of Christian science? Since 1455 the Church had had in its hands a printed Bible in Latin; and more than one vernacular version had seen the light. The Old Testament also had been printed in Hebrew by Italian Jews. But what was the quality of these texts? Had Roger Bacon’s aspirations for a Latin Bible corrected according to the oldest copies, and for the multiplication and distribution among the clergy of the Scriptures in the original tongues, been satisfied? The question must be answered in the negative. Of the many printed Vulgates none offered a text constructed on critical principles; and it is probable that of the earliest Hebrew Bibles, such as that of Soncino, few copies made their way into Christian hands. The first important attempt to present the world with a complete Bible in the original was made in Spain:-a country which in after years contributed less than most to the cause of Christian science. The Complutensian Polyglot gave us the first printed Septuagint, and the first printed, though not the first published, New Testament in Greek. For the formation of the text of the Septuagint and of the Latin Vulgate, great pains were taken to collect early manuscript authorities. Two Septuagint manuscripts were borrowed from Rome. The Vatican Bible of the fourth century was not among them, probably because its age and importance were not known to Ximenes and his colleagues. For the Latin text Spain itself possessed authorities as early as could readily be found elsewhere. The Greek text of the New Testament was formed from less good sources: and not one of the manuscripts used can now be identified with certainty. No praise is too high for the design of Ximenes; and, as regards the execution, it is doubtful whether the best scholarship of all Europe, had it been mustered at Alcala for the work, could have produced a much better result. The science of textual criticism was scarcely born. At this time, and for years afterwards, scholars such as Erasmus had no hesitation as to printing a text from a single manuscript, and from sending that manuscript as “copy” to the press.
Though printed in 1514, the Complutensian New Testament was not published for some years. It seems indeed that copies of the whole work were not procurable earlier than 1522. The story of the preparation of the Greek New Testament which was actually the first in circulation is well known. Neither in its object, the anticipation of the Complutensian text, nor in the manner of its preparation, does it seem to us deserving of praise. Hurried through the press of Proben between September and March, it was formed on the authority of six manuscripts at most, the best of which Erasmus neglected almost entirely to consult. We have already traced the history of some of these manuscripts and have seen them in the hands of Johann Reuchlin. Four of them are still at Basel; a fifth, now in the Oettingen-Wallerstein Library at Mayhingen, was the one authority available for the Apocalypse. The last six verses of the last chapter are missing; and Erasmus was reduced to translating them into rather surprising Greek from the Latin Vulgate. The sixth authority was not a copy of the New Testament, but of Theophylacfs commentary on the Gospels, apparently still at Basel. It is this Theophylact, Archbishop of Bulgaria, who is designated in Erasmus’ preface by the mysterious name Vulgarius.
Faulty as was the Erasmian edition, it was a truly epoch-making book. It was the ancestor of the textus receptus, and the channel by which the Greek text of the New Testament was most widely diffused. This was natural not only because Erasmus was first in the field, but because his text, in its many editions, was far cheaper and more convenient than the huge Polyglot, of which but six hundred copies in all were printed.
To trace the history of the printed Greek Testament through the various editions of Erasmus, of Aldus, of Simon de Colines, and of the Estiennes is beyond the scope of this chapter. We must be content with noticing that in Robert Estienne’s third edition, that of 1550, known as Editio Regia, a considerable advance in textual criticism is perceptible. Estienne employed not less than fifteen manuscripts for the correction of his text. Most of these have been identified: eleven are at Paris, and two at Cambridge.
Since the original text of the New Testament had been allowed to remain so long unprinted, it was hardly to be expected that the older oriental versions should be very quick in making their appearance. Indeed it was not until just after the middle of the century that one of the most important-the Syriac-first saw the light. In 1555 the Austrian Chancellor of Ferdinand I, Johann Albrecht Widmanstetter, enabled a native Syrian priest, Moses of Mardin, to publish an edition of the Peshitta Version of the New Testament at Vienna. Widmanstetter had himself been interested in Syriac before this: a rather famous Syrian monk, Theseus Ambrosius, had been his teacher. It is commonly said that the eccentric and possibly insane Guillaume Postel had a hand in the production of this first Syriac New Testament, of which three hundred copies were sent to the Maronite patriarch and him of Antioch.
It is our task to deal chiefly with beginnings: but it is impossible to pass entirely unnoticed the Roman edition of the Septuagint Version which appeared in 1587. Its text was based mainly on the great Vatican manuscript, and the committee of scholars who superintended its production included the Cardinals Sirleto and CarafFa, as well as Latino Latini, and Pierre Morin. This was not an editio princepa, but to Biblical scholars it was of enormous importance. The version had been already twice printed, first in the Complutensian Polyglot, and next by Aldus in 1518; but in the Roman edition a manuscript of first class value was for the first time utilised. Until the nineteenth century, indeed, the text of the Vatican manuscript was only known by means of this book. The attempts of Sixtus V and Clement VIII to supply the Church with an authoritative text of the Latin Vulgate, were, as we know, not brought to a satisfactory issue; but the fact that the attempt was made deserves at least a passing notice.
With the translators and expounders of the Bible it is simply impossible to deal. With regard to the first, it can only be said broadly that the sixteenth century saw innumerable new versions of the Scriptures; many were in Latin (e.g. that of Sanctius Pagninus) and attempted either fidelity or elegance of style, or both. Others were in the vernacular of this or that country, and these were naturally in most cases the offspring of the reforming movement. The high standard of knowledge which was attainable can be most readily indicated to Englishmen by reference to the “Authorised Version” of 1611. The scholars whose work we see in this were essentially men of the sixteenth century. As to the commentators, it is even more hopeless to attempt to enter into detail. Lefevre d’Utaples, Colet, Sadoleto, Erasmus, were all of them men who advanced the cause of sacred learning by trying to ascertain the actual meaning of the words of Scripture, instead of presenting their readers with a r&chauffe of the Glossa Ordinaria or fashioning every sentence into a weapon of controversy. But besides these there were innumerable writers who contributed to the elucidation of both Testaments. They were confined to no one sect or country; but their names must not be sought here.
Something must now be said of the growth of Hebrew studies among Christian scholars. The thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries had produced a number of men who for the purpose