HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



collections of writings are now noticed the 

 Instrumentum Evangelicitm, containing the four 

 gospels ; and the Instrumentum Apostolicum, 

 containing the Acts of the Apostles, along with 

 the Pauline and other epistles. Respecting 

 several parts of the New Testament canon, differ- 

 ences of opinion prevailed in early times, nor was 

 the war of criticism closed until the 6th century, 

 for considerable difference of opinion existed in 

 regard to the value of the testimony of the early 

 apologetic authors. Origen doubted the authority 

 of the Epistle to the Hebrews, of the Epistle of 

 James, of Jude, of the 2d of Peter, and the 2d 

 and 3d of John ; while, at the same time, he was 

 disposed to recognise as canonical certain apocry- 

 phal scriptures, such as those of Hernias and 

 Barnabas, which were decidedly rejected by the 

 Church. The Apocalypse was treated as a dubious 

 part of the canon down to the 7th century. The 

 learned and circumspect Father, Eusebius, in the 

 4th century, in a passage of his Church History, 

 distinguishes three classes of New Testament 

 Scriptures : I. Universally received Scriptures 

 (homologoumena) the four gospels, the Acts of 

 the Apostles, the fourteen Pauline epistles, the 1st 

 Epistle of John, the ist of Peter, and, with a 

 certain reservation, the Apocalypse of John. 2. 

 Scriptures not universally received, or not received 

 at all. These he calls ' disputed ' (antilegomena), 

 and subdivides them into such as were generally 

 known and approved by most namely, the epistles 

 of James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John ; and such 

 as were ' spurious ' (notha) namely, the Acts of 

 Paul, the Shepherd, the Apocalypse of Peter, the 

 Epistle of Barnabas, the Institutes of the Apostles, 

 and the Gospel of the Hebrews. 3. Heretical for- 

 geries, such as the gospels of Peter and Thomas, 

 which Eusebius pronounces to be ' altogether 

 absurd and impious.' 



The Western Church, which was more conser- 

 vative and less critical than the Eastern Church, 

 completed the canon with greater rapidity. Al- 

 though the eastern Council of Laodicea (360-364), 

 in determining the canon of the New Testament, 

 excluded the Apocalypse, the western synods of 

 Hippo-Regius (393), Carthage (397), the Roman 

 bishop, Innocent I. (in the beginning of the 5th 

 century), and the Concilium Romanum under 

 Gelasius I. (494), recognised the entire canon of 

 the New Testament as we find it in the present 

 day. The doubts entertained by individuals 

 respecting some parts of the canon had become 

 exceptional and unimportant at the close of the 

 7th century. Owing 1 to the want of Greek scholar- 

 ship, as also, perhaps, to the growing idea of an 

 infallible church papacy, there was no criticism 

 worthy of the name during the middle ages. 

 Doubts, therefore, respecting the Epistle to the 

 Hebrews and the Epistles of James and Jude 

 were first revived, after a long quietude, at the 

 time of the Reformation. Luther himself ven- 

 tured to declare the Epistle to the Hebrews and 

 the Apocalypse ' apocryphal ; ' and the Epistle of 

 James he pronounced ' an epistle of mere straw, 

 having nothing of the gospel about it.' But in 

 both cases he proceeded, not on critical, but on 

 purely dogmatic grounds. The spirit of ortho- 

 dox inactivity which ruled the Protestant Church 

 from the latter part of the i6th to the middle 

 of the 1 8th century, had a deadening effect on true 

 Biblical criticism. This was first revived by a 



liberal Catholic writer, Richard Simon (died 1712), 

 who first conceived the plan of 'an historico- 

 critical introduction' to the Bible. Afterwards, 

 the labours of Lowth, Semler, Herder, Griesbach, 

 Michaelis, Eichhorn, and others, gave a new im- 

 pulse to scriptural exegesis. In Germany, we may 

 name among writers on the conservative and 

 orthodox side, the Catholic divines Jahn and 

 Hug, with the Protestant writers, Hengstenberg, 

 Havernick, Guerike, Delitzsch, and Caspari : on 

 the other side, Berthold, De Wette, Credner, 

 Reuss ; and since the publication of the Life of 

 Jesus by Strauss, the ' New Tubingen school,' 

 with F. C. Baur at its head, has questioned the 

 authenticity and apostolical antiquity of all the 

 New Testament scriptures, except the four larger 

 Epistles of Paul to the Romans, the Corinthians 

 (ist and 2d), and the Galatians. 



But, as might have been expected, the effects 

 of the strife could not always remain confined 

 to Germany. They have been felt more or less 

 over all Protestant countries ; and even Catholic 

 France, which has no theology to contend for, 

 shews the influence of the new movement. 

 Renan's Vie de Je"sus produced a vivid sensation, 

 and has been followed by a series of works on the 

 apostolic age. In England, during the i8th cen- 

 tury, several valuable apologetic works had been 

 published, such as Lardner's Credibility of the 

 Gospel History, and Paley's Horce Paulina. In 

 the early part of the igth century appeared 

 Home's Introduction to the Study of the Scrip- 

 tures, which has been frequently reprinted. 

 Since then, Tregelles, Davidson, Westcott, and 

 numerous other scholars, have entered the field ; 

 and it is not too much to affirm that there exists 

 at this moment a keener spirit of impartial inquiry, 

 as regards the foundations of Biblical criticism, 

 than Britain has ever previously witnessed. 



PRINTED EDITIONS OF THE TEXT. 



Old Testament. The earliest printed editions 

 of the Hebrew Bible bear a close resemblance to 

 the manuscripts. ' They are without titles at the 

 commencement, have appendices, are printed on 

 parchment with broad margin, and large ill- 

 shaped type, the initial letters being commonly 

 ornamented either with wood-cut engravings or 

 by the pen. These letters, however, are often 

 absent. With vowels, the editions in question 

 are very imperfectly supplied. Separate parts 

 of the Bible were first printed.' The Psalms 

 appeared in 1477, probably at Bologna ; the Pen- 

 tateuch at Bologna in 1482 ; the Prophets in 1486 ; 

 the Hagiographa in 1487. To most of these were 

 subjoined the rabbinical commentary of Kimchi. 

 The whole of the Old Testament appeared in 

 small folio at Soncino, 1488, and appears to have 

 been followed by the edition of Brescia (1494), 

 which was used by Luther in his translation of 

 the Old Testament. The Biblia Polyglotta Com- 

 plutensia (1514-1517), the Biblia Rabbinica of 

 Bomberg, edited by Rabbi Jacob-Ben-Chayim 

 (Venice, 1525-1526), which has been adopted in 

 most of the subsequent editions the Antwerp 

 Biblia Polyglotta (8 vols. 1569-1572), also the 

 editions by Hutterus (Hamburg, 1587, and fre- 

 quently reprinted), Buxtorf (Basel, 1611), and 

 especially that by Jos. Athias (Amsterdam, 1661- 

 1667) all these are celebrated, and have supplied 



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