AND HISTORICAL RESEARCH UPON THE NEW TESTAMENT. 141 



"We owe our knowledge of most of the great works of Greek 

 and Latin literature — ^schylus, Sophocles, Thucydides, Horace, 

 Lucretius, Tacitus, and many more — to manuscripts written from 

 900 to 1,500 years after their authors' deaths ; while of the New 

 Testament we have two excellent and approximate!}^ complete 

 copies at an interval of 250 years." 



The number of manuscripts of the Latin and Greek classics 

 bears no comparison with that of manuscripts of the New 

 Testament. He adds : 



"Of the New Testament we have more than 3,000 copies 

 (besides the very large number of versions)." 



(For fuller account see his articles in Harpers Magazine, 

 numbers for August and November, 1902.) 



In beginning the investigation, we will briefly trace tlie 

 history of some of the documents containing the whole or 

 parts of the book itself, in the language in which it was 

 originally written, or in translations of it, or of parts of it. 



The discovery by Tischendorf, in the St. Katharine Convent, 

 on Mount Sinai, of a codex containing a large part of the Old 

 and New Testaments in Greek, need only be mentioned, as 

 (together with the Vatican manuscript) confirming the general 

 accuracy of the Greek text of the New Testament, and as 

 stimulating that spirit of research which has been so fruitful in 

 results from the time of that remarkable discovery to the 

 present. When we turn to the discovery of documents which 

 have additional evidential value concerning the New^ Testament, 

 we will do well to look, first, at one which w^as made generally 

 known by Ciasca, a " Lector " of the Vatican Library. 



i. The " Diatessarox." 



To appreciate fully the importance of the discovery and 

 publication of the Diatessaroii, a harmony of the Tour Gospels, 

 composed by Tatian, the Greek philosopher, born in Assyria, 

 and converted to Christianity under Justin Martyr in Eome, 

 about fifty years after the death of the Apostle John, it is well 

 for readers to recall the fact that, up to a little more than a 

 quarter of a century ago, the Gospel bearing that Apostle's 

 name was almost universally discredited by Higher Critics. The 

 chief mover of this antagonism to the Fourth Gospel was 

 Ferdinand Christian Baur, Professor in the L^niversity of 



