68 KEV. GEORGE MILLIGAX. D.D., ON : EE GEEEK PAPYEI. 



a rough draft, leaving the scribe to throw it into more formal 



and complete shape \ In ail proljability his practice varied, 



and it may well l^e that the differences in diction and style in 



the Pauline writings, which a certain school of critics are apt to 



make so much of, are due in part at least to the employment of 



different scribes, and the amount of liberty that was left to 



»• 



them. 



Of the variety of readings that soon arose in connection with 

 the Xew Testament writings I shall say only this, that it can 

 be explained to a great extent by the very nature of the 

 material on which the original writings and the early copies 

 were written. Papyrus, if a very durable, is also a very brittle 

 substance. And as the residt of frequent handling, many 

 breaks or laciuuc would arise, which the copyists would have to 

 fill up by conjecture or by an appeal to the context. And 

 when we add to this consideration the fact that these copyists 

 were not professional scril>es, and that the writings themselves 

 were not at fii^st legarded as of so sacred or authoritative 

 character as to make even deliljerate changes of text impossible, 

 it is easy to understand how the worst corruption of the text 

 ot" oui* Xew Testament writings can be traced to the first 

 century of their transmission. 



2. Passing irom the outward form of the Xew Testament 

 writings to their literary cliornctcr, we are at once met withthe fact 

 that by far the greater part of these consist of epistles or letters. 

 It was a mode of writing wiiich at the time had come to be 

 widely used for purposes of instruction and editi cation, and in 

 which St. Paul and other of our Xew Testament writers found 

 a vehicle ready to their hands admirably adapted for the 

 personal and practical ends they had in view. 



We are not surprised, therefore, to find that the general plan 

 < :-f rhe Pauline Epistles is often closely moiUded on that of the 

 pie, homely letters which the desert sands have restored to 

 us. An example will again make this clearer. Let me read 

 to you a letter written in the second centiuy after Christ by 

 a soldier to his father, to announce his safe arrival in Italy, 

 and to tell those at home how he is faring. 



" Apion to Epimachus, his father and lord, heartiest greetings. 

 Above all, I ]jray that you are in health and continually prosper, 

 and fare well with my sister and her daughter and my brother. I 

 thank the lord Serapis that when I was in danger at sea he 

 straightway saved me. "When I entered Misenum I received my 

 travelling money from Caesar — three gold pieces. And I am having 

 a good time. I beg you, therefore, my lord father, \iTite me a few 



