What Version Authorised Or Revised

37 the last century by Tischendorf, allowed to lie in disuse for hundreds of years from the fourth century (as supposed) until the nineteenth? A reasonable inference would be that the Ms. was cast aside and ultimately consigned to the waste paper basket, because it was known to be permeated with errors of various sorts. And this inference is raised to the level of practical certainty by the fact that, time and again, the work of correcting the entire manuscript was undertaken by successive owners.

But not to dwell longer upon mere circumstances, the two Mss., When carefully examined, are found to bear upon their face clear evidences that they were derived from a common, and a very corrupt, source. The late Dr. Edward Vining of Cambridge, Mass., has gone thoroughly into this, and has produced evidence tending to show that they were copies (and most carelessly made) of an original brought by Origen out of Egypt where, as is well known, the Scriptures were corrupted almost from the beginning in the interest of the same ascetic practices as now characterize the church of Rome.

Dr. Scrivener (generally regarded as the ablest of the textual critics) says that “the worst corruptions to which the New Testament has ever been subjected originated within a hundred years after it was composed,” and that ‘’Irenaeus and the African fathers used far inferior manuscripts to those employed by Stunica, or Erasmus, or Stephens, thirteen centuries later, when moulding the Textus Receptus.”

In view of such facts as these, it is easy to see what havoc would result to the sacred text if (as actually happened in the production of the R. V.) its composition were controlled by two manuscripts of Egyptian origin, to the actual repudiation of the consensus of hundreds of later manuscripts of good repute, of the most ancient and trustworthy of the Versions, and of the independent witness of the earliest Christian writers.

4. Bearing in mind that, as Dr. Kenyon of the British Museum says, “the manuscripts of the New Testament are counted by hundreds and even thousands,” it is a cause for astonishment that credence should have been given in any instance to the Vatican or Sinai Ms. (or both together in cases where they agree) against the agreeing testimony of the multitude of opposing witnesses. But such was the rule consistently followed in compiling the Text for the B. V. Canon Cook in his book on the “ Revised Version of the First Three Gospels,” says : “By far the greatest number of innovations, including those which give the severest shocks to our minds, are adopted on the testimony of two manuscripts, or even of one manuscript, against the distinct testimony of all