ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2023, 23 June 1885, Page 2

ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

The style of writing indicates the ajpof manuscripts. Recently 'several rfuV scripts recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum have been unrolled, and deciphered with the utmost care, and fifteen folio volumes of them have been published. Now, we know' that Herculaneum and Pompeii were, overwhelmed in the year a.d. 79 by an eruption of Vesuvius; and hence there.can ,be no dispute in regard to the age of the manuscripts rescued from these ruins. must.be more than 1800 years old. Buft these manuscripts are written in ". letters, very nearly resemblingthe.letters used in those manuscript copies of the New Testament which have been universally esteemed the most ancient/ This, style of letters has not been used for"' many centuries, hence the antiquity of these manuscripts ,is proved beyond' a possibility of dispute. Among the " unical" manuscripts five are generally distinguished from the rest as of primary .importance. Of these, the Alexandrian—known as Codex A±,was originally discovered at AlexandriAnd was sent to King Charles 1., in 1628, raventeen years after King James' version was printed. It is now in the British Museum. The style of the letters indicates that this is of great antiquity, and its date is fixed by critics at about A.n. 450. It is much mutilated—twenty-four chapters of the first Gospel two of the fourth, and eight of ono of the Epistles being missing, Codex B, iu the Vatican Library at Rome, supposed to have been written a.d. 300 and 400, is said to be the oldest vellum manuscript known. This was not allowed to be copied till 1868, when an edition was issued in fac-simile type, representing it line for line and letter foi\ letter. The condition of this is mucm. more perfect. ™ A third manuscript is in the National Library at Paris, whither it was brought by Catherine de Medici. This is called a " palimpsest," from a Greek word, which signifies to rub or scrape again—applied to a parchment from which one writing has been erased to make room foranother. This manuscript is known as the "Codex Ephrcemi," Parchment being scarce and valuablein the twelth century, the original writing was sponged off, and some productions of Ephnem Syrus written in its stead. Notwithstanding tin's,.by the careful application of chemicals, the earlier writing has been brought jiut again, so that the original manuscri|As now been deciphered, This manuslript is assigned to the early pare of the fifth ' century.

The fourtli manuscript is Codex Bezse, in the Public Library of the University of Cambrige, it having been presented by Theodore Beza in 1581. This is the least valuable, as it is quite incomplete. It belongs to the sixth century. The Codex Aleph, found February 4th, 1859 in the convent of St. Catherine, near MouhtSinai, by Tichendorf, and published by him in 1862, is the most the five, as it contains theNewTestamef; complete. This is judged to have be#n written between a.d.300 and a.d.400; and. hundreds of corrections which critics had previously made in the text by comparing other manuscripts Wo been confirmed by this ancient and independent witness, which has lain for ages in the library of that eastern monastery. ' To these may bo added as specially valuable the Codex Claromontanus, of the sixth century, whioli contains the Epistles of Paul, This was used by Beza in 1582, and is deposited in the National £i!ararv at Paris, ft Thoso manuscripts carry us backvory' near the apostles' days; for they might easily have been copied from the originah, or from manuscripts that had been copied from them; and by comparing.these with the hundreds of other manuscripts, lectionaries, quotations, and a.n,oionfc, translations, it is not difficult to ascertain whether tho Now Testament Books have, been seriously corrupted in being handeci down to our own times.. Of course, any corruptoins or mistakes, which havo occurred during the last 1500, years are excluded at the outset by the fact that vty have ntanusojipts that date back as far' ga that; and if these manuscripts, oldas they are, have errors, they also may, in rare instances, be corrected from later manuscripts which may have been copied fron\ manuscripts older than any which aw M discovered,-" Christian. Age.",