to the Hebrews
comes in between the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians and First
Timothy. Its sections, however, are numbered as if it had originally
been placed between the Epistles to the Galatians and Ephesians; thus
showing that this was the arrangement in the older document from which
the Codex was copied. One of the Moscow manuscripts, it may be
mentioned in connection with this novelty in location, places the
Epistle to the Hebrews in a position as abnormal as in the Vatican
manuscript--namely, before the Epistle to the Romans.

In the formation of the Received Text of our New Testament, the
Vatican manuscript was not employed. The basis of the early printed
editions--the Elzevir and those of Robert Stephens the celebrated
Parisian printer--was the Greek New Testament of Erasmus, published in
1516, compiled with the aid of such manuscripts as he found at Basle,
and the Complutensian Polyglot--so called after Complutum, the modern
Alcala, in Spain, where it was printed in 1522, under the patronage of
Cardinal Ximenes, whose text was said to have been formed from
manuscripts sent from the Papal Library at Rome--the Vatican Codex
certainly not being among the number, as abundantly appears from
internal evidence. But though the Vatican manuscript was not employed
in the construction of our Authorised Version, it has recently been
used as the chief authority by the New Testament Revisers. Drs.
Westcott and Hort have built up their Greek text with special
deferential regard to it; and this exclusive devotion has been
severely condemned by several critics, such as Dean Burgon, who regard
it as an endeavour to balance a pyramid upon its apex. But apart from
the contradictory views of such textuaries, there can be no doubt that
the Vatican Codex has been of the greatest service in these later days
in correcting the Authorised Version, and helping to restore the
sacred text as nearly as possible to the purity of the original
autographs. And it has added its most valuable testimony to that of
the many other ancient manuscripts of the Sacred Writings in
existence, that, notwithstanding unimportant variations of readings
naturally caused by the great multiplication of copies, the sacred
text from the time when it first appeared to the present has been
preserved substantially uncorrupt; so that we have the same divine
truth presented to us that was presented to the Christians of the
ages immediately succeeding the time of th