1). To this
work the biblical scholar should come in a candid and reverential
spirit, prepared to weigh carefully all the evidence which is accessible
to him, and decide, not as an advocate, but as a judge, in the simple
interest of truth. The three great sources of evidence for the original
text of the New Testament are Greek manuscripts, versions, and the
citations of the fathers. Of these, _Greek manuscripts_ hold the first
place. But all manuscripts are not of equal value. Other things being
equal, the oldest manuscripts have the highest authority. "If the
multiplication of copies of the New Testament had been uniform, it is
evident that the number of later copies preserved from the accidents of
time would have far exceeded that of the earlier, yet no one would have
preferred the fuller testimony of the thirteenth to the scantier
documents of the fourth century. Some changes are necessarily introduced
in the most careful copying, and these are rapidly multiplied." Westcott
in Smith's Bible Dict.; Art. New Test. Yet, as the same writer remarks,
we may have evidence that a recent manuscript has been copied from one
of great antiquity, and thus has preserved to us very ancient readings.
Revisions and corrections by a later hand are to be carefully
distinguished from the primitive writing. Yet these may be valuable, as
testifying to the prevailing reading of the age to which they belong.
The general class or family to which a given manuscript belongs is also
to be taken into the account. In a word, so many elements of judgment
are to be taken into account in determining the relative weight of
authority that belongs to a given manuscript, that the right decision of
the question requires large observation combined with much critical
tact.

9. _Ancient versions_ are of great value in textual criticism; for some
of them, as the old Latin and Syriac, to which may be added the old
Egyptian versions, are based on a text more ancient than that preserved
to us in any manuscript. In textual criticism, the testimony of a
version is valuable in proportion to its antiquity, its fidelity--not
its elegance or even its correctness of interpretation, but its literal
closeness--and the purity of its text. Versions are liable to all the
corruptions of text incident to Greek manuscripts, and far more liable
to interpolations by explanatory glosses. The difference of idiom,
moreover, frequently prevents such a literal rendering as shall be