on false grounds. It is far otherwise with human instruments. Again and again in the affairs of private life, and in the pages of history, both secular and ecclesiastical, do we witness on the part of excellent men the assertion of claims, not indeed entirely baseless, but stretched beyond all reasonable limits. Who can deny that the claims of parental authority are amply recognized by natural religion, and in the pages of both Testaments? And yet who can also deny that many admirable persons have, often half unconsciously, pressed these claims beyond all lawful bounds? The annals of matrimony, the accounts of private religious differences in families would furnish innumerable examples. The present writer knew of a case where an eldest son died in early youth, and his parents, most exemplary persons, sorrowfully bethought themselves that with the very best intentions they had pressed far too heavily upon that sensitive existence. They allowed their second son far greater liberty: a liberty which happily he did not abuse. The number of cases of this sort is simply legion, and the more earnest the parents, the greater seems the danger of such undue oppression.

Of excess on the part of secular statesmen we do not speak. They will be assumed to be worldly men, and liable to the ordinary temptations of ambition. But what are we to say of medieval Popes who, during the same reign, would accept or refuse the requests of sovereigns for encouragement of assaults on neighbouring countries? Thus, for example, in A.D. 1185, King Henry II. of England determined to conquer Ireland. His envoy, a learned monk, afterwards a bishop-John of Salisbury-was sent to Pope Adrian IV. to solicit his approbation. The king declared that his principal object was

'to provide instruction for an ignorant people, to extirpate vice from the Lord's vineyard, and to extend to Ireland the annual payment of Peter-pence; but as every Christian island was the property of the Holy See, he did not presume to make the attempt without the advice and consent of the successor of St. Peter.'

Adrian, we are told, 'accepted and asserted the rights of sovereignty which had been so liberally admitted.' He assented to the king's request. But when Louis VII. of France, a few years later, meditated a similar expedition into Spain, he obtained a very different answer from Adrian. The Pope does not seem to have dwelt upon the circumstance that Spain was not, like Ireland, an island, but he dissuaded the French King on the ground that his expedition would be made inconsulta ecclesia et populo terræ illius. Are we to believe

It

that the Pope would never have accepted this extraordinary claim to all islands, except on the ground of its truth? rested, we are informed, on the donation of Constantine, the authenticity of which was never questioned by the critics of those ages. Our authority for this narrative is Lingard's History of England (vol. ii. chap. iii.), and we have stated the case almost in his very words. Lingard was a sincere Roman Catholic; but he was born in that communion, and was not an impulsive convert.

We do not wish to forget the excuses made by John Stuart Mill in his remarkable review of Michelet for the general attitude of Popes towards mediæval barons and princes. He argues that theirs was the only power able and willing to say to the inheritors of secular greatness, 'You shall not conceive yourself to be above the moral law.' But the fact that the Papal claims were often overruled to good does not of itself prove that those claims were well founded. If any man could have exercised such sovereignty without making grievous mistakes, it was certainly Innocent III. But surely he did make grievous mistakes. Our sympathies go thoroughly with him in his contest against Philip Augustus of France on behalf of the wronged Ingeburga; but can we approve of the way in which he absolved King John of England from his solemn acceptance of the Magna Carta, or his humiliation of John and the offer of his throne to any invader?

As in private life, so in public, it is just the good men like Innocent III. who get carried away by their own zeal for noble objects. It is true, as Mill remarks, that the border line is often difficult to draw, and the remark is even more applicable to spiritual than to temporal claims for the very reason that the spiritual ones are of a more subtle and difficult character.

We doubt if there is a single extravagance in the history of the medieval Church, which may not on Mr. Rivington's principles-be defended and eulogized, provided always that it can be shown to have been originated or endorsed by a bishop of Rome. To other persons a different measure is applied. He distinctly asserts, more than once, if we remember rightly, that even saints are men, and that neither learning nor piety necessarily saves them from serious errors of word or deed. But we are trespassing on ground which is reserved for other contributors, and must here conclude with the expression of our sincere gratitude to Dr. Bright for this valuable addition to our theological literature.

ART. VIII.-TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

1. A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament. By the late F. H. A. SCRIVENER, M.A., D.C.L., LL.D. Fourth Edition. Edited by the Rev. EDWARD MILLER, M.A., formerly Fellow and Tutor of New College, Oxford. Two volumes. (London, 1894.) 2. Novum Testamentum Græce ad antiquissimos testes denuo recensuit apparatum criticum apposuit CONSTANTINUS TISCHENDORF. Editio octava critica major. Volumen III. Prolegomena scripsit CASPAR RENATUS GREGORY additis curis †EZRE ABBOT. Pars ultima (Leipzig, 1894).

THE two books above mentioned are both of them standard works on the subject with which they deal, viz. the Textual Criticism of the New Testament. Curiously enough, the dates connected with their history are almost identical. It was in 1861 that Scrivener's Introduction first appeared, while in 1864 Tischendorf began his work on the great editio octava, which is by far the largest collection of material for New Testament criticism that has been thrown into the form of an apparatus criticus. In 1874 occurred the death of Tischendorf, and in the same year the second edition of Dr. Scrivener's book. The death of Tischendorf made it necessary for some one else to undertake the Prolegomena to the eighth edition, which might explain the apparatus criticus. This difficult task was undertaken by Dr. Ezra Abbot and Dr. Gregory, and in 1884 the first part of the Prolegomena appeared simultaneously with the third edition of Scrivener's Introduction. In 1890 the second part of the Prolegomena was published, and in the spring of the present year the third and concluding part, mentioned at the head of this article, appeared almost simultaneously with the new edition of Dr. Scrivener's book, which had been entrusted to the editorship of Mr. Miller, who was already known from his little Guide to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament to have worked in this field. Ten years, therefore, have elapsed since the last edition of Dr. Scrivener's book, and nearly twenty since. Dr. Gregory, who very soon lost the help of his colleague, first began the preparation of the Prolegomena. It will be quite apparent to anyone with even the least power of imagination, what an immense amount of labour Dr. Gregory's

work has involved, for he has not confined himself merely to elucidating the symbols used by Tischendorf in his apparatus criticus: he has also laid all those who are interested in the subject under tremendous obligation for the way in which he has put together in an accessible and compact form the means by which students may at once find out what has been done, and what remains to be done, in prosecuting this subject. There is, however, one large gap in the Prolegomena, to which Dr. Gregory himself alludes, but it is a gap which no one but Tischendorf himself could have filled. We have not in these Prolegomena any explanation of the principles on which the text which Tischendorf printed was framed, at any rate no explanation other than that which Tischendorf gave in the Prolegomena he himself wrote. We cannot, however, blame Dr. Gregory for not undertaking this. Now that the Prolegomena are thus happily completed, would it be asking too much that Dr. Gregory should go on to revise the apparatus criticus of Tischendorf's edition? A new critical text is probably not yet required, but within a few years there ought to be material for a thorough revision of the apparatus. There is certainly no department of New Testament criticism on which so much has been done since Tischendorf's time as that which is concerned with the various versions of the New Testament. It is this part of Tischendorf's apparatus which is weakest, partly because the evidence of the versions was derived from one or two MSS. of those versions, and partly, also, because the editions of the versions used were uncritical and inexact. In some cases, too-especially is this so with the Eastern versions-their evidence came through the medium of a Latin translation. The problem will, however, be complicated rather than simplified by the publication of the critical editions of the Vulgate, the Peshitto, the Bohairic (or Memphitic), now in process of preparation for the Clarendon Press. The time is not, however, ripe for this emending of the apparatus; and let us return from speculations as to what Dr. Gregory may do for us in the future to what he has done for us in the volume before us. It will be remembered that the last part of the Prolegomena dealt with the cursive MSS. of the New Testament, and that a criticism-well founded and justifiable-was made on that part to the effect that Dr. Gregory had chosen to follow an enumeration of his own where Dr. Scrivener had already assigned a number to the separate MSS. The result of this is that it will be necessary for textual critics to quote the numbers assigned both by Dr. Scrivener and Dr. Gregory. This criticism, however, does

not affect the third part of the Prolegomena, for here Dr. Gregory is first in the field; and it is, we believe, true to say that no one since Le Long has made the attempt to put together, as in the volume before us, a full list of the MSS. of each version. In making this statement one or two facts have to be borne in mind. First, Dr. Gregory makes no claim to finality; and, indeed, such a claim would be absurd. Secondly, the versions dealt with are only those which have a value for purposes of textual criticism, while the later versions, which are of great interest from a literary, rather than a critical, point of view, are put on one side. Thirdly, Dr. Gregory does not claim to be an authority in regard to any version; and, indeed, the criticism we should make, especially on his account of the old Latin MSS., is that he probably defines the character of the text of each of them more exactly than would be done as yet by those who have examined the text more closely. But, with these qualifications, we have nothing but admiration to express for the laborious and careful way in which Dr. Gregory has put together his account of such versions as he has dealt with and the MSS. containing them. Of course there are a number of errors-as, indeed, there must be; and the wonderful thing, considering the sort of book it is, seems to us to be that there are so few. It has been, indeed, impossible to verify all the details, though the reviewer possesses a great advantage over the compilers of these books, in that he is able to compare the two together where they cover common ground, and then in cases of difference to see which is at fault. We have in this way gone over the greater part of those pages which deal with the versions. Dr. Gregory's method is to give, first of all, a short summary of the work that has been done on each version. These are, in the cases of the more important and better-known versions, very clearly and helpfully done, with references in the notes to the literature bearing on the subject. This account of the literature shows that Dr. Gregory is, on the whole, quite up to date. We have noticed few, if any, omissions in this respect, in the part dealing with the Latin and Syriac versions. In both these it is not so much fresh additions to our knowledge that have to be discussed as the alignment and setting in their proper place of those materials which we already have. In the case of the Egyptian versions, on the other hand, successive finds of new manuscripts make from time to time fresh additions to our knowledge, and the old theories have to be given up or restated. Thus, Dr. Gregory's account of the present state of opinion regarding the different translations which owe their