The text in Chrysostom he describes as a mixed one ; and of P Q and T he says, that they accord sometimes with the Alexandrian, sometimes with the Western. The Alexandrian recension sought to avoid and change whatever might be offensive to Greek ears ; but the Western preserved the harsher genuine readings when opposed to the genius of the Greek language; Hebraising ones ; readings involving solecism or unpleasant to the ear. The Alexandrian sought to illustrate words and phrases rather than the sense : the Western endeavoured to render the sense clearer and less involved by means of explanations, circumlocutions, additions gathered from every side, as well as by transpositions of words and sentences. It also pre ferred the readings which are more full and ver bose, as well as supplements taken from parallel passages ; sometimes omitting what might render the sense obscure or seem repugnant to the context or parallel passages ; in all which respects the Alexandrian is purer. The Alexandrian critic acted the part of a grammarian ; the Western that of an interpreter. In all these points Griesbach asserts that the Constantinopolitan commonly agrees with the Alexandrian ; but with this difference, that it is still more studious of Greek propriety, admits more glosses into the text, and intermingles either Western readings, which differ from the Alexan drian, or else readings compounded of Alexandrian and Western. No recension is exhibited by any codex in its original purity (Prolegomena in Navum Testamenttom, 3d edition, by Schulz, vol. i. p. lxx., et sem.) Michaelis thinks that there have existed four principal editions : 1. The Western, used in countries where the Latin language was spoken.
2. The Alexandrian or Egyptian, with which the quotations of Origen coincide, and the Coptic version.
3. The Edessene edition, embracing the MSS. from which the old Syriac was made.
4. The Byzantine, in general use at Constan tinople after that city became the capital of the Eastern empire.
This last is subdivided into the ancient and the modern (Introduction to the N. T., translated by Marsh, vol. ii. p. 175, et seq., 2d edition).
Assuredly this classification is no improvement upon Griesbach's.
Somewhat different from Griesbach's system is that of Hug, which was first proposed in his Ein leitung in das Neue Testament (18oS).
t. The soul? Wools, i.e., the most ancient text, unrevised, which came into existence in the 2d century, found in D, I, 13, 69, 124, of the gos pels ; in D E F G of Paul's epistles ; in D E of the Acts ; and in the old Latin and Thebaic ver sions. The Peshito also belongs to this class of text ; though it differs in some respects from D.
2. About the middle of the 3d century, Hesy chius, an Egyptian bishop, made a recension of the Kowii gcloQts. To this belong B C L of the gospels ; A B C, 40, 30, 367, in the Acts ; A B C, 367, in the Catholic epistles ; A B C, 46, I7, of the Pauline epistles ; and A C of the Apoca lypse. It appears in the citations of Athanasius,
Marcus and Macarius the monks, Cyril of Alex andria, and Cosmas Indicopleastes. This recen sion had ecclesiastical authority in Egypt and Alex andria.
3. About the same time, Lucian, a presbyter of Antioch in Syria, revised the Kowii as it then existed in the Peshito, comparing different MSS. current in Syria. In this way he produced a text which did not wholly harmonise with the Hesychian, because he was less studious of elegant Latinity. It appears in E F G H S V of the gos pels, and b h Moscow Evans-dip/aria collated by Matthxi, with most of the cursive MSS.; in f a 1, b, d, c, m, k (Matthxi), of the Acts ; in g (Mat thxi), f, k, 1, m, c, d, of the Pauline and Catholic epistles ; in r, k, p, 1, o, Moscow MSS., of the Apocalypse ; in the Gothic and Slavonic versions, and the quotations of Theophylact, though his text is no longer pure.
4. A fourth recension Hug attributes to Origen during his residence at Tyre. To it belong A K Al, 42, to6, r14, 116, and to of Matthxi in the gospels, the Philoxenian Syriac, the quotations of Theodoret and Chrysostom.
From this summary it appears that Hug's KOLA 1`KSocts agrees substantially with the Western re cension of Griesbach. It is more comprehensive, as including the Peshito, with the quotations of Clement and Origen. The Hesychian recension of Hug coincides with the Alexandrian of Griesbach.
Eichhorn's system is substantially that of Hug, with one important exception. He assumed an unrevised form of the text in Asia, and, with some differences, in Africa also. This unrevised text may he traced in its two forms as early as the ad century. Lucian revised the first, Hesychius the second. Hence, from the close of the 3d century there was a threefold phase of the text—the African or Alexandrian, the Asiatic or Constantinopolitan, and a mixture of both. Eichhorn denied that Origen made a new recension (Einleitung in dos Nene Testament, vol. iv. sec. 35 and following).
In 1815 Nolan published an Inquiry into the integrity of the Greek Vulgate, in which he pro pounded a peculiar theory of recensions. He divided all the documents into three classes—the Palestinian, equivalent to Griesbach's Alexandrian ; the Egyptian, identical with Griesbach's Western ; and the Byzantine. The three forms of the text are represented, as he assumed, by the Codex Vaticanus and Jerome's Vulgate, with the Codices Vercellensi9, and Brixianus of the Latin version. The last two contained a more ancient text than that represented by the version of Jerome. The Palestinian recension, which he attributes to Euse bins of Ciesarea, is greatly censured as having been executed by this Father with arbitrariness and dishonesty, since he tampered with passages because of their opposition to his Arian opinions. At the end of the 5th century this recension was introduced into Alexandria by Euthalius, and was circulated there.