However, as early as 1853, B. F. Wescott (1825-1901) and F. J. A. Hort (1828-92), discontented with the state of the New Testament text, began the life-labor that culminated (1881) in their two-volume work, *The New Testament in the original Greek,' a signal achievement of British scholarship, making a distinct advance beyond all prede cessors. They exalt the genealogical princi ple of Griesbach, to whose three grand classes of manuscripts, called by them Syrian, West ern, Alexandrian, they add an important fourth, the 'Neutrals,' represented especially by the Vatican and Sinaitic Uncials, B* and ot (the latter, discovered in Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai, by Tischendorf —43 leaves in 1843, now in Leipzig, and the rest in 1859, now in Petrograd—was published in 1862 at the cost of the Tsar). The manu scripts of the three grand classes they re garded as having undergone manifold corrup tion, from various sources according to vari ous tendencies, from all of which the *Neu trals' (they think) have remained relatively free. With much confidence they made a brave *attempt to present exactly the original words of the New Testament,' holding that •its books in extant documents assuredly speak to us in every important respect in language identical with that in which they spoke to those for whom they were originally written.'
this confidence was ill grounded may appear from three among many facts: They rejected the Pauline Codex F as an independent witness, declaring it was at least in its Greek text a copy of G (as also did Zimmer, in 1887, for much better reasons) ; but this judgment (in which they were fol lowed by English and even by Continental critics generally) was entirely wrong, as Greg ory explicitly declares: •Smith aus New Or leans weist nach, class F nicht aus G sein kann, sondern dass F and G aus einer anderen kann, bekannten Handschrift abgeschrieben wurden' (Am. Jour. Theology, Bd. 7, 1903, S. 452-85, 662-88,
More recently (1902-13) a much more ambitious attempt at text-restora tion has been carried out by. H. von Soden, with collaborators, in the four-volumed
about the year 300 the increasing confusion of text-tradition *urged to the revision and au thoritative edition of the text' at *three great Episcopal Sees,' Alexandria, Caesarea, An tioch, and accordingly he classifies his wit nesses under the three text-forms, H, I, K (for koind). Of these H (Hesychian), prev alent only in Egypt, is represented by the au gust 'Neutrals' B or d 1 and it or (5 2; also by the Codex Ephraem (C or 3), in Paris, a palimpsest deciphered by Tischendorf (1842), by 6 48, and (for Luke and John) by the re cent find 014 (in Detroit) ; it is likewise at tested by about 40 papyrus fragments of the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, by Egyptian translations and by quotations of Egyptian Fathers, as Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Didymus. Such are the decisive authorities for a critic like Hort, such *The weight dark Egypt on his spirit laid.' I and K.— Next to H stands I, the text of Pamphilus (presbyter at Caesarea, pupil of Pierius,— Origen's pupil,— teacher of Euse bius, scribe of Origen's works, a martyr in 301?),— a text not nearly so distinctly attested as H, but largely present in the quotations of Origen. Much further off, by itself, stands an the K-text — of Lucian, whose *authority in wide circles,' says Harnack, *about the year 300 displaced even that of Origen,"— issued from Antioch, a primitive focus of Christian ity, and departing both widely and oft from H as well as I. The main well-spring of these deviations (in the Gospels) von Soden would find in the Diatessaron of Tatian; for Acts he refers them directly to Latin and Syriac trans lations, indirectly to a second edition of that work, which won great acceptance. For the Apostolos, Marcion s edition is suggested as the culprit. In general the attitude of Lucian seems to von Soden to have been freer than that of Origen, to which, indeed, it was con sciously opposed.
The Three.— No manuscript has reached us antedating these recensions, some one of which is attested by every Codex. Throughout Christendom the three competed, H least of all, but I and K sharply for centuries, with mutual concessions that fell mainly to the good of K. Not one of the 36 I-witnesses to the Gospels, nor of the 14 to the Apostolos, approaches in single ness and purity of its text-attestation the oldest of the H-uncials, but at best only those of second rank, like C (63) or 648. A chief Ms. for the Gospels is the famous Codex of Beza (D or d 5) in Cambridge, for Acts E 1001), and for Mark 0014. These manuscripts of the I type, beginning perhaps in the 4th, multiplied in the 5th and following centuries, but more and more the K-readings intruded till they finally triumphed. In the Apostolos two main types may be distinguished. BOth show close contact with Syrian versions, involving ma terial text-variants, which von Soden would explain (as in case of Acts) by supposing, analogously, very early Eastern editions of the Epistles in which "the text was treated very freely' (mit sehr freier Textbehandlung). After the 10th century the mixed texts (of I and K) vanish, and K is left sole-reigning in the manuscripts.