(B) TENT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. (I) The Ilistory of the New-Testameat Text. The ..luto graphs and First ('opies.—ln all probability, the New-Testament autographs were written on .the perishable papyrus paper. They circulated at first separately and independently of each other. Crpies began to be made at once. With the first of such copies the history of the New-Testa ment text began. Early Christianity was free, informal. and not distinguished for literary mil tore. Therefore. the first copies of the New Testament books were not always carefully exe cuted, especially if made for private use only. Yet such copies must have been used as exem plars from which other copies were made.
The External was, except in the case of the smaller epistles, that of the roll. After a time it was customary to write several hooks on one large roll. The roll form was, however, inconvenient. Probably the whole New Testament was never written on one large roll. It is evident that the text of a MS. or roll com prising several books would depend for its ac curacy on the quality of the text of each of the separate copies used as exemplars rather than on the skill of the scribe who executed it.
The Origin of lariant Readings and l'ariou.s Types of was during the first two centuries that the most of the more important errors, or variant readings, crept into the New Testament text. Then the churches were most independent of each other; intercourse between leaders of Christian thought in different parts of the world was more rare and scholarship less accurate than was the case later. The absence of a standard text and the lack of competent supervision made the production of errors al most inevitable. The same conditions permitted the rise of several distinct types of text. In any given locality—Rome, for example—the Chris tian teachers would seek to establish a uniform text. They would try to eliminate the differ ences between their copies of the New-Testament books. Thus there came into being and com mon use a Roman type of text. Such measures
could not, of course, produce absolute uniformity even in Rome. Essentially the same process went on in other centres of Christian influence— as, for example, Alexandria.
Improvement in the Third and Fourth Cen the Third Century the Church improved its scholarship. Parchment was being used in preference to papyrus. The roll form was giving way to the codex. The older copies of the New-Testament writings were being used as standards of comparison. The scholars of Rome, Alexandria. Carthage, Antioch, and other centres of Christian learning were coming to know each other's work. Comparison of texts was possible. Such conditions brought about a more conservative spirit. Scholars sought to correct, eliminate, or prevent errors in MSS. The result was, on the whole, beneficial. The labors of Origen (A.u. c.185-254), Pamphilus (died :309), licsyehius (date uncertain), Lucian of Antioch (A.D. 250-315), and Jerome (ex.
c.340-420) were all inspired by the desire to as certain and preserve the true text. These efforts did not produce a uniform text, but they tended to check the production and propagation of er rors. By the end of the Fourth Century several main types of text were dominant. One of these was the so-called Western text. represented in the writings of Irenams; in the early Latin fathers, Tertullian and Cyprian of Carthage; in the Old Latin Version; in the earliest forms of the Syriac Version. and, in part, in the Egyptian Version. Another type of text is found in the writings of the Alexandrian Fathers. In the East—that is, in .Antioch, and afterwards Con stantinople—a third type, sometimes called the Syrian, made its appearance. The Syrian text is a later and less •original type than the Western. or Alexandrian. There were, of course, many MSS. whose text was so confused as not to be representative of any particular type.
From about A.D. 450 the history of the Greek text (of manuscripts) contains nothing needing special mention.