fhould find our felf upon the level with the other Manufcripts I have nam'd.

Yet this is not what we have need of to give weight to the authority of this Manufcript, with relation to the Text of St. John's Epiftle; Mr. Simon, who of all men living is the leaft to be fufpected in this matter, will give us very fure rules to judge rightly of the validity of a Manuscript, and its juft authority with regard to fome particu lar paffages in which it is found different from the reft, and he will inform us, that the genuineness of fuch or fuch a paffage does not properly depend upon the antiquity of a Manufcript, and that often on the contrary a very modern Manufcript fhould be preferr'd to another far more ancient. See how he has explain'd himself in his Preface to the Critical Hiftory of the Text of the New Teftament. The most ancient Greek Copies of the New Teftament which we have at prefent are not the best, fince they are conformable to thofe Latin Copies, which St. Jerom found fo alter'd, that be judg'd it convenient to reform them. And in the very Hiftory of the Greek Text, Chap. xxx. We must not always prefer the reading of ancient Greek Copies to those which are now call'd modern, for thefe laft may agree with those of St. Jerom.

The Manufcript of Dublin is not properly one of those which may be call'd modern, fince it can be no less than five or fix hundred years old; but tho' it was actually one of the modern ones which were made a little before the use of printing, and which confequently would not be above three hundred years old, Mr. Simon determines that where these modern Manufcripts are found to agree with the Verfion of St. Jerom, they must be preferr'd to the old ones, which diffent from it. The confequence here forms it felf; the Manuscript of Dublin, which has the paffage of St. John's Epiftle in

this agrees with the Bible of St. Jerom, which has it felf this paffage, as I have largely prov'd; it muft then in this cafe be preferr'd to all the other Copies, which have not this Text, let their antiquity be what it will.

Let 'em no longer boaft of the Vatican and Alexandrian Manufcripts, the two oldest which want this Text, fince they are both later by feveral ages than St. Jerom's Verfion. This omiffion, tho' it has grown old in their parchments, is of no authority against a Manufcript, which notwithstanding its being more modern in its writing and parchment, is more ancient than the others in its agreement with those from which St. Jerom made the revise of the Epiftle, in which this Text is read.

Here again to conclude this matter, another very important piece of advice of Mr. Simon, We must, hfays he, be very cautious in quoting this fort of Manufcripts which are not the better FOR THEIR BEING VERY ANCIENT, as I have feveral times obferv'd.

b Differt. fur les Manufcrits, pag. 61.

CHAP.

CHAP. XIII.

The Panoplia dogmatica of Euthymius Zygabenus, the Manufcript of Dublin, the Greek Tranflation of the Council of Latran, and the Codex Britannicus of Erafmus, blended together, and reciprocally giving light to each other, in behalf of the genuineness of the paffage of St. John, There are three in Heaven, which bear record, &c.

FTER having given the quotation of the palfage of St. John in the Panoplia of Euthymius Zygabenus, and the paffage it felf entire, as it is feen in the Manufcript of Dublin, I think it will not be difagreeable to thofe, who as good Chriftians are concern'd for the genuineness of this Text, to bring these two authorities together, and to join with 'em the Greek Tranflation of the Council of Latran, with the Codex Britannicus or Manufcripts of England, from which Erafmus reftor'd this paffage in the Edition of 1522. These four pieces belong to times fo near to each other, and being in the fame tongue, that ferving all as witneffes to the genuineness of the Text of St. John, this important truth cannot but receive a new light from the combinuation of all these together, when it fhall be feen that they reciprocally fupport each other.

As there can be no difpute about the time in which Euthymius Zygabenus liv'd, of which I have fpoke in the 7th Chapter, nor concerning the quotation he has made of the paffage of St. John, I don't see why we should not place the Manufcript of Dublin to the fame time, which is towards the clofe

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clofe of the eleventh Century, or at least the beginning of the twelfth, fince there is nothing in this Manufcript to hinder our believing it to be of this age. It may withal in my opinion be very reasonably inferr'd, that this is its true antiquity; but tho' it fhould be one or two hundred years, if they will, more modern than the Panoplia of Euthymius Zygabenus, this Manufcript will yet not have been the first Greek New Teftament, in which this Text was found, fince Zygabenus had read it there two hundred years before.

At the beginning of the thirteenth Century, and in the year 1215. the Council of Latran quotes this Text; the Acts of this Council are in Latin, but they were no fooner carry'd into the Eaft by the Greeks, who had affifted at the Council, than they tranflated 'em into Greek. We have only a very defective Copy of it, and full of lacune, in a Manufcript of the French King's Library; but divine Providence has not fuffer'd the paffage where the Latin quotes the Text of the 7th verfe of the th Chapter of St. John's Epistle to be one of those where the lacune render the Greek Verfion defective; 'tis preferv'd there, and the Greek Text is read in it entire. There is nothing to be faid against the antiquity of this Verfion; i Mr. Simon owns that 'tis as old as the Council, but in order to take from us all the advantage we might draw thence for the genuineness of the controverted Text, he advances with his ufual boldness to difguife the clearest and most certain facts, that the Greek of this paffage was not taken from any Greek Copy of the New Teftament, and that 'tis only a copy of the Latin turn'd into Greek, and hereupon he fays feveral things to depreciate this Tranflation, as a tranflation almost barbarous and bad Greek. These

i Differt. Critic. fur les Manufcripts, p. 12, 13, &c.

are

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are cavils that I have no concern in. The tranflation into Greek may have been made by an unpolite perfon, and who was not well acquainted with all the regularities of his own Tongue; but does it thence follow that the Text of the three witneffes in Heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghoft, was not in the Greek Epiftle of St. John, and that the Tranflator copied it from the Latin, and form'd it upon the Latin expreffions? I expect in a man of learning the natural Science of reafoning confequentially, and here I fee it fink under prejudice, and an obftinate paffion in refolving not to own that this paffage was in any Greek Manufcript.

To give fome colour to this prejudice againft the Greek of the Council of Latran, Mr. Simon has advanc'd a fact which is evidently falfe, namely, that a part of the paffages of the New Teftament are not there quoted as they ftand in the original Greek, but after the manner they have been translated from the Latin.

I can aver, on the contrary, that nothing has been advanc'd with lefs care and trouble. In all this Tranflation, which is very long, there are but thirteen paffages of the New Teftament where the Greek is preferv'd, fourteen with that of St. John's Epiftle; now there is not one of all thofe that can be faid to have been raken entirely from the Latin, except a tranfpofition, which is found in the 4th verfe of the 7th Chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians; but this was not to take the Greek from the Latin, but to follow the order in which the Latin quoted this Text.

F. F. Labbee and Coffart have put this note upon the quotation which is there made of the last verse of the fifth Chapter of St. Matthew, Non utitur verbis Textûs Græci, præterea legit Pater nofter, non Vefter. The Greek of the Text fays Erede TiλHOI,

the