Abstract
There are few books written on the New Testament in general, or dealing with the textual history of the New Testament in particular, which mediate large quantities of knowledge that has not previously been readily available, and do so in a manner that is accessible to both scholarly and general readers. Hugh Houghton’s The Latin New Testament is such a book—and its lucid and crisp style makes this an absolute pleasure to read and to learn from.
This book does for the Latin New Testament what many volumes have done for the text and manuscripts of the Greek New Testament for many decades. However, Houghton has learnt much from those treatments of the Greek text—gleaning what has been successful in their presentation of the data and finding new ways to communicate ideas where previous approaches have struggled to some degree.
The book covers the transmission of the Latin text of the New Testament from the earliest phase of recoverable transmission down to the late Middle Ages prior to the use of printing by movable type presses. However, the focus is fixed on the earlier evidence rather than that of the later period. The book is arranged in ten chapters with accompanying appendices, bibliography, and indices. The first chapter presents the very earliest insights into the existence of Latin translations of the New Testament. Often this is in the form of references to, or citation of, a Latin textual form. In this chapter, Houghton helpfully notes the correspondence between the Latin citations contained in Cyprian’s writings and the form of the text preserved in the oldest surviving Latin manuscript of the gospels—Codex Bobiensis (pp. 9–10). The second chapter covers the fourth century of the common era, and investigates the development of the Latin text in this period leading up to the emergence of Jerome’s revision of the Gospels—known as the Vulgate. It is noted that the oldest surviving manuscripts of the New Testament were copied in the fourth century and alongside the obvious diversity of textual traditions it is also possible to note a process of convergence that culminated in the production of the Vulgate (p. 19). Houghton identifies the fourth century as a foundational phase for the textual history of the Latin New Testament, and it is from this period that ‘[t]he prominence of Italian forms of the Latin Bible was sealed by Jerome’s revision of the Gospels and an unknown reviser’s extension of the same principles to the rest of the New Testament’ (p. 42).
Chapter three covers the fifth to the seventh centuries. Houghton commences by noting a geo-political shift with literary activity in North Africa severely diminished in the period after the death of Augustine and the ensuing establishment of the Vandal kingdom. As a consequence, Italy became the centre of production for Latin biblical manuscripts and exegetical works. While the Vulgate text was adopted by Augustine, the majority of surviving manuscripts from this period preserve not only the Old Latin form of the text, but codicologically they also follow the Old Latin order of the gospels Matthew—John—Luke—Mark. For Houghton these three centuries are characterized by interaction between the Vulgate text and the earlier textual forms of the Latin New Testament. Chapter four then surveys development in relation to the Latin New Testament text in the eighth and ninth centuries. It is noted that while there was continued use of the Old Latin this was scarcer than in the previous period. The period also saw the appearance of pandects of complete bibles or New Testaments in one or two volumes. Here Houghton focuses on the manuscripts produced in scriptoria in the twin Northumbrian monasteries of Wearmouth and Jarrow. In this regard the Venerable Bede is identified as ‘the most prolific author on the Latin Bible since Augustine’ (p. 69). In particular, it is noted that Bede provided marginal notes in his commentaries that indicated his principle sources—AU for Augustine or HI for Jerome. Early in this period the remarkable manuscript known as the Lindisfarne Gospels was produced. This was copied by a single hand believed to be that of Eadfrith, bishop of Lindisfarne between 698 and 721. It is noted that the eighth and ninth centuries constitute a pivotal point in the history of the Latin New Testament and that many of the innovations introduced in this period fed into the production of manuscripts and the transmission of the New Testament text into the High Middle Ages. Chapter five is the final section dealing with the history of the text of the Latin New Testament from the tenth century onwards. The story of the Latin New Testament is primarily traced to the fourteenth century with some fleeting remarks about the two centuries after that.
The second part of the book moves away from tracing the history of the Latin New Testament and turns to a discussion of the text of the Latin New Testament in scholarly editions and in biblical tradition. In chapter six, Houghton presents extremely useful information concerning the principal critical editions of the Latin New Testament. Among others this includes the Vetus Latina series (pp. 115–125), the Stuttgart Vulgate (pp. 127–129), and the Oxford Vulgate (pp. 129–131). Here, Houghton explains the significant features of each edition, and notes the merits or unique features of the various editions. The seventh chapter offers a more abstract discussion of the Latin text as a witness for the Greek New Testament (pp. 143–153). Here, Houghton offers a series of measured and careful judgments. He states ‘while the antiquity of early Latin tradition makes it an important witness for the textual transmission of the New Testament, matters of linguistic relationships and translation technique must be carefully considered before using Latin evidence to support readings in Greek tradition’ (p. 152). This judicious assessment is not a plea for the Latin textual tradition of the New Testament to be considered in isolation from the Greek tradition, but it does signal the limitations of attempting to reconstruct the Greek text on the basis of evidence from the Latin tradition. In chapter eight the issue of textual variants within the Latin tradition is discussed. As is the case in the Greek tradition, the greatest amount of variation occurs in the text of the gospels. This is due to the larger quantity of gospel manuscripts, that the gospels are the oldest part of the Latin New Testament tradition, and since several gospel manuscripts preserve forms of the text that preceded Jerome’s fifth-century revision. This stands in comparison with the later tendency of convergence towards a more standard form of the text, which may have limited the variation in regard to other parts of the Latin New Testament. The final two chapters focus on the manuscripts themselves. In chapter nine, Houghton outlines the characteristic features of Latin New Testament manuscripts. This includes discussion of the layout of the text, different scripts, order of books, and the occurrence of illustrations. There is also a very helpful description of the Eusebian apparatus and the canon tables. Chapter ten provides an essential and brilliant reference tool—a catalogue of all manuscripts in the three principal editions of the early Latin New Testament. This reference catalogue alone, makes the volume more than worth its price.
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance and significance of this book for the study of the transmission of the Latin New Testament text—there is simply nothing to rival it. The book is a model in clear communication, and the important features of large amounts of information are explained with a light touch that reflects the deep understanding that Houghton possesses of his subject matter. This book is a masterpiece, and it will be admired as such for many decades to come.