Novum Instrumentum Omne - First Edition

First Edition

In 1512 Erasmus had been in negotiation with Badius Ascensius of Paris to publish the Vulgate of Jerome and a new edition of Adagia. It did not happen, and Erasmus did not continue contacts with Badius. At that time Erasmus did not think about a Greek New Testament. It is uncertain when Erasmus decided to prepare his edition of the Greek New Testament, but on a visit to Basel in August 1514 he contacted Johann Froben. Many scholars believe that Froben had heard about the forthcoming Spanish Polyglot Bible, and tried to overtake the project of Alcala (e.g. S. P. Tregelles). Some scholars doubt this motivation of Froben (e.g. Bruce Metzger), because there is no evidence to support it. Most likely he included the Greek text to prove the superiority of his Latin version.

The next meeting took the place in April 1515 at the University of Cambridge. As a result, in July 1515 Erasmus came to Basel and started his work. Johannes Oecolampadius served as his editorial assistant and Hebrew consultant. Erasmus did not take any Greek manuscripts to Basel, hoping to find some there. He borrowed some manuscripts from the Dominican Library at the Basel. He used seven manuscripts, they were identified:

Manuscripts 1eap and 1rK Erasmus borrowed from Johannes Reuchlin. The rest of the manuscripts he borrowed from Dominicans. It is significant that he did not use the Codex Basilensis, which was held at the Basel University Library, and was available for him. Erasmus had three manuscripts of the Gospels and Acts, four manuscripts of the Pauline epistles, but only one manuscript with the Book of Revelation. In every book of the New Testament he compared three or four manuscripts, except the last book, Book of Revelation. Unfortunately, this manuscript was not complete, it lacked the final leaf, which contained the last six verses of the book. Instead of delaying the publication, on account of the search for another manuscript, he decided to translate the missing verses from the Latin Vulgate into Greek. He used a corrupted manuscript of Vulgate with textual variant libro vitae (book of life) instead ligno vitae (tree of life) in Rev 22:14. Even in other parts of the Book of Revelation and other books of the New Testament Erasmus occasionally introduced self-created Greek text material taken from the Vulgate. F. H. A. Scrivener remarked, that in Rev 17:4 he created new a Greek word: ακαθαρτητος (instead τα ακαθαρτα). There is no such word in Greek language as ακαθαρτητος. In Rev 17:8 he used καιπερ εστιν (and yet is) instead of και παρεσται (and shall come). In Acts 9:6 the question that Paul asks at the time of his conversion on the Damascus road, Τρέμων τε καὶ θαμβὣν εἲπεν κύριε τί μέ θέλεις ποιῆσαι ("And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what will you have me to do?") was incorporated from the Vulgate.

The printing began on 2 October 1515, and in very short time was finished (1 March 1516). It was produced in great hurry, with typographical errors, and was unusually titled:

Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Rot. Recognitum et Emendatum, non solum ad Graecam veritatem verum etiam ad multorum utiusq; linguae codicum eorumq; veterum simul et emendatorum fidem, postremo ad probatissimorum autorum citationem, emendationem et interpretationem, praecipue, Origenis, Chrysostomi, Cyrilli, Vulgarij, Hieronymi, Cypriani, Ambrosij, Hilaryj, Augustini, una cum annotatines, quae lectorem doceant, quid qua ratione mutatum sit.

This title, especially words: Novum Instrumentum ... Recognitum et Emendatum, means New Testament... Revised and Improved. This title must refer to the Latin text of Vulgate, not to any Greek text, because at that time there was not a printed edition of the Greek New Testament in circulation. In his dedication to Pope Leo X, Erasmus says:

I perceived that that teaching which is our salvation was to be had in a much purer and more lively form if sought at the fountain-head and drawn from the actual sources than from pools and runnels. And so I have revised the whole New Testament (as they call it) against the standard of the Greek original... I have added annotations of my own, in order in the first place to show the reader what changes I have made, and why; second, to disentangle and explain anything that may be complicated, ambiguous, or obscure.

It was a bilingual edition, the Greek text was in a left column, Latin in a right column, and it is clear, the Greek text was not the first target of this edition, it was the Latin text of Vulgate.