Novum Instrumentum Omne - Fourth Edition

Fourth Edition

Shortly after the publication of his third edition, Erasmus had seen the Complutensian Polyglot, and used its text for improvement of his own text. In the Book of Revelation he altered his fourth edition (1527) in about 90 passages on the basis of the Complutensian text. Unfortunately Erasmus had forgotten what places of the Apocalypse he translated from Latin and he did not correct all of them. Except in the Revelation, the fourth edition differed only in about 20 places from his third (according to Mill about 10 places). The fourth edition was printed in three parallel columns, they contain the Greek, Erasmus' own Latin version, and the Vulgate.

In November 1533, before the appearance of the fifth edition, Sepúlveda sent Erasmus a description of the ancient Vatican manuscript, informing him that it differed from the text which he had edited in favour of the Vulgate in 365 places. We do not know anything about these 365 readings except for one. Erasmus in Adnotationes to Acts 27:16 wrote that according to the Codex from the Library Pontifici (i.e. Codex Vaticanus) name of the island is καυδα (Cauda), not κλαυδα (Clauda) as in his Novum Testamentum. In another letter sent to Erasmus in 1534 Sepúlveda informed him, that Greek manuscripts were altered from the Vulgate.