5. The First Fifty-two Years of Greek Printing

fol. N1v, 1 John

This is the earliest octavo Greek New Testament. It closely follows the text of the 1521 New Testament [5.4] which Gerbelius issued and which followed Erasmus’s second edition. The early editions of the printed Greek Testament and of the Aldine Greek Bible of 1518 [5.3] acted, as it were, like midwives helping to birth the Reformation. Although Greek manuscripts of the Bible were known and used in the West during the Middle Ages, these printed editions introduced the idea that the Latin Word of God (the Vulgate) might not be as authoritative as Greek and Hebrew texts, thus paving the way for vernacular translations from the original languages like those of Tyndale and Luther.

In the preface the printer Cephalaeus describes this New Testament as the first fruits of his press. It was produced under the auspices of his kinsman Fabricius Capito (both men had classicized their German name Koepffel—one in Greek, the other in Latin).

The book is divided into two parts: Matthew through Acts and Romans through Revelation, the pagination starting over at the beginning of the second part. This Testament was also used as the fourth part of the 1526 complete Greek Bible, the first three parts being Genesis through Ruth, 1 Samuel through Psalms, Proverbs through Malachi and the Apocrypha. This fourth part is dated 1524 and was likely issued separately as soon as it was printed before being incorporated into the entire 1526 Bible.

The comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7) was not included in this edition even though it was published after Erasmus’s third edition (which included it). This was likely due to the fact that this edition closely followed the 1521 Gerbelius edition [5.4].