But the peculiar importance of Bengel’s N. T. is due to the critical principles developed therein. Not only was his native acuteness of great service to him, when weighing the conflicting probabilities of internal evidence, but in his fertile mind sprang up the germ of that theory of _families_ or _recensions_, which was afterwards expanded by J. S. Semler [1725-91], and grew to such formidable dimensions in the skilful hands of Griesbach. An attentive student of the discrepant readings of the N. T., even in the limited extent they had hitherto been collected, could hardly fail to discern that certain manuscripts, versions, and ecclesiastical writers have a manifest affinity with each other; so that one of them shall seldom be cited in support of a variation (not being a manifest and gross error of the copyist), unless accompanied by several of its kindred. The inference is direct and clear, that documents which thus withdraw themselves from the general mass of authorities, must have sprung from some common source, distinct from those which in characteristic readings they but slightly resemble. It occurred, therefore, to Bengel as a hopeful mode of making good progress in the criticism of the N. T., to reduce all extant testimony into “companies, families, tribes, and nations,” and thus to simplify the process of settling the sacred text by setting class over against class, and trying to estimate the genius of each, and the relative importance they may severally lay claim to. He wished to divide all extant documents into two nations: the _Asiatic_, chiefly written in Constantinople and its neighbourhood, which he was inclined to disparage; and the _African_, comprising the few of a better type (“Apparatus Criticus,” p. 669, 2nd edition, 1763). Various circumstances hindered Bengel from working out his principle, among which he condescends to set his dread of exposing his task to senseless ridicule(211); yet no one can doubt that it comprehends the elements of what is both reasonable and true; however difficult it has subsequently proved to adjust the details of any consistent scheme. For the rest, Bengel’s critical verdicts, always considered in relation to his age and opportunities, deserve strong commendation. He saw the paramount worth of Cod. A, the only great uncial then much known (N. T., Apparat. Crit., pp. 390-401). The high character of the Latin version, and the necessity for revising its text by means of manuscripts (_ibid._, p. 391), he readily conceded, after Bentley’s example. His mean estimate of the Greek-Latin codices (Evan. Act. D; Act. E; Paul. DFG) may not find equal favour in the eyes of all his admirers; he pronounces them “re verâ bilingues;” which, for their perpetual and wilful interpolations, “non pro codicibus sed pro rhapsodiis, haberi debeant” (_ibid._, p. 386)(212).