7. Even those who were impelled by a greater spirit of research did not yet get back to the oldest attainable sources. In Rome, CARYOPHILUS set about preparing a new edition. With this view, about the year 1625 he collated twenty-two manuscripts with the Antwerp Polyglot—ten for the Gospels, eight for the Acts and Epistles, and four for the Apocalypse. Among these were the most celebrated manuscript of the Vatican Library, the “Codex Vaticanus” _par excellence_, and another of the same collection, dating from the year 949 (Tischendorf’s S), one of the oldest manuscripts of the Greek New Testament whose date is known with certainty. The results of this collator’s labours were printed at Rome in 1673. But such collations were not then made with that exactitude which is the primary condition of works of this nature at the present day, though even now it is not always observed. In 1658 Stefan de COURCELLES (Curcellaeus, 1586-1659), a native of Geneva, brought out an edition which was printed by the Elzevirs, and which is valuable for its scholarly Introduction, its careful collection of parallel passages, and its fresh collation of manuscripts. In this edition the “Comma Johanneum” was included in brackets. The editor also expressed the opinion that even conjectural readings deserve consideration. Courcelles had further projects in view, but these were interrupted by his death. In 1672, in Germany, John SAUBERT published a collection of various readings in St. Matthew’s Gospel which he had compiled from printed editions, manuscripts, ancient versions, and quotations in the Greek and Latin Fathers. In 1675 John FELL, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, published anonymously at the Sheldonian Theatre, _i.e._ the Oxford University Press, an edition in the preparation of which more than 100 Greek manuscripts were employed. Among the ancient versions the Gothic of Ulfilas and the Coptic were also made use of. About the same time (1689) there appeared anonymously at Rotterdam a _Histoire Critique du Texte du Nouveau Testament_, by Richard SIMON, a member of the French Congregation of the Oratory. Simon is the father of the historical method of critical introduction to the New Testament. With his work, what might be called the infancy of New Testament criticism comes to a close. With Mill’s New Testament begins the period of its maturity, especially if Simon’s works are taken as belonging to it. Such, at least, was the judgment expressed in 1777 by the Göttingen scholar J. D. Michaelis. But we would say rather the period of its youth, for otherwise we should now have reached the time of its old age, and much work still remains to be done. [Sidenote: Mill, 1707.]