Variant Readings of the Apocalypse

This 105-page manuscript, entitled "Variants Lectiones Apocalypticae" ("Variant Readings of the Apocalypse"), contains Newton's careful collation of the textual variants of the Book of Revelation. Newton carried out this extensive work at the request of the textual critic John Mill (1645-1707), whose monumental critical edition of the Greek New Testament appeared in 1707. Newton's involvement in this project represents another dynamic of his wide-ranging study of the Apocalypse and demonstrates that he played a minor role in the history of New Testament textual criticism. The first folio displayed here shows variant readings for the first eleven verses of Revelation 1. On this folio Newton refers to the Codex Alexandrinus (a fifth-century Greek manuscript) and early modern critical editions (the Spanish Complutensian Polyglot and those of Erasmus and Stephanus).