WETTSTEIN, JOHANNES JAKOB. - Philologist and textual critic, Protestant, b. in Basel on 5 March 1693, d. in Amsterdam on 22 March 1754.
The son of a Calvinist pastor, he was professor of philosophy and of church history; but he soon devoted himself to the study of the New Testament, consulting codices in Basel, Zurich, Bern, Lyon, Paris, and England. Certain doctrinal positions, censured as Socinianism, and his claim to offer a text of the New Testament that would shake the long-established confidence placed in the textus receptus, earned him many enemies, so much so that he was forced to leave Switzerland. He went to Amsterdam (1733), where he published his work. There his Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Graeci editionem accuratissimam (1730) had already appeared, followed by the Novum Testamentum Graecum (2 vols., Amsterdam 1751-52). In this pioneering work W. used about 100 manuscripts and many patristic texts. Although he did not alter the textus receptus, he offered abundant material to the intelligent reader, who from the notes could choose readings much better than those printed in the text. The desire for a new edition of the work on the part of the "Society for promoting christian knowledge" is still alive (cf. E. von Dobschutz, Der Plan eines neuen W., in Zeitschr. für die neutest. Wiss., 21 [1922], pp. 146-48).
Studying the various codices, W. devised a system for distinguishing them, which in part is still in use today, despite the innovative attempt of H. von Soden (v.). He designated the majuscule manuscripts with the capital letters of the alphabet, and the minuscule ones with Arabic numerals. The main drawback is given by the limited number of alphabetic letters and by the fact that two or more codices containing different material can be represented by the same symbol, because W. began new series according to content (Gospels, Acts and catholic epistles, Pauline epistles, Revelation).
Bibliography
Angelo Penna