4 J.K. Elliott, Christian Amphoux and Jean-Claude Haelewyck Testament the history of critical editions has made the practice of textual criticism rather more complicated. That is because the first printed edi- tions, since Erasmus’ edition of 1516, were based on a distinctive form of the text that was in general use throughout the middle ages, the so-called Textus Receptus (TR), based largely on medieval manuscripts, whereas editors from Lachmann onwards (that is since 1831) contrived to base the printed edition of the Greek New Testament on the most ancient manuscripts available. Adherents of both camps, that is, supporters of the so-called Majority text (= TR) and of the ‘critical’ edition, continue to have influence nowadays. And that debate, often conducted in an acri- monious or parti-pris manner, has skewed the objective presentation and discussion of the evidence. Readers of printed editions can therefore be divided into two: (a) those who have access in the TR to a form of the New Testament that was the one used and commented on by the Reformers and whose text can be traced probably to the fourth century; and (b) those who use a critical text, like the UBS Greek New Testament or Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece, which favours the readings of manuscripts copied around 350 AD, in other words soon after the conversion of Constantine (313 AD) and the recognition of Christianity as a major religion. Neither approach and neither type of printed edition enables the reader to appreciate the diversity of the New Testament textual transmission. And that is why a third way is needed. The Marc multilingue project takes into account the types of text in existence prior to 200 AD, types which tended to be eclipsed in copies made in the two following centuries, although the witnesses of these earlier forms, from the 5th-15th centuries, are often incomplete and imperfect. Marc multilingue does not aim to produce an edited text or texts. Rather, it aims to present the existing documentation in an attempt to enable the history of the changing text to be recognised. The quantity and variety of manuscript witnesses to the Greek New Testament text as potential bearers of the actual wording employed by the original authors are welcomed by those who seek to establish the foundation documents of the Christian faith. But the aim of restoring one, original text is impossible. The earliest witnesses display a variety of text-types, which some3 speak of as a ‘free’ text. That fact can be dis- concerting for those who would wish to find a unified tradition or to see the same text being read throughout Christendom. The facts point to a variety of text-types in Christianity’s formative centuries, a variety that sees divergences in text between Christianity’s ancient centres and even 3 In particular, K. Aland and B. Aland, The Text of the New Testament (Grand Rapids and Leiden, 21989) e.g. 94-5.