Editio Regia
Editio Regia is the third and the most important edition of the Greek New Testament of Robert Estienne. It is one of the most important printed editions of the Greek New Testament in history, the Textus Receptus. It was named Editio Regia because of the beautiful and elegant Greek font it uses.
It was edited by Estienne in 1550 at Paris. It is the first Greek Testament that has a critical apparatus. Estienne entered on the margins of the pages variant readings from 15 Greek manuscripts as well as many readings from the Complutensian Polyglot. He designated all these sources by symbols from α' to ιϛ'. The Complutensian Polyglot was signified by α'. The critical collation was the new subject, and although Estienne omitted hundreds of important variants from used witnesses, it was the first step towards modern Textual Criticism.
The oldest manuscript used in this edition was the Codex Bezae, which had been collated for him, "by friends in Italy". The majority of these manuscripts are held in the National Library of France to the present day. Estienne made only a few changes in Erasmian text. He added to the Erasmian text verse Luke 17:36. He took it from Codex Bezae.
The text of the editions of 1546 and 1549 was a composition of the Complutesian and Erasmian Novum Testamentum. The third edition approaches more closely to the Erasmian fourth and fifth editions. According to John Mill, the first and second editions differ in 67 places, and the third in 284 places. The third edition became for many scholars, especially in England, the normative text of the Greek New Testament. It maintained this position until 1880. The fourth edition used exactly the same text as the third, without a critical apparatus, but the text is divided into numbered verses for the first time in the history of the printed text of Greek New Testament. It was used for the Geneva Bible.
Manuscripts and sources used in ''Editio Regia''
In his preface Estienne said that he had used sixteen manuscripts as his sources.| Sign | Name | Date | Content | Institution |
| α' | Complutensian Polyglot | 16th | New Testament | University of Alcala |
| β' | Codex Bezae | 5th | Gospels, Acts | University of Cambridge |
| γ' | Minuscule 4 | 13th | Gospels | National Library of France |
| δ' | Minuscule 5 | 13th | New Testament | National Library of France |
| ε' | Minuscule 6 | 13th | New Testament | National Library of France |
| ϛ' | Minuscule 2817 | 12th | Pauline epistles | University of Basel |
| ζ' | Minuscule 8 | 11th | Gospels | National Library of France |
| η' | Codex Regius | 8th | Gospels | National Library of France |
| θ' | Minuscule 38 | 12th | New Testament | National Library of France |
| ι' | Minuscule 2298 ? | 11th | Acts, Pauline epistles | National Library of France |
| ια' | Unidentified | |||
| ιβ' | Minuscule 9 | 1167 | Gospels | National Library of France |
| ιγ' | Minuscule 398 | University of Cambridge, Kk. 6.4 | ||
| ιδ' | Codex Victorinus, 774 | |||
| ιε' | Minuscule 237 | |||
| ιϛ' | Unidentified | |||
| ? | Minuscule 42 | |||
| ? | Minuscule 111 |
Manuscripts γ', δ', ε', ϛ', ζ', η', ι', ιε' were taken from the King Henry II's Library. It was suggested by Wettstein that θ' means Codex Coislinianus.