1 Manuscripts
Number of manuscripts.
For no literary production of antiquity is there such a wealth of manuscripts as for the New Testament. Our classical scholars would rejoice were they as fortunate with Homer or Sophocles, Plato or Aristotle, Cicero or Tacitus, as Bible students are with their New Testament. The oldest complete manuscript of Homer that we have dates from the thirteenth century, and only separate papyrus fragments go back to the Alexandrian age. All that is extant of Sophocles we owe to a single manuscript dating from the eighth or ninth century in the Laurentian Library at Florence. But of the New Testament, 3829 manuscripts have been catalogued up till the present. A systematic search in the libraries of Europe might add still more to the list; a search in those of Asia and Egypt would certainly do so. Gregory believes that there are probably some two or three thousand manuscripts which have not yet been collated, and every year additional manuscripts are brought to light. Most of these are, of course, late, and contain only separate portions, some of them mere fragments, of the New Testament.20 Not a few, however, go much further back than our manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testament and most of the Greek and Latin Classics. Only in the case of the Mohammedan sacred books is the condition of things more favourable. These came into existence in the seventh century, and the variations between separate manuscripts are a vanishing quantity, because the text of the Koran was officially fixed at a very early date and regarded as inviolably sacred. Fortunately, one might almost say, it is quite different with the New Testament, which was put together in a totally different way. In its case the very greatest freedom prevailed for at least a century and a half.
The manuscripts of the New Testament being so numerous, it becomes necessary to arrange them. One of the most important considerations hitherto has been that of age, and therefore manuscripts have been divided into Uncials (or Majuscules) and Cursives (or Minuscules), according to the style of writing in use at earlier or later times.
Uncial, and Cursive script.
In early times, as at the present day, inscriptions on monuments and public buildings were engraved in capital letters. This form of writing was also employed for books, especially those containing valuable or sacred writing. The letters were not joined together, but set down side by side.21 They were called litterae majusculae, capitales, unciales, i.e. “inch-high,” as Jerome says with ridicule—uncialibus ut vulgo aiunt litteris onera magis exarata quam codices. Alongside of this there arose, even previous to the Christian era, a smaller Cursive form (Minusculae), for use in common life, in which the letters were joined.22 This running hand found its way into manuscripts of the Bible in the course of the ninth century. In some cases, in Codex Λ e.g., both styles are found alongside or following each other.23
The oldest Cursive manuscript of the New Testament, the exact date of which is known, is 481evv.; it bears the date 835. The great majority of New Testament manuscripts belong to this later date, seeing that out of the 3829 manuscripts there are only 127 Uncials to 3702 Minuscules. Greek copyists not being accustomed to date their manuscripts exactly, it becomes the task of palæography to settle the criteria by which the date and place of a manuscript’s origin may be determined. These are the style of writing—whether angular or round, upright or sloping, the punctuation—whether simple or elaborate, and the different material and form of the book. These distinctions, however, are often very misleading. The following table will show the distribution of the manuscripts according to the centuries in which they were written, as given by Vollert, Scrivener, and von Gebhardt24:—
| Vollert. | Scrivener. | v. Gebhardt. | |
| IVth Century, | 5 | ... | 2 |
| Vth “ | 4 | 10 | 15 |
| VIth ″ | 18 | 22 | 24 |
| VIIth “ | 6 | 9 | 17 |
| VIIIth ″ | 8 | 8 | 19 |
| IXth “ | 23 | ... | 31 |
| Xth ″ | 4 | ... | 6 |
Papyrus and parchment.
Manuscripts are distinguished according to the material on which they are written, which may be either parchment or paper.
Parchment derives its name from Pergamum, where it was introduced in the reign of King Eumenes (197-159 B.C.). But prior to the use of parchment, and to a certain extent alongside of it, papyrus was used, especially in Egypt, down to the time of the Mohammedan Conquest. Papyrus books were originally in the form of rolls (volumina). Only a few fragments of the New Testament on papyrus remain. The use of parchment gave rise to the book or Codex form. In the case of parchment codices, a further distinction is drawn between those made of vellum manufactured from the skins of very young calves, and those made of common parchment from the skins of sheep, goats, and antelopes.
Paper.
As early as the eighth century (not the ninth), the so-called cotton paper (charta bombycina) was introduced from the East. This, however, never consisted of pure cotton, but rather of flax and hemp. It had been in use for a long time in China and the centre of Eastern Asia, but seems to have been unknown in Syria and Egypt till after the fall of Samarcand in 704. From the thirteenth century onwards, paper made of linen was employed.
In the New Testament, both papyrus and parchment are referred to. In 2 Tim. iv. 13, Paul asks that the φελόνης he had left at Troas might be brought to him, and τὰ βιβλία, but specially τὰς μεμβράνας. Here, φελόνης means cloak rather than satchel; τὰ βιβλία are the papyrus books, possibly his Old Testament, while τὰς μεμβράνας are clean sheets of parchment. In 2 John 12 the word χάρτης is used of papyrus. There, and in 3 John 13, τὸ μέλαν is the ink, and the κάλαμος (lat. canna) is the reed pen, still used for writing in the East. The quill pen, strange to say, is not mentioned prior to the time of Theodoric the Ostrogoth in the sixth century. The size of a sheet of writing paper may be inferred from the passages in 2nd and 3rd John alluded to above.
Scriptio continua.
In order to economize space, the writing was continuous, with no break between the words (scriptio continua), breathings and accents being also omitted. This is a frequent source of ambiguity and misunderstanding. In Matt. ix. 18, e.g., ΕΙΣΕΛΘΩΝ may be either εἷς ἐλθὼν or εἰσελθὼν. In Mark x. 40, ΑΛΛΟΙΣΗΤΟΙΜΑΣΤΑΙ was rendered “aliis praeparatum,” ἄλλοις being read instead of ἀλλ’ οἷς. In Matt. xvi. 23, ΑΛΛΑ may be taken either as ἀλλὰ or ἀλλ’ ἃ. In 1 Cor. xii. 28, again, the Ethiopic translator read οὖς instead of οὓς. The Palestinian-Syriac Lectionary translates 1 Tim. iii. 16 as though it were ὁμολογοῦμεν ὡς μέγα ἐστίν. There is something to be said for this, but Naber’s proposed reading of Gal. ii. 11, ὅτι κατέγνωμεν ὃς ἦν, cannot be accepted.
Columns, Lines.
Most manuscripts show two columns to the page. The Sinaitic, however, has four, while the Vatican has three. Columns vary considerably in width. They may be the width of a few letters only, or of an average hexameter line of sixteen to eighteen syllables or about thirty-six letters. Such a line is called a στίχος, and as the scribe was paid according to the number of στίχοι, we find at the end of several books a note giving the total number of στίχοι contained in them. In carefully written manuscripts, every hundredth, sometimes every fiftieth στίχος is indicated in the margin. These stichometric additions were afterwards adopted for the entire Bible. Their value in many respects will be obvious.
As the church increased in wealth and prestige, New Testament manuscripts acquired a more sumptuous form, either from the luxury of the rich or the pious devotion of kings and churches.
Palimpsests.
Parchment, however, grew more and more expensive, and so the practice arose of using an old manuscript a second time. The original writing was erased by means of a sponge or pumice stone or a knife, and the sheets were then employed to receive other matter, or it might even be the same matter over again. And so we have Codices Rescripti or Palimpsesti as they were called, a term known to Cicero, who says, though of a wax tablet, “quod in palimpsesto, laudo parsimoniam” (ad Diversos vii. 18). Some manuscripts were used as often as three times for distinct works in three different languages e.g. Greek, Syriac, and Iberian. Codex Ib is one of these thrice used manuscripts, being written first in Greek and then twice in Syriac.
Punctuation.
Marks of punctuation are hardly to be found in the earliest times. It was frequently, therefore, a question with church teachers whether a sentence was to be taken interrogatively or indicatively, or how the sentences were to be divided, as in the case of John i. 3 and 4. In the general absence of punctuation, the appearance of quotation marks in some of the oldest manuscripts, like Codex Vaticanus e.g., to indicate citations from the Old Testament, is remarkable.
Size.
The size of a manuscript varies from a large folio, which in the case of a parchment codex must have been very expensive, to a small octavo. In regions inhabited by a mixed population we find bilingual manuscripts, Greek-Latin, Greek-Coptic, Greek-Armenian, and such like. If the manuscript was designed for use in church, the two languages were written in parallel columns, the Greek frequently occupying the left column or reverse side of the sheet, being the place of honour. In manuscripts intended for use in schools, the translation was written between the lines. Codex Δ is an example of a manuscript with an interlinear version of this sort.
Contents.
Of more importance is the distinction of manuscripts according to their. Of all our recorded Uncials, only one contains the whole of the New Testament complete. That is the Codex Sinaiticus discovered by Tischendorf in 1859. A few others, like Codices Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Ephraemi, were once complete, but are no longer so. Of the later Minuscules, some twenty-five alone contain the entire New Testament. Of the English Minuscules, five are complete. The fragmentary nature of our manuscripts is intelligible on two grounds. One is that a New Testament codex written in uncial characters is a very bulky and ponderous volume running to about 150 sheets. Comparatively few would be in a position to procure such a costly work all at once. The other reason is that the New Testament itself is not a single book, but a series of different collections, which at first, and even afterwards, were circulated separately. To the same reason is due the great variety in the order of the several parts of the New Testament found in the manuscripts, and still, to a certain extent, in our printed editions. It is not exactly known who it was that first collected and inscribed in one volume the books and the parts that now make up the New Testament. Such a single volume of the entire New Testament was afterwards known as a πανδέκτης, and in Latin, bibliotheca. The parts into which the New Testament is divided are—
1. The four Gospels.
2. (a) The Acts of the Apostles. (b) The so-called Catholic Epistles, i.e. those not addressed to any particular church or individual, viz., James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, Jude.
3. The thirteen Pauline Epistles, or, including Hebrews, fourteen.
4. The Apocalypse.
Lectionaries.
Among these incomplete manuscripts of the New Testament may be classed the so-called lectionaries—i.e. manuscripts containing only those portions read at church services. Following the custom of the Synagogue, in which portions of the Law and the Prophets were read at divine service each Sabbath day, the practice was early adopted in the Christian Church of reading passages from the New Testament books at services. A definite selection of such extracts was formed at an early date from the Gospels and Epistles, and the custom arose of arranging these according to the order of Sundays and Holy days, for greater convenience in use. A collection of selected passages from the Gospels was called a Εὐαγγέλιον, and in Latin Evangeliarium,25 in distinction to the books containing the continuous text, which were called Τετραευαγγέλιον, while the selections from the Epistles were known as Ἀπόστολος or Πραξαπόστολος. These lectionaries, though mostly of later origin, are nevertheless important as indicating the official text of the various provinces of the Church. They show, moreover, how sundry slight alterations found their way into the text of the New Testament.
We can easily understand why it is that manuscripts of the Gospels are by far the most numerous, while those of the last book of the New Testament are the fewest. Among the Uncials, 73 contain the Gospels, and only 7 have the Apocalypse. Of these 73 Uncials, again, only 6, viz. א B K M S U, or, if we include Ω, only 7 are quite complete; 9 are almost so; 11 exhibit the greater part of the Gospels, while the remainder contain only fragments. Of the 20 Uncials of the Pauline Epistles, only 1 is entirely complete—viz., א; 2 are nearly complete, D G; 8 have the greater part. It is plain that our resources are not so great, after all, as the number of manuscripts given above would lead us to expect. Here also there are πολλοὶ κλητοί, ὀλίγοι ἐκλεκτοί.
Parchment
The manufacture of parchment is perhaps older than that of papyrus. It is said to owe both its name and wide circulation as writing material to the encouragement given to its manufacture by Eumenes II. of Pergamum (197-159 B.C.). Pliny’s story,26 which he gives on the authority of Varro, is that Eumenes wished to found a library which should, as far as possible, excel that of Alexandria. To frustrate this intention Ptolemy Epiphanes prohibited the exportation of papyrus to Asia Minor. (In the list of principal exports of Alexandria, Lumbroso27 mentions βίβλος and χάρτη in the second place after ὑέλια, and βιβλία in the seventh.) Eumenes was accordingly obliged to prepare parchment at Pergamum, and hence its name, περγαμηνή. The name first occurs in Diocletian’s Price-list,28 and in Jerome. The word used in earlier times was διφθέραι,29 or δέρρεις,30 or μεμβράναι as in 2 Tim. iv. 13, which last was taken from the Latin. At first parchment was less valuable than papyrus, and was used more for domestic and school purposes than for the making of books, as the writing was easier erased from the skin. But it gradually supplanted papyrus, and with its employment came also the change from the roll to the “codex” form of book. If papyrus was the vehicle of Pagan Greek literature, parchment was the means whereby the literature of the new faith became known to mankind, and the remnant of the ancient culture at the same time preserved. Origen’s library, which still consisted for the most part of papyrus rolls, was re-written in parchment volumes (σωμάτιον, corpus) by two priests shortly before the time of Jerome. Our principal manuscripts of Philo are derived from one of these codices.31 When Constantine ordered Eusebius to provide a certain number of Bibles for presentation to the churches of his Empire, he sent him, not rolls, but codices, πεντήκοντα σωμάτια ἐν διφθέραις.
Parchment was prepared from the skins of goats, sheep, calves, asses, swine, and antelopes. Our oldest manuscripts of the Bible exhibit the finest and whitest parchment. The Codex Sinaiticus, e.g., displays the very finest prepared antelope skin, and is of such a size that only two sheets could be obtained from one skin. As a rule, four sheets were folded into a quire (quaternio), the separate sheets having been previously ruled on the grain side. They were laid with the flesh side to the flesh side, and the grain side to the grain side, beginning with the flesh side outermost, so that in each quaternio, pages 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16 were white and smooth with the lines showing in relief, while the others, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 15 were darker and rough, with indented lines.32
Ink.
For writing on papyrus, ink made of soot was employed. Three parts of lamp-black were mixed with one part of gum and diluted with water. This ink, however, was easily washed off, and did not stick well to parchment, and therefore recourse was had to ink made of gall nuts. Sulphate of iron was afterwards added to it, with the result that the writing material is frequently corroded with the ink. From its having been boiled the mixture was also called ἔγκαυστον, hence our word “ink” (encre). Many old recipes for making ink are still preserved.33 Even in early Egyptian writing, coloured inks, especially red, were used. One of the most beautiful manuscripts extant is a Syriac Codex in the British Museum, of date 411, in which the red, blue, green, and yellow inks are still quite fresh. Eusebius used cinnabar for numbering the paragraphs, and Jerome makes mention of minium or vermilion. In times of great wealth parchments were dyed purple and inscribed with gold and silver letters.
Papyrus
Among ancient writers, Pliny gives the fullest description of the preparation of papyrus, in his Historia Naturalis, xiii. 11.34 The sheets were prepared, not from the bark, but from the pith of the plant. This was cut into strips (σχίδας) as thin and broad, and, according to some, as long as possible. These were laid side by side as firmly as might be, to form the first layer (σχέδα). On this a second layer was laid crosswise and fastened to the lower with moisture or gum. The two layers were then compressed to form the writing sheet (σελίς), which was carefully dried and polished with ivory or a smooth shell. The roll (τόμος, κύλινδρος) consisted of a number of σελίδες joined together to make one long strip—sometimes as much as 20 or 40 feet long, or even longer. The upper side, the side used for writing on, was the one in which the fibres ran in a horizontal direction parallel to the edge of the roll.35 The under or outer side was only used in cases of necessity.36 The first sheet (πρωτόκολλον) was made stronger than the rest, and its inner edge was glued to a wooden roller (ὄμφαλος), with a knob at the end (κέρας). The margin of the roll, what corresponds to the edge of our books, was frequently glazed and coloured, while the back was protected against worms and moths by being rubbed with cedar oil. The title was inscribed on a separate label of parchment (σίττυβος or σίλλυβος). The separate rolls were enclosed in a leather case (διφθέρα or φαινόλης, see 2 Tim. iv. 13), and a number of them kept in a chest (κιβωτός or κίστη).
On the literature cf. also Paul Krüger, Ueber die Verwendung von Papyrus und Pergament für die juristische Litteratur der Römer, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Roman section, viii. pp. 76-85 (1887). Wilcken, Archiv für Papyrus-Forschung und verwandte Gebiete, Leipzig, Teubner. F. G. Kenyon, Palaeography of Greek Papyri. C. Haeberlin, Griechische Papyri, Leipzig, 1897: “Nearly 150 years have fled since 432 complete Rolls and 1806 Papyrus Fragments were discovered in the year 1752 at Herculaneum, in the Villa of L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, the pupil and friend of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus. Then twenty-five years later the soil of Egypt, that home and nursery of literature, opened for the first time to vouchsafe to us a Greek Papyrus Roll, destined to be the forerunner of a series of discoveries often interrupted but never ceasing altogether. It was, perchance, not the only one of its kind; but out of the fifty rolls accidentally discovered in the year 1778 by Arabian peasants in the neighbourhood of Memphis, it alone had the fortune to come into the possession of Cardinal Stefano Borgia. The rest were burned by their unsuspecting discoverers, who found a peculiar pleasure in the resinous odour that arose from their smoking pyre.”
Paper
The collection of manuscripts brought from the East by the Archduke Rainer gave a stimulus to the study of the early history of paper-making, and at the same time supplied the materials for a more exact investigation of the subject than had previously been possible. Earlier works, therefore, like that of G. Meerman, De Chartae vulgaris seu lineae Origine, ed. J. v. Vaassen, Hagae Comitum, 1767, have been superseded. The manufacture of paper seems to have been introduced into Europe by the Moors in Spain, where it went by the name of pergameno de panno to distinguish it from the pergameno de cuero. In the Byzantine Empire it was called ξυλοχάρτιον or ξυλότευκτον, as being a vegetable product. It came afterwards to be known as χάρτης Δαμασκηνός, from its chief place of manufacture. The Arabs introduced it into Sicily, whence it passed into Italy. After 1235, we find paper mentioned as one of the exports of Genoa. European paper is distinguished from that of Eastern manufacture chiefly by the use of water marks, such as ox-heads, e.g., which were unknown in the East. Older sorts of paper bear a great resemblance to parchment. The Benedictine monks, who owned the fragments of Mark’s Gospel preserved in Venice, asserted that they were written on bark. Montfaucon declared the material to be papyrus. Massei said it was cotton paper. But the microscope shows it to be parchment. In many manuscripts a mixture of parchment and paper is found. This is so in the Leicester Codex, in which the leaves are regularly arranged in such a way that the outer and inner sheets of a quire are of parchment, while the three intermediate sheets are of paper. See J. R. Harris, The origin of the Leicester Codex of the New Testament, 1887, p. 14 ff.
Lead.
Lead was also employed in early times for writing on. Budde sees a reference to this practice in the well-known passage, Job xix. 24. He holds that the lead there mentioned is not to be supposed as run into letters cut out in the rock, which would be a very unlikely thing to do, and a practice for which there is no evidence. He would therefore correct the text so as to read “with an iron pen on lead.” Hesiod’s Ἔργα, e.g., was preserved on lead in the temple of the Muses on Helicon.37 A leaden tablet from Hadrumet contains an incantation showing strong traces of O.T. influence.38 At Rhodes there was recently discovered a roll of lead inscribed with the 80th Psalm, which was used as a charm to protect a vineyard.39
Clay.
Clay and brick were also used as writing material, a fact which Strack has omitted to mention in his article on Writing in the Realencyklopädie (see Ezek. iv. 1). So far, however, no traces of N.T. writing have been discovered in the Ostraca literature of which we have now a considerable quantity. We have tiles of this sort dating from a period of over a thousand years from the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus onwards, inscribed with ink and a reed pen. Several of these contain portions of literary works such as those of Euripides.40
Linen.
Linen was also written on.41 It was used, e.g., for the Sibylline Oracles (lintea texta, carbasus: Orac. Sib. ed. Alexandre, ii., 159, 178, 189). But up to the present no N.T. writing has been found on linen.
Paul’s “Books”
On Paul’s “books and parchments,” see Zahn, Kanon ii., 938 ff. I am not aware if J. Joseph takes up this point or not in his La Bibliothèque de l’Apôtre Paul (Chrétien Évang., 1897, v. 224-227). In the Theol. Tijdschrift, 1898, p. 217, the view that the μεμβράναι Paul sent for were blank sheets of parchment is called in question. The most natural explanation, certainly, is that they were.
Pen
The N.T. makes no mention of the metal, wood, or bone stilus. By “the wild beast of the reeds” (Ps. lxviii. 31) the Rabbis understood the reed pen, which in Syriac also is commonly denoted by קנה, and they took it as referring to Rome and the Emperor, who decided the fate of nations with a single stroke of his pen.42 Luther, moreover, was not without precedent in speaking of “governors with the pen” in Jud. v. 14, as the Syriac version renders it in the same way. In Ps. xlv. 2, the Hebrew עֵט is rendered κάλαμος (LXX), σχοῖνος (Aquila), and γραφεῖον (Symmachus). It is also rendered σχοῖνος by the translator of Jeremiah viii. 8, where Aquila has γραφεῖον. Σχοῖνος must therefore be added to the Bible names for pen. Γραφίς for γραφεῖον, mentioned alongside of ὄνυξ ἀδαμάντινος in Jer. xvii. 1, seems to belong to the Spanish-Greek of the Complutensian, but is really classic, as also its diminutive γραφίδιον. According to the Rabbis, pens were among the things God made in the evening of the last day of the creation. They were also venerated by the Egyptians and the Greeks as an invention of the Deity.43 According to Antisthenes44 or Democritus,45 a young man, in order to enter the school of wisdom, requires to have a βιβλιαρίου καινου (= καὶ νοῦ) καὶ γραφείου καινου καὶ πινακιδίου καινου. In Cyprus, the stilus is called ἀλειπτήριον, and the γραμματοδιδάσκαλος in like manner διφθεράλοιφος.46 In the recently discovered fragments of Diocletian’s List of Wares, the section περὶ πλούμου (goose, swan, and peacock feathers) is followed by that περὶ καλάμων καὶ μελανίου, and then by that περὶ ἐσθῆτος. Ink costs 12 drachmae the quart; Paphian and Alexandrian κάλαμοι47 cost 4 drachmae; and κάλαμοι δευτ[έρας] φώρ[μης] the same. Baruch, the ἀναγνωστής, purchased ink and a pen in the market of the Gentiles, in order to write his letter to Jeremiah (ἀποστείλας εἰς τὴν ἀγορὰν [v. l. διασπορᾶς] τῶν ἐθνῶν ἤνεγκε χάρτην καὶ μέλανα [v. l. μελαν]).48 Demosthenes was not the only possessor of a silver stilus. Boniface, e.g., had one of that sort sent him from England.
Reading and writing.
The following is a list of expressions relating to reading and writing taken from the Greek Versions of the O.T. It makes no claim to be complete. The passages will be found in Hatch and Redpath’s Concordance to the Septuagint.
ἀκριβόω, ἀναγιγνώσκω, ἀνάγνωσις, ἀναγνωστής, ἀντίγραφον, ἀποκαλύπτειν; βιβλιαφόρος (βιβλιο-), βίβλινος, βιβλιογράφος (Est. iii. 13, Complut.), βιβλιοθήκη, βιβλίον (βυ-), βιβλιοφυλάκιον, βίβλος (βυ-); γαζά, γράμμα, γραμματεία, γραμματεύειν, γραμματεύς, γραμματικός, γραμματοεισαγωγεύς, γραπτόν, γράφειν (ἀνα-, ἀπο-, ἐπι-, κατα-, συν-), γραφεῖον (σιδηροῦν), γραφεὺς (ταχινός), γραφή (ἀνα-, ἀπο-, συν-), γραφικός, γραφίς; διφθέρωμα, διώκειν; εἴλημα, εἰς- or ἐγχαράττειν, ἐπιστολή, ἑρμηνεύω, ἐπιστάμενος γράμματα; θησαυροφύλαξ; κάλαμος (καλαμάριον, vide Field’s Hexapla on Ezek. ix. 2) κάστυ, κεφαλίς; μαχθάμ, μέλαν, μελανοδοχεῖον, μίλτος, μνημόσυνον, μολίβος, μολίβδινος; ξυρός; ὄνυξ ἀδαμάντινος, ὀξυγράφος; πινακίς, πινακίδιον, πτύξ, πτυχή, πυξίον; σελίς, σμίλη, στηλογραφία, σφραγίζειν, σφραγίς, σχοῖνος; τόμος (χαρτοῦ καινοῦ μεγάλου, Isa. viii. 1; also 1 Esdras vi. 23 for τόπος), τεῦχος, τύπος; χάρτης, χαρτίον, χαρτηρία.
Diastole and Hyphen
Ancient Homeric grammarians used to debate whether contiguous letters were to be read as one word or not. To obviate misunderstanding, they employed the ὑποδιαστολή as the mark of division (ὅ, τι, e.g.), and the ὑφ’ ἕν as the mark of combination (Διό[σκ]ουροι, not Διὸς κοῦροι). Such marks are also found in manuscripts of the Bible, in the Septuagint, e.g., in the case of proper names. It goes without saying that the scriptio continua made the reading as well as the copying of manuscripts a matter of some difficulty. Hermas (Visio ii. 1) says of the book given him to copy μετεγραψάμην πάντα πρὸς γράμμα· οὐχ ηὕρισκον γὰρ τὰς συλλαβάς.49 For two instructive mistakes in the Latin interlinear version of Codex Boernerianus see p. 77.
Breathings and Accents
Breathings and accents were found in various manuscripts of the Bible as early as the time of Epiphanius and Augustine. In our oldest manuscripts they seldom occur before the seventh century. They were inserted by the first hand of the Ambrosian Hexateuch (Swete’s F), which is ascribed to the first half of the fifth century by Ceriani. They seem to have been added to the Codex Vaticanus by the third hand, probably in the twelfth century, and do not always conform to our rules. Augustine, commenting on the rival readings filiis and porcina, in Psalm xvi. 14, says: “quod (porcina) alii codices habent et verius habere perhibentur, quia diligentiora exemplaria per accentus notam eiusdem verbi graeci ambiguitatem graeco scribendi more dissolvunt, obscurius est” (ii. 504-5, in Lagarde’s Probe einer neuen Ausgabe, p. 40). Similarly, speaking of the difference between ῥάβδου αὐτοῦ and ῥάβδου αὑτοῦ, Gen. xlvii. 31, he says:—“fallit enim eos verbum graecum, quod eisdem literis scribitur sive eius sive suae; sed accentus [= spiritus] dispares sunt et ab eis qui ista noverunt, in codicibus non contemnuntur” (iv. 53 ed. Lugd. 1586, cited by Scrivener, i. p. 47).
Abbreviation.
The practice of abbreviating words of frequent occurrence like Θ̅Σ̅, Χ̅Σ̅, Χ̅Σ̅, Α̅Ν̅Ο̅Σ̅ goes back to very early times. So, too, does the use of letters as numerals, Ι for 10, etc.
Divisions.
In dividing syllables the Greek copyists in general observed the rule of beginning each new line with a consonant. A good many exceptions occur however, especially in the Vaticanus, most of which have been corrected by a later hand. These are indicated in the third volume of Swete’s edition of the LXX. A good instance of this is seen in Jer. xiv. 12, where the Vaticanus and Marchalianus both originally had προσ ενεγκωσιν, which in the former is corrected to προ σενεγκωσιν, and in the latter to προσε νεγκωσιν. For examples from the O.T. portion of the Codex Vaticanus see Nestle’s Septuagintastudien, ii. 20.
Stichometry
Carefully written manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments are provided with a system of stichometry just as occurs in the better manuscripts of the classics, as e.g. Herodotus and Demosthenes. In the N.T. it is found specially in those Pauline Epistles that go back to the recension of Euthalius. One of the writers of the Codex Vaticanus has copied, in several of the books of the O.T., the stichometric enumeration which he found in his original, and the numbers show that the manuscript he copied contained almost twice as much matter in a line as the one he himself wrote. See Nestle, Septuagintastudien, ii. 20 f.; Lagarde, Die Stichometrie der syrisch-hexaplarischen Uebersetzung des alten Testaments (Mitteilungen, iv. 205-208). On the stichometric list in the Codex Claromontanus of the Pauline Epistles (D2), see p. 76.
American scholars have counted the number of words in the Greek N.T. In Matthew the number is 18,222, in Mark 11,158, in Luke 19,209. Unfortunately, I am unable to give the total number in the N.T. See Schaff’s Companion, pp. 57, 176.
Graux (Revue de Philologie, ii.) has counted not only the words but the letters in the various books. The numbers are given in Zahn’s Geschichte des N.T. Kanons, i. 76. They are as follows:—
| Letters. | Stichoi. | |
| Matthew, | 89,295 | 2480 |
| Mark, | 55,550 | 1543 |
| Luke, | 97,714 | 2714 |
| John, | 70,210 | 1950 |
| Acts, | 94,000 | 2610 |
| 3 John, | 1,100 | 31 |
| Apocalypse, | 46,500 | 1292 |
| For Philemon, Zahn gives | 1,567 | 44 |
In this last epistle I find that my edition has 1538 letters, or including the title 1550. The lines in my edition happen to coincide as near as may be with the ancient stichoi. 41 stichoi at 36 letters to the stichos would give a total of 1476. Now in the 41 complete lines which my edition gives to Philemon I find 1469 letters, that is, only 7 fewer. In Jude, again, Graux enumerates 71 stichoi, while my edition shows exactly 70 lines or 71 with the title. For stichometric calculations, therefore, this edition will prove very convenient.
For a “Table of Ancient and Modern Divisions of the New Testament,” see Scrivener, i. 68; also Westcott, Canon, Appendix D, xix., xx.; Bible in the Church, Appendix B, 4.
Cola and commata.
The Cola and Commata were quite different from the stichoi. The length of the latter was regulated according to the space (space-lines), that of the former by the sense and structure of the sentence (sense-lines). On cola and commata see Wordsworth and White, De colis et commatibus codicis Amiatini et editionis nostrae, in the Epilogus to their edition of the Vulgate, i. pp. 733-736. On the stichometry proper see Ibid., p. 736, De stichorum numeris in euangeliis.
Manuscripts de Luxe
Solomon perfumed with musk the letter he sent to Bilqis, Queen of Sheba, who herself could both read and write.50 Mani inscribed characters on white satin in such a way that if a single thread was drawn out the writing became invisible.51 On gold and silver writing among the Syrians see Zahn, Tatian, Forschungen, 108, n. 1; also R. Wessely, Iconographie (Wiener Studien, xii. 2, 259-279). The earliest mention of this kind of writing that I know is in the Epistle of Aristeas,52 σὺν... ταῖς διαφόροις διφθέραις, ἐν αἷς [ἦν] ἡ νομοθεσία γεγραμμένη χρυσογραφίᾳ τοῖς Ἰουδαϊκοῖς γράμμασι, θαυμασίως εἰργασμένου τοῦ ὑμένος καὶ τῆς πρὸς ἄλληλα συμβολῆς ἀνεπαισθήτου κατεσκευασμένης. In Alexander’s copy of the Pentateuch the name of God was written in gold letters.53
On the fineness of the parchment and the beauty of the writing see Chrysostom, Hom. 32 in Joannem: σπουδῆς περὶ τὴν τῶν ὑμένων λεπτότητα καὶ τὸ τῶν γραμμάτων κάλλος. Ephraem Syrus commended this Christian munificence, as is pointed out in the Histor. Polit. Blätter, 84, 2, 104. Gold writing is also mentioned in the Targum on Ps. xlv. 10.
The passage in the Epistle of Theonas to Lucian referring to the use of purple-dyed parchment is thought by Batiffol to be derived from that in Jerome’s Commentary on Job, and he founds on this an argument against the genuineness of the Epistle.54 In the Martyrium of Qardagh the Persian, particular mention is made of the remarkable beauty and whiteness of the parchment (σωμάτιον) on which he wrote his epistles.55
For the preparation of his Bible, Origen procured the services not only of rapid writers (ταχυγράφοι) but also of girls who could write beautifully (καλλιγράφοι). Cassiodorus pleads—qui emendare praesumitis, ut superadjectas literas ita pulcherrimas facere studeatis, ut potius ab Antiquariis scriptae fuisse judicentur.56 We also find him making proposals for expensive bindings in the De Inst., c. 30, a passage which, according to Springer,57 has been overlooked in the literature on illustrated bindings in modern histories of art.
On various decorated manuscripts see W. Wattenbach, Ueber die mit Gold auf Purpur geschriebene Evangelien-handschrift der Hamiltonschen Bibliothek, in the Berliner Sitz.-Ber., 7th March 1889, xiii. 143-156. Cf. Berl. Phil. Wochenschrift, 1889, 33, 34. This manuscript purported to be a gift to Henry VIII. from Pope Leo X., but was rather from Wolsey. Bishop Wilfrid of Ripon (670-688) had the four Gospels written with the finest gold. Boniface requested his English friends to send him the Epistles of Paul written with gold in order therewith to impress the simple-minded Germans (Ep. 32, p. 99), a fact of which Gustav Freitag makes use in his Ingo und Ingraban, p. 476. (See Die Christliche Welt, 1888, 22.) Cf. also the manuscripts of Theodulf in Paris and Puy (see below, p. 125). The Cistercians forbade the use of gold and silver bindings or clasps (firmacula) and also of different colours.
Illustration.
Illustrations must have made their appearance in Greek manuscripts a whole century earlier than has hitherto been supposed if H. Kothe is right in his interpretation of the passage in Diogenes Laertius, ii. 3, 8 (= Clem., Strom., i. 78, p. 364, Potter): πρῶτος δὲ Ἀναξαγόρας καὶ βιβλίον ἐξέδωκε σὺν γραφῇ (“with a picture”: formerly read as συγγραφῆς). In addition to the works of Aristotle and the obscene poems of Philainis, illustrated manuscripts were known to exist of the works of the astronomers Eudoxus and Aratus, of the botanist Dioscorides, of the tactician Euangelos, and of the geographer Ptolemy. A description of the earliest illustrated Bibles is given by Victor Schultze in the Daheim, 1898, No. 28, 449 ff., with good facsimiles. On the horses in the chariot of Elijah in a Greek manuscript of the ninth century in the Vatican Library, and on the pictures of the horsemen in the codex of Joshua also contained there, see F. aus’m Weerth in the Jahrbuch des Vereins von Altertums-Freunden im Rheinland, Heft 78 (1884), Plate VI.
Cassiodorus had a Pandectes Latinus—i.e. a manuscript of the Old Latin Bible of large size—which contained pictures of the Tabernacle and the Temple. There is an old work on this subject by P. Zornius entitled Historia Bibliorum pictorum ex antiquitatibus Ebraeorum et Christianorum illustrata cum figuris, Lipsiae, 1743, 4to; and by the same author, Von den Handbibeln der ersten Christen, Lips. 1738, also Historia Bibliorum ex Ebraeorum diebus festis et jejuneis illustrata, Lips., 1741. See also Georg Thiele, De antiquorum libris pictis capita quattuor, Marburg, 1897.
Palimpsests
Palimpsests of Bible manuscripts came to be prohibited by the Church. The Sixth Ecumenical Council (Trullan, Concilium quinisextum, 680-681), in its 68th canon, Περὶ τοῦ μὴ ἐξεῖναί τινι τῶν ἁπάντων βιβλία τῆς παλαιᾶς καὶ νέας διαθήκης διαφθείρειν, forbids the sale of old manuscripts of the Bible to the βιβλιοκάπηλοι or the μυρεψοί, or to any persons whatever.58 There was naturally a special aversion to letting such manuscripts fall into the hands of Jews; but yet there were discovered, in the lumber room of the Synagogue of Old Cairo, fragments of a Greek MS. of the Gospels, which had been afterwards employed to receive Jewish writing. Parchments of this sort were at first used only for rough drafts and such like, instead of wax tablets from which the writing could be erased again.
Punctuation
A good example of the importance of punctuation will be found in Lk. i. 35, on which see p. 201. Compare also Lk. xxi. 8, 1 Tim. ii. 5, where Lachmann punctuates καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἄνθρωπος. By a different punctuation in Heb. i. 9, Tischendorf and Westcott-Hort make ὁ Θεός vocative and nominative respectively. In the former case the Messiah is God, in the other God is the one who anoints him. This difference was not observed at first by O. v. Gebhardt. Similarly there is a difference between the text and the margin of Westcott and Hort in verse 8, where by the insertion or omission of the two commas before and after ὁ Θεός the meaning is either that Messiah is God or that God is Messiah’s throne. Considering the importance of such marks of division, the rule laid down by Ephraem Syrus in the year 350, and again emphasized by Bengel and Lagarde, should be carefully attended to in the New Testament: εἰ κέκτησαι βιβλίον, εὐστιχὲς κτῆσαι αὐτό· μήποτε εὑρεθῇ ἐν αὐτῷ πρόσκομμα τῷ ἀναγινώσκοντι ἢ μεταγράφοντι (see Nestle, Bengel als Gelehrter, p. 24). Compare also what Chrysostom says regarding punctuation on Mt. viii. 9: τινὲς δὲ καὶ οὕτως ἀναγινώσκουσι τουτὶ τὸ χωρίον· εἰ γὰρ ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπος ὤν, καὶ μεταξὺ στίξαντες ἐπάγουσιν· ὑπὸ ἐξουσίαν ἔχων ὑπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ στρατιώτας. See also Victor (or whoever it is) on Mk. xvi. 9. On the change of the sense by means of false emphasis or punctuation see below, pp. 204(7), 276. J. A. Robinson thinks it probable that ὁ Ἀγαπητός is a separate title of the Messiah, and would point ὁ υἱός μου, ὁ Ἀγαπητός in Mk. i. 11, ix. 7 on the authority of the Ascensio Esaiae and the Old Syriac (see Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, ii. 501).
In cod. א we find that the different parts of the New Testament display a different type of text, from which we may conclude that the codex was copied, not from a single manuscript but from several. Similarly, the singular type of text exhibited by cod. Δ in Mark would show that this codex, or that from which it was copied, was transcribed from different rolls or codices, each containing one Gospel. See Zahn, GK. i. 63.
Bibliotheca
On the designation Bibliotheca and Pandectes for Bible manuscripts, see Zahn, GK. i. 65. On τεῦχος, ibid. 67. He informs us that the earliest mention of a Christian bibliotheca and its armaria is in the heathen protocol of the year 304, in the Gesta apud Zenophilum given in Dupin after Optatus, p. 262. The next earliest notice is in Augustine. The custodians of the bibliothecae were probably the Readers. In Ruinart’s Acta Saturnini a certain Ampelius is mentioned as “custos legis, scripturarumque divinarum fidelissimus conservator.” From Irenaeus, iv. 33, 2 Lessing concluded that at that time the few existing copies of the Scriptures were in the custody of the clergy, and were only to be perused in their presence. (Zusätze zu einer nötigen Antwort. Works, ed. Maltzahn, xi. 2, 179.) On this point see Zahn, GK. i. 140.
(A.) Uncial Manuscripts
א
א Codex Sinaiticus, now in St. Petersburg, contains the entire New Testament written in the fourth or more probably at the beginning of the fifth century. The story of its discovery and acquisition is quite romantic. When Tischendorf, under the patronage of his sovereign King Frederick Augustus of Saxony, came to the Convent of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai for the first time in 1844, he rescued from a basket there forty-three old sheets of parchment which, with other rubbish, were destined for the fire. In this way he obtained possession of portions of one of the oldest MSS. of the Old Testament, which he published as the Codex Frederico-Augustanus (F-A) in 1846. At the same time he learned that other portions of the same Codex existed in the Monastery. He could find no trace of these, however, on his second visit in 1853. But on his third visit, undertaken with the patronage of the Emperor of Russia, the steward of the monastery brought him, shortly before his departure on the 4th February 1859, what surpassed all his expectations, the entire remaining portions of the Codex comprising a great part of the Old Testament and the whole of the New, wrapped up in a red cloth. Not only was the New Testament perfect, but in addition to the twenty-seven books, the MS. contained the Epistle of Barnabas and part of the so-called Shepherd of Hermas, two books of the greatest repute in early Christian times, the Greek text of which was only partially extant in Europe. Tischendorf managed to secure the MS. for the Emperor of Russia, at whose expense it was published in four folio volumes in the year 1862 on the thousandth anniversary of the founding of the Russian Empire. In return for the MS. the monastery received a silver shrine for St. Catherine, a gift of 7000 roubles for the library and 2000 for the monastery on Mount Tabor, while several Russian decorations were distributed among the Fathers.
Unfortunately the art of photography was not so far advanced thirty-eight years ago as to permit a perfect facsimile to be made of the MS., and Tischendorf had to be content with a printed copy executed as faithfully as the utmost care and superintendence would admit.
To what date does the manuscript belong? There is still extant a letter of the first Christian Emperor Constantine dating from the year 331, in which he asks Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, to provide him with fifty copies of the Old and New Testament for use in the principal churches of his empire (πεντήκοντα σωμάτια ἐν διφθέραις ἐγκατασκεύοις) and puts two public carriages at the bishop’s disposal for their safe transport. We have also the letter that Eusebius sent along with these Bibles, in which he consigns them ἐν πολυτελῶς ἠσκημένοις τεύχεσι τρισσᾶ καὶ τετρασσᾶ—i.e. “in expensively prepared volumes of three and four.” With former scholars Tischendorf understood the expression τρισσᾶ καὶ τετρασσᾶ of the number of sheets in the quires of the manuscripts, as though they had been composed of ternions and quaternions of twelve and sixteen pages respectively. Others took it as referring to the number of columns on the pages, Codex Sinaiticus, which Tischendorf believed to be one of these fifty Bibles, being unique in showing four columns to the page. The most probable explanation of the phrase is, however, that it indicates the number of volumes each Bible comprised, and means that each Bible of three or four parts, as the case might be, was packed in a separate box.59 Tischendorf, as has been said, saw in Codex Sinaiticus one of these fifty Bibles. He also thought that א was the work of four different scribes, and was confident that one of these, the one who had written only six leaves of the New Testament, was the scribe of Codex Vaticanus. But other authorities bring א down to the beginning of the fifth century.
One can understand how it was that Tischendorf was led to overrate the value of this manuscript at first, and to call it by the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet to signify its pre-eminence over all other manuscripts. The claim is so far justified that it is at least one of the oldest manuscripts, and of the oldest the only one that contains the entire New Testament. The order is that of the Gospels, Pauline Epistles (among which Hebrews is found after 2 Thess.), Acts, Catholic Epistles, Apocalypse, after which come Barnabas and Hermas.60 This same order is observed in the Old Syriac Bible, and in the first printed Greek New Testament, the Complutensian Polyglot. The fact that Barnabas is still tacitly included in the books of the New Testament may be taken equally as indicating the age of א itself or that of the exemplar from which it was copied.61 Jerome’s recension of Origen’s Lexicon of Proper Names in the Greek New Testament is still extant, and in it Barnabas is cited like the other books. In the Catalogus Claromontanus, which is a very old list of the books of the New Testament, Barnabas is even found before the Apocalypse, an arrangement which is not found again in the succeeding centuries.
Canons.
א is also the oldest MS. that has the so-called Ammonian Sections and Eusebian Canons. In order to facilitate the study of the Gospels, Ammonius of Alexandria arranged, alongside of Matthew’s Gospel, the parallel passages in Mark, Luke, and John. For this purpose he was obliged of course to dislocate these last.62 Eusebius, however, simply divided the four Gospels into 1162 sections—viz., 355 in Matthew, 233 in Mark, 342 in Luke, and 232 in John. These he numbered consecutively in each Gospel, and then arranged the numbers in ten Canons or Tables. The first contained those passages which are found in all the four Gospels; the second, third, and fourth those common to any particular combination of three; the fifth to the ninth comprised the passages common to any two, and the tenth those peculiar to each one. The number of its Canon was then set under that of the section in the margin, and the Table inserted at the beginning or end of the manuscript. By this means it was possible to know in the case of each section whether a parallel was to be found in the other Gospels, and where. In the margin opposite John xv. 20, e.g., we find the numbers ρλθ/γ, i.e. 139/3. This tells us that this 139th section of John is also found in Matthew and Luke. For on referring to Canon 3 we find that it contains the passages common to John, Matthew, and Luke, and that this section numbered 139 in John, is 90 in Matthew and 58 in Luke. And the sections being numbered consecutively in each Gospel, we easily ascertain that the former is Matthew x. 24, and the latter Luke vi. 40. These, or similar numbers, were afterwards inserted in the lower margin of manuscripts, as, e.g., in Codex Argenteus of the Version of Ulfilas. They are still printed alongside the text in our larger editions, though, of course, owing to the introduction of our system of chapter and verse division they have lost their main significance.
Revisions.
Now, a Codex like א represents to us not one manuscript only, but several at once. It embodies first of all the manuscript from which its text was immediately derived, and then also that or those by which it was revised. That is to say, after the manuscript was written by the scribe, either to dictation or by copying, it was, particularly in the case of a costly manuscript, handed over to a person called the διορθωτής and revised. This might be done several times over; it might be done by a later owner if he were a scholar. But it might happen, as in the case of א e.g., that the exemplar by which the manuscript was revised was not the identical one from which it had been copied but a different one, perhaps older, perhaps exhibiting another form of text altogether. Tischendorf distinguished no fewer than seven correctors in א. One of these, belonging, it may be, to the seventh century, adds a note at the end of the book of Ezra to the following effect,—“This codex was compared with a very ancient exemplar which had been corrected by the hand of the holy martyr Pamphilus; which exemplar contained at the end the subscription in his own hand: ‘Taken and corrected according to the Hexapla of Origen: Antonius compared it: I, Pamphilus, corrected it.’”63 A similar note is found appended to the Book of Esther, where it is also pointed out that variants occurred in the case of proper names. Traces are still discoverable in the Psalms which go to prove that the corrector’s Bible agreed with that of Eusebius, while the manuscript itself had been copied from one that was very different.
A considerable number of scholars are of opinion that א was written in the West, perhaps in Rome. (See Plate I.)
Tischendorf: (1) Notitia editionis, 1860; (2) Bibliorum Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus, Petropoli, 1862, fol. Vol. I., Prolegomena et Commentaria; Vol. IV., Novum Testamentum. (3) N. T. Sinaiticum, Lips. 1863. (Die Anfechtungen der Sinaibibel, Lips. 1863; Waffen der Finsterniss wider die Sinaibibel, Lips. 1863.) (4) N. T. Graece ex Sinaitico Codice omnium antiquissimo, Lips. 1865. Collatio textus graeci editionis polyglottae cum Novo Testamento Sinaitico. Appendix editionis Novi Testamenti polyglottae, Bielefeldiae. Sumptibus Velhagen et Klasing, 1894, large 8vo, pp. iv. 96. (Preface only by Tischendorf.) On Kenyon’s showing, the recent papyrus discoveries give no occasion for abandoning the conclusions formerly come to regarding the age of these parchment manuscripts (Palaeography, p. 120). Scrivener, A full Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus with the Received Text of the N. Testament, 2nd edition, 1867. Ezra Abbot, “On the comparative antiquity of the Sinaitic and Vatican Manuscripts of the Greek Bible,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. x., i. 1872, pp. 189 ff.
A.
A. Codex Alexandrinus: middle or end of the fifth century: written probably at Alexandria: contains a note in Arabic stating that it was presented to the library of the Patriarch of Alexandria in the year 1098. The Codex was sent by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, to Charles I. of England in 1628, and was deposited in the library of the British Museum on its foundation in 1753, where it has been ever since. It has been employed in the textual criticism of the New Testament since the time of Walton. It was printed in 1786 by Woide in facsimile from wooden type. The Old Testament portion of it was also published in 1816-1828 by Baber. The entire manuscript was issued in autotype facsimile in 1879 and 1880.
The Codex is defective at the beginning of the New Testament, the first twenty-six leaves down to Matthew xxv. 6 being absent, as also two containing John vi. 50-viii. 52, and three containing 2 Cor. iv. 13-xii. 6. It also contains after the Apocalypse the (first) Epistle of Clement of Rome and a small fragment of the so-called second Epistle, which is really an early sermon. In the Codex these are recognised as parts of the New Testament, inasmuch as in the table of contents prefixed to the entire work they are included with the other books under the title ἡ καινη διαθηκη.64 After them is given the number of books ὁμου βιβλια, only the figures are now, unfortunately, torn away. The contents indicate that the Psalms of Solomon should have followed, but these have been lost with the rest of the manuscript.
A is distinguished among the oldest manuscripts by the use of capital letters to indicate new sections. But in order to economize room and to obviate spacing the lines, the first letter of the section, if it occurs in the middle of a line, is not written larger, but the one that occurs at the beginning of the next whole line is enlarged and projects into the margin. (See Plate I. 2.) Later scribes have copied this so slavishly that they have written these letters in capitals even when they occur in the middle of the line in their manuscripts. The Egyptian origin of this Codex is shown by its use of Coptic forms for A and M. In several books A displays a remarkable affinity with Jerome in those very passages where he deviates from the older Latin version.
The books in A follow the order—Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles, Apocalypse. (Westcott, Canon, Appendix D. xii.; Bible in the Church, Appendix B.)
Woide, 1786; eiusdem, Notitia codicis Alexandrini, Recud. cur. notasque adjecit G. L. Spohn, Lipsiae, 1788; Cowper, 1860, Hansell, 1864; Photographic facsimile by Thompson, 1879; and in the Facsimiles of the Palæographical Society, Pl. 106.
The mixed character of the text of A was early observed; see Lagarde, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 94.
C. F. Hoole ascribes the Codex Alexandrinus to the middle of the fourth century (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1891; see Academy, July 25, 1891, 73).
B.
B. Codex Vaticanus par excellence, No. 1209 in the Vatican Library at Rome, inserted there shortly after its foundation by Pope Nicolas V., and one of its greatest treasures. Like A it once contained the whole of the Old Testament with the exception of the Books of Maccabees. The first 31 leaves, containing Gen. i. 1-xlvi. 28, are now wanting, as well as 20 from the Psalms containing Ps. cv. (cvi.) 27-cxxxvii. (cxxxviii.) 6. The New Testament is complete down to Heb. ix. 14, where it breaks off at καθα[ριει]. 1 and 2 Tim., Titus, Philemon, and the Apocalypse are, therefore, also wanting. Rahlfs supposes that the manuscript may have originally contained the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas as well. Erasmus obtained some account of this manuscript, and Pope Sixtus V. made it the basis of an edition of the Greek Old Testament, which was published in 1586, thereby determining the textus receptus of that portion of the Bible.—Would he had done the same for the New Testament! This task was undertaken afterwards, specially by Bentley and Birch. Professor Hug of Freiburg recognised the value of the Codex when it was removed from Rome to Paris by Napoleon in 1809. Cardinal Angelo Mai printed an edition of it between 1828 and 1838, which, however, did not appear till 1857, three years after his death, and which was most unsatisfactory. After Tischendorf had led the way with the Codex Sinaiticus, Pope Pio Nono gave orders for an edition, which was printed between 1868 and 1872 in five folio volumes. Not till 1881, however, did the last volume of this edition appear containing the indispensable commentary prepared under the supervision of Vercellone, J. Cozza, C. Sergio, and H. Fabiani, with the assistance of U. Ubaldi and A. Rocchi. Then at last the manuscript was photographed, the New Testament in 1889, and the Old Testament, in three volumes, in 1890—a veritable ἡλίου ἀνάθημα. No facsimile now can give any idea of its original beauty, because a hand of the tenth or eleventh century—or as the Roman editors say, a monk called Clement in the fifteenth century—went over the whole manuscript, letter by letter, with fresh ink, restoring the faded characters and at the same time adding accents and breathings in accordance with the pronunciation of his time (ἄμαξα, for example, and ἁλώπηξ, δἒ). The Old Testament is the work of at least two scribes, one of whom wrote down to 1 Sam. ix. 11, and the other to the end of 2 Esdras. Tischendorf’s opinion with regard to the writer of the New Testament has been already noticed. There can be no question that B is more carefully written than א. In the Gospels the Vatican exhibits a peculiar division into 170, 62, 152, and 80 sections respectively, which is found also in Ξ; in the Acts there is a double division into 36 and 69.65 The enumeration affixed to the Pauline Epistles shows that these were copied from a manuscript in which Hebrews came after Galatians, though in B its position has been changed so as to follow 2 Thessalonians. The copyist has also retained in part of the Old Testament the enumeration of the stichoi which he found in his original. In the New Testament the order of the books is Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles. An increased interest would be lent to this manuscript if, as has been supposed, it represents the recension of the Egyptian Bishop and Martyr Hesychius, of which Jerome makes mention in two places. (Bousset, Textkritische Studien zum Neuen Testament, pp. 74-110, see especially p. 96.) On the Egyptian character of B, see also Burkitt in Texts and Studies, v. p. viii. f., and compare below, p. 183 f. (See Plate IV.)
Hug, Commentatio de antiquitate codicis Vaticani, 1810. Vercellone, Dell’ antichissimo codice Vaticano della Bibbia Greca, 1859; reprinted in his Dissertazioni accademiche, Roma, 1864, 115 ff. First facsimile reproduction, Bibliorum sacrorum Graecus Codex Vaticanus... collatis studiis Caroli Vercellone et Josephi Cozza editus, vol. v., Rome, 1868; vol. vi. (Proleg. Comment. Tab. ed. Henr. Fabiani et Jos. Cozza), 1881; cf. ThLz., 1882, vi. 9. A. Giovanni, Della Illustrazione dell’ edizione Romana del Codice Vaticano, Rome, 1869. Photographic edition, Novum Testamentum e Codice Vaticano 1209... phototypice repraesentatum... curante Jos. Cozza-Luzi, Rome, 1889, fol.; see H. C. Hoskier, The Expositor, 1889, vol. x. 457 ff.; O. v. Gebhardt, ThLz., 1890, 16; Nestle, Sep.-St., ii. 16 ff. Alf. Rahlfs, Alter und Heimat der Vatikanischen Bibelhandschrift (Nachrichten der Gesell. der Wiss. zu Göttingen, Philologisch-historische Klasse, 1889, Heft i. pp. 72-79). In this article Rahlfs seeks to prove that the number and order of the books in the Old and New Testaments contained in B correspond exactly to the Canon of the Scriptures given by Athanasius in his thirty-ninth Festal Letter of the year 367. In it, Athanasius, after mentioning all the canonical books of the Bible, including those of the N. T., cites the extra-canonical books of the O. T. which are allowed to be read, putting them after the second group, βίβλοι στιχήρεις, because two of these books, Wisdom and Sirach, were to be written στιχηδόν. In the N. T. the Greek and Syriac forms of the Festal Letter put Hebrews expressly between the Epistles to the Churches and the Pastoral Epistles. In the Sahidic version of the Letter, however, Hebrews stands before Galatians. This latter arrangement is evidently the survival of a pre-Athanasian order which has been longer preserved in the Sahidic translation.66 But if B is the work of Athanasius, it follows that it cannot be one of the Bibles ordered by Constantine. In this case it would rather be written in Egypt, and we should have in it the Recension of Hesychius, as Grabe supposed was the case in the O. T., while Hug held the same view in regard to the N. T. text of this manuscript (see below, c. III.). Against the theory of Rahlfs, see O. v. Gebhardt in the Theologische Litteraturzeitung, 1899, n. 20.
C.
C. Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, No. 9 in the National Library at Paris, the most important of the palimpsests. This manuscript receives its name from the fact that in the twelfth century thirty-eight treatises of Ephraem, the Syrian Father (d. 373), were written over the original text. After various attempts had been made at its decipherment by Wettstein and others, Tischendorf in 1843 and 1845 published as much of the New and Old Testaments as he was able to make out after eighteen months’ labour, thereby establishing his reputation as a textual critic.
The manuscript once contained the entire Bible, but the whole of 1 and 2 Thessalonians has been lost, as also some 37 chapters from the Gospels, 10 from the Acts, 42 from the Epistles, and 8 from the Apocalypse. There is no trace of a chapter division in Acts, Epistles, or Apocalypse. This last seems to have been copied from an exemplar consisting of about 120 small leaves, one of which had been displaced by some mistake. The Codex dates from the fifth century, and may possibly have been written in Egypt. Its earliest corrections are important, and were inserted in the sixth century.
A detailed list of the contents of C is given by Scrivener, vol. i. 121. Facsimile, ibid., Plate X. p. 121.
Tischendorf, Th. St. und Kr., 1841, 126 ff; N. T. edited 1843, O. T. 1845. Lagarde, Ges. Abhandlungen, p. 94. The page of the O. T. which Tischendorf issued in facsimile has most unfortunately disappeared, as Martin points out in his Description technique des manuscrits grecs relatifs au N. T., etc., Paris, 1884, p. 4. A. Jacob, Notes sur les MSS. grecs palimpsestes de la Bibliothèque Nationale, in Melanges Julien Havet, 759-770.
The foregoing is what remains of the four great manuscripts which once contained the whole Bible. It will be observed that at the present time they are distributed among the Capitals of the great branches of the Christian Church—viz., St. Petersburg (Greek), Rome and Paris (Roman), and London (Anglican). German scholars have taken a foremost place in the work of their investigation.
D.
D. Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, inferior to the foregoing in age, compass, and repute, but perhaps surpassing all of them in importance, by reason of its unique character. The manuscript was presented to the University of Cambridge in 1581 by Calvin’s friend Theodore Beza, “ut inter vere christianas antiquissimae plurimisque nominibus celeberrimae.” It is not earlier than the beginning of the sixth century, but is of peculiar importance as the oldest of the Greek-Latin manuscripts of the Bible. It now contains, with certain lacunæ, the Gospels (in the order Matthew, John, Luke, Mark), the concluding verses of the Latin text of 3 John, followed immediately by the Acts, showing that in this manuscript the Epistle of Jude either stood somewhere else or was absent altogether. At least nine later hands can be distinguished in it. The first scribe was more familiar with Latin than Greek, and therefore inserts a Roman letter here and there in the middle of a Greek word, and has frequently to use the sponge to wash out the mistakes he makes in writing his manuscript.67 Innumerable passages occur, particularly in Luke and Acts, where the text of D differs in the most remarkable manner from that of all the Greek manuscripts we are acquainted with. It alone, e.g., contains after Luke vi. 4 the incident of the man working in the field on the Sabbath day, to whom Jesus said, “O Man, if thou knowest what thou doest, blessed art thou, but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed and a transgressor of the Law.” It is the only one also that has the words in Luke xi. 2, “when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the λοιποί.” In Luke xxiii. 53, it says that the stone before the grave of Jesus was of such a size ὃν μόγις εἴκοσι ἐκύλιον, an addition in which it has the support of only one Latin MS. and the Sahidic Version. Again in Acts xii. 10, it is alone in recording that there were seven steps down from the prison in Jerusalem (κατέβησαν τοὺς ἑπτὰ βαθμούς). Other examples might be given of similar peculiar interpolations for the explanation of which reference must be made to c. III. below.
Its companion Latin text d is not translated directly from its own Greek but from the Greek of the parent manuscript. Seeing that the manuscript was discovered in the Monastery of Irenæus at Lyons, and that its text agrees with the Scripture quotations found in that Father even in the matter of clerical mistakes, it is possible that the Greek text is derived from his copy. The Greek occupies the left-hand page of the open volume, which is the place of honour. (See Plates II and III.)
Kipling, Facsimile edition, Codex Th. Bezae Cantabrigiensis, 1793, 2 vols.; Scrivener, Bezae Codex Cantabrigiensis. An exact copy in ordinary type... with critical introduction, annotations, and facsimiles. 4to, pp. lxiv + 453, 1864. Collation of the same by Nestle, Supplementum, 1896 (see p. 26). Cambridge University Press, Photographic facsimile. Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis Quattuor Evangelia et Actus Apostolorum continens Graece et Latine. 2 vols., pp. 830, 1899. 12 guineas. (See Literature, 29th April 1899, p. 451 ff.); Dav. Schulz, Disputatio de Codice D., 1827; K. A. Credner, Beiträge zur Einleitung, vol. i., 1832, pp. 452-518; J. R. Harris, Codex Bezae. A study of the so-called Western Text of the N. T. (Texts and Studies, vol. ii.) Cambridge, 1891; also Credner and the Codex Bezae. A Lecture delivered in the Divinity School, Cambridge, 19th Nov. 1892. (The Classical Review, vol. vii. 6, June 1893, pp. 237-243); Chase, The Old Syriac Element in the text of Codex Bezae, London, 1893; also The Syro-Latin Text of the Gospels, London, 1895; Nestle, Some Observations on the Codex Bezae in the Expositor, v. 2, 1895, p. 235; H. Trabaud, Un curieux manuscrit du N. T. in the Revue de théologie et de philosophie, Lausanne, 1896, p. 378; Fr. Blass: 1. Die zwiefache Textüberlieferung in der Apostelgeschichte (Th. St. Kr., 1894, p. 86 ff.); 2. Acta Apostolorum sive Lucae ad Theophilum Liber alter. Editio philologica, Göttingen, 1895; 3. Acta Apostolorum... secundum formam quae videtur Romanam, Leipzig, 1896; 4. Ueber die verschiedenen Textformen in den Schriften des Lukas (Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift, 1895, p. 712); 5. De duplici forma Actorum Lucae (Hermathena, Dublin, 1895, p. 121); 6. De variis formis Evangelii Lucani (Ibid., Dublin, 1896, p. 291); 7. Neue Texteszeugen für die Apostelgeschichte (Th. St. Kr., 1896, p. 436); 8. Evangelium secundum Lucam sive Lucae ad Theophilum Liber prior. Secundum formam quae videtur Romanam, Leipzig, 1897; B. Weiss, Der Codex D in der Apostelgeschichte. Textkritische Untersuchung, Leipzig, 1897, (= Texte und Untersuchungen. N. F. Zweiter Band, Heft 1); F. Graefe, Der Codex Bezae und das Lucasevangelium, Th. St. Kr., 1898, i. 116-140; compare especially, On the Italian Origin of Codex Bezae. 1. Codex Bezae and cod. 1071, by the Rev. K. Lake; 2. The Marginal Notes of Lections, by the Rev. F. E. Brightman in the Journal of Theological Studies, i. 3 (April 1900) pp. 441-454. Codex 1071 is a minuscule on Mt. Athos, in which the text of the Pericope Adulterae (John viii.) is essentially the same as the singular text exhibited by D. It seems to have come from Calabria. The lectionary indicated in the margin of D points to a mixed Greek and Latin population such as that in the South of Italy.
In what follows the manuscripts are grouped according to their contents as copies of the Gospels, Acts and Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles, or of the Apocalypse.
Gospels.
E. Codex Basiliensis, by some ascribed to the seventh century, but belonging more probably to the eighth: brought to Europe by Cardinal John de Ragusio, who was sent on a mission to the Greeks by the Council of Basel (1431): used by Mill, Bengel, and Wettstein: Luke iii. 4-15 and xxiv. 47-53 wanting: has been in the University Library at Basel since 1559. (Scrivener, i. p. 131, Plate XI. 27.)
F. Boreelianus, written in the ninth century: so called as belonging at one time to a Dutchman named John Boreel: now in Utrecht: has many lacunæ, some of which have arisen since Wettstein collated the manuscript in 1730. (Scrivener, i. 131, Plate XI. 28.)
Fa. Coislinianus, of the seventh century, though some say the sixth and others the eighth: consists of only 26 verses from Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, 1 and 2 Cor., Gal., Col., and Heb., written on the margin of a famous Parisian manuscript of the Octoteuch in Greek containing Gen.-Deut., Josh., Jud., and Ruth. List of contents of Fa in Scrivener, i. 134.
G. Seidelianus, of the tenth century: part of it in the British Museum in London and part in Trinity College, Cambridge: brought from the East by Seidel and presented in 1718 by the Berlin Librarian La Croze to J. Chr. Wolf, a clergyman in Hamburg who cut out half a page to send to Bentley in 1721. (Scrivener, i. 131, Plate XI. 29.)
H. Seidelianus II., of the ninth century, in Hamburg: bequeathed with his library to his native city by Wolf, and rediscovered there in 1838. (Scrivener, i, 134, Plate XII. 31.)
I. Tischendorfianus II., fragments of seven manuscripts in St. Petersburg found by Tischendorf in the Monastery of Mar Saba, near the Dead Sea: consists of 28 palimpsest leaves with Greek writing of the tenth century containing only 255 verses of the New Testament, of which 190 are from the Gospels: the three oldest leaves are of the fifth century; some of them are perhaps parts of a once complete Bible: detailed list of contents in Scrivener, i. 134 f.
Ib. So indicated by Tischendorf in his eighth edition, formerly known as Nb, of the fourth or more probably the fifth century: a threefold palimpsest written first in Greek and afterwards twice in Syriac: contains 17 verses from John’s Gospel: now in the British Museum: list of verses in Scrivener, i. 141.
K. Cyprius, No. 63 in the National Library at Paris: middle of the ninth century: purchased in Cyprus for Colbert in 1673: one of the six, or including Ω seven, complete uncial manuscripts of the Gospels, the others being א BMSU (Ω). Facsimile in Scrivener, i., Plate VII. p. 153.
L. Regius, No. 62 in the National Library at Paris: of the eighth century: contains the four Gospels complete with the exception of five lacunæ in Matthew iv. v. and xxviii., Mark x. and xv., and in John xxi.: important as showing the double conclusion of Mark’s Gospel which is exhibited as yet, except in versions, in only three other uncials (ד, ק, and Ψ) and one minuscule (see Plate X.). Facsimile of L, Mark xvi. 8, 9, in Scrivener, i., Plate IX. 21, p. 137. The conclusions, as found in L, ד, ק, and Ψ, are printed and discussed in Swete’s Gospel according to St. Mark, pp. xcviii, xcix. See also Westcott and Hort’s Introduction, Appendix, p. 28 ff.; Scrivener, ii. 337; Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, iii. p. 13.
M. Campianus, 48 in the National Library, Paris: of the ninth century: presented to Louis XIV. by the Abbé François de Camps, 1st January 1706: contains the four Gospels complete: one of the oldest manuscripts, with the exception of D, that exhibit the pericope of the adulteress, John vii. 53 ff. Facsimile in Scrivener, i., Plate XII. p. 134.
N. Purpureus, belonging to the end of the sixth century: one of the most lovely manuscripts, consisting of 45 leaves, of which 6 are in the Vatican Library at Rome, 4 in the British Museum, 2 in Vienna, and the remaining 33 in the Monastery of St. John in Patmos, from which, in all probability, the others were carried off. The manuscript is written with silver letters on a purple ground, only the letters are not printed on it with movable type as was formerly supposed in the case of the similar Codex Argenteus of Ulfilas. The contents are given in Scrivener, i. 139 f., and a facsimile at p. 98, Plate V. 182 other leaves belonging to this manuscript were recently acquired in Cappadocia for Russia.
The Vienna fragment is most beautifully printed in facsimile in that superb work, Die Wiener Genesis, edited by Wilh. Ritter von Hartel and Franz Wickhoff: Supplement to vols. xv. and xvi. of the Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses. Vienna, 1895. Hartel (p. 142) sees no reason why the manuscript should not be ascribed to the fifth century.
The text of Codex N, including the new Russian fragments, has been published with Introduction and Appendix by the Rev. H. S. Cronin in Texts and Studies, v. 4, 1899. The Appendix contains a collation of the Gospel of Mark in the Codex Imperatricis Theodorae (Scriv. 473: Hort 81: Tisch. 2pe: Greg. 565; see note on p. 151). See Nestle in the Zeitschrift für wiss. Theologie, 42 (1899), pp. 621-623.
Some leaves of another purple manuscript have been acquired in Paris. See H. Omont, Acad. des Inscr., Mars-Avril 1900.
O. In Moscow, consists of a few leaves taken from the binding of a book: contains 15 verses from John’s Gospel i. and xx.: written in the ninth century.
Oa-h. Psalters, in which are found, after the Psalms among the poetic selections from the Bible, the Magnificat, the Benedictus, and the Nunc Dimittis from the first and second chapters of Luke’s Gospel. Oc is a Greek Psalter of the sixth century written in Latin characters and is at Verona. Od is a purple Psalter of the seventh century at Zurich. Oe at St. Gall is a Psalter of the ninth century, written partly in Latin and partly in Greek.
P and Q. Two palimpsests at Wolfenbüttel, the former belonging to the sixth and the latter to the fifth century. P, it appears, came from Bobbio and was afterwards at Weissenburg, Mayence, and Prague. Q, together with a portion of Ulfilas’s Gothic Bible, has been employed to receive the works of Isidore of Seville. The codices were edited with great care by Tischendorf in 1869.
R. Nitriensis, of the sixth century: in the British Museum: consists of 48 leaves containing some 516 verses from Luke’s Gospel, over which and a manuscript of 4000 verses of the Iliad, the Syriac works of Severus of Antioch were written in the ninth century. The palimpsest was brought from the Nitrian Desert in 1847, and deposited in the British Museum. (Scrivener, i. 145, Plate VI, 17.)
S. Vaticanus 354: one of the earliest manuscripts of the Greek New Testament that bears an exact date. At the end is written, ἐγράφη ἡ τιμία δέλτος αὕτη διὰ χειρὸς ἐμοῦ Μιχαὴλ μοναχοῦ ἁμαρτωλοῦ μηνὶ Μαρτίῳ α’, ἡμέρᾳ έ, ὥρᾳ ϛ’, ἔτους ϛυνζ’, ἰνδικτιῶνος ζ’, i.e. at six o’clock on Thursday, 1st March 6457 in the 7th Indiction68 or 949 A.D.
Ta. Of the fifth century: in the Museum Borgianum at Rome: written probably by a Coptic monk: unfortunately a mere fragment containing only 17 leaves from Luke and John: is written in two columns, that on the left containing a Sahidic version. Tb, similar small fragments of John in St. Petersburg of the sixth century. Tc, also of the sixth century, a fragment of Matthew, formerly in the possession of Bishop Porfiri Uspenski of Kiev, and now at St. Petersburg. Td, of the seventh century, in Rome, part of a Sahidic-Greek Evangeliarium, containing a few verses from Matthew, Mark, and John. Te, of the sixth century (?), at Cambridge, consists of four verses, Matthew iii. 13-16. Th (Tk in TiGr. p. 450), three leaves from Matthew xx. and xxii. Ti-r, fragments of six Greek-Coptic and three Greek Gospels of the ninth and tenth centuries, but possibly the seventh and eighth, published by Amélineau in vol. xxxiv. of the Notices et Extraits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 1895, 363 ff.; cf. v. Dobschütz in the Lit. Cent.-Blatt., 1895, 42, 1857. Tl contains the double conclusion of Mark’s Gospel. Twoi, similar leaves at Oxford which once belonged to Woide, but by a different hand from Ta.
To these Græco-Coptic fragments there is now to be added two chapters of John’s Gospel (iii. 5-iv. 49), in Greek and Middle Egyptian, written in the sixth century. They are published by W. E. Crum and F. G. Kenyon in the Journal of Theological Studies, i. 3 (April 1900), pp. 415-433. The find contains no remarkable readings. The editors call its text neutral, and think it helps to show that Egypt was the home of such correct and upright texts. (Tw Greg.)
U. Nanianus, so called from a former possessor: of the end of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century: in Venice: a very beautiful and complete manuscript of the Gospels, with ornamentations in gold. (Scrivener, i. 137, Plate IX. 22.)
V. Formerly at Mount Athos, now in Moscow: of the ninth century: first employed by Bengel and Wettstein through the medium of G. B. Bilfinger.
W. Various small fragments: Wa of the eighth century in Paris: a fragment of Luke. Wb of the eighth century (or the ninth) in Naples: a palimpsest with parts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Wc of the ninth century at St. Gall: a palimpsest, containing fragments of Mark and Luke, perhaps once bilingual, Greek-Latin. Wd of the ninth century in Cambridge. We of the ninth century: part of John, at Mount Athos, Oxford, and Athens. Wf of the ninth century: in Oxford: fragment of Mark. Wg of the ninth century: consisting of 36 palimpsest leaves with 497 verses from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in the British Museum. Wh of the ninth century: in Oxford: part of Mark. Wi-m in Paris, of the seventh to the eighth or ninth century: fragments of Mark and Luke, of which Wl and Wk are printed in Omont’s Catalogue des Manuscrits Grecs, Latins, Français, et Espagnols et des Portulans, recueillis par feu Emmanuel Miller, Paris, 1897. Wn of the seventh century, in Vienna: fragments of John. Wo of the ninth century, in Milan: 16 mutilated palimpsest leaves, containing portions of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
X. Monacensis, written at the end of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century, now in Munich, contains the Gospels, with lacunæ, and a commentary, in the order Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. Scrivener, i. 343, Plate XIII. 38; for contents see ibid., p. 152.
Xb. Fragment containing Luke i. 1-ii. 40, hitherto reckoned among the minuscules and numbered 429; also in Munich.
Y. Belonging to the eighth century, in the Barberini Library at Rome: 6 leaves containing John xvi. 3-xix. 41.
Z. A palimpsest in Dublin of the fifth or sixth century, containing 295 verses of Matthew’s Gospel. Scrivener, i. 153; Plate VII. 18.
The Roman alphabet not being sufficient for the number of uncial manuscripts, recourse was taken to those letters of the Greek and Hebrew which have a distinct form from those already employed. It was proposed by others to reserve the Greek letters for those manuscripts no longer extant, whose text can be reconstructed from a number of kindred manuscripts as their common archetype.
Γ. Of the ninth or tenth century: part in Oxford and part in St. Petersburg, the former having been obtained from Tischendorf in 1855 and the latter in 1859: contains the whole of Luke and John, but Mark is defective from iii. 34 to vi. 20, while Matthew is still more defective. The writing of the manuscript was finished on a certain Thursday, the 27th November, in the eighth year of an indiction. Tischendorf accordingly fixed its date as 844. It was previously assigned by Gardthausen to the year 979. Scrivener, i. 134, Plate XII. 35.
Δ. Sangallensis, written at the end of the ninth or beginning of the tenth century: now at St. Gall, where it was probably transcribed by an Irish monk: has an interlinear Latin version, and was not, therefore, like D, intended for church but for school purposes. The Codex has the four Gospels complete with the exception of John xix. 17-35. In Mark the text shows a closer agreement with CL than in the other Gospels. The manuscript has been copied from one written scriptione continua, and in consequence the words are often wrongly divided. See G3 below, p. 77.
Θa-d. Small fragments brought from the East by Tischendorf, of which Θa belongs to the seventh century, and Θbcd to the seventh, sixth, and seventh or eighth century respectively. The first is in Leipzig, the others in St. Petersburg. Θe-h were formerly in the possession of Bishop Porfiri of Kiev.
Λ. Of the ninth century: contains the Gospels of Luke and John entire: evidently the second part of a minuscule brought to St. Petersburg by Tischendorf, No. 566evv (Greg.)69: marginal scholia are affixed to four passages in Matthew—viz. iv. 5, xvi. 17, xviii. 22, xxvi. 74, giving the readings of τὸ Ἰoυδαϊκόν, i.e. the lost Gospel according to the Hebrews, and its subscription runs, ἐγράφη καὶ ἀντεβλήθη ἐκ τῶν Ἱεροσολύμοις παλαιῶν ἀντιγράφων τῶν ἐν τῷ ὄρει ἁγίῳ ἀποκειμένων· ἐν στίχοις βφιδ’ (2514) κεφαλαῖς τνε’ (345). The manuscript is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Scrivener, i. 131, Plate XI. 30.
Cf. von Dobschütz, Zwei Bibelhandschriften mit doppelter Schriftart (Th. Lz., 1889, iii. 74 f.).
Ξ. Zacynthius, a palimpsest of the eighth century from Zante, now in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society in London: the earliest manuscript with a commentary: has the same system of chapter division as B, and is oftener found supporting B against A than vice versa.
Π. Of the ninth century: contains the Gospels almost complete: once the property of a Greek of Smyrna called Parodos: procured by Tischendorf for the Emperor of Russia.
Σ. Of the sixth century: written on purple with gold and silver lettering and 17 miniatures, being the earliest manuscript to contain such: rescued from obscurity in 1879 by Oscar v. Gebhardt and A. Harnack, who discovered it at Rossano in Calabria: hence designated as Codex Rossanensis: is nearly related to N. Scrivener, i. 124, Plate XIV. 43.
O. v. Gebhardt, Die Evangelien des Matthäus und des Marcus aus dem Codex Purpureus Rossanensis herausgegeben (T. und U., i. 4, 1883). A. Haseloff, Cod. Pur. Rossanensis. Die Miniaturen der griechischen Evangelien-Handschrift in Rossano. Nach photographischen Aufnahmen herausgegeben. Leipzig, 1898 (contains 14 facsimiles of the text and 15 photographic plates). Vide S. Berger in Bull. Crit., 1899, 6: also F. X. v. Funk, Die Zeit. des Cod. Rossanensis in the Hist. Jahrbuch der Görresgeschellschaft, xvii. 2, 1896, 331-344.
Φ. Codex Beratinus, of the sixth century: at Berat in Albania: like the last a purple Codex with silver writing: contains portions of Matthew and Mark: seen and published by Batiffol. Scrivener, i. 166, Plate XV.
Ψ. Fragments of the eighth or ninth century at Athos: contains Mark ix. 5 to the end, Luke, John, Acts, seven Catholic Epistles, Romans to Philemon, and Hebrews: exhibits after Mark xvi. 8 the same double conclusion as is found in L and one Sinai manuscript. On some readings of Ψ, see Lake in the Journal of Theological Studies, No. i. p, 88; ii. pp. 290-292.
Ω. Of the eighth or ninth century: in the Monastery of Dionysius at Athos: contains the Gospels entire.
The last-mentioned codices have not yet been thoroughly collated, some of them having been only recently discovered.
The following are indicated by Hebrew letters.
ב. Of the ninth or tenth century: in the Monastery of St. Andrew at Athos: contains the Gospels with lacunæ.
ג. Gregorianus, a purple manuscript from Cappadocia now admitted to be part of N.
ד6-13. Several leaves dating from the fifth to the ninth century, discovered at Sinai by J. R. Harris and published by him (Biblical fragments from Mount Sinai, 1890): ד12 contains the double conclusion of Mark: ד13 is a purple fragment of the seventh century containing a few verses from the first chapter of Luke, perhaps only a quotation.
ק. Swete indicates with this letter the fragment cited above as Tl, which exhibits the double conclusion of Mark’s Gospel. See his Gospel according to St. Mark, pp. xcii., xcix.
ר. An Oxyrhynchus fragment of the fifth or sixth century, published by Grenfell and Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part I. with eight Plates, London, 1898: contains only Mark x. 50 f. and xi. 10 f.: cited by Swete. (Tg Greg.)
Part II. of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri (1899, pp. 1-8) contains a fragment of John’s Gospel (cc. i. and xx.) from a sheet of a papyrus codex written between 200 and 300 A.D. This is one of the earliest fragments that have been discovered of a papyrus book (not a roll). It exhibits already the abbreviations usually found in theological manuscripts, such as Θ̅Σ̅, Ι̅Η̅Σ̅, Χ̅Σ̅, Π̅Ν̅Α̅. The Codex agrees with א in several readings not found elsewhere. (Tx Greg.) See Addenda, p. xv.
Acts and Catholic Epistles.
The second group is composed of manuscripts of the Acts and Catholic Epistles which are distinguished from those in the first by affixing the exponent 2 at the bottom of the symbol.
א A B exhibit the Acts and Catholic Epistles complete:
E2 D have the Acts all but entire:
K L have the Catholic Epistles complete:
C P have the greater part of them.
For א A B C D Fa (a few verses of the Acts), see above.
E2. Laudianus 35, in Oxford, written at the end of the sixth century: bilingual, Latin-Greek, the Latin occupying the place of honour on the left: breaks off at Acts xxvi. 29: the text very peculiar and somewhat like that of D. The manuscript was formerly in Sardinia, and was probably brought to England by Theodore of Tarsus in 668. It was employed by the Venerable Bede (d. 735) in his Expositio of the Acts and afterwards in his Expositio Retractata. Archbishop Laud presented the manuscript with many others to the University of Oxford. Fell and Mill made use of it. Scrivener, i. 121, Plate X. 25.
G2. Of the seventh century, a single leaf in St. Petersburg containing Acts ii. 45-iii. 8, torn from the cover of a Syriac manuscript.
Gb. Of the ninth century, a palimpsest of six leaves in Rome containing portions of Acts xvi. 32-xviii. 20. (Vat. Gr. 2302.)
H2. Ninth century, in Modena, has the Acts with some lacunæ.
I2. Fragments in St. Petersburg of the fifth and seventh centuries: four leaves from three different manuscripts of the Acts.
K2. Of the ninth century: brought to Moscow from Athos: contains the Catholic and Pauline Epistles.
L2. Written at the end of the ninth century: in the Angelica Library at Rome: contains the Acts from c. viii. onwards, the Catholic Epistles, and the Pauline down to Hebrews xiii.
P2. Of the ninth century: formerly in the possession of Bishop Porfiri of Kiev and now at St. Petersburg: published by Tischendorf: contains Acts, Catholic and Pauline Epistles, and Apocalypse, with several lacunæ.
S2. Of the eighth or ninth century: at Athos: contains Acts, Catholic Epistles, Romans, portions of 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Ephesians.
ב2. A palimpsest of the fifth century: in Rome: rediscovered by Batiffol: consists of fragments of Acts, James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews.
Pauline Epistles.
The third group is composed of manuscripts of the Pauline Epistles. Of these there is a comparatively large number, which may be taken as indicating the important position ascribed to Paul even in early times. א, however, is the only Codex that contains his Epistles complete; in D L they are almost complete, and A B C E F G K exhibit the greater part of them.
For א A B C, see above.
A is defective in 2 Cor. iv. 13-xii. 6 inclusive.
B breaks off at Hebrews ix. 14, consequently 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon are wanting.
D2. Codex Claromontanus: takes its name from Clermont near Beauvais. The manuscript was written in the sixth century, and is bilingual in Greek and Latin, having the Greek on the left-hand page. The Greek is wanting in Rom. i. 1-7, 27-30, and in 1 Cor. xiv. 13-22. In Gal. v. 9 D2 reads δολοῖ, and in verse 14 ἐν ὑμῖν, in both places agreeing with Marcion. At least nine hands are distinguishable in the manuscript, one of whom corrected the text in over 2000 places in the ninth or tenth century. Two leaves are palimpsest, their text being written over part of a play of Euripides. Hebrews has evidently been copied into the Codex from a different manuscript by a later scribe. Before it is a list of “versus scribtuarum sanctarum,” one of the oldest stichometric catalogues of the books of the Old and New Testaments, which is derived from an early Greek original. This Catalogus Claromontanus is given in Westcott’s History of the Canon, App. D, xx. p. 563, and in his Bible in the Church, App. B, p. 309. See also Zahn, Geschichte des N. T. Kanons, II. 157-172, 1012; Jülicher, Einleitung, § 40. Thirty-five leaves of Codex D2 were stolen by John Aymont in 1707, but afterwards restored by their purchasers, some of them in 1720, and the others in 1729. (See Plates II. and III.)
E3. Sangermanensis, of the ninth century: also Greek-Latin: brought from St. Germain de Près to St. Petersburg during the Revolution: in the Greek merely an incorrect transcript of D2, and may therefore be dismissed. See p. 179 n. 1.
F2. Augiensis, of the ninth century: another Greek-Latin manuscript: defective in Rom. i. 1-iii. 19; 1 Cor. iii. 8-16; vi. 7-14; Col. ii. 1-8; Philemon 21-25: Hebrews from the first only in the Latin. The manuscript was formerly at Reichenau (Augia Dives, hence its name). It was purchased by Bentley in 1718 for 250 Dutch florins, and is now at Cambridge. An edition of it was published by Scrivener in 1859. For Fa, see above, p. 66.
Scrivener, An exact transcript of the Codex Augiensis... to which is added a full collation of fifty manuscripts containing various portions of the Greek N. T., 1859. F. Zimmer, Der Codex Augiensis eine Abschrift des Boernerianus (ZfwTh., 1887, i. 76-91).
G3. Boernerianus, of the ninth century, so called from Professor C. F. Boerner of Leipzig, who purchased it in 1705: now in Dresden. It is a Greek-Latin manuscript, the Latin being interlinear. It is manifestly the second part of Δ, and has a close affinity with F2, though the Greek of F was not copied from G, as Zimmer and Hort assert. The fact is rather that both are derived from one and the same original, in which e.g. ως γαγγρα ινα νομην εξει, sicut cancer ut serpat, was found in 2 Tim. ii. 17, and ημεθα δε δουλωμενοι, eramus autem servientes, in Gal. iv. 3. This manuscript contains some interesting Irish verses.70 At the end of Philemon there stands the title προς Λαουδακησας, ad laudicenses, but the Epistle that should have followed has been lost.
P. Corssen, Epistularum Paulinarum codices graece et latine scriptos Augiensem, Boernerianum, Claromontanum examinavit, inter se comparavit, ad communem originem revocavit. Specimen primum, 1887. Alterum, 1889.
Euthalian Recension.
H3. Written in the sixth century, one of the most valuable manuscripts, but unfortunately incomplete. Its leaves were used in 975 and 1218 to cover some manuscripts at Mount Athos. Forty-one of these have been rescued, of which 22 are now in Paris, 8 at Mount Athos, 3 in St. Petersburg, 3 in Moscow, 2 in Turin, and 3 in Kiev. They contain portions of 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews. The value of the manuscript is indicated in the subscription, which runs, “I, Euthalius,71 wrote this volume of the Apostle Paul as carefully as possible in stichoi, so that it might be read with intelligence: the book was compared with the copy in the library at Cæsarea, written by the hand of Pamphilus the saint.”72 The subscription may of course have stood in the original of H, and simply been copied into it along with the text, as in the case of the minuscules 15, 83, and 173 of the Acts. But no matter, it serves to locate the text of this manuscript, and it is one of our main witnesses for the so-called Euthalian Recension of the Acts and Catholic Epistles.
In or previous to the year 396, a deacon called Euthalius, afterwards known as Bishop of Sulce,73 published an edition of the Acts and Catholic and Pauline Epistles, in which, following the rules laid down by the Greek schools of oratory, the text was carefully broken up into lines, the length of which depended on the sense (sense-clauses), and divided into paragraphs or chapters. Euthalius also provided a system of Church lections, added a summary of contents to the various chapters, and catalogued the quotations from the Old Testament and elsewhere in the separate Epistles and in the entire group. This edition became a sort of model for later times, and seems to have been made use of for the Armenian version among the rest. The comparison of the manuscript with those of Pamphilus, as well as other additions, would seem then to have been made on the occasion of a later revision. Ehrhard, however, thinks that we have the autograph edition of this system in Codex H, but that Evagrius is to be read instead of Euthalius in the place where the name has been erased. This view is combated by Dobschütz, and in part rightly. Working independently of both, Conybeare, from Armenian sources, establishes the year 396 as the date of Euthalius. But in a parchment manuscript of the eleventh century in the library of the Laura at Mount Athos, Wobbermin found a fragment of a dogmatic treatise with the inscription, Εὐθαλίου ἐπισκόπου Σούλκης ὁμολογία περὶ τῆς ὀρθοδόξου πίστεως, from which he makes out that Euthalius lived in the second half of the seventh century and that Sulce was in Sardinia. See G. Krüger in the Lit. Cent. Blatt 1899, No. 14.
Omont, Notice sur un très ancien manuscrit grec en onciales des épîtres de S. Paul, Paris, 1889. J. A. Robinson, Euthaliana, Texts and Studies, iii. 3, 1895. (See S. Berger, Bull. Crit., 96, 8.) Th. Zahn, Euthaliana, Theol. Lit. Blatt., 1895, 593, 601. Ehrhard, Der codex H ad Epistolas Pauli und Euthalius diaconus, Eine palaeographisch-patrologische Untersuchung in the Centralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, 1891, pp. 385-411. E. v. Dobschütz, Ein Beitrag zur Euthaliusfrage, in the same magazine, 1893, pp. 49-70; Euthaliusstudien in the ZKG. xix. pp. 107-154 (1898): also, Euthalius, in the PRE3, v. pp. 631-633 (1898). Islinger, Die Verdienste des Euthalius um den neutestamentlichen Bibeltext, Hof. 1867 (Prog.). Conybeare, On the Codex Pamphili and date of Euthalius, in the Cambridge Journal of Philology, xxiii. 241 (1895). R. L. Bensly, The Harklean Version etc., pp. 9, 27 (1889). See also J. A. Robinson, Texts and Studies, vi. 1; C. Butler, The Lausiac History of Palladius, p. 104 ff., and note 2, p. 188 below.
I2, K2, L2, P2: See above, p. 75.
M2. Codex Ruber, of the ninth century: four leaves written in bright red ink or other colouring matter, two of them in London and the other two in Hamburg.
N2. Of the ninth century, consisting of two leaves with portions of Galatians and Hebrews: in St. Petersburg.
O2. Of the ninth century, two leaves in the same library containing portions of 2 Corinthians.
Ob. Of the sixth century, one leaf with part of Ephesians: in Moscow.
Q2. Of the fifth century, five papyrus leaves with fragments of 1 Corinthians: in St. Petersburg.
R2. Of the seventh century, a single leaf with part of 2 Corinthians: in Grotteferrata.
S2. See above, p. 75.
Tg. A few sentences from 1 Timothy. See TiGr., p. 441.
Ts. Two leaves containing 1 Corinthians i. 22-29, written in the ninth or tenth century, and published simultaneously with Ti-r. Gregory now designates Tg as Ta Paul, and Ts as Tb Paul.
ב2. See above, p. 75.
ד14. A fragment of papyrus containing part of 1 Corinthians, cc. i., ii., iii., written in the fifth century.
The first seven verses of the first chapter of Romans have been published in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part II. (pp. 8 f., Plate II.). The fragment is probably a schoolboy’s exercise. It is written in a large rude uncial hand, and dates from the first half of the fourth century. In verse 7 it reads Κ̅Υ̅ Χ̅Ρ̅Υ̅ Ι̅Η̅Υ̅.
Apocalypse.
There are fewest manuscripts of the Apocalypse. It is found entire only in א A B, while C and P exhibit portions of it. In the Apocalypse, however, it is to be observed that Codex B is not the famous Codex Vaticanus 1209 but a much later manuscript 2066, dating from the end of the eighth century. It would be better, therefore, with some editors, to call it Q or B2.
Altogether the number of Greek manuscripts is as follows74:—
Uncials:
Gospels, 73
Acts and Catholic Epistles, 19
Pauline Epistles, 28
Apocalypse, 7
—-
Total, 127
Cursives, 3702
Book-hand and hand of common life.
In closing our survey of the extant uncials, it is to be borne in mind that we are not at liberty to regard even the oldest of them as presenting the very form of the New Testament autographs. The books of the New Testament, at all events the majority of them, were not originally intended for publication at all, while the others were meant for only a limited circle of readers. Now these recent papyrus discoveries have shown conclusively what a vast difference existed even in those days between the book-hand and what we may call the hand of common life and business. A glance at Kenyon’s Palæography of Greek Papyri will show how fundamental is the distinction between literary and non-literary papyri. That writer states that in many cases the difference is just as marked as between handwriting and print at the present day, and he instances also the distinction between the book-hand and the charter-hand of the Middle Ages. Of course documents of this or the other class may occasionally be found written in the hand that is not the usual one, a prescription, e.g., in book-hand, or conversely a literary text in the hand of common life. The greater part of Aristotle’s work on the Polity of the Athenians, for instance, has been preserved in the common hand. This papyrus, which is attributed to the first century of the Christian era, is the work of four scribes. But only one of these writes in a style approximating to the book-hand; the other parts are written in a very cursive style on the back of an old account, probably by one who had borrowed a copy of the work for a short time and transcribed it with the help of two or three friends or slaves. Kenyon quite properly instances this as an illustration of the manner of the origin and propagation of the New Testament books, and suggests that this mode of propagation has to be considered in connection with times of persecution. Our very oldest manuscripts are superb codices, editions de luxe, such as could be prepared only in an age when the Church had attained a position of affluence and power. The distinction referred to above is one that has had but little attention paid to it hitherto, as is shown by the illustration given in Harris’s excellent work on the New Testament autographs. It is manifest at the same time that this consideration is of great importance in trying to understand the origin and dissemination of the various readings that occur in our manuscripts. It is just a pity that Kenyon has not given a sample of this manuscript of Aristotle in his book, seeing that the latter is more accessible to the ordinary student than the complete facsimile edited in 1891 by the Trustees of the British Museum, or the Plate published in the second volume of the work of the Palæographical Society.
Uncial and minuscule script.
A further consideration is emphasised by means of these papyrus discoveries—viz. that no distinction of time can be drawn between the uncial and cursive hands found in the manuscripts. Even in the very earliest documents the hand of common life displays a very cursive character, and a fairly cursive uncial hand with ligatures is not necessarily later than an uncial hand without ligatures. It is somewhat different in the case of writing on parchment: here the old distinction of uncial and minuscule manuscripts is rightly maintained, only we must guard against supposing that the minuscule hand and the cursive are quite the same thing; nor must we forget that for a considerable time the older uncial and the later minuscule scripts were in use together.75 The sharp line of demarcation, therefore, which has hitherto been drawn in the textual criticism of the New Testament between these two classes of manuscripts has no real justification in fact. The present account, however, is intended merely as a survey of the position of things up to the present, and the following description of the minuscules is subject to that limitation.
(B.) Some of the More Important Minuscules
Minuscules.
When the Greek New Testament began to be printed, the editors had necessarily to be content with indifferent and late minuscules, and even those who followed them, like Bentley and Lachmann, thought they were at liberty to disregard these altogether and to found their text exclusively on the oldest uncials. They forgot that the text of a late manuscript may be derived from a very early and good source through comparatively few intermediaries, and that it is possible to reconstruct a lost original by means of a comparison of several witnesses. Accordingly, in more recent times, English editors like Tregelles, Burgon, Ferrar, Hoskier, and Scrivener have rendered great service in the way of collating manuscripts, and the last-mentioned as well as Gregory in Germany has also catalogued them. At the present moment a systematic investigation in this department is being carried on in Berlin. Most of the minuscules are still written on parchment which began to be mixed with paper in the ninth century, and was ultimately superseded by it. Various minuscules contain commentaries and other additional matter, such as the List of the Seventy Apostles, short Biographies of the Apostles, Summaries of the journeys of St. Paul, or notes as to the date and place of the composition of the different books. When dates are given in the manuscripts, they are still as a rule computed in the Byzantine manner, reckoning from the Creation of the world (5508 B.C.). In only a few cursives is the date reckoned from the Birth of Christ.
Since the time of Wettstein the minuscule manuscripts have been indicated by Arabic numerals, the numbers in each of the four groups beginning with 1, so that one and the same manuscript may have three or four numbers—18evv. e.g. being 113Acts, 132Paul, and 51Apoc., while 209evv is the same as 95Acts, 108Paul, and 46Apoc. It is still more awkward that in the two principal works on the minuscules, that of Scrivener and of Gregory, the recently discovered manuscripts are numbered differently. Our enumeration will follow that of Scrivener.
Minuscules of the Gospels
1 (Acts 1, Paul 1). Of the tenth century, but according to others of the twelfth or the thirteenth, in Basel, with beautiful miniatures which were stolen prior to 1860. The manuscript was borrowed by Reuchlin and used by Erasmus for his second edition. (Scrivener, i. 137, Plate IX. 23.)
2. Of the twelfth century, though some strangely suppose the fifteenth: also in Basel: formerly purchased for two Rhenish florins: printed by Erasmus.
3. Of the twelfth century, in Vienna, lent to Erasmus for his second edition.
Ferrar Group.
4-41 are all in the National Library at Paris. 4-9 and 38 were used by Stephen. The most notable among them is 13, together with 69, 124, 211, 346, 348, 556, 561 (788), 624, and 626, which are remarkable for their very peculiar form of text and their additions.76 Luke xxii. 43, 44 is found after Matthew xxvi. 39, and John vii. 53—viii. 11 after Luke xxi. 38. The subscriptions, moreover, state that Matthew was written in Hebrew eight years after our Lord’s Ascension, and contained 2522 ρηματα and 2560 stichoi, Mark ρωμαιστι ten years after the Ascension with 1675 ρηματα and 1604 stichoi, Luke ελληνιστι fifteen years after with 3803 (lege 3083) ρηματα and 2750 stichoi, and John thirty-two years after with 1938 ρηματα. These manuscripts were referred to a common archetype by the Irish scholar Ferrar, and were accordingly denominated the Ferrar Group, and indicated by the letter Φ before that symbol was appropriated to the Codex Beratinus. Most of them came from Calabria, and another has lately been added to the number. Their additions, however, as Rendel Harris shows, are rather of Syrian origin. In the first edition I ventured to suggest that these manuscripts might go back to Lucian the Martyr (d. 312) of whom Jerome makes mention, saying that he knew of codices quos a Luciano (et Hesychio) nuncupatos paucorum hominum adserit perversa contentio, quibus... nec in novo testamento profuit emendasse, cum multarum gentium linguis scriptura ante translata doceat falsa esse quae addita (cod. E edita) sunt. That, however, is not possible in the event of the so-called Syrian recension being the work of Lucian, which Hort indicates as possible. In any case, these minuscules have preserved to us a very early attempt to restore the text.
16 is noteworthy as being written in four different colours according to the contents. The continuous narrative is written in green, the words of Jesus and the Angels are in red and occasionally in gold, the words of His followers are in blue, while those of the Pharisees, the multitude, and of the devil, are written in black.
28. Contains relics of a very ancient text and bears some resemblance to D.
33. Written about the tenth century: the “queen of the cursives”: its text bears a greater resemblance to that of B, D, L than does that of any other cursive. The manuscript is much damaged, but 34, which is equally old, is still in splendid condition, as though it were fresh from the hand of the artist. (Scrivener, i. 343, Plate XIII. 39.)
38. Sent by the Emperor Michael Palæologus to St. Louis (d. 1270).
51. At Oxford: text resembles that of the Complutensian.
59. At Cambridge: has many points of connection with D.
61. Of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. This is the notorious Codex Montfortianus, now in Dublin, which derives its name from one of its later possessors. It was this manuscript, “codex apud Anglos repertus,” that decided Erasmus to insert in his third edition of 1522 the passage of the Three Heavenly Witnesses, 1 John v. 7, 8. It was probably written by a Franciscan monk of the name of Froy or Roy. Its twin brother, the parchment codex Ravianus (Rau), formerly numbered 110, and now in Berlin, which also contains the passage, proves to be nothing more than a transcript of the text of the Complutensian. Manuscripts, it may be observed, continued to be prepared long after the invention of printing. Melanchthon, e.g., wrote out the Epistle to the Romans three times in Greek; and the manuscript in the Zurich Library hitherto cited as 56Paul is nothing else than a copy of Erasmus’s printed edition of 1516 made by Zwingli in the following year.
69. Cf. 13 above, and see J. R. Harris, Origin of the Leicester Codex of the New Testament, 1887. (Scrivener, i. 343, Plate XIII. 40.)
77 and 78. Formerly in the fine library of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary (d. 1490).
90. In this manuscript the Gospels are in the order John, Luke, Matthew, Mark.
106. Would be important, but has been lost sight of since the time of Wettstein.
140. Presented to Pope Innocent VII. by the Queen of Cyprus. This manuscript reads διηρθρώθη in Luke i. 64, therein agreeing with the Complutensian.
146-153. In Rome, came from Heidelberg.
154-156. Once the property of Christina, Queen of Sweden.
157. In Rome: its text is said to bear a considerable resemblance to the quotations found in the early Christian writer Marcion. See below, p. 211.
164. The subscription of this manuscript states that it was compared with certain ancient manuscripts in Jerusalem.
205-215 and 217 are in Venice, being part of the donation of Cardinal Bessarion. 209 contains the whole of the New Testament, and was the Cardinal’s own copy which he had with him at the Council of Florence in 1439.
218-225 are in Vienna.
226-233 are in the Escorial.
237-259 are at Moscow, with the exception of four at Dresden.
263-320 are in Paris, with the exception of 272, which was removed thence to the British Museum.
274 exhibits the shorter conclusion of Mark’s Gospel in the lower margin. (See Plate X.)
405-418 are now in Venice, and, like U, once belonged to the Nani family.
422-430. In Munich.
431. This manuscript is sometimes stated to have perished at Strassburg, in the war of 1870, like 180Acts. This, however, is incorrect.
452. In Parma, one of the most superb codices.
473. Of the ninth and tenth centuries, a purple manuscript with gold lettering, said to have been written by the Empress Theodora. See under N. above, and note, p. 151.
481, dated 7th May 835, is the earliest manuscript of the Greek New Testament bearing an exact date.
531. Written in a microscopic hand.
604. Written in the twelfth century, now in the British Museum, exhibits 2724 variations from the Textus Receptus, and has besides 270 readings peculiar to itself. It is the only witness we know that supports that peculiar form of the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer found in Marcion in the second century, and in Gregory of Nyssa in the fourth, ἐλθέτω τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμά σου ἐφ’ ἡμᾶς καὶ καθαρισάτω ἡμᾶς (Luke xi. 2).77
743 has the double conclusion in Mark.
1071. See under D, p. 66.
In his Gospel according to St. Mark, Swete cites frequently, in addition to those just mentioned and those of the Ferrar Group, 1, 28, 33, 66, 109, 118, 131, 157, 209, 238, 242, 299, 435, 473, 475, 556, 570, 736.
Acts
2 and 4. Used by Erasmus.
7-10. Used by Stephen.
15, 83, 173. These, like א in the Old Testament and H3, were compared with the Codex of Pamphilus—i.e. were faithfully copied from such an exemplar.
33. The parent manuscript of Montfortianus. See above, p. 86.
42. Closely related to the Complutensian.
52. Once in the possession of Stunica, the chief editor of the Complutensian. It has now disappeared.
61 has been designated the most important minuscule of the Acts. This, however, is an exaggeration.
137 supplements D E where these are defective.
158. Used by Cardinal Mai to supply the defects of Codex B in the Pauline Epistles.
162. Of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, now in Rome: a bilingual in Latin and Greek: contains the passage 1 John v. 7.
182. Numbered 110 by Hort, who calls it one of the best of the cursives.
220. One of the finest manuscripts of the latter part of the New Testament.
232. An equally superb copy, on which a monk called Andreas bestowed three years’ labour.
246. Written in gold letters for Charlotte, Queen of Cyprus (d. 1487).
419. Written in 800 by the Empress Maria, after being divorced by Constantine VI.
Pauline Epistles
7. Used by Erasmus.
56 and 66 are quite worthless, being simply copies of Erasmus’s printed text. (See above under 61evv).
67. A valuable manuscript on account of its corrector having evidently made use of an exemplar with a text very closely akin to that of B M.
80 bears a close resemblance to 69evv.
Apocalypse
1. This was the only manuscript at Erasmus’s command for this part of the New Testament. It is defective in the last chapter from verse 16 to the end. For the rest it exhibits a fairly good text. (See p. 3 f.)
36. A text akin to א.
38 has a text resembling that of A C.
68. Resembles A.
95 does so still more. This last has the reputation of being one of the best minuscules of the Apocalypse.
The number of minuscules under each class is, according to Scrivener (Miller), as follows:—
| Gospels, | 1326 |
| Acts and Catholic Epistles, | 422 |
| Pauline Epistles, | 497 |
| Apocalypse, | 184 |
| —— | |
| 2429 |
A great many New Testament manuscripts are in England. Some are in the possession of private individuals, like those at Parham Park in Sussex belonging to Lord de la Zouche. In 1870-72 the Baroness Burdett Coutts brought with her from Janina in Epirus over one hundred manuscripts, of which sixteen were of the Gospels, one of them belonging to the Ferrar Group, and as many were Evangeliaria. There are 136 manuscripts of the New Testament in the British Museum.
| The number in Great Britain is | 438 |
| In the National Library of Paris, | 298 |
| In Germany, | 140 |
| In Italy, | 644 |
For the total number of Greek manuscripts arranged according to countries, see Scrivener, i., Indices I., II., pp. 392 ff.
What a vast number of manuscripts are still waiting to be examined is shown by the account given by Dr. von der Goltz. Accompanied by Dr. G. Wobbermin, he made a journey to Athos in the winter of 1897-98, and there in that ancient Monastery, the Laura of St. Athanasius, he found, among about 1800 manuscripts altogether, including Lectionaries, some 250 codices of the New Testament, of which only a very few have been noted by Gregory. And these manuscripts may be of the very utmost importance, as witness the further statement of the same explorer. He was looking through the manuscripts of the Apostolos, to which he and his companion had to give most of their attention, when his eye fell on one written in the tenth or eleventh century, containing the following note before the Pauline Epistles: γεγράφθαι ἀπὸ ἀντιγράφου παλαιοτάτου, οὗ πεῖραν ἐλάβομεν ὡς ἐπιτετευγμένου ἐκ τῶν εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐλθόντων Ὠριγένους τόμων ἢ ὁμιλιῶν εἰς τὸν ἀπόστολον... ἐν οἷς οὖν παραλλάττει ῥητοῖς πρὸς τὰ νῦν ἀποστολικά, διπλῆν τὴν λεγομένην παρεθήκαμεν ἔξωθεν, ἵνα μὴ νομισθῇ κατὰ προσθήκην ἢ λεῖψιν ἡμαρτῆσθαι τουτὶ τὸ ἀποστολικόν. And from the subscription at the end of the Pauline Epistles we learn that the manuscript, or, as von der Goltz believes, the exemplar from which it was copied, was written by a monk called Ephraim. See further in von der Goltz, Eine textkritische Arbeit des zehnten bezw. sechsten Jahrhunderts herausgegeben nach einem Kodex des Athosklosters Lawra. Mit einer Doppeltafel in Lichtdruck. Leipzig, 1899. (Texte und Untersuchungen, Neue Folge, ii. 4); and compare below, p. 190.
Literature.—On 2evv, see Hoskier, above, p. 5.
On 13, see W. H. Ferrar, Collation of four important Manuscripts of the Gospels, edited by T. K. Abbott, Dublin, 1877. J. P. P. Martin, Quatre manuscrits du N. T., auxquels on peut ajouter un cinquième, Amiens, 1886. J. R. Harris, On the Origin of the Ferrar Group, London, 1894. K. Lake, “Some new members of the Ferrar Group of MSS. of the Gospels,” in the Journal of Theological Studies, I. i. pp. 117-120. The well-known manuscript of the pre-Lutheran German Bible, the Codex Teplensis, has the words from John viii. 2, “in the morning he came again into the temple,” after Luke xxi. 38, an arrangement similar to that which is characteristic of the Ferrar Group, in which John vii. 53-viii. 11 is found after Luke xxi. 38. See S. Berger, Bull. Crit., 1894, p. 390. See Addenda, p. xv.
On 561, Codex Algerinae Peckover, see J. R. Harris in the Journal of the Exegetical Society, 1886, 79-96.
On 892evv, see Harris, “An Important Manuscript of the N. T.” in the Journal of Biblical Literature, ix., 1890, 31 ff.
On Minuscules of the Apocalypse, see Bousset, Textkritische Studien in T. und U., xi. 4.
C. R. Gregory, “Die Kleinhandschriften des N. Testaments” (Theologische Studien für B. Weiss., Göttingen, 1897, 274-283).
E. J. Goodspeed, “A Twelfth Century Gospel Manuscript” (Biblical World, x. 4).
(C.) Lectionaries
Lectionaries.
Till quite recently the Lectionaries, or Books of Church Pericopae, were even more neglected than the minuscules. And yet they are reliable witnesses to the text of the Bible in the provinces to which they belong, on account of their official character and because their locality can be readily distinguished. The slight alterations of the text occurring at the beginning of the pericopae, and consisting usually in the insertion of the subject of the sentence or of an introductory clause, are easily recognisable as such, and deceive no one. It is not always easy to determine the date of such books, because the uncial hand was employed in this sort of manuscript much longer than in the others. Among the oldest, perhaps, is 135, a palimpsest (of which there is a considerable number among the Lectionaries), assigned by Tischendorf to the seventh century, and 968, written on papyrus and ascribed to the sixth century, which was found in Egypt in the year 1890. When these Lectionaries originated has not yet been clearly made out.78 Up till the present 980 Evangeliaria—i.e. Lessons from the Gospels—have been catalogued, and 268 Apostoli or Praxapostoli—i.e. Lessons from the Acts and Epistles. Some of them are magnificently executed; some, alas, have been sadly mutilated. 117, in Florence, is a very beautiful codex; and 162, in Siena, is perhaps “one of the most splendid Service-books in the world.” 235 may have been written in part by the Emperor Alexius Comnenus (1081-1118). 286 is the Golden Evangeliarium on Mount Sinai, dating from the ninth to the eleventh century, though the tradition of the monks says that it was written by no less a personage than the Emperor Theodosius (d. 395). Tischendorf’s 352-360 are now in the National Library at Paris. 355 is printed in Omont’s Catalogue (see above, p. 71). 45evl is a fragment of black parchment inscribed with gold letters preserved at Vienna.79 40 is kept in the Escorial along with the reliques of St. Chrysostom, and regarded as his autograph.80 Bilingual Lectionaries are also found, in Greek and Arabic for example. The arrangement of these Service-books varies with the time and region in which they were composed. Several fragments which were formerly regarded as parts of manuscripts of the Gospels should perhaps be classed among the Evangeliaria—e.g. the solitary leaf of a Bible manuscript Württemberg is known to possess, and the Tübingen Fragment, formerly classed among the uncials as R of the Gospels, but now enumerated as 481evl. An important Syriac Lectionary will fall to be considered under the head of the Versions.
For further details, reference must be made to Scrivener, to TiGr., and now especially to Gregory, Textkritik, i. pp. 327-478.