CHAPTER XVIII

THE UNCIAL CODICES

Greek characters naturally divide themselves into “majuscules” and “minuscules.” The former class is subdivided into capitals proper, square in form, suited for lapidary inscriptions; and modified capitals somewhat rounded which we call uncials. The minuscules are employed in the cursive MSS. The term “uncial” may be derived from uncia an inch referring to the size of the letter. In uncial MSS the letters are not joined, and marks of punctuation are very few. In general no greater space separates word from word than separates letter from letter. Uncial letters prevailed up to the tenth century, and some specimens are found in liturgical books in the eleventh century. The cursive mode of writing began in the ninth century, and continued until the invention of printing.

It is conventional among scholars to designate the uncial codices of Scripture by the Roman and Greek capital letters. One is designated by the Hebrew. The cursives are generally designated by Arabic numbers.

According to Scholz’s enumeration, the whole number of codices of the New Testament, which had been wholly or partially collated up to his time, amounted to six hundred and seventy-four. The whole number known up to the present day would exceed two thousand. Many have not yet been examined. Only a small number of these contain all the books. Some exist only in scattered fragments; others contain some particular book, or class of books. About one hundred are written in uncial characters, and are older than the tenth century. Of these, only the Codex of Sinai contains the complete New Testament. The others are written in small letters, and are of date more recent than the tenth century. About three hundred of these contain all the books. The uncial codices receive their name either from the place where they are preserved, or from the person to whom they have belonged. In classifying the codices of the New Testament the Testament is divided into the Gospels, The Acts, The Pauline Epistles, The Catholic Epistles, and The Apocalypse. Some codices originally contained the whole Bible, some the whole New Testament, others some section or sections of the New Testament. Thus Codex D of the Gospels and Acts is Beza’s Codex in the University Library of Cambridge; Codex D of the Pauline Epistles is the Codex Claromontanus 107 of the Royal library of Paris.

In the collation of MSS the editors have indicated the various corrections which have been written in the codex by later hands. A correction by the original copyist is called the reading prima manu. The corrections are sometimes, indicated by asterisks thus C* would be the Codex of St. Ephrem as corrected by the first hand; C** as corrected by the second corrector; a third corrector is indicated by three asterisks. Other collators use the Arabic numbers in the same manner: Tischendorf sometimes uses the small capital letters as exponents.

Codex Vaticanus B is perhaps the oldest and certainly the most valuable codex of Scripture, Its early history is not known. It seems to have been brought into the Vatican library by Pope Nicholas V. in the fifteenth century. It was taken to Paris by Napoleon I., where it was partially examined by Hug. It was afterwards restored to the Vatican where it has since been jealously preserved.

It is a quarto volume, arranged in quires of five sheets of ten leaves each, like Codex Marchalianus of the Prophets written in the sixth or seventh century and Cod. Rossanensis of the Gospels to be described hereafter, not of four or three sheets as Cod. א, the ancient, perhaps the original numbering of the quires being often found in the margin. The New Testament fills 142 out of its 759 thin and delicate vellum leaves, said to be made of the skins of antelopes: it is bound in red morocco, being ten and one-half inches high, ten broad, four and one-half thick. It once contained the whole Bible in Greek, the Old Testament of the Septuagint version (a tolerably fair representation of which was exhibited in the Roman edition as early as 1587), except the books of the Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasses. The first forty-six chapters of Genesis (the manuscript begins at πολιν, Gen. 46:28) and Psalms 105–137, also the books of the Maccabees, are wanting. The New Testament is complete down to Heb. 9:14 καθα: the rest of the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Apocalypse, being written in by a later hand.

In 1533 Sepulveda writing to Erasmus declared of the Codex Vaticanus that it is most carefully written and agrees in great part with the Latin Vulgate against the received Greek text, and to support his statements he furnished Erasmus with 365 readings. In 1669 Bartolocci the Librarian of the Vatican made a collation of the MSS, but it was never published. Scholz and Tischendorf have used his collation. Bentley made an imperfect collation of it through Mico. Birch examined it superficially about 1780. Hug examined it in 1810 and published the result of his incomplete examination under the title, “De Antiquitate Cod. Vat. Commentatio,” He was the first to assign its date as the fourth century, a judgment generally accepted. In 1843 Tischendorf obtained the privilege of examining it for two days, three hours each day. In 1844 Edward de Muralt examined the Codex Vat. nine hours a day for three days. He published the result of his labors in an edition of the New Testament in 1846. Tregelles saw the MS in 1845, but was not allowed to transcribe any of its readings.

The care which the Vatican authorities bestowed on this great codex is just and reasonable. It is one of the greatest treasures on earth. To men having any just right to see it, the Vatican authorities accorded every just and reasonable right. One of the tendencies of protestantism was to depreciate the Latin text, and extol the Greek text; and precisely the so-called textus receptus which has been proven to be of little worth. They were anxious to be the first to collate the greatest Greek codex, and as this was not granted them, they manifest their spleen. The Vatican authorities contemplated publishing this codex in a worthy manner; and they have accomplished this through the great Cardinal Mai, and Charles Vercellone. This edition appeared in 1857 three years after Cardinal Mai’s death. It is in five volumes; the fifth contains a preface by Vercellone. Even the great fame of Mai did not save him from the calumny of those who have always invoked the aid of falsehood in attacking the Catholic Church. While no human work is absolutely perfect, the true estimate of Cardinal Mai’s work will place it above any other codex of Scripture thus far collated. This is to be expected. The great learning and sound judgment of the man, the unlimited resources at his command, the length of time expended, from 1823 to 1854, all persuade of the excellence of the work. It is urged against him that he has taken certain liberties with the codex. One can judge of the animus of such an objection, when we find the great critic blamed for having supplied from other sources portions omitted in the Vatican manuscript, although the fact is duly notified. Again he is blamed for having selected what in his judgment was the more probable of the readings of the first and second hands.

The Pharisees who impugned the known truth find real successors in these envious hypocrites whose name is legion.

In 1867 Tischendorf published an edition of the Vatican Codex under the title: “Novum Test. Vat. post Angeli Mai aliorumque imperfectos labores ex ipso codice edidit Ae. F. C. Tischendorf.” In his Prolegomena, p 143 he confesses that he had the Codex on two occasions for six hours in his hands. It is clear that such rapid collation could be of but little avail. The fact is that Tischendorf has employed the labors of others, and claimed them for himself. He was most intolerant of all rivals, and unfair in his judgment concerning them. And yet Tischendorf’s edition is by Scrivener preferred to the great work of Mai.

Another great edition of the Vatican Codex has been published by Vercellone and Cozza. The first volume containing the New Testament appeared in 1868. Vercellone died in 1869. The work was carried on by Cozza and Sergius and completed in 1881. Another splendid edition appeared in 1889–1890 under the care of the Abbot Cozza-Luzi in which the original text is reproduced by photography. The envious Tischendorf continued to calumniate the labors of these great scholars in terms so injurious and false that even Scrivener cannot praise his pamphlet. On the contrary when Tischendorf published the Sinaitic Codex Fabian who had taken Sergius’ place in editing Codex B, hails Tischendorf’s discovery with unfeigned absence of all jealousy, “Quorum tale est demum par, ut potius liber Vaticanus gaudere debeat quod tam sui similem invenerit fratrem quam expavescere quod æmulum” (Præf. p. VIII.).

All men must feel grateful to the Vatican authorities for giving to the world such editions of the greatest Codex of Scripture. A specimen page of the Vat. Codex is shown on page 668.

The second in importance of the great Codices is undoubtedly the Codex Sinaiticus א of Tischendorf.

The history of this great Codex is related by its discoverer in his preface to his great edition of 1863:

“Through the particular favor of Frederic Augustus, the excellent King of Saxony, I spent most of the year of 1844 in exploring the countries of the Orient; chiefly those in which the old monasteries exist.

It is well known that this Oriental journey has become famous through some Greek fragments of the Old Testament which I sent to my native country, dedicated to my royal and noble patron as a pledge of love and fidelity. They were deposited in the library of Leipzig, and shortly afterwards published.

I discovered these fragments of a very old Codex of the Septuagint in the month of May, 1844. While investigating old books in St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai, I chanced upon a basket, containing remnants of various torn and destroyed codices. Many of these fragments had already found their way to the fireplace. As these fragments were considered worthless and were about to be destroyed, I easily obtained possession of them. I was refused, however, other larger parts of the same Codex, which were rescued from the same neglect, and in which the whole of Isaiah and the Books of the Maccabees were written. I exhorted that these portions should be preserved with greater care, hoping to afterwards agree upon the terms of their surrender to me.

Being disappointed, contrary to my expectation, in such negotiation, I determined, in my second journey to the East in 1853, to accurately transcribe all that remained of the aforesaid Codex for a future edition.

But when I visited Sinai’s Mount and St. Catherine’s Monastery the second time, I neither saw the treasure which I sought nor learned whither it had gone. I concluded from this that it had been carried to Europe, and that there was no hope left of my possessing it. In 1855 when I published the first volume of my Monumenta Sacra, I edited therewith the last page of the text of Isaiah (which I had already transcribed in 1844), and I made known that this Codex Frederico-Augustanus, and also the remaining fragments of the same ancient book, wheresoever found, had been saved by me from destruction.

Having maturely thought of the project, toward the close of 1856, with the consent of Paul of Falkenstein, one of the chief ministers of the King of Saxony, I delivered letters to the Russian Legate at Dresden, asking for the authority of the Emperor Alexander II. to set out for the East to investigate and acquire possession of old codices, both Greek and Oriental, chiefly those of the Sacred Books.… The most renowned Emperor, a man indeed upright and good, in the middle of September 1858, bade me execute my proposal.

But at this time my seventh edition of the New Testament claimed my attention. This edition was finished at the close of 1858, and in the beginning of 1859, I started on my journey to the East. I made my third visit to the monastery of St. Catherine on the last day of January, and was most kindly welcomed by the brothers.

The venerable bishop expressed a wish that by my studies, I might find new proofs for the divine truths.

I had already sent one of the servants to procure camels, intending to set out for Egypt on the 7th of February, when, on the 4th of the same month, I was walking with the econome of the monastery, and conversing of the Septuagint. I had brought to the monks several copies of my edition of this, and some copies of my New Testament.

On returning from the walk, we entered the econome’s room. Thereupon he said he had a copy of the Septuagint, and he placed it before me, wrapped in a cloth. I opened the cloth and saw something beyond my hopes. For there before me, I saw very numerous fragments of the Codex which I had long declared to be the most ancient of the Greek codices extant in parchment. Among these fragments I perceived, still in preservation, not only many books of the Old Testament (including those taken from the waste basket in 1844), but also, which was by far the most valuable, the whole New Testament in perfect condition, and augmented by the entire Epistle of Barnabas, to which was added the first part of Pastor. I could not disguise the astonishment wrought by such a discovery. With the consent of the steward, I transferred to my room the book, or rather the fragments of the book; for each leaf was rent into many parts and was covered only by the cloth. The steward himself had taken the fragments from the cell of the σκευοφύλαξ, which contained written and printed books, the greater part liturgical with varied liturgical apparatus. He had collected all the extant fragments of the Codex shortly after my first Eastern journey. I took them all to my room and then I fully realized how great a treasure I held in my hands, and I praised and thanked God, the author of so great a benefit to the Church, to letters, and to myself. I spent the first night in transcribing the Epistle of Barnabas, for to sleep at such a time seemed unlawful, “quippe dormire nefas videbatur.” The day following I arranged with the monks, that if the superiors at Cairo should so order, they should send the Codex thither to me to be transcribed. Setting out on the appointed day with the kind letters of the monk Cyril, the learned librarian of the monastery, we reached Cairo the thirteenth day of February, where, through the favor of Agathangelus, the venerable prior of the cloister, the enterprise so prospered, that, a thing seemingly incredible, a messenger traversed the deserts of Arabia and Egypt twice, within nine days, and I received from the hands of the Superiors the ancient parchments, on the twenty-fourth day of the same month. As had been agreed upon, the transcription of the whole Codex was undertaken without delay, and with the help of two natives, one a doctor of medicine, the other a pharmacist. it was finished within two months.

Although I revised, letter by letter the work of my associates, and also that which I transcribed with my own hand, I plainly perceived that the method of the old correctors was greatly defective, and that the Codex needed a revision, in order that I might confidently undertake an accurate edition of it.

In the meantime, I proposed to the venerable brethren of Sinai that they should send the Codex through me, as a pledge of their special affection to Alexander II., the ornament and defender of the orthodox faith. They heartily approved of my proposition.

But now Constantius, the Archbishop, who had formerly been patriarch, died. The administrator of the college in the interim, an eminent man, had, by unanimous vote, been chosen to succeed the deceased prelate, but had not yet been consecrated. At this juncture a certain one, who arrogated to himself authority, opposed me, but the venerable college conceded what I greatly urged, that I might bring the Codex to St. Petersburg to prepare from it a correct edition. It was only loaned me for a time, till the Archbishop should ratify in the name of the college its perpetual transfer. On this condition the Codex was delivered to me at Cairo, on the 28th of September, 1859.”

Tischendorf arrived in St. Petersburg in November, where he was received with great respect by the Emperor. The Codex was exposed to public view in the Imperial library for two weeks. By the aid of the Emperor, type was cast by which the great Codex was faithfully reproduced. The labor expended on this edition can scarcely be realized. In 1861 the great work was accomplished, and on the 11th of September of that year the splendid edition was presented to the Emperor. In 1863, Tischendorf published an edition of the New Testament for popular use, in which he has reproduced the exact form of the original Codex in modern Greek characters.

The Codex Sinaiticus, as we learn from Tischendorf’s Notitia, consists of 345½ leaves of beautiful vellum, of which 199 contain portions of the Septuagint version. 147½ leaves contain the whole New Testament, Barnabas Epistle, and portions of Hermas’ Shepherd. Each page comprises four columns, with forty-eight lines in each column, of continuous, noble, simple uncials. The poetical books of the Old Testament however, being written in στίχοι, admit of only two columns on a page. The order of the sacred books is remarkable, though not unprecedented. St. Paul’s Epistles precede the Acts, and among them, that to the Hebrews follows II. Thess., standing on the same page with it. Breathings and accents there are none; the apostrophe, and a single point for punctuation, are entirely absent for pages together, yet occasionally are rather thickly studded.

Although there are no capitals, the initial letter of a line which begins a sentence generally stands out from the rank of the rest. The annexed plates exhibit Heb. 12:27–13. in original characters reproduced by Tischendorf, and in cursive characters.

The vellum of the manuscript is very thin and smooth. According to Tischendorf it was made of the skins of antelopes or asses. The fleshy side of the skin, being softer, has not preserved the writing so plainly as the other side. Every skin was folded so as to form eight pages.

Many corrections of later hands appear in the Codex.

Historical data are wanting to determine its age. From internal evidence Tischendorf refers it to the fourth century and his judgment is acquiesced in by nearly all critics. Tischendorf exalts its value above that of any other Codex in the world, but perhaps the highest tribute compatible with truth would be that it ranks next in excellence to the Vatican Codex.

The Codex contains all the books of the New Testament; and adds Pastor and Barnabas’ Epistle. The old Testament is mutilated so that nearly all the historical books are wanting.

The Codex is preserved in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg.

C. CODEX EPHRAEMI, No. 9, in the Royal Library of Paris is a most valuable palimpsest containing portions of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament on sixty-four leaves, and fragments of every part of the New on 145 leaves, amounting on the whole to less than two-thirds of the volume. This manuscript seems to have been brought from the East by Andrew John Lascar (d. 1535,) a learned Greek patronized by Lorenzo de’ Medici; it was brought into France by Queen Catherine de’ Medici, and so passed into the Royal Library at Paris. The ancient writing is barely legible, having been almost removed about the twelfth century to receive some Greek works of St. Ephraem, the great Syrian Father (299–378). A chemical preparation applied at the instance of Fleck in 1834, though it revived much that was before illegible, has defaced the vellum with stains of various colors, from green and blue to black and brown. The older writing was first noticed by Peter Allix nearly two centuries ago; various readings extracted from it were communicated by Boivin to Kuster, who published them (under the notation of Paris 9) in his edition of Mill’s N. T., 1710. A complete collation of the New Testament was first made in 1716 by Wetstein.

Tischendorf brought out an edition of the New Testament of Cod. C in 1843, and the Old Testament in 1845. In Cod. C. there are no breathings or accents by the first hand; the punctuation consists of a single point nearly always on a level with the preceding letter. Correctors have occupied themselves with Cod. C. They are designated by Tischendorf as C*, C**, and C***. Dr. Hort has the highest regard for the first corrector who is supposed to be of the sixth century. The Codex itself is assigned to the fifth century, and is of great critical value.

See plate on page 676,

A. CODEX ALEXANDRINUS is in the British Museum, where the open volume of the New Testament is publicly shown in the Manuscript room. It was placed in that Library on its formation in 1753, having previously belonged to the king’s private collection from the year 1628, when Cyril Lucar, sent this codex by the English Ambassador in Turkey, Sir Thomas Roe, as a royal gift to Charles I. An Arabic inscription, several centuries old, at the back of the Table of Contents on the first leaf of the manuscript, and translated into Latin in another hand, which Mr. W. Aldis Wright recognizes as Bentley’s (Academy, April 17, 1875), states that it was written by the hand of Thecla the Martyr. It is now bound in four volumes of which three contain the Septuagint almost entire. The fourth volume contains the New Testament considerably mutilated.

This manuscript is in quarto, 12¾ inches high and 10¼ broad, and consists of 773 leaves (of which 639 contain the Old Testament), each page being divided into two columns of fifty or fifty-one lines each, having about twenty letters or upwards in a line. These letters are written continuously in uncial characters, without any space between the words.

The punctuation consists of a point at the end of sentences usually but not always on a level with the top of the preceding letter. The most favorable judgment can not place its date earlier than the fifth century. It is carelessly written, and far inferior in critical value to B, א, and C.

In 1786 Woide, Assistant Librarian of the British Museum published the New Testament, in folio. In 1816–28, Rev. Henry Baber of the British Museum published the Old Testament. Both editions were published in uncial type. The New Testament was again published in 1860 by Cowper in modern type. An autotype edition of the whole Codex has since been made by Mr. E. Maunde Thomson.

We shall now enumerate some of the principal uncial codices of the several parts of the New Testament.

CODEX D OF THE GOSPELS AND ACTS, CALLED CODEX BEZÆ GRÆCO LATINUS belongs to the University of Cambridge. It was presented to the University in 1581 by Theodore Beza. The great veneration which the aforesaid University cherished for Beza and his master Calvin appears in the University’s letter of acceptance, in which they declare: “Know therefore that, the Holy Scriptures alone excepted, there are no writers in the history of mankind whom we prefer to the renowned John Calvin and thee.”

Beza says that he obtained it from the Monastery of St. Irenæus at Lyons during the civil war in 1562. This city was sacked in that year by the infamous Des Adrets who espoused the cause of the Huguenots. It is quite probable that the no less infamous Beza obtained this Codex as a share of the plunder.

Beza declares in his letter that, owing to the great discrepancy between this Codex and the oldest authorities, to avoid giving offense, he judged it better to preserve the Codex than to publish it.

It has been collated by Young, (1633), Ussher (1657), Mill (1707), Wetstein (1716), Bentley (1716), Dickinson (1732), Kipling (1793), and Scrivener (1864).

The Codex is mutilated. Of its original 534 leaves only about 406 remain, and some of these are mutilated; and several are added by a later hand.

Codex Bezæ and Codex D. of St. Paul are the earliest specimens of stichometric writing.

Scrivener assigns a date to the original Latin text not more remote than the fifth century; but he believes that the present Latin text is a later correction of the original Latin.

He believes that the Greek text is a copy of an exemplar as ancient as the third century.

Mr. Rendel Harris (A Study of the Codex Bezæ 1891) believes that the Greek text is a translation of a Latin Codex of the second century. Of course in the supposition its critical worth is small. Sub judice lis est. It seems certain however that Scrivener has overestimated the value of the Codex.

The following judgment has been passed upon the Codex by Westcott and Hort: That it is substantially a Western text of the second century, with certain additions of the fourth century. That notwithstanding a vast number of errors, it is valuable in the reconstruction of the original text. And that it gives a more faithful representation of the manner in which the Gospel and Acts were read in the third century, and, probably, in the second, than any other existing Greek Codex.

E. CODEX BASILIENSIS, of the public library of Basle, is of the eighth century. It was given to the Library by Cardinal John de Ragusio. It contains the Four Gospels, except Luke 3:4–15; 24:47–53. It has been collated by Bengel, Wetstein, Tischendorf, Müller and Tregelles.

F. CODEX BOREELI, now in the puplic library at Utrecht once belonged to John Boreel, Dutch Ambassador at the Court of James I. It is badly mutilated. The best collation of it was made by Prof. Heringa of Utrecht, published in 1843. Its date is the ninth or tenth century. Wetstein’s collation of it is sometimes cited as F.

F CODEX COISLIN I. In the Coislin Library is preserved a Greek Codex of the Septuagint under the above title. It was first published by Montfaucon (Biblioth. Coislin. 1715).

In the margin prima manu Wetstein found Acts 9:24, 25, and so inserted this as Cod. F in his list of MSS. of the Acts. In 1842 Tischendorf observed nineteen other passages of the New Testament, which he published in his Monumenta sacra inedita (1846, p. 400, &c.) with a facsimile. The texts are Matt. 5:48; 12:48; 27:25: Luke 1:42; 2:24; 23:21; John 5:35; 6:53, 55: Acts 4:33, 34; 9:24, 25; 10:13, 15; 22:22: 1 Cor. 7:39; 11:29: 1 Cor. 3:13; 9, 11:33: Gal. 4:21, 22: Col. 2:16, 17; Heb. 10:26.

G. COD. HARLEIAN, 5684 or WOLFII A. H. COD. WOLFII B.

These two copies were brought from the East by Andrew Erasmus Seidel, purchased by La Croze, and by him presented to J. C. Wolff, who published loose extracts from them both in his “Anecdota Gnæca” (vol. 3:1723), and barbarously mutilated them in 1721 in order to send pieces to Bentley among whose papers in Trinity College Library (B. 17:20) Tregelles found the fragments in 1845. (Account of the Printed Text, p. 160) Subsequently Cod. G came with the rest of the Harleian collection into the British Museum; Cod. H, which had long been missing, was brought to light in the Public Library of Hamburg, through Petersen the Librarian, in 1838. Codd. G, H have now been thoroughly collated both by Tischendorf and Tregelles. Cod. G appears to be of the tenth, Cod. H of of the ninth century.

CODEX I. COD. TISCHENDORF. II. at St. Petersburg, consists of palimpsest fragments found by Tischendorf in 1853 “in the dust of an Eastern library,” and published in his new series of Monumenta sacra, Vol. I. 1855. On twenty-eight vellum leaves (eight of them on four double leaves), Georgian writing is above the partially obliterated Greek, which is for the most part very hard to read. They compose fragments of no less than seven different manuscripts; the first two, of the fifth century, the third fragment seems of the sixth century, the fourth scarcely less ancient. The fifth fragment, containing portions of the Acts and St. Paul’s Epistles (1 Cor. 15:53; 16:9; Tit. 1:1–13; Acts 28:8–17), is perhaps of the sixth century. The sixth and seventh fragments are of the seventh century.

COD. CYPRIUS K, or No. 63 of the Imperial Library at Paris, shares only with Codd. M, S, U, the advantage of being a complete uncial copy of the Four Gospels. It was brought into the Colbert Library from Cyprus in 1673. Mill inserted its readings from Simon. It was re-examined by Scholz. The independent collations of Tischendorf and Tregelles have now done all that can be needed for this copy. It is an oblong 4to, in compressed uncials, of about the middle of the ninth century.

COD. REGIUS L, No. 62 in the Imperial Library at Paris, is by far the most remarkable document of its age and class. It contains the Four Gospels, except the following passages: Matth. 4:22; 5:14; 28:17–20; Mark 10:16–30; 15:2–20; John 21:15–25. It was written about the eighth century. Wetstein collated Cod. L but loosely. Griesbach, who set a very high value on it, studied it with peculiar care; Tischendorf published it in full in his Monumenta sacra inedita, 1836.

COD. CAMPIANUS M, No. 48 in the Imperial Library at Paris, contains the Four Gospels complete in a small 4to form, written in very elegant and minute uncials of the end of the ninth century, with two columns of twenty-four lines each on a page. Its readings are very good.

CODEX PURPUREUS N. Only twelve leaves of this beautiful copy remain, and its former possessor must have divided them in order to obtain a better price from three purchasers than from one; four leaves being now in the British Museum (Cotton C. XV.), six in the Vatican (No. 3785), two at Vienna (Lambec. 2). These latter two are found at the end of a fragment of Genesis in a different hand.

Cod. N or in Tischendorf’s edition I is a palimpsest of four leaves containing fragments of St. John’s Gospel. A Syriac work had been written over these, and this again had been obliterated to write thereon the hymns of St. Severus in Syriac. They were brought from the Nitrian desert and are now in the British Museum. They have been deciphered by Tischendorf and Tregelles.

Several small fragments have been designated by O. The most important are the fragment Luke 18:11–14, examined by Wetstein, and O of Moscow the latter of the ninth century.

P. CODEX GUELPHERBYTANUS A.

Q. ................. B.

These are two palimpsests, discovered by F. A. Knittel, Archdeacon of Wolfenbüttel, in the Ducal Library of that city, which (together with some fragments of Ulphilas’ Gothic version) lie under the more modern writings of Isidore of Seville. They have been deciphered and published by Tischendorf (1866–69.) He assigns P to the fifth century, and Q to the sixth.

The letter R is employed to represent different fragments by various editors, a very inconvenient practice. Thus R of Griesbach and Scholz is a fragment of one leaf containing John 1:38–50 now at Tübingen. Tischendorf repudiates this leaf as a portion of an Evangelistary of the tenth century; and in his New Testament of 1849 he employed R to designate fourteen leaves of a palimpsest of the eighth century now in the Library at Naples. In 1859 he designated the Neapolitan fragment by W, and employed R to designate the Codex Nitriensis of the British Museum, Additional 1721. This latter is a palimpsest of 25 fragments containing about 516 verses of St. Luke. It may be as ancient as the end of the sixth century. It is one of 550 MSS brought to England in 1847 from the Syrian Convent of St. Mary in the Desert seventy miles N. W. of Cairo.

S. CODEX VATICANUS 354 contains the four Gospels entire, and is among the earliest dated manuscripts of the Greek Testament. This is a folio of 234 leaves, written in large oblong or compressed uncials: It bears the date A. D. 949. In 1866 Tischendorf collated it.

Codex T, or Borgianus I, in the Propaganda at Rome contains thirteen or more quarto leaves of SS. Luke and John. A Sahidic version is parallel to the Greek text. They are referred to the fourth century by Giorgi O. S. A., who ably edited the portion of St. John in 1879. Tischendorf places them a century later. T or T are used to indicate a few leaves of Luke and John in Greek and Sahidic, which once belonged to Woide. It has been suspected that they are a part of T. T at St. Petersburg contains six leaves of St. John. The date of its writing is judged to be not later than the sixth century.

T is a fragment of about twenty-one verses between Matt. 14:19 and 15:8, also of the sixth century, and at St. Petersburg.”

T is a fragment of a Lectionary Greek and Sahidic, found by Tischendorf in 1866 among the Borgian MSS at Rome. It contains twenty-four verses, a few verses from every one of the Gospels.

T is a fragment of Matthew (3:13–16) taken from a Lectionary of the sixth century. It is at Cambridge.

CODEX NANIANUS U. 1, so called from a former possessor, is now in the Library of St. Mark, Venice. It contains the four Gospels entire, carefully written. Its date is not before the tenth century. Tischendorf in 1843 and Tregelles in 1846 collated Cod. U. It is now mutilated.

CODEX MOSQUENSIS V. of the Holy Synod, is known almost exclusively from Matthaei’s Greek Testament: he states, no doubt most truly, that he collated it “bis diligentissimè” and gives a facsimile of it, assigning it to the eighth century.

Some scattered leaves are classed under W but they are not of sufficient importance to enter here.

CODEX MONACENSIS X in the University Library at Munich is a valuable folio manuscript of the end of the ninth, or early in the tenth century, containing the Four Gospels with serious defects.

CODEX BARBERINI Y, 225 at Rome (in the Library founded by Cardinal Barberini in the seventeenth century) contains on six large leaves the 137 verses John 16:3–19:41, of about the eighth century. Tischendorf obtained access to it in 1843, and published it in his first instalment of Monumenta sacra inedita, 1846.

CODEX DUBLINENSIS RESCRIPTUS, Z, one of the chief palimpsests extant, contains 290 verses of St. Matthew’s Gospel in twenty-two fragments. It was discovered in 1787 by Dr. John Barrett, Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, under some cursive writing of the tenth century or later, consisting of Chrysostom de Sacerdotio, extracts from Epiphanius, etc. In the same volume are portions of Isaiah and of Gregory Nazianzen, in erased uncial letters, but not so ancient as the fragment of St. Matthew. All the thirty-two leaves of this Gospel that remain were engraved in copperplate facsimile at the expense of Trinity College, and published by Barrett in 1801, furnished with Prolegomena, and the contents of each facsimile plate in modern Greek characters on the opposite page. He ascribes the Codex to the sixth century.

In 1853 Tregelles, by subjecting the MS to a chemical mixture, deciphered 200 more letters. In 1880 Abbot, of the University of Dublin, published the Codex, with 400 more letters which he deciphered. Abbot places its date in the fifth century.

CODEX TISCHENDORFIAN. IV. was brought by Tischendorf from an “eastern monastery,” and was bought for the Bodleian Library in 1855. It consists of 158 leaves in large quarto, of the ninth century.

CODEX SANGALLENSIS Δ was first inspected by Gerbert (1773), named by Scholz (N. T. 1830), and made fully known to us by the admirable edition in lithographed facsimile of every page, by H. Ch. M. Rettig, published at Zurich 1836, with copious and satisfactory Prolegomena. It is preserved and was probably transcribed in the seventh century in the great monastery of St. Gall in the North-east of Switzerland. It is rudely written on 197 leaves of coarse vellum 4to, in a very peculiar hand, with an interlinear Latin version. It contains the four Gospels complete except John 19:17–25. Rettig thinks that Cod. Δ is part of the same book as the Codex Boernerianus, G of St. Paul’s Epistles.

CODEX Θ TISCHENDORF I. was brought from the East by Tischendorf in 1845, published by him in his Monumenta sacra inedit., 1846, and deposited in the University Library at Leipsic. It consists of but four leaves (all imperfect) 4to, of very thin vellum, almost too brittle to be touched, so that each leaf is kept separately in glass. It contains about forty verses; viz., Matth. 13:46–55 (in mere shreds); and 14:4–14. Tischendorf conjectures it to be of the end of the seventh century.

Other small fragments collected by Tischendorf which death prevented him from publishing are indicated as:

Θ, six leaves in large 8vo, of the sixth or seventh century, torn piecemeal for binding and hard to decipher, contains Matt. 22:16–23:13; Mark 4:24–25; 5:14–23.

Θ, one folio leaf, of the sixth century, much like Cod. N, contains Matt. 21:19–24. Another leaf contains John 18:29–35.

Θ, half a leaf in two columns, of the seventh or eighth century, with accents by a later hand, contains Luke 11:37–41; 42–45.

Θ, containing fragments of Matt. 26:2–4; 7–9: Θ, of Matt. 26:59–70; 27:44–56; Mark 1:34–2:12 (not continuously throughout): Θ, of John 6:13, 14; 22–24; are all of about the sixth century.

Θ, consisting of three leaves, in Greek and Arabic of the ninth or tenth centuries, contains imperfect portions of Matt. 14:6–13; 25:9–16; 41–26.

Λ CODEX TISCHENDORFIAN. III. whose history, so far as we know it, exactly resembles that of Cod. Γ, and like it is now in the Bodleian (Auct. T. Infra 1. 1). It contains 157 leaves, of the ninth century. It has the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John complete, with the subscription to St. Mark.

CODEX ZACYNTHIUS Ξ is a palimpsest in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society in London, which, under an Evangelistarium written on coarse vellum of the thirteenth century, contains large portions of St. Luke, down to Chap. 11:33, in full well-formed uncials, but surrounded by, and often interwoven with large extracts from the Fathers, in a hand that cannot be earlier than the eighth century.

Π. CODEX PETROPOLITANUS consists of 350 vellum leaves in small quarto, and contains the Gospels complete except Matt. 3:12–4:18; 19:12–20:3; John 8:6–39; seventy-seven verses. A century since it belonged to Parodus, a noble Greek of Smyrna, and its last possessor was persuaded by Tischendorf, in 1859, to present it to the Emperor of Russia. Tischendorf, states that it is of the age of the later uncials (meaning the ninth century), but of higher critical importance than most of them, and much like Cod. K in its rarer readings.

Σ, COD. ROSSANENSIS, like Cod. N described above, is a manuscript written on thin vellum leaves stained purple, in silver letters, the first three lines of each Gospel being in gold. Like Cod. D it probably dates from the sixth century, if not a little sooner, and is the earliest known copy of Scripture which is adorned with miniatures in water colors, seventeen in number, very interesting and in good preservation.

γ CODEX BLENHEIMIUS, Brit. Mus. Additional 31919, formerly Blenheim 3. D. 13, purchased from the Sunderland sale in 1882. Professors T. K. Abbott and J. P. Mahaffy of Trinity College, Dublin, discovered at Blenheim in May, 1881, palimpsest fragments of the Gospels of the eighth century, being seventeen passages scattered over thirty-three of the leaves: viz. Matt. 1:1–14; 5:3–19; 12:27–41; 23:5–25:30; 43–26:26; 50–27:17; Mark 1:1–42; 2:21–5:1; 29–6:22; 10:50–11:13; Luke 16:21–17:3; 19–37; 19:15–31; John 2:18–3:5; 4:23–37; 5:35–6:2: in all 484 verses. In 1883, Dr. Gregory discovered two more leaves, making thirty-six in all.

Φ. CODEX BERATINUS. This symbol was taken by Herr Oscar von Gebhardt to denote the imaginary parent of Cursives 13, 69, 124, 346, of which the similarity has been traced by the late W. H. Ferrar and Dr. T. K. Abbott in “A Collection of Four Important MSS.” (1877). But it is now permanently affixed to an Uncial MS. seen by M. Pierre Batiffol on the instigation of Prof. Duchesne in 1875 at Berat or Belgrade in Albania. It may date back to the end of the fifth century.

A fragment in the Monastery of Laura at Mt. Athos is designated as Ψ; and another in the Monaster of St. Dionysius on Mt. Athos is cited by the sign Ω. ב designates a fragment in the Monastery of St. Andrew on Mt. Athos.

We shall only mention a few of the most valuable uncials of Acts and Paul’s Epistles.

CODEX LAUDIANUS E, 35 is one of the most precious treasures preserved in the Bodleian at Oxford. It is a Latin-Greek copy, with two columns on a page, the Latin version holding the post of honor on the left. It is written in very short στίχοι, consisting of from one to three words each, the Latin words always standing opposite to the corresponding Greek. The character of the writing points to the end of the sixth century as its date. The Latin is not of Jerome’s or the Vulgate version; but is made to correspond closely with the Greek, even in its interpolations and rarest various readings. This manuscript contains only the Acts of the Apostles, and exhibits a remarkable modification of the text. This manuscript, with many others, was presented to the University of Oxford in the year 1636, by its Chancellor, Laud. Thomas Hearne, the celebrated antiquary, published a full edition of it in 1715, which is now very scarce, and is known to be far from accurate.

Tischendorf collated it in 1854 and 1865 and published it in his Monumenta Sacra Inedita in 1870.

CODEX MUTINENSIS H, 196, of the Acts, in the Grand Ducal Library at Modena, is an uncial copy of about the ninth century, defective in Act. 1:1 5:28; 9:39–10:19; 13:36–14:3 (all supplied by a recent hand of the fifteenth century); and in 27:4–28:31 (supplied in uncials of about the eleventh century). The Epistles are in cursive letters of the twelfth century, indicated in the Catholic Epistles by h, in the Pauline by 179. Scholz first collated it; then Tischendorf in 1843, and Tregelles in 1846.

P, COD. PORPHYRIANUS is a palimpsest containing the Acts, all the Epistles, the Apocalypse, and a few fragments of 4 Maccabees, of the ninth century, found by Tischendorf in 1862 at St. Petersburg.

D, COD. CLAROMONTANUS, No. 107 of the Royal Library at Paris, is a Greek-Latin copy of St. Paul’s Epistles, one of the most ancient and important in existence. Like the Cod. Ephraemi in the same Library it has been fortunate in such an editor as Tischendorf, who published it in 1852 with complete Prolegomena, and a facsimile traced by Tregelles. This noble volume is in small quarto, written on 533 leaves of the thinnest and finest vellum. See following plate.

Beza declares that he found it at Clermont near Beauvais hence its name. It’s judged to be of the second half of the sixth century.

CODEX SANGERMANENSIS E. is Greek-Latin manuscript, and takes its name from the Abbey of St. Germain des Prés near Paris. In 1895 Matthæi found this copy, at St. Petersburg, where it is now deposited. Wetstein thoroughly collated it; and not only he but Sabatier and Griesbach perceived that it was, at least in the Greek, nothing better than a mere transcript of Codex Claromontanus, made by some ignorant person about the tenth century.

CODEX AUGIENSIS F, in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge (B, 17. 1), is a Greek-Latin manuscript of the ninth century.

CODEX BOERNERIANUS G, so called from a former possessor, now in the Royal Library at Dresden.

Herr Corssen believes that F and G are independent of each other, and that they are translations from the Latin. The date is uncertain.