Of the manuscripts hitherto described, Codd. אABC for their presumed critical value, Cod. D for its numberless and strange deviations from other authorities, and all five for their high antiquity, demanded a full description. Of those which follow many contain but a few fragments of the Gospels, and others are so recent in date that they hardly exceed in importance some of the best cursive copies (e.g. FGHS)174. None of these need detain us long.
E. Codex Basiliensis (B vi. 21, now A. N. iii. 12) (κεφ. τ., κεφ., Am., Eus. at foot of the pages) contains the four Gospels, excepting Luke iii. 4-15; xxiv. 47-53, and was written about the middle of the eighth century, unless (with Dean Burgon) we refer it to the seventh. It measures 9 x 6-½ inches, and contains 318 folios. There are 247 folios verso, and 71 recto175. Three leaves (160, 207, 214) on which are Luke i. 69-ii. 4; xii. 58-xiii. 12; xv. 8-20 are in a cursive and later hand, above the obliterated fragments of a homily as old as the main body of the manuscript. There is a “liber praedicatorum” on the first folio. This copy is one of the most notable of the later uncials, and might well have been published at length. It was given to a religious house in Basle by Cardinal John de Ragusio, who was sent on a mission to the Greeks by the Council of Basle (1431), and probably brought it from Constantinople. Erasmus much overlooked it for later books when preparing his Greek Testament at Basle; indeed it was not brought into the Public Library there before 1559. A collation was sent to Mill by John Battier, Greek Professor at Basle: Mill named it B. I, and truly declared it to [pg 132] be “probatae fidei et bonae notae.” Bengal (who obtained a few extracts from it) calls it Basil. a: but its first real collator was Wetstein, whose native town it adorns. Since his time, Tischendorf in 1843, Professor Müller of Basle and Tregelles in 1846, have independently collated it throughout. Judging from the specimen sent to him, Mill (N. T. Proleg. § 1118) thought the hand much like that of Cod. A; the uncial letters (though not so regular or neat) are firm, round, and simple: indeed “the penmanship is exceedingly tasteful and delicate throughout. The employment of green, blue, and vermilion in the capitals I do not remember to have met with elsewhere” (Burgon, Guardian, Jan. 29, 1873). There is but one column of about twenty-four lines on the page; it has breathings and accents pretty uniformly, and not ill placed; otherwise, from the shape of most of the letters (e.g. pi, facsimile No. 27, lines 1, 3), it might be judged of earlier date: observe, however, the oblong form of omicron where the space is crowded in the last line of the facsimile, when the older scribes would have retained the circular shape and made the letter very small (see facsimile No. 11 b. l. 6): delta also and xi betray a less ancient scribe. The single stop in Cod. E, as was stated above (p. 48), changes its place according to the variation of its power, as in other copies of about the same age. The capitals at the beginning of sections stand out in the margin as in Codd. AC. The lists of the larger κεφάλαια together with the numbers of the sections in the margin and the Eusebian canons beneath them, as well as harmonizing references to the other Gospels at the foot of the page, names of Feast days with their Proper lessons, and other liturgical notices, have been inserted (as some think, but erroneously in Burgon's judgement) by a later hand. Under the text (Mark i. 5, 6) are placed the harmonizing references, in the order (varying in each Gospel) Mark, Luke, John, Matthew. Ιω (John) furnishes no parallel on this page. The first section (α) of Μρ (Mark i. 1, 2) corresponds to the seventieth (ο) of Λο (Luke vii. 27), and to the 103rd (ργ) of M (Matt. xi. 10). Again the second (β) of Mark (i. 3) is parallel to the seventh (ζ) of Luke (iii. 3), and to the eighth (η) of Matt. (iii. 3). The passage given in our facsimile (No. 27) is part of the third (γ) of Mark (i. 4-6), and answers to nothing in Luke, but to the ninth (θ) of Matt. (iii. 4-6). See p. 60, note 4. The value of this [pg 133] codex, as supplying materials for criticism, is considerable. It approaches more nearly than some others of its date to the text now commonly received, and is an excellent witness for it. The asterisk is much used to indicate disputed passages: e.g. Matt. xvi. 2, 3: Luke xxii. 43, 44; xxiii. 34: John viii. 2-11. (For the fragments attached to this Codex, see Apoc. 15.)
F. Codex Boreeli, now in the Public Library at Utrecht, once belonged to John Boreel [d. 1629], Dutch ambassador at the court of King James I. Wetstein obtained some readings from it in 1730, as far as Luke xi, but stated that he knew not where it then was. In 1830 Professor Heringa of Utrecht discovered it in private hands at Arnheim, and procured it for his University Library, where in 1850 Tregelles found it, though with some difficulty, the leaves being torn and all loose in a box, and he then made a facsimile; Tischendorf had looked through it in 1841. In 1843, after Heringa's death, H. E. Vinke published that scholar's “Disputatio de Codice Boreeliano,” which includes a full and exact collation of the text. Cod. F contains the Four Gospels with many defects, some of which have been caused since the collation was made which Wetstein published: hence the codex must still sometimes be cited on his authority as Fw. In fact there are but 204 leaves and a few fragments remaining, written with two columns of about nineteen lines each on the page, in a tall, oblong, upright form; it was referred by Mr. H. Deane in 1876 to the eighth, by Tischendorf to the ninth, by Tregelles to the tenth century. In St. Luke there are no less than twenty-four gaps: in Wetstein's collation it began at Matt. vii. 6, but now at Matt. ix. 1. Other hiatus are Matt. xii. 1-44; xiii. 55-xiv. 9; xv. 20-31; xx. 18-xxi. 5: Mark i. 43-ii. 8; ii. 23-iii. 5; xi. 6-26; xiv. 54-xv. 5; xv. 39-xvi. 19: John iii. 5-14; iv. 23-38; v. 18-38; vi. 39-63; vii. 28-viii. 10; x. 32-xi. 3; xi. 40-xii. 3; xii. 14-25: it ends at John xiii. 34. Few manuscripts have fallen into such unworthy hands. The Eusebian canons are wanting, the sections standing without them in the margin. Thus in Mark x. 13 (see facsimile No. 28) the section ρϛ (106) has not under it the proper canon β (2). The letters delta, epsilon, theta, omicron, and especially the cross-like psi (see p. 40), are of the most recent uncial form, phi is large and bevelled at both [pg 134] ends; the breathings and accents are fully and not incorrectly given.
Fa. Codex Coislin. I is that great copy of the Septuagint Octateuch, the glory of the Coislin Library, first made known by Montfaucon (Biblioth. Coislin., 1715), and illustrated by a facsimile in Silvestre's Paléogr. Univ. No. 65. It contains 227 leaves in two columns, 13 inches by 9: the fine massive uncials of the sixth or seventh century are much like Cod. A's in general appearance. In the margin primâ manu Wetstein found Acts ix. 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. v. 48; xii. 48; xxvii. 25: Luke i. 42; ii. 24; xxiii. 21: John v. 35; vi. 53, 55: Acts iv. 33, 34; ix. 24, 25; x. 13, 15; xxii. 22: 1 Cor. vii. 39; xi. 29: 1 Cor. iii. 13; ix. 7; xi. 33: Gal. iv. 21, 22: Col. ii. 16, 17; Heb. x. 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 Graeca” (vol. iii. 1723), and barbarously mutilated them in 1721 in order to send pieces to Bentley, among whose papers in Trinity College Library (B. xvii. 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. GH have now been thoroughly collated both by Tischendorf and Tregelles. Cod. G appears to be of the tenth, Cod. H of the ninth century, and is stated to be of higher critical value. Besides the mutilated fragments at Trinity College (Matt. v. 29-31; 39-43 of Cod. G; Luke i. 3-6; 13-15 of Cod. H), many parts of both have perished: viz. in Cod. G 372 verses; Matt. i. 1-vi. 6; vii. 25-viii. 9; viii. 23-ix. 2; xxviii. 18-Mark i. 13; xiv. 19-25: Luke i. 1-13; v. 4-vii. 3; viii. 46-ix. 5; xii. 27-41; xxiv. 41-53: John xviii. [pg 135] 5-19; xix. 4-27 (of which one later hand supplies Matt, xxviii. 18-Mark i. 8: John xviii. 5-19; another Luke xii. 27-41): in Cod. H 679 verses; Matt. i. 1-xv. 30; xxv. 33-xxvi. 3; Mark i. 32-ii. 4; xv. 44-xvi. 14; Luke v. 18-32; vi. 8-22; x. 2-19: John ix. 30-x. 25; xviii. 2-18; xx. 12-25. Cod. G has some Church notes in the margin; Cod. H the sections without the Eusebian canons; G however has both sections and canons; its τίτλοι and larger κεφάλαια are in red (those of St. John being lost), and the Church notes seem primâ manu. Each member of the genealogy in Luke iii forms a separate line. Both G and H are written in a somewhat rude style, with breathings and accents rather irregularly placed, as was the fashion of their times; G in two columns of twenty-two lines each on a page, H in one column of twenty-three lines. In each the latest form of the uncial letters is very manifest (e.g. delta, theta), but G is the neater of the two. In G the single point, in H a kind of Maltese cross, are the prevailing marks of punctuation. Our facsimiles (Nos. 29 of G, 31 of H) are due to Tregelles; that of G he took from the fragment at Trinity College. Inasmuch as beside Matt. v. 30, 31 in Cod. G ΑΡ [with a χ between and above them] (ἀρχή) is conspicuous in the margin, and ΤΕ ΤΗΣ Λε (τέλος τῆς λέξεως) stands in the text itself, good scholars may be excused for having mistaken it for a scrap of some Evangelistarium.
I. Cod. Tischendorfian. II at St. Petersburg, consists of palimpsest fragments found by Tischendorf in 1853 “in the dust of an Eastern library,” i.e. in the Convent of St. Saba near the Red Sea, and published in his new series of “Monumenta sacra inedita,” vol. i, 1855. On the twenty-eight vellum leaves (eight of them on four double leaves) Georgian writing covers the partially obliterated Greek, which is for the most part very hard to read. They compose portions of no less than seven different manuscripts; the first two, of the fifth century, are as old as Codd. AC (the first having scarcely any capital letters and those very slightly larger than the rest); the third fragment seems of the sixth century, nearly of the date of Cod. N (p. 139), about as old as Cod. P (see p. 143); the fourth scarcely less ancient: all four, like other palimpsests, have the pseudo-Ammonian sections without the Eusebian canons (see p. 61). Of the [pg 136] Gospels we have 190 verses: viz. (Frag. 1 or Ia) John xi. 50-xii. 9; xv. 12-xvi. 2; xix. 11-24: (Frag. 2 or Ib) Matt. xiv. 13-16; 19-23; xxiv. 37-xxv. 1; xxv. 32-45; xxvi. 31-45: Mark ix. 14-22; xiv. 58-70: (Frag. 3 or Ic) Matt. xvii. 22-xviii. 3; xviii. 11-19; xix. 5-14: Luke xviii. 14-25; John iv. 52-v. 8; xx. 17-26: (Frag. 4 or Id) Luke vii. 39-49; xxiv. 10-19. The fifth fragment (Ie), containing portions of the Acts and of St. Paul's Epistles (1 Cor. xv. 53-xvi. 9; Tit. i. 1-13; Acts xxviii. 8-17) is as old as the third, if not as the first. The sixth and seventh fragments are of the seventh century: viz. (Frag. 6 or If, of two leaves) Acts ii. 6-17; xxvi. 7-18: (Frag. 7 or Ig, of one leaf) Acts xiii. 39-46. In all seven are 255 verses. All except Frag. 6 are in two columns of from twenty-nine to eighteen lines each, and unaccentuated; Frag. 6 has but one column on a page, with some accents. The first five fragments, so far as they extend, must be placed in the highest rank as critical authorities. The first, as cited in Tischendorf's eighth edition of his Greek Testament, agrees with Cod. A thirty-four times, four times with Cod. B, and twenty-three times with the two united; it stands alone eleven times. The text of the second and third is more mixed though they incline more to favour Codd. אB; not, however, so decidedly as the first does Cod. A. Tischendorf gives us six facsimiles of them in the “Monumenta sacra inedita,”. Nova Collect. vol. i (1885), a seventh in “Anecdota sacra et profana,” 1855. From the same Armenian book, as Tischendorf thinks (and he was very likely to know), are taken the three palimpsest leaves of 2 and 3 Kings, and the six of Isaiah published by him in the same volume of the “Monumenta.”
Ib. See Nb, below.
K. Cod. Cyprius, or No. 63 of the Royal Library at Paris, shares only with Codd. אBMSU 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, whose inaccuracies (especially those committed when collating Cod. K for his “Curae Criticae in Historiam textûs Evangeliorum,” Heidelberg, 1820) have been strongly denounced by later editors, and it must be feared with too good reason. The independent [pg 137] collations of Tischendorf and Tregelles have now done all that can be needed for this copy. It is an oblong quarto, in compressed uncials, of about the middle of the ninth century at the latest, having one column of about twenty-one lines on each page, but the handwriting is irregular and varies much in size. A single point being often found where the sense does not require it, this codex has been thought to have been copied from an older one arranged in στίχοι; the ends of each στίχος may have been indicated in this manner by the scribe. The subscriptions, τίτλοι, the sections, and indices of the κεφάλαια of the last three Gospels are believed to be the work of a later hand: the Eusebian canons are absent. The breathings and accents are primâ manu, but often omitted or incorrectly placed. Itacisms and permutations of consonants are very frequent, and the text is of an unusual and interesting character. Scholz regards the directions for the Church lessons, even the ἀρχαί and τέλη in the margin at the beginning and end of lessons, as by the original scribe. He transcribes at length the ἐκλογάδιον τῶν δ᾽ εὐαγγελιστῶν and the fragments of a menology prefixed to Cod. K (N. T. vol. i, pp. 455-493), of which tables it affords the earliest specimen. The second hand writes at the end προσδέξηται αὐτὴν [τὴν δέλτον] ἡ παναγία θεοτόκος καὶ ὁ ἅγιος εὐτύχιος. The style of this copy will be seen from our facsimile (No. 19) taken from John vi. 52, 53: the number of the section (ξϛ´) or 66 stands in the margin, but the ordinary place of the Eusebian canon (ι or 10) under it is filled by a simple flourish. The stop in 1. 1 after λεγοντεσ illustrates the unusual punctuation of this copy, as may that after ὁ ισ in 1. 3.
L. Cod. Regius, No. 62 in the Royal Library at Paris, is by far the most remarkable document of its age and class. It contains the Four Gospels, except the following passages, Matt. iv. 22-v. 14; xxviii. 17-20: Mark x. 16-30; xv. 2-20: John xxi. 15-25. It was written in about the eighth century and consists of 257 leaves quarto, of thick vellum, 9 inches high by 6-½ broad, with two columns of twenty-five lines each on a page, regularly marked, as we so often see, by the stilus and ruler (p. 27). This is doubtless Stephen's η´, though he cites it erroneously in Acts xxiv. 7 bis; xxv. 14; xxvii. 1; xxviii. 11: it was even [pg 138] then in the Royal Library, although “Roberto Stephano” is marked in the volume. 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,” 1846. It is but carelessly written, and abounds with errors of the ignorant scribe, who was more probably an Egyptian than a native Greek. The breathings and accents are often deficient, often added wrongly, and placed throughout without rule or propriety. The apostrophus also is common, and frequently out of place; the points for stops are quite irregular, as we have elsewhere stated (p. 48). Capitals occur plentifully, often painted and in questionable taste (see facsimile No. 21, column 2), and there is a tendency throughout to inelegant ornament. This codex is in bad condition through damp, the ink brown or pale, the uncial letters of a debased oblong shape: phi is enormously large and sometimes quite angular; other letters are such as might be looked for from its date, and are neither neat nor remarkably clear. The lessons for Sundays, festivals, &c. and the ἀρχαί and τέλη are marked everywhere in the margin, especially in St. Matthew; there are also many corrections and important critical notes (e.g. Mark xvi. 8) in the text or margin, apparently primâ manu. Our facsimile is taken from a photograph of its most important page, Mark xvi. 8, 9, with part of the note cited at length below. Before each Gospel are indices of the κεφάλαια, now imperfect: we find also the τίτλοι at the head and occasionally at the foot of the several pages; the numbers of the κεφάλαια (usually pointed out by the sign of the cross), the sections and Eusebian canons stand in the inner margin176 often ill put, as if only half understood. The critical weight of this copy may best be discussed hereafter; it will here suffice barely to mention its strong resemblance to Cod. B (less, however, in St. John's Gospel than elsewhere), to the citations of Origen [186-253], and to the margin of the Harkleian Syriac version [a.d. 616]. Cod. L abounds in what are termed Alexandrian forms, beyond any other copy of its date.
M. Cod. Campianus, No. 48 in the Royal Library at Paris, [pg 139] contains the Four Gospels complete in a small quarto 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. The Abbé François de Camps gave it to Louis XIV, Jan. 1, 1707. This document is Kuster's 2 (1710); it was collated by Wetstein, Scholz, and Tregelles; transcribed in 1841 by Tischendorf. Its synaxarion and menology have been published by Scholz in the same place as those of Cod. K, and obviously with great carelessness. Ἀναγνώσματα, i.e. notes of the Church Lessons, abound in the margin (Tischendorf thinks them primâ manu) in a very small hand, like in style to the Oxford Plato (Clarke 39, above, p. 42). We find too Hippolytus' Chronology of the Gospels, Eusebius' letter to Carpianus with his canons, and some Arabic scrawl on the last leaf, of which the name of Jerusalem alone has been read, a note in Slavonic, and others in a contemporaneous cursive hand. Dean Burgon also observed at the foot of the several pages the same kind of harmony as we described for Cod. E. It has breathings, accents pretty fairly given, and a musical notation in red, so frequent in Church manuscripts of the age. Its readings are very good; itacisms and ν ἐφελκυστικόν are frequent. Tischendorf compares the form of its uncials to those of Cod. V; which, judging from the facsimile given by Matthaei, we should deem somewhat less beautiful. From our facsimile (No. 32) it will be seen that the round letters are much narrowed, the later form of delta and theta quite decided, while alpha and pi might look earlier. Our specimen (John vii. 53-viii. 2) represents the celebrated Pericope adulterae in one of its earliest forms.
N. Codex Purpureus. Only twelve leaves of this beautiful copy were till recently believed to survive, and some former possessor must have divided them in order to obtain a better price from several purchasers than from one. Four leaves are now in the British Museum (Cotton, Titus C. xv), six in the Vatican (No. 3785), two at Vienna (Lambec. 2), at the end of a fragment of Genesis in a different hand. The London fragments (Matt. xxvi. 57-65; xxvii. 26-34: John xiv. 2-10; xv. 15-22) were collated by Wetstein on his first visit to England in 1715, and marked in his Greek Testament by the letter J: Scrivener transcribed them in 1845, and announced that they [pg 140] contained fifty-seven various readings, of which Wetstein had given but five. The Vienna fragment (Luke xxiv. 13-21; 39-49) had long been known by the descriptions of Lambecius: Wetstein had called it N; Treschow in 1773 and Alter in 1787 had given imperfect collations of it. Scholz first noticed the Vatican leaves (Matt. xix. 6-13; xx. 6-22; xx. 29-xxi. 19), denoted them by Γ, and used some readings extracted by Gaetano Marini. It was reserved for Tischendorf (Monumenta sacra inedita, 1846) to publish them all in full, and to determine by actual inspection that they were portions of the same manuscript, of the date of about the end of the sixth century. Besides these twelve leaves John Sakkelion the Librarian saw in or about 1864 at the Monastery of St. John in Patmos thirty-three other leaves containing portions of St. Mark's Gospel (ch. vi. 53-xv. 23)177, whose readings were communicated to Tischendorf, and are included in his eighth edition of the N. T. The others were probably stolen from the same place. This book is written on the thinnest vellum (see pp. 23, 25), dyed purple, and the silver letters (which have turned quite black) were impressed in some way upon it, but are too varied in shape, and at the end of the lines in size, to admit the supposition of moveable type being used, as some have thought to be the case in the Codex Argenteus of the Gothic Gospels. The abridgements ΘΣ, ΧΣ, &c. are in gold; and some changes have been made by an ancient second hand. The so-called Ammonian sections and the Eusebian canons are faithfully given (see p. 59), and the Vatican portion has the forty-first, forty-sixth, and forty-seventh τίτλοι of St. Matthew at the head of the pages. Each page has two columns of sixteen lines, and the letters (about ten or twelve in a line) are firm, uniform, bold, and unornamented, though not quite so much so as in a few older documents; their lower extremities are bevelled. Their size is at least four times that of the letters in Cod. A, the punctuation quite as simple, being a single point (and that usually neglected) level with the top of the letter (see our facsimile, Plate v, No. 14, [pg 141] l. 3), and there is no space left between words even after stops. A few letters stand out as capitals at the beginning of lines; of the breathings and accents, if such they be, we have spoken above (p. 47). Letters diminished at the end of a line do not lose their ancient shape, as in many later books: compendia scribendi are rare, yet [symbol] stands for Ν at the end of a line no less than twenty-nine times in the London leaves alone, but [symbol] for αι only once. Ι at the beginning of a syllable has two dots over it, Υ but one. We have discussed above (pp. 32-39) the shape of the alphabet in Ν (for by that single letter Tischendorf denotes it), and compared it with others of nearly the same date; alpha, omega, lambda look more ancient than delta or xi (see Plate ii. No. 4). It exhibits strong Alexandrian forms, e.g. παραλήμψομε, ειχοσαν (the latter condemned secundâ manu), and not a few such itacisms as the changes of ι and ει, αι and ε.
Cod. Nb (Ib of Tischendorf's N. T., eighth edition), Musei Britannici (Addit. 17136), is a 12mo volume containing the hymns of Severus in Syriac, and is one of the books brought thither from the Nitrian desert. It is a palimpsest, with a second Syriac work written below the first, and, under both, four leaves (117, 118, 127, 128) contain fragments of seventeen verses of St. John (xiii. 16; 17; 19; 20; 23; 24; 26; 27; xvi. 7; 8; 9 although only one word—περί—is preserved; 12; 13; 15; 16; 18; 19). These Tischendorf (and Tregelles about the same time) deciphered with great difficulty, as every one who has examined the manuscript would anticipate, and published in the second volume of his new collection of “Monumenta sacra inedita.” Each page contained two columns. We meet with the sections without the Eusebian canons, the earliest form of uncial characters, no capital letters (see p. 51, note 2), and only the simplest kind of punctuation, although one rough breathing is legible. Tischendorf hesitates whether he shall assign the fragment to the fourth or fifth century. It agrees with Cod. A five or six times, with Cod. B five, with the two together six, and is against them both thrice.
O. No less than nine small fragments have borne this mark. O of Wetstein was given by Anselmo Banduri to Montfaucon, and contains only Luke xviii. 11-14: this Tischendorf discards [pg 142] as taken from an Evangelistarium (of the tenth century, as he judges from the writing) chiefly because it wants the number of the section at ver. 14. In its room he puts for Cod. O Moscow Synod. 120 (Matthaei, 15), a few leaves of about the ninth century (containing the fifteen verses, John i. 1, 3, 4; xx. 10-13; 15-17; 20-24, with some scholia), which had been used for binding a copy of Chrysostom's Homilies on Genesis, brought from the monastery of Dionysius at Mount Athos, and published in Matthaei's Greek Testament with a facsimile (see ix. 257 &c., and facsimile in tom. xii). Further portions of this fragment were seen at Athos in 1864 by Mr. Philip E. Pusey. Tregelles has also appended it to his edition of Cod. Ξ. In this fragment we find the cross-like psi, the interrogative “;” (John xx. 13), and the comma (ib. ver. 12). Alford's Frag. Ath. b=Tisch. We—p. 145—and Frag. Ath. a are probably parts of O. The next five comprise N. T. hymns.
Cod. Oa. Magnificat and Benedictus in Greek uncials of the eighth or ninth century, in a Latin book at Wolfenbüttel, is published by Tischendorf, Anecdota sacr. et prof. 1855; as is also Ob, which contains these two and Nunc Dimittis, of the ninth century, and is at Oxford, Bodleian, Misc. Gr. 5, ff. 313-4178. Oc. Magnificat in the Verona Psalter of the sixth century (the Greek being written in Latin letters), published by Bianchini (Vindiciae Canon. Script. 1740). Od, Oe, both contain the three hymns, Od in the great purple and silver Zurich Psalter of the seventh century (Tischendorf, Monum. sacra inedita, tom. iv, 1869)179; Oe of the ninth century at St. Gall (Cod. 17), partly written in Greek, partly in Latin. Of, also of the ninth century, is described by Tischendorf (N. T., eighth edition) once as “Noroff. Petrop.,” once as “Mosquensis.” Og (IX) in the Arsenal Library at Paris (MS. Gr. 2), containing, besides the Psalms and Canticle of the Old Testament, the Magnificat, Benedictus, and Nunc Dimittis, besides the Lord's Prayer, the Sanctus and other such pieces. Oh. Taurinensis Reg. B. vii. [pg 143] 30 (viii or ix), 5-¾ × 4, ff. 303 (20)180. Psalter with Luke i. 46-55; ii. 29-31. See Gregory, Prolegomena, p. 441.
P. Codex Guelpherbytanus A, and Q. Codex Guelpherbytanus 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. He published the whole in 1762181, so far at least as he could read them, though Tregelles believed more might be deciphered, and Tischendorf, with his unconquerable energy, collating them both in 1854, was able to re-edit them more accurately, Cod. Q in the third volume (1860) and Cod. P in the sixth (1869) of his Monumenta sacra inedita. The volume (called the Codex Carolinus) seems to have been once at Bobbio, and has been traced from Weissenburg to Mayence and Prague, till it was bought by a Duke of Brunswick in 1689. Codex P contains, on forty-three or forty-four leaves, thirty-one fragments of 518 verses, taken from all the four Evangelists182; Codex Q, on thirteen leaves, twelve fragments of 247 verses from SS. Luke and John183; but all can be traced only with great difficulty. A few portions, once written in vermilion, have quite departed, but Tischendorf has made material additions to Knittel's labours, both in extent and accuracy. He assigns P to the sixth, Q to the fifth century. Both are written in two columns, the uncials being bold, round or square, those of Q not a little the smaller. The letters in P, however, are sometimes compressed at the end of a line. The capitals in P are large and frequent, and both have the sections without the canons of [pg 144] Eusebius (see p. 59). The table of τίτλοι found in the volume is written in oblong uncials of a lower date, as Knittel thought, possibly without good reason. Itacisms, what are termed Alexandrian forms, and the usual contractions (ΙΣ, ΞΣ, ΚΣ, ΘΣ, ΥΣ, ΠΗΡ, ΠΝΑ, ΙΛΗΜ, ΑΝΟΣ, ΔΑΔ, Μ [with symbol above it]) occur in both copies. Breathings also are seen here and there in Q. From Tischendorf's beautiful facsimiles of Codd. PQ we observe that while delta is far more elaborate in P than in Q, the precise contrary is the case with pi. Epsilon and sigma in P have strong points at all the extremities; nu in each is of the ancient form exhibited in Codd. אNR (see p. 37); while in P alpha resembles in shape that of our alphabet in Plate ii. No. 5, eta that in Plate iii. No. 7. As regards their text we observe that in the first hundred verses of St. Luke which are contained in both copies, wherein P is cited for various readings 216 times, and Q 182 times, P stands alone fourteen times, Q not once. P agrees with other manuscripts against AB twenty-one times, Q nineteen: P agrees with AB united fifty times, Q also fifty: P sides with B against A twenty-nine times, Q thirty-eight: but P accords with A against B in 102 places, Q in seventy-five.
R. This letter, like some that precede, has been used to represent different books by various editors, a practice the inconvenience of which is very manifest. (1) R of Griesbach and Scholz is a fragment of one quarto leaf containing John i. 38-50, at Tübingen, with musical notes, which from its thick vellum, from the want of the sections and Eusebian canons, and the general resemblance of its uncials to those of late Service Books, Tischendorf pronounces to be an Evangelistarium, and puts in its room (2) in his N. T. of 1849, fourteen leaves of a palimpsest in the Royal Library of Naples (Borbon. ii. C. 15) of the eighth century, under a Typicum (see Suicer, Thes. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 1335), or Ritual of the Greek Church, of the fourteenth century. These are fragments from the first three Evangelists, in oblong uncials, leaning to the right. Tischendorf, by chemical applications, was able in 1843 to read one page, in two columns of twenty-five lines each (Mark xiv. 32-39)184, and saw the sections in the margin; the Eusebian canons he thinks have been washed out (see p. 59): but [pg 145] in 1859 he calls this fragment Wb, reserving the letter R for (3) Codex Nitriensis, Brit. Museum, Additional 17211, the very important palimpsest containing on forty-eight (53) leaves about 516 verses of St. Luke in twenty-five fragments185, under the black, broad Syriac writing, being a treatise of Severus of Antioch against Johannes Grammaticus, of the eighth or ninth century. There are two columns of about twenty-five lines each on a page; for their boldness and simplicity the letters may be referred to the end of the sixth century; we have given a facsimile of the manuscript (which cannot be read in parts but with the utmost difficulty), and an alphabet collected from it (Nos. 5, 17). In size and shape the letters are much like those of Codd. INP, only that they are somewhat irregular and straggling: the punctuation is effected by a single point almost level with the top of the letters, as in Cod. N. The pseudo-Ammonian sections are there without the Eusebian canons, and the first two leaves are devoted to the τίτλοι of St. Luke. This most important palimpsest is one of the 550 manuscripts brought to England, about 1847, from the Syrian convent of S. Mary Deipara, in the Nitrian Desert, seventy miles N. W. of Cairo. When examined at the British Museum by the late Canon Cureton, then one of the Librarians, he discovered in the same volume, and published in 1851 (with six pages in facsimile), a palimpsest of 4000 lines of Homer's Iliad not in the same hand as St. Luke, but quite as ancient. The fragments of St. Luke were independently transcribed, with most laudable patience, both by Tregelles in 1854, and by Tischendorf in 1855, who afterwards re-examined the places wherein he differed from Tregelles (e.g. chh. viii. 5; xviii. 7, 10), and discovered by the aid of Dr. Wright a few more fragments of chh. vi-viii. Tischendorf published an edition of Cod. R in his “Monumenta sacra inedita,” vol. ii, with a facsimile: the amended readings, together with the newly-discovered variations in chh. vi. 31-36, 39, vii. 44, 46, 47, are inserted in the eighth edition of his Greek Testament. In this palimpsest as at present bound [pg 146] up in the Museum the fragments of St. Luke end on f. 48, and the rest of the Greek in the volume is in later, smaller, sloping uncials, and contains propositions from the tenth and thirteenth books of Euclid. On the critical character of the readings of this precious fragment we shall make some comments below.
S. Codex Vaticanus 354 contains the four Gospels entire, and is amongst the earliest dated manuscripts of the Greek Testament (p. 41, note 2). This is a folio of 234 leaves, written in large oblong or compressed uncials: the Epistle to Carpianus and Eusebian canons are prefixed, and it contains many later corrections (e.g. Luke viii. 15) and marginal notes (e.g. Matt. xxvii. 16, 17). Luke xxii. 43, 44; John v. 4; vii. 53-viii. 11 are obelized. At the end we read ἐγράφει ἡ τιμία δέλτος αὕτη διὰ χειρὸς ἐμοῦ Μιχαὴλ μοναχοῦ ἁμαρτωλοῦ μηνὶ μαρτίω α´. ἡμέρα ε´, ὡρα ϛ´, ἔτους ςυνζ. ινδ. ζ´: i.e. a.d. 949. “Codicem bis diligenter contulimus,” says Birch: but collators in his day (1781-3) seldom noticed orthographical forms or stated where the readings agree with the received text, so that a more thorough examination was still required. Tregelles only inspected it, but Tischendorf, when at Rome in 1866, carefully re-examined it, and has inserted many of its readings in his eighth edition and its supplementary leaves. He states that Birch's facsimile (consisting of the obelized John v. 4) is coarsely executed, while Bianchini's is too elegant; he made another for himself.
T. Codex Borgianus I, now in the Propaganda at Rome (see below, Evan. 180), contains thirteen or more quarto leaves of SS. Luke and John, with a Thebaic or Sahidic version at their side, but on the opposite and left page. Each page consists of two columns: a single point indicates a break in the sense, but there are no other divisions. The fragment contains Luke xxii. 20-xxiii. 20; John vi. 28-67; vii. 6-viii. 31 (179 verses, since John vii. 53-viii. 11 are wanting). The portion containing St. John, both in Greek and Egyptian, was carefully edited at Rome in 1789 by A. A. Giorgi, an Augustinian Eremite; his facsimile, however (ch. vii. 35), seems somewhat rough, though Tischendorf (who has inspected the codex) says [pg 147] that its uncials look as if written by a Copt, from their resemblance to Coptic letters186: the shapes of alpha and iota are specially noticeable. Birch had previously collated the Greek text. Notwithstanding the occasional presence of the rough and smooth breathing in this copy (p. 47)187, Giorgi refers it to the fourth century, Tischendorf to the fifth. The Greek fragment of St. Luke was first collated by Mr. Bradley H. Alford, and inserted by his brother, Dean Alford, in the fourth edition of his Greek Testament, vol. i (1859). Dr. Tregelles had drawn Mr. Alford's attention to it, from a hint thrown out by Zoega, in p. 184 of his “Catalogus codd. Copt. MSS. qui in Museo Borgiano Velitris adservantur.” Romae, 1810.
Ts or Twoi is used by Tischendorf to indicate a few leaves in Greek and Thebaic, which once belonged to Woide, and were published with his other Thebaic fragments in Ford's Appendix to the Codex Alexandrinus, Oxon. 1799. They contain Luke xii. 15-xiii. 32; John viii. 33-42 (eighty-five verses). From the second fragment it plainly appears (what the similarity of the facsimiles had suggested to Tregelles) that T and Ts are parts of the same manuscript, for the page of Ts which contains John viii. 33 in Greek exhibits on its reverse the Thebaic version of John viii. 23-32, of which T affords us only the Greek text. This fact was first noted by Tischendorf (N. T. 1859), who adds that the Coptic scribe blundered much over the Greek: e.g. βαβουσα Luke xiii. 21; so δεκαι for δεκα και, ver. 16. He transcribed T and Twoi (as well as Tb, Tc, Td, which we proceed to describe), for publication in the ninth volume of his “Monumenta sacra inedita” (1870), but owing to his death they never appeared. But Bp. Lightfoot gives reasons (see below, vol. ii. [pg 148] c. 2) for thinking that this fragment was not originally a portion of T.
Tb at St. Petersburg much resembles the preceding in the Coptic-like style of writing, but is not earlier than the sixth century. It contains on six octavo leaves John i. 25-42; ii. 9-iv. 50, spaces left in the text answering the purpose of stops. Tb has a harmony of the Gospels at the foot of the page.
Tc is a fragment of about twenty-one verses between Matt. xiv. 19 and xv. 8, also of the sixth century, and at St. Petersburg, in the collection of Bishop Porphyry. Its text in the twenty-nine places cited by Tischendorf in his eighth edition accords with Cod. א twenty-four times, with Cod. B twenty times, with Codd. C and D sixteen times each, with Cod. 33 nine times. Cod. A is wanting here. Compared with these primary authorities severally, it agrees with א alone once, with 33 alone twice, with אB united against the rest four times: so that its critical character is very decided.
Td is a fragment of a Lectionary, Greek and Sahidic, of about the seventh century, found by Tischendorf in 1866 among the Borgian manuscripts at Rome. It contains Matt. xvi. 13-20; Mark i. 3-8, xii. 35-37; John xix. 23-27; xx. 30-31: twenty-four verses only. This fragment and the next have been brought into this place, rather than inserted in the list of Evangelistaria, because they both contained fragments of the Thebaic version.
Te is a fragment of St. Matthew at Cambridge (Univ. Libr. Addit. 1875). Dr. Hort communicated its readings to Dr. C. R. Gregory, for his Prolegomena to the eighth edition of Tischendorf's N. T. It is “a tiny morsel” of an uncial Lectionary of the sixth century, containing only Matt. iii. 13-16, the parallel column probably in the Thebaic version having perished. It was brought, among other Coptic fragments, from Upper Egypt by Mr. Greville Chester. Dr. Hort kindly enables me to add to his description of Te (Addenda to Tregelles' N. T. p. 1070) that this “tiny morsel” is irregular in shape, frequently less than four [pg 149] inches in width and height, the uncial Greek letters being three-eighths of an inch high. There seem to have been two columns of either eight or more probably of twenty-four lines each on a page, but no Coptic portions survive. “If of twenty-four lines the fragment might belong to the inner column of a bilingual MS. with the two languages in parallel columns, or to the outer column of a wholly Greek MS. or of a bilingual MS. with the section in the two languages consecutively, as in Mr. Horner's Graeco-Thebaic fragment (Evst. 299: see p. 398). In the latter case it might belong to the inner column of a wholly Greek MS. or of a bilingual MS. with the section in two consecutive languages. The size of the letters renders it improbable, however, that the columns were of eight lines only.” (Hort.)
Tf Horner. See below under Thebaic or Sahidic MSS. at the end.
Tg Cairo, Cod. Papadopulus Kerameus [vi or vii], 9-½ x 8-¼, ff. 3 (27), two cols., written in letters like Coptic. Matt. xx. 3-32; xxii. 4-16. Facsimile by the Abbate Cozza-Luzi in “N. T. e Cod. Vat. 1209 nativi textus Graeci primo omnium phototypice representatum”—Danesio, Rome, 1889. See Gregory, Prolegomena, p. 450.
U. Codex Nanianus I, so called from a former possessor, is now in the Library of St. Mark, Venice (I. viii). It contains the four Gospels entire, carefully and luxuriously written in two columns of twenty-one lines each on the quarto page, scarcely before the tenth century, although the “letters are in general an imitation of those used before the introduction of compressed uncials; but they do not belong to the age when full and round writing was customary or natural, so that the stiffness and want of ease is manifest” (Tregelles' Horne, p. 202). It has Carp., Eus. t., κεφ. τ. τίτλ., κεφ., pict., with much gold ornament. Thus while the small ο in l. 1 of our facsimile (No. 22) is in the oldest style, the oblong omicrons creep in at the end of lines 2 and 4. Münter sent some extracts from this copy to Birch, who used them for his edition, and states that the book contains the Eusebian canons. Accordingly in Mark [pg 150] v. 18, B (in error for H) stands under the proper section μη (48). Tischendorf in 1843 and Tregelles in 1846 collated Cod. U thoroughly and independently, and compared their work at Leipsic for the purpose of mutual correction.
V. Codex Mosquensis, of the Holy Synod, is known almost188 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. Judging from Matthaei's plate, it is hard to say why others have dated it in the ninth. It contained in 1779, when first collated, the Four Gospels in 8vo with the sections and Eusebian canons, in uncial letters down to John vii. 39, ουπω γαρ ην, and from that point in cursive letters of the thirteenth century, Matt. v. 44-vi. 12; ix. 18-x. 1 being lost: when re-collated but four years later Matt. xxii. 44-xxiii. 35; John xxi. 10-25 had disappeared. Matthaei tells us that the manuscript is written in a kind of stichometry by a diligent scribe: its resemblance to Cod. M has been already mentioned. The cursive portion is Matthaei's V, Scholz's Evan. 250.
Wa. Cod. Reg. Paris 314 consists of but two leaves at the end of another book, containing Luke ix. 34-47; x. 12-22 (twenty-three verses). Its date is about the eighth century; the uncial letters are firmly written, delta and theta being of the ordinary oblong shape of that period. Accents and breathings are usually put; all the stops are expressed by a single point, whose position makes no difference in its power. This copy was adapted to Church use, but is not an Evangelistarium, inasmuch as it exhibits the sections and Eusebian canons189, and τίτλοι twice at the head of the page. This fragment was brought to light by Scholz, and published by Tischendorf, Monumenta sacra inedita, 1846.
[pg 151]Wb. Tischendorf considers the fragment at Naples he had formerly numbered R (2) as another portion of the same copy, and therefore indicates it in his seventh edition of the N. T. (1859) as Wb. It has seventy-nine leaves, of which the fourteen last are palimpsest, is written in two columns, with twenty-five lines in each page; has the Ammonian sections and lections, and contains Matt. xix. 14-28; xx. 23-xxi. 2; xxvi. 52-xxvii. 1; Mark xiii. 21-xiv. 67; Luke iii. 1-iv. 20. (Prolegomena to Tischendorf, p. 395.)
Wc is assigned by Tischendorf to three leaves containing Mark ii. 8-16; Luke i. 20-32; 64-79 (thirty-five verses), which have been washed to make a palimpsest, and the writing erased in parts by a knife. There are also some traces of a Latin version, but all these were used up to bind other books in the library of St. Gall. They are of the eighth century, or the ninth according to Tischendorf, edd. 7 and 8, and have appeared in vol. iii of “Monumenta sacra inedita,” with a facsimile, whose style closely resembles that of Cod. Δ, and its kindred FG of St. Paul's Epistles.
Wd was discovered in 1857 by Mr. W. White, sub-librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the College Library, and was afterwards observed, and arranged by Mr. H. Bradshaw, University Librarian, its slips (about twenty-seven in number) having been worked into the binding of a volume of Gregory Nazianzen: they are now carefully arranged under glass (B. viii. 5). They comprise portions of four leaves, severally containing Mark vii. 3-4; 6-8; 30-36; 36-viii. 4; 4-10; 11-16; ix. 2; 7-9, in uncial letters of the ninth century, if not rather earlier, slightly leaning to the right. The sections are set in the margin without the Eusebian canons, with a table of harmony at the foot of each page of twenty-four lines. The τίτλοι are in red at the top and bottom of the pages, their corresponding numerals in the margin. The breathings and accents are often very faint: lessons and musical notes, crosses, &c. are in red, and sometimes cover the original stops. In text it much resembles Codd. אBDLΔ: one reading (Mark vii. 33) appears to be unique. Dr. Scrivener has included it in a volume of fresh collations of manuscripts and editions which is shortly to appear under the accomplished editorship of Mr. J. Rendel Harris.
[pg 152]We is a fragment containing John iv. 7-14, in three leaves, found by the Very Rev. G. W. Kitchin, Dean of Winchester, in Christ Church Library, when Tischendorf was at Oxford in 1865. It much resembles O at Moscow, and, like it, had a commentary annexed, to which there are numeral references set before each verse.
Wf is a palimpsest fragment of St. Matt. xxv. 31-36, and vi. 1-18 (containing the doxology in the Lord's Prayer), of about the ninth century, underlying Wake 13 at Christ Church, Oxford (Acts 192, Paul. 246), discovered by the late Mr. A. A. Vansittart (Journal of Philology, vol. ii. no. 4, p. 241, note 1).
X. Codex Monacensis, in the University Library at Munich (No. 1/26), is a valuable folio manuscript of the end of the ninth or early in the tenth century, containing the Four Gospels (in the order described above, with serious omissions)190, and a commentary (chiefly from Chrysostom) surrounding and interspersed with the text of all but St. Mark, in early cursive letters, not unlike (in Tischendorf's judgement) the celebrated Oxford Plato dated 895. The very elegant uncials of Cod. X “are small and upright; though some of them are compressed, they seem as if they were partial imitations of those used in very early copies” (Tregelles' Horne, p. 195). Each page has two columns of about forty-five lines each. There are no divisions by κεφάλαια or sections, nor notes to serve for ecclesiastical use. From a memorandum we find that it came from Rome to Ingoldstadt, as a present from Gerard Vossius [1577-1649]; from Ingoldstadt it was taken to Landshut in 1803, thence to Munich in 1827. When it was at Ingoldstadt Griesbach obtained some extracts from it through Dobrowsky; Scholz first collated it, but in his usual unhappy way; Tischendorf in 1844, Tregelles in 1846. Dean Burgon examined it in 1872.
[pg 153]Y. Codex Barberini 225 at Rome (in the Library founded by Cardinal Barberini in the seventeenth century) contains on six large leaves the 137 verses John xvi. 3-xix. 41, of about the eighth century. Tischendorf obtained access to it in 1843 for a few hours, after some difficulty with the Prince Barberini, and published it in his first instalment of “Monumenta sacra inedita,” 1846. Scholz had first noticed, and loosely collated it. A later hand has coarsely retraced the letters, but the ancient writing is plain and good. Accents and breathings are most often neglected or placed wrongly: κ θ τ [each with a small symbol after and below the character] are frequent at the end of lines. For punctuation one, two, three or even four points are employed, the power of the single point varying as in Codd. E Θa and B of the Apocalypse. The pseudo-Ammonian sections are without the Eusebian canons: and such forms as λήμψεται xvi. 14, λήμψεσθε ver. 24 occur. These few uncial leaves are prefixed to a cursive copy of the Gospels with Theophylact's commentary (Evan. 392): the text is mixed, and lies about midway between that of Cod. A and Cod. B.
Z. Codex Dublinensis rescriptus, one of the chief palimpsests extant, contains 295 verses of St. Matthew's Gospel in twenty-two fragments191. It is of a small quarto size, originally 10-½ inches by 8, now reduced to 8-¼ inches by 6, once containing 120 leaves arranged in quaternions, of which the first that remains bears the signature 13 (ΙΓ): fourteen sheets or double leaves and four single leaves being all that survive. 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, &c. In the same volume are portions of Isaiah (eight leaves) and of Gregory Nazianzen, in erased uncial letters, the latter not so ancient as the fragment of St. Matthew. All the thirty-two leaves of this Gospel that remain were engraved in copper-plate facsimile192 at the expense of Trinity College, and [pg 154] published by Barrett in 1801, furnished with Prolegomena, and the contents of each facsimile plate in modern Greek characters, on the opposite page. The facsimiles are not very accurate, and the form of the letters is stated to be less free and symmetrical than in the original: yet from these plates (for the want of a better guide) our alphabet (No. 6) and specimen (No. 18) have been taken. The Greek type on the opposite page was not very well revised, and a comparison with the copper-plate will occasionally convict it of errors, which have been animadverted upon more severely than was quite necessary. The Prolegomena were encumbered with a discussion of our Lord's genealogies quite foreign to the subject, and the tone of scholarship is not very high; but Barrett's judgement on the manuscript is correct in the main, and his conclusion, that it is as old as the sixth century, has been generally received. Tregelles in 1853 was permitted to apply a chemical mixture to the vellum, which was already miserably discoloured, apparently from the purple dye: he was thus enabled to add a little (about 200 letters) to what Barrett had read long since193, but he found that in most places which that editor had left blank, the vellum had been cut away or lost: it would no doubt have been better for Barrett to have stated, in each particular case, why he had been unable to give the text of the passage. A far better edition of the manuscript, including the fragment of Isaiah, and a newly-discovered leaf of the Latin Codex Palatinus (e), with Prolegomena and two plates of real facsimiles, was published in 1880 by T. K. Abbott, B.D., Professor of Biblical Greek in the University of Dublin. He has read 400 letters hitherto deemed illegible, and is inclined to assign the fifth century as the date of the Codex. Codex Z, like many others, and for the same orthographical reasons, has been referred to Alexandria as its native country. It is written with a single column on each page of twenty-one or twenty-three lines194. The so-named Ammonian sections are given, but not the [pg 155] Eusebian canons: the τίτλοι are written at the top of the pages by a later hand according to Porter and Abbott, though this may be questioned (Gebhardt and Harnack's “Texte,” &c., I. iv. p. xxiii ff., 1883), their numbers being set in the margin. The writing is continuous, the single point either rarely found or quite washed out: the abbreviations are very few, and there are no breathings or accents. Like Cod. B, this manuscript indicates citations by > in the margin, and it represents N by —, but only at the end of a word and line. A space, proportionate to the occasion, is usually left when there is a break in the sense, and capitals extend into the margin when a new section begins. The letters are in a plain, steady, beautiful hand: they yield in elegance to none, and are never compressed at the end of a line. The shape of alpha (which varies a good deal), and especially that of mu, is very peculiar: phi is inordinately large: delta has an upper curve which is not usual: the same curves appear also in zeta, lambda, and chi. The characters are less in size than in N, about equal to those in R, much greater than in AB. In regard to the text, it agrees much with Codd. אBD: with Cod. A it has only twenty-three verses in common: yet in them A and Z vary fourteen times. Mr. Abbott adds that while אBZ stand together ten times against other uncials, BZ are never alone, but אZ against B often. It is freer than either of them from transcriptural errors. Codd. אBCZ combine less often than אBDZ. On examining Cod. Z throughout twenty-six pages, he finds it alone thirteen times, differing from א thirty times, from B forty-four times, from Stephen's text ninety-five times. Thus it approaches nearer to א than to B.