Γ. Codex Tischendorfian. IV was brought by Tischendorf from an “eastern monastery” (he usually describes the locality of his manuscripts in such like general terms), and was bought of him for the Bodleian Library (Misc. Gr. 313) in 1855. It consists of 158 leaves, 12 inches x 9-¼, with one column (of twenty-four not very straight or regular lines) on a page, in uncials of the ninth century, leaning slightly back, but otherwise much resembling Cod. K in style (facsimile No. 35). [pg 156] St. Luke's Gospel is complete; the last ten leaves are hurt by damp, though still legible. In St. Mark only 105 verses are wanting (iii. 35-vi. 20); about 531 verses of the other Gospels survive195. Tischendorf, and Tregelles by his leave, have independently collated this copy, of which Tischendorf gives a facsimile in his “Anecdota sacra et profana,” 1855. Some of its peculiar readings are very notable, and few uncials of its date deserve that more careful study, which it has hardly yet received. In 1859 Tischendorf, on his return from his third Eastern journey, took to St. Petersburg ninety-nine additional leaves of this self-same manuscript, doubtless procured from the same place as he had obtained the Bodleian portion six years before (Notitia Cod. Sinait. p. 53). This copy of the Gospels, though unfortunately in two distant libraries, is now nearly perfect196, and at the end of St. John's Gospel, in the more recently discovered portion, we find an inscription which seems to fix the date: ετελειωθη ἡ δέλτος αὔτη μηνι νοεμβριω κζ, ινδ. η, ἡμερα ε, ωρα β. Tischendorf, by the aid of Ant. Pilgrami's “Calendarium chronologum medii potissimum aevi monumentis accommodatum,” Vienn. 1781, pp. vii, 11, 105, states that the only year between a.d. 800 and 950, on which the Indiction was eight, and Nov. 27 fell on a Thursday, was 844197. In the Oxford sheets we find tables of κεφάλαια before the Gospels of SS. Matthew and Luke; the τίτλοι at the heading of the pages; their numbers rubro neatly set in the margin; capitals in red at the commencement of these chapters; the ἀρχαὶ καὶ τέλη of lections; the sections and Eusebian canons in their usual places, and some liturgical directions. Over the original breathings and accents some late scrawler has in many places put others, in a very careless fashion.

Δ. Codex Sangallensis, was first inspected by Gerbert (1773), named by Scholz (N. T. 1830), and made fully known [pg 157] to us by the admirable edition in lithographed facsimile of every page, by H. Ch. M. Rettig [1799-1836], published at Zurich, 1836198, with copious and satisfactory Prolegomena. It is preserved and was probably transcribed a thousand years since in the great monastery of St. Gall in the north-east of Switzerland (Stifts bibliothek, 48). It is rudely written on 197 leaves of coarse vellum quarto, 8-7/8 inches by 7-1/8 in size, with from twenty to twenty-six (usually twenty-one) lines on each page, in a very peculiar hand, with an interlinear Latin version, and contains the four Gospels complete except John xix. 17-35. Before St. Matthew's Gospel are placed Prologues, Latin verses, the Eusebian canons in Roman letters, tables of the κεφάλαια both in Greek and Latin, &c. Rettig thinks he has traced several different scribes and inks employed on it, which might happen easily enough in the Scriptorium of a monastery; but, if so, their style of writing is very nearly the same, and they doubtless copied from the same archetype, about the same time. He has produced more convincing arguments to show that Cod. Δ is part of the same book as the Codex Boernerianus, G of St. Paul's Epistles. Not only do they exactly resemble each other in their whole arrangement and appearance, but marginal notes by the first hand are found in each, of precisely the same character. Thus the predestinarian doctrines of the heretic Godeschalk [d. 866] are pointed out for refutation at the hard texts, Luke xiii. 24; John xii. 40 in Δ, and six times in G199. St. Mark's Gospel represents a text different from that of the other [pg 158] Evangelists, and the Latin version (which is clearly primâ manu) seems a mixture of the Vulgate with the older Italic, so altered and accommodated to the Greek as to be of little critical value. The penmen seem to have known but little Greek, and to have copied from a manuscript written continuously, for the divisions between the words are sometimes absurdly wrong. There are scarcely any breathings or accents, except about the opening of St. Mark, and once an aspirate to ἑπτα; what we do find are often falsely given; and a dot is set in most places regularly at the end of every Greek word. The letters have but little tendency to the oblong shape, but delta and theta are decidedly of the latest uncial type. Here, as in Paul. Cod. G, the mark >>> is much used to fill up vacant spaces. The text from which Δ was copied seems to have been arranged in στίχοι, for almost every line has at least one Greek capital letter, grotesquely ornamental in colours200. We transcribe three lines, taken almost at random, from pp. 80-1 (Matt. xx. 13-15), in order to explain our meaning:

It will be observed that, while in Cod. Δ a line begins at any place, even in the middle of a word; if the capital letters be assumed to commence the lines, the text divides itself into regular στίχοι. See above, pp. 52-54. Here are also the τίτλοι, the sections and canons. The letters Ν and ι, Ζ and Ξ, Τ and Θ, Ρ and the Latin R are perpetually confounded. Facsimiles of Luke i. 1-9 may be seen in Pal. Soc. xi. 179. As in the kindred Codd. Augiensis and Boernerianus the Latin f is much like r. Tregelles has noted ι ascript in Cod. Δ, but this is rare. There is no question that this document was written by Latin (most probably by Irish) monks, in the west of Europe, during the ninth century (or the tenth, Pal. Soc.). See below, Paul. Cod. G.

Θa. Codex Tischendorfian. I was brought from the East by Tischendorf in 1845, published by him in his “Monumenta sacra inedita,” 1846, with a few supplements in vol. ii of his new collection (1857), and deposited in the University Library at Leipsic. It consists of but four leaves (all imperfect) quarto, of very thin vellum, almost too brittle to be touched, so that each leaf is kept separately in glass. It contains about forty-two verses; viz. Matt. xii. 17-19; 23-25; xiii. 46-55 (in mere shreds); xiv. 8-29; xv. 4-14, with the greater κεφάλαια in red; the sections and Eusebian canons stand in the inner margin. A few breathings are primâ manu, and many accents by two later correctors. The stops (which are rather numerous) resemble those of Cod. Y, only that four points are not found in Θa. Tischendorf places its date towards the end of the seventh century, assigning Mount Sinai or lower Egypt for its country. The uncials (especially ΕΘΟΣ) are somewhat oblong, leaning to the right (see p. 41 note), but the writing is elegant and uniform; delta keeps its ancient shape, and the diameter of theta does not extend beyond the curve. In regard to the text, it much resembles אB, and stands alone with them in ch. xiv. 12 (αὐτόν).

Seven other small fragments, of which four and part of another are from the manuscripts of Bishop Porphyry at St. Petersburg, were intended to be included in Tischendorf's ninth volume of “Monumenta sacra inedita” (1870), but owing to Tischendorf's death they never appeared. That active critic had brought two (Θb, d) and part of another (Θc) from the East, and deposited them in the Library at St. Petersburg. They are described by him as follows:

Θb, six leaves in large 8vo, of the sixth or seventh century, torn piecemeal for binding and hard to decipher, contains Matt. xxii. 16-xxiii. 13; Mark iv. 24-35; v. 14-23.

Θc, one folio leaf, of the sixth century, much like Cod. N, contains Matt. xxi. 19-24. Another leaf contains John xviii. 29-35.

Θd, half a leaf in two columns, of the seventh or eighth century, with accents by a later hand, contains Luke xi. 37-41; 42-45.

Λ. Codex Tischendorfian. III201, 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 I. 1). It contains 157 leaves, written in two columns of twenty-three lines each, in small, oblong, clumsy, sloping uncials of the eighth or rather of the ninth century (see p. 41, note 1, and facsimile No. 30). It has the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John complete, with the subscription to St. Mark, each Gospel being preceded by tables of κεφάλαια, with the τίτλοι at the heads of the pages; the numbers of the κεφάλαια, of the sections, and of the Eusebian canons (these last rubro) being set in the margin. There are also scholia interspersed, of some critical value; a portion being in uncial characters. This copy also was described (with a facsimile) by Tischendorf, Anecdota sacra et profana, 1855, and collated by himself and Tregelles. Its text is said to vary greatly from that common in the later uncials, and to be very like Scholz's 262 (Paris 53). For ι ascriptum see p. 44, note 2.

Here again the history of this manuscript curiously coincides with that of Cod. Γ. In his Notitia Cod. Sinaitici, p. 58, Tischendorf describes an early cursive copy of St. Matthew and St. Mark (the subscription to the latter being wanting), which he took to St. Petersburg in 1859, so exactly corresponding in general appearance with Cod. Λ (although that be written in uncial characters), as well as in the style and character of the marginal scholia, which are often in small uncials, that he pronounces them part of the same codex. Very possibly he might have added that he procured the two from the same source: at any rate the subscription to St. Matthew at St. Petersburg precisely resembles the other three subscriptions at Oxford, and [pg 161] those in Paris 53 (Scholz's 262)202, with which Tischendorf had previously compared Cod. Λ (N. T. Proleg. p. clxxvii, seventh edition). These cursive leaves are preceded by Eusebius' Epistle to Carpianus, his table of canons, and a table of the κεφάλαια of St. Matthew. The τίτλοι in uncials head the pages, and their numbers stand in the margin.

From the marginal scholia Tischendorf cites the following notices of the Jewish Gospel, or that according to the Hebrews, which certainly have their value as helping to inform us respecting its nature: Matt. iv. 5 το ιουδαικον ουκ εχει εις την αγιαν πολιν αλλ εν ιλημ. xvi. 17 Βαριωνα; το ιουδαικον υιε ιωαννου. xviii. 22 το ιουδαικον εξης εχει μετα το ἑβδομηκοντακις ἑπτα; και γαρ εν τοις προφηταις μετα το χρισθηναι αυτους εν πνι ἁγιω εὑρισκετω (sic) εν αυτοις λογος ἁμαρτιας:—an addition which Jerome (contra Pelag. iii) expressly cites from the Gospel of the Nazarenes. xxvi. 47 το ιουδαικον; και ηρνησατο και ωμοσεν και κατηρασατο. It is plain that this whole matter requires careful discussion, but at present it would seem that the first half of Cod. Λ was written in cursive, the second in uncial letters; if not by the same person, yet on the same plan and at the same place.

Ξ. Codex Zacynthius is a palimpsest in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society in London, which, under a cursive Evangelistarium written on coarse vellum in or about the thirteenth century, contains large portions (342 verses) of St. Luke, down to ch. xi. 33203, in full well-formed uncials, but surrounded by and often interwoven with large extracts from the Fathers, in a hand so cramped and, as regards the round letters (ΕΘΟΣ), so oblong, that it cannot be earlier than the eighth century, although some such compressed forms occur in Cod. P of the sixth (see p. 144). The general absence of accents and breathings also would favour an earlier date. As the [pg 162] arrangement of the matter makes it certain that the commentary is contemporaneous, Cod. Ξ must be regarded as the earliest known, indeed as the only uncial, copy furnished with a catena. This volume, which once belonged to “Il Principe Comuto, Zante,” and is marked as Μνημόσυνον σεβάσματος τοῦ Ἱππέος Ἀντωνίου Κόμητος 1820, was presented to the Bible Society in 1821 by General Macaulay, who brought it from Zante. Mr. Knolleke, one of the Secretaries, seems first to have noticed the older writing, and on the discovery being communicated to Tregelles in 1858 by Dr. Paul de Lagarde of Berlin, with characteristic eagerness that critic examined, deciphered, and published the Scripture text, together with the Moscow fragment O, in 1861: he doubted whether the small Patristic writing could all be read without chemical restoration. Besides the usual τίτλοι above the text and other notations of sections, and numbers running up from 1 to 100 which refer to the catena, this copy is remarkable for possessing also the division into chapters, hitherto as has been stated deemed unique in Cod. B. To this notation is commonly prefixed psi, formed like a cross, in the fashion of the eighth century. The ancient volume must have been a large folio (14 inches by 11), of which eighty-six leaves and three half-leaves survive: of course very hard to read. Of the ecclesiastical writers cited by name Chrysostom, Origen, and Cyril are the best known. In text it generally favours the B and א and their company. In the 564 places wherein Tischendorf cites it in his eighth edition, it supports Cod. L in full three cases out of four, and those the most characteristic. It stands alone only fourteen times, and with Cod. L or others against the five great uncials only thirty times. In regard to these five, Cod. Ξ sides plainly with Cod. B in preference to Cod. A, following B alone seven times, BL twenty-four times, but א thirteen times, A fifteen times, C (which is often defective) five times, D fourteen times, with none of these unsupported except with א once. Their combinations in agreement with Ξ are curious and complicated, but lead to the same result. This copy is with אB six times, with אBL fifty-five; with אBC twenty, but with אBD as many as fifty-four times, with אBCD thirty-eight times; with BCD thrice, with BC six times, with BD thirteen. It combines with אA ten times, with AC fifteen, with AD eleven, with אAC sixteen, with ACD twelve, [pg 163] with אAD six, with אACD twelve. Thus Cod. Ξ favours B against A 226 times, A against B ninety-seven. Combinations of its readings opposed to both A and B are אC six, אD eight, CD two, אCD three. In the other passages it favours ABC against אD eleven times, ABCD against א eight times, אABC against D eighteen times, אABD against C, or where C is defective, thirty-nine times, and is expressly cited twenty-seven times as standing with אABCD against later copies. The character of the variations of Cod. Ξ from the Received text may be judged of by the estimate made by some scholar, that forty-seven of them are transpositions in the order of the words, 201 are substitutions of one word for another, 118 are omissions, while the additions do not exceed twenty-four (Christian Remembrancer, January, 1862). The cursive Evangelistarium written over the uncial is noticed below, and bears the mark 200*.

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 [pg 164] 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 watercolours, seventeen in number, very interesting and in good preservation. The illustrated Dioscorides at Vienna bears about the same date. Attention was called to the book by Cesare Malpica in 1846, but it was not seen by any one who cared to use it before March, 1879, when Oscar von Gebhardt of Göttingen and Adolf Harnack of Giessen, in their search for codices of Hippolytus, of Dionysius of Alexandria, and of Cyril of Jerusalem, described by Cardinal Sirlet in 1582, found it in the Archbishop's Library at Rossano, a small city in Calabria, and published an account of it in 1880 in a sumptuous form, far more satisfactory to the artist than to the Biblical critic. Their volume is illustrated by two facsimile leaves, of one of which a reduction may be seen in our Plate xiv, No. 43. A copy of the manuscripts was published at Leipsic in 1883 with an Introduction by Oscar von Gebhardt, the Text being edited by Adolf Harnack204. The page we have exhibited gives the earliest MS. authority, except Φ, for the doxology in the Lord's Prayer, Matt. vi. 13. The manuscript is in quarto, 13-½ inches high by 10-¼ broad, and now contains only the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark on 188 leaves of two columns each, there being twenty lines in each column of very regular writing, and from nine to twelve letters in each line. It ends abruptly at Mark xvi. 14, and the last ten leaves have suffered from damp; otherwise the writing (especially on the inner or smooth side of the vellum) is in good preservation, and the colours of the paintings wonderfully fresh. The binding is of strong black leather, about 200 years old. As in Cod. B, the sheets are ranged in quinions, the signatures in silver by the original scribe standing at the lower border of each quire on the right, and the pages being marked in the upper border in modern black ink. In Cod. Σ there is no separation between the words, it has no breathings or accents. Capital letters stand outside the columns, being about twice the size of the rest, and the smaller letters at the end of lines are not compressed, as we [pg 165] find them even in Cod. P (see pp. 144, 163). The letters are round and square, and, as was abundantly seen above (pp. 33-40), belong to the older type of writing. The punctuation is very simple: the full stop occurs half up the letter. There are few erasures, but transcriptural errors are mostly corrected in silver letters by the original scribe. To St. Matthew's Gospel is prefixed Eusebius' Epistle to Carpianus and his Tables of Canons, both imperfect; also lists of the κεφάλαια majora and τίτλοι in the upper margins of the several leaves, with a subscription to the first Gospel (Ευαγγελιον κατα ματθαιον). This supplementary matter is written somewhat smaller, but (as the editors judge) by the same hand as the text, although the letters are somewhat more recent in general appearance, and ι ascriptum occurs, as it never does in the body of the manuscript: [symbol] also is only twice abridged in the text, but often in the smaller writing. In the margin of the Greek text the Ammonian sections stand in minute characters over the numbers of the Eusebian canons. The text agrees but slightly with א or B, and rather with the main body of uncials and cursives, which it favours in about a proportion of three to one. With the cognate purple manuscript Cod. N it accords so wonderfully, that although one of them cannot have been copied directly from the other, they must have been drawn directly or indirectly from the same source. Strong proofs of the affinity between N and Σ are Matt. xix. 7 ἡμῖν added to ἐνετείλατο: xxi. 8 ἐκ (for ἀπό): Mark vi. 53 ἐκεῖ added to προσω(ο in Σ)ρμισθησαν: vii. 1 οἱ prefixed to ἐλθόντες: ibid. 29 ὁ ἰσ added to εἶπεν αὐτῇ: viii. 3 ἐγλυθήσονται: ibid. 13 καταλιπών for ἀφείς: ibid. 18 οὔπω νοεῖτε for καὶ οὐ μνημονεύετε: ix. 3 λευκᾶναι οὕτως: x. 5 ἐπέτρεψεν for ἔγραψεν: xiv. 36 πλήν before ἀλλ᾽: xv. 21 omit παράγοντα: in all which places the two manuscripts are either virtually or entirely alone. Generally speaking, the Codex Rossanensis follows the Traditional Text, but not invariably. We find here the usual itacisms, as ει for ι, αι for ε, η for ει and ι, ου for ω, and vice versa; even ο for ω, which is rarer in very ancient copies. The so-called Alexandrian forms ἤλθατε, ἐλθάτω, ἴδαμεν, ἴδαν for verbs, τρίχαν and νύκταν for nouns, ἐκαθερίσθη, λήμψομαι, δεκατέσσερες, τεσσεράκοντα, it has in common with all copies approaching it in age.

Υ. Codex Blenheimius. Brit. Mus. Additional 31919, [pg 166] formerly Blenheim 3. D. 13, purchased at Puttick's from the Sunderland sale in April, 1882. Under a Menaeum (see our Evst. 282) for the twenty-eight days of February [a.d. 1431], 12-7/8 x 8-1/8, containing 108 leaves, 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. i. 1-14; v. 3-19; xii. 27-41; xxiii. 5-xxv. 30; 43-xxvi. 26; 50-xxvii. 17. Mark i. 1-42; ii. 21-v. 1; 29-vi. 22; x. 50-xi. 13. Luke xvi. 21-xvii. 3; 19-37; xix. 15-31. John ii. 18-iii. 5; iv. 23-37; v. 35-vi. 2: in all 484 verses. In 1883, Dr. Gregory discovered two more leaves, making thirty-six in all, with a reduction of the passages to sixteen by filling up an hiatus, and giving a total of 497 verses. It is probable that writing lies under all the 108 leaves. It exhibits Am. (not Eus.) in gold, ἀρχαί and τέλη, but is very hard to read, and has not yet been collated. Of less account are palimpsest pieces of the eleventh century on some of the leaves, containing Matt. xi. 13, &c.; Luke i. 64, &c.; ii. 25-34, and a later cursive patch (fol. 23) containing Mark vi. 14-20.

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. This manuscript had been previously described by Mgr. Anthymus Alexoudi, Orthodox Metropolitan of Belgrade, in an account of his diocese published in 1868 in Corfu. According to M. Batiffol, it is a purple manuscript, written in silver letters on vellum, an édition de grande luxe, and therefore open to the charge brought by St. Jerome in his Prolegomena to Job against the great adornment of manuscripts, as being far from constituting an index of accuracy. It contains 190 unpaged leaves in quaternions, firmly sewn together, having two columns in a page of seventeen lines each, and from eight to twelve words in a line. The leaves are in size about 12-¼ inches by 10-½, and [pg 167] the columns measure 8-¼ inches high by rather more than 4-¼ broad. The pages have the κεφάλαια marked at the top, and the sections and canons in writing of the eighth century at the side. The letters are in silver, very regular, and clearly written. None are in gold, except the title and the first line in St. Mark, and the words Πατήρ, Ἰησοῦς, and some others in the first six folios. There is no ornamentation, but the first letters of paragraphs are twice as large as the other letters. The letters have no decoration, except a cross in the middle of the initial O's. The writing is continuous in full line without stichometry. Quotations from the Old Testament are marked with a kind of inverted comma. There are no breathings, or accents. Punctuation is made only with the single comma or double comma, consisting of a point slightly elongated much like a modern written comma, and placed at about mid-height, or else with a vacant space, or by passing to the next line. The apostrophe is not always used to mark elisions, but is generally put after Ρ final. Abbreviations are of the most ancient kind. The character of the letters may be seen in the specimen given above, No. 43. Altogether, the Codex Beratinus (Φ) may probably be placed at the end of the fifth century, a little before the Dioscorides (506 a.d.), and before the Codex Rossanensis.

As to the character of the text, it inclines to the large body of Uncials and Cursives, and is rarely found with Bא and Z of St. Matthew or Δ of St. Mark. A specimen examination of fifty passages at the beginning of St. Matthew gives forty-four instances in which it agrees with the larger body of Uncials and Cursives, six when it passes over to the other side, whilst in thirty-eight it agrees with Σ. In the same passages, Σ agrees thirty-eight times with the larger body, and twelve times with א or B. Like Σ it contains the doxology in Matt. vi. 13.

Codex Φ has gone through many vicissitudes. It has perhaps been at Patmos, where it may have been mutilated by some of the Crusaders, and at Antioch. It contains only St. Matthew and St. Mark; a note says that the disappearance of St. Luke and St. John is due to the Franks of Champagne. The first six folios are in a bad state, so that the text as we have it does not begin till St. Matt. vi. 3 η αριστερα σου κ.τ.λ. Hiatus occurs Matt. vii. 26-viii. 7, in xviii. 23-xix. 3, and in Mark xiv. 62-fin. So that Cod. Φ presents no direct evidence—only the [pg 168] testimony to the general character of its companions derived from its own character and general coincidence—upon the last twelve verses of St. Mark. Part of folio 112, at the end of St. Matthew, is blank, and folios 113, 114, contain the κεφάλαια of St. Mark.