Linen was also written on.[41] It was used, e.g., for the Sibylline Oracles (lintea texta, carbasus: Orac. Sib. ed. Alexandre, ii., 159, 178, 189). But up to the present no N.T. writing has been found on linen.
On Paul’s “books and parchments,” see Zahn, Kanon ii., 938 ff. I am not aware if J. Joseph takes up this point or not in his La Bibliothèque de l’Apôtre Paul (Chrétien Évang., 1897, v. 224-227). In the Theol. Tijdschrift, 1898, p. 217, the view that the μεμβράναι Paul sent for were blank sheets of parchment is called in question. The most natural explanation, certainly, is that they were.
The N.T. makes no mention of the metal, wood, or bone stilus. By “the wild beast of the reeds” (Ps. lxviii. 31) the Rabbis understood the reed pen, which in Syriac also is commonly denoted by קנה, and they took it as referring to Rome and the Emperor, who decided the fate of nations with a single stroke of his pen.[42] Luther, moreover, was not without precedent in speaking of “governors with the pen” in Jud. v. 14, as the Syriac version renders it in the same way. In Ps. xlv. 2, the Hebrew עֵט is rendered κάλαμος (LXX), σχοῖνος (Aquila), and γραφεῖον (Symmachus). It is also rendered σχοῖνος by the translator of Jeremiah viii. 8, where Aquila has γραφεῖον. Σχοῖνος must therefore be added to the Bible names for pen. Γραφίς for γραφεῖον, mentioned alongside of ὄνυξ ἀδαμάντινος in Jer. xvii. 1, seems to belong to the Spanish-Greek of the Complutensian, but is really classic, as also its diminutive γραφίδιον. According to the Rabbis, pens were among the things God made in the evening of the last day of the creation. They were also venerated by the Egyptians and the Greeks as an invention of the Deity.[43] According to Antisthenes[44] or Democritus,[45] a young man, in order to enter the school of wisdom, requires to have a βιβλιαρίου καινου (= καὶ νοῦ) καὶ γραφείου καινου καὶ πινακιδίου καινου. In Cyprus, the stilus is called ἀλειπτήριον, and the γραμματοδιδάσκαλος in like manner διφθεράλοιφος.[46] In the recently discovered fragments of Diocletian’s List of Wares, the section περὶ πλούμου (goose, swan, and peacock feathers) is followed by that περὶ καλάμων καὶ μελανίου, and then by that περὶ ἐσθῆτος. Ink costs 12 drachmae the quart; Paphian and Alexandrian κάλαμοι[47] cost 4 drachmae; and κάλαμοι δευτ[έρας] φώρ[μης] the same. Baruch, the ἀναγνωστής, purchased ink and a pen in the market of the Gentiles, in order to write his letter to Jeremiah (ἀποστείλας εἰς τὴν ἀγορὰν [v. l. διασπορᾶς] τῶν ἐθνῶν ἤνεγκε χάρτην καὶ μέλανα [v. l. μελαν]).[48] Demosthenes was not the only possessor of a silver stilus. Boniface, e.g., had one of that sort sent him from England.
The following is a list of expressions relating to reading and writing taken from the Greek Versions of the O.T. It makes no claim to be complete. The passages will be found in Hatch and Redpath’s Concordance to the Septuagint.
ἀκριβόω, ἀναγιγνώσκω, ἀνάγνωσις, ἀναγνωστής, ἀντίγραφον, ἀποκαλύπτειν; βιβλιαφόρος (βιβλιο-), βίβλινος, βιβλιογράφος (Est. iii. 13, Complut.), βιβλιοθήκη, βιβλίον (βυ-), βιβλιοφυλάκιον, βίβλος (βυ-); γαζά, γράμμα, γραμματεία, γραμματεύειν, γραμματεύς, γραμματικός, γραμματοεισαγωγεύς, γραπτόν, γράφειν (ἀνα-, ἀπο-, ἐπι-, κατα-, συν-), γραφεῖον (σιδηροῦν), γραφεὺς (ταχινός), γραφή (ἀνα-, ἀπο-, συν-), γραφικός, γραφίς; διφθέρωμα, διώκειν; εἴλημα, εἰς- or ἐγχαράττειν, ἐπιστολή, ἑρμηνεύω, ἐπιστάμενος γράμματα; θησαυροφύλαξ; κάλαμος (καλαμάριον, vide Field’s Hexapla on Ezek. ix. 2) κάστυ, κεφαλίς; μαχθάμ, μέλαν, μελανοδοχεῖον, μίλτος, μνημόσυνον, μολίβος, μολίβδινος; ξυρός; ὄνυξ ἀδαμάντινος, ὀξυγράφος; πινακίς, πινακίδιον, πτύξ, πτυχή, πυξίον; σελίς, σμίλη, στηλογραφία, σφραγίζειν, σφραγίς, σχοῖνος; τόμος (χαρτοῦ καινοῦ μεγάλου, Isa. viii. 1; also 1 Esdras vi. 23 for τόπος), τεῦχος, τύπος; χάρτης, χαρτίον, χαρτηρία.
Ancient Homeric grammarians used to debate whether contiguous letters were to be read as one word or not. To obviate misunderstanding, they employed the ὑποδιαστολή as the mark of division (ὅ, τι, e.g.), and the ὑφ’ ἕν as the mark of combination (Διό[σκ]ουροι, not Διὸς κοῦροι). Such marks are also found in manuscripts of the Bible, in the Septuagint, e.g., in the case of proper names. It goes without saying that the scriptio continua made the reading as well as the copying of manuscripts a matter of some difficulty. Hermas (Visio ii. 1) says of the book given him to copy μετεγραψάμην πάντα πρὸς γράμμα· οὐχ ηὕρισκον γὰρ τὰς συλλαβάς.[49] For two instructive mistakes in the Latin interlinear version of Codex Boernerianus see p. 77.
Breathings and accents were found in various manuscripts of the Bible as early as the time of Epiphanius and Augustine. In our oldest manuscripts they seldom occur before the seventh century. They were inserted by the first hand of the Ambrosian Hexateuch (Swete’s F), which is ascribed to the first half of the fifth century by Ceriani. They seem to have been added to the Codex Vaticanus by the third hand, probably in the twelfth century, and do not always conform to our rules. Augustine, commenting on the rival readings filiis and porcina, in Psalm xvi. 14, says: “quod (porcina) alii codices habent et verius habere perhibentur, quia diligentiora exemplaria per accentus notam eiusdem verbi graeci ambiguitatem graeco scribendi more dissolvunt, obscurius est” (ii. 504-5, in Lagarde’s Probe einer neuen Ausgabe, p. 40). Similarly, speaking of the difference between ῥάβδου αὐτοῦ and ῥάβδου αὑτοῦ, Gen. xlvii. 31, he says:—“fallit enim eos verbum graecum, quod eisdem literis scribitur sive eius sive suae; sed accentus [= spiritus] dispares sunt et ab eis qui ista noverunt, in codicibus non contemnuntur” (iv. 53 ed. Lugd. 1586, cited by Scrivener, i. p. 47).
The practice of abbreviating words of frequent occurrence like Θ̅Σ̅, Χ̅Σ̅, Χ̅Σ̅, Α̅Ν̅Ο̅Σ̅ goes back to very early times. So, too, does the use of letters as numerals, Ι for 10, etc.
In dividing syllables the Greek copyists in general observed the rule of beginning each new line with a consonant. A good many exceptions occur however, especially in the Vaticanus, most of which have been corrected by a later hand. These are indicated in the third volume of Swete’s edition of the LXX. A good instance of this is seen in Jer. xiv. 12, where the Vaticanus and Marchalianus both originally had προσ ενεγκωσιν, which in the former is corrected to προ σενεγκωσιν, and in the latter to προσε νεγκωσιν. For examples from the O.T. portion of the Codex Vaticanus see Nestle’s Septuagintastudien, ii. 20.
Carefully written manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments are provided with a system of stichometry just as occurs in the better manuscripts of the classics, as e.g. Herodotus and Demosthenes. In the N.T. it is found specially in those Pauline Epistles that go back to the recension of Euthalius. One of the writers of the Codex Vaticanus has copied, in several of the books of the O.T., the stichometric enumeration which he found in his original, and the numbers show that the manuscript he copied contained almost twice as much matter in a line as the one he himself wrote. See Nestle, Septuagintastudien, ii. 20 f.; Lagarde, Die Stichometrie der syrisch-hexaplarischen Uebersetzung des alten Testaments (Mitteilungen, iv. 205-208). On the stichometric list in the Codex Claromontanus of the Pauline Epistles (D2), see p. 76.
American scholars have counted the number of words in the Greek N.T. In Matthew the number is 18,222, in Mark 11,158, in Luke 19,209. Unfortunately, I am unable to give the total number in the N.T. See Schaff’s Companion, pp. 57, 176.
Graux (Revue de Philologie, ii.) has counted not only the words but the letters in the various books. The numbers are given in Zahn’s Geschichte des N.T. Kanons, i. 76. They are as follows:—
| Letters. | Stichoi. | |
| Matthew, | 89,295 | 2480 |
| Mark, | 55,550 | 1543 |
| Luke, | 97,714 | 2714 |
| John, | 70,210 | 1950 |
| Acts, | 94,000 | 2610 |
| 3 John, | 1,100 | 31 |
| Apocalypse, | 46,500 | 1292 |
| For Philemon, Zahn gives | 1,567 | 44 |
In this last epistle I find that my edition has 1538 letters, or including the title 1550. The lines in my edition happen to coincide as near as may be with the ancient stichoi. 41 stichoi at 36 letters to the stichos would give a total of 1476. Now in the 41 complete lines which my edition gives to Philemon I find 1469 letters, that is, only 7 fewer. In Jude, again, Graux enumerates 71 stichoi, while my edition shows exactly 70 lines or 71 with the title. For stichometric calculations, therefore, this edition will prove very convenient.
For a “Table of Ancient and Modern Divisions of the New Testament,” see Scrivener, i. 68; also Westcott, Canon, Appendix D, xix., xx.; Bible in the Church, Appendix B, 4.
The Cola and Commata were quite different from the stichoi. The length of the latter was regulated according to the space (space-lines), that of the former by the sense and structure of the sentence (sense-lines). On cola and commata see Wordsworth and White, De colis et commatibus codicis Amiatini et editionis nostrae, in the Epilogus to their edition of the Vulgate, i. pp. 733-736. On the stichometry proper see Ibid., p. 736, De stichorum numeris in euangeliis.
Solomon perfumed with musk the letter he sent to Bilqis, Queen of Sheba, who herself could both read and write.[50] Mani inscribed characters on white satin in such a way that if a single thread was drawn out the writing became invisible.[51] On gold and silver writing among the Syrians see Zahn, Tatian, Forschungen, 108, n. 1; also R. Wessely, Iconographie (Wiener Studien, xii. 2, 259-279). The earliest mention of this kind of writing that I know is in the Epistle of Aristeas,[52] σὺν ... ταῖς διαφόροις διφθέραις, ἐν αἷς [ἦν] ἡ νομοθεσία γεγραμμένη χρυσογραφίᾳ τοῖς Ἰουδαϊκοῖς γράμμασι, θαυμασίως εἰργασμένου τοῦ ὑμένος καὶ τῆς πρὸς ἄλληλα συμβολῆς ἀνεπαισθήτου κατεσκευασμένης. In Alexander’s copy of the Pentateuch the name of God was written in gold letters.[53]
On the fineness of the parchment and the beauty of the writing see Chrysostom, Hom. 32 in Joannem: σπουδῆς περὶ τὴν τῶν ὑμένων λεπτότητα καὶ τὸ τῶν γραμμάτων κάλλος. Ephraem Syrus commended this Christian munificence, as is pointed out in the Histor. Polit. Blätter, 84, 2, 104. Gold writing is also mentioned in the Targum on Ps. xlv. 10.
The passage in the Epistle of Theonas to Lucian referring to the use of purple-dyed parchment is thought by Batiffol to be derived from that in Jerome’s Commentary on Job, and he founds on this an argument against the genuineness of the Epistle.[54] In the Martyrium of Qardagh the Persian, particular mention is made of the remarkable beauty and whiteness of the parchment (σωμάτιον) on which he wrote his epistles.[55]
For the preparation of his Bible, Origen procured the services not only of rapid writers (ταχυγράφοι) but also of girls who could write beautifully (καλλιγράφοι). Cassiodorus pleads—qui emendare praesumitis, ut superadjectas literas ita pulcherrimas facere studeatis, ut potius ab Antiquariis scriptae fuisse judicentur.[56] We also find him making proposals for expensive bindings in the De Inst., c. 30, a passage which, according to Springer,[57] has been overlooked in the literature on illustrated bindings in modern histories of art.
On various decorated manuscripts see W. Wattenbach, Ueber die mit Gold auf Purpur geschriebene Evangelien-handschrift der Hamiltonschen Bibliothek, in the Berliner Sitz.-Ber., 7th March 1889, xiii. 143-156. Cf. Berl. Phil. Wochenschrift, 1889, 33, 34. This manuscript purported to be a gift to Henry VIII. from Pope Leo X., but was rather from Wolsey. Bishop Wilfrid of Ripon (670-688) had the four Gospels written with the finest gold. Boniface requested his English friends to send him the Epistles of Paul written with gold in order therewith to impress the simple-minded Germans (Ep. 32, p. 99), a fact of which Gustav Freitag makes use in his Ingo und Ingraban, p. 476. (See Die Christliche Welt, 1888, 22.) Cf. also the manuscripts of Theodulf in Paris and Puy (see below, p. 125). The Cistercians forbade the use of gold and silver bindings or clasps (firmacula) and also of different colours.
Illustrations must have made their appearance in Greek manuscripts a whole century earlier than has hitherto been supposed if H. Kothe is right in his interpretation of the passage in Diogenes Laertius, ii. 3, 8 (= Clem., Strom., i. 78, p. 364, Potter): πρῶτος δὲ Ἀναξαγόρας καὶ βιβλίον ἐξέδωκε σὺν γραφῇ (“with a picture”: formerly read as συγγραφῆς). In addition to the works of Aristotle and the obscene poems of Philainis, illustrated manuscripts were known to exist of the works of the astronomers Eudoxus and Aratus, of the botanist Dioscorides, of the tactician Euangelos, and of the geographer Ptolemy. A description of the earliest illustrated Bibles is given by Victor Schultze in the Daheim, 1898, No. 28, 449 ff., with good facsimiles. On the horses in the chariot of Elijah in a Greek manuscript of the ninth century in the Vatican Library, and on the pictures of the horsemen in the codex of Joshua also contained there, see F. aus’m Weerth in the Jahrbuch des Vereins von Altertums-Freunden im Rheinland, Heft 78 (1884), Plate VI.
Cassiodorus had a Pandectes Latinus—i.e. a manuscript of the Old Latin Bible of large size—which contained pictures of the Tabernacle and the Temple. There is an old work on this subject by P. Zornius entitled Historia Bibliorum pictorum ex antiquitatibus Ebraeorum et Christianorum illustrata cum figuris, Lipsiae, 1743, 4to; and by the same author, Von den Handbibeln der ersten Christen, Lips. 1738, also Historia Bibliorum ex Ebraeorum diebus festis et jejuneis illustrata, Lips., 1741. See also Georg Thiele, De antiquorum libris pictis capita quattuor, Marburg, 1897.
Palimpsests of Bible manuscripts came to be prohibited by the Church. The Sixth Ecumenical Council (Trullan, Concilium quinisextum, 680-681), in its 68th canon, Περὶ τοῦ μὴ ἐξεῖναί τινι τῶν ἁπάντων βιβλία τῆς παλαιᾶς καὶ νέας διαθήκης διαφθείρειν, forbids the sale of old manuscripts of the Bible to the βιβλιοκάπηλοι or the μυρεψοί, or to any persons whatever.[58] There was naturally a special aversion to letting such manuscripts fall into the hands of Jews; but yet there were discovered, in the lumber room of the Synagogue of Old Cairo, fragments of a Greek MS. of the Gospels, which had been afterwards employed to receive Jewish writing. Parchments of this sort were at first used only for rough drafts and such like, instead of wax tablets from which the writing could be erased again.
A good example of the importance of punctuation will be found in Lk. i. 35, on which see p. 201. Compare also Lk. xxi. 8, 1 Tim. ii. 5, where Lachmann punctuates καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἄνθρωπος. By a different punctuation in Heb. i. 9, Tischendorf and Westcott-Hort make ὁ Θεός vocative and nominative respectively. In the former case the Messiah is God, in the other God is the one who anoints him. This difference was not observed at first by O. v. Gebhardt. Similarly there is a difference between the text and the margin of Westcott and Hort in verse 8, where by the insertion or omission of the two commas before and after ὁ Θεός the meaning is either that Messiah is God or that God is Messiah’s throne. Considering the importance of such marks of division, the rule laid down by Ephraem Syrus in the year 350, and again emphasized by Bengel and Lagarde, should be carefully attended to in the New Testament: εἰ κέκτησαι βιβλίον, εὐστιχὲς κτῆσαι αὐτό· μήποτε εὑρεθῇ ἐν αὐτῷ πρόσκομμα τῷ ἀναγινώσκοντι ἢ μεταγράφοντι (see Nestle, Bengel als Gelehrter, p. 24). Compare also what Chrysostom says regarding punctuation on Mt. viii. 9: τινὲς δὲ καὶ οὕτως ἀναγινώσκουσι τουτὶ τὸ χωρίον· εἰ γὰρ ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπος ὤν, καὶ μεταξὺ στίξαντες ἐπάγουσιν· ὑπὸ ἐξουσίαν ἔχων ὑπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ στρατιώτας. See also Victor (or whoever it is) on Mk. xvi. 9. On the change of the sense by means of false emphasis or punctuation see below, pp. 204(7), 276. J. A. Robinson thinks it probable that ὁ Ἀγαπητός is a separate title of the Messiah, and would point ὁ υἱός μου, ὁ Ἀγαπητός in Mk. i. 11, ix. 7 on the authority of the Ascensio Esaiae and the Old Syriac (see Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, ii. 501).
On the contents of Bible manuscripts see Zahn, GK. i. 62 f. According to him Jerome’s Old Testament was in 14 volumes. In addition to some entire Bibles Cassiodorus had the Scriptures written out in 9 codices. Of these vol. VII. comprised the Gospels, VIII. the Epistles, and IX. the Acts and Apocalypse. Leontius speaks of 6 books of the New Testament, of which probably I. was Mt. and Mk., II. Lk. and Jn., III. Acts, IV. Catholic Epistles, V. Pauline Epistles, VI. Apocalypse. As a rule the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles made two codices.
In cod. א we find that the different parts of the New Testament display a different type of text, from which we may conclude that the codex was copied, not from a single manuscript but from several. Similarly, the singular type of text exhibited by cod. Δ in Mark would show that this codex, or that from which it was copied, was transcribed from different rolls or codices, each containing one Gospel. See Zahn, GK. i. 63.
On the designation Bibliotheca and Pandectes for Bible manuscripts, see Zahn, GK. i. 65. On τεῦχος, ibid. 67. He informs us that the earliest mention of a Christian bibliotheca and its armaria is in the heathen protocol of the year 304, in the Gesta apud Zenophilum given in Dupin after Optatus, p. 262. The next earliest notice is in Augustine. The custodians of the bibliothecae were probably the Readers. In Ruinart’s Acta Saturnini a certain Ampelius is mentioned as “custos legis, scripturarumque divinarum fidelissimus conservator.” From Irenaeus, iv. 33, 2 Lessing concluded that at that time the few existing copies of the Scriptures were in the custody of the clergy, and were only to be perused in their presence. (Zusätze zu einer nötigen Antwort. Works, ed. Maltzahn, xi. 2, 179.) On this point see Zahn, GK. i. 140.
א Codex Sinaiticus, now in St. Petersburg, contains the entire New Testament written in the fourth or more probably at the beginning of the fifth century. The story of its discovery and acquisition is quite romantic. When Tischendorf, under the patronage of his sovereign King Frederick Augustus of Saxony, came to the Convent of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai for the first time in 1844, he rescued from a basket there forty-three old sheets of parchment which, with other rubbish, were destined for the fire. In this way he obtained possession of portions of one of the oldest MSS. of the Old Testament, which he published as the Codex Frederico-Augustanus (F-A) in 1846. At the same time he learned that other portions of the same Codex existed in the Monastery. He could find no trace of these, however, on his second visit in 1853. But on his third visit, undertaken with the patronage of the Emperor of Russia, the steward of the monastery brought him, shortly before his departure on the 4th February 1859, what surpassed all his expectations, the entire remaining portions of the Codex comprising a great part of the Old Testament and the whole of the New, wrapped up in a red cloth. Not only was the New Testament perfect, but in addition to the twenty-seven books, the MS. contained the Epistle of Barnabas and part of the so-called Shepherd of Hermas, two books of the greatest repute in early Christian times, the Greek text of which was only partially extant in Europe. Tischendorf managed to secure the MS. for the Emperor of Russia, at whose expense it was published in four folio volumes in the year 1862 on the thousandth anniversary of the founding of the Russian Empire. In return for the MS. the monastery received a silver shrine for St. Catherine, a gift of 7000 roubles for the library and 2000 for the monastery on Mount Tabor, while several Russian decorations were distributed among the Fathers.
Unfortunately the art of photography was not so far advanced thirty-eight years ago as to permit a perfect facsimile to be made of the MS., and Tischendorf had to be content with a printed copy executed as faithfully as the utmost care and superintendence would admit.
To what date does the manuscript belong? There is still extant a letter of the first Christian Emperor Constantine dating from the year 331, in which he asks Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, to provide him with fifty copies of the Old and New Testament for use in the principal churches of his empire (πεντήκοντα σωμάτια ἐν διφθέραις ἐγκατασκεύοις) and puts two public carriages at the bishop’s disposal for their safe transport. We have also the letter that Eusebius sent along with these Bibles, in which he consigns them ἐν πολυτελῶς ἠσκημένοις τεύχεσι τρισσᾶ καὶ τετρασσᾶ—i.e. “in expensively prepared volumes of three and four.” With former scholars Tischendorf understood the expression τρισσᾶ καὶ τετρασσᾶ of the number of sheets in the quires of the manuscripts, as though they had been composed of ternions and quaternions of twelve and sixteen pages respectively. Others took it as referring to the number of columns on the pages, Codex Sinaiticus, which Tischendorf believed to be one of these fifty Bibles, being unique in showing four columns to the page. The most probable explanation of the phrase is, however, that it indicates the number of volumes each Bible comprised, and means that each Bible of three or four parts, as the case might be, was packed in a separate box.[59] Tischendorf, as has been said, saw in Codex Sinaiticus one of these fifty Bibles. He also thought that א was the work of four different scribes, and was confident that one of these, the one who had written only six leaves of the New Testament, was the scribe of Codex Vaticanus. But other authorities bring א down to the beginning of the fifth century.
One can understand how it was that Tischendorf was led to overrate the value of this manuscript at first, and to call it by the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet to signify its pre-eminence over all other manuscripts. The claim is so far justified that it is at least one of the oldest manuscripts, and of the oldest the only one that contains the entire New Testament. The order is that of the Gospels, Pauline Epistles (among which Hebrews is found after 2 Thess.), Acts, Catholic Epistles, Apocalypse, after which come Barnabas and Hermas.[60] This same order is observed in the Old Syriac Bible, and in the first printed Greek New Testament, the Complutensian Polyglot. The fact that Barnabas is still tacitly included in the books of the New Testament may be taken equally as indicating the age of א itself or that of the exemplar from which it was copied.[61] Jerome’s recension of Origen’s Lexicon of Proper Names in the Greek New Testament is still extant, and in it Barnabas is cited like the other books. In the Catalogus Claromontanus, which is a very old list of the books of the New Testament, Barnabas is even found before the Apocalypse, an arrangement which is not found again in the succeeding centuries.
[Transcriber’s Note: In this paragraph, there are two cases of letters separated by a slash, as if describing arithmetic division, like “a/b”. In the original book they are printed with the first item, “a”, raised up, and the second item, “b”, printed below the first. In this e-book, they are represented in this “a/b” form.]
א is also the oldest MS. that has the so-called Ammonian Sections and Eusebian Canons. In order to facilitate the study of the Gospels, Ammonius of Alexandria arranged, alongside of Matthew’s Gospel, the parallel passages in Mark, Luke, and John. For this purpose he was obliged of course to dislocate these last.[62] Eusebius, however, simply divided the four Gospels into 1162 sections—viz., 355 in Matthew, 233 in Mark, 342 in Luke, and 232 in John. These he numbered consecutively in each Gospel, and then arranged the numbers in ten Canons or Tables. The first contained those passages which are found in all the four Gospels; the second, third, and fourth those common to any particular combination of three; the fifth to the ninth comprised the passages common to any two, and the tenth those peculiar to each one. The number of its Canon was then set under that of the section in the margin, and the Table inserted at the beginning or end of the manuscript. By this means it was possible to know in the case of each section whether a parallel was to be found in the other Gospels, and where. In the margin opposite John xv. 20, e.g., we find the numbers ρλθ/γ, i.e. 139/3. This tells us that this 139th section of John is also found in Matthew and Luke. For on referring to Canon 3 we find that it contains the passages common to John, Matthew, and Luke, and that this section numbered 139 in John, is 90 in Matthew and 58 in Luke. And the sections being numbered consecutively in each Gospel, we easily ascertain that the former is Matthew x. 24, and the latter Luke vi. 40. These, or similar numbers, were afterwards inserted in the lower margin of manuscripts, as, e.g., in Codex Argenteus of the Version of Ulfilas. They are still printed alongside the text in our larger editions, though, of course, owing to the introduction of our system of chapter and verse division they have lost their main significance.
Now, a Codex like א represents to us not one manuscript only, but several at once. It embodies first of all the manuscript from which its text was immediately derived, and then also that or those by which it was revised. That is to say, after the manuscript was written by the scribe, either to dictation or by copying, it was, particularly in the case of a costly manuscript, handed over to a person called the διορθωτής and revised. This might be done several times over; it might be done by a later owner if he were a scholar. But it might happen, as in the case of א e.g., that the exemplar by which the manuscript was revised was not the identical one from which it had been copied but a different one, perhaps older, perhaps exhibiting another form of text altogether. Tischendorf distinguished no fewer than seven correctors in א. One of these, belonging, it may be, to the seventh century, adds a note at the end of the book of Ezra to the following effect,—“This codex was compared with a very ancient exemplar which had been corrected by the hand of the holy martyr Pamphilus; which exemplar contained at the end the subscription in his own hand: ‘Taken and corrected according to the Hexapla of Origen: Antonius compared it: I, Pamphilus, corrected it.’”[63] A similar note is found appended to the Book of Esther, where it is also pointed out that variants occurred in the case of proper names. Traces are still discoverable in the Psalms which go to prove that the corrector’s Bible agreed with that of Eusebius, while the manuscript itself had been copied from one that was very different.
A considerable number of scholars are of opinion that א was written in the West, perhaps in Rome. (See Plate I.)
Tischendorf: (1) Notitia editionis, 1860; (2) Bibliorum Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus, Petropoli, 1862, fol. Vol. I., Prolegomena et Commentaria; Vol. IV., Novum Testamentum. (3) N. T. Sinaiticum, Lips. 1863. (Die Anfechtungen der Sinaibibel, Lips. 1863; Waffen der Finsterniss wider die Sinaibibel, Lips. 1863.) (4) N. T. Graece ex Sinaitico Codice omnium antiquissimo, Lips. 1865. Collatio textus graeci editionis polyglottae cum Novo Testamento Sinaitico. Appendix editionis Novi Testamenti polyglottae, Bielefeldiae. Sumptibus Velhagen et Klasing, 1894, large 8vo, pp. iv. 96. (Preface only by Tischendorf.) On Kenyon’s showing, the recent papyrus discoveries give no occasion for abandoning the conclusions formerly come to regarding the age of these parchment manuscripts (Palaeography, p. 120). Scrivener, A full Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus with the Received Text of the N. Testament, 2nd edition, 1867. Ezra Abbot, “On the comparative antiquity of the Sinaitic and Vatican Manuscripts of the Greek Bible,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. x., i. 1872, pp. 189 ff.
A. Codex Alexandrinus: middle or end of the fifth century: written probably at Alexandria: contains a note in Arabic stating that it was presented to the library of the Patriarch of Alexandria in the year 1098. The Codex was sent by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, to Charles I. of England in 1628, and was deposited in the library of the British Museum on its foundation in 1753, where it has been ever since. It has been employed in the textual criticism of the New Testament since the time of Walton. It was printed in 1786 by Woide in facsimile from wooden type. The Old Testament portion of it was also published in 1816-1828 by Baber. The entire manuscript was issued in autotype facsimile in 1879 and 1880.
The Codex is defective at the beginning of the New Testament, the first twenty-six leaves down to Matthew xxv. 6 being absent, as also two containing John vi. 50-viii. 52, and three containing 2 Cor. iv. 13-xii. 6. It also contains after the Apocalypse the (first) Epistle of Clement of Rome and a small fragment of the so-called second Epistle, which is really an early sermon. In the Codex these are recognised as parts of the New Testament, inasmuch as in the table of contents prefixed to the entire work they are included with the other books under the title ἡ καινη διαθηκη.[64] After them is given the number of books ὁμου βιβλια, only the figures are now, unfortunately, torn away. The contents indicate that the Psalms of Solomon should have followed, but these have been lost with the rest of the manuscript.
A is distinguished among the oldest manuscripts by the use of capital letters to indicate new sections. But in order to economize room and to obviate spacing the lines, the first letter of the section, if it occurs in the middle of a line, is not written larger, but the one that occurs at the beginning of the next whole line is enlarged and projects into the margin. (See Plate I. 2.) Later scribes have copied this so slavishly that they have written these letters in capitals even when they occur in the middle of the line in their manuscripts. The Egyptian origin of this Codex is shown by its use of Coptic forms for A and M. In several books A displays a remarkable affinity with Jerome in those very passages where he deviates from the older Latin version.
The books in A follow the order—Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles, Apocalypse. (Westcott, Canon, Appendix D. xii.; Bible in the Church, Appendix B.)
Woide, 1786; eiusdem, Notitia codicis Alexandrini, Recud. cur. notasque adjecit G. L. Spohn, Lipsiae, 1788; Cowper, 1860, Hansell, 1864; Photographic facsimile by Thompson, 1879; and in the Facsimiles of the Palæographical Society, Pl. 106.
The mixed character of the text of A was early observed; see Lagarde, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, p. 94.
C. F. Hoole ascribes the Codex Alexandrinus to the middle of the fourth century (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1891; see Academy, July 25, 1891, 73).
B. Codex Vaticanus par excellence, No. 1209 in the Vatican Library at Rome, inserted there shortly after its foundation by Pope Nicolas V., and one of its greatest treasures. Like A it once contained the whole of the Old Testament with the exception of the Books of Maccabees. The first 31 leaves, containing Gen. i. 1-xlvi. 28, are now wanting, as well as 20 from the Psalms containing Ps. cv. (cvi.) 27-cxxxvii. (cxxxviii.) 6. The New Testament is complete down to Heb. ix. 14, where it breaks off at καθα[ριει]. 1 and 2 Tim., Titus, Philemon, and the Apocalypse are, therefore, also wanting. Rahlfs supposes that the manuscript may have originally contained the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas as well. Erasmus obtained some account of this manuscript, and Pope Sixtus V. made it the basis of an edition of the Greek Old Testament, which was published in 1586, thereby determining the textus receptus of that portion of the Bible.—Would he had done the same for the New Testament! This task was undertaken afterwards, specially by Bentley and Birch. Professor Hug of Freiburg recognised the value of the Codex when it was removed from Rome to Paris by Napoleon in 1809. Cardinal Angelo Mai printed an edition of it between 1828 and 1838, which, however, did not appear till 1857, three years after his death, and which was most unsatisfactory. After Tischendorf had led the way with the Codex Sinaiticus, Pope Pio Nono gave orders for an edition, which was printed between 1868 and 1872 in five folio volumes. Not till 1881, however, did the last volume of this edition appear containing the indispensable commentary prepared under the supervision of Vercellone, J. Cozza, C. Sergio, and H. Fabiani, with the assistance of U. Ubaldi and A. Rocchi. Then at last the manuscript was photographed, the New Testament in 1889, and the Old Testament, in three volumes, in 1890—a veritable ἡλίου ἀνάθημα. No facsimile now can give any idea of its original beauty, because a hand of the tenth or eleventh century—or as the Roman editors say, a monk called Clement in the fifteenth century—went over the whole manuscript, letter by letter, with fresh ink, restoring the faded characters and at the same time adding accents and breathings in accordance with the pronunciation of his time (ἄμαξα, for example, and ἁλώπηξ, δἒ). The Old Testament is the work of at least two scribes, one of whom wrote down to 1 Sam. ix. 11, and the other to the end of 2 Esdras. Tischendorf’s opinion with regard to the writer of the New Testament has been already noticed. There can be no question that B is more carefully written than א. In the Gospels the Vatican exhibits a peculiar division into 170, 62, 152, and 80 sections respectively, which is found also in Ξ; in the Acts there is a double division into 36 and 69.[65] The enumeration affixed to the Pauline Epistles shows that these were copied from a manuscript in which Hebrews came after Galatians, though in B its position has been changed so as to follow 2 Thessalonians. The copyist has also retained in part of the Old Testament the enumeration of the stichoi which he found in his original. In the New Testament the order of the books is Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles. An increased interest would be lent to this manuscript if, as has been supposed, it represents the recension of the Egyptian Bishop and Martyr Hesychius, of which Jerome makes mention in two places. (Bousset, Textkritische Studien zum Neuen Testament, pp. 74-110, see especially p. 96.) On the Egyptian character of B, see also Burkitt in Texts and Studies, v. p. viii. f., and compare below, p. 183 f. (See Plate IV.)
Hug, Commentatio de antiquitate codicis Vaticani, 1810. Vercellone, Dell’ antichissimo codice Vaticano della Bibbia Greca, 1859; reprinted in his Dissertazioni accademiche, Roma, 1864, 115 ff. First facsimile reproduction, Bibliorum sacrorum Graecus Codex Vaticanus ... collatis studiis Caroli Vercellone et Josephi Cozza editus, vol. v., Rome, 1868; vol. vi. (Proleg. Comment. Tab. ed. Henr. Fabiani et Jos. Cozza), 1881; cf. ThLz., 1882, vi. 9. A. Giovanni, Della Illustrazione dell’ edizione Romana del Codice Vaticano, Rome, 1869. Photographic edition, Novum Testamentum e Codice Vaticano 1209 ... phototypice repraesentatum ... curante Jos. Cozza-Luzi, Rome, 1889, fol.; see H. C. Hoskier, The Expositor, 1889, vol. x. 457 ff.; O. v. Gebhardt, ThLz., 1890, 16; Nestle, Sep.-St., ii. 16 ff. Alf. Rahlfs, Alter und Heimat der Vatikanischen Bibelhandschrift (Nachrichten der Gesell. der Wiss. zu Göttingen, Philologisch-historische Klasse, 1889, Heft i. pp. 72-79). In this article Rahlfs seeks to prove that the number and order of the books in the Old and New Testaments contained in B correspond exactly to the Canon of the Scriptures given by Athanasius in his thirty-ninth Festal Letter of the year 367. In it, Athanasius, after mentioning all the canonical books of the Bible, including those of the N. T., cites the extra-canonical books of the O. T. which are allowed to be read, putting them after the second group, βίβλοι στιχήρεις, because two of these books, Wisdom and Sirach, were to be written στιχηδόν. In the N. T. the Greek and Syriac forms of the Festal Letter put Hebrews expressly between the Epistles to the Churches and the Pastoral Epistles. In the Sahidic version of the Letter, however, Hebrews stands before Galatians. This latter arrangement is evidently the survival of a pre-Athanasian order which has been longer preserved in the Sahidic translation.[66] But if B is the work of Athanasius, it follows that it cannot be one of the Bibles ordered by Constantine. In this case it would rather be written in Egypt, and we should have in it the Recension of Hesychius, as Grabe supposed was the case in the O. T., while Hug held the same view in regard to the N. T. text of this manuscript (see below, c. III.). Against the theory of Rahlfs, see O. v. Gebhardt in the Theologische Litteraturzeitung, 1899, n. 20.