Copies of a later age occasionally aim at imitating the fashion of an earlier period, or possibly the style of the older book from which their text is drawn. But this anachronism of fashion may be detected, as well by other circumstances we are soon to mention, as from the air of constraint which pervades the whole manuscript: the rather as the scribe will now and then fall into the more familiar manner of his contemporaries; especially when writing those small letters which our Biblical manuscripts of all dates (even the most venerable) perpetually crowd into the ends of lines, in order to save space.
11. We do not intend to dwell much on the cursive handwriting. No books of the Greek Scriptures earlier than the ninth century in this style are now extant[36], though it was prevalent long before in the intercourse of business or common life. The papyri of Hyperides (e.g. No. [9]) and the Herculanean rolls, in a few places, show that the process had then commenced, for the letters of each word are often joined, and their shapes prove that swiftness of execution was more aimed at than distinctness. This is seen even more clearly in a petition to Ptolemy Philometor (b.c. 164) represented in the “Paléographie Universelle” (No. 56). The same great work contains (No. 66) two really cursive charters of the Emperors [pg 042] Maurice (a.d. 600) and Heraclius (a.d. 616). Other instances of early cursive writing may be found in two Deeds of Sale, a.d. 616, and 599, a Manumission in 355, an Official Deed in 233, a Deed of Sale in 154, in Aristotle on the Constitution of Athens, about 100, in a Farm Account in 78-79, in a Receipt in a.d. 20, in the Casati contract in b.c. 114, in a Letter on Egyptian Contracts in 146, a Treasury Circular in 170, in a Steward's letter of the third century b.c., in various documents of the same century lying in the British Museum, at Paris, Berlin, Leyden, and elsewhere, of which the oldest, being amongst the papyri discovered by Dr. Flinders Petrie at Gurob is referred to b.c. 268, and the Leyden papyrus to 260[37]. Yet the earliest books of a later age known to be written in cursive letters are Cod. 481 (Scholz 461, dated a.d. 835) the Bodleian Euclid (dated a.d. 888) and the twenty-four dialogues of Plato in the same Library (dated a.d. 895)[38]. There is reason to believe, from the comparatively unformed character of the writing in them all, that Burney 19 in the British Museum (from which we have extracted the alphabet No. 8, Plate [iii]), and the minute, beautiful and important Codex l of the Gospels at Basle (of which see a facsimile No. [23]), are but little later than the Oxford books, and may be referred to the tenth century. Books copied after the cursive hand had become regularly formed, in the eleventh, [pg 043] twelfth and thirteenth centuries, are hard to be distinguished by the mere handwriting, though they are often dated, or their age fixed by the material (see p. [23]), or the style of their illuminations. Colbert. 2844, or 33 of the Gospels (facsim. No. [39]), is attributed to the eleventh century, and Burney 21 (No. [15])[39], is dated a.d. 1292, and afford good examples of their respective dates. Beta (l. 1 letter 4), when joined to other letters, is barely distinguishable from upsilon[40]; nu is even nearer to mu; the tall forms of eta and epsilon are very graceful, the whole style elegant and, after a little practice, easily read. Burney 22 (facsimile No. [37]) is dated about the same time, a.d. 1319, and the four Biblical lines much resemble Burney 21[41]. In the fourteenth century a careless style came into fashion, of which Cod. Leicestrensis (No. [40]) is an exaggerated instance, and during this century and the next our manuscripts, though not devoid of a certain beauty of appearance, are too full of arbitrary and elaborate contractions to be conveniently read. The formidable list of abbreviations and ligatures represented in Donaldson's Greek Grammar (p. 20, third edition)[42] originated at this period in the perverse ingenuity of the Greek emigrants in the West of Europe, who subsisted by their skill as copyists; [pg 044] and these pretty puzzles (for such they now are to many a fair classical scholar), by being introduced into early printed books[43], have largely helped to withdraw them from use in modern times.
12. We have now to describe the practice of Biblical manuscripts as regards the insertion of ι forming a diphthong with the long vowels eta and omega, also with alpha long, whether by being ascript, i.e. written by their side, or subscript, i.e. written under them. In the earliest inscriptions and in the papyri of Thebes ι ascript (the iota not smaller than other letters) is invariably found. In the petition to Ptolemy Philometor (above, p. [41]) it occurs four times in the first line, three times in the third: in the fragments of Hyperides it is perpetually though not always read, even where (especially with verbs) it has no rightful place, e.g. ετωι και αντιβολωι (facsimile No. [9], ll. 3, 4) for αἰτῶ καὶ ἀντιβολῶ. A little before the Christian era it began to grow obsolete, probably from its being lost in pronunciation. In the Herculanean Philodemus (the possible limits of whose date are from b.c. 50 to a.d. 79) as in Evann. 556, 604 (Matt. ii. 12, 13), it is often dropped, though more usually written. In Codd. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus it is probably not found, and from this period it almost disappears from Biblical uncials[44]; in Cureton's Homer, of the fifth or perhaps of the sixth century, ι ascript is sometimes neglected, but usually inserted; sometimes also ι is placed above Η or Ω, an arrangement neither neat nor convenient. With the cursive character ι ascript came in again, as may be seen from the subscriptions in the Bodleian Euclid and Plato (p. 42, note 1). The semicursive fragment of St. Paul's Epistles in red letters (M of St. Paul, Plate [xii] No. 34), used for the binding of Harleian 5613, contains ι ascript twice, but I have tried in vain to verify Griesbach's statement (Symbol. Crit. ii. p. 166) that it has ι subscript “bis tantum aut ter.” I can find no such instance in [pg 045] these leaves. The cursive manuscripts, speaking generally, either entirely omit both forms, or, if they give either, far more often neglect than insert them. Cod. 1 of the Gospels exhibits the ascript ι. Of forty-three codices now in England which have been examined with a view to this matter, twelve have no vestige of either fashion, fifteen represent the ascript use, nine the subscript exclusively, while the few that remain exhibit both indifferently[45]. The earliest cursive copy ascertained to exhibit ι subscript is Matthaei's r (Apoc. 502 [x]), and after that the Cod. Ephesius (Evan. 71), dated a.d. 1160. The subscript ι came much into vogue during the fifteenth century, and thus was adopted in printed books.
13. Breathings (spiritus) and accents[46] were not applied systematically to Greek Texts before the seventh century. But a practice prevailed in that and the succeeding century of inserting them in older manuscripts, where they were absent primâ manu. That such was done in many instances (e.g. in Codd. Vatican. and Coislin. 202 or H of St. Paul) appears clearly from the fact that the passages which the scribe who retouched the old letters for any cause left unaltered, are destitute of these marks, though they appear in all other places. Cod. א exhibits breathings, apparently by the original scribe, in Tobit vi. 9; Gal. v. 21 only. The case of Cod. Alexandrinus is less easy. Though the rest of the book has neither breathings (except a few here and there) nor accents, the first four lines of each column of the book of Genesis (see facsimile No. [12]), which are written in red, are fully furnished with them. These marks Baber, who edited the Old Testament portion of Cod. A, pronounced to be by a second hand (Notae, p. 1); Sir Frederick Madden, a more competent judge, declares them the work of the original scribe (Madden's Silvestre, Vol. i. p. 194, note), and after repeated examination we know not how to dissent from his view[47]. So too in the Sarravian Pentateuch of the fifth century [pg 046] we read ΤΟΝΥΝ [with several symbols written over the Υ] (Lev. xi. 7) by the first hand. The Cureton palimpsest of Homer also has them, though they are occasionally obliterated, and some few are evidently inserted by a corrector; the case is nearly so with the Milan Homer edited by Mai; and the same must be stated of the Vienna Dioscorides (Silvestre, No. 62), whose date is fixed by internal evidence to about a.d. 500. In the papyrus fragment of the Psalms, now in the British Museum, the accents are very accurate, and the work of the original scribe. These facts, and others like these, may make us hesitate to adopt the notion generally received among scholars on the authority of Montfaucon (Palaeogr. Graec. p. 33), that breathings and accents were not introduced primâ manu before the seventh or eighth century; although up to that period, no doubt, they were placed very incorrectly, and often omitted altogether. The breathings are much the more ancient and important of the two. The spiritus lenis indeed may be a mere invention of the Alexandrian grammarians of the second or third century before Christ, but the spiritus asper is in fact the substitute for a real letter (H) which appears on the oldest inscriptions; its original shape being the first half of the H ([symbol like the left half of a Roman capital letter H]), of which the second half was subsequently adopted for the lenis ([symbol like the right half of a Roman capital H]). This form is sometimes found in manuscripts of about the eleventh century (e.g. Lebanon, B.M. Addit. 11300 or kscr, and usually in Lambeth 1178 or dscr) ed. of 1550, but even in the Cod. Alexandrinus the comma and inverted comma are several times substituted to represent the lenis and asper respectively (facsimile No. [12]): and at a later period this last was the ordinary, though not quite the invariable, mode of expressing the breathings. Aristophanes of Byzantium (keeper of the famous Library at Alexandria under Ptolemy Euergetes, about b.c. 240), though probably not the inventor of the Greek accents, was the first to arrange them in a system. Accentuation must have been a welcome aid to those who employed Greek as a learned, though not as their vernacular tongue, and is so convenient and suggestive that no modern scholar can afford to dispense with its familiar use: yet not being, like the rough breathing, an essential portion of the language, it was but slowly brought into general vogue. It would seem that in Augustine's age [354-430] the distinction between the smooth and rough breathing in the manuscripts was just such a point as a careful reader would [pg 047] mark, a hasty one overlook[48]. Hence it is not surprising that though these marks are entirely absent both from the Theban and Herculanean papyri, a few breathings are apparently by the first hand in Cod. Borgianus or T (Tischendorf, N. T. 1859, Proleg. p. cxxxi). One rough breathing is just visible in that early palimpsest of St. John's Gospel, Ib or Nb. Such as appear, together with some accents, in the Coislin Octateuch of the sixth or seventh century, may not the less be primâ manu because many pages are destitute of them; those of Cod. Claromontanus, which were once deemed original, are now pronounced by its editor Tischendorf to be a later addition. Cod. N, the purple fragment so often spoken of already, exhibits primâ manu over certain vowels a kind of smooth breathing or slight acute accent, sometimes little larger than a point, but inserted on no intelligible principle, so far as we can see, and far oftener omitted entirely. All copies of Scripture which have not been specified, down to the end of the seventh century, are quite destitute of breathings and accents. An important manuscript of the eighth or ninth century, Cod. L or Paris 62 of the Gospels, has them for the most part, but not always; though often in the wrong place, and at times in utter defiance of all grammatical rules. Cod. B of the Apocalypse, however, though of the same age, has breathings and accents as constantly and correctly as most. Codices of the ninth century, with the exception of three written in the West of Europe (Codd. Augiensis or Paul F, Sangallensis or Δ of the Gospels, and Boernerianus or Paul G, which will be particularly described afterwards), are all accompanied with these marks in full, though often set down without any precise rule, so far as our experience has enabled us to observe. The uncial Evangelistaria (e.g. Arundel 547; Parham 18; Harleian 5598), especially, are much addicted to prefixing the spiritus asper improperly; chiefly, perhaps, to words beginning with H, so that documents of that age are but slender authorities on such points. Of the cursives the general tendency is to be more and more accurate as regards the accentuation, [pg 048] the later the date: but this is only a general rule, as some that are early are as careful, and certain of the latest as negligent, as can well be imagined. All of them are partial to placing accents or breathings over both parts of a word compounded with a preposition (e.g. ἐπὶσυνάξαι), and on the other hand often drop them between a preposition and its case (e.g. ἐπάροτρον).
14. The punctuation in early times was very simple. In the papyri of Hyperides there are no stops at all, in the Herculanean rolls exceeding few: Codd. Sinaiticus and Vaticanus (the latter very rarely by the first hand) have a single point here and there on a level with the top of the letters, and occasionally a very small break in the continuous uncials, with or (as always in Cod. Ib of the sixth century) without the point, to denote a pause in the sense. Codd. A N have the same point a little oftener; in Codd. C Wa (Paris 314) Z and the Cotton Genesis the single point stands indiscriminately at the head, middle, or foot of the letters, while in E (Basil. A. N. iii. 12) of the Gospels and B of the Apocalypse, as in Cod. Marchalianus of the Prophets (sixth or seventh century), this change in the position of the point indicates a full-stop, half stop, or comma respectively. In Cod. L, of the same date as Codd. E and B (Apoc.), besides the full point we have the comma (::.) and semicolon (::), with a cross also for a stop. In Codd. Y Θa (of about the eighth century) the single point has its various powers as in Cod. E, &c., but besides this are double, treble, and in Cod. Y quadruple, points with different powers. In late uncials, especially Evangelistaria, the chief stop is a cross, often in red (e.g. Arund. 547); while in Harleian 5598 [symbol like three ovals] seems to be the note of interrogation[49]. When the continuous writing came to be broken up into separate words (of which Cod. Augiensis in the ninth century affords one of the earliest examples) the single point was intended to be placed after the last letter of each word, on a level with the middle of the letters. But even in this copy it is often omitted in parts, and in Codd. ΔG, written on the same plan, more frequently still. Our statements refer only to the Greek portions of these [pg 049] copies; the Latin semicolon (;) and the note of interrogation (?) occur in their Latin versions. The Greek interrogation (;) first occurs about the ninth century, and (,) used as a stop a little later. The Bodleian Genesis of this date, or a little earlier, uses (,) also as an interrogative: so in later times B-C. iii. 5 [xii], and Evan. 556 [xii]. In the earliest cursives the system of punctuation is much the same as that of printed books: the English colon (:) not being much used, but the upper single point in its stead[50]. In a few cursives (e.g. Gonville or 59 of the Gospels), this upper point, set in a larger space, stands also for a full stop: indeed (·) is the only stop found in Tischendorf's loti or 61 of the Acts (Brit. Mus. Add. 20,003): while (;) and (·) are often confused in 440 of the Gospels (Cantab. Mm. 6. 9). The English comma, placed above a letter, is used for the apostrophus, which occurs in the very oldest uncials, especially at the end of proper names, or to separate compounds (e.g. απ᾽ ορφανισθεντες in Cod. Clarom.), or when the word ends in ξ or ρ (e.g. σαρξ᾽ in Cod. B, θυγατηρ᾽ in Codd. Sinait. and A, χειρ᾽ in Cod. A, ὡσπερ᾽ in the Dioscorides, a.d. 500), or even to divide syllables (e.g. συριγ᾿γας in Cod. Frid.-August., πολ᾿λα, κατεστραμ᾿μενη, αναγ᾿γελι in Cod. Sinaiticus). In Cod. Z it is found only after αλλ and μεθ, but in Z's Isaiah it indicates other elisions (e.g. επ). This mark is more rare in Cod. Ephraemi than in some others, but is used more or less by all, and is found after εξ, or ουχ, and a few like words, even in the most recent cursives. In Cod. Bezae and others it assumes the shape of > rather than that of a comma.
15. Abbreviated words are perhaps least met with in Cod. Vatican., but even it has θσ, κσ, ισ, χσ, πνα for θεός, κύριος, ἰησοῦς, χριστός, πνεῦμα, &c. and their cases. [Transcriber's Note: In this e-book, underlines are used to represent the overlines used in the paper book.] The Cotton Genesis has θου ch. i. 27 by a later hand, but θεου ch. xli. 38. Besides these Codd. Sinaiticus, Alex., Ephraemi and the rest supply ανοσ, ουνοσ, πηρ (πρ Cod. Sarrav. Num. xii. 14, &c., πτηρ Cod. [pg 050] Rossanensis), μηρ, ιλημ or ιηλμ or ιλμ or ιηό (ιελμ Cod. Sarrav.), ιηϊ or ισλ or ισηλ, δαδ, and some of them σηρ for σωτήρ, υσ for υἱός, παρνξς [with a theta above the line] for παρθένος (Bodleian Genesis), σρσ for σταυρός: Cod. L has πνευ, and Cod. Vatican. in the Old Testament ανοσ and πρσ occasionally, ἐθν and ιλημ or ιλμ often[51]; Evan. 604 has σηρ for σωτήρ, and ἐθν for ἐθνῶν[52]. Cod. Bezae always writes at length ανθρωπος, μητηρ, υἱος, σωτηρ, οὐρανος, δαυειδ, ἰσραηλ, ἱερουσαλημ; but abridges the sacred names into χρσ, ιησ[53] &c. and their cases, as very frequently, but by no means invariably, do the kindred Codd. Augiens., Sangall., and Boerner. Cod. Z seldom abridges, and all copies often set υἱος in full. A few dots sometimes supply the place of the line denoting abbreviation (e.g. θσ [with dots over the letters] Cotton Genesis, ανοσ [with dots over the letters] Colbert. Pentateuch). A straight line over the last letter of a line, sometimes over any vowel, indicates N (or also M in the Latin of Codd. Bezae and Claromont.) in all the Biblical uncials, but is placed only over numerals in the Herculanean rolls: κ [with tilde below and to the right], τ [with tilde below and to the right], and less often θ [with tilde below and to the right] for καί (see p. [16], note 1), -ται, -θαι are met with in Cod. Sinaiticus and all later except Cod. Z: [symbol somewhat like Arabic number 8] for ου chiefly in Codd. L, Augiensis, B of the Apocalypse, and the more recent uncials. Such compendia scribendi as [symbol like Pi with Rho] in the Herculanean rolls (above p. [33]) occur mostly at the end of lines: that form, with ΜΥ [with small circle between the letters] (No. [11] a, l. 4), and a few more even in the Cod. Sinaiticus; in Cod. Sarrav. Μ [with small circle over the letter] stands for both μου and μοι; in Cureton's Homer we have Πς for πους, Σς for -σας and such like. In later books they are more numerous and complicated, particularly in cursive writing. The terminations [small raised circle] for ος, [horizontal line] for ν, [symbol like left single quotation mark] or [symbol like two left quotation marks] for ον, [symbol like right double quotation mark] for αις, [symbol like tilde] for ων or ω or ως, [symbol like raised small sigma] for ης, [symbol like raised small upsilon] for ου are familiar; besides others, peculiar to one or a few copies, e.g. τγ for ττ in Burney 19, and Burdett-Coutts i. 4, h for αυ, b for ερ, — for α, [symbol like horizontal line with circle at right edge] for αρ in the Emmanuel College copy of the Epistles (Paul 30, No. [33]), and [symbol like colon] for α, [symbol like small raised capital sigma] or [symbol like raised small sigma] for αν, [symbol like square root symbol] for ας in Parham 17 of the Apocalypse. Other more rare abridgements are [symbol like two raised small sigmas] for εις in Wake 12, [square root sign] (Burdett-Coutts I. 4) or < or [raised small alpha] for εν, [symbol like two dots] for ι and [symbol like Hebrew letter Tet with two dots over it] for εσ (B-C. iii. 37), [symbol like two dots with comma below them] for εσ and ε for σε and [symbol like tilde over Rho over Tau] for τησ (B-C. [pg 051] ii. 26), [symbol] for ται and [symbol] for ωσ (B-C. iii. 42), [symbol] for ην (B-C. iii. 10), [symbol] for ισ and ὀ or [symbol] for ουν (B-C. iii. 41), [symbol] for ιν or ἐστι, [symbol] for αν, [symbol] or [symbol] for οις, [symbol] for ας, [symbol] or [symbol] for οις, [symbol] for τε or -τες or τθν or τον, [symbol] for ειν, [symbol] for ους or ως (Gale O. iv. 22). The mark > is not only met with in the Herculanean rolls, but in the Hyperides (facsimile [9], l. 6), in Codd. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, the two Pentateuchs, Codd. Augiensis, Sangall. and Boernerianus, and seems merely designed to fill up vacant space, like the flourishes in a legal instrument[54].
16. Capital letters of a larger size than the rest at the beginning of clauses, &c. are freely met with in all documents excepting in the oldest papyri, the Herculanean rolls, Codd. Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, the Colbert Pentateuch, Isaiah in Cod. Z, and one or two fragments besides[55]. Their absence is a proof of high antiquity. Yet even in Codd. Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Sarravianus, which is the other part of the Colbert Pentateuch (in the first most frequently in the earlier portions of the Old Testament), the initial letter stands a little outside the line of writing after a break in the sense, whether the preceding line had been quite filled up or not. Such breaks occur more regularly in Codex Bezae, as will appear when we come to describe it[56]. Smaller capitals occur in the middle of lines in Codd. Bezae and Marchalianus, of the sixth and seventh centuries respectively. Moreover, all copies of whatever date are apt to crowd small [pg 052] letters into the end of a line to save room, and if these small letters preserve the form of the larger, it is reasonable to conclude that the scribe is writing in a natural hand, not an assumed one, and the argument for the antiquity of such a document, derived from the shape of its letters, thus becomes all the stronger. The continuous form of writing separate words must have prevailed in manuscripts long after it was obsolete in common life: Cod. Claromont., whose text is continuous even in its Latin version, divides the words in the inscriptions and subscriptions to the several books.
17. The stichometry of the sacred books has next to be considered. The Greeks and Romans measured the contents of their MSS. by lines, not only in poetry, but also artificially in prose for a standard line of fifteen or sixteen syllables, called by the earliest writers ἔπος, afterwards στίχος[57]. Not only do Athanasius [d. 373], Gregory Nyssen [d. 396], Epiphanius [d. 403], and Chrysostom [d. 407] inform us that in their time the Book of Psalms was already divided into στίχοι, while Jerome [d. 420?] testifies the same for the prophecies of Isaiah; but Origen also [d. 254] speaks of the second and third Epistles of St. John as both of them not exceeding one hundred στίχοι, of St. Paul's Epistles as consisting of few, St. John's first Epistle as of very few (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vi. 25, cited by Tischendorf, Cod. Sinait., Proleg. p. xxi, note 2, 1863). Even the apocryphal letter of our Lord to Abgarus is described as ὀλιγοστίχου μέν, πολυδυνάμου δὲ ἐπιστολῆς (Euseb. H. E. i. 13): while Eustathius of Antioch in the fourth century reckoned 135 στίχοι between John viii. 59 and x. 41. More general is the use of the word in Ephraem the Syrian [d. 378], Ὅταν δὲ ἀναγινώσκῃς, ἐπιμελῶς καὶ ἐμπόνως ἀναγίνωσκε, ἐν πολλῇ καταστάσει διερχόμενος τὸν στίχον (tom. iii. 101). As regards the [pg 053] Psalms, we may see their arrangement for ourselves in Codd. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus, wherein, according to the true principles of Hebrew poetry, the verses do not correspond in metre or quantity of syllables, but in the parallelism or relationship subsisting between the several members of the same sentence or stanza[58]. Such στίχοι were therefore not “space-lines,” but “sense-lines.” It seems to have occurred to Euthalius, a deacon of Alexandria, as it did long afterwards to Bishop Jebb when he wrote his “Sacred Literature,” that a large portion of the New Testament might be divided into στίχοι on the same principles: and that even where that distribution should prove but artificial, it would guide the public reader in the management of his voice, and remove the necessity for an elaborate system of punctuation. Such, therefore, we conceive to be the use and design of stichometry, as applied to the Greek Testament by Euthalius[59], whose edition of the Acts and Epistles was published a.d. 490. Who distributed the στίχοι of the Gospels (which are in truth better suited for such a process than the Epistles) does not appear. Although but few manuscripts now exist that are written στοιχηδόν or στιχηρῶς (a plan which consumed too much vellum to become general), we read in many copies, added usually to the subscription at the foot of each of the books of the New Testament, a calculation of the number of στίχοι it contained, the numbers being sufficiently unlike to show that the arrangement was not the same in all codices, yet near enough to prove that they were divided on the same principle[60]. In the few documents written στιχηρῶς that survive, the length of the clauses is very unequal; some (e.g. Cod. Bezae, see the description below [pg 054] and the facsimile, No. [42]) containing as much in a line as might be conveniently read aloud in a breath, others (e.g. Cod. Laud. of the Acts, Plate [x]. No. 25) having only one or two words in a line. The Cod. Claromontanus (facsim. No. [41]) in this respect lies between those extremes, and the fourth great example of this class (Cod. Coislin. 202, H of St. Paul), of the sixth century, has one of its few surviving pages (of sixteen lines each) arranged literatim as follows (1 Cor. x. 22, &c.): εσμεν | παντα μοι εξεστι | αλλ ου παντα συμφερει | παντα μοι εξεστιν | αλλ ου παντα οικοδομει | μηδεισ το εαυτου ζη | (ob necessitatem spatii) τειτω | αλλα το του ετερου | παν το εν μακελλω πω | (ob necessitatem) λουμενον | εσθιετε μηδεν ανα | κρινωντες δια την | συνειδησιν | του γαρ κυ η γη και το πλη | ρωμα αυτης. Other manuscripts written στιχηρῶς are Matthaei's V of the eighth century (though with verses like ours more than with ordinary στίχοι), Bengel's Uffenbach 3 of St. John (Evan. 101), Alter's Forlos. 29 (36 of the Apocalypse), and, as it would seem, the Cod. Sangallensis Δ. In Cod. Claromontanus there are scarcely any stops (the middle point being chiefly reserved to follow abridgements or numerals), the stichometry being of itself an elaborate scheme of punctuation; but the longer στίχοι of Cod. Bezae are often divided by a single point.
18. In using manuscripts of the Greek Testament, we must carefully note whether a reading is primâ manu (*) or by some subsequent corrector (**). It will often happen that these last are utterly valueless, having been inserted even from printed copies by a modern owner (like some marginal variations of the Cod. Leicestrensis)[61], and such as these really ought not to have been extracted by collators at all; while others by the second hand are almost as weighty, for age and goodness, as the text itself. All these points are explained by critical editors for each document separately; in fact to discriminate the different corrections in regard to their antiquity and importance is often the most difficult portion of such editor's task (e.g. in Codd. Bezae and Claromontanus), and one on which he often feels it hard to satisfy his own judgement. Corrections by the original scribe, or [pg 055] by a contemporary reviser, where they can be satisfactorily distinguished, must be regarded as a portion of the testimony of the manuscript itself, inasmuch as every carefully prepared copy was reviewed and compared (ἀντεβλήθη), if not by the writer himself, by a skilful person appointed for the task (ὁ διορθῶν, ὁ διορθωτής), whose duty it was to amend manifest errors, sometimes also to insert ornamental capitals in places which had been reserved for them; in later times (and as some believe at a very early period) to set in stops, breathings and accents; in copies destined for ecclesiastical use to arrange the musical notes that were to guide the intonation of the reader. Notices of this kind of revision are sometimes met with at the end of the best manuscripts. Such is the note in Cod. H of St. Paul: εγραψα και εξεθεμην προσ το εν Καισαρια αντιγραφον τησ διδλιοθηκησ του αγιου Παμφιλου, the same library of the Martyr Pamphilus to which the scribe of the Cod. Frid.-August. resorted for his model[62]; and that in Birch's most valuable Urbino-Vatican. 2 (157 of the Gospels), written for the Emperor John II (1118-1143), wherein at the end of the first Gospel we read κατὰ Ματθαῖον ἐγράφη καὶ ἀντεβλήθη ἐκ τῶν ἐν ἱεροσολύμοις παλαιῶν ἀντιγράφων τῶν ἐν ἁγίω ὄρει [Athos] ἀποκειμένων: similar subscriptions are appended to the other Gospels. See also Evan. Λ. 20, 164, 262, 300, 376; Act. 15, 83, in the list of manuscripts below.