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 margin[176] 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. 313-4[178]. 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 1762[181], 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 Evangelists[182]; Codex Q, on thirteen leaves, twelve fragments of 247 verses from SS. Luke and John[183]; 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 fragments[185], 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.