B. The Pauline Epistles, Catholic Epistles, and Acts.
In the Bodleian Library at Oxford are:
1. Hunt. 43, fol., paper, Copt. Arab., containing Paul. Ep., Cath. Ep., Acts, and Apocalypse. The paging ceases at the end of the Acts, and [pg 119] between the Acts and Apocalypse are some blank pages. I did not, however, notice any difference in the handwriting of the two parts. The date given at the end of the Acts is 1398 (i.e. a.d. 1682).
*2. Hunt. 203, 4to, paper. The Pauline Epistles. The beginning, Rom. i. 1-ii. 26, and the end, 2 Tim. iv. 4-Tit. ii. 6, are in a later hand. This later transcriber ends abruptly in the middle of a page with ⲉⲑⲣⲟⲩ, Tit. ii. 6. Thus the end of Titus and the whole of Philemon are wanting. There are several lacunae in the body of the work owing to lost leaves. The description in Wilkins is most inaccurate.
*3. Hunt. 122, 4to, paper, illuminated. The Pauline Epistles. The beginning and end are wanting. The MS. begins with Rom. viii. 29, and ends with 2 Tim. i. 2. The date is given at the end of 2 Corinthians as 1002 of the Diocletian era, i.e. a.d. 1286. The scribe gives his name as “ⲡⲟⲗϥⲁϫ the son of the bishop.”
In the British Museum:
*4. Orient. 424, 4to, paper, Copt. Arab., containing Paul. Ep., Cath. Ep., Acts. At the end of the Pauline Epistles, and at the end of the Acts, are two important Arabic colophons, in which the pedigree of the MS. is given. From these we learn that both portions of this MS. were written A. Mart. 1024 (= a.d. 1308) by one Abu Said. They were copied, however, from a previous MS. in the handwriting of the patriarch Abba Gabriel and bearing the date A. Mart. 966 (= a.d. 1250). This Abba Gabriel stated that “he took great pains to copy it accurately and correct it, both as to the Coptic and Arabic texts, to the best of human ability.” This MS. of Abba Gabriel again was copied from two earlier MSS., that of the Pauline Epistles in the handwriting of Abba Yuhanna, bishop of Sammanud, that of the Catholic Epistles and Acts in the handwriting of “Jurja ibn Saksik(?) the famous scribe.” This MS. belonged to Archdeacon Tattam, and was purchased for the British Museum at the sale of his books. It is the MS. designated 'tattamianus' in the edition of Boetticher, who made use of a collation obtained by Schwartze. The corrections in this MS. (designated t* in Boetticher) are written in red ink.
5. Oriental 1318, ff. 294, fol., 4to, Copt. Arab., dated A. Mart. 1132 = a.d. 1416.
In private collections in England:
*6. Parham 124 (no. 12, p. 29, in the printed Catalogue), fol., paper, Copt. Arab. Paul. Ep., Cath. Ep., Acts. There are several blank leaves at the end of the Pauline Epistles, and the numbering of the leaves begins afresh with the Catholic Epistles, so that this MS. is two volumes bound together. They are, however, companion volumes and in the same handwriting. This is doubtless the MS. of which Schwartze's collation was used by Boetticher (see above, p. [109]), and which he calls “curetonianus.” I am informed that it is designated simply cur. by Schwartze himself. It certainly never belonged to Cureton, but was brought with the other Parham MSS. by the Hon. [pg 120] R. Curzon (afterwards Lord Zouche) from the East, and ever afterwards belonged to his library. Boetticher's designation therefore is probably to be explained by a confusion of names. I gather moreover from private correspondence which I have seen, that some of Mr. Curzon's Coptic MSS. were in the keeping of Cureton at the British Museum about the time when Schwartze's collation was made, and this may have been one. If so, the mistake is doubly explained. I infer the identity of this MS. with the curetonianus of Boetticher for the following reasons: (1) Having made all enquiries, I cannot find that Dr. Cureton ever possessed a Coptic MS. of the whole or part of the New Testament; (2) The MS. in question must have been in England, and no other English MS. satisfies the conditions. My first impression was that the MS. next described, Parham 121, would prove to be the curetonianus, for I found between the leaves an envelope addressed to Mr. Cureton at the British Museum, and bearing the post mark, January, 1849; this fact indicating that it had been in Mr. Cureton's hands about the time when Schwartze's collation was made. But a comparison of the readings soon showed that this identification must be abandoned. (3) The cipher which Boetticher gives for the date is also found in this MS. in two places, after the Pauline Epistles and again after the Acts. This coincidence is the more remarkable as the cipher is not very intelligible. (4) The readings of our MS., Parham 124, where I compared them, agree with those of Boetticher's curetonianus, with an occasional exception which may be accounted for by the inaccuracy of the collation. This is the case with crucial readings, as for instance the marginal alternative in Acts vii. 39. At the same time Schwartze's collation, if Boetticher has given its readings fully, must have been very imperfect. In a short passage which I collated I found more variations omitted than there were verses.