Of Latin Biblical manuscripts we have a considerable number, including several remarkable either for their text or their artistic execution. The most important for its text is that classed A. 4, 15, and called Codex Usserianus; a manuscript of the Gospels written probably in the sixth century, and exhibiting an old Latin text of the Hiberno-British Recension. It is defective at the beginning and the end; every leaf also is mutilated, so that no line remains complete. With the exception of a rude cross at the end of St. Luke’s Gospel, there is no attempt at ornament. Here and there are interlinear glosses scratched as with a needle point—as, for example, in reference to the paralytic who was “borne of four,” the four are interpreted as the four evangelists. It is remarkable that the pericopa de adultera is given in a text agreeing with the Vulgate. From this we may conclude—first, that the passage was not in the archetype; secondly, that the scribe had a copy of the Vulgate at hand; and thirdly, that it was from choice, not from necessity, that he copied the old Latin. The full text of this manuscript was published in Evangelia Ante-hieronymiana. Its history is unknown.
Another MS., called The Garland of Howth, exhibits in St. Matthew’s Gospel a similar text, but elsewhere the Vulgate, or, in some parts, a mixed text. It is probably not earlier than the ninth century, or perhaps the tenth. Pictures of two of the evangelists remain—the others are lost. The MS. is coarsely written, and on very coarse parchment. The omissions in it, chiefly from homœoteleuton, are frequent and instructive. Some of the scribe’s blunders are curious. Thus, Matthew xxii. 42, “quid vobis videtur de operibus fidelis,” for “de χρο cuius filius;” Mark ii. 3, “qui iiii rotis portabatur;” xi. 12, “a bethania cum x essurivit ii;” xiv. 50, “discipuli omnes relinquentes eum cruci[fi]xerunt.” In Matthew xxvii. 5, an Irish gloss has got into the text—“proiectis arcadgabuth c.,” for “argenteis.” In Luke xxiii. 12 another gloss appears in the text—“opus malum malos in unum coniungunt.”
Remarkable both for text and ornament is the Book of Durrow (so called from Durrow, in King’s County, where St. Columba founded a monastery), a MS. of the Gospels (with the prologues, &c.), written perhaps in the seventh century. The text is a tolerably pure Vulgate. The colophon contains a prayer that whoever shall hold the book in his hand may remember the writer, Columba, who wrote this Gospel in the space of twelve days. There were many Columbas besides the Saint, and it is pretty certain that the present book was not written by Saint Columba. It is morally certain also that it was not written in twelve days. But there is good reason to believe that the scribe has merely copied the colophon from the book he was transcribing,[120] and if so, the archetype may have been written by Saint Columba, who has the reputation of being a scribe.
Except at the beginning of each Gospel, the only attempt at ornament is a series of red dots round the initial letters; but the letters of the first words of each Gospel are elaborately embellished in the characteristic Celtic style. Prefixed also to each Gospel is a page covered with interlaced ornament of great beauty, as well as another page with the symbol of the Evangelist. These pages have been represented in fac-simile (admirably as regards the tracing, but not with accurate reproduction of the colours) in Prof. Westwood’s Fac-similes of Irish and Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts. The volume was formerly enclosed in a silver cover, which has long since disappeared; but a note in the book (written in 1677) gives the inscription, which stated that the cover was made by Flann, son of Mailsechnal, King of Ireland (who died in the year 916).[121]
This MS. was presented to the Library by Henry Jones, Bishop of Meath, Vice-Chancellor (1646 to 1660), the same whose gift of stairs, etc., to the Library in 1651 is commemorated on a brass plate just inside the door.
Conall MacGeoghegan relates of Saint Columba, “hee wrote 300 bookes with his one [own] hand, they were all new testaments, left a book to each of his churches in the kingdome wch Bookes sunck to the bottom of the Deepest waters, they would not lose one letter signe or character of them, wch I have seen partly my selfe of that book of them wch is at Dorow, in the Ks County, for I did see the Ignorant man that hath the same in his custody, when sickness came upon cattle, for their Remedi putt water on the booke and suffered it to rest there a while and saw alsoe cattle returne thereby to their former or pristinate and the book to receave noe loss.”[122] In earlier times, indeed, even in England, the scrapings of these Celtic manuscripts were believed to have medicinal virtues.
The Book of Durrow is far surpassed in beauty by the Book of Kells, so called from Kells in Co. Meath, in which monastery it had been preserved and doubtless written. This is also a MS. of the Gospels containing a mixed text, i.e., the Vulgate modified by additions, etc., from the old Latin. No words can convey an adequate idea of the beauty of this MS. This does not consist, as in some Oriental MSS., in a profusion of gilding—there is no gold whatever—nor in the addition of paintings independent of the text, but in the lavish variety of artistic adornment applied to the letters of the text, which justifies Professor Westwood in calling it “the most beautiful book in the world.” The ornament consists largely of ever-varying interlacing of serpents and of simple bands, with countless spirals alternately expanding and contracting in the peculiar “trumpet-shaped pattern.” The initial of every sentence throughout the Gospels is an artistic product, some of them exquisite, and no two precisely the same. In addition to this decoration, which adorns every page, there are many pages (about thirty) entirely full of ornament, showing the utmost skill and accuracy in almost microscopic detail. In fact, the detail is so minute that it often requires a lens to trace it; yet these minute lines are as firm as if drawn by a machine, and as free as if they were the growth of nature. The exquisite harmony of the colouring is as admirable as the elegance of the tracery. Little wonder that it was said to have been written at the dictation of an angel. “If you look closely,” says Giraldus Cambrensis, “and penetrate to the secrets of the art, you will discover such delicate and subtile lines, so closely wrought, so twisted and interwoven, and adorned with colours still so fresh, that you will acknowledge that all this is the work rather of angelic than of human skill. The more frequently and carefully I examine it, I am always amazed with new beauties, and always discover things more and more admirable.”[123] Some pages originally left blank contain charters in the Irish language, conveying grants of lands to the Abbey of Kells, the Bishop of Meath, the Monastery of Ardbraccan, by Melaghlyn, King of Meath, and other monarchs in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
A PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS.