WRITING
WEITING
953
discovered, can be put into successful comparison with these. I'rom this time forward, iimreover, there was nothiuj; to prevent the free multiplica- tion of copies of the Scriptures, with all the resources of trained penniansliip. The textual tradition of the NT henceforth runs, not through private copies, but through the great churclies and libraries ; and if Constantinople and Ciesarea used vellum, there is no reason to doubt that their ex- ample was followed in Kome and Antioch and even Alexandria ; indeed there is good reason for believ- ing, on palajographical grounds, that the Vatican and Sinaitic Codices, and still more the Codex Alexandrinus, were produced in Egj-pt. It is therefore to vellum MSS that we nmst look for the custodians of the sacred text from about the date of the Council of Nicaea.
The palsography of vellum MSS has been studied much longer than that of papyri, and rests on a far wider consensus of com- petent opinion. It may therefore be treated the more briefly here. The earliest vellum MSS show a resemblance to the papyri, not only in the use of narrow columns (see § ii.), hut in the liandwrit- in^ themselves. It appears that, when vellum was taken into use
begins in the middle of a line, the first letter of the first com- plete line) not only iirujicts into the margin, but is considerably enlarged. In later .MSS still these enlarged initials become the subject of ornamentation, until we reach the magniflcent illu- minated initials of the -Middle .\yes. In the Cth cent, the style of writing grows generally heavier, and there is more distinc- tion between the thick and thin strokes of a letter. In many MSS, too, the characters are larger, espcciallv in the purple MSS, which ore a notable feature of this period. In Egyptian .MSS of this period (^,17. the Codex Slarchalianus of the Prophets) a somewhat stiff and angular style is wiopted, which is akin to the hand found in Coptic .MSS. After the Cth cent, the best age of uncial writing is past. In the "th cent, the writing began to assume a sloping form, — always a sign of degeneracy,— and to compensate for its loss of natural strength and tirinness by excrescences in the shape of exaggerated knobe and bars at the extremities of the letters. Added to this a tendency to lateral compression is found, which culminates in the soK^led 'Slavonic' uncials which dominate the Sth and 9th centuries. In these, whether upright or sloping, the letters are heavy and angular, and tall in proportion to their width. A letter like O, instead of being a circle, is compressed into an oval, or even a diamond shape ; while T, K, r, and other letters have large bars at the ends of their projecting limbs. A reaction occurs in the 10th cent., when a return to the S(|uare and well- rounded characters of the 4th to 6th cents, is seen ; but by this time the da)' for uncial writing was past, and ita place waa to be taken by a smaller and less cumbrous style.
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no. 6.— ORKEK MnroSCtTLE COPRX, lOm < (Brit. MuB. Add. MS 11300).
for the best copies of literary works, the scribes, abandoned the ■lopiny and somewhat ineleg-ant writing which is characteristic of the papyri of the 3r<i cent., and cast back to the better moflels of an earlier period. The uncial* characters of the Vatican and Sinaitic Cwlico« appear to be modelled on the best papynis MSS of the Ist and 2nd cents., a square, upri^'ht uncial of medium size, written with m\]ch simplicity of style. Liga- tures betwet-n letters are entirely e8<:he\ved, and no cun-ivo element apjK-ars in the writinp at all. The Cod. Vatinanns ha.s no punctuation or accents by the first hand, no st-jtaration of worris, no enlarged initials, no projoftion of lett*;r3 into the margin to denote a new paragraph. The same is the ca«e with thr- Cod. Sarravinnus (Fig. 4) of the Pent., probably of the early Sth century. The Co<!. Sinoiticus differs only in the lost detail, the first letter of a new paragmi>h projecting vcr>' slightly into the margin, hut witliout enlargement. In the Cod. Alexandrinus, aHsitjiietl to the first half of the fith cent., the hand is larger and henner, the number of columns on a page is reduced to two, and the first letter of a new paragraph (or, if the paragraph
• The terra la derived from an expression of Jerome's (prtnf. ttd Ji'b.\ 'unciallbus (* inch -long"), ut vulgo aiunt, litleris,' and is applied to writing in capital letters, each formed fcpnr- atfly, OS distinct from the smaller minuscule style, introduced in the 9th cent., which lent itself easily to cursive writing. In Tcllum MSS the distinction between uncial and mituiscule is clearly marked ; but on pap>TU» It Is leas evident, and uncial writinff on papyrus, as stated abore, admitted not infrequently a cursive elemeoL