A ( =5 4, von S.), Codex Alexandrinus, in London, British Museum, Reg. I.D. v.-viii. (the NT is in showcases). This MS is of the 5th cent., and con- sists of 773 leaves (NT 143 leaves) of parchment, measuring 32 x 26 3 cm., with 2 columns to the page and 49-51 lines to the column. It contains, witii some losses, the whole Greek Bible. It was probably Avritten in Egypt, and came in 1098 into the possession of the patriarch of Alexandria, from which place it gets its name. Cyril Lucar, patriarch of Constantinople, and former patriarch of j\lexan- dria, sent it as a gift to Charles l. of England in 1628. About a century afterwards it was pre- .sented to the nation. A few lines at the beginning of each book are written in red. The following portions of the Gospels are lost : Mt l'-25'', Jn 65u_g52_ j^ jj. ^Y^iiQ clear that Jn 7®^-8" never formed a part of the manuscript. A complete fac- simile was published in 1878-1880.
B ( ^5 1, von S.), Codex Vaticanus, Vat. Lib. MS Gr. 12U9 (in showcases). The MS is of the 4th cent., and consists of 759 (NT 142) leaves of parchment, measuring 27 cm. square, with 3 columns to the page and 42 lines to the column. The parchment is very soft and fine. The uncial letters are small, simple, and written without breaks between the individual words ; the first hand wrote no breath- ings or accents, and punctuation is very rare. The MS is of uncertain origin, and, when com- plete, contained the whole of the Greek Bible with perhaps the exception of the Books of Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasses. No gaps occur in the Gospels. It has been twice revised, once by a corrector contemporary with the original .scribe (called B'-), and again by another of the 10th or 11th cent., who worked over the letters and often added accents and breathings. WH consider it our very best MS, .and regard the combination Bx as practically infallible. A splendid facsimile of the NT part was published by Hcepli of Milan in 1904 (see the notice of it by Nestle in the Theol. Liter at iirhlntt for 6th Jan. 1905), superseding the inferior photograph issued by Cozza-Luzi at Rome in 1889.
C ( =53, von S.), Codex Ephraemi rescriptus, Paris Bibl. Nat., gr. 9, a palimpsest of the 5th century. Contains, in present form, 209 leaves, written in single columns. The NT portion consists of 145 leaves, and contains parts of every book except 2 John and 2 Thessalonians. Edited by Tisch. (Leipzig, 1843 and 1845).
pew. act. ( = 35, von S. ), Codex Bezae, in Cam- bridge University Library, Nn. 2, 41 (in a showcase in Cockerell's Building). This MS is of the 6th cent, (according to Burkitt, of the 4th), and is bilingual (Greek and Latin). It is on parchment.
26 cm. in height and 21 '5 in breadth, and con- tains now 415 (406 -f- 9 added later) leaves, with one column to the page. When tJie book is open, the left side is Greek, the right side Latin. Ori- ginally it contained probably Mt., Jn., Lk., Mk. (the regular Western order of the Gospels), Apoc, 1, 2, 3 Jn., Acts (Dom Chapman in Expositor, 1905, ii. p. 46 ff.). Now the Gospels and Acts are almost complete, the Apocalypse and 1st and 2nd Jn. have disappeared, and of 3 Jn. there remain only a few ver.ses in Latin. Many hands have been engaged in correcting the MS. It was pro- bably written in Italy, or South France, where it was when Beza acquired it and gave it to the University of Cambridge in 1581. The MS is the only representative of the Western text in Greek, a form of text which was widesjji'ead already in the 2nd century. It contains, therefore, many original elements, which have been worked over at a very early date. In spite of this revision, it often agrees with the neutral MSS, KB. Scrivener published an accurate and handy edition of the MS at Cambridge (1864), which retains its use side by side with the gorgeous facsimile published by the Cambridge University Press in 1899.
N (=e 19, von S. ), Codex Purpureus Petropoli- tanus, incomjjlete and mutilated, the parts being distributed between St. Petersburg, Rome, Patmos, London, and Vienna. It is an uncial, probably of the 6th cent., measuring 32 by 26 '5 cm. ; has 2 columns to the page, 16 lines to the column, and 227 leaves. The leaves are stained with purple, and the writing is silver, the Divine names being in gold. The MS is very like S both in text and external character. The only complete edition is that of H. S. Croninin TS, vol. v. No. 4 (Cambridge, 1899). He considers N and S to be copies of the same lost original. The text is of a mixed char- acter, representing a sort of transition stage be- tween the purity of the older uncials and the corruption of the majority of cursives. While it sometimes supports the former, it also at times provides the earliest known authority for readings which are sub.sequently almost universal. For par- ticulars see Cronin's valuable introduction.
Z (=e 18, von S. ), Codex Purpureus Rossanensis, in the charge of the Archbp. of Rossano, S. Italy. An uncial of the 6tli cent., probably later than its brother MS N, it is, like it, purple with silver writ- ing. It measures 30"7 by 26 cm., has 2 columns to the l^age, 20 lines to the column, and comprises 188 leaves. It contains Matthew and Mark (the latter M'ithout le"-""""). Edited by von Gebhardt {Die Evangelien des MattJicius und des Marcus aiis dein cod. ptcrp. Hassan., Leipzig, 1883). See under N. The credit of the discovery of this MS belongs to von Gebhardt and Harnack (1879), It contains eight pictures of Go.spel scenes, the oldest known.