RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bible Text
Cent VII 17: Fa G2 I5-6 R2 TdlmM Wilmn 0ab i12
Cent' VIII, 19: B2 E, L, S3 T>-» Wabk Y ©d B * D 1«-8.
Cent. IX, 31: E3 F,., G3 Gb H3 K,., L2 M,.a N2 d P2 T'k
V wc"h0 Xb r a ob a n "i9.
Cent. X, 6: G, H.S.UX 3,.
Of these only one, K, has the New Testament entire, and only four others, ABC*, the greater part of it. The remainder are distributed, according to the principal divisions of the New Testament, as follows:
Gospels, 81: Complete or nearly so, 12: DEKLMSTJVT A II a ; containing considerable portions, 14: FGHNPQR XZAS2*3; containing at most a few chapters or verses, 55: F" I1-3-4-1 Ib Na O TaJ- h"r TwoL Wa_0 Xb e3"11 ",M2.
Acts, 13: Complete or nearly so, 5: DELPS; the rest with larger (H) or smaller portions (G Gb Fa I'2-5-6 3).
Catholic Epistles, 5: Complete or nearly so, 4: KLPS, and the fragment 3.
Pauline Epistles, 20: Complete or nearly so, 7: D E F G K L P; containing largerorsmallerfragments, 13: Fa H I MNO ObQRSTSs -14
Apocalypse: besides KAC, B2 contains the complete text; P has some small gaps.
In reference to the character of their text, Tischendorf classifies the uncials as follows: in the Gospels the oldest form of the text, predominantly Alexandrine in its coloring, is found, though with many differences, inXABCDlPLPQR Tab° X Z A 9cs H; next to these stand F'NO W'lbc Y 0*">< A later form of the text, in which the Asiatic coloring prevails, is presented byEFGHKMSU
V T A IT 9h, among which E K M T A II 9b incline most toward the first class. For the Acts and Catholic Epistles, N A B C give the oldest text, to which, in the Acts, D I approach, and, less closely, E G; also, in the Catholic Epistles (except I Pet.), P; while in the Acts, H L P, and, in the Catholic Epistles, K L, come nearest to the later form of the text. In the Pauline Epistles the oldest text is represented by X A B C H I 0 Q, with the Greco-Latin manuscripts D F G; M P approach this; while K L N stand nearest to the more recent text. The text of the Apocalypse appears in its oldest form in K A C, to which P comes nearer than B (cf. Gregory, Prolegomena, pp. 185 sqq.). Tregelles exhibits the " genealogy of the text " and affinities of the manuscripts in the Gospels in the following form:
Western Alexandrine Byzantine
B«Z D
CLS1.33
PQTRIN A
X J 69 K M 77
E F G S U, etc.
Westcott and Hort attach a superlative value to B, Tischendorf to tf. The same manuscript may differ in character in different parts of the New Testament: thus, A is not so excellent in the Gospels as elsewhere; A is especially good in the Gospel of Mark; N and D agree most closely in the Gospel of John; the cursive 1 is remarkably valuable in the Gospels, but not so in the rest of the New Testament.
The following is a complete list of the 114 uncial manuscripts:
N: Codex Sinai ticus, found by Tischendorf (1S44 and 1859) in the Convent of St. Catharine at the foot of Mount Sinai, now preserved in St. Petersburg. Forty-three leaves of the Old Testament portion of the manuscript, known as the Codex Friderico-Augustanus, are in the library of Leipsic University. Besides twenty-six books of the Old Testament, of which five form the Codex Friderico-Augustanus, the manuscript contains the entire New Testament without the least break, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the first third of the Shepherd of Hernias. The Alexandrian copyist has frequently shown his imperfect knowledge of Greek, and his haste. The license in handling the text, common in the first three centuries, is greater than in B A C, though much less than in D. Nevertheless, the superiority of the Codex Sinaiticus to all other New Testament manuscripts, with the single exception of B, is fully proved by the numerous places in which its reading has the support of the oldest quotations or the most ancient versions. The text is in four columns, which is a unique arrangement. The Pauline Epistles, among which is Hebrews after II Thessalonians, come directly after the Gospels; the Acts and the Catholic Epistles, then the Apocalypse, follow. The date of the codex is the fourth century. It has a special value from the fact that, owing to the corrections it received in the sixth and seventh centuries and later, its pages represent, after a fashion, the history of the changes in the New Testament text. The codex was published (1862) in facsimile type from the Leipsic press, in four folio volumes, at the expense of the emperor of Russia, Alexander II. The edition was limited to three hundred copies. The New Testament part was published separately in a critical edition by Tischendorf, Novum Testamentum Sinaiticum cum epistola Barnabas et fragmentis Pastoris etc., Leipsic, 1863, and in a more popular form, Novum Testamentum Greece ex Sinaitico codice omnium antiquissimo, Leipsic, 1865 (cf. C. Tischendorf, Die Sinaibibel. Ihre Entdeckung, Herausgabe, und Erwerbung, Leipsic, 1S71; C. R. Gregory, Prolegomena, pp. 16-17; F. H. A. Scrivener, A Full Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus, Cambridge, 1867).
A: Codex Alexandrinus, now in the British Museum, presented in 1628 by Cyril Lucar, patriarch of Constantinople, to Charles I. The New Testament begins with Matt, xxv, 6, and contains the whole except John vi, 50-viii, 52, and II Cor. iv, 13-xii, 6, with the First Epistle of Clement and part of the second. It was printed in facsimile by C. G. Woide, London, 1786, in ordinary type by B. H. Cowper, ib. 1860, who corrected some mistakes of Woide, and in photographic facsimile by the trustees of the British Museum, ed. E. M. Thompson (4 vols., London, 1879-83). Tischendorf places it about the middle of the fifth century; Scrivener at the end of the fourth or very little later.
Bx: Codex Vaticanus, no. 1209, in the Vatican Library. The manuscript contains, besides the Old Testament, the entire New Testament, with the exception of Heb. ix, 14 to end and II Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Revelation. Juan Sepulveda, writing to Erasmus about 1533, mentions it. The first collation of the manuscript, made m 1669, by Bartolocci, then librarian of the Vatican, exists only in manuscript in the Paris library. Another was made by Birch, 1788-1801. The collation made for R. Bentley by an Italian named Mico was published by Ford, 1790. J L Hug wrote a learned Commentatio de anhquitate codicw Vaticani (Freiburg, 1810). The manuscript was then in Paris, but it was later restored to Rome, when it became practically inaccessible. An inaccurate and critically worthless edition of the whole manuscript was issued by Cardinal Mai (5 vols., Rome, 1828-38). C. Vercellone, J. Cozza, and G. Sergio published an edition of the entire codex in b vols. (New Testament is vol. v) in Rome, 1868-81, and a photographic reproduction was published by the Vatican U889). The age of the manuscript is about the same as that ot the Sinaitic, and possibly corrections are by the same first hand in both, and in the Vatican by a second hand contemporary with the first. , .
B2: Codex Vaticanus 2066 (eighth century) formerly Basilian Codex 105, contains Revelation, was first imperfectly edited by Tischendorf in Monumenta sacra znedita (Leipsic, 1846), and more completely in Appendix Novi Testamenti Vaticani (ib. 1869). By Tregelles the manuscript was designated Q.
C: Codex Ephraemi (fifth century), now no 9 in the National Library at Paris; its text was altered m the sixtn century and again in the ninth. In the twelfth century the original writing was washed off to make room for the oreeK
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