The Criticism of the New Testament. Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener
and others much more. In Cod. Bezae the horizontal is curved and flourished; in the late uncials the vertical is very thick, the horizontal fine, and the ends formed into heavy triangles (e.g. No. 16).
Upsilon on the Rosetta stone and Herculanean rolls is like our Υ, all the strokes being of equal thickness and not running below the line: nor do they in Hyperides or in Codd. XZ and Augiensis, which have the upper lines neatly curved (Nos. 6, 9, 18, 38). The right limb of many of the rest is sometimes, but not always curved; the vertical line in Codd. Vatican. and Sinaiticus drops slightly below the line; in Codd. A, Ephraemi, Cotton Genesis, Cureton's Homer, Laud. of the Acts and Rossanensis somewhat more; in others (as Codd. Bezae NR) considerably. In the subscription to St. Matthew's Gospel, which may be by a somewhat later hand, a horizontal line crosses the vertical a little below the curved lines in Cod. Rossanensis. In later uncials (Nos. 7, 36) it becomes a long or awkward Y, or even degenerates into a long V (No. 16); or, in copies written by Latin scribes, into Y reversed. We have described under iota the custom of placing dots, &c. over upsilon. But in Tischendorf's Leipzig II. (fragments from Numbers to Judges of the seventh or eighth century) upsilon receives two dots, iota only one. Once in Cod. Z (Matt. xxi. 5) and oftener in its Isaiah a convex semicircle, like a circumflex, stands over upsilon.
Phi is a remarkable letter. In most copies it is the largest in the alphabet, quite disproportionately large in Codd. ZL (Paris 62) and others, and to some extent in Codd. AR, Ephraemi, Rossanensis, and Claromont. The circle (which in the Cotton Genesis is sometimes still a lozenge, see above, p. 32, note 1), though large and in some copies even too broad (e.g. No. 18), is usually in the line of the other letters, the vertical line being produced far upwards (Cod. Augiens. and Nos. 16, 41), or downwards (No. 10), or both (No. 36). On the Rosetta stone the circle is very small and the straight line short.
Chi is a simple transverse cross (Χ) and never goes above or below the line. The limb that inclines from left to right is in the uncial form for the most part thick, the other thin (with final points according to the practice stated for epsilon), and this limb or both (as in Cod. Z) a little curved.
Psi is a rare but trying letter. Its oldest form resembled an English V with a straight line running up bisecting its interior angle. On the Rosetta stone it had already changed into its present form (Ψ), the curve being a small semicircle, the vertical rising above the other letters and falling a little below the line. In the Cotton Genesis psi is rather taller than the rest, but the vertical line does not rise above the level of the circle. In Codd. ANR and Rossanensis the under line is prolonged: in R the two limbs are straight lines making an angle of about 45° with the vertical, while oftentimes in Hyperides and Cod. Augiensis (Scrivener's photograph, ll. 18, 23) they curve downwards ; the limbs in N and R being strongly (slightly in Rossanensis) pointed at the ends, and the bottom of the vertical bevelled as usual. In Cod. B of the Apocalypse, in Evan. OWdΞ, and even in Hyperides, the limbs (strongly pointed) fall into a straight line, and the figure becomes a large cross (No. 7). In Evan. 66 the vertical is crossed above the semicircle by a minute horizontal line.
Omega took the form Ω, even when omicron and theta were square; thus it appears on the Rosetta stone, but in the Hyperides and Herculaneum rolls it is a single curve, much like the w of English writing, only that the central part is sometimes only a low double curve (No. 10, l. 6). In the Cotton Genesis, Codd. Vatican., Sinaiticus, Alex., Ephraemi, Bezae, Claromont., Nitriens., Rossanensis, there is little difference in shape, though sometimes Cod. Vatican. comes near the Herculanean rolls, and Cod. Alex, next to it: elsewhere their strokes (especially those in the centre) are fuller and more laboured. Yet in Cod. N it is often but a plain semicircle, bisected by a perpendicular radius, with the ends of the curve bent inwards (No. 14, l. 2). In the late uncials (Nos. 7, 16) it almost degenerates into an ungraceful W, while in Cod. Augiensis (photograph, l. 18) the first limb is occasionally a complete circle.
Chapter III. Divisions Of The Text, And Other Particulars.
We have next to give some account of ancient divisions of the text, as found in manuscripts of the New Testament; and these must be carefully noted by the student, since few copies are without one or more of them.
1. So far as we know at present, the oldest sections still extant are those of the Codex Vaticanus. These seem to have been formed for the purpose of reference, and a new one always commences where there is some break in the sense. Many, however, at least in the Gospels, consist of but one of our modern verses, and they are so unequal in length as to be rather inconvenient for actual use. In the four Gospels only the marginal numerals are in red, St. Matthew containing 170 of these divisions, St. Mark 62, St. Luke 152, St. John 80. In the Acts of the Apostles are two sets of sections, thirty-six longer and in an older hand, sixty-nine smaller and more recent63. Each of these also begins after a break in the sense, but they are quite independent of each other, as a larger section will sometimes commence in the middle of a smaller, the latter being in no wise a subdivision of the former. Thus the greater Γ opens Acts ii. 1, in the middle of the lesser β, which extends from Acts i. 15 to ii. 4. The first forty-two of the lesser chapters, down to Acts xv. 40, are found also with slight variations in the margin of Codex Sinaiticus, written by a very old hand. As in most manuscripts, so in Codex Vaticanus, the Catholic Epistles follow the Acts, and in them also and in St. Paul's Epistles there are two sets of sections, only that in the Epistles the older sections are the more numerous. The Pauline Epistles are reckoned throughout as one book in the elder notation, with however this remarkable peculiarity, that though in the Cod. Vatican. itself the Epistle to the Hebrews stands next after the second to the Thessalonians, and on the same leaf with it , the sections are arranged as if it stood between the Epistles to the Galatians and Ephesians. For whereas that to the Galatians ends with § 58, that to the Ephesians begins with § 70, and the numbers proceed regularly down to § 93, with which the second to the Thessalonians ends. The Epistle to the Hebrews which then follows opens with § 59; the last section extant (§ 64) begins at Heb. ix. 11, and the manuscript ends abruptly at καθα ver. 14. It plainly appears, then, that the sections of the Codex Vaticanus must have been copied from some yet older document, in which the Epistle to the Hebrews preceded that to the Ephesians. It will be found hereafter (vol. ii) that in the Thebaic version the Epistle to the Hebrews preceded that to the Galatians, instead of following it, as here. For a list of the more modern divisions in the Epistles, see the Table given below. The Vatican sections of the Gospels have also been discovered by Tregelles in one other copy, the palimpsest Codex Zacynthius of St. Luke (Ξ), which he published in 1861.
2. Hardly less ancient, and indeed ascribed by some to Tatian the Harmonist, the disciple of Justin Martyr, is the division of the Gospels into larger chapters or κεφάλαια majora64. It may be noticed that in none of the four Gospels does the first chapter stand at its commencement. In St. Matthew chapter A begins at chap. ii. verse 1, and has for its title περὶ τῶν μάγων: in St. Mark at chap. i. ver. 23 περὶ τοῧ δαιμονιζομένου: in St. Luke at chap. ii. ver. 1 περὶ τῆς ἀπογραφῆς: in St. John at chap. ii. ver. 1 περὶ τοῦ ἐν Κανᾶ γάμου. Mill accounts for this circumstance by supposing that in the first copies the titles at the head of each Gospel were reserved till last for more splendid illumination, and were thus eventually forgotten (Proleg. N. T. § 355); Griesbach holds, that the general inscriptions of each Gospel, Κατὰ Ματθαῖον, Κατὰ Μάρκον, &c., were regarded as the special titles of the first chapters also. On either supposition, however, it would be hard to explain how what was really the second chapter came to be numbered as the first; and it is worth notice that the same arrangement takes place in the κεφάλαια (though these are of a later date) of all the other books of the New Testament except the Acts, 2 Corinth., Ephes., 1 Thess., Hebrews, James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1 John, and the Apocalypse: e.g. the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans opens ch. i. ver. 18 Πρῶτον μετὰ τὸ προοίμιον, περὶ κρίσεως τῆς κατὰ ἐθνῶν τῶν οὐ φυλασσόντων τὰ φυσικά. But the