The Criticism of the New Testament. Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener
of the fifteenth century (Venet. 10, Evan. 209) places the Gospels between the Pauline Epistles and the Apocalypse89; in the Codices Sinaiticus, Leicestrensis, Fabri (Evan. 90), and Montfortianus, as in the Bodleian Canonici 34, the copy in the King's Library Brit. Mus. (Act. 20), and the Complutensian edition (1514), the Pauline Epistles precede the Acts. The Pauline Epistles stand between the Acts and the Catholic Epistles in Phillipps 1284, Evan. 527; Parham 71. 6, Evan. 534; Upsal, Sparfwenfeldt 42, Acts 68; Paris Reg. 102 A, Acts 119; Reg. 103 A, Acts 120. In Oxford Bodl. Miscell. 74 the order is Acts, Cath. Epp., Apocalypse, Paul. Epp., but an earlier hand wrote from 3 John onwards. In Evan. 51 Dr. C. R. Gregory points out minute indications that the scribe, not the binder, set the Gospels last. In the Memphitic and Thebaic the Acts follow the Catholic Epistles (see below, vol. ii, chap. iii). The Codex Basiliensis (No. 4 of the Epistles), Acts Cod. 134, Brit. Mus. Addl. 19388, Lambeth 1182, 1183, and Burdett-Coutts III. 1, have the Pauline Epistles immediately after the Acts and before the Catholic Epistles, as in our present Bibles. Scholz's Evan. 368 stands thus, St. John's Gospel, Apocalypse, then all the Epistles; in Havniens. 1 (Cod. 234 of the Gospels, a.d. 1278) the order appears to be Acts, Paul. Ep., Cath. Ep., Gospels; in Ambros. Z 34 sup. at Milan, Dean Burgon testifies that the Catholic and Pauline Epistles are followed by the Gospels; in Basil. B. vi. 27 or Cod. 1, the Gospels have been bound after the Acts and Epistles; while in Evan. 175 the Apocalypse stands between the Acts and Catholic Epistles; in Evan. 51 the binder has set the Gospels last: these, however, are mere accidental exceptions to the prevailing rule90. The four Gospels are almost invariably found in their familiar order, although in the Codex Bezae (as we partly saw above, p. 65) they stand Matthew, John, Luke, Mark91; in the Codex Monacensis (X) John, Luke, Mark, Matthew (but two leaves of Matthew also stand before John), also in the Latin k; in Cod. 90 (Fabri) John, Luke, Matthew, Mark; in Cod. 399 at Turin John, Luke, Matthew, an arrangement which Dr. Hort refers to the Commentary of Titus of Bostra on St. Luke which accompanies it; in the Curetonian Syriac version Matthew, Mark, John, Luke. In the Pauline Epistles that to the Hebrews immediately follows the second to the Thessalonians in the four great Codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Ephraemi92: in the copy from which the Cod. Vatican. was taken the Hebrews followed the Galatians (above, p. 57). The Codex Claromontanus, the document next in importance to these four, sets the Colossians appropriately enough next to its kindred and contemporaneous Epistle to the Ephesians, but postpones that to the Hebrews to Philemon, as in our present Bibles: an arrangement which at first, no doubt, originated in the early scruples prevailing in the Western Church, with respect to the authorship and canonical authority of that divine epistle.
13. We must now describe the Lectionaries or Service-books of the Greek Church, in which the portions of Scripture publicly read throughout the year are set down in chronological order, without regard to their actual places in the sacred volume. In length and general arrangement they resemble not so much the Lessons as the Epistles and Gospels in our English Book of Common Prayer, only that every day in the year has its own proper portion, and the numerous Saints' days independent services of their own. These Lectionaries consist either of lessons from the Gospels, and are then called Evangelistaria or Evangeliaria (εὐαγγελιστάρια)93; or from the Acts and Epistles; termed Praxapostolos (πραξαπόστολος) or Apostolos94: the general name of Lectionary is often, though incorrectly, confined to the latter class. A few books called ἀποστολοευαγγέλια have lessons taken both from the Gospels and the Apostolic writings. In Euchologies, or Books of Offices, wherein both the Apostolos and the Gospels are found, the former always precede in each Office, just as the Epistle precedes the Gospel in the Service-books of Western Christendom. The peculiar arrangement of Lectionaries renders them very unfit for the hasty, partial, cursory collation which has befallen too many manuscripts of the other class, and this circumstance, joined with the irksomeness of using Service-books never familiar to the habits even of scholars in this part of Europe, has caused these documents to be so little consulted, that the contents of the very best and oldest among them have until recently been little known. Matthaei, of whose elaborate and important edition of the Greek Testament (12 tom. Riga 1782–88) we shall give an account hereafter, has done excellent service in this department; two of his best copies, the uncials B and H (Nos. 47, 50), being Evangelistaria. The present writer also has collated three noble uncials of the same rank, Arundel 547 being of the ninth century, Parham 18 bearing date a.d. 980, Harleian 5598, a.d. 995. Not a few other uncial Lectionaries remain quite neglected, for though none of them perhaps are older than the eighth century, the ancient character was retained for these costly and splendid Service-books till about the eleventh century (Montfaucon, Palaeogr. Graec. p. 260), before which time the cursive hand was generally used in other Biblical manuscripts. There is, of course, no place in a Lectionary for divisions by κεφάλαια, for the so-called Ammonian sections, or for the canons of Eusebius.
The division of the New Testament into Church-lessons was, however, of far more remote antiquity than the employment of separate volumes to contain them. Towards the end of the fourth century, that golden age of Patristic theology, Chrysostom recognizes some stated order of the lessons as familiar to all his hearers, for he exhorts them to peruse and mark beforehand the passages (περικοπαί95) of the Gospels which were to be publicly read to them the ensuing Sunday or Saturday96. All the information we can gather favours the notion that there was no great difference between the calendar of Church-lessons in earlier and later stages. Not only do they correspond in all cases where such agreement is natural, as in the proper services for the great feasts and fasts, but in such purely arbitrary arrangements as the reading of the book of Genesis, instead of the Gospels, on the week days of Lent; of the Acts all the time between Easter and Pentecost97; and the selection of St. Matthew's history of the Passion alone at the Liturgy on Good Friday98. The earliest formal Menologium, or Table of proper lessons, now extant is prefixed to the Codex Cyprius (K) of the eighth or ninth century; another is found in the Codex Campianus (M), which is perhaps a little later; they are more frequently found than the contrary in later manuscripts of every kind; while there are comparatively few copies that have not been accommodated to ecclesiastical use either by their original scribe or a later hand, by means of noting the proper days for each lesson (often in red ink) at the top or bottom or in the margin of the several pages. Not only in the margin, but even in the text itself are perpetually interpolated, mostly in vermilion or red ink, the beginning (ἀρχή or αρχ) and ending (τέλος or τελ) of each lesson, and the several words to be inserted or substituted in order to suit the purpose of public reading; from which source (as we have stated above, p. 11) various readings have almost unavoidably sprung: e.g. in Acts iii. 11 τοῦ ἰαθέντος χωλοῦ of the Lectionaries ultimately displaced αὐτοῦ from the text itself.
We purpose to annex to this Chapter a table of lessons throughout the year, according to the use laid down in Synaxaria, Menologies, and Lectionaries, as well to enable the student to compare the proper lessons of the Greek Church with our own, as to facilitate reference to the manuscripts themselves, which are now placed almost out of the reach of the inexperienced. On comparing the manner in which the terms are used by different scribes and authors, we conceive that Synaxarion (συναξάριον) is, like Eclogadion, a name used for a table of daily lessons for the year beginning at Easter, and that these have varied but slightly in the course of many ages throughout the whole Eastern Church; that tables of Saints' day lessons, called Menologies, (μηνολόγιον), distributed in order of the months from September (when the new year and the indiction began) to August, differed widely from each other, both in respect to the lessons read and the days kept holy99. While the great feasts remained entirely the same, different generations and provinces and even dioceses had their favourite worthies, whose memory they specially cherished; so that the character of the menology (which sometimes forms a larger, sometimes but a small portion of a Lectionary) will often guide us to the country and district in which the volume itself was written. The Parham Evangelistarium 18 affords us a conspicuous example of this fact: coming from a region of which we know but little (Ciscissa in Cappadocia Prima), its menology in many particulars but little resembles those usually met with100.
14. It only remains to say a few words about the notation adopted to indicate the several classes of manuscripts of the Greek Testament. These classes are six in number; that containing the Gospels (Evangelia or Evan.), or the Acts and Catholic