The Criticism of the New Testament. Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener
ver. 11–15), followed by the words “epistulae Johannis III explicit, incipit actus apostolorum,” as if St. Jude's Epistle were displaced or wanting. There are not a few hiatus both in the Greek and Latin texts167. The contents of this remarkable document were partially made known by numerous extracts from it, under the designation of β´ in the margin of Robert Stephen's Greek Testament of 1550, whose account of it is that it was collated for him in Italy by his friends (τὸ δὲ β´ ἐστὶ τὸ ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ ὑπὸ τῶν ἡμετέρων ἀντιβληθὲν φίλων. Epistle to the Reader)168. It is not very easy to reconcile this statement with Beza's account prefixed to the manuscript and still extant in his own cramped handwriting, wherein he alleges that he obtained the volume in 1562 from the monastery of St. Irenaeus at Lyons (“oriente ibi civili bello”), where it had long lain buried (“postquam ibi in pulvere diu jacuisset”). This great city, it must be remembered, was sacked in that very year by the infamous Des Adrets, whom it suited to espouse for a while the cause of the Huguenots; and we can hardly doubt that some one who had shared in the plunder of the abbey169 conveyed this portion of it to Beza, whose influence at that juncture was paramount among the French Reformed170.
Beza in his editions of the Greek Testament published in 1582, 1589, and 1598, made some occasional references to the readings of his manuscript. Archbishop Whitgift borrowed it from Cambridge in 1583, and caused a poor transcript to be made of its Greek text, which he bequeathed to Trinity College (whereof he had been Master), in whose Library it still remains (B. x. 3).
Patrick Young, of whom we have heard in connexion with Cod. A (p. 103 and note 1), sent extracts from Cod. D to the brothers Dupuy at Paris, through whom they reached Morinus and Steph. Curcellaeus. An unusually full collation was made for Walton's Polyglott (Tom. vi, Num. xvi, 1657) by pious Archbishop Ussher, who devoted to these studies the doleful leisure of his latter years. Mill collated and Wetstein transcribed (1716) this document for their great editions of the Greek Testament, but they both did their work carelessly; and though Bentley was allowed to keep it at home for seven years, his notices of its readings, as represented by Mr. Ellis (Bentleii Critica Sacra, pp. 2–26), or preserved in Stephen's N. T. of 1549 (Trin. Coll. B. xvii. 4), were put to no practical use. The best collation by far was made about 1732 by John Dickinson of St. John's College for John Jackson of Leicester, with whose other books it came into Jesus College Library (O. θ. 2), where it has lain neglected. But a manuscript replete as this is with variations from the sacred text beyond all other example could be adequately represented only by being published in full; a design entrusted by the University of Cambridge to Dr. Thomas Kipling, Senior Wrangler in 1768 and afterwards Dean of Peterborough [d. 1822], whose “Codex Theodori Bezae Cantabrigiensis” 1793, 2 vols. fol. (in type imitating the original handwriting much more closely than in Cod. A and the rest), is a not unfaithful transcript of the text171, though the Prolegomena too plainly testify to the editor's pitiable ignorance of sacred criticism, while his habit of placing the readings of the several later hands (very loosely distinguished from each other) in the text, and those of the first hand in the notes (a defect we have also noted in the Roman editions of Cod. B), renders his volumes very inconvenient for use. Let Kipling be praised for the care and exact diligence his work evinces, but Herbert Marsh [1757–1839] was of all Cambridge men of that period the only one known to be competent for such a task. In 1864 the present writer was aided by the Syndics of the Cambridge Press in publishing an edition of Codex Bezae in common type, illustrated by a copious Introduction and critical notes, to which work the reader is referred for fuller information respecting this manuscript.
The Codex Bezae is a quarto volume 10 inches high by 8 broad, with one column on a page, the Greek text and its Latin version being parallel, the Greek on the left, or verso of each leaf, and the Latin on the right, opposite to it, on the recto of the next. Notwithstanding the Alexandrian forms that abound in it as much as in any other copy, and which have been held by some to prove the Egyptian origin of Codd. ABC, the fact of its having a Latin version sufficiently attests its Western origin. The vellum is not quite equal in fineness to that of a few others. There are thirty-three lines in every page, and these of unequal length, as this manuscript is arranged in στίχοι, being the earliest in date that is so (see p. 53). The Latin is placed in the same line and as nearly as possible in the same order as the corresponding Greek. It has not the larger κεφάλαια or Eusebian canons, but only the so-called Ammonian sections, often incorrectly placed, and obviously in a later hand of about the ninth century. The original absence of these divisions is no proof that the book was not at first intended for ecclesiastical use (as some have stated), inasmuch as the sections and canons were constructed for a very different purpose (see above, pp. 59–63), but is another argument for its being copied in the West, perhaps not far from the place where it rested so long. Other proofs of its Occidental, perhaps of its Gallican origin, especially that derived from the style of the Latin version, are collected in Scrivener's edition (Introd. pp. xxxi, xl-xlv). The characters are of the same size as in C, larger on the whole than in AB, but betray a later age than any of these, although the Latin as well as the Greek is written continuously, excepting that in the titles and subscriptions of the several books (as in Codd. DH of St. Paul) the words are separated. This copy has paragraph divisions of unequal length peculiar to itself172. They are indicated by placing the initial letter out in the margin, that letter being usually of the same size with the rest, though sometimes a little larger. Cod. D appears to be the earliest which exhibits larger letters after a pause in the middle of a line; but these are not very frequent. Instances of each case may be noticed in our facsimile (No. 42), wherein the shapes of kappa, rho and phi, as indicated before (pp. 32, note 1, 37, 39), are very observable. The Greek and Latin writing on the opposite pages are much like each other in appearance, the Latin letters being round and flowing, not square as in codices a little earlier in date, such as the Medicean and Vatican fragments of Virgil. This manuscript has been corrected, first by the original penman with a light stroke made by a pen nearly empty; after him by not less than eight or nine different revisers, some nearly coeval with the Codex itself, others not many centuries old. The changes they have made, especially when they employed a knife to scrape away the primitive reading, render too many places almost illegible. The first scribe often used a sponge to wash out his error before the ink was well dried in (see p. 27). In addition to the single point about three-fourths of the height of a letter up, which often subdivides the στίχοι in both languages (facsimile, No. 42, l. 9) the coarse late hand which inserted the Ammonian sections placed double dots (:) after the numerals, and often inserted similar points in the text, before or over the first letter of a section. Each member of the genealogy in Luke iii forms a separate στίχος, as in Cod. B: quotations are indicated by throwing the commencement of the lines which contain them, both Greek and Latin, about an inch back or less (e.g. Matt. xxvi. 31; Mark i. 2, 3; Acts ii. 34, 35; iv. 25, 26). The first three lines of each book, in both languages, were written in bright red ink, which was also employed in the alternate lines of the subscriptions, and in other slight ornaments. The traces of the scribe's needle and lines (see p. 27) are very visible, the margin ample, and the volume on the whole in good keeping, though its first extant page (Latin) is much decayed, and it is stained in parts by some chemical mixture that has been applied to it. The portions supplied by a later hand are of course in the uncial Greek and cursive Latin characters usual at the dates assigned to them. The liturgical notes in the margin of the Saturday and Sunday lessons (ανναγνοσμα is the form often used) are in thick letters, of a yet later date than the Ammonian sections. A few others for the great Feasts and Fast days occur; and, in a hand of about the twelfth century, lessons for the Festivals of St. George and St. Dionysius, the patron saints of England and France, as may be seen in the table of Menology.
The vellum employed for Codex Bezae is arranged in quires of four sheets (or eight leaves) each even throughout173, the numeral signatures of which are set primâ manu so low down in the margin at the foot of the last page of each, that they are mostly cut off, in whole or partly, by the binder. Assuming that it ended with the Acts of the Apostles, it originally consisted of upwards of sixty-four (probably of sixty-seven) quires, of which the first, forty-fourth, and sixty-fourth, have each lost some leaves, the thirty-fourth is entire though containing but six leaves, while those signed Γ (3), ΙΔ (14), ΚΒ (22), ΜΕ (45), down to ΝΒ (52), ΝΖ (57), and all after ΞΔ (64), are wholly wanting. The