The Criticism of the New Testament. Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener
β. Tischendorf, by the aid of Ant. Pilgrami's “Calendarium chronologum medii potissimum aevi monumentis accommodatum,” Vienn. 1781, pp. vii, 11, 105, states that the only year between a.d. 800 and 950, on which the Indiction was eight, and Nov. 27 fell on a Thursday, was 844197. In the Oxford sheets we find tables of κεφάλαια before the Gospels of SS. Matthew and Luke; the τίτλοι at the heading of the pages; their numbers rubro neatly set in the margin; capitals in red at the commencement of these chapters; the ἀρχαὶ καὶ τέλη of lections; the sections and Eusebian canons in their usual places, and some liturgical directions. Over the original breathings and accents some late scrawler has in many places put others, in a very careless fashion.
Δ. Codex Sangallensis, was first inspected by Gerbert (1773), named by Scholz (N. T. 1830), and made fully known to us by the admirable edition in lithographed facsimile of every page, by H. Ch. M. Rettig [1799–1836], published at Zurich, 1836198, with copious and satisfactory Prolegomena. It is preserved and was probably transcribed a thousand years since in the great monastery of St. Gall in the north-east of Switzerland (Stifts bibliothek, 48). It is rudely written on 197 leaves of coarse vellum quarto, 8–⅞ inches by 7–⅛ in size, with from twenty to twenty-six (usually twenty-one) lines on each page, in a very peculiar hand, with an interlinear Latin version, and contains the four Gospels complete except John xix. 17–35. Before St. Matthew's Gospel are placed Prologues, Latin verses, the Eusebian canons in Roman letters, tables of the κεφάλαια both in Greek and Latin, &c. Rettig thinks he has traced several different scribes and inks employed on it, which might happen easily enough in the Scriptorium of a monastery; but, if so, their style of writing is very nearly the same, and they doubtless copied from the same archetype, about the same time. He has produced more convincing arguments to show that Cod. Δ is part of the same book as the Codex Boernerianus, G of St. Paul's Epistles. Not only do they exactly resemble each other in their whole arrangement and appearance, but marginal notes by the first hand are found in each, of precisely the same character. Thus the predestinarian doctrines of the heretic Godeschalk [d. 866] are pointed out for refutation at the hard texts, Luke xiii. 24; John xii. 40 in Δ, and six times in G199. St. Mark's Gospel represents a text different from that of the other Evangelists, and the Latin version (which is clearly primâ manu) seems a mixture of the Vulgate with the older Italic, so altered and accommodated to the Greek as to be of little critical value. The penmen seem to have known but little Greek, and to have copied from a manuscript written continuously, for the divisions between the words are sometimes absurdly wrong. There are scarcely any breathings or accents, except about the opening of St. Mark, and once an aspirate to ἑπτα; what we do find are often falsely given; and a dot is set in most places regularly at the end of every Greek word. The letters have but little tendency to the oblong shape, but delta and theta are decidedly of the latest uncial type. Here, as in Paul. Cod. G, the mark >>> is much used to fill up vacant spaces. The text from which Δ was copied seems to have been arranged in στίχοι, for almost every line has at least one Greek capital letter, grotesquely ornamental in colours200. We transcribe three lines, taken almost at random, from pp. 80–1 (Matt. xx. 13–15), in order to explain our meaning:
dixit uni eor amice non ijusto tibi nne
ειπεν; μοναδι; αυτων; Εταιρε; ουκ; αδικω; σε; Ουχι
ex denario convenisti mecū tolle tuū et vade
δηναριου συνεφωνησασ; μοι; Αρον; το; σον και υπαγε
volo autē huic novissimo dare sicut et tibi antā non li
Θελω δε τουτω τω εσχατω δουναι ωσ και; σοι; Η; ουκ εξ
It will be observed that, while in Cod. Δ a line begins at any place, even in the middle of a word; if the capital letters be assumed to commence the lines, the text divides itself into regular στίχοι. See above, pp. 52–54. Here are also the τίτλοι, the sections and canons. The letters Ν and ι, Ζ and Ξ, Τ and Θ, Ρ and the Latin R are perpetually confounded. Facsimiles of Luke i. 1–9 may be seen in Pal. Soc. xi. 179. As in the kindred Codd. Augiensis and Boernerianus the Latin f is much like r. Tregelles has noted ι ascript in Cod. Δ, but this is rare. There is no question that this document was written by Latin (most probably by Irish) monks, in the west of Europe, during the ninth century (or the tenth, Pal. Soc.). See below, Paul. Cod. G.
Θa. Codex Tischendorfian. I was brought from the East by Tischendorf in 1845, published by him in his “Monumenta sacra inedita,” 1846, with a few supplements in vol. ii of his new collection (1857), and deposited in the University Library at Leipsic. It consists of but four leaves (all imperfect) quarto, of very thin vellum, almost too brittle to be touched, so that each leaf is kept separately in glass. It contains about forty-two verses; viz. Matt. xii. 17–19; 23–25; xiii. 46–55 (in mere shreds); xiv. 8–29; xv. 4–14, with the greater κεφάλαια in red; the sections and Eusebian canons stand in the inner margin. A few breathings are primâ manu, and many accents by two later correctors. The stops (which are rather numerous) resemble those of Cod. Y, only that four points are not found in Θa. Tischendorf places its date towards the end of the seventh century, assigning Mount Sinai or lower Egypt for its country. The uncials (especially ΕΘΟΣ) are somewhat oblong, leaning to the right (see p. 41 note), but the writing is elegant and uniform; delta keeps its ancient shape, and the diameter of theta does not extend beyond the curve. In regard to the text, it much resembles אB, and stands alone with them in ch. xiv. 12 (αὐτόν).
Seven other small fragments, of which four and part of another are from the manuscripts of Bishop Porphyry at St. Petersburg, were intended to be included in Tischendorf's ninth volume of “Monumenta sacra inedita” (1870), but owing to Tischendorf's death they never appeared. That active critic had brought two (Θb, d) and part of another (Θc) from the East, and deposited them in the Library at St. Petersburg. They are described by him as follows:
Θb, six leaves in large 8vo, of the sixth or seventh century, torn piecemeal for binding and hard to decipher, contains Matt. xxii. 16-xxiii. 13; Mark iv. 24–35; v. 14–23.
Θc, one folio leaf, of the sixth century, much like Cod. N, contains Matt. xxi. 19–24. Another leaf contains John xviii. 29–35.
Θd, half a leaf in two columns, of the seventh or eighth century, with accents by a later hand, contains Luke xi. 37–41; 42–45.
Θe, containing fragments of Matt. xxvi. 2–4; 7–9: Θf, of Matt. xxvi. 59–70; xxvii. 44–56; Mark i. 34-ii. 12 (not continuously throughout): Θg of John vi. 13, 14; 22–24; are all of about the sixth century.
Θh, consisting of three leaves, in Greek and Arabic of the ninth or tenth centuries, contains imperfect portions of Matt. xiv. 6–13; xxv. 9–16; 41-xxvi. 1.
Λ. Codex Tischendorfian. III201, whose history, so far as we know it, exactly resembles that of Cod. Γ, and like it is now in the Bodleian (Auct. T. Infra I. 1). It contains 157 leaves, written in two columns of twenty-three lines each, in small, oblong, clumsy, sloping uncials of the eighth or rather of the ninth century (see p. 41, note 1, and facsimile No. 30). It has the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John complete, with the subscription to St. Mark, each Gospel being preceded by tables of κεφάλαια, with the τίτλοι at the heads of the pages; the numbers of the κεφάλαια, of the sections, and of the Eusebian canons (these last rubro) being set in the margin. There are also scholia interspersed, of some critical value; a portion being in uncial characters. This copy also was described (with a facsimile) by Tischendorf, Anecdota sacra et profana, 1855, and collated by himself and Tregelles. Its text is said to vary greatly from that common in the later uncials, and to be very like Scholz's 262 (Paris 53). For ι ascriptum see p. 44, note 2.
Here again the history of this manuscript curiously coincides with that of Cod. Γ. In his Notitia Cod. Sinaitici, p. 58, Tischendorf describes an early cursive copy of St. Matthew and St. Mark ( the subscription to the latter being wanting ), which he took to St. Petersburg in 1859, so exactly corresponding in general appearance