The Criticism of the New Testament. Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener
or quire) whose height but little exceeds its breadth; some are in octavo, a not inconsiderable number smaller still: and quires of three sheets or six leaves, and five sheets or ten leaves (Cod. Vaticanus), are to be met with. In some copies the sheets have marks in the lower margin of their first or last pages, like the signatures of a modern volume, the folio at intervals of two, the quarto at intervals of four leaves, as in the Codex Bezae of the Gospels and Acts (D), and the Codex Augiensis of St. Paul's Epistles (F). Not to speak at present of those manuscripts which have a Latin translation in a column parallel to the Greek, as the Codex Bezae, the Codex Laudianus of the Acts, and the Codices Claromontanus and Augiensis of St. Paul, many copies of every age have two Greek columns on each page; of these the Codex Alexandrinus is the oldest: the Codex Vaticanus has three columns on a page, the Codex Sinaiticus four. The unique arrangement27 of these last two has been urged as an argument for their higher antiquity, as if they were designed to imitate rolled books, whose several skins or leaves were fastened together lengthwise, so that their contents always appeared in parallel columns; they were kept in scrolls which were unrolled at one end for reading, and when read rolled up at the other. This fashion prevails in the papyrus fragments yet remaining, and in the most venerated copies of the Old Testament preserved in Jewish synagogues.
9. We now approach a more important question, the style of writing adopted in manuscripts, and the shapes of the several letters. These varied widely in different ages, and form the simplest and surest criteria for approximating to the date of the documents themselves. Greek characters are properly divided into “majuscules” and “minuscules,” or by a subdivision of the former, into Capitals, which are generally of a square kind, fitted for inscriptions on stones like Ε; Uncials, or large letters28, and a modification of Capitals, with a free introduction of curves, and better suited for writing, like Ε; and Cursives, or small letters, adapted for the running hand. Uncial manuscripts were written in what have frequently been regarded as capital letters, formed separately, having no connexion with each other, and (in the earlier specimens) without any space between the words, the marks of punctuation being few: the cursive or running hand comprising letters more easily and rapidly made, those in the same word being usually joined together, with a complete system of punctuation not widely removed from that of printed books. Speaking generally, and limiting our statement to Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, Uncial letters or the Literary or Book-hand prevailed from the fourth to the tenth, or (in the case of liturgical books) as late as the eleventh century; Cursive letters were employed as early as the ninth or tenth century, and continued in use until the invention of printing superseded the humble labours of the scribe. But cursive writing existed before the Christian era: and it seems impossible to suppose that so very convenient a form of penmanship could have fallen into abeyance in ordinary life, although few documents have come down to us to demonstrate the truth of this supposition.
Besides the broad and palpable distinction between uncial and cursive letters, persons who have had much experience in the study of manuscripts are able to distinguish those of either class from one another in respect of style and character; so that the period at which each was written can be determined within certain inconsiderable limits. After the tenth century many manuscripts bear dates, and such become standards to which we can refer others resembling them which are undated. But since the earliest dated Biblical manuscript yet discovered (Cursive Evan. 481, see below Chap. VII) bears the date May 7, a.d. 835, we must resort to other means for estimating the age of more venerable, and therefore more important, copies. By studying the style and shape of the letters on Greek inscriptions, Montfaucon was led to conclude that the more simple, upright, and regular the form of uncial letters; the less flourish or ornament they exhibit; the nearer their breadth is equal to their height; so much the more ancient they ought to be considered. These results have been signally confirmed by the subsequent discovery of Greek papyri in Egyptian tombs especially in the third century before the Christian era; and yet further from numerous fragments of Philodemus, of Epicurus, and other philosophers, which were buried in the ruins of Herculaneum in a.d. 79 (“Fragmenta Herculanensia,” Walter Scott). The evidence of these papyri, indeed, is even more weighty than that of inscriptions, inasmuch as workers in stone, as has been remarked, were often compelled to prefer straight lines, as better adapted to the hardness of their material, where writings on papyrus or vellum would naturally flow into curves.
10. While we freely grant that a certain tact, the fruit of study and minute observation, can alone make us capable of forming a trustworthy opinion on the age of manuscripts; it is worth while to point out the principles on which a true judgement must be grounded, and to submit to the reader a few leading facts, which his own research may hereafter enable him to apply and to extend.
The first three plates at the beginning of this volume represent the Greek alphabet, as found in the seven following monuments:
(1) The celebrated Rosetta stone, discovered near that place during the French occupation of Egypt in 1799, and now in the British Museum. This most important inscription, which in the hands of Young and Champollion has proved the key to the mysteries of Egyptian hieroglyphics, records events of no intrinsic consequence that occurred b.c. 196, in the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes. It is written in the three several forms of hieroglyphics, of the demotic or common characters of the country, and of Greek Capitals, which last may represent the lapidary style of the second century before our era. The words are undivided, without breathings, accents, or marks of punctuation, and the uncial letters (excepting [symbol like capital Roman I] for zeta) approach very nearly to our modern capital type. In shape they are simple, perhaps a little rude; rather square than oblong: and as the carver on this hard black stone was obliged to avoid curve lines whenever he could, the forms of Ε, Ξ and Σ differ considerably from the specimens we shall produce from documents described on soft materials. Plate I. No. (1).
(2) The Codex Friderico-Augustanus of the fourth century, published in lithographed facsimile in 1846, contains on forty-three leaves fragments of the Septuagint version, chiefly from 1 Chronicles and Jeremiah, with Nehemiah and Esther complete, in oblong folio, with four columns on each page. The plates are so carefully executed that the very form of the ancient letters and the colour of the ink are represented to us by Tischendorf, who discovered it in the East. In 1859 the same indefatigable scholar brought to Europe the remainder of this manuscript, which seems as old as the fourth century, anterior (as he thinks) to the Codex Vaticanus itself, and published it in 1862, in facsimile type cast for the purpose, 4 tom., with twenty pages lithographed or photographed, at the expense of the Emperor Alexander II of Russia, to whom the original had been presented. This book, which Tischendorf calls Codex Sinaiticus, contains, besides much more of the Septuagint, the whole New Testament with Barnabas' Epistle and a part of Hermas' Shepherd annexed. As a kind of avant-courier to his great work he had previously put forth a tract entitled “Notitia Editionis Codicis Bibliorum Sinaitici Auspiciis Imperatoris Alexandri II susceptae” (Leipsic, 1860). Of this most valuable manuscript a complete account will be given in the opening of the fourth chapter, under the appellation of Aleph (א), assigned to it by Tischendorf, in the exercise of his right as its discoverer. Plate I. No. 2.
(3) Codex Alexandrinus of the fifth century (A). Plate I.
(4) Codex Purpureus Cotton.: N of the Gospels, of the sixth century. Plate II.
(5) Codex Nitriensis Rescriptus, R of the Gospels, of the sixth century. Plate II.
(6) Codex Dublinensis Rescriptus, Z of the Gospels, of the sixth century. Plate III.
(7) Evangelistarium Harleian. 5598, dated a.d. 995. Plate III.
The leading features of these manuscripts will be described in the fourth and fifth chapters. At present we wish to compare them with each other for the purpose of tracing, as closely as we may, the different styles and fashions of uncial letters which prevailed from the fourth to the tenth or eleventh century of the Christian era. The varying appearance of cursive manuscripts cannot so well be seen by exhibiting their alphabets, for since each letter is for the most part joined to the others in the same word, connected passages alone will afford us a correct notion of their character and general features. For the moment we are considering the uncials only.
If the Rosetta stone, by its necessary avoiding of curve lines, gives only a notion of the manner adopted on stone and not in common writing, it resembles our earliest uncials