A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Vol. I.Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose
Religion
A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Vol. I.
Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose
Bible. New Testament -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
C. CODEX EPHRAEMI, No. 9, in the Royal Library of Paris, is a most
valuable palimpsest containing portions of the Septuagint version of the
Old Testament on sixty-four leaves, and fragments of every part of the New
on 145 leaves, amounting on the whole to less than two-thirds of the
volume(162). This manuscript seems to have been brought from the East by
Andrew John Lascar [d. 1535], a learned Greek patronized by Lorenzo de’
Medici; it once belonged to Cardinal Nicolas Ridolphi of that family, was
brought into France by Queen Catherine de’ Medici of evil memory, and so
passed into the Royal Library at Paris(163). The ancient writing is barely
legible, having been almost removed about the twelfth century to receive
some Greek works of St. Ephraem, the great Syrian Father [299-378]. A
chemical preparation applied at the instance of Fleck in 1834, though it
revived much that was before illegible, has defaced the vellum with stains
of various colours, from green and blue to black and brown. The older
writing was first noticed by Peter Allix nearly two centuries ago; various
readings extracted from it were communicated by Boivin to Kuster, who
published them (under the notation of Paris 9) in his edition of Mill’s N.
T., 1710. A complete collation of the New Testament was first made in 1716
by Wetstein, then very young, for Bentley’s projected edition, for which
labour (as he records the fact himself) he paid Wetstein £50. This
collation Wetstein of course used for his own Greek Testament of 1751-2,
and though several persons subsequently examined the manuscript, and so
became aware that more might be gathered from it, it was not until 1843
that Tischendorf brought out at Leipsic his full and noble edition of the
New Testament portion; the Old Testament he published in 1845. Although
Tischendorf complains of the typographical errors made in his absence in
the former of these two volumes, and has corrected them in the other, they
probably comprise by far the most masterly production of this nature up to
that date published; it is said too that none but those who have seen
Codex C can appreciate the difficulty of deciphering some parts of
it(164), in fact, whatever is not patent at first sight. The Prolegomena
are especially valuable; the uncial type does not aim at being an
imitation, but the facsimile faithfully represents the original, even to
the present colour of the ink. In shape Codex C is about the size of Cod.
A, but not quite so tall; its vellum is hardly so fine as that of Cod. A
and a few others, yet sufficiently good. In this copy there is but one
column in a page, which contains from forty to forty-six lines (usually
forty-one), the characters being a little larger than those of either A or
B, and somewhat more elaborate(165). Thus the points at the ends of
_sigma_, _epsilon_, and especially of the horizontal line of _tau_ are
more decided than in Codex A; _delta_, though not so fully formed as in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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