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.
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, 1836(198), 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, 8-7/8 inches by 7-1/8 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 G(199). 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 colours(200). We transcribe three lines,
taken almost at random, from pp. 80-1 (Matt. xx. 13-15), in order to
explain our meaning:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account