The palaeographic reasons for assigning this manuscript to the beginning or middle of the fifth century (the date now very generally acquiesced in, though it may be referred even to the end of the fourth century, and is certainly not much later) depend in part on the general style of the writing, which is at once firm, elegant and simple; partly on the formation of certain letters, in which respect it holds a middle place between copies of the fourth and sixth centuries. The reader will recall what we have already said (pp. 33-40) as to the shape of _alpha_, _delta_, _epsilon_, _pi_, _sigma_, _phi_, and _omega_ in the Codex Alexandrinus. Woide, who edited the New Testament, believes that two hands were employed in that volume, changing in the page containing 1 Cor. v-vii, the vellum of the latter portion being thinner and the ink more thick, so that it has peeled off or eaten through the vellum in many places. This, however, is a point on which those who know manuscripts best will most hesitate to speak decidedly(128). The external arguments for fixing the date are less weighty, but all point to the same conclusion. On the evidence for its being written by St. Thecla, indeed, no one has cared to lay much stress, though some have thought that the scribe might belong to a monastery dedicated to that holy martyr(129), whether the contemporary of St. Paul be meant, or her namesake who suffered in the second year of Diocletian, A.D. 286 (Eusebius de Martyr. Palaestin. c. iii). Tregelles explains the origin of the Arabic inscription, on which Cyril’s statement appears to rest, by remarking that the New Testament in our manuscript at present commences with Matt. xxv. 6, this lesson (Matt. xxv. 1-13) _being that appointed by the Greek Church for the festival of St. Thecla_ (_see above_, Menology, p. 87, Sept. 24). Thus the Egyptian who wrote this Arabic note, observing the name of Thecla in the now mutilated upper margin of the Codex, where such rubrical notes are commonly placed by later hands, may have hastily concluded that she wrote the book, and so perplexed our Biblical critics. It seems a fatal objection to this shrewd conjecture, as Mr. E. Maunde Thompson points out, that the Arabic numeration of the leaf, set in the _verso_ of the lower margin, itself posterior in date to the Arabic note relating to Thecla, is 26(130); so that the twenty-five leaves now lost must have been still extant when that note was written.