C. F. Hoole ascribes the Codex Alexandrinus to the middle of the fourth century (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1891; see _Academy_, July 25, 1891, 73). [Sidenote: B.] B. CODEX VATICANUS _par excellence_, No. 1209 in the Vatican Library at Rome, inserted there shortly after its foundation by Pope Nicolas V., and one of its greatest treasures. Like A it once contained the whole of the Old Testament with the exception of the Books of Maccabees. The first 31 leaves, containing Gen. i. 1-xlvi. 28, are now wanting, as well as 20 from the Psalms containing Ps. cv. (cvi.) 27-cxxxvii. (cxxxviii.) 6. The New Testament is complete down to Heb. ix. 14, where it breaks off at καθα[ριει]. 1 and 2 Tim., Titus, Philemon, and the Apocalypse are, therefore, also wanting. Rahlfs supposes that the manuscript may have originally contained the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas as well. Erasmus obtained some account of this manuscript, and Pope Sixtus V. made it the basis of an edition of the Greek Old Testament, which was published in 1586, thereby determining the _textus receptus_ of that portion of the Bible.—Would he had done the same for the New Testament! This task was undertaken afterwards, specially by Bentley and Birch. Professor Hug of Freiburg recognised the value of the Codex when it was removed from Rome to Paris by Napoleon in 1809. Cardinal Angelo Mai printed an edition of it between 1828 and 1838, which, however, did not appear till 1857, three years after his death, and which was most unsatisfactory. After Tischendorf had led the way with the Codex Sinaiticus, Pope Pio Nono gave orders for an edition, which was printed between 1868 and 1872 in five folio volumes. Not till 1881, however, did the last volume of this edition appear containing the indispensable commentary prepared under the supervision of Vercellone, J. Cozza, C. Sergio, and H. Fabiani, with the assistance of U. Ubaldi and A. Rocchi. Then at last the manuscript was photographed, the New Testament in 1889, and the Old Testament, in three volumes, in 1890—a veritable ἡλίου ἀνάθημα. No facsimile now can give any idea of its original beauty, because a hand of the tenth or eleventh century—or as the Roman editors say, a monk called Clement in the fifteenth century—went over the whole manuscript, letter by letter, with fresh ink, restoring the faded characters and at the same time adding accents and breathings in accordance with the pronunciation of his time (ἄμαξα, for example, and ἁλώπηξ, δἒ). The Old Testament is the work of at least two scribes, one of whom wrote down to 1 Sam. ix. 11, and the other to the end of 2 Esdras. Tischendorf’s opinion with regard to the writer of the New Testament has been already noticed. There can be no question that B is more carefully written than א. In the Gospels the Vatican exhibits a peculiar division into 170, 62, 152, and 80 sections respectively, which is found also in Ξ; in the Acts there is a double division into 36 and