CODEX
83
CODEX
row in Northumberland towards the end of the seventh
century. England, in those days, was the most de-
voted daughter of the Roman See, and Abbot Bene-
dict was enthusiastic in his devotion. His monas-
teries were dependent directly on Rome. Five times
during his life he journeyed to Rome, usually bringing
back with him a library of books presented by the
pope. (Volfrid, who had accompanied him on one of
these \isits. became his successor in 686 and inherited
his taste for books; Bede mentions three pandects of
St. Jerome's translation which he had made, one of
which he determined in his old age, in 716, to bring
to the church of St. Peter at Rome. He died on the
way, but his gift was carried to the Holy Father, then
Ciregory II. This codex de Rossi identified with Ami-
atinus.
This conjectiu-e was hailed by all as a genuine dis- covery of great importance. Berger, however, ob- jected to Britonum, suggesting .4 njZorum. Hort soon placed the matter beyond the possibility of doubt. In an anonjTnous life of Ceolfrid, the chief source of Bede's information, which, though twice published, had been overlooked by all, Hort found the story about Ceolfrid journeying to Rome and carrying the pandect inscribed with the verses: —
corpu.s ad eximii 5ierit0 vener.\bile petri Dedicat ecclbsle quem caput alta fides
CeOLPRIDDS, AnGLORU.M EXTIMIS de FINIBUS ABB.iS
— etc. Despite the variations, there could be no doubt of their identity with the dedicatory verses of Amia- tinus; Corpus was of course the original, not Culnien, and Anglorum, not Britonum: the other differences were perhaps due to a lapse of memory, or this version may represent the original draft of the dedication. De Rossi's chief point was proved right. It estab- lished the fact that Amiatinus originated in Northum- berland about the beginning of the eighth century, having been made, as Bede states, at Ceolfrid's order. It does not follow, however, that the scribe was an Englishman; the writing and certain peculiarities of orthography have led some to believe him an Italian. We know that these two monasteries had brought over a Roman musician to train the monks in the Roman chant, and they may also, for a similar purpose, have procured from Italy a skilled calligrapher. The hand- writing of Amiatinus bears a strong resemblance to some fragments of St. Luke in a Durham MS., to N.-T. fragments bound up with the Utrecht Psalter, and to the Stonyhurst St. John; these facts, together with Bede's statement that Ceolfrid had three pandects WTJtten, indicate that " there was a large and flourisliing school of calligraphy at Wearmouth or Jarrow in the seventh and eighth centuries, of which till lately we had no knowledge at all" (White). This conclusion is confirmed by peculiarities in the text and in certain of the summaries.
The contents of the first quaternion of Amiatinus coincide so remarkably with descriptions of the cele- brated Codex Grandior of Cassiodorus that it has been supposed the leaves were transferred from it bodily; the conjecture has been rendered more credible by the fact that this codex was actually seen in England by Bede, perhaps before Amiatinus was carried to Rome. Moreover, the contents of our codex do not correspond exactly to the list prefixed which purports to give the contents. These rea.sons, however, would only prove that the Codex Grandior served as the model, which seems indubitable ; w-hile, on the other hand, weighty reasons have been urged against the other attractive hj-pothesis Csee ^^'hite and de Rossi).
Despite the lowering of its date by a century and a half, Amiatinus holds the first place for purity of text among the manuscripts of the Vulgate. Its excel- lence is best explained on the ground that its proto- tjTie was an ancient Italian manuscript, perhaps one of those brought from Rome by Benedict Biscop, per-
haps one brought by Adrian, abbot of a monastery
near Naples, when in 668 he accompanied Benedict and
Theodore to England. It is remarkable that Amiatinus
and the other Northumbrian codices are nearest in
text to Italian MSS., especially to .Southern Italian,
and to MSS. betraying Italian descent. The group to
which it belongs bears the clo.sest relationship to the
best-esteemed Greek MSS. extant, X, B. (Cf. Manu-
scripts of the Bible; Criticism, Biblical, sub-title
Textual.) In the Old Testament, the text is not of
equal purity throughout; Berger, e. g., notes the in-
feriority of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, and Tischen-
dorf of JIachabees. The Psalter does not present the
Vulgate text, but St. Jerome's translation from the
Hebrew (cf. Psalter; Vulgate). The excellence of
the Amiatine text is not a new discovery: it was well
known to the SLxtine revisers of the Vulgate, who used
it constantly and preferred it, as a rule, to any other.
To this is largely due the comparative purity of the
official Vulgate text and its freedom from so many of
the corruptions found in tlie received Greek text,
which rests, as is well known, on some of the latest
and most imperfect Greek MSS.
White. The Codex Amiatinus and Us Birthplace in Studia Biblica (Oxford. 1S90). 11; Wordsworth and White, Novum Tcslamentum Laline (Oxford, 1S9S); DE Rossi. La Bibbia Offertn da Ceolfrido (Rome, 1887. containing a photographic facsimile of the dedicatory verses): Berger. Histoire de la Vulgate (Paris. 1893); Batiffol in Vigodroux, Diet, de la Bible (Paris. 1892), s. v. Amiatinus, with facsimile of part of a page of St. Luke. .\ series of letters to the Academy, 1886-89, by Wordsworth, Hort, Corssen, Sanday, Hamann, Browne, etc., constitute the most exhaustive discussion. The text of the N. T. was published by Tischendorf (18.50. 1854) and by Tregelles (1857); O. T. not yet published, but collated in Heyse and Tischendorf, Biblia Latina (Leipzig. 18731. The Palajographical Society has published two facsimile pages. John F. Fenlon.
Codex Bezae (Codex Cantabrigiensis), one of the five most important Greek New Testament MSS., and the most interesting of all on account of its pecu- har readings; scholars designate it by the letter D (see Criticism, Biblical, sub-title Textual). It re- ceives its name from Theodore Beza , the friend and suc- cessor of Calvin, and from the University of Cambridge, which obtained it as a gift from Beza in 1581 and still possesses it. The text is bilingual, Greek and Latin. 'The manuscript, written in uncial characters, forms a quarto volume, of excellent vellum, 10 x 8 inches, with one column to a page, the Greek being on the left page (considered the place of honour), the paral- lel Latin facing it on the right page. It has been reproduced in an excellent photographic facsimile, published (1899) by the University of Cambridge.
The codex contains only the Four Gospels, in the order once common in the West, Matthew, John, Luke, Mark, then a few verses (11-15), in Latin only, of t he Third Epist le of St . John , and the Acts. "There are missing, however, from the MS. of the original scribe, in the Greek, Matt., i, 1-20; [iii, 7-16]; vi, 20- ix, 2; xxvii, 2-12; John i, 16-iii, 26; [xviii, 14-xx, 13]; [Mk. x\a, 15-20]; Acts, viii, 29-x, 14; xxi, 2-10, 16-18; xxii, 10-20; xxii, 29-xxviii, 31; in the Latin, Matt., i, 1-11; [ii, 21-iii, 7]; vi, 8-viii, 27; xxvi,65- xxvii, 1; John, i, 1-iii, 16; [xviii, 2-xx, 1]; [Mk., xvi, 6-20]; Acts, viii, 20-x, 4; xx, 31-xxi, 2, 7-10; x.xii, 2-10; xxiii, 20-xx\aii, 31. The passages in brackets have been supplied by a tenth-century hand. It will be noticed tliat St. Luke's Gospel alone, of the books contained, is preser\-ed complete. The condition of the book shows a gap between the Gospels and Acts; and the fragment of III John indicates that, as in other ancient MSS., the Catholic Epistles were placed there. The fact that the Epistle of Jude does not immediately precede Acts is regarded as pointing to its omission from the codex; it may, however, have V)ccn placed elsewhere. We cannot tell whether the MS. contained more of the New Testament, and there is no indication that it was, like the other great uncial
