give the Greek text only, a few the Latin version also (hence called codices bilingues or Græco-Latini), e. g. Cod. D (or Bezæ) for the Gospels and Acts, Cod. D (Claromontanus) for the Pauline Epistles, and Cod. Δ (Sangallensis) for the Gospels. They were written in the East, mostly in Alexandria and Constantinople; for in Europe (with the exception of Greece, Lower Italy, and Sicily) the knowledge of the Greek language disappeared after the fifth century till the revival of learning in the fifteenth, and the Latin Vulgate supplied the place of the Greek and Hebrew Bible. Some words of frequent occurrence are usually abridged (as θσ=θεός, κσ=κύριος, ισ=Ἰησοῦς, πνα=πνεῦμα).
The MSS. are divided into two classes unical and cursive. The former are written in large or capital letters (litterœ unicales or majusculœ), the latter in small letters (litterœ minusculœ) or in current hand. The Unical MSS. are older, from the fourth to the tenth century, and hence more valuable, but were discovered and used long after the cursive. Two of them, the Sinaitic and the Vatican, date from the middle of the fourth century.
A. Uncial Manuscripts.
The uncial MSS. are designated (since Wetstein, 1752), for the sake of brevity, by the capital letters of the Latin alphabet (A, B, C, D, etc.), with the help of Greek letter a for a few MSS. beyond Cod. Z, and the Hebrew letter Aleph (א) for the Sinaitic MS. which was discovered last and precedes Cod. A.[1]
- ↑ The present usage arose from the accidental circumstance that the Codex Alexandrinus was designated as Cod. A in the lower margin of Walton's Polyglot (Scrivener, loc. cit. p. 72. 2nd ed.). A far better system would be to designate them in
