Graeco-Coptic papyri, partly on the order of the Pauline epistles. At present, both in א and B, Hebrews is placed after 2 Thess., but in B there is also a continuous numeration of sections throughout the epistles, according to which 1 to 58 cover Romans to Galatians, but Ephesians, the next epistle, begins with 70 instead of 59, and the omitted section numbers are found in Hebrews. Obviously, the archetype placed Hebrews between Galatians and Ephesians, but the scribe altered the order and put it between 2 Thess. and 1 Tim., though without changing the section numbers. This older order of the epistles is only found elsewhere in the Sahidic version of the New Testament, and it was probably therefore the old Egyptian or Alexandrian order. Moreover, we know from the Festal letter of A.D. 367 (according to the Greek and Syriac texts, but not the Sahidic), that Athanasius then introduced the order of the epistles which is now given in א B. This is strong evidence for the view that the archetype of B came from Alexandria or the neighbourhood, and was older than the time of Athanasius, but it scarcely proves that B itself is Alexandrian, for the order of epistles which it gives is also that adopted by the council of Laodicea in A.D. 363, and may have been introduced elsewhere, perhaps in Caesarea. A further argument, sometimes based upon and sometimes in turn used to support the foregoing, is that the text of א B represents that of Hesychius; but this is extremely doubtful (see the section Textual Criticism below).
[The question of the provenance of א and B may best be studied in J. Rendel Harris, Stichometry (Cambridge, 1893), pp. 71-89; J. Armitage Robinson, “Euthaliana,” Texts and Studies, iii. 3 (Cambridge, 1895), esp. pp. 34-43 (these more especially for the connexion with Caesarea); A. Rahfls, “Alter und Heimat der vatikanischer Bibelhandschrift,” in the Nachrichten der Gesell. der Wiss. zu Göttingen (1899), vol. i. pp. 72-79; and O. von Gebhardt in a review of the last named in the Theologische Literaturzeitung (1899), col. 556.]
Codex Bezae (Cambridge Univ. Nu. 2, 41), Greg. D, von Soden δ 5; an uncial Graeco-Latin MS. not later than the 6th century and probably considerably earlier. The text is written in one column to a page, the Greek on the left hand page and the Latin on the right. It was given to the university of CambridgeBezae. in 1581, but its early history is doubtful. Beza stated that it came from Lyons and had been always preserved in the monastery of St Irenaeus there. There is no reason to question Beza’s bona fides, or that the MS. was obtained by him after the sack of Lyons in 1562 by des Adrets, but there is room for doubt as to the accuracy of his belief that it had been for a long time in the same monastery. His information on this point would necessarily be derived from Protestant sources, which would not be of the highest value, and there are two pieces of evidence which show that just previously the MS. was in Italy. In the first place it is certainly identical with the MS. called η which is quoted in the margin of the 1550 edition of Robert Stephanus’ Greek Testament; this MS. according to Stephanus’ preface was collated for him by friends in Italy. In the second place it was probably used at the council of Trent in 1546 by Gul. a Prato, bishop of Clermont in Auvergne, and in the last edition of the Annotationes Beza quotes his MS. as Claromontanus, and not as Lugdunensis. These points suggest that the MS. had only been a short time at Lyons when Beza obtained it. The still earlier history of the MS. is equally doubtful. H. Quentin has produced some interesting but not convincing evidence to show that the MS. was used in Lyons in the 12th century, and Rendel Harris at one time thought that there were traces of Gallicism in the Latin, but the latter’s more recent researches go to show that the corrections and annotations varying in date between the 7th and 12th centuries point to a district which was at first predominantly Greek and afterwards became Latin. This would suit South Italy, but not Lyons. The text of this MS. is important as the oldest and best witness in a Greek MS. to the so-called “Western” text. (See the section Textual Criticism below.)
[The following books and articles are important for the history, as apart from the text of the MS. Codex Bezae . . . phototypice repraesentatus (Cambridge, 1899); Scrivener, Codex Bezae (Cambridge, 1864); J. Rendel Harris, “A Study of Cod. Bezae,” Texts and Studies, i. 1 (Cambridge, 1891); J. Rendel Harris, The Annotators of Cod. Bezae (London, 1901); F. E. Brightman and K. Lake, “The Italian Origin of Codex Bezae,” in Journal of Theol. Studies, April 1900, pp. 441 ff.; F. C. Burkitt, “The Date of Codex Bezae,” in the Journal of Theol. Studies, July 1902, pp. 501 ff.; D. H. Quentin, “Le Codex Bezae à Lyon, &c.,” Revue Bénédictine, xxxiii. 1, 1906.]
Codex Alexandrinus (G. M. reg. ID v.-viii.), Greg. A. von Soden 84; an uncial MS. of the 5th century. It was given by Cyril Lucar, patriarch of Constantinople, to Charles I. in 1621. It appears probable that Cyril Lucar had brought it with him from Alexandria, of which he had formerly been Alexandrinus.patriarch. A note by Cyril Lucar states that it was written by Thecla, a noble lady of Egypt, but this is probably merely his interpretation of an Arabic note of the 14th century which states that the MS. was written by Thecla, the martyr, an obviously absurd legend; another Arabic note by Athanasius (probably Athanasius III., patriarch c. 1308) states that it was given to the patriarchate of Alexandria, and a Latin note of a later period dates the presentation in 1098. So far back as it can be traced it is, therefore, an Alexandrian MS., and palaeographical arguments point in the same direction. Originally, the MS. contained the whole of the Old and New Testaments, including the Psalms of Solomon in the former and 1 and 2 Clement in the latter. It has, however, suffered mutilation in a few places. Its text in the Old Testament is thought by some scholars to show signs of representing the Hesychian recension, but this view seems latterly to have lost favour with students of the Septuagint. If it be true, it falls in with the palaeographic indications and suggests an Alexandrian provenance. In the New Testament it has in the gospels a late text of Westcott and Hort’s “Syrian” type, but in the epistles there is a strongly marked “Alexandrian” element. [Cod. A was published in photographic facsimile in 1879–1880.]
Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus (Paris Nat. Gr. 9), Greg. C, von Soden δ 3; an uncial palimpsest (the top writing being that of Ephraem) of the 5th century. It was formerly the property of Catherine de’ Medici, and was probably brought from the east to Italy in the 16th century. Hort (Introduction, Ephraemi Syri.p. 268) has shown from a consideration of displacements in the text of the Apocalypse that it was copied from a very small MS., but this, of course, only holds good of the Apocalypse. It is usually said that this MS., like A, came originally from Egypt, but this is merely a palaeographical guess, for which there is no real evidence. Originally, it contained the whole Bible, but only sixty-four leaves of the Old Testament remain, and 145 (giving about two-thirds of the whole) of the New Testament. The character of the text is mixed with a strong “Alexandrian” element. [Published in facsimile by Tischendorf (1843). Discussed by Lagarde in his Ges. Abhandlungen, p. 94.]
Codex Claromontanus (Paris Nat. Gr. 107), Greg. Dpaul, von Soden α 1026; an uncial Graeco-Latin MS. of the 6th century. This MS. also belonged to Beza, who “acquired” it from the monastery of Clermont, near Beauvais. After his death it passed through various private hands and was finally Claromontanus.bought for the French royal library before 1656. It contains the whole of the Pauline epistles with a few lacunae, and has a famous stichometric list of books prefixed in another hand to Hebrews. It is probably the best extant witness to the type of Greek text which was in use in Italy at an early time. It is closely connected with cod. Sangermanensis (a direct copy) at St Petersburg, Greg. Epaul, von Soden α 1027; cod. Augiensis (Cambridge, Trin. Coll. B xvii. i), Greg. Fpaul, von Soden α 1029; and cod. Boernerianus (Dresden K Bibl.), Greg. Gpaul, von Soden α 1028. [The text is published in Tischendorf’s Codex Claromontanus (1852). Its relations to EFG are best discussed in Westcott and Hort’s Introduction, §§ 335-337.]
There are no other uncials equal in importance to the above. The next most valuable are probably cod. Regius of the 8th century at Paris, Greg. L, von Soden ε 56, containing the Gospels; cod. Laudianus of the 7th century at Oxford, Greg. E, von Soden α 1001, a Latino-Greek MS. containing the Acts; cod. Coislinianus of the 6th century in Paris, Turin, Kiev, Moscow and Mt. Atohs, Greg. Hpaul, von Soden α 1022, containing fragments of the Pauline epistles; and cod. Augiensis of the 9th century in Trinity College, Cambridge, Greg. Fpaul, von Soden α 1029, a Graeco-Latin MS. closely related to cod. Claromontanus. [Further details as to these MSS. with bibliographies can be found in Gregory’s Prolegomena to Tischendorf’s N.T. ed. maj. viii.]
Minuscules.—Very few of these are of real importance. The most valuable are the following:—
1. The Ferrar Group; a group of eight MSS. known in Gregory’s notation as 13, 69, 124, 346, 543, 788, 826, 828, or in von Soden’s as ε 368, δ 505, ε 1211, ε 226, ε 257, ε 1033, ε 218, ε 219, all which, except 69, in spite of the dating implied by von Soden’s notation were probably written in the 12th century in Calabria. They have a most peculiar text of a mainly “Western” type, with some special affinities to the Old Syriac and perhaps to the Diatessaron. They are known as the Ferrar group in memory of the scholar who first published their text, and are sometimes quoted as Φ (which, however, properly is the symbol for Codex Beratinus of the Gospels), and sometimes as fam.13.
2. Cod. 1 and its Allies; a group of four MSS. known in Gregory’s notation as 1, 118, 131, 209, and in von Soden’s as δ 50, ε 346, δ 467 and δ 457. The dating implied by the latter notation is wrong, as 1 certainly belongs to the 12th, not to the 10th century, and 118 is probably later than 209. It is sometimes quoted as fam.1. Fam.1 and fam.13 probably have a common archetype in Mark which is also represented by codd. 28 (ε 168), 565 (ε 93, quoted by Tischendorf and others as 2pe) and 700 (ε 133, quoted by Scrivener and others as 604). It seems to have had many points of agreement with the Old Syriac, but it is impossible to identify the locality to which it belonged. Other minuscules of importance are cod. 33 (δ 48) at Paris, which often agrees with א BL and is the best minuscule representative of the “Neutral” and “Alexandrian” types of text in the gospels; cod. 137 (α 364) at Milan, a valuable “Western” text of the Acts; α 78 (not in Gregory) in the Laura on Mt. Athos, a MS. of the Acts and epistles, with an early (mixed) type of text and textual comments and notes from Origen.
[The text of the Ferrar group was published after Ferrar’s death
