1. Manuscripts

For no literary production of antiquity is there such a wealth of manuscripts as for the New Testament. Our classical scholars would rejoice were they as fortunate with Homer or Sophocles, Plato or Aristotle, Cicero or Tacitus, as Bible students are with their New Testament. The oldest complete manuscript of Homer that we have dates from the thirteenth century, and only separate papyrus fragments go back to the Alexandrian age. All that is extant of Sophocles we owe to a single manuscript dating from the eighth or ninth century in the Laurentian Library at Florence. But of the New Testament, 3829 manuscripts have been catalogued up till the present. A systematic search in the libraries of Europe might add still more to the list; a search in those of Asia and Egypt would certainly do so. Gregory believes that there are probably some two or three thousand manuscripts which have not yet been collated, and every year additional manuscripts are brought to light. Most of these are, of course, late, and contain only separate portions, some of them mere fragments, of the New Testament. Not a few, however, go much further back than our manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testament and most of the Greek and Latin Classics. Only in the case of the Mohammedan sacred books is the condition of things more favourable. These came into existence in the seventh century, and the variations between separate manuscripts are a vanishing quantity, because the text of the Koran was officially fixed at a very early date and regarded as inviolably sacred. Fortunately, one might almost say, it is quite different with the New Testament, which was put together in a totally different way. In its case the very greatest freedom prevailed for at least a century and a half.

The manuscripts of the New Testament being so numerous, it becomes necessary to arrange them. One of the most important considerations hitherto has been that of age, and therefore manuscripts have been divided into Uncials (or Majuscules) and Cursives (or Minuscules), according to the style of writing in use at earlier or later times.

In early times, as at the present day, inscriptions on monuments and public buildings were engraved in capital letters. This form of writing was also employed for books, especially those containing valuable or sacred writing. The letters were not joined together, but set down side by side. They were called litterae majusculae, capitales, unciales, i.e. “inch-high,” as Jerome says with ridicule—uncialibus ut vulgo aiunt litteris onera magis exarata quam codices. Alongside of this there arose, even previous to the Christian era, a smaller Cursive form (Minusculae), for use in common life, in which the letters were joined. This running hand found its way into manuscripts of the Bible in the course of the ninth century. In some cases, in Codex Λ e.g., both styles are found alongside or following each other.

The oldest Cursive manuscript of the New Testament, the exact date of which is known, is 481evv.; it bears the date 835. The great majority of New Testament manuscripts belong to this later date, seeing that out of the 3829 manuscripts there are only 127 Uncials to 3702 Minuscules. Greek copyists not being accustomed to date their manuscripts exactly, it becomes the task of palæography to settle the criteria by which the date and place of a manuscript’s origin may be determined. These are the style of writing—whether angular or round, upright or sloping, the punctuation—whether simple or elaborate, and the different material and form of the book. These distinctions, however, are often very misleading. The following table will show the distribution of the manuscripts according to the centuries in which they were written, as given by Vollert, Scrivener, and von Gebhardt:—

Vollert. Scrivener. v. Gebhardt.

IVth Century, 5 ... 2

Vth “ 4 10 15

VIth ” 18 22 24

VIIth “ 6 9 17

VIIIth ” 8 8 19

IXth “ 23 ... 31

Xth ” 4 ... 6

Manuscripts are distinguished according to the material on which they are written, which may be either parchment or paper.

Parchment derives its name from Pergamum, where it was introduced in the reign of King Eumenes (197-159 B.C.). But prior to the use of parchment, and to a certain extent alongside of it, papyrus was used, especially in Egypt, down to the time of the Mohammedan Conquest. Papyrus books were originally in the form of rolls (volumina). Only a few fragments of the New Testament on papyrus remain. The use of parchment gave rise to the book or Codex form. In the case of parchment codices, a further distinction is drawn between those made of vellum manufactured from the skins of very young calves, and those made of common parchment from the skins of sheep, goats, and antelopes.

As early as the eighth century (not the ninth), the so-called cotton paper (charta bombycina) was introduced from the East. This, however, never consisted of pure cotton, but rather of flax and hemp. It had been in use for a long time in China and the centre of Eastern Asia, but seems to have been unknown in Syria and Egypt till after the fall of Samarcand in 704. From the thirteenth century onwards, paper made of linen was employed.

In the New Testament, both papyrus and parchment are referred to. In 2 Tim. iv. 13, Paul asks that the φελόνης he had left at Troas might be brought to him, and τὰ βιβλία, but specially τὰς μεμβράνας. Here, φελόνης means cloak rather than satchel; τὰ βιβλία are the papyrus books, possibly his Old Testament, while τὰς μεμβράνας are clean sheets of parchment. In 2 John 12 the word χάρτης is used of papyrus. There, and in 3 John 13, τὸ μέλαν is the ink, and the κάλαμος (lat. canna) is the reed pen, still used for writing in the East. The quill pen, strange to say, is not mentioned prior to the time of Theodoric the Ostrogoth in the sixth century. The size of a sheet of writing paper may be inferred from the passages in 2nd and 3rd John alluded to above.

In order to economize space, the writing was continuous, with no break between the words (scriptio continua), breathings and accents being also omitted. This is a frequent source of ambiguity and misunderstanding. In Matt. ix. 18, e.g., ΕΙΣΕΛΘΩΝ may be either εἷς ἐλθὼν or εἰσελθὼν. In Mark x. 40, ΑΛΛΟΙΣΗΤΟΙΜΑΣΤΑΙ was rendered “aliis praeparatum,” ἄλλοις being read instead of ἀλλ’ οἷς. In Matt. xvi. 23, ΑΛΛΑ may be taken either as ἀλλὰ or ἀλλ’ ἃ. In 1 Cor. xii. 28, again, the Ethiopic translator read οὖς instead of οὓς. The Palestinian-Syriac Lectionary translates 1 Tim. iii. 16 as though it were ὁμολογοῦμεν ὡς μέγα ἐστίν. There is something to be said for this, but Naber’s proposed reading of Gal. ii. 11, ὅτι κατέγνωμεν ὃς ἦν, cannot be accepted.

Most manuscripts show two columns to the page. The Sinaitic, however, has four, while the Vatican has three. Columns vary considerably in width. They may be the width of a few letters only, or of an average hexameter line of sixteen to eighteen syllables or about thirty-six letters. Such a line is called a στίχος, and as the scribe was paid according to the number of στίχοι, we find at the end of several books a note giving the total number of στίχοι contained in them. In carefully written manuscripts, every hundredth, sometimes every fiftieth στίχος is indicated in the margin. These stichometric additions were afterwards adopted for the entire Bible. Their value in many respects will be obvious.

As the church increased in wealth and prestige, New Testament manuscripts acquired a more sumptuous form, either from the luxury of the rich or the pious devotion of kings and churches.

Parchment, however, grew more and more expensive, and so the practice arose of using an old manuscript a second time. The original writing was erased by means of a sponge or pumice stone or a knife, and the sheets were then employed to receive other matter, or it might even be the same matter over again. And so we have Codices Rescripti or Palimpsesti as they were called, a term known to Cicero, who says, though of a wax tablet, “quod in palimpsesto, laudo parsimoniam” (ad Diversos vii. 18). Some manuscripts were used as often as three times for distinct works in three different languages e.g. Greek, Syriac, and Iberian. Codex Ib is one of these thrice used manuscripts, being written first in Greek and then twice in Syriac.

Marks of punctuation are hardly to be found in the earliest times. It was frequently, therefore, a question with church teachers whether a sentence was to be taken interrogatively or indicatively, or how the sentences were to be divided, as in the case of John i. 3 and 4. In the general absence of punctuation, the appearance of quotation marks in some of the oldest manuscripts, like Codex Vaticanus e.g., to indicate citations from the Old Testament, is remarkable.

The size of a manuscript varies from a large folio, which in the case of a parchment codex must have been very expensive, to a small octavo. In regions inhabited by a mixed population we find bilingual manuscripts, Greek-Latin, Greek-Coptic, Greek-Armenian, and such like. If the manuscript was designed for use in church, the two languages were written in parallel columns, the Greek frequently occupying the left column or reverse side of the sheet, being the place of honour. In manuscripts intended for use in schools, the translation was written between the lines. Codex Δ is an example of a manuscript with an interlinear version of this sort.

Of more importance is the distinction of manuscripts according to their contents. Of all our recorded Uncials, only one contains the whole of the New Testament complete. That is the Codex Sinaiticus discovered by Tischendorf in 1859. A few others, like Codices Vaticanus, Alexandrinus, Ephraemi, were once complete, but are no longer so. Of the later Minuscules, some twenty-five alone contain the entire New Testament. Of the English Minuscules, five are complete. The fragmentary nature of our manuscripts is intelligible on two grounds. One is that a New Testament codex written in uncial characters is a very bulky and ponderous volume running to about 150 sheets. Comparatively few would be in a position to procure such a costly work all at once. The other reason is that the New Testament itself is not a single book, but a series of different collections, which at first, and even afterwards, were circulated separately. To the same reason is due the great variety in the order of the several parts of the New Testament found in the manuscripts, and still, to a certain extent, in our printed editions. It is not exactly known who it was that first collected and inscribed in one volume the books and the parts that now make up the New Testament. Such a single volume of the entire New Testament was afterwards known as a πανδέκτης, and in Latin, bibliotheca. The parts into which the New Testament is divided are—

1. The four Gospels.

2. (a) The Acts of the Apostles. (b) The so-called Catholic Epistles, i.e. those not addressed to any particular church or individual, viz., James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, Jude.

3. The thirteen Pauline Epistles, or, including Hebrews, fourteen.

4. The Apocalypse.

Among these incomplete manuscripts of the New Testament may be classed the so-called lectionaries—i.e. manuscripts containing only those portions read at church services. Following the custom of the Synagogue, in which portions of the Law and the Prophets were read at divine service each Sabbath day, the practice was early adopted in the Christian Church of reading passages from the New Testament books at services. A definite selection of such extracts was formed at an early date from the Gospels and Epistles, and the custom arose of arranging these according to the order of Sundays and Holy days, for greater convenience in use. A collection of selected passages from the Gospels was called a Εὐαγγέλιον, and in Latin Evangeliarium, in distinction to the books containing the continuous text, which were called Τετραευαγγέλιον, while the selections from the Epistles were known as Ἀπόστολος or Πραξαπόστολος. These lectionaries, though mostly of later origin, are nevertheless important as indicating the official text of the various provinces of the Church. They show, moreover, how sundry slight alterations found their way into the text of the New Testament.

We can easily understand why it is that manuscripts of the Gospels are by far the most numerous, while those of the last book of the New Testament are the fewest. Among the Uncials, 73 contain the Gospels, and only 7 have the Apocalypse. Of these 73 Uncials, again, only 6, viz. א B K M S U, or, if we include Ω, only 7 are quite complete; 9 are almost so; 11 exhibit the greater part of the Gospels, while the remainder contain only fragments. Of the 20 Uncials of the Pauline Epistles, only 1 is entirely complete—viz., א; 2 are nearly complete, D G; 8 have the greater part. It is plain that our resources are not so great, after all, as the number of manuscripts given above would lead us to expect. Here also there are πολλοὶ κλητοί, ὀλίγοι ἐκλεκτοί.

Parchment.

The manufacture of parchment is perhaps older than that of papyrus. It is said to owe both its name and wide circulation as writing material to the encouragement given to its manufacture by Eumenes II. of Pergamum (197-159 B.C.). Pliny’s story, which he gives on the authority of Varro, is that Eumenes wished to found a library which should, as far as possible, excel that of Alexandria. To frustrate this intention Ptolemy Epiphanes prohibited the exportation of papyrus to Asia Minor. (In the list of principal exports of Alexandria, Lumbroso mentions βίβλος and χάρτη in the second place after ὑέλια, and βιβλία in the seventh.) Eumenes was accordingly obliged to prepare parchment at Pergamum, and hence its name, περγαμηνή. The name first occurs in Diocletian’s Price-list, and in Jerome. The word used in earlier times was διφθέραι, or δέρρεις, or μεμβράναι as in 2 Tim. iv. 13, which last was taken from the Latin. At first parchment was less valuable than papyrus, and was used more for domestic and school purposes than for the making of books, as the writing was easier erased from the skin. But it gradually supplanted papyrus, and with its employment came also the change from the roll to the “codex” form of book. If papyrus was the vehicle of Pagan Greek literature, parchment was the means whereby the literature of the new faith became known to mankind, and the remnant of the ancient culture at the same time preserved. Origen’s library, which still consisted for the most part of papyrus rolls, was re-written in parchment volumes (σωμάτιον, corpus) by two priests shortly before the time of Jerome. Our principal manuscripts of Philo are derived from one of these codices. When Constantine ordered Eusebius to provide a certain number of Bibles for presentation to the churches of his Empire, he sent him, not rolls, but codices, πεντήκοντα σωμάτια ἐν διφθέραις.

Parchment was prepared from the skins of goats, sheep, calves, asses, swine, and antelopes. Our oldest manuscripts of the Bible exhibit the finest and whitest parchment. The Codex Sinaiticus, e.g., displays the very finest prepared antelope skin, and is of such a size that only two sheets could be obtained from one skin. As a rule, four sheets were folded into a quire (quaternio), the separate sheets having been previously ruled on the grain side. They were laid with the flesh side to the flesh side, and the grain side to the grain side, beginning with the flesh side outermost, so that in each quaternio, pages 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16 were white and smooth with the lines showing in relief, while the others, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 15 were darker and rough, with indented lines.

For writing on papyrus, ink made of soot was employed. Three parts of lamp-black were mixed with one part of gum and diluted with water. This ink, however, was easily washed off, and did not stick well to parchment, and therefore recourse was had to ink made of gall nuts. Sulphate of iron was afterwards added to it, with the result that the writing material is frequently corroded with the ink. From its having been boiled the mixture was also called ἔγκαυστον, hence our word “ink” (encre). Many old recipes for making ink are still preserved. Even in early Egyptian writing, coloured inks, especially red, were used. One of the most beautiful manuscripts extant is a Syriac Codex in the British Museum, of date 411, in which the red, blue, green, and yellow inks are still quite fresh. Eusebius used cinnabar for numbering the paragraphs, and Jerome makes mention of minium or vermilion. In times of great wealth parchments were dyed purple and inscribed with gold and silver letters.

Papyrus.

Among ancient writers, Pliny gives the fullest description of the preparation of papyrus, in his Historia Naturalis, xiii. 11. The sheets were prepared, not from the bark, but from the pith of the plant. This was cut into strips (σχίδας) as thin and broad, and, according to some, as long as possible. These were laid side by side as firmly as might be, to form the first layer (σχέδα). On this a second layer was laid crosswise and fastened to the lower with moisture or gum. The two layers were then compressed to form the writing sheet (σελίς), which was carefully dried and polished with ivory or a smooth shell. The roll (τόμος, κύλινδρος) consisted of a number of σελίδες joined together to make one long strip—sometimes as much as 20 or 40 feet long, or even longer. The upper side, the side used for writing on, was the one in which the fibres ran in a horizontal direction parallel to the edge of the roll. The under or outer side was only used in cases of necessity. The first sheet (πρωτόκολλον) was made stronger than the rest, and its inner edge was glued to a wooden roller (ὄμφαλος), with a knob at the end (κέρας). The margin of the roll, what corresponds to the edge of our books, was frequently glazed and coloured, while the back was protected against worms and moths by being rubbed with cedar oil. The title was inscribed on a separate label of parchment (σίττυβος or σίλλυβος). The separate rolls were enclosed in a leather case (διφθέρα or φαινόλης, see 2 Tim. iv. 13), and a number of them kept in a chest (κιβωτός or κίστη).

On the literature cf. also Paul Krüger, Ueber die Verwendung von Papyrus und Pergament für die juristische Litteratur der Römer, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Roman section, viii. pp. 76-85 (1887). Wilcken, Archiv für Papyrus-Forschung und verwandte Gebiete, Leipzig, Teubner. F. G. Kenyon, Palaeography of Greek Papyri. C. Haeberlin, Griechische Papyri, Leipzig, 1897: “Nearly 150 years have fled since 432 complete Rolls and 1806 Papyrus Fragments were discovered in the year 1752 at Herculaneum, in the Villa of L. Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, the pupil and friend of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus. Then twenty-five years later the soil of Egypt, that home and nursery of literature, opened for the first time to vouchsafe to us a Greek Papyrus Roll, destined to be the forerunner of a series of discoveries often interrupted but never ceasing altogether. It was, perchance, not the only one of its kind; but out of the fifty rolls accidentally discovered in the year 1778 by Arabian peasants in the neighbourhood of Memphis, it alone had the fortune to come into the possession of Cardinal Stefano Borgia. The rest were burned by their unsuspecting discoverers, who found a peculiar pleasure in the resinous odour that arose from their smoking pyre.”

Paper.

The collection of manuscripts brought from the East by the Archduke Rainer gave a stimulus to the study of the early history of paper-making, and at the same time supplied the materials for a more exact investigation of the subject than had previously been possible. Earlier works, therefore, like that of G. Meerman, De Chartae vulgaris seu lineae Origine, ed. J. v. Vaassen, Hagae Comitum, 1767, have been superseded. The manufacture of paper seems to have been introduced into Europe by the Moors in Spain, where it went by the name of pergameno de panno to distinguish it from the pergameno de cuero. In the Byzantine Empire it was called ξυλοχάρτιον or ξυλότευκτον, as being a vegetable product. It came afterwards to be known as χάρτης Δαμασκηνός, from its chief place of manufacture. The Arabs introduced it into Sicily, whence it passed into Italy. After 1235, we find paper mentioned as one of the exports of Genoa. European paper is distinguished from that of Eastern manufacture chiefly by the use of water marks, such as ox-heads, e.g., which were unknown in the East. Older sorts of paper bear a great resemblance to parchment. The Benedictine monks, who owned the fragments of Mark’s Gospel preserved in Venice, asserted that they were written on bark. Montfaucon declared the material to be papyrus. Massei said it was cotton paper. But the microscope shows it to be parchment. In many manuscripts a mixture of parchment and paper is found. This is so in the Leicester Codex, in which the leaves are regularly arranged in such a way that the outer and inner sheets of a quire are of parchment, while the three intermediate sheets are of paper. See J. R. Harris, The origin of the Leicester Codex of the New Testament, 1887, p. 14 ff.

Lead was also employed in early times for writing on. Budde sees a reference to this practice in the well-known passage, Job xix. 24. He holds that the lead there mentioned is not to be supposed as run into letters cut out in the rock, which would be a very unlikely thing to do, and a practice for which there is no evidence. He would therefore correct the text so as to read “with an iron pen on lead.” Hesiod’s Ἔργα, e.g., was preserved on lead in the temple of the Muses on Helicon. A leaden tablet from Hadrumet contains an incantation showing strong traces of O.T. influence. At Rhodes there was recently discovered a roll of lead inscribed with the 80th Psalm, which was used as a charm to protect a vineyard.

Clay and brick were also used as writing material, a fact which Strack has omitted to mention in his article on Writing in the Realencyklopädie (see Ezek. iv. 1). So far, however, no traces of N.T. writing have been discovered in the Ostraca literature of which we have now a considerable quantity. We have tiles of this sort dating from a period of over a thousand years from the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus onwards, inscribed with ink and a reed pen. Several of these contain portions of literary works such as those of Euripides.

Linen was also written on. It was used, e.g., for the Sibylline Oracles (lintea texta, carbasus: Orac. Sib. ed. Alexandre, ii., 159, 178, 189). But up to the present no N.T. writing has been found on linen.

Paul’s “books.”

On Paul’s “books and parchments,” see Zahn, Kanon ii., 938 ff. I am not aware if J. Joseph takes up this point or not in his La Bibliothèque de l’Apôtre Paul (Chrétien Évang., 1897, v. 224-227). In the Theol. Tijdschrift, 1898, p. 217, the view that the μεμβράναι Paul sent for were blank sheets of parchment is called in question. The most natural explanation, certainly, is that they were.

Pen.

The N.T. makes no mention of the metal, wood, or bone stilus. By “the wild beast of the reeds” (Ps. lxviii. 31) the Rabbis understood the reed pen, which in Syriac also is commonly denoted by קנה, and they took it as referring to Rome and the Emperor, who decided the fate of nations with a single stroke of his pen. Luther, moreover, was not without precedent in speaking of “governors with the pen” in Jud. v. 14, as the Syriac version renders it in the same way. In Ps. xlv. 2, the Hebrew עֵט is rendered κάλαμος (LXX), σχοῖνος (Aquila), and γραφεῖον (Symmachus). It is also rendered σχοῖνος by the translator of Jeremiah viii. 8, where Aquila has γραφεῖον. Σχοῖνος must therefore be added to the Bible names for pen. Γραφίς for γραφεῖον, mentioned alongside of ὄνυξ ἀδαμάντινος in Jer. xvii. 1, seems to belong to the Spanish-Greek of the Complutensian, but is really classic, as also its diminutive γραφίδιον. According to the Rabbis, pens were among the things God made in the evening of the last day of the creation. They were also venerated by the Egyptians and the Greeks as an invention of the Deity. According to Antisthenes or Democritus, a young man, in order to enter the school of wisdom, requires to have a βιβλιαρίου καινου (= καὶ νοῦ) καὶ γραφείου καινου καὶ πινακιδίου καινου. In Cyprus, the stilus is called ἀλειπτήριον, and the γραμματοδιδάσκαλος in like manner διφθεράλοιφος. In the recently discovered fragments of Diocletian’s List of Wares, the section περὶ πλούμου (goose, swan, and peacock feathers) is followed by that περὶ καλάμων καὶ μελανίου, and then by that περὶ ἐσθῆτος. Ink costs 12 drachmae the quart; Paphian and Alexandrian κάλαμοι cost 4 drachmae; and κάλαμοι δευτ[έρας] φώρ[μης] the same. Baruch, the ἀναγνωστής, purchased ink and a pen in the market of the Gentiles, in order to write his letter to Jeremiah (ἀποστείλας εἰς τὴν ἀγορὰν [v. l. διασπορᾶς] τῶν ἐθνῶν ἤνεγκε χάρτην καὶ μέλανα [v. l. μελαν]). Demosthenes was not the only possessor of a silver stilus. Boniface, e.g., had one of that sort sent him from England.

The following is a list of expressions relating to reading and writing taken from the Greek Versions of the O.T. It makes no claim to be complete. The passages will be found in Hatch and Redpath’s Concordance to the Septuagint.

ἀκριβόω, ἀναγιγνώσκω, ἀνάγνωσις, ἀναγνωστής, ἀντίγραφον, ἀποκαλύπτειν; βιβλιαφόρος (βιβλιο-), βίβλινος, βιβλιογράφος (Est. iii. 13, Complut.), βιβλιοθήκη, βιβλίον (βυ-), βιβλιοφυλάκιον, βίβλος (βυ-); γαζά, γράμμα, γραμματεία, γραμματεύειν, γραμματεύς, γραμματικός, γραμματοεισαγωγεύς, γραπτόν, γράφειν (ἀνα-, ἀπο-, ἐπι-, κατα-, συν-), γραφεῖον (σιδηροῦν), γραφεὺς (ταχινός), γραφή (ἀνα-, ἀπο-, συν-), γραφικός, γραφίς; διφθέρωμα, διώκειν; εἴλημα, εἰς- or ἐγχαράττειν, ἐπιστολή, ἑρμηνεύω, ἐπιστάμενος γράμματα; θησαυροφύλαξ; κάλαμος (καλαμάριον, vide Field’s Hexapla on Ezek. ix. 2) κάστυ, κεφαλίς; μαχθάμ, μέλαν, μελανοδοχεῖον, μίλτος, μνημόσυνον, μολίβος, μολίβδινος; ξυρός; ὄνυξ ἀδαμάντινος, ὀξυγράφος; πινακίς, πινακίδιον, πτύξ, πτυχή, πυξίον; σελίς, σμίλη, στηλογραφία, σφραγίζειν, σφραγίς, σχοῖνος; τόμος (χαρτοῦ καινοῦ μεγάλου, Isa. viii. 1; also 1 Esdras vi. 23 for τόπος), τεῦχος, τύπος; χάρτης, χαρτίον, χαρτηρία.

Diastole and hyphen.

Ancient Homeric grammarians used to debate whether contiguous letters were to be read as one word or not. To obviate misunderstanding, they employed the ὑποδιαστολή as the mark of division (ὅ, τι, e.g.), and the ὑφ’ ἕν as the mark of combination (Διό[σκ]ουροι, not Διὸς κοῦροι). Such marks are also found in manuscripts of the Bible, in the Septuagint, e.g., in the case of proper names. It goes without saying that the scriptio continua made the reading as well as the copying of manuscripts a matter of some difficulty. Hermas (Visio ii. 1) says of the book given him to copy μετεγραψάμην πάντα πρὸς γράμμα· οὐχ ηὕρισκον γὰρ τὰς συλλαβάς. For two instructive mistakes in the Latin interlinear version of Codex Boernerianus see p. .

Breathings and accents.

Breathings and accents were found in various manuscripts of the Bible as early as the time of Epiphanius and Augustine. In our oldest manuscripts they seldom occur before the seventh century. They were inserted by the first hand of the Ambrosian Hexateuch (Swete’s F), which is ascribed to the first half of the fifth century by Ceriani. They seem to have been added to the Codex Vaticanus by the third hand, probably in the twelfth century, and do not always conform to our rules. Augustine, commenting on the rival readings filiis and porcina, in Psalm xvi. 14, says: “quod (porcina) alii codices habent et verius habere perhibentur, quia diligentiora exemplaria per accentus notam eiusdem verbi graeci ambiguitatem graeco scribendi more dissolvunt, obscurius est” (ii. 504-5, in Lagarde’s Probe einer neuen Ausgabe, p. 40). Similarly, speaking of the difference between ῥάβδου αὐτοῦ and ῥάβδου αὑτοῦ, Gen. xlvii. 31, he says:—“fallit enim eos verbum graecum, quod eisdem literis scribitur sive eius sive suae; sed accentus [= spiritus] dispares sunt et ab eis qui ista noverunt, in codicibus non contemnuntur” (iv. 53 ed. Lugd. 1586, cited by Scrivener, i. p. 47).

The practice of abbreviating words of frequent occurrence like Θ̅Σ̅, Χ̅Σ̅, Χ̅Σ̅, Α̅Ν̅Ο̅Σ̅ goes back to very early times. So, too, does the use of letters as numerals, Ι for 10, etc.

In dividing syllables the Greek copyists in general observed the rule of beginning each new line with a consonant. A good many exceptions occur however, especially in the Vaticanus, most of which have been corrected by a later hand. These are indicated in the third volume of Swete’s edition of the LXX. A good instance of this is seen in Jer. xiv. 12, where the Vaticanus and Marchalianus both originally had προσ ενεγκωσιν, which in the former is corrected to προ σενεγκωσιν, and in the latter to προσε νεγκωσιν. For examples from the O.T. portion of the Codex Vaticanus see Nestle’s Septuagintastudien, ii. 20.

Stichometry.

Carefully written manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments are provided with a system of stichometry just as occurs in the better manuscripts of the classics, as e.g. Herodotus and Demosthenes. In the N.T. it is found specially in those Pauline Epistles that go back to the recension of Euthalius. One of the writers of the Codex Vaticanus has copied, in several of the books of the O.T., the stichometric enumeration which he found in his original, and the numbers show that the manuscript he copied contained almost twice as much matter in a line as the one he himself wrote. See Nestle, Septuagintastudien, ii. 20 f.; Lagarde, Die Stichometrie der syrisch-hexaplarischen Uebersetzung des alten Testaments (Mitteilungen, iv. 205-208). On the stichometric list in the Codex Claromontanus of the Pauline Epistles (D2), see p. .

American scholars have counted the number of words in the Greek N.T. In Matthew the number is 18,222, in Mark 11,158, in Luke 19,209. Unfortunately, I am unable to give the total number in the N.T. See Schaff’s Companion, pp. 57, 176.

Graux (Revue de Philologie, ii.) has counted not only the words but the letters in the various books. The numbers are given in Zahn’s Geschichte des N.T. Kanons, i. 76. They are as follows:—

Letters. Stichoi.

Matthew, 89,295 2480

Mark, 55,550 1543

Luke, 97,714 2714

John, 70,210 1950

Acts, 94,000 2610

3 John, 1,100 31

Apocalypse, 46,500 1292

For Philemon, Zahn gives 1,567 44

In this last epistle I find that my edition has 1538 letters, or including the title 1550. The lines in my edition happen to coincide as near as may be with the ancient stichoi. 41 stichoi at 36 letters to the stichos would give a total of 1476. Now in the 41 complete lines which my edition gives to Philemon I find 1469 letters, that is, only 7 fewer. In Jude, again, Graux enumerates 71 stichoi, while my edition shows exactly 70 lines or 71 with the title. For stichometric calculations, therefore, this edition will prove very convenient.

For a “Table of Ancient and Modern Divisions of the New Testament,” see Scrivener, i. 68; also Westcott, Canon, Appendix D, xix., xx.; Bible in the Church, Appendix B, 4.

The Cola and Commata were quite different from the stichoi. The length of the latter was regulated according to the space (space-lines), that of the former by the sense and structure of the sentence (sense-lines). On cola and commata see Wordsworth and White, De colis et commatibus codicis Amiatini et editionis nostrae, in the Epilogus to their edition of the Vulgate, i. pp. 733-736. On the stichometry proper see Ibid., p. 736, De stichorum numeris in euangeliis.

Manuscripts de luxe.

Solomon perfumed with musk the letter he sent to Bilqis, Queen of Sheba, who herself could both read and write. Mani inscribed characters on white satin in such a way that if a single thread was drawn out the writing became invisible. On gold and silver writing among the Syrians see Zahn, Tatian, Forschungen, 108, n. 1; also R. Wessely, Iconographie (Wiener Studien, xii. 2, 259-279). The earliest mention of this kind of writing that I know is in the Epistle of Aristeas, σὺν ... ταῖς διαφόροις διφθέραις, ἐν αἷς [ἦν] ἡ νομοθεσία γεγραμμένη χρυσογραφίᾳ τοῖς Ἰουδαϊκοῖς γράμμασι, θαυμασίως εἰργασμένου τοῦ ὑμένος καὶ τῆς πρὸς ἄλληλα συμβολῆς ἀνεπαισθήτου κατεσκευασμένης. In Alexander’s copy of the Pentateuch the name of God was written in gold letters.

On the fineness of the parchment and the beauty of the writing see Chrysostom, Hom. 32 in Joannem: σπουδῆς περὶ τὴν τῶν ὑμένων λεπτότητα καὶ τὸ τῶν γραμμάτων κάλλος. Ephraem Syrus commended this Christian munificence, as is pointed out in the Histor. Polit. Blätter, 84, 2, 104. Gold writing is also mentioned in the Targum on Ps. xlv. 10.

The passage in the Epistle of Theonas to Lucian referring to the use of purple-dyed parchment is thought by Batiffol to be derived from that in Jerome’s Commentary on Job, and he founds on this an argument against the genuineness of the Epistle. In the Martyrium of Qardagh the Persian, particular mention is made of the remarkable beauty and whiteness of the parchment (σωμάτιον) on which he wrote his epistles.

For the preparation of his Bible, Origen procured the services not only of rapid writers (ταχυγράφοι) but also of girls who could write beautifully (καλλιγράφοι). Cassiodorus pleads—qui emendare praesumitis, ut superadjectas literas ita pulcherrimas facere studeatis, ut potius ab Antiquariis scriptae fuisse judicentur. We also find him making proposals for expensive bindings in the De Inst., c. 30, a passage which, according to Springer, has been overlooked in the literature on illustrated bindings in modern histories of art.

On various decorated manuscripts see W. Wattenbach, Ueber die mit Gold auf Purpur geschriebene Evangelien-handschrift der Hamiltonschen Bibliothek, in the Berliner Sitz.-Ber., 7th March 1889, xiii. 143-156. Cf. Berl. Phil. Wochenschrift, 1889, 33, 34. This manuscript purported to be a gift to Henry VIII. from Pope Leo X., but was rather from Wolsey. Bishop Wilfrid of Ripon (670-688) had the four Gospels written with the finest gold. Boniface requested his English friends to send him the Epistles of Paul written with gold in order therewith to impress the simple-minded Germans (Ep. 32, p. 99), a fact of which Gustav Freitag makes use in his Ingo und Ingraban, p. 476. (See Die Christliche Welt, 1888, 22.) Cf. also the manuscripts of Theodulf in Paris and Puy (see below, p. ). The Cistercians forbade the use of gold and silver bindings or clasps (firmacula) and also of different colours.

Illustrations must have made their appearance in Greek manuscripts a whole century earlier than has hitherto been supposed if H. Kothe is right in his interpretation of the passage in Diogenes Laertius, ii. 3, 8 (= Clem., Strom., i. 78, p. 364, Potter): πρῶτος δὲ Ἀναξαγόρας καὶ βιβλίον ἐξέδωκε σὺν γραφῇ (“with a picture”: formerly read as συγγραφῆς). In addition to the works of Aristotle and the obscene poems of Philainis, illustrated manuscripts were known to exist of the works of the astronomers Eudoxus and Aratus, of the botanist Dioscorides, of the tactician Euangelos, and of the geographer Ptolemy. A description of the earliest illustrated Bibles is given by Victor Schultze in the Daheim, 1898, No. 28, 449 ff., with good facsimiles. On the horses in the chariot of Elijah in a Greek manuscript of the ninth century in the Vatican Library, and on the pictures of the horsemen in the codex of Joshua also contained there, see F. aus’m Weerth in the Jahrbuch des Vereins von Altertums-Freunden im Rheinland, Heft 78 (1884), Plate VI.

Cassiodorus had a Pandectes Latinus—i.e. a manuscript of the Old Latin Bible of large size—which contained pictures of the Tabernacle and the Temple. There is an old work on this subject by P. Zornius entitled Historia Bibliorum pictorum ex antiquitatibus Ebraeorum et Christianorum illustrata cum figuris, Lipsiae, 1743, 4to; and by the same author, Von den Handbibeln der ersten Christen, Lips. 1738, also Historia Bibliorum ex Ebraeorum diebus festis et jejuneis illustrata, Lips., 1741. See also Georg Thiele, De antiquorum libris pictis capita quattuor, Marburg, 1897.

Palimpsests.

Palimpsests of Bible manuscripts came to be prohibited by the Church. The Sixth Ecumenical Council (Trullan, Concilium quinisextum, 680-681), in its 68th canon, Περὶ τοῦ μὴ ἐξεῖναί τινι τῶν ἁπάντων βιβλία τῆς παλαιᾶς καὶ νέας διαθήκης διαφθείρειν, forbids the sale of old manuscripts of the Bible to the βιβλιοκάπηλοι or the μυρεψοί, or to any persons whatever. There was naturally a special aversion to letting such manuscripts fall into the hands of Jews; but yet there were discovered, in the lumber room of the Synagogue of Old Cairo, fragments of a Greek MS. of the Gospels, which had been afterwards employed to receive Jewish writing. Parchments of this sort were at first used only for rough drafts and such like, instead of wax tablets from which the writing could be erased again.

Punctuation.

A good example of the importance of punctuation will be found in Lk. i. 35, on which see p. 201. Compare also Lk. xxi. 8, 1 Tim. ii. 5, where Lachmann punctuates καὶ ἀνθρώπων ἄνθρωπος. By a different punctuation in Heb. i. 9, Tischendorf and Westcott-Hort make ὁ Θεός vocative and nominative respectively. In the former case the Messiah is God, in the other God is the one who anoints him. This difference was not observed at first by O. v. Gebhardt. Similarly there is a difference between the text and the margin of Westcott and Hort in verse 8, where by the insertion or omission of the two commas before and after ὁ Θεός the meaning is either that Messiah is God or that God is Messiah’s throne. Considering the importance of such marks of division, the rule laid down by Ephraem Syrus in the year 350, and again emphasized by Bengel and Lagarde, should be carefully attended to in the New Testament: εἰ κέκτησαι βιβλίον, εὐστιχὲς κτῆσαι αὐτό· μήποτε εὑρεθῇ ἐν αὐτῷ πρόσκομμα τῷ ἀναγινώσκοντι ἢ μεταγράφοντι (see Nestle, Bengel als Gelehrter, p. 24). Compare also what Chrysostom says regarding punctuation on Mt. viii. 9: τινὲς δὲ καὶ οὕτως ἀναγινώσκουσι τουτὶ τὸ χωρίον· εἰ γὰρ ἐγὼ ἄνθρωπος ὤν, καὶ μεταξὺ στίξαντες ἐπάγουσιν· ὑπὸ ἐξουσίαν ἔχων ὑπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ στρατιώτας. See also Victor (or whoever it is) on Mk. xvi. 9. On the change of the sense by means of false emphasis or punctuation see below, pp. (7), . J. A. Robinson thinks it probable that ὁ Ἀγαπητός is a separate title of the Messiah, and would point ὁ υἱός μου, ὁ Ἀγαπητός in Mk. i. 11, ix. 7 on the authority of the Ascensio Esaiae and the Old Syriac (see Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, ii. 501).