Читать книгу The Criticism of the New Testament - Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener - Страница 14

א. Cod. Sinaiticus.

A. Cod. Alexandrinus.

B. Cod. Vaticanus 2066 (formerly 105 in the Library of the Basilian monks in the city) was judiciously substituted by Wetstein for the modern portion of the great Vatican MS., collated by Mico, and published in 1796 by Ford in his “Appendix” to Codex Alexandrinus, as also in 1868 by Vercellone and Cozza224. It is an uncial copy of about the end of the eighth century, and the volume also contains in the same hand Homilies of Basil the Great and of Gregory of Nyssa, &c. It was first known from a notice (by Vitali) and facsimile in Bianchini's Evangeliarium Quadruplex (1749), part i. vol. ii. p. 524 (facs. p. 505, tab. iv): Wetstein was promised a collation of it by Cardinal Quirini, who seems to have met with unexpected hindrances, as the papers only arrived after the text of the New Testament was printed, and then proved very loose and defective. When Tischendorf was at Rome in 1843, though forbidden to collate it afresh (in consequence, as we now know, of its having been already printed in Mai's then unpublished volumes of the Codex Vaticanus), he was permitted to make a facsimile of a few verses, and while thus employed he so far contrived to elude the watchful custodian, as to compare the whole manuscript with a modern Greek Testament. The result was given in his Monumenta sacra inedita (1846), pp. 407–432, with a good facsimile; but (as was natural under the unpromising circumstances—“arrepta potius quam lecta” is his own confession) Tregelles in 1845 was able to observe several points which he had overlooked, and more have come to light since Mai's edition has appeared. In 1866, however, Tischendorf was allowed to transcribe this document at leisure, and re-published it in full in his Appendix N. T. Vaticani, 1869, pp. 1–20.

This Codex is now known to contain the whole of the Apocalypse, a fact which the poor collation that Wetstein managed to procure had rendered doubtful. It is rather an octavo than a folio or quarto; the uncials being of a peculiar kind, simple and unornamented, leaning a little to the right (see p. 41, note): they hold a sort of middle place between square and oblong characters. The shape of beta is peculiar, the two loops to the right nowhere touching each other, and psi has degenerated into the form of a cross (see Plate iii, No. 7): delta, theta, xi are also of the latest uncial fashion. The breathings and accents are primâ manu, and pretty correct; the rule of the grammarians respecting the change of power of the single point in punctuation according to its change of position is now regularly observed. The scarcity of old copies of the Apocalypse renders this uncial of some importance, and it often confirms the readings of the older codices אAC, though on the whole it resembles them considerably less than does Cod. P, and agrees in preference with the later or more ordinary cursives.

C. Codex Ephraemi.

P. Codex Porphyrianus.

Note. Of the three large uncials which contain the Apocalypse, אA are complete, but C has lost 171 verses out of 405. In the 286 places wherein the three are available, and Lachmann, Tregelles, and Tischendorf, one or all, depart from the Received text, אAC agree fifty-two times, אA seventeen, אC twenty-six, AC eighty-two, and this last combination supplies the best readings: א stands alone twenty-three times, A fifty-nine, C twenty-seven. When C has failed us אA agree fifty-two times and differ eighty-eight.