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ACCOUNT

OF

MANUSCRIPTS CONTAINING THE FOUR GOSPELS.

UNCIALS.

THESE are large-letter MSS or Codices, and so called from the Latin Uncia, an inch. The following were written before the 7th century:

ABCDIJ N O P Q R Ta Tb To Z Ob 0.

is the Sinaitic, discovered by Tischendorf in the Convent of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, 1859, and considered by competent judges a genuine relic of the 4th century. It contains the New Testament entire. There have been nine or ten revisions of it, since it left the hand of the original scribe. The MS is denoted by the above Hebrew letter Aleph. The original writing, as distinguished from later corrections, will be designated in the Various Readings by *; as revised by the first corrector, a contemporary of the scribe, who revised the text with the aid probably of still another MS, by 1; by a second corrector, 2; by a third, 8: and so forth, down to the 12th century. "Far the greater part of the changes", says Scrivener, "belong to the seventh century"; they will be designated by. These changes assimilate the MS to the present Rec. Text.

A, the Alexandrine, now in the British Museum. It wants Matthew i. - xxv. 6, John vi. 50-viii. 52, 2 Cor. iv. 13-xii. 6. Its text approaches more nearly to the Received Text. Date about 450.

B, in the Vatican Library, Rome. It contains the Old and

the New Testament. The N. T. wants Heb. ix. 14 to the end of the Epistle; also the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, and the Apocalypse. Date, about 350.

C, Ephraem, in the Imperial Library, Paris, is a Palimpsest, or Rescript, so called from the fact that the original writing, the ink of which was a sort of paint, was wiped out, and the leaves were written over again—in this MS with the writings of Ephraem the Syrian. The original has been restored by chemical process. It contains about two thirds of the N. T. It was first corrected about a century after the first writing, and again about three centuries later. Date, earlier than 450.

D, Cambridge, or Beza's, in Cambridge, Eng. It differs from the Rec. Text more than any other, but often remarkably agrees with B and the ancient Latin MSS. It contains the Gospels and Acts, with many gaps. In critical weight it ranks the lowest. It has also a Latin Version, d; and the original writer of the Greek copy seems to have been a person ignorant of Greek, as indicated by his queer blunders. Date not later than 550.

I, of the 5th and 6th centuries, ranks with A and C, and contains the remains of very ancient MSS.

The others need no remark; they are chiefly of the 6th century. All the MSS in their Var. Read. will be designated like.

LATER UNCIALS OF PARTICULAR IMPORTANCE.

EKLXYEA O, of the 8th and 9th centuries.

E, in Basle, holds a signal place among MSS of this second class. Date about 750.

K, now in the Imperial Library, Paris, contains the Gospels entire, and has a text of great value. Date, 9th century.

L, in the Imperial Library, Paris, contains the Gospels almost entire, and agrees remarkably with B and the copies used by Origen. Date, 8th or 9th century.

X, in the University Library, Munich; with whose valuable text are also given commentaries of many of the Fathers, especially Chrysostom. Date, 9th or 10th century.

A, in the Library of St. Gall, is a very important MS, and particularly in Mark has a text of signal excellence. Date, 9th century.

CURSIVES.

These are the running-hand Greek Manuscripts, and number from 1. to nearly 500., extending from the 10th to the 16th century.

The most valuable of them, according to Tregelles, are 1. 33. 69.; of which, 1. is of the 10th century; 33. of the 11th; and 69. of the 14th. None of the later Uncials is comparable to I.; and 33. has been called "Queen of the Cursives."

ANCIENT VERSIONS.

(1) The Italic, or old Latin, version belongs to the 2d century, and its MSS are mostly of the 5th and 6th centuries, and are numbered from a to q. Of these Tregelles considers three, a, b, c, the primary; d, which is the Latin version of the Uncial D, is important only where the Greek of that MS is different from this, or is defective; f is the Italian recension of the old African Latin; the rest, except i and m, contain a mixed text.

(2) The Vulgate, quoted by Tischendorf, is the edition authorized by Clement VIII., 1592. It was first edited by Jerome in 383, and has since been variously emended. Other editions cited, both when they differ from or agree with the Clementine, are am (Amiatinus, of the 6th cent., the oldest and best extant, and the authority generally followed by Tregelles), for, fuld (both of the 6th cent.), tol, harl (of the 7th). The first of these other editions derives its name from the monastery of Amiata, where it was obtained, and it is now in the Library at Florence; the second, from Forojuliensis (the modern Friuli, Venetia); the third from the Library of Fulda (in Hesse-Cassel); the fourth from Toledo in Spain; the fifth from Harley, duke of Oxford, whose collection of MSS is preserved in the British Museum.

(3) syr-cu, the earliest and best not only of the Syriac, but of all the Versions, and presenting a text probably current in the 2nd century. It was brought over with other MSS from the Nitrian monasteries, in 1842, and having been placed in the British Museum was first brought into special notice by Rev. Dr. Cureton. It is of the 5th century. The text of Matthew is so peculiar, as to have led to a supposition by some Syriac writers, that it may have been from the original Hebræo-Syriac. It contains Mt. i—viii. 22; x. 31— xxiii. 25:1 Mk. only four verses of the last chapter: - Lk. ii. 48-iii. 16; vii. 33-xv. 21; xvii. 24-xxiv. 44:-Jo. i. 142; iii. 6-vii. 37; xiv. 11-29.

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syr-sch, the Peshito (or Simple) Version, edited by Schaaf, and originally made in the 2nd century; but the text is now in a very unsatisfactory state. It has been translated into English by Rev. Dr. Murdoch, New Haven, 1851.

syr-p, made at the request of Philoxenus, bishop in Phrygia, about the beginning of the 6th century, and revised by Thomas of Harkel in Palestine early in the 7th.

syr-jr, the Jerusalem Syriac Lectionary, made from an ancient and valuable Gr. text of the 5th century.

(4) Also, the Æthiopic, Armenian, Gothic, Coptic (or Memphitic), Sahidic (or Thebaic), made from the 3rd to the 5th century.

The Persian, Arabic, Slavonic, Francic, Anglo-Saxon were made from other Versions, and are useful only so far as they corroborate these, but no further.

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ANCIENT GREEK FATHERS, &c.,

CITED FOR THE VARIOUS READINGS.

Marcion, quoted by Tertullian and Epiphanius

TISCHENDORF gives these in the following order:

(1) Of the first three centuries :·

Clement of Alexandria

Origen, -Or-gr (original) Or-lat (Latin translation)
Irenæus, a disciple of Polycarp, and Bp. of Lyons,

Apostolic Constitutions, Cent. III. IV.

(Ir-gr, Ir-lat,)

Dialogue against the Marcionites.

Dionysius, Bp. of Alexandria.

Romanus

Hippolytus, disciple of Irenæus and Bp. of Portus

Justin Martyr

d. 220

d. 254

d. 202

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d. 264

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Polycarp, Bp. of Smyrna

Theodotus, the Gnostic, quoted by Cl. of Alex.

Besides these, Td refers to Ammonius of Alexandria; Archelaus of Mesopotamia; Athenagoras of Athens; Peter, Bp. of Alexandria; Tatian of Syria; Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bp. of Neocæsarea; Theophilus, Bp. of Antioch, &c.

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