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Codex Alexandrinus
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The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, MS Royal 1. D. V-VIII; Gregory-Aland no. A or 02, Soden d 4) is a 5th century manuscript of the Greek Bible,[The Greek Bible in this context refers to the Bible used by Greek-speaking Christians who lived in Egypt and elsewhere during the early history of Christianity. This Bible contained both the Old (translation) and New Testaments in Koine Greek.] containing the majority of the Septuagint and the New Testament.
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The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, MS Royal 1. D. V-VIII; Gregory-Aland no. A or 02, Soden d 4) is a 5th century manuscript of the Greek Bible,[The Greek Bible in this context refers to the Bible used by Greek-speaking Christians who lived in Egypt and elsewhere during the early history of Christianity. This Bible contained both the Old (translation) and New Testaments in Koine Greek.] containing the majority of the Septuagint and the New Testament. It received the name Alexandrinus from its having been brought by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Cyril Lukar from Alexandria to Constantinople. Wettstein designated it in 1751 by letter A, and it was the first manuscript to receive thus a large letter as its designation.
Along with the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. It derives its name from Alexandria where it resided for a number of years before being given to the British people in the 17th century. Until the later purchase of the Codex Sinaiticus, it was the best manuscript of the Greek Bible deposited in Britain.[Scrivener in 1875 wrote: "This celebrated manuscript, by far the best deposited in England". F. H. A. Scrivener, Six Lectures on the Text of the New Testament and the Ancient Manuscripts (Cambridge, 1875), p. 51. ] Today, it rests along with Codex Sinaiticus in one of the prominent showcases in the Department of Manuscripts of the British Library.
Contents
The book is in quarto, and now consists of 773 vellum folios (630 in the Old Testament and 143 in the New Testament), bound in four volumes (279 + 238 + 118 + 144). Three volumes contain the Septuagint, Greek version of the Old Testament, with the complete loss of only ten leaves. The fourth volume contains the New Testament with 31 leaves lost. The codex contains almost a complete copy of the LXX, including the deuterocanonical books 3 and 4 Maccabees, Psalm 151 and the 14 Odes. The "Epistle to Marcellinus" attributed to Saint Athanasius and the Eusebian summary of the Psalms are inserted before the Book of Psalms. It also contains all of the books of the New Testament, in addition to 1 Clement (lacking 57:7-63) and the homily known as 2 Clement (up to 12:5a).
There is an appendix marked in the index, which lists the Psalms of Solomon and probably contained more apocryphal/pseudepigraphical books, but it has been torn off and the pages containing these books have also been lost.
Due to damage and lost folios, various passages are missing or have defects:
- Lacking: 1 Sam 12:17-14:9 (1 leaf); Ps 49:20-79:11 (9 leaves); Matt 1:1-25:6 (26 leaves); John 6:50-8:52 (2 leaves); 2 Cor 4:13-12:6 (3 leaves)
- Damaged: Gen 14:14-17, 15:1-5, 15:16-19, 16:6-9 (lower portion of torn leaf lost)
- Defects due to torn leaves: Gen 1:20-25, 1:29-2:3, Lev 8:6,7,16; Sirach 50:21f, 51:5
- Omitted: Luke 22:43-44; ; Rom 16:24
It is an important witness for the Pericope Adultera (John 7:53-8:11), though the pericope is located on the lost two leaves (John 6:50-8:52), by counting the lines we can prove that it was not in the book - there was not room for it.
The New Testament - fourth volume - books follow in order: Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Catholic epistles, Pauline epistles (Hebrews placed between 2 Thesssalonians and 1 Timothy), Book of Revelation.
Description
The manuscript measures 12.6 by 10.4 inches (32 by 26 cm) and most of the folios were originally gathered into quires of 8 leaves each. In modern times it was rebound into quires of 6 leaves each. The material is thin, fine, and very beautiful vellum, often discoloured at the edges, which have been damaged by age and moreso through the ignorance or carelessness of the modern binder, who has not always spared the text, especially at the upper inner margin.
The only decorations in the manuscript are decorative tailpieces at the end of each book (see illustration) and it also shows a tendency to increase the size of the first letter of each sentence.
The text in the codex is written in two columns in uncial script, with between 49 and 51 lines per column and 20 to 25 letters per line. The beginning lines of each book are written in red ink and sections within the book are marked by a larger letter set into the margin. Words are written continuously in a large, round uncial hand with no accents and only some breathings (possibly added by a later editor). The letters are larger than those of the Codex Vaticanus. There is no division of words, but some pause are observed in places in which should be a dot between two words. The Old Testament quotations are marked on the margin by the sign >.
The interchange of vowels of somewhat similar sound is very frequent in this manuscript. The letters ? and ? are occasionally confused, and the substitution of ?G for GG. It may be an argument which points to Egypt. In text a lot of itacistic errors, they are often to be met with; for example, a? being exchanged for e, e? for ? or ? for ?. Some letters have Coptic shapes (f.e. ?, ?, ?, and ?).
Codex Alexandrinus is distinguished among the oldest manuscripts by the use of capital letters to indicate new sections. The letters have elegant shape, but a little less simple than those in Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. These letters, at the end of a line, are often very small, and much of the writing is very pale and faint. At the end of each book the colophon is ornamented by pretty arabesque from prima manu. In the 19th century the codex had been judged to be carelessly written. Besides the other corrections by later hands there are not a few instances in which the original scribe altered what he had first written.
There are found the Ammonian Sections with references to the Eusebian Canons stand in the margin of the text of the Gospels. It contains divisions into larger sections - ?efa?a?a, the headings of these sections (t?t???) stand at the top of the pages. The places at which those sections commence are indicated throughout the Gospels, and in Luke and John their numbers are placed in the margin of each column. To all the Gospels (except Matthew, because of lacunae) is prefixed a table of divisions.
The various sections into which the Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse were divided by Euthalian apparatus and others, are not indicated in this manuscript. A cross appears occasionally as a separation in the Book of Acts. A larger letter in the margin throughout the New Testament marks the beginning of a paragraph.
The codex was written by two scribes (according to Kenyon's opinion there were five scribes). The corrected form of text agrees with codices D, N, X, Y, G, T, ?, S, F and the great majority of the minuscule manuscripts.
Textual features
The Greek text of the codex is a representative of the Byzantine text-type in the Gospels and the Alexandrian text-type in the rest books of the New Testament, though with some Western readings. Kurt Aland placed it in Category III in the Gospels, and in Category I in rest of the books of the New Testament. In the Gospels, as a representant of the Byzantine text, it has some affinities to the textual family Family ?, though it is not member of this family.
Textual critics have had a challenging task in classifying the Codex, with the exact relationship to other known texts and families still disputed. The gospels are mainly of the Byzantine text-type, but there are a number of Alexandrian features. Soden associated the text of the gospels with Family ?. It is the oldest example of the Byzantine type text.
Alexandrinus follows the Alexandrian readings through the rest of the New Testament, however, the text goes from closely resembling Codex Sinaiticus in the Pauline epistles, to more closely resembling the text of a number of papyri (74 for Acts, 47 for the Apocalypse). The text of Acts frequently agrees with the biblical quotations made by St. Athanasius. The gospels are cited as a "consistently cited witness of the third order" in the critical apparatus of the Novum Testamentum Graece, while the rest of the New Testament is of the "first order." In the Book of Revelation and in several books of the Old Testament, it has the best text of all manuscripts.
It was the first manuscript of great importance and antiquity of which any extensive use was made by textual critics.
Provenance
The manuscript's original provenance is unknown. Alexandria is most probable.
In the Acts and Epistles we can not find such chapter divisions, whose authorship is ascribed to Euthalius, Bishop of Sulci, come into vogue before the middle of the fifth century. Codex Alexandrinus contains the Epistle of Athanasius on the Psalms to Marcellinus, it cannot be considered earlier than A.D. 373. The presence Epistle of Clement, which was once read in Churches recalls to a period when the canon of Scripture was in some particulars not quite settled. Codex Alexandrinus was written a generation after codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, but it may still belong to the fourth century. It cannot be later than the beginning of the fifth.
A 13th or 14th century Arabic note on folio 1 reads: "Bound to the Patriarchal Cell in the Fortress of Alexandria. Whoever removes it thence shall be excommunicated and cut off. Written by Athanasius the humble."
A 17th century Latin note on a flyleaf (from binding in a royal library) states that the manuscript was given to a patriarchate of Alexandria in 1098 (donum dedit cubicuo Patriarchali anno 814 Martyrum), although this may well be "merely an inaccurate attempt at deciphering the Arabic note by Athanasius (possibly the patriarch Athanasius III, who died about 1308)."
According to an Arabic note on the reverse of the first leaf of the manuscript, the manuscript was written by the hand of Thecla, the martyr, a notable lady of Egypt, a little later than the Council of Nice (A.D. 325). Tregelles made another suggestion, the New Testament volume has long been mutilated, and begins now in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, in which chapter the lesson for Thecla's Day stands. "We cannot be sure how the story arose. It may be that the manuscript was written in a monastery dedicated to Thecla." Tregelles thought that Thecla's name might have on this account been written in the margin above, which has been cut off, and that therefore the Egyptians imagined that Thecla had written it.
In Britain
The codex was brought to Constantinople in 1621 by Cyril Lucar (first a patriarch of Alexandria, then later a patriarch of Constantinople) who then presented it to Charles I of England in 1627, through the hands of Thomas Roe (together with minuscule 49), the English ambassador at the court of the Sultan. It became a part of the Royal Library, British Museum and now the British Library. It was saved from the fire at Ashburnam House (the Cotton library) on 23 October 1731, by the librarian, Bentley.
Richard Bentley made collation in 1675. The Epistles of Clement of the codex were published in 1633 by Patrick Young, the Royal Librarian. The first collation was made by Alexander Huish, Prebendary of Wells, for the London Polyglot Bible (1657). The Old Testament was edited by Ernst Grabe in 1707-1720, and New Testament in 1786 by Carl Gottfried Woide, in facsimile from wooden type. Woide made some mistakes, e.g. in 1 Tim 3:16he edits TS efa?e????, and combats in his prolegomena the opinion of Wettstein, who maintained that ?S efa?e???? was the original reading, and that the stroke, which is some lights can be seen across part of the ?, arose from part of a letter visible through the vellum. Part of the ? on the other side of the leaf does inserted the O. Another errors of Woide were made in the Epistle to Ephesians - the substitution of e??????e for e?????te (4:1) and p?a???t?? for p?a?t?t?? (4:2).
Woide's errors were corrected in 1860 by B. H. Cowper, and E. H. Hansell, with three other manuscripts, in 1864. The Old Testament portion was also published in 1816-1828 by Baber. The entire manuscript was issued in photographic facsimile by the British Museum, under the supervision of E. Maunde Thompson in 1879 and 1880.
See also
Further reading
- Burkitt, F. C. Codex 'Alexandrinus, JTS XI (Oxford, 1909-1910), pp. 663-666.
- Calkins, Robert G. Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1983.
- Hernández, Juan. Scribal Habits and Theological Influences in the Apocalypse: The Singular Readings of Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Ephraemi. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006.
- Kenyon, Frederick G. Codex Alexandrinus. London: British Museum, 1909. (Facsimile edition).
- Lake, Kirsopp.
- Skeat, T. C. The Provenance of the Codex Alexandrinus, JTS VI (Oxford, 1955), pp. 233-235.
- Thompson, E. M. Facsimile of the Codex Alexandrinus (4 vols., London, 1879-1883).
- Woide, C. G. Novum Testamentum Graecum e codice ms. alexandrino, London 1786.
External links
Images
- at the CSNTM
-
- British Library website
Articles
- at the Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism'
- at the C. R. Gregory, "Canon and Text of the New Testament" (1907)
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