The Codex Legionensis, designated l or 67 (in the Beuron system), is a 7^th century Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 script of the Old

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

 and New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

. The text, written on vellum

Vellum

Vellum is mammal skin prepared for writing or printing on, to produce single pages, scrolls, codices or books. It is generally smooth and durable, although there are great variations depending on preparation, the quality of the skin and the type of animal used...

, is in a fragmentary condition. In some parts it represents the Old Latin

Vetus Latina

Vetus Latina is a collective name given to the Biblical texts in Latin that were translated before St Jerome's Vulgate Bible became the standard Bible for Latin-speaking Western Christians. The phrase Vetus Latina is Latin for Old Latin, and the Vetus Latina is sometimes known as the Old Latin Bible...

 version, while follows Jerome

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...

's Vulgate

Vulgate

The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...

 in others. The codex is a palimpsest

Palimpsest

A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin palimpsēstus from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος originally compounded from πάλιν and ψάω literally meaning “scraped...

.

Description

The text of the New Testament has survived on 40 leaves of the codex. The leaves have measures 37 by 24 cm. The text is written in 2 columns of 38-55 lines per page. The text is written in a semi-uncial hand, in Visigothic characters. The fragments contain texts of James 4:4 - 1 Peter 3:14; 1 John 1:5 - 3 John 10; Acts 7:27-11:13; 14:21-17:25. It contains also a fragment of the Books of Maccabees. The text of the codex represent a Vulgate with Old Latin elements, especially in the First Epistle of John

First Epistle of John

The First Epistle of John, often referred to as First John and written 1 John, is a book of the New Testament. This fourth catholic or "general" epistle is attributed to John the Evangelist, traditionally thought to be the author of the Gospel of John and the other two Epistles of John. This...

. The text is close to the Liber Comicus

Liber Comicus

Liber Comicus Toletanus Teplensis , designated by t or 56 , is the oldest known lectionary from the Iberian Peninsula, dated to somewhere between the 7th and 9th centuries....

. Te codex also contains the spurious text of the Comma Johanneum

Comma Johanneum

The Comma Johanneum is a comma in the First Epistle of John according to the Latin Vulgate text as transmitted since the Early Middle Ages, based on Vetus Latina minority readings dating to the 7th century...

 (1 John 5:7). As it is a palimpsest

Palimpsest

A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin palimpsēstus from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος originally compounded from πάλιν and ψάω literally meaning “scraped...

, the text could be overwritten. The younger upper text contains a Rufinus

Rufinus

Rufinus may refer to:*Saints Rufinus, eleven saints named Rufinus in Roman Martyrology*Rufinus of Assisi, 3rd century saint and martyr*Rufinus , Christian martyr*Rufinus , 3rd century governor of Roman Britain...

' translation of Eusebius' Church history

Church History (Eusebius)

The Church History of Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea was a 4th-century pioneer work giving a chronological account of the development of Early Christianity from the 1st century to the 4th century. It was written in Koine Greek, and survives also in Latin, Syriac and Armenian manuscripts...

. The whole book contains 275 leaves.

History

F. H. A. Scrivener, Samuel Berger, and Bruce M. Metzger dated it to the 10th century. Recently it was re-dated to the 7th century. It was discovered by Rudolf Beer. It was examined and described by Samuel Berger and the first collation of the codex was made in 1584 by Fr. Trugillo for Cardinal Carafa. It is housed now in the Vatican Library

Vatican Library

The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...

 (Lat 4859). It was examined by Bonifatius Fischer

Bonifatius Fischer

Bonifatius Fischer was a German biblical scholar, textual critic of the Vulgate, and benedictine.Fischer questioned Jerome's authorship of some parts of the New Testament of Vulgate....

 and Thiele. Fischer edited its text in 1963. Currently it is housed at the Basilica of San Isidoro

Basilica of San Isidoro

The Basilica of San Isidoro is a church in León, Spain, located on the site of an ancient Roman temple. Its Christian roots can be traced back to the early 10th century when a monastery for Saint John the Baptist was erected on the grounds....

 (15) at León

León, Spain

León is the capital of the province of León in the autonomous community of Castile and León, situated in the northwest of Spain. Its city population of 136,985 makes it the largest municipality in the province, accounting for more than one quarter of the province's population...

. The manuscript is cited in several critical texts

Textual criticism

Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...

of the Greek and Latin New Testament.