Codex Vaticanus
The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), designated by siglum B or 03 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), δ 1 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the majority of the Greek New Testament. It is one of the four great uncial codices.[1]: 68 Along with Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Sinaiticus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. Using the study of comparative writing styles (palaeography), it has been dated to the 4th century.[2][3]
For other uses, see Codex Vaticanus (disambiguation).Name
Vaticanus
B
Greek Old Testament and Greek New Testament
4th Century
C. Vercellonis, J. Cozza, Bibliorum Sacrorum Graecus Codex Vaticanus, Roma 1868.
27 × 27 cm (10.6 × 10.6 in)
I
The manuscript became known to Western scholars as a result of correspondence between textual critic Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (known usually as Erasmus) and the prefects of the Vatican Library. Portions of the codex were collated by several scholars, but numerous errors were made during this process. The codex's relationship to the Latin Vulgate and the value Jerome placed on it is unclear.[4] In the 19th century transcriptions of the full codex were completed.[1]: 68 It was at that point that scholars became more familiar with the text and how it differed from the more common Textus Receptus (a critical edition of the Greek New Testament based on earlier editions by Erasmus).[5]
Most current scholars consider Codex Vaticanus to be one of the most important Greek witnesses to the Greek text of the New Testament, followed by Codex Sinaiticus.[2] Until the discovery by Tischendorf of Sinaiticus, Vaticanus was considered to be unrivalled.[6] It was extensively used by textual critics Brooke F. Westcott and Fenton J. A. Hort in their edition of The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881.[2] The most widely sold editions of the Greek New Testament are largely based on the text of the Codex Vaticanus.[2]: 26–30 Codex Vaticanus "is rightly considered to be the oldest extant copy of the Bible."[7]
The codex is named after its place of conservation in the Vatican Library, where it has been kept since at least the 15th century.[1]: 67
Text[edit]
Text-type[edit]
In the Old Testament, the type of text varies, with a received text in Ezekiel and a rejected one in the Book of Isaiah.[10] In Judges the text differs substantially from that of the majority of manuscripts, but agrees with the Old Latin, Sahidic version and Cyril of Alexandria. In Job, it has the additional 400 half-verses from Theodotion, which are not in the Old Latin and Sahidic versions.[10] The text of the Old Testament was considered by critics, such as Hort and Cornill, to be substantially that which underlies Origen's Hexapla edition, completed by him at Caesarea and issued as an independent work (apart from the other versions with which Origen associated it) by Eusebius and Pamphilus.[14]: 83
In the New Testament, the Greek text of the codex is considered a representative of the Alexandrian text-type. It has been found to agree very closely with the text of Bodmer 𝔓75 in the Gospels of Luke and John. 𝔓75 has been dated to the beginning of the 3rd century, and hence is at least 100 years older than the Codex Vaticanus itself. This is purported to demonstrate (by recourse to a postulated earlier exemplar from which both 𝔓75 and B descend) that Vaticanus accurately reproduces an earlier text from these two biblical books, which reinforces the reputation the codex held amongst Biblical scholars. It also strongly suggests that it may have been copied in Egypt.[15] In the Pauline epistles there is a distinctly Western element.[10] Textual critic Kurt Aland placed it in Category I of his New Testament manuscript classification system.[2] Category 1 manuscripts are described as "of a very special quality, i.e., manuscripts with a very high proportion of the early text, presumably the original text, which has not been preserved in its purity in any one manuscript."[2]: 335
History[edit]
Provenance[edit]
The provenance and early history of the codex are uncertain;[2] Rome (Hort), southern Italy, Alexandria (Kenyon,[14]: 88 ), and Caesarea (T. C. Skeat; Burkitt[26]) have been suggested as possible origins. Hort based his argument for Rome mainly on certain spellings of proper names, such as Ισακ and Ιστραηλ, which show a Western or Latin influence. A second argument was the chapter division in Acts, similar to the ones in Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, is not found in any other Greek manuscript, but is present in several manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate.[27]: 264–267 Robinson cautiously suggests however, the system of chapter divisions was introduced into the Vulgate by Jerome himself, due to his studies at Caesarea.[28] Hort also postulated the codex was copied from a manuscript whose line length was 12–14 letters per line, as when the codex's scribe made large omissions, they were typically 12–14 letters long.[27]: 233–234
Kenyon suggested the manuscript originated in Alexandria: "It is noteworthy that the section numeration of the Pauline Epistles in B shows that it was copied from a manuscript in which the Epistle to the Hebrews was placed between Galatians and Ephesians — an arrangement which elsewhere occurs only in the Sahidic version."[14]: 84 Kenyon also suggested the order of the Pauline epistles indicates a connection with Egypt, and as in Codex Alexandrinus, the titles of some of the books contain letters of a distinctively Coptic character, particularly the Coptic mu (which was also frequently seen at the ends of lines where space has to be economized).[14]: 84 According to Metzger, "the similarity of its text in significant portions of both Testaments with the Coptic versions and with Greek papyri, and the style of writing (notably the Coptic forms used in some of the titles) point rather to Egypt and Alexandria".[10]
It has been postulated the codex was at one time in the possession of Cardinal Bessarion, because the minuscule supplement has a text similar to one of Bessarion's manuscripts. T. C. Skeat believed Bessarion's mentor, the patriarchal notary in Constantinople John Chortasmenos, had the book brought to Rome from Constantinople around the time of the fall of the Byzantine Empire.[29] Paul Canart argued the decorative initials added to the manuscript in the Middle Ages are reminiscent of Constantinopolitan decoration found in the 10th century, but the poor execution gives the impression they were added in the 11th or 12th century, and likely not before the 12th century in light of the way they appear in connection with notes in a minuscule hand at the beginning of the book of Daniel.[30] T. C. Skeat first argued that Codex Vaticanus was among the 50 Bibles that the Emperor Constantine I ordered Eusebius of Caesarea to produce.[31]
The codex is generally assigned to the middle of the fourth century and considered contemporary or slightly earlier than Codex Sinaiticus, which can be dated with a reasonable degree of confidence between the early fourth century and the early fifth century.[32]
Digitised copy
Typographical facsimile (1868)
Documenta Catholica Omnia
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