Almost as soon as pages of the Gospels in Codex Sinaiticus were brought to the attention of European scholars, its textual affinities to the Gospel-text of Codex Vaticanus were recognized. Aside from a seven-chapter portion of the Gospel of John, both codices represent the Alexandrian transmission stream, and do so better than any manuscripts produced in later periods. The geographical origin of 01 and 03 has remained in dispute, although ever since the days of J. Rendel Harris a very strong cumulative case has existed for assigning 03 to Caesarea.
The similarity of the closing arabesque in 03 at the end of Deuteronomy, and thee arabesque in 01 at the end of Mark on a cancel-sheet in 01 may link both codices to either the same scriptorium or to the same scribe/diorthotes. Shown here are these details. The combination of vertically arranged dots, horizontal carets, and wavy horizontal lines is rather rare. The chapter-numbering in the margins of Acts shared by both manuscripts links them together historically later on, as shown conclusively by Robinson in Euthaliana (1895). The decorative coronis drawn by a scribe involved in their production appears to connect them to either the same location, or to the same mobile scribe who served as a diorthotes during the production of both codices.
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2 comments:
T.C. Skeat says that both the Vaticanus and Siniaticus were done in the scriptorium located at Caesarea under the direction of Eusebius who was acting under the authority of Constantine who in 330 AD wanted 50 copies of the Holy Scriptures for use in numerous churches in Constantinople.
Sinaiticus with the larger format was done first. When it was recognized that savings in parchment could be achieved with a smaller format, the Vaticanus came next. Skeat's view makes sense because the scale of the project of producing whole Bibles was so enormous in terms of expense and labor, that
no group of scribes could even attempt to produce them without the financial backing of the imperial government.
Yes; I have some problems with certain elements in Skeat's theory.
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