Book Review: Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts

            Those who have read Christopher de Hamel’s 2001 The Book.  A History of the Bible or his 2011 Bibles – An Illustrated History from Papyrus to Print (or any of his other books about medieval manuscripts) may have wished that they could have lingered longer over a select few of the hundreds of manuscripts that are mentioned therein.  Such readers get their wish in De Hamel’s latest work, Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts.  Twelve medieval manuscripts – of which a few are Biblical texts – are closely examined and their history is explored. 

            Following a brief preface in which Dr. de Hamel explains how to collate a manuscript (he is describing a general collation – counting pages and quires – not the sort of meticulous textual comparisons done for New Testament manuscripts), he devotes a chapter to each of the following manuscripts:  the Gospels of Saint Augustine, Codex Amiatinus , the Book of Kells, the Leiden Arata, the Morgan Beatus, Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah (Bodley 717), the Copenhagen Psalter, the Carmina Burana, the Book of Hours of Jeanne de Navarre, the Hengwrt Chaucer, the Visconti Semideus, and the Spinola Book of Hours.  All of these manuscripts can be viewed via these embedded links.  

            Each one has a claim to fame of some sort.  In the chapter about the Book of Hours of Jeanne de Navarre, not only do we see some excellent illustrations, framed within barbed quatrefoils, but we also learn about this book’s relatively recent history; it was thought to have been lost or destroyed in World War II after being looted by the Nazis and seized by Hermann Göring, but it survived, and was placed in the National Library of France in 1973.

            For New Testament researchers, the first three chapters are by far the most interesting – not only because of the details about these manuscripts’ contents, but also because of the information and measured deductions about their relationships to other manuscripts.   Examples of data-nuggets include these observations:

            ● The text in the Gospels of Saint Augustine not only echoes a very early Vulgate text but occasionally contains Old Latin readings shared in the homilies of Gregory the Great.  This manuscript has a page of illustrations somewhat like comic-book panels depicting events in the life of Christ (125r).  Constantine Tischendorf inspected the manuscript and signed his name on a flyleaf in the back in 1865.

            De Hamel shares an anecdote about the time when he, as the curator of the Parker Library, was entrusted with the care of the Saint Augustine’s Gospels when the manuscript was used in 2003 at the enthronement-ceremony of Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury.  As he was carrying the manuscript in a formal procession, and the congregation sang the hymn, “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise,” its thin parchment pages “hummed and fluttered in time with the music,” as if the manuscript had come to life. 

            ● Codex Amiatinus descends from a Latin Bible used by Cassiodorus (485-580).  It was made at Jarrow, in Britain, before the Vikings’ onslaught of the town in 794.  It weights a little over 75 pounds.

Snake-tailed Cat is not amused.
In the Book of Kells,
this creature rests his paws
on the text of Matthew 26:2.

           ● On a typical page of the Book of Kells – considered by many to be the most beautiful book in the world – “The decoration is more extensive and more overwhelming than one could possibly imagine.”  This Gospels-manuscript is famous for its meticulous artwork and super-elaborate and unexpected details.  (How many cats are in this manuscript?  There’s Grumpy Cat (180v), Purple Cat (272r), Blue Cat (50v), Leaping Cat (40r), Tail-biting Cat (66r), Leg-biting Cat (68r), Cat with Eagle (69r), Cat with Fish (71r), Fat-tongued Cat (72v), Snake-tailed Cat (111r), and many more.)  But the Book of Kells is also interesting textually; for example, it has the Alexandrian expansion of Matthew 27:49 (125v).         

            The manuscript featured in chapter 4 is also of special interest to readers of the New Testament:  it contains a Latin poem that is an interpolated translation of the Greek composition Phaenomena, by Aratus of Soli (315-240 B.C.) – which was quoted by Paul in Acts 17:28 during his discourse to the Athenian philosophers.  Its opening lines might be paraphrased as follows:

            Let us begin with Zeus,  

            Whose name we mortals never cease to praise

            in every street and marketplace of man.

            For everywhere is Zeus,

            in all the sea, and to the farthest bays,

            and ever do we need the help of Zeus.

            For we his offspring are,

            and he in kindness favors us with signs,

            awakens us, and sends us to our work.

This manuscript also features pictures of various constellations, and a geocentric diagram of the earth, sun, moon, planets, and zodiac constellations.

            The other manuscripts featured in this lavishly illustrated book are interesting due to their historical or literary importance, or because they are simply beautifully made.  The most unusual one in the collection – the Carmina Burana, made in the 1200’s as a collection of love poems, humorous verses, pious songs, some quite unpious songs, and even a composition about chess – enjoys more popularity now than it ever did in the Middle Ages, since part of it forms the basis for a famous musical composition by Carl Orff.

            Dr. de Hamel has traveled many miles – to Paris, Munich, St. Petersburg, even California – to bring us these profiles in scribal skill and artistry.  Those who join him in this journey of 610 pages will benefit from his experience, erudition, and engaging style.            

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Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts, by Christopher de Hamel, is © Christopher de Hamel, 2016.  Published by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books.

Other reviews (with pictures):  History Today, Patricia Lovett, Irish Times , Sydney Morning Herald .

Manuscripts Within Manuscripts: They Are Real!

Dr. Erik Kwakkel

            Regarding the previous post and the discovery of a manuscript-page containing John 7:50-8:12 within the binding of a printed book from the 1600’s – Happy April Fools Day!  There were some clues:  there is no research library in Christiania (Christiania is a small commune in Copenhagen); the subtitle to Hevelius’ Selenographia has the word Luna, not Lura (a Swedish word for “fool”); the initials of the Photomagnetic Hyperspectral Ultraviolet Light Scans (PHULS) can be pronounced “fools,” and there is no German periodical called the Zeitschrift des Lachens (“Journal of Laughter"). 

            Although this discovery was fictitious (including the digitally created picture), other discoveries – in which manuscripts are found within the bindings of other manuscripts, or within the bindings of printed books – are real, and the likelihood is very high that we are going to see more of them.  

            Rearrange the letters in the name of the fictitious Kirk Walkeek, and you can make the name of the real Dr. Erik Kwakkel of Leiden University, who, along with Dr. Joris Dik (whose name shares the same letters as the fictitious Jodi Kris) of Delft University of Technology, is developing technology and techniques which can read text on materials within book-bindings, using macro x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (MA-XRF) without dismantling the binding itself. 

Dr. Joris Dik

            Binding-materials have already been the source of several Greek uncial fragments, such as
            ● 0311 (which has text from Romans 8:1-13, and the earliest witness to the non-inclusion of εκ νεκρων in 8:11a),
            ● 0312 (which has text from Luke 5, from the late 400’s),
            ● 0313 (which has text from Mark 4:9 and 4:15 – from the late 400’s, with a distinct Byzantine reading),
            ● 0314 (which has text from John 5:43, from the late 400’s), and
            ● 0315 (which has text from Mark 2:9, 2:21, 2:25, and 3:1-2 – from the 300’s or 400’s!) – all fragments obtained by Christopher de Hamel.  (For some more information about 0313 see my report about it from 2015,)

This isn't real
either.  But
something like
 it is  –
wait and see.

            Kwakkel, who blogs about his work at https://medievalbooks.nl/ , also shares many images that he encounters in the course of his research at http://erikkwakkel.tumblr.com/ (often with brief analytical notes), as well as images and notes contributed by other researchers.  

            Entries from an earlier blog, now a sort of archive, can be found at the Turning Over a New Leaf project, found at https://medievalfragments.wordpress.com/ and assorted images related to the project – hundreds of them – can be found at Flickr. Several of his lectures are also available online, such as this one about  professional medieval book-production. 

            It is just a matter of time, I suspect, before the remains of a Greek manuscript will be found embedded within a book-binding.  (If one could aim a MA-XRF machine at book-bindings in the Vatican Library, the discovery would probably be made within a week.)   If the book is not very important, the Greek manuscript will probably be physically extracted.  But if the case is otherwise, or if there is a significant risk of damage involved in the extraction-process – for example, the risk of tearing apart a page secured by glue – then perhaps textual critics should create a new category of evidence:  besides papyri, uncials, minuscules, lectionaries, versions, and patristic quotations, I recommend that the symbol “r” (“remnant” or “recycled” or, in Dutch, “rest” or “remainder”) should be affixed to whatever uncial-number or minuscule-number is assigned to a fragment that remains embedded within another book – so as to convey that there is a lack of direct accessibility to such manuscripts that is not a factor with the others.

            Who knows how many libraries within libraries there are, hidden within the bindings of books?  There’s only one way to find out.
            

The Other Recently Discovered Fragment of the Gospel of Mark

          Lately there has been much ado about a small Greek fragment of the Gospel of Mark (the existence of which was reported in February of 2012 but which is still unpublished), which, according to various reports, was extracted from the papyrus lining of an ancient Egyptian mummy-mask, and which might have been produced in the first century.  Hardly anyone, however, seems to have noticed the discovery of another fragment from the Gospel of Mark which is relatively early, and which, unlike the elusive first-century fragment, has been published with photographs.  

Visit CSNTM to see 0313 in color and in ultraviolet.

          The fragment to which I refer is 0313, a small piece of a codex produced in the 300’s or 400’s.  As Peter Head reported in 2008 in the Journal of Theological Studies, 0313 was one of several fragments which had come into the possession of Dr. Christopher de Hamel.   (An additional report, describing the photographing of these fragments, was entered at the CSNTM site.)  The contents of 0313 were identified by Dr. Dirk Jongkind.  Head initially described it as “late fifth century” but a production-date in the 300’s cannot be ruled out.  This little scrap is thus one of the ten oldest Greek manuscripts that contain text from the Gospel of Mark.

          The text of 0313 from Mark 4:9 is (first line) Ο ΕΧΩΝ ΩΤΑ ΑΚΟΥΕΙ[Ν] [Α-] (second line) ΚΟΥΕΤΩ.  This is a notable feature, because 0313 thus confirms the early existence of a Byzantine reading that is not supported by the best representatives of the Alexandrian Text (À and B).  This reading is not supported by Codex D, either.  À*, B, and D support ΟΣ ΕΧΕΙ in Mark 4:9 instead of Ο ΕΧΩΝ.  (In addition, D, along with some Old Latin copies, has an entire extra phrase in Mark 4:9.)  

          When this passage is compared to the parallel-passages in Matthew 13:9 and Luke 8:8 (where the text reads Ο ΕΧΩΝ), it becomes clear that the adoption of the Alexandrian-Western reading of Mark 4:9 yields a Minor Agreement.In other words, if one builds on the premise that Matthew and Luke both used Mark, then one would need to posit that Matthew and Luke both read Ο ΕΧΩΝ and then each one replaced this with ΟΣ ΕΧΕΙ.  The simpler scenario is that they each wrote ΟΣ ΕΧΕΙ because they both read ΟΣ ΕΧΕΙ.  Unfortunately, this intrinsic evidence in favor of the Byzantine reading in Mark 4:9 is not mentioned in the apparatus of the UBS Greek New Testament, and it is not noted in the apparatus of the 27^th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, either.

          On the other side of the fragment, text from Mark 9:15 is found: 

ΤΗΝ ΟΔΟΝ.  ΟΠΟΥ ΣΠΙΡΕ

Ο ΛΟΓΟΣ· ΚΑΙ ΟΤΑΝ ΑΚΟΥ.

          0313 has the usual text of Mark 4:15, which allows us to perceive that we are indeed looking at a manuscript of Mark, rather than Matthew or Luke.  It also means that 0313 is a more accurate witness to the text of Mark 9:15 than Codex Vaticanus, which has an anomalous reading in this passage.

          If ΟΣ ΕΧΕΙ is the original text of Mark 4:9 (implying that À and B contain (part of) a Western reading at this point), then 0313 is among the earliest extant manuscripts of the original text of the verse.  Even little fragments can contribute to our knowledge of the text.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

          (In related news, I hope that you all have seen Christopher de Hamel’s clearly written and opulently illustrated  book, The Book. A History of the Bible.)

UPDATE (2019) - 0313 is now part of the manuscript-collection of the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.