Today, let’s look into how to read a Greek manuscript of the
Gospels – an important skill that every New Testament textual critic should
have. If you do not already know some
New Testament Greek, use
This
List of Free Resources for Learning New Testament Greek, and after a year
or so you should have enough skill to understand everything that I am about
to describe.
Now let’s
explore an important medieval Greek manuscript of the Gospels:
minuscule 9.
All Greek manuscripts are important, but this one is especially
significant historically, because it was used by the scholar Robert Stephanus
in his compilation of the Greek New Testament in 1550.
That is, out of the hundreds of Greek Gospels-manuscripts
that exist, this is one that was studied and used the most in the 1500s, as the
Textus Receptus – the base-text for
the King James Version – was developed. Minuscule 9 – called witness ιβ′ (i.e.,
#12) by Stephanus – is kept at the National Library of France.
It was produced in 1168. You can download page-views of the entire
manuscript from
the
Gallica website – just select “Manuscripts” from the options in the first
sub-menu there, and then search for
Grec
83, and use the menu on the far left of the page to complete the download.
(You will need to agree to Gallica’s Terms
& Conditions.)
After
opening the manuscript, the first thing we find is a summary of the
manuscript’s contents, written relatively recently.
Most manuscripts that are kept in
library-collections have this sort of note, and if we pay attention to their
contents, we may save some time; these notes often tell readers a little about
the manuscript’s history, and list the page-numbers on which each Gospel
begins, and also tell about whatever sections might be missing or out of order.
We can deduce from the information on this
page that minuscule 9 was once known as Regius 83 (when it was in the library
of the king of France), a useful data-nugget if one ever wishes to look for
references to this manuscript in books written before its Gregory-Aland
inventory number became the standard nomenclature by which it was known.
Next, we
encounter in minuscule 9 a one-page Prologue to the Four Gospels.
It looks like someone had intended to draw
the
symbols of the Evangelists in the four corners of the page, surrounding the
semi-cruciform text – if you look closely you can see the sketched outline of
Mark’s lion in the northwest corner – but this task was never completed.
The Prologue explains the symbolic connection
between the Gospels and their symbols (man, lion, ox, and eagle).
On the next
page, framed within a red border, is Eusebius of Caesarea’s letter
To Carpian (
Ad Carpianus), which provides brief instruction on how to use the
Eusebian Canons, Eusebius’ cross-reference system for the Gospels.
The title appears in uncial letters, the
outlines of which were drawn, and then filled with red pigment.
There is an elaborate initial “A” in which
blue, red, and yellow pigment has been used.
Within the text, the letter
omicron
and a few other letters are sporadically filled in or outlined in red.
(This feature appears frequently in the
Gospels-text as well.)
An
English translation of Eusebius’ letter to Carpian is online, and so is
a table
of the Canons themselves.
Next,
several pages are filled by the Eusebian Canons. The canon-lists are framed by decorative
columns, resembling rounded doorways at the entrance to a temple. At the end of the canons, two columns have
been left blank. Then comes the Kephalaia, or chapter-list, for the
Gospel of Matthew, filling a page and a half.
After a
blank page, the text of the Gospel of Matthew begins, after its title, which is
written in large red letters. A huge
initial “B,” somewhat reminiscent of the initials in the Bury Bible, but not
quite as ornate, fills most of the page; the rest of the text on the page is
written in uncials.
On the next
page, the text of Matthew continues. The
Greek book-title has been written at the top of the page, and at some point this
was supplemented by the Latin book-title as well.
Continuing
to the following page, readers may notice small Greek letters beta and gamma in the outer margin.
These are section-numbers, corresponding to the section-numbers that
appear in the Eusebian Canon-tables.
Within the text, one can detect small breaks where one section ends and
another begins; the first letter of the new chapter is written in red. Also,
you can see at the beginning of the chapter a small “+” symbol. Often (as we see here in minuscule 9 at the
third section), this “+” is accompanied by another symbol that represents the
word arche, “beginning/” This means that at this point, a daily
reading begins. Often the arche-symbols
are supplements by telos-symbols,
signifying the ends of the segment for the daily reading. (If we turn ahead to page 11, at the end of
Matthew 2:12 we can see a telos-symbol
at the end of a line, and alongside the next line, the arche-symbol is in the margin.)
By the way,
if you have learned your Greek numerals, you can easily follow along with the
section-numbers that are in the inner margin of the 27th edition of
the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece. Sometimes, a manuscript’s section-numbers
will not correspond exactly to the Nestle-Aland arrangement, but they usually
do.
In
minuscule 9, ordinary page-numbers have been added in the upper right corner of
the page – although it is more precise to call the numbers in this manuscript leaf-numbers rather than page-numbers,
because they appear on every other page, denoting the individual leaf, on which
there is (a) a front page, and (b) a back page. If we turn to page 10a, we will see in the left margin a stack of four symbols (each
looking like “├”). Sometimes such marks
appear in the form of little arrow-markers (>). They are there to indicate that in the lines
of text that they accompany, there is a quotation from the Old Testament.
If we look
at the bottom of page 10
a, we will
see a chapter-number –
α – and the
chapter-title (περι των μαγων, that is,
About
the Wise Men).
At the top of leaf 12,
the next chapter-number and chapter-title (
titloi
– the same as the
Kephalaia, except they
appear here one at a time) are supplied at the top of the page, and the
chapter-title also appears in the outer margin alongside the exact point where
the chapter begins – in this case, at Matthew 2:16.
(For more information about the
Kephalaia, see the post
Kephalaia: The Ancient Chapters of the Gospels.)
Sometimes, the
titloi appear at the foot of the page.
Occasionally,
one will encounter a hole in the parchment, such as the one in minuscule 9 on leaf
17. Almost always, these holes were made
during the preparation of the parchment, and scribes simply wrote around
them.
Also in
minuscule 9, one will occasionally find little notes written in Latin in the
margin. Four such notes can be seen on the
front of leaf 20.
On leaf 22,
some damage has occurred to the manuscript, and a repair has been attempted:
part of the lower portion of the leaf has been ripped away. Newer parchment has been glued to the old
parchment, and the small portion of the text that was lost has been supplied in
different handwriting. Technically, this
small bit of writing (less than four full lines) on the younger parchment
qualifies as a supplement.
On leaf 24,
we see the effect of a recurring problem in medieval manuscripts: when manuscripts were bound or rebound,
sometimes their pages were also recut, and sometimes this was carelessly done,
resulting in over-trimming. Fortunately
in this case, no Gospels-text was lost, but the book-title at the top of the
page has been cut. (Also notice on this
page the Latin translations of the chapter-numbers and chapter-titles.)
On the back
of leaf 27, there is something interesting:
in the text, Matthew 9:26 ought to read, και εξηλθεν η φημη αυτη εις
ολην την γην εκεινην. However, the
copyist skipped the words η φημη. When
this scribal error was detected, the missing words were added in the margin,
accompanied by a triangular set of red dots (\), and the same symbol was added in the text at the
point where the words η φημη should be read.
On leaf
28b, we encounter two more interesting features: first, at Matthew 10:4, there is a short margin-note
about Judas. And in the text of Matthew
10:5, the copyist momentarily omitted the word εθνων but caught his mistake and
added the word above the line at the place where it belongs.
On leaf
29a, there is another \ mark in the margin, but
in this case it is not in red, and there is no identical mark in the text;
instead, in the outer margin, there is a Latin note accompanied by two dots – ‥ – a distigma, or umlaut-like symbol.
Moving
along to leaf 37, we can see that somebody added red “<” marks in the outer
margin, to acknowledge the quotation from Isaiah 42 that Matthew makes in
12:18-21. These marks are not as neat as
some others, though, so it is possible that a different scribe is responsible.
On 37b and 38a, the original book-title that had been at the top of the
page, apparently trimmed away, has been replaced in very different handwriting.
In
the margin of 53a, alongside Matthew 19:27, there is a lectionary-related
symbol in the margin: in addition to arche and telos, here we see arcou
– that is, “resume.” Sometimes a lection
consisted of more than one segment of text, and this symbol introduced the
second segment.
On 59
a ,
there is another example of the use of the
‥ mark. In this case, the ‥ appears directly above the telos
symbol that follows the end of Matthew 21:43, and another ‥ appears in the margin, accompanying the note του ορθρου. This indicates that this passage was a
morning-time reading in the lection-cycle.
If this echoes the treatment of this passage in some otherwise unknown
early lection-cycle, it might have something to do with the absence of Matthew
21:44 in a few early witnesses – but such a lection-cycle would have to be
extremely early, inasmuch as one of the witnesses in which Matthew 21:44
appears to be missing is Papyrus 104, which competes with Papyrus 52 for the
title of the earliest extant fragment of the New Testament text.
On
67a, in the margin alongside the end
of Matthew 24:37, we encounter another lectionary-related mark: υπ, written with the υ below the π. This abbreviation stands for hyperbale, or, “jump ahead, signifying
that the rest of the lection consisted was somewhere other than the
immediately-following text. In this
case, we find arcou “resume”)
just a little further down the page, alongside Matthew 24:43.
On page 80a, there is a textual variant in the
margin: νυκτος is added to Mt. 27:64,
between αυτου and κλέψωσιν. This reading
is supported by L M 565 700 892 1424 and the Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, and a
correction in 1582.
At the end
of Matthew, on 81b, only slightly
separated from the end of 28:20, there is a colophon, that is, a closing-note
by the scribe: the end of the words of Matthew, from the Gospel according to Matthew,
which Matthew wrote in Hebrew in Palestine,
in the eighth year after the ascension of Lord.
Written in 2,522 remata, 2,560 stichoi. This
is followed by what appears to be the name of the scribe, Solomon, in stylized
lettering.
On the very
next page, 82a, the Kephalaia are
listed for the Gospel of Mark, below a braided heading-marker, for which
red, blue, yellow, and green pigments were used.
A few pages
appear to be missing – the last page of the Kephalaia-list has been replaced –
but the Gospel of Mark begins intact, with a very large initial “A” on 85a.
The opening title, drawn in red hollow uncials, is rather unusual.
 |
| Getting crazy with the flourishes. |
On
several of the pages of Mark which follow, one may notice an idiosyncrasy of
the scribe: when the word και appeared in the last line on a page, he often
wrote it as a και-compendium, i.e., an abbreviation, and extended the final
stroke in a fancy design below the line.
Sometimes the flourish is reinforced with red ink (as on page 111.) The stalks of the letters φ and ψ on the last
line of a page are sometimes similarly embellished.
The
Gospel of Mark ends on 131b, and a
nice little headpiece introduced the Kephalaia-list for Luke, with a red cross
in the margin.
On
133b, in the space left after the end
of Luke Kephalaia-list, someone has added a portrait of Luke the Evangelist,
writing his Gospel at a desk, framed within a heavy green background on three
sides. What appears to be a blue easel
with clawed legs sits nearby.
On 134a, the text of the Gospel of Luke begins, below the unusual title
and alongside a large initial “E.” On
the next page, the book restarts at verse 5 (which is not unusual in medieval
manuscripts) and there is another large initial “E,” very different in style
from the first one.
On
137b, the copyist made an
embarrassing mistake: he completely
skipped Luke 1:51, right in the middle of the Magnificat. The missing verse has been added in the
margin. A smaller mistake was made in
2:15; the words το γεγονος are missing in the text; they have been supplied in
the margin.
On
144b, the genealogy begins, and the format is unusual: numbers are assigned to each individual, and
the numbers continue on the next page, on which the text is arranged in three
columns. On 145b, the scribe returns to
a single-column format, but the numbers continue, all the way up to the
reference to God, at the end, who is numbered 77.
On
leaf 179 there is a small patch at the bottom.
On
183b, in Luke 13:28, there is an
initial omicron that is shaped like a
fish. Another fish-initial is on 214a.
Similar initials occur in some lectionaries.
In the first line of 187b, the initial in Luke 15:11 is
unusually large.
On 199a, the scribe skipped the words εν ποια in Luke 20:2. They are added in the margin.
The
Kephalaia-list for the Gospel of John is on 215a, with a red and green braided headpiece. On the opposite side of the page there is a
full-page portrait of John, composing his Gospel, framed on three sides by a
thick green border.
The
next leaf is clearly a supplement, the original opening page containing the
text of John 1:1-14a, is lost.
On
237a, there is a “jump ahead” symbol
alongside the line where John 7:53 begins, instructing the lector to move ahead
to 8:12 on the next page, where an αρξου (“Resume”) symbol appears. (This neatly illustrates a hypothesis
regarding the early loss of John 7:53-8:11: an early copyist, unfamiliar with
the local lectionary in which John 7:53-8:11 was skipped in the lection for
Pentecost-Day, possessed an exemplar in which he saw instructions to “Jump
ahead” at the end of John 7:52, and to “Resume” at 8:12, and, thinking the
instructions were meant for him rather than for the lector, omitted the
intervening verses. (See for more
information my e-book, A Fresh Analysis of John 7:53-8:11).
On
239a, a distigma (‥) appears in the
margin of John 8:36, where the copyist left out the word ουν. Another distigma appears in the text to
indicate where the word belongs.
 |
The full-page colophon
after the end of John. |
The text of John concludes on
241a.
241b contains a
cruciform-framed colophon that includes stichiometric information.
Beginning
on 272a below a decorative headpiece,
there is a lection-calendar for Sunday lections, beginning with the lection for
Easter. Incipit-phrases (the opening
words of a lection as read in the church-service) are included. This is the normal annual Synaxarion
calendar. An interesting minor detail in
these pages is the assorted knot-like designs which occasionally appear,
apparently serving no practical purpose – they seem to be doodles. Similar
knots appear in a wide range of manuscripts.
On
280a, a braided headpiece precedes
another part of the lection-calendar.
Another
headpiece is on 285b; yet another one
begins 287a, which has as part of its
design a “Jesus Christ, Victor” cross.
The incipit-phrases for Easter-week lections follow.
On
288a, after another headpiece, the
Heothina-series of lections is covered, even though no special marks accompany
the text of these lections in the Gospels-text.
On
288b, there is another
headpiece. The heading introduces the
Menologion-readings for the month of September. That is, unlike the first part
of the lection-calendar, in which all dates are arranged in relation to Easter,
these feast-days are assigned to dates on the calendar.
On 289b, another headpiece introduces
incipit-phrases for the Menologion-readings for the month of October. On 290a,
we see that Sergius and Bacchus’ feast-day is commemorated on October 7, and
Pelagia’s feast-day is commemorated on October 8. This is consistent with the designation of
John 8:3-11 as the lection in the Menologion for October 8.
At the top
of 290b, another headpiece introduces
incipit-phrases for the Menologion-readings for the month of November.
At the top
of 291b, there is another headpiece –
better executed than some of the others.
The list that follows provides incipit-phrases for the lections read in
December.
More
headpieces and more monthly lection-lists, with more knot-doodles in the margins, along with
simple pictures of the symbols of the Evangelists, continue, to the end of the
manuscript’s text on 248b. Then after a few blank pages, the back cover
is reached.
All in all,
minuscule 9 is a pretty good manuscript to use to get acquainted with the
standard format of medieval Greek Gospels-manuscripts. It does not have an overwhelming amount of
marginalia; its script is reasonably neat; its appearance is not marred by incessant
corrections. I hope this review of minuscule 9 has been informative and
instructive.
Readers are invited to double-check and supplement the data
in this post.
