Codex Vaticanus: From Where?

           The provenance of a manuscript, when it can be ascertained, is an important thing to know.  For instance, when Codex W came to light in Egypt, the discovery of its essentially Byzantine text of Matthew and most of Luke (alongside the mainly Alexandrian text of the opening chapters of Luke and most of John) shows that before the mid-400s (working on the premise that Codex W has been correctly dated to the early 400s), showed that a well-developed Byzantine Text of the Gospels existed in Egypt by the time Codex W was made.

          Many textual critics consider no manuscript more valuable than Codex Vaticanus.  But what is Codex Vaticanus’ (Codex B, 03) provenance?   It has been at the Vatican Library ever since the Vatican Library was founded in 1475 (using earlier library-collections) under Sixtus IV.   There is no record of Codex Vaticanus’ presence in Rome prior to that time.  Sepulveda drew attention to Codex Vaticanus in the 1530s, and informed Erasmus of some of its readings. 

Basil Bessarion

          Is there anything we can say about where Codex Vaticanus was before that?  Perhaps.  It may have been in the possession of Basil Bessarion (1403-1472), who lived a very interesting life in the 1400s.  Born in Trebizond (modern Trabzon on the Black Sea), he became a monk and worked his way up through the ranks, so to speak, becoming metropolitan of Nicea in 1437.  In the same year, Bessarion traveled to Italy to take part in the Council of Ferrara-Florence.  By 1440, Bessarion had become a Cardinal and had even composed and signed a statement of unity (Oratio dogmatica de unione) which was perhaps the strongest formal expression of a desire for the reunion of the Western Roman Catholic Church with the Eastern Orthodox Church church since the earlier schism about the filioque clause.   After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the fall of Trebizond in 1461, Bessarion’s efforts to promote a formal ecclesiastical reunion foundered, but his influence in the West continued to rise.  He nearly became pope, but apparently some bishops were averse to giving such a position to a man who was from the East. 

          In 1468, Bessarion donated his personal library (which included more Greek manuscripts than any other library at the time) to the Republic of Venice, and this became the core of the Biblioteca Marciana (a.k.a. the Sansovino Library).  Among the volumes which can now be found at the Biblioteca Marciana is the manuscript known as Codex Venetus Marc. Gr. 6 (Old Testament Manuscript 122), in which, according to T.C. Skeat (in the essay “The Codex Vaticanus in the Fifteenth Century”), the text of Esther, Sirach, Judith, and Tobit was copied from Codex Vaticanus.  Skeat goes on to say that Codex Venetus Marc. Gr. 6 was among the manuscripts that had been owned by Bessarion. 

          If Bessarion was responsible for bringing Codex Vaticanus to Rome, this elicits another question:  where was Codex Vaticanus before that?  If we look at the data in Euthaliana, by Joseph Armitage Robinson, published in 1895 as Text & Studies, Vol. 3, (beginning on digital page 448 of the download) we will see proof, in a sub-chapter titled “Chapters of the Acts in À and B,” that the chapter-numbers in part of the book of Acts in Codex Sinaiticus (up to 15:40) are the same as the chapter-numbers in the book of Acts in Codex Vaticanus.  

          Robinson reasoned:  “Where did this system of numbers, common to À and B, come from?  The two codices have got hold of it quite independently of one another.  It cannot have been copied from B into À, for À has one number (M) [i.e., 40] which is not found in B : nor can it have been copied from À into B, for nearly a third of the numbers (from MB onwards) are not found in À.  We must go back to a common source – some MS which gave its numeration to them both :  and this seems to imply that the À and B were at an early stage of their history lying side by side in the same library.”

          What library?  Probably the library at Caesarea.  Sinaiticus was probably made there (not by Eusebius, but slightly later when Acacius was bishop).  J. R. Harris argued for a connection between Sinaiticus and Caesarea in 1893 in his composition “Stichometry” in the chapter “The Origin of Codices À and B,” on the basis of a small detail in Sinaiticus’ text.

    In Matthew 13:54, the scribe of À initially wrote Ἀντιπατρίδα instead of πατρίδα.  Antipatris (mentioned in Acts 23:31) was not far from the city of Caesarea, and the scribe’s thoughts may have wandered a bit, eliciting this blunder in À.  Harris put his suspicion this way:  “It is to my mind much the same as if a printed text of Shakespeare should put into Mark Antony's speech the line “I come to Banbury Caesar, not to praise him.”  Such a text would probably be the work of Oxford printers.”  (Harris’ meaning may be better appreciated if one understands that the town of Banbury is about 20 miles northwest of Oxford, and Antipatris is about 25 miles from Caesarea.)          

          One could augment Harris’ argument by pointing out two other readings in À: 

          —  In Luke 24:13, Codex À says that the distance between Emmaus and Jerusalem was 160, rather than sixty, stadia.  (I go into detail about this reading in the blog-post here.)  This reading almost certainly originated after Nicopolis was recognized (incorrectly) as being the same place as Emmaus, as Eusebius mentioned in his composition Onomasticon. 

          — In Acts 8:5, the scribe wrote Καισαριας where he should have written Σαμαριας.

          If Caesarea was the place where Sinaiticus was made, what evidence is there that Vaticanus (which supports none of À’s readings in Matthew 13:54, Luke 14:13, and Acts 8:5) was also produced there?  One item may point in this direction:  One of Bessarion’s better-known manuscripts, known as minuscule 205, was made for Bessarion in the 1400s by John Rhosus.  Its Gospels-text is Caesarean, agreeing at many points with the Armenian version.  205 was copied from 2886 (formerly called 205^abs); re-numbering was called for after Alison Sarah Welsby showed in 2011 that earlier scholars who had stated that 205abs was copied from 205 had gotten it backwards (at least, as far as the text of the Gospel of John is concerned).

          But there is another possibility.  Codex Vaticanus’ nearly unique format (having most of its text, other than the books of poetry in the Old Testament) written in three columns of text per page.  And B. H. Streeter wrote (on p. 113 of The Four Gospels – A Study of Origins, 1924 ed.), “It is stated in the Menologies – short accounts of a Saint for reading on his day – that Lucian bequeathed his pupils a copy of the Old and New Testaments written in three columns in his own hand.”  (The day assigned to Saint Lucian is either January 7 or October 15.)  Bruce Metzger (in Chapters in the History of New Testament Textual Criticism, in the chapter The Lucianic Recension of the Greek Bible, p. 6) refers to the same report, and adds the detail that the Menaeon states this three-column manuscript written in three columns per page ended up at a church in Nicomedia.   And prior to becoming cardinal of Nicea, Bessarion may have encountered it (and obtained it) there, and took it to Italy. 

          It is not impossible, considering that the three-column format is nearly unique to Vaticanus and the manuscript attributed to Lucian – that they are one and the same.  This would imply that Lucian of Antioch, rather than being the initiator of a recension that begat the Byzantine Text of the New Testament, perpetuated the mainly Alexandrian text he found in exemplars at Caesarea which had been taken there from Egypt about a hundred years earlier by Origen.  If these MSS were also the ancestors of Codex Sinaiticus, then the genealogical connection between Sinaiticus and Vaticanus does not go back to the second century (as Hort seems to have thought) but to the third century. 

          To review the steps in Vaticanus’ history that have been suggested:
          (1)  Vaticanus was produced at Caesarea under the supervision of Lucian of Antioch, no later than 312 (when Lucian was martyred), using as exemplars manuscripts that had been brought to Caesarea by Origen in 230-231.

          (2)  Before Vaticanus was taken from Caesarea to Nicomedia, its text in Acts was supplemented with chapter-numbers from the same non-extant source which supplied the chapter-numbers to Acts in Codex À.  

           (3) Vaticanus was taken to Nicomedia.  (Meanwhile, Codex Sinaiticus was taken to St. Catherine's monastery.)  Much later, in the 1400s, Bessarion acquired it and took it with him to Italy, where, via means unknown, it was placed in the collection in the Vatican Library.   

 

Saint Spyridon and the Early Byzantine Text

Saint Spyridon

          Saint Spyridon (270-358) – champion of orthodoxy, worker of wonders, friend of Saint Nicholas – served as bishop of Tremithus on the island of Cyprus in the early 300’s, after the death of his wife.  Many stories about Spyridon circulate to this day.  Some of them are fabulous to the point of being amusing.  Others seem to have at least a kernel of truth.  But one in particular has special significance to New Testament textual criticism.

          Spyridon, who had attended the Council of Nicea, later attended a gathering of bishops on the island of Cyprus.  Also in attendance was another bishop, Triphyllius, who was as well-known for his eloquence as Spyridon was for his faithfulness and simplicity.  At one point during the gathering, Triphyllius delivered a discourse in which he quoted the words of Christ in Mark 2:9 – “Arise, take up your bed, and walk” – except Triphyllius did not quote precisely:  instead of using κράββατος, the word for “bed” that is found in the text, he used σκιμπους.

          Probably Triphyllius’ intention was to ensure that his hearers would understand that the paralytic’s bed was something more like a stretcher than a bed with a frame to hold a mattress.  But Spyridon did not tolerate this deviation.  Standing up in the assembly, he asked, “Are you greater than the one who uttered the word κράββατόν, that you are ashamed to use his words?”.  He then turned and looked out at the crowd, convicting them the man of eloquence should be made to know his limits. 

          Such is the report from the Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, who wrote around 440.  This little incident was so instructive that it was even recollected centuries later, in 1611, by the author of the preface to the King James Version:  “A godly Father in the Primitive time shewed himself greatly moved, that one of the newfangleness called κράββατον σκιμπους, though the difference be little or none.”  

Spyridon is the patron saint of the Greek
island of Corfu, about 1000 miles from
Cyprus, where he served as bishop.

       

           Here is the text-critically interesting aspect of this anecdote:  observe how vigilantly resistant Spyridon was to any sort of textual alteration.  Even a benign deviation undertaken to ensure comprehension was opposed immediately and forcefully.  Such a mindset is the complete opposite of what is required for the theory that during the age of Spyridon (in the early 300’s), bishops throughout Christendom were setting aside their previously cherished manuscripts of the Gospels in order to adopt a previously unseen edition which contained hundreds of previously unseen readings, including whole episodes which to many bishops were utter novelties.

          Hort, whose 1881 Notes on Select Readings is still recycled to this day by commentators, depicted the means by which John 7:53-8:11 was accepted as follows:  “It would be natural enough that an extraneous narrative of a remarkable incident in the Ministry, if it were deemed worthy of being read and perpetuated, should be inserted in the body of the Gospels.” 

          Such an appraisal of the situation in the early-mid 300’s seems flatly unrealistic in a milieu in which, when a single word was exchanged for a synonym, a memorable protest commenced.  The report, found in medieval Menologions, that Lucian of Antioch personally made a manuscript of the entire Bible, written in three columns per page, can be believed.  But can it be believed that a novel edition of the books of the New Testament, based on Lucian’s work, spread throughout Greek-speaking Christendom in the 300’s, and that although it contained remarkable anecdotes previously not contained in the Gospels, the bishops raised no objections and meekly embraced these previously unknown passages, and quietly set aside the manuscripts which their predecessors had risked their lives to protect?  At a time when authors were willing to threaten copyists with severe curses if they failed to make accurate copies of their uninspired compositions, what bishops would find it “natural” to set aside their old exemplars, and replace them with new ones that contained new anecdotes – and not just any anecdotes, but one in which Jesus forgives an adulteress who shows no signs of repentance, and another in which Jesus states that believers will survive snake-handling and poison-drinking?

          When one looks into the question of where the churches in Asia, Greece, Cyprus, and Syria obtained their Greek New Testament manuscripts in the early 300’s, in light of several factors such as the tendency toward vigilance exemplified by Spyridon, it seems rather unlikely that the bishops in those areas quietly standardized their Gospels-text.  It seems far more likely that they basically kept on using the same texts that their predecessors had used. 

          If so, then this would indicate that when we see essentially Byzantine text-forms of the Gospels in the Gothic version (in the mid-300’s), in the Peshitta (no later than the late 300’s), in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa (in the late 300’s), in the writings of Basil of Caesarea (in the mid/late 300’s), in the writings of Epiphanius (also in the late 300’s), and in the writings of John Chrysostom (late 300’s/very early 400’s), this is not because a relatively novel text-form had suddenly become dominant in each of their far-removed locales.  Rather, it is because the manuscripts used in those witnesses’ locales echoed an ancient text-form (perhaps known to Lucian, but pre-dating him) that was at least 70% Byzantine.  This early stratum of the Byzantine Text, though it lacked the favorable climate-conditions that allowed manuscript-preservation in Egypt, had the advantage of a different sort of climate:  the climate of Christian bishops’ tenacious resistance to textual novelty in the 300’s.