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Manuscripts are written, as opposed to printed, copies of the original text or of a version either of the whole Bible or of a part thereof. After introductory remarks onmanuscripts in general, we shall take up in detail the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac,Armenian, andCoptic manuscripts of the Bible;manuscripts of other versions are not important enough to come within the scope of this article.
Manuscripts may be conveniently divided into papyrus and vellummanuscripts.
In the Roman Empire of the first three centuries of our era, papyrus was the ordinary writing material. Made out of strips of pith taken from the stem of theEgyptian water-plant of the same name, papyrus was very fragile, became brittle in air, crumbled with use, could not resist the disintegrating force of moisture and was quite impracticable for book-form. All papyrusmanuscripts of every sort are lost to us save such as were buried in exceedingly dry soil, like that of Upper and MiddleEgypt. Here theignorant fellaheen at one time wantonly destroyed vast quantities of papyrusmanuscripts.Egyptian excavators now prevent such destruction and keep on adding to our very considerable collections of papyri. It is more than likely that theNew Testament sacred writers or their scribes used ink and rolls of fragile papyrus for theirautographa (2 Corinthians 3:3;2 John 12). These originalmanuscripts probably perished towards the end of the first or the opening of the second century. We find no trace of them in either the Apostolic or the apologetic Fathers, — unless we exceptTertullian's words, "the authentic letters of the Apostles themselves", which are now generally set aside as rhetorical. A significantproof of the early loss of the autograph copies of theNew Testament is the fact that Irenæus never appeals to the original writings but only to all the painstaking and ancient copies (en pasi tois spoudaiois kaiarchaiois antigraphois), to the witness of those that saw John face to face (kaimartyrounton auton ekeinon ton katopsin ton Ioannen heorakoton), and to the internal evidence of the written word (kai tou logou didaskontos hemas).
Egypt clung to her papyrus rolls until the eighth century and even later. Vellum had been used before the time of Christ (cf. Pliny, "Historia Naturalis", xiii, 11), and during the time of the Apostles (2 Timothy 4:13). In the third century, it began, outside ofEgypt, to supersede papyrus; in the early part of the fourth century vellum and the codex, or book-form, gained complete victory over papyrus and the roll-form. When Constantine founded his capital of theByzantine Empire, he orderedEusebius to have fifty manuscripts of the Bible made on vellum (somatia en diphtherais) for use in the churches of Byzantium (Vita Constant., IV, 36). To the fourth century belong the earliest extant Biblicalmanuscripts of anything but fragmentary size.
Some vellummanuscripts of the greatest importance are palimpsests (from Lat.palimpsestum, Gr.palimpsestos, "scraped again"), — that is, they were long ago scraped a second time with pumice-stone and written upon anew. The discovery of palimpsests led to the reckless of bigoted charge of wholesale destruction of Biblicalmanuscripts by themonks of old. That there was some such destruction is clear enough from thedecree of a Greek synod of A.D. 691, which forbade the use of palimpsestmanuscripts either of theBible or of the Fathers, unless they were utterly unserviceable (see Wattenbach, "Das Schriftwessen im Mittelalter", 1896, p. 299). That such destruction was not wholesale, but had to do with only worn or damagedmanuscripts, is in like manner clear enough from the significant fact that as yet no complete work of any kind has been found on a palimpsest. The deciphering of a palimpsest may at times be accomplished merely by soaking it in clear water; generally speaking, some chemical reagent is required, in order to bring back the original writing. Such chemical reagents are an infusion of nutgalls, Gioberti's tincture and hydrosulphuret of ammonia; all do harm to themanuscript. Wattenbach, a leading authority on the subject, says: "More preciousmanuscripts, in proportion to the existing supply, have been destroyed by the learned experimenters of our time than by the much abusedmonks of old."
(a) Pre-Massoretic text
The earliest Hebrewmanuscript is the Nash papyrus. There are four fragments, which, when pieced together, give twenty-four lines of a pre-Massoretic text of theTen Commandments and theshema (Exodus 20:2-17;Deuteronomy 5:6-19; 6:4-5). The writing is without vowels and seemspalæographically to be not later than the second century. This is the oldest extant Biblemanuscript (see Cook, "A Pre-Massoretic Biblical Papyrus" in "Proceed. of the Soc. of Bib. Arch.", Jan., 1903). It agrees at times with theSeptuagint against theMassorah. Another pre-Massoretic text is theSamaritanPentateuch. TheSamaritan recension is probably pre-exilic; it has come down to us free fromMassoretic influences, is written without vowels and inSamaritan characters. The earliestSamaritanmanuscript extant is that of Nablûs, which was formerly rated very much earlier than allMassoreticmanuscripts, but is now assigned to the twelfth or thirteenth century A.D. Here mention should be made of the non-Massoretic Hebrewmanuscripts of the Book of Ecclesiasticus. These fragments, obtained from a Cairogenizah (a box for wornout or cast-offmanuscripts), belong to the tenth or eleventh century of our era. They provide us with more than a half of Ecclesiasticus and duplicate certain portions of the book. Many scholars deem that the Cairo fragments prove Hebrew to have been the original language of Ecclesiasticus (see "Facsimiles of the Fragments hitherto recovered of the Book of Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew",Oxford and Cambridge, 1901).
(b) Massoretic text
All other Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible areMassoretic (seeMASSORAH), and belong to the tenth century or later. Some of thesemanuscripts aredated earlier. Text-critics consider these dates to be due either to intentionalfraud or to uncritical transcription of dates of oldermanuscripts. For instance, a codex of the Former and Latter Prophets, how in the Karaitesynagogue of Cairo, is dated A.D. 895; Neubauer assigns it to the eleventh or thirteenth century. The Cambridgemanuscript no. 12, dated A.D. 856, he marks as a thirteenth-century work; the date A.D. 489, attached to the St. PetersburgPentateuch, he rejects as utterly impossible (see Studia Biblica, III, 22). Probably the earliestMassoreticmanuscripts are: "Prophetarium Posteriorum Codex Bablyonicus Petropolitanus", dated A.D. 916; the St. Petersburg Bible, written by Samuel ben Jacob and dated A.D. 1009; and "Codex Oriental. 4445" in the British Museum, which Ginsburg (Introduction, p. 469) assigns to A.D. 820-50. The text critics differ very widely in the dates they assign to certain Hebrewmanuscripts.De Rossi is included to think that at most nine or tenMassoreticmanuscripts are earlier than the twelfth century (Variæ Lectiones, I, p. xv).
Kennicott, the first critical student of theMassoretic text, either examined or had others examine 16Samaritanmanuscripts, some 40 printed texts and 638Massoreticmanuscripts (see "Dissertatio Generalis in Vetus Testam. Hebraicum", Oxford, 1780). He numbered thesemanuscripts in six groups: nos. 1-88, Oxfordmanuscripts; nos. 89-144, othermanuscripts of English-speaking countries; nos. 145-254,manuscripts of continentalEurope; nos. 255-300, printed texts and variousmanuscripts; nos. 301-694,manuscripts collated by Brunsius.De Rossi (Variæ Lectiones Vet. Test.) retained the numeration of Kennicott and added a list of 479manuscripts, all his own personalproperty, of which unfortunately 17 had already received numbers from Kennicott.De Rossi later added four supplementary lists of 110, 52, 37, and 76manuscripts. He brought the number ofMassoreticmanuscripts up to 1375. No one has since undertaken so colossal a critical study of the Hebrewmanuscripts. A few of the chiefmanuscripts are more exactly collated and compared in the critical editions of theMassoretic text which were done by S. Baer and Fr. Delitzsch and by Ginsburg. To the vast number of Hebrewmanuscripts examined by Kennicott andDe Rossi must be added some 2000manuscripts of the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, which Firkowitsch collated at Tschufut-Kale ("Jews' Rock") in the Crimea (see Strack, "Die biblischen und massoretischen Handschriften zü Tschufut-Kale" in "Zeits. für luth. Theol. und Kirche", 1875).
The critical study of this rich assortment of about 3400Massoretic rolls andcodices is not so promising of important results as it would at first thought seem to be. Themanuscripts are all of quite recent date, if compared with Greek, Latin, and Syriaccodices. They are all singularly alike. Some few variants are found in copies made for private use; copies made for public service in thesynagogues are so uniform as to deter the critic from comparing them. AllMassoreticmanuscripts bring us back to one editor — that of a textual tradition which probably began in the second century and became more and more minute until every jot and tittle of the text was almost absolutely fixed and sacred. R. Aqiba seems to have been the head of this Jewishschool of the second century. Unprecedented means were taken to keep the text fixed. The scholars counted the words and consonants of each book, the middle word and middle consonants, the peculiarities of script, etc. Even when such peculiarities were clearly due toerror or to accident, they were perpetuated and interpreted by a mystical meaning. Broken and inverted letters, consonants that were too small or too large, dots which were out of place — all these oddities were handed down as God-intended. InGenesis 2:4,bebram ("when they were created"), allmanuscripts have a smallHê. Jewish scholars looked upon this peculiarity as inspired; they interpreted it: "In the letterHê he created them"; and then set themselves to find out what that meant.This lack of variants inMassoreticmanuscripts leaves us hopeless of reaching back to the original Hebrew text save through the versions. Kittel in his splendid Hebrew text gives such variants as the versions suggest.
Greekmanuscripts are divided into two classes according to their style of writing —uncials andminuscules.
(a)Uncials were written between the fourth and tenth centuries, with large and disconnected letters. These letters were not capitals but had a distinctive form:epsilon, sigma, andomega were not writtenEPSILON, SIGMA, OMEGA, as are those capitals in inscriptions;rho, phi, psi, and at timesupsilon were prolonged above or below the line. Words were not separated; neither accents nor punctuation marks were used; paragraphs were marked off only by a very small lacuna; the letters were uniform and artistic; ligatures were used only for the most ordinary words — IC (Iesous), KC (Kyrios), XC (Christos), ICL (Israel), PNA (pneuma), DLD (David), ANOC (anthropos), PER (pater), MER (mater), OUC (pater), CER (soter), OUNOC (ouranos). In the sixth century, began a decadence of the elegant uncial writing. Twists and turns were given to certain letters. In the seventh century, more letters received flourishes; accents and breathings were introduced; the writing leaned to the right.
(b) Minuscules
While uncials held sway in Biblicalmanuscripts, minuscules were employed in other works. During the ninth century, both uncial and minuscule manuscripts of the Bible were written. The latter show a form of writing so fully developed as to leave nodoubt about its long standing use. The letters are small, connected, and written with a running hand. After the tenth century, minuscules were used until, in the fifteenth century,manuscripts were superceded by print.
(a) Septuagint (LXX)
There are threefamilies ofSeptuagintmanuscripts — theHexaplaric, Hesychian, and Lucianic. Manuscripts ofOrigen'sHexapla and Tetrapla were preserved at Cæsarea by his disciplePamphilus. Some extantmanuscripts (v.g.aleph and Q) refer in scholia to these gigantic works ofOrigen. In the fourth century,Pamphilus and his discipleEusebius of Cæsarea reproduced the fifth column of theHexapla, i.e.Origen'sHexaplaricSeptuagint text, with all his critical signs. This copy is the source of theHexaplaricfamily ofSeptuagintmanuscripts. In course oftime, scribes omitted the critical signs in part or entirely. Passages wanting in theSeptuagint, but present in the Hebrew, and consequently supplied byOrigen from either Aquila or Tehodotion, were hopelessly commingled with passages of the then extantSeptuagint. Almost at the same time two other editions of theSeptuagint were published — those of Hesychius at Alexandria and of Lucian at Antioch. From these three editions the extantmanuscripts of theSeptuagint have descended, but by ways that have not yet been accurately traced. Very fewmanuscripts can be assigned with more than probability to one of the threefamilies. TheHexaplaric, Hesychian, and Lucianicmanuscripts acted one upon the other. Most extantmanuscripts of theSeptuagint contain, as a result, readings of each and of none of the greatfamilies. The tracing of the influence of these three greatmanuscripts is a work yet to be done by the text-critics.
(b) Aquila
(SeeVERSIONS OF THE BIBLE). Manuscript traces of the text ofAquila are found in
(c) Theodotion
(SeeVERSIONS OF THE BIBLE). TheBook of Daniel of Theodotion is found in theSeptuagintmanuscripts previously mentioned. TheMilan palimpsest contains his text in part.
(d) Symmachus
(SeeVERSIONS OF THE BIBLE).Manuscript sources are theMilan palimpsest, Cambridge fragment, andHexaplaric marginal notes, all of which aremanuscript sources ofAquila.
(a) In General
There are, according to the latest authority on this subject, von Soden ("Die Schriften des N.T. in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt", Berlin, 1902), 2328New Testamentmanuscripts extant. Only about 40 contain, either entire or in part, all the books of theNew Testament. There are 1716manuscript copies of the Gospels, 531 of the Act, 628 of the Pauline Epistles, 219 of the Apocalypse. The commonly received numeration of theNew Testamentmanuscripts is that of Wettstein; uncials are designated by Roman and Greek capital, minuscules by Arabic numbers. Thesemanuscripts are divided into the above-mentioned four groups — Gospels, Acts, Pauline Epistles, Apocalypse. In the case of uncials, an exponent is used to designate the group referred to. D or Dev isCod. Bezæ, amanuscript of the Gospels; D3 or Dpaul is Cod. Claromontanus, amanuscript of the Pauline Epistles; E2 or Eact is Cod. Laudianus, amanuscript of the Acts. The nomenclature is less clear for minuscules. Each group has a different set of numbers. If a minuscule be a completemanuscript of theNew Testament, it is designated by four different numbers. One and the samemanuscript at Leicester is Evan. 69, Act. 31, Paul. 37, Apoc. 14. Wettestein's lists of New-Testamentmanuscripts were supplemented by Birch and Schols; later on Scrivener and Gregory continued the lists, each with his own nomenclature. Von Soden has introduced a new numeration, so as to indicate the contents and date of themanuscripts. If the content be more than the Gospels, it is markeddelta (that is,diatheke, "testament"); if only the Gospels,eta (i.e.,euangelion, "gospel"); if aught else save the Gospels,alpha (that is,apostolos). B isdelta-1;aleph isdelta-2; Q isepsilon-4, etc. No distinction is made between uncials and minuscules. Scholars admit thelogic and scientific worth of this new numeration, but find it too unwieldy and impracticable.
(b) Payrus
In the Archduke Rainer collection,Vienna, are several very fragmentary bits ofNew Testament Greek phrases, which Wessely, the curator of that collection, assigns to the second century. The Grenfell and Hunt excavations in Oxyrhyncus brought to light various fragments of theNew Testament which Kenyon, the assistant keeper of themanuscripts of the British Museum, assigns to the latter part of the third century. Only one papyrusmanuscript of theNew Testament is important to the text-critic — Oxyrhyncus Pap. 657, third-fourth century; it preserves to us about a third of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and epistle in whichCodex B is defective.
(c) Vellum Uncials
There are about 160 vellum uncials of theNew Testament; some 110 contain the Gospels or a part thereof. The chiefest of these uncials are the four greatcodices of the entire Greek Bible,aleph, A, B, C, for which, see above. The Vatican (B) is the oldest and probably the bestNew Testamentmanuscript.
(d) Vellum minuscules
The vast numbers of minuscule witnesses to the text of theNew Testament would seem to indicate a rich field of investigation for the text-critic. The field is not so rich at all. Many of these minuscules have never been fully studies. Ninety-five per cent. of them are witnesses to the same type of text; that of thetextus receptus. Only those minuscules interest the text-critic which are distinctive of or akin to one of the great uncials. Among the Gospel minuscules, according to Gregory's numeration, the type of B-aleph is seen more or less in 33; 1, 118, 131, 209; 59, 157, 431, 496, 892. The type of D is that of 235, 431, 473, 700, 1071; and of the "Ferrar group", 13, 69, 124, 346, 348, 543, 713, 788, 826, 828. Among the Acts minuscules, 31 and 61 show some kinship to B; 137, 180, 216, 224 to D. 15, 40, 83, 205, 317, 328, 329, 393 are grouped and traced to the fourth century text of Euthalius of Sulica. Among the Pauline minuscules, this same text (i.e. that of H3) is found in 81, 83, 93, 379, 381.
(e) Lectionaries
There are some 1100manuscripts of readings from the Gospels (Evangelia orEvangeliaria) and 300manuscripts of readings from Acts and Epistles (Praxapostoli). Although more than 100 of these lectionaries are uncials, they are of the ninth century or later. Very few of these books of the Epistles and Gospels have been critically examined. Such examination may later on serve to group theNew Testament minuscules better and help to localize them.
Biblicalmanuscripts are far more uniform in Greek than in Latin script.Palæography divides the Greek into uncials and minuscules; the Latin into uncials, semi-uncials, capitals, minuscules and cursives. Even these divisions have subdivisions. The time, place and evenmonastery of a Latinmanuscript may be traced by the very distinct script of its text.
Some 40manuscripts have preserved to us a text which antedates the translation ofSt. Jerome; they are designated by small letters. Unfortunately no two of thesemanuscripts represent to us quite the same text. Corrections introduced by scribes and the inevitable influence of theVulgate have left it a very difficult matter to group the Old Latinmanuscripts. Text-critics now agree upon an African, aEuropean and an Italian type of text. The African text is that mentioned byTertullian (c. 150-220) and used bySt. Cyprian (c. 200-258); it is the earliest and crudest in style. TheEuropean text is less crude in style and vocabulary, and may be an entirely new translation. The Italian text is a version of theEuropean and was revised bySt. Jerome in parts of theVulgate. The most important Old Latinmanuscripts are the bilingualNew Testamentmanuscripts D, D3, E2, E3, F3, G3,Delta.
It is estimated that there are more than 8000manuscripts of theVulgate extant. Most of these are later than the twelfth century and have very little worth for the reconstruction of the text. Tischendorf and Berger designate the chiefmanuscripts by abbreviations of the names: am. = Amiatinus; fu. or fuld. = Fuldensis. Wordsworth and White, in their critical edition of the Gospel and Acts (1899-1905); use Latin capitals to note the 40manuscripts on which their text depends. Gregory (Textkritik, II, 634) numbers 2369manuscripts. The mostlogical and useful grouping of thesemanuscripts is genealogical and geographical. The work of future critics will be to reconstruct the text by reconstructing the various types, Spanish, Italian,Irish, French, etc. The chiefVulgatemanuscripts are:
The Curetonian and Sinaitic Syriacmanuscripts represent a version older than the Peshitto and bear witness to an earlier text, one closely akin to that of which D and the Old Latin are witnesses.
This harmony of the Gospels was written byTatian, an Assyrian and the disciple ofJustin Martyr, about A.D. 170, and was widely used inSyria. Ourmanuscript records are two Arabic versions, discovered one inRome the other inEgypt, and published 1888. A Latin translation of anArmenian edition ofSt. Ephraem's commentary on the Diatessaron is in like manner witness to this early version of the Gospels. Scholars are inclined to makeTatian's to be the earliest Syriac translation of the Gospel.
The earliestmanuscript of this SyriacVulgate is aPentateuch dated A.D. 464; this is the earliest dated Biblicalmanuscripts; it is in the British Museum. There are twoNew Testamentmanuscripts of the fifth century. In all, the Peshittomanuscripts number 125 of Gospels, 58 of Acts and theCatholic Epistles, and 67 of the Pauline Epistles.
The Philoxenian Syriac version of theNew Testament has come down to us only in the four minorCatholic Epistles, not included in the original Peshitto, and a singlemanuscript of the Apoc., now atTrinity College, Dublin.
This version of theNew Testament is represented by some 35manuscripts dating from the seventh century and later; they show kinship with a text like to D.
This version of theNew Testament has reached us by lectionaries and other fragmentarymanuscripts discovered within the past sixteen years. The three principalmanuscripts aredated A.D. 1030, 1104, and 1118.
Armenianmanuscriptsdate from A.D. 887, and are numerous.
The Apocalypse is the only book of theNew Testament which has come down to us complete in a singlemanuscript of this dialect of UpperEgypt. Many isolated fragments have of recent years been recovered by excavation inEgypt; from these it may soon be possible to reconstruct the SahidicNew Testament. The earliest fragments seem to belong to the fifth century. Some of thesemanuscripts are bilingual (see T ofNew Testamentmanuscripts).
This version in the dialect of LowerEgypt is well represented bymanuscripts of the same character as B-aleph. The Curzon Catena is the earliest extant Boh.manuscript of the Gospels; it is dated A.D. 889 and is in the Parham Library. Others are of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. None is at all so old as the Sah. fragments.
MiddleEgyptian fragments on vellum and papyrus, have been found in Fayum and near to Akhmim and toMemphis. The largest of these fragments is a British Museum sixth-century palimpsest ofJohn 3 and4.
HEBREW MANUSCRIPTS: STRACK AND HARKAVY,Catalog der hebr. Bibelhandschriften der kaiserlichen Bibliothek (Leipzig 1875); NEUBAUER,Facsimilies of Hebrew manuscripts in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1886); NEUBAUER,Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library and in the College Libraries of Oxford (Oxford, 1886); KRAFT AND DEUTSCH,Die handschriftl. hebräischen Werke der K.K. Hofbibliothek (Vienna, 1857); STEINSCHNEIDER,Die hebräisch. Handschriften der K. Hof. und Staatsbibliothek (Munich, 1895); SCHILLER-SZINESSY,Catalogue of the Hebrew manuscripts preserved in the University Library (Cambridge, 1876); ASSEMANI,Bibliothecæ Apostolicæ Vaticanæ codices Orientales (Rome, 1756); MAI,Appendix to Assemani (Rome, 1831).
GREEK MANUSCRIPTS (OLD TESTAMENT): SWETE,Introduction to the O.T. in Greek; KENYON,Our Bible and the Ancient manuscripts (1898); NESTLE,Septuagintastudien (1886-1907); FIELD,Origenis Hexaplorum quæ supersunt (Oxford, 1875).
GREEK MANUSCRIPTS (NEW TESTAMENT): SCRIVENER,Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament (1894); GREGORY,Textkritik des N.T. (1900);Die Griechischen Handschriften des N.T. (1908); HARRIS,Further researches into the history of the Ferrar-group (1900).
LATIN MANUSCRIPTS: BURKITT,The Old Latin and the Itala (Cambridge, 1896); WORDSWORTH, SANDAY, AND WHITE,Old Latin Biblical Texts (Oxford, 1883-97); GREGORY,Textkritik des N.T. (1900). WORDSWORTH AND WHITE,Edition of the Vulgate (1889-1905)
SYRIAC MANUSCRIPTS: LEWIS,The Four Gospels translated from the Sinaitic Palimpsest (1894); WOODS AND GWILLIAM inStudia Biblica, vols. I and III.
COPTIC MANUSCRIPTS: CRUM,Catalogue of Coptic manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1905); HYVERNAT,Etude sur les versions coptes de la Bible inRev. Bibl. (1896).
APA citation.Drum, W.(1910).Manuscripts of the Bible. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09627a.htm
MLA citation.Drum, Walter."Manuscripts of the Bible."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 9.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1910.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09627a.htm>.
Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Bryan R. Johnson.
Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, Censor.Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
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