TheCodex Amiatinus (also known as theJarrow Codex) is considered the best-preservedmanuscript of the Latin Vulgate version[2] of theChristian Bible. It was produced around 700 in the northeast of England, at theBenedictineMonkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey in theKingdom of Northumbria, nowSouth Tyneside. It was one of three giant single-volume Bibles then made at Monkwearmouth–Jarrow, and is the earliest complete one-volume Latin Bible to survive, only theLeón palimpsest being older. It is the oldest Bible where all thebiblical canon present what would be their Vulgate texts. In 716 it was taken to Italy as a gift forPope Gregory II.
It is named after the location in which it was found in modern times,Monte Amiata inTuscany, at theAbbazia di San Salvatore and is now kept atFlorence in theBiblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (Laurentian Library).[3]
Designated bysiglum A, it is commonly considered to provide the most reliable surviving representation ofJerome's Vulgate text for the books of the New Testament, and most of the Old Testament. As was standard in all Vulgate Bibles until the ninth century,[4] theBook of Baruch is absent as is theLetter of Jeremiah, the text of theBook of Lamentations following the end ofJeremiah without a break.[5][3]Ezra–Nehemiah is presented as a single book, the texts of the canonicalBook of Ezra andBook of Nehemiah being continuous. Similarly the books ofSamuel,Kings andChronicles are each presented as a single book.[6]
The symbol for it is written am or A (Wordsworth). It is preserved in an immense tome, measuring19+1⁄4 inches (49 cm) high,13+3⁄8 inches (34 cm) in breadth, and 7 inches (18 cm) thick, and weighs over 75 pounds (34 kg) – so impressive, as biblical scholarFenton J. A. Hort says, as to fill the beholder with a feeling akin to awe.[7][8][3]
TheBook of Psalms is provided in Jerome's third version,translated from the Hebrew, rather than in the pre-JeromeRoman Psalter then standard in English bibles, or in Jerome's second,Gallican version, that was to supplant his Hebraic Psalms in most Vulgate bibles from the 9th century onwards. By contrast with most of the Old Testament, the Amiatinus psalms text is commonly considered an inferiorwitness to Jerome'sVersio iuxta Hebraicum (Translation according to the Hebrew); the presence of the 'Columba' series of psalm headings, also found in theCathach of St. Columba, demonstrates that an Irishpsalter must have been its source; but the text differs in many places from the best Irish manuscripts. The New Testament is preceded by theLetter of Jerome to Pope Damasus, and the Prolegomena to the four Gospels.
The Codex Amiatinus qualifies as anilluminated manuscript as it has some decoration including two full-pageminiatures, but these show little sign of the usualinsular style of Northumbrian art and are clearlycopied fromLate Antique originals. It contains 1,040leaves of strong, smoothvellum, fresh-looking today despite their great antiquity, arranged inquires of four sheets, orquaternions. As noted by scholar Christopher de Hamel, "[t]he 1030 leaves of the Codex Amitianus would have utilized the skins of 515 cattle."[1] The script is written inuncial characters, large, clear, and regular, two columns to a page, and 43 or 44 lines to a column. A little space is often left between words, but the writing is in general continuous. The text is divided into sections, which in theGospels correspond closely to theAmmonian Sections. There are no marks ofpunctuation, but the skilled reader was guided into the sense bystichometric, orverse-like, arrangement intocola andcommata, which correspond roughly to the principal anddependent clauses of a sentence. From this manner of writing the script is believed to have been modeled upon theCodex Grandior ofCassiodorus,[9] but it may go back, perhaps, even to St. Jerome.[3]
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Three copies of the Bible were originally commissioned by AbbotCeolfrith in 692.[2] This date has been established as thedouble monastery of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow secured a grant of additional land to raise the 2000 head of cattle needed to produce thevellum.Bede was most likely involved in the compilation. De Hamel suggests that thepandects were prepared, possibly partly inscribed, and potentially corrected in a few places by Bede himself.[10] Bede's handwriting may be present.[11] In 716, Ceolfrid accompanied one copy, the Codex Amiatinus, intended as a gift toPope Gregory II, but he died en route to Rome on 29 September 716 atLangres, Burgundy.[12][2] The book later appears in the ninth century inAbbazia di San Salvatore, Monte Amiata, in theMarch of Tuscany (hence the description "Amiatinus"), where it is recorded in a list of the Abbey's relics dated 1036, describing it as being an Old and New Testament "written in the hand of the blessed Pope Gregory".[1] It remained in the San Salvatore Monastery until 1786 when it passed to theLaurentian Library inFlorence.
The dedication page had been altered and the principal librarian to the Laurentian,Angelo Maria Bandini suggested that the author was Servandus, a follower ofSt. Benedict, and that it had been produced atMonte Cassino around the 540s. This claim was accepted for the next hundred years, establishing it as the oldest copy of the Vulgate, but scholars in Germany noted the similarity to 9th-century texts. In 1888,Giovanni Battista de Rossi established that the Codex was related to the Bibles mentioned by Bede. This also established that Amiatinus was related to theGreenleaf Bible fragment in theBritish Library. Although de Rossi's attribution removed 150 years from the age of the Codex, it remains the oldest complete text of the Vulgate.
As the primary source of the Vulgate, the manuscript was of particular importance to the Catholics during theCounter-Reformation. Protestant translations derived from the original language of the Scriptures, but the Latin text of the Amiatinus was earlier than any then-known Hebrew manuscript, making it a "major piece of propaganda in the battle for textual precedence". In 1587Pope Sixtus V demanded the book be sent to Rome where it was consulted for a new papal edition of the Bible, theSixtine Vulgate;[1]: 64 although in the event, little or no use was made of its readings in either the Sistine or subsequentSixto-Clementine official Vulgate editions, whose editors rather preferred later medieval Vulgate texts and editions now known to have been heavily corrupted by non-Vulgate readings.
In view of the many accumulatedcorruptions in all published editions of the Vulgate so far, theOxford University Press accepted in 1878 a proposal from classicistJohn Wordsworth (laterBishop of Salisbury) to produce a new critical edition of the Vulgate New Testament.[13][14] This was eventually published asNouum Testamentum Domini nostri Iesu Christi Latine, secundum editionem sancti Hieronymi (The Latin New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the version of Saint Jerome) in three volumes between 1889 and 1954;[15] the Codex Amiatinus being a primary source for the entire text; which also followed this manuscript in presenting the text in sense lines,cola et commata without any other indication of punctuation. In 1907 PopePius X commissioned theBenedictine monks in Rome to prepare a critical edition of Jerome's Vulgate, entitledBiblia Sacra iuxta latinam vulgatam versionem (The Holy Bible according to the Latin Vulgate Version), which eventually emerged as a counterpart Old Testament to the Oxford New Testament, following largely the same critical principles, and according similar primary status to the Codex Amiatinus text (other than for the Psalms); and similarly deriving its layout,cola et commata from Amiatinus.[16] It is now kept at the Laurentian Library (shelf number Amiatino 1).[3]
Codex Amiatinus Novum Testamentum Latine (Codex Amiatinus: Latin New Testament), prepared byTischendorf, does not contain theJohannine Comma (1 John 5.7).[17]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Fenlon, John Francis (1908). "Codex Amiatinus". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
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