iii. The scribe who wrote the text was unacquainted with the

Eusebian sections. For the beginning of a section is not marked, as in A and most subsequent MSS., by a division of the text and a larger letter. On the contrary the text is divided into paragraphs quite independent of the Eusebian divisions, which often begin in the middle of a line, and are marked merely by two dots (:) in vermilion, inserted no doubt by the rubricator as he entered the numbers in the margin. The fact that the numbers of the sections as well as of the canons (not as in other MSS. of the Canons only) are in vermilion, points the same way.

iv. From the above it follows, (1) That while Cod. א proves the absence from its exemplar of certain passages, its margin proves the presence of some of them in a contemporaneous exemplar; (2) that while on the one hand the Eusebian numbers, coeval with the text, show that the MS. cannot be dated before the time of Eusebius, on the other hand the form of the text, inasmuch as it is not arranged so as to suit them, and as it differs from the text implied in them, marks for it a date little, if at all, after his time—certainly many years earlier than A.

v. As regards the omission of the verses of St. Mark xvi. 9-20, it is not correct to assert that Cod. א betrays no sign of consciousness of their existence. For the last line of ver. 8, containing only the letters τογαρ, has the rest of the space (more than half the width of the column) filled up with a minute and elaborate “arabesque” executed with the pen in ink and vermilion, nothing like which occurs anywhere else in the whole MS. (O. T. or N. T.), such spaces being elsewhere invariably left blank. By this careful filling up of the blank, the scribe (who here is the diorthota “D”), distinctly shows that the omission is not a case of “non-interpolation,” but of deliberate excision. John Gwynn, May 21, 1883.

120 He would have written about 20,000 separate uncial letters every day. Compare the performance of that veritable Briareus, Nicodemus ὁ ξένος, who transcribed the Octateuch (in cursive characters certainly) now at Ferrara (Holmes, Cod. 107), beginning his task on the 8th of June, and finishing it the 15th of July, A.D. 1334, “working very hard”—as he must have done indeed (Burgon, _Guardian_, Jan. 29, 1873).

121 This opinion, first put forth by Tischendorf in his N. T. Vaticanum 1867, Proleg. pp. xxi-xxiii, was minutely discussed in the course of a review of that book in the _Christian Remembrancer_, October 1867, by the writer of these pages. Although Dr. Hort labours to show that no critical inferences ought to be drawn from this identity of the scribe of Cod. B with the writer of six conjugate leaves of Cod. א (being three pairs in three distinct quires, one of them containing the conclusion of St. Mark’s Gospel), he is constrained to admit that “the fact appears to be sufficiently established by concurrent peculiarities in the form of one letter, punctuation, avoidance of contractions, and some points of orthography” (Introduction, p. 213). The internal evidence indeed, though relating to minute matters, is cumulative and irresistible, and does not seem to have been noticed by Tischendorf, who drew his conclusions from the handwriting only.

122 Prothero (Memoir of H. Bradshaw, pp. 92-118) reprints a letter of Bradshaw from _Guardian_, Jan. 28, 1863, worth studying:—“Simonides died hard, and to the very end was supported by a few dupes of his ingenious mendacity.” (p. 99.)

123 A more favourable estimate of the ecclesiastical policy of Cyril (who was murdered by order of the Sultan in 1638, aet. 80) is maintained by Dr. Th. Smith, “Collectanea de Cyrillo Lucario, Patriarcha Constantinopolitano,” London 1707.

124 I.e. “Memorant hunc Librum scriptū fuisse ma-nu Theclae Martyris.” On the page over against Cyril’s note the same hand writes “videantur literae ejusdé Cyrill: Lucar: ad Georgium Episco Cant” [Abbot]; _Harl_: 823, 2. quae extant in Clementis Epistolis ad Corinthios editionis Colomesii Lond. 1687 8o page 354 &c.

125 Not to mention a few casual _lacunae_ here and there, especially in the early leaves of the manuscript, the lower part of one leaf has been cut out, so that Gen. xiv. 14-17; xv. 1-5; 16-20; xvi. 6-9 are wanting. The leaf containing 1 Sam. xii. 20-xiv. 9, and the nine leaves containing Ps. 1. 20-lxxx. 10 (Engl.) are lost.

126 Yet we may be sure that these two leaves did not contain the Pericope Adulterae, John vii. 58-viii. 11. Taking the Elzevir N. T. of 1624, which is printed without breaks for the verses, we count 286 lines of the Elzevir for the two leaves of Cod. A preceding its defect, 288 lines for the two which follow it; but 317 lines for the two missing leaves. Deduct the thirty lines containing John vii. 53-viii. 11, and the result for the lost leaves is 287.

127 An excellent facsimile of A is given in the Facsimiles of the Palaeographical Society, Plate 106; others in Woide’s New Testament from this MS. (1786), and in Baber’s Old Test. (1816). Two specimens from the first Epistle of Clement are exhibited in Jacobson’s Patres Apostolici, vol. i. p. 110, 1838 (1863); and one in Cassell’s Bible Dict. vol. i. p. 49.

128 Notice especially what Tregelles says of the Codex Augiensis (Tregelles’ Horne’s Introd. vol. iv. p. 198), where the difference of hand in the leaves removed from their proper place is much more striking than any change in Cod. Alexandrinus. Yet even in that case it is likely that one scribe only was engaged. It should be stated, however, that Mr. E. Maunde Thompson, who, edits the autotype edition, believes that the hand changed at the beginning of St. Luke, and altered again at 1 Cor. x. 8. His reasons appear to us precarious and insufficient, and he seems to cut away the ground from under him when he admits (Praef. p. 9) that “sufficient uniformity is maintained to make it difficult to decide the exact place where a new hand begins.”

129 Tischendorf, Septuagint, Proleg. p. lxv, cites with some approval Grabe’s references (Proleg. Cap. i. pp. 9-12) to Gregory Nazianzen [d. 389], three of whose Epistles are written to a holy virgin of that name (of course not the martyr), to whose παρθενών at Seleucia he betook himself, the better to carry out his very sincere _nolo episcopari_ on the death of his father Gregory, Bishop of Nazianzus: Πρῶτον μὲν ἦλθον εἰς Σελεύκειαν φυγὰς | Τὸν παρθενῶνα τῆς ἀοιδίμου κόρης | Θέκλας κ.τ.λ. “De vitâ suâ.”

130 The last Arabic numeral in the Old Testament is 641, the first in the New Testament 667.

131 Very interesting is Whitelock’s notice of a design which was never carried out, under the date of March 13, 1645. “The Assembly of Divines desired by some of their brethren, sent to the House [of Commons] that Mr. Patrick Young might be encouraged in the printing of the Greek Testament much expected and desired by the learned, especially beyond seas; and an ordinance was read for printing and publishing the Old Testament of the Septuagint translation, wherein Mr. Young had formerly taken pains and had in his hand, as library keeper at St. James’s, an original _Teeta_ [sic] Bible of that translation” (Memorials, p. 197, ed. 1732).

132 “MSm Alexandm accuratissime ipse contuli, A.D. 1716. Rich: Bentleius.” Trin. Coll. Camb. B. xvii. 9, in a copy of Fell’s Greek Testament, 1675, which contains his collation. Ellis, Bentleii Critica Sacra, p. xxviii.

133 See Bibliothèque du Vatican au Xme siècle, par Eugène Müntz et Paul Fabre, Paris. Thorn. 824 Lat., 400 Gr.

134 The “Epistle” of Cardinal Carafa to Sixtus V, and the Preface to the Reader by the actual editor Peter Morinus, both of which Tischendorf reprints in full (Septuagint, Proleg. pp. xxi-xxvii), display an amount of critical skill and discernment quite beyond their age, and in strange contrast with the signal mismanagement in regard to the revision of the Latin Vulgate version under the auspices of the same Pope.

135 In Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and 1 Kings i. 1-xix. 11, there are forty-four lines in a column; and in 2 Paralip. x. 16-xxvi. 13, there are forty lines in a column.

136 The writer of the Preface to the sixth volume of the Roman edition of 1881 (apparently Fabiani), is jubilant over his discovery of the name of this retracer (“eruditissimi et patientissimi viri,” as he is pleased to call him, p. xviii) in the person of Clement the Monk, who has written his name twice in the book in a scrawl of the fifteenth century. But mere resemblance in the ink is but a lame proof of identity, and Fabiani recognizes some other correctors, whom he designates as B4, posterior to the mischievous “instaurator.”

137 Hug says _none_, but Tischendorf (Cod. Frid.-Aug. Proleg. p. 9) himself detected two in a part that the second scribe had left untouched; and not a very few elsewhere (N. T. Vatican. Proleg. pp. xx, xxi, 1867); though a break often occurs with no stop by either hand. In the much contested passage Rom. ix. 5, Dr. Vance Smith (“Revised Texts and Margins,” p. 84, note), while confidently claiming the stop after σαρκα in Cod. A as _primâ manu_, and noticing the space after the word in Cod. Ephraemi (C), admits that “in the Vatican the originality of the stops may be doubtful.” In the judgement of Fabiani, “vix aliqua primo exscriptori tribuenda” (Praef. N. T. Vat. 1881, p. xviii).

138 The publication of the Roman edition (1868-81) enables us to add (Abbot, _ubi supra_, p. 193) that the blessings of the twelve patriarchs in Gen. xlix are in separate paragraphs numbered from A to IB, that the twenty-two names of the unclean birds Deut. xiv. 12-18, twenty-five kings in Josh. xii. 10-22, eleven dukes in 1 Chr. i. 51-54, each stand in a separate line. In Cod. א, especially in the New Testament, this arrangement στιχηρῶς is much more frequent than in Cod. B, although the practice is in some measure common to both.

139 The Roman edition (1868-81) also makes known to us that in the Old Testament two columns are left blank between Nehemiah and the Psalms, which could not have been otherwise, inasmuch as the Psalms are written στιχηρῶς with but two columns on a page. Between Tobit and Hosea (which book stands first of the Prophetical writings) a column is very naturally left blank, and two columns at the end of Daniel, with whose prophecy the Old Testament concludes. But these peculiarities obviously bear no analogy to the case of the end of St. Mark’s Gospel.

140 See above, pp. 49-51.

141 The writer of the Preface to the Roman edition (vol. vi. Praef. p. 9, 1881) vainly struggles to maintain the opposite view, because the Cardinal, in his Preface to the Complutensian N. T., speaks about “adhibitis Vaticanis libris,” as if there was but one there.

142 Rulotta’s labours are now printed in Bentleii Critica Sacra by Mr. A. A. Ellis, 1862, pp. 121-154.

143 Thus the correspondence of Codex B with what St. Basil (c. Eunom.