As I mentioned in my last post, I’m in the process of working through all the Pauline manuscripts in the Liste, in order to get a precise count of which manuscripts contain some portion of Romans. Of the 651 extant, or possibly extant, manuscripts currently classified as minuscules that contain some portion of Romans, I’ve so far been able to examine 632.
However, based on a lead that Katie Leggett sent in response to a forum query, we can now remove one more of those unexamined witnesses as a copy of a printed edition.
GA 2136 (Moscow, Syn. gr. 472, Pinakes Diktyon 44097), is a Greek-Slavic bilingual from the 17th century that contains the entire New Testament. The VMR has microfilm images folios 96-129 (Mark 1:1-Luke 1:10) and folios 185-226 (John 1:1-21:25). However, the Moscow State Historical Museum has also made available a few color images, including the beginning of Revelation. (Thanks to Katie for pointing these out to me).
These images, together with the microfilms already available in the VMR, make it clear that the Greek text in this ms has been copied from a printed edition and, as such, should be removed from the Liste. Four features are particularly significant. I've included screen shots
- As usual, the biggest giveaway is that it doesn't include nomina sacra. Unless there are very strong reasons to counteract it, this alone would be enough to demonstrate that a manuscript has been copied from a printed edition. But this is not all.
- Another giveaway is that the manuscript uses indentation instead of ekthesis.
- Perhaps the most striking feature, however, is that the manuscript includes modern verse numbers. These verse numbers could not have been added later from a secondary source because the indentation follows them precisely.
- A final feature, not, of course, decisive on its own is that (as shown in the image linked to above) Revelation is immediately preceded by Jude, which is a rather unusual in Greek manuscripts, but standard in early printed editions.
Great work, Peter! The indented verses resemble the Beza and Elzevir editions. The text in brackets in Jude corresponds to the differences between the Latin Vulgate and Greek TR, which might offer a pointer towards the edition.
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking a look! It might also be possible that the brackets have something to do with the Slavonic text in the other column, but that isn't a language I've studied yet, so I wasn't able to check personally.
DeleteWhich book most typically precedes Revelation, and do any ever follow it?
ReplyDeleteI can't speak to the whole tradition as I haven't done a special study of the order of books in the manuscript tradition as a whole. But the standard order in Greek manuscripts is Gospels-Acts-Catholics-Paul (and then Revelation, if it is present—it often is not). There are of course exceptions and sub-variations within the different collections.
DeleteThe issue with GA 2136 was noted long ago in my PA collation notes. Regarding Dr Houghton's comment, I noted that in the PA "the Greek text is identical to the printed Complutensian edition" except for two minor orthographic differences.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there is no need to stop with GA 2136, since its close companion (again of the 17th century) GA 2137 is also Greek-Slavonic, once more with (at least) the PA text being almost totally identical to the Complutensian edition, along with various marginal notes, mostly in Slavonic, appearing on that language portion.
One also should compare the remaining Greek-Slavonic manuscript GA 525, whose readings (aside from numerous misspellings) completely agree with Erasmus 1516; this despite its (misleading?) colophon claiming a 1429 copying date (perhaps an error for 1529?).
Thanks for the additional insight! Since the Complutensian doesn't have verse numbers, I don't think that can be the direct source for GA 2136 though.
DeleteWhile it is true that the Complutensian lacks verse numbers, it is *possible* that printed Slavonic editions reflective of the K.Liste’s claimed 17th-century time frame for GA 2136/2137 might contain versification which then could have been applied to those MSS. Gregory (Textkritik, 734) says such qualifying editions were published in 1575, 1581, 1614, 1623, 1644, and 1663 (also, except for omission of one KAI, the snippet from Revelation 1:1-3 also matches the Complutensian).
DeleteOn the other hand (!)--the pictured portion of GA 2136 from the end of Jude clearly was *not* copied from the Complutensian, and the peculiar bracketed portions conveniently match the footnoted segments from Newberry’s Englishman’s Greek NT (first ed., Hodder and Stoughton, 1883). Could the K.Liste’s 17th century dating perhaps be off by more than two centuries? If so, then GA 2136 and GA 2137 could be considered 19th century productions (note that other 19th-century printed editions cited by Newberry do *not* bracket those particular words).
Nice work, Maurice, about the proposal of a later date.
DeleteThe longer text at the end of Jude is between brackets in the Greek and in the Slavonic texts.
The longer reading in Apoc. 1:2 is only between brackets in the Slavonic.
What is written in the right margin?
Teunis van Lopik
The text in the right margin seems too blurry to decipher. However, the bracketed [ASPILOUS] KAI in Jude 24, does *not* reflect a Newberry variant, and -- according to Wasserman's data -- is found *only* as a marginal in GA 424. Thus the bracketed material must represent some other printed source, whether Greek or early Slavonic editions; or (if the MSS might be 19th century) from a later Greek edition or Slavonic "Neuer Ausgaben" cited by Gregory (1751, 1865, 1868, 1878, 1879, 1881, 1883). Beyond this, I have nothing further to add.
DeleteIf the MSS might be 19th century:
DeleteThe Complutensian Greek NT text, with the common versification, is in the 19th century published by Petrus Aloysius Gratz in 1821, and in a 2nd edition in 1827 (reprinted in 1851). See Reuss, Bibl. Ni Ti Gr., pp. 25-26.
The ending of Revelation in GA 2136 matches the one that Erasmus created since his manuscript (GA2814) lacked it, so it is unlikely that at least the last part of the manuscript was copied from the Complutensian, which used an actual Greek manuscript of Revelation for the last 6 verses. Rev. 22:19 in GA2136 reads "καὶ ἐάν τις *ἀφαιρῇ* ἀπὸ τῶν λόγων *βίβλου* τῆς προφητείας ταύτης *ἀφαιρήσει* ὁ θεὸς τὸ μέρος αὐτοῦ υπὸ [sic!] *βίβλου* τῆς ζωῆς καὶ ἐκ τῆς πόλεως τῆς ἁγίας *καὶ* τῶν γεγραμμένων ἐν *βιβλίῳ* τούτῳ."
DeleteWas the υπο an error on the part of someone who did not know Greek, and if so, did the printed edition he was using contain the same typo? This might be a clue to which one of the GNT editions referred to as the TR was the source of the Greek portion of GA2136, and thus what the earliest possible date for it is.
And Rev. 22:21 in GA 2136 reads "Ἡ χάρις τοῦ κυρίου *ημῶν* Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ μετὰ πάντων *ὑμῶν*. ἀμήν." This again is a reading created by Erasmus and not found in the CP.
Unfortunately, other readings that originated with Erasmus and are not in the CP or any known Greek manuscripts before his time, such as Rev. 4:11 and 5:14, are not included in the scans from Moscow, and so (at this point) cannot be used to determine whether the source earlier in Revelation was the CP or some other version of the TR.
GA 2136 and 2137 could be checked at 1 John 5:7-8 to see whether they agree with the Complutensian Polyglot (which has a unique form of the CJ found only in GA629, a copy in the Vatican Library and one with Latin influence seen in it) or Erasmus's first editions (which agree with almost all Greek manuscripts in not adding the variant) or later printed editions (which have no manuscript support before Erasmus' third edition for the CJ).
GA2137 (and 2136) could be checked at Luke 2:22 to see if it reads αὐτῆς as the Complutensian Polyglot and some later editions of the TR (but no Greek manuscripts) or αὐτῶν as most Greek manuscripts and the earlier editions of what is now called the TR.
As for GA525, hints as to whether or not it was copied from Erasmus or some other edition of the TR could be found in Matthew 23:13-14, 27:35, and Mark 15:3.