Dirty manuscripts

Two interesting links to discussions of dirty manuscripts.

Erik Kwakkel discusses dirty medieval books, including fingerprints, leaves and twigs, sand, pins, paint, and cat paws (with nine photos illustrating these). Final paragraph:

While we are perhaps inclined to regard dirt as an unwanted addition to the medieval book – which is an object that should be spotless, after all – the bits and pieces shown here act as historical clues that shed light on how a book was produced or used. There is an interesting parallel to be drawn with the concept of “damage”. This, too, is often seen as a flaw when encountered in a precious medieval book, while, in fact, it may offer crucial information about how the object was used (see this post). Dirt is an intrinsic part of the historical artefact that is the medieval book and deserves to be studied as such.

It is exciting to find a scribal fingerprint - it always evokes in me a sense of connection. I found a really good one last year in the Codex Climaci Rescriptus. To this list I would add wax which is often found in biblical and liturgical manuscripts and can reveal patterns of usage (and I seem to recall it is mentioned negatively in a monastic rule), see some good examples here; as well as glue, which is often found on small fragments re-used in bindings (cf. e.g. here).


Dr. Brice Jones discusses a piece of papyrus featuring “brown lumps of organic material” (a bit of Homer’s Illiad: P. Oxy 4633): “Toilet Papyrus”: A Papyrus of Homer Used as Toilet Paper

For more background: AnneMarie Luijendijk, ‘Sacred Scriptures as Trash: Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus’” Vigiliae Christianae 64 (2010), 217-254.

Scratching the plural out of prayer - Mt 6:5

This is a story about how difficult it can be to get the data right even before starting to ponder the original wording of a text.

These are the opening words of Mt 6:5 as in Tregelles and NA28:

Καὶ ὅταν προσεύχησθε, οὐκ ἔσεσθε ὡς οἱ ὑποκριταί,
And when you pray, you must not be as the hypocrites

The majority reading is as follows:

Καὶ ὅταν προσεύχῃ, οὐκ ἔσῃ ὥσπερ οἱ ὑποκριταί,
And when you (singular) pray, you (singular) must not be as the hypocrites

I am only interested in the two verbs, whether they are singular or plural.
In the apparatus of NA28 we learn that, among others, Codex Sinaiticus (א*) supports the singular verb, though with a minor variation, as indicated by the round brackets. In Appendix II we learn that א* actually reads προσευχη ουκ εσεσθε. That is, a singular verb προσευχη followed by the plural εσεσθε. The second corrector supports the text.

There are sorts of things wrong here. First of all, why is א* given as support for the double singular reading as, arguably (having one of each), it can be forwarded as support for the double plural reading?
Moreover, I don't think the reading of א* is accessible. Have a look at the images:

Normal light:


Striking light:



The transcribers of Sinaiticus on the Codex Sinaiticus website get it right, as usual. Here corrector Ca is made responsible for the intralinear correction of προσευχη to προσευχησθαι (itacism for προσευχησθε), the remainder of the text as visible on that line is the work of the first corrector (א^{a [or 1]}), while the erased text of א* is unreadable. As you can see on the image, a rewriting starts from the third letter onwards, where we have indications of something being scratched off the parchment before the current writing. The parchment is rough till the end of the line and even torn at the final epsilon of εσεσθε.
What can we say about the erased text of א*, except that it was erased quite efficiently? The original version had something that started with προσευχησ-. It seems clear to me (and Tischendorf) that the omicron of ουκ is created out of a lunar sigma Ϲ. But is there space on the line to have the version with the two plural verbs? I don't think so, since it would require an extra two letters to be accommodated on the line which is already wider than average. That means that if the first version had two plural verbs, the first of these (and only the first) was already corrected in scribendo, that is before the next line was written.
For once, Tischendorf is not much of a help in suggesting that perhaps the original error was made from -σθε to -σθε. Though this is possible, it means, again, that the error was caught and mended before the writing of the next line, and only after almost the whole line had been filled up. His scenario requires that in addition to messing up the original line, the scribe also messed up the correction, by forcing the first verb into a singular (even though originally he had it right).

Whatever the underlying error we should represent the testimony of Sinaiticus as follows:
א*: προσευχησ[illegible] ...
א^a: προσευχη ουκ εσεσθε ως οι
א^ca: προσευχησθαι (read προσευχησθε; remainder of the line untouched).
Interestingly, this suggest that א* may have intended to write the double plural before messing up, and that (I am slightly increasing the speculation value), whilst clearing the mess, the same scribe but now in the guise of the first corrector, messed up again.
Anyway א* is closer to the text of NA28 than to the variant in the apparatus, despite what the apparatus tells you, א^a can be read as supporting either wording but should probably figure as a separate reading, and א^{ca [or] 2]} supports indeed the reading as given in the text.

British Library: More manuscripts online

The British Library Medieval Manuscripts blog reports that seventy-five more manuscripts are on-line. These seem to be the last group in the current project (hopefully they will get more funding to keep up the good progress). In this batch are a mountain of patristic and ecclesiastical manuscripts including homilies and such, and the following biblical ones. I’ll copy in excerpts here:

Burney MS 34, Catena on the Octateuch (Rahlfs 424), and additional theological texts. Italy, N. E. (Veneto?), mid-16th century.

Burney MS 48, Commentaries of St John Chrysostom on the Pauline letters, followed by the Catholic Epistles (Gregory-Aland 643; Scrivener act 225; von Soden α 1402, X40), in two volumes, Burney MS 48/1 and Burney MS 48/2. 11th-12th century.

Burney MS 408, Palimpsest, the upper (14th-century) text being homilies of St John Chrysostom on Matthew and John, and the lower fragments of a 10th century Gospel lectionary (Gregory-Aland l 338).

Egerton MS 2610, Four Gospels (Gregory-Aland 700). Canon tables in architectural frames in gold and colours (ff 3v-4r, 5v-6r, 7v-8r, 9v-10r). 4 miniatures of Evangelist portraits in colours on gold grounds (ff 12v, 91v, 144v, 230v). Large headpieces in colours and gold, with foliate patterns and birds (f 13r), and 4 large initials in colours and gold, at the beginning of the Gospels (ff 13r, 92r, 145r, 231r). Initials in gold. Simple head- and tailpieces in gold. Chrysography. 11th century.

Egerton MS 2783, Four Gospels, imperfect (Gregory-Aland 714). 12th-13th century. 7 full-page miniatures in colours on gold grounds of the symbols of the Evangelists and Evangelist portraits (lacking a portrait of Luke) (ff 13r, 13v, 106r, 106v, 166v, 264r, 264v). Canon tables in red in frames, with foliate decoration (ff 5r-9v). Large headpieces in red with foliate patterns. Large initials in red with penwork decoration. Small initials in red. Simple headpieces in red. Text and rubrics in red. 18th century binding of brown stamped leather, with blind tooling and gold edges. On the inside of each cover there is a portion of a 13th-century manuscript of the Sententiæ of Peter Lombard.

Harley MS 5785, Gospel Lectionary (Gregory-Aland l 151), with ecphonetic notation.  12th century. 3 evangelist portraits in colours and gold of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (ff 66v, 143v, 187v). 18 headpieces in colours and gold with animals, birds, and/or floral and foliate motifs (ff 1r, 67r, 104r, 144r, 202v, 234r, 246r, 274r, 281r, 298v, 313r, 320v, 325v, 328v, 332r, 340r, 344r, 353r). 1 very large initial in colours and gold (f 289v). Major initials in colours and gold, some with anthropomorphic designs (e.g. 3v). Titles in gold capitals written over red. Marginal notations in red.

Harley MS 5796, New Testament (Gregory-Aland 444; Scrivener evan. 444, Act. 153, Paul 240; von Soden δ 551). 1st half of the 15th century. Headpieces with geometric and foliate decoration and initials with foliate decoration in gold and/or colours (ff 2r, 44r, 73r, 121r, 163r). Titles in display capitals in gold or red (ff 2r, 44r, 73r, 121r, 163r). Rubrics, decorated initials and scholia in red.

Royal MS 1 B II, Old Testament: Major and Minor Prophets of the Septuagint version (Rahlfs 22). 1st quarter of the 12th century. Headpieces, initials and titles in carmine ink.

Royal MS 2 A VI, Psalter (Rahlfs 175). 12th century. Illuminated headpieces at the start of Psalms 1 and 77 (ff 22r, 154r).

Note on a Conjecture (Philemon 23)

From a footnote in something I am writing about letter-carriers:

In 1909 Amling proposed a single-letter emendation to read  0Ihsouj rather than  0Ihsou= at Phile 23, and thus allow complete agreement in those sending greetings in Col 4.10-14 and Phile 23f (‘Eine Konjectkur in Philemonbrief’). The passage would thus read as follows: ‘Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in Christ greets you; (as do) Jesus, Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my co-workers’. In support Amling observed that in Philemon the normal expression is simply ‘in Christ’ (cf. v8, 20), and that Paul is not consistent in always adding ‘Jesus’ in such expressions concerning terms like ‘prisoner’, ‘slave’, or ‘fellow-prisoner’ (Rom 1.1; Phile 1; cf. 1 Cor 7.22; Gal 1.10; Eph 6.6; Rom 16.7). This conjecture was supported by Lohse (Colossians and Philemon, 207: ‘highly probable’, and note 16); Ollrog (Mitarbeiter, 49: ‘höchstwahrscheinlich’); Knox (Philemon, 13: ‘plausibly argued’), and most recently Campbell, Framing Paul, 280f: ‘seems highly plausible’, although Campbell does not refer to the earlier discussions). However, despite the advantages which result from this reading, and the simplicity of the proposal (concerning only a single letter); against it stands not only the general caution against adopting conjectural readings (especially those which smooth an obvious interpretive difficulty) – hence the description of the proposal as ‘arbitrary’ (Fitzmyer, Philemon, 124) or ‘Willkür’ (Gnilka), or as standing against the whole textual tradition (Stuhlmacher, Philemon, 55; confirmed recently by Solomon, The Textual History of Philemon, 562); but also the specific problem that in Pauline circles, and especially in a greeting, it is most unlikely that an undisambiguated ‘Jesus’ would stand for the personal name ‘Jesus Justus’, so Dunn, Colossians and Philemon, 343 note 2 and Gnilka, Philemon, 92 note 8 (cf. the broader issues canvassed in Bauckham, Jesus, 67-84).

Easter Sunday

Good Friday