Another manuscript to strike from the Liste? Greg. 724

Because we have been discussing the difficulty of counting manuscripts lately, I decided to jump in with my own way of making things worse minor contribution: It might be the case that Gregory 724 should be removed from the Liste.

Gregory 724—the note in the front

Details:

Gregory 724 is a Greek manuscript of the Gospels on paper+parchment and dated 1520. A note in the front of the manuscript even claims that it was copied from an edition of the New Testament ("scriptus fuit ex aeditione noui testamenti"). We know the copyist from this note, Levinus Ammonius, a Carthusian monk. There's an entry for him on pp. 50–51 of Bietenholz, ed., Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation, vol. 1. A–E. According to Bietenholz, Ammonius lived from 13 April 1488–19 March 1557, and "...joined the Carthusian order, making his profession on 18 August 1506 in the monastery of St Maartensbos near Geraardsbergen, 30 kilometers west of Brussels."

Ammonius also had a bit of correspondence with Erasmus, and some of those letters have been published. Their first interaction (to my knowledge) occurred when Ammonius wrote to Erasmus on 4 July 1525 (Ep 1463, available in CWE 10), which the editor describes as "his first attempt to open a continuing correspondence with Erasmus." The editor continues: "His second attempt was successful (Epp 2016, 2062), and five of the letters in their subsequent correspondence survive (Epp 2082, 2197, 2258, 2483, 2817). The beginning of Ep 1463 shows the respect he had for Erasmus (my second-favorite Dutch scholar to live in Cambridge and edit a Greek New Testament): "For a long time I was full of misgivings, Erasmus most incorruptible of theologians, whether my action would be inexcusable if I were to interrupt you with a letter, I being a monk living obscurely in solitude and you the most distinguished of our whole generation for your outstanding gifts, and if I who enjoy the blessings of leisure were to inflict this tedium on a man who labours for the common good of Christendom."

In Ep 2016 (available in CWE 14), Ammonius mentions that he had once copied out a Greek Psalter that Erasmus had even seen. Gamillscheg and Harlfinger (1981; Repertorium I a no. 10; p. 28) identify him as the copyist of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College ms 448, though the data at the Parker Library on the Web suggests that the copyist may have been Johannes Olivarius. This alternative identification seems to go back at least to K.A. de Meyier in 1964. That is all to say that by his own testimony, we can conclude that he copied at least one other Greek manuscript (and a Biblical text at that), and there may be at least one other manuscript copied by him that is now in the Parker Library at Corpus Christi, Cambridge. Here are samples of each below. I am not familiar enough with handwriting in this era to say anything about them worth taking too seriously, but I do see a lot of similarities. One thing that jumps out to me is that in the color images of CCC ms 248, the capital letters seem to have yellow 'around' them (or something that has faded to yellow), and I see the exact same pattern of 'discoloration' (for lack of a better word) in the microfilm of Greg. 724.

Writing sample from Greg. 724

Writing sample from Cambridge, CCC ms 248.

Checks:

Pinakes mentions a few references for Greg. 724 that I haven't been able to check. 

The first and second editions of the Liste are identical, save that it's on p. 100 in the 1st ed. and on p. 90 in the 2nd ed. (and the line break is at a different place in the location section). Here it is in the 2nd ed.:

 

724 is ε530 in von Soden's edition; here is his entry on vol. 1, p. 208:

So far, despite the obvious note in the beginning, almost nobody seems to have noticed that it's most likely a copy of a printed edition. Obviously, I could be missing something, but I don't see any indications that it's been stricken from the Liste as a copy of a printed work. Since it's not a manuscript of Revelation, it wouldn't appear in Darius Müller's "Abscriften des Erasmischen Textes im Handschriftenmaterial der Johannesapokalypse."

Notice, however, that I mentioned that almost nobody seems to have noticed that it was probably copied from a printed text. Once again, the Wizard of Byz comes to the rescue. In his (still!) unpublished collation data for the pericope adulterae, Maurice Robinson observed (though I have inserted my own transcription of the Latin for his, so if there are mistakes there, it's my fault not his):

"GA 724 has a Latin colophon that suggests it may have been copied from a printed edition in 1520: [[Libellus hic quatuor Euangeliorum scriptus fuit ex aeditione noui testamenti pr[ ... ] & postea ad tertiam eiusdem  etc.]] In fact, except for not reproducing the spelling error 8:6 κατηγωρειν, the text agrees exactly with that of Erasmus 1516 (even Ιησους is written plene throughout; although my collation fails to note such for 8:1, this is almost certainly the case). The top margins appear like a printed book as well: ¶ ευαγγελιον || κατα ιωαννην. At 8:1 the margin has ¢ 8 sic. At 7:52 a corrector changed one form of abbreviation for και into another, without otherwise affecting the text."

How I found it:

I was reading an article about Erasmus and chased a rabbit trail. There's more to the story, but in short, the only manuscript I could find (at first) with the lives of the four evangelists by Dorotheus of Tyre (which Erasmus included in his 1516 edition, and only the 1516 edition) is 724. So obviously I looked into 724. I did end up finding the content elsewhere, so I can be confident that it's not another patristic forgery by Erasmus.

Conclusions:

1. Getting curious and chasing rabbits can lead to interesting things.

2. Robinson's collation data needs to be published! Where else do we get to see the work of someone who examined ~3,000 manuscripts and made notes about them.

3. Jacob Peterson might not have been wrong to extrapolate a level of error in counting manuscripts back into the minuscules and lectionaries. I wasn't looking for mistakes and, unless I am making one myself (which is certainly possible), I seemed to have happened upon one.

4. Even if 724 should be removed from the Liste, it could still be very interesting. Are there changes from Erasmus' 1516 edition? Do any changes represent textual decisions (or, dare we say it, conjectures?) of Levinus Ammonius? It may be just a boring copy of Erasmus 1516 with the usual sorts of scribal errors, but if we don't look, we won't know.

Peterson: A Recounting of My Accounting of the Difficulty of Counting

Having blogged about the discrepancy between the number of manuscripts in Myths and Mistakes and the number recently given by INTF, I asked Jacob Peterson, the author of the chapter in question, to weigh in. I’m happy to share his thoughts here. —ed.

---

I had several people send me the INTF blog post by Katie Leggett and Greg Paulson in the days after it was posted and now I’ve been asked to write a short addendum here about Peter’s posts (here and here). Having been out of the field essentially since my chapter in Myths and Mistakes was published, this feels a bit like I’ve been granted some lasting and undue authority as an adjudicator on the issue at hand. At best, I have some thoughts for your continued consideration.

Preliminarily, I want to reiterate an overriding theme from my chapter—as Peter did in his most recent piece—that at the level of disagreement we have between my count and INTF’s the stakes are incredibly low and inconsequential, no matter how interesting the issue might be as an intellectual exercise. As I’ll show below, we are arguing over around 100 manuscripts out of over 5000. Beyond that, I have only a couple things to contribute that I think bring my numbers and theirs much closer. And, of course, I’ll offer updated guidance at the end.

If I have an actual qualm with the blog from INTF, it is in the conclusion to use the maximal count of 5700 as the total number of manuscripts when just two sentences earlier it was stated that “you can add together all destroyed manuscripts with ones presumed missing, and subtract this number from the total number of manuscripts, which results in 5,541 manuscripts.” I spent a fair amount of space in my chapter dealing with these categories and problematising issues around lost/destroyed/missing manuscripts, especially those for which we do not have images or the images are illegible (see especially p. 58). If the question is how many manuscripts are there and not how many were there, then surely a “destroyed” manuscript ain’t there (pardon my mostly suppressed Texas grammatical heritage).

Moving forward with their 5,541 number, we also need to account for the passage of time since I wrote my chapter. I submitted the draft in December 2017 with a limited subsequent edit in April 2019 to include the famed “First Century Mark” into my various charts, especially since I had a chart on the preservation of Mark in the first four centuries. In the nearly 5 years since that edit, the last issued numbers in the Liste have changed as follows. 

Category	M&M Count	INTF Blog count	Additions
Papyri	139	141	2
Majuscules	323	326	3
Minuscules	2940	3019	79
Lectionaries	2483	2555	72

That’s a total of 156 newly utilised numbers in the Liste, which roughly aligns with the 167 stated in the INTF blog to have been added since January 2019 (they indicate that some lectionaries were assigned to previously vacated numbers). If we subtract those 167 newly catalogued manuscripts from INTF’s 2023 number of 5541, we arrive at a count of 5,374 manuscripts. That is more than close enough to my approximation of 5300 to make me happy and justify the extrapolations I was doing.

In trying to explain the difference between my count and INTF’s, Peter points out that I got it correct for majuscules but says that “since minuscule and lectionaries turn out to have a far smaller rate of difference [from the Liste numbers due to loss], Peterson’s extrapolation undershot the total by hundreds.” I don’t contest what the Liste records as the state of things today, and certainly do not in any way malign them for an inability to perfectly reflect an ever-changing landscape of manuscripts spread around the world. Rather, as I contend in the chapter and its footnotes (especially p.68 fns. 44 and 45), minuscules and lectionaries probably do experience a rate of loss not too dissimilar to the majuscules but keeping track of them is much more difficult and the payoff is not worth the effort. 

Thus, my count relies on the Liste being, justifiably, out of sync with the real-world conditions of the much larger and harder to monitor class of minuscules and lectionaries. This is certainly a theoretical point—and a bit anecdotal from working in, visiting, and contacting dozens of monasteries—and it was made in the broader service of my point to use prudent and round numbers rather than sensational ones. 

Thus, we might say INTF and I were offering two different types of counts. My extrapolation was an approximation based on a readily ascertainable (and might I say accurate!) rate of loss within the majuscules to give a likely total of how many manuscripts there actually are, whereas INTF is offering a “state of the Liste” count that indicates how many manuscripts are currently catalogued and maybe still survive.

Whatever the case may be for this last point, I’m glad to see that my now-outdated numbers were not far off the mark. I’m similarly pleased to see that some of my comments have now been incorporated into the Liste, although doubtfully under the influence of my chapter. I have in mind here the de-listing of P99 and recognition that 0229 was not destroyed, among others. We should all be thankful for INTF’s ongoing work to maintain the Liste, not least so that I can pop in every once in a while to say a few things. 

In conclusion, with the updated catalogue and in view of my own advice about numbers, I’m happy to update my own guidance regarding how we should answer the question of how many manuscripts there are of the New Testament: 5500.

New Printed Liste Coming from INTF

The most recent printed K-Liste

Greg Paulson has good news out of Münster today: a new printed K-Liste is in the works. This is very good news in my view. The work of tidying up the Liste for this may be the most obvious benefit but I think there is an even greater one in having a list that is, shall we say, frozen in time for comparison’s sake. The online K-Liste is wonderful but it can be easily changed frequently and without notice, something not true of a printed edition. From the announcement:

The Hermann Kunst-Stiftung has generously funded a short-term position at the INTF solely focused on preparing the Liste for publication. This has enabled a new concerted effort to verify the data in the VMR and update incorrect or outdated information in preparation for publication. The Liste will always be a work in progress. While it may not be possible to double-check every detail about every manuscript that is already in the Liste, our goal is to carefully and thoroughly verify as much information as possible based on the resources available to us.

These resources include printed catalogues, recent scholarship, and notifications from individuals. Through the VMR Forum we have been alerted to a number of location changes and new digital images available. We’ve also been making many direct inquiries to holding institutions to stay up to date with manuscript location changes, inquire about manuscript details, and request images to help us check our information in the VMR.

Please note Greg’s request for help. If you know of updates, send them his way.

One particular challenge is keeping up with manuscripts that have changed locations. Currently there are 137 manuscripts in the Liste where the owner/institution is unknown (listed as “besitzer unbekannt”). In addition, a number of manuscripts have been auctioned on Sotheby’s, Christies, Heritage Auctions, etc. While we have been able to ascertain the new locations of many of these auctioned manuscripts, we are asking for your help in tracking down the current location of five manuscripts in particular.

Read the whole post here.

HT: PJW

MS Contents: NT Text and Material Document

Perusal of the LDAB over the past several days has yielded some interesting results in researching the contents of “NT MSS.” In the process, it has become clear that the Nestle-Aland edition and, even the Liste, describe MS contents in an unhelpful way, if one is looking at their listings for documentary evidence within the MSS. If one is looking at matters from a NT text perspective, then these resources helpfully supply the contents within MSS for the NT books.

For example, we are told in NA 27-28, that P6 (04C [= Liste] or 05C [= LDAB]) contains sections of John. The Liste confirms this and adds James 1:13-5:20. Now, if one reads all of the entry in the Liste, one will find the LDAB number with a link to its entry. What one finds on this page is different from the Liste’s page. Here, we are not even told the MS is P6. We are given archive and library numbers (Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale P. k. 362 + Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale P. k. 375 -379 + Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale P. k. 381 + Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale P. k. 382 + Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale P. k. 384) and are also told that the contents of the MS include 1 Clement 1-26 (Copt.), James 1-13 (Copt.; note the mistake in reference numbers that are corrected by the Liste to James 1.13-5.20), Gospel of John 10, 11-13 (Gr.-Copt.; the Liste has more to say about the exact contents). Both the Liste and the LDAB provide links to the other’s site, which is helpful.

By using both databases, we learn P6 contains sections of John (Gr.-Copt.), James (Copt.), and 1 Clement 1-26 (Copt.). NA lists only the Greek portions of the MS. NA does not list the evidence of James because it is probably in Coptic (I have not checked this). The Liste includes all evidence for the text of the NT. Most interestingly, LDAB includes 1 Clement (Copt.) as part of this “NT MS,” while neither the Liste nor NA provide that information.

I’m not sure there’s a perfect database out there designed to meet all of our needs. At this point, it will be helpful to realize there are several wonderful, free resources on the Web to aid us in our varied research endeavors.

Distribution of New Testament Manuscripts by Century

The Alands have a nice chart showing the distribution of Greek New Testament manuscripts by century in their textual criticism handbook, but the data are almost 30 years old now. Thankfully, it’s possible to update their chart with data from the online Kurzgefasste Liste.

Here is the absolute distribution:

And here is a distribution as a percentage of all the manuscripts for each century:

Of course there are caveats. These are simply based on the Gregory-Aland categories with the problems that attend them. Second, I followed the Alands in listing a manuscript with its upper date range so that a 2nd/3rd century manuscript is listed in the 3rd here. There were just over 300 manuscripts that fall into that category. Lastly, I made sure my own data was clean before I produced my charts, but I don’t make any claims that the numbers are 100% accurate.

Feel free to correct these, use them in your lectures, or frame them for your children’s wall.

News from the Virtual Manuscript Room

As we have announced previously, the Kurzgefasste Liste is now online, which means that changes will be effective immediately. Naturally, such updates will largely go unnoticed unless the specific entry is consulted by someone.

However, more significant updates, and changes of other nature (technical, design etc) are published under "News" in the main entrance of the Virtual Manuscript Room, so to speak. These notices are published only in German for now, but English versions are planned for the future. In the meantime, the developers can always hope that there are some benevolent bloggers who help translate and disseminate the news ;-)

The latest major news (2010-03-02) is that several entries for the Albanian MSS have been updated. There were 30 MSS registered in Tirana in the 2d ed. of the Liste, and so far it has been verified that 23 of them are still there: 043, 1141, 1143, 1705, 1706, 1707, 1709, 1764, 2244, 2245, 2246, 2247, 2252, 2253, 2514, L758, L882, L1204, L1207, L1433, L1434, L2353, L2372.

Another one, 1142, is now in the US, divided between Cambridge/Mass., Harvard University Houghton Library (MS Typ 215), and Washington/D. C., Dumbarton Oaks (acc. no. 58.105). The latter only has one illuminated folio with John. (In this connection I should point out that I have found there are plenty similar loose leaves with miniatures out there, e.g., one in Stockholm - it has very popular to rip them out.)

In sum, six MSS previously registered in Tiranan have not been located there. On the other hand, eleven new MSS in Tirana have been registered: 2900, 2901, 2902, 2903, L2439, L2440, L2441, L2442, L2443, L2444, L2445. In 2007, the CSNTM photographed the Albanian MSS. Thus, you can view the MSS online here, but I think the CSNTM will now have to update the left column with Gregory-Aland numbers according to the latest information from Münster.

The next in the row of lectionaries, by the way, is L2446 (Iviron 1404 or s.n.) – a manuscript that I suggested for registration some time ago. I am glad it has now received a number, but more on that soon.

New Update to the Kurzgefasste Liste

A few days ago a new update of the Kurzgefasste Liste was published by the INTF here. Apparently, the PDF updates will continue, although the complete Liste is now available in digital form in the Virtual Manuscript Room of Münster.

Since the last update one new Oxyrhynchus papyrus has been registered, and a dozen minuscules/lectionaries from Tirana, Albania (see a report here):

P 127 = Oxford, Ashmolean Museum (P. Oxy. 4968)
Date: 5th century
Content: Act 10,32- 35.40-45; 11,2-5; 11,30- 12,3.5.7-9; 15,29-30.34- 41; 16,1- 4.13-40; 17,1-10
Editio princeps: D.C. Parker, S.R. Pickering, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri LXXIV, London 2009, 1-45, Pl. II-V

See Peter Head's earlier comment on this interesting papyrus here.

2900 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Ko. 85
Date: 14th century
Content: Gospels

2901 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Ko. 92
Date: 13-14th centuries
Content: Gospels

2902 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Br. 93
Date: 13th century
Content: Gospels
(columns in cruciform)

2903 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Ar. 98
Date: 12-13th centuries
Content: Catholic Letters and Pauline Letters

L2439 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Vl. 7
Date: 11th century
Gospel lectionary

L2440 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Vl. 11
Date: 12th century
Gospel lectionary

L2441 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Br. 13
Date: 13th century
Gospel lectionary

L2442 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Br. 16
Date: 13th century
Gospel lectionary

L2443 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Br. 77
Date: 15th century
Gospel lectionary

L2444 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Br. 88
Date: 13th century
Gospel lectionary

L2445 = Tirana, Staatsarchiv, Kod. Br. 89
Date: 14th century
Gospel lectionary

The list of papyri reaches to 127;

The list of uncials reaches to 0320;

The list of minuscules reaches to 2903;

The list of lectionaries reaches to L2445.

To my knowledge this new uncial lectionary that we reported on last year has not yet been registered (don't forget to read the comments for the idenfication of the fragments as a lectionary).

Münster X-Files on NT Manuscripts Go Public

Those who have visited the Institute for New Testament Textual Research in Münster probably know that each of the registered New Testament manuscripts have a special dossier containing various information relating to the manuscript. These "Münster X-Files," hitherto safely stored in large metal lockers, are now being scanned and the documents (PDF) are made available in the Virtual Manuscript Room (Münster), accessible through each manuscript entry. The links appear in the field "Resources."

I am certain that researchers will be able to find goldnuggets among these files in the future. So far only the dossiers of a number of papyrus MSS have appeared, e.g., P1, P20, P21, P22, P26 und P37. This image shows the entry of P1. There are 13 documents available for download.

Read also my previous announcement of the digitial Kurzgefasste Liste here.

Three New Manuscripts

A new update of the Kurzgefasste Liste was published a while ago here. Since the Liste has now gone digital (see previous post), this may be the last PDF-update that we will see.

There are three new manuscripts since the last update of August:

P 126 Florenz, Istituto papirologico "G. Vitelli", PSI 1497
Date: fourth century
with Heb 13,12-13; 19-20
ed. pr. in Pubblicazioni della Società Italiana: Papiri Greci e Latini 15, Firenze 2008, 171-2.
See our earlier report on this papyrus here.

2898 Paris, Bibl. Nat., Gr. 82, fol. 1-41.51-305.
Date: 1072
with the Gospels

2899 Città del Vat., Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 647 (the number is in error in the PDF, but corrected in the digital Liste)
with Paul and Catholic Epistles
Date: XIV (there is an error in the PDF update, but corrected in the digital Liste)

The number of papyri is now 126.

The list of uncials now reaches up to 0320

The list of minuscules reaches to 2899

The list of lectionaries reaches to L2438. To my knowledge this new uncial lectionary that we reported on last year has not yet been registered (don't forget to read the comments for the idenfication of the fragments as a lectionary).

Aland's Kurzgefasste Liste 1.0 on-line!

Hooray! It is here!

The digital Kurzgefasste Liste is on-line here in the Virtual Manuscript Room of Münster. The VMR has been up for a while, but mainly for testpurposes. Today the "Handschriftenliste 1.0" was released:

Handschriftenliste 1.0
Die Darbietung der Handschriftenliste wurde neu strukturiert. Man kann die Handschriftenliste nach Objekt-ID, nach aktuellen Gregory-Aland-Nummern und nach ehemaligen GA-Nummern selektieren. Wenn eine Handschrift im NT.VMR vorhanden ist, können die Bilder direkt aus der Liste heraus im Viewer angezeigt werden.
(2009-10-08)

Ulrich Schmid, currently in charge of the Liste says that the presentation will be constantly augmented, both in terms of content and functionality. The design and usability of the interface will improve over time, but as it stands in can now be used and tested by the public.

In the Virtual Manuscript Room a number of MSS can be viewed, at this point mainly papyrus witnesses. There is a tool for manuscript indexing (read more here and especially here).

If you want to contact the website authors, Martin Faßnacht or Ulrich Schmid, you can click on the logotype of the INTF (Universität Münster Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung) and you will be able to e-mail in your suggestions of improvements, reports of errors, etc. Such feedback is very welcome

In the sidebar on this blog you can reach the VMR in Münster and in Birmingham. I hope links will be added also in the respective VMR:s.

More on New Manuscripts of the NT

The Institute für neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF) has published a new update of the Kurzgefasste Liste (090820).

The number of papyri is 125. Peter reported recently on the new fragment P. Oxy 4934 containing 1 Peter 1:23-2:5; 7-12. This is P125. The most recent fragment of Hebrews, P126, is not included in this update since it was registered after 20 August .

The list of uncials now reaches up to 0320.

0319 = Codex Sangermanensis (St Petersburg), a copy of Codex Claromontanus known as Dabs1
0320 = Codex Waldeccensis (Marburg), another copy of Codex Claromontanus known as Dabs2

The list of minuscules reaches 2897. Images of 2892, 2893, 2895-2897 (MSS in the Van Kampen collection in Orlando, Florida) can be viewed at the CSNTM website. Greg.-Aland 2894 is a manuscript in the Getty Museum that I sent in for registration in Münster a while ago.

The list of lectionaries reaches up to L2438.