Codex Petropolitanus Purpureus, designated by N or 022 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), ε 19 ( Soden), is a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

New Testament

codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

containing the

four Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

. It has been paleographically dated to the 6th century. Codex Petropolitanus Purpureus, along with the manuscripts Φ, O, and Σ, belongs to the group of the Purple Uncials. The manuscript is very lacunose.

Description

The codex is made of 231 parchment leaves (32 x 27 cm), with the text written in two columns, 16 lines per page, 12 letters in line, in large uncial letters. The lettering is in silver ink on vellum dyed purple, with gold ink used for the

nomina sacra In Christian scribal practice, nomina sacra (singular: ''nomen sacrum'' from Latin ''sacred name'') is the abbreviation of several frequently occurring divine names or titles, especially in Greek manuscripts of the Bible. A nomen sacrum consists ...

(, , , , and ). It has errors of

iotacism Iotacism ( el, ιωτακισμός, ''iotakismos'') or itacism is the process of vowel shift by which a number of vowels and diphthongs converged towards the pronunciation in post-classical Greek and Modern Greek. The term "iotacism" refers to ...

s, as the change of ι and ει, αι and ε. It has been calculated the original codex contained 462 leaves. The tables of κεφάλαια (''tables of contents'') were placed before each

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

. The text is divided according to the κεφάλαια (''chapters''), whose numbers are given at the margin, with τίτλοι (''titles of chapters'') at the top of the pages. The Ammonian sections and the

Eusebian Canons Eusebian canons, Eusebian sections or Eusebian apparatus, also known as Ammonian sections, are the system of dividing the four Gospels used between late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The divisions into chapters and verses used in modern texts ...

are presented in the margin.

Lacunae

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and ...

1:1-24, 2:7-20, 3:4-6:24, 7:15-8:1, 8:24-31, 10:28-11:3, 12:40-13:4, 13:33-41, 14:6-22, 15:14-31, 16:7-18:5, 18:26-19:6, 19:13-20:6, 21:19-26:57, 26:65-27:26, 27:34-end;

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark), or simply Mark (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). is the second of the four canonical gospels and of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to ...

1:1-5:20. 7:4-20, 8:32-9:1, 10:43-11:7, 12:19-14:25, 15:23-33, 15:42-16:20;

Gospel of Luke The Gospel of Luke), or simply Luke (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Together with the Acts of the Apostles, it makes up a two ...

1:1-2:23, 4:3-19, 4:26-35, 4:42-5:12, 5:33-9:7, 9:21-28, 9:36-58, 10:4-12, 10:35-11:14, 11:23-12:12, 12:21-29, 18:32-19:17, 20:30-21:22, 22:49-57, 23:41-24:13, 24:21-39, 24:49-end;

Gospel of John The Gospel of John ( grc, Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, translit=Euangélion katà Iōánnēn) is the fourth of the four canonical gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "sig ...

1:1-21, 1:39-2:6, 3:30-4:5, 5:3-10, 5:19-26, 6:49-57, 9:33-14:2, 14:11-15:14, 15:22-16:15, 20:23-25, 20:28-30, 21:20-end. (NA26)

Text

The text of the codex is a representative of the

Byzantine text-type In the textual criticism of the New Testament, the Byzantine text-type (also called Majority Text, Traditional Text, Ecclesiastical Text, Constantinopolitan Text, Antiocheian Text, or Syrian Text) is one of the main text types. It is the form f ...

, with numerous pre-Byzantine readings. According to Scrivener "it exhibits strong Alexandrian forms." According to Streeter, in parts it has some Caesarean readings. Aland placed it in Category V, and it is certain that it is more Byzantine than anything else. The texts of Luke 22:43-44, and John 7:53–8:11 are omitted. In John 1:27 it has the addition (''He shall baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire'').

History

It is understood that the manuscript originated in the imperial scriptorium of

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth ( Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...

and was dismembered by crusaders in the 12th century. In 1896

Nicholas II of Russia Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Pola ...

commissioned

Fyodor Uspensky Fyodor Ivanovich Uspensky or Uspenskij (russian: Фёдор Ива́нович Успе́нский ) was a Russian Empire and Soviet Byzantinist. His works are considered to be among the finest illustrations of the flowering of Byzantine studi ...

Russian Archaeological Institute of Constantinople The Russian Archaeological Institute of Constantinople (russian: Русский археологический институт в Константинополе) was founded in 1895 and led by two distinguished Russian Byzantinists, Fyodor Uspensky ...

to buy the greater part of it for the

Imperial Public Library The National Library of Russia (NLR, russian: Российская национальная библиотека}), located in Saint Petersburg, is the first, and one of three national public libraries in Russia. The NLR is currently ranked amo ...

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. The codex was examined by Lambeck, Montfaucon, Hermann Treschow,

Alter Alter may refer to: * Alter (name), people named Alter * Alter (automobile) * Alter (crater), a lunar crater * Alter Channel, a Greek TV channel * Archbishop Alter High School, a Roman Catholic high school in Kettering, Ohio * ALTER, a command i ...

, Hartel, Wickholf, Bianchini, H.S. Cronin, and

Duchesne Duchesne is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Joseph Duchesne (c. 1544–1609), French physician and chemist. Physician-in-ordinary to King Henry IV *André Duchesne (1584–1640), French historian *François Duchesne (1616–16 ...

. Wettstein in 1715 examined 4 leaves housed at London (

Cotton Titus This is an incomplete list of some of the manuscripts from the Cotton library that today form the Cotton collection of the British Library. Some manuscripts were destroyed or damaged in a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731, and a few are kept in oth ...

C. XV) and marked them by I. Wettstein cited only 5 of its readings. According to Scrivener it has 57 various readings. Bianchini described portions housed at the Vatican Library. The same portions examined and collated for Scholz Gaetano Luigi Marini. Vienna fragments, Codex Vindobonensis, were examined by Wettstein, who marked them by siglum N. Treschow in 1773 and Alter in 1787 had given imperfect collations of Vienna fragments. Peter Lambeck gave the wrong suggestion that Vienna fragments and Vienna Genesis originally belonged to the same codex. Tischendorf published fragments of this manuscript in 1846 in his ''Monumenta sacra et profana''. Tischendorf considered it as a fragment of the same codex as 6 leaves from Vatican, and 2 leaves from Vienna.

Louis Duchesne Louis Marie Olivier Duchesne (; 13 September 1843 – 21 April 1922) was a French priest, philologist, teacher and a critical historian of Christianity and Roman Catholic liturgy and institutions. Life Descended from a family of Breton sailor ...

described the Patmos portions (1876). Athens and New York portions were edited by Stanley Rypins in 1956. A facsimile of all fragments was published 2002 in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh List ...

Present location

The 231 extant

folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

s of the manuscript are kept in different libraries: * 182 leaves in the

National Library of Russia The National Library of Russia (NLR, russian: Российская национальная библиотека}), located in Saint Petersburg, is the first, and one of three national public libraries in Russia. The NLR is currently ranked amo ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, * 33 leaves in the Library of the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian on the Island of

Patmos Patmos ( el, Πάτμος, ) is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. It is famous as the location where John of Patmos received the visions found in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament, and where the book was written. One of the northernmos ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wit ...

, Mark 6:53-7:4; 7:20-8:32; 9:1-10:43; 11:7-12:19; 14:25-15:23; * 6 leaves in the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

, Matthew 19:6-13; 20:6-22; 20:29-21:19 * 4 leaves in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the Briti ...

, Cotton Titus C. XV; Matthew 26:57-65; 27:26-34; John 14:2-10; 15:15-22; they were named the Codex Cottonianus; * 2 leaves in the

National Library of Austria The Austrian National Library (german: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) is the largest library in Austria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Neue Burg Wing of the Hofburg in center of ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, * 1 leaf in the

Morgan Library The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th S ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, * 1 leaf in the Byzantine Museum in

, * 1 leaf in the Museum of Byzantine Culture in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...

* 1 leaf in the private collection of Marquis А. Spinola in Lerma (1), Italy.

References

External links

Codex Petropolitanus Purpureus N (022)
at the ''Encyclopedia of Textual Criticism''

at the National Library of Russia, 2007 Petropolitanus Purpureus Purple parchment 6th-century biblical manuscripts National Library of Russia collection