Lectionary 183, designated by

siglum Scribal abbreviations, or sigla (singular: siglum), are abbreviations used by ancient and medieval scribes writing in various languages, including Latin, Greek, Old English and Old Norse. In modern manuscript editing (substantive and mecha ...

ℓ ''183'' (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts) is a

Greek Greek may refer to: 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 of all kno ...

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

of the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

, written on parchment in

uncial Uncial is a majuscule script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to 8th centuries AD by Latin and Greek scribes. Uncial letters were used to write Greek and Latin, as well as Gothic, and are the current style for ...

letters. Biblical scholars Westcott and Hort labelled it by 38,and biblical scholar Frederick H. A. Scrivener by 257. Using the study of comparative writings styles (

palaeography Palaeography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, UK) or paleography (American and British English spelling differences#ae and oe, US) (ultimately from , , 'old', and , , 'to write') is the study and academic disciplin ...

), it has been assigned to the 10th century. The manuscript has some missing portions and gaps at the end and inside, but they were supplied by a later hand. It is faded in parts. Textually it often agrees with old uncial manuscripts of the New Testament, but it has some unique variants. It has numerous errors, but unequally distributed in the codex. It was examined by several palaeographers. It forms part of the British Library Arundel Manuscripts.

Description

The manuscript is a

codex The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

(precursor to the modern book) containing Lessons from the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

s of

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second E ...

, Matthew, Luke

lectionary A lectionary () is a book or listing that contains a collection of scripture readings appointed for Christianity, Christian or Judaism, Jewish worship on a given day or occasion. There are sub-types such as a "gospel lectionary" or evangeliary, ...

(''Evangelistarium''), on 329 parchment leaves (29.4 cm by 23.2 cm). 9 leaves of the original codex were lost, but they were supplied by a later hand on paper. The manuscript contains all the Church lessons from

Easter Easter, also called Pascha ( Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in t ...

Pentecost Pentecost (also called Whit Sunday, Whitsunday or Whitsun) is a Christianity, Christian holiday which takes place on the 49th day (50th day when inclusive counting is used) after Easter Day, Easter. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spiri ...

, for every Saturday and Sunday for the rest of the year. The leaf with text of John 20:19–30 is on paper, part of the first leaf (John 1:11–13) is on paper and was supplied by later hand. The supplied leaves are also written in uncial letters, but in a widely in different style, "with thicker downstrokes and very thin upstrokes". It contains music notes and portraits of the Evangelists in colours and gold before each Gospel (folios 1v, 63v, 94v, and 131v). There are 16 headpieces in colours and gold.Arundel 547
at the British Library According to Scrivener it is splendidly illuminated. The decorations are

zoomorphic The word ''zoomorphism'' derives from and . In the context of art, zoomorphism could describe art that imagines humans as non-human animals. It can also be defined as art that portrays one species of animal like another species of animal or art ...

(birds, fishes) or

anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to ...

(human figures, hands, other body parts), also harpies, or vases. The text is written in Greek

letters, in two columns per page, 22 lines per page. The margins are wide, the text measures 24.5 by 16.5 cm. The first page is in red and gold ink, the rest pages in black ink, much faded in parts. The handwriting is large and elegant. The large initial letters are rubricated, the headpieces are decorated in colours and gold (folios 1r, 64r, 95r, 132r, and 238r). The small initials are in red ink. The breathings (

rough breathing In the polytonic orthography of Ancient Greek, the rough breathing ( or ; ) character is a diacritical mark used to indicate the presence of an sound before a vowel, diphthong, or after rho. It remained in the polytonic orthography even af ...

smooth breathing The smooth breathing (; ''psilí''; ) is a diacritical mark used in polytonic orthography. In Ancient Greek, it marks the absence of the voiceless glottal fricative from the beginning of a word. Some authorities have interpreted it as repr ...

), and accents are in red ink, and though they are "given correctly", it is "without any pretensions to correctness". The words are written continuously without any separation. The

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

are written in an abbreviated way. The itacistic error occurs very frequently, more often than in

Codex Alexandrinus The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII) is a manuscript of the Greek Bible,The Greek Bible in this context refers to the Bible used by Greek-speaking Christians who lived in Egypt and elsewhere during the early ...

, and almost so frequently as in

Codex Bezae The Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis is a bi-lingual Greek and Latin manuscript of the New Testament written in an uncial hand on parchment. It is designated by the siglum D or 05 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and � ...

, but they are unequally distributed over the different parts of the manuscript. The change ι into ει is not so perpetual as in these two manuscripts. There is no

iota adscript Iota (; uppercase Ι, lowercase ι; ) is the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet. It was derived from the Phoenician alphabet, Phoenician letter Yodh. Letters that arose from this letter include the Latin alphabet, Latin I and J, the Cyrillic � ...

um or

iota subscript The iota subscript is a diacritic mark in the Greek alphabet shaped like a small vertical stroke or miniature iota placed below the letter. It can occur with the vowel letters eta , omega , and alpha . It represents the former presence of an ...

um in the codex Moveable-nu occurs almost constantly. According to Scrivener the grammatical forms of the manuscript usually are considered as Alexandrian. There are many marks in red ink, some erasures and corrections made by a later hand. A few corrections were made by modern hand.

Text

The text of the codex is considered a representative of the

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

and it is closer to the

Textus Receptus The (Latin for 'received text') is the succession of printed Greek New Testament texts starting with Erasmus' ''Novum Instrumentum omne'' (1516) and including the editions of Robert Estienne, Stephanus, Theodore Beza, Beza, the House of Elzevir ...

than many other manuscript of much later date, but some readings of the codex can be found in the uncial manuscripts: Alexandrinus (A), Vaticanus (B), Ephraemi recriptus (C), Bezae (D), Cyprius (K), Regius (L), and Campianus. It agrees with these manuscripts in following texts: Matthew 6:32; 7:2.12.13; 8:18; 9:22.27; 18:14; 22:13; 23:10.25;27.28; 24:6; 26:71; 27:41.45; Mark 1:9; 13:9; 16:9; Luke 1:65; 2:25; 3:16; 4:16.25; 9:31.33; 12:7.8.11.12; 18:21.43; 22:47; 23:15.28.38.48; 24:10; John 12:34; 13:2; 19:27. It has also a number of unique readings in following texts: Matthew 2:15; 3:16; 9:10; 17:17; 20:5; 23:35; 24:4.42.43; 27:1.56; Mark 1:7; 6:8.10.16; 12:30.32; 13:11; 15:26.33; Luke 7:24.28; John 1:29; 7:41; 8:44; 12:20.35.47; 15:8; 18:33. ; Some textual variants The words after the brackets are the readings of the codex. : Matthew 2:15 – ινα ] οπως : Matthew 3:16 – εμεινεν ] ερχομενον : Matthew 9:10 – πολλοι ] πολλαι : Matthew 17:17 – φερετε μοι αυτον ωδε ] φερετε αυτον προς με : Matthew 20:5 – ωσαυτως ] ωσαυτος : Matthew 23:35 – ελθη ] επελθη : Matthew 24:4 – μη τις υμας πλανηση ] μη πλανηθηναι : Matthew 24:42 – γρηγορειτε ] γρηγορειται : Matthew 24:43 – φυλακη ] φυλακει

History

Palaeographer Josiah Forshall dated the manuscript to the 9th century (''Catalogue of Manuscripts in the British Museum'', 1834–1840).

Scrivener A scrivener (or scribe) was a person who, before the advent of compulsory education, could literacy, read and write or who wrote letters as well as court and legal documents. Scriveners were people who made their living by writing or copying w ...

stated that on the palaeographical ground it should be dated earlier, even to the 7th or 8th century, but liturgical books usually were written in an older letters than in other documents. Scrivener dated this manuscript to the 9th century. Gregory refers the manuscript even later, to the 10th century. It has been assigned by the

Institute for New Testament Textual Research The Institute for New Testament Textual Research ( — INTF) at the University of Münster, Westphalia, Germany, is to research the textual history of the New Testament and to reconstruct its Greek initial text on the basis of the entire manusc ...

to the 10th century. Its place of origin is unknown. Suggestions include the Eastern Mediterranean (Cappadocia?) or South Italy. According to the subscription it was written in the "monastery of the Holy Trinity on the island of Chalce". The manuscript once belonged to Thomas Howard (1585–1646), 2nd earl of Arundel, 4th earl of Surrey, and 1st earl of Norfolk, an art collector and politician; he probably acquired the manuscript through his agents Petty or

Thomas Roe Sir Thomas Roe ( 1581 – 6 November 1644) was an English diplomat of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Roe's voyages ranged from Central America to India; as ambassador, he represented England in the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empir ...

in 1626. Then it belonged to Henry Howard (1628–1684), 6th duke of Norfolk, who presented the manuscript to the "

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

" in London in 1667 (along with Minuscule 476 and Lectionary 187). It was later purchased by the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

from the Royal Society along with more than 500 other Arundel manuscripts in 1831. Since 1973 it has been housed in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

. The manuscript was examined by

Richard Bentley Richard Bentley FRS (; 27 January 1662 – 14 July 1742) was an English classical scholar, critic, and theologian. Considered the "founder of historical philology", Bentley is widely credited with establishing the English school of Hellenis ...

, who made the first partial collation of the codex. The collation of Bentley is still preserved at the Trinity College (B. XVII. 8). Scrivener made its new "exact and full" collation in 1852 (together with the ℓ ''184''). It was published in 1853. Scrivener stated: "I regard Codex x – Lectionary 183 – as perhaps the most valuable manuscript I have collated." The manuscript was not known for

Johann Martin Augustin Scholz Johann Martin Augustin Scholz (8 February 1794 – 20 October 1852) was a German Roman Catholic orientalist, biblical scholar and academic theologian. He was a professor at the University of Bonn and travelled extensively throughout Europe a ...

and it was not catalogued in his list. It was added to the list of New Testament manuscripts by Scrivener (number 257) and Caspar René Gregory (number 183). Gregory saw the manuscript in 1884.

Brooke Foss Westcott Brooke Foss Westcott (12 January 1825 – 27 July 1901) was an English bishop, biblical scholar and theologian, serving as Bishop of Durham from 1890 until his death. He is perhaps most known for co-editing ''The New Testament in the Orig ...

and Fenton Hort labelled it by 38. It was examined by Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, E. Maunde Thompson, J. A. Herbert, John Bradley, Kurt Weitzmann, and David Buckton. Gregory saw the manuscript in 1883. William Hatch edited one facsimile page of the codex. The codex was rebound and renovated in 1963. The manuscript is sporadically cited in the critical editions of the Greek New Testament (UBS3). It is not cited in UBS4.''The Greek New Testament'', ed. B. Aland, K. Aland, J. Karavidopoulos, C. M. Martini, and B. M. Metzger, in cooperation with INTF, ''United Bible Societies'', 4th revised edition, (United Bible Societies, Stuttgart 2001), p. 21, . The codex is located in the

(Arundel 547) at London.

Notes and references

Bibliography

* Westcott in ''Catalogue of ancient Manuscripts in the British Museum'', 1881.

External links