Lectionary 223, 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 ''223'' (in the Gregory-Aland numbering) is a Greek

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 ...

, on paper. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 15th century.''Handschriftenliste''
at the ''INTF''

Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener (29 September 181330 October 1891) was an English writer and scholar. Additionally, he was a New Testament textual critic and a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee which produced the Revised V ...

labelled it by 252^evl. It contains much additional material, liturgical and secular.

Description

The codex contains 28 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 and Epistles (''Evangelistarium'', ''Apostolarium''), on 174 paper leaves (). The text is written in Greek

minuscule Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (more formally '' minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing system ...

letters, in one column per page, 22 lines per page. It contains also

Menologion A menologium (, pl. menologia), also known by other names, is any collection of information arranged according to the days of a month, usually a set of such collections for all the months of the year. In particular, it is used for ancient Roman ...

, liturgies of

John Chrysostom John Chrysostom (; ; – 14 September 407) was an important Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and p ...

Basil of Caesarea Basil of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great (330 – 1 or 2 January 379) was an early Roman Christian prelate who served as Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia from 370 until his death in 379. He was an influential theologian who suppor ...

, and of the Presanctified Gifts (as Lectionary 216), Prayers for Saints' days, a table of lunar days with curious notes both biblical and astronomical, Psalm 135 ( LXX), and other miscellaneous pieces, liturgical or secular, on coarse paper. Scrivener stated "a strange volume indeed". It is full of the errors of

itacism Iotacism (, ''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 the letter iota, the orig ...

, poor illuminations, and careless errors (e.g. 2 Timothy 2:6). It is "too incorrect to be much of value", though it has no errors with

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 or

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.Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener
''Adversaria Critica Sacra: With a Short Explanatory Introduction''
(Cambridge, 1893), p. LXVII The manuscript has survived in bad condition.

History

Scrivener dated the manuscript to the 14th or 15th century, Gregory to the 14th 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 ...

(INTF) to the 15th century. Of the history of the codex nothing is known until the year 1864, when it was in the possession of a dealer at

Janina Ioannina ( ' ), often called Yannena ( ' ) within Greece, is the capital and largest city of the Ioannina (regional unit), Ioannina regional unit and of Epirus (region), Epirus, an Modern regions of Greece, administrative region in northwester ...

in Epeiros. It was then purchased from him by a representative of

Baroness Burdett-Coutts Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knight, ...

(1814–1906), a philanthropist, along with other Greek manuscripts. They were transported to England in 1870-1871. The manuscript was presented by Burdett-Coutts to Sir Roger Cholmely's School, and was housed at the Highgate (Burdett-Coutts III. 29), in London. The manuscript was added to the list of New Testament manuscripts by Scrivener (number 252) and Gregory (number 223). Gregory saw it in 1883. The manuscript was acquired for the University of Michigan in 1922. It was digitalized by the

Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to digitally preserve Greek New Testament manuscripts. Toward that end, CSNTM takes digital photographs of manuscripts at institu ...

in 2008. The manuscript is sporadically cited in the critical editions of the Greek New Testament (UBS3).''The Greek New Testament'', ed. K. Aland, A. Black, C. M. Martini, B. M. Metzger, and A. Wikgren, in cooperation with INTF, ''United Bible Societies'', 3rd edition, (Stuttgart 1983), p. XXX. The codex is housed at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

(Ms. 17) in nn Arbor, Michigan.

Notes and references

Bibliography

* Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener
''Adversaria Critica Sacra: With a Short Explanatory Introduction''
(Cambridge, 1893), pp. LXVII-LXVIII (as v) * Kenneth W. Clark, ''A Descriptive Catalogue of Greek New Testament Manuscripts in America'' (Chicago, 1937), pp. 284-285.

External links