The León Palimpsest, designated l or 67 (in the Beuron system), is a 7th-century

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

manuscript pandect of the

Christian Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

conserved in the

cathedral of León A cathedral is a church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominations with an episcop ...

, Spain. The text, written on

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. It is often distinguished from parchment, either by being made from calfskin (rather than the skin of other animals), or simply by being of a higher quality. Vellu ...

, is in a fragmentary condition. In some parts it represents the

Old Latin Old Latin, also known as Early, Archaic or Priscan Latin (Classical ), was the Latin language in the period roughly before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin. A member of the Italic languages, it descends from a common Proto-Italic ...

version, while following

Jerome Jerome (; ; ; – 30 September 420), also known as Jerome of Stridon, was an early Christian presbyter, priest, Confessor of the Faith, confessor, theologian, translator, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. He is best known ...

Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...

in others. The codex is a

palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid ski ...

. From its location in Léon, this palimpsest is sometimes referred to as the Codex Legionensis; but this name is more commonly applied to the 10th-century Vulgate Bible at the

Basilica of San Isidoro, León In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's Forum (Roman), forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in t ...

(''Codex Gothicus Legionensis'', or 91, 92 and 133 in the Beuron system). Nor should the León palimpsest be confused with another 10th-century pandect in León, of which the second volume is conserved in the cathedral archive of Léon (number 193 in the Beuron system).

Description

The text of the New Testament has survived on 40 leaves of the codex. The leaves have measures 37 by 24 cm. The text is written in 2 columns of 38-55 lines per page. The text is written in a semi-uncial hand, in Visigothic characters. The fragments contain texts of

James 4 The Epistle of James is a general epistle and one of the 21 epistles (didactic letters) in the New Testament. It was written originally in Koine Greek. The epistle aims to reach a wide Jewish audience. It survives in manuscripts from the 3rd ...

:4 -

1 Peter 3 The First Epistle of Peter is a book of the New Testament. The author presents himself as Peter the Apostle. The ending of the letter includes a statement that implies that it was written from "Babylon", which may be a reference to Rome. The ...

:14; 1 John 1:5 -

3 John The Third Epistle of John is the third-to-last book of the New Testament and the Christian Bible as a whole, and attributed to John the Evangelist, traditionally thought to be the author of the Gospel of John and the other two epistles of John ...

10; Acts 7:27-11:13; 14:21-17:25. It contains also a fragment of the

Books of Maccabees The Books of the Maccabees or the Sefer HaMakabim (the ''Book of the Maccabees'') recount the history of the Maccabees, the leaders of the Jewish rebellion against the Seleucid dynasty. List of books The Books of the Maccabees refers to canonical ...

.Bruce M. Metzger, ''The Early Versions of the New Testament'', Oxford University Press, 1977, p. 316. The text of the codex represent a Vulgate with Old Latin elements, especially in the

First Epistle of John The First Epistle of John is the first of the Johannine epistles of the New Testament, and the fourth of the catholic epistles. There is no scholarly consensus as to the authorship of the Johannine works. The author of the First Epistle is ...

. The text is close to the Liber Comicus. The codex also contains the text of the

Comma Johanneum The Johannine Comma () is an interpolated phrase (comma) in verses of the First Epistle of John. The text (with the comma in italics and enclosed by brackets) in the King James Version of the Bible reads: In the Greek Textus Receptus (TR), th ...

( 1 John 5:7). As it is a

, the text could be overwritten. The younger upper text contains a 10th-century writing of Rufinus' translation of

Eusebius Eusebius of Caesarea (30 May AD 339), also known as Eusebius Pamphilius, was a historian of Christianity, exegete, and Christian polemicist from the Roman province of Syria Palaestina. In about AD 314 he became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima. ...

' ''

Church history Church history or ecclesiastical history as an academic discipline studies the history of Christianity and the way the Christian Church has developed since its inception. Henry Melvill Gwatkin defined church history as "the spiritual side of t ...

''. The whole book contains 275 leaves, of which 185 have had their underwiting deciphered. The order of the books may tentatively be reconstructed: Octateuch, 1–4 Kings, Prophets (without Baruch), Job, Psalms (iuxta Hebraeos?), Proverbs,

Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes ( ) is one of the Ketuvim ('Writings') of the Hebrew Bible and part of the Wisdom literature of the Christian Old Testament. The title commonly used in English is a Latin transliteration of the Greek translation of the Hebrew word ...

Song of Songs The Song of Songs (), also called the Canticle of Canticles or the Song of Solomon, is a Biblical poetry, biblical poem, one of the five ("scrolls") in the ('writings'), the last section of the Tanakh. Unlike other books in the Hebrew Bible, i ...

, Chronicles (Paralipomenon), 1–2 Ezra, 4 Esdras, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach),

Esther Esther (; ), originally Hadassah (; ), is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible. According to the biblical narrative, which is set in the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus falls in love with Esther and ma ...

Judith The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christian Old Testament of the Bible but Development of the Hebrew Bible canon, excluded from the ...

, Tobit, 1–

2 Maccabees 2 Maccabees, also known as the Second Book of Maccabees, Second Maccabees, and abbreviated as 2 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which recounts the persecution of Jews under King Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Maccabean Revolt against him. It ...

;

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 ...

Pauline Epistles The Pauline epistles, also known as Epistles of Paul or Letters of Paul, are the thirteen books of the New Testament attributed to Paul the Apostle, although the authorship of some is in dispute. Among these epistles are some of the earliest ext ...

Catholic Epistles The catholic epistles (also called the general epistles) are seven epistles of the New Testament. Listed in order of their appearance in the New Testament, the catholic epistles are: Naming The use of the word ''catholic'' in the term catholic' ...

Acts The Acts of the Apostles (, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; ) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of its message to the Roman Empire. Acts and the Gospel of Luke make up a two-par ...

Apocalypse Apocalypse () is a literary genre originating in Judaism in the centuries following the Babylonian exile (597–587 BCE) but persisting in Christianity and Islam. In apocalypse, a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a ...

History

The biblical underwriting has been dated by F. H. A. Scrivener, Samuel Berger, and

Bruce M. Metzger Bruce Manning Metzger (February 9, 1914 – February 13, 2007) was an American biblical scholar, Bible translator and textual critic who was a longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of the ...

to the 7th century. BS4/ref> It was discovered by Rudolf Beer. It was examined and described by Samuel Berger. It was examined by

Bonifatius Fischer Bonifatius Fischer (1915–1997) was a German biblical scholar, textual critic of the Vulgate, and Benedictine. Fischer questioned Jerome's authorship of some parts of the Vulgate New Testament. In 1951–1954 Fischer prepared the Old-Latin text o ...

and Thiele. Fischer edited its text in 1963.Léon Vaganay, Christian-Bernard Amphoux, Jenny Heimerdinger
''An introduction to New Testament textual criticism''
Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 29. Currently it is housed in the archive of

León Cathedral Santa María de Regla de León Cathedral is a Catholic church, the episcopal see of the diocese of León in the city of León, Castile and León, north-western Spain, consecrated under the name of the Virgin Mary. It was the first monument d ...

, where it is designated as codex 15. The manuscript is cited in several critical texts of the Greek and Latin New Testament.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Legionensis Vetus Latina New Testament manuscripts Vulgate manuscripts 7th-century biblical manuscripts Palimpsests 7th-century books in Latin

Description

History

See also

References