The Sinope Gospels, designated by O or 023 (in the
Gregory-Aland numbering), ε 21 (
Soden), also known as the Codex Sinopensis, is a fragment of a 6th-century
illuminated
Illuminated may refer to:
* Illuminated (song), "Illuminated" (song), by Hurts
* Illuminated Film Company, a British animation house
* ''Illuminated'', alternative title of Black Sheep (Nat & Alex Wolff album)
* Illuminated manuscript
See also 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 ...
Gospel Book
A Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels ( Greek: , ) is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament – normally all four – centering on the life of Jesus of Nazareth and the roo ...
. Along with the
Rossano Gospels, the Sinope Gospels has been dated, on the basis of the style of the miniatures, to the mid 6th-century. The Rossano Gospels, however, are considered to be earlier. Like ''Rossanensis'' and the
Vienna Genesis, the Sinope Gospels are written on
purple dyed vellum.
Description
There are only 44 extant folios in the Sinope Gospels. These folios carry unframed miniatures at the bottom of the page which are similar in style to the miniatures in the Rossano Gospels. The folios measure approximately 30 cm by 25 cm. It is written in one column per page, 15 lines per column, in silver writing and gold.
It is written in very large uncial letters. The manuscript is very lacunose.
; Contents
: Matthew 7:7-22; 11:5-12; 13:7-47; 13:54-14:4.13-20; 15:11-16:18; 17:2-24; 18:4-30; 19:3-10.17-25; 20:9-21:5; 21:12-22:7.15-24; 22:32-23:35; 24:3-12.
It contains five illuminated miniatures:
* the festival of Herod and death of John the Baptist (folio 10 verso)
* five thousand fed (folio 11 recto)
* four thousand fed (folio 15 recto)
* the healing of a blind man from Jericho (folio 29 recto)
* the cursing of the fig tree (folio 30 verso).
History
It was written in the 6th-century. The style of illustrations suggests Syria or Palestine (even Mesopotamia) as the place of its origin. The codex was purchased in 1899 at
Sinope (hence its name), by a French officer from an old Greek woman.
Its text was published by
Henri Omont in 1901. At least one authority has suggested this manuscript has an association with a church at Çiftlik, which was under archeological excavation in 1998.
According to
B. H. Streeter it is a tertiary witness of the
Caesarean text-type. This opinion was supported by
Bruce 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 th ...
.
Aland placed it in
Category V, which means 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. ...
.
43 leaves (all but one) of the codex now are located at the
Bibliothèque Nationale
A library is a collection of books, and possibly other materials and media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or digital (soft copies) materials, and may be a p ...
of the ''Manuscrits occidentaux'' (Supplement Grec. 1286) at
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
.
See also
The manuscript is one of the most precious purple codices that survive from the Late Antique period. It has been subjected to a non-invasive diagnostic campaign to evaluate the quality of the colourants used in its decoration, to understand how the parchment was coloured. Analyses highlighted the presence of
Ultramarine Blue, which, besides the use of pure gold for the ink and paint, certifies the high value of the manuscript. In addition, this must be seen as one of the earliest examples of its use in paintings. The purple colour of the parchment was identified as
Orchil, a dye extracted from lichens, similar to the results of analytical investigations carried out on other purple codices, and not the expected
Tyrian purple
Tyrian purple ( ''porphúra''; ), also known as royal purple, imperial purple, or imperial dye, is a reddish-purple natural dye. The name Tyrian refers to Tyre, Lebanon, once Phoenicia. It is secreted by several species of predatory sea snails ...
dye.
Sinope
*
List of New Testament uncials
A New Testament uncial is a section of the New Testament in Greek or Latin majuscule letters, written on parchment or vellum. This style of writing is called ''Biblical Uncial'' or ''Biblical Majuscule''.
New Testament uncials are distinct fr ...
Gallery
File:Sinopensis f29r (cropped) 2.jpg, Scene of the healing of the two blind men, flanked by David and Isaiah , f. 29r
File:Sinopensis f10v (cropped).jpg, Salome with the Head of the Baptist , f. 10 v
File:Sinopensis f30v (cropped).jpg, Parable of the Barren Fig Tree , Surrounded by David and Habakkuk , f. 30v
References
Further reading
*
H. Omont, ''Notice sur un très ancien manuscrit grec de l'évangile de saint Matthieu..., Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la bibliothèque nationale...'', vol. 36 (Paris, 1901), pp. 599–676.
* H. S. Cronin
''Codex Chrysopurpureus Sinopensis'' JTS II (1901), pp. 590–600.
* A. Munoz, ''Il codice purpureo di Rossano e il frammento sinopense'' (Rome 1907)
*
C. R. Gregory
C. or c. may refer to:
* Century, sometimes abbreviated as ''c.'' or ''C.'', a period of 100 years
* Letter C, the third letter in the alphabet.
* Cent (currency), abbreviated ''c.'' or ''¢'', a monetary unit that equals of the basic unit of man ...
, ''Textkritik des Neuen Testaments'' (J.C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung: Leipzig 1909), vol. 3, pp. 1022–1023.
* Petra Sevrugian, ''Der Rossano-Codex und die Sinope-Fragmente: Miniaturen und Theologie'' (Worms 1990)
*
Weitzmann, Kurt, ed.,
Age of spirituality: late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century', no. 442, 1979,
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
, New York,
External links
Sinope Gospels- Complete Reproduction on BnF
Gallica
BnF Archives et manuscrits: Supplément grec 1286
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sinopensis
Gospel Books
Purple parchment
6th-century biblical manuscripts
Greek New Testament uncials
Bibliothèque nationale de France collections
6th-century illuminated manuscripts
Byzantine illuminated manuscripts