The ''Skeireins'' (; ) is the second-longest known surviving text in the

Gothic language Gothic is an extinct language, extinct East Germanic languages, East Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the ''Codex Argenteus'', a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only Ea ...

, after the version of the Bible by Ulfilas. It consists of eight fragments of a commentary on the

Gospel of John The Gospel of John () is the fourth of the New Testament's four canonical Gospels. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "Book of Signs, signs" culminating in the raising of Lazarus (foreshadowing the ...

which is commonly held to have originally extended over seventy-eight parchment leaves. It owes its title to the 19th-century German scholar Hans Ferdinand Massmann, who was the first to issue a comprehensive and correct edition of it: "Skeireins" means "explanation" in Gothic. The manuscript containing the Skeireins text 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 ...

. Currently it is housed at the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...

(Vat. lat. 5750) in Rome. There are conflicting views on whether the ''Skeireins'' was written directly in Gothic by a native speaker or whether it was a translation from a Greek original. Schäferdiek (1981)Schäferdiek, Knut (1981). 'Die Fragmente der "Skeireins" und der Johanneskommentar des Theodor von Herakleia', ''Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur'' 110: 175–9

/ref> observes striking similarities between the Gothic of the ''Skeireins'' and the Greek of Theodore Stratelates, Theodore of Heraclea's commentary on the Gospel of John.

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Manuscripts of the Gothic Bible

Full text and multiple translations of the Skeireins
{{Authority control 6th-century biblical manuscripts Gothic Bible Palimpsests Gospel of John Manuscripts in the Vatican Library

See also

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