PRELIMINARY NOTES

REGARDING MATTERS THAT SEEM ESPECIALLY NECESSARY

FOR THOSE INTENDING TO USE THE CRITICAL APPARATUS OF THE GOSPELS.

א Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus The Sinai Codex, now in St. Petersburg from the middle of the 4th century. It contains the entire New Testament in its complete form. אᵃ hardly differs in age from the original scribe; whatever readings we have marked with the sign אᵃ certainly belong to the same 4th century. אᵇ is to be considered as dating from approximately the 6th century. Aside from Matthew, whose first pages he treated with greater care, he touched upon only a few passages. אᶜ dates from approximately the beginning of the 7th century, and אᶜᵇ is not separated by a long interval from אᶜᵃ (whom we call אᶜ unless אᶜᵇ differs from him). I published the entire codex in four magnificent volumes in 1862; likewise, I published the Sinaitic New Testament for general use in the following year. After all copies of that edition were exhausted in the same year, there followed in the autumn of 1864 (though the title page says 1865) the Greek New Testament from the Sinaitic Codex, the most ancient of all, with the Vatican and Elzevir The "Elzevir" refers to the standard "Textus Receptus" printed by the Elzevir family in the 17th century readings noted.*

A Codex Alexandrinus of the British Museum, from the 5th century and specifically towards its end. It contains gaps lacunae|physical missing sections in a manuscript in the Gospels from the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew until 25:6 original: Biblos - ho nymphios "Book — the bridegroom," and likewise from John 6:50 until 8:52 original: ina - legei "that — he says." C. G. Woide published a magnificent edition in 1786. B. H. Cowper reprinted this edition for general use in 1860, with corrections made throughout.

B Codex Vaticanus number 1209, from the 4th century. It hardly differs in age from the Sinai Codex. It contains the Gospels complete; however, it is lacking from the Epistle to the Hebrews 9:14 onwards, with the loss of four of Paul's epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon) and the Apocalypse The Book of Revelation.* More than 400 errors in the editions of Angelo Mai 1782–1854; an Italian Cardinal and philologist who produced the first printed editions of the Vatican Codex (Rome, 1857 and 1859**) have been cor-

* To this edition was added a Supplement in May of this year, which pertains primarily to the Vatican readings.
** Almost all the errors that Mai had made also passed into the editions modeled after Mai’s version. Among these, none is worse than—