All of these matters must now be discussed more fully and individually. Before I do so, I will speak briefly about the typefaces original: "typis" that have been used in this volume, as in the previous one, to represent the texts of the ancient manuscripts. In the preface to the first volume, I stated that these were prepared by the highly skilled printers Giesecke and Devrient, under my own guidance and authority, so that the uncial letters Uncial is a script written entirely in large, rounded capital letters, characteristic of Greek and Latin manuscripts from the 4th to 8th centuries. found in the oldest Greek parchments might be faithfully reproduced. Just as we trusted that this would be most welcome to learned men, it has indeed been greatly approved by many.*)

However, since these same typefaces were also used by us to print those manuscripts which have already deviated in various ways from the most ancient style of uncial writing—such as the Uffenbachian manuscript of the Pauline Epistles original: "codex epistularum Paulinarum Uffenbachianus" published in my Anecdota, and the Oxford Genesis manuscript included in this volume—I explained in the preface to my Sacred and Profane Anecdotes (page XI) by what right I felt justified in doing so. I argued that where our typefaces depart from the style of "second-order" uncial manuscripts (such as almost all those written after the seventh century), they actually more closely resemble those older models upon which the later manuscripts themselves were based. This seemed sufficient to me, for I know well that it is impossible to carve and cast new typefaces for the sake of printing every single manuscript or fragment. Nevertheless, so that the differences within that very similarity might not remain hidden, so-called facsimiles facsimile: an exact copy or reproduction of a manuscript page engraved on stone This refers to lithography, a printing process using stone plates. have been added to the published texts of the manuscripts. If any sensible men can offer better results by following—as I highly recommend—the example I gave with the Codex Friderico-Augustanus (which was engraved entirely on stone), they will have done a most welcome service. On the other hand, I care nothing for unfair critics who neither love to be taught and take much more pleasure in the freedom to find fault than in the memory of good works.

May God, the Best and Greatest, grant that all my labors concerning the sacred text, however imperfect, may truly benefit the Church that cherishes divine truth. No greater praise is sought for those works, nor for myself, than to be approved by Christ.

I.

The first notice of the discovery of this palimpsest palimpsest: a manuscript where the original text was scraped off so the parchment could be reused for a new text treasure was given in the year 1848 by the discoverer himself, the most illustrious William Cureton, in the preface to the book he titled: The festal letters of Athanasius, discovered in an ancient Syriac version, and edited by William Cureton. There, he relates the history of the written books brought to the British Museum in the years 1838 and 1847 from the Coptic Monastery of Nitria, which is named after Saint Mary, Mother of God original: "St. Mariae Deiparae". This collection and purchase of manuscripts, by which so many treasures of antiquity of the highest value were rescued from destruction and handed over for the use of literature, is a source of glory to the British name itself. Among those books is a vast quantity of Syriac manuscripts. Within their number, a distinguished place is held by that which—

*) Furthermore, the typographical perfection of Volume I found such great praise among the illustrious judges at the celebrated competition of arts and craftsmen recently held in Paris, that the printers I just named were honored with the first prize for works of that kind.