Unpublished Sacred Monuments

...we have published: although in palimpsest books A palimpsest is a manuscript where the original writing was scraped off so the parchment could be reused. Tischendorf is explaining how hard it is to see small marks like punctuation on such recycled surfaces. it is often very difficult to tell whether the scribe added a dot or not, and therefore it is easy to be mistaken. Examples of inappropriate punctuation are rare, such as on page 7, column 1, line 23: which can itself be compared to the way that in later codices, such as in the Bodleian Codex of Genesis, a mark is usually placed after relative pronouns.

Just as we have carefully noted the placement or omission of the dot, we have done the same for the double dots diaeresis placed over the letters iota (ι) and upsilon (υ): it is probable that these were placed by the scribe with greater consistency than we have shown in our edition, although we have observed the same word written sometimes with dots and sometimes without in many codices. The same applies to the apostrophe, as seen in the names Elizabeth original: ελισαβετ' and Capernaum original: καφαρναουμ'.

In addition to the scribal abbreviations Latin: compendia scripturae accurately reproduced in our edition, the syllable mou The Greek possessive pronoun meaning "of me" or "my". is written a few times as a contraction: ligature of the Greek letters mu, omicron, and upsilon, with the omicron and upsilon stacked above the mu. This occurs about five times: page 29, col. 1, line 5 in the word deserts original: ερημους, likewise in the word my original: μου on page 47, col. 2, line 14; page 72, col. 1, line 1; page 77, col. 2, line 2; and page 91, col. 2, line 15.

The size of the initial letters can be seen in the plate engraved in stone Tischendorf included lithographic plates—early "faxes" or photos of the manuscript—in his printed book so scholars could see the handwriting for themselves., although even larger ones may be found. Indeed, here and there they have a somewhat smaller form, seemingly to signify a minor distinction in the text. This is generally the case on page 10, col. 2, line 12; page 12, col. 2, line 22; page 25, col. 2, line 19; page 29, col. 2, line 12; page 37, col. 2, line 10; page 40, col. 2, line 24; page 48, col. 2, line 8; page 51, col. 2, line 20; page 52, col. 1, line 23; and page 83, col. 2, line 22.

These are the details regarding the script of the codex, which we have placed before the eyes of learned men by means of a specimen—albeit a brief one—engraved in stone, after we took the greatest care to reproduce the nature of the palimpsest codices in the second plate of Volume I. (The same will be done in Volume III.) Furthermore, six very beautiful specimens of that same Syriac codex from which we took the Gospel of Luke—specifically from those leaves containing fragments of Homer—were provided by the most venerable William Cureton William Cureton (1808–1864) was a famous British Orientalist and priest who worked with these same manuscripts at the British Museum. in the book: Fragments of the Iliad of Homer from a Syriac palimpsest. Printed by order of the Trustees of the British Museum, by Rich. Taylor, 1851.

For one asking what the homeland of the codex was, one must think of either Asia or Africa. It makes use of what they call "Alexandrian" forms (such as the spelling lempsontai original: λημψονται; a specific spelling of "they shall receive" common in Egyptian/Alexandrian manuscripts in Luke 20:47), but not consistently; just like the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus—with which it agrees more than any other in the general character of its text—it preserves both the spellings Kapernaum and Kapharnaum. Scribal errors are rare, if you except the interchangeable use of certain vowels like ai and e, or ei and i, along with a few similar cases, and the occasional confusion of o and ō This refers to the common "itacism" in Greek manuscripts where vowels that sounded the same were swapped by tired scribes..

The "Ammonian Sections" An early system for dividing the Gospels into numbered sections for easier reading and study. written in the margin caused us much trouble. Just as in the Codex Ephraemi, the Dublin palimpsest of Matthew, our own palimpsest fragments of the New Testament, and other very ancient codices, they do not have the numbers of the "Eusebian Canons" The Eusebian Canons were a cross-reference system used to find the same story in different Gospels. Their absence here suggests the manuscript is very old. added to them. It often happens that one doubts whether those numbers are simply not visible enough or were omitted by the scribe. We believe several were actually omitted in the final chapters of the Gospel. Besides the Ammonian Sections, in a few places we found chapter numbers written in the upper margin; compare page 34 number 29, page 54 number 56, and as will be supplemented in the commentary, page 32 number 27 and page 80 number 73. It is very likely that many more such numbers were cut off along with the very tops of the margins When manuscripts were rebound in later centuries, binders often trimmed the edges of the parchment, accidentally cutting off marginal notes..