THE ORIGINAL PROVENANCE AND DATE OF THE MS.

MS. is an abbreviation for Manuscript.

It is at least plain that the first quarter of the fourth century is the earliest date which has any reasonable probability. The latest possible date original: "terminus ad quem" cannot be so easily fixed. We are here entirely dependent on palaeographical The study of ancient writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts. considerations, and on the comparison of the writing with that of papyri. The earliest vellum High-quality writing surface made from calfskin. MS. of which the date can approximately be fixed is the Vienna Codex of Dioscorides, which cannot be far removed from the year 500. No one doubts but that the Codex Sinaiticus and various other MSS. are earlier than this; but the history of writing shows that the development of hands is by no means regular, and decisive dating is usually very difficult. Nevertheless a comparison with papyri suggests that the Codex Sinaiticus is more likely to belong to the fourth than to the fifth century; Dr. Hunt, indeed, expressed the view that if it had not been for the evidence of the Eusebian apparatus A system of cross-references for the four Gospels created by Eusebius of Caesarea in the early 4th century., he should have not regarded the third century as an impossible date. This view of the date of the MS. is based on the assumption that the provenance The place of origin or earliest known history of something. of the MS. is the same as that of the papyri—Egyptian; but an element of doubt cannot be excluded on this point, and it is clear that if the assumption be baseless, the date is proportionately less certain. Baseless, however, the assumption fortunately is not: as will be shown, an Egyptian provenance is actually the most probable for the Codex Sinaiticus; but it is not certain, and there have been competent scholars who have been inclined to think that Caesarea A city in Roman Palestine, a major center of early Christian scholarship. not only was the resting-place of the MS. in the sixth century, but also has the best claim to be regarded as its original home.

Of the various arguments, partly historical partly palaeographical, bearing on this point, those which are purely palaeographical are likely to seem rather unsatisfactory to those who are acquainted with the splendid results reached by Latin scholars in fixing the date and provenance of their MSS. It is, however, the fact, regrettable though it be, that this line of research is much less fruitful in Greek than in Latin documents. We have not sufficient specimens of ascertained date and diverse provenance to justify any security of judgement. The literary hand in papyri which affords our only guide in this matter is an excessively fixed type, which those who are constantly engaged in papyrological research are least prepared to date with exactness, and as the papyri all come from the same country they afford little or no evidence as to local peculiarities of script. It is indeed now possible to state with a certainty which was hitherto unattainable that this or that type of letter was common in Egyptian papyri, but it is not possible to say that it was characteristic, in the sense that it was absent in other schools of calligraphy; for we are almost ignorant of the history of literary as distinct from private hands outside of Egypt. Moreover, we do not know with any precision what changes may have been introduced by professional scribes when they passed from writing on papyrus to the somewhat different surface of vellum. The only analogy which we can study—that of the minuscule A smaller, cursive-style script that became the standard for Greek manuscripts in the 9th century. revival in the ninth century—is imperfect in kind and remote in date. In that century professional scribes on vellum began to abandon the uncial A script written entirely in capital letters, common in early manuscripts. character, which they had taken over from the literary hand of the papyri, in favour of a cursive hand modelled on the earlier private hands. Obviously it is impossible to argue from this great revolution to the small one of passing from papyrus to vellum; but it is perhaps admissible to point out that as the changes made in the ninth century from the private cursive hand were comparatively small, all the more so original: "à fortiori" those in the fourth were probably smaller.

With these serious qualifications comparison with papyri affords the only palaeographical clue to the provenance of the Codex Sinaiticus. It tends to suggest that the papyri and the Codex come from the same place. There are no letters in the Codex Sinaiticus which cannot be paralleled in papyri of the fourth or earlier centuries. The three forms which attract attention in the Codex Sinaiticus are the so-called Coptic Mu The Greek letter 'M' written in a style similar to that found in the Coptic language of Egypt., the curious shaped Omega The last letter of the Greek alphabet (Ω). with a long central line, and an occasional use of the cursive Xi The Greek letter 'X' (Ξ).. The Coptic Mu is common in papyri: it is called Coptic because it happens to be the form which passed over into the Coptic alphabet; but there is no evidence to show that it was rare outside of Egypt. The long Omega is much more rare: it is found in Pap. Rylands 28, a papyrus of probably the fourth century, but Dr. Hunt was not able to quote any other instance of its use in papyri, nor is it common in vellum MSS. I only know of it in the Codex Vaticanus, and here too it is comparatively rare. The use of the cursive Xi in uncial script is also rare: it is found in the additions of the corrector A^a in the Codex Sinaiticus, in the superscriptions and sections of Codex Vaticanus, in Pap. Rylands 28, and in Pap. Oxyrhynchus 852. Probably