THE ORIGINAL PROVENANCE AND DATE OF THE MS.

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superscriptions Running titles or headings at the top of pages in Codex Vaticanus¹ were added after it had passed outside the original scriptorium A room in a monastery or library dedicated to copying manuscripts to some other place. These are real possibilities, and with regard to the latter attention may be directed to Dr. Karl Dziatzko's Investigations into selected chapters of ancient book-making original: "Untersuchungen über ausgewählte Kapitel des antiken Buchwesens", especially to his seventh chapter, 'The influence of the roll-form on the codex-form' original: "Die Einwirkung der Rollenform auf die Codexform". In this he adopts the view that the custom of adding superscriptions (page-headings) original: "Seitentüberschriften" did not obtain before the end of the fourth century, and points out that the Codex Vaticanus represents a transitional period, in which the addition was not made by the original scribe. His theory seems to be supported by the evidence of the superscriptions in the Codex Sinaiticus (see p. xxi).
It will, however, probably not be denied that there is, in spite of all other possibilities, a probability that the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus belonged to the same scriptorium. Where, then, ought we to look for it? It was suggested above that the fact that the Egyptian Papyrus Rylands 28 agrees with the two codices in practically the only palaeographical The study of ancient handwriting peculiarities which they present must be regarded as pointing to Egypt until contradictory evidence be discovered. So far, however, from rebutting this suggestion, Dr. Rahlfs, who investigated the historical and critical evidence for the provenance Place of origin and date of the Codex Vaticanus in the Reports of the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen original: "Nachrichten der königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen",² has strongly corroborated it.
He has pointed out that the Codex Vaticanus agrees in the most remarkable way with the list of scriptural books given by Athanasius The influential Bishop of Alexandria (c. 296–373 AD) in the Paschal letter for 367. The points of agreement against other authorities are these: (1) In the Old Testament the book of Esther is not reckoned among the books which are canonical original: "κανονιζόμενα" (kanonizomena) — books accepted as authoritative scripture, but only among those which are to be read original: "ἀναγιγνωσκόμενα" (anagignoskomena) — books suitable for reading but not strictly doctrinal. (2) In the New Testament in Codex Vaticanus Hebrews is placed between the Epistles of the Captivity and the Pastoral Epistles. This agrees with the Greek and Syriac text of the Paschal letter; but the Sahidic A dialect of Coptic, the Egyptian language version, agreeing with the usual Sahidic biblical text, places it between Corinthians and Galatians. It is argued that this represents

¹ It is not here necessary to discuss the difficult question whether all the superscriptions in Codex Vaticanus are by the same hand, or the scribe who wrote "Acts" original: "πράξεις" (praxeis) ought to be distinguished from the rest.
² 'Philological-Historical Class' original: "Philologisch-historische Klasse", 1899, pp. 72-9.

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in a Sahidic text a return to an old local use in Egypt; and, curiously enough, Codex Vaticanus has a continuous numeration for the sections in the epistles, which is at present dislocated in such a way as to show that it was taken from a MS. which placed Hebrews after Galatians. This is not quite the same as the Sahidic, but Dr. Rahlfs thinks that it is near enough to justify the view that the Codex Vaticanus is an attempt to carry out Athanasius's views as to the order of the books, and that the text of the archetype The original model from which a copy is made, which was being modified, belonged to the old Egyptian type represented by the Sahidic Version. He therefore argues that the Codex Vaticanus comes from Alexandria and is at least as late as 367. It is of course plain that this is not a decisive argument: the parallel between the Sahidic text of Athanasius and that implied by the numeration in Codex Vaticanus is not quite perfect: and the textual facts in connexion with Athanasius are by no means clear. Nevertheless, when all these points have been discounted, it will probably be agreed that there remains enough to justify the statement that as our knowledge stands at present there is a presumption in favour of Egypt as the original home of the Codex Vaticanus. One may also, without unduly venturing on the domain of textual criticism, here draw attention to a further point. The Psalms quoted in the Coptic text of the Pistis Sophia A 3rd or 4th century Gnostic text have an extraordinary resemblance to the text of the Codex Sinaiticus,—in Prof. Harnack's phrase,¹ 'This text stands as close to the Codex Sinaiticus as a twin brother' original: "Dieser Text steht dem Cod. Sinait. wie ein Zwillingsbruder nahe". This fact may be allowed to weigh in the scale in favour of an Egyptian provenance. Formerly one would have regarded Egypt as, in this connexion, synonymous with Alexandria, but in view of the wealth of Greek papyri from Oxyrhynchus and other places remote from Alexandria, it is necessary to hesitate, though it probably remains true that splendid volumes, such as the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus, are more likely to have been produced in Alexandria than in the country higher up the Nile.
It remains to consider the connexion between the two codices and 'Euthalius'. The simplest way of dealing with this point is to begin by summarizing the points connected

¹ See his A Jewish-Christian Book of Psalms (Texts and Investigations) original: "Ein jüdisch-christliches Psalmbuch (Texte und Untersuchungen)", xxxv. 4, p. 13. He gives a further reference to Rahlfs, The Berlin Manuscript of the Sahidic Psalter original: "Die Berliner Handschrift des sahidischen Psalters"; but the textual relations between א The symbol for Codex Sinaiticus and the Sahidic version is too complicated a question to be used as the basis for any argument as to the provenance of the Codex Sinaiticus.

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