DESCRIPTION OF THE CODEX

Column 1

the end of the Old Testament; it is worth noticing in this
connexion that the larger divisions in the Old Testament in
this Codex always were made to coincide with the end of
a quire A quire is a gathering of parchment sheets folded together, similar to a modern signature in bookbinding.. That is why the lacunae Gaps or missing sections in a manuscript. generally include whole
books, e.g. Ezekiel, Hosea-Amos-Micah, Daniel. It does not
appear possible that anything has been lost earlier in the MS.,
as the traces of the original signatures agree in the Old
Testament with those of more recent date. Tischendorf Constantin von Tischendorf (1815–1874), the biblical scholar who discovered the Codex at St. Catherine's Monastery. also
suggested that there may have been some additional matter
between the Gospels and Epistles; but this is improbable, for
such an addition would be unique, and the verso The back side of a leaf or page. of the last
leaf of the Gospels is blank.
The ink which the original scribes used is the usual sepia
colour commonly found in ancient manuscripts. As Tischen-
dorf says, it varies from an ashy but yellowish grey to a some-
what red tint. It presents no unusual features: the facsimile
makes it appear too much of a genuine black. The ink used
by the correctors A is the same as that of the original—
doubtless it was the ink which was always used in the scrip-
torium A room in a monastery or library set aside for the copying of manuscripts.. The ink used by B is a trifle darker than the original
ink. Cᵃ and Cᵇ used a reddish-yellow ink, which has usually
remained very bright and clear. Cᶜ and Cc* used a greyer
colour, and the later correctors used black. Red (vermilion)
was used for the Eusebian apparatus A system of cross-referencing the four Gospels developed by Eusebius of Caesarea., the earlier signatures to
the gatherings, and in some of the ‘Arabesques’ Decorative flourishes or scrollwork., for instance,
at the end of Mark. All these are printed in red in Tischen-
dorf’s edition.

The Codex Sinaiticus has been corrected by so many
hands that it affords a most interesting and intricate problem
to the palaeographer A scholar who studies ancient writing systems and the deciphering of historical manuscripts. who wishes to disentangle the various
stages by which it has reached its present condition, and to
distinguish the different scribes who have contributed to its
development. The task really consists in identifying the
separate writers, beginning with the latest, and ending with
those who seem to have been employed in the original scrip-
torium, and to have been engaged on the preparation of the
MS. before (if the anachronism may be permitted) it was
actually published.
The correctors may best be divided into three groups:
(1) The late correctors, probably belonging to the post-

Column 2

Caesarean history of the MS., and possibly to the monastery
of St. Catherine’s on Mt. Sinai. (2) The intermediate correc-
tors, of which certainly the earliest, and probably all, belong to
Caesarea. They are probably not earlier than the fifth nor
later than the seventh century. (3) The early correctors, all
probably belonging to the fourth, and certainly not later than
the fifth century. The earliest of them was engaged on the
MS. before it left the scriptorium, so that at this point the
question of the correctors passes into that of the original
scribes, and the amount of work which they bestowed on
embellishing the text with superscriptions, tituli Titles or headings for sections of the text., and similar
additions.
The latest correctors. To these Tischendorf, whose notation
it is convenient to preserve, gave the names of E and D. E is
a quite unimportant scribe who made a very few corrections in
the text, perhaps in the twelfth century, and it is possible that
the same writer added the notes in Greek and Arabic, on
folios 128 verso and 130 recto. If E be taken to mean not so much a single
scribe as the latest stage of correction in the MS., it may also
be used to designate the writers of a few names scribbled in
the Old Testament—Hilarion, Dionysius, and Theophylact.
Tischendorf thought that E might be regarded as representing
mediaeval monks at St. Catherine’s. This is a probable guess,
but, as was stated above, there is no evidence as to the date
when the MS. was brought to Sinai. D is a scribe of the
eighth century, or later, who restored the writing in the pro-
phetic books, but does not appear to have touched the New
Testament. In Hermas Referring to 'The Shepherd of Hermas,' an early Christian literary work included in the Codex., however, another scribe (D-Hermas) of
much the same date and character added breathings and
accents, and made a few unimportant orthographical changes.
Specimens of D-Hermas and E will be found at the foot of the
third column of Plate II.
The intermediate correctors. To these Tischendorf has
given the name of C. Taken together they have done far
more work on the MS. than any others, and afford extremely
important material for textual criticism; as was shown on
pp. vii ff. they represent a Caesarean scriptorium, for one of
them who does not, however, seem to have touched the New
Testament states that he corrected part of the text of the
Old Testament according to the copy of the Hexapla A massive six-column edition of the Old Testament compiled by Origen in the 3rd century. made
by Pamphilus during his imprisonment, and preserved in the
library at Caesarea.