THE

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THE Codex VaticanusLatin for "The Vatican Book." It is one of the oldest surviving Greek manuscripts of the Bible, written in "uncial" or capital letters on parchment. of the New Testament, which, after so many years of anxious expectation, has at length been made available in its entirety to scholars by the issue of Cardinal Angelo Mai (1782–1854) was an Italian Cardinal and philologist who spent years preparing the first printed edition of this ancient manuscript. Mai’s edition, recently published at Rome, is believed to be the most ancient manuscript of the New Testament in existence. Both Professor Constantin von Tischendorf was a world-renowned German biblical scholar famous for discovering the Codex Sinaiticus. Tischendorf and Dr. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles was a leading English critic of the New Testament text. Tregelles ascribe its date to the middle of the fourth century; indeed, the latter would seem to assign it even to an earlier period, for he adds, “how much older it may be we have no means of determining.”

Whether it was preserved in the Vatican prior to the division of the Roman Empire under Valens and Valentinian, or found its way thither after the capture of Constantinople by Also known as Mehmed the Conqueror, the Ottoman Sultan who took Constantinople in 1453. Mahomet the Second, in 1453; whether it existed as early as the days of Constantine the Great, and the Council of The first ecumenical council of the Christian church, held in 325 AD. Nice; or whether its execution must be placed nearer to the period when Alaric the Goth plundered Rome but spared the Christian Churches, are questions which none can answer. All we know of it is, that in the sixteenth century it was generally held throughout Europe to be the most venerable manuscript of the New Testament.

When Richard Bentley (1662–1742) was a famous English classical scholar who attempted to restore the New Testament text to its 4th-century purity. Bentley issued his prospectus and specimen of an edition of the Greek Testament in 1721, he had access to the

A5176 This is a library accession or catalog number handwritten on the original document.

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