Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/535

Rh ALEXANDRIAN MS. 497 than the end of the 4th century. In addition to this external testimony, palasographic reasons, such as the general style of the writing, and the formation of certain letters, would seem to refer the MS. to about the middle of the 5 tli century, and this date is now generally acquiesced in by scholars. There is an Arabic inscription, indeed, written on the page which contains the list of the various books of the Old and New Testament, which states that the MS. was written by the hand of the martyr Thecla, while a Latin inscription by Cyril himself gives the tradi tion that the Thecla who wrote the MS. was a noble Egyptian lady who lived shortly after the Council of Nice. No reliance, however, can be placed on these statements, for, according to Scrivener, &quot;Trcgelles explains the origin of the Arabic inscription on which Cyril s statement appears to rest, by remarking that the New Testament in our IIS. at present commences with Matt. xxv. 6, this lesson (Matt. xxv. 1-13) Icing that appointed ly the Greek Church for the festival of St Thecla. The Egyptian, therefore, who wrote this Arabic note, observing the name of Thecla in the now mutilated upper margin of the codex, where such rubrical notes are commonly placed by later hands, hastily concluded that she wrote the book, and thus has perplexed our biblical critics. It is hardly too much to say that Trcgcllcs s shrewd conjecture seems to be cer tain, almost to demonstration.&quot; This MS. contains the last twelve verses of St Mark s Gospel. It is defective in that part of St John s Gospel where the pericope, adulterce occurs in the ordinary text, but Scrivener shows by an enumeration of the letters in each page that the two missing leaves did not contain the suspected passage. It is almost unnecessary to say that 1 John v. 7 is not found in this or in any uncial MS. of the New Testament. The reading of the MS. in 1 Tim. iii. 16 has given rise to a good deal of discussion. &quot;Woide in his fac-simile edition gave the reading 2 for EOS. The element of uncertainty was whether the cross bar of the theta had not been added by a later hand, so that the original reading may have been O2. Bishop Ellicott carefully examined the passage with the aid of a strong lens, and the result of his investigation, as given in a note appended to his Critical Commentary on First Timothy, in his edition of the Pastoral Epistles, was to satisfy him that the original reading was 6s, the cross bar of the theta having arisen from the central line of e in the word euo-e/3eia, which is directly opposite, shining through the leaf, and being mistaken by a scribe for part of the theta, and being touched up accordingly, a view which was maintained by Wetstein. On the other hand, both Tregelles and Scrivener, who made the same investigation, are of opinion that the stroke of the epsilon cuts the theta much too high to be mistaken by any ordinary scribe for the cross bar of the theta. When critics of such distinguished reputation differ, the question of the original reading will probably remain for ever uncertain. The first use that was made of the MS. for critical purposes was by Bishop Walton, who had the various read ings which it presents inserted in his great Polyglott Bible, under the texts of the Septuagint and New Testament respectively. It was collated by both Mill and Wetstein for their editions of the Greek Testament. In 1786 the New Testament was published in a fac-simile edition by Dr Woide. at that time librarian to the British Museum; the types of this edition were cut so as to represent the general appearance of the letters; and the edition exhibits the MS. page for page, line for line, and letter for letter. The work was accompanied by valuable prolegomena on the history, age, &c., of the MS.; and is allowed to have been executed with remarkable accuracy. In 1828 the Rev. H. II. Baber completed the publication of the Old Testament portion in three large folio volumes (1816-1828) also in fac-simile, with useful prolegomena and notes. Tischendorf considers the editorial accuracy of Baber as inferior to that of Woide, and enumerates a number of instances where the readings of the original have been incorrectly given by Baber (Prolegomena to Tischendorf s 4th ed. of the Septuagint, p. 69, sq.) In 1860 the text of the New Testament was published in common type by B. H. Cowper, the defective portions being supplied from Kuster s edition of Mill s Greek Testament, and some inaccuracies in Woide s edition corrected from the original. In 1864 there was published at Oxford, under the editor ship of Mr Hansell, the text of the Codex Alexandrinus, along with that of three of the most ancient MSS., viz., Codd. B, C, D, with the Dublin Cod. Z, and a collation of the Cod. Sinalticus. The work is arranged in parallel columns, and thus presents, at one view, the readings of four of our earliest authorities for the text of the New Testament. (F. c.) For more minute information regarding this MS. we refer to the prolegomena of Woide and Baber ; to Scrivener s Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Cambridge, 1861 ; to the fourth volume of Home s Introduction to the Ncio Testament, by Tregelles, London, 1866; and to Davidson s Biblical Criticism, vol. ii., Edin burgh, 1852. We subjoin a list of the books of the Old and New Testament in the order in which they are found in the MS. : revecris Kocr^ov Genesis. E|o5os AiyvirTov ...Exodus. AevirtKov Leviticus. ApiOfj.01 Numbers. AevTfpovoniov Deuteronomy. ITJCTOUJ Nav?j Joshua, son of Nun. Kpircu Judges. Pou0.... ...Ruth. TOM. I. Ba.&amp;lt;rifittiv a Samuel I. (or Kings I.) ~Ba&amp;lt;Tititav /3 Samuel II. (or Kings II.) BacnAejcoj 7. ..Kings I. (or III.) Baa-iAetccz/ 5 ...Kings II. (or IV.) napafnro/jLtv&amp;lt;av a Chronicles I. napaAeiTTOuei/OJ! /S Chronicles II. TOM. II. n&amp;lt;rr] e .................. Hosea. ASCIIS .................. Amos. Mixaias .............. Micah. IcorjA .................. Joel. A/38tiou ............... Obadiah. Icoi/as ................. Jonah. Naot/ju. ................ Nahuni. A^ySa/cou/x ............ Habakkuk. ~2.o&amp;lt;povias ............. Zephaniah. Ayyaws .............. Haggai. Zaxp a? ............. Zechariah. MaActxias ............ Malachi. Htratas ................ Isaiah. lepeytuas .............. Jeremiah. Baou ............... Baruch. Lamentations. ETTicrroATj lepe/xiou Epistle of Jere miah. le&KfijA. Ezekiel. Aavi-r] Daniel. Ecr8rip Esther. TcaQir Tobit. lovSert Judith. Efffipas a Esdras I. $ Esdras II., in cluding Neejtua, and part of the canonical Book of Ezra. Kafiaivv a Maccabees I. Kapaiuv /3 Maccabees II. Ka.pa.iaii y Maccabees III. Kapaiow 8 Maccabees IV. TOM. III. Adavuffiov ETTJCTTOATJ Epistle of Athanasius to Marcelliuus on the Psalms. Evrepiov f-rro6ffffis (sic) ...Hypothesis of Eusebius on the Psalms. YaATTjpioi fj.er n5ai&amp;gt; Psalms 151, Hymns 15. Ico0 Job. Uapot/j-iai Proverbs. ExKT]cria.ffTT]s Ecclesiastes. Afffj.a Afffj.a.Tcai Canticles. 2o$ia ~2,oo/j.ooi&amp;gt;Tos Wisdom of Solomon. 2o&amp;lt;pia Irjffov vwv 2ipax Ecclesiasticus, or Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach. TOM. IV. EvayyeXtov Kara MmQaiov Matthew. Euayyfiov Kara MapKoi ...Mark. Evayyeioi&amp;gt; Kara AOVKCLV ...Luke. Euayyeiov Kara &amp;lt;ao.vviv John. ripae(s- A7ro&amp;lt;rroAa&amp;gt;i/ Acts of the Apostles. Eiria-ToXai Ka0oAi/ca( ....Seven Catholic Epistles, viz., 1 of James, 2 of Peter, 3 of John, and 1 of Jude. EiriffToXai Tlavov 18 Fourteen Epistles of Paul. AwoKav^/is Itaavvov Revelation of John. KT]/j.evros ETntTToATj a 1st Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. KATj^ej/ros ETricrroAr; /3 ....2d Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. ^aA/xoi SoAo/xcovTos 77 Eight Psalms of Solomon. I. 6 3