Page:The New Testament in the original Greek - 1881.djvu/24

xvi The uncials are written on costly and durable vellum or parchment, on quarto or small folio pages of one or two, very rarely of three or four, columns. The older ones have no division of words or sentences except for paragraphs, no accents or ornaments, and hut very few pause-marks. Hence it requires some practice to read them with ease.

The date and place, which were not marked on MSS. earlier than the tenth century, can be only approximately ascertained from the material, the form of letters, the style of writing, the presence or absence of the Ammonian sections (κεφάλαια, capitula) in the Gospels, the Eusebian Canons (or tables of references to the Ammonian sections, after 340, when Eusebius died), the Euthalian sections in the Acts and Epistles, and the stichometric divisions,or lines (στίχοι) corresponding to sentences (both introduced by Euthalius, cir. A.D. 458), marks of punctuation (ninth century), etc. Sometimes a second or third hand has introduced punctuation and accents or different readings. Hence the distinction of lectiones a prima manu, marked by a *; a secunda manu (**, or 2, or b ); a tertia manu (***, or 3, or c).