SSCN Voumes 1-10, 1994-2004

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

Three of these volumes comprise the Old Testament, and the last volume includes the New Testament with the Epistles of Clement. There are 773 thin vellum leaves that survived out of an original number of about 822 leaves. Each leaf measures an average 12-3/4 inches high by 10 inches wide. Each page has two columns of 49 to 51 lines compared to the three-column format of Codex Vaticanus and the four-column arrangement found in Codex Sinaticus. It is written in uncial characters in a firm, elegant, and simple hand. The greater part of Volume III is ascribed to a different hand from that of the others. Multiple hands are seen in the New Testament but scholars differe on how many there is. The handwriting is generally ascribed to beginning or middle of the fifth century or possibly to the late fourth. The character of the letters and the history of the manuscript strongly point to Egypt as its place of origin. Contents: It contains the Bible Canon, common to the the Orthodox and Roman Catholic bibles, including the Old Testament's deuterocanonical books and additions to Esther and Daniel. Further it includes the apocryphal III and IV Machabees which are attributed to a very late origin. The New Testament has the regular canonical books as well as the Epistle of St. Clement of Rome and the homily which has the title of II Epistle of Clement—the only copies then known to exist. These are included in the list of New Testament books which is prefixed to the codex and seemingly was regarded by its scribe as part of the New Testament. The same list shows that the Psalms of Solomon, now missing, were originally contained in this codex, but the space which separates this book from the others on the list indicates that it was not ranked among New Testament books. An "Epistle to Marcellinus" ascribed to St. Athanasius is inserted as a preface to the Psalter, together with Eusebius's summary of the Psalms; Psalm 151 and certain selected canticles of the Old Testament are affixed, and liturgical uses of the psalms indicated.

Not all the books are complete. In the Old Testament there is a lacuna of 30 psalms, 5:20- 80:11; Genesis 14:14-17, 15:1-5, 16-19, 16:6-9; I Kings 12:20-14:9. The New Testament is missing the first 25 leaves of the Gospel of St. Matthew, 1:1-25:6; two leaves from John, 6:50-8:52 (based on the space, the adulterous woman part would be lacking as in the other major codices and the early manuscripts of the Coptic Bible); and three leaves containing from II Corinthians, 4:13-12:6. One leaf is missing from I Clement and probably two more at the end of II Clement. The order of the Old Testament books is peculiar. In the New Testament the order is Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles, Apocalypse, with Hebrews placed before the Pastoral Epistles. It is the first to contain the major chapters with their titles, the Ammonian Sections and the Eusebian Canons complete (Scrivener). A new paragraph is indicated by a large capital letter and frequently by spacing, not by beginning a new line; the enlarged capital is placed in the margin of the next line, though, curiously, it may not correspond t the beginning of the paragraph or even of a word. Value: The text of Codex A is considered one of the most valuable witnesses to the Septuagint. It appears to have a great affinity to the text embodied in Origen's Hexapla and to have to have many corrected passages according to the Hebrew. The state of research on the Septuagint is far from being able to determine the full value of such text. The text of the New Testament here is rather mixed. It supports the Sixtine Vulgate in regard to the conclusion of St. Mark and John 5:4, but, like all Greek manuscripts before the fourteenth century, omits the text of the three heavenly witnesses, I John 5:7. The text is described by Aland (p. 109) as "... of uneven value (based on examplars of different types in different parts), inferior in the Gospels, good in the rest of the New Testament, but best in Revelation, ...". Scribal errors are rather frequent in the codex. Study of the Manuscript: Codex Alexandrinus played an important part in developing the textual

St. Shenouda Coptic Newsletter

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