Codex Bezae
The Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis is a bi-lingual Greek and Latin manuscript of the New Testament written in an uncial hand on parchment. It is designated by the siglum D or 05 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and δ 5 in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts. It contains most of the four Gospels and Acts, with a small fragment of 3 John. Using the study of comparative writing styles, it is currently dated to the 5th century.
Codex Bezae is renowned for having a distinctive text of the four Gospels and Acts, and is a leading member of the "Western" recension. The manuscript has been studied extensively.
A digital facsimile of the codex is available from Cambridge University Library, which holds the manuscript.
Description
The manuscript is a codex, containing the text of the four Gospels, Acts and 3 John written on 406 extant parchment leaves, from perhaps an original 534. The text is written in one column per page, with the Greek text on the left face and the Latin text on the right. The text is written colometrically and is full of hiatus. The first three lines of each book are in red letters, with black and red ink alternating the title of books. As many as eleven correctors have amended the text of the manuscript between the sixth and twelfth centuries. The Greek text of the codex has some copying errors, e.g., errors of metathesis, such as seen in, where εγενετο was changed into ενεγετο ; and in, where υπελαβεν transforms into υπεβαλεν.The manuscript employs the following nomina sacra ; the ones cited here are only nominative case examples:,,, . Other words which usually feature among the nomina sacra are written out in full: μητερ, υιος, σωτηρ, ανθρωπος, ουρανος, Δαυιδ, Ισραηλ, and Ιερουσαλημ.
Codex contents
The manuscript presents the gospels in the so-called Western order of Matthew, John, Luke and Mark, of which only Luke is complete; after some missing pages the manuscript picks up with the Third Epistle of John and contains part of Acts.; Missing sections:
; Omitted verses:
; Supplementations :
Text type
The Greek text is unique, with many interpolations found in no other manuscript. It has several remarkable omissions, and a capricious tendency to rephrase sentences. Aside from this one Greek manuscript, the type of text is found in Old Latin versions — as seen in the Latin here — and in Syriac, and Armenian versions. Bezae is the principal Greek representative of the Western text-type.There is no consensus on the many problems the Greek text presents. Since the Latin text occasionally agrees with Codices Bobiensis and Vercellensis against all others, it "preserves an ancient form of the Old Latin", and is a witness to a text which was current no later than 250 CE. Issues of conformity have dogged the usage of the codex in biblical scholarship. "In general the Greek text is treated as an unreliable witness," but it is "an important corroborating witness wherever it agrees with other early manuscripts."
Some of the outstanding features: Matthew 16:2b–3 is present and not marked as doubtful or spurious. One of the longer endings of Mark is given. Luke 22:43f and the Pericope Adulterae are present and not marked as spurious or doubtful. John 5:4 is omitted, and the text of Acts is nearly 8% longer than the generally received text. It also includes a story of a man working on the Sabbath placed after Luke 6:4 which is not found in any other manuscript.
Acts in Codex Bezae differs quite considerably from other manuscripts, which some argue possibly represents an earlier version directly from Luke.
Notable readings
Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis contains some extraordinary readings. Below is a selection of some of the more notable or unsupported readings, with text and translation.History
The codex's place of origin is still disputed; both Gaul and southern Italy have been suggested. Other proposed places of origin include Egypt, Palestine and Beirut.The manuscript is believed to have been repaired at Lyon in the ninth century, as revealed by a distinctive ink used for supplementary pages. It was closely guarded for many centuries in the monastic library of St Irenaeus at Lyon. The manuscript was consulted, perhaps in Italy, for disputed readings at the Council of Trent, and was at about the same time collated for Stephanus's edition of the Greek New Testament. During the upheavals of the Wars of Religion in the 16th century, when textual analysis had a new urgency among the Reformation's Protestants, the manuscript was stolen from the monastic library in Lyon when French Huguenots ransacked the library in 1562. It was delivered to the Protestant scholar Theodore Beza, the friend and successor of Calvin, who gave it in 1581 to the University of Cambridge, in the comparative security of England, which accounts for its double name. It remains in the Cambridge University Library.
Scholar John Mill collated and biblical scholar Johann Jakob Wettstein transcribed the text of the codex. Both did their editions of the Greek Testament, but both did their work carelessly. A much better collation was made about 1732 by John Dickinson.
In 1787, the University of Cambridge appointed Dr Thomas Kipling to edit a facsimile edition which appeared in two volumes in 1793.
The English cleric Frederick H. A. Scrivener edited the text of the codex in 1864 and published a photographic facsimile in 1899.
The importance of the manuscript is such that a colloquium held at Lunel, Hérault, in the south of France on 27–30 June 1994 was entirely devoted to it. Papers discussed the many questions it poses to our understanding of the use of the Gospels and Acts in early Christianity, and of the text of the New Testament.