Minuscule 579

Minuscule 579, ε 376, is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament Gospels, written on parchment. Using the study of comparative writing styles, it has been dated to the 13th century. It was formerly labelled as 80^e. The manuscript has some missing portions of text.

Description

The manuscript is a codex, containing the near-complete text of the four Gospels, with some gaps on 152 parchment leaves. The text is written in one column per page, 28-39 lines per page. Words are written continuously without any separation, but includes accents and breathings.
It contains lists of the tables of contents before each Gospel, numbers of the chapters in the margin, and the titles at the top of the pages. It has the Ammonian sections, but no references to the Eusebian Canons. Quotations from the Old Testament are rarely indicated.
It has the same system of chapter divisions as found in Codex Vaticanus and Codex Zacynthius.

Text

The Greek text of the codex is a representative of the Alexandrian text-type in Mark and Luke. The text-types are groups of different New Testament manuscripts which share specific or generally related readings, which then differ from each other group, and thus the conflicting readings can separate out the groups. These are then used to determine the original text as published; there are three main groups with names: Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine. For the text of Mark and Luke contained in the manuscript, biblical scholar and text-critic Kurt Aland placed it in Category II in his New Testament manuscript text classification system. Category II manuscripts are described as being manuscripts "of a special quality, i.e., manuscripts with a considerable proportion of the early text, but which are marked by alien influences. These influences are usually of smoother, improved readings, and in later periods by infiltration by the Byzantine text."
The relationship between minuscule 579's text of Luke and the Alexandrian text-type was confirmed by the Claremont Profile Method, though in Luke 10 and Luke 20 it is a weak representative of this text-type. In Matthew its text belongs to the late Byzantine group.
The text of Matthew 16:2b–3 is placed after verse 9.
It has two endings to the Gospel of Mark, as also seen in codices Codex Athous Lavrensis, Uncial 099, Uncial 0112, minuscule 274, and Lectionary 1602 ).
It lacks the text of Luke 22:43-44 and the phrase ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἔλεγον Πάτερ, ἄφες αὐτοῖς, οὐ γὰρ οἴδασιν τί ποιοῦσιν in Luke 23:34.
In John 8:6 it inserts μὴ προσποιούμενος after εἰς τὴν γὴν along with Codex Cyprius and numerous manuscripts among the Byzantine text-type.

History

The manuscript once belonged to classical scholar Johann Georg Graevius, and was collated by Dutch scholar Anthony Bynaeus in 1691. It passed into the hands of J. van der Hagen, who showed it to textual-critic Johann Jakob Wettstein in 1739. It was bought by Ambrose Didot and sold to Monsieur Lesoef.
The manuscript was examined and described by Catholic biblical scholar Paulin Martin. C. R. Gregory saw the manuscript in 1884.
It is currently housed in at the National Library of France, at Paris.