Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries: Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.10.3

Diktyon no.: Diktyon 11943

Introduction: This manuscript, copied in 1583, is a copy of Cambridge, University Library, MS Nn.2.41 , better known as Codex Bezae, among the oldest surviving manuscripts of the New Testament and the earliest whose Greek text appears with a facing Latin translation. Having been seized from the monastery of St Ireaneus in Lyons by a Huguenot army, the ancient manuscript was presented as a gift to Cambridge University by the leading Calvinist theologian Theodore Beza (1519-1605) in 1581. Shortly afterwards this copy was produced for John Whitgift, formerly Master of Trinity and at the time Bishop of Worcester, who would within months be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. With the exception of a handful of words near its beginning (f. 3r), the manuscript does not contain the Latin translation. However, since the Greek text is written only on the verso side of each folio, as in Codex Bezae, it seems that the Latin was originally meant to be added. Although this copy is the product of a scholarly effort to represent one manuscript in particular, rather than simply to transmit the text it contains, there has been no attempt to make a diplomatic reproduction. The line and page divisions of the exemplar are not observed and, unlike in the original, in the text of the Gospels a new line is begun at the start of each Ammonian section, the system of subdivisions numbered in the margins of Codex Bezae. In only one case (f.60v) is a lacuna due to the loss of folios from the original noted in the text. The aim of replicating the content of this unusual early manuscript is compromised by the fact that where later hands have amended the text in Codex Bezae, it is this altered text which has been copied, rather than the readings of the original scribe. The coverage of the copy also slightly exceeds that of the original, including the first twenty verses of the Gospel of Matthew, absent from Codex Bezae due to the loss of folios, and completing the verse of Acts during which the original breaks off at its end. The almost immediately abandoned copying of the Latin translation appears at the point corresponding to the beginning of the Greek text of the original, skipping the first page of the Latin, found on the first surviving recto folio of Codex Bezae and preceding the first surviving Greek text on the verso. This manuscript is the only witness to the text of the lower part of f. 504 of Codex Bezae, which was still present when this copy was produced but has since been lost. Dr Christopher Wright

Language(s): Greek

New Testament

Filiation: The manuscript is a copy of Codex Bezae (Cambridge, University Library, MS Nn.2.41).

Only the Greek text of Codex Bezae is present, written on the verso folios. The recto folios are blank, intended for the Latin text but never copied, with the exception of the first fourteen words of Latin from the folio facing the beginning of the Greek text in Codex Bezae, which appear on f. 3r. The beginning of the Gospel of Matthew having been supplied from another source, the Bezae text begins on f. 2v, line 4, indicated by a later note.

1.1. ff. 1v-65v

Gospel of Matthew

Incipit: f. 1v Βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, Υἱοῦ Δαύιδ, Υἱοῦ Ἀβραάμ

Explicit: f. 65v πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας, ἕως τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος

Final rubric: f. 65v Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ματθαῖον ἐτελέσθη Ἀρχεται εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην

TLG 0031.001

f. 66v is blank.

1.2. ff. 67v-111v

Gospel of John

Incipit: f. 67v Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος

Explicit: f. 111v οὐδὲ αὐτὸν οἶμαι τὸν κόσμον χωρῆσε[sic], τὰ γραφόμενα βιβλεία[sic]. Ἀμήν

Final rubric: f. 111v Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην ἐτελέσθη Ἀρχεται εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Λουκᾶν

TLG 0031.004

1.3. ff. 112v-173v

Gospel of Luke

Incipit: f. 112v Ἐπειδήπερ πολλοὶ ἐπεχείρησαν ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησιν

Explicit: f. 173v καὶ ἦσαν διὰ παντὸς ἐν τῷ ἱερῶ· αἰνοῦντες καὶ εὐλογοῦντες τὸν Θεόν

Final rubric: f. 173v Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Λουκᾶν ἐτελέσθη Ἀρχεται εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Μάρκον

TLG 0031.003

1.4. ff. 174v-211v

Gospel of Mark

Incipit: f. 174v Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ Υἱοῦ Θεοῦ

Explicit: f. 211v καὶ τὸν λόγον βεβαιοῦντος διὰ τῶν ἐπακολουθούντων σημείων. Ἀμήν

Final rubric: f. 211v Εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Λουκᾶν ἐτελέσθη· Ἀρχεται Πρᾶξις[sic] Ἀποστόλων

TLG 0031.002

1.5. ff. 212v-258v

Acts of the Apostles

Incomplete at the end, following Codex Bezae but completing the final verse (Ac 22:29), during which its text breaks off

Incipit: f. 212v Τὸν μὲν πρῶτον λόγον ἐποιησάμην

Explicit: f. 258v καὶ ὁ χιλίαρχος δε[sic] ἐφοβήθη ἐπιγνοὺς, ὅτι Ῥωμαῖός ἐστι, καὶ ὅτι ἦν αὐτὸν δεδεκώς

TLG 0031.005

ff. 259v-260v are blank.

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: Parchment (FHFHHFHF), quite thin and of medium quality.

Extent: Codex: i + 260 + i leaves. 323 × 256 mm.

Foliation: The manuscript is foliated with the numbers [i] + 1-260 + [ii], in pencil, in Arabic numerals, recto, upper right. Folio numbers have occasionally been written erroneously, but struck through and replaced with the correct numbers.

Collation

The manuscript consists of 33 quires, of which one is a binion and the rest are quaternia.

Quires 1-32⁸ ff. 1-256
Quire 33⁴ ff. 257-260

Condition

There is some creasing to the first few folios (ff. 1-3), and small areas of dirt. Both endleaves are severely creased, and the left endleaf f. [i] is partially detached. There are paper slips pasted to each side of the fore-edge of f. 183.

Layout

A single column of 30 lines. 222 × 138 mm. Ruled in red ink, type equivalent to Leroy 00D1. Text is written between the lines, equidistant from them. In the Gospels, each Ammonian section begins on a new line.

Hand(s)

The text has been copied by Hand A in a western European mixed minuscule script, with variable slant, with modest variation in letter size; ff. 1v-17v are written in brown ink, the remainder of the manuscript in black. There are deletions by strikethrough.

Syllabic abbreviations and superscription of word endings appear throughout the line. Breathings are round and mute iota is subscript. Use of the double dot is functional only. Accents are sometimes joined to letters.

Punctuation used includes the lower, middle and upper points, lower comma and question mark.

Decoration

Verses begin with slightly enlarged normal letters.

Additions

In the Gospels, the original copyist has marked the Ammonian section numbers in the left-hand margin. On ff. 1v-3v only two of these survive, at the outer edge of the margin, the rest having presumably been lost to cropping. Thereafter they appear near the inner edge of the margin. The copyist has included a Latin note of a lacuna within the text on f.60v.

There are marginal notes and corrections by another hand, including indications of the beginning of the Greek text of Codex Bezae and other peculiarities of that manuscript (e.g. ff. 2v, 4v, 63v-64v, 83v).

There is a Latin note of the content and origin of the manuscript on f. 1v: ‘Novum Testamentum Graecum exscriptum ex antiquissimo MS. ad Academiam Cantabrigiensem a Pel. Beza misso. Ad versum 13 captitulis 22 Actorum Apostolorum hoc exemplar transcriptum est’.

Another such note appears on a slip of paper pasted to the left pastedown: ‘Hic liber exscriptus est ex antiquissimo libro manuscripto quem Theodorus Beza misit ad Academiam Cantabrigiensem pro monumento scribandum’.

Binding

Late 16th-century full leather binding over wooden boards, with plain pastedowns. Stubs of two pairs of cord fastenings survive near the fore-edge of the boards. Both boards are decorated with simple blind-tooled borders and the arms of John Whitgift as Archbishop of Canterbury tooled in gold. There is decorative gold tooling and the title ‘Novum Testamentum Graecum MS’ tooled in gold on the later spine, along with the classmark on labels.

330 × 284 × 80 mm.

The binding has been rebacked, and damage to the corners repaired.

History

Origin: The manuscript was copied for John Whitgift (c. 1530-1604) , former Master of Trinity, then Bishop of Worcester and later Archbishop of Canterbury, and completed in March 1583.

Provenance and Acquisition

Bequeathed to Trinity College by Whitgift.

Additional Information

Availability

Visitors to Trinity College who wish to consult Special Collections material are required to apply to the Library in advance of their visit. For information on eligibility and admission procedures see: Trinity College: Information for Readers.

Bibliography

Bezae Codex Cantabrigiensis: being an exact copy, in ordinary type, of the celebrated uncial Graeco-Latin manuscript of the four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, written early in the sixth century, and presented to the University of Cambridge by Theodore Beza, A.D. 1581 Bezae Codex Cantabrigiensis, Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose (Cambridge; London, Deighton, Bell, and Co.; Bell and Daldy, 1864)

The western manuscripts in the library of Trinity College: a descriptive catalogue, James, M.R. (Cambridge, 1, Cambridge University Press, 1902)

Funding of Cataloguing

The Polonsky Foundation

Digital Images

Cambridge Digital Library

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

Cambridge, Trinity College, MS B.10.3

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