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Cronin's Codex Purpureus Codex Purpureus Petropolitanus (N), edited by H. S. Cronin, M.A. (Cambridge Texts and Studies, v. 4). Pp. Ixiv., 108. 1899. 5s. net. C. J. Clay.

J. H. Bernard

The Classical Review / Volume 14 / Issue 01 / February 1900, pp 78 - 79 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00080422, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00080422

How to cite this article: J. H. Bernard (1900). The Classical Review, 14, pp 78-79 doi:10.1017/ S0009840X00080422

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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 61.129.42.15 on 06 May 2015 78 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. supply a key to the reading of abbreviations. to follow in such a compilation is that The simpler the form of this key, the better adopted by Mr. Trice Martin in his ' Record for the mastery of the subject. The Interpreter,' in which ordinary type and beginner requires above all to be instructed the special fount of conventional signs used in the principles governing the system of in printing the Public Records publications contractions and abbreviations, and in the are employed. The beginner is not harassed history of their developement. Equipped by having first to puzzle out the letters with this knowledge, he will soon recognize of a facsimile, but has his mind entirely the different forms, whatever may be the free to find the solution of the abbrevia- period of the MS. on which he is engaged tion. at the moment. To present him with so- At the same time, in spite of the defects called facsimile examples (which in fact are we have noticed, Signor Cappelli's Dictionary no facsimiles in the true sense, being drawn may be recommended for its handiness and as they are by hand), is only to worry him for the copiousness of the several lists of with a series of .irritating puzzles. For the abbreviations contained in the volume. more advanced student such facsimiles are absolutely useless. E. MAUNDB THOMPSON. Undoubtedly the most practical method

CRONIN'S CODEX PURPUREUS.

Codex Purpureus Petropolitanus (N), edited with minute care, and has furnished in his by H. S. CRONIN, M.A. (Cambridge Texts Introduction an interesting account of the and Studies, v. 4). Pp. lxiv., 108. 1899. various mischances and dismemberments 5s. net. C. J. Clay. which have befallen it during the 1,300 years which have passed since it was written. CODEX N of the Gospels is a magnificent It is sufficient to note here that we have sixth century manuscript written in silver now 227 leaves out of 466 which the MS. letters upon purple vellum. Until quite must have contained in its original state. recently only 45 leaves of it were known to Mr. Cronin has deemed it unnecessary to exist, and of these 33 are at Patmos, the give us a facsimile of the MS., inasmuch as remainder being distributed among the great one may be seen in the reproduction of the libraries at the Vatican, Vienna, and the Vienna Genesis. Nevertheless we are sorry . But a purple codex, being that a photograph has not been provided, a very precious treasure, would naturally be for the reproduction to which he refers us preserved with greater care than an ordinary is not in every one's possession, and the manuscript; and scholars had been alive to facsimile in Scrivener's Introduction is very the possibility of some fresh leaves of poor. Codex N being discovered. Dr. Hort ex- Two other purple codices, the Codex Ros- pressed his confident belief, ten years ago, sanensis (2) and the Codex Beratinus ($) that they would be found in the neighbour- have been discovered and edited in recent hood of ; and it is remarkable how years, and they both present many interest- nearly his prediction (for which he gave no ing resemblances to ET, not only in the reasons) has been verified. The existence of splendour of their writing, but in the a valuable Gospel MS. in Asia Minor has character of the text which they preserve. been talked about at Constantinople since Indeed N and 2 are so like that Mr. Cronin the year 1883 ; and, after much negotiation, believes them to be copied from the same all doubts as to its character were set-at rest exemplar, and (very probably) at Constanti- by its purchase at Sarumsahly in Cappadocia nople. He prints the variants of 2 (wher- for the Emperor of Russia in 1896. The ever they are known) at the foot of the MS. now rests in the Imperial Library at text of N ; from which arrangement it can St. Petersburg, it having been previously be seen at a glance how trifling is the varia- ascertained that its 182 leaves form a large tion of the one from the other. In the instalment of the missing portion of 91 leaves which are common to both, there Codex N. are only 93 differences of text. Thus it is Mr. Cronin has transcribed the entire MS. a peculiarly fortunate circumstance that the THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 79 leaves of IT containing St. Luke and St. 'E/?pa«rri in xx, 16, while they omit irorpos John have been preserved, for these Gospels in v, 30 and CKCTVO «S O Ivlfi-qcrav ol /icuBr/ral are not extant in 5, which only contains in avrov in vi, 22. The truth is that the chief its present state St. Matthew and St. Mark. importance of N, now that we have got it care- The combined use of N and 2 enables us to fully edited, does not consist so much in the determine, with a high degree of probability, support which it gives to this or that what the reading of the exemplar was for reading, but in the light which it throws almost any passage in the Gospels. on the gradual formation of the 'Antiochian ' The character of the text of NS is, as a text. We have, in fact, before us in N a general rule, that of the later Greek uncials. good illustration, as Mr. Cronin says, of the It is • Antiochian' cr ' Syrian' in the resistance of the ancient text to change and nomenclature of Westcott and Hort, Jji'S, of one of the ways in which that resistance1 thus being the oldest Greek manuscript was overcome and the better readings authorities for the so-called 'textus receptus.' removed from circulation. The great interest of the text they present Mr. Cronin has given in an Appendix a lies, however, in the fact that there are collation of the text of St. Mark in the St. traces here and there that they have been Petersburgh MS. which Tischendorf quoted derived from an exemplar which did not con- as 22>e,(and which is numbered 565 byGregory. tain the smooth and polished and full Syrian It is a ninth or tenth century cursive, of readings, which afterwards established them- which the texts of St. Matthew, St. Luke selves well nigh all over the Christian world. and St. John are of the ordinary type, having Thus N omits the verses about the Bloody been carefully corrected so as to correspond Sweat (Luke xxii, 43, 44); the verse 8vo with' the text then current. But the text of Itrovrai iv T

Orj

ARCHAEOLOGY. ANTIQUITIES OF before us, which appeared in the spring of (HUMANN, CICHORIUS, JUDEICH, 1898. WINTER). The book is appropriately dedicated to the memory of Carl Humann, whose services AUertiimner von Hierapolis, herausgegeben to the exploration of Asia Minor have been von CARL HUMANN, CONEAD CICHORIUS, so great. WALTER JUDBICH, FBANZ WINTER. , The volume contains 180 pages of text, Reimer, 1898 (Erganzungheft IV des and 20 of indices. There is a plan of the Jahrbuchs des Kais. deutsch. arch. city, on a scale inconveniently small, in a Instituts) : pp. 202, price 24 marks. plate at the end : and a number of photo- graphs and slight sketches of sculptural IN June—July, 1887, the late Dr. Carl fragments and plans of buildings are repro- Humajin, with Drs. Cichorius, Judeich and duced by an inexpensive process in the text. Winter, spent fourteen days at Hierapolis For this small and plain volume the charge in Phrygia, studying the ruins, with the aid is 24s. The price is excessive, and one feels of engineering skill and machinery, copying inclined to repeat and confirm the strong the inscriptions, making plans and photo- complaints which M. S. Reinach has often graphs. As they united their work in the made about the expensive character of recent preliminary stages, so they combined their books on Classical Archaeology. That sub- literary effort. The result is the volume ject is becoming a matter for the rich.