chapter 5 Codex Vaticanus—a Fourth-Century Manuscript with the Complete Text of the Synoptic

1 Codex Vaticanus (Cod. Vat. Gr. 1209)1

Codex Vaticanus (B, 03) is arguably the most important Greek manuscript of the extant today.2 Vaticanus is a vellum manuscript containing most of the and the majority of the .3 The manuscript may also have contained various extra-canonical texts, as does its contemporary, -Both codices were copied in the fourth century, mak .(01 ,א) ing them the oldest complete in existence and perhaps among the first complete Bibles ever to be assembled. Guglielmo Cavallo proposes that Vati- canus was copied in the middle of the fourth century, around 350ce, and that Sinaiticus was copied about ten years later, around 360ce.4 Elliott raises the point that during this period the borders of the canon were still being solidified. He proposes that codices such as these were intended as templates for the canon—their covers encompassing and embodying the

1 In 2015, the published excellent photographs of the manuscript online at http://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1209. For print photographs see Novum Testamentum e Codice Vaticano Graeco 1209 (Codex B) tertia vice phototypice expressum, Codices e Vaticanis Selecti 30 (Vatican City: Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, 1968). Another resource for the text of Vaticanus can be found in Jenny Read-Heimerdinger and Josep Rius-Camps, eds., A Synopsis of the GreekText of Matthew, Mark and Luke: A Comparison of and Codex Vaticanus, NTTSD 45 (Leiden: Brill, 2014). 2 For a thorough introduction to Codex Vaticanus, see the essays compiled in Patrick Andrist, ed., Le manuscrit B de la Bible (Vaticanus graecus 1209): Introduction au fac-similé, Actes du Colloque de Genève (11 juin 2001), Contributions supplémentaires, HTB 7 (Lausanne: Éditions du Zèbre, 2009). See also Hatch, Principal Uncial Manuscripts, Plate XIV; Skeat, “Constan- tine,” 193–235; Ibid., “The Codex Vaticanus in the Fifteenth Century,” in Writings of T. C. Skeat, 122–134; Lagrange, Critique rationelle, 83–90, 99–107; Cavallo, Ricerche, 52–56, 60–61; J. Neville Birdsall, “The Codex Vaticanus: Its History and Significance,” in The Bible as Book: The Trans- mission of the Greek Text, ed. Scot McKendrick and Orlaith A. O’Sullivan (London: The British Library; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press in association with The : Center for Christian Antiquities, 2003), 33–41. 3 Some missing portions of the text were added to the manuscript in the fifteenth century. 4 Cavallo, Ricerche, 55–59. Frederic G. Kenyon, Text of the Greek Bible: A Students Handbook (London: Duckworth, 1937), 75, 85, dates both Vaticanus and Sinaiticus to the early fourth century.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004391819_006 codex vaticanus 217 canon lists being created by church leaders.5 Furthermore, it was toward the beginning of the fourth century that Emperor Constantine wrote to , Bishop of Caesarea, commissioning the construction of fifty beautiful Bibles. There is also evidence that Emperor Constans, Constantine’s son, requested Bibles from Athanasius. Skeat suggests that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus them- selves are the products of these commissions, though others dismiss the pos- sibility as speculation.6 Skeat supports his case with argumentation for Cae- sarea as the provenance of the manuscripts instead of , as had generally been accepted.7 By contrast, Birdsall is unconvinced by many arguments for a Caesarean provenance and remains agnostic about the specific date of the manuscript and its location of origin.8 The two manuscripts are linked, for Skeat, because he believes they origi- nate from the same scriptorium, a fact that can be inferred from similarities in their script and size. Additionally, Skeat and H.J.M. Milne argue that there are substantial similarities between the script of “A” of Vaticanus and that of scribe “D” of Sinaiticus and posit that they were penned within the same scribal tradition.9 The script is a paradigmatic biblical uncial, though specific charac- teristics of the original hand cannot be discerned since the entire manuscript was re-inked in perhaps the tenth century.10 According to Skeat, after its composition in Caesarea, Codex Vaticanus was sent to in a consignment to the emperor.Within a few centuries the entire text needed re-inking, proving that it was still in use at that time. Sub-

5 J.K. Elliott, “T. C. Skeat on the Dating and Origin of Codex Vaticanus,” in Writings of T. C. Skeat, 281–294. 6 Skeat, “Constantine,” 193–235. 7 See Elliott, “Dating and Origin of Codex Vaticanus,” 291–293; and Ibid., “Theodore Skeat et l’origine du Codex Vaticanus,” in Le manuscrit B, 119–133, for an assessment of Skeat’s arguments. Lagrange, Critique rationelle, 84, affirms Caesarean origin for Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Cavallo, Ricerche, 60–61, holds to the Egyptian theory, as does Kirsopp Lake, “The Sinaitic and Vatican Manuscripts and the Copies sent by Eusebius to Constantine,” HTR 11 (1918): 32–35. See also Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, “Le Vaticanus, Athanase et Alexan- drie,” in Le manuscrit B, 135–155, who concludes that remains the likeliest place of origin. Christian-B. Amphoux, “Les circonstances de la copie du Codex Vaticanus (Vat. Gr. 1209),” in Le manuscrit B, 157–176, argues for as the place of origin. 8 Birdsall, “Codex Vaticanus,” 34. 9 H.J.M. Milne and T.C. Skeat, and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus (London: , 1939), 89–90. The authors do not posit that the same individual penned both manuscripts. 10 Elliott, “Dating and Origin of Codex Vaticanus,” 293. Skeat, “Constantine,” 230–231, does not hazard an exact guess as to when the manuscript was re-inked, only that it was done between the fifth and fifteenth centuries and possibly before the ninth century when lec- tionaries were replacing the large tomes containing complete Bibles.