"""^ 
 
 Ezra Abbot 
 
 On the Comparative Antiquity 
 of the 
 Sinaitic and Vatican Manuscripts 
 of the Greek Bible 
 
 BS38 
 ./\\2 
 
MAR IV 1950 •^'j 
 
 B63& 
 
i r t* 
 
 ARTICLE VIII. 
 
 ON THE COMPARATIVE ANTIQUITY 
 
 OF THE SINAITIC AND VATICAN MANUSCRIPTS 
 
 OF THE GREEK BIBLE. 
 
 ByEZRAABBOT, 
 
 PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT CraTIOISM AND INTERPRETATION IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Presented to the Society May 2 2d, 1872. " 
 
 The present essay was suggested by a recent work of the 
 Rev. J. W. Burgon, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, entitled 
 " The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark 
 Vindicated against recent Critical Objectors and Established " 
 (London, 1871). In one of the Appendixes to this volume 
 (pp. 291-294) Ml'. Burgon has a dissertation " On the Relative 
 Antiquity of the Codex Vaticanus (B) and the Codex Sinaiticus 
 (n)," in which he maintains that certain ''notes of superior an- 
 tiquity," which he specifies, "infallibly set Cod. B before Cod. 
 N, though it may be impossible to determine whether by 50, by 
 75, or by 100 years " (p. 293). He does not doubt that they 
 are " the two oldest copies of the Gospels in existence ;'' but 
 "if the first belongs to the beginning, the second may be refer- 
 red to the middle or latter part of the IVth century " (p. 70). 
 Tischendorf, on the other hand, now assigns both manuscripts 
 to the middle of the fourth century ; and even maintains that 
 one of the scribes of the Sinaitic manuscript, whom he desig- 
 nates by the letter D, wrote the New Testament part of the 
 Codex Vaticanus. Mr. Burgon's arguments are for the most 
 part new, and have not, so far as I am aware, been subjected to 
 any critical examination. Few scholars, in this country at 
 least, have the means of testing the correctness of his statements. 
 His book ill general, and his discussion of the jDresent subject 
 in particular, have been highly praised ; and he writes through- 
 out in the tone of one who teaches with authority. It has 
 seemed to me, therefore, that a review of the arguments put 
 forth with such confidence might be of interest. 
 
 In the present investigation, I have relied chiefly on the 
 original edition of the Sinaitic MS. published by Tischendorf 
 
190 E. Abbot, 
 
 in 1862 in four volumes folio, printed in facsimile type, with 19 
 plates of actual facsimiles of different parts of the manuscript, 
 and on the similar edition of the Codex Vaticanus now publish- 
 ing at Rome, of which three volumes have thus far appeared, 
 two of them containing the Old Testament as far as the end of 
 Nehemiah, and the other the New Testament part of the manu- 
 script. I have also used Tischendorf s facsimile edition of the 
 Codex Friderico-Augustanus (another name for 48 leaves of the 
 Sinaitic MS.), published in 1846; his "Novum Testamentum 
 Vaticanum " (1867), with the " Appendix " (1869) ; and his 
 "Appendix Codicum celeberrimorum Sinaitici Vaticani Alex- 
 andrini," with facsimiles (J 867). 
 
 Mr. Burgon's arguments are as follows: — (1.) "The (all but 
 unique) sectional division of Codex B, confessedl}^ the oldest 
 scheme of cha})ters extant, is in itself a striking note of primi- 
 tiveness. The author of the Codex knew nothing, ap])arently, 
 of the Eusebian method." 
 
 The Vatican MS. has in the Gospels a division of the text 
 into chapters, which differs from that found in most MSS. from 
 the fifth century onward, and appears, so far as is known, in 
 only one other manuscript, the Codex Zacynthius (S). of the 
 eighth century. It has also a peculiar division into chapters in 
 the Acts and Epistles. Mr. Burgon finds in its scheme of 
 chapters "a striking note of primitiveness." But the Sinaitic 
 has no division into chapters at all, a prima manu. Is not that 
 quite as primitive? Further, Mr. Burgon's argument appears 
 to be of a circular character. The only proof of the high an- 
 tiquity of the " scheme of chapters " referred to is its existence 
 in the Vatican manuscript. 
 
 It may be worth while, perhaps, to remark that the Roman 
 edition of the Vatican MS. seems to afford evidence (p. 1272, 
 col. 1, and 1299, col. 3) that the division into chapters, noted 
 by numbers in red in the margin, was not made by the original 
 scribe, but by one who preferred in some places a different 
 division into paragraphs. It may have been made, however, 
 by a contemporaiy hand. 
 
 Mr. Scrivener thinks it " very credible that Codex Sinaiticus 
 was one of the fifty volumes of Holy Scripture, written ' on 
 skins in ternions and quaternions,' which Eusebius prepared 
 A. D. 331 by Constantine's direction for the use of the new 
 capital " (Collation of the Cod. Sinaiticus, p. xxxvii. f ; comp. 
 Euseb. Vita Const, iv.36,37). This is possible, though there 
 is no proof of it. Mr. Burgon's argument, that, because the 
 Eusebian sections do not correspond with the paragraphs in the 
 Codex Sinaiticus, Eusebius could have known nothing of the 
 MS. (p. 294), is utterly futile. The object of those sections is 
 
Antiquity of the Sinaitic and Vatican MSS. 191 
 
 totally different from that of a division into paragraphs. The 
 Eusebian sections are not chapters or paragraphs, but merely 
 serve for a comparison of parallel or similar passages in the 
 Gospels. In not less than 25 instances, there are two of them 
 (in one case three) in a single verse ; see, e. g., Matt, xi.27 ; Mark 
 xiii.14:; Luke vi.21; John xix.6, 15,16. 
 
 The Eusebian sections are not in the Sinaitic MS. d prima 
 numu, though they may, as Tischendorf supposes, have been 
 added by a contemporary scribe. In that case, the MS. may 
 still be older than the middle of the fourth century ; for Euse- 
 bius died about A. D. 31:0. It is curious to see how Scrivener 
 contradicts himself on this matter in a single page (Collation, 
 etc. p. XXX vii.). 
 
 (2.) " Cod. « (like C, and other later MSS.)," says Mr. Burgon, 
 " is broken up into short paragraphs throughout The Vatican 
 Codex, on the contrary, has very few breaks indeed : e. g. it is 
 without break of any sort from S. Matth. xvii.24 to xx,17: 
 whereas, within the same limits, there are in Cod. n as many as 
 thirty interruptions of the context. From S. Mark xiii.l to the 
 end of the Gospel the text is absolutely continuous in Cod. B, 
 except in one place : but in Cod. n it is interrupted upwards of 
 Ji/ty times. A.gain: from S. Luke xvii.ll, to the end of the 
 Gospel, there is but one break in Cod. B. But it is broken into 
 well nigh an hundred and fifty short paragraphs in Cod. n. 
 
 " There can be no doubt that the unbroken text of Codex B 
 (resembling the style of the papyrus of Hyperides published by 
 Mr. Babington) is the more ancient. The only places where it 
 approximates to the method of Cod. «, are where the Command- 
 ments are briefly recited (S. Matth. xix.l8, &c.), and w^here our 
 Lord proclaims the eight Beatitudes (S. Matth. v.)." 
 
 Here, apparently, the stress of Mr. Burgon's argument rests 
 on the rarity of paragraphs, indicated by "breaks,'" in the 
 Vatican MS. as compared with the Sinaitic. If this is so, he 
 has strangely misrepresented the facts in the case. In the first 
 passage referred to. Matt. xvii.24-xx.l7, there are certainly no 
 less than 32 "bi'eaks" in the Vatican MS., designed to mark a 
 division into paragraphs. In 2 instances (Matt, xvii.24, xix.l) 
 the division is made by the projection of the initial letter into 
 the left-hand margin, in the mannei' usual in the Sinaitic MS. ; 
 in 30, by a space between the words, and a dash ( — ) below the 
 line where the break occurs, projecting into the left-hand margin, 
 after the fashion common in the Herculanean and early Egyptian 
 papyri, and also found, though more rarely, in the Sinaitic MS. 
 Besides these 32 cases, there are 7 in which a paragraph is indi- 
 cated by a dash simply, the preceding sentence happening to 
 fill the whole line above it. There are also in the passage re- 
 ferred to about 10 places in which the end of a sentence or a 
 
192 E. Abbot, 
 
 paragraph is indicated by a space simply. (In respect to the 
 representation of these spaces there is a little ditierence, in two 
 or three places, between the Eoman edition and that of Tisch- 
 endorf.) But dismissing the simple spaces from the account 
 altogether (though they are certainly breaks), we have in the 
 first passage selected by Mr. Burgoii a division into paragraphs 
 in the Vatican MS. even more minute than in the Sinaitic. In 
 Mark xiii.l-xvi.8, there are 89 paragraphs in the Vatican MS. 
 marked by the dash and space — or by the dash alone, when the 
 preceding line is full ; and in Luke xvii.ll-xxiv.53, 129 para- 
 graphs are thus marked, besides 2 in which the initial letter 
 projects into the margin. There are also places in which divis- 
 ions are marked by spaces alone. 
 
 Such being the state of the case, it may perhaps be thought 
 that Mr. Burgon does not mean to argue the superior date of 
 the Vatican MS. from the comparative rarity of its divisions 
 into paragraphs, but merely from the marine)^ in which they are 
 made; and that he intends by "break," the projection of the 
 initial letter of a paragraph into the left-hand margin, which we 
 find in the Vatican MS. in the Beatitudes (Matt, v.), though 
 not in Matt, xix.18, the only other place, according to Mr. 
 Burgon, in which B "approximates to the method of Cod. n." 
 This, however, can hardly be his meaning, for he makes a sepa- 
 rate point of that feature of the Sinaitic MS. in his fourth argu- 
 ment, which will be considered in its proper place. 
 
 As to the frequency of the division into paragraphs, we find 
 a great difterence in different parts of both the Sinaitic and the 
 Vatican manuscripts. For example, in the Sinaitic MS. (vol. 
 ii.) from 1 Mace, v.55 to x.l8, 249 verses, there is but o»e indi- 
 cation of a pai'agraph besides that with which the passage 
 begins. For 21 entire columns of 48 lines each, viz. from fol. 
 21*, col. 4, to fol. 26, col. 4, inclusive, there is no break and no 
 sign of a paragra])li whatever. In the First Book of Maccabees, 
 which contains 36 pages in the Codex Sinaiticus, there are 16 
 pages in which tliere is no indication of a paragrapli, and 10 
 more in each of wliich but one paragraph is marked. In the 
 Fourth Book of Maccabees the paragra})hs are still rarer in 
 pryportion to its length. In the Vatican MS., on the other 
 hand, to anticipate a little the answer to Mr. Burgon's fourth 
 argument, tliere are many ])ages in each of which from 10 to 
 20 paragra|)hs are marked by the projection of the first letter 
 of a word into the left-hand margin; see, e.g., pp. 41, 44, 48, 
 53, 71, 78-75, 123, 186, 187, 226, 291-294 (vol i. of the Roman 
 ed.); and a page of the Vatican MS. contains considerably less 
 than a page of the Sinaitic. In respect both to the frequency 
 of the paragraphs, and to the manner of indicating them, much 
 
Antiquit)/ of the iSinaitic and Vatican MSS. 193 
 
 appears to have depended upon the fancy of the copyist. The 
 books most read wouhl naturally be divided the most. 
 
 (3.) "Again," says Mr. Burgon, "Cod. n is prone to exhibit, 
 on extraordinary occasions, a single loord in a line, as at — 
 S. Matth. XV.30. S. Mark X. 29. S. Luke xiv.13. 
 
 XooXovff 7/ aSiiXqjaff tttgoxovg 
 
 TvqjXovG 7/ TcaTf^pa avamjpovff 
 
 jivXXovff 7/ fxi]Tepa ^Ol)Aol>o' 
 
 Hoocpovff Tf renva rvcpXovff 
 
 7] aypovff 
 
 " This became a prevailing fashion in the Vlth century ; e. g. 
 when the Codex Laudianus of the Acts (E) was written. The 
 only trace of anything of the kind in Cod. B is at the Genealogy 
 of our Lord." 
 
 Here, again, Mr. Burgon mistakes the facts in the case. We 
 find this stichometric mode of giving greater distinctness to 
 particulars exemplified in repeated instances in the Vatican 
 MS., besides the striking one of the genealogy in Luke. For 
 example, in p. 211, col. 3 of the MS., the names of the 22 un- 
 clean birds in Deut. xiv. 12-18 appear each in a separate line. 
 On p. 247, col. 3, there is a similar stichometry of 6 lines ; on 
 p. 254, col. 1, one of at least 25 lines (Josh, xii.10-22, the list 
 of kings), with another example in the same column, and still 
 another in the next; and in p. 485, col. 2, there is one of 11 
 lines (the "dukes" in 1 Chron. i.51-54). For other instances 
 see p. 71, col. 3 ; 76, col. 1 ; 274, col. 2 ; and 316, col. 3. 
 
 We find, moreover, in the Vatican MS., the different branches 
 of the genealogy in Matthew presented in 38 distinct para- 
 graphs; and the beatitudes in Matt. v. and the salutations in 
 Rom. xvi. are similarly treated. This may be regarded as a 
 kiiid of stichometry, of which we have also examples in the 
 Old Testament: e.g. p. 138, col. 1,2: 264, col. 1; 272, col. 1; 
 309, col. 1. All that can be said in respect to the first form of 
 stichi is, that it is much more common in the Sinaitic MS. than 
 in the Vatican, especially in the New Testament. Both MSS. 
 have also another mode of making distinct the items of an enu- 
 meration : namely, by spaces between the words, with or with- 
 out dots (the Roman edition of B does not agree with Tischen- 
 dorf's about the dots); e.g. Rom. i.29-31, both MSS.; and in 
 the Vatican, 1 Cor. vi.9,10; xiii.l3 ; xiv.26; GaL v.19-23; Phil. 
 iv.8 ; Col. iii.8. The choice between the modes seems to have 
 been determined by the taste of the scribe ; compare, for ex- 
 ample, in the Vatican MS., Lev, xi.13-19 with Deut. xiv. 12- 
 18 (pp. Ill and 211). It cannot be made a criterion of date. 
 
 (4.) Mr. Burgon's fourth argument is this: — "At the com- 
 mencement of every fresh paragraph, the initial letter in Cod. n 
 
 VOL. X. 28 
 
194 E. Ahhot, 
 
 slightly projects into tlie ynargin, beyond the left-liauJ edge of 
 the column ; as usual in all later MSS. This cliaracteristic is 
 only not undiscoverahle in Cod. B. Instances of it there are in 
 the earlier Codex ; but they are of exceedingly rare occurrence." 
 The expression " as usual in all later MSS. " is likely to 
 mislead. There is a great difference between the style of the 
 Sinaitic MS. and that of the Alexandrine, the Ephrem, and later 
 MSS. generally, in respect to tlie mode of indicating the begin- 
 ning of paragraphs. In the Sinaitic, the initial letter, which 
 slightly projects, and often does not project at all, is no larger 
 than the rest, a peculiarity found in but a very few existing 
 MSS., and those the oldest known to us. In the other MSS. 
 referred to, the initial letter, or, when the new paragraph begins 
 in the middle of a line, the first letter of the line following, is 
 very much larger than the others, and stands out wholly in the 
 margin, giving these MSS. a strikingly different appearance 
 from that of the Sinaitic and the Vatican. But the character- 
 istic which Mr. Burgon says is "exceedingly rare," "only not 
 UTidiscoverable," in the Vatican MS., occurs 10 times on the 
 veiy first page of that MS. ; and in the first 294 pages, viz. 
 from Gen. xlvi.28 {ttoXiv) to 1 Sam. xix.ll (ayyeXot'o-), there 
 are 1441 exam})les of it. Though less common in the New 
 Testament part of tlie MS., in the first 8 pages it occurs 31 
 times. When Codex B was written, the choice between this 
 mode of indicating the beginning of a paragraph and the other, 
 described under Mr. Burgon's second argument, was evidently 
 a matter depending on the taste of the copyist. In the 290 
 pages following the word (xyyeXcwo' in 1 Sam. xix.ll, extend- 
 ing to the end of Nehemiah, there are but two clear examples 
 of it, viz. on pp. 343, 484. (The projecting letter, pp. 578 and 
 606, is not the first letter of a paragra})h or even of a word.) 
 In the two Books of Chronicles, the First Book of Esdras, and 
 the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah togetiier, there is no example 
 of that mode of indicating paragraphs which is usual in the 
 Sinaitic, and so common in the first 294 pages of the Vatican 
 (pp. 41-334). The natui-al inference is, that we have in the 
 part of the MS. beginning with })age 335 the hand of a different 
 scribe; and this inference is contirmed by the striking differ- 
 ence between these pages of the MS. and those which precede 
 in respect to the use of > to fill u}) a space at the end of a line, 
 and by other peculiarities. Even Mr. Burgon will hardly con- 
 tend that the scribe who wrote ])age 334 of the Codex Vatica- 
 nus lived 50 or 100 years after the writer of page 335. 
 
 Both of these modes of indicating paragraplis are of an an- 
 tiquity greatly exceeding tliat of the Sinaitic and Vatican MSS. 
 The use of the space between words and the dash or some other 
 mark to attract attention in the left-hand margin of the column 
 
Antiquity of the Sinaitic and Vatican MSS. 195 
 
 {■Ttapaypaq)?'] or napaypoiq)O0, something written at the side), 
 in the old Herculanean and Egyptian papyri, has ah'eady been 
 mentioned. See, for a specimen, tlie beautiful pap^a-us of a 
 Greek treatise on Khetoric, written before 160 B. c, published in 
 facsimile in "Papyrus grecs du Musee du Louvre" etc., edited 
 after Letronne by Brunet de Presle (torn, xyiii. 2<= ptie of "No- 
 tices et extraits des manuscrits" etc., published by the French 
 Institute, Paris, 1865), pi. xi., pap. No. 2. (Also in Silvestre, 
 Paleogr. univ., pi. 55.) In the same yolume, pi. xxxiy., pap. 
 "49, in a letter of a certain Dionysius to Ptolemy, about 160 
 B. c, we have perhaps the earliest known example of the use of 
 troo dots like our colon for separating paragraphs, in conjunction 
 with the marginal dash, precisely like the style which fre- 
 quently occurs in both the Vatican and the Sinaitic MSS., 
 though the Vatican more commonly omits the dots. Finally, 
 in the curious Nativity or Thema genethliacum, dated in the 
 first year of the Emperor Antonius (a. d. 138), of which a fac- 
 simile is given in pi. xxii., pap. 19, and also in Silvestre, pi. 
 58, we have numerous paragraphs indicated by the projection 
 of the first letter, or the first two or three letters, into the left- 
 hand margin; and for the most part, this initial is of considera- 
 bly larger size than the rest of the letters. This, however, is 
 not a hook manuscript. 
 
 (5.) "Further," says Mr. Burgon, "Cod. n abounds in such 
 contractions as avoff, owoa (with all their cases), for avBpcoTtoG, 
 ODpavoff &c. Not only rrvay nijp, nep, npa, fxpa (for nvevi-ia, 
 7tarT]p-rep-repa, fxr]r£pa\ but also (jtB?^, i7]X, ir]Xjfi.i, for 
 ffvavpcai^t], KSpaijX, lepovGaXijiJ.. 
 
 "But Cod. B, though familiar with iff, and a few other of 
 the most ordinary abbreviations, knows nothing of these compen- 
 dia : which certainly cannot have existed in the earliest copies 
 of all. Once more it seems reasonable to suppose that their 
 constant occurrence in Cod. n indicates for that Codex a date 
 subsequent to Cod. B." 
 
 Here Mr. Burgon, as usual, misstates the facts. The contrac- 
 tion for av^pcjTtoff is found in the Vatican MS., p. 137, col. 1 ; 
 146, col. 2 ; 160, col. 1 ;- — ^that for Tri^evfia occurs twice on the 
 first page of the New Testament (Matt. i. 18,20), also Matt, iii.ll, 
 16, iv.l, and often elsewhere, particularly in the Old Testament 
 (five times, for example, p. 331, col. 1, and again twice in col. 
 2) ; — Tipff for TTarepoff occurs p. 69, coL 1 ; 190, col. 3 (marg. 
 note) ; 226, col. 2; — iffX for iffpcxijX occurs hundreds of times: 
 for instance, in Exod. xiv. it is contracted sixteen times out of 
 seventeen in which it occurs, and in Josh, xi., eighteen times 
 out of twenty. It will be hard to find "n/A?;//" as the contrac- 
 tion for iepov0aXr]i.i in the Vatican MS. or in any other, but d in^i 
 
196 E. Abbot, 
 
 occurs Josh. xii.lO, and zA/<, Josli. x. 1,3, xv.5. ^ravpoo^j] \?. 
 contracted but once in the Sinaitic MS., where we also have 
 once (in Rev. xi.8) a unique contraction of sffrai'pai^j/, which 
 Tischendorf has neglected to express in the text of his quarto 
 edition, though he has spoken of it in the Prolegomena (p. xx. ; 
 compare the larger edition, vol. i., col. 8 of Prol.). 
 
 In this matter of contractions, much ap])ears to have de- 
 pended on the fancy of the scribe ; and as a criterion of an- 
 tiquity it must be used with caution. We find in the Vatican 
 MSS. contractions for several words, as xai, f.iov, a /.iS peon- off, 
 6at)8iS, iffpatfX, lepoDffa^jfin, which are never contracted in 
 Cod. D (the Cambridge MS.), written two centuries later. In 
 the papyrus MS. of Philodemus "DeDeorum vivendi Ratione," 
 published in vol. vi. of the Herculanensia Volumina, and con- 
 sequently written as early as A. D. 79, we find a numi)er of re- 
 markable contractions not known to exist in any other Greek 
 MS., or certainly in any of similar antiquity. In different parts 
 of the Vatican MS. there is a marked diversity in this respect ; 
 for example, in the part of the MS. extending from 1 Kings xix. 
 11 to the end of Nehemiah, as compared with the preceding 
 portion.* The same is true of the Sinaitic MS., particularly in 
 the six leaves of the New Testament which Tischendorf at- 
 tributes to the scribe D, whom he now supposes to be identical 
 with one of the scribes of the Vatican MS. For example, in 
 fol. 15 of the Sinaitic MS., written by D, inocr (sing.) occurs 
 five times, and is always written in full. In the contiguous 
 leaves (14 and 16), written by A, it occurs nine times, and is 
 always contracted. On fol. 15, avBpaiTToo' is written six times 
 in full, once only contracted. In the contiguous leaves it oc- 
 curs eleven times, and is always contracted. In fol. 10, written 
 by D, ovpavoa occurs nine times, and is always written in full, 
 as it seems to be in the Vatican MS. On the next leaf, written 
 by A, it occurs ten times, and in six of them is contracted. 
 (The statement in Tischendorfs Nov. Test. Vat, Prolegom. 
 p. xxii., differs from the above in four particulars, in conse- 
 quence, ap])arently, of oversights in counting.) 
 
 (6.) Mr. I^urgon's sixth argument is founded on the following 
 facts. The Gos])el of Mark in the Vatican MS. as well as the 
 Sinaitic ends with verse 8 of the sixteenth chapter. But in the 
 Vatican MS., where the ending occurs near the bottom of the 
 second column, the third column is left blank, and the Gospel 
 of Luke begins on the next i)age. "This," says Mr. Burgon, 
 " is the only vacant column in the whole manuscript " (p. 87) 
 
 * In the first 204 pages of the Viitican MS. (pp. 41-3.34 of the edition), nvevfia 
 occurs forty-two times, in forty of which it is contiTictcd; in the next '290 pages it 
 (iC'Ours forty-one times, in forty of which it is not eontiacte<l. Tlicre is a similar 
 diffeience of usage in respect to the contraction of tlie word lapm/X. 
 
Antiquity of the Sinaitic and Vatican MSS. 197 
 
 In the Sinaitic MS., in whicli there are four columns to a page, 
 the Gospel of Mark ends on the second, and that of Lvike be- 
 gins on the third. The Vatican MS. has at the end of verse 8 
 the usual arabesque which is placed at the end of a book, and 
 the subscription jiara MapKov. But the phenomenon of the 
 blank column is to Mr. Burgon "in the highest degree signifi- 
 cant, and admits of only one interpretation. The older MS. 
 from whicli Cod. B was copied must have infallibly contained 
 the twelve verses in dispute. The copyist was instructed to 
 leave them out — and he obeyed : but he prudently left a blank 
 space in memoriam reV^ (p. 87). The Sinaitic, on the other 
 hand, " was copied from a Codex which had been already muti- 
 lated " (p. 88). This difference between the MSS. seems to Mr. 
 Burgon '' a very striking indication that Cod. B is the older of 
 the two. Cod. « is evidently familiar with the phenomenon 
 which astonishes Cod. B by its novelty and strangeness " (p. 292). 
 
 Eusebius, in the first quarter of the fourth century, expressly 
 testifies that the last twelve verses of the Gospel of Mai'k were 
 wanting "in the accurate copies," and "in almost all the 
 copies," of that Gospel, but were found "in some copies." 
 (Qusest. ad Marinum, c. 1. 0pp. iv.937, in Migne's Patrol. Gr. 
 tom. «xii.) Suppose, then, that the Vatican MS. was tran- 
 scribed in the age of Eusebius from a copy which contained 
 the passage, why may not the Sinaitic have l3een transcribed at 
 the same time from one which did not contain it ? 
 
 With Mr. Burgon, a conjecture seems to be a demonstration. 
 There is to him but one possible explanation of that blank 
 column. But considering the well-known tendency of copyists 
 and possessors of manuscripts to add rather than to omit, a 
 tendency which would be very strong in the present case in 
 consequence of the abruptness of verse 8 as an ending, and of 
 which the existence of two other endings, besides the disputed 
 verses, is a proof, another conjecture may be proposed. Why 
 may we not suppose that the exemplar from which the Vatican 
 MS. was copied did hot contain the last twelve verses, but the 
 copyist, or owner of the MS., having at some time seen or heard 
 of them, left on that account the blank column in question? 
 We have a similar phenomenon in the case of Codd. L and a 
 at John vii.52, and in Cod. G at Rom. xiv.23. 
 
 Mr. Burgon is not strictly correct in saying that the case to 
 which he refers is "the only vacant column" in the Vatican 
 MS. Two columns are left blank at the end of Nehemiah ; 
 but this may be accounted for by the different style (sticlio- 
 metric) in which the next following book, the Psalms, is written. 
 
 (7.) Mr. Burgon's last argument is as follows. " The most 
 striking feature of difference, after all, is only to be recognized 
 by one who surveys the Codices themselves with attention. It 
 
198 E. Abbot, 
 
 is that general air of primitiveness in Cod. B which makes itself 
 at once Jelt. The even symmetry of the nnbroken columns ; — 
 the work of the prima manus everywhere vanishing through 
 sheer antiquity ; — the small, even, Hquare writing, which partly 
 reveals the style of the Herculanean rolls ; partly, the papyrus 
 fragments of the Oration against Demosthenes (published by 
 Harris in 1848) : — all these notes of superior antiquity infallibly 
 set Cod. B before Cod. n ; though it may be impossible to de- 
 termine whether by 50, by 75, or by 100 years." 
 
 On this we may remark {a) that " the even symmetry of the 
 unbroken columns " has been shown to exist, so far as a large 
 part of the MS. is concerned, only in Mr. Burgon's imagination ; 
 and that, where it does exist, it has a parallel in parts of the 
 Siuaitic. ib) The work of the prima manus is rarely to be 
 seen in the Vatican MS., a scribe of the tenth or eleventh cen- 
 tury having retraced all the letters with fresh ink, adding ac- 
 cents and breathings, except in those [)laces where he wished to 
 indicate that something should be omitted (e. g. the accidental 
 repetition of a word or sentence). In the passages where the 
 work of the first hand remains untouched, of which we have 
 facsimiles (e.g. John xiii.l4, Eom. iv.4, 2 Cor. iii.15,16), the 
 original writing appears to have been well preserved. We may 
 add that a scribe of the eighth or ninth century has retouched 
 with fresh ink many pages of the Sinaitic MS. ; and this had 
 already been done to a considerable extent by a still earlier 
 scribe (Tischendorf, N, T. ex Sin. Cod., p. xxxviii. f ). As to 
 the appearance of the Sinaitic MS., we have the testimony of 
 Dr. Tregelles that, " thougli the general semblance of the whole 
 work is somewhat less worn than that of Cod. Vaticanus (whose 
 extensive hiatus prove how carelessly it has been kej)t), when 
 it comes to be contrasted with such a manuscript as tlie illus- 
 trated Dioscorides at Vieiuia (whose age is fixed by internal 
 evidence at about A. D. 500), that interesting ^nd valuable manu- 
 script looks comparatively quite fresh and modern " (Scrivener's 
 Coll. of Cod. Sin., p. xxxi.). (c) The writing in the Sinaitic 
 is just as "even and square^' as that of the Vatican. In tlie 
 form of the letters Tischendorf expressly says that there is not 
 the least difference, ne minimam quide/n discrepantiam (Nov. 
 Test. Vat., p. xix.). Mr. Burgon's argument, then, must rest 
 wholly on the difference in size, the letters in the Vatican MS. 
 being })erhaps one-third smaller than those in the Sinaitic. 
 (There is a difference in size in different parts of the two MSS. 
 them.selves, as is shown by the facsimiles, and by Tischendorf's 
 express testimony.) It is difficult to deal seriously with such 
 an argument. But if any explanation is needed, it may be 
 suggested that the extraordinary size of the skins on which the 
 Sinaitic MS. is written, allowing four columns to a i)age, of 48 
 
Antiquity of the Sinaiiic and Vatican MSS. 199 
 
 lines each (the Vatican T^as three cokimns of 42 lines), would 
 naturally lead a calligrapher to make letters somewhat larger 
 than usual. And if Mr. Burgon will look again at a few of the 
 Herculanensia Volumina, say the one last published (vol. v. of 
 the second series), he will find that in some of the papyri there 
 rej^resented we have letters of the size of those in the Codex 
 Sinaiticiis, while in others they are less than half that size. 
 
 Such are " the notes of superior antiquity " which " infallibly " 
 prove that the Vatican MS. is 50 or 100 years older than the 
 Sinaitic. 
 
 A few words may be added in respect to Mr. Burgon 's treat- 
 ment of the principal subject of his work. The specimen which 
 has been given illustrates some of liis prominent characteristics 
 as a writer; but judging from this alone, we might do him in- 
 justice. His book is not entirely worthless, or merely service- 
 able as showing how a critical question ought not to be treated ; 
 though it is often instructive in this respect. It is really to be 
 welcomed as giving the results of earnest original research on 
 the subject to which it relates. It brings to light some inter- 
 esting facts, and corrects some errors of preceding scholars. It 
 is written, however, with great warmth of feeling, in the spirit 
 of a passionate advocate rather than that' of a calm inquirer. 
 The author appears to have been especially stimulated to the 
 defense of the last twelve verses of the Gospel of Mark by his 
 zeal for the damnatory part of the Athanasian Creed, which he 
 not only regards as justified bj^ Mark xvi.l6, but actually iden- 
 tifies with that verse. He says: "The precious warning clause^ 
 ...(miscalled 'damnatory'), which an impertinent ofiicious- 
 ness is for glossing with a rubric, and weakening with an 
 apology, proceeded from Divine lips — at least if these conclud- 
 ing verses be genuine " (p. 3). This is only one of many ex- 
 amples which might be cited of the tendency of Mr. Burgon to 
 confound the certainty of a fact with the certainty of a very 
 dubious or even preposterous inference from it. For the new 
 critical material which he has amassed every student will thank 
 him, and also for the clear and satisfactory discussion of some 
 special topics, as the so-called Ammonian sections ; but there is 
 much in his book which cannot fail to mislead an unwary or 
 ill-informed reader. His conclusions are often strangely re- 
 mote from his premises, but his confidence in them is bound- 
 less. He not only claims to have shown that the genuineness 
 of the disputed passage " must needs be reckoned among the 
 things that are absolutely certain," but appears to expect that 
 in consequence of his labors "it will become necessary for 
 Editors of the Text of the New Testament to reconsider their 
 
200 E. Abbot, Antiquitij of the Sinaitic and Vatican MSS. 
 
 conclusions in countless other places, ... to review tlieir method, 
 and to remodel their text throughout " (p. 254). This seems 
 indeed a sad prospect for Tischendorf and Tregelles and West- 
 cott and Hort, who have so utterly mistaken the true principles 
 of textual criticism; but a careful examination of Mr. Burgon's 
 book will greatly relieve the auxietj of their friends. 
 
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