Sunday, January 23, 2005
A Question Regarding Codex Bezae and Codex Claromontanus

I'm sure there's an easy explanation to this.

Uncial 05 (Codex Bezae) and Uncial 06 (Codex Claromontanus) both have the letter 'D' assigned to them in the NA27 MS listing (pp. 691).

The texts are similar in that they are both Greek/Latin diglots, though Bezae is dated in the fifth century and Claromontanus in the sixth. (Metzger, Text of the New Testament 49-51) They do not have overlapping content; Bezae with Gospels/Acts (and a snippet of 3Jn) and Claromontanus with content from the Paulines.

Were these at one point considered to be the same MS? If not, why the same letter designator?

Quick checks of both Metzger and Aland didn't help with answering this question, apart from mentioning in passing that both MSS were in possession of Theodore Beza (though not stating if both texts were possessed by Beza at the same time).

Update: Thanks to James Tauber for the comment. It got me thinking — didn't the numbers come about with Caspar Rene Gregory's re-working of the whole system in the early 1900's, after his work on updating/completing Tischendorf's Edito Octava Maior? If so, the answer may be in Gregory's book (if it's in English ... ). Or is the uncial numbering an innovation of the Alands'?

Update II: And thanks as well to Stephen C. Carlson of Hypotyposeis for further clarification. I never realized that they re-used the uncial letters if there was no overlap between MS content.

 | 
Post Author: Rico
Monday, January 24, 2005 12:00:10 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00) 

#     |  Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]
Monday, January 24, 2005 4:23:15 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
My understanding is that letters were reused where there was no overlap in content.
James Tauber
Monday, January 24, 2005 9:55:51 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Before Caspar Gregory reformed the system, the former practice had been to use a separate series of capital letters (for uncials) and numbers (for minuscules) in each of the four divisions of the New Testament: e (Gospels), a (Acts and Catholic Epistles), p (Pauline Letters), and r (Revelation). IIRC, this system was devised by Bengel.

There is no necessary relationship between a siglum in one division and the same siglum in another division, but the first several manuscripts to be assigned tended to get the same letter or number. Often the division is implicit from context (e.g. in the apparatus), but if a manuscript is cited when the context is not clear, a superscript e, a, p, and/or r can be appended to disambiguate the reference.

Codex Bezae, D^ea or Gregory 05, and Codex Claromontanus, D^p or Gregory 06, are different MSS, but they should not be confused even though both are Greek-Latin diglots with a "Western" Greek text previously owned by Theodore Beza.
Stephen C. Carlson
Comments are closed.