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Untitled Article
Monday 28 th . This morning I went to the Vatican Library , the books and manuscripts of which are only shewn from nine to twelve o ' clock in the forenoon . On requesting the priest , who was in attendance as librarian , to shew me the celebrated manuscript of the New Testament which is here preserved , he immediately sent one of his attendants to fetch it , and I had the very great pleasure of examining this most precious relic for the space of an
hour . It is an immensely thick quarto of 1500 pages , numbered on the back 1209 , and in the inside is carefully noted the date when it was recovered from the Royal Library at Paris , to which it had been carried away by the French under Napoleon . The leaves are of parchment ; each page is occupied by three parallel columns of the text , and the writing is in uncial letters * of the size and shape of those which I here insert , and which I copied as exactly a , s I could at the tinae :
noAiNieicrHNPKMe 1
"The ink is somewhat faded , but I did not find much difficulty in making out the words after a little practice , and particularly with the assistance of a modem printed edition , which the librarian kindly procured for me . From a cursory survey of the table of contents , the volume appeared to contain the whale of the Old Testament ; and there is the whole of the New , except the Epistles of Paul to Timothy , Titus ^ and Philemon . The books of the . latter are in the following order : the four Gospels , the Acts , the Epistle of James , 1 st and 2 dof Peter , 1 st , 2 d and 3 d of John , Jude , Romans , 1 st and 2 d of
Corinthians , Galatians , Ephesians , Philippians , Colos ^ ians , 1 st and 2 d of Thessalonians , ttebrews , Revelation . The whole volume is written in the same hand , except that the first forty-five and part of the forty-sixth chapter of penesis , half of the Epistle to the Hebrews , and the whole of Revelation , are supplied in a smaller and more modern character . It was a great disappointment to me that I could not find the first Epistle to Timothy ; for , as J imagined at the time , the discussion about the reading of o $ or ® eo <; , in ch . iii . 16 , hinges chiefly on what is found in this manuscript . The desired
epistle , however , was not to be found either in the table of contents in a modern hand at the beginning , or in the volume itself , which I carefully examined . Though I was disappointed in not finding the Epistle to Timothy , I \ yas rnore fortunate in my reference to two other passages , the true reading of which has been much disputed . In 1 John v . 7 , the reading is , ( as Griesbach has it in his corrected text , ) "On . r ^ eT q dnv oi papTvpovvTEt ; , ro n : vivp . a , koli to vda > p , ncti ro a 7 / uu" koli 6 t rpa 7 <; elt ; ro % v hcrw . With respect to this passage , indeed , there is not a doubt remaining in the mind of any learned ancj candid man , that the text of our Bibles has been interpolated ; but in the other , which I examined , Acts xx . 28 , I found the common reading € ) eoy , and not kvqiqv .
f It may be necessary to explain to some of the readers of the Repository , that uncial letters are tho ^ e of a large size and square form , as distinguished from the smaller and rounder character of the more modern Greek . The manuscripts written in the uncial character are more valuable than the others , as being more ancient ; for none of them are of a later date than the ninth or tenth century , and the Vatican manuscript is supposed to be of the fourth or fifth . -f XIqXlv hq yy" ' ' Paf / . e . These words are the first line of the original part of the manuscript- They occur in the LXX ., in Qm . xlvi . 28 , Pa /^ c bein g part of the \ vc > r | 4 ' VcfftprpYJ . Either through niy fauljt or th ^ t pf tl > e engraver , the tajl of the P in thg fac- ^ ipjle h $ p , got a twist which it Qug ^ t uot to have .
Untitled Article
Journal of a Tov ^ r on , the Continent . 87
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1829, page 87, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2569/page/15/
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