THE NEW CAMBRIDGE

HISTORY OF
THE BIBLE
∗

VOLUME 2
From 600 to 1450
∗

Edited by
RICHARD MARSDEN
and
E. ANN MATTER

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,
Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, uk
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521860062


C Cambridge University Press 2012

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2012

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data

The New Cambridge history of the Bible / edited by Richard Marsden and E. Ann Matter.
pages cm
isbn 978-0-521-86006-2 (hardback)
1. Bible – History. 2. Bible – Use – History. 3. Bible – Criticism, interpretation, etc. – History.
I. Marsden, Richard. II. Matter, E. Ann.
bs445.n49 2012
220.9 – dc23 2012002200

isbn 978-0-521-86006-2 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to
in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 Contents

List of figures page x

List of contributors xii
Preface xv
Abbreviations xvii
Abbreviations of books of the Bible xix
Table of Psalm numbering xxii

Introduction 1
richard marsden

part i
TEXTS AND VERSIONS

1 · The Hebrew Bible 19

judith olszowy-schlanger

2 · The Greek Christian Bible 41

barbara crostini

3 · Jewish Greek Bible versions 56

nicholas de lange

4 · The Latin Bible, c. 600 to c. 900 69

pierre-maurice bogaert

5 · The Latin Bible, c. 900 to the Council of Trent, 1546 93

frans van liere

6 · The Bible in Ethiopic 110

ephraim isaac

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 Contents

7 · The Bible in Arabic 123

sidney h. griffith

8 · The Bible in Armenian 143

s. peter cowe

9 · The Bible in Georgian 162

jeff w. childers

10 · The Bible in Slavonic 179

henry r. cooper, jr.

11 · The Bible in Germanic 198

andrew colin gow

12 · The Bible in English 217

richard marsden

13 · The Bible in the languages of Scandinavia 239

bodil ejrnæs

14 · The Bible in French 251

clive r. sneddon

15 · The Bible in Italian 268

lino leonardi

16 · The Bible in Spanish and Catalan 288

gemma avenoza

part ii
FORMAT AND TRANSMISSION

17 · The Bibles of the Christian East 309

georgi r. parpulov

18 · Carolingian Bibles 325

david ganz

vi

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 Contents

19 · The Latin gospelbook, c. 600–1200 338

dorothy shepard

20 · The Glossed Bible 363

lesley smith

21 · The thirteenth century and the Paris Bible 380

laura light

22 · Romanesque display Bibles 392

dorothy shepard

23 · Latin and vernacular Apocalypses 404

nigel morgan

24 · The Latin psalter 427

theresa gross-diaz

25 · Illustration in biblical manuscripts 446

john lowden

part iii
THE BIBLE INTERPRETED

26 · Byzantine Orthodox exegesis 485

tia m. kolbaba

27 · The patristic legacy to c. 1000 505

john j. contreni

28 · The early schools, c. 900–1100 536

guy lobrichon

29 · The Bible in medieval universities 555

william j. courtenay

30 · Scripture and reform 579

mary dove

vii

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 Contents

31 · Jewish biblical exegesis from its beginnings to the twelfth century 596
robert a. harris

32 · The Bible in Jewish–Christian dialogue 616

a. sapir abulaf ia

33 · The Bible in Muslim–Christian encounters 638

david waines

part iv
THE BIBLE IN USE

34 · The Bible in the medieval liturgy, c. 600–1300 659

joseph dyer

35 · The use of the Bible in preaching 680

siegfried wenzel

36 · The Bible in the spiritual literature of the medieval West 693

e. ann matter

37 · Literacy and the Bible 704

marie-luise ehrenschwendtner

38 · The Bible and canon law 722

gerald bray

39 · The Qurān and the Bible 735

angelika neuwirth

part v
THE BIBLE TRANSFORMED

40 · The Bible in public art, 600–1050 755

john mitchell

41 · The Bible in public art, 1050–1450 785

c. m. kauffmann

viii

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 Abbreviations

ASE Anglo-Saxon England

BAN Bŭlgarskata akademiia na naukite (Bulgarian Academy of Sci-
ences)
BAV Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City
BL British Library, London
BML Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence
BNF Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
BodL Bodleian Library, Oxford
CCCM Corpus Christianorum, continuatio medievalis
CCSG Corpus Christianorum, series graeca
CCSL Corpus Christianorum, series latina
CHB i The Cambridge History of the Bible. Vol. i: From the Beginnings to
Jerome, ed. P. R. Ackroyd and C. K. Evans (Cambridge University
Press, 1972)
CHB ii The Cambridge History of the Bible. Vol. ii: The West from the Fathers
to the Reformation, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (Cambridge University
Press, 1969)
CISAM Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, Spoleto
CLA E. A. Lowe, Codices latini antiquiores. A Palaeographical Guide to
Latin Manuscripts Prior to the Ninth Century, 11 vols. and suppl.
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1934–71; 2nd edn of Vol. ii, 1972)
CNRS Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
CPL Clavis Patrum Latinorum, ed. E. Dekkers and A. Gaar, 3rd edn
(Steenbruge: Abbatia Sancti Petri, 1995)
CSASE Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
CSIC Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientı́ficas
CTHS Comité des travaux historiques et scientifique
CVMA Corpus Vitrearum Medii Ævi
EEMF Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile
EETS Early English Text Society (original series)
es extended series

xvii

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 List of abbreviations

ss supplementary series
HTR Harvard Theological Review
JEGP Journal of English and Germanic Philology
JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
JWCI Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Capit. episc. Capitula episcoporum
Cap. reg. Franc. Capitularia regum Francorum
Conc. Concilia
Epp. Epistulae
Poet. lat. Poetae Latini aevi Carolini
SS Scriptores
SS rer. Ger. Scriptores rerum Germanicarum
MIP Medieval Institute Publications
NTS New Testament Studies
OCA Orientalia Christiana Analecta
PG Patrologia graeco–latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 162 vols. (Paris,
1857–66)
PIMS Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies
PL Patrologia latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris, 1844–64)
PO Patrologia orientalis, ed. R. Graftin, F. Nan, Max, Prince of
Saxony, and F. Graftin (Paris: Firmin-Didot and Brepols,
1904–)
PMLA Publications of the Modern Languages Association
RAN Rossijskaja Akademija Nauk (Russian Academy of Sciences)
RB Revue Bénédictine
RTAM Recherches de Théologie Ancienne et Médiévale
SAZU Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti (Slovenian
Academy of Sciences and Arts)
SC Sources chrétiennes
SISMEL Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino
SMIBI Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles
Stegmüller, F. Stegmüller and K. Reinhardt, Repertorium Biblicum medii
Repertorium aevi, 12 vols. (Madrid: Graficas Marina, 1950–80)
VL Vetus Latina. Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel nach Petrus Sabatier
neu gesammelt und herausgegeben von der Erzabtei Beuron (Freiburg:
Herder, 1949–)
VLB Vetus Latina. Aus der Geschichte der lateinischen Bibel (Freiburg:
Herder, 1957–)

xviii

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 17
The Bibles of the Christian East
georgi r. parpulov

In 615/16, Thomas of Harqel revised the Syriac text of the New Testament,
noting after the Gospels:

This book is of the four holy evangelists, which was translated from the Greek
language into the Syriac with much accuracy and great labour . . . And it was
revised afterwards with much care by me, the poor Thomas, on [the basis of]
three Greek manuscripts, which [were] very approved and accurate, at the
Enaton of Alexandria, the great city, in the holy Convent of the Enatonians;
where also I wrote it for myself – for the profit of my sinful soul and of the
many who love and desire to know and to keep the profitable accuracy of
divine books.1

Similar enterprises, not always expressly recorded, were periodically under-

taken at multinational monastic centres such as the Egyptian convent where
Thomas worked, Mt Athos in northern Greece, or the Black Mountain near
Antioch. Successive revisions mark the entire medieval history of Christian
scriptural translations in the East. The revisers’ invariable aim was to ‘keep
the profitable accuracy of divine books’ by bringing their biblical text into
closer agreement with the Greek one. The latter carried the authority of an
original for all east Christian versions of the Bible, including those which, like
the Armenian, Arabic or Ethiopian ones, were at first partly based on other
languages. Hardly any Christian translations of the Old Testament were made
from Hebrew.2

Manuscript censuses are cited below in abbreviated form (name of the compiler followed by
the census number for a specific manuscript). The full titles are given in Appendix 1.
1 W. H. P. Hatch, ‘The Subscription of the Chester Beatty Manuscript of the Harclean Gospels’,
HTR 30 (1937), 141–55, esp. pp. 149–55.
2 On an exception, see S. Brock, ‘A Fourteenth-Century Polyglot Psalter’, in G. E. Kadish and
G. E. Freedman (eds.), Studies in Philology in Honour of Ronald James Williams (Toronto: Society
for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, 1982), pp. 1–15, esp. pp. 3–11, 13–15.

309

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 georgi r. parpulov

The Greek texts of the Bible

The Greek biblical text was itself not fully standardised, however. Like Thomas
with his three manuscripts, Byzantine scribes faced the problem of reconciling
disagreements among their exemplars. The most obvious one was presented
by the gospel passage about the woman caught in adultery (John 7:53–8:11).3
A monk named Ephraem, for example, wrote at the end of a gospelbook he
completed in 948:
The Chapter about the Adulteress: in most exemplars it is not in the text of
the Gospel according to John, and it is not mentioned by the holy fathers who
interpreted [this Gospel], namely John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria,
nor by Theodore of Mopsuestia and the others. I omitted it in the text above.
It reads, shortly after the beginning of Chapter 76,4 following ‘Search and you
will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee’ [John 7:53] . . . 5

Although he clearly considered the adulteress passage an interpolation,

Ephraem did include it in his volume, together with a number of further
variant readings in the page margins: his aim was not to correct the text,
but to record its multiple forms. (The one surviving Greek copy of Origen’s
Hexapla dates, to judge from its script, from Ephraem’s time.6 ) In another
manuscript Ephraem explained:7
Let it be known that the fourteen epistles of the apostle were copied from
a very ancient exemplar which we observed to be in correspondence with
Origen’s surviving volumes, or sermons, on the epistles, for we found its text
to agree with the passages in [Origen’s] commentaries on either the epistles or
other scripture. In those passages where he differs from the current epistles,
we added the sign > in the margin, so that it would not be thought that the
epistles are wrong with respect to adding or omitting something.8

Such scholarly treatment of the text was a luxury. An early tenth-century

manuscript, very similar in textual profile to Ephraem’s Gospels and, like
3 D. C. Parker, An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and their Texts (Cambridge
University Press, 2008), pp. 342–3.
4 The chapter numbering in Byzantine gospel manuscripts is not identical with the modern
system; see n. 78 below.
5 Gregory/Aland 1582, Athos, Vatopedi 949: A. S. Anderson, The Textual Tradition of the Gospels.
Family 1 in Matthew (Leiden: Brill, 2004), p. 69.
6 Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, O 39 sup.: Psalterii Hexapli reliquiae, ed. G. Mercati, 2 vols.
(Vatican City: BAV, 1958–62).
7 Gregory/Aland 1739, Athos, Lavra B 64, Acts and Epistles: T. C. Geer, Family 1739 in Acts
(Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1994).
8 E. A. von der Goltz, Eine textkritische Arbeit des zehnten bzw. sechsten Jahrhunderts (Leipzig:
Hinrichs, 1899), pp. 7–8.

310

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 The Bibles of the Christian East

it, with variants noted in the margin, is penned in gold ink upon purple-
dyed parchment.9 It was for expensive books of this sort that scribes would
search out ancient and venerable exemplars. A volume made in 1072 for
Emperor Michael VII10 and one bearing a portrait of Emperor John II (1118–
43)11 contain numerous idiosyncratic readings that must have come from much
older codices.
The imperial provenance of manuscripts such as the last two shows that the
authorities in Constantinople did not seek to promulgate an ‘official’ scriptural
text. Nonetheless, Ephraem referred to ‘the current epistles’ as the standard
against which he compared the unusual readings of his ancient exemplar. The
books mentioned above stand out as exceptions among the mass of Greek
New Testament manuscripts from the ninth to fifteenth centuries. Systematic
comparison shows that most of these have very similar texts that can, in their
entirety, be considered to represent a koine (‘common’) or ‘Byzantine’ version
of the Greek New Testament.12 This version’s homogeneity increased over
time, so that a group of mostly fourteenth-century witnesses labelled ‘the
revised koine’ (Kr ) are practically identical.13
The uniformity of the Byzantine text was due to its continuous and fre-
quent copying. Scribes were prone to use as exemplars recent manuscripts
rather than the much rarer ancient ones, which, because of changes in writ-
ing style, must also have been difficult for them to read. As a consequence,
even if two or more exemplars were consulted, their readings were likely
to come from a single pool of variants. The more frequently a text was

9 Gregory/Aland 565, St Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Gr. 53: V. D. Likhachova,

Byzantine Miniature. Masterpieces of Byzantine Miniature of IXth–XVth Centuries in Soviet Collections
(Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1977), pls. 3–4; cf. K. Aland, B. Aland and K. Wachtel, Text und Textwert
der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments: Das Johannesevangelium, 2 vols. (Berlin: De
Gruyter, 2005–6), vol. i, pp. 63, 80.
10 Gregory/Aland 2138, Moscow, University Library, 2280, Acts, Epistles, Apocalypse: C.-B.
Amphoux, ‘Quelques témoins grecs des formes textuelles les plus anciennes de l’épı̂tre de
Jacques. Le groupe 2138 (ou 614)’, NTS 28 (1981), 91–115; E. N. Dobrynina (ed.), The Greek
Illuminated Praxapostolos Dated 1072 in the Scientific Library of Moscow State University (Moscow:
Severnyi Palomnik, 2004).
11 Gregory/Aland 157, Vatican City, BAV, Urbin. gr. 2, Gospels: H. C. Hoskier, ‘Evan.157
(Rome, Vat. Urb. 2)’, JTS 14 (1913), 78–116, 242–93, 359–84; F. D’Aiuto, G. Morello and A. M.
Piazzoni (eds.), I Vangeli dei popoli. La parola e l’immagine del Cristo nelle culture e nella storia (Rome:
Rinnovamento nello Spirito Santo / Vatican City: BAV, 2000), pp. 260–4.
12 K. Aland and B. Aland, The Text of the New Testament. An Introduction to the Critical Editions
and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism, 2nd rev. edn (Leiden: Brill, 1989),
pp. 128–42, 229–30.
13 K. Wachtel, Der byzantinische Text der katholischen Briefe: Eine Untersuchung zur Entstehung der
Koine des Neuen Testaments (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995), pp. 136–41; Aland, Aland and Wachtel, Text
und Textwert. Johannesevangelium, vol i, pp. 9∗ , 55.

311

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 georgi r. parpulov

copied, the sooner this pool submerged the earlier, independently running
streams of textual transmission. For the Gospels, the koine is first attested
by a small group of luxury codices datable to c. 550–600.14 In the case of the
Catholic Epistles, which, judging from the smaller number of extant wit-
nesses, were copied less often than the Gospels, it is first observable later, in
the ninth century.15 The great majority of Greek Old Testament manuscripts
are psalters, and accordingly, psalter texts from the ninth century onward
contain far fewer variants than any other Old Testament book.16 Conversely,
Byzantine codices of those parts of the Bible that were copied relatively sel-
dom, such as the Apocalypse, Pentateuch or Prophets, fall into distinct textual
families.17
Although it forms a homogeneous and recognisable text type, the koine
does not possess seamless uniformity. Even koine manuscripts made by the
same person are not always in agreement. Two mid-twelfth-century gospel-
books are the work of a single hand, yet their texts differ.18 The same obtains
for a pair of manuscripts signed by John Tzoutzounas, dating, respectively,
from 1087 and 1092.19 Parallel New Testament texts copied by Theodore
Hagiopetrites in 1292 and 1295 diverge in 183 places.20 This cannot be due to
careless copying, since in the rare instances when comparable books made
by a single scribe within a single year survive, their texts are identical: two

14 E. g. Aland 022, primarily Patmos, Saint John 67, and St Petersburg, National Library of
Russia, Gr. 537: Ho Porphyrous Kōdix tōn euangeliōn Patmou kai Petroupoleōs, ed. A. Tselikas, 2 vols.
(Athens: Miletos, 2002); Aland 042, Rossano, Museo Diocesiano, s.n.: Codex Purpureus Rossanensis,
ed. G. Cavallo, J. Gribomont and W. C. Loerke, 2 vols., Codices Selecti 81–81∗ (Rome: Salerno,
1985–7).
15 Wachtel, Der byzantinische Text, pp. 144–6.
16 A. Rahlfs, Der Text des Septuaginta-Psalters (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1907).
17 J. Schmid, Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Apokalypse-Textes, 2 vols. (Munich: Zink,
1955–6); J. W. Wevers, Text History of the Greek Genesis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht,
1974); Ezechiel, ed. J. Ziegles (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1952), pp. 7–88.
18 Gregory/Aland 1194, Sinai, St Catherine, Gr. 157, datable between 1127 and 1158; Aland 2409,
University of Chicago, Regenstein Library, 141: M. M. Parvis, ‘The Janina Gospels and the Isle
of Patmos’, Crozer Quarterly 21 (1941), 30–40, esp. p. 32: ‘The two manuscripts were not copied
from the same exemplar’.
19 Gregory/Aland 104, London, BL, Harley 5537, Acts, Epistles, Revelation; Gregory/Aland 459,
Florence, BML, Plut. IV, 32, Acts, Epistles, Revelation; see K. Aland, B. Aland and K. Wachtel,
Text und Textwert der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments. Die Paulinischen Briefe,
4 vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991), vol. i, pp. 44, 55.
20 Gregory/Aland 484, London, BL, Burney 21, Gospels; Gregory/Aland 483, Williamstown,
Williams College, De Ricci 1, Gospels, Acts, Epistles: R. S. Nelson, Theodore Hagiopetrites. A
Late Byzantine Scribe and Illuminator, 2 vols. (Vienna: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1991), vol. i,
pp. 131–3; see F. H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, 4th edn,
2 vols. (London: Bell, 1894), vol. i, p. 257, cat. 571.

312

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 The Bibles of the Christian East

gospelbooks penned by Hagiopetrites in 1300/1 clearly differ in textual profile

from his earlier production and fully agree between themselves.21 The text of
manuscripts, then, varied with the exemplar a copyist used at different points
in time. Scribes, moreover, did not always work at the same place: in 1392/3 and
1396/7 the Russian deacon Spyridon copied, respectively, a gospel lectionary
at Serpukhov and a psalter in Kiev, more than 400 miles apart;22 in 1438 the
Greek cleric Sophronius penned a volume in distant Ferrara, where he was
evidently one of the Byzantine representatives at the Ecumenical Council.23

The copying of books

All but a few scribes were men, yet Hagiopetrites had a daughter who inher-
ited his profession.24 And bookmaking was not the exclusive preserve of
monks: Emperor Michael VII, for example, commissioned a volume from the
notary Michael Panerges.25 The one common characteristic of scribes was
that they were usually associated with the state bureaucracy or the church.
Whether they were clerics or laypeople, the continuous demand for biblical
manuscripts sustained their craft. Book production throughout the Christian
East was normally organised in small workshops. In 680, a calligrapher named
Theodore is mentioned running one near the church of Saints John and Phocas
in Constantinople.26 In the late tenth century, a few Georgian monks on Mt
Sinai copied biblical texts solely for the needs of their tiny community.27 In the
mid-1100s, the scribe John worked ‘on the Isle of Patmos, in the cave where
Saint John the Theologian saw the Revelation’.28 Slavonic manuscript pro-
duction in Moldavia was single-handedly started by the calligrapher Gabriel
Uric (fl. 1424–50) at the monastery of Neamţ.29

21 Gregory/Aland 1394, Athos, Pantokrator 47; Gregory/Aland 412, Venice, Biblioteca

Nazionale Marciana, Gr. i. 19: Nelson, Hagiopetrites, vol. i, pp. 133–5, vol. ii, pls. 24–32, cat.
10–11; see Aland, Aland and Wachtel, Text und Textwert. Johannesevangelium, vol. i, pp. 62, 77.
22 St Petersburg, National Library of Russia, F. п. 1. 18 and ОЛДП F. 6: G. I. Vzdornov, Iskusstvo
knigi v Drevnei Rusi (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1980), cat. 48–9.
23 Gregory/Aland /l 277, Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, gr. I. 55 (coll. 967).
24 P. Schreiner, ‘Kopistinnen in Byzanz’, Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici, ns 36 (1999), 35–45.
25 Above, n. 10.
26 Concilium universale Constantinopolitanum tertium, ed. R. Riediger, 2 vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter,
1990–2), vol. ii, pp. 652–3.
27 Sinai, St Catherine, Georg. 39, Acts and Epistles, dated 974; 58 and 31 and 60 and N. 8, Epistles
and Acts, dated 977; 15, Gospels, dated 978; 30 and 38, Gospels, dated 979; 42, Psalter; N.15, Psalter.
28 Above, n. 18.
29 E. Turdeanu, Études de littérature roumaine et d’écrits slaves et grecs des principautés roumaines
(Leiden: Brill, 1985), pp. 86–112, 434–7.

313

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 georgi r. parpulov

In 1331, an Armenian named Nerses bought paper in Tabriz and then

travelled to the monastery of Glajor, south of Lake Sewan, where he placed an
order for a Bible with two ‘expert scribes’, the monks Ephraem and David.30
Between 1280 and 1346, some forty copyists were active at Glajor, which
housed a famous theological school.31 This, however, does not mean that
they were organised in a large scriptorium and that work was subdivided
among them according to speciality. Nerses had to bring his own paper and
to negotiate directly with the two scribes how much he would pay them
for the copying. He later took the Bible to be bound elsewhere. Detailed
study of another book made at Glajor, a Gospel, shows that its text is by
two different hands but ‘the second scribe probably never knew the first’.32
Manuscripts were made on order, rather than for an anonymous market:
Hagiopetrites, for instance, varied the text of his colophons depending on
whether the volume’s commissioner was a priest or a layman.33 Dispersed,
small-scale book manufacture remained customary in the Christian East until
the advent of printing.34
The fact that book production was not tied to large institutional centres
made it relatively immune to the political upheavals which affected eastern
Christendom in the course of the Middle Ages. The copying of Christian
manuscripts continued under Muslim rule: in 1226, the notary Basil from
Melitene wrote at the end of a gospelbook that he had completed it in Caesaria
‘in the reign of my most pious lord, the most exalted great sultan of the Roman
lands, of Armenia, of Syria, and of all the regions of the Turks, as well as of the
sea’, Kayquab I.35 The most decisive effect of Islam upon book manufacture
was the gradual adoption of a Chinese invention, paper, as writing material,
following the eighth-century Arab conquest of Central Asia. The earliest
dated paper codices in Christian Arabic (909),36 Syriac (932),37 Armenian (981),38

30 Rhodes 360, Venice, S Lazzaro 1007/12: Colophons of Armenian Manuscripts, 1301–1480. A Source
of Middle Eastern History, ed. A. S. Sanjian (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969),
pp. 11–12; An Album of Armenian Paleography, ed. M. E. Stone (Aarhus University Press, 2002),
pp. 356–9.
31 T. F. Mathews and A. K. Sanjian, Armenian Gospel Iconography. The Tradition of the Glajor
Gospel (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1991), pp. 197–205.
32 Ibid., p. 41. 33 Nelson, Hagiopetrites, vol. i, pp. 26, 131–6.
34 On a notable exception: J. Featherstone, ‘A Note on Penances Prescribed for Negligent
Scribes and Librarians in the Monastery of Studios’, Scriptorium 36 (1982), 258–60.
35 Gregory/Aland 1797, Athens, Gennadius Library, 1. 5, Gospels: A. Mitsani, ‘The Illustrated
Gospelbook of Basil Meliteniotes (Caesaria, 1226)’, Deltion tes Christianikes Archaiologikes Het-
aireias, 4th ser. 26 (2005), 149–64.
36 Sinai, St Catherine, Arabic 309, sermons.
37 Lund, Universitetbiblioteket, Oriental Literature, s.n., religious miscellany.
38 Erevan, Matenadaran 2679, religious miscellany.

314

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 The Bibles of the Christian East

Coptic (987),39 Georgian (1031),40 Greek (1042/3)41 and Slavonic (1344/5)42 mark
the course of its spread through the Christian East. Less expensive than
parchment, paper allowed for copying books in greater quantity. Parchment,
however, was sturdier and more pleasing to the eye, so it remained the
preferred vehicle for biblical texts long after paper was being widely used in
other cases.
A second major change in bookmaking was the transition from majuscule to
minuscule handwriting, the former composed of unconnected capital letters
fitted between two imaginary horizontal lines, the latter, of smaller characters
aligned with four imaginary horizontal lines. Minuscule successively made
its appearance in Greek (835),43 Georgian (954),44 Armenian (981)45 and Syriac
(991/2)46 manuscripts (the medieval Slavs, Copts and Ethiopians did not adopt
it). It saved time and page space, since a character, and sometimes several at
once, could be written with a single movement of the pen. Minuscule also
affected the process of reading, as it facilitated the grouping of letters and
thus, the graphic articulation of individual words. Word division, however,
was fully introduced only with typography.
The rise of the new script put out of use volumes written in the older
majuscule: in 1218, for example, the leaves of the magnificent early Codex
H were used as pastedowns for bindings.47 Minuscule furthered the produc-
tion of small manuscripts for personal reading, primarily gospelbooks and
psalters.48 Ultimately, it was also introduced in the most traditional of books,
liturgical ones: the last dated Greek majuscule (995) is a gospel lectionary.49
This delay throws into relief two distinct formats in which the biblical text
was transmitted: one meant for private, the other, for ecclesiastical use.

39 London, BL, Or. 7021, homily.

40 Sinai, St Catherine, Georg. 78, fols. 31–288, Chrysostomica and Acta Pilati.
41 Athos, Iveron 258, Chrysostomica.
42 Moscow, State Historical Museum, Syn. 38, miscellany, copied in Bulgaria.
43 Gregory/Aland 461, St Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Gr. 219 (the ‘Uspenski
Gospels’), probably copied in Bythinia: K. Treu, Die griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Tes-
taments in den UdSSR (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1966), 84–7.
44 Sinai, St Catherine, Georg. 26, fols. 148v–185r, church hymns, probably copied in Palestine.
45 Above, n. 38.
46 Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Syr. 176, Gospel of John.
47 Aland 015, primarily Paris, BNF, Coislin 202 and suppl. gr. 1074, fragments from the Pauline
Epistles.
48 A. Weyl Carr, ‘Diminutive Byzantine Manuscripts,’ Codices Manuscripti 6 (1980), 130–61;
Album, ed. Stone et al., pp. 168–9.
49 Gregory/Aland l 150, London, BL, Harley 5598: Corpus of Dated Illuminated Greek Manuscripts
to the Year 1453, ed. I. Spatharakis, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1981), vol. i, pp. 15–16, vol. ii, fig. 60.

315

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 georgi r. parpulov

Types of manuscript
Lectionaries
Since the first centuries of Christianity, select scriptural passages have been
read aloud during the liturgy. With the standardisation of church calendars
these readings began to be systematically organised. One finds them marked
in Syriac gospelbooks as early as the sixth century (586);50 in Greek (835)51 and
Arabic (873)52 ones, no later than the ninth. Once such readings were excerpted
from the continuous biblical text and rearranged according to their liturgical
timing, a new type of volume, biblical lectionaries, came into being. A small,
fragmentarily preserved Georgian codex datable on linguistic grounds to the
seventh century is the oldest known example.53 The first completely surviving
lectionaries in Coptic (c. 822–914),54 Syriac (824),55 Greek (878/9)56 and Arabic
(901)57 are notably later. Armenian and early Georgian lectionaries mix biblical
passages with other texts used in the liturgy and with instructions for its
performance. Syriac, Coptic, Greek and Slavonic ones contain exclusively
biblical readings, accompanied only by short rubrics.58
In the eleventh century, lectionaries of the type current in Constantinople
became the norm for all Chalcedonian churches in the East.59 This Constanti-
nopolitan type comprises three kinds of volume containing, respectively,

50 Florence, BML, Plut. I, 56 (the ‘Rabbula Gospels’): A. Merk, ‘Die älteste Perikopensystem
des Rabulakodex’, Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 73 (1913), 202–14.
51 Above, n. 44.
52 Sinai, St Catherine, NF Arab. membr. 14 and 16: D. A. Morozov, ‘K datirovke drevneishei
arabskoi rukopisi Evangeliia’, Kapterevskie Chteniia 6 (2008), 19–23; see also G. Garitte, Scripta
disiecta, 1941–1977, 2 vols. (Leuven: Université Catholique, 1980), vol. ii, pp. 722–37.
53 Outtier 47, primarily Graz, Universitätsbibliothek, 2058. 1: Xanmeti lekcionari. Pototipiuri
reprodukcia, ed. A. Šanize (Tbilissi: Sakartvelos Mecnierebata Akademia, 1944).
54 New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, M. 573: K. Schüssler, ‘Analyse der Lektionarhandschrift
sa 530 L’, Journal of Coptic Studies 4 (2002), 133–66.
55 London, BL, Add. 14485–7: O. Heiming, ‘Ein jakobitisches Doppellektionar des Jahres 824
aus Harran’, in P. Granfield and J. A. Jungmann (eds.), Kyriakon. Festschrift Johannes Quasten,
2 vols. (Münster: Aschendorff, 1970), vol. ii, pp. 768–99.
56 Gregory/Aland l 844, primarily Sinai, St Catherine, Gr. 210 and NF MG 12: K. Weitzmann and
G. Galavaris, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai. The Illuminated Greek Manuscripts
(Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 17–19.
57 Sinai, St Catherine, NF Arab. membr. 7.
58 S. G. Engberg, ‘Les lectionnaires grecs’, in O. Legendre and J.-B. Lebigue (eds.), Les manuscrits
liturgiques. Cycle thématique 2003–2004 de l’IRHT (Paris: IRHT, 2005); online at: http://aedilis.irht.
cnrs.fr/liturgie/05 1.htm (consulted 22 April 2010); C.-B. Amphoux and J.-P. Bouhot (eds.), La
lecture liturgique des Épitres catholiques dans l’Église ancienne (Lausanne: Zebre, 1996).
59 B. M. Metzger, New Testament Studies. Philological, Versional, and Patristic (Leiden: Brill, 1980),
pp. 114–26; G. Garitte, ‘Analyse d’un lectionnaire byzantino-géorgien des Évangiles (Sin. géorg.
74)’, Le Muséon 91 (1978), 105–52, 367–447.

316

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 The Bibles of the Christian East

passages from the Old Testament (primarily the Prophets),60 from the Acts
and Epistles,61 and most important, from the Gospels.62 In the latter, a series
of lessons for the movable feasts (whose dates change each year with the date
of Easter) is followed by one for the fixed feast days. The extent of these series
varies: most probably, lectionaries which contain readings for weekdays were
meant for monasteries (where the liturgy is celebrated daily), while shorter
ones that only have texts for Saturdays and Sundays were used in regular
churches. Very few lectionaries have the exact same set of passages. At the
same time, the biblical text in them shows practically no variant readings.
Normally, it is copied on relatively large pages in two columns and is accom-
panied in Greek manuscripts (and in a few Slavonic and Armenian ones) by
simple musical notation for chanting (Fig. 17.1).63 Individual lections are often
introduced or followed by psalm verses.

Psalters
Because of their poetic character, the psalms held a special place among the
biblical texts used in Christian worship. Their division in sense lines was always
observed by scribes; in earlier, parchment manuscripts, each of these verses
forms a new paragraph. From the ninth century on, psalms, selected and
rearranged for use in daily prayer, are found in books of hours.64 In general,
however, the psalter was copied entirely, since it was recited, as a devotional
observance, in its entirety.65 The psalms in east Christian manuscripts are
divided into sections by marking the points at which pauses in their recitation
may occur.66 Because of its prophetic significance and its devotional use, the
psalter was, judging from the fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus,67 the first

60 S. G. Engberg, ‘The Greek Old Testament Lectionary as a Liturgical Book’, Cahiers de l’Institut
du Moyen-Âge Grec et Latin 54 (1987), 39–48.
61 K. Junack, ‘Zu den griechischen Lektionaren und ihrer Überlieferung der katholischen Briefe’,
in K. Aland (ed.), Die alten Übersetzungen des Neuen Testaments, die Kirchenväterzitate und Lektionare
(Berlin: De Gruyter, 1972), pp. 498–591.
62 E. Velkovska, ‘Lo studio dei lezionari bizantini’, Ecclesia Orans 13 (1996), 253–71.
63 S. G. Engberg, ‘Ekphonetic Notation’, in S. Sadie and J. Tyrrell (eds.), The New Grove Dictionary
of Music and Musicians, 2nd edn, 29 vols. (London: Macmillan, 2001), vol. viii, pp. 47–51.
64 E.g. Sinai, St Catherine, Gr. 864, ninth century, and Georg. 34, dated 932: Livre d’heures ancien
du Sinaï, ed. M. Ajjoub (Paris: Cerf, 2004); S. R. Frøyshov, ‘L’horologe “georgien” du Sinaiticus
Ibericus 34’, unpubl. PhD thesis, Sorbonne (2003).
65 G. R. Parpulov, ‘Psalters and Personal Piety in Byzantium’, in P. Magdalino and R. Nelson
(eds.), The Old Testament in Byzantium (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 2010), pp. 77–105.
66 J. Mateos, ‘Office de minuit et office du matin chez St. Athanase’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica
28 (1962), 173–80, esp. pp. 175–6; S. Brock, The Bible in the Syriac Tradition, 2nd edn (Piscataway,
NJ: Gorgias, 2006), p. 141.
67 Rahlfs A, Aland 02, London, BL, Royal 1. D. v–viii.

317

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 georgi r. parpulov

Fig. 17.1 Single leaf from a Greek gospel lectionary (237 x 176 mm), Constantinople,
c. 1060–90 ce (Paris, École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Mn. Mas 1). The square
ornament on this page marked the beginning of a new section in the lectionary, hence the
heading in the upper margin: ‘On the Monday of the New Year: Gospel [reading] from
Luke’. The small painting shows John the Baptist before King Herod, thus illustrating the
contents of the lection, Luke 3:19–22, which begins here with: ‘At that time Herod the
ruler, who had been rebuked by John because of Herodias . . . ’

318

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 The Bibles of the Christian East

scriptural book to receive Christian prefaces.68 Psalters also contain as appen-

dices the odes, or canticles (select poetic excerpts from the rest of the Bible),
as well as the Lord’s Prayer, Nicene Creed, prayers recited at Communion
and other similar additions.69 The earliest dated psalters in Syriac (873/4),70
Greek (878)71 and Georgian (1008 or 1016)72 already abound in supplementary
texts. Toward the end of the eleventh century a new kind of Greek psalter
emerged, specially adapted for devotional use by adding short hymns and
prayers after each section.73 A similar type of Armenian psalter, with biblical
canticles following each section, appeared by the thirteenth century.74 Super-
stition spawned a series of prognostic sentences (one attached to each psalm)
found at first in Greek codices75 and subsequently, in Armenian, Georgian and
Slavonic ones.76 The private use of psalters is also indicated by their generally
small size.77

New Testament manuscripts

Small formats were common also among New Testament manuscripts, which
after the emergence of lectionaries tended to be used for personal rather than
public reading. The customary liturgical rubrics are found even in tiny pocket-
size books, probably so as to enable their owners to follow the course of church
services. For more sustained perusal, the Gospels, Acts and Epistles were

68 G. Mercati, Osservazioni a proemi del Salterio di Origene, Ippolito, Eusebio, Cirillo Alessandrino e
altri, con frammenti inediti (Vatican City: BAV, 1948); S. Ajamian, ‘An Introduction to the Book
of Psalms by David Anhaght’, in C. Burchard (ed.), Armenia and the Bible (Atlanta, GA: Scholars
Press, 1993), pp. 15–21.
69 H. Schneider, ‘Die biblischen Oden’, Biblica 30 (1949), 28–65, 239–72, 433–52, 479–500; 40
(1959), 199–209; The Old Testament in Syriac According to the Peshitta Version (Leiden: Brill, 1972–),
vol. iv.2, pp. ii–xv; J. Mearns, The Canticles of the Christian Church, Eastern and Western, in Early
and Medieval Times (Cambridge University Press, 1914).
70 Peshitta 9t3, London, BL, Add. 17109, copied in Edessa: An Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts,
ed. W. H. P. Hatch (repr. Piscataway: Gorgias, 2002), p. 121.
71 Rahlfs 1156, St Petersburg, National Library of Russia, Gr. 216 (the ‘Uspenski Psalter’), copied
in Palestine: D. A. Morozov, ‘The Alexandrian Era in Jerusalem in the Ninth Century and the
Date of Profiriy Uspenskiy’s Psalter’, Montfaucon 1 (2007), 89–93.
72 Tbilisi, Kekelidze Institute, A-38 (the ‘Mcxeta Psalter’): Garitte, Scripta disiecta, vol. i, pp. 339,
345.
73 Earliest dated example (1104/5): Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Gr. 3:
Byzantine Monastic Hours in the Early Twelfth Century, ed. J. C. Anderson and S. Parenti (Rome:
Pontificio Istituto Orientale, forthcoming).
74 Earliest dated example (1269): Rhodes 699, Erevan, Matenadaran 142, copied in Rome.
75 Earliest dated example (1070): Rahlfs 1140, Paris, BNF, gr. 164, copied in Antioch.
76 B. Outtier, ‘Réponses oraculaires dans des manuscrits bibliques caucasiens’, in Burchard
(ed.), Armenia and the Bible, pp. 181–4; M. N. Speranskii, Iz istorii otrechennykh knig. Gadaniia po
Psaltiri (St Petersburg: OLDP, 1899), appendix, pp. 1–14.
77 J. Lowden, ‘Observations on Illustrated Byzantine Psalters’, Art Bulletin 70 (1988), 242–60, esp.
pp. 245–8.

319

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 georgi r. parpulov

divided into standard chapters.78 The intimate bond between such volumes
and their owners is illustrated by the oldest known Byzantine book epigram,
a dialogue found in the sixth-century Codex H79 and in several later biblical
manuscripts, Greek, Armenian and Georgian:80
Address: ‘I am [of all books] the crown, teacher of divine doctrines. If you lend
me, take another book in exchange, for borrowers [can be] bad.’ Response:
‘I hold you as a good spiritual treasure, desirable to all men and decorated
with harmonies and coloured letters. Indeed, I shall not give you casually
to anyone, but neither shall I begrudge your use. I shall give you to friends,
taking another book in trustworthy exchange.’81
‘Harmonies’ are the extended concordance tables to the four Gospels com-
posed by Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260–339/40).82 They were usually deco-
rated (in Armenia, their ornament became the subject of elaborate symbolic
interpretation),83 and in correspondence with them, the gospel text was subdi-
vided into short numbered sections. Similar apparatus, comprising indications
of Old Testament quotations, chapter lists and headings, was supplied for the
Acts and Epistles by Euthalius (fl. c. 410/490) and is first attested in Codex
H.84 Starting with the ninth century, this rudimentary prefatory material was
extended for the benefit of readers with numerous explanatory prologues, con-
taining biographical notes on the evangelists, apostles and prophets, or sum-
maries and interpretations of their text.85 Most such prefaces were excerpted
from works of the patristic period, but some were composed in the Middle
Ages, for example, the Greek gospel forewords by Theophylact of Ohrid (c.
1050–c. 1126)86 or the Armenian introductions to the Old Testament books by
George of Skewra (1246–1301).87
78 For the Gospels, this division is first seen in the Codex Alexandrinus (n. 67 above): Parker,
Introduction, p. 316.
79 Above, n. 47.
80 J. N. Birdsall, Collected Papers in Greek and Georgian Textual Criticism (Piscataway: Gorgias,
2006), pp. 220–1.
81 A. Marava-Chatzinicolaou and C. Toufexi-Paschou, Catalogue of the Illuminated Byzantine
Manuscripts of the National Library of Greece, 3 vols. (Academy of Athens, 1978–97), vol. i, pp. 17–19.
82 M. Geerard (ed.), Clavis Patrum Graecorum, 5 vols. and suppl. (Turnhout: Brepols, 1974–98),
vol. ii, pp. 262–3, suppl., p. 186, cat. 3465.
83 Xoranneri mekunut’yunner, ed. V. Ghazarian (Erevan: Khachents, 1995); Matthews and Sanjian,
Armenian Gospel Iconography, pp. 206–11.
84 L. C. Willard, A Critical Study of the Euthalian Apparatus (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009).
85 R. S. Nelson, The Iconography of Preface and Miniature in the Byzantine Gospel Book (New York
University Press, 1980), pp. 93–107.
86 Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt hergestellt auf Grund
ihrer Textgeschichte, ed. H. von Soden, 2 vols. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1911–13),
vol. i, pp. 321–6.
87 M. Ter-Movsessian, Istoriia perevoda Biblii na armianskii iazyk (St Petersburg: Pushkinskaia
Skoropechatnia, 1902), pp. 268–73.

320

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 The Bibles of the Christian East

Old Testament manuscripts

The Gospels and the Acts-cum-Epistles were the two principal units of textual
transmission for medieval New Testament manuscripts. Normally, the two
formed separate volumes; less often, they were combined in a single one;
rarely, the Apocalypse or Psalms was added to them.88 Old Testament books
were, generally speaking, joined together according to contents. Apart from
the Pentateuch and the Prophets, known among all eastern Christians, their
grouping varied. Syriac had the so-called Beth Mawtabhe (literally ‘Sessions’,
a name of unclear significance),89 the Apocrypha,90 and the ‘Book of the
Women’.91 Greek scribes would gather the first eight books of the Old Testa-
ment in Octateuchs. In other traditions, such as the Slavonic or the Georgian,
no stable combinations of Old Testament books were ever formed. Lack of
regularity also characterises the chapter divisions of the Greek Old Testa-
ment, which, unlike those for the New Testament, vary from one manuscript
to another.92 About 1292–5, the chapter division of the Latin Bible formerly
attributed to Stephen Langton was adopted in Cilician Armenia.93

Complete Bibles
Also in Cilicia, pandect Bibles began to be copied after Nerses of Lambron
(1153–98) compiled the first Armenian corpus of scriptural books.94 In general,
however, large biblical pandects like those known from Late Antiquity (e.g.,
the Greek Codex Alexandrinus or the Syriac Codex Ambrosianus)95 were
exceptional in the medieval Christian East.96 Much more expensive than
smaller books, they were made solely upon the special order of rich patrons.

88 K. Aland, K. Hannick and K. Junack, ‘Bibelhandschriften: Neues Testament’, in G. Krause

and G. Müller (eds.), Theologische Realenzyklopädie, 36 vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1977–2004),
vol. vi, pp. 114–31.
89 Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, Song of Songs, Sirach,
Job.
90 1–3 Maccabees, 1–2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Wisdom of Solomon, Judith, Esther,
Susanna, Epistle of Jeremiah, Epistle of Baruch, Baruch.
91 Ruth, Esther, Susanna, Judith.
92 H. B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, 2nd edn, rev. R. R. Ottley (Cambridge
University Press, 1914), pp. 351–6.
93 Ter-Movsessian, Istoriia, pp. 126–7, 281; V. Nersessian, The Bible in the Armenian Tradition
(London: BL, 2001), p. 30.
94 Nersessian, Bible, p. 30; C. P. Cowe, ‘A Typology of Armenian Biblical Manuscripts’, Revue
des Études Arméniennes, 18 (1984), 49–67.
95 Above, n. 67; Peshitta 7a1, Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, B. 21. inf.
96 I. Hutter, ‘Eine verspätete Bibelhandschrift (Paris, Bibl Nat. gr. 14)’, Palaeoslavica 10/2 (2002),
159–74; Brock, Bible, pp. 42–4, 115–17.

321

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 georgi r. parpulov

Examples include a ninth-century Bible produced for a certain Abbot Basil97

and a large Old Testament, originally bound in three volumes, dedicated to
a monastery as a ‘prayer-offering’ by the retired Georgian general Tornik in
978 and penned by Michael, George and Stephen.98

Biblical commentaries
Even short texts like the Apocalypse or the book of Job could fill entire
volumes if accompanied by commentary. The latter might be the work of
a single author, or consist of excerpts from several interpreters, combined
in a ‘chain’ (catena).99 Commentaries go back to two methods of scriptural
interpretation – one oral, through sermons, the other written, in the form
of marginal glosses. The layout of Greek manuscripts reflects this division:
the biblical text there either alternates with commentary passages in a single
column, or is isolated in the centre of the page and surrounded by gloss
on three sides.100 The latter mise-en-page was difficult for the scribes, who
had to ensure that each scriptural passage was located on the same page
as the corresponding interpretation.101 Once a satisfactory balance between
central and marginal text had been achieved, manuscripts were replicated
with almost typographic fidelity: for example, two large Greek psalters with
the same catena, one commissioned perhaps by Emperor Constantine VII
(reigned 945–59), the other, by Emperor Basil II (reigned 976–1025), are, page
by page, virtually identical.102 Extended marginal commentary is not found
in other east Christian manuscripts besides Greek ones. In the earliest dated
copy of the Boharic Gospels, for instance, text and catena are intermixed in
one column,103 while the psalms and their commentary in a Slavonic codex
dated c. 1230–41 run in two parallel columns.104

97 Rahlfs V, Vatican, BAV, Vat. gr. 2106, and Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Gr. 1:
G. Cavallo (ed.), I luoghi della memoria scritta. Manoscritti, incunaboli, libri a stampa di Biblioteche
Statali Italiane (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1994), pp. 446–8.
98 Athos, Iveron, Georg. 1 (the ‘Oški Bible’): R. P. Blake, ‘The Athos Codex of the Georgian
Old Testament’, HTR 22 (1929), 33–56.
99 Geerard (ed.), Clavis, vol. iv, pp. 185–259, suppl., pp. 485–91.
100 G. Dorival, ‘Des commentaires de l’Écriture aux chaı̂nes’, in C. Mondésert (ed.), Le monde
grec ancien et la Bible (Paris: Beauchesne, 1984), pp. 361–86.
101 Aland 040, Cambridge, University Library, BFBS 213 is ‘palaeographically the earliest sur-
viving example of a marginal catena’, datable c. 700: D. C. Parker and J. N. Birdsall, ‘The Date
of Codex Zacynthius (X). A New Proposal’, JTS 55 (2004), 117–31.
102 Rahlfs 1133, Paris, BNF, gr. 139 (the ‘Paris Psalter’); Rahlfs 1215, Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale
Marciana, Gr. 17.
103 London, BL, Or. 8812, dated 888/9 (the ‘Curzon Catena’).
104 Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, 2499, copied near Ohrid: Bolonski psaltir, ed. I. Duichev
(Sofia: BAN, 1968).

322

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 The Bibles of the Christian East

Unlike smaller books for personal use, biblical volumes with commentary
usually belonged to institutional libraries such as that of the Laura of St
Athanasius on Mt Athos, where one of the earliest accessions was a large
psalter with catena, copied by the monastery’s own scribe in 984.105 But books
continued to circulate even after they had found a permanent home. In the
1290s the Armenian scholar Moses of Erzinjan wrote in a large Bible presented
to a convent on Mt Sepuh (Kara Dağ) in eastern Asia Minor:

May he who out of jealousy refuses to lend this Holy Bible or other divine
books found in the [monastery of] Saint [Gregory the] Illuminator to the
schools in nearby monasteries be cursed like that slave who hid away his
master’s talent [Matt. 25:25] and like those who do not themselves go in and
stop the ones who want to go in [Matt. 23:13].106

Conversely, private books, including small, devotional ones, would ultimately

find their way into ecclesiastical foundations. It is thanks to monastery libraries
that most of the manuscripts discussed in this chapter have survived.

Appendix 1
Censuses of manuscripts
Aland, K., Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments, 2nd edn
(Berlin: De Gruyter, 1994); see also http://egora.uni-muenster.de/intf (consulted
22 April 2010)
Eliott, J. K., A Bibliography of Greek New Testament Manuscripts, 2nd edn (Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2000); supplemented in Novum Testamentum 46 (2004), 376–400; 49 (2007),
370–401
Esbroeck, M. van, ‘Les versions orientales de la Bible. Une orientation bibliographique’, in
J. Krašovec (ed.), The Interpretation of the Bible. The International Symposium in Slovenia
(Ljubljana: SAZU / Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 399–508
Garzaniti, M., Die altslavische Version der Evangelien. Forschungsgeschichte und zeitgenössische
Forschung (Cologne: Böhlau, 2001), pp. 509–84
Gregory, C. R., Textkritik des Neuen Testaments, 3 vols. (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1900–9), vol. i,
pp. 16–478, vol. iii, pp. 1017–1292
Mathieses, R., ‘A Handlist of Manuscripts Containing Church Slavonic Translations from
the Old Testament’, Polata Knigopisnaia 7 (1983), 3–48
Outtier, B., ‘Essai de répertoire des manuscrits des vieilles versions géorgiennes du Nouveau
Testament’, Langues Orientales Anciennes. Philologie et Linguistique 1 (1988), 173–9

105 Rahlfs 1026, Athos, Lavra D 70: J. Irigoin, ‘Pour une étude des centres de copie byzantins
(2)’, Scriptorium 13 (1959), 177–209, esp. pp. 196–200.
106 Rhodes 667, Erevan, Matenadaran 177: Ter-Movsessian, Istoriia, p. 110.

323

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012

 georgi r. parpulov

Rahlfs, A., Verzeichnis der griechischen Handschriften des Alten Testaments, 2nd edn, 2 vols.
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2004–)
Rhodes, E. F., An Annotated List of Armenian New Testament Manuscripts (Tokyo: Rikkyo
University, 1959)
Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden/Peshitta-Institut, List of Old Testament Peshitta Manuscripts (Lei-
den: Brill, 1961); supplemented in Vetus Testamentum 12 (1962), 127–8, 337–9, 351; 18
(1968), 128–43; 27 (1977), 508–11; 35 (1985), 466–7
Schüssler, K., Biblia Coptica: Die koptischen Bibeltexte. Das sahidische Alte und Neue Testament
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995–)
Voicu, S. J., and S. D’Alisera, I.M.A.G.E.S. Index in manuscriptorum graecorum edita specimina
(Rome: Borla, 1981)

Appendix 2
Facsimile collections
www.csntm.org/Manuscripts.aspx (consulted 22 April 2010)
Hatch, W. H. P., Facsimiles and Descriptions of Minuscule Manuscripts of the New Testament
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951)
Hatch, W. H. P., The Principal Uncial Manuscripts of the New Testament (University of Chicago
Press, 1939)
Metzger, B. M., Manuscripts of the Greek Bible. An Introduction to Greek Palaeography (Oxford
University Press, 1981)
Vogels, H. J., Codicum Novi Testamenti specimina. Paginas 51 ex codicibus manuscriptis et 3 ex
libris impressis collegit ac photo typice repraesentatas (Bonn: Hanstein, 1929)
Vööbus, A., Early Versions of the New Testament. Manuscript Studies, Papers of the Estonian
Theological Society in Exile 6 (Stockholm: ETSE / Louvain: Durbecq, 1954), pp.
370–409

324

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2012