Minuscule 157 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts), ε 207 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts), is a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

minuscule Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...

of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

Gospels, on

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...

. According to the colophon it is dated to the year 1122.K. Aland, M. Welte, B. Köster, K. Junack, "Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neues Testaments", ''

Walter de Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

'', Berlin, New York 1994, p. 56. Formerly the date was wrongly deciphered as 1128 (Gregory, Thompson). It has complex contents and full marginalia.

Description

The manuscript is a codex (forerunner to the modern book), containing the complete text of the four

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

s on 325

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...

leaves (sized ). The text is written in one column per page, with 22 lines per page. The text is divided according to the chapters (known as / ''kephalaia''), whose tables of contents are given before each Gospel (also known as / ''kephalaia''), chapter numbers in the margin of the pages, and their titles (known as / ''titloi'') at the top of the pages. There is no division according to the

Eusebian Canons Eusebian canons, Eusebian sections or Eusebian apparatus, also known as Ammonian sections, are the system of dividing the four Gospels used between late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The divisions into chapters and verses used in modern texts d ...

(an early system of dividing the four Gospels into different sections), though the Eusebian Canon tables are placed at the beginning. It contains the Epistle to Carpian, prolegomena, lectionary equipment, subscriptions at the end of each Gospel, ornaments and pictures in vermilion and gold. The Gospel of John is preceded by a portrait of

John the Evangelist John the Evangelist ( grc-gre, Ἰωάννης, Iōánnēs; Aramaic: ܝܘܚܢܢ; Ge'ez: ዮሐንስ; ar, يوحنا الإنجيلي, la, Ioannes, he, יוחנן cop, ⲓⲱⲁⲛⲛⲏⲥ or ⲓⲱ̅ⲁ) is the name traditionally given ...

with

Prochorus Prochorus (Latin form of the gr, Πρόχορος, ''Prochoros'') was one of the Seven Deacons chosen to care for the poor of the Christian community in Jerusalem (Acts ). According to later tradition he was also one of the Seventy Disciples se ...

. It has the famous

Jerusalem Colophon The Jerusalem Colophon is a colophon found in a number of New Testament manuscripts, including Λ (039), 20, 153, 157, 164, 215, 262, 300, 376, 428, 565, 566, 686, 718, 728, 748, 829, 899, 901, 922, 980, 1032, 1071, 1118, 1121, 1124, ...

("copied and corrected from the ancient manuscripts of Jerusalem preserved on the Holy Mountain"), at the end of each Gospel. According to biblical scholar Frederick H. A. Scrivener, it is very beautifully written.

Text

Although the manuscript was made for the Byzantine Emperor, its text is not the standard

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

but a mixture of text-types with a strong Alexandrian element. The text-types are groups of different New Testament manuscripts which share specific or generally related readings, which then differ from each other group, and thus the conflicting readings can separate out the groups. These are then used to determine the original text as published; there are three main groups with names: Alexandrian,

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

, and

. Its readings often agree with Codex Bezae (D), with some affinities to the Diatessaron, and to the

Gnostic Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...

Heretic

Marcion Marcion of Sinope (; grc, Μαρκίων ; ) was an early Christian theologian in early Christianity. Marcion preached that God had sent Jesus Christ who was an entirely new, alien god, distinct from the vengeful God of Israel who had created ...

's text of Luke (see

Gospel of Marcion The Gospel of Marcion, called by its adherents the Gospel of the Lord, was a text used by the mid-2nd-century Christian teacher Marcion of Sinope to the exclusion of the other gospels. The majority of scholars agree the gospel was an edited versi ...

). Textual critic Hermann von Soden lists it among the group I (along with codices 235, 245,

291 __NOTOC__ Year 291 ( CCXCI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Tiberianus and Dio (or, less frequently, year 1044 ''A ...

, 713, and 1012). Textual critic Kurt Aland placed it in Category III of his New Testament manuscript classification system. Category III manuscripts are described as having "a small but not a negligible proportion of early readings, with a considerable encroachment of yzantinereadings, and significant readings from other sources as yet unidentified." According to the

Claremont Profile Method The Claremont Profile Method is a method for classifying ancient manuscripts of the Bible. It was elaborated by Ernest Cadman Colwell and his students. Professor Frederik Wisse attempted to establish an accurate and rapid procedure for the classi ...

(a specific analysis method of textual data), it represents K in Luke 1; in Luke 10 it is mixed with some relationship to the Alexandrian text; in Luke 20 it has the Alexandrian text. In it has an unusual ending to the

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...

ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία καὶ ἡ δύναμις καὶ ἡ δόξα, τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. ἀμήν (''For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit for ever. Amen.'')

This ending is only found in two other manuscripts: Minuscule 225 and 418. In it reads: Ἰωσῆ (''Joses''); the reading is supported by the manuscripts

118 118 may refer to: *118 (number) *AD 118 *118 BC *118 (TV series) *118 (film) *118 (Tees) Corps Engineer Regiment *118 (Tees) Field Squadron, Royal Engineers See also *11/8 (disambiguation) *Oganesson Oganesson is a synthetic chemical element wi ...

700 The denomination 700 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Avar and Slavic tribes conq ...

* 1071 syr bo. It does not include the text of Matthew 16:2b–3UBS3, p. 61. or of the

Pericope Adulterae Jesus and the woman taken in adultery (or the ) is a passage (pericope) found in John 7:53– 8:11 of the New Testament. It has been the subject of much scholarly discussion. In the passage, Jesus was teaching in the Second Temple after com ...

(John 7:53-8:11).

History

It was written in 1122 for the Byzantine Emperor John Porphyrogenitus (1118-1143). The manuscript belonged to the Ducal Library at

Urbino Urbino ( ; ; Romagnol: ''Urbìn'') is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of F ...

, and was brought to Rome by

Pope Clement VII Pope Clement VII ( la, Clemens VII; it, Clemente VII; born Giulio de' Medici; 26 May 1478 – 25 September 1534) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 19 November 1523 to his death on 25 September 1534. Deemed "the ...

(1523-1534). In 1788

Andreas Birch Andreas Birch (November 6, 1758 – October 25, 1829) was a professor from Copenhagen.Fr. NielsenBiografii 1. '' Dansk biografisk leksikon'', edited by C.F. Bricka, 2. volume, page 280, Gyldendal, 1887–1905 Birch was sent in 1781–1783 by the ...

made a facsimile of the manuscript. According to Birch, it is the most important manuscript of the New Testament except for

Codex Vaticanus The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), designated by siglum B or 03 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), δ 1 ( von Soden), is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old ...

. It was examined by Scholz, and collated by Hoskier. C. R. Gregory saw it in 1886. Scrivener noted that this codex is often in agreement with codices Vaticanus (B), Bezae (D), Regius (L), 69, 106, and especially with 1. It is currently housed at the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...

(Urbinas gr. 2), in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

References

External links

Minuscule 157
at the ''Encyclopedia of Textual Criticism''
Online images of minuscule 157
( Digital Microfilm) at the

CSNTM The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts (CSNTM) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to digitally preserve Greek New Testament manuscripts. Toward that end, CSNTM takes digital photographs of manuscripts at institu ...

.
Online photographic images of minuscule 157 at theVatican Digital Library
{{DEFAULTSORT:Minuscule 0157 Greek New Testament minuscules 12th-century biblical manuscripts Manuscripts of the Vatican Library

Description

Text

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links