The title Codex Vercellensis Evangeliorum refers to two manuscript

codices The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

preserved in the cathedral library of

Vercelli Vercelli (; ) is a city and ''comune'' of 46,552 inhabitants (January 1, 2017) in the Province of Vercelli, Piedmont, northern Italy. One of the oldest urban sites in northern Italy, it was founded, according to most historians, around 600 BC. ...

, in the

Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...

Region,

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Old Latin Codex Vercellensis

The

Old Latin Old Latin, also known as Early, Archaic or Priscan Latin (Classical ), was the Latin language in the period roughly before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin. A member of the Italic languages, it descends from a common Proto-Italic ...

Codex Vercellensis Evangeliorum, preserved in the cathedral library, is believed to be the earliest

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has ...

of the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christianity, Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the second century Anno domino, AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message w ...

s. Its standard designation is "Codex a" (or 3 in the Beuron system of numeration). The order of the gospels in this Codex is Matthew, John, Luke and Mark, which is also found in some other very old "Western" manuscripts, such as

Codex Bezae The Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis is a bi-lingual Greek and Latin manuscript of the New Testament written in an uncial hand on parchment. It is designated by the siglum D or 05 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and � ...

. In its text of Matthew 3, before verse 16, there is a statement that a light suddenly shone when Jesus was baptized (''Et cum baptizaretur, lumen ingens circumfulsit de aqua, ita ut timerent omnes qui advenerant''). It contains the last twelve verses of the

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical Gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels, synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from baptism of Jesus, his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the Burial of Jesus, ...

, but on a replacement-page. The original final pages after

Mark 15 Mark 15 is the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christianity, Christian Bible. This chapter records the narrative of Jesus' Passion (Christianity), passion, including his Pilate's court, trial before Pontius Pi ...

:15 have been lost, and the replacement-page resumes mid-sentence in 16:7 and includes the text to the end of verse 20, but in the Vulgate version. Space considerations suggest that it is unlikely that the original, non-extant pages included verses 9-20, but this calculation (made by C. H. Turner in 1928) depends on unverifiable assumptions that only four pages have been lost, that the scribe did not accidentally skip any text, and that the person who made the replacement-page had access to the missing page that it replaced. However Turner did not explain why a scribe would replace only one of four pages. It is more probable that the replacement-page was removed from another manuscript than that it was made to insert in Codex Vercellensis. The text of Codex Vercellensis is related to the text of Codex Corbeiensis II (ff²), another Old Latin copy (in which Mark 16:9-20 is included). According to a respectable tradition, this codex was written under the direction of bishop

Eusebius of Vercelli Eusebius of Vercelli (c. 2 March 283 – 1 August 371) was a bishop from Sardinia and is counted a saint. Along with Athanasius, he affirmed the divinity of Jesus against Arianism. Biography Eusebius was born in Sardinia, in 283. After his father' ...

, which would date it to the late fourth century. It contains the Euthalian Apparatus and

Acts of Peter The Acts of Peter is one of the earliest of the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (genre), Acts of the Apostles in Christianity, dating to the late 2nd century AD. The majority of the text has survived only in the Vetus Latina, Latin translation of ...

. It was restored and stabilised in the early twentieth century. Having been used for the taking of oaths in the early Middle Ages, much of it is either difficult to read or even destroyed, so that we are frequently dependent on the earlier editors for knowledge of its text.

Textual features

In Matthew 27:9 in the sentence ''fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet,'' the Codex omits the word Jeremiah (Ieremiam), just like in the manuscripts: Codex Beratinus, Minuscule 33, Old-Latin Codex Veronensis (b), syr^s, syr^p, and cop^bo. In

Luke 23 Luke 23 is the twenty-third chapter of the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament of the Christianity, Christian Bible. The book containing this chapter is Anonymity, anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke the Evangelis ...

:34 it omits the words: "And Jesus said: Father forgive them, they know not what they do." This omission is supported by the manuscripts Papyrus 75, Sinaiticus^a, B, D*, W, Θ, 0124, 1241, Codex Bezae^lat, syr^s, cop^sa, cop^bo. It also has several omissions called

Western non-interpolations Western non-interpolations is a term coined by F. J. A. Hort for certain phrases that are absent in the Western text-type of New Testament manuscripts, but present in one of the two major other text-types. The Alexandrian text-type is generally t ...

References

Bibliography

* Giovanni Andrea Irico edition (''Sacrosanctus Evangeliorum Codex Sancti Eusebii Vercellensis'', 2 volumes, Milan, 1748)Available in Google Books, Full view
Volume 1Volume 2
/ref> * G. Bianchini edition (Rome, 1749; reprinted in Migne,

Patrologia Latina The ''Patrologia Latina'' (Latin for ''The Latin Patrology'') is an enormous collection of the writings of the Church Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers published by Jacques Paul Migne between 1841 and 1855, with indices published betwe ...

, xii, cols. 141-338) * J. Belsheim edition (Codex Vercellensis, Christiania, 1897) * A. Gasquet edition (Codex Vercellensis, Collectanea biblica Latina, iii; Roma, 1914)

External links

{{Commons category
''Catholic Encyclopedia'':
"St. Eusebius (of Vercelli)" (Gospels Codex)

(Gospels Codex) Vercellensis, Codex 4th-century biblical manuscripts Purple parchment Gospel Books

Old Latin Codex Vercellensis

Textual features

See also

References

Bibliography

External links