Minuscule 44
Encyclopedia
Minuscule 44 ε 239 (von Soden), is a Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 minuscule manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

, on parchment leaves. Palaeographically
Palaeography
Palaeography, also spelt paleography is the study of ancient writing. Included in the discipline is the practice of deciphering, reading, and dating historical manuscripts, and the cultural context of writing, including the methods with which writing and books were produced, and the history of...

 it has been assigned to the 12th century. It has complex contents and full marginalia
Marginalia
Marginalia are scribbles, comments, and illuminations in the margins of a book.- Biblical manuscripts :Biblical manuscripts have liturgical notes at the margin, for liturgical use. Numbers of texts' divisions are given at the margin...

.

Description

The codex contains complete text of the four Gospels on 259 leaves with size . The text is written in one column per page, 21-22 lines per page. In Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 verses 16:2b-3
Matthew 16:2b-3
Gospel of Matthew 16:2b–3 , the passage describes a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees and Sadducees over their demand for a sign from heaven. It is one of several passages of the New Testament that are absent from many early manuscripts...

 (signs of the times) are omitted.

The text is divided according to the (chapters), whose numbers are given at the margin, and their (titles of chapters) at the top of the pages. There is also another division according to the smaller Ammonian Sections (in Mark 234 sections, the last numbered section in 16:9), with references to the Eusebian Canons.

It contains synaxaria, Menologion, pictures, lectionary markings at the margin (for liturgical use), subscriptions at the end of the Gospels, and numbers of στιχοι
Stichometry
Stichometry is a term applied to the measurement of ancient texts by στίχοι or verses of a fixed standard length.It was the custom of the Greeks and Romans to estimate the length of their literary works by measured lines...

.

It is a palimpsest
Palimpsest
A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin palimpsēstus from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος originally compounded from πάλιν and ψάω literally meaning “scraped...

. The text of minuscule 395
Minuscule 395
Minuscule 395 , ε 216 , is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. Paleographically it has been assigned to the 12th century.It contains marginalia.- Description :...

 is the upper text of the palimpsest. The lower text is unidentified, written in two columns with 30 lines in column.

Text

The Greek text of the codex is a representative of the Byzantine text-type
Byzantine text-type
The Byzantine text-type is one of several text-types used in textual criticism to describe the textual character of Greek New Testament manuscripts. It is the form found in the largest number of surviving manuscripts, though not in the oldest...

. Hermann von Soden classified it to the textual family Family E
Family E
Family E is a textual group of the New Testament manuscripts. It belongs to the Byzantine text-type as one of its textual families, it is one of the primary early families of the Byzantine text-type...

. Aland
Kurt Aland
Kurt Aland was a German Theologian and Professor of New Testament Research and Church History. He founded the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster and served as its first director for many years...

 placed it in Category V.

According to the Claremont Profile Method it represents textual family Kx
Family Kx
Family Kx is a large group of the New Testament manuscripts. It belongs to the Byzantine text-type as one of the textual families of this group. It includes uncials, and although hundreds of minuscules, no early ones.- Description :...

 in Luke 1, Luke 10, and Luke 20. It belongs to the textual cluster 1434 in Luke 20.

History

The codex was brought from Athos
Mount Athos
Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in Macedonia, Greece. A World Heritage Site, it is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries and forms a self-governed monastic state within the sovereignty of the Hellenic Republic. Spiritually, Mount Athos comes under the direct jurisdiction of the...

 to England by César de Missy
César de Missy
César de Missy , theologian, chaplain to George III, scholar of the New Testament, and book collector.De Missy was a Prussian critic and book collector, who owned many of the volumes in this collection. He spent his life collecting manuscripts for the new edition of the New Testament. Some...

 (1703-1775), French chaplain of George III
George III of the United Kingdom
George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...

, King of England, who spent his life in collecting materials for an edition of the New Testament. It was examined by Amelotte
Denis Amelote
Denis Amelot, Amelote, or Amelotte , was a French Biblical writer and scholar who is notable for his French translation of the New Testament . In his translation quoted Greek minuscule manuscripts: 42, 43, 44, and 149 .-Biography:Amelote was born in Saintes...

, Simon
Richard Simon
Richard Simon was a French Oratorian, influential advanced biblical critic, orientalist, and controversialist.-Early years:...

, Wetstein
Johann Jakob Wettstein
Johann Jakob Wettstein was a Swiss theologian, best known as a New Testament critic.-Youth and study:...

 in 1746, Scholz, and Bloomfield
Samuel Thomas Bloomfield
Samuel Thomas Bloomfield was an English clergyman and Biblical textual critic. His Greek New Testament was widely used, in England and the United States.-Life:His surname was also spelled Blomfield or Blumfield...

 (1860). Wettstein gave a collation, but very imperfect.

It was added to the list of the New Testament manuscripts by Wettstein. C. R. Gregory saw it in 1883.

It is currently housed in at the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

 (Additional Manuscripts 4949), at London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

.

See also

  • List of New Testament minuscules
  • Biblical manuscript
    Biblical manuscript
    A biblical manuscript is any handwritten copy of a portion of the text of the Bible. The word Bible comes from the Greek biblia ; manuscript comes from Latin manu and scriptum...

  • Textual criticism
    Textual criticism
    Textual criticism is a branch of literary criticism that is concerned with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts...

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