A Missing Codex Leaf from a New Testament Lectionary

3/18/2014

Just recently, I discovered a missing leaf from l1663—a Gospel lectionary codex housed in Chicago. This leaf, which is kept in the Rare Books and Special Collections of McGill University, has never been identified until now. There is an interesting question as to how it got separated from the larger codex in Chicago, but we know that there is at least one other separated folio in the private collection of E. Krentz. This particular item came into the McGill library during the 1930s, and many readers of this blog will be excited to know that it was purchased from Erik von Scherling. Thus, it is an item from von Scherling's private bulletin Rotulus, where it was no. 2035. There are many more (unpublished) precious gems from the McGill collection, some of which I am currently editing for publication. I am finishing up the edition of this codex leaf, but in the meantime I thought I would introduce it to the readers of this blog through a screen flow video. Enjoy!

UPDATE: The following image is a better example of the use of the suspended epsilon in both the new leaf and the Krentz leaf. Notice the near identical letter forms of the first three letters απε as well as the shape and placement of the breathing mark.

7 Comments

Alan Taylor Farnes

3/18/2014 12:33:41 pm

Great stuff!

How did you find 1663? Had you been working on it previously? Surely you didn't look through each lectionary until you found a match? Great find.

Brice C. Jones link

3/18/2014 12:42:36 pm

Hi Alan,

There is no way I could have gone through all of the lectionaries. I simply went through as many images as I could, which included the ones on CSNTM's website. Of course I knew the approximate date of this manuscript based on the hand, so that helped delimit the parameters. I would not have made this connection so quickly if it were not for CSNTM's website.

Matthieu Cassin link

3/18/2014 10:06:18 pm

Congratulations ! We have already added your identifications with a link to your blog in our database of Greek manuscripts Pinakes (see http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/id/115061 and http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/id/12235). May you indicate us the shelfmark of the leaf from Montreal ? We will be glad to hear of the other leaves you alluded to in your post !

3/19/2014 12:24:46 am

Excellent! Yes, the shelf mark of the Montreal leaf is "MS Greek 11."

Ed Krentz

3/19/2014 03:16:12 am

This was forwarded to me by a friend. I got my leaf in 1961 from the Internationale Antiquariat in Amsterdam, Menno Herzberger the owner. Kurt to add a bit to the background information.
Ed Krentz

3/19/2014 03:24:21 am

Thank you very much for this information, Prof. Krentz. It would be interesting to know the history of this lectionary codex, because your leaf and the McGill leaf were obviously at some point separated from it. It is of course possible that there are other leaves out there, but that remains to be seen. Thank you very much again for posting here. I had written to you last week about information regarding your leaf using an e-mail address I found online (ekrentz@lstc.edu).

3/20/2014 02:46:54 am

Change of ids in our database :
new links : http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/id/43598
http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/id/13013
http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr/notices/cote/id/56442

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A Missing Codex Leaf from a New Testament Lectionary

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