Minuscule 481

Minuscule 481

New Testament manuscript
Folio 1 verso, portrait of Matthew Evangelist
Text	Gospels
Date	2nd half of the 10th-century
Script	Greek
Now at	British Library
Size	22.4 cm by 17.7 cm
Type	Byzantine text-type
Category	V
Note	elegant copy

Minuscule 481 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), ε 1017 (in the Soden numbering),^[1] is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 10th-century. Scrivener labeled it by number 569. The manuscript has complex contents.

Description

The codex contains the text of the four Gospels on 218 parchment leaves (size 22.4 cm by 17.7 cm). It is written in one column per page, 22 lines per page.^[2][3] It is clean and elegant copy; before each Gospel is a picture of its writer, of no very high order of art, but curious enough.^[4] The half page of writing erased at the end of the Gospel of John.^[4]

It is one of the very few manuscripts that are destitute of Liturgical apparatus. The style of the handwriting is unformed, the absence of all notes, κεφαλαια (chapters), etc. The only traces of which are red capitals in the marginal mark at John 13:31.^[4] The breathings and accents are complete and tolerably correct. There is no ι subscriptum but ι adscriptum in Mark 14:14; John 5:22 and in few other places. Itacisms are more frequent than in Codex 470. Erasures and corrections by a later hand exist, but are not very frequent. One of the most remarkable errors of scribe Scrivener noticed in Mark 2:12 and Mark 6:55 – κραβατγον (instead of κραβαττον).^[4]

Two inscriptions state that it belonged in 1809 to the Library of St. Laurence in the Escurial.^[4]

It contains portraits of Evangelists.

Text

Beginning of Luke (1:1-7a), folio 102

The Greek text of the codex is a representative of the Byzantine text-type. Hermann von Soden classified it to the textual family I^κ (Family Π).^[5] Aland placed it in Category V.^[6] According to the Claremont Profile Method it represents the textual family K^x in Luke 10 and Luke 20. In Luke 1 it belongs to the family Π^a.^[5]

The text of Luke 22:43.44 is marked by an obelus (÷).^[4]

History

Currently it is dated by the INTF to the 10th-century.^[3]

The manuscript was held in Escorial, then it belonged to Charles Burney, as codices 480, 482, 484, 485, and ℓ 184.^[2] It was purchased to the British Museum in 1818.^[7]

The manuscript was examined and collated by Scrivener, who published its text in 1852.^[2] The manuscript was added to the list of New Testament manuscripts by Scrivener (569). Gregory gave number 481 to it.^[2][7] Gregory saw it in 1883.^[2]

It is currently housed at the British Library (Burney 19) in London.^[3]

See also

• List of New Testament minuscules
• Biblical manuscript
• Textual criticism

References

1. Gregory, Caspar René (1908). Die griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testament. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung. p. 65.
2. Gregory, Caspar René (1900). Textkritik des Neuen Testaments. Vol. 1. Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs. p. 194.
3. Aland, Kurt; M. Welte; B. Köster; K. Junack (1994). Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neues Testaments. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter. p. 76. ISBN 3-11-011986-2.
4. F. H. A. Scrivener, A Full and Exact Collation of About 20 Greek Manuscripts of the Holy Gospels (Cambridge and London, 1852), p. XLVIII.
5. Wisse, Frederik (1982). The Profile Method for the Classification and Evaluation of Manuscript Evidence, as Applied to the Continuous Greek Text of the Gospel of Luke. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 61. ISBN 0-8028-1918-4.
6. Aland, Kurt; Aland, Barbara (1995). The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism. Erroll F. Rhodes (trans.). Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 139. ISBN 978-0-8028-4098-1.
7. Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose; Edward Miller (1894). A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament. Vol. 1. London: George Bell & Sons. p. 257.

Further reading

• F. H. A. Scrivener (1852). A Full and Exact Collation of About 20 Greek Manuscripts of the Holy Gospels. Cambridge and London. p. XLVIII. (as o)
• Frederic G. Kenyon, Facsimiles of Biblical Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1900), VI

External links

• Burney 19 at the British Library