History.

The ECA was created by the 1975 Budgetary Treaty and was formally established on 18 October 1977, holding its first session a week later. At that time the ECA was not a formal institution; it was an external body designed to audit the finances of the European Communities. It replaced two separate audit bodies, one which dealt with the finances of the European Economic Community and Euratom, and one which dealt with the European Coal and Steel Community.  The ECA did not have a defined legal status until the Treaty of Maastricht when it was made the fifth institution, the first new institution since the founding of the Community. By becoming an institution it gained some new powers, such as the ability to bring actions before the European Court of Justice (ECJ). At first its audit power related only to the European Community pillar of the European Union (EU), but under the Treaty of Amsterdam it gained the full power to audit the finances of the whole of the EU.

Functions.

Despite its name, the ECA has no jurisdictional functions. It is rather a professional external investigatory audit agency. The primary role of the ECA is to externally check if the budget of the European Union has been implemented correctly, in that EU funds have been spent legally and with sound management. In doing so, the ECA checks the paperwork of all persons handling any income or expenditure of the Union and carries out spot checks. The ECA is bound to report any problems in its reports for the attention of the EU's Member States and institutions, these reports include its general and specific annual reports, as well as special reports on its performance audits. The ECA's decision is the basis for the European Commission decisions; for example, when the ECA found problems in the management of EU funds in the regions of England, the Commission suspended funds to those regions and is prepared to fine those who do not return to acceptable standards.  In this role, the ECA has to remain independent yet remain in touch with the other institutions; for example, a key role is the presentation of the ECA's annual report to the European Parliament. It is based on this report that the Parliament makes its decision on whether or not to sign off the European Commission's handling of the budget for that year. The Parliament notably refused to do this in 1984 and 1999, the latter case forced the resignation of the Santer Commission. The ECA, if satisfied, also sends assurances to the Council and Parliament that the taxpayers' money is being properly used, and the ECA must be consulted before the adoption of any legislation with financial implications, but its opinion is never binding.

Organisation.

The ECA is composed of one member from each EU Member State, each of whom is appointed unanimously by the Council of the European Union for a renewable term of six years. They are not all replaced every six years, however, as their terms do not coincide (four of the original members began with reduced terms of four years for this reason). Members are chosen from people who have served in national audit bodies, who are qualified for the office and whose independence is beyond doubt. While serving in the Court, members cannot engage in any other professional activities. As the body is independent, its members are free to decide their own organisation and rules of procedure, although these must be ratified by the Council of the European Union. Since the Treaty of Nice, the ECA can set up "chambers" (with only a few Members each) to adopt certain types of reports or opinions.  The ECA is supported by a staff of approximately 800 auditors, translators and administrators recruited as part of the European Civil Service. Auditors are divided into auditor groups which inspect and prepare draft reports for the ECA to take decisions upon. Inspections take place not only of EU institutions but of any state which receives EU funds, given that 90% of income and expenditure is managed by national authorities rather than the EU. Upon finding a fault, the ECA —possessing no legal powers of its own—informs the European Anti-fraud Office ("OLAF"), which is the EU's anti-fraud agency. The ECA is also assisted by the Secretary-General of the European Court of Auditors, elected by the College of ECA Members, who—along with general management and assistance to the President—draws up draft minutes and keeps archives of decisions, as well as ensuring the publication of reports in the "Official Journal of the European Union".

President.

The members then elect one of their number as the President of the ECA for a renewable three-year term. The election takes place by a secret ballot of those members who applied for the presidency. The duties of the President (which may be delegated) are to convene and chair the meetings of the ECA, ensuring that decisions are implemented and the departments (and other activities) are soundly managed. The President also represents the institution and appoints a representative for it in contentious proceedings.  The current President is Klaus-Heiner Lehne, elected on 13 September 2016. He succeeded Vítor Manuel da Silva Caldeira (of Portugal), elected in 2007. Previous presidents have been Sir Norman Price (1977, United Kingdom), Michael Murphy (1977, Ireland), Pierre Lelong (1981, France), Marcel Mart (1984, Luxembourg), Aldo Angioi (1990, Italy), André Middelhoek (1992, Netherlands), Bernhard Friedmann (1996, Germany), Jan O. Karlsson (1999, Sweden), Juan Manuel Fabra Vallés † (2002, Spain) and Hubert Weber (2006, Austria).

Secretary-general.

The Secretary-General is the ECA's most senior member of staff. Appointed for a renewable term of 6 years, he is responsible for the management of the ECA's staff and for the administration of the ECA. In addition, the Secretary-General is responsible for the budget, translation, training and information technology.

Staffing.

ECA staff are mainly officials recruited via the reserve lists from general competitions organised by the European Personnel Selection Office external link (EPSO). In certain circumstances, however, the ECA may also engage temporary or contract staff. To be eligible for a post at the ECA, one must be a citizen of one of the European Union Member States.

Traineeships.

Just like the other EU institutions, the ECA organises three traineeship sessions per year in areas of interest to its work. Traineeships are granted for three, four or five months maximum, and may be remunerated (1350 €/month) or non-remunerated.

Work.

The ECA publishes the results of its audit work in a variety of reports – annual reports, specific annual reports and special reports – depending on the type of audit. Other published products include opinions and review-based publications. In total, the ECA published 93 reports in 2017  Annual reports contain the results of financial and compliance audit work on the European Union budget and European Development Funds. They comprise the annual statements of assurance, and also cover budgetary management and performance aspects.  Special reports present the results of selected performance and compliance audits of specific spending or policy areas, or budgetary or management issues.  Review-based publications such as landscape reviews, briefing papers, rapid case reviews and background papers. "Landscape reviews" are descriptive and analytical documents of complex, largescale policy areas or management issues, in which we set out our accumulated experience and knowledge on the selected topic, often from a cross‐cutting perspective. "Briefing papers" are similar in nature to landscape reviews (descriptive and analytical documents of policy or management), but address more focused topics. "Rapid case reviews" present and establish facts surrounding very focused specific issues or problems and, if necessary they may include an analysis to help understand those facts. "Background papers" provide information based on preparatory work undertaken before the start of an on-going audit task. They are intended as a source of information for those interested in the policy and/or programme being audited.  Opinions provide our views on new or updated laws with a significant impact on EU financial management.  Specific annual reports present the results of the annual financial audits of EU's agencies, decentralised bodies and joint undertakings.  All reports, opinions and reviews are published on the ECA's website in the official EU languages.

Criticism.

Declaration of Assurance.

Since 1994 the ECA has been required to provide a "Declaration of Assurance", essentially a certificate that an entire annual budget can be accounted for. This has proved to be a problem, as even relatively minor omissions require the ECA to refuse a declaration of assurance for the entire budget, even if almost all of the budget is considered reliable.  This has led to media reports of the EU accounts being "riddled with fraud", where issues are based on errors in paperwork even though the underlying spending was legal. The auditing system itself has drawn criticism from this perception. The Commission in particular has stated that the bar is too high, and that only 0.09% of the budget is subject to fraud. The Commission has elsewhere stated that it is important to distinguish between fraud and other irregularities. The controversial dismissal in 2003 of Marta Andreasen for her criticism of procedures in 2002 has, for some, called into doubt the integrity of the institutions.  It is frequently claimed that annual accounts have not been certified by the external auditor since 1994. In its annual report on the implementation of the 2009 EU Budget, the Court of Auditors found that the two biggest areas of the EU budget, agriculture and regional spending, have not been signed off on and remain "materially affected by error". Nonetheless the European Commission claims that every budget since 2007 has been signed off.  Terry Wynn, an MEP who served on the Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control and reached the position of chairman, has also backed these calls, stating that it is impossible for the Commission to achieve these standards. In a report entitled "EU Budget – Public Perception & Fact – how much does it cost, where does the money go and why is it criticised so much?", Wynn cites consensus that practice in the EU differs from that in the US. In the US, the focus is on the financial information, not on the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions, 'So, other than in Europe, the political reaction in the US to the failure to obtain a clean audit opinion is only "a big yawn"'.  By comparison, the Comptroller and Auditor General for the United Kingdom stated that there were 500 separate accounts for the UK, and "in the last year, I qualified 13 of the 500. If I had to operate the EU system, then, because I qualify 13 accounts, I might have to qualify the whole British central government expenditure". Despite the problems, the Barroso Commission stated that it aimed to bring the budget within the Court's limits by the end of its mandate in 2009.  The ECA made clear in its year report for 2010 that "Responsibility for the legality and regularity of spending on Cohesion Policies starts in the Member States, but the Commission bears the ultimate responsibility for the correct implementation of the budget". In previous reports, the ECA has noted that "Regardless of the method of implementation applied, the Commission bears the ultimate responsibility for the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying the accounts of the European Communities (Article 274 of the Treaty)".

Size.

The size of the ECA has also come under criticism. Owing to the one-member-per-state system, its College of Members grew from nine to twenty-eight as of 2013. Attempting to get consensus in the body has thus become more difficult; this led to the number of its special reports per year shrinking from fifteen to six between 2003 and 2005, despite its staff growing by 200 over the same period. Some proposals have been for its size to be reduced to five members or just one, possibly with an advisory board with members from each member state. However, neither the European Constitution nor the Treaty of Lisbon proposed any changes to its composition, despite calls by former ECA members and MEPs to embrace change.

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) (French: "Cour des comptes européenne") is one of the seven institutions of the European Union (EU). It was established in 1975 in Luxembourg in order to improve EU financial management.

Evropský účetní dvůr je orgánem Evropské unie, který byl založený, aby prováděl kontrolu finančních prostředků EU. Jako externí auditor EU se podílí na zlepšování finančního řízení EU a vystupuje jako nezávislý strážce finančních zájmů občanů Unie. Evropský účetní dvůr vznikl 1977 na základě tzv. Smlouvy o změně určitých finančních předpisů (Bruselské smlouvy), uzavřené mezi státy Evropských společenství 22. července 1975. Evropský účetní dvůr sídlí v Lucemburku.


Etymology.

The Ancient Greek word "daemon" denotes a spirit or divine power, much like the Latin "genius" or "numen". "Daimōn" most likely came from the Greek verb "daiesthai" (to divide, distribute). The Greek conception of a "daimōn" notably appears in the works of Plato, where it describes the divine inspiration of Socrates. The original Greek word "daimon" does not carry the negative connotation initially understood by implementation of the Koine ("daimonion"), and later ascribed to any cognate words sharing the root.  The Greek terms do not have any connotations of evil or malevolence. In fact, "eudaimonia", (literally good-spiritedness) means happiness. By the early Roman Empire, cult statues were seen, by pagans and their Christian neighbors alike, as inhabited by the numinous presence of the gods: "Like pagans, Christians still sensed and saw the gods and their power, and as something, they had to assume, lay behind it, by an easy traditional shift of opinion they

Ancient Egypt.

Both deities and demons can act as intermediaries to deliver messages to humans. Thus they share some resemblance to the Greek daimonion. The exact definition of "demon" in Egyptology posed a major problem for modern scholarship, since the borders between a deity and a demon are sometimes blurred and the ancient Egyptian language lacks a term for the modern English "demon". However, magical writings indicate that ancient Egyptians acknowledged the existence of malevolent demons by highlighting the demon names with red ink. Demons in this culture appeared to be subordinative and related to a specific deity, yet they may have occasionally acted independent from the divine will. The existence of demons can be related to the realm of chaos, beyond the created world. But even this negative connotation cannot be denied in light of the magical texts. The role of demons in relation to the human world remains ambivalent and largely depends on context.  Ancient Egyptian demons

Mesopotamia.

The ancient Mesopotamians believed that the underworld was home to many demons, which are sometimes referred to as "offspring of "arali"". These demons could sometimes leave the underworld and terrorize mortals on earth. One class of demons that were believed to reside in the underworld were known as "galla"; their primary purpose appears to have been to drag unfortunate mortals back to Kur. They are frequently referenced in magical texts, and some texts describe them as being seven in number. Several extant poems describe the "galla" dragging the god Dumuzid into the underworld. Like other demons, however, "galla" could also be benevolent and, in a hymn from King Gudea of Lagash ( 2144 – 2124 BCE), a minor god named Ig-alima is described as "the great "galla" of Girsu".  Lamashtu was a demonic goddess with the "head of a lion, the teeth of a donkey, naked breasts, a hairy body, hands stained (with blood?), long fingers and fingernails, and the feet of Anzû." She was believed to feed on the blood of human infants and was widely blamed as the cause of miscarriages and cot deaths. Although Lamashtu has traditionally been identified

Abrahamic religions.

Judaism.

As referring to the existence or non-existence of demons ("shedim" or "Se'irim") there are converse opinions in Judaism. There are "practically nil" roles assigned to demons in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism today, beliefs in "demons" or "evil spirits" are either "midot hasidut" (Hebr. for "customs of the pious"), and therefore not halachah, or notions based on a superstition that are non-essential, non-binding parts of Judaism, and therefore not normative Jewish practice. That is to say, Jews are not obligated to believe in the existence of "shedim", as posek rabbi David Bar-Hayim points out.

Tanakh.

The Tanakh mentions two classes of demonic spirits, the "se'irim" and the "shedim". The word "shedim" appears in two places in the Tanakh (, ). The "se'irim" are mentioned once in, probably a re-calling of Assyrian demons in shape of goats. The "shedim" in return are not pagan demigods, but the foreign gods themselves. Both entities appear in a scriptural context of animal or child sacrifice to "non-existent" false gods.  From Chaldea, the term "shedu" traveled to the Israelites. The writers of the Tanach applied the word as a dialogism to Canaanite deities.  There are indications that demons in popular Hebrew mythology were believed to come from the nether

Talmudic tradition.

In the Jerusalem Talmud notions of "shedim" ("demons" or "spirits") are almost unknown or occur only very rarely, whereas in the Babylon Talmud there are many references to "shedim" and magical incantations. The existence of "shedim" in general was not questioned by most of the Babylonian Talmudists. As a consequence

Kabbalah.

In Kabbalah demons are regarded a necessary part of the divine emanation in the material world and a byproduct of human sin (Qliphoth). However spirits

Aggadah.

Aggadic tales from the Persian tradition describe the "shedim", the " mazziḳim" ("harmers"), and the " ruḥin" ("spirits"). There were also "lilin" ("night spirits"), " ṭelane" ("shade", or "evening spirits"), " ṭiharire" ("midday spirits"), and " ẓafrire" ("morning spirits"), as well as the "demons that bring famine" and "such as cause storm and earthquake". According to

Second Temple period texts.

To the Qumran community during the Second Temple period this apotropaic prayer was assigned, stating: "And, I the Sage, declare the grandeur of his radiance in order to frighten and terri[fy] all the spirits of the ravaging angels and the bastard spirits, demons, Liliths, owls" ("Dead Sea Scrolls", "Songs of the Sage," Lines 4–5).  In the Dead Sea Scrolls, there exists a fragment entitled "Curses of Belial" ("Curses of Belial (Dead Sea Scrolls, 394, 4Q286(4Q287, fr. 6)=4QBerakhot)"). This fragment holds much rich language that reflects the sentiment shared between the Qumran towards Belial. In many ways this text shows how these people thought Belial influenced sin through the way they address him and speak of him. By addressing "Belial and all his guilty lot," (4Q286:2) they make it clear that he is not only impious, but also guilty of sins. Informing this state of uncleanliness are both his "hostile" and "wicked design" (4Q286:3,4). Through this design, Belial poisons the thoughts of those who are not necessarily sinners. Thus a dualism is born from those inclined to be wicked and those who aren't. It is clear that Belial directly influences sin by the mention of "abominable plots" and "guilty inclination" (4Q286:8,9). These are both mechanisms by which Belial advances his evil agenda that the Qumran have exposed and are calling upon God to protect them from. There is a deep sense of fear that Belial will "establish in their heart their evil devices" (4Q286:11,12). This sense of fear is the stimulus for this prayer in the first place. Without the worry and potential of falling victim to Belial's demonic sway, the Qumran people would never feel impelled to craft a curse. This very fact illuminates the power Belial was believed to hold over mortals, and the fact that sin proved to be a temptation that must stem from an impure origin.  In Jubilees 1:20, Belial's appearance continues to support the notion that sin is a direct product of his influence. Moreover, Belial's presence acts as a placeholder for all negative influences or those that would potentially interfere with God's will and a pious existence. Similarly to the "gentiles... [who] cause them to sin against you" (Jubilees 1:19), Belial is associated with a force that drives one away from God. Coupled in this plea for protection against foreign rule, in this case the Egyptians, is a plea for protection from "the spirit of Belial" (Jubilees 1:19). Belial's tendency is to "ensnare [you] from every path of righteousness" (Jubilees 1:19). This phrase is intentionally vague, allowing room for interpretation. Everyone, in one way or another, finds themselves straying from

Christianity.

Old Testament.

Demonic entities in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible are of two classes: the "satyrs" or

New Testament.

The term "demon" (from the Koine Greek δαιμόνιον "daimonion") appears 63 times in the

Pseudepigrapha and Deuterocanonical books.

Demons are sometimes included into biblical interpretation. In the story of Passover, the Bible tells the story as "the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt" (Exodus 12:21–29). In the Book of Jubilees, which is considered canonical only by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, this same event is told slightly differently: "All the powers of [the demon] Mastema had been let loose to slay all the first-born in the land of Egypt...And the powers of the Lord did everything according as the Lord commanded them" (Jubilees 49:2–4).  In the Genesis flood narrative the author explains how God was noticing "how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways" (Genesis 6:12). In Jubilees the sins of

Christian demonology.

In Christianity, demons are corrupted spirits carrying the execution of Satan's desires. They are generally regarded as three different types of spirits:  Often deities of other religions are interpreted or identified as such "demons" (from the Greek Old Testament δαιμόνιον "daimonion"). The evolution of the Christian Devil and pentagram are examples of early rituals and images that showcase evil qualities, as seen by the Christian churches.  Since Early Christianity, demonology has developed from a simple acceptance of demons to a complex study that has grown from the original ideas taken from Jewish demonology and Christian scriptures. Christian demonology is studied in depth within the Roman Catholic Church, although many other Christian churches affirm and discuss the existence of demons.  Building upon the few references to "daemons" in the New Testament, especially the poetry of the Book of Revelation, Christian writers of

Islam.

Islam and Islam-related beliefs acknowledges the concept of evil spirits known as malevolent jinn, afarit and shayatin. Unlike the belief in angels, belief in demons is not obligated by the six articles of Islamic faith. However, the existence of several demonic spirits is generally assumed by Islamic theology and further elaborated beliefs persist in Islamic folklore. The Div, probably adapted under Zorastrian influences, became another prominent demonic creature in Islamic culture. Just like jinn, they are able to possess humans, but differ

Jinn and shayatin.

Rather than demonic, jinn are depicted as similar to humans, as they live in societies and need dwelling places, food and water. Although their lifespan of multiple centuries exceeds those of humans, they still die and must procreate. As they are created from "smokeless fire," in contrast to humans made from "solid earth," the latter cannot see them. Similar to humans, jinn are subject to temptations of the shayatin and Satan. Therefore, they may either be good or evil. Evil jinn are comparable to demons, scaring or possessing humans. In folklore some Ghoul may also prey on lonely travelers to dissuade them from their paths and eat their corpses. Although not evil, a jinni may haunt a person, because it feels offended by him. Islam has no binding

Ifrit.

Another demonic spirit is called "ifrit" and although there are no descriptions regarding an iftrit's behavior found in Islamic canonical texts, Folk Islam often depicts them with traits of malevolent ghosts, returning after death or a subcategory of shayatin drawn the life-force of those who were murdered. Moreover, they are not exactly shayatin since they differ in their origin.

Bahá'í Faith.

In the Bahá'í Faith, demons are not regarded as independent evil spirits as they are in some faiths. Rather, evil spirits described in various faiths' traditions, such as Satan, fallen angels,

Ceremonial magic.

While some people fear demons, or attempt to exorcise them, others willfully attempt to summon them for knowledge, assistance, or power. The ceremonial magician usually consults a grimoire, which gives the names and abilities of demons as well as detailed

Hinduism.

Hindu beliefs include numerous varieties of spirits such as Vetalas, Bhutas and Pishachas. Rakshasas and Asuras are often misunderstood to be demons.

Asuras.

"Asura", in the earliest hymns of the Rigveda, originally meant any supernatural spirit, either good or bad. Since the /s/ of the Indic linguistic branch is cognate with the /h/ of the Early Iranian languages, the word "Asura", representing a category of celestial beings. Ancient Hinduism tells that Devas (also called "suras") and Asuras are half-brothers, sons of the same father Kashyapa; although some of the Devas, such as Varuna, are also called Asuras. Later, during Puranic age,

Evil spirits.

Hinduism advocates the reincarnation and transmigration of souls according to one's karma. Souls (Atman) of the dead are adjudged by the Yama and are accorded various purging punishments

Iranian demons.

Zoroastrianism.

Evil spirits are the creation of the evil principle Ahriman in Zoroastrian cosmology, commonly referred to as Daeva. The first six archdemons are produced by Ahriman in direct opposition to the holy immortals created by Ahura Mazda the principle of

Manichaeism.

In Manichaean mythology demons had a real existence, as they derived from the Kingdom of Darkness, they were not metaphors expressing the absence of good nor are they fallen angels, that means they are not originally good, but entities purely evil. The demons came into the world after the Prince of Darkness assaulted the Realm of Light. The demons ultimately failed their attack and ended up imprisoned in the structures and matter of the contemporary world. Lacking virtues and being in constant conflict with both the divine creatures and themselves, they are inferior

Native North American demons.

Wendigo.

The Algonquian people traditionally believe in a spirit called a wendigo. The spirit is

Wicca.

According to Rosemary Ellen Guiley, "Demons are not courted

Modern interpretations.

Psychologist Wilhelm Wundt remarked that "among the activities attributed by myths all over the world to demons, the harmful predominate, so that in popular belief bad demons are clearly older than good ones." Sigmund Freud developed this idea and claimed that the concept of demons was derived from the important relation of the living to the dead: "The fact that demons are always regarded as the spirits of those who have died "recently" shows better than anything the influence of mourning on the origin of the belief in demons."  M. Scott Peck, an American psychiatrist, wrote two books on the subject, "People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human Evil" and "Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist's Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption". Peck describes in some detail several cases involving his patients. In "People of the Lie" he provides identifying characteristics of an evil person, whom he classified as having a character disorder. In "Glimpses of the Devil" Peck goes into significant detail describing how he became interested in exorcism in order to debunk the "myth" of possession by evil spirits – only to be convinced otherwise after encountering two cases which did not fit into any category known to psychology or psychiatry. Peck came to the conclusion that possession was a rare phenomenon related to evil and that possessed people are not actually evil; rather, they are doing battle with the forces of evil.  Although Peck's earlier work was met with widespread popular acceptance, his work on the topics of evil and possession has generated significant debate and derision. Much was made of his association with (and admiration for) the controversial Malachi Martin, a Roman Catholic priest and a former Jesuit, despite the fact that Peck consistently called Martin a liar and a manipulator. Richard Woods, a Roman Catholic priest and theologian, has claimed that Dr. Peck misdiagnosed patients based upon a lack of knowledge regarding dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder) and had apparently transgressed the boundaries of professional ethics by attempting to persuade his patients into accepting Christianity. Father Woods admitted that he has never witnessed a genuine case of demonic possession in all his years.  According to S. N. Chiu, God is shown sending a demon against Saul in 1 Samuel 16 and 18 in order to punish him for the failure to follow God's instructions, showing God as having the power to use demons for his own purposes, putting the demon under his divine authority. According to the "Britannica Concise Encyclopedia", demons, despite being typically associated with evil, are often shown to be under divine control, and not acting of their own devices.

A demon is a supernatural being, typically associated with evil, prevalent historically in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies and television series.

Démon je nadpřirozená bytost, zpravidla zlovolného charakteru. Existenci démonů předpokládá řada náboženství a duchovních, především magických, tradic. Nauka o nich se nazývá démonologie.


Contents.

Codex Vaticanus originally contained a virtually complete copy of the Septuagint ("LXX"), lacking only 1-4 Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasseh. The original 20 leaves containing Genesis 1:1–46:28a (31 leaves) and Psalm 105:27–137:6b have been lost and were replaced by pages transcribed by a later hand in the 15th century. 2 Kings 2:5–7, 10-13 are also lost because of a tear to one of the pages. The order of the Old Testament books in the Codex is as follows: Genesis to 2 Chronicles as normal; 1 Esdras; 2 Esdras (Ezra-Nehemiah); the Psalms; Proverbs; Ecclesiastes; Song of Songs; Job; Wisdom; Ecclesiasticus; Esther; Judith; Tobit; the minor prophets from Hosea to Malachi; Isaiah; Jeremiah; Baruch; Lamentations and the Epistle of Jeremiah; Ezekiel and Daniel. This order differs from that followed in Codex Alexandrinus.  The extant New Testament of the Vaticanus contains the Gospels, Acts, the General Epistles, the Pauline Epistles, and the Epistle to the Hebrews (up to Hebrews 9:14, καθα[ριει); it is lacking 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, and Revelation. These missing leaves were supplemented by a 15th-century minuscule hand (folios 760–768) and are catalogued separately as the minuscule Codex 1957. Possibly some apocryphal books from the New Testament were included at the end (as in codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus), as it is also possible that Revelation was not included.

Verses not in the codex.

The text of the New Testament lacks several passages:

Description.

The manuscript is in quarto volume, arranged in quires of five sheets or ten leaves each, similar to the Codex Marchalianus or Codex Rossanensis; but unlike the Codex Sinaiticus which has an arrangement of four or three sheets. The number of the quires is often found in the margin. Originally it must have been composed of 830 parchment leaves, but it appears that 71 leaves have been lost. Currently, the Old Testament consists of 617 sheets and the New Testament of 142 sheets. The parchment is fine and thin. The actual size of the pages is ; although the original was bigger. The codex is written in three columns per page, with 40–44 lines per page, and 16–18 letters per line. In the poetical books of the Old Testament (OT) there are only two columns to a page. In Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and 1 Kings 1:1–19:11 there are 44 lines in a column; in 2 Chronicles 10:16–26:13 there are 40 lines in a column; and in the New Testament always 42. The manuscript is one of the very few New Testament manuscripts to be written with three columns per page. The other two Greek codices written in that way are Uncial 048 and Uncial 053. Codex Vaticanus comprises a single quarto volume containing 759 thin and delicate vellum leaves.  The lettering in the Codex is small and neat, without ornamentation or capitals. The Greek is written continuously in small neat writing; all the letters are equidistant from each other; no word is separated from the other; each line appears to be one long word. Punctuation is rare (accents and breathings have been added by a later hand) except for some blank spaces, diaeresis on initial iotas and upsilons, abbreviations of the "nomina sacra" and markings of OT citations. The OT citations were marked by an inverted "comma" (>), as was done in Alexandrinus. There are no enlarged initials; no stops or accents; no divisions into chapters or sections such as are found in later manuscripts.  The text of the Gospels is not divided according to the Ammonian Sections with a references to the Eusebian Canons, but divided into peculiar numbered sections: Matthew has 170, Mark 61, Luke 152, and John 80. This system is found only in two other manuscripts, in Codex Zacynthius and in codex 579. There are two system divisions in the Acts and the Catholic Epistles that differ from the Euthalian Apparatus. In the Acts these sections are 36 (the same system as Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Amiatinus, and Codex Fuldensis) and according to the other system 69 sections. The chapters in the Pauline epistles are numbered continuously as the Epistles were regarded as comprising one book.

Text-type.

In the Old Testament, the type of text varies, with a received text in Ezekiel and a rejected one in the Book of Isaiah. In Judges, the text differs substantially from that of the majority of manuscripts, but agrees with the Old Latin and Sahidic version and Cyril of Alexandria. In Job, it has the additional 400 half-verses from Theodotion, which are not in the Old Latin and Sahidic versions. The text of the Old Testament was considered by critics, such as Hort and Cornill, to be substantially that which underlies Origen's Hexapla edition, completed by him at Caesarea and issued as an independent work (apart from the other versions with which Origen associated it) by Eusebius and Pamphilus.  In the New Testament, the Greek text of the codex is a representative of the Alexandrian text-type. Aland placed it in Category I. In the Gospels of Luke and John, it has been found to agree very closely with the text of Bodmer, which has been dated to the beginning of the 3rd century and hence is at least 100 years older than the Codex Vaticanus itself. This is purported to demonstrate (by recourse to a postulated earlier exemplar from which both P75 and B descend) that the Codex Vaticanus accurately reproduces an earlier text from these two biblical books, which reinforces the reputation the codex held amongst Biblical scholars. It also strongly suggests that it may have been copied in Egypt. In the Pauline epistles there is a distinctly Western element.

Provenance.

The provenance and early history of the codex is uncertain; Rome (Hort), southern Italy, Alexandria (Kenyon, Burkitt), and Caesarea (T. C. Skeat) have been suggested as the origin. Hort's argument for Rome rests mainly on certain spellings of proper names, such as Ισακ and Ιστραηλ, which show a Western or Latin influence. A second argument is that the chapter division of Acts, similar to that of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, is not found in any other Greek manuscript, but is present in several manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate. Robinson counters the argument by suggesting that this system of chapter divisions was introduced into the Vulgate by Jerome himself, as a result of his studies at Caesarea. According to Hort, it was copied from a manuscript whose line length was 12–14 letters per line, because where the Codex Vaticanus's scribe made large omissions, they were typically 12–14 letters long.  Kenyon suggested that the manuscript originated in Alexandria: "It is noteworthy that the section numeration of the Pauline Epistles in B shows that it was copied from a manuscript in which the Epistle to the Hebrews was placed between Galatians and Ephesians — an arrangement which elsewhere occurs only in the Sahidic version." A connection with Egypt is also indicated, according to Kenyon, by the order of the Pauline epistles and by the fact that, as in the Codex Alexandrinus, the titles of some of the books contain letters of a distinctively Coptic character, particularly the Coptic mu, used not only in titles but frequently at the ends of lines where space has to be economized. According to Metzger, "the similarity of its text in significant portions of both Testaments with the Coptic versions and with Greek papyri, and the style of writing (notably the Coptic forms used in some of the titles) point rather to Egypt and Alexandria".  It has been postulated that at one time the manuscript was in the possession of Cardinal Bessarion, because the minuscule supplement has a text similar to one of Bessarion's manuscripts. T. C. Skeat believes that Bessarion's mentor, the patriarchal notary in Constantinople John Chortasmenos, had the book brought to Rome from Constantinople around the time of the fall of the Byzantine Empire. According to Paul Canart, the decorative initials added to the manuscript in the Middle Ages are reminiscent of Constantinopolitan decoration of the 10th century, but the poor execution gives the impression they were added in the 11th or 12th century, and likely not before the 12th century in light of the way they appear in connection with notes in a minuscule hand at the beginning of the book of Daniel. T. C. Skeat, a paleographer at the British Museum, first argued that Codex Vaticanus was among the 50 Bibles that the Emperor Constantine I ordered Eusebius of Caesarea to produce. The similarity of the text with the papyri and Coptic version (including some letter formation), parallels with Athanasius' canon of 367 suggest an Egyptian or Alexandrian origin.  The manuscript is dated to the first half of the 4th century and is likely slightly older than Codex Sinaiticus, which was also transcribed in the 4th century. One argument to support this, is that Sinaiticus already has the, at that time, very new Eusebian Canon tables, but Vaticanus does not. Another is the slightly more archaic style of Vaticanus, and the complete absence of ornamentation.

Scribes and correctors.

According to Tischendorf the manuscript was written by three scribes (A, B, C), two of whom appear to have written the Old Testament and one the entire New Testament. Tischendorf's view was accepted by Frederic G. Kenyon, but contested by T. C. Skeat, who examined the codex more thoroughly. Skeat and other paleographers contested Tischendorf's theory of a third (C) scribe, instead asserting that two scribes worked on the Old Testament (A and B) and one of them (B) wrote the New Testament. Scribe A wrote: Scribe B wrote:  Two correctors worked on the manuscript, one (B) contemporary with the scribes, the other (B) in about the 10th or 11th century, although the theory of a first corrector, B, proposed by Tischendorf was rejected by later scholars. According to Tischendorf, one of the scribes is identical to (and may have been) one of the scribes of the Codex Sinaiticus (scribe D), but there is insufficient evidence for his assertion. Skeat agreed that the writing style is very similar to that of Sinaiticus, but there is not enough evidence to accept identity of scribes; "the identity of the scribal tradition stands beyond dispute".  The original writing was retraced by a later scribe (usually dated to the 10th or 11th century), and the beauty of the original script was spoiled. Accents and breathing marks, as well as punctuation, have been added by a later hand. There are no enlarged initials, no divisions into chapters or sections such as are found in later manuscripts, but a different system of division peculiar to this manuscript. There are plenty of the itacistic faults, especially the exchange of ει for ι and αι for ε. The exchange of ει and ο for ω is less frequent.  The manuscript contains unusual small horizontally aligned double dots (so called "distigmai," formerly called "umlauts") in the margin of the columns and are scattered throughout the New Testament. There are 795 of these to be clearly found in the text, and perhaps another 40 that are undetermined. The date of these markings are disputed among scholars and are discussed in a link below. Two such distigmai can be seen in the left margin of the first column (top image). Tischendorf reflected upon their meaning, but without any resolution. He pointed on several places where these distigmai were used: at the ending of the Gospel of Mark, 1 Thess 2:14; 5:28; Heb 4:16; 8:1. The meaning of these distigmai was recognized in 1995 by Philip Payne. Payne discovered the first distigme while studying the section 1 Cor 14.34–35 of the codex. He suggested that distigmai indicate lines where another textual variant was known to the person who wrote the umlauts. Therefore, the distigmai mark places of textual uncertainty. The same distigmai were observed in Codex Fuldensis, especially in the section containing 1 Cor 14:34–35. The distigme of two codices indicate a variant of the Western manuscripts, which placed 1 Cor 14:34–35 after 1 Cor 14:40 (manuscripts: Claromontanus, Augiensis, Boernerianus, 88, it, and some manuscripts of Vulgate).  On, the text contains an interesting marginal note, ""Fool and knave, leave the old reading and do not change it!" – "ἀμαθέστατε καὶ κακέ, ἄφες τὸν παλαιόν, μὴ μεταποίει"" which may suggest that unauthorised correcting was a recognized problem in scriptoriums.

In the Vatican Library.

The manuscript is believed to have been housed in Caesarea in the 6th century, together with the Codex Sinaiticus, as they have the same unique divisions of chapters in Acts. It came to Italy – probably from Constantinople – after the Council of Florence (1438–1445).  The manuscript has been housed in the Vatican Library (founded by Pope Nicholas V in 1448) for as long as it has been known, possibly appearing in the library's earliest catalog of 1475 (with shelf number 1209), but definitely appearing in the 1481 catalog. In the catalog from 1481 it was described as a "Biblia in tribus columnis ex membranis in rubeo" (three-column vellum Bible).

Collations.

In the 16th century Western scholars became aware of the manuscript as a consequence of the correspondence between Erasmus and the prefects of the Vatican Library, successively Paulus Bombasius, and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda. In 1521, Bombasius was consulted by Erasmus as to whether the Codex Vaticanus contained the Comma Johanneum, and Bombasius supplied a transcript of 1 John 4:1–3 and 1 John 5:7–11 to show that it did not. Sepúlveda in 1533 cross-checked all places where Erasmus's New Testament (the Textus Receptus) differed from the Vulgate, and supplied Erasmus with 365 readings where the Codex Vaticanus supported the latter, although the list of these 365 readings has been lost. Consequently, the Codex Vaticanus acquired the reputation of being an old Greek manuscript that agreed with the Vulgate rather than with the Textus Receptus. Not until much later would scholars realise it conformed to a text that differed from both the Vulgate and the Textus Receptus – a text that could also be found in other known early Greek manuscripts, such as the Codex Regius (L), housed in the French Royal Library (now Bibliothèque nationale de France).  In 1669 a collation was made by Giulio Bartolocci, librarian of the Vatican, which was not published, and never used until Scholz in 1819 found a copy of it in the Royal Library at Paris. This collation was imperfect and revised in 1862. Another collation was made in 1720 for Bentley by Mico, revised by Rulotta, although not published until 1799. Bentley was stirred by Mill's claim of 30,000 variants in the New Testament and he wanted to reconstruct the text of the New Testament in its early form. He felt that among the manuscripts of the New Testament, Codex Alexandrinus was "the oldest and best in the world". Bentley understood the necessity to use manuscripts if he were to reconstruct an older form than that apparent in Codex Alexandrinus. He assumed, that by supplementing this manuscript with readings from other Greek manuscripts, and from the Latin Vulgate, he could triangulate back to the single recension which he presumed existed at the time of the First Council of Nicaea. Therefore, he required a collation from Vaticanus. Unfortunately, the text of the collation was irreconcilable with Codex Alexandrinus and he abandoned the project.  A further collation was made by Andrew Birch, who in 1798 in Copenhagen edited some textual variants of the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles, in 1800 for the Book of Revelation, in 1801 for the Gospels. They were incomplete and included together with the textual variants from the other manuscripts. Many of them were false. Andrew Birch reproached Mill and Wettstein, that they "falso citatur Vaticanus" (cite Vaticanus incorrectly), and gave as an example Luke 2:38 – Ισραηλ [Israel] instead of Ιερουσαλημ [Jerusalem]. The reading Ισραηλ could be found in the codex 130, housed at the Vatican Library, under shelf number Vat. gr. 359.  Before the 19th century, no scholar was allowed to study or edit the Codex Vaticanus, and scholars did not ascribe any value to it; in fact, it was suspected to have been interpolated by the Latin textual tradition. John Mill wrote in his "Prolegomena" (1707): "in Occidentalium gratiam a Latino scriba exaratum" ("written by a Latin scribe for the western world"). He did not believe there was value to having a collation for the manuscript. Wettstein would have liked to know the readings of the codex, but not because he thought that they could have been of any help to him for difficult textual decisions. According to him, this codex had no authority whatsoever ("sed ut vel hoc constaret, Codicem nullus esse auctoris"). In 1751 Wettstein produced the first list of the New Testament manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus received symbol B (because of its age) and took second position on this list (Alexandrinus received A, Ephraemi – C, Bezae – D, etc.) until the discovery of Codex Sinaiticus (designated by א).  Griesbach produced a list of nine manuscripts which were to be assigned to the Alexandrian text: C, L, K, 1, 13, 33, 69, 106, and 118. Codex Vaticanus was not in this list. In the second (1796) edition of his Greek NT, Griesbach added Codex Vaticanus as a witness to the Alexandrian text in Mark, Luke, and John. He still believed the first half of Matthew represented the Western text-type.

Editions of text of the codex.

In 1809 Napoleon brought the manuscript as a victory trophy to Paris, but in 1815 it was returned to the Vatican Library. During that time, in Paris, German scholar Johann Leonhard Hug (1765–1846) saw it. Hug examined it, together with other worthy treasures of the Vatican, but he did not perceive the need of a new and full collation.  Cardinal Angelo Mai prepared the first typographical facsimile edition between 1828 and 1838, which did not appear until 1857, three years after his death, and which was considered unsatisfactory. It was issued in 5 volumes (1–4 volumes for the Old Testament, 5 volume for the New Testament). All lacunae of the Codex were supplemented. Lacunae in the Acts and Pauline epistles were supplemented from the codex Vaticanus 1761, the whole text of Revelation from Vaticanus 2066, text of Mark 16:8–20 from Vaticanus Palatinus 220. Verses not included by codex as ; Mark 15:28; Luke 22:43–44; 23:17.34; John 5:3.4; 7:53–8:11; 1 Peter 5:3; 1 John 5:7 were supplemented from popular Greek printed editions. The number of errors was extraordinarily high, and also no attention was paid to distinguish readings of the first hand versus correctors. There was no detailed examination of the manuscript's characteristics. As a consequence, this edition was deemed inadequate for critical purposes. An improved edition was published in 1859, which became the source of Bultmann's 1860 NT.  In 1843 Tischendorf was permitted to make a facsimile of a few verses, in 1844 Eduard de Muralt saw it, and in 1845 S. P. Tregelles was allowed to observe several points which Muralt had overlooked. He often saw the Codex, but "it was under such restrictions that it was impossible to do more than examine particular readings."  "They would not let me open it without searching my pockets, and depriving me of pen, ink, and paper; and at the same time two prelati kept me in constant conversation in Latin, and if I looked at a passage too long, they would snatch the book out of my hand". Tregelles left Rome after five months without accomplishing his object. During a large part of the 19th century, the authorities of the Vatican Library obstructed scholars who wished to study the codex in detail. Henry Alford in 1849 wrote: “It has never been published in facsimile (!) nor even thoroughly collated (!!).” Scrivener in 1861 commented:  "Codex Vaticanus 1209 is probably the oldest large vellum manuscript in existence, and is the glory of the great Vatican Library in Rome. To these legitimate sources of deep interest must be added the almost romantic curiosity which has been excited by the jealous watchfulness of its official guardians, with whom an honest zeal for its safe preservation seems to have now degenerated into a species of capricious wilfulness, and who have shewn a strange incapacity for making themselves the proper use of a treasure they scarcely permit others more than to gaze upon". It (...) "is so jealously guarded by the Papal authorities that ordinary visitors see nothing of it but the red Morocco binding". Thomas Law Montefiore (1862):  "The history of the Codex Vaticanus B, No. 1209, is the history in miniature of Romish jealousy and exclusiveness.”  Burgon was permitted to examine the codex for an hour and a half in 1860, consulting 16 different passages. Burgon was a defender of the Traditional Text and for him Codex Vaticanus, as well as codices Sinaiticus and Bezae, were the most corrupt documents extant. He felt that each of these three codices "clearly exhibits a fabricated text – is the result of arbitrary and reckless recension." The two most widely respected of these three codices, א and B, he likens to the "two false witnesses" of Matthew 26:60. In 1861, Henry Alford collated and verified doubtful passages (in several imperfect collations), which he published in facsimile editions complete with errors. Until he began his work he met unexpected hindrances. He received a special order from Cardinal Antonelli "per verificare", to verify passages, but this license was interpreted by the librarian to mean that he was to see the book, but not to use it. In 1862, secretary of Alford, Mr. Cure, continued Alford's work. For some reason which does not clearly appear, the authorities of the Vatican Library put continual obstacles in the way of all who wished to study it in detail. In 1867 Tischendorf published the text of the New Testament of the codex on the basis of Mai's edition. It was the "most perfect edition of the manuscript which had yet appeared".  In 1868–1881 C. Vercellone, Giuseppe Cozza-Luzi, and G. Sergio published an edition of the entire codex in 6 volumes (New Testament in volume V; Prolegomena in volume VI). A typographical facsimile appeared between 1868 and 1872. In 1889–1890 a photographic facsimile of the entire manuscript was made and published by Cozza-Luzi, in three volumes. Another facsimile of the New Testament text was published in 1904–1907 in Milan. As a result, the Codex became widely available.  In 1999, the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca -color, exact scale facsimile of Codex Vaticanus. The facsimile reproduces the very form of the pages of the original manuscript, complete with the distinctive individual shape of each page, including holes in the vellum. It has an additional "Prolegomena" volume with gold and silver impressions of 74 pages. , a digitised copy of the codex is available online from the Vatican Library.

Importance.

Codex Vaticanus is one of the most important manuscripts for the text of the Septuagint and Greek New Testament. It is a leading example of the Alexandrian text-type. It was used by Westcott and Hort in their edition, "The New Testament in the Original Greek" (1881), and it was the basis for their text. All critical editions of the New Testament published after Westcott and Hort were closer in the Gospels to the Codex Vaticanus text than to the Sinaiticus, with only the exception of Hermann von Soden's editions which are closer to Sinaiticus. All editions of Nestle-Aland remain close in textual character to the text of Westcott-Hort.  According to the commonly accepted opinion of the textual critics, it is the most important witness of the text of the Gospels, in the Acts and Catholic epistles, with a stature equal to Codex Sinaiticus, although in the Pauline epistles it includes Western readings and the value of the text is somewhat less than the Codex Sinaiticus. Unfortunately the manuscript is not complete. Aland notes: "B is by far the most significant of the uncials".

Further reading.

Other.

For more bibliographies see: J. K. Elliott, "A Bibliography of Greek New Testament Manuscripts" (Cambridge University Press: 1989), pp. 34–36.

External links.

Digitised copy

The Codex Vaticanus (The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209; no. B or 03 Gregory-Aland, δ 1 von Soden) is one of the oldest copies of the Bible, one of the four great uncial codices. The Codex is named after its place of conservation in the Vatican Library, where it has been kept since at least the 15th century. It is written on 759 leaves of vellum in uncial letters and has been dated palaeographically to the 4th century.

Vatikánský kodex ("Codex Vaticanus"; Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), označovaný obvykle písmenem B, je řecký pergamenový kodex pocházející z poloviny 4. století z Alexandrie. Své jméno má podle místa (Vatikánská knihovna), kde je od roku 1481 uložen. Skládá se z celkem 759 listů, z nichž 617 obsahuje text Starého a 142 Nového zákona. Ze Starého zákona však mnohé části chybí a Nový zákon končí veršem listu Židům 9,14. Každá strana je rozdělena do tří sloupců o 42 řádcích. Rozměry rukopisu jsou přesně čtvercové o straně 27,5 cm.


Contents.

The codex is in quarto, and now consists of 773 vellum folios (630 in the Old Testament and 143 in the New Testament), bound in four volumes (279 + 238 + 118 + 144 folios). Three volumes contain the Septuagint, Greek version of the Old Testament, with the complete loss of only ten leaves. The fourth volume contains the New Testament with 31 NT leaves lost. In the fourth volume 1 and 2 Clement are also missing leaves, perhaps 3.  The codex contains a nearly complete copy of the LXX, including the deuterocanonical books 3 and 4 Maccabees, Psalm 151 and the 14 Odes. The "Epistle to Marcellinus" attributed to Saint Athanasius and the Eusebian summary of the Psalms are inserted before the Book of Psalms. It also contains all of the books of the New Testament (although the pages that contained Matthew 1:1-25:5 are not extant). In addition, the codex contains 1 Clement (lacking 57:7-63) and the homily known as 2 Clement (up to 12:5a). The books of the Old Testament are thus distributed: Genesis — 2 Chronicles (first volume), Hosea — 4 Maccabees (second volume), Psalms — Sirach (third volume). The New Testament (fourth volume) books follow in order: Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, General epistles, Pauline epistles (Hebrews placed between 2 Thessalonians and 1 Timothy), Book of Revelation.  There is an appendix marked in the index, which lists the Psalms of Solomon and probably contained more apocryphal/pseudepigraphical books, but it has been torn off and the pages containing these books have also been lost. Due to damage and lost folios, various passages are missing or have defects:

Description.

The manuscript measures and most of the folios were originally gathered into quires of eight leaves each. In modern times it was rebound into sets of six leaves each. The material is thin, fine, and very beautiful vellum, often discoloured at the edges, which have been damaged by age and more so through the ignorance or carelessness of the modern binder, who has not always spared the text, especially at the upper inner margin. Scrivener noted that "The vellum has fallen into holes in many places, and since the ink peels off for very age whensoever a leaf is touched a little roughly, no one is allowed to handle the manuscript except for good reasons." The text in the codex is written in two columns in uncial script, with between 49 and 51 lines per column and 20 to 25 letters per line. The beginning lines of each book are written in red ink and sections within the book are marked by a larger letter set into the margin. Words are written continuously in a large, round and well-formed uncial hand. There are no accents and breathing marks, except a few added by a later hand. The punctuation was written by the first hand. The letters are larger than those of the "Codex Vaticanus". There is no division of words, but some pauses are observed in places in which should be a dot between two words. The poetical books of the Old Testament are written stichometrically. The Old Testament quotations in the text of New Testament are marked on the margin by the sign 〉.  The only decorations in the manuscript are decorative tail-pieces at the end of each book (see illustration) and it also shows a tendency to increase the size of the first letter of each sentence. The capitals at the beginning of the sections stand out in the margin as in codices Ephraemi and Basilensis. Codex Alexandrinus is the oldest manuscript to use capital letters to indicate new sections.  The interchange of vowels of similar sounds is very frequent in this manuscript. The letters Ν and Μ are occasionally confused, and the cluster ΓΓ is substituted with ΝΓ. This may be an argument which points to Egypt, but it is not universally conceded. A lot of iotacistic errors occur in the text; for example, αὶ is exchanged for ε, εὶ for ὶ and η for ὶ. It has no more iotacisms than other manuscripts of the same date.  The handwriting of the text from the beginning of Luke to 1 Corinthians 10:8, differs from that of the rest parts of the manuscript. Some letters have Coptic shapes (f.e. Α, Μ, Δ, and Π). The letters are more widely spaced and are a little larger than elsewhere. "Delta" has extended base and "Pi" has extended cross-stroke. Numerals are not expressed by letters except in Apocalypse 7:4; 21:17. In the past the codex had been judged to be carelessly written, with many errors of transcription, but not so many as in the "Codex Sinaiticus", and no more than in the "Codex Vaticanus". Besides the other corrections by later hands there are multiple instances in which the original scribe altered what he had first written. The corrected form of text often agrees with codices: D, N, X, Y, Γ, Θ, Π, Φ and majority of the minuscule manuscripts. The majuscule letters have elegant shape, but a little less simple than those in the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus codices. These letters, at the end of a line, are often very small, and much of the writing is very pale and faint. Punctuation is more frequent, usually on a level with the top of the preceding letter, while a vacant space, proportionate to the break in the sense, follows the end of a paragraph. At the end of each book the colophon is ornamented by pretty volutes from "prima manu". The Ammonian Sections with references to the Eusebian Canons stand in the margin of the Gospels. It contains divisions into larger sections – κεφάλαια, the headings of these sections (τίτλοι) stand at the top of the pages. The places at which those sections commence are indicated throughout the Gospels, and in Luke and John their numbers are placed in the margin of each column. To all the Gospels (except Matthew, because of lacunae) is prefixed by a table of κεφάλαια ("table of contents").  The various sections into which the Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse were divided by Euthalian Apparatus and others, are not indicated in this manuscript. A "cross" appears occasionally as a separation in the Book of Acts. A larger letter in the margin throughout the New Testament marks the beginning of a paragraph.  The number of scribes were disputed in the past. According to Kenyon's opinion there were five scribes, two scribes in the Old Testament (I and II) and three in the New (III, IV, and V). Subsequently, Skeat and Milne argued there were only two or possibly three scribes. Present scholars agreed in that case (Metzger, Aland, Hernández, Jongkind).  Many corrections have been made to the manuscript, some of them by the original scribe, but the majority of them by later hands. The corrected form of the text agrees with codices D, N, X, Y, Γ, Θ, Π, Σ, Φ and the great majority of the minuscule manuscripts. Kenyon observed that Codex Alexandrinus had been "extensively corrected, though much more in some books than in others". In the Pentateuch, whole sentences were erased and a new text substituted. Kings was the least corrected of the books. In the Book of Revelation only 1 of its 84 singular readings was corrected. This is in stark contrast with Codex Sinaiticus, in which 120 of the Apocalypse's 201 singular readings were corrected in the 7th century.  Each leaf has Arabic numeration, set in the verso of the lower margin. The first surviving leaf of Matthew has number 26. The 25 leaves now lost must have been extant when that note was written.

Textual features.

Textual critics have had a challenging task in classifying the Codex; the exact relationship to other known texts and families is still disputed. The Greek text of the codex is of mixed text-types. It is a representative of the Byzantine text-type in the Gospels – the oldest examples of the type – and the rest of the New Testament books are of the Alexandrian text-type, with some Western readings. Kurt Aland placed it in Category III in the Gospels, and in Category I in rest of the books of the New Testament. The Byzantine text of the Gospels has a number of Alexandrian features, it has some affinities to the textual Family Π. Soden associated the text of the gospels with Family Π, though it is not a pure member of this family. According to Streeter, it is the earliest Greek manuscript which gives us approximately the text of Lucian the Martyr, but a small proportion of the readings seem to be earlier.  Alexandrinus follows the Alexandrian readings through the rest of the New Testament; however, the text goes from closely resembling Codex Sinaiticus in the Pauline epistles to more closely resembling the text of a number of papyri (formula_1 for Acts, formula_1 for the Apocalypse). The text of Acts frequently agrees with the biblical quotations made by St. Athanasius. The gospels are cited as a "consistently cited witness of the third order" in the critical apparatus of the Novum Testamentum Graece, while the rest of the New Testament is of the "first order." In the Pauline Epistles it is closer to Sinaiticus than to Vaticanus. In the General Epistles it represents a different subtype than the Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus. In the Book of Revelation it agrees with Codex Ephraemi against Sinaiticus and Papyrus 47. In the Book of Revelation and in several books of the Old Testament, it has the best text of all manuscripts. In the Old Testament its text often agrees with Codex Sinaiticus.  In Genesis 5:25 it reads ΕΚΑΤΟΝ ΚΑΙ ΟΓΔΟΗΚΟΝΤΑ ΕΠΤΑ ΕΤΗ ("187 years"), Vaticanus reads – ΕΚΑΤΟΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΞΗΚΟΝΤΑ ΕΠΤΑ ΕΤΗ ("167 years");  In Deuteronomy 31:15 it reads εν στυλω ("in a pillar") for εν νεφελη ("in a cloud");  In Joshua 11:42 it reads ελαβεν ("took") for επαταξεν ("struck");  In Joshua 11:1 it reads μαδων ("maroon") for μαρρων ("mud");  In Judges 18:30 it reads υιου Μωυση, Vaticanus reads – υιος Μανασση;  In Ezra 10:22 (9:22 LXX) it reads Ωκειδηλος (Vaticanus – Ωκαιληδος) for Jozabad;  In Psalm 9:35 it reads κοπον ("work") for πονον ("pain").  Mark 16:9–20 is preserved in its traditional form in the Codex Alexandrinus.  In Luke 4:17 Alexandrinus has textual variant (opened) together with the manuscripts B, L, W, Ξ, 33, 892, 1195, 1241, l "547", syr, syr, syr, cop, cop, against variant ἀναπτύξας (unrolled) supported by א, D, K, Δ, Θ, Π, Ψ, "f", "f", 28, 565, 700, 1009, 1010 and other manuscripts.  In John 1:39, it has the unique reading ωρα ην ως εκτη ("about the sixth hour"), instead of ωρα ην ως δεκατη ("about the tenth hour"), as found in all other manuscripts.  In Acts 8:39 instead of πνεῦμα κυρίου ("spirit of the Lord") it has unusual textual variant ("the Holy Spirit fell on the eunuch, and an angel of the Lord caught up Philip") supported by several minuscule manuscripts: 94, 103, 307, 322, 323, 385, 453, 467, 945, 1739, 1765, 1891, 2298, 36, it, vg, syr.  In Acts 11:20 the manuscript has textual variant ("Greeks") together with the manuscripts formula_1, corrector c of Sinaiticus, and Codex Bezae, against ("Hellenists") supported by the rest of manuscripts except Sinaiticus ( — "Evangelists"). In Acts 15:18 it has variant supported only by formula_1.  In it reads του κυριου ("of the Lord") – instead of του θεου ("of the God") – along with the manuscripts formula_1 C* D E Ψ 33 36 453 945 1739 1891.  In Romans 2:5 it reads ανταποδοσεως ("reward") for αποκαλυψεως ("revelation").  In Romans 8:1 it reads Ιησου κατα σαρκα περιπατουσιν, for Ιησου (as א, B, D*, G, 1739, 1881, it, cop, eth). The reading of the manuscript is supported by D, Ψ, 81, 629, 2127, vg. The Byzantine manuscripts read Ιησου μη κατα σαρκα περιπατουσιν αλλα κατα πνευμα.  In 1 Corinthians 2:1 it reads μυστηριον along with formula_1, א, C, 88, 436, it, syr, cop. Other manuscripts read μαρτυριον or σωτηριον.  In 1 Corinthians 7:5 it reads τη προσευχη ("prayer") along with formula_1, formula_1, א*, A, B, C, D, G, P, Ψ, 33, 81, 104, 181, 629, 630, 1739, 1877, 1881, 1962, it vg, cop, arm, eth. Other manuscripts read τη νηστεια και τη προσευχη ("fasting and prayer") or τη προσευχη και νηστεια ("prayer and fasting").  In Ephesians 1:7 it reads χρηστοτητος for χαριτος along with 365 cop.  In Ephesians 4:14 it reads του διαβολου for της πλανης.  In 1 Timothy 3:16 it has textual variant ὃς ἐφανερώθη ("who was manifested") supported by Sinaiticus, Ephraemi, Boernerianus, 33, 365, 442, 2127, l "599", against ("God was manifested") (Sinaiticus, A2, C2, D, K, L, P, Ψ, 81, 104, 181, 326, 330, 436, 451, 614, 629, 630, 1241, 1739, 1877, 1881, 1962, 1984, 1985, 2492, 2495, Byz, Lect). Metzger's notation, A (for "videtur"), signifies the reading is damaged and cannot be established with certainty.  In Hebrews 13:21 it reads παντι εργω και λογω αγαθω for παντι αγαθω.  In 1 John 5:6 it has textual variant δι' ὕδατος καὶ αἵματος καὶ πνεύματος ("through water and blood and spirit") together with the manuscripts: Codex Sinaiticus, 104, 424, 614, 1739, 2412, 2495, l "598", syr, cop, cop, Origen. Bart D. Ehrman identified it as Orthodox corrupt reading.  In Revelation 1:17 it has unique reading ("firstborn") instead of ("the first").  In Revelation 5:9 it has ("redeemed to God"). This textual variant is supported only by Ethiopian manuscripts, and has no other Greek manuscript with it.

Verses the scribe did not include.

Alexandrinus is an important witness for the absence of "Pericope Adultera" (John 7:53-8:11). Gregory asserted in regard to the lost two leaves (John 6:50-8:52), "For by counting the lines we can prove that it was not in the book. There was not room for it". (A similar counting involving missing leaves is done with Codex Ephraemi).

Provenance.

Place of origin.

The manuscript's original provenance is unknown. Traditionally Alexandria is considered the place of its origin and it is the most probable hypothesis. Cyril Lucaris was the first who pointed to Alexandria as the place of origin of the codex. This popular view is based on an Arabic note from 13th or 14th century, on folio 1, which reads: "Bound to the Patriarchal Cell in the Fortress of Alexandria. Whoever removes it thence shall be excommunicated and cut off. Written by Athanasius the humble." "Athanasius the humble" is identified with Athanasius III, Patriarch of Alexandria from 1276 to 1316.  F. C. Burkitt questioned this popular view. According to Burkitt, the note reads: "Bound to the Patriarchal Cell in the Fortress of Alexandria. He that lets it go out shall be cursed and ruined. The humble Athanasius wrote (this)." The manuscript had been found on Mount Athos, and the manuscript might have been taken to Egypt by Cyril in 1616, and that all the Arabic writing in the manuscript could have been inserted between that date and 1621, when Cyril was elected Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. On this supposition "Athanasius the humble" might have been "some person of Cyril's staff who had charge of his library". According to Burkitt's view the codex was found on Athos, but it was written in Constantinople, because it represents a Constantinopolitan text (now known as the Byzantine text). This hypothesis was supported by Kirsopp Lake.  Frederic G. Kenyon opposed to the Burkit's view and argued that Cyril firmly believed in the Egyptian origin of the codex. A. S. Fulton, the Keeper of the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts in the British Museum, in 1938 re-examined the Athanasius note, and gave it as his opinion that on palaeographical grounds it could be dated 13th to 14th century and that the 17th century was excluded. In 1945 T. D. Moschonas published a catalogue of the library of the Patriarch of Alexandria, in which he printed two Greek notes, both from 10th-century manuscripts of John Chrysostom, inserted by the Patriarch Athanasius III. The two notes must have been written between 1308 and 1316. Although the note in the Codex Alexandrinus is entirely in Arabic, and therefore no identity of hand the Greek notes can be expected, the similarity of wording leaves no doubt that this also is the work of Athanasius III.  Burnett Hillman Streeter proposed Caesarea or Beirut for three reasons: it contains, after the New Testament, the two Epistles of Clement; it represents an eclectic text in the New Testament, Antiochian in the Gospels and Alexandrian in the Acts and Epistles, it suggests some place where the influence of Antioch and of Alexandria met; the text of the Old Testament appears to be a non-Alexandrian text heavily revised by the Hexapla, the Old Testament quotations in New Testament more often than not agree with Alexandrinus against Vaticanus.  According to Skeat the note in the codex indicated that the manuscript had not previously been in the Patriarchal Library in Alexandria. The manuscript was carried from Constantinople to Alexandria between 1308 and 1316, together with two mentioned above manuscripts of Chrysostom. It remained in Alexandria until 1621, when Cyril removed it once to Constantinople. Whether was originally written, in Constantinople or in Alexandria, is another question. Skeat did not try to give the answer on this question ("if any future scholar wisches to claim a Constantinopolitan origin for the Codex Alexandrinus, it is at least open to him to do so"). This view was supported by McKendrick, who proposes Ephesian provenance of the codex.  A 17th-century Latin note on a flyleaf (from binding in a royal library) states that the manuscript was given to a patriarchate of Alexandria in 1098 ("donum dedit cubicuo Patriarchali anno 814 Martyrum"), although this may well be "merely an inaccurate attempt at deciphering the Arabic note by Athanasius" (possibly the patriarch Athanasius III). The authority for this statement is unknown.

Date.

According to an Arabic note on the reverse of the first volume of the manuscript, the manuscript was written by the hand of Thecla, the martyr, a notable lady of Egypt, a little later than the Council of Nice (A.D. 325). Tregelles made another suggestion, the New Testament volume has long been mutilated, and begins now in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, in which chapter the lesson for Thecla's Day stands. "We cannot be sure how the story arose. It may be that the manuscript was written in a monastery dedicated to Thecla." Tregelles thought that Thecla's name might have on this account been written in the margin above, which has been cut off, and that therefore the Egyptians imagined that Thecla had written it. Cyril Lucaris believed in Thecla's authorship, but the codex cannot be older than from late 4th century.  Codex Alexandrinus contains the Epistle of Athanasius on the Psalms to Marcellinus, so it cannot be considered earlier than A.D. 373 ("terminus post quem"). In the Acts and Epistles we cannot find such chapter divisions, whose authorship is ascribed to Euthalius, Bishop of Sulci, come into vogue before the middle of the fifth century. It is "terminus ad quem". The presence of Epistle of Clement, which was once read in Churches recalls to a period when the canon of Scripture was in some particulars not quite settled. It is certain that the writing of the manuscript appears to be somewhat more advanced than that of the Vaticanus or Sinaiticus, especially in the enlargement of initial letters. It is also more decorated, though its ornamentations are already found in earlier manuscripts.  Codex Alexandrinus was written a generation after codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, but it may still belong to the fourth century. It cannot be later than the beginning of the fifth. Currently it is dated by the INTF to the 5th century.

In Britain.

The codex was brought to Constantinople in 1621 by Cyril Lucar (first a patriarch of Alexandria, then later a patriarch of Constantinople). Lucar was involved in a complex struggle with the Turkish government, the Catholic Church, and his own subordinates. He was supported by English government and presented the codex to James I in 1624, as a gratitude for his help. The codex was presented through the hands of Thomas Roe (together with minuscule 49), the English ambassador at the court of the Sultan. King James died before the manuscript started for England, and the offer was transferred to Charles I in 1627. It became a part of the Royal Library, British Museum and since 1973 of the British Library. It was saved from the fire at Ashburnham House (the Cotton library) on 23 October 1731, by the librarian, Richard Bentley.

Collations and editions.

The Epistles of Clement of the codex were published in 1633 by Patrick Young, the Royal Librarian. A collation was made by Alexander Huish, Prebendary of Wells, for the "London Polyglot Bible" (1657). The text of the manuscript was cited as footnotes. Richard Bentley made a collation in 1675.  The Old Testament was edited by Ernst Grabe in 1707–1720, and New Testament in 1786 by Carl Gottfried Woide, in facsimile from wooden type, line for line, without intervals between the words, precisely almost as in original. In 1 Tim 3:16 he edits ΘΣ, and combats in his prolegomenon the opinion of Wettstein, who maintained that ΟΣ was the original reading, and that the stroke, which in some lights can be seen across part of the Ο, arose from part of a letter visible through the vellum. According to Wettstein, part of the Ε on the other side of the leaf does insert the O. Wettstein's assertion was also disputed by F.H. Scrivener, who found that "Ε cut the Ο indeed... but cut it too high to have been reasonably mistaken by a careful observer for the diameter of Θ."  Woide's edition contained some typesetting errors, such as in the Epistle to Ephesians – (4:1) and πραόθητος for πραότητος (4:2). These errors were corrected in 1860 by B. H. Cowper, and E. H. Hansell, with three other manuscripts, in 1860. The Old Testament portion was also published in 1816-1828 by Baber, in three folio volumes. The entire manuscript was issued in photographic facsimile by the British Museum, under the supervision of E. M. Thompson in 1879 and 1880. Frederic G. Kenyon edited a photographic facsimile of the New Testament with reduced size in 1909. The text of the Old Testament followed four parts in 1915.

Textual criticism.

According to Bentley this manuscript is "the oldest and best in the world". Bentley assumed that by supplementing this manuscript with readings from other manuscripts and from the Latin Vulgate, he could triangulate back to the single recension which he presumed existed at the time of the First Council of Nicaea. Wettstein highly esteemed the codex in 1730, but he changed his opinion in 1751 and was no longer a great admirer of it. He came to the conviction that Athos was the place of its origin, not Alexandria. Michaelis also did not esteem it highly, either on account of its internal excellence or the value of its readings. The principal charge which has been produced against the manuscript, and which had been urged by Wettstein, is its having been altered from the Latin version. Michaelis countered that the transcriber who lived in Egypt would not have altered the Greek text from a Latin version, because Egypt belonged to the Greek diocese, and Latin was not understood there. Woide, who defended the Greek manuscripts in general, and the Codex Alexandrinus in particular, from the charge of having been corrupted from the Latin, discerned two hands in the New Testament.  Griesbach agreed with Woide and expanded on Michaelis' point of view. If this manuscript has been corrupted from a version, it is more reasonable to suspect the Coptic, the version of the country in which it was written. Between this manuscript and both the Coptic and Syriac versions there is a remarkable coincidence. According to Griesbach the manuscript follows three different editions: the Byzantine in the Gospels, the Western in the Acts and General epistles, and the Alexandrian in the Pauline epistles. Griesbach designated the codex by letter A.  Tregelles explained the origin of the Arabic inscription, on which Cyril's statement appears to rest, by remarking that the text of the New Testament in the manuscript begins with Matthew 25:6, this lesson (Matthew 25:1-13) being that appointed by the Greek Church for the festival of St. Thecla.

Importance.

It was the first manuscript of great importance and antiquity of which any extensive use was made by textual critics, but the value of the codex was differently appreciated by different writers in the past. Wettstein created a modern system of catalogization of the New Testament manuscripts. Codex Alexandrinus received symbol A and opened the list of the NT uncial manuscripts. Wettstein announced in his "Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Graeci" (1730) that Codex A is the oldest and the best manuscript of the New Testament, and should be the basis in every reconstruction of the New Testament text. Codex Alexandrinus became a basis for criticizing the "Textus Receptus" (Wettstein, Woide, Griesbach).

The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII; Gregory-Aland no. A or 02, Soden δ 4) is a fifth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. It is one of the four Great uncial codices. Along with the Codex Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. Brian Walton assigned Alexandrinus the capital Latin letter A in the Polyglot Bible of 1657. This designation was maintained when the system was standardized by Wettstein in 1751. Thus, Alexandrinus held the first position in the manuscript list.

Alexandrijský kodex ("Codex Alexandrinus", London, British Library, MS Royal 1. D. V-VIII) je jeden z nejstarších rukopisů Bible, řecký majuskulní kodex pocházející z konce 5. století. Kodex byl napsán v Egyptě. Původně se skládal z 820 pergamenových listů, z nichž se dochovalo celkem 773. Rozměry listů jsou 32 cm (výška) a 26 cm (šířka), každý list má dva sloupce o 49 - 52 řádcích. Obsahuje s několika mezerami celý Starý zákon, Nový zákon se také vyznačuje rozsáhlejšími mezerami. Volně je k biblickému textu připojen list Klementův.