INTRODUCTION DESCRIPTIVE OF THE ST. GERMAIN MANUSCRIPT (G). § 1. General notice. § 5. History. § 2. Title and number. §3. External description. § 4. Contents.. § 6. Character of the text of St. Matthew. § 7. Note on punctuation. § 1. IN preparing my plans for an edition of the Latin Vulgate of the New Testament, which I undertook some four or five years ago for the Delegates of the University Press, I was speedily led to examine the preparations made by Bentley for the same purpose. Amongst other interesting notices in his correspondence with his coadjutors J. J. Wetstein and J. Walker, I found that he laid great stress upon a Manuscript called the Germanum Latum, in the library of St. Germain des Prés at Paris. Wetstein, writing on the 3rd Nov. 1716 (Bentley's Correspondence, Ep. 198, ed. Wordsworth, Lond. 1842), apologizes particularly for not being able to make a collation of it for Bentley, and implies that it could not be found at the time of his visit. Three years later Bentley sent a young Fellow of Trinity College, named John Walker, to work for him in Paris, and writes to him strongly on this subject in a letter dated Trin. Coll. Sept. 13, 1719 (Ep. 213, p. 554), as follows: 'Robert Stephens set out a Latin Bible, Folio Paris 15461. In the New Testament he used several MSS. out of St. German's Library; One he marks Germ. Latum, a square book, which, by the Lections, I guess to be the very best in Paris. This by all means collate most exactly. For others I leave you to your own knowledge of MSS,' &c. In my own visits to the National Library at Paris in 1882 and 1883, I naturally made a special point of identifying the MSS. collated by Walker 2, and this in particular. I found that though it was highly esteemed by earlier scholars-as will appear in the sequel-it had not apparently been much examined of late, except for the fragment of the Shepherd of Hermas which it contains at the end of the volume, and that apparently no detailed description of it existed in print. 1 This is a reprint of the edition referred to in Appendix I, published 1538-40. I possess a copy of it purchased at Parma. 2 See the list in Appendix II. The fact that the Gospel according to St. Matthew in this MS. usually ranks as an old Latin text (g,), is perhaps sufficient of itself to justify this description by way of introduction to the first complete edition of this Gospel. But the book is in other ways remarkable, as will appear by the details which follow, especially in regard to the subscriptions at the end of books and classes of books. § 2. Title and Number. The volume in question is now in the National Library at Paris, and is numbered Fonds Latin 11553. The following is M. Delisle's description in his Inventaire des MSS. de Saint Germain des Prés, p. 3, Paris 1868: 'Proverbes et différents livres de la Bible, version Italique, IX s. Notes tironiennes dans les marges; lettres ornées.' The earliest title by which it is known, that of Germanum Latum, is first found in the preface to the beautiful folio edition of the Latin Bible published by Robert Stephens at Paris in the ycars 1538-1540 (see p. xv. foll. and App. I), by which name it was cited by Lucas Brugensis and referred to by Bentley. In the catalogue of the St. Germain's Library made in 1677 it received the number 15, which is still visible in faint characters on the centre of the lower margin of fol. 1, just under the intercolumnar space1. In the extracts from this catalogue printed by Montfaucon it is thus described: 'Cod. 15 Biblia Sacra, in quorum fine liber Pastoris sive Hermae mutilus' (Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum, t. ii, p. 1124, Paris 1739). This is the number by which it is known to R. Simon (1680), Martianay (1693), Walker (1719), Le Long (Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. i, p. 242, 1723), and Sabatier (e.g. in the preface to Tobit, Biblior. Sacror. Vers. Lat. ant. vol. i, p. 706, Rheims 1743). When a new catalogue was made (in 1735-44)2 it received the number 86, which is visible in two places in the book. Sabatier died in 1742, and had been forced to reside for fifteen years out of Paris; facts which account for the use, in his volumes, of the number (15), with which he was familiar when he began his work, after it had become technically incorrect. The result is unfortunate, for we find Doms Toustain and Tassin in the almost contemporary publication, the Nouveau 1 Some of the numbers of this catalogue are however earlier than 1677, being cited by P. Labbe, S.J, in his Nova Bibliotheca in 1653. pp. 29, 34, 45, 46. Delisle, Cabinet des MSS. de la Bibliothèque Nationale, ii. p. 50. Paris 1874, 4o. 2 Delisle, l. c. p 51. Traité de Diplomatique, frequently citing a different book by the number San Germ. 15 (see tom iii. pp. 121, 131, 250, 339, 347, 352 published in 1757). This last is now Lat. 11,532 and 11,533, and is described at some length below in Appendix II, under the letter v. The two books are also externally a good deal alike, and I cannot but suppose that they have been to some extent confused in consequence, and our book possibly somewhat overlooked. Sabatier in the Gospels calls our book S. Germ. 1, whence Tischendorf cites it as g1. I propose to call it G in my edition of the Vulgate New Testament. M. Delisle has of course renumbered the St. Germain MSS. in his general inventory of the Latin MSS. of the National Library, the first fasciculus of which was published in 1863. The inventory of the St. Germain collection appeared in 1868 in the Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, series 6, tomes i, iii, and iv. Our MS., as I said, is Lat. 11,553. §3. External description. The book, which is the second volume of a Bible, the first of which was lost sometime between 1540 and 1680, is simply bound in white vellum. It is plainly written in Caroline minuscules, with subscriptions, titles, &c. in uncials; and may be conjecturally assigned to the middle of the 9th century, though its date has not been ascertained with any certainty. It now consists of 191 leaves of moderately stout vellum (i.e. folios 1-189+130 bis +140 bis) measuring 15 inches in height, by 13 in breadth (centimetres 39.3 × 33). From this considerable breadth it was called by Robert Stephens 'Germanum latum' in contrast to his 'Germanum oblongum' (now Lat. 11,504-5, Walker's o (2)). In external appearance it is, as I have said, very like another well-known MS. of the same collection now numbered Lat. 11,532-3, Walker's v. The gatherings are generally quaternions, numbered as follows, J-Z and I-(XII), the last being unmarked. These marks are placed in the centre of the lower margin of the first leaf of each gathering. The following is a complete enumeration of the signatures. Fol. I is marked J and commences a quaternion. After it a gathering marked K is lost, which contained, according to a note at the bottom of f. 8 B, from Prov. xxvii. 5 to the end, the whole of Ecclesiastes, the Canticles and Wisdom of Solomon up to x. 1 (a xxvii cao. prouer. usq. ad xm cam Sapie deest Ecclesiastes et Catica Caticorum). The lost matter would just fill a quaternion Fol. 9 is marked L and a new hand begins here. Fol. 17 should be marked M but is blank this gathering only contains 7 leaves, leaf 20 being single, but nothing is lost. F. 24 is marked N; f. 32, O; f. 40, P; f. 48, Q; f. 56, R; f. 64 was S, but the lower margin is cut off; f. 72, T; f. 80, U and begins a quinion of which the last leaf is lost. At the bottom of fol. 88 B is a note in the same hand as the former 'a xiiio cao usq; ad finem scdi. Macha. deest.' After this two gatherings X and Y have been lost, probably making up between them 10 leaves, the latter part of which may have contained some concluding matter and a blank page or pages. Fol. 89 is marked Z and begins the New Testament in what appears to be a different hand. F. 97 is marked I; f. 105, II, and begins a quinion; f. 115, III, also beginning a quinion; f. 125 has no mark, but a ternion begins here in apparently a different hand; f. 130 verso is blank; f. 130 bis is marked V, and exhibits apparently a third hand using long tails to some of the letters on the lower margin and continuing down to f. 167; f. 138 is marked VI, and begins a quaternion containing a leaf (140 bis) which was not numbered when I examined it; f. 145, VII, begins a gathering of seven leaves, 150 being single, but nothing is lost; f. 152, VIII; f. 160, VIIII; f. 168 X, beginning another hand; f. 176, XI, beginning a binion; f. 180 has no mark but begins a quinion with which the book concludes. Thus it will be seen that the book at present consists altogether of 24 gatherings thus divided : : 2 short quaternions, marked (M) and VII = 9 16 quaternions, I, L, N, O, P, Q, R, (S), T, Z, I, V, VI, VIII, VIIII, X = 128 = 30 Total 191 When the volume was complete it contained the following additional matter: viz. eight gatherings at the beginning marked A-H, K, which was probably a quaternion, the last leaf of U, the ten leaves or so of X and Y, and probably the rest of the Pastor of Hermas. These gatherings make up about 83 leaves. The remainder of the Pastor would fill 17 more according to my calculations; so that the whole might have occupied over 100 leaves more than are at present extant, making 291 or 292 in all. This would be a thick volume, but by no means of unexampled size, as may be seen by the descriptions in the first and second appendices. The pages are divided into two columns, each ruled with 52 lines, and there are on an average 37-38 letters to a line. I have noticed nothing specially remarkable in the writing. The ornamentation is confined to the use of red for the uncial work of the titles, subscriptions, and beginnings of capitula, and a few important words in the body of the text, such as AURUM THUS ET MURRAM and PATER NOSTER QUI ES IN CAELIS in the text below, and to a small number of initial letters of a more ambitious kind. For instance, the large P at the beginning of the first Epistle to Timothy contains inside its upper part a dragon standing in an affected attitude on one leg, cleverly drawn in brown ink, and the M of Multifariam in the Epistle to the Hebrews is a grotesque composition made up of the bodies of fish with floriated points. There is also a curious arrangement of numbers in a wheel-like figure on fol. 89 B, apparently connected with the Canons that follow. The 'notae tironianae' are found on folios 6, 78 B, 79, 79 B, 80, 80 B, 81, 82, 82 B, 83-84, 83-84 B, 85, 85 B, 86, 87, 88, 135-154 B, and are apparently glosses to passages in the same folios. I believe they have not as yet been read. § 4. Contents. Fol. I begins with the words of the Song of Moses 'Misisti iram tuam et comedit illos tamquam stipulam' which ends 'filii autem Israhel transierunt per siccum in medio mari' (Exod. xv. 8-20). Then follows Oratio Ambacum, f. 1, Oratio Annae, f. 1. 2, Esaiae Canticum, Azariae, f. 1 B, Hymnus Ananiae, Azariae, Misael, f. 1 B 2, after which Explicit Psalterium. Fol. 2. col. 2. Then follows Proverbs cum praefatione Hieronymi as far as 'apparuerunt herbę uirentes' c. xxvii. 25 with which words fol. 8 B ends. Then a gathering is lost which, as we have seen above p. vii, contained the remainder of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, and Wisdom up to x. 1 'Haec illum qui primus finctus est pater orbis terrarum cum solus esset creatus custodiuit' with which fol. 9 begins. Fol. 12 Explicit Sapientia Salomonis. Incipit liber Hiesu filii Sirach. The book ends with Solomon's prayer. Fol. 28 Incipit liber Dabreiamim quod interpretatur verba dierum. There is no division between the books at fol. 39 B. Fol. 53 Incipit Ezra. The title Ezdras runs on, but the first words of Nehemian b |