Fifty Bibles of Constantine
Encyclopedia
Constantine I and Christianity
During the reign of the Emperor Constantine the Great, Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Constantine, also known as Constantine I, had a significant religious experience following his victory at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312...
and prepared by Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea also called Eusebius Pamphili, was a Roman historian, exegete and Christian polemicist. He became the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine about the year 314. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the Biblical canon...
. They were made for the use of the Bishop of Constantinople in the growing number of orthodox
Orthodoxy
The word orthodox, from Greek orthos + doxa , is generally used to mean the adherence to accepted norms, more specifically to creeds, especially in religion...
churches. It was described by Eusebius in his Life of Constantine and his account is the only surviving source regarding their existence. It is speculated that this commission may have provided motivation for the development of the canon lists
Development of the Christian Biblical canon
The Christian Biblical canon is the set of books Christians regard as divinely inspired and constituting the Christian Bible. Books included in the Christian Biblical canons of both the Old and New Testament were decided at the Council of Trent , by the Thirty-Nine Articles , the Westminster...
, and that Codex Sinaiticus
Codex Sinaiticus
Codex Sinaiticus is one of the four great uncial codices, an ancient, handwritten copy of the Greek Bible. It is an Alexandrian text-type manuscript written in the 4th century in uncial letters on parchment. Current scholarship considers the Codex Sinaiticus to be one of the best Greek texts of...
and Codex Vaticanus
Codex Vaticanus
The Codex Vaticanus , is one of the oldest extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible , one of the four great uncial codices. The Codex is named for the residence in the Vatican Library, where it has been stored since at least the 15th century...
are possible surviving examples of these Bibles. There is no evidence among the records of the First Council of Nicaea of any determination on the canon; however, Jerome
Jerome
Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
(347-420), in his Prologue to Judith, makes the claim that the Book of Judith was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures".
Athanasius
Athanasius of Alexandria
Athanasius of Alexandria [b. ca. – d. 2 May 373] is also given the titles St. Athanasius the Great, St. Athanasius I of Alexandria, St Athanasius the Confessor and St Athanasius the Apostolic. He was the 20th bishop of Alexandria. His long episcopate lasted 45 years Athanasius of Alexandria [b....
(c.340) referred to another request of producing Bible manuscripts: "I sent to him volumes containing the holy Scriptures, which he had ordered me to prepare for him."Apologia Ad Constantium/Chapter 4 Athanasius could have received this request between 337-339.
Eusebian notes
According to Eusebius, Constantine I wrote him in his letter:
I have thought it expedient to instruct your Prudence to order fifty copies of the sacred Scriptures, the provision and use of which you know to be most needful for the instruction of the Church, to be written on prepared parchment in a legible manner, and in a convenient, portable form, by professional transcribers thoroughly practised in their art.
About accomplishing the Emperor's demand:
Such were the emperor's commands, which were followed by the immediate execution of the work itself, which we sent him in magnificent and elaborately bound volumes of a threefold and fourfold form.
This is the usual way in which Eusebian's text is translated, but there are more possibilities, because the phrase εν πολυτελως ησκημενοις τευχεσι τρισσα και τετρασσα διαπεμψαντων ημων has many meanings:
- Codices were prepared in three or four volumes – Bernard de MontfauconBernard de MontfauconBernard de Montfaucon was a French Benedictine monk, a scholar who founded a new discipline, palaeography; an editor of works of the Fathers of the Church; he is also regarded to be one of the founders of modern archaeology.-Early life:Montfaucon was born January 13, 1655 in the castle of...
; - Codices were sent in three or four boxes – F. A. Heinichen;
- Codices were prepared in with three or four folios – Scrivener;
- Text of the codices was written in three or four columns per page – Tischendorf, Gebhardt, and Gregory, Kirsopp LakeKirsopp LakeKirsopp Lake was a New Testament scholar and Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School. He had an uncommon breadth of interests, publishing definitive monographs in New Testament textual criticism, Greek palaeography, theology, and archaeology...
; - Codices were sent by threes or fours.
Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus
Constantin von TischendorfConstantin von Tischendorf
Lobegott Friedrich Constantin Tischendorf was a noted German Biblical scholar. He deciphered the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, a 5th century Greek manuscript of the New Testament, in the 1840s, and rediscovered the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th century New Testament manuscript, in 1859.Tischendorf...
, discoverer of Codex Sinaiticus, believed that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus were among these fifty Bibles prepared by Eusebius in Caesarea. According to him, they were written with three (as Vaticanus) or four columns per page (as Sinaiticus). Tishendorf's view was supported by Pierre Batiffol
Pierre Batiffol
Pierre Batiffol was a prominent French catholic priest and Church historian, known particularly as a historian of dogma....
.
Scrivener
Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener
The Reverend Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener, LL.D. was an important text critic of the New Testament and a member of the English New Testament Revision Committee which produced the Revised Version of the Bible...
rejected Tischendorf's speculation because of differences between the two manuscripts. In Sinaiticus, the text of the Gospels is divided according to the Ammonian Sections with references to the Eusebian Canons, but Vaticanus used the older system of division. Vaticanus was prepared in a format of 5 folios in one quire, but Sinaiticus had 8 folios. According to Scrivener, Eusebian Bibles contained three or four folios per quire (Scrivener used a Latin version of Valesius). Scrivener stated that the Eusebian is unclear, and should not be used for a doubtful theory.
Westcott and Hort argued the order of biblical books on the Eusebian list of the canonical books, quoted by Eusebius in "Ecclesiastical History" (III, 25), is different than every surviving manuscript. Probably none of the 50 copies survive today.
Caspar René Gregory
Caspar René Gregory
Caspar René Gregory was a American-born German theologian theologian.-Life:Gregory was born in Philadelphia. He studied theology at two Presbyterian seminaries: in 1865-67 at the University of Pennsylvania and at Princeton Theological Seminary...
believed that Vaticanus and Sinaiticus were written in Caesarea, and they could belong to the Eusebian fifty.
According to Victor Gardthausen
Victor Gardthausen
Victor Emil Gardthausen was a German ancient historian, palaeographer, librarian, and Professor from Leipzig University. He was author and co-author of some books; editor of ancient texts.- Life :...
Sinaiticus is younger than Vaticanus at least 50 years.
Kirsopp Lake – "copies of three and four columns" is grammatically sound, but there appeared to be not good evidence for this technical use of the words. "Sending them by threes of fours" is the most attractive, but there is no evidence that τρισσα can denote "three at a time". "In three or four columns per page" but there is only one known manuscript written in that way – Sinaiticus. Sinaiticus has a curious spelling of the word κραβαττος as κραβακτος; Sinaiticus spells Ισραηλειτης as Ισδραηλειτης, Vaticanus as Ιστραηλειτης; these forms have been regarded as Latin, and they can find in papyri from Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. No other known Greek district in which these forms were used. The argument for a Caesarean origin of these two manuscripts is much weaker than Egyptian.
According to Heinrich Schumacher (1883-1949), Eusebius instead prepared fifty lectionaries, not Bibles.
Skeat believed that Vaticanus was rejected by the emperor, for it is deficient in the Eusebia canon tables, contains many corrections (made in scriptorium), and lacks the books of Maccabees.
Kurt Aland
Kurt Aland
Kurt Aland was a German Theologian and Professor of New Testament Research and Church History. He founded the Institut für neutestamentliche Textforschung in Münster and served as its first director for many years...
, Bruce M. Metzger, Bart D. Ehrman
Bart D. Ehrman
Bart D. Ehrman is an American New Testament scholar, currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill....
doubt that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus were copied by Eusebius on the Constantine order.
See also
- Differences between codices Sinaiticus and VaticanusDifferences between codices Sinaiticus and VaticanusCodex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, two of great uncial codices, representatives of the Alexandrian text-type, are considered excellent manuscript witnesses of the text of the New Testament. Most critical editions of the Greek New Testament give precedence to these two chief uncial manuscripts,...
- Great uncial codicesGreat uncial codicesThe great uncial codices or four great uncials are the only remaining uncial codices that contain the entire text of the Greek Bible ....
External links
- Eusebii Pamphili de vita Constantini, libri IV, F. A. Heinichen, 1830
- The Bibles of Constantine at the The Development of the Canon of the New Testament
- Saan Galin Ang Biblia, pp. 24-25