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Details
BIBLE, Ecclesiasticus, in Greek, manuscript on vellum [Eastern Mediterranean, 6th or 7th century]
A rare, fragmentary, survival of an early vellum biblical codex written in Greek uncials.
160 x 25mm. A vertical strip with portions of 19/22 lines in brown ink in handsome Greek Biblical uncial letters, one side preserving line beginnings (formerly used in a binding as a sewing guard, creased and with stitching holes). Between glass sheets. Fitted burgundy cloth folder and quarter-morocco case.
Provenance:
(1) Bernard Quaritch, cat. 1056 (1985), no 1.
(2) Schøyen Collection, MS 44.
Text:
The text of the fragment is from Ecclesiasticus 40, 25 - 41, 10, beginning with visible text at 40,26: ‘[…] χρήμα[τα καὶ ἰσχὺς]’ and ending ‘[πάντα ὅσα ἐκ γῆ]ς εἰς’. The Greek translation of Ecclesiasticus, or ‘The Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach’, was the only prevailing source for the text until the late 19th century when some late Hebrew fragments (10th-12th century) were recovered from the Cairo Genizah. Owing to the fragmentary nature of the Hebrew sources, the Greek translation remains the chief textual authority.
Script:
The script of the present fragment is the uncial form, used first in the late 3rd and 4th centuries for such deluxe and seminal Biblical manuscripts as the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus. The earliest witness to Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, known as the ‘Wyman Fragment’, written in late 3rd-century Greek uncial, and also part of the Schøyen collection was sold at Sotheby’s on 10 July 2012, lot 3. The style of writing remained in use until the 10th century. The present fragment can be dated on palaeographical grounds to the 6th-7th century, when uncial writing began to show an advance on the delicate style of the 5th century in the comparatively heavy forms of its letters, with — as in the present fragment — a more exaggerated contrast between thick and thin strokes, evident here especially in the vertical strokes of γ and Φ.
Bibliography:
R. Pintaudi, 'Papyri Graecae Schøyen (PSchøyen I)', Papyrologica Florentina 35, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection 5: Greek Papyri, I, Florence, 2005, pp.49-54.
A rare, fragmentary, survival of an early vellum biblical codex written in Greek uncials.
160 x 25mm. A vertical strip with portions of 19/22 lines in brown ink in handsome Greek Biblical uncial letters, one side preserving line beginnings (formerly used in a binding as a sewing guard, creased and with stitching holes). Between glass sheets. Fitted burgundy cloth folder and quarter-morocco case.
Provenance:
(1) Bernard Quaritch, cat. 1056 (1985), no 1.
(2) Schøyen Collection, MS 44.
Text:
The text of the fragment is from Ecclesiasticus 40, 25 - 41, 10, beginning with visible text at 40,26: ‘[…] χρήμα[τα καὶ ἰσχὺς]’ and ending ‘[πάντα ὅσα ἐκ γῆ]ς εἰς’. The Greek translation of Ecclesiasticus, or ‘The Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach’, was the only prevailing source for the text until the late 19th century when some late Hebrew fragments (10th-12th century) were recovered from the Cairo Genizah. Owing to the fragmentary nature of the Hebrew sources, the Greek translation remains the chief textual authority.
Script:
The script of the present fragment is the uncial form, used first in the late 3rd and 4th centuries for such deluxe and seminal Biblical manuscripts as the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus. The earliest witness to Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, known as the ‘Wyman Fragment’, written in late 3rd-century Greek uncial, and also part of the Schøyen collection was sold at Sotheby’s on 10 July 2012, lot 3. The style of writing remained in use until the 10th century. The present fragment can be dated on palaeographical grounds to the 6th-7th century, when uncial writing began to show an advance on the delicate style of the 5th century in the comparatively heavy forms of its letters, with — as in the present fragment — a more exaggerated contrast between thick and thin strokes, evident here especially in the vertical strokes of γ and Φ.
Bibliography:
R. Pintaudi, 'Papyri Graecae Schøyen (PSchøyen I)', Papyrologica Florentina 35, Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection 5: Greek Papyri, I, Florence, 2005, pp.49-54.
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