BIBLE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW IN LATIN In Latin, fragment... Lot 13

[BIBLE] GOSPEL OF MATTHEW IN LATIN In Latin, fragment in uncial of the 6th century (fragment reused to reinforce the spine of the second volume of Johannes Leunclavius, Jus Graeco-Romanum, II, Frankfurt, 1595 - sold with the lot). Rare fragment of the beginning of the Iliad. 2 fragments of reuse, long strips of parchment cut at the level of the 7 nerves, so as to reinforce the entrenerfs between the cover and the spine (304 x 63 mm. and 310 x 65 mm); 26 lines in uncial (desc. of Lowe, CLA 1801: "Script is regular stately uncial not of the oldest type, to be compared to the Ancona Gospels : the bow of A is attenuated and pointed; the upper bow of B forms a small triangle; the hasta of E is fairly high; the base of L terminates in a tiny triangle; the top of T usually has a thickening only at the left; bows and round letters are ample and fullblown"), in carbon ink, rubbing and traces of glue on the parts in contact with the entrenerfs, small worm work in the upper and lower margins; preserved in a red morocco case made by Nello Nanni (New York) with the volume in which it was bound. Attested as one of the earliest witnesses to the Gospel of Matthew in the Vulgate. TEXT This fragment is one of the earliest known Vulgate manuscripts for the Gospel of St. Matthew, probably the fourth or fifth oldest. St. Jerome had established the Vulgate only two centuries earlier; Pope Damasus I commissioned him in 383 to translate the four gospels into Latin, a task he then completed with the Old Testament during the last 34 years of his life (†420). The first five witnesses to the Gospel of Matthew, complete or fragmentary Vulgate, in chronological order (datable manuscripts): 1. Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 1395 (with other fragments preserved in Sankt Paul in Carinthia and in the Staatsarchiv and Zentralbibliothek in Zürich), several fragments, Italy, beginning of the 5th century. - 2. Autun, Bibliothèque municipale, ms 21 (with other fragments preserved in Paris, BnF, ms n.a. Lat. 1628), fragments, palimpsest, Italy, 5th century. - 3 Cividale, Museo archeologico nazionale (with other fragments preserved in Prague and Venice (relic in St. Mark's Basilica), several fragments, Italy, early 6th century. - 4 Ancona, Archivio capitolare, 101 leaves (incomplete), Italy, mid-6th century. - 5. Schøyen, MS 30 (old mark of our fragment). The stemma codicum of the Latin Gospels refers for the oldest manuscripts to versions older than the Vulgate, such as the Codex Vercellensis (fourth century), the Latin part of the Codex Bezae (fifth century) or other smaller fragments that no longer include the Gospel of Matthew. Lowe points out the similarities of our fragment with the one preserved in Ancona (CLA 278), which is said to have been commissioned or transcribed(?) by St. Marcellinus, bishop of Ancona from 550 to 566. Both manuscripts can be dated to the second third of the sixth century and are older than the complete witnesses of the Vulgate, about 150 before the Codex Amiatinus, the most important source for the Vulgate. Transcription: - Fragment (a) recto, inc. "[tot]um corpus..." (Matthew 6:23) des. "...[no] nne anima plu[s]" (6:25), and verso, inc. "quam esca ..." (Matthew 6:25) des. "...[no]n laborant [nequ]e nent" (6:28); - Fragment (b) recto, inc. "[dignus] ut intres ..." (Matthew 8:8) des. "...occid[en]te venient" (8:11), and verso, inc. "[e]t recumbent..." (Matthew 8:11) des. "...[ve]spere autem f[acto]". Like many of the earliest Vulgate witnesses, our fragment respects the layout that Jerome had chosen "per cola et commata", as he explains in his prologue to the book of Ezekiel "Legite igitur et hunc iuxta translationem nostram quia, per cola scriptus et commata, manifestiorem legentibus sensum tribuit: "Therefore, read this text according to our translation because, as the writing is pure and caesura, it gives a clearer meaning to the readers"; that is, materially, a deliberate cut in the sentence with a marked line break to emphasize the meaning of the text. Our fragments probably come from a two-column manuscript, estimated at over 200 leaves of about 252 x 240 mm. The fragments almost follow each other as only one leaf separated them. PROVENANCE The binding in which the manuscript has been preserved is a simple vellum with cardboard boards. It is likely that the fragment was cut and separated from the manuscript by a bookbinder in the vicinity of Frankfurt between 1595 and 1614-15, when Lord Herbert was traveling in Germany. There are many possible explanations for the manuscript's presence on German soil, but the most likely hypothesis is that it was there at the time of the visit of the first Irish and English Christian missionaries in the late sixth and seventh centuries. The