Codex Regius (New Testament)


Codex Regius designated by siglum Le or 019, ε 56, is a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament, dated paleographically to the 8th century. The manuscript is lacunose. It has marginalia.

Description

The codex contains 257 thick parchment leaves, with an almost complete text of the four Gospels. The codex contains five lacunae.
The text is written in two columns per page, 25 lines per page, in large, not round uncial letters. It has breathings, and accents often added wrongly. It is carelessly written by an ignorant scribe. The letter phi is enormously large, the letter alpha presents the last stage of the uncial script.
The text is divided according to the κεφαλαια, whose numbers are given at the margin, and their τιτλοι at the top of the pages. It contains also the tables of the κεφαλαια before each Gospel. There is also another division according to the Ammonian sections, with references to the Eusebian Canons at the margin. It contains lectionary markings at the margin.
It was badly written by the scribe, who was more probably Egyptian than Greek, with a tendency for writing Coptic rather than Greek.
It has two endings to the Gospel of Mark, while John 7:53-8:11 is omitted.
; Omissions
; Additions
; Some readings
In Matthew 1:10 it reads Αμων for Αμως, the reading of the codex agrees with W, f13 and the Byzantine text.

Text

The Greek text of this codex is representative of the Alexandrian text-type in its late stadium. It contains a large number of Byzantine readings in the Gospel of Matthew. Aland placed it in Category II, which means it has a number of non-Alexandrian readings. According to Wisse, who examined Luke 1; 10; 20, their text is a "core member" of the Alexandrian text.
It is probably the fourth-best manuscript of the Gospels, inferior only to P75, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Sinaiticus. It is much closer to Vaticanus than to Sinaiticus.
In some cases it supports Sinaiticus and Vaticanus against almost all of the rest of manuscripts. In Matt 23:38 word ερημος omitted like in B and 184. In Matt 19:29 instead εκατονπλασιονα it has πολλαπλασιονα like in codices B and 1010.
In Matthew 19:16 it reads διδασκαλε along with manuscripts: א, B, D, f1, 892txt, 1010, 1365, 5, ita, d, e, ff1, copbo, eth, geo, Origen, Hilary;
In Luke 22:1 it reads ηγγισεν for εγγιζεν along with Codex Bezae.
In Luke 4:17 it has textual variant καὶ ἀνοίξας τὸ βιβλίον together with the manuscripts A, B, W, Ξ, 33, 892, 1195, 1241, 547, syrs, h, pal, copsa, bo, against variant καὶ ἀναπτύξας τὸ βιβλίον supported by א, Dc, K, Δ, Θ, Π, Ψ, f1, f13, 28, 565, 700, 1009, 1010 and many other manuscripts.
In Luke 14:5 it reads ὄνος ἢ βοῦς for υἱὸς ἢ βοῦς; the reading of the codex is supported by א, K, L, X, Π, Ψ, f1, f13, 33, 892, 1071, 547;
It was noted in the 19th century that there is strong resemblance to Codex Vaticanus, to the citations of Origen, and to the margin of the Harkleian Syriac.

History

Probably it was written in Egypt.
The text of the codex was cited by Robert Estienne as η' in his Editio Regia. It was loosely collated by Wettstein. Griesbach set a very high value on the codex. It was edited in 1846 by Tischendorf, but with errors.
The codex is located now at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, in Paris.