Codex Palatinus (e)

Reflection

Codex Palatinus — designated e in the Old Latin apparatus, catalogued as Vetus Latina 2 — is a late fourth or early fifth-century purple Gospel codex preserving 147 folios across three European libraries: Turin, Dublin, and London. The manuscript was severely damaged in the 1904 fire at the Biblioteca Nazionale di Torino, which destroyed much of the Italian portion and left the remaining leaves charred. The codex is written in silver uncials on purple-dyed vellum and arranged in the older Western Gospel order — Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. Its text is among the most interesting in the Old Latin tradition: an African base text similar to Bobiensis (k) with European corrections layered on top, evidence of the circulation of multiple Latin recensions across the late antique Mediterranean. Bonifatius Fischer's reconstruction of the European Old Latin used Palatinus alongside Veronensis and Vercellensis as primary witnesses to the pre-Vulgate Latin text that Jerome's translation would soon supersede. The manuscript's luxury production — purple vellum, silver letters — indicates it was prepared for liturgical display in an episcopal or imperial chapel context, not as a working scholarly text. Palatinus is one of the small group of purple Latin Gospel codices that demonstrate the visual prestige of the Christian book in the decades when Constantinian patronage was elevating Scripture to imperial-class material splendor.

Sources: Bonifatius Fischer, Beiträge zur Geschichte der lateinischen Bibeltexte (Herder, 1986); Roger Gryson, ed., Vetus Latina: Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel (Herder, ongoing); Bruce M. Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament (Oxford, 1977).