Codex Vaticanus

Codex Vaticanus (Vatican Library, Vat. gr. 1209) is a mid-4th-century Greek parchment Bible that has resided in the Vatican Library since at least 1475, when it appears in the library's first surviving catalog. Its origin is unknown; Egypt, Caesarea, and Rome itself have all been proposed as the place of production. The codex is written in three columns per page, in elegant biblical uncial, and originally contained the entire Greek Bible. It is now missing Hebrews 9:14 to the end of Revelation, plus 1-2 Timothy, Titus, and Philemon — the last quires were lost in antiquity. The witness is a chief reference for textual criticism of both Testaments. For the Greek Old Testament, Vaticanus preserves the Septuagint in a remarkably pure Old Greek form, especially in the historical books. For the New Testament, its text is short, sober, and free of many of the harmonizing additions characteristic of later Byzantine manuscripts. Bruce Metzger judged it "the most important biblical manuscript known," and the Westcott-Hort critical text of 1881 took Vaticanus as its primary witness. Vaticanus shares its high antiquity with Codex Sinaiticus; the two were almost certainly produced within decades of each other and may even share a scriptorium. The Vatican released a full photographic facsimile in 1889-1890 and a high-resolution digital edition in 2015. The codex is rarely shown but its text underwrites every modern critical edition of the Greek New Testament — Nestle-Aland, the United Bible Societies, and the Tyndale House Greek New Testament all weight Vaticanus heavily. Sources: Bruce Metzger and Bart Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament (4th ed., 2005); Philip B. Payne, "Vaticanus Distigme-obelos Symbols," NTS 63 (2017); Theodore C. Skeat, "The Codex Vaticanus in the 15th Century," JTS 35 (1984); Vatican Apostolic Library digital facsimile (2015).