Mon Jun 10 21:10:51 1996
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From: Maurice Robinson
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Subject: Re: Manuscript fragments....
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On Mon, 10 Jun 1996, Nichael Lynn Cramer wrote:
[Waltz:]
>>I thought I would check that. Using the Kurzgefasste Liste (1st Ed,
>>since that's what I have at home), I looked for *all* ninth century
>>minuscules and uncials. ....
>>even when they are of the same date, uncials seem to be
>>more likely to have been damaged.
> A couple of things come to mind. First, I wonder if there was any
> significant correlation between Uncial/Minscule scripy and book material
> during this period?
As far as I know, there was not. The introduction of paper in the 12th
or 13th and later centuries might explain part of the reduction in number
of minuscule copies in the later era of the minuscules, but at the time
of the uncial to minuscule transition, there are no known factors I know
of which would cause a problem as regards availability of material.
Minuscule script was developed primarily because it was easier to write
than uncial, and took up less leaves within a document.
> If not, it would be useful to know what (if any) patterns of damage the
> Uncials exhibit. If so, could we infer that was there something about the
> larger characters that tended to make the books more prone to damage?
Certainly the script alone would not make a MS any more or less prone to
damage. Typical instances of accidental damage would be the loss of an
internal quire or the beginning or last page(s) of a MS. The extant MSS
which have had missing portions supplied (marked "supp" in the
apparatuses) attest to this situation. The likely cause still remains
deliberate destruction of the uncial exemplars once a minuscule copy had
been made, as Lake proposed. The existing uncial fragments which had been
put to palimpsest use testify to at least part of this near-universal
disassembly or destruction of uncials so that they might be turned to
other uses. (It is interesting that the Council of Trullo in 692 had
prohibited such destruction of biblical MSS, especially their use as
palimpsests; a century later, with the change of script occurring, this
decree was obviously no longer in force).
> For example, is the binding the culprit here? The larger size of the
> characters would tend to put the binding under greater stress because books
> would need to be thicker for an equal amount of text
No need to postulate any of this. Only about 50 MSS contain the entire NT
bound as a single volume. Most MSS were bound only as the four gospels,
or the Acts and Catholic epistles, or the Pauline Epistles (Revelation
usually stood alone, since it had no liturgical use within the lectionary
system). The minuscule MSS containing any similar portion would be nearly
the same size and thickness (recognizing Aleph, A, B, C, and D as
exceptions on the grand scale); also, minuscule MSS which placed the
biblical text in the center but surrounded that text with lengthy catenae
would end up as thick as uncial MSS previously had been.
> There's also
> the minor affect that fewer characters per page means proportionally more
> page turning. A damaged or broken binding will clearly put the leaves at
> greater risk.
The quality of the binding certainly could be a factor; however, I think
you will find that there was probably MORE page turning in the minuscule
MSS, since most of them were rubricated for lectionary use, and pages were
turned quite frequently as a continuous-text MS served double duty as a
lectionary. Interestingly, the lectionary MSS themselves (the pages of
which were obviously turned sequentially, seem to show less wear than
many of the continuous text minuscule MSS).
> More generally would a physically smaller book be more or less likely to
> survive (i.e. is it safer because it presents a smaller "target")?
MSS are preserved in all kinds of sizes, from true "miniature" books to
the massive grand uncial type of volumes. Proportionally, there is
certainly an "average size" volume for both uncial and minuscule MSS,
once the extremes are discounted, but there is nothing within that range
to explain one cause of destruction more than another merely due to size
alone. E.g., Sinaiticus is complete in the NT; Vaticanus is missing from
Heb 9:14 to the end (supplied by a minuscule hand from a different
exemplar); A is missing the first 25 chapters of Matthew; C as a
palimpsest is only about half complete. There is no rhyme or reason
regarding survival which can be discerned among the great uncials, except
in the case of C, in which we know it was disassembled and reused for
those "significant sermons of Ephraem".
_________________________________________________________________________
Maurice A. Robinson, Ph.D. Assoc. Prof./Greek and New Testament
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Wake Forest, North Carolina
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