Wed Jun 12 12:24:26 1996
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From: Timothy John Finney
To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Subject: Where did the uncials go?
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Warning: this is a long post.
It's a strange thing that Robert Waltz brought up the question of where
the 8th century uncials went when he did. Last week I was looking at the
distribution by date of the pre-1000 AD MSS of Hebrews and was struck by
the hole in the 6th to 8th centuries.=20
The following is derived from NA27 appendix 1, where cent. =3D century, n =
=3D=20
total no. of mss dated to that century; nc =3D no. of (relatively) complete=
=20
mss that seem to have survived unmolested; nm =3D no. of mss made of=20
multiple fragments including palimpsests and mss with sizable continuous=20
sections; and ns =3D no. of mss comprised of single fragments. The multiple=
=20
fragments category is meant to include mss that do seem to have suffered=20
bad treatment.
The age distribution of the papyrus mss of Hebrews is then:
cent.=09n=09nc=09nm=09ns
0=090=090=090=090
1=090=090=090=090
2=091=091=090=090
3=092=090=091=091
4=092=090=090=092
5=090=090=090=090
6=090=090=090=090
7=091=090=090=091
8=090=090=090=090
9=090=090=090=090
10=090=090=090=090
and the age distribution for the uncials (excluding 0280 which I don=D5t=20
have data for) is:
cent.=09n=09nc=09nm=09ns
0=090=090=090=090
1=090=090=090=090
2=090=090=090=090
3=090=090=090=090
4=093=092=090=091
5=096=092=092=092
6=093=091=092=090
7=090=090=090=090
8=090=090=090=090
9=098=095=093=090
10=094=093=091=090
Apart from an anomalous 7th century papyrus, there seem to be two=20
extinctions: the first is of the papyri from the fifth century on, and=20
the second is of the uncials during the 7th and 8th centuries. (The=20
anomalous papyrus is p79. Having looked at it, I am surprised that anyone=
=20
managed to identify it, let alone date it.)
The disappearance of the papyri can be explained as being due to the=20
increasing popularity of parchment as a writing material. But the clear=20
gap in the uncials for the 7th and 8th centuries requires a different=20
explanation.
It may be that this is evidence of the Moslem conquest around 640 of=20
Palestine and Egypt which, until then, had probably been primary ms=20
production regions. However the survival of the uncials predating 640=20
must be accounted for. The following leans heavily on speculation and=20
hearsay. Nevertheless I beg your indulgence.
Ignoring single fragments, these older uncials are 01, 02, 03, 04, 06,=20
015, 016, 048 and 0285. Assuming they were in Palestine or Egypt around=20
640, how did they survive? 01 survived by finding its way to St.=20
Catherine=D5s Monastery, as did 0285. 02 survived through being adopted by=
=20
the Patriarchate at Alexandria. 03 somehow escaped to Constantinople,=20
possibly from the same place as 01 (Caesarea?), and ended up in the=20
Vatican after Constantinople fell in 1453. 04 was washed and used for=20
Ephraim=D5s sermons in minuscule script (more on this later). 048 was also=
=20
washed and used for something else. I don=D5t know the history of 06, but=
=20
to survive it would most likely have found refuge in a safer=20
north-westerly location or protection in a tolerated Christian=20
community within the Islamic sphere. 015 made it to Athos but was=20
seriously injured, while 016 hid in the sands of Egypt.
A mass extinction of Palestinian and Egyptian mss is a possible=20
explanation for the ascendancy of the Byzantine text. The Palestinian and=
=20
Egyptian copying workshops had been shut down, leaving only Byzantium to=20
make copies of the text that had developed there. (Here I have made the=20
postulate that refugees like 03 did not have the same status as=20
Byzantines when it came to being exemplars. I have no evidence for this,=20
except that there probably would have been more Byzantines than refugees.=
=20
In fact mss like 1739 may well be descendants of refugees. Also,=20
conformation of mss to the Byzantine text as found in the 7th century=20
corrector of Sinaiticus, indicates a Byzantine standardisation in process=
=20
at this very time.)
Now to explain the 200 year gap in uncials extending even to Byzantium.=20
Perhaps Byzantium had never been a major copying centre but was forced to=
=20
become one by the sudden Moslem conquest of the traditional centres.=20
Accordingly the number of uncials would start at a low number and=20
increase from the time of the conquest, which is what we see above.=20
Perhaps the minuscule innovation was so complete that all of the older=20
uncials were disdained as things of the past and used to heat ovens (cf.=20
the wonderful story of Tischendorf=D5s discovery of Sinaiticus). The new=20
writing style made for faster, more compact copying. Like slide rules and=
=20
digital calculators, the old were neglected once the new arrived.
A weakness in the foregoing theory is that uncials exist after the 200=20
year gap. In defence I note that many of the 9th and 10th C. mss are a=20
mixture of uncial and minuscule writing. Others have the angular=20
(Slavonic) type uncial script of regions further removed from the Moslem=20
frontier.
As a final observation, it occurred to me today that there is a=20
similarity between minuscule and Arabic script. Perhaps the cursive=20
concept was borrowed from the Moslems. One possible advantage would be=20
that minuscule mss would look more like Arabic mss, and so promote their=20
survival in hostile environments.
Tim Finney
Baptist Theological College
and Murdoch University
Perth, W. Australia
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