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| Codex Bobiensis | |
|---|---|
| Name | Codex Bobiensis |
| Alt | Bobbio Gospel |
| Date | 4th–7th century (disputed) |
| Language | Latin (Vetus Latina) |
| Material | Vellum |
| Location | Biblioteca Ambrosiana (historically Bobbio Abbey) |
| Siglum | k or t |
Codex Bobiensis is an early Latin Gospel manuscript associated with Bobbio Abbey and transmitted in the Western Vulgate and Vetus Latina traditions. It has attracted attention in the study of New Testament textual history, comparative studies with Codex Bezae, Codex Claromontanus, and manuscripts preserved at Vatican Library, British Library, and Bibliothèque nationale de France. The manuscript is notable for distinctive readings that intersect debates involving Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, Arianism, Pelagianism, and the textual families labeled Western, Alexandrian, and Byzantine.
The manuscript is written on vellum in an uncial/insular hand comparable to scripts found at Lindisfarne, Monte Cassino, and monasteries influenced by Irish monasticism such as Iona and Wearmouth-Jarrow. Its folios show quire construction similar to manuscripts from Rome, Milan, and Ravenna; ink and ruling practices recall codices associated with Gregory the Great and liturgical manuscripts like the Book of Kells. Marginalia and corrections invoke scribal activity comparable to hands found in collections at Cambridge University Library, Bodleian Library, and Trinity College, Dublin. Paleographic features align with forms used during the eras of Pope Damasus I, Bishop Ambrose, and scribes linked to Cassiodorus.
The manuscript contains portions of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark the Evangelist, Luke the Evangelist, and John the Apostle with lacunae and unique readings paralleling witnesses such as Codex Amiatinus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Sinaiticus. Its variant readings engage with passages central to controversies addressed by figures like Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Athanasius of Alexandria. Notable are omissions and interpolations comparable to variants in the Western text-type, echoing witnesses quoted by Tertullian, Cyprian of Carthage, and Hilary of Poitiers. Certain pericopes provoke comparison with the longer endings debated in the work of Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen's Homilies.
Scholars have proposed dates ranging from the 4th to the 7th century, invoking paleography used in datings for manuscripts connected to Benedict of Nursia, Gregory the Great, and the Carolingian Renaissance. Provenance theories center on Northumbria, Italy, or Gaul, with institutional connections to Bobbio Abbey, founded by Irish monk Columbanus and linked to abbeys at Bobba, Saint Gall, and Furness Abbey. Discovery narratives involve collectors and repositories such as Ambrosian Library, Guglielmo Libri, and scholars like Guglielmo Cavallo, Giuseppe Cozza-Luzi, and Giuseppe Bianchini who compared it to materials at Parker Library and Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.
Textual critics situate the manuscript within the Western textual tradition alongside witnesses like Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, Old Latin manuscript, and Latin texts preserved in citations by Bede, Primasius, and Isidore of Seville. Its affinities prompt comparisons with Greek New Testament witnesses including Papyrus 75, Codex Alexandrinus, and readings attributed to Lucianic recension. Debates about its relationship to Jerome's Vulgate and revisions by Cassiodorus or Theodulf of Orléans involve cross-references to textual families identified by Westcott and Hort, Fenton John Anthony Hort, and later critics like Kurt Aland and Bruce Metzger.
Critical editions and discussions have been produced by editors and institutions such as Samuel Berger, Julius Bate, Henry J. White, Carsten Peter Thiede, and publishing houses tied to Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and the Society for Biblical Literature. The codex features in apparatuses of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece and commentaries by Eberhard Nestle, Kurt Aland, and Bruce M. Metzger. Philological treatment references comparative methods used in studies of Latin Fathers and catalogues maintained by Institute for New Testament Textual Research, Editio Critica Maior, and the Patrologia Latina.
The manuscript has influenced scholarship on the development of the Latin Gospel text, informing debates involving textual criticism, patristics, and historiography linked to John Bale, Richard Simon, Johann Jakob Griesbach, and F. J. A. Hort. Its readings have been cited in works by Wilhelm Schneemelcher, James M. Robinson, Ira Maurice Price, and modern commentators at institutions like Princeton Theological Seminary, Yale Divinity School, and Harvard Divinity School. Ongoing research situates it among the manuscripts assessed in projects at Bibliothèque nationale de France, Vatican Library, and the British Library, impacting modern translations produced by New Revised Standard Version, English Standard Version, and scholarly editions used at Ecole Biblique.