Editing Codex Amiatinus (section)

==History==
[[File:Codex Amiatinus (dedication page).jpg|thumb|right|Page with dedication; "Ceolfrith of the English" was altered into "Peter of the Lombards"]]
Three copies of the Bible were originally commissioned by Abbot [[Ceolfrith]] in 692.{{r|Metzger}} This date has been established as the [[double monastery]] of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow secured a grant of additional land to raise the 2000 head of cattle needed to produce the [[vellum]]. [[Bede]] was most likely involved in the compilation. De Hamel suggests that the [[Digest (Roman law)|pandects]] were prepared, possibly partly inscribed, and potentially corrected in a few places by Bede himself.<ref>{{Cite book | first=Christopher | last=de Hamel | title=Meetings with Medieval Manuscripts | pages=91–93}}</ref> Bede's handwriting may be present.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/16/bible-margin-father-english-history-venerable-bede-manuscript A smoking quill? Notes in Bible margin could be handwriting of the Venerable Bede] - Tim Dowling, The Guardian Newspaper</ref> In 716, Ceolfrith accompanied one copy, the Codex Amiatinus, intended as a gift to [[Pope Gregory II]], but he died en route to Rome on 29 September 716 at [[Langres]], Burgundy.<ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03536a.htm Hind, George. "St. Ceolfrid." ''The Catholic Encyclopedia''. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 17 May 2013]</ref>{{r|Metzger}} The book later appears in the ninth century in [[Abbazia di San Salvatore]], Monte Amiata, in the [[March of Tuscany]] (hence the description "Amiatinus"), where it is recorded in a list of the Abbey's relics dated 1036, describing it as being an Old and New Testament "written in the hand of the blessed Pope Gregory".{{r|MWRM}} It remained in the San Salvatore Monastery until 1786 when it passed to the [[Laurentian Library]] in [[Florence]].

The dedication page had been altered and the principal librarian to the Laurentian, [[Angelo Maria Bandini]] suggested that the author was Servandus, a follower of [[Benedict of Nursia|St. Benedict]], and that it had been produced at [[Monte Cassino]] around the 540s. This claim was accepted for the next hundred years, establishing it as the oldest copy of the Vulgate, but scholars in Germany noted the similarity to 9th-century texts. In 1888, [[Giovanni Battista de Rossi]] established that the Codex was related to the Bibles mentioned by Bede. This also established that Amiatinus was related to the [[Ceolfrid Bible|Greenleaf Bible fragment]] in the [[British Library]]. Although de Rossi's attribution removed 150 years from the age of the Codex, it remains the oldest complete text of the Vulgate.

As the primary source of the Vulgate, the manuscript was of particular importance to the Catholics during the [[Counter-Reformation]]. Protestant translations derived from the original language of the Scriptures, but the Latin text of the Amiatinus was earlier than any then-known Hebrew manuscript, making it a "major piece of propaganda in the battle for textual precedence". In 1587 [[Pope Sixtus V]] demanded the book be sent to Rome where it was consulted for a new papal edition of the Bible, the [[Sixtine Vulgate]];{{r|MWRM|p=64}} although in the event, little or no use was made of its readings in either the Sistine or subsequent [[Sixto-Clementine Vulgate|Sixto-Clementine]] official Vulgate editions, whose editors rather preferred later medieval Vulgate texts and editions now known to have been heavily corrupted by non-Vulgate readings.

In view of the many accumulated [[Corruption (linguistics)|corruptions]] in all published editions of the Vulgate so far, the [[Oxford University Press]] accepted in 1878 a proposal from classicist [[John Wordsworth]] (later [[Bishop of Salisbury]]) to produce a new critical edition of the Vulgate New Testament.<ref>{{Cite book | first=John | last=Wordsworth | title=The Oxford Critical Edition of the Vulgate New Testament | page=4 | year=1883 | publisher=Oxford University Press | location=Oxford | url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008730879}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book | first=E.W. | last=Watson | title=Life of Bishop John Wordsworth | year=1915 | publisher=Green Longmans | location=London | url=https://archive.org/details/a613342800watsuoft}}</ref> This was eventually published as ''Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Iesu Christi Latine, secundum editionem sancti Hieronymi'' (''The Latin New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the version of Saint Jerome'') in three volumes between 1889 and 1954;<ref>{{Cite book | editor1-first=John | editor1-last=Wordsworth | editor2-first=Henry Julian | editor2-last=White | title=Nouum Testamentum Domini nostri Iesu Christi Latine, secundum editionem sancti Hieronymi | trans-title=The Latin New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to the version of Saint Jerome | date=1889–1954 | publisher=Clarendon Press | location=Oxford | lang=Latin}} 3 vols,</ref> the Codex Amiatinus being a primary source for the entire text; which also followed this manuscript in presenting the text in sense lines, ''cola et commata'' without any other indication of punctuation. In 1907 Pope [[Pius X]] commissioned the [[Benedictine]] monks in Rome to prepare a critical edition of Jerome's Vulgate, entitled ''{{lang|la|Biblia Sacra iuxta latinam vulgatam versionem}}'' (''The Holy Bible according to the Latin Vulgate Version''), which eventually emerged as a counterpart Old Testament to the Oxford New Testament, following largely the same critical principles, and according similar primary status to the Codex Amiatinus text (other than for the Psalms); and similarly deriving its layout, ''cola et commata'' from Amiatinus.<ref>{{Cite book | author=Pontifical Abbey of St Jerome-in-the-City | title=Biblia Sacra iuxta latinam vulgatam versionem | trans-title=The Holy Bible: Latin Vulgate Version| date=1926–1995 | publisher=Libreria Editrice Vaticana | location=Rome | isbn=978-8820921286 | lang=Latin}} 18 vols.</ref> It is now kept at the Laurentian Library (shelf number Amiatino 1).{{r|CE}}