Editing Codex Bezae (section)

== History ==
The codex's place of origin is still disputed; both [[Gaul]] ([[France]]) and southern [[Italy]] have been suggested.<ref>{{Cite book | first=James Neville | last=Birdsall | editor-first=Wolfgang | editor-last=Schrage | contribution=The Geographical and Cultural Origin of the Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis: A Survey of the Status Quaestionis, mainly from the Palaeographical Standpoint | title=Studien zum Text und zur Ethik des Neuen Testaments: Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstag von Heinrich Greeven | pages=102–114 | year=1986 | publisher=De Gruyter | location=Berlin; Boston | isbn=9783110850154 | doi=10.1515/9783110850154-008}}</ref><ref name="parker">{{Cite book | first=David Charles | last=Parker | author-link=David C. Parker | title=Codex Bezae: An Early Christian Manuscript and its Text | year=1992 | publisher=Cambridge University Press | location=Cambridge | isbn=978-0-521-07236-6 }}</ref>{{rp|261–276}} Other proposed places of origin include [[Egypt]], [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] and [[Beirut]].{{r|CDL-CB}}

The manuscript is believed to have been repaired at [[Lyon]] (France) in the ninth century, as revealed by a distinctive ink used for supplementary pages. It was closely guarded for many centuries in the monastic library of St [[Irenaeus]] at Lyon. The manuscript was consulted, perhaps in Italy, for disputed readings at the [[Council of Trent]], and was at about the same time collated for [[Editio Regia|Stephanus's edition]] of the Greek New Testament. During the upheavals of the [[French Wars of Religion|Wars of Religion]] in the 16th century, when textual analysis had a new urgency among the [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]]'s Protestants, the manuscript was stolen from the monastic library in Lyon when French [[Huguenots]] ransacked the library in 1562. It was delivered to the Protestant scholar [[Theodore Beza]],<ref>{{Cite web | first=Kevin | last=Knight | title=Codex Bezae | url=http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04083a.htm | year=2017 | website=www.newadvent.org | publisher=New Advent | access-date=July 22, 2018 | quote=Beza wrote in the letter accompanying his gift that the manuscript was obtained from the monastery of St. Irenæus in Lyons, during the war in 1562. Lyons was sacked by the Huguenots in that year and this manuscript was probably part of the loot. The reformer said it had lain in the monastery for long ages, neglected and covered with dust; but his statement is rejected by most modern scholars. It is claimed, in fact, that this codex is the one which was used at the Council of Trent in 1546 by William Dupré (English writers persist in calling this Frenchman a Prato), Bishop of Clermont in Auvergne, to confirm a Latin reading of John 21, si eum volo manere, which is found only in the Greek of this codex. Moreover, it is usually identified with Codex beta, whose peculiar readings were collated in 1546 for Stephens' edition of the Greek Testament by friends of his in Italy. Beza himself, after having first denominated his codex Lugdunensis, later called it Claromontanus, as if it came not from Lyons, but from Clermont (near Beauvais, not Clermont of Auvergne). All this, throwing Beza's original statement into doubt, indicates that the manuscript was in Italy in the middle of the sixteenth century, and has some bearing upon the locality of the production.}}</ref> the friend and successor of [[John Calvin|Calvin]], who gave it in 1581 to the [[University of Cambridge]], in the comparative security of England, which accounts for its double name. It remains in the [[Cambridge University Library]] (Nn. II 41).<ref name="INTF">{{Cite web | title=Liste Handschriften | publisher=Institute for New Testament Textual Research | location=Münster | url=http://intf.uni-muenster.de/vmr/NTVMR/ListeHandschriften.php?ObjID=20005 | access-date=16 March 2013 }}</ref><ref name="metz-ehrman">{{Cite book | first1=Bruce Manning | last1=Metzger | author-link1=Bruce M. Metzger | first2=Bart D. | last2=Ehrman | author-link2=Bart D. Ehrman | title=The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration | edition=4 | year=2005 | publisher=Oxford University Press | location=New York; Oxford | isbn=978-0-19-516122-9 | url=https://archive.org/details/textnewtestament00metz | url-access=limited}}</ref>{{rp|70–73}}

Scholar [[John Mill (theologian)|John Mill]] collated and biblical scholar [[Johann Jakob Wettstein]] transcribed (in 1716) the text of the codex. Both did their editions of the Greek Testament, but both did their work carelessly. A much better collation was made about 1732 by John Dickinson.

In 1787, the University of Cambridge appointed [[Thomas Kipling|Dr Thomas Kipling]] to edit a facsimile edition which appeared in two volumes in 1793.

The English cleric [[Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener|Frederick H. A. Scrivener]] edited the text of the codex in 1864 (rewritten text of the codex)<ref name="scrivener">{{Cite book | first=Frederick Henry Ambrose | last=Scrivener | author-link=Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener | title=Bezae Codex Cantabrigiensis: Being an exact Copy, in ordinary Type, of the celebrated Uncial Graeco-Latin Manuscript of the Four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles | year=1864 | publisher=Bell and Daldy | location=London | url=https://archive.org/details/bezaecodexcanta00cambgoog }}</ref> and published a photographic facsimile in 1899.

The importance of the manuscript is such that a colloquium held at [[Lunel, Hérault]], in the south of France on 27–30 June 1994 was entirely devoted to it.<ref>The story of the colloquium has been chronicled by one of the participants: J.-M. Auwers, "Le colloque international sur le Codex Bezae", Revue Théologique de Louvain 26 (1995), 405–412. See also: {{Cite book | editor1-first=David Charles | editor1-last=Parker | author1-link=David C. Parker | editor2-first=Christian | editor2-last=Amphoux | author2-link=Christian Amphoux | title=Codex Bezae, Studies from the Lunel Colloquium | year=1996 | publisher=Brill | location=Leiden}}.</ref> Papers discussed the many questions it poses to our understanding of the use of the Gospels and Acts in early Christianity, and of the text of the New Testament.