The Codex
Boreelianus
University Library of
Description of the
manuscript 1
Description
of the manuscript
The manuscript commonly called the Codex
Boreelianus is a Greek uncial manuscript of the four gospels in a version of the
Byzantine Majority text. In the modern edition of the Novum Testamentum Graece and other works
which discuss the manuscript tradition of the New Testament it has the siglum F
09. The codex is often dated to the ninth or tenth century, but
palaeographically it is close to the lectionary British Library, Harley 5684 (=
G), which has been dated to the beginning of the eleventh century.[1]
According to the modern foliation it has 219
folia, but, as will be discussed below, this is not quite accurate. The folia
measure roughly 28 x 22 cm; usually they are a few mm smaller. The Codex
Boreelianus is not bound, but kept in a bookcase in loose quires. The beginning
and the end of the manuscript is missing, the first folio begins with Matthew
9:1, the last ends with John 13:34. Quite a number of (bi)folia are missing,
especially in Luke, and a number of leaves are mutilated, torn, cut or damaged
(e.g. fol. 2, 7, 16, 115, 140-142, 147, 149, 150, 152, 157, 160, 171, 173, 176,
192, 199). Yet folio 122 has been repaired. A modern foliation is written with
lead-pencil on the top corner on each recto folia, but it is somewhat flawed.
For example, fol. 140-142 are not three separate folia, but one folio which was
cut up in three parts. The numbering of a total of 92 quires or gatherings by
the same hand, often encircled, is incorrect. Both are retained in the digital
edition for reference purposes.
The manuscript is written in a late Greek
uncial (majuskel) script, with larger images on 71v (beginning of 
Mark), 128r (Luke) and 179r (John). Further
drawings (e.g. 170v) are rare, as are decorated initials (e.g. 110v, 180r, 181r,
219v). Headings in gold are more common (e.g. 17v, 74v, 83r), and in red
frequent (e.g. 88r, 105v, 111r; 191r at the bottom). A few parts of text are
erased (e.g. 55r, 59r, 66v).
Marginal texts in Greek in various hands,
including the hand of the manuscript, are also common, indicating frequent use
(see 24r, 27r, 33v, 53v, 55v, 67v, 68r, 83v, 101v, 124r, 149v, 157r, 159r, 170v,
179r, 180r, 190v, 200v for representatives of various examples). There are also
notes in Arabic (e.g. 9r, left top corner), and in Dutch (168r, and upside down
40r and 40v).
(for a series of photographs of the manuscript
as a whole and the bookcase in which it is preserved, click here)
History
of the manuscript
The Codex Boreelianus Rheno-Trajectinus, as it
is fully called, is named after Johan Boreel (1577-1629). He studied law and
theology, and published a Latin translation of the English study on the Book of
Daniel by Hugo Broughthon in 1599, and his own commentary in 1600.[2]
He was held in esteem by a number of noteworthy scholars of his time, most
notably Hugo Grotius. Boreel became a pensionary of Middelburg in 1613, of the
States of Zeeland in 1615, and grand pensionary (raadspensionaris) of Zeeland in 1625. He
was sent to the court of king James I of Britain on three occassions, and was
even knighted by the king.[3]
There is no record of Boreel obtaining the
codex, but it is generally thought that he obtained it on one of his travels to
the Middle East. In fact, it is only from the evidence forwarded by Johann Jakob
Wettstein that the codex is linked to Johan Boreel. In 1751 Wettstein published
a revised version of his Prolegomena ad
Testamenti Graeci editionem accuratissimam ... (originally published in
1730), which was incorporated in his Novum Testamentum Graecum editionis
receptae, cum lectionibus variantibus codicum mss ..., an edition of the
Greek New Testament based on various manuscripts. In these revised Prolegomena Wettstein mentions that his
‘codex F’ was based on a collation made by an unkown person. The collation was a
comparison between the manuscript and edited versions, yet only for the gospels
Matthew, Mark and halfway Luke. For unkown reasons it excluded the rest of Luke
and the whole of John, yet the curious remark Χριστῷ τελείῳ
χάρις on the page which gives the number of chapters of John (see 178v) is noted
and was copied by Wettstein. He also remarks that the manuscript begins with
Matthew 7:6, and that only the folia with Matthew 8:25 and Mark 11:6-16 are
missing, in other words, the manuscript was far more complete than at present.[4]
The collation had been pointed out to him by Izaak Verburg, rector of the
Amsterdam gymnasium, in 1730. Wettstein adds that the original had been in the
possession of Johan Boreel and that he was not aware of its current location.
Before Wettstein, the manuscript was never
referred to by New Testament textual critics. It did not play any role in the
edition of various Greek New Testament manuscripts undertaken by Erasmus (1516),
Robert Estienne (Stephanus) (1546) or Elzevi(e)r (1624, 1633).[5]
The anonymous collation was his only witness, and by then the manuscript had
already been out of scholars’ sight. What happened to it remains unknown.
Although we know that Johan Boreel’s library was sold in 1632, it is not
completely sure that the manuscript was among the items for sale. It could also
have remained in the possession of Boreel’s family, for example of his younger
brother, the theologian Adam Boreel (1602-54). Either way, there are no clues
about the manuscript’s whereabouts until it was found in 1823 by Jodocus Heringa
Ezn (1765-1840), professor of Divinity at the University of Utrecht, who became
rector magnificus of that university the next year.
In 1823 Heringa visited a friend and pupil of
his, the preacher Hendrik Herman Donker Curtius, in Arnhem, who showed him
fragments of an unknown manuscript which he had borrowed from Johannes Michaelis
Roukens, lawyer and member of the city council of Arnhem. Roukens allowed
Heringa to borrow the whole manuscript, who identified it as Wettstein’s ‘codex
F’ beyond any doubt, and was thus able to trace it back to Boreel. In a letter
of 11 March 1830 Roukens explained that the manuscript had been in the
possession of his father Arend Anton Roukens, mayor of Nijmegen, who had
inherited it from his father, the legal scholar Johannes Michaelis Roukens. It
was likely that he again had inherited from his father Theodoor Roukens,
secretary of the city council of Nijmegen, who probably got it from the library
of his brother, Willem Roukens.[6]
This Willem Roukens was a legal scholar, and mayor of Nijmegen from 1702 to
1705, when he was beheaded.[7]
Here the trail, such as it is, ends. There is no known connection between the
families of Boreel and Roukens which can explain how the manuscript ended up in
the latter’s hands, nor is there any clear indication as to why this family of
legal students and civil servants would have kept it in their possession for
three generations. The monogram (NLB?) on 168r with the date ‘9 Febr 1756’ does
not agree with any of the mentioned members of the Roukens family. The
scribblings in Dutch on 40r and 40v are difficult to decipher, and has as yet
not yielded any solid clues as to who possessed the manuscript after Johan
Boreel.
Heringa studied the manuscript, and he may have
left the identifications of the gospel and verse on almost each recto folio of
the manuscript. Before he could publish his notes he died in 1840. His successor
in the professorship of Divinity, H. E. Vinke, bought the manuscript from
Roukens for the collection of the University Libary. Word got around in the
scientific community, and Constantinus Tischendorf visited Utrecht a year later
to view the manuscript. However, it was summer and he was denied access. Yet he
was allowed to read Heringa’s papers on it,[8]
which were finally edited and published by Vinke in 1843 under the title Jodoci Heringa El. Fil. Disputatio de codice
Boreeliano, nunc Rheno-Trajectino ab ipso in lucem
protracto.
(for a digitized version of this work, click here)
After Tischendorf other scholars followed. The
bookcase in which the Codex Boreelianus is kept contains a paper with three
reports written by the same hand.
1) A report of four pages entitled ‘De codice
Boreelliano nunc ultra-jectino’, written in Latin, ending ‘Ultrajecti Kl.
Augusti MDCCCXLVII fr. J. B. O. Pitra O.S.B. ex Abbatia Solesmensi cong.
gall.’
2) A report of one page headed ‘8e eeuw’
(8th century) in French and Dutch, with a note at the end that this
was an oral account by Dom. Pitra later noted by the librarian, F. B. Adèr (died
1861).
3) A report of four lines on the date in Dutch,
with a note at the end that this was an oral account by Sam. Prideaux Tregelles
later noted by Adèr.
(for a digitized version of this paper, click
here).
The friar Pitra in question is Jean-Baptiste
François Pitra (1812-89) of the abbey of Solesmes, who was in Zwolle on 18
september 1847 for a celebration about Thomas à Kempis.[9]
He later became librarian of the Vatican Library, and was a cardinal from 1884
to 1897. Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1813-75) was an English theologian and New
Testament scholar.
Afterwards the interest in the manuscript
faded, until in March 2007 professor David Trobisch visited Utrecht and viewed
the manuscript with a number of collegues. This set a whole new interest in the
manuscript in motion, and directly lead to its digitization in September and
October the same year.[10]
Bart Jaski (with thanks to Jan Krans for
discussing the manuscript with me)
21-11-2007