Codex Bezae - History

History

The place of origin of the codex is still disputed.

The manuscript is believed to have been repaired at Lyon 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 Stephanus's edition of the Greek New Testament. During the upheavals of the Wars of Religion in the 16th century, when textual analysis had a new urgency among the Reformation's Protestants, the manuscript was taken from Lyon in 1562 and delivered to the Protestant scholar Theodore Beza, the friend and successor of Calvin, who gave it to the University of Cambridge, in the comparative security of England, in 1581, which accounts for its double name. It remains in the Cambridge University Library (Nn. II 41).

John Mill collated and Wettstein transcribed (1716) the text of the codex. Both did their editions of the Greek Testament, but they both did their work carelessly. A much better collation was made about 1732 by John Dickinson.

Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener edited the text of codex in 1864 (rewritten text of the codex) and in 1899 (photographic facsimile).

The importance of the Codex Bezae is such that a colloquium held at Lunel, Herault, in 27–30 June 1994 was entirely devoted to it. 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.