List of New Testament Uncials - Classification of Uncials

Classification of Uncials

In 1751, New Testament theologan Johann Jakob Wettstein knew of only 23 uncial codices of the New Testament. By 1859, Constantin von Tischendorf had increased that number to 64 uncials, and in 1909 Caspar René Gregory enumerated 161 uncial codices. By 1963 Kurt Aland, in his Kurzgefasste Liste had enumerated 250, then in 1989, finally, 299 uncials.

Wettstein inaugurated the modern method of classification. He used capital Latin letters to identify the uncials. Codex Alexandrinus received the letter "A", Codex Vaticanus – "B", Codex Ephraemi – "C", Codex Bezae – "D", until he arrived at the last letter used by him, "O". Succeeding generations used this pattern, but newly discovered manuscripts soon exhausted the Latin alphabet. As a result, letters of the Greek and Hebrew alphabets began to be used. Tischendorf, for example, assigned the Codex Sinaiticus the Hebrew letter א. Uncial 047 received siglum ב1, Uncial 048 received ב2, Uncial 075 received ג, Codex Macedoniensis – ו, to name a few. When Greek and Hebrew letters ran out, Gregory assigned uncials numerals with an initial 0 (to distinguish them from the symbols of minuscule manuscripts). Codex Sinaiticus received the number 01, Alexandrinus – 02, Vaticanus – 03, Ephraemi – 04, etc. The last uncial manuscript known by Gregory received number 0161. Ernst von Dobschütz expanded the number of uncials to 0208 in 1933.

As of 2012 over 320 sigla for uncial codices have been catalogued by the Institute for New Testament Textual Research (INTF) in Münster, Germany.

However, the 322 currently catalogued does not provide a precise count of all the New Testament Greek uncials. Uncial 0168 has been lost and over thirty manuscripts are associated with a smaller set of designations. Sometimes one number also applies to two separate manuscripts, as with uncial 092a and 092b, 0121a and 0121b, and 0278a and 0278b. Some other numerical designations should be reallocated to other lists: 055 (commentary), 0100 (lectionary), 0129 (lectionary), 0152 (talisman), 0153 (ostracon), 0192 (lectionary), 0195 (lectionary), 0203 (lectionary). Uncial 0212 from the 3rd or 4th century is more properly a witness to the Diatessaron than to the New Testament itself. So, the number 322 is merely nominal; the actual figure should be somewhat lower. Conversely, minuscule 1143, known as Beratinus 2, has some parts that were written in semi-uncial letters.