THE GREAT UNCIAL CODICES
THE GREAT UNCIAL CODICES
But before we cover all that, let’s first begin with a different kind of “canon list”: entire manuscript copies of the Apocrypha, and specifically the manuscript copies that appear in the four “Great Uncial Codices.” These are the four Bibles of the fourth and fifth century that have survived for us to examine. The latter two (Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus) are from the fifth century and, thus, outside of this 200-350 timeframe. Nevertheless, I shall discuss all the codex evidence as one unit. The earlier ones are Codex Vaticanus (the earliest[1]) and Codex Sinaiticus (dated to sometime after 325).
Each of these ancient manuscript Bibles included Apocrypha, as we see in the table below. That is not, however, the end of the inquiry. It is a little like the Melito List discussion—we simply do not know what went into creating these Bibles and whether the contents were all seen as Scripture. There are, sometimes, other Books contained in Bibles that are not seen as Scripture (just as most modern Bibles have introductions and essays in them). These Great Uncial Codices include a couple Books that no one today considers canon, and it is unclear if anyone at the time thought they were canon either.
Still, as with Melito, while we are not certain what to make of the evidence, the evidence is what it is:[2]
| Codex Vaticanus | Codex Sinaiticus | Codex Alexandrinus | Codex Ephraemi R. |
| Wisdom | Wisdom | Wisdom | Wisdom |
| Sirach | Sirach | Sirach | Sirach |
| Judith | Judith | Judith | ? |
| Tobit | Tobit | Tobit | ? |
| Baruch (after but separated from Jeremiah) | Baruch (but whether it was part of Jeremiah cannot be determined) | Baruch (position and lack of numbers imply it is part of Jeremiah) | ? |
| Susanna (as Daniel Ch 1) | Susanna? [all of Daniel is missing] | Susanna (as Daniel Ch 1) | ? |
| 1 Maccabees | 1 Maccabees | ? | |
| 2 Maccabees? | 2 Maccabees | ? |
As with inclusion, so with exclusion: it is hard to know what to make of it. The Old Testament of the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus is mostly lost (with no idea what, in fact, is lost), so no conclusions at all should be made from the absence of some Apocrypha in that one. Codex Sinaiticus was broken into pieces, with pieces still being discovered in the 21st century. While pieces of 1 and 4 Maccabees have been found, nothing from 2 Maccabees has been found.[3] I have found no scholarship on why 2 Maccabees is specifically thought to have been included, but there are general references to the thought that “all” the Deuterocanonical Books and/or “1-4” Maccabees were included, so that would seem to be the expectation. Codex Vaticanus (while missing a few pages) is essentially complete and did not include any of the Maccabees (1, 2, 3 or 4). For comparison, Vaticanus also does not include several canonical New Testament Epistles (which may have been originally included) or Revelation (highly debated as to whether it was originally included).[4]
With respect to the Maccabees, inclusion in two of the codices seems to help their case; exclusion in one seems to hurt their case. In either event, the evidence is not, by itself, determinative. The codices are just data points.
Other than the Maccabees, all the other Apocrypha were always included in all these ancient manuscript Bibles. We are often told how much work went into making a book, how expensive they were, etc. If nothing else, we see that the creators of these codices in the 300s and 400s always went to the trouble and expense of including those Apocrypha.
In addition, the Apocrypha are spread throughout the Bible—they are not segregated in one section nor identified any differently from the inarguably canonical Books, which seems to go against the idea of a “third category.”
However, while we are being so careful to avoid undue speculation, consider the differences from the Melito situation: we have multiple samples, not just one, and the samples have definite points of agreement. We have at least the outline of a definite Christian context: preparation of a full Bible codex. That is a context with clear application to the Christian canon question, even if it is not fully identical to the canon question. We have a definite level of importance (these would have been expensive and labor intensive creations for the early Church), even if we cannot conclude that either of the early ones were one of the fifty Bibles Eusebius prepared for the Emperor Constantine in 331 AD.[5] My point is not that any of these contextual facts makes this evidence conclusive, but that Melito’s List has far less going for it, and yet everyone devotes so much paper to speculating on it.
Also, I personally think it noteworthy (because there is no reason that it had to be done the way it was done) that the Church produced its own Old Testament and included it in its own Book, the Bible. It seems like it was important to the Church to maintain control of their own set of what the Old Testament was supposed to be. I.e., they did not acquire Jewish sets to use for Christians, they gave Christians a Christian set.
[1] Although not everyone agrees, as with everything else on this topic. There are even some who would claim that all four codices fall outside the 350 end date for my time frame.
[2] The table is assembled from data in Gallagher and Meade, p. 244-251.
[3] The Books of the Maccabees are largely unrelated. So, 2 does not “follow” 1 in sequence, as 2 Kings follows 1 Kings. The inclusion of 1 and 4 does not mean that 2 and 3 were also present, nor do they need to occur in between 1 and 4. Still, everything I have read indicates that they were thought to be included, although no one gets specific as to why. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus, which says “the entire Deuterocanonical books” were included.
[4] Later manuscript copies of them were added to Vaticanus in the Middle Ages. The question is whether they were replacements or new additions.
[5] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Bibles_of_Constantine. Some have made such a guess, but it does not seem like they are doing anything more than guessing.
