chapter 4

Scribes

Overview of the Scribal Hands

The identification and delineation of different scribal hands in Alexandrinus

has occasioned debate, a brief history of which follows. In his 1786 edition of
the Greek NT, Woide asserted that there were two scribes at work in the text.
When the first facsimile of the codex was produced under the guidance of
Edward Maunde Thompson between 1879 and 1881, Thompson identified two
scribes at work in the Gospels, with the hand changing at the beginning of
Luke’s Gospel text. During the production of the second (reduced) facsimile
between 1909 and 1957, the British Museum’s Keeper of Manuscripts Frederic
Kenyon postulated that there were two scribal hands for the production of the
Old Testament and three other hands for the NT. More recently, the scribes of
Alexandrinus received three pages of discussion in an appendix of Skeat and
Milne’s 1938 Scribes and Correctors of Codex Sinaiticus; in disagreement with
Kenyon’s conclusion regarding the number of scribes, Skeat and Milne con-
cluded from the tailpiece designs (or coronides) and palaeographic features
that there were only two hands involved in the production of the entire codex.
The text received a similarly brief treatment in two popular publications by
Skeat and Milne disseminated by the Trustees of the British Museum in The
Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Alexandrinus in 1938, with an updated second
edition in 1963. In 1939, Kenyon responded in disagreement with the conclu-
sions of Skeat and Milne in Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, to which
Skeat replied in his 1957 introduction to the final installment of the Reduced
Facsimile.
This chapter will survey the evidence presented by each of these historical
discussions and, after evaluating the data from the manuscript, conclude that
there are two scribes at work in the Gospels. The broader question of number
of scribes throughout the codex is beyond the scope of this study.

Historical Perspectives on the Scribes

C. G. Woide
Woide noted in his edition of the NT text of Alexandrinus (1786) that two
hands were evident in the text. Based on ink and parchment (see Chapter 2 for
details), differences in letters, the beginnings of books, the chapter divisions,
and use of the Eusebian apparatus, Woide determined that the work of the two
scribes was divided in this way:

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���4 | doi ��.��63/9789004274853_��6

scribes 183

1. Matthew, Mark, the κεφάλαια for Luke, 2 Corinthians 10:8 to the end of
the letter, all the Pauline Epistles (including Hebrews) except Romans
and 1 Corinthians, and Revelation.
2. Luke, John, Acts, the Catholic Epistles, Romans, 1 Corinthians, and
2 Corinthians 1:1–10:8.1

Woide appears to be reporting a change of hand at 2 Corinthians 10:8, but

this must be unintentional, since that portion of 2 Corinthians is missing
from Alexandrinus and a change of scribes at 1 Corinthians 10:8 is reported by
­others.2 Woide was silent on the Clementine Epistles.

E. M. Thompson
The fourth volume of the full-sized facsimile of Alexandrinus (containing the
NT) was the first to be published by the British Museum. In the introduction,
written in 1879, Thompson identified two scribes at work in the NT based on
the handwriting:

1. Matthew through Mark and the kephalaia of Luke (V4.F2–19; 18 folia),

and everything following 1 Corinthians 10:8 (V4.F96–144; 49 folia).
2. Luke, John, Acts, the Catholic Epistles, Romans, and 1 Corinthians up
through 10:8 (V4.F20–95; 76 folia).

Scribe 2 was identified based on the following criteria: 1) “the letters [of this
scribe] are more widely spaced and are a little larger than elsewhere”; 2) the
base of δ and the cross-stroke of π are both extended by this scribe but not by
the other; 3) this scribe used thicker vellum and a more yellow ink; and 4) “the
use of crosses affixed to the kephalaia, . . . to the beginnings of Books, and occa-
sionally to the last line of a column” (as opposed to the 7-shaped paragraphus
used elsewhere for the same function).3 Thompson also evaluated the position
of Woide as inadequate:

1 M. Gottlieb Leberecht Spohn, Caroli Godofredi Woidii Notitia Codicis Alexandrini cum variis
eius lectionibus omnibus (Leipzig: Sumtibus I. G. I. Breitkopfii, 1788), 21–22.
2 Woide’s observation: “Priori atramento reliquiae Matthaei, Marcus, et index Periocharum
Lucae et deinde secunda epistola ad Corinthios a medio versus octavi Capitis decimi, nec
non reliquae epistolae Pauli, epistola ad Hebraeos, et revelatio Ioannis exaratae sunt; pos-
teriori Lucas, Ioannes, Acta Apostolorum, epistolae catholicae omnes, epistola ad Romanos,
prima ad Corinthios et secunda ad medium versus octavi Capitis decimi” (Spohn, Caroli
Godofredi Woidii Notitia Codicis Alexandrini, 21).
3 Facsimile of the Codex Alexandrinus (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1879–1883),
4:5. Scrivener later criticized Thompson’s assignment of two scribes to the NT: “His rea-
sons appear to us precarious and insufficient, and he seems to cut away the ground from