A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Vol. I.

pointed) fall into a straight line, and the figure becomes a large cross (No. 7). In Evan. 66 the vertical is crossed above the semicircle by a minute horizontal line.

Omega took the form Ω, even when omicron and theta were square; thus it appears on the Rosetta stone, but in the Hyperides and Herculaneum rolls it is a single curve, much like the w of English writing, only that the central part is sometimes only a low double curve (No. 10, l. 6). In the Cotton Genesis, Codd. Vatican., Sinaiticus, Alex., Ephraemi, Bezae, Claromont., Nitriens., Rossanensis, there is little difference in shape, though sometimes Cod. Vatican. comes near the Herculanean rolls, and Cod. Alex, next to it: elsewhere their strokes (especially those in the centre) are fuller and more laboured. Yet in Cod. N it is often but a plain semicircle, bisected by a perpendicular radius, with the ends of the curve bent inwards (No. 14, l. 2). In the late uncials (Nos. 7, 16) it almost degenerates into an ungraceful W, while in Cod. Augiensis (photograph, l. 18) the first limb is occasionally a complete circle.

These details might be indefinitely added to by references to other codices and monuments of antiquity, but we have employed most of the principal copies of the Greek Testament, and have indicated to the student the chief points to which his attention should be drawn. Three leading principles have perhaps been sufficiently established by the foregoing examples:

First, that the uncials used in writing differ from the capitals cut in stone by the curved shapes which the writing hand naturally adopts(34).

Secondly, that the upright uncials of square dimensions are more ancient than those which are narrow, oblong, or leaning(35).

Thirdly, that the simpler and less elaborate the style of writing, the more remote is its probable date.

Copies of a later age occasionally aim at imitating the fashion of an earlier period, or possibly the style of the older book from which their text is drawn. But this anachronism of fashion may be detected, as well by other circumstances we are soon to mention, as from the air of constraint which pervades the whole manuscript: the rather as the scribe will now and then fall into the more familiar manner of his contemporaries; especially when writing those small letters which our Biblical manuscripts of all dates (even the most venerable) perpetually crowd into the ends of lines, in order to save space.

11. We do not intend to dwell much on the cursive handwriting. No books of the Greek Scriptures earlier than the ninth century in this style are now extant(36), though it was prevalent long before in the intercourse of business or common life. The papyri of Hyperides (e.g. No. 9) and the Herculanean rolls, in a few places, show that the process had then commenced, for the letters of each word are often joined, and their shapes prove that swiftness of execution was more aimed at than distinctness. This is seen even more clearly in a petition to Ptolemy Philometor (B.C.

164. represented in the “Paléographie Universelle” (No. 56). The same great work contains (No. 66) two really cursive charters of the Emperors Maurice (A.D. 600) and Heraclius (A.D. 616). Other instances of early cursive writing may be found in two Deeds of Sale, A.D. 616, and 599, a Manumission in 355, an Official Deed in 233, a Deed of Sale in 154, in Aristotle on the Constitution of Athens, about 100, in a Farm Account in 78-79, in a Receipt in A.D. 20, in the Casati contract in B.C. 114, in a