HKB
The Apocryphal books, like the N. T., are of course given only in two languages; in the Old Testament the Latin Vulgate holds the chief place in the middle, between the Hebrew and the Septuagint Greek(150). The Greek type in the other volumes is of the common character, with the usual breathings and accents; in the fifth, or New Testament volume, it is quite different, being modelled after the fashion of manuscripts of about the thirteenth century, very bold and elegant (see Plate x, No. 26), without breathings, and accentuated according to a system defended and explained in a bilingual preface πρὸς τοὺς ἐντευξομένους, but never heard of before or since: monosyllables have no accent, while in other words the tone syllable receives the acute, the grave and circumflex being discarded. The Latin is in a noble church-character, references are made from the one text to the other by means of small letters, and where in either column there is a void space, in consequence of words omitted or otherwise, it is filled up by such curves as are seen in the bottom line of our specimen. The foreign matter in this volume consists of the short Preface in Latin and Greek, Eusebius Carpiano (but without the canons), Jerome’s letter to Damasus, with the ordinary Latin Prologues and Arguments before each book. St. Paul’s Epistles precede the Acts, as in Codd. א, 61, 69, 90, &c. and before them stand the ἀποδημία παύλου, Euthalii περὶ χρόνων, the ordinary ὑποθέσεις to all the twenty-one Epistles (grouped together), with Theodoret’s prologues subjoined to thirteen of the ὑποθέσεις. By the side of the Latin text are numerous parallel passages, and there are also five marginal notes (on Matt. vi. 13; 1 Cor. xiii. 3; xv. 31; 51; 1 John v. 7, 8). The only divisions are the common Latin chapters, subdivided by the letters A, B, C, D, &c. Copies of laudatory verses(151), an interpretation of Proper Names, and a Greek Lexicon of the N. T., close the volume.
It has long been debated among critics, what manuscripts were used by the Complutensian editors, especially in the N. T. Ximenes is reported to have spent 4,000 ducats in the purchase of such manuscripts; in the Preface to the N. T. we are assured that “non quevis exemplaria impressioni huic archetypa fuisse: sed antiquissima emendatissimaque: ac tante preterea vetustatis, ut fidem eis abrogare nefas videatur: Que sanctissimus in Christo pater et dominus noster Leo decimus pontifex maximus, huic instituto favere cupiens ex apostolica bibliotheca educta misit....” Yet these last expressions can hardly refer to the N. T., inasmuch as Leo X was not elected Pope till March 11, 1513, and the N. T. was completed Jan. 10 of the very next year(152). Add to this that Vercellone, whose services to sacred literature have been spoken of above, brought to light the fact that only two manuscripts are recorded as having been sent to the Cardinal from the Vatican in the first year of Leo, and neither of them (Vat. 330, 346) contained any part of the N. T.(153) The only one of the Complutensian codices specified by Stunica, the Cod. Rhodiensis (Act. 52), has entirely disappeared, and from a Catalogue of the thirty volumes of Biblical manuscripts once in the library at Alcalà, but now at Madrid, communicated in 1846 by Don José Gutierrez, the Librarian, we find that they consist exclusively of Latin and Hebrew books, with the exception of two which contain portions of the Septuagint in Greek(154). Thus we seem cut off from all hope of obtaining direct information as to the age, character, and present locality of the materials employed for the Greek text of this edition.
It is obvious, however, that in the course of twelve years (1502-14), Ximenes may have obtained transcripts of codices he did not himself possess, and since some of the more remarkable readings of the Complutensian are found in but one or two manuscripts (e.g. Luke i. 64 in Codd. 140, 251; ii. 22 in Cod. 76), such copies should of course be narrowly watched. We have pointed out above the resemblance that Siedel’s codex (Act. 42, Paul. 48, Apoc. 13) bears to this edition: so too Cod. 4 of the Gospels. Mill first noticed its affinity to Laud. 2 or Evan. 51,