Damascus may how. re-arrang lection. also made to the blue and green factions which were then disturbing the John of peace and undermining the stability of the empire (Beveтоπρáσivos). It is clear, then, that the origin of the Sacra Parallela is to be sought at least as ever have far back as the third decade of the seventh century: and if this be so, the ed an most we can infer from the preface attributed to John Damascene in Codd. earlier colVat. and Rup. is that as far as regards the Scriptural or Patristic matter he rearranged or augmented an earlier collection, and any profane quotations may have been absorbed from existing gnomologies. If we may hazard a conjecture we should say that the original matter was arranged alphabetically under different titles, so as to include all proper subjects in an order proceeding from the creation of man to the day of death; the title of the first series of extracts being Α. περὶ τῆς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου πλάσεως καὶ κατασκευῆς. and the last being Ω. περὶ ὥρας καὶ ἡμέρας θανάτου κτέ. and this must have been altered by John Damascene, something on the principle of Dogberry, "Write God first: for God forbid but that God should go before such villains"; so that the book begins with the doctrine of the Trinity. A. περὶ ἀϊδίου θεότητος τῆς ἁγίας καὶ ὁμοουσίου Τριάδος. The question then arises as to whether any traces of John Damascene are found in our book. quaintance with The margins of the book are filled with medallion portraits of persons An acof ecclesiastical manner and habit; these are meant to represent the different writers from whom quotations are made; and M. Bordier in his description of John Dathe Ornaments of Greek MSS. in the National Library alludes to the portrait found in of John Damascene as found in the volume. I have not however been able to our Codex. verify his statement. M. Bordier's observation runs as follows: "Pour Moïse, ayant besoin d'un saint personnage investi du caractère sacerdotal, il peint un homme à barbe noire, portant sur la poitrine une étole blanchée ornée de deux croix rouges: pour un homme qui fut une partie de sa vie illustre dans le monde, Jean Damascène, il est en laïque, vêtu d'une toge et la tête ceinte d'un bandeau de perles, &c." But whether M. Bordier is right or wrong in this identification, it should mascene is Cod. Reg. 923 quotes the following nonbiblical authors. be noticed that there is a single passage in which he is quoted. On f. 146 we find Ιω Μουνζούρ ἐκ τοῦ ν' κεφ. Αδύνατον εὑρεθῆναι δύο τινα μὴ [δι]αφέροντα ἀλλήλων κατά τι. Now this John Munzur is the celebrated John of Damascus. Cf. Suidas: Ἰωάννης ὁ Δαμασκηνὸς ὁ ἐπικληθεὶς Μανσούρ and a number of other references collected by Leo Allatius in the Prolegomena prefixed to Lequien's edition of John of Damascus. The name itself is said by some to be the name of his father and by others to be an insulting cognomen attached to him by the Emperor'. For a discussion of this point see the Prolegomena referred to. Especial attention should be paid to a quotation from Cedrenus in which he calls him Ἰωάννης μοναχὸς καὶ πρεσβύτερος ὁ χρυσορρόας ὁ τοῦ Μανσούρ, for this quotation seems to shew that he is also spoken of as Monk and Presbyter. For this reason one would incline to believe that a connexion exists between John of Damascus and any florilegium bearing the name of John Monachus, John Presbyter or a compound of the two. (The cases in which such a title is added by a later hand are of course more doubtful.) The same conclusion as to the existence of Collections of Sacred Parallels earlier than John of Damascus is drawn in a somewhat different manner in a note at the beginning of the book by some former possessor or librarian. "Codex membr. litteris uncialibus nono ad minimum sæc. scriptus quo continentur Parallela e variis Scripturæ veterumque Ecclesiæ doctorum locis collectis nempe Ignatii, Clementis Romani et Alexandrini, Dyonisii Alexandrini, Philonis, Josephi, Eusebii, Athanasii, Basilii, Gregorii, Chrysostomi, Nili, Evagrii et Maximi qui cum sæc. VI vixerit sæc. octavi revocandus videtur horumce Parallelorum scriptor, antiquior quippe Joanne Damasceno cui uberiora Parallela vulgandi noster hic auctor materiam præbuit.” A superior limit of time may of course be found in the latest author quoted: but it is doubtful whether Maximus does belong to the period assigned above, and I believe that he is rather regarded by some as a contemporary of John Damascene. The following is a more extended list of the authors quoted: Apostoli Sancti (= Ap. Const.). Athanasius. Athenodorus (Frater Gregorii). Basil. 1 Cf. Langen, Johannes von Damaskus, p. 20. We shall probably be safe in regarding John of Damascus as the latest of the writers referred to: only one passage has been inserted from his writings and that of a very trivial character. There is no necessity, however, on account of this quotation, to regard the MS. as a collection of Damascene Parallels. We shall see presently that an important collection of Parallels in the Vatican Library bears the names of Leontius and John: and it is interesting to note that in Cod. Coislin. 294, which is a collection of Parallels, both the writers Leontius Damascenus and Joannes Mansur are quoted. It is probable, therefore, that Damascus is the real home of the Collection of Parallels from which successive editions and arrangements by different hands have been derived. After I had finished my examination of the Paris MS., I discovered that Attention had previM. l'Abbé Martin had just published an account of it in his Description ously been Technique des Manuscrits grecs relatifs au Nouveau Testament conservés dans drawn to les Bibliothèques de Paris. (Maisonneuve 1884.) In this he also printed a few by l'Abbé N. T. variants selected principally from the first 32 leaves of the Manu this book Martin. Brief description of the MS. script', and to the book itself he attached the name Codex Martinianus and the critical letter 2, thus placing it among the Uncial texts of the New Testament. I see no objection to this as the book undoubtedly contains large portions of Scripture copied directly from early Uncials; but on the other hand it should be noted that Dr Hort in his Introduction to N. T. thinks it best to class collections of parallels with Patristic authorities. If we adopt the suggestion of my friend l'Abbé Martin, we may have to add at the same time several other MSS. of Parallels to the table of Uncial texts of the N.T., a process which would require a good many alterations or expansions to be made in the notation of Tischendorf's critical apparatus. Two fragments of Justin were extracted from Cod. Reg. by the Benedictine editor of Justin, (Fragg. x, xv of Otto). The note on these passages (p. 396) added by the editor contains the important information that the MS. was brought (? in the eighteenth century) from Constantinople. "Reperitur etiam (fragmentum) in antiquissimo Codice Regio 923, paucis abhinc annis Constantinopoli allato, quo continentur Parallela, ex quibus non pauca S. Joannes Damascenus transtulit in sua." Nor should we omit to notice that an important fragment wrongly ascribed to Clem. Rom., but in reality from the Clem. Hom., is pointed out. by Nolte as existing in Cod. Reg.3 Now let us proceed in order to the description of our MS, and the results derived from it in the New Testament and in Patristic literature. The MS. is a folio, with its text arranged, as will be seen from the attached facsimiles, in double columns, in lines about 36 to the column, and each line containing 13-15 letters. The size of the pages 14 inches by 91. The character is a sloping uncial of a period at least as early as the ninth century, although in some cases the script has been coarsely retraced, as in some lines of the first photograph, and deficient pages added by the hand of a later and more ignorant scribe. 1 But what did the Abbé mean by citing the following as curious variants χαρρὰν καὶ ἑξῆς (Acts vii. 1), KaToikeî kaì tà éĝîs (Acts xvii. 24)? We can quite understand that "De ces variantes il y en a peu qui aient pour elles l'appui des anciens manuscrits." 2 I have quoted the MS. uniformly as Cod. Reg.: I should have preferred to write it Cod. Parisiensis; but it has to be quoted in a manner similar to the copies of Lequien (Par. Vat. and Par. Rup.): now we cannot very well write Par. Par. ་་ 3 Nolte's note will be found in Theolog. Quartalschrift XLI. p. 276 (1859). Fragment VI. welches sich auch in cod. reg. Paris 923. f. 368 vers. sec. col. jedoch mit mannigfachen Abweichungen findet, ist aus Homil. Clem. iv. c. 11. entlehnt." Correct Nolte's reference to f. 309, and cf. Lightfoot, Clement of Rome p. 217 and Appendix p. 460. 4 More closely according to M. Bordier, 0,356 cm. x 0,265 cm. In many places there are instances of missing leaves either in Cod. Reg. or its ancestry. For instance the title given in Lequien 507 as e 13 breaks off in Reg. at the close of the quotation from Eccli. xxvii. 29 at the bottom of f. 156 b. The MS. resumes again in e 21 (Leq. 520) in a quotation from Clement ȧváyηv. Reference to the order of titles in Reg. shews that the ἀνάγκην. following subjects have been omitted: θ. περὶ ἐνεδρεύοντος ἐπιβουλὴν τοῦ πλησίον· ὅτι αὐτὸς ἐμπεσεῖται (the last extract only being lost); ί. περὶ ἐμπορίας· καὶ ὅτι αἱ περὶ τὰ βιωτικὰ ἐνδελεχεῖς ἀσχολίαι συγχέουσιν ἡμῶν τὴν ζωὴν καὶ ἀποστεροῦσι τῶν αἰωνίων ἀγαθῶν ια ́. περὶ ἐνυπνίων καὶ μαντείων ιβ. περὶ ἑκουσίων καὶ ἀκουσίων ἁμαρτημάτων as far as the point indicated above in the quotation from Clement. The quaternions being numbered in the right-hand bottom corner of the first leaf, we have f. 151 marked with ' and f. 158 with x', we should be inclined to infer that a single leaf was missing in this quaternion; it is not, however, safe to draw a conclusion hastily in a MS. where the matter is so much displaced as in Reg., nor without measuring the compass of the omitted matter in Cod. Rup. It will be observed in the photographs that the writing is placed over the lines ruled by the scribe, a custom which accords with the date deduced from other considerations. Accents and breathings are inserted with much irregularity, apparently by the first hand; the accent in a diphthong is usually placed on the first letter. The scribe amongst other eccentricities often places a circumflex on the antepenultimate. When a preposition immediately precedes a noun, a single accent is sometimes placed upon the two words. Itacisms occur frequently of every kind. No MS. that I know affords a better opportunity for their study: I have generally contented myself with tacitly correcting them, as well as the accents. The abbreviations are those common to Biblical uncial MSS. of the period. Sometimes as many as three letters are built into a common symbol, e.g. the syllable NHN on f. 339 is made of two N's with a cross-bar between. A few tachygraphic signs such as that for Tv, may be found. An apostrophus is sometimes found at the end of a proper name, as in |