Codex Ephraemi

Uncial 04

New Testament manuscript papyri uncials minuscules lectionaries
Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Département des manuscrits, Grec 9, fol. 60r (rotated)
Name	Ephraemi rescriptus
Sign	C
Text	Old and New Testament
Date	c. 450
Script	Greek
Now at	Bibliothèque nationale de France
Size	33 × 27 cm (13.0 × 10.6 in)
Type	mixture types of text
Category	II

Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Paris, National Library of France, Greek 9; Gregory-Aland no. C or 04, von Soden δ 3) is a fifth-century Greek manuscript of the Bible, sometimes referred to as one of the four great uncials (see Codex Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus and Vaticanus). The manuscript is not intact: in its current condition, Codex C contains material from every New Testament book except Second Thessalonians and Second John; however, only six books of the Greek Old Testament are represented.

The manuscript is called Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus because (a) it is a codex, i.e., a handmade book; (b) its parchment has been recycled; originally inscribed with Scriptural texts, the pages were washed (removing most of the ink) and reused for another text, and (c) the text that was written on the recycled pages, in the 12th century, consisted of Greek translations of 38 treatises composed by Ephrem the Syrian, a prominent theologian of the mid-4th century. Manuscripts of this sort, consisting of recycled pages, are known as palimpsests. The later (or, "upper") text was written in the 12th century.

The lower text of the palimpsest was deciphered by biblical scholar and palaeographer Tischendorf in 1840–1843, and was edited by him in 1843–1845. Currently it is housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (Grec 9) in Paris.

208 leaves of the codex are extant; 144 belong to the New Testament and 64 to the Old Testament. The codex measures 12¼ in/31.4-32.5 cm by 9 in/25.6-26.4 cm. The text is written in a single column per page, 40–46 lines per page, on parchment leaves. The letters are medium-sized uncials.

The uncial writing is continuous, with the punctuation consisting only of a single point, as in codices Alexandrinus and Vaticanus. The capitals at the beginning sections stand out in the margin as in codices Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Basilensis. Iota and upsilon, which in Alexandrinus and many other manuscripts have two dots over them (diaeresis) when they commence a syllable – sometimes only one dot – have in the Codex Ephraemi a small straight line in their place. The breathings and accents were added by a later hand. The nomina sacra tend to be contracted into three-letter forms rather than the more common two-letter forms.