New Testament minuscule

A New Testament minuscule is a copy of a portion of the New Testament written in a small, cursive Greek script (developed from Uncial). Most of the minuscules are still written on parchment. Paper was used since the 12th century.

New Testament minuscules are distinct from:

Minuscules codices contain commentaries and other additional matter, like, Prolegomena to the four Gospels, the Epistula ad Carpianum, the treatise of Pseudo-Dorotheus on the Seventy disciples and twelve apostles (82, 93, 117, 459, 613), List of Lord's miracles (e.g. 536), List of Parables of Jesus (e.g. 273, 536), short biographies of the Apostles, or summaries of the journeys of St. Paul (e.g. 468). Since the 9th century some manuscripts have notes with the date and place of the composition of the different NT books. Some manuscripts informed about name of scribe and date of composition of the manuscript, but date usually reckoning from the creation of the world (5508 BC). It was the Byzantine manner. Only in a few minuscule codices is the date reckoned from the birth of Christ.

Since the time of J. J. Wettstein the minuscules manuscripts have been indicated by Arabic numerals, but the numbers in each of the four groups of the books of the New Testament began with 1, and thus "1" might indicate a book in any of the manuscripts (f.e. 1^eap, 1^r, 2^e, 2^ap). Different parts of the same manuscript had different numbers (f.e. 18^evv, 113^Acts, 132^Paul, and 51^Apoc belonged to the same manuscript). Only the first manuscript situation was simple, because it had number 1 in Gospels (1^e), in Acts and Catholic epistles (1^a), and in Pauline epistles (1^p). This system was complicated. Scrivener, for instance, enumerated known for him minuscule codices:

It did not mean that the total number of minuscules was 1460, because some of them belonged to the same manuscripts.

Wettstein's system was improved and corrected by F. H. A. Scrivener, C. R. Gregory, and other scholars. Aland renumbered minuscule manuscripts (1^r received number 2814, 2^ap received 2815, 4^ap received 2816 etc.), and now every minuscule manuscript has a different catalogue number.

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