Boerner Manuscript (Codex Boernerianus)

Boerner Manuscript (Codex Boernerianus), an important uncial MS. of the Greek Test., containing (with some lacunea) Paul's epistles (of which it is generally designated as cod. G), with an interlinear Latin version. It belonged to Paul Junius, of Leyden, at whose death (1670) it became the property of Peter Francius, professor at Amsterdam; at the sale of his books in 1705, it was bought at a high price by C. F. Boerner, professor at Leipzig, from whom it takes its name. He lent it in'1719 to Bentley, who kept it for five years, endeavoring in vain to purchase it. It is now deposited in the library of the king of Saxony at Dresden. Rettig has proved that, as it is same size and style with the Codex Sangallensis (Δ of the Gospels), the two once formed one volume together, being probably written toward the end of the ninth century in the monastery of St. Gall by some of the Irish monks who flocked thither, one of whom has left a curious Celtic epigram on one of the leaves. SEE GALL (ST.) MANUSCRIPT. Scrivener has likewise shown its remarkable affinity with the Codex Augiensis (F of the Pauline Epistles), implying that they were both copied from the same venerable archetype, as they either supply each other's defects, or fail at the same passages. Kuster first published readings from it in his reprint of Mill's Gr. Test. Among Bentley's papers has been found a transcription of the whole of it, but not in his own handwriting. It was very accurately published in full by Matthaei in 1791, in common type, with two facsimile pages. Anger, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Bottiger, and Scrivener have since carefully collated it. It betrays certain marks of having been copied with a polemical view, but, in connection with the two MSS. named above, it forms a valuable aid to textual criticism.- Tregelles, in Horne's Introd. 4:199; Scrivener, Introd. p. 135 sq. SEE MANUSCRIPTS, BIBLICAL.