The Garrett Sahidic Manuscript of St. Luke

Abstract

As FAR as we know to-day, there are extant no complete copies of ancient Coptic manuscripts of the Gospel of St. Luke. The Sahidic Coptic manuscript of St. Luke, which is now in the possession of Mr. Robert Garrett of Baltimore, is therefore of very great importance in the study of the Coptic Gospels. The Garrett manuscript, which is written in well-drawn uncials on parchment, probably was copied in the sixth century. In the Album de Paleographie Copte pour servir a l'introduction paleographique des Actes des Martyrs de I'Egypte by Henri iyvernat, Paris-Rome, 1888, plate 3 is a reproduction of pages 20 and 21 of a manuscript from the Borgian Collection, No. 246, Naples, which is assigned to the sixth or seventh century. A comparison between this plate and the Garrett manuscript shows rather close resemblances in the formation of the letters. While the Borgian codex is practically constant in having a single form of M and x, we have two types of these letters in the Garrett manuscript. On plate 4, Hyvernat, op. cit., we have a reproduction of a manuscript which too is dated about the sixth or seventh century. The e and the & of the Garrett manuscript resemble those of the plate. The two types of M also have their counterparts on plate 4. On the basis of these comparisons, the manuscript apparently belongs to the sixth or seventh century. Further aid in dating the manuscript is found in W. H. Worrell's Proverbs of Solomon in Sahidic Coptic according to the Chicago Manuscript (University of Chicago Press, 1931). Speaking of the date of his manuscript, Worrell says (xi): The hand of the Chicago manuscript would, in the absence of other evidence, be dated conservatively as of the sixth century; and this would seem to be demanded by the rounded epsilon, on the one hand, and the hair lines and smallness of the letters on the other. Professor Worrell reproduces four pages of the Chicago manuscript in facsimile. A comparison of these pages with the Garrett manuscript