Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts : Greek patristic theological texts

Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This manuscript contains a selection of <i>Greek patristic theological texts</i>, copied in 1613-1615. The first, dating from the 3rd or 4th century, is a dialogue refuting Marcionite and Gnostic doctrines, in which the orthodox protagonist is named Adamantius, possibly the author's name. This text was traditionally attributed to the 3rd-century theologian Origen, an identification reflected in the text here. This is followed by a commentary on the same text by the 5th-6th century prelate Zacharias of Mytilene, also known as Zacharias Scholasticus or Zacharias Rhetor. Only a portion of the text is present here, due to the incompleteness of the exemplar from which it was copied. Finally there are two theological treatises by Eusebios of Caesarea (c. 260-c. 340), together with a brief letter by the same author, commonly associated with the latter text.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The manuscript was copied by two hands, one that of the Scottish scholar and royal librarian Patrick Young (1584-1652), who copied, commissioned, acquired and annotated numerous Greek manuscripts. The other copyist was another Scot, Peter Goldman, identified by the colophon he added recording his completion of the dialogue of Adamantius in the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 1613, which houses the manuscript from which it was copied. Portions of the two men's work are interspersed within the manuscript, changing over in mid-line. At the end of the last text, Young has marked the date 6 March 1615.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Inserted into the manuscript are loose leaves containing notes on the text, and part of a single folio containing the beginning of the text of Adamantius as found in a Paris manuscript identified by the copyist, perhaps in fact copied from the Trinity College MS B.9.10, which used the Paris manuscript as its exemplar.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr Christopher Wright</p>