Greek mss. at the French National Library

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I learned today from the Evangelical textual criticism blog that the Bibliotheque Nationale Francais have been putting manuscripts online, at their Gallica.bnf.fr portal. Locating these is not straightforward; but if you do an advanced search, leave blank the title etc, and select manuscripts, Greek, you get back a list. A good number are biblical mss., but most are not. Blessedly you can download a PDF of the whole thing in each case.

I thought that a few examples might be useful. The first item is the shelfmark

  • Coislin 352, 17th c. Palatine Anthology of Greek verse.
  • Grec 2971, 16th c. Hermogenes, Progymnasmata.  Whatever that is.
  • Grec 2868, 16th c. Apollinaris Metaphrasis Psalmorum.
  • Grec 510, 9th c. Gregory Nazianzen.
  • Grec 2929, 16th c. grammatical bits and pieces.
  • Grec 2705, 14th c., John Tzetzes on the Iliad.
  • Grec 2261, 16th c. medical ms.
  • Grec 216, 10th c. Acts of the Apostles, with the catena.
  • Grec 1853, 10th c., Aristotle
  • Coislin 291, 14th c., Simeon the New Theologian.
  • Grec 1807, 9th c. Plato
  • Grec 1685, 15th c. Ps.Callisthenes, History of Alexander; Aesop’s fables.
  • Grec 1639, 15th c. Xenophon, Cyropedia; expedition; Theophrastus, characters.
  • Grec 1759, 13th c. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the philosophers.
  • Grec 2465, 14th c. Michael Psellus
  • Grec 1407, 15th c. Arrian, Anabasis; on India; Ptolemy’s geography, epitome.
  • Grec 1122, 14th c. John Damascene.
  • Grec 2795, 15th c. Sophocles, Electra, Orestes, etc, with scholia.
  • Grec 2850, 1475 AD, Sybilline oracles.
  • Grec 2902, 16th c. Aesop, Aristophanes, Euripides.
  • Grec 2999, 16th c. Demosthenes.
  • Coislin 1, 7th c. Greek Old Testament
  • Coislin 79, 11th c. Chrysostom.
  • Grec 2809, 15th c. Euripides.
  • Grec 2036, 10th c. Longinus on the sublime, Ps. Aristotle.
  • Grec 2706, 1500. Aristarchus, summaries and scholia on the Iliad.
  • Grec 2742, 17th c. Greek anthology of epigrams.
  • Grec 1535, 11th c. Martyrdoms.
  • Grec 164, 1070 AD. Psalms and canticles, with scholia.
  • Grec 1671, 1296. Plutarch.
  • Grec 107, 7th c. Bilingual Greek/Latin Paul’s letters. For some reason not identified by BNF.
  • Grec 1128, 14th c. Barlaam and Joasaph.
  • Grec 1767, 15th c. George Cedrenus, Narratio of meeting of Pope Silvester with some Jews.
  • Grec 1909, 15th c. Simplicius on Aristotle’s Physica.
  • Grec 2179, 9th c. Dioscorides.
  • Grec 2442, 11th c. Aelian, Tactica; Onasander, etc – military manuals.
  • Grec 2389, 9th c. Ptolemy.
  • Grec 3094, 17th c. Chrysostom, 4 homilies to Antiochenes.
  • Grec 923, 9th c. John Damascene, Sacra Parallela.
  • Grec 451, 914 AD. The Arethas codex of the Greek apologists!!!
  • Grec 781, 939 AD. Chrysostom.
  • Grec 142, 12th c. Euthymius Zigabenus, Commentary on Psalms and Canticles.

I’m about half way through and have to rush off. A few more.

  • Grec 945, 15th c. Origen.
  • Grec 414, 16th c. Gelasius of Cyzicus, Eusebius Vita Constantini, HE, etc.
  • Coislin 202, 6th c. Euthalian chapters, New Testament, note saying it was copied from Pamphilus’ exemplar (f.14r, v).

But a great number have no description, although I find that if you look inside, a slip glued onto the guard-folios at the front often tells you what the contents are.

This is marvellous, and I haven’t really digested what is here. There’s 146 Greek but only 15 Latin mss.

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4 thoughts on “Greek mss. at the French National Library”

  1. I keep kicking myself for never studying Greek, on occasions like this. Of course, I never studied Latin enough until I got more stuff in it that was to my taste….

  3. Even though most people don’t set out to study the liberal arts anymore, we mostly still end up with our studies acting as general preparations for life, rather than stuff that defines one’s job. Weirdly enough.

    Of course, the next generation had rotten enough schooling that employers will have to start giving everybody placement exams to determine competence to work.

  4. The next generation after ours has two choices; either reform the education system so it works; or start learning Chinese for “would you like fries with that”?

    A world that contains 1bn fiendishly hard-working Chinese is not one in which the Selfish Generation’s policies can be sustained for very long.

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