Codex Vaticanus
A fourth-century Greek Bible has been continuously held and catalogued since the fifteenth century.
Named outside the BibleManuscriptmid-4th century AD
A fourth-century Greek Bible on fine parchment, three columns to a page, listed in the Vatican's first catalogue in 1475 and never lost. With Sinaiticus it is the base of most modern critical editions of the New Testament.
Old and New Testament in Greek, written in three columns of forty-two lines.
- Found
- In the Vatican Library since at least 1475
- Now held at
- Vatican Apostolic Library, Rome (Vat. gr. 1209)
- Language
- Greek
- How it reached us
- Never buried — copied by hand, generation after generation, until printing.
What it shows
It is incomplete: the end of Hebrews, the Pastoral Epistles and Revelation are missing from the original hand.
How historians use it
With Sinaiticus, the backbone of the modern critical text.
In Scripture
Sources
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.