Manuscript
Codex Alexandrinus
Also known as Alexandrinus · A (Gregory-Aland) · 02 · British Library Royal MS 1 D. V–VIII
A fifth-century Greek Bible in four volumes — with two letters of Clement bound in at the end, and a lost book still listed in its own index.
great-codicesnew-testamentseptuagintcanon
Overview
Codex Alexandrinus(c. AD 400–440 (fifth century))— Alexandria; presented to King Charles I of England in 1627
It carries most of the Greek Old Testament and most of the New, with gaps, and then keeps going: 1 Clement and 2 Clement are bound in after Revelation.
The index at the front lists one more book after those — the Psalms of Solomon. Those leaves were torn out and are gone. But the scribe's own list separates them from the rest by a space, which is contemporary evidence that the person who compiled this Bible did not rank that book with the others. Extra texts could be bound into a fifth-century Bible without being counted as Scripture.
It was brought to Alexandria in the early fourteenth century and presented to King Charles I in 1627.
Manuscript Details
- Date
- c. AD 400–440 (fifth century)
- Language
- Greek
- Script
- Uncial (majuscule)
- Material
- Parchment
- Current location
- British Library, London (Royal MS 1 D. V–VIII, four volumes)
- Discovery location
- Alexandria; presented to King Charles I of England in 1627
- Contains books
- Septuagint (most) · New Testament (most) · 1 Clement · 2 Clement · Psalms of Solomon (listed in the index; leaves lost)
- Tags
- great-codices · new-testament · septuagint · canon
Significance
One of the four great whole-Bible codices, and the best single answer to the question "who decided what was in the Bible?" — because here you can watch a fifth-century compiler bind in extra reading and quietly mark it off from Scripture in his own table of contents.
Where this witness is read
Codex Alexandrinus is one of the manuscripts named in the places your Bible carries a footnote. Each passage below shows what this witness reads and the case each way.
- Mark 16:9-20The Ending of MarkCodex Alexandrinus (A) (5th century) reads: Contains the long ending, 16:9-20, without any mark of doubt.
- John 7:53 - 8:11The Woman Caught in AdulteryCodex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Ephraemi (C) (5th century) reads: Both are damaged exactly here, so neither can be read directly — but in each case scholars have measured the missing leaves against the surviving handwriting, and there is not enough room for the passage. The gap is too small to have held it.
- 1 John 5:7-8The Three Heavenly WitnessesCodex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus (4th-5th century) reads: None of the great codices contains the passage.
- Acts 8:37The Ethiopian's confession — "If thou believest with all thine heart"The earliest Greek manuscripts of Acts, including Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, and Codex Alexandrinus (4th–5th centuries) reads: No verse 37. Verse 36 is followed immediately by verse 38 and the descent into the water.
- Mark 1:41Compassion or anger? Jesus and the leperCodex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, and the Byzantine majority (4th–15th centuries) reads: *splanchnistheis* — "moved with compassion."
- 1 Timothy 3:16"God was manifest in the flesh" — two letters apartCodex Alexandrinus (5th century) reads: Disputed for centuries. A faint stroke is visible, and scholars have argued over whether it is a genuine bar making the word ΘΣ or ink showing through from the other side of the leaf. The manuscript is a witness whose testimony has to be argued about rather than simply read.