Lectionary 303 (Gregory-Aland), designated by siglumℓ303 in the Gregory-Aland numbering, is a 12th-century Greekmanuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. The manuscript has complex contents.
Description
The original codex contained lessons from the Gospel of John, Matthew, and Luke (Evangelistarium), on 340 parchment leaves. The leaves measure (31.6 cm by 27 cm).[1]
The text is written in Greek minuscule letters, in two columns per page, 22–23 lines per page. The manuscript contains weekday Gospel lessons.[2][3]
It also contains Synaxarion and Menologion, both written in one column per page, 20 lines per column. The Menologion follows the civil calendar month by month.[4]
In the 14th century it was presented by Presbyter Abul Fath, son of Presbyter Abul Badr, to the Church of Mar Saba in the Alexandrian diocese. Then it belonged to the Iviron monastery on the Athos peninsula. It was brought to Paris by the Russian general and art collector Count Petr Ivanovich Sevastianov [ru] (Sebastianoff); and in 1885 it was brought to America.[1] A colophon in Greek and Arabic on folio 1 verso declares: "No one has authority from God to take it away under condition, and whoever transgress this will be under the wrath of the eternal Word of God, whose power is great. Gregory, Patriarch by the grace of God, wrote this."[4]
The manuscript was added to the list of New Testament manuscripts by Scrivener (491e)[6] and by Gregory (number 303e).[1] It was examined by Bruce M. Metzger and was the subject of his Ph.D. dissertation at Princeton University in 1942, "Studies in a Greek Gospel Lectionary (Greg. 303)."[4][7]
The manuscript is cited in the critical editions of the Greek New Testament (UBS3).[8]
^ abcAland, Kurt; M. Welte; B. Köster; K. Junack (1994). Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neues Testaments. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter. p. 237. ISBN3-11-011986-2.
^J. K. Elliott, A Bibliography of Greek New Testament Manuscripts (Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 183.
^The Greek New Testament, ed. K. Aland, A. Black, C. M. Martini, B. M. Metzger, and A. Wikgren, in cooperation with INTF, United Bible Societies, 3rd edition, (Stuttgart 1983), p. XXIX.