coronis in Mark ending in GA 032 Washingtonianus, Vaticanus Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus - (pics of all together?)

[Steven Avery]

Pure Bible Forum
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...2-vaticanus-sinaiticus-and-alexandrinus.5242/
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...annotationes-on-mark-16-14-freer-logion.4825/

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The Freer-Logion (Mark 16:14): GA 032, Jerome, and Erasmus
https://jbtc.org/v28/TC-2023_BurnetClivaz.pdf



Finally, Erasmus leads us back to the observation of the materiality of the codices them-
selves. First, we noticed that GA 032, the only direct witness so far of the Freer-Logion, presents
at the end of Mark a specific coronis that looks like the final coronis of Codex Vaticanus, Codex
Sinaiticus, and Codex Alexandrinus. This particularity has been noted essentially by Stephen
and reinforces a date of the fifth century for the copy of Mark in W. Erasmus’s considerations
about the coronis to Mark 16:14 also helps us better understand the similar presence of an
added passage in the last chapter of Mark, but in Codex Bobbiensis, which presents an addi-
tion after Mark 16:3, narrating the resurrection of Jesus, witnessed by angels accompanying
him to the heavens. Gregory and Bernard apparently still knew this story, as we hear about it,
thanks to Erasmus’s notice about Mark 16:14 (ll. 146–147, Hovingh’s edition). Let’s bet on the
fact that Erasmus’s commentary on Mark 16:14 still has a lot to teach us.

 

[Steven Avery]

Regarding Gregory and Sanders’s attention to this subscription, one can only be surprised that
not even these two New Testament scholars commented on the final κορωνίς of the Gospel of
Mark in GA 032. So far, the only author to devote attention its κορωνίς is a classical scholar,
Gwendolen M. Stephen, in a 1959 article, apparently neglected in subsequent discussions. She
interestingly notes the presence of “the three delightful coronides of the Freer Gospel Codex
were without any doubt intended to look like birds,” showing one example in plate 1c at the
end of the Gospel of John.75 Stephen gives several examples of the ancient use of “bird coronis”
in her plate 1, ranging from the fourth century BCE until the Freer Gospel Codex, her latest
example. Based on the three examples of “bird coronis” and the stylized κορωνίς at the end of
Mark, GA 032 can be considered as an intermediate step in the evolution of the coronis:

The three great biblical codices, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Alexandrinus, are rather different: the
design built out of a cross which concludes the text in these codices is quite unlike the normal
coronis and is much more a part of the colophon, especially in the Alexandrinus, where it is
merely a rectangular corner enclosing the title. Nevertheless, an intermediate stage may be seen
in the Freer Gospel Codex, in which Matthew, John, and Luke end with the bird-like coronis
already described (PI. 1c), but Mark, the last gospel in the Codex, with a colophon similar to
those in the Codex Sinaiticus.… Its comparative absence from Christian literature is surprising,
in view of its otherwise apparently wide distribution; but we should note that there was in any
case a general decline in its use after the fourth century. Thereafter the “explicit” provided a
sufficient sign of termination in Latin books, and the revival of the coronis in Greek poetry by
Triclinius [fourteenth century CE] was not enough to institute a general revival in its use.76