Greek Catenae and the “Western” Order of the Gospels

The “Western” order of the gospels — Matthew–John–Luke–Mark —is found in a few important ancient codices in both the Greek and the Latin tradition. Previous attempts to identify Greek minuscule manuscripts with this sequence have been inconclusive. This article presents five Greek minuscules which feature the gospels in the Western order. These five manuscripts, along with two Greek majuscules, contain the earliest form of the catena commentary on Matthew, John, and Luke. The analysis of these catenae reveals that the sequence of their composition is reflected in the cod-icology of these manuscripts, as well as non-standard orders of the gospels in other catena witnesses. It is therefore the presence of the commentary which explains the adoption of the Western order in seven of the eleven known occurrences in Greek.

case that the marginal tables referred to the corresponding gospels in the same codex is persuasive, especially with the parallels to other versional codices.6 While Crawford's article was in press, two further majuscule codices with this sequence were put forward by Daniel B. Wallace: ga 036/Γ and ga 0234.7 Neither of these, however, can be substantiated. In the case of ga 036, divided between the Bodleian Library and National Library of Russia, the present arrangement of the manuscript approximates the Western order. However, the folio currently numbered 52, which contains the kephalaia on John on its verso, bears extensive offset ink on the recto from the final page of Luke (now identified as 142v) due to water damage.8 Therefore, John followed Luke in the previous arrangement of this codex, and it cannot be taken as a representative of the Western order. ga 0234 remains a doubtful witness because, as only Matthew and John are extant, the full order cannot be determined. It is worth observing that the two latest majuscule witnesses, the tenthcentury ga 033 and the tenth-century ga 055, are both catenae: although the commentary text is written in minuscule, they have been placed in the majuscule category because of the script used for the gospel text.9 This makes a total of six Greek papyrus or majuscule manuscripts which clearly attest the Western order, four from the third to the sixth century and two from a later period.
The existence of Greek minuscules with the Western order has been disputed. Although Metzger remarked that "several of the older Greek minuscule mss" arranged the gospels in this order, he provided no specific details.10 6 There is another early example of a synoptic cross-reference table giving the gospels in an irregular order. In Codex Zacynthius the kephalaia and titloi are accompanied by a cross-reference The gospels in ga 055 were copied in different scripts within an alternating catena format. The biblical lemmata in Matthew, John, and Luke are abridged and written in minuscule whereas the complete text of Mark was written in majuscule. The biblical text present for the first three gospels would not qualify the manuscript for a ga number, but the full text of Mark warrants the designation as a majuscule manuscript. 10 Metzger, Canon, 296. The latter order is found in Christian Friedrich Matthaei's description of the codex, which has independently been confirmed by Georgi Parpulov.16 This codex offers evidence for another non-traditional sequence for the gospels in the context of a catena, which will be explored further below, but it does not attest the Western order.
While not directly addressing the lack of evidence for Metzger's assertion, Pierre-Maurice Bogaert suggested that ga 2964 (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Gr. 200), a tenth-century minuscule manuscript, was also a witness to the Western order.17 This is yet another catena manuscript, and Bogaert asserted that it once held all four gospels in the Western order because it has the same types of catena in Matthew and John as ga 033 and 055. This manuscript is lacunose at the beginning and end; its biblical text is abridged, and only Matthew and John are extant. As in the case of ga 0234, it is impossible to be confident about its original order or contents given variations in manuscripts with these catena types, which will be described below.
In contrast to Parker's endeavour to supply details that were lacking from Metzger's comment, Wallace rejected it as a mistake, citing an email correspondence with J.K. Elliott.18 However, Wallace immediately went on to draw attention to ga 1411, an eleventh-century codex housed at the National Library of Greece (ebe 95), observing that "If this is a minuscule ms, it is the only one known with the Western order."19 ga 1411 has an abridged form of the biblical text in an alternating catena format, currently extant in portions of Matthew, John, and Luke.20 Previously, Gregory and Wallace had identified this manuscript as only containing portions of John and Luke.21 My investigation of the manuscript, especially its catenae, resulted in the identification of thirty-eight leaves (fol. 1 and 126-163) covering Matt 8:19-13:3. During rebinding, these leaves had been placed after the leaves on Luke, except for folio one, which belongs between fol. 157 and 158. Wallace's argument for the Western order was based on codicological features. Unaware of the surviving Matthew leaves, he observed that the codex must have originally contained Matthew because the first quire number of John is κβ (22), while asserting that Mark must have been lost after the missing leaves of Luke.22 The newly identified leaves of Matthew verify that it did indeed come first, but it remains unclear whether the codex included Mark. Gregory, who examined the manuscript in 1886, acknowledged that it was impossible to know how many leaves were missing from the end.23 What is more, Wallace claimed that, like ga 033 and 055, ga 1411 should in fact 18 Elliott wrote: "Metzger was wrong (a rare occurrence!) re 'several' minuscules with the W order" (Wallace, "Medieval Manuscripts and Modern Evangelicals," 9 n. 19 have been classified as a majuscule manuscript because of the script used for the biblical lemmata-if it qualified as a New Testament manuscript at all.24 This examination has shown that none of the manuscripts noted by Parker, Bogaert, and Wallace can confidently be classified as Greek minuscules with the Western order. In fact, in no case is this order likely to have been present, with the exception of ga 055 (treated as a majuscule). There is therefore no solid evidence to support Metzger's claim that the Western order is found in some minuscules. Instead, this appears to be an error, perhaps based on misleading descriptions in Gregory's Prolegomena.

3
Greek Minuscules in the "Western" Order As part of catena, a project at the University of Birmingham, Georgi Parpulov has prepared a catalogue and database of all known Greek New Testament catena manuscripts.25 Among the catenae are five manuscripts in minuscule script with the Western order of the gospels, listed in Table 1.
As none of these five manuscripts are included in the official catalogue of Greek New Testament manuscripts, it is unlikely that Metzger would have been aware of them.26 Although the Liste does include some catena manuscripts with an abbreviated biblical text (such as ga 1411), this appears to be through inadvertence as such witnesses are normally excluded.27 All five of these manuscripts have an abridged biblical text, so are not currently eligible for inclusion in the Liste. Even so, they may be taken in support of Metzger's claim if one is willing to look beyond complete copies of the Greek New Testament. 24 Wallace, "Medieval Manuscripts and Modern Evangelicals," 9. 25 Parpulov, Catena Manuscripts, which was preceded by a working paper: G.R. Parpulov, "A Checklist of Greek New Testament Catena Manuscripts," University of Birmingham, 2018, http://epapers.bham.ac.uk/3086/. 26 The two Moscow manuscripts could be the exception as they were described by Matthaei (noted in

The "Western" Order in Catenae
The seven catena manuscripts with the Western order constitute almost twothirds of the Greek manuscripts with this sequence and all of those after the sixth century. Therefore, the catena commentaries deserve closer examination as a common trait between these seven and an important difference from the other Western order manuscripts.28 Table 2 lists these seven codices with 28 A connection between the Western order catena manuscripts and the earlier continuoustext Western order gospel manuscripts cannot be proven by their order alone. While the catenist may have used a Western order gospel book as the exemplar for the biblical text, it seems more likely that the compiler intentionally chose the Western order for the cate na while using a traditional order manuscript. First, the traditional order was established and more popular by the sixth century. Second, the catenist used the Eusebian apparatus and kephalaia and titloi to navigate between the four gospels (see n. 37). Finally, reordering the gospels may have been an intentional decision to facilitate interpretation  are the earliest forms of catenae on their respective gospel.31 While variety exists in the type of catena on Mark among these manuscripts, the two primary types, C125.1 and C125.2 are closely related to one another.32 The ninthand tenth-century witnesses above are also among the oldest surviving New Testament catena manuscripts. Thus, these manuscripts account for both the earliest forms of gospel catenae and the earliest witnesses to those texts.

4.1
Internal Connections between the Gospels The ways in which the catenae may have influenced the sequence of the gospels have hitherto not been studied in detail.33 In the case of the seven manuscripts in Table 2, the production of the catenae in each gospel and their relationship to one another explains why these manuscripts were copied in the Western order. Joseph Sickenberger and Joseph Reuss both posited that the same sixth-century compiler produced the earliest catenae on Matthew (C125.1), John (C140.1), and Luke (C130). They justified this claim by noting the use of common sources and the similar method of extracting comments from those sources. In addition, in these compilations, the editor did not usually name the source of each scholium.34 The common catenist for Matthew, John, and Luke is further corroborated by internal connections between the gospels in these catenae, which also accounts for the use of the Western order. The connections between these catenae on Matthew and Luke are thus established both by these cross-references and their codicology. The relationship between Matthew and John is less obvious; the catena on John does not include προεγράφη comments relating to parallel passages but it does incorporate occasional comments on gospel parallels. Instead, the basis for linking the catenist of Matthew C110.1 with the catenist of John C140.1 is the shared dependence on John Chrysostom and the limited use and attribution of other sources.38 This is confirmed, as in the case of Luke, by a strong codicological connection. Of the thirty-two manuscripts of John C140.1 that also include catenae on Matthew, thirty have the C110.1 type. The two other manuscripts contain one of the other C110 sub-groups.
Even though scholarship has not attributed the earliest catena on Mark (C125.1) to the same figure who wrote the catenae on the other gospels, the question of its authorship is pertinent to a discussion of the Western order.39 One of the primary reasons for not associating the catena on Mark with those on the other gospels is the fact that Mark largely depends on them. According to Reuss, one-third of the scholia on Mark derive from the catenae on the other gospels, especially the comments from Chrysostom included in C125.1.40 This is a striking departure from the compositional practice in the other catenae. What is more, there are no προεγράφη comments in Mark: instead, scholia are provided for more than eighty passages paralleled in the other gospels.41 It is therefore most likely that the earliest catena in Mark is the work of a different compiler. This dissociation of the earliest catenae on Matthew, John, and Luke from that on Mark explains the manuscripts with the Western order of the gospels that consistently contain the same catena type in the first three gospels but differ in Mark. As Reuss noted, the later addition of a catena in Mark "served to supplement the catenae on Matthew, Luke, and John so that one owned a complete commentary on the four gospels."42 It also clarifies why ga 033 includes the full biblical text of Mark without a catena and why ga 055 treats Mark differently: omitting the kephalaia and titloi for Mark at the beginning of the manuscript, changing for Mark the type of script used to copy the other gospels, and giving full biblical lemmata for Mark only. Their Vorlagen may only have included the three gospel catenae without Mark, to which Mark was added, using a different exemplar, for the sake of completeness. There are other parallels for the order of composition and exclusion of Mark in catena tradition. The sixth-or seventh-century catenist known as Peter of Laodicea compiled catenae on Matthew (C111), Luke (C132), and John (C141.1), but not Mark, although the order of composition has not been established.43 Nicetas of Heraclea in the twelfth century compiled his three gospel catenae in the order Matthew, John, and then Luke.44 The exclusion of Mark in the production of gospel catenae reflects the primacy of the other gospels, especially Matthew, among early Christian interpreters as seen by the dearth of commentaries and homilies on Mark.45 Additionally, the use of προεγράφη comments in Luke suggests that Mark was left out because it had little unique material after the other three gospels had been interpreted. While excluding Mark from the catena manuscript was more expedient, Mark's canonical status led to the composition of catenae on Mark and its inclusion in later catena manuscripts. The composition practices of the catenists and the connections between the catenae found in these Western order manuscripts provides a logical explanation for this otherwise exceptional phenomenon.

4.2
The Order of the Gospels in Catenae The catena project's database of catena manuscripts facilitates detailed comparisons of Greek catenae based on many more manuscripts than was previously possible.46 This database was used to examine whether patterns existed 43 Rauer, Petrus von Laodicea, 6-7; id., Origenes Werke, xxxix; Sickenberger, Titus von Bostra, 128. Note that Reuss was not certain the same person composed the C132 catena on Luke, but he did not rule out the possibility either (Lukas-Kommentare, xiii in the sequences involving the types of catenae included in these Western order manuscripts. First, the catenae types for Matthew, John, and Luke found in the seven Western order manuscripts appear more frequently in non-traditional orders than the other catenae types for these gospels.47 This is shown in Table 3, where the categories "Traditional Order" and "Non-Traditional Order" refer to any combination of gospels that follows the usual order Matthew-Mark-Luke-John or not. Accordingly, a manuscript with only Matthew followed by Mark reflects the traditional order whereas Matthew-John-Luke reflects a non-traditional order even though not all four gospels are present. The category "One Gospel" refers to copies only containing that gospel. These were isolated because they reflect no order.
The early gospel catenae on Matthew, John, and Luke usually have a nontraditional order, whereas all other catenae types overwhelmingly put the gospels in the traditional order. It is therefore not surprising to find the Western order among manuscripts of the earliest types.
The early catenae types in Matthew, John, and Luke also exhibit greater variety in how they arrange the gospels. Catenae on Luke represent this trend well. 47 Mark has not been considered in these comparisons for two reasons: first, the catenae on Mark in the Western order came in more types, meaning there was not a pattern among the manuscripts being studied in this article. Second, catenae in Mark were copied in fewer distinguishable types than the other gospels; the cpg lists only three types in Mark-two related recensions and a separate codices singuli category. The result of the lack of development in the Markan tradition is that catenae on Mark follow less discernable patterns and each of the main types appears in manuscripts with various forms of catenae on the other gospels.  Table 4 shows the number of ways the gospels are arranged in each type of catena on Luke, and then indicates the number of manuscripts in a traditional or non-traditional order within that type.48 Here, a gospel arrangement refers to any combination of gospels and order, so a manuscript with Matthew-John-Luke counts as one arrangement and a manuscript with only Matthew-John would count as another arrangement even though they overlap. Manuscripts that include Luke C130 exhibit the most variety, with twelve different arrangements-almost double the next highest total. Among these manuscripts, the majority (35/53) are in a non-traditional order. The most frequently occurring arrangements include: (1) seven in the Western order (Matthew-John-Luke-Mark), consisting of the five minuscules and two majus cules described above, (2) three with John first: John-Matthew-Luke-Mark, (3) fifteen in the Western order without Mark: Matthew-John-Luke, includ ing ga 1411 described above, (4) four that omit Mark from the traditional order: Matthew-Luke-John, and (5) four copies of only John-Luke. Among the eighty-seven multiple-gospel codices with types C131-137, seventyfive are copies of the four gospels in the traditional order. Scribes copying manuscripts of the later types of catenae on Luke clearly preferred a four-gospel manuscript in the traditional order.  Western order Greek minuscules belong is characterized by a variety of gospel arrangements, especially utilizing non-traditional orders.49

Conclusion
Though Metzger claimed to know of older minuscules with the Western order and other researchers attempted to supply the details he omitted, this article argues that the answer to whether he was correct is both no and yes. Greek continuous-text minuscules with the Western order that contain all four gospels cannot be found. In that sense, Metzger erred. What do exist are five minuscule catenae not catalogued in the Liste with the Western order, along with two majuscules which are also catenae. These seven manuscripts share the same catena types in Matthew, Luke, and John, and it is this commentary that explains their sequence. Matthew C110.1, John C140.1 and Luke C130 were compiled by the same catenist in the order Matthew, John, then Luke. Later manuscripts of these catenae on the three gospels sometimes added the gospel of Mark with a catena derived primarily from extracts on Matthew, in different places in the sequence, resulting in a variety of non-traditional gospel arrangements. Therefore, while these codices are unusual in relation to continuous-text gospel manuscripts and later catenae, they are characteristic of their catenae types. The use of the Western order in at least three of the four other Greek manuscripts ( ⁴⁵, ga 05, 032, and possibly 073 + 084) predates the creation of catenae, so a different explanation is needed for why those manuscripts were copied in a non-traditional order. Even so, the catenae may reinforce arguments about the logic which underlies such an arrangement of the gospels.

49
The dates of the manuscripts for all types in Luke range between the ninth and sixteenth centuries, and whether the older or newer manuscripts use traditional or non-traditional gospel arrangements holds throughout each century depending on which catena on Luke was being copied.