Image: Gallica (click to enlarge)
Former shelf number(s): Medic. Reg. 1809
Physical description: parchment, 43.5 × 30 cm, 465 fols., 2 cols.
Language: Greek
Date: 879–893
Provenance: unknown
Contents: the manuscript is a collection of homilies of Gregory Nazianzus. The apocryphal content is solely the page (fol. 32v; pictured above) depicting the martyrdoms of the apostles.
From top, left to right: 1) Peter crucified with head downward; 2) Paul, kneeling, with executioner holding raised sword; 3) Andrew crucified with male figure (perhaps Stratocles) standing to the left; 4) James, son of Zebedee, held by executioner, before Herod Agrippa I, seated on bench with footstool, 5) Mark, lying on the ground and being beaten by man with club; 6) Matthew, being interred by two disciples; 7) John, son of Zebedee (named), carried off by two angels; 8) Jude being buried by two men; 9) Simon the Canaanite crucified with executioner standing to right; 10) Philip, crucified head downwards with male figure standing to right; 11) Bartholomew crucified on cross-bar; 12) Thomas pursued by dark-skinned male figure driving spear into his side.
Catalogs and Studies:
Brubaker, Leslie. Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999 (pp. 245–57).
Ehrhard, Albert. Uberlieferung und Bestand der hagiographischen und homiletischen Literatur der griechischen Kirche von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des 16. Jahhunderts. 3 vols. TU 50–52. Leipzing: Hinrichs, 1937–1952 (vol. 3, pp. 1007–1008).
Halkin, François. Manuscripts grecs de Paris: Inventaire hagiographique. Subsidia hagiographica 44. Brussels: Société des Bollandists, 1968 (pp. 190–91).
Omont, Henri A. Inventaire sommaire des manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque nationale et des autres bibliothèques de Paris et des départements. 4 vols. Paris: E. Leroux, 1886–1888 (vol. 1, pp. 65–66).
__________. Miniatures des plus anciens manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque nationale du VIe au XIVe siècle. 2nd ed. Paris: Librairie ancienne Honoré Champion, 1929 (pp. 14–15; pl. XXII).
Omont, Henri A. and Hagiographi Bollandiani. Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum Graecorum Bibliothecae Nationalis Parisiensis. Brussels: Société des Bollandists, 1896 (pp. 10–11).
Other online databases: Pinakes; Index of Medieval Art; Wikipedia
Entry created by Tony Burke, York University ([email protected]), 28 May 2024.