Codex Washingtonianus

Bought in Giza, in December 1906

On 19 December 1906 the American industrialist and collector C. L. Freer bought a parchment codex from a dealer named Ali Arabi in Giza. It held the four Gospels complete, in one volume, with painted board covers: 187 leaves, 372 written pages, one column of thirty lines to the page, in a small sloping uncial. It is now in the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art in Washington as F1906.274, and it is catalogued there as Washington Manuscript III.

The Gospels stand in what is called the Western order — Matthew, John, Luke, Mark — the same order Codex Bezae uses. The museum's own description reads the layout as made for reading aloud: "Its careful layout suggests it was for public, liturgical reading. But it was apparently compiled from a number of different and probably fragmentary sources, perhaps caused by the Great Persecution when Diocletian ordered the destruction of Christian books." That second sentence is the manuscript's other famous feature, and its editor made the case in detail. H. A. Sanders concluded that W's parent "was made up out of six separate parts" — Matthew; John from 5:12 on; Luke 1-8:12; Luke from 8:13 on; Mark 1-5:30; Mark from 5:31 on — and that these had been corrected against different textual standards before ever reaching this book, and that, in his words, "Even from this fragmentary evidence it seems likely that the different parts of the parent ms had been corrected to agree with different text traditions." Later scholarship calls that block mixture. A single volume, and no single text behind it.

It was not excavated. The museum's provenance record traces it to Ali Arabi and no further back, noting only that it was "Possibly once in the possession of the Monastery of the Vinedresser, near Giza, Egypt" — a suggestion resting on a curatorial note from 1957, not on a findspot. It came to the Freer Gallery as part of Freer's bequest and was received in 1920.

The Freer Logion

Mark's Gospel ends, in the earliest manuscripts, at 16:8, with the women fleeing the empty tomb and saying nothing to anyone. Most later manuscripts carry a longer ending, verses 9 to 20. Codex Washingtonianus carries that longer ending — and inserts into it, after verse 14, a passage found in no other Greek copy. It is known as the Freer Logion.

In it the eleven answer Jesus's rebuke by pleading the state of the world, and he replies. H. A. Sanders, who published the manuscript, gave the first English translation in 1908, prefacing it honestly with the words "As emended we may translate" — he had restored damaged Greek before rendering it, and the translation is a reconstruction rather than a transcript: "And they answered, saying, 'This age of unrighteousness and unbelief is under the (power of) Satan, which does not permit the things which are (made) impure by the (evil) spirits to comprehend the truth of God (and) his power. For this reason reveal thy righteousness now,' they said to Christ, and Christ replied to them: 'The limit of the years of the power of Satan has been fulfilled, but other terrible things are near at hand; and I was delivered unto death on behalf of those who sinned, in order that they may return to the truth and sin no more, to the end that they may inherit the spiritual and incorruptible glory of righteousness (which is) in heaven. But go ye into all the world,' etc."

The passage is not a modern surprise. Jerome quotes the opening of it in Latin in his Dialogue against the Pelagians, at book 2 chapter 15, and says he had found the extra verse in some manuscripts, especially Greek ones. Sanders noted that Jerome's wording differs slightly from the Greek here and concluded he was probably quoting from memory. That places the passage in circulation in Latin in the late fourth century — before this codex, and a long way from Egypt. So the Freer Logion is not one scribe's invention; it is a piece of early Christian text that was genuinely about, and that almost every other copyist either never saw or chose not to include.

What It Is Evidence Of, and What It Is Not

A reader meeting this for the first time may find it unsettling, so it is worth being exact about what it shows. It shows that the ending of Mark was unstable. That is not a new discovery and not a concealed one: it is why modern translations bracket Mark 16:9-20 and print a note, and why the note is there rather than hidden. The manuscript evidence for the last twelve verses is genuinely divided, and this codex is a witness to just how divided — it has the longer ending, and then something more on top.

It is sometimes met online as a saying the church suppressed. Nothing about its transmission fits that description. It survives in one Greek manuscript out of thousands, inside a passage that is itself a later addition, and the one early writer who knew it — Jerome — mentions it in passing while arguing about something else. Though Jerome says he found it in several Greek copies, which is a reminder that what is rare now need not have been rare then. Most scholars read it as a second-century or later expansion, written to soften the disciples' failure in verse 14 by giving them an answer, and preserved in a corner of the tradition. That is an honest and rather human thing to have happened, and treating it as either scandal or scripture misses it.

One more limit belongs in the open, and it is the article's own. The English text above is Sanders's, and he flagged it himself: "As emended we may translate." He restored damaged Greek before rendering it. So what every reader meets as the Freer Logion is partly an editor's reconstruction of a damaged page, and how much of it is would have to be settled from the photographs rather than from the translation. That is worth knowing before anyone builds anything on the wording.

Scripture references

• Mark 16:8 — Where the earliest manuscripts of Mark end
• Mark 16:14 — The verse this codex expands, inserting the Freer Logion after it
• Mark 16:15 — The Great Commission in Mark's longer ending, which resumes after the insertion
• John 1:1 — John stands second in this codex, not fourth

Sources

• Holding institutionNational Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution: Washington Manuscript III, F1906.274 — Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution · The holding museum's own object record, with 373 images, read in a browser — asia.si.edu refuses scripted requests, so a reader should open it normally rather than conclude it is dead. Source of the accession number, the date of "late 4th-early 5th century", the dimensions, the collation ("372 written pages on 187 leaves", "one column; 30 lines to the page"), the Western order of the Gospels, the purchase from Ali Arabi in Giza on 19 December 1906, and and the museum's own account of the codex. The museum publishes a partial translation of the Freer Logion of its own, which this article does NOT use: the rendering printed here is H. A. Sanders's of 1908, cited separatelySupports: Every physical and provenance fact in this article
• Holding institutionCSNTM: Manuscript GA 032 — Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts · Free page images and a catalogue record for the codex under its Gregory-Aland numberSupports: The siglum and a second set of images
• Primary textH. A. Sanders, "Four Newly Discovered Biblical Manuscripts" — Henry A. Sanders, University of Michigan · The Biblical World 31:2 (February 1908). Public domain and read in full at the Internet Archive. The English translation of the Freer Logion quoted in this article is his, at p. 141, and so is his own prefatory "As emended we may translate" and his note on Jerome quoting from memory. The article's first page is given as 137 in some listings and 138 in others; the issue scan read here does not settle it, so no range is printedSupports: The text of the Freer Logion, and the Jerome reference
• ScholarshipH. A. Sanders, The New Testament Manuscripts in the Freer Collection, Part I: The Washington Manuscript of the Four Gospels — Henry A. Sanders · University of Michigan Studies, Humanistic Series IX (Macmillan, 1912) — the editio princeps, named as the full description on the Smithsonian's own record. Public domain and read at the Internet Archive. The six-part analysis of the codex's parent quoted in this article is Sanders's own summary in chapter IVSupports: The block-mixture analysis, in the editor's own words
• Primary textJerome, Against the Pelagians, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Volume VI — Jerome, translated in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers · Public domain, hosted at Wikisource. A caution for anyone following this link: the standard English translation is heavily abridged through the middle of Book II, and chapter 15 — the chapter that carries the quotation — is reduced to a bare index line, "Mark xvi. 14. Even the Apostles showed unbelief and hardness of heart." The Latin is not there. Jerome's own words are quoted in Sanders's 1908 article aboveSupports: Where Jerome cites Mark 16:14; not the text of the quotation itself
• EncyclopediaWikipedia: Codex Washingtonianus

Further reading

• National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian: Washington Manuscript III, F1906.274
• CSNTM: Manuscript GA 032
• Wikipedia: Codex Washingtonianus

Reflect

The disciples in this passage answer a rebuke by explaining that the world made it hard. Is that an excuse, an honest description, or both?