BBT. 



BEZANT. 



va 



opening in the blade or transom, to that iU arm* may be made of 

 unequal length. Hebert dencribe*, in the ' Engineer's and Mechanic's 

 Encyclopedia,' an instrument of the berel kind for gauging, and trans- 

 ferring to work or paper an oblique angle of which one aide is curved. 

 It conaiaU of two rulers, a and 6, pivoted together at r, and capable of 

 being set to any angle by means of the brass arc rf, which ia attached 

 firmly to the ruler k, and passes through a mortise or slit in a, in 

 which it may be secured at any point by means of a binding screw. 

 The adaptation of the instrument to a curved surface is provided for 

 by a flexible blade or riband of steel, t, secured to the ruler a at one 

 end, but capable of being made to assume and retain any simple curve 

 by means of the series of screws marked //, which pass through 

 nuts or mortises attached to the ruler a, and press against 'the steel 

 riband by a kind of swivel-joint, which provides for the various angles 

 of contact formed by the riband and the screws. 



Where many articles have to be worked to the same angle, it is 

 desirable to use a fixed bevel, made to the required angle, especially 

 where one or both of the limbs are curved. When the interior angle 

 of the bevel ia that used by the workman, such an instrument is some- 

 times called a joint-hoot : a familiar instance of its use in this way is in 

 working the intradoses and radiating beds of arch-stones, which, for 

 circular arches, will be alike in every part of the arch. 



BEY. [Buo.] 



BEZA'S CODEX, a celebrated manuscript, containing the Four 

 Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, written in Greek, with a correspond- 

 ing Latin text on every opposite page. Of the Greek text we shall 

 speak more particularly presently. The Latin version is believed to 

 be the 'Vetus Italica,' the old Italic, before it was corrected by 

 St Jerom. 



This singular manuscript was presented to the university of Cam- 

 bridge by Theodore Beza in the year 1581, whence it has ita name of 

 ' Codex Becc,' and is sometimes cited as ' Codex Cantabrigiensis.' It is 

 .1 thick quarto volume, written upon vellum, in uncial letters of the 

 square form, that is, in large capitals quadrated, as distinguished from 

 the sharper uncials. The letters, in some places, particularly in the 

 beginning of the first leaf, are scarcely legible. The gospels are placed 

 in the usual order of the Latin manuscripts, Matthew, John, Luke, 

 Hark. This codex has no stops, marks of aspiration, or accents. 



There are various chasms in this manuscript, which, both in the 

 Greek and Latin texts, have been supplied at later periods. The 

 defective passages in the Greek are Matthew i. r. 1 to 20 ; vi. r. 20, to 

 ix. r. 2 ; xxvii. r. 2 to 12 ; John L r. 16 to iii. r. 26 ; Acte viii. v. 29 to 

 x. 14 ; xxi. v. 2 to 10, and 15 to 19 ; xxii. r. 10 to 20 ; lastly, xxii. 29 

 to the end of the MS. In the Latin version the chasms are Matthew i. 

 v. 1 to 12 ; from r. 8 in chap. vi. to viii. 27 ; from xxvi. 65 to xxvii. 2; 

 from John i. 1 to iii. 16 ; Acts viii. 19 to x. 4 ; xx. 31 to xxi. 3, and 7 

 to 11 ; xxii. 2 to 10 ; and lastly, from Acts xxii. 20 to the end. 



In the year 1787, immediately after the appearance of the New 

 Testament of the Alexandrian Manuscript, published by Dr. C. G. 

 Woidc, the university of Cambridge appointed Dr. Thomas Kipling, 

 late fellow of St. John's College, and Deputy Regius Professor oi 

 Divinity, to edit this their highly-prized manuscript in fac-Kimilc : that 

 if, u far as metal types could be made to represent it, for a real 

 absolute facsimile can be obtained only by engraving. It appeared in 

 1798, in two volumes folio, edited with fidelity, accompanied l>y a 

 preface of twenty-eight page*, and followed by twenty-four pages of 

 note*, entitled, ' Codex Theodori Beac Cantabrigicnsis, Evangelia et 

 Apoetolorum Acta complectens, quadratis litcris Grtcco-Latinus : Aca- 

 demia auspicante, venerandw has vctustatis reliquias, summa qua 

 potuit fide, adumbrarit, exprensit, edidit, Codicis historian! prefixit, 

 notasque adjecit Thomas Kipling, S.T.P. Coll. Div. Joan, nupcr 

 soctus.' 



Dr. Kipling, in his preface, endeavours 1st, to establish the high 

 antiquity of his MS. ; 2ndly, he point* out its peculiar character and 

 excellence ; Snlly, he traces its migrations ; and lastly, he describes ita 

 form. 



U is allowed by all paUeographists that Beta's MS. is one of the 

 most ancient of iU kind. The Rev. Henry Alford, in his edition of 

 ihe Greek Testament (1856), says, " the general opinion now is, that 

 it was written in the latter end of the 5th or 6th century." Wetatein 

 and J. D. Michaelis deemed it much older ; and Dr. Kipling was of 

 opinion that it was more ancient than the Alexandrian MS., and must 

 have been written in the 2nd century. His conjecture is founded on 

 these circumstances, that it wants the doxology at the end of the 

 Lord's Prayer, and has the Ammonian sections without the Eusobian 

 canons. That the doxology Is an interpolation there can be little 

 doubt; but that the want of it in a MS. is a proof of the high 

 antiquity of that MS. cannot so readily be admitted. If the writer of 

 Beza a MS. were a Latinist, he might leave out the doxology in his 

 Greek copy, because it was not in his Latin copy ; or his Greek copy 

 might have been one of those which wanted the doxology. The argu- 

 ment derived from the entire omission of the Eusebian canons, and 

 from the Ammonian sections being added by a posterior writer, U 

 more specious. Dr. Kipling hence infers that the text of the MS. was 

 written antecedently to the date of the Ammonian sections, and these 

 before the Eusebian canons appeared. Ammonius lived in the 3rd, 

 Eusehius in the 4th century : the Ammonian sections in Beta's MS. 

 are much posterior to the text, and are without the canons of 

 Eusebius ; therefore he considers it highly probable that those sections 

 were added to the MS. before the fourth, and that the manuscript itself 

 was written before the third century. 



As to the nature and excellence of the Beza manuscript, great diver- 

 sity of opinion subsists. Antony Arnauld (' Dissertation Critique 

 touchant les Exemplaires, sur lesquels M. Simon pretend que,' Ac., 8vo. 

 Col. 1691) insisted that it was a forgery of the 6th century, and there- 

 fore unworthy of credit; and his chief argument was, that it has 

 certain additions or interpolations which are not found in the copies 

 anterior to that period ; such as that in Matthew xx. 28, iiiult t) fifrt'irt, 

 Ac. ; that in Luke vi. 5, TJJ airrji rinfpif, &c. This reasoning would be 

 solid, if the assumption were just; namely, that these and similar 

 interpolations were not found in any other MS. before the 6th century. 

 Dr. Kipling draws from the same circumstance a very different con- 

 clusion : he thinks that the aforesaid additions are proofs that cither 

 the Beza MS. or ita archetype must have been written before J 

 corrected the text of the New Testament, because they are not in his 

 version. Bengel supposes this MS. to be of British origin from its 

 great conformity with the Anglo-Saxon version, and to have been 

 reformed, or rather corrupted, according to the Italic version. To this 

 argument it is answered, that the Beza MS. resembles the Syrian 

 version as much as it does the Italic and Anglo-Saxon. Mich:" 

 his account " of the manuscripts that have been used in editions of 

 the Greek Testament" (' Introd. to the New Test' 8vo. Cambr. 1793, 

 vol. ii. p. i. pp. 228, 229) is of this opinion, in which he is corroborated 

 by Professor Storr, who, in the eighth section of his ' Observations* 

 super Novi Testament! Versionibus Syriacis,' produces various exam- 

 ples in which the Syriac version coincides with the 'Codex Canta- 

 brigiensis,' and at last conjectures that the latter has, in some cases, 

 been improperly altered from the former, through a mistake of the 

 Syriac text. Dr. Alford .says, "the text is a very peculiar one, 

 deviating more from the received readings and from I IMS. 



authorities than any other. It appears to have been written in ! 

 and by a Latin transcriber ignorant of Greek, from many cm ion* 

 mistakes which occur in the text and version attached. It is Ho>rly 

 and singularly allied to the ancient Latin versions, so much so. that 

 some critics have supposed it to have been altered from the Latin, but 

 apparently without reason. Its peculiarities are so great, that in in.iny 

 passages, while the sense remains for the most part unaltered, hardly 

 three words together are the same as in the commonly nvcivrd text. 

 And that these variations often arise from capricious alterations is 

 evident from the way in winch the Gospels, in parallel passages, have 

 been more than commonly interpolated from one another in tl 

 The concurrence with the ancient Latin versions seems to point to a 

 very early state of the text, and it is impossible to wt .UM.II thf xalm: 

 of it as an index to its history ; but in critical weight it ranks the lm\ > st 

 of the four leading MSS." (that is, the Codex Alexandrinus, now in the 

 British Museum; the Codex Vaticanus, in the Vatican Library: the- 

 Codex Regius Parisiensis, in the Imperial Library at Paris ; and that of 

 Beza, of which we have just treated.) 



In noticing what Dr. Kipling calls the " migrationes," or peregri- 

 nations of the Codex Bezic, he gives it as his opinion, from internal 

 evidence, that it was written in Egypt : others have been persuaded 

 that it was written in the West, not by a Greek, but by a Latinist. By 

 what means this manuscript passed to France is unknown. Beza, who 

 presented it to the university of Cambridge, had him-. It' m-i-ived it 

 about nineteen years before. He states it to have been found, iu 1562, 

 in the monastery of 8t Irenseus at Lyon. Bcra was at that timo 

 resident at Geneva. It has been supposed by some critics to be the 

 manuscript which was produced in the Council of Trent, in 1546, by 

 the bishop of Clermont, and which Drathmunis mentions 40< > 

 before that council ; but this is mere conjecture, and scarcely amounts 

 to a probability. 



BEZANT, a gold coin struck at Constantinople by the emperors of 

 that city, anciently called Byzantium. William of Malraesbury says 

 expressly, ' Constantinopolis primurn Byzantium dicta. Formam 



