Codex Claromontanus
Codex Claromontanus is a Greek-Latin Pauline codex whose facing texts, many corrections, unusual placement of Hebrews, and later stichometric book list expose the practical and contested history of transmitting Paul's letters.
- Artifact date
- Sixth century AD
- Findspot
- Eastern Mediterranean production; now Paris
What archaeologists can actually examine
Codex Claromontanus, Gregory-Aland 06 and Vetus Latina 75, preserves the Pauline corpus in facing Greek and Latin texts. The principal Paris manuscript and returned leaves total 533 folios; each language normally occupies one page in a single column of twenty-one short sense-lines. The codex is important not because it reproduces an untouched original, but because its bilingual layout lets scholars watch Greek and Old Latin traditions interact. Corrections by multiple later hands, replacement leaves, lacunae, and the separation of Hebrews from Philemon make it a particularly rich witness to the long working life of a Christian book.
A facing bilingual Pauline corpus
Greek and Old Latin appear on corresponding pages in short lines, enabling comparison while also revealing occasional cross-language influence.
Hebrews remains materially distinct
Hebrews follows Philemon only after blank pages later occupied by a book list, preserving both association with and separation from Paul's letters.
The catalogue is a later layer
Different script and ink show that the Catalogus Claromontanus was not copied by the main Pauline scribe, and its obeli were later additions.
Dating is genuinely debated
A conventional sixth-century assignment coexists with a specialist proposal for a mid-fifth-century Italian production.
Follow the evidence from discovery to debate
Move through the find in a deliberate order: establish its provenance, examine the surviving object, place it in time, and then weigh the scholarly interpretation.
How the find came to light
The manuscript's ancient production place and earliest owners are not documented. Theodore Beza obtained it from Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, the source of its modern name, and used it in early modern New Testament scholarship before presenting it to the French royal library in 1582. Thirty-five leaves stolen in the early eighteenth century were later recovered and catalogued as grec 107A; two replacement leaves are grec 107B. The Bibliothèque nationale de France now preserves and digitizes the parts. This is therefore a manuscript with both an ancient scribal history and a recoverable modern history of loss, return, rebinding, correction, and scholarly use.
What you are looking at
The codex is written on parchment in Greek and Latin uncials, with Greek on the verso and Latin on the facing recto. Short corresponding lines facilitate comparison, although the two versions do not always agree and sometimes influenced one another. Red ink distinguishes opening lines and scriptural quotations. Romans 1:1-7 and other small portions are lost or supplied, and at least two replacement leaves reuse parchment bearing Euripides. Between Philemon and Hebrews, a different hand filled blank pages with the Latin Catalogus Claromontanus, a stichometric list of biblical and other Christian books. Its physical layers warn against treating every feature as contemporary with the first copying.
Where it belongs in history
CSNTM and much traditional scholarship assign the codex to the sixth century, while H. A. G. Houghton's catalogue of Latin New Testament manuscripts argues for copying around the middle of the fifth century, probably in southern Italy. The disagreement reflects palaeographic judgment rather than a dated colophon. The book belongs to the late-antique Greek-Latin bilingual tradition and preserves an Old Latin Pauline text alongside Greek before the Vulgate had displaced every earlier Latin form. Its catalogue and corrections belong to additional phases. A responsible description therefore gives the conventional sixth-century label while noting the serious fifth-century proposal and avoiding a false exact date.
Consensus, questions, and debate
Textual critics classify Claromontanus as a principal representative of the distinctive bilingual or so-called Western Pauline tradition. The Greek and Latin sometimes converge through correction or accommodation, so neither side can simply be used as an independent translation control. Scholars also debate the Catalogus Claromontanus. Kelsie Rodenbiker argues that the list was inserted after the Pauline text and that later obeli should not be projected back into its original canonical boundaries. Omissions and mislabeled Petrine letters may be copying errors. The list is therefore valuable evidence for an ancient book inventory and later evaluation, but not a transparent decree defining one universal Christian canon.
The biblical record beside the artifact
Romans 1:1-17 opens Paul's argument about the gospel, faith, Gentiles, and God's righteousness; Claromontanus materially transmits that argument in two languages used by western Christians. First Corinthians 15:1-8 preserves Paul's received proclamation of Christ's death, burial, resurrection, and appearances, likewise visible within a manuscript copied centuries after Paul. The codex is direct evidence for the circulation and comparison of Pauline texts, not evidence that Paul handled this volume or that every reading preserves his wording. Its placement of Hebrews after a conspicuous gap also documents how one community transmitted Hebrews with Paul while preserving a degree of separation.
Romans 1:1–17
1Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called [to be] an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God,
2(Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,)
3Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
4And declared [to be] the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:
5By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name:
6Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ:
7To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called [to be] saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
8First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.
9For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;
10Making request, if by any means now at length I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.
11For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;
12That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.
13Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.
14I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.
15So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.
16For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
17For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
A responsible historical conclusion
Claromontanus turns textual transmission into something visible. A reader can see two languages facing one another, sense-lines arranged for reading, red markings, repairs, corrections, missing leaves, and an unexpected book list occupying spare space. These are not defects that cancel the manuscript's value; they are evidence for how communities copied, compared, corrected, and organized Scripture. For Romans and First Corinthians, the codex supplies an early substantial witness among many witnesses. For canon history, it preserves a list whose peculiarities resist tidy retrospective categories. The manuscript rewards careful comparison more than slogans about a perfectly unchanged or hopelessly corrupted text.
Authoritative sources
Institutional catalogs, excavation reports, and academic publications let you examine the evidence beyond this summary.
Manuscript GA 06
Center for the Study of New Testament ManuscriptsProvides shelfmarks, extent, material, languages, layout, conventional date, and links to the BnF digitization.
The Latin New Testament: A Guide to its Early History, Texts, and Manuscripts
Oxford University Press / Library of CongressSupplies the specialist VL 75 description, mid-fifth-century Italian dating proposal, recovered leaves, replacement leaves, dimensions, and bilingual arrangement.
The Claromontanus Stichometry and its Canonical Implications
Journal for the Study of the New Testament / SAGEAnalyzes the list's separate hand, omissions, later obeli, likely transmission errors, and limits of canonical inference.
Codex Claromontanus, BnF grec 107
Bibliothèque nationale de France, GallicaProvides direct access to the principal surviving manuscript for verification of layout, corrections, and physical sequence.