Printed editions of Codex argenteus

Franciscus Junius the Younger (1591–1677) was a skilled scholar in many disciplines – theology, law, history, languages, and other fields – periodically working as an editor, a teacher, and a librarian. He was very interested in collecting and editing rare manuscripts, and also very interested in Germanic languages, not least Gothic.

The first printed edition – Editio princeps

Junius made the first printed edition of the Codex Argenteus, the editio princeps, using specially made Gothic fonts. It was published in Dordrecht in 1665 and later in Amsterdam in 1684 with a new title page. In Junius’ edition the Gothic text is adapted to modern custom: the order of the Gospels is Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. The division is in chapters and verses, and there are no traces of the Eusebian system of sections and canon. The Gothic text is printed with resolved abbreviations. An English Bible text translated by Thomas Marshall is added as parallel reading. The edition includes a Gothic glossary.

The Gospel through barbarians

The Dordrecht edition 1665 as well as the Amsterdam edition 1684 has a frontispiece leaf with an engraving by A. Santvoort (»A Santvoort fe:«). The centre of the picture is a portal in a decorated renaissance wall. The four evangelists are placed in each corner of the image square. In the middle of the top God is shining like the sun, marked as Jahve in the Hebrew tetragrammaton. The portal encases the text »D.N. Iesu Christi S.S. EUANGELIA Gothicè & Anglo-Saxonicè.« Thereafter is a Greek quotation from Colossians III:11 saying something like: »Not Barbarian, Scythian – but Christ is all, and in all.« The entire passage is: »Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision, nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.« So even (or perhaps: not least) the barbarian Goths and other peculiar peoples could be the portal to the gospels.

Junius had great difficulties in finding the order of the Codex argenteus. The order of the Gospels was not the one he was used to, and the leaves were bound together in disorder. This explains Junius’ many notations in the margins of the original manuscript, which we still can see today.

Junius – the suitable editor

Franciscus Junius had several reasons for his interest in the Codex argenteus, and there were also certain circumstances that made him the suitable first editor of the manuscript. He had the learned librarian’s instinct to collect and edit old and rare manuscripts. As "The Father of Germanic Philology", he had a special interest in the Gothic language. And he also probably had a religious interest in Wulfila’s Bible as a first example of non-Catholic vernacular Bible translations into Germanic languages (a proto-reformatory Bible). Moreover, (but perhaps just a coincidence?) Junius had a special relation to Friesland where St. Liudger once worked as a missionary, Liudger who was supposed to have taken the Codex argenteus from Italy to the Germanic countries. And last but not least: he was the uncle of Isaac Vossius who owned the manuscript.

After his education in Leyden (philology, theology, and science) Junius had moved to England in 1621. First he worked in the library of the Bishop of Norwich, Samuel Harsnet, and then in the library of Thomas Howard, the 2nd Earl of Arundel. The Arundel library, of which Junius later became the librarian, contained great and rare collections. Junius could spend part of his time on studies, copying and making excerpts from manuscripts. Later on, he could use this material together with material from the rich library of his nephew Isaac Vossius for editions and lexicographical works.

The Father of Germanic Philology

Back in the Netherlands in the early 1640s Junius became interested in the history of the Dutch language, and soon he was absorbed by Germanic philology in general: Old English, Frankish, Frisian, and other languages. His interest in the Gothic language is for the first time expressed in 1650 in a letter to a kinsman. He hopes that his nephew Isaac Vossius, librarian at the court of the Swedish Queen, would come to London and tell his uncle what he has learnt of the Gothic language. Junius obviously thinks that Gothic is still living in some (unclear) respect in Sweden. In 1654 he has borrowed the Codex argenteus from Vossius, who has got the codex from Queen Kristina when the Queen abdicated and started her journey to Rome. Junius is very happy to plunge into this sea of Gothic words, and he starts to transfer them to his Old English-Latin dictionary. Later on, he discusses Gothic words and philology with learned colleagues, especially the German theologian Johan Clauberg.

Wulfila's Protestant symbolic value

Junius’ possible religious interest in Wulfila’s Bible as a non-Catholic vernacular Bible translation into a Germanic language, a proto-reformatory Bible, is probable when looking upon his own background. He came from a Huguenot family. His father, Franciscus Junius or François de Jon, was a French Protestant, who once had translated the Bible into Latin for the Protestant world. Very many of Junius’ kinsmen and learned colleagues were Protestants, like many of the humanistic philologically interested scholars of the 16th and 17th centuries. One of them, James Ussher, Archbishop of Ireland with Calvinist sympathies, was one of Junius’ correspondents. In 1651 he writes to Junius about Vulcanius’ information about the Codex argenteus, and among other things he comments the "doxology" at the end of the Lord’s Prayer in Wulfila’s translation ("For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever"). This is lacking in the Vulgate, but Wulfila has it from an old Greek source, and (understood) the Protestant Bibles have it.

Liudger and Friesland

And Friesland? Well, it is a vague connection or perhaps just a coincidence. The idea that the Codex argenteus was taken from Italy to the northern parts of Europe by St. Liudger seems to be born in the 19th century. But of course this tradition might be older. It is not very likely that a connection between Liudger and the codex ever was in Junius’ mind, but you never know. Liudger founded the monastery Werden in 799. Before that he stayed in Italy from where he took many pieces of art. He was a pupil of Alkuin, Charlemagne's "minister of culture", and he visited Alkuin’s school in York in the 760s and 770s. Thereafter he worked as a missionary among the Frisians, and in 784 he went to Rome and Monte Cassino where he stayed for two and a half years. In 787 he returned to France, and after a new missionary period among the Frisians and in Westfalen, he founded his monastery Werden. Junius stayed in Friesland for about two years, perhaps 1646–1648, it is unclear, to study the language. The connection Codex argenteus – Liudger – Friesland – Junius – Codex argenteus may have philological and/or religious roots or be just a matter of chance.

Uncle of the Queen's Librarian

But the connection Junius – Vossius was not by chance. Junius was the uncle of Vossius, his mother’s brother. The two gentlemen seem to have been very close related, not only by family ties, but also, and not least, by joint scholarly interests. For some periods they even lived together. Isaac Vossius had been one of Queen Kristina’s librarians. When Kristina moves to Rome in 1654, Vossius’ time at Her Majesties Service is over. But he has not got his salary, and his own manuscript collection is partly mixed up with the Queen’s, they have borrowed books from each other. On her way to Rome Kristina makes a stop in Antwerpen where she tries to settle up with her librarians. She gives them books for money and books for books. And among the books (or manuscripts) that Vossius gets is the Codex argenteus. It is not fortune, of course, but we cannot prove it. Vossius was very aware of his uncle’s great interest in the Gothic language and of his knowledge of this codex. He knew that Junius wanted it, wanted to see it, to use it, to have it, at least to borrow it. And borrow it he finally could.

Pica Gothica

Junius used specially made Gothic fonts for his edition of the Codex argenteus. At the bottom of the title page we can read: »DORDRECHTI.// Typis & sumptibus JUNIANIS. Excudebant Henricus & Joannes Essæi,// Urbis Typographi Ordinarii. CI)I)CLXV.« This means that the edition is printed in Dordrecht in 1665 with Junius’ types and money, and that the printing work was done by Hendrik and Johann van Esch, printers with burgership in the town. The title page text also says: »Accessit& GLOSSARIUM Gothicum: cui præmittitur ALPHABETUM// Gothicum, Runicum, &c. operâ ejusdem FRANCISCI JUNII.« That is to say that the publication also includes a Gothic glossary and has views of Gothic, Runic, and other alphabets, and that these also are works by Franciscus Junius.

As a scholar of Germanic languages, and as an editor of Germanic texts, Junius had special types made of those characters that could not be represented by the Latin ones. He treated these "printing utensils" as treasures, and when he died, he bequeathed this equipment together with his books and manuscripts to Oxford University where they are still kept and exhibited as a part of Oxford University Press archive. Junius had Gothic, Runic, Anglo-Saxon, ancient German, and other types cut, matriculated, and cast. He had contact with several printing houses in Amsterdam, Dordrecht, London, and Middelburg, and it is not easy to know whom he chose as his punchcutter. The Dublin scholar Peter J. Lucas has seriously penetrated the question. His suggestion is after a complicated reasoning (although he cannot prove it) that Junius’ punchcutter was Christoffel van Dijk, one of two very competent punchcutters in Amsterdam in the middle of the 17th century. Van Dijk thus could be the cutter of Junius Gothic font, his "Pica Gothica".

Junius and De la Gardie

Before Junius’ edition was published in 1665, the original Codex argenteus was back in Sweden. Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie had bought the codex from Vossius in 1662 together with a copy of the text made by an (to us) unknown person called Derrer. Junius had used Derrer’s copy for his edition work, but he had also made his own copy of the manuscript, still extant and kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford (MS Junius 55). The Derrer copy, on the other hand, was destroyed in the Uppsala fire in 1702. De la Gardie had paid 500 Swedish dollars, "riksdaler", for the original codex and the copy. He may also in some way have supported the printing of Junius’ edition. However, the edition is grandiosely dedicated to De la Gardie: »Illustrissimo et Exellentissimo Domino, D. Magno Gabrieli De la Gardie, Comiti de Leckou et Arensburg, Domino in Habsal, Magnushoff, et Hoyendorp, S. Regiæ Majestatis Regnique Sueciæ Senatori et Cancellario, Wester-Gothiæ ac Daliæ Judici Provinciali, nec non Academiæ Upsaliensis Cancellario.«(To the most Brilliant and Excellent Gentleman, Sir Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie, Count of Leckö and Arensburg, Lord of Habsal, Magnushoff, and Hoyendorp, and Senator and Chancellor of His Royal Majesty and the Kingdom of Sweden, Chief judge in Västergötland and Dal, also the Chancellor of Uppsala University.)

That is the beginning. The dedication takes eleven pages, and it constitutes at the same time an introduction to the edition. Junius’ Gothic glossary had already been published in the year before, but now it was reprinted together with the edition. The glossary had its own dedication to De la Gardie. The beginning is similar to the dedication of the edition, but the continuation consists of a fourteen pages long Latin poem in elegiac distich, written by the philologist Jan van Vliet (1620–66). The poem is about De la Gardie, the Gothic history, Junius and the Codex argenteus. It is undersigned: »devotissimus JANUS VLITIUS J.C. Civitatis Ditionisque Bredanæ Syndicus & Archigrammateus.«

Apart from any possible financial aid relation between De la Gardie and Junius, there may have been another, more sentimental or symbolic relation: they were both coming from old Huguenot families, and as we have seen, the Protestant tradition was very important for many of those who were interested in the Codex argenteus.

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The donation of Codex Argenteus

Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie donated the Codex Argenteus to Uppsala University in 1669, to be kept in the University Library. Both from his deed of gift and from the iconography of the silver cover he had specially made for the codex, we can understand the symbolic value he associated with this book.

This was God’s Word such as it had once been revealed to the Goths, our ancestors and the original inhabitants of Sweden. Now repatriated by De la Gardie, this book – "Wulfila’s manuscript" – was an incarnation of the invisible link that united the Gothic heroic antiquity and the present Swedish Age of Greatness.

Stiernhielm prepares a Swedish official edition

Junius’ edition was clearly related to Sweden through the swelling dedication to De la Gardie, but De la Gardie still thought that there should be made an official Swedish edition of this Wulfila monument. In November 1666 he pays Georg Stiernhielm 600 Swedish dollars, "riksdaler", in silver from public funds for preparing a printed edition of the Codex Argenteus. In December he presents the plan for a civil service department with responsibility for national archaeology: Collegium Antiqvitatum, "Antikvitetskollegiet", an early model of today’s Swedish National Heritage Board. Stiernhielm becomes the first director of this institution when it starts to work in 1667. It is obvious that the Wulfila edition is one of its first tasks. In 1667 De la Gardie also procures a scholarship for the student Abraham Tornæus to assist Stiernhielm with proof-reading the edition.

The Father of Swedish poetry

Georg Stiernhielm (1598–1672) made a career in Swedish public service, but he was also a poet, and went down to posterity as the "Father of Swedish Poetry". His great hexameter poem Hercules was for decades well known by Swedish pupils. His linguistic philosophy included ideas of text creation by means of replaceable language modules, a preliminary stage of transformation grammar. In the 1640s he developed a "Gothic" (in a Swedish chauvinistic sense) view of the Swedish language, which he looked upon as the original language with sound values directly representing the essence of things. Stiernhielm’s linguistic ideas are expressed in Gambla Swea- och Götha måles fatebur 1643 (Treasury of the Old Swedish and Gothic Languages).

Stiernhielm's edition was printed with a dictionary

Stiernhielm’s edition 1671 was published together with a glossarium. This was essentially Junius’ dictionary, now completed with Swedish words by Stiernhielm. The title page of the 1671 edition does not mention Stiernhielm’s name; the editor is supposed to be the institution, Antikvitetskollegiet. In the dedication to the Swedish King, on the other hand, Stiernhielm’s work is mentioned as well as his revision of the glossarium. The printing of the glossary had been completed already in 1670 with its own title page. In the publishing process in 1671, however, a considerable part of the edition got a new title page for the glossary. The title leaf of the 1670 glossary has on its verso page some alphabets in woodcut, while the 1671 title leaf of the glossary, which has a more ambitious title, has on its verso page alphabets and Gothic text samples in copperplate.

The frontispiece page in Stiernhielm’s edition is a copperplate depiction of the front cover scene from the silver cover De la Gardie had ordered for the Codex Argenteus when he donated it to Uppsala University in 1669. »Dav: Klöker. S.R.M. Pictor: Inv: Dionysius Padt-Brugge. Fecit. Stockholmiæ«.

Stiernhielm’s edition is quadrilingual. Each opening has four columns, one for each language: Gothic transliterated with Latin letters, Icelandic, Swedish and Latin. Icelandic was in Stiernhielm’s days supposed to be the old Swedish language. The Latin text is from Latin Vulgate, Versio Vulgata. The Gothic text is exactly the one presented by Junius, though transliterated.

Stiernhielm's contribution

Anders Grape says that Stiernhielm follows Junius in detail, and so slavishly – including Junius’ misreadings and unsolved lacunae – that his edition is, in reality, an edition of Junius’ text, not of the text of the Codex itself. The deviations from Junius – misprints as well as supposed improvements – are all nothing but deterioration. Grape questions Stiernhielm’s closer acquaintance with the Gothic language. The edition is more of a patriotic deed than of a philological one. Stiernhielm’s introduction to the edition, on the other hand, not very much dealing with the Gothic language, and not at all dealing with the Codex Argenteus, is quite an important contribution to the question of relations between languages and principles for linguistic development, all this vividly debated at this time.

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Regarding the pure manuscript editing work, Johann Christian Zahn's edition is completely based on the work of two Uppsala scholars: Johan Ihre and Erik Sotberg.

Johan Ihre and Erik Sotberg

Johan Ihre was actually professor of Eloquence and Politics in Uppsala, but his passion was philology. His great lifework was his Swedish etymological dictionary, Glossarium Suiogothicum 1769. One of the sources he used in his dictionary work was the Codex Argenteus, and he found like Benzelius that Junius’ and Stiernhielm’s editions were insufficient.

Perhaps he was not aware of how far the Benzelius’ edition preparations had advanced, or perhaps he did not expect the Benzelius’ edition to be actually published. So he asked one of his pupils, Erik Sotberg, to make a collation of the manuscript. He found himself too purblind and too busy for the task. When Benzelius’ edition finally reached Uppsala, Ihre saw that Sotberg with his work had filled up many more lacunae than Benzelius had, and the idea of making yet another edition began to grow. Sotberg published his deciphering in two dissertations in 1752 and 1755 under Ihre’s presidency. The title was Ulphilas illustratus. In the preface of the first of these dissertations Ihre introduces the theory about the stamps: the Codex Argenteus was not written with a pen or a calamus – the letters were burnt into the parchment with hot stamps. In both dissertations Sotberg gives a Latin translation of the parts of the text he deals with. Friesen and Grape say that Sotberg’s reading of the manuscript is »... the greatest progress in understanding the text made from the publication of the editio princeps up to today« (1927).

Johann Christian Zahn's contribution

Ihre did not succeed in publishing a new edition of the Codex Argenteus. Sotberg had penetrated it once again and made a complete copy of it. He had even made a calligraphic copy, perhaps designed for the planned edition. In 1773 Ihre sent Sotberg’s clean copy to the German scholar A.F. Büsching, publisher of a collected edition of Ihre’s Gothic dissertations. But Büsching had no better luck with publishing it. Sotberg’s manuscript wandered through several hands. From one of its owners the German clergyman Johann Christian Zahn gained access to it. Zahn managed to publish it in 1805 together with a Gothic grammar and a Gothic glossary by two German scholars. Zahn wrote the introduction. Ihre’s name is mentioned on the title page, but not Sotberg’s. The Gothic text in this edition is printed in Latin type in a special transliteration also used in Ulphilas illustratus and in Ihre’s works, however here somewhat improved by Zahn.

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The German scholars Hans Conon von der Gabelentz and Julius Löbe included all remnants of Wulfila’s Bible translation in their edition. This meant not only the Codex Argenteus, but also the Codex Carolinus and the palimpsests preserved in Italy.

Contradictions between the demands of tourists and researchers

For this work Löbe spent four weeks in Uppsala during the summer of 1834 collating the Codex Argenteus. At this time a rivalry had arisen between the tourists and the serious scholars. Löbe was very concerned about the poor condition of the codex, and that tourists had priority over scholars concerning access. »We had not imagined that the manuscript would be in such bad condition«, he says, »always listening to the praising of its beauty concerning material and script. First we had the daylong work finding the sequence of the unordered leaves, and then the often hour-long work with just one passage, and so the interruptions of the difficult work when the quite frequently tourists must take the manuscript into their hands and look at it. This diminished even more the time we had hoped to spend on an extended comparison of it.«

First edition of all text from Wulfila's Bible translation

The text edition was the first volume of Gabelentz’ and Löbe’s work. Volume 2:1 was published in 1843 and had the title Glossarium der gotischen Sprache. Volume 2:2, 1846, had the title Grammatik der gotischen Sprache. In Gabelentz’ and Löbe’s edition the Gothic text is printed in transliteration in Latin type.

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Anders Uppström became professor of "Moesogothic and Related Languages" at Uppsala University in 1859. This was after his edition of the Codex Argenteus. When it was published in 1854, ten leaves of the manuscript were missing. Three years later he could complete his edition with these ten leaves, now recovered.

The ten missing leaves

Already when Julius Löbe worked with his collations of the Codex Argenteus during the summer of 1834, it was realised that ten leaves from the manuscript, earlier in place in the Codex, were missing. It was a matter of scandalous dimensions, of course. It was unknown how the leaves had disappeared, and when. The loss was kept a secret and it was not admitted to until a couple of years later. And even then, the matter was kept under wraps. When Uppström was working with his edition of the Codex Argenteus, the lack of these ten leaves was very irritating to him. The leaves had been lost for a long time, and this state was commonly known. But Uppström could not accept the lacuna in the manuscript; he wanted to get to the bottom of the matter.

The leaves are found

Uppström was met with no positive response from Johan Henrik Schröder, the Librarian, in his searching for the ten missing leaves. However, he happened to ask the old library messenger Lars Wallin about the leaves. Uppström’s more than two years’ long dialogue with Wallin is a fascinating story for itself. A month before his death, Wallin gives Uppström the ten missing leaves when Uppström is visiting him at his sickbed. Wallin does not admit that he is the thief of the leaves, but Uppström thinks that he is. Nevertheless, in his preface to his edition of the missing leaves, Uppström writes very warmly about Wallin and says: »… I cannot avoid feeling grateful to the deceased who gave me back what he could have easily destroyed forever. And though I hate his crime, I wish with all my heart that the creator of the world may prove to be a mild rather than severe judge.«

Uppström's edition "modern"

Uppström’s edition gives the text of the manuscript transliterated into Latin letters with pages and lines marked out. The text is ordered by chapters and passages in a "modern" manner, but the Eusebian division into sections is also marked out, as well as the gold script, the enlarged initials, and the dissolved abbreviatures and ligatures. In a supplement the parallel numbers in the canon tables under the text are noted, and in another supplement there is an overview of the original and the still existing leaves of the manuscript. »Uppström has practically ... reached the definitive, and as a philological deed his work is final« according to Friesen and Grape.

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