The uncials are written on costly and durable vellum or parchment, on quarto or small folio pages of one or two, very rarely of three or four, columns. The older ones have no division of words or sentences except for paragraphs, no accents or ornaments, and hut very few pause-marks. Hence it requires some practice to read them with ease.
The date and place, which were not marked on MSS. earlier than the tenth century, can be only approximately ascertained from the material, the form of letters, the style of writing, the presence or absence of the Ammonian sections (κεφάλαια, capitula) in the Gospels, the Eusebian Canons (or tables of references to the Ammonian sections, after 340, when Eusebius died), the Euthalian sections in the Acts and Epistles, and the stichometric divisions,or lines (στίχοι) corresponding to sentences (both introduced by Euthalius, cir. A.D. 458),[1] marks of punctuation (ninth century), etc. Sometimes a second or third hand has introduced punctuation and accents or different readings. Hence the distinction of lectiones a prima manu, marked by a *; a secunda manu (**, or 2, or b ); a tertia manu (***, or 3, or c).
- ↑ Afterwards these stichometric divisions were abandoned as too costly, and gave way to dots or other marks between the sentences. This was the beginning of punctuation.
the order of their age or value, which would place B and x before A. But the usage in this case can as little be altered as the traditional division into chapters and verses. Mill cited the copies by abridgments of their names, e. g. Alex., Cant., Mont.; but this mode would now take too much space. Wetstein knew 14 uncial MSS. of the Gospels, which he designated from A to O, and about 112 cursives, besides 24 Evangetlistaries. See his list at the close of the Prolegomena, pp. 220-222.
