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Rome, Biblioteca Vaticana, GR. 354, FOL. 30 Recto.

Tenth-Century Gospel of Matthew in Greek. Part of a parchment codex containing the Four Gospels, this manuscript, called Codex Vaticanus 354, is written in large, stylized Greek capital letters called uncials. (This parchment is not to be confused with the famous fourth-century Codex Vaticanus of the Greek Bible.)

The scribe, who identified himself as “Michael, monk and sinner,” noted the precise moment at which he completed the manuscript: the fifth of March, at the sixth hour, in 949 A.D.

The text in the right-hand margin, in smaller uncials, is a commentary from Clement of Alexandria’s Hypotyposes, interpreting a passage on this page of Matthew regarding the leper (see Matthew 8:1–4).

Thought by many scholars to be the original language of the Gospel of Matthew, Greek is now understood by George Howard to be but one “original” language; the other, he suggests, is Hebrew.