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Manuscript

Codex Claromontanus

Also known as Claromontanus · D-paul (Gregory-Aland 06) · 06 · BnF Grec 107
great-codicesnew-testamentpauline-epistlescanon

Summary

Paul's letters with Greek and Latin side by side — and a list, tucked between two books, of which writings its owner counted as Scripture.

  • Copied Fifth to sixth century AD (c. 400–550).
  • Written in greek and latin (facing pages) on parchment.
  • Kept at Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (Grec 107).
  • Contains Pauline epistles, Hebrews, an early canon list (the Catalogus Claromontanus).
A parchment page of Paul's letter to the Colossians in Greek, written in sense-lines
Codex Claromontanus at Colossians 1:28–2:3, the Greek side: public domain

Sources (3)

  1. Gallica (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Codex Claromontanus (Grec 107) digitised · accessed 2026-08-06The holding institution's own imaging.
  2. INTF, Kurzgefasste Liste (Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung, Münster) · accessed 2026-08-06The official register of Greek New Testament manuscripts.
  3. Metzger & Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed. (Oxford University Press, 2005) · accessed 2026-08-06The standard handbook of New Testament textual criticism.

What it is

The letters run in facing columns, Greek on one page and Latin opposite, the same arrangement as Codex Bezae uses for the Gospels.

Between Philemon and Hebrews the manuscript carries something else: a catalogue of biblical books with the number of lines in each. It is one of the earliest surviving canon lists, and it does not match a modern table of contents — it omits Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians and Hebrews from the Pauline sequence, and adds the Shepherd of Hermas, the Acts of Paul and the Apocalypse of Peter.

It belonged to the monastery of Clermont near Beauvais, which is where the name comes from, and passed to Theodore Beza before entering the French royal library.

Manuscript details
Date
Fifth to sixth century AD (c. 400–550)
Language
Greek and Latin (facing pages)
Script
Uncial (majuscule)
Material
Parchment
Held at
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (Grec 107)
Found at
Monastery of Clermont, near Beauvais, France
Contains
Pauline epistles · Hebrews · an early canon list (the Catalogus Claromontanus)
Why it matters
It shows the canon still being worked out, in writing, inside a Bible. Somebody copied out a list of the books he considered Scripture — and it is not quite ours. MannaFest prints that rather than smoothing it over: the list is evidence that the church's settling took time and left records.

The passages the manuscripts argue over

The words used here: uncial, codex
uncial
a book hand of Greek capital letters, used for the oldest whole Bibles.
codex
a book with leaves and a spine, the form that replaced the scroll.

The places where the manuscripts differ, the ending of Mark, the woman caught in adultery, the three heavenly witnesses, with the case each way.

Where the manuscripts differ, all 15 places →Every handwritten copy, shelved and in date order →