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Purple Manuscript

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Purpose of God

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(CODEX PURPUREUS, sometimes called "the Cotton MS.," variously designated as N, J, and P of the Gospels), a beautiful uncial MS. of the Greek Gospels, of which only twelve leaves remain: four of these (containing Matthew 26:57-65; Matthew 27:26-34; John 14:2-10; John 15:15-22) are in the Cotton Library (Codex Cottonianus, the "J" of Wetstein) of the British Museum; two (containing Luke 24:13-21; Luke 24:34-39) are in the Imperial Library at Vienna ("N" of Wetstein and others); and six (containing Matthew 19:6-13; Matthew 20:6-22) are in the Vatican Library at Rome (called "F" by Scholz). These are written in silver letters (now turned black), occasionally in gold letters, on purple vellum, in a large round hand, andt in two columns, with the Ammonian sections and Eusebian canons in the margin. The date is of the end of the 6th or the beginning of the 7th century. Some of the fragments were collated in part by Wetstein and Scholz, and the whole were accurately published by Tischendorf in his Monumenta Sacra Inedita (Lips. 1846). See Tregelles, in Horme's Introd. 4:177; Scrivener, Introd. p. 110 sq. (See MANUSCRIPTS, BIBLICAL).