Codex Claromontanus is a 6th-century manuscript in an uncial hand on vellum of the Epistles of Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews in Greek and Latin on facing pages (thus a "diglot" manuscript, like Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis).
It was named by Theodore Beza because he procured it in the town of Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, Oise, in the Picardie region north of Paris. The Codex is preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
Theodore Beza was the first scholar to examine it, and he included notes of some of its readings in his editions of the New Testament (see Beza 1565). A partial collation of it was published in the appendix of Walton's Polyglot (see Walton 1657), an English translation in Whiston 1745, and a full collation in the apparatus of Wettstein (see Wettstein 1751). Tischendorf 1852 was the first reproduction of its text. A later edition is Hansell 1864. Full collations are in the apparati of Tischendorf 1869 and Tregelles 1857.
The Greek text of this codex is highly valued by critics as representing an early form of the text in the "Western" manuscript tradition, characterized by frequent interpolations and, to a lesser extent, interpretive revisions presented as corrections to this text. Modern critical editions of the New Testament texts are produced by an eclectic method, where the preferred reading is determined on a case-by-case basis, from among numerous variants offered by the early manuscripts and versions. In this process, Claromontanus is often employed as a sort of "outside mediator" in collating the more closely related, that is mutually dependent codices containing the Pauline epistles: Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus. In a similar way, Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis is used in establishing the history of texts of the Gospels and Acts.
The Codex Claromontanus contains further precious documents:
