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The four Gospels,
according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is a priceless relic of ancient Georgian
culture, written in hieratic majuscule script (asomt avruli). It was written in the
Monastery of St John the Baptist at Opiza, an important philological centre in ancient
Georgia which was renovated in the ninth century by the scribe who copied this very
manuscript. He explains in a note that the text of the Gospels as presented here is a copy
of an original 'which was faultless with regard to the text'. This indicates that the
manuscript preserves one of the oldest and most authoritative Georgian translations and
reflects the Georgian monks' precision in copying and transmitting the texts, as also
their great respect for these. The first two Gospels in this manuscript are included in
Beneshevisch 1909 and 1911.
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