THE DISCOVERY OF THE CODEX

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...of the Septuagint The ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament., brought him the Codex wrapped in a red cloth.¹ Tischendorf's delight can be imagined when he found that it contained not only a great part of the Septuagint, but the entire New Testament, the Epistle of Barnabas, and part of the Shepherd of Hermas Two early Christian writings that were highly regarded but eventually excluded from the standard New Testament canon..

An arrangement was made with the monks that, if the superiors of the monastery living in Cairo agreed, the manuscript should be sent to Cairo to be copied. Hurriedly returning there, Tischendorf persuaded the representatives of the monastery to make this concession. As a result, a messenger was sent to St. Catherine's to fetch the manuscript. It reached Cairo on February 24, 1859, where it was copied by Tischendorf and two assistants in the extraordinarily short time of two months.

After this, Tischendorf suggested to the monks in Cairo that the manuscript should be given to the Tsar Alexander II of Russia, who was the traditional protector of the Eastern Orthodox Church.. At that time, however, an election for the archbishopric of Sinai was underway;² a candidate had been chosen unanimously, but he had not yet been consecrated. Under these circumstances, it was eventually agreed in September 1859 that Tischendorf should take the manuscript to the Tsar in anticipation of the formal gift, which would be made once the archbishop was in a position to officially authorize it.

There has been much unseemly controversy regarding the terms of this arrangement. Some of the monks have maintained that it was never their intention to make a permanent gift of the manuscript. Another version of the story is that they bargained for a steamship to connect their Red Sea harbor with Port Said. Those who have had much to do with Eastern monks will understand how improbable it is that the terms of the arrangement, whatever they were, were ever known to anyone except a few leaders. These leaders likely viewed the entire affair as a business venture. In any case, it is certain that the archbishop allowed Tischendorf to take the manuscript to St. Petersburg.

The Tsar was pleased to accept the gift brought by Tischendorf. In November 1859, the manuscript was exhibited for a fortnight and then taken to Leipzig so that Tischendorf could produce a facsimile edition An exact copy or reproduction of a manuscript. by the Tsar's orders. Photography was not yet advanced enough at that time to be used for this purpose, although...

¹ The manuscript is still wrapped in this red cloth, and I hope it always will be.
² Sinai is under the control of an archbishop who is consecrated at Jerusalem but possesses independent jurisdiction.
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...Tischendorf considered using it. Instead, special type was cut to imitate the handwriting of the manuscript. The result may fairly claim to be the most perfect facsimile edition ever published before the era of photography. It is a triumph of printing,¹ and Tischendorf's notes will always remain an essential aid to studying the manuscript. It was issued in four volumes from St. Petersburg in 1862, under the title: The Sinai Bible Codex of St. Petersburg original Latin: BIBLIORUM CODEX SINAITICUS PETROPOLITANUS. Under the most august auspices of Emperor Alexander II. Constantin Tischendorf brought it forth from darkness, carried it to Europe, and edited it to aid and illuminate Sacred Literature. original Latin: AUSPICIIS AUGUSTISSIMIS IMPERATORIS ALEXANDRI II. EX TENEBRIS PROTRAXIT IN EUROPAM TRANSTULIT AD IUVANDAS ATQUE ILLUSTRANDAS SACRAS LITTERAS EDIDIT CONSTANTINUS TISCHENDORF.

When the manuscript was no longer needed for preparing this edition, it was finally handed over to the Tsar and deposited in the Imperial Library, as it was then known, where it was displayed in a special showcase in the Great Hall.

Meanwhile, the monks of Sinai had received nothing in return for their magnificent gift. In a letter dated July 15, 1869, the Archbishop of Sinai hinted to Tischendorf that the time was approaching when the monks might reasonably expect some suitable acknowledgment. Following this letter, Tischendorf appears to have written to the Russian Ministry. The result was that on November 18, 1869, 7,000 roubles were received by the monks of St. Catherine's, and 2,000 roubles by the affiliated monastery of Mount Tabor. Various medals and decorations were also given to the leading monks. The monks, however, have always claimed they did not accept this as a satisfactory settlement. Nevertheless, no written protest from them is known to exist, and the archbishop, at any rate, remained on friendly terms with Tischendorf.²

It is perhaps curious enough to mention that Simonides, a known forger, attempted to discredit the experts who had helped detect his frauds by claiming that he himself had written the Codex Sinaiticus and had deceived them all. However, the details of this absurd story belong more to the annals of crime than to the history of paleography.

Finally, in 1911, Dr. V. Benešević announced in his...

¹ A full account of its preparation is given in the preface to Tischendorf's edition, volume 1, pages 5 and following.
² See the quotations from Tischendorf's correspondence in C. R. Gregory's Prolegomena to the Eighth Edition of Tischendorf's Greek New Testament original Latin: Novum Testamentum Graece, 1894, pages 351 and following.