GREEK ORTHODOX THEOLOGICAL REVIEW 53:1-4 2008 Tischendorf and the Codex Sinaiticusi The Saga Continues* MICHAEL D. PETERSON Libraries around the world share the problem of how to safeguard their treasures from an ever-growing number of threats. In the case of the library of St. Catherine's Monastery at Mount Sinai, in the mid-nineteenth century the most in- sidious threat was political intrigue. Because of international political machinations, St. Catherine's irretrievably lost one of its most valuable treasures, the Codex Sinaiticus. It is a case whose ramifications are heatedly discussed to this day. Lobegott Friedrich Constantin Tischendorf (1815-1874), commonly known as Constantin von Tischendorf (the "von" was added later), was the principal in the affair. He was a gifted and ambitious New Testament scholar of German Lutheran persuasion, who pitted himself against David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874), Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792-1860), and the Tubingen School - all at their height of infiuence in the 184O's. Tischendorf believed that the one effective antidote to Strauss and to Tubingen and its impious ilk was to compile and publish a critical edition of the New Testament based on the most pristine resources. Therefore, after having surveyed the great Bible manuscripts located throughout Europe, he set out in 1844 to uncover the forgot- ten manuscripts of the libraries of the Middle East. His itin- * This article was initially published in The Church and the Library: Studies in Honor of Rev. Dr George C. Papademetriou, ed. Dean Papa- demetriou and Andrew J. Sopko, (Somerset Hall Press, Boston, 2005), pp. 75-92. Reprinted with permission. 125 126 GOTR 53:1-4 2008 erary included Alexandria, Cairo, Sinai, Jerusalem, Patmos, Constantinople, and Athens. It was in the Monastery of St. Catherine's, Sinai that Tischendorf stumbled upon tbe document tbat was to estab- lisb bis fame in tbe world of biblical scbolarsbip. He de- scribed the discovery in his popular account: It was at the foot of Mount Sinai, in the Convent of St. Catherine, that I discovered the pearl of all my researches. In visiting the library of the monastery, in the month of May, 1844, I perceived in the middle of the great hall a large and wide basket full of old parchments; and the librarian [Kyrillos], who was a man of information, told me that two heaps of papers like these, mouldered by time, had been already committed to the fiâmes. What was my surprise to find amid this heap of papers a considerable number of sheets of a copy of the Old Testament in Greek, which seemed to me to be one of the most ancient that I had ever seen. The authorities of the convent allowed me to possess myself of a third of these parchments, or about forty-three sheets, all the more readily as they were destined for the fire. But I could not get them to yield up possession of the remainder The too lively satisfaction which 1 had displayed had aroused their suspicions as to the value of this manuscript. I transcribed a page of the text of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and enjoined on the monks to take religious care of all such remains which might fall in their What Tischendorf brougbt out of Sinai was a collec- tion of 43 leaves from a fourtb century uncial codex of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament. The text contains part of I Chronicles and Jeremiah, and all of Nehemiah and Esther. When he returned to Saxony he refused to disclose the provenance of the fragments for fear, he claimed, that others might snatch up the remaining parts of tbe codex. He deposited tbe Sinaitic fragments in tbe University of Leipzig library, naming tbem Codex Frederico-Augustanus in trib- ute to his patron, Frederick Augustus II of Saxony. Then, Peterson: Tischendorf and the Codex Sinaiticus 127 he published the texts in 1846 as a deluxe facsimile edi- tion. However exemplary Tischendorf's story may seem, doubts still remain. His account of rescuing the fragments from the flames has always elicited strong support for their removal from St. Catherine's, but the story may be con- trived. According to J.K, Elliott in Codex Sinaiticus and the Simonides Affair. One detail that was given about the finding of Codex Frederico-Augustanus was that it was found in a rubbish basket. A letter published in The Guardian on 27 May 1863 from the Revd. J. Silvester Davies one-time chaplain to the British Consul in Alexandria ... quotes a monk of Sinai who ... stated that according to the librarian of the monastery the whole of Codex Sinaiticus had been in the library for many years and was marked in the ancient catalogues ... Is it likely, [scholars] wondered, that a manuscript known in the library catalogue would have been jettisoned in the rubbish basket.-^ Indeed, the 43 parchment leaves were in suspiciously good condition for something consigned to the trash.-* In 1853, Tischendorf retumed to St. Catherine's but was unable to gain access to the fragments he had left behind. He retumed a third time in late January 1859, under the patron- age of Tsar Alexander II of Russia. This time he was success- ful beyond expectation, as he recounted in Codex Sinaiticus: After having devoted a few days in turning over the manuscripts of the convent, not without alighting here and there on some precious parchment or other, 1 told my Bedouins, on the 4* February, to hold themselves in readiness to set out with their dromedaries for Cairo on the 7*, when an entirely fortuitous circumstance carried me at once to the goal of all my desires. On the afternoon of this day I was taking a walk with the steward of the convent in the neighbourhood, and as we retumed, towards sunset, he begged me to take some refreshment with him in his cell. Scarcely had he entered the room, when, resuming our 128 GOTR 53:1-4 2008 former subject of conversation, he said: "And I, too, have read a Septuagint" - i.e. a copy of the Greek translation made by the Seventy. And so saying, he took down from the comer of the room a bulky kind of volume, wrapped in a red cloth, and laid it before me. I unrolled the cover, and discovered, to my great surprise, not only those very fragments which, fifteen years before, I had taken out of the basket, but also other parts of the Old Testament, the New Testament complete, and, in addition, the Epistle of Barnabas and a part of the Pastor of Hermas. Full of joy, which this time 1 had the self-command to conceal from the steward and the rest of the community, I asked, as if in a careless way, for permission to take the manuscript into my sleeping chamber to look over it more at leisure. There by myself I could give way to the transport of joy which 1 felt. I knew that I held in my hand the most precious Biblical treasure in existence - a document whose age and importance exceeded that of all the manuscripts which I had ever examined during twenty years' study of the subject." Tischendorf asked permission to take the codex to St. Catherine's sister monastery in Cairo where he could get assistance copying the text. The sacristan Vitalios refused. "Tischendorf therefore now embarked on tbe remarkable piece of duplicity wbicb was to occupy bim for tbe next de- cade, which involved the careful suppression of facts and the systematic denigration of the monks of Mount Sinai."^ As a last resort, Tischendorf requested to make an appeal to the abbot, wbo was in Cairo on bis way to Constantinople to participate in tbe election of a new archbisbop. Tbe elec- tion was a sensitive issue because tbe Patriarcb of Jerusalem opposed Cyril, tbe candidate favored by tbe abbots. It was an ideal political opportunity for Tischendorf's purposes, given that be bad tbe support of tbe influential Russian Ortbodox ruler, Alexander II. Tiscbendorf, accompanied by tbe Bedouin Sbeik Nasser, beaded off to Cairo to in- tercept the abbot. After a seven-day joumey be arrived at Peterson: Tischendorf and the Codex Sinaiticus 129 Cairo and was able to persuade the gathered abbots to allow him to copy the manuscript in Cairo. Sheik Nasser rushed back to St, Catherine's and in a remarkable twelve days was back with the codex. Tischendorf was allowed to take eight leaves at a time to his Cairo quarters, where he had the as- sistance of two German nationals, a doctor and a pharmacist, who had knowledge of Biblical Greek. It took the trio two months, through March and April, to copy and proofread the transcription. There were 110,000 lines from the original scribes, to which Tischendorf added 12,000 lines made by subsequent correctors. Once the project was completed, he departed Cairo until the end of July, at which time he redoubled his efforts to obtain the codex on behalf of the Russian Tsar. Tischendorf came up with the proposal that the Tsar would support the cause of Cyril, the popular candidate for archbishop, if in retum the monks deeded the codex to the Russians. They did not agree to the plan but did allow him to borrow the codex for a period of time to produce a facsimile edition at St. Petersburg, projected for publication by autumn 1862, in time for the 1,000-year anniversary of the Russian monar- chy. Through much trial and perseverance Tischendorf man- aged to complete the project just after Easter 1862.