Henry Bradshaw - palaeography savant :) who studied Sinaiticus for two hours in 1862

Steven Avery

Steven Avery

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Did he have the CFA in the room?

present so ancient an appearance?

Quire nonsenese
"On the 18th of July last I was at Leipzig with a friend, and we called on Professor Tischendorf. Though I had no introduction but my occupation at Cambridge, nothing could exceed his kindness ; we were with him for more than two hours, and I had the satisfaction of examining the manuscript after my own fashion. I had been anxious to know whether it was written in even continuous quaternions throughout, like the Codex Beza:, or in a series of fasciculi each ending with a quire of varying size, as the Codex Alexandrinus, and I found the latter to be the case. This, by-the-by, is of itself sufficient to prove that it cannot be the volume which Dr Simonides speaks of having written at Mount Athos. "

Intuition nonsense
 
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Steven Avery

Steven Avery

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Henry Bradshaw (1831-1886)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bradshaw_(scholar)
He had a share in exposing the frauds of Constantine Simonides, who had asserted that the Codex Sinaiticus brought by Tischendorf from the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai was a modern forgery of which he was himself the author. Bradshaw exposed the absurdity of these claims in a letter to the Guardian (26 January 1863).

George Walter Prothero (1848-1922)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Prothero

Bradshaw was only 31 when he was wowed by Sinaiticus, he claimed tons of experience.

A memoir of Henry Bradshaw (1888)
George Walter Prothero
http://books.google.com/books?id=j-u5AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA92
p. 92-99

In the early part of 1863, Bradshaw, who abstained from public discussions in general, took some part in a controversy about the authenticity of the Codex Sinaiticus, which made considerable stir in the learned world at that time. This precious document, now generally recognized as the most ancient manuscript of the Bible, was discovered by Dr Tischendorf in 1859, in the monastery of St Catharine on Mount Sinai. The controversy about it, now wellnigh forgotten, is sufficiently amusing to make it worth while to recall its more important passages. One Simonides, a Græculus esuriens, who had some time before been convicted by Dr Tischendorf of endeavouring to palm off forged manuscripts, gave out, apparently in order to revenge himself, that the Codex Sinaiticus was itself a forgery. He declared that he had written it with his own hands when a young man. This "whimsical story," as Dr Hort calls it obtained a certain amount of credence. During the autumn. of 1862 and the early part of 1863 a correspondence was carried on in the Guardian on the subject. In the number of that paper for September 3, 1862, is a long letter from Simonides, purporting to give an account of how he came to write the manuscript and how it passed into the possession of the monks of Sinai.

"Any person learned in palæography," he remarks, "ought to be able to tell at once that it is a manuscript of the present age," and he concludes, with an amusing air of injured innocence, "You must permit me to express my sincere regret that, whilst the many valuable remains of antiquity in my possession are frequently attributed to my own hands, the one poor work of my youth is set down by a gentleman who enjoys a great reputation for learning, as the earliest copy of the Sacred Scriptures."

The story of Simonides was ingenious and full of circumstantial details, but it contained statements which, when carefully examined, carried with them their own refutation. Its absurdities were exposed by Mr Aldis Wright, in a letter published in the Guardian for November 5, 1862. A month later, a letter appeared in the Guardian, purporting to be written by one Kallinikos Hieromonachos, who wrote in defence of Simonides. His letter was in Greek, and a translation was appended by the editor, who made no concealment of his suspicions.

"I have read," says the unknown writer, "what the wise Greek Simonides has published respecting the pseudo-Sinaitic Codex by means of your excellent weekly publication, and I too myself declare to all men by this letter that the Codex. . . which was abstracted by Dr Tischendorf from the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai, is a work of the hands of the unwearied Simonides himself, inasmuch as I myself saw him in 1840, in the month of February, writing it in Athos."

In the next number Simonides writes to back up his friend. "I must inform you," he says, "that the above mentioned Kallinikos is a perfectly upright and honourable man, well known for truth and probity, so that his simplest word may be relied on."

Mr Aldis Wright had little difficulty in disposing of his advocacy, and involving Simonides in a tissue of inconsistencies and improbabilities. "What does the evidence amount to ?" he asks. "Kallinikos says, 'Simonides wrote the Codex, for I saw him.' 'Believe Kallinikos,' says Simonides, 'for he saw me write it.' We know Simonides, but who is Kallinikos?" Unfortunately, no proof of his existence, much less of his probity, was forthcoming. "His story," says Mr Haddan, in a letter to Bradshaw, "reminds me of an Irish lad from Connemara, who sent his regards to a man who had been fishing there, with the said lad to help, and begged him to tell the Londoners 'any number or weight of fish he liked,' as having been caught by him, and he would be ready and delighted to swear to it." The British chaplain at Alexandria knew nothing of Kallinikos, "the Greek monk who takes in the Guardian and the Literary Churchman." In vain did Simonides attempt to strengthen his case by publishing several more letters from Kallinikos. Strange to say, one correspondent of the Guardian, at least, appears to have thought that a repetition of unsupported assertions constituted a proof, but the majority were less easily convinced. Mr Haddan urged Bradshaw to interfere. In a letter dated November 19, 1862, he says, "You could really do a service to truth if you would put upon paper the results of your examination of the Codex, and let it be published, with or without your name. The question is really important, and you could throw light upon it." To this Bradshaw replied that he thought the time was not yet ripe for discussing the palæographical part of the question.

However, Simonides returned to the charge, and in a long letter to the Guardian (January 21, 1863) stated, among other facts tending to prove his capacity for writing the Codex, that he had written a letter in uncial characters to Mr Bradshaw a few months before, when he was staying at Cambridge during the meeting of the British Association. This produced the following letter from Bradshaw, published in the Guardian for January 28, 1863:

"SIR,
"As Dr Simonides has cited a letter which he wrote to me in uncial characters in October last, while he was at Cambridge, and as I have with my own eyes seen and examined the Codex Sinaiticus within the last few months, perhaps you will allow me to say a few words.
"The note which Dr Simonides wrote to me was to convince me and my friends that it was quite possible for him to have written the volume in question, and to confirm his assertion that the uncial character of the manuscript was as familiar and easy to him to write as the common cursive hand of the present day.
"He had invited some of us to Christ's College to examine his papyri and to discuss matters fairly. He could speak and understand English pretty well, but his friend was with him to interpret and explain. They first taxed us with believing in the antiquity of manuscripts solely on the authority of one man like Tischendorf, and they really seemed to believe that all people in the West were as ignorant of Greek as the Greeks are of Latin. But the great question was, 'How do you satisfy yourselves of the genuineness of any manuscript?' I first replied that it was really difficult to define; that it seemed to be more a kind of instinct than anything else. Dr Simonides and his friend readily caught at this as too much like vague assertion, and they naturally ridiculed any such idea. But I further said that I had lived for six years past in the constant, almost daily, habit of examining manuscripts-not merely the text of the works contained in the volumes, but the volumes themselves as such; the writing, the paper or parchment, the arrangement or numbering of the sheets, the distinction between the original volume and any additional matter by later hands, etc.; and that, with experience of this kind, though it might be difficult to assign the special ground of my confidence, yet I hardly ever found myself deceived even by a very well-executed facsimile. All this Dr Simonides allowed and confirmed. He gave the instance of the Jews in the East, who could in an instant tell the exact proportion of foreign matter in a bottle of otto of roses, where the most careful chemical analysis might fail to detect the same. Indeed, any tradesman acquires the same sort of experience with regard to the quality of the particular goods which are daily passing through his hands; and this is all that I claimed for myself. Dr Simonides afterwards told me himself that this was the only safe method of judging, that there was no gainsaying such evidence, and that he only fought against persons who made strong and vague assertions without either proof or experience. Yet when I told him that I had seen the Codex Sinaiticus, he spoke as if bound in honour not to allow in this case the value of that very criterion which he had before confessed to be the surest; and he wrote me the letter to which he refers, in the hope of convincing me. I told him as politely as I could that I was not to be convinced against the evidence of my senses.

"On the 18th of July last I was at Leipzig with a friend, and we called on Professor Tischendorf. Though I had no introduction but my occupation at Cambridge, nothing could exceed his kindness; we were with him for more than two hours, and I had the satisfaction of examining the manuscript after my own fashion. I had been anxious to know whether it was written in even continuous quaternions throughout, like the Codex Beza, or in a series of fasciculi each ending with a quire of varying size, as the Codex Alexandrinus, and I found the latter to be the case. This, by-the-by, is of itself sufficient to prove that it cannot be the volume which. Dr Simonides speaks of having written at Mount Athos.

"Now, it must be remembered that Dr Simonides always maintained two points-first, that the Mount Athos Bible written in 1840 for the Emperor of Russia was not meant to deceive any one, but was only a beautiful specimen of writing in the old style, in the character used by the writer in his letter to me; secondly, that it was Professor Tischendorf's ignorance and inexperience which rendered him so easily deceived where no deception was intended. For the second assertion, no words of mine are needed to accredit an editor of such long standing as Professor Tischendorf. For the first, though a carefully made facsimile of a few leaves inserted among several genuine ones might for a time deceive even a well-practised eye, yet it is utterly impossible that a book merely written in the antique style, and without any intent to deceive, should mislead a person of moderate experience. For myself, I have no hesitation in saying that I am as absolutely certain of the genuineness and antiquity of the Codex Sinaiticus as I am of my own existence. Indeed, I cannot hear of any one who has seen the book who thinks otherwise. Let any one go to St Petersburg and satisfy himself. Let Dr Simonides go there and examine it. He can never have seen it himself, or I am sure that, with his knowledge of manuscripts, he would be the first to agree with me. The Mount Athos Bible must be a totally different book; and I only regret, for the sake of himself and his many friends in England, that he has been led on, from knowing that his opponents here have seen no more of the original book than he has himself, to make such rash and contradictory assertions, that sober people are almost driven to think that the Greek is playing with our matter-of-fact habits of mind, and that, as soon as he has tired out his opponents, he will come forward and ask his admirers for a testimonial to his cleverness.
"HENRY BRADSHAW.
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Cambridge, January 26, 1863.”
It will be observed that Bradshaw had his own reasons for concluding that Simonides had not written the Codex which was in Dr Tischendorf's possession. No one else, apparently, had as yet called attention to the peculiar construction of the book itself. But he confines himself carefully to the particular point at issue. He does not trouble himself about the truth of the story told by Simonides; he only declares that, assuming Simonides. to have written such a book as he pretends, this book cannot be identical with the Codex Sinaiticus. This, after all, was the only question of real importance.
The controversy was continued for some time longer, but no fresh facts concerning the manuscript were elucidated, though several were published of a character damaging to Simonides. It eventually appeared that there was such a person as Kallinikos Hieromonachos, and that he lived in the monastery on Mount Sinai. But when requested to state whether he had written the letters which Simonides attributed to him, he at once replied that he had never written the letters, and that Simonides had never been at the monastery. Simonides rejoined that his friend was Kallinikos of Athos, and that he had nothing to do with Kallinikos of Sinai. Some time later he produced another letter from his Kallinikos, dated from Rhodes, which simply reiterated the previous statements. In the same number of the Guardian (November II, 1863) in which this letter appeared, there appeared also a series of answers obtained by Mr Aldis Wright, through the medium of the British Consul at Salonica, from the Archimandrite Dionysius of the monastery of Xeropotami, on Mount Athos. These answers proved that Simonides in his original story had told a pack of lies. Benedict, whom he called his uncle and declared to have been the head of the convent, never held that position, and was not in any way related to him. Simonides himself had been twice at the convent, but on the last occasion so annoyed the monks with his random talk and disorderly behaviour that they sent him about his business. These damaging disclosures were soon afterwards confirmed, and other things equally discreditable brought to light, by Amphilochus, Bishop of Pelusium, With this the matter closed, and Simonides, who died hard and to the very end was supported by a few dupes of his ingenious mendacity, finally disappeared from view.
 
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Steven Avery

Steven Avery

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PBF References

https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...tudied-sinaiticus-for-two-hours-in-1862.3297/

https://purebibleforum.com/index.ph...or-by-chance-james-anson-farrer.101/#post-239
It is to be regretted that this matter was never cleared up at the time the claim was made. It cannot be said to have been settled by the mere opinions of Tregelles or Bradshaw, or by the more critical and palaeographical objections urged by Mr. Scrivener in his Introduction to the Sinaitic Codex (1867). The two former examined the Codex two months before Simonides had made his claim to it as his work, so that they had no reason to examine it with suspicion.

https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php?threads/current-post-on-textualcritcism-forum.256/
(The problems with the petty vindictive explanation were actually understood at the time, which is why it was common to say that Simonides must have mixed up two mss. As suggested by Scrivener, Bradshaw and the Homilist. However, that has its own huge problems.)

https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...rative-and-impossible-knowledge.107/#post-252
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...g-of-the-manuscript-kallinikos-simonides.490/
https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php?threads/white-parchment.82/#post-207
Letter from Simonides to the Guardian Feb 4, 1863
Mr. Bradshaw's very proper and natural query 'How is it possible that a MS. written beautifully, and with no intention to deceive, in 1840, should in 1862 present so ancient an appearance? 'I answer simply thus: The MS. had been systematically tampered with, in order to give it an ancient appearance, as early as 1852, when, as I have already stated, it had an older appearance than it ought to have had; and, from what I then saw, I am not surprised that Mr. Bradshaw should have been deceived in his estimate of its age.

https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...ldest-nor-best-david-h-sorenson.400/#post-803
Sorenson blunder of not seeing ms.

https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php?threads/tischendorf-ducks-the-english-trip.104/#post-247
Again. I seriously assert (as Mr. Bradshaw seems to think I am jesting on this grave subject) that I wrote the Codex, to portions of which Tischendorf has given the names of Friderico - Augustanus and Sinaiticus; and I challenge him to produce these Codices in London. I will meet him there at any time he may appoint, and in a public meeting of literary men assembled for the purpose it shall be once and for ever decided whether he or Simonides has spoken truly.
https://books.google.com/books?id=vvgDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA485

https://purebibleforum.com/index.ph...hy-c-f-stunt-and-the-2020-book.122/#post-6056
Tregelles
Plymouth
Feb. 2.1863
I find that much discussion is going on about the assertions of Simonides. Mr. W. S. Wright of Trin. Coll. Cambridge, has taken the matter up, and he has kindly sent me some extracts from the “Guardian” in which statements on both sides appear. The matter is a serious one; for it is not, Is a particular MS ancient? but Have we any knowledge respecting the transmission of Holy Scripture? It is strange that the wholesale lies poured out by Simonides do not open the eyes of his admirers. Some of these, however, seem to be his coadjutors in fraud. I have sent Mr. Wright what I could that bears on the subject: it has necessarily occupied a good deal of my thoughts. There will be I find some part of next week a meeting in London to go into the matter fully: it is hoped that Simonides himself will be present when his assertions about this MS will be sifted. Mr. Bradshaw the Librarian at Cambridge who has seen the MS will, I believe, be there: but probably no one else who has thus inspected: but his evidence ought to go very far.

https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...e-about-sinaiticus-authenticity.240/#post-503
7) the lack of real palaeography referenced, (the physical condition of the manuscript is barely mentioned) and the scholars referenced as giving some sort of support for Tischendorf's declarations were Scrivener, Bradshaw and Tregelles. Scrivener having not seen the ms. and Tregelles actually declaring for the 4th century even before he saw a bit in 1862 as Tischendorf's guest. Little or no mention, e.g. of Uspesnksy and Hilgenfeld and Donaldson and others who questioned the 4th century date.

https://www.purebibleforum.com/index.php?threads/wip-new-studies.198/#post-445
8
Henry Bradshaw, a British librarian known to both men, defended the Tischendorf find of the Sinaiticus, casting aside the accusations of Simonides. Since Bradshaw was a social 'hub' among many diverse scholars of the day, his aiding of Tischendorf was given much weight. Simonides died shortly after, and the issue lay dormant for many years.[107]
Tischendorf answered in Allgemeine Zeitung (December), that only in the New Testament there are many differences between it and all other manuscripts. Henry Bradshaw, a scholar, contributed to exposing the frauds of Constantine Simonides, and exposed the absurdity of his claims in a letter to the Guardian (26 January 1863). Bradshaw showed that the Codex Sinaiticus brought by Tischendorf from the Greek monastery of Mount Sinai was not a modern forgery or written by Simonides. Simonides' "claim was flawed from the beginning".[108] The controversy seems to regard the misplaced use of the word 'fraud' or 'forgery' since it may have been a repaired text, a copy of the Septuagint based upon Origen's Hexapla, a text which has been rejected for centuries because of its lineage from Eusebius who introduced Arian doctrine into the courts of Constantine I and II.
16
QUIRES
Added 3-30-2016
Henry Bradshaw in Jan of 1863 writing of 1862 visit
"On the 18th of July last I was at Leipzig with a friend, and we called on Professor Tischendorf. Though I had no introduction but my occupation at Cambridge, nothing could exceed his kindness ; we were with him for more than two hours, and I had the satisfaction of examining the manuscript after my own fashion. I had been anxious to know whether it was written in even continuous quaternions throughout, like the Codex Beza:, or in a series of fasciculi each ending with a quire of varying size, as the Codex Alexandrinus, and I found the latter to be the case. This, by-the-by, is of itself sufficient to prove that it cannot be the volume which Dr Simonides speaks of having written at Mount Athos. "
Click to expand...
Why quires of varying sizes?
Why a claim that this was contra Simonides?
Was Tischendorf still assigning quire numbers at that time?
What is the first historical reference to the quire numbers?
How identifialble is the handwriting?
 
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Steven Avery

Steven Avery

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Russian Wikipedia

Wrong info on Bradshaw

Henry Bradshaw, in The Guardian (January 26, 1863), raised the question of how the manuscript could have been brought from the monastery at Athos to Sinai. He also recalled that the manuscript contains the Epistle of Barnabas, which until now was not in the Greek manuscript [32] .

McKitterick, David (1998) A history of Cambridge University Press , Volume 2: Scholarship and Commerce (1698-1872) , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-30802-X , p. 369

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P. 477 (478 not show)
50 G. W. Prothero . A memoir of Henry Bradshaw ( 1888 ), pp . 92-9 .

51 F.
H. Scrivener, A plain introduction to the criticism of the New Testament (
Cambridge , 1861 ). advertise- ment. The Bishop Phillpotts library (founded
by...

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