Hubert Luns on Simonides and Sinaiticus

[Steven Avery]

Archko Volume reviewa

Proofs Of The Life And Death Of Jesus (2015)
Hubert Luns
https://restkerk.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/proofs-of-the-life-and-death-of-jesus1.pdf
https://archive.org/details/proofsofthelifeanddeathofjesus_201907

Constantine Simonides attempted to make out in a clumsy way that the “Codex Sinaiticus” was a forgery. (8) There are better ways...

• Page n50
  (8) Constantine Simonides attempted to make out in a clumsy way that the “Codex Sinaiticus” was a forgery. Later, this MS was proven to have been written in the 4t century. Who was he? He was an exceptionally skillful calligrapher who is alleged to have sold spurious documents (as well as some that were possibly genuine) in England in the 1850s and 1860s. Among his clients were Sir Frederick Madden at the British Museum and Sir Thomas Phillipps. Simonidesresided in the monasteries on Mount Athos between 1839 and 1841 and again in 1852, during which time he may have acquired some of the manuscripts he later sold. In 1862 Simonides published in English journals his false claim to have written the Codex Sinaiticus, which Constantine von Tischendorf had discovered at Mount Sinai some years earlier.

• Page n60
  The stately quarto of Constantine Simonides, published in 1861, and full of ‘facsimiles’, at first sight imposing, but rapidly crumbling away under examination, is a much more remarkable achievement. It imposed for a time upon men who had pretensions to be called learned. (40) What was attempted in it was not the floating of long spurious histories, but the production of early fragments of the Gospels and epistles containing remarkable readings, and of inscriptions and colophons serving to confirm the apostolic origin of the New Testament books. There are quotations from Hegesippus, part of a record of

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  Page n61
  Christian chronology from an inscribed stone at Thyatira, fragments of a copy of St. Matthew’s Gospel written in the year 48, and, in a footnote, a set of directions in Greek for taking photographs by a writer of the fifth century! There is no lack of enterprise about Simonides.

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  Page n61
  It is a curious trade, this of writing apocryphal books. One that can only thrive in a ‘milieu’ where the critical faculty is not developed. This age, unluckily for the trade, is nothing if not critical. People will be asking: “Where is the manuscript? What was it like?” Simonides was ready enough with his answer to the inquirers of this class. ‘Facsimiles’ and originals were always forthcoming. Rev. Mahan is rather vaguer. The Vatican MSS (ancient ManuScriptS) he used were ‘scrolls’, and those at the Hagia Sophia were like narrow strips of carpet around windlasses. It would be interesting to know to which collection the Vatican MSS belonged. Were they Queen Christina’s, or Palatine, or Ottononian — or what?

• Page n62
  (40) Constantine Simonides was a controversial figure, specialised in the trade of ancient manuscripts, some of which he tinkered with to increase their value. Authentic materials from famous Liverpool antiquarian Joseph Mayer were given faked additions, such as presumed authentic portions of the Gospel of Matthew! Among other Simonides fakes was the correspondence to ‘prove’ his claim of the ‘forgery’ of the “Codex Sinaiticus”, which was no forgery but an authentic document acquired by the British Museum in 1933 for the substantial sum of £ 100,000.