James Sightler on Vaticanus and Mt. Athos

Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
Codex "B" - Its History
By Dr. James Sightler
Given at the Dean Burgon Society 17th Annual Meeting
Calvary Baptist Church, Brampton, Ontario, Canada
https://www.scionofzion.com/codex_B.htm

There are two sites of literary and monastic effort in the Byzantine empire where Codex B might have been when Bessarion found it. The first, Mistra, which we have already spoken of, is built into the side of a 900 foot mountain and is no longer inhabited. Here there are many ancient churches with many intact frescoes still visible. There are also several monasteries and convents.

According to Scrivener Codex 18, a Byzantine manuscript, was given to one of the monasteries of Mistra by Nicephorus Cannabetes, and it is likely that there were numerous manuscripts in these institutions. Since Bessarion at the Council of Florence already possessed one of the Alexandrian minuscules, I feel that he may have learned of the location of Codex B as well during his tenure at Mistra with Plethon.

The second site where Codex B might have been found is Mt. Athos. There are numerous connections between these two places. Byron states that Manuel Cantacuzene, the first Despot of Morea, presented a jasper cup to the monastery of Vatopedi on Mt. Athos in 1351 during the Hesychast controversy, of which we will say more later. Bryon also points out the similarities between the frescoed decorations of monasteries on Mt. Athos and at Mistra. These links were forged long before the coming of Plethon to Mistra, but Plethon's neoplatonism was clearly related to the Hesychasts of Mt. Athos.

Mt. Athos is a marble and granite mountain which rises some 6700 feet out of the Aegean Sea, three miles long and six miles wide, connected to Thessalonica, or Macedonia, by a narrow isthmus. It is forested and is said to be one of the most beautiful places in the world. Mt. Athos is to the Greek Orthodox Church what JERUSALEM is to the Jews or Mecca to the Arabs. According to monastic legend the mother of God, with St. John, sailing to visit Lazarus, was attracted to the beauty of the mountain and claimed it for herself. Since Mary claimed it, no other woman may set foot on it, and by law today no females of any species are allowed except cats, to control rats, and hens, to produce eggs for those monks who are vegetarian. Mrs. Riplinger would certainly not be welcome, but some of her detractors, who attempt to show that the writing of books is equivalent to preaching, might find it a congenial place. Mules are allowed for transportation over the steep trails.

There are today twenty Eastern Orthodox monasteries on the mountain and a number of independent sketes or outlying monastic communities with a total population of some 2000. Before the fall of Constantinople there were many more monasteries, as many as 200, and the maximum population was 7,432 in 1903. According to Robert Byron there were in the fifteenth century about 5000 monks from all parts of the Byzantine empire.

At the present time eleven of the monasteries have a cenobitic organization with rule by an abbot, no private personal property, and all monks living and eating in the monastery. Nine have an idiorhythmic organization, so that monks may live, dine, and study independently in their own houses. Many of the monks earn a living by carving icons for sale by mail order throughout the world. There are of course no radios or telephones or phonographs. Athos is visited by thousands of male tourists each year, mostly Greek and European.

There are thousands of Greek manuscripts on Mt. Athos, but before discussing these we must say more about the early history of the monastic movement there. Within one hundred years of the conquest of Alexandria by the Muhammadans in 640 A.D. there were hermits or anchorites on Athos. Kourilas, as quoted in Choukas, believes that some of the early monks on Athos came there directly from the Egyptian and Syrian deserts. It is also possible that Egyptian monks sought refuge from the Arab conquest by removing to the island of Crete or to Constantinople and remained there for some time.

Then, when in the seventh century the iconoclasts gained control of Constantinople, and in the early ninth century when the Saracens seized portions of Crete, the monks removed to Mt. Athos. In any case when the synod at Constantinople in 842 A.D. celebrated the defeat of the iconoclasts, monks from Athos were present. By 850 A.D. Peter the Athonite and Euthymius of Salonica had established themselves on Athos as hermits. In 875 John Kolobos established a monastery and secured a charter, from the Emperor Basil the Macedonian, which declared the independence of the monastic establishments and made Kolobos the protector of the eremitical monks. In 959 Athanasius the Athonite, a native of Trebizond as was Bessarion four centuries later, settled on Athos and established the Lavra, which was the first of the cenobitic monasteries.

There are over 900 churches and chapels in the monasteries, their walls covered from top to bottom with richly painted Byzantine frescoes, bearing many similarities to those of the churches of Mistra.

As mysticism and neoplatonism were seen in Mistra in the days of Plethon, so it was on Mt. Athos from at least the tenth century and quite possibly earlier, made manifest in the Hesychast movement. Hesychast is a Greek word for quiet or silence. Influenced by the mysticism of pseudo-Dionysius and Simeon Neotheologus, a tenth century abbot in Constantinople, some of the monks of Athos began to practice, and here I quote Adeney "the self-hypnotism of an Indian fakir. Sitting in a corner of his cell, pressing his chin firmly into his breast, fixing his eyes on his navel, and holding his breath as long as possible, till his vision became dim, the devotee passed into... an ecstasy in which he saw himself surrounded by a halo of light, the light of God that shone around Christ at the Transfiguration...he felt himself brought into the presence of God... he sat enthralled, without thought or wish. " This is exactly like New Age Transcendental Meditation, and I believe it is further evidence of the Egyptian origin of some of the early hermits who came to Mt. Athos. These mystics were called omphalopsychoi, that is, one whose soul is in his navel. What better epithet could be found for those who today practice transcendental meditation?

Through the efforts of St. Gregory Palamas in 1351 the Hesychasts were declared by a council in Constantinople to be within the bounds of orthodoxy, and their practice persisted on Athos well into the nineteenth century. Nicolas Zenon notes that this mystical movement was accompanied by a revival of art at both Mistra and Athos, and it is therefore not surprising that in the refectory of the Lavra monastery on Athos there is a fresco with obvious Hermetic influence. This painting is of a family tree and shows a spiritual relationship, or descent, of Jesus to the ancient Greek philosophers, these latter being considered as prophets. Plato in particular is included in the painting, as well as Plutarch. Of course a large majority of monks on Athos were not Hesychasts, or Herrneticists, or neoplatonists, just as the great majority of biblical manuscripts there were of the received text or Byzantine type.

Francis Yates relates that a monk from Macedonia, Leonardo da Pistoria, working for Cosimo de Medici, brought the Corpus Hermeticum to Florence about 1460, where it was translated by Marsilio Ficino. Michael Psellus knew of this manuscript in his day in the eleventh century, and I believe that the Corpus actually came from Mt. Athos, which is a peninsula of Macedonia. I say this because of the mystical and Hermetic influences in religious practice and art on Athos which we have just noted, and I am also convinced that Codex B was found there by Bessarion at just about the same time as the discovery of the Corpus Hermeticum.

Let us now turn to a brief examination of biblical manuscripts at Mt. Athos. Choukas states that Spyridon Lampros in his book, Catalog Of The Greek Manuscripts On Mt. Athos (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1895-1900), found 6000 ms. in 18 of the monasteries and estimated that the libraries of the two monasteries he was not allowed to see, Lavra and Vatopedi, contained 6000 more. These are not all biblical manuscripts; many are homilies, liturgies, works of ancient philosophers, and secular or historical documents. It is interesting that F. H. A. Scrivener's book, A Plain Introduction To The Criticism Of The New Testament, shows in its index 30 references to Mt. Athos covering 53 manuscripts which were found there. At the time of publication of this book in 1883 about 650 New Testament Manuscripts had been found. Therefore about eight per cent were from Athos. The index lists 5 ms. from Patmos, 20 from St., Saba in Jerusalem, 16 from the monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, 20 from Jamina in Epirus, and 6 from St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai. For those manuscripts whose origin is known Mt. Athos seems to be the most frequent source. Examination of Hatch's catalog of minuscules shows two more from Athos which were not listed by Scrivener, and still no other source approaches Athos. Furthermore, Hatch's catalog of uncials of 1939, cited previously, lists a total of 7 uncials from Athos, only 4 of which had been cataloged by Scrivener. Of these 6 are Byzantine and one, Codex Alexandrinus, is mixed. Scrivener states that Wetstein, on the authority of Matthew Muttis, a deacon attached to Cyril Lucar, believed that Cyril had obtained Codex A from Mt. Athos. Muttis was instructor in Greek to Wetstein's great-uncle. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake agree with Scrivener and point out that Cyril was on Mt. Athos in 1612-1613. I believe that Codex B as well had been removed from Athos 150 years before by Bessarion.
 
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Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adeney, Walter F., M.A., D.D., The Greek And Eastern Churches, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908.

Bietenholz, Peter, Editor, Contemporaries of Erasmus, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1985.

Byron, Robert, The Birth Of Western Painting, New York, Hacker Art Books, 1968.
Byron, Robert, The Byzantine Achievement, An Historical Perspective, A.D. 330-1453, New York, Russell & Russell, 1964.

Choukas, Michael, Black Angels Of Athos, Brattleboro, Stephen Daye Press, 1934

Creighton, M., D.D., A History Of The Papacy From The GreatSchism To The Sack Of Rome, London, Longmans, Green and Co., 1923.

Hatch, William Henry Paine, Ph.D, D.D., D. Theol., Families And Descriptions Of Minuscule Manuscripts Of The New Testament, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1951.

Hatch, William Henry Paine, Ph.D., D.D., D. Theol., The Principal Uncial Manuscripts Of The New Testament, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1939

Jackson, F. J. Foakes, D.D., and Lake, Kirsopp, D.D., The Beginnings Of Christianity Part I, The Acts Of The Apostles, London, Macmillian and Co., Limited, 1926.

M'Clintock, John, D.D., and Strong, James, S.T.D., Cyclopedia Of Biblical, Theological And Ecclesiastical Literature, New York, Harper & Brothers, 1895.

Pastor, Dr. Ludwig, The History Of The Popes From The Close Of The Middle Ages, St. Louis, B. Herder Book Co., 1938.

Reuss, Edward, History Of The Canon Of The Holy Scriptures In The Christian Church, New York, E. P. Dutton & Co., 1884.
Reuss, Edward, History Of The Sacred Scriptures Of The New Testament, Edinburgh, T. &T. Clark, 1884.

Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose, M.A., D.C.L., LL.D., A Plain Introduction To The Criticism of the New Testament Cambridge, Deighton, Bell & Co., 1883.

Walker, D. P., The Ancient Theology, Studies in Christian Platonism From The Fifteenth To The Eighteenth Century, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1972.

Yates, Frances A., Giorstano Bruno And The Helmetic Tradition, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1964.

Zenon, Nicholas, Eastern Christendom New York, G. P. Putnam, 1961.
 
Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
Barbara Aho


Literature. Before relocating to Mt. Athos to teach the monks the hesychast method of contemplation, Gregory of Sinai belonged to the Monastery of St. Katherine at Mt. Sinai. It was at this convent that the gnostic manuscript, Sinaiticus Aleph, was discovered by Constantin Tischendorf in the 19th century. The Sinaiticus Aleph along with infamous Vaticanus B were used by B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort as the basis for their corrupt New Greek Text from which modern versions of the Bible are translated.
Mount Athos was ever a hotbed of gnostic occultism. James H. Sightler, author of A Testimony Founded Forever, sheds more light on the pivotal role of the Mount Athos monks in preserving the Corpus Hermeticum. These were the core documents of the Hermetic tradition which were unavailable to the West in classical times but ’rediscovered’ in Athos during the Renaissance, and delivered to Europe where they were translated and disseminated. Dr. Sightler is of the opinion that the Vaticanus B was also preserved at Mount Athos, and there is evidence that the Codex Alexandrinus was found there as well.
"Frances Yates relates that a monk from Macedonia, Leonardo da Pistoria, working for Cosmo de Medici, brought the Corpus Hermeticum to Florence about 1460, where it was translated by Marsilio Ficino. Michael Psellus knew of this manuscript in his day in the eleventh century, and I believe that the Corpus Hermeticum actually came from Mount Athos, which is a peninsula of Macedonia. I say this because of the mystical and Hermetic influences in religious practice and art on Athos which we have just noted, and I am also convinced that Codex B was found there by Bessarion at just about the same time as the discovery of the Corpus Hermeticum."

"...It is interesting that F.H.A. Scrivener’s book, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, shows in its index 30 references to Mount Athos covering 53 manuscripts which were found there. At the time of publication of this book in 1883 about 650 New Testament Manuscripts had been found. Therefore about eight per cent were from Athos. The index lists 5 ms. from Patmos, 20 from St. Saba in Jerusalem, 16 from the monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, 20 from Jamina in Epirus, and 6 from St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai. For those manuscripts whose origin is known, Mount Athos is the most frequent source... Furthermore, Hatch’s catalogue of uncials of 1939, cited previously, lists a total of 7 uncials from Athos, only 4 of which had been catalogued by Scrivener. Of these 6 are Byzantine and one, Codex Alexandrinus, is mixed. Scrivener states that Wetstein, on the authority of Matthew Muttis, a deacon attached to Cyril Lukar, believed that Cyril had obtained Codex A from Mount Athos... Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake agree with Scrivener and point out that Cyril was on Mount Athos in 1612-1613. I believe that Codex B as well had been removed from Athos l 50 years before by Bessarion."...

"It is now no longer necessary to believe Tischendorf’s claim that Codices B and Aleph were once located and used in Constantinople. Jackson and Lake give the opinion that Codex B ’was brought from Alexandria to Sicily by fugitives from the conquering Arabs, in the seventh century, and thence to Calabria. Nothing is known which suggests that it remained in the East until the fifteenth century and was then brought to Rome under the influence of the revival of letters.’...

"Both B and Aleph were written in Egypt. I believe that both were there, probably in Alexandria, in 640 A.D. when the Arabs under Amrou captured the city after a siege of fourteen months. I believe they were removed by Egyptian anchorites before the city fell and taken to the island of Crete to be kept, perhaps in the famous Labyrinth cave, known from antiquity, by the monks and their successors until 823 A.D. when the Saracens captured portions of the island. At that time Codex B was taken to Mount Athos, where the earliest monastic communities were just arising, or to Mistra. The Corpus Hermeticum could have been carried along with it as well. Aleph was taken by other monks to Mt. Sinai, where the monastery of St. Catherine had been built by Justinian in the eighth century. These codices then remained in their respective places until Bassarion took Codex B from Athos or Mistra in 1846 and Tischendorf retrieved Aleph in 1859...

"At the Council of Florence Cosimo de Medici met Bassarion and his mentor, Plethon, and was moved by them to back the establishment of a school at Florence for the study and dissemination of Neo-Platonic philiosphy. Bassarion and Plethon in 1442 founded the Academia Platonica at Florence. Cosimo provided funds for the acquisition of rare manuscripts, including copies of the Corpus Hermeticum, Plato, and Plutarch, as well a Biblical manuscripts. He later gave a villa at Careggi, near Florence, to a student and colleague of Plethon and Bassarion, Marsilio Ficino, who was the first to translate the Corpus, Plato and Platinus into Latin and carried on the work of the academy." (350:128-33)
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