Steven Avery
Administrator
A Review of
The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus
Cooper book
Title page picture - Genesis 24
p. 9 - Russians could have followed his advice
TNC and Russian - Yet he lived and travelled throughout Europe and the Ottoman and Russian empires after his alleged delivery of the codex in August 1840 until his death in 1890, aged about 65.
p. 35-37 Tregelles on Uspensky description
p. 38 - PIC
The celebrated Russian archimandrite and scholar Konstantin Alexandrovitch Uspensky (1804-85),74 who took the name Porphyrius at ordination, records 74 Uspensky is described by the National Library of Russia thus: ‘Porphyrius (Uspensky)…was an outstanding Russian scholar of Oriental, Byzantine and Slavic history, Doctor of Hellenic philology, an archaeologist, ethnographer, specialist in the study of early texts, textual critic, palaeographer, historian, art historian, theologian, and author of many scientific works...In Petersburg he was acclaimed as a scholar of world renown. Both the Government and the Most Holy Synod turned to him for advice as an expert on Christian antiquities.’ We note in passing that an active channel of communication between Uspensky and the Russian government is admitted. We shall see more of this later, and its significance will become clear.
p. 39
Uspensky, being a respected Russian Orthodox archimandrite (he was to establish and lead the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem from 1847) had no such restrictions placed upon him, and after his examination of Codex Sinaiticus in 1845, he issued his own advice concerning it and the other most precious manuscripts, as recorded in his diary:
I, returning [the Codex Sinaiticus] to Father Vitaly, along with other manuscripts, zealously asked him to keep it in the superiors’ rooms and to be careful about showing them to travellers.77
On this 1845 visit there were four most precious manuscripts (including Codex Sinaiticus), which were specially guarded by the superiors, to which in 1850 Uspensky requested they add two more.78
These reinforced restrictions prevented Tischendorf from seeing any of the precious manuscripts on his second visit in 1853. Dr Cooper, however, states (p.78) that Tischendorf’s failure to secure the remainder of the Codex in 1853 was ‘because he hadn’t returned as promised the 43 leaves that he had ‘borrowed’’ on his 1844 visit, when ‘the monks were only persuaded to let Tischendorf take them away because he had falsely promised to return them’ (p.78). Dr Cooper gives no reference for this invention and imputation of bad faith, neither could he as there is not the slightest suggestion in any narrative or record that leaves removed by Tischendorf in 1844 were on loan, and Uspensky supplies us with the plausible reason why they were withheld.
================
77 Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, June-July 1850.
78 In 1845 Uspensky had identified the four most precious manuscripts in the monastery, the principal one being Codex Sinaiticus. These were kept locked in the rooms of the superiors, see Первое путешествие в Синайский Монастырь в 1845 году Архимандрита Порфиря Успенского (St Petersburg, 1856). On Uspensky’s 1850 trip he requested two more to be locked away with the ‘precious manuscripts’: ‘[A] Glagolitic Psalter and a very old Georgian Psalter. I gave both of these books to the sacristan with a zealous request that he keep them together with the precious manuscripts in the superiors’ rooms and be careful about showing them to travellers.’ Второе путешествие архимандрита Порфирия Успенского в Синайский монастырь в 1850 году (St Petersburg, 1856). Also see Uspensky, Замечательные рукописи в библиотеках Синайского монастыря и в архиепископских кельях там [‘Wonderful manuscripts in the libraries of the Sinai monastery and in the Archbishop's cells there’], (Uspensky collection at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, № 136.1), especially pp. 3-22, which describe ‘The manuscript of the Old and New Testament, kept in the sacristy of the Sinai monastery’, i.e. Codex Sinaiticus.
(Vitalius)
Porphyrius Uspensky’s examinations of the Codex in 1845 and 1850
It is seldom appreciated that all 347 leaves of the Codex that the oikonomos of the monastery had in his room and brought to Tischendorf’s attention in 1859, which Tischendorf eventually removed to St Petersburg and named Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus, were thoroughly examined in 1845 and 1850 by Uspensky. Uspensky’s detailed examination in 1845 was of what remained of the codex following Tischendorf’s removal of 43 of its leaves the previous year. He saw the 74 leaves that Tischendorf had seen but was unable to remove,81 plus 273 leaves that Tischendorf would not be permitted to see until 1859, comprising the Minor Prophets, the Psalms and Wisdom literature, the whole of the New Testament, the Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas. On this 1845 visit Uspensky also found a fragment from the Book of Genesis from the Codex, and so inferred that the Codex was at one time a complete Bible. On this first examination Uspensky was well aware that the New Testament differed markedly from the Received Text, but
he initially considered that it was nothing more sinister than a poor job of copying from poor exemplars.
Uspensky visited again in 1850 and from June to August catalogued the manuscripts at St Catherine’s,82 during which time he sought out the Codex Sinaiticus manuscript
82 Uspensky’s 452-page catalogue of the manuscripts in St Catherine’s and their Juvanie metochion in Cairo is extant (Imperial Academy of Sciences, reference VIB19). Simonides claimed to have made such a catalogue on a (fictitious) trip to St Catherine’s in 1844, but Uspensky would not have needed to do all this work if Simonides had done it a few years earlier. No one has ever seen a catalogue by Simonides. This is more evidence that Simonides was spinning a yarn.
and continued his study of it for ‘a long time’.83 On his second review of the Codex, Uspensky became very concerned about what he suspected were its heterodox origins, seeing distinct aspects of Arianism and Apollinarianism in it, and perceiving that many important differences from the Received Text were not mere human errors. He records in his diary in 1850:
After such a second review of this manuscript, my first opinion of her has changed, so that it seemed to me to be a production that appeared not in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, but outside of her…The Sinai Bible worried me. And it is remarkable as an example of the corruption of Holy Scripture, especially the New Testament.84
It was during this second visit that, as recorded in his diary,85 Uspensky carefully produced artwork of portions of Codex Sinaiticus from the Old and New Testament, later published as colour plates in 1857. Uspensky’s examinations of the Codex, some details of which were published in 1856,86 followed by his colour plates in 1857, are of the greatest importance. When Uspensky examined the manuscript in 1845 his dating of it was fifth century. He continued to describe it as fifth century in the colour plates of it published in 1857. He finally gave its date a range of between fifth
to seventh century. Uspenksy, who was an expert on ancient parchment manuscripts, saw nothing inconsistent about such an age and the condition of the parchment and inks, having examined parts of the Codex during the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s. (no evidence is given that Uspensky examined in the 1860s when it was mostly locked in a safe)
83 ‘The remaining days of July [1850] have been on book work. I studied the ancient Greek manuscript on thin white parchment leaves containing part of the Old Testament and the entire New Testament with the epistle of the apostle Barnabas and the book of Hermas’, Второе путешествие архимандрита Порфирия Успенского в Синайский монастырь в 1850 году (St Petersburg, 1856). ‘This is part of the books of the Old Testament and the whole New Testament with the epistle of Barnabas and the book of Hermas under the name Ποιμήν i.e. the Shepherd. I saw this manuscript in 1845, but I did not then consider it in detail because of other compulsory studies at Sinai, but now I kept it for a long time while I was at the monastery of St Catherine and described its composition, supplemented my previous excerpts from it, and carefully studied the text contained in it, especially the New Testament.’ Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, diary for June-July 1850.
84 Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, June-July 1850.
85 ‘During the [1850] trip to Sinai I made…two pictures from the oldest manuscript containing the Old Testament incomplete and the New Testament complete.’ Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, June-July 1850.
86 A great deal was never published, but is extant. For example, see Uspensky’s 132pp manuscript Замечательные рукописи в библиотеках Синайского монастыря и в архиепископских кельях там [‘Wonderful manuscripts in the libraries of the Sinai monastery and in the Archbishop's cells there’] in the Uspensky collection at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, № 136.1. Pages 3-22 are dedicated to Codex Sinaiticus. That Uspensky took vast notes of readings and collations on his 1845 and 1850 visits is also evident from his published detailed treatment of it, setting out the grounds for its being a production of heterodoxy, in his Мнение о Синайской рукописи, содержащей в себе Ветхий Завет неполный и весь Новый Завет с посланием Св. Апостола Варнавы и книгою Ермы, (St Petersburg, 1862), which was published before Tischendorf’s facsimile edition was available for consultation. One might wonder why Uspensky’s account of his 1845 visit, which has quite a few pages on Codex Sinaiticus, took a decade to get to press. One of the reasons was his onerous workload and travelling. Another was the heavy hand of the censor. The original draft of Uspensky’s account of his 1845 visit and examination of Codex Sinaiticus is extant, and reveals plenty of red ink of the censor on it. (Donated to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Uspensky’s will). It was not passed by the censor for publication until 1856, as also was the account of his 1850 visit.
....
Uspensky wrote a great deal about Codex Sinaiticus in the 1860s after its arrival in St Petersburg,87 but there is no hint that the Codex had undergone any significant change over the 20 years that he had been familiar with it.
Tischendorf’s 1859 visit to St Catherine’s monastery
Porphyrius Uspensky’s detailed knowledge of the codex in 1845, together with knowledge of the leaves that Tischendorf removed in 1844 (published in facsimile in 1846) led directly to the deduction in Russia that Tischendorf’s 43 leaves in Leipzig belonged to the same codex that Uspensky had examined.88 Surely this, and Uspensky’s early dating of it, and his bringing to Russia a fragment of the Pentateuch from the Codex in 1845, were the background and motive behind the Russian government’s determination to bring the remainder of the manuscript to the Russian Empire from out of the Ottoman Empire.
Dr Cooper slips up badly here, wondering how the Russians could have known about the Codex at St Catherine’s prior to Tischendorf’s 1859 visit (pp.35, 77):
Tischendorf claimed that in 1859 he was sent to Sinai to search for such a manuscript by Tsar Nicholas I. How did it become known to the Tsar, and through whom, that such a manuscript was now available in such a remote and inaccessible part of the world?
Quite how the Tsar became blessed with this knowledge we do not know...We may wonder at the strange importance that Codex Sinaiticus had taken on for a Russian Tsar who’d never even seen or heard of it before. And who, I wonder, told him of its existence?
87 Uspensky arrived in St Petersburg in 1861 and was there for some years.
88 This was inferred ‘at once’ in Great Britain on far less evidence than the Russians had, and without knowledge of the specific origin of either the Leipzig leaves (Codex Friderico-Augustanus) or the leaves newly reported by Tischendorf in the spring of 1859: ‘Those who have seen the ‘Codex Friderico-Augustanus’…will at once see that this newly announced MS. so thoroughly coincides with that document, that…we must suppose that Professor Tischendorf has obtained another and most important portion of the ‘Codex Friderico-Augustanus’ itself…We believe that no statement has been published as to where this MS. was obtained.’ The Edinburgh Review, Vol. 110, July 1859, p.190.
McGrane confuses a deduction on Leipzig leaves and Uspensky with one based on the Leipzig leaves and 1859
Yet English scholars Tregelles and Scrivener reported Uspensky’s 1856 publication in their day: (Again, not in 1856, not before 1859)
n 1846 [sic], the Russian Archimandrite Porphyrius appears to have seen the same MS, and to have observed especially the New Testament portion of it, and to have noted the character of the text, though the published account of this did not appear till 1856.89
Porphyrius [Uspensky] examined it, observed that the New Testament formed part
of it, and published a tolerable account90 of its contents and the character of its text at
St Petersburg in 1856...Porphyrius brought with him from Sinai some fragments of
the Codex Sinaiticus itself,91 containing portions of Genesis and of Numbers.92
That the earlier portion of the Old Testament was once contained in this manuscript
appears as well from the small fragment possessed by Porphyrius.93
...
staggering. The Russian authorities knew about the Codex in the 1840s, and its existence, its contents and its exact location within the monastery became public knowledge in 1856,94 with excellent colour images publicly available in 1857..,.
89 S. P. Tregelles, Additions to the fourth volume of the Introduction to the Holy Scriptures by the Rev. Thomas. H. Horne [1860]. Uspensky’s descriptions of the Codex examined during his 1845 and 1850 visits and published in 1856 were in the British Museum some months before Tischendorf would be shown copies by Prince Lobanov in Constantinople, and before Tischendorf removed the Codex from St Catherine’s metochion in Cairo.
90 As with Tischendorf, a grudging acknowledgement is evident. Uspensky’s account of the Codex
ran to 14 pages in the account of his 1845 visit, and dealt with component parts, dating, provenance, and the activities of correctors, giving several examples of additions, omissions, and variant readings.
91 Strictly, the leaf from Numbers came from the monastery’s metochion [= associated compound] in Jouvanie, Cairo. Uspensky removed it in 1861.
92 Scrivener, A Full Collation of the Sinaitic MS. with the Received Text of the New Testament (1864). The relevant quotation here from Scrivener is repeated in J.K. Elliott’s work Codex Sinaiticus and the Simonides Affair, p.51, which Dr Cooper claims to have read (p.28 etc). On the same page in Elliott is a citation from The Clerical Journal of September 11, 1862 concerning the ‘Simonides Affair’ which states in the context of St Catherine’s monastery: ‘Again, in 1845 or 1846, a Russian archimandrite, named Porphyrius, seems unquestionably to have stumbled upon the Sinai MS’. In point of fact he did not ‘stumble upon’ it, it was part of his work in cataloguing the treasures of the monastery, and it was its greatest treasure and guarded accordingly. However, the important point is that the Russians knew about it in 1845.
93 Ibid., p.xxxii.
94 Initially in Russia in 1856, but copies were available in the British museum in 1859.
Looking back over those times Uspensky writes:
At the end of 1854, I arrived in Petersburg and in 1856 published in the description of my first trip to Sinai a brief report and a statement about the Sinai text of the Bible that I discovered; lithographic images from it were placed in my picturesque edition of Egypt and Sinai [published 1857], postponing for a time the publication of my second judgment concerning this text [published 1862]. I do not know whether Tischendorf heard a rumour about these books of mine, and whether our former minister Norov told him about them during his journey through Germany, but this professor of theology and palaeography decided to go to Sinai for the third time in order to see the manuscript that was discovered and printed by me, and to obtain this goal successfully, he asked for our [Russian] funding and our [Russian] letters of introduction, which followed him to the East.95
The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus
Cooper book
Title page picture - Genesis 24
p. 9 - Russians could have followed his advice
TNC and Russian - Yet he lived and travelled throughout Europe and the Ottoman and Russian empires after his alleged delivery of the codex in August 1840 until his death in 1890, aged about 65.
p. 35-37 Tregelles on Uspensky description
p. 38 - PIC
The celebrated Russian archimandrite and scholar Konstantin Alexandrovitch Uspensky (1804-85),74 who took the name Porphyrius at ordination, records 74 Uspensky is described by the National Library of Russia thus: ‘Porphyrius (Uspensky)…was an outstanding Russian scholar of Oriental, Byzantine and Slavic history, Doctor of Hellenic philology, an archaeologist, ethnographer, specialist in the study of early texts, textual critic, palaeographer, historian, art historian, theologian, and author of many scientific works...In Petersburg he was acclaimed as a scholar of world renown. Both the Government and the Most Holy Synod turned to him for advice as an expert on Christian antiquities.’ We note in passing that an active channel of communication between Uspensky and the Russian government is admitted. We shall see more of this later, and its significance will become clear.
p. 39
Uspensky, being a respected Russian Orthodox archimandrite (he was to establish and lead the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem from 1847) had no such restrictions placed upon him, and after his examination of Codex Sinaiticus in 1845, he issued his own advice concerning it and the other most precious manuscripts, as recorded in his diary:
I, returning [the Codex Sinaiticus] to Father Vitaly, along with other manuscripts, zealously asked him to keep it in the superiors’ rooms and to be careful about showing them to travellers.77
On this 1845 visit there were four most precious manuscripts (including Codex Sinaiticus), which were specially guarded by the superiors, to which in 1850 Uspensky requested they add two more.78
These reinforced restrictions prevented Tischendorf from seeing any of the precious manuscripts on his second visit in 1853. Dr Cooper, however, states (p.78) that Tischendorf’s failure to secure the remainder of the Codex in 1853 was ‘because he hadn’t returned as promised the 43 leaves that he had ‘borrowed’’ on his 1844 visit, when ‘the monks were only persuaded to let Tischendorf take them away because he had falsely promised to return them’ (p.78). Dr Cooper gives no reference for this invention and imputation of bad faith, neither could he as there is not the slightest suggestion in any narrative or record that leaves removed by Tischendorf in 1844 were on loan, and Uspensky supplies us with the plausible reason why they were withheld.
================
77 Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, June-July 1850.
78 In 1845 Uspensky had identified the four most precious manuscripts in the monastery, the principal one being Codex Sinaiticus. These were kept locked in the rooms of the superiors, see Первое путешествие в Синайский Монастырь в 1845 году Архимандрита Порфиря Успенского (St Petersburg, 1856). On Uspensky’s 1850 trip he requested two more to be locked away with the ‘precious manuscripts’: ‘[A] Glagolitic Psalter and a very old Georgian Psalter. I gave both of these books to the sacristan with a zealous request that he keep them together with the precious manuscripts in the superiors’ rooms and be careful about showing them to travellers.’ Второе путешествие архимандрита Порфирия Успенского в Синайский монастырь в 1850 году (St Petersburg, 1856). Also see Uspensky, Замечательные рукописи в библиотеках Синайского монастыря и в архиепископских кельях там [‘Wonderful manuscripts in the libraries of the Sinai monastery and in the Archbishop's cells there’], (Uspensky collection at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, № 136.1), especially pp. 3-22, which describe ‘The manuscript of the Old and New Testament, kept in the sacristy of the Sinai monastery’, i.e. Codex Sinaiticus.
(Vitalius)
Porphyrius Uspensky’s examinations of the Codex in 1845 and 1850
It is seldom appreciated that all 347 leaves of the Codex that the oikonomos of the monastery had in his room and brought to Tischendorf’s attention in 1859, which Tischendorf eventually removed to St Petersburg and named Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus, were thoroughly examined in 1845 and 1850 by Uspensky. Uspensky’s detailed examination in 1845 was of what remained of the codex following Tischendorf’s removal of 43 of its leaves the previous year. He saw the 74 leaves that Tischendorf had seen but was unable to remove,81 plus 273 leaves that Tischendorf would not be permitted to see until 1859, comprising the Minor Prophets, the Psalms and Wisdom literature, the whole of the New Testament, the Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas. On this 1845 visit Uspensky also found a fragment from the Book of Genesis from the Codex, and so inferred that the Codex was at one time a complete Bible. On this first examination Uspensky was well aware that the New Testament differed markedly from the Received Text, but
he initially considered that it was nothing more sinister than a poor job of copying from poor exemplars.
Uspensky visited again in 1850 and from June to August catalogued the manuscripts at St Catherine’s,82 during which time he sought out the Codex Sinaiticus manuscript
82 Uspensky’s 452-page catalogue of the manuscripts in St Catherine’s and their Juvanie metochion in Cairo is extant (Imperial Academy of Sciences, reference VIB19). Simonides claimed to have made such a catalogue on a (fictitious) trip to St Catherine’s in 1844, but Uspensky would not have needed to do all this work if Simonides had done it a few years earlier. No one has ever seen a catalogue by Simonides. This is more evidence that Simonides was spinning a yarn.
and continued his study of it for ‘a long time’.83 On his second review of the Codex, Uspensky became very concerned about what he suspected were its heterodox origins, seeing distinct aspects of Arianism and Apollinarianism in it, and perceiving that many important differences from the Received Text were not mere human errors. He records in his diary in 1850:
After such a second review of this manuscript, my first opinion of her has changed, so that it seemed to me to be a production that appeared not in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, but outside of her…The Sinai Bible worried me. And it is remarkable as an example of the corruption of Holy Scripture, especially the New Testament.84
It was during this second visit that, as recorded in his diary,85 Uspensky carefully produced artwork of portions of Codex Sinaiticus from the Old and New Testament, later published as colour plates in 1857. Uspensky’s examinations of the Codex, some details of which were published in 1856,86 followed by his colour plates in 1857, are of the greatest importance. When Uspensky examined the manuscript in 1845 his dating of it was fifth century. He continued to describe it as fifth century in the colour plates of it published in 1857. He finally gave its date a range of between fifth
to seventh century. Uspenksy, who was an expert on ancient parchment manuscripts, saw nothing inconsistent about such an age and the condition of the parchment and inks, having examined parts of the Codex during the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s. (no evidence is given that Uspensky examined in the 1860s when it was mostly locked in a safe)
83 ‘The remaining days of July [1850] have been on book work. I studied the ancient Greek manuscript on thin white parchment leaves containing part of the Old Testament and the entire New Testament with the epistle of the apostle Barnabas and the book of Hermas’, Второе путешествие архимандрита Порфирия Успенского в Синайский монастырь в 1850 году (St Petersburg, 1856). ‘This is part of the books of the Old Testament and the whole New Testament with the epistle of Barnabas and the book of Hermas under the name Ποιμήν i.e. the Shepherd. I saw this manuscript in 1845, but I did not then consider it in detail because of other compulsory studies at Sinai, but now I kept it for a long time while I was at the monastery of St Catherine and described its composition, supplemented my previous excerpts from it, and carefully studied the text contained in it, especially the New Testament.’ Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, diary for June-July 1850.
84 Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, June-July 1850.
85 ‘During the [1850] trip to Sinai I made…two pictures from the oldest manuscript containing the Old Testament incomplete and the New Testament complete.’ Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, June-July 1850.
86 A great deal was never published, but is extant. For example, see Uspensky’s 132pp manuscript Замечательные рукописи в библиотеках Синайского монастыря и в архиепископских кельях там [‘Wonderful manuscripts in the libraries of the Sinai monastery and in the Archbishop's cells there’] in the Uspensky collection at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, № 136.1. Pages 3-22 are dedicated to Codex Sinaiticus. That Uspensky took vast notes of readings and collations on his 1845 and 1850 visits is also evident from his published detailed treatment of it, setting out the grounds for its being a production of heterodoxy, in his Мнение о Синайской рукописи, содержащей в себе Ветхий Завет неполный и весь Новый Завет с посланием Св. Апостола Варнавы и книгою Ермы, (St Petersburg, 1862), which was published before Tischendorf’s facsimile edition was available for consultation. One might wonder why Uspensky’s account of his 1845 visit, which has quite a few pages on Codex Sinaiticus, took a decade to get to press. One of the reasons was his onerous workload and travelling. Another was the heavy hand of the censor. The original draft of Uspensky’s account of his 1845 visit and examination of Codex Sinaiticus is extant, and reveals plenty of red ink of the censor on it. (Donated to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Uspensky’s will). It was not passed by the censor for publication until 1856, as also was the account of his 1850 visit.
....
Uspensky wrote a great deal about Codex Sinaiticus in the 1860s after its arrival in St Petersburg,87 but there is no hint that the Codex had undergone any significant change over the 20 years that he had been familiar with it.
Tischendorf’s 1859 visit to St Catherine’s monastery
Porphyrius Uspensky’s detailed knowledge of the codex in 1845, together with knowledge of the leaves that Tischendorf removed in 1844 (published in facsimile in 1846) led directly to the deduction in Russia that Tischendorf’s 43 leaves in Leipzig belonged to the same codex that Uspensky had examined.88 Surely this, and Uspensky’s early dating of it, and his bringing to Russia a fragment of the Pentateuch from the Codex in 1845, were the background and motive behind the Russian government’s determination to bring the remainder of the manuscript to the Russian Empire from out of the Ottoman Empire.
Dr Cooper slips up badly here, wondering how the Russians could have known about the Codex at St Catherine’s prior to Tischendorf’s 1859 visit (pp.35, 77):
Tischendorf claimed that in 1859 he was sent to Sinai to search for such a manuscript by Tsar Nicholas I. How did it become known to the Tsar, and through whom, that such a manuscript was now available in such a remote and inaccessible part of the world?
Quite how the Tsar became blessed with this knowledge we do not know...We may wonder at the strange importance that Codex Sinaiticus had taken on for a Russian Tsar who’d never even seen or heard of it before. And who, I wonder, told him of its existence?
87 Uspensky arrived in St Petersburg in 1861 and was there for some years.
88 This was inferred ‘at once’ in Great Britain on far less evidence than the Russians had, and without knowledge of the specific origin of either the Leipzig leaves (Codex Friderico-Augustanus) or the leaves newly reported by Tischendorf in the spring of 1859: ‘Those who have seen the ‘Codex Friderico-Augustanus’…will at once see that this newly announced MS. so thoroughly coincides with that document, that…we must suppose that Professor Tischendorf has obtained another and most important portion of the ‘Codex Friderico-Augustanus’ itself…We believe that no statement has been published as to where this MS. was obtained.’ The Edinburgh Review, Vol. 110, July 1859, p.190.
McGrane confuses a deduction on Leipzig leaves and Uspensky with one based on the Leipzig leaves and 1859
Yet English scholars Tregelles and Scrivener reported Uspensky’s 1856 publication in their day: (Again, not in 1856, not before 1859)
n 1846 [sic], the Russian Archimandrite Porphyrius appears to have seen the same MS, and to have observed especially the New Testament portion of it, and to have noted the character of the text, though the published account of this did not appear till 1856.89
Porphyrius [Uspensky] examined it, observed that the New Testament formed part
of it, and published a tolerable account90 of its contents and the character of its text at
St Petersburg in 1856...Porphyrius brought with him from Sinai some fragments of
the Codex Sinaiticus itself,91 containing portions of Genesis and of Numbers.92
That the earlier portion of the Old Testament was once contained in this manuscript
appears as well from the small fragment possessed by Porphyrius.93
...
staggering. The Russian authorities knew about the Codex in the 1840s, and its existence, its contents and its exact location within the monastery became public knowledge in 1856,94 with excellent colour images publicly available in 1857..,.
89 S. P. Tregelles, Additions to the fourth volume of the Introduction to the Holy Scriptures by the Rev. Thomas. H. Horne [1860]. Uspensky’s descriptions of the Codex examined during his 1845 and 1850 visits and published in 1856 were in the British Museum some months before Tischendorf would be shown copies by Prince Lobanov in Constantinople, and before Tischendorf removed the Codex from St Catherine’s metochion in Cairo.
90 As with Tischendorf, a grudging acknowledgement is evident. Uspensky’s account of the Codex
ran to 14 pages in the account of his 1845 visit, and dealt with component parts, dating, provenance, and the activities of correctors, giving several examples of additions, omissions, and variant readings.
91 Strictly, the leaf from Numbers came from the monastery’s metochion [= associated compound] in Jouvanie, Cairo. Uspensky removed it in 1861.
92 Scrivener, A Full Collation of the Sinaitic MS. with the Received Text of the New Testament (1864). The relevant quotation here from Scrivener is repeated in J.K. Elliott’s work Codex Sinaiticus and the Simonides Affair, p.51, which Dr Cooper claims to have read (p.28 etc). On the same page in Elliott is a citation from The Clerical Journal of September 11, 1862 concerning the ‘Simonides Affair’ which states in the context of St Catherine’s monastery: ‘Again, in 1845 or 1846, a Russian archimandrite, named Porphyrius, seems unquestionably to have stumbled upon the Sinai MS’. In point of fact he did not ‘stumble upon’ it, it was part of his work in cataloguing the treasures of the monastery, and it was its greatest treasure and guarded accordingly. However, the important point is that the Russians knew about it in 1845.
93 Ibid., p.xxxii.
94 Initially in Russia in 1856, but copies were available in the British museum in 1859.
Looking back over those times Uspensky writes:
At the end of 1854, I arrived in Petersburg and in 1856 published in the description of my first trip to Sinai a brief report and a statement about the Sinai text of the Bible that I discovered; lithographic images from it were placed in my picturesque edition of Egypt and Sinai [published 1857], postponing for a time the publication of my second judgment concerning this text [published 1862]. I do not know whether Tischendorf heard a rumour about these books of mine, and whether our former minister Norov told him about them during his journey through Germany, but this professor of theology and palaeography decided to go to Sinai for the third time in order to see the manuscript that was discovered and printed by me, and to obtain this goal successfully, he asked for our [Russian] funding and our [Russian] letters of introduction, which followed him to the East.95
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