which would have gained the main object in view, and even as it was there was great delay; but at last, on the 28th of September, the gift was formally made, and the MSS. soon after deposited in St. Petersburg, where it now lies. The date of this MSS. is supposed to be not later than A. D. 400, and has been the subject of minute inquiry in consequence of the curious statement of Simonides in 1862, that he had himself written it on Mount Athos in 1839-40." Constantine Simonides was a Greek who was born in 1824 and is believed to have been the most versatile forger of the nineteenth century. From 1843 until 1856 he was in evidence all over Europe offering for sale fraudulent MSS. purporting to be of ancient origin. In 1861 Madan says: "He boldly asserted that he himself had written the whole of the Codex Sinaiticus which Tischendorf had bought in 1856 from the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. The statement was, of course, received with the utmost incredulity; but Simionides asserted, not only that he had written it, but that, in view of the probable skepticism of the scholars, he had placed certain private signs on particular leaves of the codex. When pressed to specify these marks he gave a list of the leaves on which were to be found his initials or other monogram. The test was a fair one, and the MSS., which was at St. Petersburg, was carefully inspected. Every leaf designated by Simonides was found to be imperfect at the part where the mark was to have been found. Deliberate mutilation by an enemy, said his friends. But many thought that the wily Greek had acquired through private friends a note of some imperfect leaves in the MSS., and had made unscrupulous use of the information."