In 1853, “nine years after the original discovery,” Dr. Tisch-endorf
again visited the Sinai convent, but although he had “enjoined on the
monks to take religious care” of the remains of which they, on the
former occasion, would not yield up possession, he, on this second
occasion, and apparently after careful search, discovered “eleven short
lines,” which convinced him that the greater part of the MS had been
destroyed. He still, however, kept the place secret, although he had no
longer any known reason for so doing; and, having obtained an advance of
funds from the Russian Government, he, in 1859, tried a third time for
his “pearl of St. Catherine,” which, in 1853, he felt convinced had been
destroyed, and as to which he had nevertheless, in the meantime, been
troubled by fears that the good cause might be aided by some other than
Dr. Tischendorf discovering and publishing the “priceless treasure,”
which, according to his previous statements, he must have felt convinced
did not longer exist. On this third journey the Doctor discovered “the
very fragments which, fifteen years before, he had taken out of the
basket,” “and also other parts of the Old Testament, the New Testament
complete, and, in addition, Barnabas and part of Hermas.”
With wonderful preciseness, and with great audacity, Dr. Tischendorf
_refers_ the transcription of the discovered Bible to the first half of
the fourth century. Have Dr. Tischendorf’s patrons here ever read of MSS
discovered in the same Convent of St. Catherine, at Sinai, of which an
account was published by Dr. Constantine Simonides, and concerning which
the _Westminster Review_ said, “We share the suspicions, to use the
gentlest word which occurs to us, entertained, we believe, by all
competent critics and antiquarians.”
In 1863 Dr. Tischendorf published, at the cost of the Russian Emperor, a
splendid but very costly edition of his Sinaitic MS in columns, with a
Latin introduction. The book is an expensive one, and copies of it are
not very plentiful in England. Perhaps the Religious Tract Society have
not contributed to its circulation so liberally as did the pious Emperor
of all the Russias. Surely a text on which our own is to be
re-constructed ought to be in the hands at least of every English
clergyman and Young Men’s Christian Association.
“Christianity,” writes Dr. Tischendorf, “does not, strictly speaking,
rest on the moral teaching of Jesus;” “it rests on his person only.” “If
we are in error in believing in the person of Christ as taught in the
Gospels, then the Church herself is in error, and must be given up as a
deception.” “All the world knows that our Gospels are nothing else than
biographies of Christ.” “We have no other source of information with
respect to the life of Jesus.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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