sent into the East by the authority of the Emperor Alexander II., for the purpose of searching after and procuring ancient MSS., Greek and Oriental, especially of the Scriptures. His views were cordially seconded by several persons of influence at the Russian court, recommended by the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, and patronized by the Empress. In September, 1858, the Emperor issued an order for the execution of this project. Tischendorf was then occupied with the preparation of the seventh edition of his New Testament; but at the beginning of 1859, he set out anew for the East, and on the last day of January reached the convent of St. Catharine. This was his third visit, and he was kindly welcomed by the Sinaitic brethren. During a walk one day with the steward of the convent, Tischendorf happened to allude in the course of conversation to the version of the LXX., some copies of his recent edition of which, with some of his New Testament, he had brought as a present for the convent library. On returning from their walk, the steward told Tischendorf that he also possessed a copy of the LXX., and forthwith placed before him a bundle wrapped round with a cloth in which the MS. was contained. Tischendorf undid the cloth, and beheld what he had given up all hope of recovering. He found this codex, which already from the fragments examined he had concluded to be one of the most ancient Greek MSS. in existence, to contain not only very large remains of the Old Testament, but, what was far more important, an entire copy of the New Testament (ne minimá quidem lacuna deformatum), followed by the complete Epistle of Barnabas and the first part of the Shepherd of Hermas. This precious relic was brought from the cell of the sacristan, where a number of books, some printed, some MS., and mostly liturgical, had been deposited with the various utensils employed in the public service. Tischendorf, with the consent of the steward, carried it off to his own chamber; and his excitement, he tells us, on the discovery was so great, that he could not sleep, but after thanking God for this unexpected favour bestowed on the church, passed the whole of that first night in transcribing the Epistle of Barnabas. The brethren obligingly consented that, with the permission of their superiors in Cairo, the MS. should be forwarded to that city to be transcribed entire by Tischendorf. On the 13th of February, Tischendorf arrived at Cairo; and such was the despatch used in this matter, that although the desert between Sinai and Cairo had to be twice traversed by the messenger, by the 24th of that month Tischendorf received the MS. from the hands of the superiors at Cairo. The transcription of the codex, containing more than 100,000 verses, was completed within two months, made partly by his own hand, partly by two friends, whose work was carefully revised to the letter by Tischendorf himself. His chief difficulty was in dealing with the alterations,

which in nearly 8000 places had been introduced by correctors of an early date into the primitive text.

Tischendorf advised the Sinaitic brethren to present this MS. by his hand to the Emperor Alexander II. in acknowledgment of his zeal for the orthodox faith. To this they were themselves well inclined; but in consequence of some difficulties arising from the unsettled state of their society, a sort of middle course was adopted. It was agreed, at the earnest request of Tischendorf, that in order to prepare the text for publication with the utmost accuracy, he should take the MS. with him to St. Petersburg as if lent for a season, until such time as the archbishop in the name of the college should formally signify that it was given up in perpetuity. Such were the conditions under which the MS. was delivered to Tischendorf at Cairo on the 28th of September, 1859.

In former years Tischendorf had visited Palestine, especially Jerusalem and its neighbourhood-Berytus, Laodicea, Smyrna, the island of Patmos and Constantinople; and in all these places he had found something to further the object which he had specially in view. He entered Jerusalem in company with the Grand Duke, Constantine, in whom he found a zealous promoter of his biblical researches. Prince Lobanow, Russian ambassador at the Ottoman Porte, and Herr von Lagorsky, the Russian Imperial consul in Egypt, also rendered him much assistance in the prosecution of his work. During his stay at the residence of the former on the shores of the Bosphorus, the Prince shewed him a book written in Russian by the head of a convent, named Porphyrius, and published at Petersburg in 1856, in which the author gave an account of his travels through the East, and especially to Mount Sinai, during the years 1845 and 1846. In this book there was a notice of the Sinaitic MS. which had been the object of Tischendorf's earnest search. In fact, the year after Tischendorf had discovered the fragments of the Old Testament and had intimated their great value, Porphyrius saw the same in the monastery of St. Catharine, together with the remaining portions which had eluded the search of Tischendorf, and perceived at once that they were parts of one and the same MS. Porphyrius was a learned and accomplished man, well aware of the critical value of this Sinaitic MS., though in his judgment respecting the mode of writing, which he compares to the Slavonic, the age of the MS. and the character of the text, Tischendorf thinks him entirely mistaken.* Though Porphyrius stayed a long time at Mount Sinai, he did not think it worth

See note, p. 7, of the "Notitia," where Tischendorf specifies what he considers to be the errors of Porphyrius. From the stichometric arrangement of the text-a mode of writing which he supposes to have been introduced about A.D. 446-Porphyrius concluded that the MS. must be referred to the fifth century, a century later, as we shall see, than the date assigned to it by Tischendorf.

while to transcribe any book of the Old or New Testament either for general or for critical use. He appeared, moreover, not to know that the entire Greek text of the Shepherd of Hermas and of the whole of the first part of the Epistle of Barnabas had long been a desideratum with scholars which they had hitherto searched for in vain.-Such is Tischendorf's account of the relations between himself and Porphyrius. It is quite evident that he is sensitively anxious to repel the imputation of any wish to depreciate the merits of the Russian archimandrite. He politely disposes of his case with the words, "Varia ac diversa singulorum studia, nec omnia omnes possumus."

Tischendorf quitted Egypt in the middle of October and reached St. Petersburg at the beginning of November. The Emperor and Empress gazed, we are told, with delight on the precious prize, and were eager to hear of the literary treasures which had been rescued from destruction. For two weeks the MSS. were exhibited by imperial command to the public view, and directions were issued for editing the Sinaitic Bible as speedily as was compatible with accuracy. Of three several plans that were suggested to the Emperor, he approved and adopted the following: that the entire text, as it was written a primá manu, should be represented by types approaching as near as possible to a facsimile of the MS. itself (typis qui ad maximam ipsoram manu scriptorum accedant similitudinem). To secure this object of perfect accuracy, it was proposed, not only that the several letters of the alphabet should be executed in the copperplate after the exact form of the MS., with a careful regard to the smaller and smallest forms, such as are frequently used at the end of a line,* but in case any letters in immediate juxta-position, like av, ov, ar, should take up more room with the ordinary types than in the MS., that a set of types should be cast on purpose to remove this disparity and to bring the copy and the original into the closest conformity (formæ duplices ficta sunt quibus ipsa scriptorum ratio exprimeretur). On the whole, however, such is the uniformity of the characters in the Sinaitic Codex, that we might suppose them executed rather by types than by the pen, and they are therefore more easily represented through the press. To obtain the exactest resemblance to the original MS., not only the size of the Codex, the number of columns, and the length of particular lines when from whatever cause they exceed the rest, but the very colour of the ink, which is rather dusky than black, will be carefully imitated. In this form it is intended that the text a primá manu should be given to the world, and also what the first and second correctors of the MS.-both of great antiquity-have either added in the

e.g. ПРОФн
TON-

ΔΙΑΠΑΝΤΟc.

margin, or by points and brackets have indicated as proper to be expunged. All later alterations of the primitive text will be described and explained and referred to their respective authors in an accompanying commentary. Photographic and lithographic plates will complete the work, representing twenty pages of the original text selected on account of their critical or palæographic interest. The first artists and printers are to be employed; and the whole work in all its parts will be constantly revised by Tischendorf, and be tested and verified by collation with the MS. itself.

The edition of the text is to consist of three volumes; the two first comprising the fragments of the Old Testament; the third, the New, with the Epistle of Barnabas and the fragments of the Shepherd. To these a fourth will be added, containing, besides the plates just alluded to, a critical commentary, preceded by prolegomena in which the age and character of the MS., and its bearing on the constitution of the biblical text, will be minutely investigated. It is expected that the work will be ready for publication about the middle of 1862, so as to coincide with the millenial celebration of the founding of the Russian empire by Duke Ruric-a new and unexpected mode of solemnizing the epoch which the present Emperor is said earnestly to desire. Only three hundred copies of this costly and facsimile form are to be struck off, and these not for sale, but for gratuitous distribution by the Emperor, "per totam Christi ecclesiam, ubicunque litteris locus atque honos est." To meet the wants of scholars, in the same year on which this grand festal edition is to appear, a smaller one, "communi destinata usui," will be published. This, it is proposed, shall also be a critical edition, exhibiting the text in four columns on each page like the larger work, with a critical commentary and the greater part of the prolegomena, and a plate containing a facsimile of an entire page of the original MS. Through the munificent liberality of the Emperor of Russia, this smaller or manual edition will be offered to the public at an unusually low price. In 1862, only the New Testament, with the Epistle of Barnabas and the fragments of the Shepherd, will appear in this smaller form; but they will be followed, it is hoped, the next year by the entire subsisting remains of the Sinaitic MS. of the Old Testament. The larger work will be brought out at St. Petersburg; the smaller will be published by Brockhaus at Leipsic. The despatch combined with care which will distinguish this great publication, is not the least remarkable circumstance attending it. The edition of the Codex Vaticanus, though commenced by Mai in 1827, did not see the light till 1857, some time after his death. For three centuries it lay buried and all but inaccessible in the recesses of the Papal library at Rome, in spite of the earnest demands of scholars from every part of Europe for its publication. In less

than the same number of years from the time of its discovery, will this rescued Sinaitic treasure be given in the completest form to the world.

We must now give a brief account, after the indications of Tischendorf, of the codex itself. The MS. consists of 345 leaves and a half; of which 199 contain portions of the Old Testament; the remaining 147 and a half, the New Testament, including Barnabas and the Shepherd. The collections of the Old Testament begin with a fragment of 1 Chronicles, followed by nearly the whole of Tobit and by the whole of Judith. Then come the 1st and 4th books of Maccabees entire; the whole of Isaiah contained in 26 leaves, and the six first leaves of the pro-. phecies of Jeremiah. Nine of the Minor Prophets are preserved, occupying 14 leaves, viz. Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. These are succeeded by the whole body of the poetical books, written stichometrically, i. e. in lines according to the parallelism. From this mode of writing them, the ancient fathers comprehended all these books under one title as βίβλοι τιχηρεῖς. In this portion of it, the MS. exhibits not four, as in other parts, but only two columns on each page. The several books occur in the following order: Psalms (40 leaves), Proverbs (15), Canticles (3), Wisdom of Solomon (9), Wisdom of Sirach (25), Job (15). Job concludes the Old Testament.-The books of the New are thus arranged: (1) the four Gospels in their usual order; (2) nine of the Epistles of Paul-Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians; (3) Hebrews; (4) 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon; (5) Acts of the Apostles; (6) Catholic Epistles-James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2 and 3 John, Jude; (7) Apocalypse of John; (8) Barnabas and the Shepherd.

Of the evidence furnishing the probable age of this MS., Tischendorf promises a fuller statement in his forthcoming prolegomena. In the mean time he adheres to the opinion which he formed on first examining the codex at Cairo, viz. that it belongs to the fourth century, but whether to the first or to the second half of that century he does not at present decide. In proof of this assertion, he insists first of all on the form of the uncial characters, closely resembling those which occur in the old papyrus rolls found in Herculaneum and other places. He tells us that he possesses himself a small papyrus fragment dug up by the Bedouins in the great necropolis of Memphis, the writing of which is exactly like that of the Sinaitic Codex. This MS., we may observe in passing, is written, not on papyrus, but on vellum. Its antiquity he infers from the uniform distinctness (puritas) of the characters, whether square or round;

These works are treated in the MS. as an integral part of the New Testament.