James Asch on Cooper on Donaldson late forms
The Fraudulent Codex Sinaiticus Defended By the James White Cult Dr. James A., PhD One of the most damning pieces of evidence against the Codex Sinaiticus is the evidence of its usage of anachronis…
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“The late origin of the Greek is indicated by the occurrence of a great number of words unknown to the classical period, but common in later or modern Greek. Such are Βουνος, συμβιοσ (as wife), με (for μετα), πρωτοκαθεδριεις, ισχυροποιω κατεπιθυμω, ασυγκρασια, καταχυμα, εξακριβαζομαι, and such like. The lateness of the Greek appears also from late forms; such as αγαθωτατης, μεθισταναι, οιδας, αφιουσι (αφινουσιν in Sim. Greek), καπεκοπταν, ενεσκιρωμενοι, επεδιδουν, ετιθουν, beside ετιθεσαν, εσκαν, λημψη, ελπιδαν, τιθω, επεριψας and ηνοιξας, ειπασα, χειραν, απλοτηταν, σαρκαν, συνιω, συνιει; and some modern Greek forms, such as κραταουσα for κρατουσα, have been corrected by the writer of the manuscript. The lateness of the Greek appears also in the absence of the optative and the frequent use of ινα after ερωταν, αξιω, αιτουμαι, εντελλομαι, αξιος, &c., generally with the subjunctive, never with the optative. We also find εαν joined with the indicative. Εις is continually used for εν, as εχουσιν τοτον εις τον πυργον. We have also παρα after comparatives, and peculiar constructions, as περιχαρης του ιδειν, σπουδαιος εις το γνοναι, απεγνωρισθαι απο. And we have a neuter plural joined with a plural verb, κτηνη ερχονται. Most, if not all, of these peculiarities now mentioned, may be found in Hellenistic writings, especially the New Testament; and some of them maybe paralleled even in classical writers. But if we consider that the portion which has now been examined is small, and that every page is filled with these peculiarities, the only conclusion to which we can come is, that the Greek is not the Greek of the at least first five centuries of the Christian era. There is no document written within that period which has half so many neo-Hellenic forms, taken page by page, as this Greek of the Pastor of Hermas.”
Cooper, Bill (2016-04-08).
The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus (Kindle Locations 898-907). Kindle Edition.
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Bill Cooper on Donaldson
776
But what exactly is it about the
Shepherd ofHermas’ Greek text in Sinaiticus
that betrays the fact that it is a modern
production? Surely, Greek is Greek, and it
should be impossible to tell whether a text
originated in ancient times or in modern?
But actually, it is very easy to tell. James
Donaldson explains the technicalities for
us:
“The late origin of the Greek text [of
the Codex Sinaiticus Hermas] is indicated
by the occurrence of a great number of
words unknown to the classical period, but
common in later or modern Greek.... The
lateness of the Greek appears also in late
forms... and some modern Greek forms...
have been corrected by the writer of the
manuscript. The lateness of the Greek
appears also in the absence of the optative
and the frequent use of iva... generally with
the subjunctive, never with the optative....
But if we consider that the portion which
has now been examined is small, and
that every page [of the Sinaiticus Hermas]
is filled with these peculiarities, the only
conclusion to which we can come is, that
the Greek is not the Greek of the at least
first five centuries of the Christian era.
There is no document written within that
period which has half so many neo-Hellenic
forms, taken page by page, as this Greek of
the Pastor ofHermas.”3
Donaldson goes on to say:
"The peculiarities which point out a
Latin origin are the following: There are,
first, a number of Latin words where you
would naturally expect Greek.... Then there
is a considerable number of passages [of the
Hermas] preserved to us in Greek by Origen
and other writers. The Sinaitic Greek
differs often from this Greek, and agrees
with the Latin translation, especially the
Palatine. There is every, especially internal,
probability that the Greek of the ancient
writers is nearer the original than the
Sinaitic.”4
Now Donaldson was saying no
more about the Sinaiticus Hermas than
Tischendorf had said about the Leipzig.
Yet he was to be pilloried for saying it.
The way Donaldson’s analysis was received,
given the times in which he gave it, is not
very surprising. Preparation for the Revised
Version was well under way, and Sinaiticus
was being trumpeted all around the world
as the original text of the Bible; Higher
Criticism was riding the crest of a very large
wave, and Tischendorf’s honest bungling
was about to bring it all crashing down
around the Vatican’s ears. They just didn’t
need at that moment in time Donaldson’s
insightful analysis, so out came the knives
of assassination in the public press. Notice
that no competent linguist ever challenged
his analysis. No academic. No scholar of
any note. It was left instead to others of
lesser rank whom academe could distance
itself from should the truth ever come out.
The
Saturday Review was commendably
prompt in publicly disparaging Donaldson,
and here’s how they did it. The ‘review,’ of
course, is anonymous:
"And here we must say that Dr
Donaldson seems to us to have lost his
way in meddling with matters beyond
the scope of his ordinary studies.... It
is really provoking to see a clever and,
in his province, a learned man, pass
such a summary judgment as this on a
subject to which every line Dr Donaldson
writes about it serves to show that he
has never paid adequate attention. In
Greek manuscripts, as in Latin, and even
in English, though in them not to the
same extent, there exist from the fourth
century downwards certain peculiarities in
the style of writing which are described
and illustrated in well-known text-books
on palaeography and biblical criticism...
whereby the experienced eye may tell at
a glance the true date of a venerable
book.... Tried by these tests, the Sinaitic
manuscript could not be referred to a lower
period than that fixed by Tischendorf,
though it is probably a little junior to its
famous partner in the Vatican. Of course
a document of this kind may be made
by craft and skill to simulate an antiquity
which does not belong to it, just as a
bank-note may be successfully forged; but
suspicions of such a kind, when they arise,
can be cleared up one way or another to
a moral certainty by a close examination
of the internal character of its contents, by
scrutinizing the nature of its texts and the
congruity of the readings it exhibits with
what we know from other sources that they
ought to be."5
But obeying the same rules of
investigation as the ‘review’ commends is
precisely what Donaldson had done. And
having done it, he was led to the inexorable
conclusion that the Hermas embedded
within the pages of Codex Sinaiticus was
a modern production. It is interesting
indeed that our anonymous reviewer never
once demonstrates with an example where
Donaldson was at fault. There is vitriol,
sarcasm and spite aplenty, but no science,
no analysis and no positive rebuttal. In
other words, the 'review' is a worthless
814
libel against one of the most industrious
scholars of his age.
But what exactly was the "scope of
his ordinary studies” that so limited the
ignorant Donaldson in the eyes of our
anonymous reviewer? To begin with, such
was the accumulation of his knowledge in
the field of the Greek language, ancient and
modern, that King Edward VII conferred a
knighthood on him in 1907. Forty years
earlier, he had been elected a Fellow of
the Royal Society of Scotland. In 1881 he
became Professor of Humanity at Aberdeen
University, and in 1890 Principal of St
Andrews. Apart from his earned doctorate,
he was awarded two honorary doctorates
by Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities. He
was the author of: A Modem Greek Grammar
for the Use of Classical Students, 1853;
Lyra Graeca, Specimens of Greek Lyric Poetry
from Callinus to Alexandros Soutsos, 18 54;
A Critical History of Christian Literature
and Christian Doctrine from the Death of
the Apostles to the Nicene Council, issued
in three volumes between 1864-1866; He
collaborated on the writing and editing
of The Ante-Nicene Christian Library,
published in twenty-four volumes between
1867-72; The Apostolical Fathers, of 1874,
in which he offered his analysis of the
Shepherd ofHermas; Lectures on the History
of Education in Prussia and England, also in
1874; Expiatory and Substitutory Sacrifices
of the Greeks, 1875; The Westminster
Confession of Faith and the Thirty-Nine
Articles of the Church of England, 1905; and
finally, Woman, her position and influence
in ancient Greece and Rome, published
in 1907. Add to this list, books in
German and Latin, and I don’t know how
many pamphlets, articles, lectures, talks
and debates that he must have engaged
in over the years. Moreover, he merited
two biographical entries, one in the New
International Encyclopaedia, published in
New York in 1905, a sure token of his
international reputation, and another in
the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1911. I
doubt that our anonymous reviewer could
have boasted as much.
All in all, these are mightily impressive
antecedents, and given the subject matter
of his several published academic books on
both ancient and modern Greek, I’d say that
what he said about the Sinaiticus Hermas
fell well within the "scope of his ordinary
studies,” our reviewer’s attempts to belittle
him notwithstanding. Intellectually and as
a scholar he ranked head and shoulders
above the likes of Tischendorf and the
critics. It is also clear that the writer of
our libellous review was somewhat his
inferior in the intellectual realm, which is
why he wisely abstained from any technical
critique of Donaldson’s observations on the
Hermas. He had the perfect opportunity to
bring him down by demonstrating just one
fault, but he could not take it. But to prepare
the ground for his belittling of his subject,
in the review’s opening passage, he says
this:
"Now this author’s style and
designation, ‘James Donaldson, LL.D.,’
conveys to our mind no information
whatever. He is probably a layman, and that
is all we can gather so far.”6
Such a disgraceful put-down says a lot
more about Donaldson’s critics than about
him, of course. But so much for that. As
for Tischendorf, there was only one thing
that he could now do to save the Jesuit
agenda as well as his own career, and
that was to back-pedal quickly.7 It was a
truly painful ordeal for such a vainglorious
man as he, but he now had to tell the
world that he had got it completely wrong
about Simonides’
Hermae Pastor of 1856,
and that it was, after all, a very ancient
Greek text, perhaps even the original -
in spite of its very modern characteristics
and embarrassingly numerous medieval
Latinisms. In so many words, he had to
appeal to the ‘obvious’ antiquity of Codex
Sinaiticus as the reason for re-dating the
Hermae Pastor of Leipzig. If it was found
in Sinaiticus, then it could not be modern,
even though its grammar, syntax and
vocabulary together shouted out the fact
that it was written in modern and not
in ancient Greek. It was one of the most
audacious acts of dishonesty and sleight
of hand ever perpetrated on the academic
world, and the real wonder is that he was
allowed to get away with it. But instead
of condemning his dishonesty, almost the
entire academic world closed its ranks
about him and agreed with him. There was
too much at stake for it to do otherwise.
A great deal was riding upon the
alleged antiquity of Codex Sinaiticus,
and Simonides’
Shepherd of Hermas was
threatening to undo years - centuries!
- of hard work and preparation. No
wonder they’d soon be out to get him.
Happily for the critics, Tischendorf’s back-
pedalling had been published in Latin, in
a scholarly German tome that was itself
obscure enough not to have been noticed
by any mischievous journalist, and so the
deception was barely noticed, especially by
the man in the street, the real target here.
But it was, and remains, a gross deception
nonetheless. Tischendorf had been correct
in every point when he critiqued the
Leipzig Hermas, yet now he was forced to
deny everything that he had so carefully
said about it. He literally turned all the
evidence for modern production on its
head and resorted to a colossal lie, namely
that the Greek text of the
Hermas which
is embedded in both Codex Sinaiticus and
Lipsiensis, is the original Greek text of that
work, and, as far as the world is concerned,
that is the end of the matter.
Postscript: Donaldson on Hermas
Donaldson’s appraisal of the form
of Greek in which the Codex Sinaiticus
Hermas is written, is foundational to an
accurate understanding of the recent origin
of the Codex. Omitting only his long,
historico-theological preamble concerning
the
Hermas, that appraisal is given here in
857
full. It is its technical excellence which is
our main interest here. Any critic is free to
challenge it, and to demonstrate any fault
at all in Donaldson’s accuracy or logic. It
will be a brave man who tries. In nigh 150
years or so, no one has yet offered to do it.
A Critical History of Christian
SKIP
880
Βουνος, συμβιοσ (as wife), με (for μετα),
πρωτοκαθεδριεις, ισχυροποιώ κατεπιθυμω,
ασυγκρασια, καταχυμα, εξακριβαζομαί, and
such like. The lateness of the Greek appears
also from late forms; such as αγαθωτατης,
μεθισταναι, οιδας, αφιουσι (αφινουσιν in
Sim. Greek), καπεκοπταν, ενεσκφωμενοι,
επεδιδουν, ετιθουν, beside ετιθεσαν, εσκαν,
λημψη, ελπίδαν, τιθω, επεριψας and ηνοιξας,
ειπασα, χειραν, απλότηταν, σαρκαν, συνιω,
συνιει; and some modern Greek forms,
such as κραταουσα for κρατούσα, have been
corrected by the writer of the manuscript.
The lateness of the Greek appears also
in the absence of the optative and the
frequent use of iva after έρωταν, αξιω,
αιτουμαι, εντέλλομαι, άξιος, &c., generally
with the subjunctive, never with the
optative. We also find εαν joined with the
indicative. Εις is continually used for εν,
as εχουσιν τοτον εις τον πύργον. We have
also παρα after comparatives, and peculiar
constructions, as περιχαρής του ιδειν,
σπουδαίος εις το γνοναι, απεγνωρισθαι απο.
And we have a neuter plural joined with a
plural verb, κτηνη έρχονται. Most, if not all,
of these peculiarities now mentioned, may
be found in Hellenistic writings, especially
907
The peculiarities which point out a
Latin origin are the following:
There are, first, a number of Latin
words where you would naturally expect
Greek. Such are συμφελλιον, κερβικαριον,
λεντιον, καρπασινον.
Then there occurs this passage, ερεις
δε Μαξιμω ιδου θλιψις ερχεται. The common
Latin translation is: ‘Dices autem; ecce
magna tribulatio venit.’ Now here there
is no trace of the ‘Μαξιμω.’ But we find
it in the Palatine, ‘Dicis autem maximo:
ecce tribulatio,’ which Dressel changes into
‘Dicis autem; maxima ecce tribulatio.’ The
Palatine accounts well for the origin of
Μαξιμω in the Sinaitic Greek, but it is
not possible to account for the common
‘magna,’ if Μαξιμω had been originally in
the Greek.
Footnotes to Chapter Four
1. Anger & Dindorf (eds.). Hermae
Pastor. Graece primum ediderunt et
interpretationem veteram Latinem ex
codicibus emendatam addiderunt Rudolphus
Anger et Guilielmus Dindorf. Pars prior quae
textum Graecum continet. 1856. Lipsiae
[Leipzig].
927
2. Dressel, Patrum Apostolicorum
Opera. Lips. [Leipzig]. 1857, pp. xxxix-lv.
3. Donaldson, The Apostolical Fathers.
1874. pp. 389-390.
4. Ibid., p. 390.
5. The Saturday Review. 2nd January
1875. p. 23.
6. Ibid., p. 22. The disparaging aside
that “he is probably a layman" is meant
to convey the notion that because he is a
layman he is therefore not qualified to hold
an opinion on the subject. It’s something
that normally only an arrogant cleric
would say, but the finger of suspicion for
this review points firmly to
William Aldis
Wright, who at this very time was busy
helping to prepare the Revised Version of
1881. His ardent support of the scheme of
foisting a Vatican-inspired Bible onto the
world in place of the Received Text was in
danger of being scuppered by Donaldson,
and he knew it. Hence the ‘review/ though
he had to remain anonymous.
7. It was in the Preface, Prologue
and Appendix of Dressel's second edition
of
Patrum Apostolicorum Opera, published
in 1867, that Tischendorf did his back-
pedalling. But note the gem of double-
reasoning which Tischendorf offers having
given two directly opposite analyses of
Hermas: "
My opposite opinion is proved
correct....” That is how to wriggle off a hook.
Beautiful.
8. Particularly informative on this
Latin issue is: Turner, Cuthbert H. ‘The
Shepherd of Hermas and the Problem of its
Text.’ Journal of Theological Studies. April
1920. os-XXI (2). pp. 193-209.
943
Chapter Five: Barnabas
Also Betrays Sinaiticus’
Date of Composition
Much of what has been said about The
Shepherd of Hermas lending a recent date
to the manufacture of Codex Sinaiticus, can
be said with equal force concerning the
“
The Greek of the first four
chapters and a half.... contains many of
the conjectural emendations previously
proposed by scholars.” [This shows that this
version of Barnabas was written under the
influence of a recent scholarship - from
around the 17th-19th centuries, in other
Compare next section to Verheyden
words. But Donaldson continues:] "The
Greek of the first four chapters exhibits
some peculiar phenomena. Several words
of unusual formation such as ακριβευεσθαι,
ανθρωποποιητος, and παρεισδυσις, are found
nowhere else. One word εκσφενδοναν,
occurring in c.2, is found in Suidas, without
any meaning attached to it except in one
MS., notorious for additions of its own. It
967
tell the difference between classical and
modern Greek, and he therefore could not
recognise these anomalies although they
were staring him in the face. But Donaldson
also mentions, almost as an aside, a not-
so-curious circumstance concerning this
medieval-to-modern version of
Barnabas,
and that is the fact that
two of its Latin
manuscripts were earlier being circulated
by certain Jesuits, Turranius ( Turrianus ) and Andreas
Schottus.3 Something was being prepared.
The Jesuits, along with the Vatican whom
they serve, have always been anxious to
attach apocryphal - i.e. Gnostic - works
to both the Old and New Testaments of
the Bible, for these serve the purpose
of watering down and perverting the
doctrines as well as the Authority of