Steven Avery
Administrator
were the 1859 leaves taken by theft? -
In a certain sense the taking of the manuscript was clearly a type of theft, since it was written up as a loan in 1859 that was turned into a donation or exchange under duress. Possession is 90% of the law, and in the 1860s, when the negotiations took place, the manuscript was now in Russia. They had the physical leverage and a lot of spiritual-political leverage (influencing the monastery politics.) Thus, someone pointing to a 1869 document as vindication of the "loan" is clearly a charade. The Sinai monastery was not going to retrieve the manuscript no matter what at that point, and they thus sought for the best deal possible under the circumstances.
However this thread will not look at the 1859-1869 loan-gift-exchange questions, those are well documented everywhere. Although we may include a little bibliography below, with a special emphasis on the 2005 article of Michael D. Peterson. The purpose here is to give the alternate history account, that the 1859 leaves were a heist, hushed up, as described by barrister William George Thorpe (1832-1899) and discussed in other sources. Then we plan to conclude with our discussion of alternate histories.
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Travis McDade
https://medium.com/@travis.mcdade
I am a rare books curator who writes and teaches on the subject of rare book theft. My latest book is called Torn From Their Bindings. Books books books.
The Bin of Plenty
Travis McDade - Nov. 25, 2013
http://blog.oup.com/2013/11/fake-finding-rare-items-in-trash-library-theft/
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William George Thorpe (1828-1903) was in Egypt and Cairo about 1860 (see p. 50 in Still Life)
The still life of the Middle Temple (1892)
William George Thorpe
https://books.google.com/books?id=7ekyAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA230
p. 230-232
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Middle Temple Table Talk (1894 or 95)
William George Thorpe
http://books.google.com/books?id=YXg1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA320
p. 320-322
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Bernard Janin Sage (1821-1902) writing as P. C. (plain common) Sense, looked at the Thorpe account:
A Critical and Historical Enquiry Into the Origin of the Third Gospel - (1901)
P. C. Sense
http://books.google.com/books?id=QnlCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA298
p. 298-300
Codex Sinaiticus. This contains the Old and New Testaments complete, and the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. It is at present in the Imperial Library at St Petersburg, but was found by Tischendorf in 1859 1 in the library of the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai. The circumstances attending its acquisition are gravely amusing, and are thus described in a work published in 1892, called The Still Lift of the Middle Temple, with some of its Table Talk, preceded by Fifty Years' Reminiscences, by W. G. Thorpe, K.S.A., a barrister of the Society (Richard Bentley & Son).
[William George Thorpe account p. 298-299]
1 The date is variously given by different writers. Mr Thorpe says 1839, Mrs Lewis 1844. and Dean Alford and most authorities 1859.
P. C. Sense is also interesting on Simonides, making a few points.
One example: he notes that Scivener accepted that Simonides had worked on some similar ms.
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In 1894 James Rendel Harris tried to downplay the reports of the theft, even while criticizing the Gregory acceptance of the Tischendorf stories:
The Expositor (1908)
Dr. Gregory on the Canon and Text of the New Testament
http://books.google.com/books?id=xuYqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA138
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p. 105
Page 113
But many felt it wise to fudge around the shadier aspects of Tischendorf's deal. Gregory mocked unnamed envyers of Tischendorf who were alleged to have suggested that he slipped the codex into his breast-pocket in February 1859 and vanished unseen from the monastery. Try to slip into your pocket unseen three hundred and forty-six leaves of parchment which are forty-three centimetres long and thirty-seven centimetres broad’, said Gregory bitingly.
This is quite consistent with the Thorpe report of a hushed-up theft.
==================
1859-1869 - (check "resources" for Peterson et al.)
Helpful on 1859-1869 are Peterson and Bentley, Peterson for detail, Bentley for overview.
In a certain sense the taking of the manuscript was clearly a type of theft, since it was written up as a loan in 1859 that was turned into a donation or exchange under duress. Possession is 90% of the law, and in the 1860s, when the negotiations took place, the manuscript was now in Russia. They had the physical leverage and a lot of spiritual-political leverage (influencing the monastery politics.) Thus, someone pointing to a 1869 document as vindication of the "loan" is clearly a charade. The Sinai monastery was not going to retrieve the manuscript no matter what at that point, and they thus sought for the best deal possible under the circumstances.
However this thread will not look at the 1859-1869 loan-gift-exchange questions, those are well documented everywhere. Although we may include a little bibliography below, with a special emphasis on the 2005 article of Michael D. Peterson. The purpose here is to give the alternate history account, that the 1859 leaves were a heist, hushed up, as described by barrister William George Thorpe (1832-1899) and discussed in other sources. Then we plan to conclude with our discussion of alternate histories.
==================
Travis McDade
https://medium.com/@travis.mcdade
I am a rare books curator who writes and teaches on the subject of rare book theft. My latest book is called Torn From Their Bindings. Books books books.
The Bin of Plenty
Travis McDade - Nov. 25, 2013
http://blog.oup.com/2013/11/fake-finding-rare-items-in-trash-library-theft/
Breithaupt, as it happens, paid a fairly stiff price for his crimes. Nineteenth century Biblical scholar Constantin Von Tischendorf, on the other hand, parlayed his trash finding story into celebrity...
In 1844, he travelled across North Africa and arrived, eventually, at St. Catherine’s Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula. It was, he later claimed, in the monastery’s library that he noticed a basket full of papers “mouldered by time,” being consigned to flames for the sake of heat. He “rescued” from this trash basket some 86 pages of what turned out to be a fourth century Bible, and brought them back to Leipzig. In an age when fire was a major threat to books, saving one from the flames must have struck Tischendorf as an entirely believable tale — never mind that parchment (which is animal skin, after all) does not burn well enough to be a good source of heat. But aside from that, to accept his rescued-from-refuse claim, a person would have to believe that, after some fifteen hundred years of existence, monks were burning the oldest extant copy of the Bible, in the library, on the very day that a man professed to be searching for things exactly like that just happened to be there. In any event, Tischendorf’s story is somewhat undercut by the fact that he returned years later and stole/borrowed/bought (depending upon who is asked) the rest of the manuscript containing the New Testament.
It is tempting to think that 19th century folks were more credulous, and believed the story as Tischendorf wrote it. Some did, of course — like some continue to believe Breithaupt. But here is the 1892 judgment of noted Englishman and book collector W. G. Thorpe ....
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William George Thorpe (1828-1903) was in Egypt and Cairo about 1860 (see p. 50 in Still Life)
The still life of the Middle Temple (1892)
William George Thorpe
https://books.google.com/books?id=7ekyAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA230
p. 230-232
But as to stealing books. The thing is not only sometimes lawful, but even meritorious, and one man will go to heaven for it—in fact, has gone there already. The mode in which Tischendorf ran off with the 'Codex Sinaiticus' in 1839 may be described as anything you please, from theft under trust to hocussing and felony; but it succeeded, and all Christendom was glad thereof. It is the custom of the Greek monk to worship like Jacob, standing, leaning on the top of his staff, and he protects his feet from the cold ground by putting under them a good thick volume from the library. Such was the position occupied by this priceless treasure, perhaps the oldest MS. of all we have got to trust in, when Tischendorf first saw it; and he resolved to rescue it somehow, for they would not sell it. The great German was equal to the task ; he provided himself with good store of Clicquot and Hoffmann's cherry-brandy, which, mixed on Mr. Weller's 'ekal' principle, form a compound called 'Prince Regent.' He then set himself to drink the Abbot of St. Catharine's on Mount Sinai blind-drunk, and it took him three days to get that Churchman under the table ; then the library key could be got from under his petticoats, and the priceless volume carried off, all the rest of the caloyers and lay brethren being kept on the booze by minoragents. The escort kept in readiness was at once summoned, and Tischendorf himself carried the precious volume. Onward to Suez, across the desert, when a pursuit was descried. Someone had woke up, detected the theft, and the Bedawin, who depend on the monastery, were started in hot chase. Indeed, it was only by two hundred yards that the Russian Consulate was gained in safety, after which ample money satisfaction was forthcoming, and the story was hushed up.
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Middle Temple Table Talk (1894 or 95)
William George Thorpe
http://books.google.com/books?id=YXg1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA320
p. 320-322
In a former volume I related a story as to how Tischendorf obtained the Codex Sinaiticus, which has been questioned by two correspondents, but which I have been unable to alter in any way. The story was current at the time in the Suez Bazaar, whither resorted the Cossacks from the Russian Consulate. After a time it was hushed by authority, owing, it is said, to a compensation of 200,000 francs, or , £8,000, having been paid by Russia, which had likewise gently hinted that the monastery revenues in the Dobrudscha were not quite out of the reach of a Russian administrator. Tischendorf relates his own joy over his prize when he got into Cairo; he writes that it was impossible to get to sleep,—possibly due to the racking headache which Prince Regent (otherwise champagne and cherry-brandy in equal proportions) leaves behind it. Even now, in 1894, the monks bear an unaccountable grudge against Tischendorf, call him a thief, and say he borrowed some of their books to show to the Czar, which he never returned. Moreover, this beneficent larcenist absolutely tried on a trick of the same kind some years after. [Vatican account, 1866]
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Bernard Janin Sage (1821-1902) writing as P. C. (plain common) Sense, looked at the Thorpe account:
A Critical and Historical Enquiry Into the Origin of the Third Gospel - (1901)
P. C. Sense
http://books.google.com/books?id=QnlCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA298
p. 298-300
Codex Sinaiticus. This contains the Old and New Testaments complete, and the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. It is at present in the Imperial Library at St Petersburg, but was found by Tischendorf in 1859 1 in the library of the Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai. The circumstances attending its acquisition are gravely amusing, and are thus described in a work published in 1892, called The Still Lift of the Middle Temple, with some of its Table Talk, preceded by Fifty Years' Reminiscences, by W. G. Thorpe, K.S.A., a barrister of the Society (Richard Bentley & Son).
[William George Thorpe account p. 298-299]
1 The date is variously given by different writers. Mr Thorpe says 1839, Mrs Lewis 1844. and Dean Alford and most authorities 1859.
... Scrivener also obscurely speaks of Tischendorf having "taught the monks a sharp lesson," without entering into details. But he more definitely says that "the treasure, which had been twice withdrawn from him as a private traveller, was now [1859], on the occasion of some chance conversation, spontaneously put into the hands of one sent from the champion and benefactor of the oppressed Church" (Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, ch. ii. sect. 2, Aleph). The reader is requested to compare Dr Scrivener's representation with that of Mr Thorpe. In the article ' Tischendorf in the Encyclopedia Britannica, the statement is made that in the journey to the East made in 1859, Tischendorf "had the active aid of the Russian Government, he at length got access to the remainder of the precious Sinaitic Codex, and persuaded the monks to present it to the Czar, at whose cost it was published in 1862." The reader is again requested to compare with Mr Thorpe's account. The amount of compensation paid to the monastery, and the honorarium presented to Tischendorf by the Russian Government,
for this Codex, ought to be published, for they form an important part of the history of the Gospel, which is very much, if not altogether, a commercial enterprise, as well as of the modern history of the Codex Sinaiticus. Dr Hort informs us that select readings from the Codex were published in 1860, and a continuous text in 1862.
P. C. Sense is also interesting on Simonides, making a few points.
One example: he notes that Scivener accepted that Simonides had worked on some similar ms.
... Scrivener in his Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, ch. ii. sect, a, refers to the Introduction to his Collation of the Codex Sinaiticus "for a statement of the reasons which have been universally accepted as conclusive why the manuscript which Simonides may very well have written under the circumstances he has described neither was nor possibly could be that venerable document." It would appear from these words that the statement of Simonides is not questioned, but the identity of the Codex Simoneidos with the Codex Sinaiticus is. (continues)
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In 1894 James Rendel Harris tried to downplay the reports of the theft, even while criticizing the Gregory acceptance of the Tischendorf stories:
The Expositor (1908)
Dr. Gregory on the Canon and Text of the New Testament
http://books.google.com/books?id=xuYqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA138
... the famous Codex Sinaiticus for St. Petersburg. It is a mere misrepresentation of those who have put in an ethical objection to the way in which the document was alienated from the convent of St. Katharine, to ask them whether they really supposed Tischendorf carried off the book under his waistband—no one ever suggested anything of the kind.
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p. 105
Suspicions were being voiced by his enemies that he had even 'stolen' the manuscript. Indeed, the Russian ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Prince N.P. Ignatieff, who had now taken over negotiating with the monks of St Catherine's, quite openly used such words in speaking and writing about the Sinai Bible. - Secrets of Mount Sinai, Bentley p. 105
Page 113
But many felt it wise to fudge around the shadier aspects of Tischendorf's deal. Gregory mocked unnamed envyers of Tischendorf who were alleged to have suggested that he slipped the codex into his breast-pocket in February 1859 and vanished unseen from the monastery. Try to slip into your pocket unseen three hundred and forty-six leaves of parchment which are forty-three centimetres long and thirty-seven centimetres broad’, said Gregory bitingly.
This is quite consistent with the Thorpe report of a hushed-up theft.
==================
1859-1869 - (check "resources" for Peterson et al.)
Helpful on 1859-1869 are Peterson and Bentley, Peterson for detail, Bentley for overview.
Tischendorf therefore now embarked on the remarkable piece of duplicity which was to occupy him for the next decade, which involved the careful suppression of facts and the systematic denigration of the monks of Mount Sinai." Bentley p. 95
Religious life on Mount Sinai, said Tischendorf, "has deteriorated into a daily burden of prescribed and ungraciously observed devotions, and to a meager bill of fare according to detailed rules for fast days." Soon he was attributing to the monks positive hypocrisy over their religious way of life.... The awkward truth is that this great German Christian scholar soon grew to hate the monks of Mount Sinai to an astonishing degree. Only eight days after he had arrived at the monastery of St. Catherine, he wrote to Angelika, "Oh, these monks! If I had the military strength and power, 1 should be doing a good deed if I threw this rabble over the walls. It is sad to see how man can carry his baseness and wretchedness into the lofty grandeur of this mountain world." He continually described them as "ignorant." The Greek servant they provided for him was a 'half-witted fellow.' Their library was 'a poor place, to which no-one in the monastery paid much attention.' The new room in which they kept some of their books and manuscripts was 'pathetic.' It was perhaps this hatred of these despised monks that enabled Tischcndorf to steal from them their greatest treasure. Bentley p. 84-85
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