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Moscow, the Holy Synod Press for the Russian Bible Society, 1821. - 1821 - Five vols, large 4to, with pp.[iv] and [ii] of preliminaries in vols I and V not recorded in Darlow & Moule, wanting final leaf of variant readings in vol.IV; bifolium I X1.4 misbound within X2.3; text in Greek...
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Sacred Scripture, Greek Guerrillas, a Moscow Mix-Up, and a Forger Foiled
[BIBLE.]
Τα Βιβλια, τουτεστιν, η Θεια Γραφη της Παλαιας τε και Καινης Διαθηκης … Moscow, the Holy Synod Press for the Russian Bible Society, 1821.
Five vols, large 4to, with pp. [iv] and [ii] of preliminaries in vols I and V not recorded in Darlow & Moule, wanting final leaf of variant readings in vol. IV; bifolium I X1.4 misbound within X2.3; text in Greek, ornamental initials at start of each volume, stipple-engraved vignette head-piece to I A1r (Genesis); minor worming throughout (affecting a handful of words per page in some sections, occasionally repaired with paper or tape), occasional dampstains, foxing, and other blemishes, crude repair with some staining to gutter of π1–(1)1 of vol. I, small holes to (16)1 of vol. II and ъ2 of vol. V, paper-flaw to fore-edge of (2)2 of vol. II; bound in modern black morocco, gilt red morocco lettering-pieces to spines; very slightly scuffed; occasional pencil annotations.
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First edition printed in Russia of the Septuagint and Greek New Testament, published likely with political motives in the year of the Greek Revolution.
Despite the official status of the Greek Bible in the Orthodox Church, no edition was printed in Russia prior to this 1821 set. This version also stands as only the second Orthodox-sponsored edition, the first having been printed at Venice in 1687 – Ottoman restrictions and a reluctant Orthodox priesthood having served to slow the advent.
Several factors seem to have been behind this Moscow edition. Tsar Alexander I had taken an intensely religious turn since Napoleon’s invasion, reading the Bible daily and establishing in 1813 the ecumenical Russian Bible Society, inspired and supported by the British and Foreign Bible Society founded the decade before. Like its London counterpart, the Russian Bible Society aimed to publish the scriptures in large numbers and in a broad array of languages both ancient and modern. Its productions included the first Bibles printed in Russian as well as editions in Slavonic, Armenian, Georgian, Mongolian, Chuvash, and many other minority languages of the Russian Empire.
Though published under the Society’s aegis, this Greek edition was funded by the brothers Zosimas (also known as the Zosimades), merchants born in Ottoman-controlled Epirus who operated across the Mediterranean and Russia. With their wealth they became great patrons of the Greek Enlightenment and the cause of independence, donating to schools and libraries, aiding the publication of Korais’s Greek Library, and funding the Philike Hetaireia, the secret society that after several years of plotting launched the Greek War of Independence in 1821.
Given the date of our edition and the Zosimades’ revolutionary activities, it is likely that the present set was printed with the nascent independence movement in mind. Copies may have been intended for distribution in Greece itself. Equally the edition may have had geopolitical aims: one open question at the rebellion’s outset was whether Russia would come to its coreligionists’ aid or prefer the stability of the Congress System. (Prince Alexander Nikolayevich Golitsyn, one of the Russian Bible Society’s founders, was also among the most vocal supporters of the Greek revolt in Russia.) If such was the case, the Society failed in both its present and its broader aims: Tsar Alexander refused to support the Greeks, removing the Greek nationalist leader Yspilantis from his post in the Russian Army, and the Society itself was suspended under conservative pressure in 1826 (to be revived only in 1990).
Textually the Septuagint found here is peculiar, perhaps the result of hasty preparation in response to events in Greece. The text is based on Grabe’s 1707–20 edition of Codex Alexandrinus. The Moscow editors, however, ‘ignored Grabe’s critical remarks with the result that some of his corrections of and additions to the text … which had been printed in smaller type, were included in the Moscow edition as if they had formed part of that codex’s text, while its actual readings are to be found in the four lists of variants printed at the end of the edition’ (Thomson, pp. 618–9). These misreadings went on to cause considerable confusion in Russian biblical criticism.
(Some of these unique features of Zosimas - Grabe-->Zosimas will likely be in Sinaiticus) and the variants in the back are likely not in Sinaiticus.)
This edition also played a role in the fabrications of Constantine Simonides, ‘perhaps the most ambitious modern forger of classical texts’ (Freeman, p. 80). Born in the Dodecanese at the time of the revolution, he claimed to have lived with the monks at Athos, whence his forged manuscripts supposedly came. Sir Thomas Phillipps and others were fooled, but Simonides was soon found out. In revenge he alleged that a manuscript of genuine antiquity – Codex Sinaiticus, one of the oldest witnesses of the Greek Bible, at the time recently discovered at St Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, removed to St Petersburg, and in the process of being published at the Russian government’s expense – had in fact been written out by him.
Writing to the British press in 1862, Simonides asserted that the codex had in fact originated during his time at Athos. In this false account, the young Simonides was asked to copy out the Greek Bible ‘according to the ancient form, in capital letters’, in a volume of blank parchment, as a gift for Tsar Nicholas. The manuscript was subsequently ‘much altered, having an older appearance than it ought to have’, with the dedication to the Tsar removed, and found its way to St Catherine’s, where it was discovered and mistaken by the German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf. ‘When, about two years ago, I saw the first fac-similes of Tischendorf … I at once recognised my own work’ (The Guardian, 3 September 1862).
The text Simonides claimed to have transcribed was none other than ‘the Moscow edition of both Testaments (published and presented to the Greeks by the illustrious brothers Zosimas)’ (ibid.). Was this Simonides’ punch line: that a Greek Bible, taken from a Greek Orthodox monastery by the Russians, was in fact a modern copy based on a Russian edition funded by Greeks?
Darlow & Moule 4796. See Freeman, Bibliotheca fictiva: a Collection of Books and Manuscripts relating to literary Forgery, 400 BC–AD 2000 (2024);
=============
Thomson, ‘The Slavonic translation of the Old Testament’, in
Jože Krašovec, ed., The Interpretation of the Bible (1998).
p. 618-619 on the smaller type may be a quote from Nestle.
(Thomson may add some more about Zosimas, the Google book is missing pages.)
p. 618
"This unique volume is perhaps the most comprehensive scholarly work of our time on the translation and interpretation of the Bible." "At its core are papers presented to an international symposium in Ljubljana in September 1996 to mark the publication of the new Slovenian version of the Bible...
books.google.com
p. 619
p. 617-618
It was the person who first announced the discovery of the two
vitae, Aleksandr Gorsky (1812-1875), lecturer, then professor of Church history at Moscow Theological Academy (1833-1862; rector 1862-1875), who also laid the foundations of Russian Biblical scholarship with regard to the Slavonic text. At the initiative of Metropolitan Filaret Drozdov of Moscow (1826-1867 [archbishop 1821-1826]), the Synod on 30 July 1849 instructed Gorsky to describe in detail the Slavonic MSS of the Synodal collection. He was to be assisted by a former student of his, Kapiton Nevostruyev (1815-1872), who for this purpose was summoned to Moscow from die seminary at Simbirsk, where he had been teaching Hebrew, Biblical and patristic studies since 1840.5* The precise role
...
Gorsky to describe in detail the Slavonic MSS of the Synodal collection . He was to be assisted by a former student of his ,
Kapiton Nevostruyev (1815-1872 ), who for this purpose was summoned to Moscow from the seminary at Simbirsk ...
================================
AI Overview
These keywords describe a well-known editorial mishap in biblical scholarship regarding the
1821 Moscow Septuagint.
Bernard Quaritch Ltd +1
The Russian Holy Synod published a Greek Septuagint heavily based on John Ernest Grabe's 18th-century Oxford edition of the
Codex Alexandrinus. Grabe had set his text apart by placing his own critical emendations and textual additions into
small type.
Academia.edu +2
When the Moscow editors prepared their 1821 edition, they completely ignored Grabe's critical apparatus and removed the formatting distinctions. As a result, the corrections and supplementary remarks were mistakenly printed as normal text, altering the canonical reading and causing considerable confusion in Russian biblical studies.
Bernard Quaritch Ltd +1
If you are interested, I can provide:
- More details on how this printing error influenced the 19th-century manuscript forgeries of Constantine Simonides.
- The lasting impact of the Moscow 1821 edition on Eastern Orthodox liturgical texts.
Let me know which of these you would like to explore.
=========================
The printing error of the 1821 Moscow Septuagint played a critical role in the infamous
"Simonides Affair," serving as a central piece of evidence that scholars used to debunk
Constantine Simonides' boldest claim: that he had personally forged the
Codex Sinaiticus. [
1,
2,
3,
4]
The connection unfolded through the following chain of events:
1. The Claim of Self-Forgery
In 1859, the renowned biblical scholar Constantin Tischendorf discovered the
Codex Sinaiticus (a priceless 4th-century biblical manuscript) at St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai.
In 1862, seeking notoriety and revenge against Tischendorf for exposing his earlier fakes, Simonides published a letter in
The Guardian. He claimed that
Codex Sinaiticus was not ancient at all, but rather a
"work of his youth" that he had hand-copied in 1839 at a monastery on Mount Athos as a gift for the Russian Tsar. [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5]
2. The Choice of "Exemplar"
To make his story plausible to the public, Simonides had to explain exactly what text he used as a model to copy the Old Testament portion of his "forgery". He wrote that his uncle Benedict had prepared a master copy for him by using a specific printed Bible:
the 1821 Moscow Bible (defrayed by the wealthy Zosimas brothers). [
1]
3. The Fatal Textual Trap
By naming the 1821 Moscow Septuagint as his foundational source text, Simonides walked into a trap of his own making. Because that edition accidentally incorporated
John Ernest Grabe’s 18th-century small-type corrections directly into the running text, any manuscript directly copied from it would inevitably inherit those specific editorial blunders and text extensions. [
1]
4. The Scholarly Debunking
Leading textual critics and bibliographers—including
Henry Bradshaw and J.N. Darby—immediately analyzed the actual
Codex Sinaiticus to test Simonides' story.
They checked the 4th-century codex for the distinct textual additions and "small-type" errors unique to the 1821 Moscow edition. [
1,
2,
3]
- The Result: The Codex Sinaiticus did not contain any of the 1821 Moscow errors. Instead, its text matched genuine, ancient independent traditions. [1, 2]
- The Conclusion: Simonides' detailed narrative was proven to be a fabricated lie. If he had actually written the codex using the 1821 print as his guide, the 1821 errors would have been physically present in the manuscript. [1, 2, 3]
Ultimately, the 1821 Moscow Septuagint served as a textual fingerprint. Simonides tried to use it to ground his hoax in historical reality, but the unique printing error of that edition became the exact tool scholars used to
shatter his credibility in the British and Russian press forever. [,
2]
If you would like to explore this further, I can provide more information on:
- The other physical and paleographical blunders that exposed Simonides' claim.
- The Russian Holy Synod's 1863 investigation into Simonides' alleged monastery ties. [1, 3, 4]
=========================
