Kevin McGrane on Uspensky actions and writings

Steven Avery

Administrator
A Review of
The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus

Cooper book

Title page picture - Genesis 24

p. 9 - Russians could have followed his advice

p. 35-37 Tregelles on Uspensky description

p. 38 - PIC
The celebrated Russian archimandrite and scholar Konstantin Alexandrovitch
Uspensky (1804-85),74 who took the name Porphyrius at ordination, records
74 Uspensky is described by the National Library of Russia thus: ‘Porphyrius (Uspensky)…was an
outstanding Russian scholar of Oriental, Byzantine and Slavic history, Doctor of Hellenic philology,
an archaeologist, ethnographer, specialist in the study of early texts, textual critic, palaeographer,
historian, art historian, theologian, and author of many scientific works...In Petersburg he was
acclaimed as a scholar of world renown. Both the Government and the Most Holy Synod turned to
him for advice as an expert on Christian antiquities.’ We note in passing that an active channel of
communication between Uspensky and the Russian government is admitted. We shall see more of
this later, and its significance will become clear.

p. 39
Uspensky, being a respected Russian Orthodox archimandrite (he was to establish
and lead the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem from 1847) had no such
restrictions placed upon him, and after his examination of Codex Sinaiticus in 1845,
he issued his own advice concerning it and the other most precious manuscripts, as
recorded in his diary:

I, returning [the Codex Sinaiticus] to Father Vitaly, along with other manuscripts,
zealously asked him to keep it in the superiors’ rooms and to be careful about
showing them to travellers.77

On this 1845 visit there were four most precious manuscripts (including Codex
Sinaiticus), which were specially guarded by the superiors, to which in 1850
Uspensky requested they add two more.78

These reinforced restrictions prevented Tischendorf from seeing any of the precious
manuscripts on his second visit in 1853. Dr Cooper, however, states (p.78) that
Tischendorf’s failure to secure the remainder of the Codex in 1853 was ‘because he
hadn’t returned as promised the 43 leaves that he had ‘borrowed’’ on his 1844 visit,
when ‘the monks were only persuaded to let Tischendorf take them away because he
had falsely promised to return them’ (p.78). Dr Cooper gives no reference for this
invention and imputation of bad faith, neither could he as there is not the slightest
suggestion in any narrative or record that leaves removed by Tischendorf in 1844
were on loan, and Uspensky supplies us with the plausible reason why they were
withheld.

================

77 Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902).
Vol IV, June-July 1850.

78 In 1845 Uspensky had identified the four most precious manuscripts in the monastery, the principal
one being Codex Sinaiticus. These were kept locked in the rooms of the superiors, see Первое
путешествие в Синайский Монастырь в 1845 году Архимандрита Порфиря Успенского (St Petersburg,
1856). On Uspensky’s 1850 trip he requested two more to be locked away with the ‘precious
manuscripts’: ‘[A] Glagolitic Psalter and a very old Georgian Psalter. I gave both of these books to the
sacristan with a zealous request that he keep them together with the precious manuscripts in the
superiors’ rooms and be careful about showing them to travellers.’ Второе путешествие
архимандрита Порфирия Успенского в Синайский монастырь в 1850 году (St Petersburg, 1856).
Also see Uspensky, Замечательные рукописи в библиотеках Синайского монастыря и в
архиепископских кельях там [‘Wonderful manuscripts in the libraries of the Sinai monastery and in
the Archbishop's cells there’], (Uspensky collection at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, № 136.1),
especially pp. 3-22, which describe ‘The manuscript of the Old and New Testament, kept in the
sacristy of the Sinai monastery’, i.e. Codex Sinaiticus.

(Vitalius)

Porphyrius Uspensky’s examinations of the Codex in 1845 and 1850

It is seldom appreciated that all 347 leaves of the Codex that the oikonomos of the
monastery had in his room and brought to Tischendorf’s attention in 1859, which
Tischendorf eventually removed to St Petersburg and named Codex Sinaiticus
Petropolitanus, were thoroughly examined in 1845 and 1850 by Uspensky.
Uspensky’s detailed examination in 1845 was of what remained of the codex
following Tischendorf’s removal of 43 of its leaves the previous year. He saw the 74
leaves that Tischendorf had seen but was unable to remove,81 plus 273 leaves that
Tischendorf would not be permitted to see until 1859, comprising the Minor
Prophets, the Psalms and Wisdom literature, the whole of the New Testament, the
Epistle of Barnabas and The Shepherd of Hermas. On this 1845 visit Uspensky also
found a fragment from the Book of Genesis from the Codex, and so inferred that the
Codex was at one time a complete Bible. On this first examination Uspensky was
well aware that the New Testament differed markedly from the Received Text, but
he initially considered that it was nothing more sinister than a poor job of copying
from poor exemplars.

Uspensky visited again in 1850 and from June to August catalogued the manuscripts
at St Catherine’s,82 during which time he sought out the Codex Sinaiticus manuscript
to do all this work if Simonides had done it a few years earlier. No one has ever seen a catalogue by
Simonides. This is more evidence that Simonides was spinning a yarn.


82 Uspensky’s 452-page catalogue of the manuscripts in St Catherine’s and their Juvanie metochion in
Cairo is extant (Imperial Academy of Sciences, reference VIB19). Simonides claimed to have made
such a catalogue on a (fictitious) trip to St Catherine’s in 1844, but Uspensky would not have needed

and continued his study of it for ‘a long time’.83 On his second review of the Codex,
Uspensky became very concerned about what he suspected were its heterodox
origins, seeing distinct aspects of Arianism and Apollinarianism in it, and perceiving
that many important differences from the Received Text were not mere human
errors. He records in his diary in 1850:

After such a second review of this manuscript, my first opinion of her has changed,
so that it seemed to me to be a production that appeared not in the one, holy, catholic
and apostolic church, but outside of her…The Sinai Bible worried me. And it is
remarkable as an example of the corruption of Holy Scripture, especially the New
Testament.84

It was during this second visit that, as recorded in his diary,85 Uspensky carefully
produced artwork of portions of Codex Sinaiticus from the Old and New Testament,
later published as colour plates in 1857. Uspensky’s examinations of the Codex,
some details of which were published in 1856,86 followed by his colour plates in 1857,
are of the greatest importance. When Uspensky examined the manuscript in 1845 his
dating of it was fifth century. He continued to describe it as fifth century in the
colour plates of it published in 1857. He finally gave its date a range of between fifth
to seventh century. Uspenksy, who was an expert on ancient parchment
manuscripts, saw nothing inconsistent about such an age and the condition of the
parchment and inks, having examined parts of the Codex during the 1840s, 1850s
and 1860s. (no evidence is given that Uspensky examined in the 1860s)


83 ‘The remaining days of July [1850] have been on book work. I studied the ancient Greek manuscript
on thin white parchment leaves containing part of the Old Testament and the entire New Testament
with the epistle of the apostle Barnabas and the book of Hermas’,
Второе путешествие архимандрита
Порфирия Успенского в Синайский монастырь в 1850 году (St Petersburg, 1856)
. ‘This is part of the
books of the Old Testament and the whole New Testament with the epistle of Barnabas and the book
of Hermas under the name Ποιμήν i.e. the Shepherd. I saw this manuscript in 1845, but I did not then
consider it in detail because of other compulsory studies at Sinai, but now I kept it for a long time
while I was at the monastery of St Catherine and described its composition, supplemented my
previous excerpts from it, and carefully studied the text contained in it, especially the New
Testament.’ Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902).

Vol IV, diary for June-July 1850.

84Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902).
Vol IV, June-July 1850.

85 ‘During the [1850] trip to Sinai I made…two pictures from the oldest manuscript containing the Old
Testament incomplete and the New Testament complete.’ Книга бытия моего. Дневники и
автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, June-July 1850.

86 A great deal was never published, but is extant. For example, see Uspensky’s 132pp manuscript
Замечательные рукописи в библиотеках Синайского монастыря и в архиепископских кельях там
[‘Wonderful manuscripts in the libraries of the Sinai monastery and in the Archbishop's cells there’]

in the Uspensky collection at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, № 136.1. Pages 3-22 are dedicated to
Codex Sinaiticus.
That Uspensky took vast notes of readings and collations on his 1845 and 1850 visits
is also evident from his published detailed treatment of it, setting out the grounds for its being a
production of heterodoxy, in his Мнение о Синайской рукописи, содержащей в себе Ветхий Завет
неполный и весь Новый Завет с посланием Св. Апостола Варнавы и книгою Ермы, (St Petersburg,
1862),
which was published before Tischendorf’s facsimile edition was available for consultation.
One might wonder why Uspensky’s account of his 1845 visit, which has quite a few pages on Codex
Sinaiticus, took a decade to get to press. One of the reasons was his onerous workload and travelling.
Another was the heavy hand of the censor. The original draft of Uspensky’s account of his 1845 visit
and examination of Codex Sinaiticus is extant, and reveals plenty of red ink of the censor on it.

(Donated to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Uspensky’s will). It was not passed by the censor for
publication until 1856, as also was the account of his 1850 visit.
....

Uspensky wrote a great deal about Codex Sinaiticus in the 1860s after its arrival in St
Petersburg,87
but there is no hint that the Codex had undergone any significant
change over the 20 years that he had been familiar with it.

Tischendorf’s 1859 visit to St Catherine’s monastery

Porphyrius Uspensky’s detailed knowledge of the codex in 1845, together with
knowledge of the leaves that Tischendorf removed in 1844 (published in facsimile in
1846) led directly to the deduction in Russia that Tischendorf’s 43 leaves in Leipzig
belonged to the same codex that Uspensky had examined.88
Surely this, and
Uspensky’s early dating of it, and his bringing to Russia a fragment of the
Pentateuch from the Codex in 1845, were the background and motive behind the
Russian government’s determination to bring the remainder of the manuscript to the
Russian Empire from out of the Ottoman Empire.

Dr Cooper slips up badly here,
wondering how the Russians could have known about the Codex at St Catherine’s
prior to Tischendorf’s 1859 visit (pp.35, 77):
Tischendorf claimed that in 1859 he was sent to Sinai to search for such a manuscript
by Tsar Nicholas I. How did it become known to the Tsar, and through whom, that
such a manuscript was now available in such a remote and inaccessible part of the
world?
Quite how the Tsar became blessed with this knowledge we do not know...We may
wonder at the strange importance that Codex Sinaiticus had taken on for a Russian
Tsar who’d never even seen or heard of it before. And who, I wonder, told him of its
existence?


87 Uspensky arrived in St Petersburg in 1861 and was there for some years.

88 This was inferred ‘at once’ in Great Britain on far less evidence than the Russians had, and without
knowledge of the specific origin of either the Leipzig leaves (Codex Friderico-Augustanus) or the
leaves newly reported by Tischendorf in the spring of 1859: ‘Those who have seen the ‘Codex
Friderico-Augustanus’…will at once see that this newly announced MS. so thoroughly coincides with
that document, that…we must suppose that Professor Tischendorf has obtained another and most
important portion of the ‘Codex Friderico-Augustanus’ itself…We believe that no statement has been
published as to where this MS. was obtained.’ The Edinburgh Review, Vol. 110, July 1859, p.190.

McGrane confuses a deduction on Leipzig leaves and Uspensky with one based on the Leipzig leaves and 1859


Yet English scholars Tregelles and Scrivener reported Uspensky’s
1856 publication in their day: (Again, not in 1856, not before 1859)
n 1846 [sic], the Russian Archimandrite Porphyrius appears to have seen the same
MS, and to have observed especially the New Testament portion of it, and to have
noted the character of the text, though the published account of this did not appear
till 1856.89
Porphyrius [Uspensky] examined it, observed that the New Testament formed part
of it, and published a tolerable account90 of its contents and the character of its text at
St Petersburg in 1856...Porphyrius brought with him from Sinai some fragments of
the Codex Sinaiticus itself,91 containing portions of Genesis and of Numbers.92
That the earlier portion of the Old Testament was once contained in this manuscript
appears as well from the small fragment possessed by Porphyrius.93

...
staggering. The Russian authorities knew about the Codex
in the 1840s, and its existence, its contents and its exact location within the
monastery became public knowledge in 1856,94 with excellent colour images publicly
available in 1857..,.

89 S. P. Tregelles, Additions to the fourth volume of the Introduction to the Holy Scriptures by the Rev.
Thomas. H. Horne [1860]. Uspensky’s descriptions of the Codex examined during his 1845 and 1850
visits and published in 1856 were in the British Museum some months before Tischendorf would be
shown copies by Prince Lobanov in Constantinople, and before Tischendorf removed the Codex from
St Catherine’s metochion in Cairo.
90 As with Tischendorf, a grudging acknowledgement is evident. Uspensky’s account of the Codex
ran to 14 pages in the account of his 1845 visit, and dealt with component parts, dating, provenance,
and the activities of correctors, giving several examples of additions, omissions, and variant readings.
91 Strictly, the leaf from Numbers came from the monastery’s metochion [= associated compound] in
Jouvanie, Cairo. Uspensky removed it in 1861.
92 Scrivener, A Full Collation of the Sinaitic MS. with the Received Text of the New Testament (1864). The
relevant quotation here from Scrivener is repeated in J.K. Elliott’s work Codex Sinaiticus and the
Simonides Affair, p.51, which Dr Cooper claims to have read (p.28 etc). On the same page in Elliott is a
citation from The Clerical Journal of September 11, 1862 concerning the ‘Simonides Affair’ which states
in the context of St Catherine’s monastery: ‘Again, in 1845 or 1846, a Russian archimandrite, named
Porphyrius, seems unquestionably to have stumbled upon the Sinai MS’. In point of fact he did not
‘stumble upon’ it, it was part of his work in cataloguing the treasures of the monastery, and it was its
greatest treasure and guarded accordingly. However, the important point is that the Russians knew
about it in 1845.
93 Ibid., p.xxxii.
94 Initially in Russia in 1856, but copies were available in the British museum in 1859.

Looking back over those times Uspensky writes:
At the end of 1854, I arrived in Petersburg and in 1856 published in the description of
my first trip to Sinai a brief report and a statement about the Sinai text of the Bible
that I discovered; lithographic images from it were placed in my picturesque edition
of Egypt and Sinai [published 1857], postponing for a time the publication of my
second judgment concerning this text [published 1862]. I do not know whether
Tischendorf heard a rumour about these books of mine, and whether our former
minister Norov told him about them during his journey through Germany, but this
professor of theology and palaeography decided to go to Sinai for the third time in
order to see the manuscript that was discovered and printed by me, and to obtain
this goal successfully, he asked for our [Russian] funding and our [Russian] letters of

introduction, which followed him to the East.95
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Ekaterina Evgenievna Gertsman

Gertsman Ekaterina Evgenievna, Ph. D., Associate Professor, St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University, E-mail: kitriger2205@yandex.ru Karymova Svetlana Mikhailovna, PhD, Associate Professor, Highest School of Print and Media, E-mail: karymova.s@gmail.com
https://cyberleninka-ru.translate.g...tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc

1862 is important
#82 special

McGrane has it as
Замечательные рукописи в библиотеках Синайского монастыря и в архиепископских кельях там

Gertsman has it as
Замечательные рукописи в библиотеках Синайского монастыря и в архиепископских кельях там

Порфирий Успенский: творческая биография и научное наследие
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Three references to Vitaly - New Finds ( dump room ) was known - Kevin McGrane

=============================

p. 39
Uspensky, being a respected Russian Orthodox archimandrite (he was to establish and lead the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem from 1847) had no such restrictions placed upon him, and after his examination of Codex Sinaiticus in 1845, he issued his own advice concerning it and the other most precious manuscripts, as recorded in his diary:

I, returning [the Codex Sinaiticus] to Father Vitaly, along with other manuscripts, zealously asked him to keep it in the superiors’ rooms and to be careful about showing them to travellers.77

77 Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, June-July 1850.

=============================

p. 48
Uspensky reports that in 1850 he learned from Vitaly the sacristan of precious articles that had been immured before 1843: ‘The sacristan ...said that his predecessor, during his long illness, had been telling him that some treasures had been deposited in the wall, but in which one he did not say, and with that the secret died.’ Второе путешествие архимандрита Порфирия Успенского в Синайский монастырь в 1850 году, (St Petersburg, 1856). This sounds more like deliberate deposition. However, Uspensky mentions that in 1845 the monks told him that manuscripts had been immured in the outer fortification wall. This proved to be good intelligence since that was where this cache of manuscripts was discovered in 1975

==============================

p. 52-53
In 1846 I again returned to Constantinople...to visit Constantius...and we conversed...upon my transcript, when he informed me that he had sent it some time previously to Mount Sinai. In 1852 I saw it there myself,117 and begged the librarian118 to inform me how the monastery had acquired it but he did not appear to know anything of the matter...

118 The Codex was not in the library open to visitors and scholars, and it would not have been shown to a traveller such as Simonides, since the sacristan, Vitaly, was under strict advice from Uspensky not to do so. By this date Uspensky had studied the Codex in great detail, both in 1845 and 1850, and certainly would have been able to tell whether it had been written as recently as 1840!

==============================
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
p. 39 (above)

77 Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, June-July 1850.

=====================

p. 41

83 ‘The remaining days of July [1850] have been on book work. I studied the ancient Greek manuscript on thin white parchment leaves containing part of the Old Testament and the entire New Testament with the epistle of the apostle Barnabas and the book of Hermas’, Второе путешествие архимандрита Порфирия Успенского в Синайский монастырь в 1850 году (St Petersburg, 1856). ‘This is part of the books of the Old Testament and the whole New Testament with the epistle of Barnabas and the book of Hermas under the name Ποιμήν i.e. the Shepherd. I saw this manuscript in 1845, but I did not then consider it in detail because of other compulsory studies at Sinai, but now I kept it for a long time while I was at the monastery of St Catherine and described its composition, supplemented my previous excerpts from it, and carefully studied the text contained in it, especially the New Testament.’ Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, diary for June-July 1850.

84Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, June-July 1850.

85 ‘During the [1850] trip to Sinai I made...two pictures from the oldest manuscript containing the Old Testament incomplete and the New Testament complete.’ Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902). Vol IV, June-July 1850.

86 A great deal was never published, but is extant. For example, see Uspensky’s 132pp manuscript
Замечательные рукописи в библиотеках Синайского монастыря и в архиепископских кельях там
[‘Wonderful manuscripts in the libraries of the Sinai monastery and in the Archbishop's cells there’]
in the Uspensky collection at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, No 136.1. Pages 3-22 are dedicated to
Codex Sinaiticus. That Uspensky took vast notes of readings and collations on his 1845 and 1850 visits
is also evident from his published detailed treatment of it, setting out the grounds for its being a
production of heterodoxy, in his

Мнение о Синайской рукописи, содержащей в себе Ветхий Завет неполный и весь Новый Завет с посланием Св. Апостола Варнавы и книгою Ермы, (St Petersburg, 1862),

which was published before Tischendorf’s facsimile edition was available for consultation. One might wonder why Uspensky’s account of his 1845 visit, which has quite a few pages on Codex Sinaiticus, took a decade to get to press. One of the reasons was his onerous workload and travelling. Another was the heavy hand of the censor. The original draft of Uspensky’s account of his 1845 visit and examination of Codex Sinaiticus is extant, and reveals plenty of red ink of the censor on it. (Donated to the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Uspensky’s will). It was not passed by the censor for
publication until 1856, as also was the account of his 1850 visit.

=====================

p. 44
They consulted Uspensky for his advice
about the opportunity of engaging Tischendorf, and Uspensky wrote to the Chief
Procurator of the Most Holy Synod, Count A.P. Tolstoy, on March 1, 1858, as he
records in his diary:
95 Uspensky, Мнение о Синайской рукописи, со
p. 45
At the request of the Synodal Chief Procurator Tolstoy, in my seventh letter to him I
set out my opinion concerning sending the professor of the University of Leipzig,
Constantine Tischendorf, to the East on behalf of our government, for the search and
acquisition for us of ancient manuscripts there.9
p. 45
97 Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902), vol. VII. p.158.


=====================
p. 66
But within a few
months an article in the Russian journal Православное Обозрение [‘Orthodox Review’]
reproduced much of Simonides’ letter of September 3, 1862, and the reaction of
Tischendorf appearing in the Allgemeine Zeitung of December 22, 1862,156
both
translated into Russian.157 Clear

156 In the Allgemeine Zeitung article, Tischendorf made the very telling observation that the codex that
Simonides claimed to have written (i.e. Codex Sinaiticus) could never have been commissioned by the
Panteleimon monastery as a suitable gift for the Tsar because ‘in the New Testament alone the Sinaitic
text...contains many such readings which in a copy destined as a present to the orthodox emperor
must appear gross heresies.’ Uspensky had for years been making such warning comments about the
Codex; for example on March 6, 1862 Uspensky in an interview with the Tsar and the Grand Duchess
Maria Nikolaevna pointed out that ‘the New Testament contained in this manuscript was rewritten
from the publication of the heretic Apollinarius, the Laodicean bishop, and...it is unseemly for the
emperor, as patron, defender and guardian of Orthodoxy, unsuitably to give Christian churches
prints from this Testament.’ Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки
(St Petersburg, 1894-1902), Vol IV.



=====================
P. 116
263 Uspensky, Первое путешествие в Афонские монастыри и скиты (Kiev, 1877).

264 Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902), Vol. IV
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
p. 39
78 In 1845 Uspensky had identified the four most precious manuscripts in the monastery, the principal
one being Codex Sinaiticus. These were kept locked in the rooms of the superiors, see Первое
путешествие в Синайский Монастырь в 1845 году Архимандрита Порфиря Успенского (St Petersburg,
1856). On Uspensky’s 1850 trip he requested two more to be locked away with the ‘precious
manuscripts’: ‘[A] Glagolitic Psalter and a very old Georgian Psalter. I gave both of these books to the
sacristan with a zealous request that he keep them together with the precious manuscripts in the
superiors’ rooms and be careful about showing them to travellers.’ Второе путешествие
архимандрита Порфирия Успенского в Синайский монастырь в 1850 году (St Petersburg, 1856).
Also see Uspensky, Замечательные рукописи в библиотеках Синайского монастыря и в
архиепископских кельях там [‘Wonderful manuscripts in the libraries of the Sinai monastery and in
the Archbishop's cells there’], (Uspensky collection at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, No 136.1),
especially pp. 3-22, which describe ‘The manuscript of the Old and New Testament, kept in the
sacristy of the Sinai monastery’, i.e. Codex Sinaiticus

p.40
2 Uspensky’s 452-page catalogue of the manuscripts in St Catherine’s and their Juvanie metochion in
Cairo is extant (Imperial Academy of Sciences, reference VIB19). Simonides claimed to have made
such a catalogue on a (fictitious) trip to St Catherine’s in 1844, but Uspensky would not have needed

p. 41 - above
83-86

p. 44
95
5 Uspensky, Мнение о Синайской рукописи, содержащей в себе Ветхий Завет неполный и весь Новый
Завет с посланием Св. Апостола Варнавы и книгою Ермы, (St Petersburg, 1862).

p. 45
97 Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902),
vol. VII. p.158.

p. 46
104 The leaves were sold in 1933 to the British Museum for £100,000, and transferred in 1973 to the
British Library. The USSR retained the fragments that it had acquired separately, from Tischendorf (in
1858), Uspensky (in 1886) and the Society of Ancient Literature (in 1932); these fragments of six leaves
from the codex are currently housed in the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg

p. 48
105 above

p. 63
, Uspensky wrote the first detailed account
of the history of the monastery covering 800 years from its foundation to the
installation of its current hegumen, Gerasim, as he notes in his published account
Первое путешествие в Афонские монастыри и скиты [‘The first trip to Athos
monasteries and sketes’]:
I was given all the legal records of the monastery, beginning in [AD]1030 and ending
with the letter of the Ecumenical Patriarch Constantius, in which he confirmed the
coenobium in Russica and the election of Hieromonk Gerasim as the hegumen of this
monastery.150
Accordingly, that letter appears in Uspensky’s Указатель актов, хранящихся в
обителях св. горы Афонской [‘Index of acts stored in the monasteries of the Holy
Mount Athos’] published in 1847.151
150 Uspensky, Первое путешествие в Афонские монастыри и скиты (Kiev, 1877). Gerasim was acting
hegumen from 1821, formally elected 1830, confirmed 1833 by Constantius, who was Ecumenical
Patriarch 1830-4. Gerasim was thus hegumen before ever Simonides arrived, and long after he had
left. Uspensky also mentions the late hierodeacon Benedict.
151 Uspensky, Указатель актов, хранящихся в обителях св. горы Афонской (St Petersburg, 1847), p.47.
The letter is dated March 6, 1833, to the Rossico monastery from the Patriarch Constantius, ‘who
confirms the coenobium of the Russian monastery and the election of Hieromonk Gerasim as
Hegumen’.

p. 64
Gerasim

p. 66
156 above

p. 71


But Uspensky was unquestionably at St Catherine’s in 1845 and 1850 and he studied
Codex Sinaiticus on both occasions, and published his results in 1856 and 1857. The
Pentateuch was certainly not there then:
The first manuscript, containing the Old Testament, which is incomplete [author’s
footnote: other than the books of Tobit, Judith and Maccabees, all other historical
descriptions have been lost, as well as the prophecies of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel,
Hosea and Amos], and the entire New Testament with the epistle of the Apostle
Barnabas and the book of Hermas...The historical part of the Old Testament books
finishes with the books of Tobit, Judith, and Maccabees, followed by the Prophets,
and then Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, the Wisdom of Solomon, the
Book of Sirach, and Job. Then the New Testament itself starts without any
introduction. First written are the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, then
the epistles of the Apostle Paul to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, Galatians,
Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, and to the Hebrews,
then his messages to Timothy, two, to Titus,166 and the epistle to Philemon; then
follow the Acts of the Apostles, all the canonical epistles in our order, and the
Apocalypse. But at the end are placed the epistle of Barnabas the Apostle and the
book of Hermas under the name poimen, i.e. the Shepherd.16

167 Uspensky, Первое путешествие в Синайский монастырь в 1845 году (St Petersburg, 1856), pp.226-7.

p. 116
white parchment
263 Uspensky, Первое путешествие в Афонские монастыри и скиты (Kiev, 1877).
264 Uspensky, Книга бытия моего. Дневники и автобиографические записки (St Petersburg, 1894-1902),
Vol. IV.

p. 122

283 Uspensky, Мнение о Синайской рукописи, содержащей в себе Ветхий Завет неполный и весь Новый
Завет с посланием Св. Апостола Варнавы и книгою Ермы, (St Petersburg, 1862)

p. 129
- 129 -
© Kevin McGrane 2018
He did not doubt that the work was genuinely ancient, and thus valuable as a
historical artefact, yet he saw that it was suffused with Arianism.290
There are indeed many anomalies and unanswered questions concerning the dating
and provenance of Codex Sinaiticus, and museums would do the public a great
service if they would address themselves to them. But quite apart from its dating
and provenance, or any conspiracy attending it, the Codex stands or falls on its own
merits or demerits, and in that regard it must be judged a hopeless witness to the
text of the New Testament. No man has ever done as much collation of New
Testament sources as John Burgon, Dean of Chichester, (including in the quotations
of the Church Fathers, his monumental work on which is in the British Library, but
has never been printed), and his concise assessment in The Revision Revised (1883)
still stands unassailable:
We venture to assure [the reader], without a particle of hesitation, that א [Codex
Sinaiticus] B [Codex Vaticanus] D [Codex Bezae] are three of the most scandalously
corrupt copies extant:—exhibit the most shamefully mutilated texts which anywhere are
to be met with:—have become, by whatever process (for their history is wholly
unknown), the depositories of the largest amount of fabricated readings, ancient
blunders, and intentional perversions of Truth,—which are discoverable in any known
copies of the Word of GOD.

===
He did not doubt that the work was genuinely ancient, and thus valuable as a
historical artefact, yet he saw that it was suffused with Arianism.2

290 Uspensky wrote, ‘I see that the original from which this manuscript was copied was distorted by
the Arians, who systematically changed all the places in which St. John the Theologian reveals to us
the consubstantial Father and Son.’ Uspensky gives as examples John 1:18; 3:16; 5:25-26; 6:45-46; 16:15;
and 17:9-10. (Letter to Tischendorf from St Petersburg, February 23, 1864).
Sadly, this Arian bias has found its way directly into many modern Bible translations because of
reliance upon Codex Sinaiticus. One of the most egregious recent examples is the English Standard
Version (ESV), which is a revision of the Revised Standard Version. Whilst the ESV has tempered
some of the RSV’s twentieth century liberal bias, it has not addressed the fourth century Arian bias.
Indeed, due to the heavy influence of the sub-orthodox trinitarianism of Wayne Grudem on the
translation oversight committee (who maintains that the Son is subordinated to the Father not only in
his office of Mediator ad extra, but in the Godhead ad intra, which cannot be other than ontologically, a
position known as Eternal Subordination of the Son, or ‘ESS’), the ESV has given even fuller
expression than the RSV ever did to heterodox characteristics in some of its principal underlying
texts, and in places reflected a more Arianized reading than the current Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New
World Translation. Indeed, the Jehovah’s Witnesses adopted some of these more Arianized ESV
readings verbatim when they revised their New World Translation in 2013, for example John 1:18 ‘at
the Father’s side’, which is unquestionably subordinationist since this verse is speaking of the
ontology of the Son. If one remains in any doubt about this matter then the case is demonstrated by
examination of the ESV Study Bible, for which Dr Grudem was General Editor, where the heterodox
ESS interpretation and commentary on the text is writ large and most conspicuously. It is beyond the
scope of this present review article, however, to elucidate this matter further
 
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Steven Avery

Administrator
Put together list of Uspenky references above

p. 78 Barnabas emendations
Dr Cooper makes much of ‘emendations’. Given that until the mid-nineteenth
century there was no critical edition containing the first chapters of Barnabas in
Greek, but only fragmentary Greek citations that may have been corrupted or
written from imperfect memory, scholars made some educated guesses about what
the Greek text might originally have read, based on evidence from the translations of
these books into other languages, principally Latin. When the Sinaitic text of
Barnabas was discovered, some of these suggestions by scholars working back from
the Latin translation were found to have been correct. Dr Cooper states (p. 105)
- 79 -

The Codex contains a text of the Epistle of Barnabas which...complies with many of
the scholarly emendations of that Latin text that had been suggested and
recommended by scholars who lived and worked during the 18th and 19th centuries
Dr Cooper obtained this information from James Donaldson, whom he quotes (p.51):
The Greek of the first four chapters and a half...contains many of the conjectural
emendations previously proposed by scholars.
Dr Cooper immediately adds his commentary on Donaldson’s statement, and
commits a hideous fallacy:
This shows that this version of Barnabas was written under the influence of a recent
scholarship – from around the 17th – 19th centuries, in other words.
That is not at all what Donaldson was saying, and it is disgraceful to twist his
meaning into such an absurdity. To make a suggestion that a certain word may once
have been written in a lost ancient document, based on an extant translation of it,
and be shown eventually to be correct, does not imply that one exercised the
slightest influence over the original writer’s choice of that word.



p. 109 McGrane blunder on Uspensky white parchment which did apply to 1859 leaves before colouring

Even more unfortunately, Dr Cooper calls the wrong witnesses to the condition of
the Leipzig leaves. He cites Uspensky as a witness, for he says (p.78) that the Leipzig
parchment ‘was described by [Uspensky] as “white” (“...the thinnest white
parchment”)’; (p.82) ‘the Leipzig leaves were so pristine when first seen by
Uspensky’; (p.86) ‘the Leipzig leaves...[were] “white” according to Uspensky’. But
Uspensky never visited Leipzig all his life, and he arrived at St Catherine’s in 1845
some months after the 43 ‘Leipzig leaves’ had been carried away by Tischendorf. As
we have seen, Uspensky was not describing the ‘Leipzig leaves’ but the leaves
remaining at St Catherine’s monastery in 1845.

p. 111
Benjamin Harris Cowper, who personally
examined these Leipzig leaves in 1865, described them as ‘time-worn’ and their
original ink writing as ‘of a pale iron-brown colour’:


Dobschutz did apply in Germany

Fortunately ‘Steven
Avery’ has come to realize that Uspensky saw the ‘white parchment’ leaves at Mount Sinai in 1850 as
well as 1845, so he has had to tailor his account to make the distressing start after 1850.

Look at colour of 1 Corinthians 13 CSP from Uspensky (McGrane p. 123)

p. 121

The hypothesis that some of the leaves were
brightened is never considered by Dr Cooper, nor the hypothesis that differences in
colour can be accounted by the fact that the leaves have been exposed to very
different environment in different locations for over 170 years. A natural material
such as parchment that had lain for centuries in the hot dry Sinai desert was not
likely to respond well to being transferred to steamy Cairo in the height of summer.
of 1859, and thence to a freezing St Petersburg in Russian winter, nor to dank
conditions in old fortifications during wartime. Uspensky himself complained about
the treatment that the codex was receiving in St Petersburg in December 1859, that
[It had] been exposed to the sight of the whole people of the capital in the space o

p. 129
Uspensky, who as we have seen re-discovered the Sinaitic
New Testament in 1845, affirmed that Sinaiticus was a copy of a fourth century text ???
 
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