Steven Avery
Administrator
The so-called Artemidorus papyrus : a reconsideration
https://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?pid=mhl-001:2013:70::288
p. 172
10. Is anyone on Simonides’s side?
Of course, it is possible to cling to the belief that Simonides’ creations were genuine, and there are people who have done so. Some scholars of African studies. for example, accepted the authenticity of the papyrus of the Periplus of Hanno, with all its alterations and final additions.
In 1923 the Italian scholar Maria Monachesi published The Shepherd of Hermas (Rome, Libreria di Cultura) with an Italian translation and notes. On pp. 4-5 of the introduction she provided the reader with the following information:
“The original text, in Greek, came down to us via two handwritten codices, one from the Monastery of St. Gregory on Mount Athos, the other from the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai.The former (now at Leipzig), which was discovered by Constantine Simonides in 1856, contains almost the whole work (except for the last part) on its 9 folios, and dates back only to the beginning of the 15th or the end of the 14th century [...] but until 1856 The Shepherd was known only in the Latin - or so-called Vulgate - version (of which there are many manuscripts)”.
It was in vain that C. Tischendorf produced evidence that Simonides himself, who had turned up in Leipzig in 185542, had created those pages very well imitating a medieval Greek script for his translation back into Greek of the Latin version of The Shepherd. And it was on that occasion that Simonides started to see Tischendorf as a rival: a prelude to his later making the infuriating claim that he himself, the unrelenting forger, was the author of the Codex Sinaiticus of the Bible, a “revelation” that nearly led to the cool Tischendorf losing, if not quite his mind, his usual self-restraint.
Even as recently as 1990 the theologian and papyrologist Carsten Thiede (Jesus: Life or Legend? (Oxford)) embarked with the fervour of an apologist on a defence of Simonides’ Matthew papyrus. Only an admittedly justifiable prejudice against Simonides - wrote Thiede - might lead to the conclusion that the Matthew papyrus is also a fake. But in this case, he objected, “he cannot have forged the papyrus fragments because he had only obtained authorisation to read them, which he did in John Mayer’s library, most of the time in the presence of the owner and other people” (86).
We are well acquainted with Simonides’ strategy, which (with the complicity of Rev. Stobart) consisted in fostering the impression that he had never seen the parchment or papyrus in question until the very moment when the innocent buyer, encouraged by Stobart, called him in to decipher the script (which was actually his own work that Stobart was skilfully marketing). Thiede, who was perhaps aware of this, concentrates on championing the authenticity of the Matthew papyrus (the unmasking of which caused a major scandal) because he was keen to point to an early - or rather, very early - evidence of the Gospel; and, according to its long, implausible subscription the papyrus Simonides had produced provided just such evidence. It was the same mental process as that which had led Thiede and others to claim that a “Markusfragment” had indeed come down to us from the Qumran caves. These people are not prepared to admit that there is no written evidence of the corpus of the New Testament from before the end of the 1st century AD. But it never deserves to use such methods, whether for religious or other reasons, while attempting to ignore the difference between fake and truth. One risks paying an astronomical amount for an almost perfect Cimabue, from a corner of which a “small but perfectly identifiable Mercedes-Benz” peeps out43.
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42 After an extremely long journey with stops in Athens, Constantinople,St. Petersburg, London, Paris, and Leipzig in order to try to sell his “unpublished” works.
p. 174
https://www.e-periodica.ch/cntmng?pid=mhl-001:2013:70::288
p. 172
10. Is anyone on Simonides’s side?
Of course, it is possible to cling to the belief that Simonides’ creations were genuine, and there are people who have done so. Some scholars of African studies. for example, accepted the authenticity of the papyrus of the Periplus of Hanno, with all its alterations and final additions.
In 1923 the Italian scholar Maria Monachesi published The Shepherd of Hermas (Rome, Libreria di Cultura) with an Italian translation and notes. On pp. 4-5 of the introduction she provided the reader with the following information:
“The original text, in Greek, came down to us via two handwritten codices, one from the Monastery of St. Gregory on Mount Athos, the other from the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai.The former (now at Leipzig), which was discovered by Constantine Simonides in 1856, contains almost the whole work (except for the last part) on its 9 folios, and dates back only to the beginning of the 15th or the end of the 14th century [...] but until 1856 The Shepherd was known only in the Latin - or so-called Vulgate - version (of which there are many manuscripts)”.
It was in vain that C. Tischendorf produced evidence that Simonides himself, who had turned up in Leipzig in 185542, had created those pages very well imitating a medieval Greek script for his translation back into Greek of the Latin version of The Shepherd. And it was on that occasion that Simonides started to see Tischendorf as a rival: a prelude to his later making the infuriating claim that he himself, the unrelenting forger, was the author of the Codex Sinaiticus of the Bible, a “revelation” that nearly led to the cool Tischendorf losing, if not quite his mind, his usual self-restraint.
Even as recently as 1990 the theologian and papyrologist Carsten Thiede (Jesus: Life or Legend? (Oxford)) embarked with the fervour of an apologist on a defence of Simonides’ Matthew papyrus. Only an admittedly justifiable prejudice against Simonides - wrote Thiede - might lead to the conclusion that the Matthew papyrus is also a fake. But in this case, he objected, “he cannot have forged the papyrus fragments because he had only obtained authorisation to read them, which he did in John Mayer’s library, most of the time in the presence of the owner and other people” (86).
We are well acquainted with Simonides’ strategy, which (with the complicity of Rev. Stobart) consisted in fostering the impression that he had never seen the parchment or papyrus in question until the very moment when the innocent buyer, encouraged by Stobart, called him in to decipher the script (which was actually his own work that Stobart was skilfully marketing). Thiede, who was perhaps aware of this, concentrates on championing the authenticity of the Matthew papyrus (the unmasking of which caused a major scandal) because he was keen to point to an early - or rather, very early - evidence of the Gospel; and, according to its long, implausible subscription the papyrus Simonides had produced provided just such evidence. It was the same mental process as that which had led Thiede and others to claim that a “Markusfragment” had indeed come down to us from the Qumran caves. These people are not prepared to admit that there is no written evidence of the corpus of the New Testament from before the end of the 1st century AD. But it never deserves to use such methods, whether for religious or other reasons, while attempting to ignore the difference between fake and truth. One risks paying an astronomical amount for an almost perfect Cimabue, from a corner of which a “small but perfectly identifiable Mercedes-Benz” peeps out43.
================
42 After an extremely long journey with stops in Athens, Constantinople,St. Petersburg, London, Paris, and Leipzig in order to try to sell his “unpublished” works.
p. 174
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