Milne and Skeat on Tischendorf scribes and correctors

Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
Note: Peter Malik gives a fine historical account.

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Milne & Skeat

III. THE SCRIBES: HISTORICAL RETROSPECT

Tischendorf’s work as a palaeographer can be regarded from two
points of view. Firstly, as a decipherer he has no superior, and
scholars may rest assured that the text he has provided is in all
essentials sound. Secondly, as a judge of script he compels our
admiration, and in this respect, too, apart from the error of in-
venting scribe C, he has well and truly laid the foundations of all
future investigation of the Codex. The detection of this error has,
however, placed the study of the hands upon a firmer basis and
opened the way to novel and important conclusions, especially on
the relation between scribe and colophon.

The account of the hands given by Tischendorf, Prolegomena, pp. 8-8*, is repeated almost verbatim in two later publications, Novum Testamentum Sinaiticum, 1863, p. xxi, and Novum Testamentum Graece ex Sinaitico Codice, 1865, p. xxx. In no case does he give any details of the characteristics of the various hands he professed to identify, and we must assume that, in the main, he was guided solely by the general appearance of the script. He distinguished four scribes, among whom he apportioned the writing of the book as follows:

Notitia editionis codicis bibliorum sinaitici: Auspiciis imp. Alexandri II. susceptae. Accedit catalogus cod. nuper ex oriente Petropolin perlatorum item Origenes Scholia in Proverbia Salomonis 1860
https://books.google.com/books?id=DpI4EOWye7MC&pg=RA4-PA7

Novum Testamentum Sinaiticum, 1863, p. xxi
https://books.google.com/books?id=LBqHZmhzLgwC&pg=PA12
https://books.google.com/books?id=HcGbOyQLuagC&pg=PA7-IA1

Novum Testamentum Graece ex Sinaitico Codice, 1865, p. xxx.
https://books.google.com/books?id=wZQBy_jy_mMC&pg=PR29
 
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Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
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Steven Avery

Steven Avery

Administrator
Charles Augustus Hay also has Tischendorf words on scribes and correctors

The Lutheran Quarterly, Volume 10 (1880)
Peculiarities of the Codex Sinaiticus
https://books.google.com/books?id=xAxIAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA157

Dionysius in Habakkuk

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readings indicated. It would not be difficult, by their help, to trace the gradual change from the uncial to the cursive style of
writing, and Tischendorf seems quite confident that he can thus fix the date of most of these emendations. Here is his note
upon one of them :

“Sub prima columna, quae tcxtu caret, lit-
teris minusculis crebrisque compendiis atramento nigerrimo
adscriptum est: ftyrjoSrjTi xe rt/y fivxr/y tou a^apruXnv 61-
ovvaiov fxoynxov OTav e\Bt/i s'v ri/ (SaoiXtia anv. Ipsam
scripturam exhibit tabula xvm. Saeculi videtur xn.”

That is—a mediaeval monk, who happened to have access to the venerable document in the monastery of St. Catharine, about the time of the second or third crusade, took the liberty of inserting upon a blank space of the parchment, just before the beginning of the prophecy of Habakkuk, in a cramped Greek handwriting,

“in very small letters, with frequent contractions, and in very black ink, the prayer: Remember, O Lord, the soul of the sinner Dionysius the monk, when thou comest in thy kingdom.”

When we look at the black and tangled scrawl with which that monkish sinner defaced the beautiful page, we feel almost tempted to criticise his prayer.
 
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