Literary Churchman from Elliott he left out the most important 1859 quote, which is above)
... in the newly discovered MS, not a single leaf is deficient in the New Testament. Of all the MSS. with an antiquity beyond 1,000 years, it is the only perfect one. ... Dr. Tischendorf then, goes on to state that this MS. comprises, besides this perfect copy of the New Testament, two other treatises of great value.
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p. 18
b) The age and importance of Sinaiticus.
So much for the actual details in Tischendorf s story. Now to the manuscript itself. Nowadays the authenticity and age of Codex Sinaiticus (and that portion of it known as Friderico-Augustanus) are beyond dispute. But this was not the case when the discovery of the manuscript was first announced. Many of the scholars who heard about the manuscript for the first time were justifiably suspicious of the high claims made for the uniqueness of Sinaiticus.
An example of how the learned world read about the manuscript may be seen in the enthusiastic report in
The Journal of Sacred Literature, April 1863:
(skip manuscript comparison)
An earlier account of the discovery, in The Literary Churchman, 16th July, 1859 resulted in reservations being expressed about Tischendorf s original assessment of its age:
For ourselves we will only say that we must be content to suspend our opinion until we have further information without in the meantime entirely acceding to the statejments of Dr. Tischendorf as to the antiquity of the MS. He is as we all know, the first authority in such matters but in the first warmth of delight at so great a discovery we feel it possible that his enthusiasm may in some degree have warped his judgement.That a wonderful discovery" in regard to Biblical criticism has been made, there can be no doubt; whether the MS. will eventually prove to be as old and as valuable as Dr. Tischendorf now believes it to be must be ascertained by the result. Such a reaction is not surprising in the face of a discovery which claimed to be the oldest complete copy of the New Testament in existence and which contained in addition the Epistle of Barnabas the first five chapters of which had hitherto been known only in Latin.
p. 19 - three years later 
It is significant that four years later it is the same journal, The Literary Churchman above all which gave most credence to the assertion of Simonides that Codex Sinaiticus was not ancient. The antiquity claimed for Sinaiticus by Tischendorf is one of the major reasons why that journal found it difficult to accept Tischendorf's story. On 16th December 1862 The Literary Churchman commented that
«No manuscript (i.e. of the New Testament) hitherto has been heard of without an omission or without a flaw. Its very perfection is a difficulty».
This journal returns to the same theme again on 2nd. February, 1863:
We are not aware that there is any other old MS. in existence which, contains the entire New Testament without any hiatus. This is, to our mind, a most doubtful fact, in limine. Even the Canon of Laodicaea (A. 363) omits the Revelations of St. John: and as late as St. Jerome’s time the Epistle to the Hebrews seems to have been struggling for its place. The idea of finding an entire Codex, containing the whole of our present New Testament, in the fourth century, startles us not a little, and forms a prima facie case against its being of so great an antiquity. But we must not prejudge so grave a matter.
Then again in the issue of 16th February 1863 The Literary Churchman continues in a similar vein. Reporting a meeting held on February 11th of the Royal Society of Literature we are told that the librarian of Trinity College Cambridge, Mr. W.A. Wright (who is to figure prominently later in our story) introduced a discussion on the «Sinaitic manuscript». After commenting that some present at that meeting suggested that the antiquity of the manuscript was in doubt because of its completeness, its neatness and its very regular penmanship, the editor adds the following:
To this statement we have to add our own impressions, after examining a facsimile of the Sinaitic MS. for ourselves. We confess to be much staggered. We are unable to believe that a MS. of the fourth century has this completeness, including, as of course, the Ep. to the Hebrews, the 2nd. of St. Peter, and the Apocalypse, the latter of which was not in any list formally accepted by the Church before the Council of Laodicea. Other details made us sceptics; such as the insertion, in the Song of Solomon, of Rubrics between the verses, assigning too definitely what was said by the «Bridegroom», and what by the «Bride». The saying of Dr. Tregelles, that if we give up the «Sinaitic MS.» we may give up the Alexandrian and the Vatican, does not move us. First, because Dr. Tregelles. if he knows as much of MSS. as he says, must know that neither of these MSS, are, in appearance, as regular, complete, and modern-shaped as this four-columned parchment now adduced: and he may also know, that it is possible the Alexandrian MS. may itself be traced to monks of Mount Athos. The opinion of Wetstein was not favourable to it. But we have no wish to stir controversy about it. It is, anyhow, not the complete document which the «Sinaitic MS.» is affirmed to be.
The same points were being made by other papers. The Christian Remembrancer. by far the most sympathetic to Tischendorf in the 1860’s, extolled the uniqueness of X in the issue of April 1863 in the following way:
For, not to mention the important sections of the Septuagint, the epistle of Barnabas, and the fragment of Hermas, we have the New Testament complete from end to end. With no other known uncial MS. is this the case. The Alexandrine MS. and the Ephraem Rescript were complete once alas: they are so no longer. The Codex Sinaiticus exhibits the Four Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, the Acts, the Catholic Epistles, the Apocalypse, substantially just the same as the Church has for centuries received them, its very variations from the received text (where it does vary) been often so many marks of its antiquity. Ipsi remotissimae antiquitatis viri, venerabiles quum orientis turn occidentis patres surgunt testes, suae aetatis homines arcana sanctarum litterarum ex voluminibus hausisse hujus simillimis» If the MS. was written about A.D. 350, S. Ambrose may have seen it; S. Basil may have seen it; if it was written a few years earlier, Eusebius himself may have had it transcribed, and Constantine may have presented it to some Church.
But despite—or perhaps because of—these magnificent claims, the writer also adds:
But the question must really be decided by a critical examination of the document itself, made by expert palaeographists. The sooner Professor Tischendorf can have this done, the better will it be for his own credit as a palaeographist, and, we will add, the more will it forward the sale of those copies, the disposal of which has been left in his hands. Whether the examination is made in Germany, France, or England, matters but little, so long as competent persons conduct it. Only let it be done at once.
In the meantime the paper is only able to repeat what Tischendorf himself published. In its next issue (July 1863) The Christian Remembrancer reports:
The peculiarly fine quality of the vellum- the fact that this is the only known manuscript containing four columns on the page, or eight columns on the open leaf, as if it were designed to imitate the, older rolled books, whose several skins or leaves were fastened together length-wise-the very simple yet graceful shapes of the letters, which resemble so closely those of the Herculanean papyri-the lack of capital letters, and the rare occurrence of a single point for a stop, as in the Herculanean rolls - the brevity.of the titles and subscriptions, and these, too, mostly, by a later hand-the unusual order of the books, S. Paul’s Epistles preceding the Acts, and that to the Hebrews following the Second to the Thessalonians-the presence, as part of the canonical Scripture, of the works of Barnabas and Hernias - the peculiar character of the text, which is of the most ancient type, sometimes supported only by Cod. Vaticanus or Codex Bezae, sometimes by a very old version, or by a Greek or Latin Father, such as Eusebius or Basil or Jerome sometimes standing quite alone, or in company with two or three or cursive MSS. - the various corrections the primitive text has received from different hands, with inks of many various shades, and at different times, yet even the latest before breathings and accents came into use—all these facts, taken together, with nothing considerable to set in the opposite scale, concur in persuading Tischendorf that the middle of the fourth century is, for this venerable Codex, a date, if not certain, yet far from improbable, and, at any rate, neither futile nor glaringly extravagant.
It was in this period before other, and independent, scholars could investigate the manuscript that the Simonides affair was at its height.
Skip ECW speculations Eusebius etc.
