Codex Sinaiticus

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(The symbol is the Hebrew characterAleph, though Swete and a few other scholars use the letterS.)

A Greekmanuscript of theOld andNew Testaments, of the greatest antiquity and value; found onMount Sinai, in St. Catherine's Monastery, by Constantine Tischendorf. He was visiting there in 1844, under the patronage of Frederick Augustus, King of Saxony, when he discovered in a rubbish basket forty-three leaves of theSeptuagint, containing portions of I Par. (Chron.), Jer., Neh., and Esther; he was permitted to take them. He also saw the books of Isaias and I and IV Machabees, belonging to the same codex as the fragments, but could not obtain possession of them; warning themonks of their value, he left forEurope and two years later published the leaves he had brought with him under the name of Codex Friderico-Augustanus, after his patron. They are preserved at Leipzig. On a second visit, in 1853, he found only two short fragments of Genesis (which he printed on his return) and could learn nothing of the rest of the codex. In 1859 he made a third visit, this time under the patronage of the Czar, Alexander II. This visit seemed likewise fruitless when, on the eve of his departure, in a chance conversation with the steward, he learned of the existence of amanuscript there; when it was shown to him, he saw the verymanuscript he had sought containing, beyond all his dreams, a great part of theOld Testament and the entireNew Testament, besides the Epistle of Barnabas, and part of the "Shepherd" of Hermas, of which two works no copies in the original Greek were known to exist. Thinking it "a crime to sleep", Tischendorf spent the night copying Barnabas; he had to leave in the morning, after failing to persuade themonks to let him have themanuscript. At Cairo he stopped at amonastery belonging to the samemonks (they were of the OrthodoxGreek Church) and succeeded in having themanuscript sent to him there for transcription; and finally, in obtaining it from themonks as a present to the Czar, Tischendorf's patron and the protector of their Church. Years later, in 1869, the Czar rewarded the twomonasteries with gifts of money (7000 and 2000 roubles each) and decorations. Themanuscript is treasured in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg. Tischendorf published an account of it in 1860; and, under the auspices of the czar, printed it in facsimile in 1862. Twenty-one lithographic plates made from photographs were included in this edition, which was issued in four volumes. The following year he published a critical edition of theNew Testament. Finally, in 1867, he published additional fragments of Genesis and Numbers, which had been used to bind other volumes at St. Catherine's and had been discovered by the Archimandrite Porfirius. On four different occasions, then, portions of the originalmanuscript have been discovered; they have never been published together in a single edition.

The Codex Sinaiticus, which originally must have contained the wholeOld Testament, has suffered severely from mutilation, especially in the historical books from Genesis to Esdras (inclusive); the rest of theOld Testament fared much better. The fragments and books extant are: several verses fromGenesis 23 and24, and fromNumbers 5,6,7;1 Chronicles 9:27-19:17;Ezra 9:9 to end; Nehemias, Esther, Tobias, Judith, Joel, Abdias, Jonas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggeus, Zacharias, Malachias, Isaias, Jeremias,Lamentations 1:1-2:20; I Machabees, IV Machabees (apocryphal, while the canonical II Machabees and theapocryphal III Machabees were never contained in this codex). A curious occurrence is that Esdras, ix, 9 follows1 Chronicles 19:17 without any break; the note of a corrector shows that seven leaves of I Par. were copied into the Book of Esdras, probably by a mistake in the binding of themanuscript from which Codex Sinaiticus was copied. Our Esdras is called in this codex, as in many others, Esdras B. This may indicate that it followed Esdras A, as the book called byJerome III Esdras (seeESDRAS) is named in ancientcodices; theproof is by no means sure, however, as IV Machabees is here designated Machabees D, as was usual, although the second and third books of Machabees were absent from themanuscript. TheNew Testament is complete, likewise the Epistle of Barnabas; six leaves following Barnabas are lost, which probably also contained uncanonical literature: the "Shepherd" of Hermas is incomplete, and we cannot tell whether other works followed. In all, there are 346 1/2 leaves. The order of theNew Testament is to be noted,St. Paul'sEpistles preceding Acts; Hebrews following II Thess. Themanuscript is on good parchment; the pages measure about 15 inches by 13 1/2 inches; there are four columns to a page, except in the poetical books, which are written stichometrically in two columns of greater width; there are 48 lines to a column, but 47 in theCatholic Epistles. The four narrow columns give the page the appearance of an ancient roll; it is not impossible, as Kenyon says, that it was in fact copied from a papyrus roll. It is written in uncial characters, well formed, without accents or breathings, and with no punctuation except (at times) the apostrophe and the single point for a period. Tischendorf judged that there were four hands engaged in the writing of themanuscript; in this he has been generally followed. He has been lesshappy in obtaining acceptance of his conjecture that one of these scribes also wrote theNew Testament of theVatican Codex. He recognized seven correctors of the text, one of them contemporaneous with the writing of themanuscript. The Ammonian Sections and the Eusebian Canons are indicated in the margin, probably by a contemporary hand; they seem to have been unknown to the scribe, however, who followed another division. Theclericalerrors are relatively not numerous, in Gregory's judgment.

In age thismanuscript ranks alongside theCodex Vaticanus. Its antiquity is shown by the writing, by the four columns to a page (an indication, probably, of the transition from the roll to the codex form ofmanuscript.), by the absence of the large initial letters and of ornaments, by the rarity of punctuation, by the short titles of the books, the presence of divisions of the text antedatingEusebius, the addition of Barnabas and Hermas, etc. Such indications have induced experts to place it in the fourth century, along withCodex Vaticanus and some time beforeCodex Alexandrinus andCodex Ephræmi Rescriptus; this conclusion is not seriously questioned, though the possibility of an early fifth-century date is conceded. Its origin has been assigned toRome, SouthernItaly,Egypt, and Caesarea, but cannot be determined (Kenyon, Handbook to the Textual Criticism of theNew Testament, London, 1901, p. 56 sqq.). It seems to have been at one time atCaesarea; one of the correctors (probably of seventh century) adds this note at the end of Esdras: "This codex was compared with a very ancient exemplar which had been corrected by the hand of theholymartyrPamphilus [d. 309]; which exemplar contained at the end of the subscription in his own hand: 'Taken and corrected according to theHexapla ofOrigen: Antonius compared it: I,Pamphilus, corrected it'."Pamphilus was, withEusebius, the founder of thelibrary at Caesarea. Some are even inclined to regard Codex Sinaiticus as one of the fiftymanuscripts which Constantine badeEusebius of Caesarea to have prepared in 331 for the churches of Constantinople; but there is no sign of its having been at Constantinople. Nothing is known of its later history till its discovery by Tischendorf. The text of Codex Sinaiticus bears a very close resemblance to that ofCodex Vaticanus, though it cannot be descended from the same immediate ancestor. In general,Codex Vaticanus is placed first in point of purity by contemporary scholars and Codex Sinaiticus next. This is especiallytrue, for theNew Testament, of the Gospels. The differences are more frequent in theOld Testament where thecodices Sinaiticus andAlexandrinus often agree.

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