Constantin von Tischendorf
Leipzig scholar who travelled in search of early biblical manuscripts. On three visits to St Catherine’s Monastery between 1844 and 1859 he found and removed the Codex Sinaiticus, which he published in 1862.
Tischendorf writes that he sailed for Egypt in April 1844 hoping to find biblical manuscripts from the early centuries of Christianity, and that at Saint Catherine’s Monastery he found leaves of a very old Greek Old Testament, which he deposited at Leipzig and named the Codex Frederick Augustus after the king of Saxony, his patron (Tischendorf, Narrative of the Discovery pp. 27–29). He returned in 1853, and again in 1859 with funds from the Russian emperor, having just brought out the seventh edition of his New Testament (Tischendorf, Narrative of the Discovery pp. 30–32).
After the third visit he carried the manuscript to St Petersburg and published it in facsimile in four volumes, which he presented to the emperor in 1862 (Tischendorf, Narrative of the Discovery pp. 40–41). How he came by it is told differently by him and by the monastery; the history agreed by the institutions that now hold the manuscript sets out what the documents show (History of Codex Sinaiticus (agreed text) paragraphs on 1844 and 1859). See Tischendorf and the Codex Sinaiticus.
In the timeline
- 1844 to 1859, firm dateTischendorf and the Codex Sinaiticus
On three visits to St Catherine’s Monastery the German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf finds a Greek Bible of the fourth century and takes it away, first in part and then on loan. He and the monastery tell the story differently.