The False Claims of Constantine Simonides Regarding Sinaiticus

Judging from the Kallinikos letters, the 1840 date for the creation of the Sinaiticus was no secret and was known to various churchmen up and down the line. Yet the monks at St Catherine's Monastery always maintained that Sinaiticus was of ancient origin - even when reporting it as a 19th century mock-up would more likely have gotten the Codex returned to them.

Remember, though, the British government was so stupid - in Avery's scenario - they forked over a huge chunk of change for something they never bothered to investigate in the first place.

Which is laughable.

We're not talking a few pennies here and there.
 
Tischendorf was one of several experts who detected the fraud in Simonides's Uranios ms, in 1856. This is four years before Simonides tried to disparage Tischendorf's discovery of the Sinaiticus. By that time, Simonides had served a prison sentence (I don't know how long it was) for the Uranois forgery. I would say that Simonides's credibility was at a low ebb when he made claims to have written Sinaiticus.
 
- now confirmed by the Uspensky description of the manuscript, which section from, Uspensky had not been translated to English before the SART studies.

Did the SART studies notice the fifth century date that Uspenski assigned that same manuscript? In other words HIS date as an enemy of Tischendorf was closer to his than to yours.

I would check, and re-check how accurate their translation is. What language are they talking bout? Russian? Ukrainian? Greek? Latin? German?
 
"He [Tischendorf] darkened Sinaiticus with, maybe lemon juice, like Simonides' friend says he did."
Daniels, 2018: 290 (Google Books version)

But Simonides himself says this happened PRIOR to 1852.

Tischendorf first visit - 1844
Tischendorf second visit - 1853

And in the Daniels narrative, Tischendorf didn't figure out it was a fake until 1859, when he got it to Cairo - AND THEN he darkened it.

The cool thing here with Daniels is you don't have to have any reasons and your theories don't have to fit any facts.
Just go with the "Simonides lied" concept WHENEVER YOU RUN INTO A PROBLEM!!!

:)
 
Plus, every digital/computer/TV-screen monitor brand, makes every color look perfectly identical on each individual screen, with the default settings all identical as well - yeah right.
Don't you just love how everything is declared to be "confirmed" on the incredibly unqualified SART team's say-so?
 
The British Museum forked over £100,000 to the Stalin govt for the major portion of Sinaiticus ..... some sixty years after Simonides tried to claim it was a fake. Yes, I believe that, at least by the time Simonides appeared and ever after, there were thorough chemical and microscopic tests on the vellum, the ink, and every other part of Sinaiticus. The British had not forgotten Simonides's claims when they made the purchase in 1933, and they were buying it from Communists, so I expect the British made very thorough examinations to make sure they got the genuine article.

PS: I sent an email to the Conservation section of the British Library asking (begging) them to provide details of all the tests done on Sinaiticus. It was a burdensome request and I don't know if they will respond.
 
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Don't you just love how everything is declared to be "confirmed" on the incredibly unqualified SART team's say-so?

Then there's the whole glasses vs no glasses, 20/20 eyesight vs poor eyesight thing, color blindness...(layers of filtering it has to go through before it hit's the human retena) etc etc.

There's soooo many subjective factors I don't see accounted for.
 
Info on Kallinikos from McGrane's Review of Cooper's The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus:

Dr Cooper’s evidence demonstrates only that there was a lay monk called Kallinikos in the Panteleimon monastery sometime in the later nineteenth century. We do not doubt it, as the name is very common: Simonides himself states (The Guardian, June 17, 1863), ‘The name is not an unusual one...and there are several of that name in Mt. Athos’. But the evidence does not establish that a Kallinkos at the Panteleimon monastery was Kallinikos the correspondent to The Guardian, nor that he was there at the same time as Simonides (both of which Dr Cooper claims).

Dr Cooper’s source for the existence of a Kallinikos at the Panteleimon monastery is the Lambros Catalogue, which has entries for works written by Καλλινικος μοναχος. But this proves too much. Dr Cooper states (p.40), ‘The term Καλλινικου μοναχου [of Kallinikos the monk] is of much interest, because it is the same term by which Kallinikos himself signs his letters to Simonides and those he wrote in support of Simonides to the newspapers – Καλλινικος μοναχος, Kallinikos the monk.’ Dr Cooper could hardly be more wrong: the letters are signed + Καλλινικος Ἱερομοναχος, which connotes a clergyman, a monk ordained as a priest whereas Καλλινικος μοναχος connotes an unordained layman, as most monks were (the apparent exception is in a letter appearing in The Guardian of November 11, 1863, which has a different translator, who has unusually transliterated the name as Callinikus and incorrectly translated Ἱερομοναχος as ‘the Monk’. This translator also translates second person singular as ‘thou’, ‘thee’ and ‘thy’).

Dr Cooper appears to have overlooked that all the signatures on letters to Simonides are preceded by a cross symbol, which at that time customarily denoted high ecclesiastical office (bishop or archbishop). Spyridon Lambros, himself a Greek, a professor of history, and sometime Prime Minister of Greece, was not so ignorant as to refer to a ἱερομοναχος, a clergyman, as a μοναχος, a layman. We note that, for example, Benedict correctly appears in his catalogue as ἱεροδιακονος: a monk ordained a deacon (Dr Cooper translates this as ‘archdeacon’, which is most incorrect), and even a cursory inspection of his catalogue shows that authors and copyists who are a ἱερομοναχος and distinguished from those who are a μοναχος. Two of the works in the Lambros catalogue by Kallinikos (6406 and 6407) are mere copies of a work copied by Simonides of 1841 (6405), and we are not given the date of the copying. However, another of the works by the lay monk Kallinikos, who describes himself as ‘the least of the monks of the Russikon coenobium’, was done in March 1867, which is 26 years after Simonides left the monastery, so hardly establishes contemporaneity, and he is not said to be a ἱερομοναχος. A fourth work is an undated book ‘written by the hand of the monk [μοναχος] Kallinikos and [the hand] of the monk Simeon of Samos’, which has no evident association with Simonides or to the Panteleimon monastery (it being merely on their bookshelves). Accordingly, the Lambros catalogue gives no support for Simonides’ correspondent Καλλινικος Ἱερομοναχος being at the Panteleimon monastery, nor even of a lay monk named Καλλινικος being there at the same time as Simonides.

But we can go further. One unintended consequence of Simonides’ having invented a whole back story for his correspondent is that it closes off the possibility that Kallinikos was an unordained monk, a μοναχος, at Mt Athos when Simonides knew him, and was ordained a Ἱερομοναχος later when Simonides corresponded with him, i.e. a monk who became a priest. Simonides claimed (The Guardian, June 17, 1863) that he was an ordained priest who took up arms in the Greek Revolution (1821-30), was thereby disqualified from public priestly duties thereafter, and so entered Mount Athos, i.e. he was a priest who became a monk, hence a hieromonk, and ‘he spent a long time in a monastery at Mt. Athos, where I made his acquaintance’. He was thus a hieromonk before Simonides ever knew him (according to his story). This demonstrates that the Καλλινικος μοναχος listed in the Lambros catalogue (a layman) is not the same person as Καλλινικος Ἱερομοναχος (a clergyman) of Simonides’ imagination.

Additionally, although Simonides invented a scrappy, shaky cursive style for his Kallinikos as an ‘old man ready to die’ to differentiate it from his own, but which would fool no trained graphologist, he also made some mistakes. Simonides had two brothers, at least one in Alexandria, so could send packets to them with enclosures of letters written in the name of Kallinikos for them to post back to him, thus attracting the appropriate postmarks. At least once he mistakenly enclosed a letter to himself purportedly from Kallinikos but with the envelope addressed in his (Simonides’) usual hand and without changing to a different source of paper. (Review, pp. 74-75, note 171)
 
Another article about Simonides, which deals with another of his fabrications, again not mentioning Sinaiticus, is a book review in The Classical Review, vol. 3 (Feb. 1889) page 64-66, reviewing A Collation of the Athos Codex of the Shepherd of Hermas by J. Armitage Robinson [Cambridge Univ. Press 1888], reviewed by T.K. Abbott. The Athos Codex was a document sold by Constantine Simonides, the first appearance to modern eyes of the , in Greek. The interesting part of the article is lengthy but I shall do my best to transcribe:
[quote:]
Until about 30 years ago the Shepherd was known only in a Latin version. ... [In] 1855, what purported to be the original Greek text of almost the entire work was offered to and purchased by the University of Leipsic. The vendor was Constantine Simonides. ... [To] us of an older generation it calls up the vision of a dignified and imposing gentleman with a long beard and plausible manners, having also great knowledge of old manuscripts, and a good store of interesting documents for sale, including such things as biblical papyri of the first century, some books of Homer's Iliad written BC 87, and boustrophedon, the whole history of which moreover was said to be traceable.

He had also palimpsests, of which that of Uranios was the most famous, as it possessed the singular peculiarity that the obscure writing, or what professed to be the original, appeared to be written over, not under, the blacker text. It was this ms that was made the ground of a criminal charge against him, as he was prosecuted in Germany on the double charge of having stolen the ms from some library unknown, and of having forged it. We are not concerned to defend the logic of this double accusation. Certain it is, however, that some of his mss were genuine, but that others - and those the most interesting in their alleged character - were forged. Considering the extent and variety of his work, Simonides is perhaps the most remarkable forger on record.

At the time that he sold the copy of the Shepherd to the University of Leipsic, his character was not as well known as it soon after became. The copy consisted of three leaves of a paper ms from Mount Athos in a fourteenth century hand, and a copy of six other leaves of the same ms which he had not been able to bring away with him. The text was immediately edited by Anger and Dindorf, who promised to add a volume of critical materials. This volume, however, never appeared, and for a good reason. Simonides was arrested on the charge above alluded to, of forging or stealing the ms of Uranios. His papers were seized (a circumstances of which his friends made great complaint), and amongst them was found another copy of the Hermas ms, very different from the one he had sold to the Leipsic Library. This Simonides accounted for by saying that they were made from different mss. .... But the general opinion has been that the second copy (that found by the police) was a genuine copy of the Athos ms, the other having been constructed from it by alterations due to Simonides himself. In fact, these alterations actually appeared in the second copy, some in pencil and some in ink. It may be asked what was his object in thus falsifying the text when he possessed a correct copy. The answer is found in the fact that he also produced was professed to be a palimsest of the Shepherd. It was doubtless with a view to the construction of this palimsest that he kept back his real Athos copy, so that it might present a different and what might appear to be a more ancient form of text.

Another Greek text of part of the Shepherd was discovered by Tischendorf in the Sinaitic mss. Although this was only a fragment, yet by its substantial agreement with the Athos ms it was sufficient to prove that the latter was actually the original Greek, not, as Tischendorf had himself suggested, a middle age translation from some Latin version (different however from both those above mentioned). Nevertheless the bad faith of Simonides made it impossible to place full reliance on his copy.

Now comes this discovery alluded to, namely that of the original of Simonides's apographon in the monastery of St. Gregory on Mount Athos. The discovery was made by Dr. Spyr. P. Lambros, who was engaged in cataloguing the mss of the Athos libraries. The exact correspondence of the Leipsic leaves with those in Athos leaves no room for doubt that they are part of the same ms. even if we had not the confirmation given by the tradition of the monks that the three missing leaves were abstracted by 'Minas Minoides,' who also they say made certain annotations now appearing in the margin of the ms.

Professor Lambros's collation of the ms has proved that Simonides's copy was not only inexact, but even unscrupulous, as indeed his other performances would lead us to suspect. A man accustomed to alter and amend mss cannot be trust to copy correctly. .... Where there were gaps in the ms he did not always mark them, but filled them up. .... [For some reason, Simonides's copies lacked the concluding page of the Shepherd.]

But here we meet his handiwork again. He was not to be defeated by a difficulty so trifling as the loss of a leaf of the Greek text. Four years after the sale to his corrupted copy to the Leipsic library he printed, along with other tracts, what purported to be the missing Greek conclusion. As by that time his character was irretrievably lost, no one would look at his publication.
[endquote]

The remainder of this article compares quotations from Simonides's Greek and the prevailing Latin text of the Shepherd to show that Simonides had contrived his Greek version by backtranslating from the Latin, with mistakes.

So we have two distinct frauds by Simonides - the Uranios ms which got him a prison sentence, and the Greek version of the Shepherd of Hermas. These were detected in the Victorian Era, when scientific analysis of the parchment or paper was not what it is now. These two scandals involving Simonides were in Germany, and he may have hoped that English scholars were unaware of what had happened in Germany when he made his claims about the Sinaiticus in British newspapers about five years afterward.
 
Info on Kallinikos from McGrane's Review of Cooper's The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus:

Dr Cooper’s evidence demonstrates only that there was a lay monk called Kallinikos in the Panteleimon monastery sometime in the later nineteenth century. We do not doubt it, as the name is very common: Simonides himself states (The Guardian, June 17, 1863), ‘The name is not an unusual one...and there are several of that name in Mt. Athos’. But the evidence does not establish that a Kallinkos at the Panteleimon monastery was Kallinikos the correspondent to The Guardian, nor that he was there at the same time as Simonides (both of which Dr Cooper claims).

Dr Cooper’s source for the existence of a Kallinikos at the Panteleimon monastery is the Lambros Catalogue, which has entries for works written by Καλλινικος μοναχος. But this proves too much. Dr Cooper states (p.40), ‘The term Καλλινικου μοναχου [of Kallinikos the monk] is of much interest, because it is the same term by which Kallinikos himself signs his letters to Simonides and those he wrote in support of Simonides to the newspapers – Καλλινικος μοναχος, Kallinikos the monk.’ Dr Cooper could hardly be more wrong: the letters are signed + Καλλινικος Ἱερομοναχος, which connotes a clergyman, a monk ordained as a priest whereas Καλλινικος μοναχος connotes an unordained layman, as most monks were (the apparent exception is in a letter appearing in The Guardian of November 11, 1863, which has a different translator, who has unusually transliterated the name as Callinikus and incorrectly translated Ἱερομοναχος as ‘the Monk’. This translator also translates second person singular as ‘thou’, ‘thee’ and ‘thy’).

Dr Cooper appears to have overlooked that all the signatures on letters to Simonides are preceded by a cross symbol, which at that time customarily denoted high ecclesiastical office (bishop or archbishop). Spyridon Lambros, himself a Greek, a professor of history, and sometime Prime Minister of Greece, was not so ignorant as to refer to a ἱερομοναχος, a clergyman, as a μοναχος, a layman. We note that, for example, Benedict correctly appears in his catalogue as ἱεροδιακονος: a monk ordained a deacon (Dr Cooper translates this as ‘archdeacon’, which is most incorrect), and even a cursory inspection of his catalogue shows that authors and copyists who are a ἱερομοναχος and distinguished from those who are a μοναχος. Two of the works in the Lambros catalogue by Kallinikos (6406 and 6407) are mere copies of a work copied by Simonides of 1841 (6405), and we are not given the date of the copying. However, another of the works by the lay monk Kallinikos, who describes himself as ‘the least of the monks of the Russikon coenobium’, was done in March 1867, which is 26 years after Simonides left the monastery, so hardly establishes contemporaneity, and he is not said to be a ἱερομοναχος. A fourth work is an undated book ‘written by the hand of the monk [μοναχος] Kallinikos and [the hand] of the monk Simeon of Samos’, which has no evident association with Simonides or to the Panteleimon monastery (it being merely on their bookshelves). Accordingly, the Lambros catalogue gives no support for Simonides’ correspondent Καλλινικος Ἱερομοναχος being at the Panteleimon monastery, nor even of a lay monk named Καλλινικος being there at the same time as Simonides.

But we can go further. One unintended consequence of Simonides’ having invented a whole back story for his correspondent is that it closes off the possibility that Kallinikos was an unordained monk, a μοναχος, at Mt Athos when Simonides knew him, and was ordained a Ἱερομοναχος later when Simonides corresponded with him, i.e. a monk who became a priest. Simonides claimed (The Guardian, June 17, 1863) that he was an ordained priest who took up arms in the Greek Revolution (1821-30), was thereby disqualified from public priestly duties thereafter, and so entered Mount Athos, i.e. he was a priest who became a monk, hence a hieromonk, and ‘he spent a long time in a monastery at Mt. Athos, where I made his acquaintance’. He was thus a hieromonk before Simonides ever knew him (according to his story). This demonstrates that the Καλλινικος μοναχος listed in the Lambros catalogue (a layman) is not the same person as Καλλινικος Ἱερομοναχος (a clergyman) of Simonides’ imagination.

Additionally, although Simonides invented a scrappy, shaky cursive style for his Kallinikos as an ‘old man ready to die’ to differentiate it from his own, but which would fool no trained graphologist, he also made some mistakes. Simonides had two brothers, at least one in Alexandria, so could send packets to them with enclosures of letters written in the name of Kallinikos for them to post back to him, thus attracting the appropriate postmarks. At least once he mistakenly enclosed a letter to himself purportedly from Kallinikos but with the envelope addressed in his (Simonides’) usual hand and without changing to a different source of paper. (Review, pp. 74-75, note 171)

Yes, but remember - we've been told McGrane and Elliott's works are "deficient" by an individual who won't even call Simonides the forging liar he absolutely was.

Also - something about James White is stupid and Tischendorf a lying thief.

But Simonides? Won't dare call HIM what HE was.

And let's note also the determination of the status of Simonides was BECAUSE of what was proven.
The insults regarding these other folks are nothing more than "poisoning the well."
 
Yes, but remember - we've been told McGrane and Elliott's works are "deficient"

McGrane's work is uneven, there are good points and bad points.

Elliott's is definitely deficient, with numerous major omissions.

Deficient is quite a mild word, and can be used for elements of the Simonides account.
 
Info on Kallinikos from McGrane's Review of Cooper's The Forging of Codex Sinaiticus:
Two of the works in the Lambros catalogue by Kallinikos (6406 and 6407) are mere copies of a work copied by Simonides of 1841 (6405), and we are not given the date of the copying.

Consecutive works of the same writing from John of Damascus, one by Simonides, dated, then two by Kallinikos. Simple, logical deduction, closely connected.

And I had discussions with Kevin McGrane on this, his attempt to deny the clear connection was wacky. The one entry from Kallinikos in 1867 is possibly the same Kallinikos, but that is not the real issue.

=============================

So, did you give up your earlier tries, that this was a rigging by Simonides, or that the date was wrong?
 
McGrane's work is uneven, there are good points and bad points.

That's your opinion, nothing more.

Elliott's is definitely deficient, with numerous major omissions.

Actually, Elliott omitted nothing of consequence.

I mean, it's not like he was talking about someone like, say, Uspenski and quoting him or citing him.....and completely hiding the fact he held to a fifth century date.

:)


Deficient is quite a mild word, and can be used for elements of the Simonides account.

No.

Simonides lied.
And then he lied some more.
And then he lied some more.

He demanded 10,000 pounds IN ADVANCE to even try it.
He promised a book - we never got one.

You can call his LIES "deficient" and minimize them all you wish - but they're still lies you refuse to call lies.

Except when it's Tischendorf.....then all of a sudden you have NO PROBLEM using that word.

Can't imagine why the double standard.


Actually....I know exactly why.
 
Consecutive works of the same writing from John of Damascus, one by Simonides, dated, then two by Kallinikos. Simple, logical deduction, closely connected.

These are assumptions on your part - not logical deductions.

We note also you ignored the problems presented by Shoonra.
Not even surprised at that.

And I had discussions with Kevin McGrane on this, his attempt to deny the clear connection was wacky.

So McGrane wouldn't start the conversation by assuming your wrong assumptions.
Good for him.

The one entry from Kallinikos in 1867 is possibly the same Kallinikos, but that is not the real issue.

No, the real issue is that you refuse to take responsibility for your wrong research.

You and Daniels have Simonides on Athos WHEN NOT EVEN SIMONIDES has himself there.


So, did you give up your earlier tries, that this was a rigging by Simonides, or that the date was wrong?

A loaded question from an individual who has not yet earned the right to have any of his questions asked because he refuses to engage the issues actually presented thoroughly on here.


You're gonna have to step up and do MUCH BETTER than red herrings like your responses on this thread so far.

All of your alleged points have been reduced to nothing.


Provide something substantive or retract them.

Kallinikos THE PHANTOM was known to be Simonides ACCORDING TO HODGKIN'S OWN TESTIMONY in 1863.

For you to continue to dodge that is telling enough.
 
The "real issue" is the antiquity and authenticity of the Codex Sinaiticus, not whether Tischendorf was lying about how he acquired it. A few years ago the National Geographic said of ancient biblical parchments (the context was the Dead Sea Scrolls and similar relics) that nearly any ancient ms that has been brought to Europe and the US had been stolen, and plausibly that means whatever stories were told about their provenance was fictitious. I am not prepared to say that Tischendorf was dishonest about how he acquired or explained the Sinaiticus, but I say it doesn't matter now as the real issue is the Codex itself and its authenticity.
 
At the time that he sold the copy of the Shepherd to the University of Leipsic, his character was not as well known as it soon after became. The copy consisted of three leaves of a paper ms from Mount Athos in a fourteenth century hand, and a copy of six other leaves of the same ms which he had not been able to bring away with him. The text was immediately edited by Anger and Dindorf, who promised to add a volume of critical materials. This volume, however, never appeared, and for a good reason.

This looks to be the Anger and Dindorf Simonides edition that "never appeared". :)

Hermae pastor: Graece primum ediderunt et interpretationem veterum latinam (1855-56)
Simonides - editors Anger and Dindorf
https://books.google.com/books?id=QEVMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA81

You can see Simonides referenced first on page vi.
The url above goes to a page in Similitudes that is also in the Sinaiticus New Finds, the pages discovered in 1975.

There is a second edition that is fully 1856 as well.
Tischendorf had a hand in it, but in some or most spots I believe the text is unchanged. The line length is different, however.
 
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