Word: tischendorf
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Last week the British Museum was heckled from the monastery on Mt. Sinai where in 1844 the Codex was discovered by German Scholar Constantine Tischendorf. According to monks of the monastery, Tischendorf took the Codex to Cairo pleading that he must study it in a warm climate. He went to the Russian Consulate and, thus on Russian soil, defied the monks to get their Codex back. Tischendorf gave the manuscript to Tsar Alexander II who reimbursed the monastery with a paltry $3,500. Last week Porphyries III, Archbishop of Sinai, detailed all this in a long, indignant cablegram...
First of all, as to the tale, dear to preachers' hearts, that Tischendorf rescued the precious vellum leaves from a waste basket, as they were being used to kindle a fire. . . . Vellum is a form of leather, you know; and can you imagine any one's kindling a fire with leather? And did you never smell burning shoes...
...matter of fact, even the ignorant monks had been taught by tradition to regard this particular manuscript as the most prized possession of their library, which is a storehouse of antiquities. Tischendorf "borrowed" the book from the monks, on the plea that his health required him to work in the warmer climate of Cairo. I have seen the receipt that he gave the monastery...
...Bluntly, Tischendorf stole the priceless book, and sold it to the Russian Tsar. . . . The monastery never ceased its intermittent efforts to get back the manuscript, although they were given a small sum by the Tsar, as a sort of ''hush money...
Incidentally, after their experience with Tischendorf, the monks enclosed the alcoves of their library in heavy wire screening, and no visitor is allowed to examine the books except with a watchful monk at his side...