OLD MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.* IN our desire to
deal fairly with Dr. Simonides, we will examine his present publication without regard to his literary antecedents. The • Fac-similes of certain Portions of the Gospel of St. Matthew and of the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude. Edited and Illustrated by Constantine Simonides, Ph. D. London: Triibner and Co.
account he gives of its origin is sufficiently curious. He tells us that he was introduced in February, 1860, to Mr. Mayer, the founder of an Egyptian Museum, in Liverpool. Having won that gentleman's confidence by deciphering some papyri, Dr. Simonides was allowed the free range of the collection. Before long his attention was arrested by a fragment covered with Greek writing, which turned out to be a portion of the Gospel of St. Matthew, written by Nicholas the Deacon, some fifteen years after our Lord's ascension. The discovery was at once announced, and, encouraged by the sympathy of the Liverpool public, Dr. Simonides went on and retrieved fragments from the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude. "When this discovery was publicly made known," says the author, "many of the learned in Liverpool, and from other parts of England, called upon me in order to see the passages, and, after a minute inspection, heartily glorified God." Naturally if the learned grew pious over the discovery, the religious world was jubilant. " The brother of Mrs. B—, a genuine servant of our Lord . . . took for his text at evening devotions, the 28th of St. Matthew, and offered up prayer and thanks- giving for the discovery of these sacred fragments of the oldest version of the New Testament." Thus encouraged, Dr. Simonides
resumed his labours in the archteological El Dorado at Liverpool. We can only briefly enumerate the treasures he turned up : 1. A
portion of eight chapters of the book of Genesis, in a manuscript of the first century before Christ. 2. The Ten Commandments, in Greek and Egyptian, of the same date. 3. The voyage of Hanno, King of Carthage, of the same date. 4. The first page of a work by Aristrens, of a century later. 5. A few lines from the Oracles of
Zoroaster Magnus, also of 1-100 A.D. 6. Fragments of historical writings, about 100-200 A.D. 7. Nine epistles of Hermippus, ex-
plaining Egyptian hieroglyphics, and hitherto unknown. 8. Frag- ments of the kistica of Androsthenes. It is difficult to realize what Mr. Mayer's feelings must have been in finding himself the possessor of such a store of manuscript wealth as exists nowhere else in Europe, unless it be in the convent of Mount Athos, which has nurtured the ingenious talent of Dr. Simonides. As, however, the fragments are not merely of unexampled antiquity, but contain different read-
ings from the accredited version, it has been thought right to publish them with fac-similes. Type and paper are unexceptionable, and a
lithogirtpli of St. Matthew, from a picture of the fifth century, at Mount Athos, forms a highly appropriate frontispiece. It looks very like the productions of the modern Russian school in St. Isaac's Church, at St. Petersburg, but any forgery is of course impossible, as Dr. Simonides knows,it to have been painted by a pupil of Panselenns, who invented photography in the fifth century !
We will now state briefly the reasons for regarding what its editor calls the Codex Mayerianus of the gospel fragments to be an impu-
dent forgery. In the first place, "the accomplished Mr. Stobart,"
whom Doctor Simonides refers to as having broubmht the fragments to England, has written to the Atheneum to state that to the best of
his knowledge he only brought over Egyptian manuscripts, and that he looks on the alleged discoveries as highly suspicious. Passing by this difficulty, there is the very great one of date. The best Biblical scholars are agreed that St. Matthew's gospel was written in Hebrew,
and the pretension of Nicholas the Deacon in the Codex iiingerianus to write from St. Matthew's dictation is therefore a little at variance with the results of philolou. The form of subscription, "the writing by the hand of Nicholas the Deacon at the dictation of Matthew, the Apostle of Jesus Christ," is without any parallel in the Bible or the apocryphal New Testaments ; and the instances Dr. Simonides quotes in support are unfortunately all drawn from other discoveries of his own. Even the Greek of the subscription is suspicious. It goes on to say that "it was done in the fifteenth year after the ascension of our Lord, and was distributed to the believino. Greeks and Jews in Palestine." Here the word "distributed "-87..S— seems rather to belong to a multiplication of copies than to one in particular, and the word employed for Ascension, or rather Assump- tion, lwalorins, is not a New Testament word in this technical sense, and was employed in other very different uses during the first century. It crept into theological Greek by the side of engicrrarris, from the analogous meaning of its verb anakanSsivro. But every scholar will un- derstand why the use of the verb is likely to have preceded that of the noun. We do not consider these points conclusive, but they are sug- gestive. The difficulties of believmg that the Gospel was dictated in Greek by an unlettered Jew to a proselyte of Antioch, whom tradi- tion, moreover, accuses of heresy, and that the original copy written for the Jews and Greeks in Palestine was preserved in Egypt, apparently in a coffin, need hardly be commented on. We do not purpose to go at length through fragments which we regard as absolutely worthless. The forger, whoever he be, has mostly confined himself to little unimportant emendations, the insertion of an epithet or an adverb. One is certainly ingenious : it is an attempt to explain the famous passage of the camel going through the needle's eye by reading kciXor, cable, for wiioiXor, camel; but it is not necessary for the sense, and if it were, it is not more ingenious than the taipAXer of Suidas. Perhaps the most important are the interpolations in the 27th of SL Matthew, giving Pempcle as the name of Pilate's wife,, and substituting for the common ver- sion, "I have suffered many things this day in a dream," a fuller reading, "I have suffered many things because of him during the past mght, and have seen many things in a waking vision this day concerning the very same person." Here we suspect the emenda- tion has arisen from a desire to correct the apparent inconsistency of the terms "dream" and "day ;" the same intention shows itself in the apocryphal Gospel of Nieodemus, which reads, "I have suf- fered much concerning him in a vision this night." It reclaims only to notice the fac-similes of the pretended manuscripts. Of course, no one but an expert can do full- justice to them and the first care of Dr. &wracks should have been to procure the opinions of men who have made the reading of manuscripts a profession. We desire to be understood as speaking with reserve on a subject where only a few scholars can speak with authority. But there is one pretty cer- tain test for trying a manuscript. If it be genuine, the style of writing will be uniform, and the letters, commonly speaking, will be formed in the same way. On the other hand, a forger dims not often confine himself to one book, one century, or one model, and, writing artificially and under dread of detection, is fond of copying letters and words wherever he can find them, instead of adhering to a single character. A slight inspection will show that the Codex Mayertanns presents this suspicious feature. It is difficult for letters so simple as the Greek capital letters to be written with greater differences than they show in the fac-similes Dr. Simonides has edited.
It remains to be considered whether Dr. Simonides's antecedents are such as to iu.spire a confidence Which cannot be derived from an inspection of the fac-similes. He has sold some genuine manuscripts to the British Museum, and, we believe, to other institutions, and has offered others for sale which have been at once pronounced spurious by the _ i
persons best qualified to judge.. It is evident, there- fore, that his judgment in these matters s not unimpeachable. As a discoverer he has been even less successful. One of his first sue- cesses was to disinter an ancient codex of Homer, in which it ap- peared, on examination, that all the last results of German criticism had been incorporated. A later discovery of a history of Egypt, by Thanius of Alexandria, was tested critically by Mr. Coxe and Sir F. Madden, and microscopically by Professor Ehrenberg, and irrevo- cably condemned. It Ls, of course, possible that Dr. Shnonides is tracked by a malignant fate that perpetually throws forged realm- scriPta in his way ; and if so, he is entitled to our fullest sym- pathy, but after so many failures he can never command our con- fidence. Moreover, whatever his knowledge of palimpsests may be, it is evident that he is not a critical scholar : in the notes of his very first page he quotes from Suidas a derivation of eciedapos (nciodon, pis), which is alone sufficient to condemn hint. Neither has he, apparently, even a superficial knowledge of the history of science, for he professes to believe that photography and gun-cotton were Greek discoveries of the fifth century.. Now, matters of this sort may be pretty certainly determined. In the first place, we know the Greek pharrnacopceia, and know that it was singularly wanting in mineral medicines generally, and in particular that nitric and sul- phuric acids, with which gun-cotton is made/ and hydrochloric acid, which enters largely through its compowids into phetography, cannot be traced back further than to the seventh century, while Iodine, the most important of all, dates, in all its forms, from the present century. Even if these materials were known, it is hardly probable that they would be much experimented with in the general scarcity of glass. It is true that light has some power on paper steeped in a solution of the sesqui-oxide of iron, but its effects are so slight that they would not readily be noticed, and cannot in any true sense be called photography. That native chloride of silver was employed is at least unlikely from the fact that it has no Greek name. Even, therefore, if M.Daguerre found and read the great chemical treatise of Mount Athos, it is scarcely probable that he can have derived much information from it. Dr. Simonides will gain a few hints for the better editing his future discoveries if he will study an account by the late M. Edgar Poe, of a dialogue between .a galvanized mummy and some American gentle- men on the respective claims of ancient and modern science. We are half tempted, in looking back on Dr. Simonides's past labours, to speculate whether after all he may not be a good-natured cynic, who is content to promote public happiness at the expense of evangelical credulity, We have heard of a gentleman who, much in the same spirit, supplied autographs of distinguished characters in any numbers to his friends, till he at last lost their confidence by giving John the Baptist's signature in English. No doubt Mr. Mayer, who feund himself suddenly rich in antiquities, and the worthy clergymen and laymen who believed that their knowledge of God's Word was to be increased, were more happy in the delusion than they will be in its exposure. But the unctuous piety of the language Dr. Simonides employs forbids any serious idea that be has been making the Bible food for jest. Besides, he would hardly threaten law proceedings against all who impugn his veracity if he were only bantering the public. Having once shown the Codex Mayerienum to be a forgery, we are quite uninterested in throwing the guilt upon any one, and are contented to leave it to Dr. Simonides to point out the real criminal who is afflicted with palceo-grapho-mania. But it will be wise in him to remember that a whole press cannot be intimidated.
Previous page
