THE CODEX SINAITICUS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
was re-reading this morning The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, by Burgon and Miller, and was amused to come across the following passage. The coincidence of the Dean's having mentioned the very sum we have paid for the Codex is interesting. It must have been written before 1888, the date of Dean Burgon's death. The passage occurs in an imaginary dialogue between the Dean and a Bible Student, and runs as follows (p. 75) :
" BIBLE STUDENT : Do you deny that B and Aleph aro the most precious moi.uments of their class in existence 1'
"Tim DEAN: 'So far from denying I eagerly assert they are. Were they offered for sale tomorrow they would command s. fabulous sum. They might fetch, perhaps, £100,000. For ought I know or care they may be worth it. More than one cotton spinner is worth, or possibly several times as much.' "
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