6 FEBRUARY 1932, Page 18

MSS. AND U.S.S.R.

(To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.) SIR,—The Monastery on Mount Sinai was dedicated to St. Catherine, the Patron Saint who was broken on the wheel during the Roman occupation of Egypt. The great feature of the Convent is the Library in which are stored an enormous number of illuminated manuscripts of great age. The most famous manuscript is the Codex Sinaiticeus, which.is of untold value as it helped to form the translation of the Rooks of the New Testament This manuscript was " aequiriml" by the" Russian Government in 1859. Exactly host it changed-hands is not knowri. 'Before the Great War it was in the Museum

at St. Petersburg or Petrograd—now Leningrad;' '

Is anyone able to say definitely what is its fate in these- Bolshevik days? The Codex Sinaitiems (" Aleph ") dates back to A.D. 400 and there are various MS. copies of the different Books of the Bible illustrated in colour that are attributed to the eighth and ninth centuries.—I am, Sir, Tninninen linbciumwasi.

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