Constantin Von Tischendorf - Life

Life

Tischendorf was born in Lengenfeld, Saxony, near Plauen, the son of a physician. Beginning in 1834, he spent his scholarly career at the University of Leipzig where he was mainly influenced by JGB Winer, and he began to take special interest in New Testament criticism. Winer's influence gave him the desire to use the oldest manuscripts in order to compile the text of the New Testament as close to the original as possible. In 1838 he took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, then became master at a school near Leipzig.

After a journey through southern Germany and Switzerland, and a visit to Strassburg, he returned to Leipzig, and set to work upon a critical study of the New Testament text. In 1840 he qualified as university lecturer in theology with a dissertation on the recensions of the New Testament text — the main part of which reappeared the following year in the prolegomena to his first edition of the Greek New Testament. His critical apparatus included variant readings from earlier scholars — Elsevier, Knapp, Scholz, and as recent as Lachmann — whereby his researches were emboldened to depart from the received text as used in churches.

These early textual studies convinced him of the absolute necessity of new and more exact collations of manuscripts. From October 1840 until January 1843 he was in Paris, busy with the treasures of the Bibliothèque Nationale, eking out his scanty means by making collations for other scholars, and producing for the publisher, Firmin Didot, several editions of the Greek New Testament — one of them exhibiting the form of the text corresponding most closely to the Vulgate. His second edition retracted the more precarious readings of the first, and included a statement of critical principles that is a landmark for evolving critical studies of Biblical texts.

From Paris, he had paid short visits to the Netherlands (1841) and England (1842). In 1843 he visited Italy, and after a stay of thirteen months, went on to Egypt, Sinai, and the Levant, returning by Vienna and Munich. In 1844, he paid his first visit to the convent of Saint Catherine's Monastery, on Mount Sinai, where he found, in a trash basket, forty-four pages of what was the then oldest known copy of the Septuagint. The monks were using the trash to start fires, Tischendorf horrified, asked if he could have them. He deposited them at the University of Leipzig, under the title of the Codex Friderico-Augustanus, a name given in honour of his patron, Frederick Augustus II of Saxony, king of Saxony. The fragments were published in 1846 although he kept the place of discovery a secret.

A great triumph of these laborious months was the decipherment of the palimpsest Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus, of which the New Testament part was printed before he left Paris, and the Old Testament in 1845. His success in dealing with a manuscript that, having been rewritten with other works of Ephrem the Syrian, had been mostly illegible to earlier collators, made him more well known, and gained support for more extended critical expeditions. He now became professor extraordinarius at Leipzig, and married (1845). He also began to publish an account of his travels in the East (2 vols., 1845–46).

In the winter of 1849 appeared the great work now titled Novum Testamentum Graece. Ad antiquos testes recensuit, Apparatum Criticum multis modis canons of criticism, adding examples of their application that are applicable to students today:

Basic rule: "The text is only to be sought from ancient evidence, and especially from Greek manuscripts, but without neglecting the testimonies of versions and fathers."

1. "A reading altogether peculiar to one or another ancient document is suspicious; as also is any, even if supported by a class of documents, which seems to evince that it has originated in the revision of a learned man."
2. "Readings, however well supported by evidence, are to be rejected, when it is manifest (or very probable) that they have proceeded from the errors of copyists."
3. "In parallel passages, whether of the New or Old Testament, especially in the Synoptic Gospels, which ancient copyists continually brought into increased accordance, those testimonies are preferable, in which precise accordance of such parallel passages is not found; unless, indeed, there are important reasons to the contrary."
4. "In discrepant readings, that should be preferred which may have given occasion to the rest, or which appears to comprise the elements of the others."
5. "Those readings must be maintained which accord with New Testament Greek, or with the particular style of each individual writer."

These were partly the result of the tireless travels he had begun in 1839 in search of unread manuscripts of the New Testament, "to clear up in this way," he wrote, "the history of the sacred text, and to recover if possible the genuine apostolic text which is the foundation of our faith."

In 1850 appeared his edition of the Codex Amiatinus (in 1854 corrected) and of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament (7th ed., 1887); in 1852, amongst other works, his edition of the Codex Claromontanus.

In 1853, he made a second trip to the Syrian monastery but made no new discoveries. He returned a third time in January 1859 under the patronage of Czar Alexander II of Russia to find more of the Codex Frederico-Augustanus or similar ancient Biblical texts. On February 4, the last day of his visit, he was shown a text which he recognized as significant — the Codex Sinaiticus — a Greek manuscript of the complete New Testament and parts of the Old Testament dating to the 4th century.

In 1859 he made a third voyage to the East. There, with the active aid of the Russian government, he at length got access to the remainder of the precious Sinaitic codex, and persuaded the monks to present it to Tsar Alexander II of Russia, at whose cost it was published in 1862 (in four folio volumes). By those ignorant of the details of his discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus, Tischendorf was accused of buying manuscripts from ignorant monastery librarians at low prices. Indeed he was never rich, but he staunchly defended the rights of the monks at St. Catherine's Monastery when he persuaded them eventually to send the manuscript to the Tsar. Even so, the monks of Mt. Sinai still display a letter from Tischendorf promising to return the manuscript to them. In 1869 the tsar awarded him the style of "von" Tischendorf as a Russian noble. Thus the Codex found its way to the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg. In 1933, the Soviet Government sold the Codex Sinaiticus for 100,000 pounds to the British Museum in London, England.

Meanwhile, also in 1859, he had been made professor ordinarius of theology and of Biblical paleography, this latter professorship being specially created for him; and another book of travel, Aus dem heiligen Lande, appeared in 1862. Tischendorf's Eastern journeys were rich enough in other discoveries to merit the highest praise.

Besides his fame as a scholar, he was a friend of both Robert Schumann, with whom he corresponded, and Felix Mendelssohn, who dedicated a song to him. His text critical colleague Samuel Prideaux Tregelles wrote warmly of their mutual interest in textual scholarship. His personal library, purchased after his death, eventually came to the University of Glasgow, where a commemorative exhibition of books from his library was held in 1974.

He died in Leipzig.