Stolen Codex?

Soon after the British Museum bought from the Soviet Government its famed Codex Sinaiticus (TIME, Jan. 1), a campaign was begun to raise half the cost ($511,250) by public subscription. The Codex's vellum pages of Old and New Testament in Greek were placed on view in the British Museum. Peering at them an old lady cackled: "Have they ever been translated?"

"Yes, madam," replied an attendant. "You will find the King James Version an excellent translation."

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 to the British Museum. The Archbishop demanded the Codex back, or else "substantial recognition" of its loss.

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