TISCHENDORF, Lobegott (Aenotheus), Friedrich Constantin von. - Protestant bibliographer, b. at Lengenfeld near Zwickau in Saxony on 18 Jan. 1815, d. at Leipzig on 7 Dec. 1874. Extraordinary professor in 1845, he was ordinary professor of New Testament and of biblical paleography, a chair created expressly for him in 1859; but his academic activity was slight.
He attended the Gymnasium of Plauen (1829-34), then studied theology at Leipzig (1834-38) and acquired a solid classical and New Testament scholarship. He was influenced especially by the professor Johann Georg Benedikt Winer (1798-1858), who carried out solid research in New Testament philology in the greatest veneration for the Bible. While Strauss (v.), whom T. called Luftbildner ("creator of phantoms"), attacked the genuineness of the Gospels, T. remained entirely faithful to that genuineness and with all the aids of modern science devoted himself to re-establishing the most ancient, original text of the Bible, and still as a student he applied himself to studies of textual criticism, which he continued when he taught at the Erziehungsanstalt of the pastor Zehme. On his return to Leipzig in 1839-40, he composed the thesis for his habilitation, which then formed the Prolegomena to his first edition of the Greek New Testament (Leipzig 1841), in which he subjected to rather severe criticism the Greek New Testament edited by the Catholic professor of Bonn J. M. Augustin Scholz (1794-1852), which was nevertheless a remarkable work for those times (it appeared in 1830 and 1856); for Scholz had followed the most numerous testimonies regarding individual variants and had thus arrived at a text close to the Byzantine textus receptus, departing from it only rarely on the testimony of the majuscule codices then known. T., on the other hand, following in the footsteps of the Englishman Richard Bentley (1662-1742), maintained that it was necessary to free oneself from that textus receptus, which has come down to us in the vast majority of minuscule codices, in order to return to the genuine script of the majuscule codices. From this followed for him the lifelong purpose of tracking down those most ancient codices, studying them and using them for ever more perfect critical editions, and thus reconstructing the original text.
Besides many other things, he edited no fewer than 24 texts of the Greek New Testament, which he divided into eight editions, based on his principal recensions of the New Testament. Here is the scheme: rec. A: Leipzig 1841, Koehleriana (I); Paris 1842, Didot "catholic gr. lat.", minor edition (II); Paris 1842, Didot "non-catholic" (III); rec. B: Leipzig 1849, Winter (IV); Leipzig 1849, Tauchnitz (V); Leipzig 1854, Mendelssohniana gr.-lat. Germ.; ibid. 1855, 1857, 1861, 1864, 1867, 1870, ed. academica; ibid. 1858, Mendelssohniana gr. lat.; ibid. 1862, Tauchnitz (VI); Leipzig 1854, Mendelssohniana gr.-Germ.; ibid. 1865, Mendelssohniana triglotta, 2nd ed. (VI); rec. C: Leipzig 1859, Winteriana ed. 7th maior; ed. minor (VII); rec. D: Leipzig 1869-72 Hinrichs ed. 8th maior; 1872 ed. minor; ibid. 1873, Tauchnitz 3rd ed.; ibid. 1873, Mendelssohniana, ed. academica; ibid. 1873, Brockhaus (VIII).
He began his research in Paris, from Oct. 1841 to Jan. 1843. He became famous by deciphering the Codex Ephraem rescriptus, a palimpsest studied only with partial success by others (ed. Leipzig 1843-45, 2 vols.); moreover he devoted himself to the Codex Claromontanus (ibid. 1852); to earn his living he agreed to collate other manuscripts, and he prepared the two Paris editions of 1842, perfecting them with new readings found in the codices he analyzed. One of those, in the opinion of J. N. Jager, is called "the catholic" one, and T. in the prolegomena of the 7th ed. maior (pp. cxxiv-cxxvii) dwells on the reasons that led him to make it; that is, besides the desire to promote the study of the Bible among Catholics, the fact that in the Vulgate much of the Vetus latina remained, closely dependent on the Greek text, so that the Vulgate virtually contains a codex close to those most ancient majuscules that he was seeking. It is called catholic because among the various readings it always chooses the one that is close to the text of the Vulgate, the version authorized for Catholics, and gives a "vulgatized" Greek text. From the Catholic point of view, such an edition can at most have some usefulness for a critical apparatus of the Vulgate of the New Testament.
From Paris T. in 1843 went to Italy, stopping at Turin, Milan, Venice, Modena, Florence, Rome, Naples, always in pursuit of manuscripts. The fruit of this is the edition of the Codex Amiatinus (Leipzig 1850, 2nd ed. 1854); he had the Codex Vaticanus in his hands for only six hours at Rome, despite the benevolence of Gregory XVI (v.), because
Cardinal Angelo Mai (v.) had an edition of it ready, but he examined it later in 1866 once more at Rome, and published the Novum Testamentum Vaticanum post Angelum Mai aliosque imperfectos labores ex ipso codice (Leipzig 1867).
In 1844 T. set out for the East, where, among other acquisitions or transcriptions of codices, he discovered, copied and acquired the Codex Sinaiticus; he described that discovery in Reise in den Orient (2 vols., Leipzig 1845-46), and in Aus dem Lande der Bibel (ibid. 1862); but he had to struggle against calumnies concerning him: Anfechtungen der Sinaibibel (ibid. 1863); Waffen der Finsternis wider die Sinaibibel (ibid. 1863); Die Sinaibibel (ibid. 1871); C. R. Gregory (Prolegomena..., Leipzig 1894, pp. 279-361, and Textkritik, ibid. 1900-1902, pp. 12-29, 971-80), who composed the prolegomena to the Octava critica maior, had to obtain documents from the Tsarist Ministry of Foreign Affairs to document that T. had not stolen that treasure from the monks of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai. Of that precious codex, in 1844 he had saved 43 pages from the flames (published as Codex Friderico-Augustanus, Leipzig 1846), and copied another; in 1853 he remained several weeks with the monks without finding any further trace of it; in 1859, on the point of leaving, he saw the other leaves in a red cloth near the monastery's steward and copied during the night the whole Shepherd of Hermas (v.), whose Greek text had been lost in the West. Then at Cairo, at the monastery on which that of Sinai depended, after delicate negotiations, he was able to copy, quire by quire, the 110,000 lines of that codex. There followed a decade of negotiations between the Tsar and the monks, and the codex was able to pass into the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, until the Bolsheviks sold it to the Bodleian Library of Oxford (1935). Already in 1862 T. had prepared at Leipzig a great edition of it in 4 vols., and a Nov. Test. Sinaiticum. From the Sinaiticus derives the great difference between the Ed. 7th maior, closer to the textus receptus, and the Ed. 8th critica maior, the best for the richness of its apparatus. It is human, however, that T. somewhat exaggerates the value, though extraordinarily great, of that codex.
T. also occupied himself with apocrypha, and as a good Lutheran he also sought manuscripts useful to the Protestant cause. Here is the list of his major publications, among which is also found the text of 29 majuscule codices, including 14 palimpsests, with which he enriched biblical scholarship: Monumenta sacra inedita (Leipzig 1846); Evangelium Palatinum ineditum (ibid. 1847); Vetus Testamentum Graece sec. LXX interpretes (2 vols., ibid. 1850, 1862, 1873; he would have produced a more updated edition, had he not been forestalled by death); De Evangeliorum apocryphorum origine et usu (The Hague 1851); Acta Apostolorum apocrypha (Leipzig 1851); Synopsis evangelica (ibid. 1851, 1864, 1871, 1878: with the Greek text ever more emended); Evangelia apocrypha (ibid. 1853): Von der Wahllat Christi (a Roman manuscript attesting the Protestant doctrine of justification, ibid. 1855); Anecdota sacra et profana (ibid. 1855); Hermae Pastor Graece (ibid. 1856); Monumenta sacra inedita: Nova collectio (ibid. 1857-70: 9 vols., though vols. VII and VIII are missing); Nov. Test. Latine, Textum Hieronymi... (ibid. 1864); Apocalypses apocryphae (ibid. 1866); Philonea inedita altera (ibid. 1868); Clementis Romani epistulae (ibid. 1872); Biblia s. Vet. Test. Hieronymi interprete (ibid. 1873). For other works cf. C. R. Gregory, Prolegomena (ibid. 1894), pp. 7-22.
When, shortly after 1860, Renan's Life of Jesus (which T. calls "Zerrbildner," "distorter") and Strauss's popular one (v.) were published, T. defended the authenticity of the New Testament in two writings: Wann wurden unsere Evangelien verfasst? (4 German editions, very many translations; Leipzig 1865, etc.); Haben wir den ächten Schrifttext der Evangelisten und Apostel? (ibid. 1873).
T. enjoyed in his lifetime the favor even of Catholics; nevertheless his polemics show that in fact he had understood little of Catholicism. He was hailed as a giant in the struggle against the subverters of the Bible; and the critical apparatus of his Octava critica maior has not yet been surpassed. His theoretical principles of textual criticism, however, have been surpassed: it is no longer enough to collate the oldest codices; one must investigate more thoroughly the history of the text, its ramifications into various families. Minuscule codices of value equal to some majuscules have been discovered. The material, moreover, has greatly increased, especially thanks to the biblical papyri (v.), and the ancient biblical versions now provide new useful materials. The number of majuscules themselves has also increased, with the discovery, for example, of the codex of Koridethi.
When the Apparatus criticus internationalis, which is being prepared by American scholars on the manuscripts according to the most advanced textual criticism, is published, it will certainly constitute a better working tool than T.'s Octava critica maior; but this will detract nothing from T.'s merits in the history of textual criticism and in the defense of the Bible.
Bibliography3 works
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