TISCHENDORF, LOBEGOTT (Aenotheus), FRIEDRICH CONSTANTIN von. — Protestant biblical scholar, born at Lengenfeld near Zwickau in Saxony on 18 January 1815, died at Leipzig on 7 December 1874. He became an extraordinary professor in 1845 and was later appointed to the chair of New Testament and Biblical Palaeography, a position created specifically for him in 1859; however, his academic activity was limited.
He attended the Gymnasium in Plauen (1829–34), then studied theology at Leipzig (1834–38), acquiring a solid grounding in classical and New Testament scholarship. He was particularly influenced by Professor Johann Georg Benedikt Winer (1798–1858), who conducted thorough philological research on the New Testament with the utmost reverence for the Bible. STRAUSS, D (v.), whom T. called a *Luftbildner* (“phantom-monger”), attacked the authenticity of the Gospels, T. remained entirely faithful to their genuineness and, with all the resources of modern scholarship, devoted himself to restoring the most ancient, even original, text of the Bible. Even as a student, he engaged in textual criticism, which he continued when teaching at the educational institution run by Pastor Zehme. Upon his return to Leipzig in 1839–40, he composed the thesis for his habilitation, which later formed the *Prolegomena* to his first edition of the Greek New Testament (Leipzig 1841). In this work, he subjected the Greek New Testament edited by the Catholic professor J. M. Augustin Scholz (1794–1852) of Bonn—a work nonetheless remarkable for its time (published in 1830 and 1836)—to rather severe criticism. Scholz had followed the majority of witnesses regarding individual variants and thus arrived at a text close to the Byzantine *textus receptus*, deviating from it only rarely based on the testimony of the then-known majuscule manuscripts. T., following the English scholar Richard Bentley (1662–1742), argued that one had to free oneself from that *textus receptus*, which had come down to us in the overwhelming majority of minuscule manuscripts, in order to return to the genuine truth of the majuscule codices. This led him to dedicate his life to tracing those most ancient manuscripts, studying them, and using them for ever more refined critical editions, thereby reconstructing the original text.
Among many other works, he produced no fewer than 24 editions of the Greek New Testament, divided into eight main recensions, as follows: recension A: Leipzig 1841, *Kochleriana* (I); Paris 1842, Didot “Catholic Greek-Latin,” minor edition (II); Paris 1842, Didot “non-Catholic” (III); recension B: Leipzig 1849, Winter (IV); Leipzig 1849, Tauchnitz (V); Leipzig 1854, Mendelssohnian Greek-Latin; there 1855, 1857, 1861, 1864, 1867, 1870, academic edition; there 1858, Mendelssohnian Greek-Latin; there 1862, Tauchnitz 2nd ed.; there 1864, Mendelssohnian Greek-German; there 1865, Mendelssohnian trilingual, 2nd ed. (VI); recension C: Leipzig 1859, Winter 7th major ed.; minor edition (VII); recension D: Leipzig 1869–72, Hinrichs 8th major ed.; 1872 minor ed.; there 1873, Tauchnitz 3rd ed.; there 1873, Mendelssohnian academic edition; there 1873, Brockhaus (VIII).
He began his research in Paris from October 1841 to January 1843. He became famous for deciphering the *Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus*, a palimpsest that others had studied only partially (ed. Leipzig 1843–45, 2 vols.); he also worked on the *Codex Chisianus* (ibid. 1852). To earn a living, he accepted commissions to collate other manuscripts and prepared the two Paris editions of 1842, refining them with new readings from the manuscripts he examined. One of these, prepared in accordance with the opinion of J. N. Jäger, is called “the Catholic” edition, and in the *Prolegomena* to the 7th major edition (pp. cxxiv–cxxvii), T. explains the reasons that led him to produce it; namely, in addition to the desire to promote the study of the Bible among Catholics, the fact that the Vulgate preserves much of the Old Latin, which is closely dependent on the Greek text, so that the Vulgate virtually contains a text close to those most ancient majuscule codices he sought. It is called “Catholic” because, among the various readings, it always selects the one closest to the text of the Vulgate, the authorized Catholic version, and presents a “vulgatized” Greek text. From a Catholic perspective, such an edition may at best be of some use for a critical apparatus of the Vulgate of the New Testament.
From Paris, T. traveled to Italy in 1843, stopping in Turin, Milan, Venice, Modena, Florence, Rome, and Naples, always in search of manuscripts. The result was his edition of the *Codex Amiatinus* (Leipzig 1850, 2nd ed. 1854). He had only six hours with the *Codex Vaticanus* in Rome, despite the kindness of Gregory XVI (v.), MAGI (v.) was already preparing an edition of II. However, T. examined it again in Rome in 1866 and published *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 and transcriptions of manuscripts, he discovered, copied, and acquired the Codex Sinaiticus. He described this discovery in *Reise in den Orient* (2 vols., Leipzig 1845–46) and in *Aus dem Lande der Bibel* (ibid. 1862); however, he had to contend with slanders directed against 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 compiled the *Prolegomena* to the *Octava critica maior*, had to obtain documents from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to prove that T. had not stolen this treasure from the monks of St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai. Of this precious codex, in 1844 he saved 43 pages from the flames (published as *Codex Friderico-Augustanus*, Leipzig 1846) and copied another; in 1853 he spent several weeks with the monks without finding it again; in 1859, as he was leaving, he saw the remaining leaves wrapped in red cloth in the monastery’s sacristy and copied the entire *Shepherd of Hermas* (v.) that night, whose Greek text had been lost in the West. Then, in Cairo, at the monastery that governed that of Sinai, after delicate negotiations, he was able to copy, quire by quire, the 110,000 lines of that codex. This led to a decade of negotiations between the Tsar and the monks, and the codex was transferred to the Imperial Library in St. Petersburg, until the Bolsheviks sold it to the Bodleian Library in Oxford (1935). Already in 1862, T. had prepared a large four-volume edition in Leipzig and a *Novum Testamentum Sinaiticum*. The great difference between the 7th major edition, closer to the *textus receptus*, and the 8th critical major edition, richer in its critical apparatus, stems from the Sinaitic Codex. Yet it is only human that T. somewhat exaggerated the value, however extraordinary, of that codex.
T. also concerned himself with apocryphal texts, and as a good Lutheran, he sought manuscripts useful to the Protestant cause. Here is a list of his major publications, including the text of 29 majuscule codices, among which 14 were palimpsests, which he enriched biblical scholarship with: *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 published a more updated edition had he not been prevented by death; *De Evangeliorum apocryphorum origine et usu* (The Hague 1851); *Acta Apostolorum apocrypha* (Leipzig 1851); *Synopsis evangelica* (ibid. 1851, 1864, 1871, 1878: always with an increasingly corrected Greek text); *Evangelia apocrypha* (ibid. 1853); *Von der Wohltat Christi* (a Roman manuscript attesting to the Protestant doctrine of justification, ibid. 1855); *Ancédota 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); *Philomena inedita altera* (ibid. 1868); *Clementis Romani epistulae* (ibid. 1872); *Biblia s. Vet. Test. Hieronymo 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. called a “Zerrbildner,” a “distorter”) and Strauss’s popular work (v.) were published, T. defended the authenticity of the New Testament in two writings: *Wann wurden unsere Evangelien verfasst?* (4 German editions, many translations; Leipzig 1865, etc.); *Haben wir den üchten Schrifttest der Evangelisten und Apostel?* (ibid. 1873).
T. enjoyed favor even among Catholics during his lifetime, yet his polemics show that in fact he had little understanding of Catholicism. He was hailed as a giant in
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**TISIO, Jozef** – Monsignor J. T. at the moment of delivering his defense before the People’s Tribunal (17-18 March 1947) – Bratislava.
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**TISIO, Jozef** – Priest and politician, b. 13 Oct. 1857, at Vel’ká Bytča, d. 18 Apr. 1947 at Bratislava.
From a farming family, he completed his studies in Žilina, Nitra, and at the *Pazmanium* in Vienna, where he earned a degree in theology. Ordained a priest in 1910, he began his apostolate in various places as a curate, then became secretary to the bishop of Nitra and spiritual director at the seminary. In 1924 he was appointed parish priest and later dean at Bárovce nad Bebravou, a position he held until his death. Soon he joined Hlinka (v.) in the public and political activity of the Slovak People’s Party, whose program included national autonomy and the safeguarding of Catholic principles. Elected deputy (1925), in 1927 he became minister of public health in the Prague government. In 1929 he joined the Party in opposition, which he led after Hlinka’s death (1938). On 6 Oct. 1938 he proclaimed Slovak autonomy in Žilina and became president of the autonomous government in Bratislava. On 14 March 1939 the Slovak Parliament decreed national independence. T. immediately assumed the presidency of the Council of Ministers, and in October of the same year he took office as president of the State. He governed the country until 1945, then fled to Germany. Handed over by the Allies to the Prague government, he was con-
**TITANS** – Gigantomachy. 2nd-century AD sarcophagus inspired by Hellenistic originals of the 2nd century BC – Vatican, Gallery of Statues.
demned to death by a People’s Tribunal and hanged in Bratislava.
T. was an exemplary priest of blameless life; as head of state he retained the office of parish priest at Bánovce. He devoted himself to politics out of necessity, since at the beginning of the century the clergy were almost the only ones left to defend the rights of the Slovak people; thus he was loved as a father by all. Slovakia during T.’s government made great progress in cultural, economic, and social spheres, demonstrating its national self-sufficiency. Especially noteworthy is T.’s social doctrine and practice, in accordance with papal encyclicals. His government had the dignity of being obstructed by war and Bolshevik interference.
A few hours before his death, he dictated to the priest attending him his spiritual testament, saying among other things: “I die as a martyr of the natural law given by God to every people to promote its freedom and as a defender of Christian civilization against communism.”