CHAPTER XVI

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FACTS RELATING TO THE CONSERVATION, AND LATE RECOVERY, OF SOME ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS.

Some of the most ancient, and the most valuable of the manuscripts which at present enrich the British Museum, have been very lately acquired, being the product of the researches of learned travellers in Egypt, and in the islands of the Ægæan Sea, and the countries bordering upon it. These researches and these journeys have been undertaken expressly for the purpose, and with the hope of discovering, and of bringing away, some of those literary treasures which were known, or believed, to lie neglected, and almost forgotten, in the now dilapidated monasteries of Egypt and Greece. This hope has, to some extent, been realized, and these labours rewarded; as we may now briefly mention.

The desolate region which stretches away far to the west on the parallel of the Delta of the Nile, bears the marks of having been, at some remote period, and to a great extent, covered with water. The remains of this dried-up sea still appear, as small lakes, filling the cavities among the rugged hills that skirt the desert toward the valley of the Nile. Upon the margins of these lakes is found the Natron, which may be called natural salt-soap, and whence, also, large quantities of pure nitre are obtained. These lakes have received their designation from this natural product.

The district, NITRIA, is frequently mentioned by ancient authors; as by Strabo (Book xvii.) and by Pliny (Book xxxi. 46), and again by the Church writers of the fourth and following centuries; especially by those of them who speak of the monastic institutions of their own times. Around these dreary waters the monks of that time established themselves in great numbers;--so many, indeed, that the emperor Valens, thinking that he could find a more useful employment for them than that of reciting the Psalter, enlisted as many as five thousand of them in his legions. But here, notwithstanding disturbances of this kind, these recluses continued to find a refuge from the world, and its temptations--or so they thought; and here, by the aid of grants from some of the better-minded of the emperors, or of opulent and religious persons, many religious houses were constructed; some of them being of ample dimensions, and so built as to be capable of resisting the attacks of the marauders of the desert; and as their precincts included spacious gardens, they might, for lengths of time, support the frugal life of their inmates, even if besieged.

As to these establishments,[5] we find incidental notices of them sufficient to assure us that, in some, if not in all of them, the copying of books afforded occupation to a class of their inmates; and that this was the fact, we now have evidence in the results of the researches above referred to. In some instances there has been enough of continuous life in a decaying monastery, even though the building may seem to be little better than a huge ruin, to maintain the “Copying-room” in some activity. In others, where a score of monks, or even fewer, have slumbered away their term of years, they have yet retained a vague traditionary belief in the value of the manuscripts which they knew to lie, in heaps, in some cell or vault, never visited, by themselves. In some cases the books, which had been huddled away from the library in a moment of danger, when an enemy was under the walls, have remained--safe and forgotten, in their concealment--perhaps for centuries. Thus it has been that--by the intellectual activity of one age, by the slumbering or the inert industry of the next period, and at length, by the utter mindlessness of centuries--the precious products of the ancient world have been conserved for our use in this age. May we not well notice and admire that providential interposition which, in these varying and precarious modes, has made us the inheritors of the wealth of the remotest times!

Among those modern travellers who have prosecuted these researches, one of the most eminent is the learned Tischendorff, whose labours in the field of Biblical criticism have become known to all readers in that line. This accomplished traveller directed his attention especially to the monasteries of the Natron Lakes. He visited them by joining himself to a caravan proceeding from Cairo to the Italian settlement, Castello Cibara.--“Shortly after daybreak,” he says, “we saw in the distance upon the left, in the middle of the Desert, a lofty stone wall, and still further on, a second. These were two of the Coptic monasteries. Presently afterwards one of the salt lakes glittered in the distance, with its obscure reddish blue waters, and a flock of flamingoes sprung out of its reeds. Upon the right was the Castello Cibara; in the background the low Libyan hills formed a dark-red border to the whole scene. About nine in the morning we reached our destination, and I found in the midst of the Desert a hospitable hearth.” What follows, although not closely related to our immediate subject, is not very remotely connected with it; and a few sentences further may be cited.

“In the afternoon we made an excursion to the fields and lakes of nitre. What a singular scene! In the midst of this sandy waste, where uniformity is rarely interrupted by grass or shrubs, there are extensive districts where nitre springs from the earth like crystallized fruits. One thinks he sees a wild, overgrown with moss, weeds, and shrubs, thickly covered with hoar frost. And to imagine this winter scene beneath the fervid heat of an Egyptian sun, will give some idea of the strangeness of its aspect.

“The existence of this nitre upon the sandy surface is caused by the evaporation of the lakes.... The nitre lakes themselves, six in number, situated in a spacious valley, between two rows of low sandhills, presented a pleasing contrast, in their dark blue and red colours, to the dull hues of the sand.... There are four Coptic monasteries at the distance of a few leagues apart. Ruins and monasteries, and heaps of rubbish, I observed scattered in great numbers throughout the district. I was told that there were formerly about three hundred Coptic monasteries in this desert.... Both externally and internally, these monasteries closely resemble one another. Sometimes square, at others in the form of a parallelogram, they are enclosed by walls tolerably high, and usually about one hundred feet long. From their centre a few palms frequently peer forth, for every monastery has a small garden within its circuit, and is also furnished with a tower slightly elevated above the walls, and containing a small bell.... Within the walls are seen nothing but old and dilapidated ruins, amongst which the monks find a habitation. The tower I have just described is insulated from the body of the monastery, and approachable only by means of a drawbridge supported on chains, offering thus an asylum against enemies, who may have mastered the monastery. This tower commands the entrance. The interior consists of a chapel, a well, a mill, an oven, and a store-room, all required in the event of a long siege, and the apartment assigned to the library.... Here and there, in the mural structure of the entrances to the cells and chapelries, we obtain a glimpse of the fragment of a marble pillar, or of a frieze, or some similar decoration. Thus has the sordid present been built out of the splendour and grandeur of the past.”

The scattered fragmentary remains of the architectural magnificence of a remote age may properly be regarded as so many attestations of those incidental notices of these same establishments which occur in the writers of that age; and thus it is that the literary evidence, touching the decaying and almost forgotten ancient manuscripts that have lately been dragged forth from their concealments, is found to consist well with the visible history of the structure wherein they have been so long conserved.

The learned traveller from whose journal the above citations have been made, had been anticipated in his search for manuscripts by several European scholars; and therefore it was little that he found available for his immediate purpose--the collation of manuscripts of the New Testament. What we are just now concerned with are those characteristics of Oriental stagnation and motionless decay, and of monastic persistence, which have been the very means of ensuring an undisturbed custody of literary treasures through the stormy passage of many centuries. The decrepit inmates of these ruins cherish the traditions of a more stirring time, and they are aided in doing so by the pictures of the saints and founders of those times. Some of these pictures are manifestly of great antiquity, and they have been conserved, with reverential regard, by each successive series of abbots and monks. Thus says Tischendorff:--

“The chief pictorial representations, in all the four monasteries (those visited by him), were those of St. Macarius and St. George. In the third, which bears the name of the Syrian, or the Virgin of the Syrians, St. Ephraim (Ephrem Syrus, whose voluminous writings are extant) is held in high honour. A tamarind-tree was there shown me, which had miraculously sprouted forth from the staff of St. Ephraim, who, upon entering the chapel, had stuck it into the ground outside. In the second, St. Ambeschun was represented as the patron. In the fourth, besides St. George, St. Theodore was represented on horseback, with the vanquished dragon beneath his feet.”

In speaking of the main object of his journey, the author says:--

“The special locality set apart for the library (in these buildings) is the tower chamber, which is accessible only by means of the drawbridge. No spot in the monastery could be safer from the visits of the fraternity than this. Here are seen (I speak of the first monastery) the manuscripts heaped indiscriminately together. Lying on the ground, or thrown into large baskets, beneath masses of dust, are found innumerable fragments of old, torn, and destroyed manuscripts. I saw nothing Greek; all was either Coptic, or Arabic; and in the third monastery I found some Syriac, together with a couple of leaves of Ethiopic. The majority of the MSS. are liturgical, though many are Biblical. From the fourth monastery (presently to be mentioned) the English have recently acquired an important collection of several hundred manuscripts for the British Museum, and that at a very small cost. The other monasteries contain certainly nothing of much consequence; yet much might be found to reward the labour of the search. The monks themselves understand extremely little about the matter. Not one among them, probably, is acquainted with Coptic, and they merely read mechanically the lessons of their ritual. The Arabic of the olden MSS. but few can read. Indeed, it is not easy to say what these monks know beyond the routine of their ordinary church service. Still their excessive suspicion renders it extremely difficult to induce them to produce their manuscripts, in spite of the extreme penury which surrounds them. Possibly they are controlled by the mandate of their patriarch. For my own part, I made a most lucky discovery of a multitude of Coptic parchment sheets of the sixth and seventh centuries, already half destroyed, and completely buried beneath a mass of dust. These were given to me without hesitation; but I paid for the discovery by severe pains in the throat, produced by the dust I had raised in the excessive heat.... The monks (taught at length to think much of the value of their literary treasures) are too much accustomed to the visits and to the gold of the English.”

Among these “English” whose visits and whose gold have spoiled the good monks of the Egyptian desert, one of the most noted is the Hon. Robert Curzon, jun., whose entertaining volume, published about ten years ago, has brought his amusing adventures to the knowledge of most people who read at all. Notwithstanding the notoriety of this distinguished traveller’s discoveries and his successes in the desert, it would be an omission of what is very pertinent to our argument, not to cite a few paragraphs from his account of his “Visits to Monasteries in the Levant.”

Preserved--a contradiction, as it may seem--by the very means of the neglect and ignorance, the stupidity and the recklessness, of those in whose custody they have been--the most valuable manuscripts have often been converted to the meanest purposes. A learned traveller, mentioned by Mr. Curzon, in inquiring for manuscripts, was told that there were none in the monastery; but when he entered the choir to be present at the service, he saw a double row of long-bearded holy fathers, shouting the Kyrie eleison, and each of them standing, to save his bare legs from the damp of the marble floor, upon a great folio volume, which had been removed from the conventual library, and applied to purposes of practical utility in the way here mentioned. These volumes, some of them highly valuable, this traveller was allowed to carry away with him, in exchange for some footstools or hassocks, which he presented to the monks.

Mr. Curzon visited the Levant in 1833, and the following years: his description of the monasteries near the Natron Lakes differs little from that of the traveller already cited; but he was fortunate in his researches, not merely as a first comer, but as more amply provided with the means of purchase, and also perhaps better skilled in the sort of diplomacy which the business in hand required. The Coptic manuscripts which he found in one of these monasteries were most of them lying on the floor, but some were in niches in the stone wall; all except three were on paper. One on parchment was a superb manuscript of the Gospels, with commentaries by the early fathers of the Church: two others were doing duty as coverings to a couple of large open pots or jars, which had contained preserves, long since evaporated. “I was allowed to purchase these vellum manuscripts, as they were considered to be useless by the monks; principally, I believe, because there were no more preserves in the jars.” On the floor was a fine Coptic and Arabic dictionary, which the monks would not then sell; but some years afterwards their reluctance was overcome by a more liberal offer. He prevailed, by aid of a tempting bottle, to get access to a long-forgotten cellar or vault, crammed with manuscripts in all stages of decay, but from which some were rescued, and brought away.

The description given by this traveller, first of the desert, and then of the contrast presented by the interior of one of these monasteries, will enable us to understand the attractions of this secluded mode of life to many who had retired to it from the troubles of the open world. To men of sedentary and literary habits, especially, it would be peculiarly attractive; and these would find their happiness through the round of long years, in the occupation of copying books. Mr. Curzon thus presents to us the contrast above mentioned. He says:--

“To those who are not familiar with the aspect of such a region as this, it may be well to explain that a desert, such as that which now surrounded me, resembles more than anything else, a dusty turnpike road in England, on a hot summer’s day, extended interminably, both as to length and breadth. A country of low rounded hills, the surface of which is composed entirely of gravel, dust, and stones, will give a good idea of the general aspect of a desert. Yet, although parched and dreary in the extreme from their vastness and openness, there is something grand and sublime in the silence and loneliness of these burning plains; and the wandering tribes of Bedouins who inhabit them are seldom content to remain long in the narrow enclosed confines of cultivated land. There is always a fresh breeze in the desert, except when the terrible hot wind blows; and the air is more elastic and pure than where vegetation produces exhalations, which, in all hot climates, are more or less heavy and deleterious. The air of the desert is always healthy, and no race of men enjoy a greater exemption from weakness, sickness, and disease, than the children of the desert, who pass their lives in wandering to and fro, in search of the scanty herbage on which their flocks are fed, far from the cares and troubles of busy cities, and free from the oppression which grinds down the half-starved cultivators of the fertile soil of Egypt.

“Whilst from my elevated position, I looked out on my left, upon the mighty desert, on my right how different was the scene! There, below my feet, lay the convent garden, in all the fresh luxuriance of tropical vegetation. Tufts upon tufts of waving palms overshadowed the immense succulent leaves of the banana, which in their turn rose out of thickets of the pomegranate, rich with its bright green leaves and its blossoms of that beautiful and vivid red which is excelled by few even of the most brilliant flowers of the East. These were contrasted with the deep dark green of the caroub or locust-tree; and the yellow apples of the lotus vied with the clusters of green limes with their sweet white flowers which luxuriated in a climate too hot and sultry for the golden fruit of the orange, which is not to be met with in the valley of the Nile. Flowers and fair branches exhaling rich perfume, and bearing freshness in their very aspect, became more beautiful from their contrast to the dreary arid plains outside the convent walls, and this great difference was owing solely to there being a well of water in this spot, from which a horse or mule was constantly employed to draw the fertilizing streams which nourished the teeming vegetation of this monastic garden.”

If we carry this picture back to those times when these Nitrian monasteries were entire in their structure, and were complete in all things proper to a well-appointed religious establishment--when imperial favour, and the patronage of the wealthy were at the command of the community--we may be inclined to think that the conventual life might seem enviable to many in those times, who were beating about in the storms of the open world. No doubt this tranquil existence had its charms, even for such as relinquished much when they buried themselves in a monastery. How attractive must it have been to those who lost nothing in making the exchange, and to whom the vow of poverty brought with it, in fact, an exemption from want, turmoil, labour, misery! It was thus that these establishments kept their cells ever full, and their refectory halls always furnished with guests.

The lively writer from whom we have cited the passages just above, appears to have received his idea of the founders of these religious houses from the absurd legendary literature of a later time. If he had only taken the pains to acquaint himself with the extant writings of some of these good men, he might perhaps have come to think of them more worthily, and then he would have abridged a little the ridicule he heaps upon them. As for instance,--the Great Saint of the Egyptian monks--St. Macarius, concerning whom, and his austerities, there is abundance of childish absurdity in the “Lausiac Memoirs,” and in other books of that class, is, on sufficient evidence, believed to be the author of Homilies and Treatises which indicate a sincere and a sober-minded piety, far remote from the extravagance and the foolish ostentation with which his later biographers have encumbered his better fame.

It is pertinent to our present argument to say, that the existence, in the fourth and following centuries, of works so substantially good as are those of this Macarius, and others, is indicative of a far higher condition of the Christian community, in those times, than we should imagine in looking into the monkish literature of later ages. In truth, it was the substantial merits of many of the early Christian writers that gave an impulse to the zeal and assiduity of the copyists. We have evidence of this in the frequent occurrence of the works of the principal writers of the fourth century, among the now neglected heaps of the Egyptian, and other monasteries.

From the same writer--Mr. Curzon, we may cite a description of an Abyssinian copying apparatus, and library, and the writers there employed--illustrative, as it is, of what has been affirmed in the preceding chapters.

The library, or consistory, of some Abyssinian monks was their refectory also:--

“On my remarking the number of books which I saw around me, the monks seemed proud of their collection, and told me that there were not many such libraries as this in their country. There were perhaps nearly fifty volumes; and as the entire literature of Abyssinia does not include more than double that number of works, I could easily imagine that what I saw around me formed a very considerable accumulation of manuscripts, considering the barbarous state of the country from which they came. The disposition of the manuscripts in this library was very original.... The room was about twenty-six feet long, twenty wide, and twelve high; the roof was formed of the trunks of palm-trees, across which reeds were laid, which supported the mass of earth and plaster, of which the terrace-roof was composed. The interior of the walls was plastered white with lime; the windows, at a good height from the ground, were unglazed, but were defended with bars of iron-wood, or some other hard wood; the door opened into the garden, and its lock, which was of wood also, was of that peculiar construction which has been used in Egypt from time immemorial. A wooden shelf was carried in the Egyptian style round the walls, at the height of the top of the door; and on this shelf stood sundry platters, bottles, and dishes for the use of the community. Underneath the shelf various long wooden pegs projected from the wall; they were each about a foot and a half long, and on them hung the Abyssinian manuscripts, of which this curious library was entirely composed.

“The books of Abyssinia are bound in the usual way, sometimes in red leather, and sometimes in wooden boards, which are occasionally elaborately carved in rude and coarse devices: they are then enclosed in a case, tied up with leather thongs; to this case is attached a strap for the convenience of carrying the volume over the shoulders, and by these straps the books were hung to the wooden pegs, three or four on a peg, or more if the books were small: their usual size was that of a small, very thick quarto.”

The labour required to write an Abyssinian book, it is said, is

“immense, and sometimes many years are consumed in the preparation of a single volume. They are almost all written upon skins; the only one not written upon vellum that I have met with is in my possession; it is on charta bombycina. The ink which they use is composed of gum, lamp-black, and water. It is jet black, and keeps its colour for ever. Indeed, in this respect, all oriental inks are infinitely superior to ours, and they have the additional advantage of not being corrosive or injurious either to the pen or paper. Their pen is the reed commonly used in the East, only the nib is made sharper than that which is required to write the Arabic character. The ink-horn is usually the small end of a cow’s horn, which is stuck into the ground at the feet of the scribe ... seated upon the ground, the square piece of thick greasy vellum is held upon the knee, or on the palm of the left hand. The Abyssinian alphabet consists of eight times twenty-six letters, two hundred and eight characters in all; and these are each written distinctly and separately, like the letters of an European printed book. They have no cursive writing; each letter is therefore painted, as it were, with the reed-pen, and as the scribe finishes each, he usually makes a horrible face, and gives a triumphant flourish with his pen. Thus he goes on letter by letter, and before he gets to the end of the first line he is probably in a perspiration, from his nervous apprehension of the importance of his undertaking. One page is a good day’s work; and when he has done it, he generally, if he is not too stiff, follows the custom of all little Arab boys, and swings his head or his body from side to side, keeping time in a sort of nasal recitative, without the help of which it would seem that few can read even a chapter of the Koran, although they may know it by heart.”

The habitudes of Eastern nations undergo so little change in the lapse of ages that, probably, these descriptions of things as they are now, would differ little from a similarly graphic account of the same operations, dated a thousand years back. Where the arts of life remain in their rude state, all those operations which depend upon them continue nearly the same. We may infer this from the identity of many implements and tools, such as are now seen in Museums, with those at present in use in the same countries; and the same inference is warranted by what we meet with in the illuminations of ancient manuscripts, which often exhibit the usages and methods of common life; just as we see those of China displayed in the decorations of its potteries, and its screens.

“The paint-brush used by the illuminators of Egypt is made by chewing the end of a reed till it is reduced to filaments, and then nibbling it into a proper form: the paint-brushes of the ancient Egyptians were made in the same way; and excellent brooms for common purposes are made at Cairo by beating the thick end of a palm-branch till the fibres are separated from the pith; the part above, which is not beaten, becoming the handle of the broom. The Abyssinian having nibbled and chewed his reed till he thinks it will do, proceeds to fill up the spaces between the inked outlines with his colours; ... the colours are mixed up with the yolk of an egg, and the numerous mistakes and slips of the brush are corrected by a wipe from a wet finger or thumb, which is generally kept ready in the artist’s mouth during the operation; and it is lucky if he does not give it a bite in the agony of composition, when, with an unsteady hand, the eye of some famous saint is smeared all over the nose by an unfortunate swerve of the nibbled reed.”

These descriptions of the oriental literary craft, may perhaps fail to bring before us what might have been witnessed in the copying-room of a _Greek_ monastery a thousand years ago; but as to the technical part of the operation it was not even then in a much higher state of efficiency. For it appears that copies executed in what, to Europeans, seems the rudest manner--as to apparatus, and implements, and accommodation--are often of great beauty--the patient skill and adroitness of the scribe and artist, who is never hurried in his work, making up for the deficiencies of his appointments.

Mr. Curzon’s explorations in these Nitrian monasteries, although not the first that had been made by European travellers and scholars, had the effect of drawing the attention of learned persons afresh towards them; and the result has been to bring to light very many literary treasures which otherwise must soon have fallen into a state of irrecoverable decay. Of these restored treasures, a very remarkable example has just now come before the world; and the reader may inspect it, if he has the opportunity to take in hand a sumptuous quarto, entitled, “Remains of a very ancient Recension of the Four Gospels in Syriac, hitherto unknown in Europe; discovered, edited, and translated by William Cureton, D.D., &c., 1858.”

The account which the learned editor gives of this volume agrees well with that idea of the course of things in the Nitrian monasteries which has been brought before us in Mr. Curzon’s descriptions of what he found there. From his Preface we learn that--

“The manuscript from which the text of the Fragments of the Gospels contained in this volume has been printed, was one of those obtained in the year 1842, by Archdeacon Tattam, from the Syrian monastery, dedicated to St. Mary Deipara, Mother of God, in the valley of the Natron lakes. It consisted of portions of three ancient copies, bound together to form a volume of the Four Gospels, with a few leaves in a more recent hand, added to make up the deficiencies.”

A note added to the last leaf of the volume is such as is commonly found at the end of similar manuscripts. In it the copyist dedicates his labour to the glory of the Holy Trinity, and commends himself to the prayers of those who may read it--these rendered efficacious through the prayers of “the Mother of God, and of all the saints continually.” This note bears date in the year 1533 of the Greek reckoning, which corresponds with the year 1221 A.D. The leaf upon which this note occurs, and which contains some verses of St. Luke’s Gospel, is a palimpsest vellum, “which was formerly a part of a manuscript of the sixth or seventh century, and originally contained a portion of the first chapter of St. Luke, in Syriac.”

On the first leaf of the same volume, there is a note in a more ancient hand; to this effect:--

“This book belonged to the monk Habibai, who presented it to the holy convent of the Church of Deipara, belonging to the Syrians in the Desert of Scete. May God, abounding in mercies and compassion, for the sake of whose glorious name he set apart and gave this spiritual treasure, forgive his sins, and pardon his deficiencies, and number him among His own elect in the day of the resurrection of his friends, through the prayers of all the circle of the saints! Amen, Amen.--Son of the living God, at the hour of Thy judgment, spare the sinner who wrote this!”

The way in which this volume was put together is characteristic of the times in which it was done, and of that union of religious feeling and of literary (not heedlessness but) inobservance, which attach to the monastic mode of life after it has subsided into its inert and mindless condition. Dr. Cureton says that

“the volume containing the Fragments that are now published, were taken, as it would appear, almost by hazard, without any other consideration than that of their being of the same size, and then arranged, so as to form a complete copy of the Four Gospels. There were several other volumes in the Nitrian Library made up in this manner. The person who arranged them seems to have had no idea of selecting the scattered parts of the same original volume, which had fallen to pieces, but merely to have taken the first leaves which came to his hand, which would serve to complete a copy of the Gospels, and then to have bound them together. In this way it came to pass, that parts of three or four manuscripts were found mixed up with three or four others, written at different times, and by different scribes; and sometimes, indeed, not even of the same exact size, apparently without regard to any other circumstance than merely to render the context perfect.”

So far as could be done, this intermixture of leaves has been remedied, by bringing the corresponding portions of the same copy again into their original juxtaposition, so as to constitute continuous copies of several different manuscripts. Within the one volume, such as it had been obtained from the Nitrian monastery, there were included some leaves of thick vellum, apparently transcribed in the sixth or seventh century, and written in a very large, bold hand, with divisions of sections--some of very thin and white vellum, in a large hand, in two columns, similar to the former; but apparently rather older; and some in a different style and of other dates.

Dr. Cureton expresses his belief (as to portions at least) of what has thus been recovered, that they were transcribed in or about the middle of the fifth century; and that they represent a text--especially so far as concerns the recovered portions of the Gospel of St. Matthew--which has been unknown to European scholars; and is, therefore, “of the highest importance for the critical arrangement of the text of the Gospels.”

The use to be made of this ancient copy is not a subject properly belonging to this volume; but it will be well that the reader should bring into his own view the highly significant facts that are, as we may say, linked together in an instance of this sort. Let us then recount them: and we may do so with the more satisfaction, inasmuch as they are now so recently made public; and because, also, the instance, taken in all its circumstances, may stand as fairly representative of very many of those which constitute the evidence adducible in proof of the safe transmission of ancient books to modern times.

The Church writers of the fourth and fifth centuries make frequent references to the monastic establishments of the Scetic desert.[6] In these religious houses, well-ordered and amply furnished as they were in those times, the business of copying books was a principal occupation of such of the recluses as were inclined by their habits and tastes to pursue it. There are notices of these establishments from time to time, down to the Mahometan era; when, although some of the monasteries were dismantled or plundered, more of them were treated indulgently, or even reverentially, by the Arabian conquerors. Several Saracenic writers mention the Nitrian monasteries in a style of oriental encomium. With varying fortunes, the principal of them--that especially of St. Mary Deipara--maintained their existence, and were, at times, even in a flourishing condition, during what are called the Dark Ages. Great additions were made to the libraries, and particularly in the class of Syriac and Aramaic books, which had been brought from similar establishments in Mesopotamia and the remoter East. Incidental notices in evidence of the continuance, and, to some extent, of what we may call the vitality, of four or five of these Nitrian religious houses, may be collected from the writers, in succession, who refer to Egypt, and to its ecclesiastical affairs--down to modern times--or, as we should say, to the revival of learning in Europe. An Arabian author of the fifteenth century affirms that the monasteries, formerly a hundred in number, were, in his time, seven only; but he specifies that of St. Macarius, and speaks of it as a fine building, though its occupants were few.

From about this time, therefore--namely, from the fifteenth century, and until our own times--these ancient structures, with their dosing inhabitants, the mindless guardians of whatever they might contain--have remained as sepulchres, subjected to no other invasions or spoliations than those of Time. The dust of one year has settled down upon the dust of preceding years, in these oven-like vaults, through the tranquil lapse of four centuries. Some peculiar circumstances have contributed to ensure the preservation of the manuscripts hoarded in these tombs, and these ought to be kept in view. Among these are, _first_, the slumbering ignorance of the monks, together with the unknowing superstition with which they guard their libraries: along with this is the jealousy of the monks toward their abbots; the brethren always suspecting their superiors of an intention to purloin, and to make a commerce with, the books which were held to be the property of the community. Again, there is to be noticed a usage of the copyists, and of the owners of costly manuscripts--namely, that of subjoining a note to the last page of a book, imprecating curses upon any one who should dare, at any distant time, to dispose of, or to alienate the book for his private advantage. Not the least effective of these conservative circumstances has been this--that, in some instances, the entire contents of a monastic library have--in some moment of danger, while an enemy was thundering at the gate--been huddled into a cellar or a vault, and there covered with rubbish--safe for a hundred years or more. It was just in this condition that a large portion of the manuscripts which are now carefully preserved in the British Museum, was discovered by those who have lately succeeded in bringing them off.

In the lapse of these last four centuries, the monasteries of the Egyptian desert have frequently been visited by European travellers and men of learning. Among these was Robert Huntington, afterwards bishop of Raphoe, whose collection of Oriental manuscripts has found its home in the Bodleian Library: this visit was in the year 1678 or 1679. The celebrated Joseph Simon Asseman, in the year 1715, who had been preceded by his cousin Elias, examined these collections and brought away, to enrich the Vatican, a small number of books--Arabic, Coptic, and Syriac. About the same time the Jesuit Claude Sicard visited those of the monasteries that were still inhabited, and found the books packed in chests, covered with dust, and in a neglected condition; they were stowed away in the tower or keep (above mentioned).

In illustration of what we have said concerning the persistence of the monks in refusing to part with their books, we may cite the evidence of a traveller--the Sieur Granger, who visited the Natron monasteries in the year 1730. He says, that the buildings at that time were falling into decay, and the dust destroying the books and manuscripts, of which the monks made no use whatever. Their own patriarch had represented to them that the sum which the books would produce would be sufficient to enable them to restore their churches and to rebuild their cells: but they declared they would rather be buried in the ruins. Lord Prudhoe visited the monasteries in 1828. After much difficulty he got access to a chamber in which was a trap-door, through which he “descended, candle in hand, to examine the manuscripts, where books and parts of books, and scattered leaves, in Coptic, Ethiopic, Syriac, and Arabic, were lying in a mass, on which,” he says, “I stood.... To appearance it seemed as if, on some sudden emergency, the whole library had been thrown for security down this trap-door, and that they had remained undisturbed in their dust and neglect for some centuries.”[7]

In this manner it is that we feel our way from century to century, keeping an eye all the way upon those remains of a distant time, the safe transmission of which is our immediate theme. In this transit we are now reaching the shore of the times we live in. Those fragments of the Gospels which already we have mentioned, and many other highly important manuscripts, which are now in the British Museum, were obtained at different times by Dr. Tattam (Archdeacon of Bedford), who twice visited Egypt expressly for this purpose. In one of these monasteries, in a vault, the manuscripts and fragments of books covered the floor, eight inches deep, where they had laid, apparently, many years. As many as 317 books, entire or in part, were then purchased, and they safely reached their destination: most of them are on vellum; some on paper--all in Syriac, Aramaic, or Coptic; and these, with those before obtained, made 360 volumes of manuscripts. Some of these volumes contain two, three, or four distinct works, written at different periods, but bound up together:--altogether perhaps containing not fewer than a thousand manuscripts--derived from Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt, and belonging to different times, from the fifth to the thirteenth century. In fact, it now appears that a few of them are of a much higher antiquity than the fifth century.

In the course of time, as the Mahometan influence extended itself throughout the East, and became more and more exclusive and intolerant, the Christian recluses of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Arabia gradually retired, or were driven westward, bringing with them, when they could do so, their books. Thus it was that the monasteries of the Egyptian desert became stored with these manuscripts in the languages of the East, and especially of Syria and Arabia.

The separate books of the Old and New Testament, or fragments of them, abound in these recovered stores. Liturgies, and Lives of the Saints, the spurious Gospels also, and the works of the early Christian writers, together with the canons of Councils, are also largely present among them; and altogether, many additions to religious literature, and some few to classic literature, have hence accrued. Among these recoveries, in the department of Christian literature, we should name the three Epistles of St. Ignatius--believed to be the only genuine epistles of this father. Fragments also of what are termed the Festal Epistles of St. Athanasius, in Syriac, have been found in the same manner; and the circumstances attaching to this one instance, as narrated by the learned editor, are so characteristic of the times and places which we have now in view, that they may properly be reported in this place; the more so because the publications in which these accounts first appeared, are of a kind rarely coming under the eye of general readers.

It was the custom of the patriarchs--and thus of Athanasius, during the forty years of his official life--to address a circular-letter each year to his clergy, informing them of the day in which the Easter solemnities were to be observed. Nothing more than some fragments of these Epistles, in the Greek original, had reached modern times. But it is now a Syriac version of many of them that has come to light.

The treasures of Syriac literature obtained by Dr. Tattam, in Egypt, as we have already mentioned, were deposited in the British Museum: it was a vast mass--a chaos of manuscripts and fragments; there were volumes, and parts of volumes, and single sheets, and torn fragments of sheets, large and small. This mass of commingled materials was consigned to the care of Dr. Cureton, as belonging to his department; and it became his duty to examine, and to report concerning the whole--a task which seemed to defy human skill and industry. This labour, which at first appeared to need no addition, was, however, afterwards doubled by the arrival of another mass, almost equal to the first; for the fact had transpired that the monks, who received payment as for their entire library, had contrived to hold back a large portion of the whole; which, however, was afterwards obtained by means of a further payment.

A laborious adjustment of these materials--part to part--resulted in bringing to light several Syriac versions of treatises of which the titles were known, but of which the Greek originals have been lost. Among these, and claiming to be noticed, are some of the writings of Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian; and with them the Theophania, or “Manifestation of Christ,” of which an English translation has been published, by the late Dr. Lee. The manuscript of this Syriac work appears, by dates attached to it, to be not less than fifteen hundred years old, and in fact to have been written a few years only later than the time of the publication of the original treatise.

A curious circumstance connected with one of these ancient manuscripts is mentioned by Dr. Cureton. To one of the leaves of this manuscript--midway in the volume, there is attached a note to this effect: “Behold, my brethren, if it should happen that the end of this ancient book should be torn off and lost, together with the writer’s subscription and termination, it was written at the end of it thus: viz. that this book was written at Orrhoa, a city of Mesopotamia (Edessa), by the hands of a man named Jacob, in the year seven hundred and twenty-three, in the month Tishrin the latter it was completed; and agreeably to what was written there, I have written also here, without addition, and which I wrote in the year one thousand and three hundred and ninety-eight of the era of the Greeks.”

These dates, according to our era, correspond with the years A.D. 411, for the time of the transcription of the volume, and A.D. 1086 for that of the note. What this writer anticipated as probable did actually take place; for the end of the sheet containing the original note of the copyist had been torn off and lost; how small then appeared the probability that the actual fragment should have escaped so many risks of utter destruction, and that it should be recovered. Yet so it was! In the mass of fragments which were afterwards obtained, and brought to England, there were several bundles, promiscuously made up, and consisting of separate leaves or parts of leaves, which were in fact the gatherings and sweepings from the floor, after the principal volumes had been taken up.

“One by one,” says Dr. Cureton, “I untied the bundles (there were about twenty) and diligently and eagerly examined their contents. As I opened the fourth I was delighted at recognising two pieces belonging to one of the leaves of this precious book; in the next I found a third: and now, reader, if thou hast any love for the records of antiquity; if thou feelest any kindred enthusiasm in such pursuits as these; if thou hast ever known the satisfaction of having a dim expectation gradually brightened into reality, and an anxious research rewarded with success,--things that but rarely happen to us in this world of disappointment--I leave it to thine own imagination to paint the sensations which I experienced at that moment, when the loosing of the cord of the seventh bundle disclosed to my sight a small fragment of beautiful vellum, in a well-known hand, upon which I read the following words.”...

These words were those of the original copyist, which had been copied as above mentioned, and attached to another part of the volume, and which fixed its date to the time above stated. This note had itself been torn, yet enough of it remained entire to verify the facts that have been reported. The first sentence of this note is written in red, the second in yellow, and the third in black. Dr. Cureton thus presents to view the series of facts connected with this manuscript; and the statement of them, which we abridge, is quite pertinent to our present purpose. It was written in the country which was the birth-place of Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, and the city whose king was the first sovereign who embraced Christianity; it was written in the year of our Lord 411. It was subsequently transported to the valley of the Ascetics, in Egypt, probably in A.D. 931, and presented to the monastery of St. Mary Deipara. In A.D. 1086, some person with careful foresight, fearing lest the memorial of the transcription of so valuable a book should be lost, took the precaution to copy it into the body of the volume. At what time in the lapse of centuries this fear was realized is not known; but when the volume came to light in 1839, this had taken place; and in that year it was transferred from the solitude of the African desert to London. Three years later two fragments of it followed it to England; and in 1847, other portions were found and restored to their places in it; and then also the transcriber’s own notification of the date of his labours was found in a heap of fragments, and was attached to the leaf whence it had been torn. Through so many chances, and in traversing countries of Asia, Africa, and Europe, it has held its way through a period of one thousand four hundred and thirty-six years. Here then is an instance in point, establishing the fact of the safe transmission of ancient books to modern times.

Other instances, not less striking than this, are reported in the pamphlet whence we have derived the one here brought forward. One of these is that of a palimpsest, upon which was discovered the traces of a very ancient copy of the Iliad--legible beneath a Syriac version of an obscure author.

The subscriptions of the monastic copyists are characteristic of the times, and of the feelings of the men to whose assiduity we are indebted for whatever we possess of acquaintance with antiquity. The following may be cited as an instance, and it is one among many of a similar kind:--

“This book belongs to Daniel, a secular presbyter and visitor of the province of Amida, who gave diligence and procured it for the benefit of himself and of those who, possessed with the same object of love of divine instruction, may approach it, and desire to profit their lives by the truth that is in it. But the poor Simeon, presbyter and a recluse, who is in the holy convent of my Lord Simeon of Cartamin, transcribed it. May every one, therefore, who asks for it, that he may read in it, or write from it, for the sake of the love of God, pray for him who gave diligence and obtained it, and for the scribe, that he may find mercy in the day of judgment, like the thief who was on the right hand (of the cross), through the prayers of all the saints, and more particularly of the holy and glorious and perpetual Virgin, the Mother of God, Mary. Amen, and Amen, and Amen.”

Another of these subscriptions ends thus:--

“Whosoever removeth this volume from this same mentioned convent, may the anger of the Lord overtake him, in this world, and in the next, to all eternity. Amen.”

These imprecations were not impotent forms; for they took great hold of the minds and consciences of those who had the custody of the literary treasures of each monastery; and the instances are frequent in which a religious (we should not call it a superstitious) fear, availed to counterbalance the sordid motive to which collectors of MSS. made their appeal. Shall we either blame or contemn the needy brethren who professed their readiness to be buried under the ruins of their monasteries rather than violate their consciences by accepting gold for their books? These scruples--if such a word should be used in this instance--have at length given way, and Europe--or the learned throughout it--will turn to good account the spoils that have been thus obtained.

Just above (p. 253), we have brought forward an instance in which we are able, with certainty, to track our path from the Printing Press of this very year, in following upward the history of a Manuscript to the remote age of the copyist by whom it was executed. Another instance, varying from this in its circumstances, has just now made its long-desired appearance. What we refer to is Cardinal Mai’s edition--in five quarto volumes--of the celebrated Vatican Manuscript of the Old and New Testament (the former is, of course, the Greek of the Septuagint). It has long been known that the Vatican Library contained a manuscript of high antiquity, and great value; but which was guarded with so much jealousy that a glimpse of it--or, at most, a brief examination of a few places in it, was the utmost favour that could be obtained from the papal authorities. Several Biblical scholars had visited Rome for the express purpose of inspecting, or examining, these precious remains; but with little success. One of the last of these--Dr. Tregelles--thus describes it:--

“This MS. is on very thin vellum; the letters are small regularly formed, uncials; three columns are on each page (with some exceptions): the original writer placed neither accents nor breathings, but these have been added by a later hand; they are, however, so delicately written, and with ink which has so much faded in colour (if indeed it ever were thoroughly black), that some who have carefully examined the MS. have thought that the accents and breathings were not additions to what was originally written. It is, however, an established fact, that they did proceed from a later corrector: this is proved by microscopic examination, and also from their omission in places in which the later hand introduced a correction; and also it may be remarked, that if the original copyist had written these fine strokes with the same ink as the letters, they would, of course, have faded in the same proportion, and thus would now be discernible only with difficulty.

“The appearance of this MS. now is peculiar; for after the older ink had considerably faded, some one took the trouble of retouching the letters throughout; this was probably done to make them more legible for actual use. When, however, this _restorer_ differed from the original copyist in orthography, he left letters untouched; and sometimes, he appears to have corrected the readings, or, at least, they are corrected in ink of a similar colour; and in cursive letters.

“This MS. is void of interpunction; and the only resemblance to it is found in a small space being left between the letters where a new section begins. The initial letters, as left by the first copyist, are not larger than the rest; but a later hand has added a large initial letter in the margin, and has erased (wholly or partially) the original initial.”

It is affirmed of this Vatican Manuscript, that “its antiquity is shown by its palæographic peculiarities, the letters even resembling, in many respects, those found in the Herculanean Rolls; the form of the book, the six columns at each opening resembling, in appearance, not a little a portion of a _rolled_ book; the uniformity of the letters, and the absence of all punctuation:” all these points are regarded as indicative of a high antiquity. Dr. Tregelles adds that he had just received a single skin of an Hebrew roll; and the general effect of that portion of a book of the rolled form, when looked at by itself, singularly resembles one page of the Codex Vaticanus ... the history of this Hebrew fragment is peculiar, for it was found in a dry shaft beneath the Mosque of Omar, at Jerusalem--the ancient site of the Temple. The three columns contain Genesis xxii. 1--xxiv. 26. The material is a red skin, prepared for writing on one side only.

A faithful edition of this noted manuscript had long been looked for by those engaged in the criticism of the Scriptures; and this has at length been given to the world. During many years, the late Cardinal Mai had been engaged in accomplishing this task; and though he did not live to see it actually published, he had made provisions for its appearance. With what relates to the exactness of this edition we have nothing to do in this place:--it is said to be not altogether faultless; but perhaps it is as little chargeable with errors as ought to be expected, the immensity of the labour in carrying it through the press being duly considered.

The faultiness of the _manuscript_--the mischances, and the oversights of the original scribe, are matters immediately connected with our subject; and it may be proper briefly to refer to them:[8] in truth, a knowledge of the usual extent of such errors, and of the sources of them, tends decisively to strengthen a reasonable confidence in the general trustworthiness of the literary remains of remote times. So much of human frailty attaches to these, as to all other labours of the human head and hand, as should exclude a fond or superstitious regard to them;--yet the amount of error is far from being enough to shake our confidence in the genuineness and integrity of these precious relics of antiquity--taken as a whole.

Some considerable portions of the original copy have, in the lapse of ages, been torn away, or lost from it;--or in some way they have perished:--as to the deficiency at the end, the wanting books may perhaps never have been added:--these are the concluding portions of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the three Pastoral epistles, and the Apocalypse. These chasms have, however, been supplied by copyists of a later age. The errors of the original copyist are such as must attach to labours of this kind, in which the writer either trusts to his eye, in looking to his exemplar; or to his ear, in listening to a reader. Each mode has its disadvantages; in the one case, words of similar appearance are easily taken, the one for the other, even when the substitution may have been productive of an absurd reading;--for the mind of the writer may have gone for a moment--like the fool’s eyes--to the ends of the earth. In this mode also a clause may easily have been omitted, or even an entire line dropped out of its place. In the latter mode--when a reader dictates, word by word--to the writer, the same mischances may have had place; and in addition to these, there will be the _mishearings_ of the scribe, and the faulty enunciations of the reader. On the whole, the errors are such as indicate, what man at the best is liable to--momentary lapses of attention, notwithstanding even a high rate of habitual accuracy, and of conscientious care; they are not more than may thus be accounted for; and as to the damage thence arising, it is quite inconsiderable; for while one copyist nods, another is awake; and as to the Scriptures, the abundance of manuscripts, and of quotations, and of ancient versions, is such as to reduce the instances of really ambiguous and important readings to a very small number; and of these--few as they are--very few affect at all any article of our belief, or any moral precept. The general inference is this--that, while the aids of erudite criticism are indispensable, for securing to us the possession of a text--the best that may now be possible--no text which it is possible at this time to obtain, can deserve that sort of superstitious regard with which some religious persons would fain look at the Bible in their hand. The most faulty text in existence may safely be regarded as a true and trustworthy conveyance of the message of eternal life; and also as a true and a trustworthy expression of that moral code according to which all actions will be judged. Souls will not perish, nor even be endangered, through erroneous readings; nor in any single instance will it appear that the conduct and temper that are becoming to a Christian will have been tarnished, or in any manner made less ornamental, because an ancient transcriber of the Gospels or Epistles has written ἡμεῖς, where he ought to have written ὑμεῖς.

The history and description of several noted ancient manuscripts of the Scriptures, similar to that of this Vatican Manuscript, might here be brought forward, if it were useful to do so; but, in regard to our present purpose, it may be more serviceable to fix the reader’s attention upon this one instance, and to insist, for a moment, upon the value of the facts, of which it is a sample.

We have then before us--let us suppose it--now on our table--five bulky quarto volumes, printed at Rome about fourteen years ago, but just now brought forward. These volumes contain the Greek version of the Old Testament--the Septuagint--and the Greek of the New Testament--and the editor informs us that they are printed from a manuscript which has long been stored in the Vatican library. This manuscript has in fact been seen, and in part examined, by a succession of European scholars, during the course of three centuries past; and a portion of it was long ago given to the world in a printed edition. At what time, or in what manner, this manuscript came to be where now it is found, is not known, nor are these facts of much consequence; for when it is examined by those whose studies and habits have made them familiar with literary antiquarian relics--those who “by reason of use have their senses exercised” to judge of things that differ, such persons, in narrowly inspecting the material--the vellum--the ink--the form and disposition of the colours--the character of the letters--the juxta-position of words--the _species_ of sectional division, as compared with the sectional divisions prevalent at different times:--these and other minute characteristics being considered--these skilled persons differ little in their judgment as to the date of the manuscript, and agree in fixing a time about the middle of the fourth century, when it passed from under the hand of an assiduous, and, on the whole, a careful copyist. We are landed, therefore, let us say--in the mid years of that century when Christianity had everywhere got the ascendancy; or some time during the reigns of Constans and Constantius.

Now the possession of so large a quantity of very costly material--the finest vellum, and the command of so much time as must have been employed in executing a careful and uniform copy, in uncial letters, of the Old and New Testament, are evidence of the fact that the copyist was in a position favourable for accomplishing his task in an efficient manner; nor can it be doubted that he would take proportionate care to select a manuscript--as his exemplar--the best he could find. Probably he would provide himself with _several_ such manuscripts for purposes of collation, in doubtful instances; he would seek for the oldest manuscripts that might be then obtainable. In supposing so much as this, we assume only what it is reasonable to assume. But a manuscript which, in the middle of the fourth century, would be accounted ancient--we are now thinking of the New Testament--must have been, at the least--a hundred and fifty, or two hundred years old. We have now in our hands a great number of MSS. that are undoubtedly more than a thousand years old--two hundred years therefore comes far within the range of the ordinary longevity of books on vellum.

Take it as probable that the copyist whose labours are before us in the Vatican Manuscript, had on his table manuscripts that were two hundred years old, and then these will have been executed during the reign of Antoninus Pius, and in Egypt probably. But now I have on _my_ table what may enable me to form an opinion of the value of the manuscripts which the transcriber of the Vatican Manuscript had then _his_ table; for I have before me the voluminous works of the Christian writers of that very time--such as Justin Martyr, Tatian, Athenagoras, Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Hermias, Origen, and others:--not to come down to a later time. These works have reached modern times through various and independent channels; they have come abroad, drawn forth from hiding-places, widely apart. But now these various writings abound with quotations from the canonical books; and although these quotations are not always exact in the wording, they are mainly identical with the text of the Vatican Manuscript. I turn to one of the above-named writers--Clemens Alexandrinus. The passages in the Old Testament which he either refers to explicitly, or quotes _verbatim_, are so many, that they make a list which fills not fewer than twelve folio pages, double columns. Now, in turning to the places where these citations occur, and in comparing them with the Vatican Septuagint, I find them to correspond, word for word, in a large proportion of instances. Clement, it is evident, had before him a Greek version of the Old Testament, which was mainly the same as the manuscript from which the Vatican MS. was derived. But now, if it might be imagined that a modern editor of Clement had made alterations in the text, with the view of bringing these quotations into conformity with the Vatican Septuagint, any such supposition as this is excluded by the fact that, in frequent instances, there are variations in the wording of quotations; it hence appears that the editor has _not_ done what I might conjecture that he would do. Besides, it is not one ancient writer, but very many that quote the Old Testament freely, and frequently; sometimes they do so with perfect accuracy, sometimes with less care; but yet they do it so as to furnish over-abundant evidence of the fact that the Greek version of the Old Testament, such as we now find it in the Vatican Manuscript, was familiarly known to, and was in the hands of, the Christian community at that early time;--as it had been for centuries before that time.

We have thus adduced a few instances in which the history of particular manuscripts may be traced up from the present time to a remote age--some a thousand--some fourteen hundred years. Many similar instances might be brought forward, if it were thought necessary, or even useful, so to do; but the reader, if indeed he wishes to acquaint himself more fully with facts of this class, may easily do so by looking into the catalogues that have been published of the manuscripts contained in the principal libraries of Europe; or, not to travel far--the Bodleian, Oxford; or that of the British Museum. The manuscripts in the Museum are the Cottonian, the Harleian, those of the King’s Library, Ayscough’s, Hargrave’s, and the Lansdowne MSS., of all which collections separate catalogues have been published. There are, besides, in the Museum, several collections of Oriental manuscripts, and many recent additions, such, for instance, as those that have lately been obtained from the Nitrian monasteries, and which have been mentioned above.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] I have lately brought forward some facts of this kind, relating to an abbot of a Nitrian monastery. ESSAYS, &c.; NILUS.

[6] These are, Palladius, Eusebius, Socrates, Jerome, Rufinus, Evagrius, Cassian; and others incidentally.

[7] An account in full of these researches appeared in No. CLIII. of the Quarterly Review (1845), and afterwards in the Edinburgh Review.

[8] The reader who is a _student_ in Biblical criticism will know where to look for precise information on this ground.

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