24 INTRODUCTION.
Neapolitan government, to defray the expenses of unrolling, decyphering, and publishing the Herculaneum manuscripts ; which being accepted, many papyri were unrolled vukt the superintendance of that Reverend gentleman, of which an account will be found iIb his very interesting Report upon the Herculaneum manuicripts, in tteo Letters, addreti^ by permission, to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, Lond. 1811. Quarto.
The papyrus-rush is supposed to be alluded to in Isaiah, chap. xix. v. 6, 7. " A^ " they shall turn the rivers far away ; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dnSl up : the reeds and flags shall wither. The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of^ the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shaU wither, be driven away, and be \ no more." For further information, see the articles, book, paper, parchment, and roll, '. in Dr. Rees' Encyclopedia. Also, Townley's Biblical Literature, vol. I. *
The most probable opinion, according to Pliny and Varo, is, that. Eumenes, son of Attalus I. King of Pergamus, was the inventor of parchment ; there is, however, reason to believe, that parchment was in use long before his reign, and that Eumenes only introduced it into more general use, when he was about making collections for a library equal to the Alexandrian ; he being forced to ht^ve recourse to the skins of animals , properly dressed, whereon to transcribe his manuscripts, through the envy of Ptolemy Epiphanes, King of Egypt, who interdicted the exportation of the papyrus for that service. Parchment is usually made of the skins of sheep and goats ; vellum, which is. a finer kind of parchment, b made of the skins of abortive, or at least of sucking ^ves.
" Happy days, when letter* flrst were tanght To act as faithful messengrers of thought ; When yellow parchment, with It* poUsh'd grain, And snowy paper, <lr*t receiv'd a stain."
From the city of Pergamus,* parchment received the name of Pergamennm, and
Charta Pergamena, as it did that of Membrana, from being made of the skins of animals. The term parchment, is a corruption of the word Pergamenum. Vellum is derived from the Latin Vitulus, a calf. A coarser kind of parchment or vellum, is also made from the skins of asses. St. Paul, in his address to Timothy, says, " The cloak that I left at Troas, with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the bool but especially the parchments."
The Greeks and Romans, and all the eastern nations adopted the manner of rol which must have been very inconvenient to manage while reading. There were rollers, one at each end of the roll, round one of which the whole manuscript was foldei the reader unrolled one end, and as he proceeded, he rolled it upon the empty rolltf until the whole was transferred fitsm one roller to the other. The ancient offices of the church were sometimes written upon long slips of parchment, pasted together, forming a very narrow roll of considerable length. This was fastened at one end to a very long stafi\ and rolled upon it Such rolls were termed kontakia, or contacia. Rolls are mentioned by Isaiah, chap, xxxiv. v. 4 ; by Jeremiah, chap, xxxvi. v. 2 ; and by Ezra, chap. vi. V. 2, who wrote in the seventh, sixth, and fifth centuries before the birth of our Saviour. Pens of iron are mentioned by Job, chap. xix. v. 24, and Jeremiah, chap. xvii.
- Pergamus, now Bergamo, wa* the capital of the kingdom of that name, in Asia Minor. This city is mentioned
in the Revelation &f St. John, ii. II. It was the birth-place of the celebrated physician Oalen, who died in 193.
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