1SAVI780BIPT8
616
MJOnJSORZPTS
literary worics (the finest discovered^ are the ora-
tioos of Hyperiaes found on papyii in the British
Museum in 1847, 1858, 1891, and in the Louvre in
1889; Aristotle's Republic of Athens" on a papyrus
of the British Museum in 1891; the "Mimes" of Her-
ondas, lyric poems of Bacchylides and Timotheus; and
lastly, m 1905, 1300 verses by Menander at Kom
Ishkaou by G. Lefebvre), and religious documents
(fragments of Gospels, of which some remain uniden-
tified, religious poems, hymns, edifying treatises, etc.,
e. g.: the Greek Psalter of the British Museum, of the
thmi century a. d., which is one of the most ancient
Biblical manuscripts we possess; the " Logja " of Jesus,
published by Grenfell and Himt; a hymn in honour of
the Holy Trinity similar to the "Te Deimi", discov-
ered on a papyrus of the sixth century; etc.).
(3) Latin Papyri. — ^These are rare, at Herculan- eum as well as in Egypt, and we possess only frag- ments. A i)apyrus of Ravenna dated 551 (Library of Naples) is in Ostrogothic writing (Catal. of Latin papyri in Traube, BibUoth. Ecole des Chartes", iSlV, 455).
Ckief CoUecUona. — ^Louvre (Brunet de Presle, "Not. et ext. des BISS.", XVIII); Turin (ed. Pey- ron, 1826-27); Leyden (ed. Leemans, 1843); British Museimi (ed. Kenyon, 1898); Flinders Petrie (ed. Mahafify, Dublin, 1893-94); University of California (Tebtunis Papjrriis, ed. Grenfell and Hunt, London and New York, 1902); Berlin ([Berlin, 1895-98); Arch- duke Renier (ed. Wessely, Vienna, 1895); Strasburg (ed. Keil, 1902); Oxyrhyncos excavations (Grenfell and Hunt, London, smce 1898); Th. Reinach (Paris, 1905).
ni. The Maxinq of Manuscripts. — In ancient times the copyists of manuscripts were free worlonen or slaves. Athens, which was before Alexandria a great Ubrary centre, had its B</SXio7/Hi^i, copyists, who were at the same time librarians. At Home Pomponius Atticus thought of competing with book- sellers by training slaves, for the most part Greeks, to copy manuscripts, their work to be afterwards sold. Some booksellers were at once copyists, calligraphers, and even painters. To the great libranes founded by the emperors were attached rooms for copyists; in 372 Valens attached to that of Constantinople four Greek and three Latin copyists (Theod. code, XIV, ix, 2). The edict of Diocletian fixing the maxima of prices sets down the monthly salary of the Ubraritu at fifty denarii (Corp. Inscript. Latin, IIP 831). Unfor- tunately, except for the Egyptian papyri, none of the works copied in ancient times has come down to us, and our oldest manuscripts date only from the begin- ning of the fourth century. The copyists of this cen- tury, several of whom were Christian priests, seem to have displayed great activity. It was oy transcribing on parcnment the works hitherto written on papyrus and in danger of being destroyed (Acacius and Eu- soTusat Csesarea; cf. St. Jerome, "Epist.", cxli), that they assured the preservation of ancient literature and prepared the work of the copyists of the Middle A^s. The most ancient and the most precious manuscnpts of our collections date from this period; Biblical MSS. : Codex Sinaiticus, a Greek fourth century MS. discov- ered by Tischendorf at the monastery of St. Catherine of Sinai (1844-59), now at St. Petersburg; Codex Alexandrinus, a Greek Bible executed at Alexandria in the beginning of the fifth century, now in the British Museum; Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, a palimpsest of the Biblioth^que Rationale of Paris, containing frag- ments of a New Testament written in the fifth century; Latin Bible of CJuedlinburg, fourth century, in the Library of Berlin; Fragments of the Cotton Latin Bible (Brit. Mus.), fifth century. Profane authors: The seven manuscripts of Virgil in capitals [the most famous is that of the Vatican (Lat. 3225), fourth cen- tury]; the "Iliad" of the Ambrosian Library, fifth oentujy; the Terence of the Vatican (Lat. 3226) in
capitals, fifth century; the "Calendar" of PhOocalut
wntten in 354, known only by modern copies (Brus-
sels. Vienna, etc.).
The barbarian invasions of the fifth and sixth cen- turies brought about the destruction of the libraries and the scattering of the books. However, in the midst of barbarism, there were a certain number of privileged refuges, in which the cop}ring of books went on. It is to these copyists of the B&iddle
that moderns owe the preservation of the Sacred
Books as well as the treasures of classical antiquity;
they veritably saved civilization. The chief of these
copying centres were: Constantinople, where the li-
brary and schools continued to exist; the monasteries
of the East and West, where the copying of books was
regarded as one of the essential labours of monastic life;
the s}magogues and schools of the Jews, to which we
owe the Hebrew MSS. of the Bible, the most ancient
of which date ordyr from the ninth century (British
Museum, MSS. Orient, 4445, ninth century; Codex
Babylonicus of St. Petersburg, copied in 916); the
Mussulman schools (Medresaef^), provided with large
libraries (that at Cordova had 400,000 vols.) and copying rooms, in which were transcribed not only the
Koran biit also theological works and Arabic trans-
lations of Greek authors (Aristotle, Ptolemy. Hippoc-
rates, etc.). The most important work uncfoubtedly
was done by the monasteries; ito history is identical
with the history of the transmission of sacred and pro-
fane texts of antiquity.
(1) Oriental Chrietendom— From the very begin- ning of Egyptian monastidsm copying rooms were installed in the monasteries, as is shown by the Coptic chronicle on papvrus studied by Strzygowski (*'£ine Alexandriniscne Weltchronik", Vienna, 1905). In Palestine, S3rria, Ethiopia, and Armenia, in Melchite, Jacobite, or Nestorian monasteries, the copying ^of manuscripts was held in esteem. We know the name of one scnbe, Emmanuel, of the monasterv of Qartamin on the Tigris, who copied with his own hand seventy manuscripts (one of tnem the Berlin Nestorian Evan- geliarium; Sachau, 304, tenth century). At the Nes- torian school of Nisibis the students copied the Holy Scriptures, the text of which was afterwards explained to them. Indeed the Bible was copied by preference, hence the numerous Biblical MSo., whetner Syriac (text of the " Peshitto "preserved at Milan; end ot the fifth century), Coptic (fragments discovered by Mas- pero at Akhmin; see "Journal Asiaticiue", 1892, 126). Armenian (Gospel in capitals. Institute Lazarev of Moscow, dated 887; the most ancient complete Bible belongs to the twelfth century) , Ethiopian, etc. Com- mentaries on Holy Scripture, liturgical books, trans- lations from the Ureek Fathers, theological or aaoei- ical treatises, and some universal chronicles constitute the greater number of these MSS., from which the classic writers are excluded.
(2) Greek Church. — In the Greek monasteries St Basil also recommended the copying of manuscripts, and his treatise *' On the usefulness of reading profane authors" bears sufficient witness that side by side with the religious texts the Basilian monks assigned an important place to the copying of classical authors. That a large number of texts have perished is not the fault of the monks, but is due to the custom of Bysan- tine scholars of composing ** Excerpta" from the prin« cipal authors, and afterwards neglecting the originals (e. g. Encyclopedia of Constantino Porph3rrQgenitU8, in the library of Photius. See Krumbacher, "Gesch. der Byzant. Litter.", p. 505). Wars, and especially tha taking of Constantinople in 1204, also brou^t about the destruction of a great number of libraries. The work of the Byzantine copyists from the sixth to the fifteenth centuries was considerable; and to con vines ourselves it is enough to peruse the list of three thou- sand names of known copyists recovered by Maria Vogel and Gardthausen from Greek manuscripts
