by Gertrude Burford Rawlings
New York D.Appleton and Company 1901
at the time of the establishment of the first public library in Rome, which was probably about 39 B.C.
Books were common and booksellers flourished. Greek and Roman writings were preserved on papyrus,
not neglected or lost, and the various parts of what we now call the Old Testament probably existed in
the Hebrew synagogues. We may, perhaps, assume that the Roman book collector, did he choose to
take the necessary trouble, might add to his collection some of the writings of ancient Egypt. But no
doubt Greek and Latin authors only are of value in his eyes. At this point it is dangerous to speculate
further, and we must leave the imaginary Roman, and, advancing to our own time, where we are on surer
ground, ask what remnants of old records and literature have come down to us, and how have they been
preserved?
It will be disappointing news, perhaps, to those to whom the facts are fresh, that no original manuscript
of any classical author, and no original manuscript of any part of the Bible, Old Testament or New, has
yet come to light. Nothing is known of any of these documents except through the medium of copies,
and in some cases very many copies indeed intervene between us and the original. For instance, the
oldest Homeric manuscript known, with the exception of one or two fragments, is not older than the first
century B.C., and the most ancient Biblical manuscript known, a fragment of a Psalter, is assigned to the
late third or early fourth century A.D. The earliest New Testament manuscript extant, the first leaf of a
book of St. Matthew's Gospel, is also no older than the third century.
It is curious, too, that no ancient Greek manuscripts have been found either in Greece or Italy excepting
some rolls discovered in the ruins of Herculaneum. One reason for this is no doubt the fact that when
Roman armies assailed Athens and other Greek cities they despoiled them not only of their statues and
works of art, but of their books as well. These went to furnish the libraries of Rome, though it is probable
that certain of them found their way back to Greece in company with some of Rome's own literary
produce when Constantine set up his capital and founded a library at Byzantium. Another means by
which Greek manuscripts left the country was afforded by the eagerness of Ptolemy II. to extend the
great library of Alexandria, to which end he bought books in all parts of Greece, and particularly in Athens
and Rhodes.
The Roman libraries did not survive the onslaughts of the barbarians, who seem to have carried out a
very thorough work of destruction in the Eternal City. But it is not unlikely that in some cases books,
among other portable treasures, were carried away when their owners sought refuge in less troubled
localities, such as Constantinople or Alexandria. Still, the fact remains that the contents of the Roman
libraries have disappeared, and that for the ancient manuscripts now in our possession we are indebted
to the tombs, the temples, the monasteries, and the sands of Egypt.
Sometimes to show the strange adventures of some of these manuscripts-the cartonnage cases in which
mummies of the later period were enclosed, were made of papyrus documents, which apparently had
been treated as waste paper and put to all sorts of undignified uses. The two oldest classical papyri
known, consisting of fragments of Plato's Phaedo and of the Antiope of Euripides, were recovered from
mummy-cases, and are supposed to date from the third century B.C. Other important Greek texts which
have been preserved by Egypt are Aristotle's Constitution of Athens, the Mimes of Herodas, the Odes of
Bacchylides, the Gospel and Apocalypse of Peter, the Book of Enoch, &c.
But here we have to take into consideration a new and important factor in literary as in other matters-the
spread of Christianity. With such obvious exceptions as the cuneiform records, or the Egyptian writings,
and similar remains, the bulk of the manuscripts (as manuscripts, not as compositions) is the work of
(Christian) religious houses, and it is easy to see that we owe much to the labours of the monks and
ecclesiastics who have transmitted to us not only the earliest and most valuable works of the Church's
own writers, but also the chief part of the literature of Greece and Rome.
As Mr. Falconer Madan says in his Books in Manuscript, "the number and importance of the MSS. of Virgil
and the four Gospels is greater than of any other ancient authors whatever," and it is safe to assume
that all these Gospel MSS., and perhaps all the Virgil Mss. also, were the handiwork of churchmen.
As an example of the manuscript treasures yielded by Egypt may be instanced the find at Behnesa, a
village standing on the site of the Roman city of Oxyrhynchus, one of the chief centres of early
Christianity in Egypt. Here, in 1896, Mr. B. P. Grenfell and Mr. A. S. Hunt, searching for papyri on behalf
of the Egypt Exploration Fund, lighted upon one of the richest hunting-grounds yet discovered.
The result of their excavations was that about 270 boxes of manuscripts were brought to England, while
150 of the best rolls were left at the Cairo Museum. I am unable to give the size of the boxes, but
Professor Flinders Petrie's statement that "the publication of this great collection of literature and
documents will probably occupy a decade or two, and will place our knowledge of the Roman and early
Christian age on a new footing," will testify to the extent and importance of the find.