The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-07-02

gave much time to the transcription of
books.
In the case of the Christian Scriptures
another very effective motive was added.
1t was long esteemed meritorious re-
ligious act to transcribe part or the
whole of the Bible. Bishops, mobiles and
princes often employed themselves on
| the Scriptures as a religious duty, and
esteemed themselves happy in aiding the
good work of multiplying the sacred
! books.
But after while the business of copy
ing was almost entirely transferred to
the monasteries. Each religious house
had its scriptorium, or copying-room,
and its scribes, who gave their time reg
ularly and industriously to an employ
ment better suited than any other that
can be imagined to the rules and usages
of monastic life. The churches, libra.
ries and converts of Asia Minor, the
islands of the Egean and Eastern Medi-
terranean were rife with copyists. The
multitude of religious establishments on
the sides of Mount Athos, the monas-
teries of the Morea, Calabria, Western
Europe and the British Islands contrib.
ute large numbers of manuscripts.
During the last century extensive eX.
| plorations were made throughout Eu.
rope and the East in these old monas.
teries, and the collections have been
large and invaluable. Undoubtedly
many important Scripture manuscripts
remain undiscovered, or are inaccessi-
BILE because of the unwillinoness of their
present owners to part with them.
OF late European scholars have found
far more difficulty in purchasing Scrip
ture manuscripts from Eastern con.
vents than formerly. The monks,
though unable to use them, have a su.
perstitious reluctance to parting with
them, which is probably stimulated by
the evident desire of scholars to secure
these decaying books and place them on
the safer and more useful shelves of
European libraries.
At Cairo, in the library of the patri-
arch of Alexandria. there are five copies
OF the Gospels, ranging from six hun
dred to nine hundred years in age, with
three copies of the Acts and Epistles.
The patriarch of Jerusalem has at least
seven ancient manuscripts of the Cos
pels. In the monastery of the Holy
Sepulcher, at Jerusalem, there are
known to be at least twenty-four copies
of different portions of the New Tesla
ment.
The gloomy convent of Mao Saba lies
in wild and rocky ravine between
Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. This
strange group of buildings is placed in a
situation of singular grandeur, clinging
to the steep sides of the precipices,
springing from the sharp points of the
rocks and connected by labyrinth of
covered galleries and narrow stairways.
The deep chasm below, down into which
the buildings seem about to plunge, is
shrouded in gloom. The massive and
heavily buttressed walls are surmounted
by stately square tower commanding
the strong iron gate which is the princi-
pal entrance.
The large dome of the church, which
is very solidly built, rises from the point
of the rock. Within the church tray
eler who was there forty years ago climb
ed a rickety ladder rising about ten feet
to small door, which opened into a
square closet followed out from one of
the great buttresses supporting the walls.
This was the library. He found there
about thousand old manuscript books,
many enormous folios, copy of the first
eight books of the Old Testament; and
Bulgarian volume in ancient letters.
Since then visitors have experienced
great difficulty in getting permission to
see the library. 1t is, however, known
that the monks hold at leasttwenty three
manuscripts of portions of the Bible,
some of them nearly a thousand years
old. They are in wretched keeping and
condition, some of them falling into rap
id decay in the old lumber-room, mis-
called the tower library. But they are
tenaciously retained and left to fade and
pass away untouched by their present
keepers.
The little island of Patmos, rugged
and bare, rises to commanding height
at its southern end, which is crowned by
the celebrated monastery of est. John
the Divine" Here was once great IL
brary, which contained until lately over
600 more or less valuable manuscripts.
Of these only about 200 remain, among
them five ancient Gospels, two copies of
the Acts and Epistles, one of the Apoca.
lypse, and a number of interesting Greek
Church service books dating variously
between the tenth and fourteenth centu.
ries. The patriarch of Jerusalem, at
Constantinople, has at least seven an
Gent Gospels, some of which were once
brought to England by Mr.. Carlyle, but
had to be restored in 1917. There are
known to be over two hundred of these
antique Bible manuscripts in the differ
ent Oriental monasteries of Turkey.
The number of the Christian Scrip
lures transmitted to us by the industry
OF these ancient copyists is remarkable.
Notwithstanding the vast mass of Scrip
ture manuscripts which have persisted,
and without considering those yet to be
recovered from unexplored localities,
we have many more ancient copies of
the Bible in Greek than of all the
writers of classical antiquity together.
A law of the Jewish Talmud, command
ing the destruction of any synagogue
roll as soon as it became torn or imper-
feet through age, has deprived us of He
brew copies of the Old Testament older
than the tenth century. But we have
two Greek Bibles, undoubtedly copied
more than fifteen hundred years AGO.
and several written within a century
later. From that time the number of
lraEla1