The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1890-02-20
THE FATE OF BOOKS.
Ups and Downs Of Important Literary
Works OF Antiquity.


Works OF Antiquity.
The ups and downs Of many an impor-
tant literary work of antiquity have
been most singular. In . very unique
way they demonstrate the correctness
OF the classical dictum "habent sua fata
libelli." 1t is we'll known that the &C
cidental discovery in waste-basket in
the Mount Sinai cloister of several
leaves Of the Codex Sinaiticus led to the
finding by Tischendorf Of that most IA
nous manuscript of the New Testa-
ment. A recent publication by the
French savant, Omont, has drawn at
tention to the strange fate of another
old manuscript, and at the same time
indicates the laborious methods to
which scholars must resort in order to
rediscover some Of the lost remains of
ancient iteratures. In one Of the wcll-
known cloisters on Mount Athos, where
more than twenty thousand Greek man.
uscripts are preserved and awaiting
further research, there existed at one
time sixth-century copy of the Pauline
epistles. In the thirteenth century
monkish ignorance destroyed this valu-
able document, and used the leaves
as binding for later and inferior
books. A number Of these manu-
scripts in the seventeeth century found
their way to Western Europe, and
came into possession Of the French
Chancellor, Pierre Segnier, and ara now
found in the Bibliotheque Nationsle in
Paris. In the year Ills Mont,aucon
found in these buildings fourteen leaves
of this old epistle manuscript. Some
years later other leaves were found,
namely, two in the Synodical Library
at Moscow; four in the possession OF
Bishop Porfiri and of the Abbot An tonius,
of Kew; two in the University Library
at Turin; nine in the library Of the
Lawra cloister on Mount Athos. In this
way thirty-one leaves of this manu-
script had been rediscovered, but SCAT
tered over all Europe. To these Omont
has added ten more, one Of which was
found in the Rumjanzen Museum at
Moscow, and nine in the collection
which the French specialist in Greek
literature, Emmanuel Miller, had found
in an Athos cloister, and had been &C.
cured by the National Library in Paris.
OF these nine leaves, however, two had
in the beginning Of this century in some
way or other found their way to st.
Petersburg, where also one of the leaves
of the nine originally belonging to
Bishop Porfiri was rediscovered; and OF
the nine leaves which Duchesne in 1875
found in the cloister Lawra, one is now
in Paris.
Accordingly, the forty-one leaves Of
this sixth-century manuscript are found
scattered in no fewer than eight H.
braries, namely, twenty-five in the Ma
tional Library of Paris, eight in the
Lawra cloister on Mount Athos. two in
the Synodical Library at Moscow, one
in the Rumjanzen Museum at Moscow,
three in the Imperial Library at St
Petersburg, three in the Aca DENY of
Kew and two in the unive rsity at
Turin. And yet these leaves contain
only about one-tenth of all the
epistles, namely, 234 verses, divided as
follows: 16 from I. Corinthians, AZ from
II. Corinthians, % from Galatians, 20
from Colossians, IS from l. Thessa-
lonians, A from Hebrews, 40 from L
Timothy, Q from II. Timothy and IS
from Titus.
BY similar process Prof. de Gofje, OF
Leyden, has succeeded in rediscovering
the works Of Tabari, who for Arabic his
TOPOGRAPHY is what Thucydides is for
the Greek and Livy for the Latin. His
history was supposed to have been lost,
with the exception of few fragments
De Goije, through correspondence with
nearly all the libraries Of Europe and
many in the Moslem lands, has been
able to gather together again all the
parts and portions Of this standard work,
to which the library of the leading
mosque in Tunis furnished the chief
contribution. Literary coadjutors are
at work in dozens of libraries copying
and collating the fragments, and it lie
supposed that five years will elapse be-
fore the whole of this valuable work
will be given to the historian and ORR
sntalist t-Harper's Weekly.