The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1890-03-03
THE PRESS.
the LETTER OF THE LAW.
curIositIes of tho Sacred Writings
Owned by Boston Man.
Boston Advertiser


lection of Bibles in this part of the couu-
try. For upward of twenty-five years
Mr.. Pratt has been accommodating this
collection, and now has over three hun
dred volumes and a great variety of
manuscripts of the Bible. Some of his
Bibles are nowhere else to be seen in this
country.
Beginning with fhe manuscripts, is a
Jewish roll of the five books of Moses.
These Jewish rolls are very difficult
things to get. Mr.. Pratt had been try
ing for ten years to find one, when a
learned German professor, DIR. Gregory,
of Leipsic, secured this one for him. 1t
is contrary to the Jewish law to allow
one to fall into the hands of Gentle.
When one is worn out, or for any reason
OF no further use, it is buried in the
ground and the place of its interment
forgotten as soon as possible. 1t would
be considered sacrilege to destroy one in
any other manner as much as to let q
Christian have 1t. This roll in Mr..
Pratt's possession was made by learned
rabbi of Posen, Prussia, for his own use,
and at his death his children thought
more of the money than the sacredness
of the roll and sold it to DR.. Gregory. 1t
came into Mr.. Pratt's hands for $65.
The roll is of vellum, which is mate
rial of finer texture, thinner and smother
than parchment, and is continuous roll
49, feet long, made by sewing together
lot of skins some 20 inches in length.
Not an erasure or correction appears on
the whole manuscript, as the copyist is
obliged, if he makes an error, to destroy
the entire skin on which it has occurred
and begin his work again.
Mr.. Pratt has since received several of
these rolls, one of the most interesting of
which contains the twelve minor proph-
cts, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah,
Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah,
Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. This
roll was used for long time at syna-
goge in Jerusalem, and was finally laid
aside, as the letters were too fine for the
eyesight of the reader, and another was
made in larger letters. The discarded
roll was condemned to be buried, but the
Rev. DR.. Selah Merrill, who was then in
Jerusalem, persuaded the man to whom
the duty was intrusted that it could be
buried in Boston just as well as in Jeru-
salem.
Mr.. Pratt has another roll from Jeru-
salem containing the Book of Genesis.
This was purchased by the Rev. H. G.
Turnbull, D. D., at the shop of NJ. w.
Shapiro, famous Jerusalem dealer in
ancient manuscripts, who became noted
for almost succeeding in swindling the
British Museum out Of $3.50, 900, whichhe
demanded for an alleged ancient copy of
some rare Biblical manuscript. 1t took
the keenest experts on the subject in the
world to prove the manuscript spurious.
This roll in Mr.. Pratts possession is fine
specimen of Hebrew lettering, with one
funny thing about it. 1t is against the
law to send roll of any part of the
Scriptures out of Jerusalem. But the
Jewish standard of absolute correctness
and perfection in their roll is 80 high that
an imperfect copy doesn't count, and a
single letter wrong or missing makes the
whole roll imperfect and worthless in
their sight. So the first letter of the first
word Of the first verse of the first chap
ter Of Genesis is omitted. This vitiates
the whole business, and the roll is of no
account, it can lawfully be sold, it can
60 into the hands Of Gentle, and 1t can
be sent out of the sacred limits of the
holy city.
-Four more of these curious rolls came
from Constantinople to Mr.. Pratt's Ii
brary, containing respectively the books
Of Ruth, Songs Of Solomon, Ecclesiastes |
and Lamentations, all of them on parch.
ment. He has two parchment rolls of
the book of Esther, which came from
Constantinople, one of which was for
merly read from in synagogue in the
sultan's capital, and another on an ex.
quisitely carved ivory roller, which is
written in characters 80 small as to be a
perpetual wonder and tribute to the ex- |
traordinary patience and finger cunning |
of the copyist. He has roll of Esther |
ON paper from Russia, and one on parch-
ment from Germany.
One of the greatest curiosities in the
whole collection is "chained Bible"
This medieval relic was printed at Stras-
burg in 1880, less than half century
after the invention of printing, and
twelve years before the discovery of
America. 1t is in four immense folio
volumes, each being 20x13tx5 inches in
size, and containing a yoluminous COM
mentary ON the sacred text, both text
and commentary being in Latin, the
tough old black letter being used, which
none but a few adopts can read. The
binding of these ponderous tones is
heavily REINFORCED with iron plates and
al nd 10. 80,
tached to each of them, by which the
old books were secured to pillars in the
churches where they were kept. These
volumes were printed by John Guten-
berg, the father of printing, and were
doubtless among the first Bibles ever
printed.
One can only gaze with awe and VEN
Grafton upon piece of papyrns, framed
behind glass, on whose brown and dingy
surface, in strange characters dulled by
centuries and barely distinguishable, is
written the third verse of the second
chapter of Exodus. This dates back, per-
haps, 1000 years-no one can tell how
old-it belongs to an antiquity so vast.
The very reeds from which this papyrus
was made were of species that ceased
to exist centuries ago. The language is
ancient Coptic, dead language while
Latin and Greek were daily spoken by
millions. Mr.. Pratt has another similar
but less ancient piece of papyrus, also
from Egypt, and bearing fragment in
Greek letters.
Mr.. Pratt was impelled to begin his col
lection by the general ignorance of the
origin Of the Bible and the way it came
down to us, among the people, as re-
vealed by his Sunday school class So
he started to form collection of manu-
scripts and volumes that should illus
trate each successive form which the
holy books have taken from the begin
ming until the present day, the various
kinds of material on which it has been
inscribed or printed, and the languages
which it has passed through. What it
has cost him he has no precise notion,
but the closest guess that can be made
would not place its total cost at less than
$4,000 l.