• Little importance attaches to the statement In 2 Mac 2*3 ftbout Mebenuah founding a library (ju»rs,^«XA«^i«r ^i^Xi«^»i]»).
have been produced without a library. After hia death his librarj-was preserved at Scepsis; and, after having been sold to Apellicon of Teos and brought to Athens, it was ultimately taken by Sulla to Rome. The two most famous libraries of the Greek world, however, were those of I'ergamum and Alexandria. The former, founded by Attains I. and Eumenes II. at the end of the 3rd cent, and beginning of the 2nd cent. B.C., flourished greatly for a century and a half, but ultimately was transported by Mark Antony to Alexandria to replace that which had been destroyed by fire in Cresar's wars. It is said to have consisted of 200,000 rolls at that time. The library of Alexandria, founded perhaps by Ptolemy I. , was especially encouraged by Ptolemy II. (Philadelpiius). It was a department of the great Museum, and every efl'ort was made to gather into it all extant literature, and to attract the best scholars to accept posts in connexion with it. According to the well-known story embodied in the letter of Aristeas, it was in connexion with the establishment of the Alexandrian library, and at the express desire of Ptolemy Philadelphus, that the production of the LXX was undertaken. The main library, in the Museum, is stated to have been destroyed during the siege of Cicsar in Alexandria, and thenceforth the principal Alex- andrian library was that of the Serapeum, which previously had held a secondary place. This in turn suH'ered greatly at the sack of the Serapeum by Bishop TheophOus in 390, so that it is doubtful if much was left to be destroyed by the Arabs in 641. From the date of the foundation of these two great libraries, public libraries, pre\'iously almost unknown in Greece, seem to have become common. Polybius (xii. 27) in the 2nd cent. B.C. s]ic,'iks as if they would naturally be found in most liirge towns. At Rome they were of later growth. Private collections of books must certainly have been known to Varro, and Cicero's library was an extensive one for those days. iEmUius PauUus and LucuUus brought back libraries from their wars in the East. CiEsar planned the establish- ment of a public library ; but the execution of it was left to Augustus, who, however, had been slightly anticipated by Asinius Pollio. From this point public libraries, often in connexion with temples, became common in Rome, as elsewhere. A concrete example of a library, thoujjh on a small scale, is provided by that at Hereulaneura, in which the papyrus rolls, now in the Naples Museum, were found. It was a very small room, with shelves round the walls, on which lay the rolls (1756 in number); and a cabinet, also con- taining rolls, stood in the middle of the room.
Commg to Christian times and Christian litera- ture, it must have been long before anything in the iKiture of a library was required. The only books « ith which Christians, as such, had to deal were those of the OT and NT, and the few books which for a time hovered on the border of the Canon, such as the Epistles of Clement and Bar- nabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Gospel of Peter, and the like. These would either be in private possession or the property of a Church, which would also, in time, require something in the nature of service books. The earliest Christian libraries, therefore, apart from the small collections which an individual might have, were attached to churches ; but even these could not attain to any considerable size, so long as they were liable to dispersion in the days of persecution. The earliest of which we have individual knowledge is that which Pamphilus (t A.D. 308) established atCa?sarea, consisting primarily of the works of Origen. Her* the great scholar's Hexapla and Tetrapla were pre- served, and the colophons of several MSS (not- ably the Codd. Sinaiticus and Marchailianas, and
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WRITING
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Cod. H of the Pauline Epistles) testify to the use of these autographs for the purposes of revision. On the adoption of Christianity as the religion of the State, a library was founded by Constantino in his new caijital, which was greatly increased by his successors. With the institution of monasticism, monasteries as well as churches became the homes of libraries. Pachomius, the founiler of monasticism in Egypt, required his monks to study the Scriptures, and his rules (Migne, Patr. Grcuc. xl. ) clearly imply ready access to manuscripts. Throughout the Eastern empire, though learnin" was never so exclusively the possession of the clergy as it became in the West, the large majority of scribes were con- nected with churches or monasteries. Naturally, this is especi.illy the case with MSS of the Bible or theological works ; but in the list of scribes of Greek MSS of all kinds, whose names are on record, bj- far the most are monks or clerics (Gardt- hausen, Griech. Pal. p. 302 ti'. ). In the West, so long as the old Roman civilization remained, private and public libraries continued to exist throughout the empire, and the "rreat provincial mansions of the nooility were well stocked with books, literary culture being one of the marks of that leisured and luxurious section of society.* The irruptions of the barbarians swept this civi- lization awaj'. The pagan institutions for the preservation and multiplication of literature went to the ground, and the sole libraries which con- tinued to exist were those of cliurches, and especially of monasteries. Benedict, like Pach- omius in the East, prescribed reading as one of the special duties of his monks, thereby establishing a tradition which became an honourable charac- teristic of monasticism in general, and of the Benedictines in particular. In the early part of the Middle Ages, learning flourished most in the north of England, which was made famous by the scliolarsliip of Bede and by the excellent schools of Wearmouth and J arrow. From tlie north of Enj;- land proceeded what are perhaps the most beauti- fully written MSS that Latin scribes ever pro- duced— the Codex Aniiatinus and the Lindisfarne Gospels. Tlie history of these MSS establishes a point of some importance, namely the ease with which books were transferred from one ]iart of Europe to another. The Lindisfarne Gospels was certamly transcriljed from an exemplar brought from Naples ; and the Codex Aniiatinus, which must have been copied from the same or a similar volume, was itself (though it is one of the largest MSS in existence) convejed from England to Rome as a gift to the Pone. Piom England learning spread southward to France and Switzerland ; and while Alcuin founded the famous scliool of Tours, from which a new tradition of calligraphy came forth to inlluence all Europe, Irish monks founded (and to a large extent peopled) St. Gall, which became the centre of learning and of writing in the Rhone valley and the adjacent countries. As monasticism grew and the mona-steries became rich, so did their libraries increase. Monte Gas- sino, Bobbio, Grotta Ferrata, in Italy ; Fleury, Cluny, Corbie, St. Germain des Pr6s, in France ; Fulda, Reichenau, in Geniiany ; St. Gall, in Swit- zerland ; Canterbury (both St. Augustine's and Christ Church), Rochester, St. Albans, York, Durham, in England, — these are only a few of the most famous monasteries whose libraries were