2. Writing materials. — In Goethe's Faust the hero offers a wide choice of materials for the docu- ment which Mephistopheles demands :
' Die Herrschaft fiihren Wachs und Leder . . . Erz, Marnior, Pergament, Papier? Soil icli mit Griffel, .Meissel, Feder schreiben?'
In the Apostolic Age there was a similar variety of choice. The available materials of that period, however, did not include the modern paper — the thin, more en- less smooth, white or yellow fabric manufactured from cotton or linen. Such paper seems to have been an invention of the Chinese in very early times, and became known to the Arabs after their conquest of Samarqand in A.D. 704. The Arabs came at length to use it for writing purposes to the exclusion of almost every other material, and it was in this way carried to Sicily and Spain ; in all likelihood it reached other Western lands as a result of the Crusades and the consequent growth of intercourse between the eastern and western regions of the Mediterranean. In any case, paper as known to us cannot have
been used for the autographs of the Apostolic Age.
According to Lk 1"^ Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, made use of a trritinii tablet (iri^a- KiStoPf v.l. TTLvaKis, of which -rrtvaKtoiov is a tliniiim- tive ; cf. Epictetus, Diss. iii. 2-2, 74). The ancient writing tablets, which may be said to survive in our slates, were made of metal or wood, sometimes even of ivory, and were often whitewashed, or covered with a layer of stucco ; two or more tablets might be bound together with thread. Frequently, too, the inner part of the tablet was deepened, the edges being allowed to stand out like a frame — a device that gave a better protec- tion to the waiting. The hollow part was often smeared with wax ; notes could then be entered upon the thin film by the metal stilus, and, when these had served their purpose, the wax could be smoothed for fresh use. It was not very easy to write rapidly on the wax, and the script was rather indistinct to the eye. The pointed stilus fre- quently had at its other end a small thin plate with which erasures could be made. As other sorts of writing material were relatively high in price, these tablets had generally to .suffice for briefer records. Such a tablet, inscribed with its short message, could be sent by one person to another, somewhat like apost-card, and the receiver could smooth the wax, write his reply, and send back the tablet without delay. By tlie 1st cent. A.D., however, the wax film was coming to be superseded by a small sheet of parchment. It would probably be safe to say that, in much the same proportion as people carry notebooks at the present day, the Christians of the Apostolic Age who were fairly able to write carried and made use of writing tablets. It is of special importance to note that the folding tablets form a linli in the development that resulted in the codex. Never- theless, as the tablet could carry but little writing — at most perhaps a message about as long as the Third Epistle of John or the Epistle to Philemon — it need hardly be taken into account with refer- ence to the autographs of primitive Christian writings.
The other available materials that might be used for the writings of the Apostolic Age were sheets of papyrus and parchment. Papyrus,* the manufacture of which is described — not indeed altogether clearly or accurately — by Pliny the Elder (HN xiii. 21-27), was a product of the papyrus plant, a rush that grew in the Nile Delta. The pith of the plant was cut into thin strips, which were laid horizontally side by side, and covered with a similar layer of strips at right angles. The whole was made to cohere by some glutinous substance, and then pressed, dried, and polished. The side upon which the fibres ran horizontally was latterly regarded as the proper one for writing upon ; it was used first, and for the most part the other was left blank. The process of manufacture became at length so highly developed as to yield sheets in which toughness and durability were combined with a remarkable degree of thinness, and which were sometimes so smooth that the steel pen of to-day moves freely over them. The preparation of papyrus in Egypt is a very ancient industry, its beginnings bemg clearly traceable to the 3rd or 4th millennium B.C.
The use of leather as a writing material seems to go back to an equally early time ; it is said to have been a very ancient practice in the East(cf. Herod, v. 58 ; Diod. Sic. ii. 32). Thick leather, however, was hardly a substance adapted for the production of larger works, and only its preparation in the form of the thinner and more delicate parchment
* The pronunciation with the y long is probably the correct
WRITING
WKITING
701
conld make it avail for such a purpose. The in- vention of ])arclinienC has been usually connected with the desire of Eunienes II., king of Perganiuni (197-158 B.C.), to institute a great library on the model of that in Alexandria. The kernel of fact in Pliny's statonicnt to that elleet (HN xiii. 21) may well bo that in the lirst half of the 2nd cent. B.C. I'erganiuni became a centre for a more frequent use and a more retined preparation of the skins of animals as a writing material. It is prob- able, however, that prior to this there had been a slow ]>rocess of development — a process tending towarils an increased refinement in the jueparation of leather for writing, and at length, in the 2nd cent. B.C., reaching a stage at which even extensive works could bo written wholly upon parchment, and still kept within the limits of convenient size.