Papendrecht, Cornelius P. von, a Roman Cath- olic tiieologian, was born at Dort in the j'ear 1686, and died in 1753, as canon of Mechlin, after having occu- pied for twenty-four years the office of secretary to the cardinal d'Alsace, archbishop of Mechlin. Papen- drecht wrote a Histoi'ij of the Church of Utrecht since the Change of Religion (Mechlin, 1725), and Analecta Bel- gica (Hague, 1743, 6 vols.), a collection of records bear- ing upon the history of Belgium, enriched by his com- ments.
Paper. See Writing.
Paper-reed is the false translation in the A. V. of the Heb. IT^", 'ardh, a naked phce, referring to the
PAPER-REED
636
PAPIIOS
meadows on the banks of the Nile, which were for the most part destitute of trees. See Nile.
Ev the "paper-reed" the transhitors of the A. V. doubtless intended to designate tiie famous I'^gj'ptian papyi'ug, of which we borrow the following account chietl}' from Chambers's Cyclop, s. v. The pap3'rus is a genus of plants of the natural order Ci/peruciw, of which there are several species, the most important being the Egyptian papjTus, or "papjrus of the an- cients" {Papyrus antiquorum, the Cyperiis pa]iy7-ns of LinniBUs), a kind of sedge, from eight to ten feet high, with a very strong woody, aromatic, creeping root ; long, sharp-keeled leaves; and naked, leafless, trian- gular, soft, and cellular stems, as thick as a man's arm at the lower part, and at their upper extremity bearing a compound umbel of extreuiclj' numerous drooping spikelets, with a general involucre of eight long filiform leaves, each spikelet containing from six to thirteen florets. By the ancient Egyptians it was called ;7a/j(/, from which the Greek papjyrus is derived, although it was also called by them byb'os or dtltos. The Hebrews called it gome., a word resembling the Coptic ^o?», or "volume;'" its modern Arabic name is berdi. So rare is the plant at the present day in Egypt, that it is supposed to have been introduced ei- ther from Sj'ria or Abj'ssinia; but it has been seen till lately in the vicinity of the lake Menzuleh, and speci- mens have been sent to England ; and as it formerly was considered the emblem of Northern Egypt or the Delta, and onlj' grown there, if introduced it must have come from some countrj' h'ing to the north of Egypt. It lias been found in modern times in the neighlKirhood of Jaffa, on the banks of the Anapus, in tlie pools of tlie Liane, near S^yracuse, and in the vi- cinity of the lake Thrasj'menus. It is represented on the oldest Egyptian monuments, and as reaching the height of about ten feet. It was grown in pools of still water, growing ten feet above the water and two beneath it, and restricted to the districts of Sais and Sebennytus. The pap5'rus was used for many pur- poses bcifh ornamental and useful, such as crowns for the head, sandals, boxes, boats, and cordage, but prin-
rapijriis (iiit.'qKoniiH.
cipally for a kind of paper called by its name. Its pith was boiled and eaten, and its root dried for fuel. The papyrus, or paper of the Egyptians, was of the greatest reputation in antiquity, and it appears on the earliest monuments in the shape of long rectangular sheets, which were rolled up at one end, and on which the scribe wrote with a reed called kash, with red or black ink made of an animal carbon. "When newly prepared, it was white or brownish-white and lissom ; but in the process of time those papyri which have reached the present day have become of a light or dark brown color, and exceedingly l;rittle, breaking to tlie touch. While papjrus was commonh' used in Egypt for the purposes of writing, and was, in fact, the paper of the period, although mentioned Ijj' early Greek authors, it does not appear to have come into general use among the Greeks till after the time of Alexander the Great, when it was extensively ex- ported from the Egyptian ports under the I'tolcmies. Fragments, indeed, have been found to have been used by the Greeks centuries before. It was, however, al- ways an expensive article among the Greeks, and a sheet cost more than the value of a dollar. Among the IJomans it does not appear to have been in use at an earh' period, althouiih the Sil ylline books are said to have been written on it, and it was cultivated in Calabria, Ajnilia, and the marshes of the Tiber. But the staple was no doulit imported from Alexandria, and improved or adapted by the Roman manufactu- rers. So extensive was the Alexandrian maimfac- torj' that Hadrian, in his visit to that cit3', was stiuck bj' its extent; and later in the empire an Egy];tian usurper (rirnius, A.D. 272) is said to have boasted that he could support an army off his materials. It continued to be employed in the Eastern and Western Empire till the 12th century, and was used among the Arabs in the 8th, but after that period it was quite superseded l)y parchment. At the later periods it was no longer employed in the shape of rolls, but cut up into square pages and bound like modern books. See Wilkinson, Anc. Ef/ypi. ii, 05, 9G. See Eeed ; Rush.
Paphia, a surname of Aphrodite (Venus^, derived from a temple in honor of this goddess at Paphos, in Cyprus.