History of the transmission of ancient books to modern times / together with the process of historical proof; or, a concise account of the means by which genuineness of ancient literature generally, and the authenticity of historical works especially are ascertained including incidental remarks upon the relative strength of the evidence usually adduced in behalf of the Holy Scriptures

by Isaac Taylor

CONTENTS.

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PAGE
[CHAPTER I.]
INTENTION OF THE PRESENT ARGUMENT	[1]
[CHAPTER II.]
STATEMENT OF THE CASE, AS TO THE AUTHENTICITY OF ANCIENT BOOKS	[9]
[CHAPTER III.]
THE DATE OF ANCIENT WORKS, INFERRED FROM THE QUOTATIONS AND REFERENCES OF CONTEMPORARY AND SUCCEEDING WRITERS	[28]
[CHAPTER IV.]
THE ANTIQUITY AND GENUINENESS OF ANCIENT BOOKS MAY BE INFERRED FROM THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGES IN WHICH THEY ARE EXTANT	[36]
[CHAPTER V.]
ANCIENT METHODS OF WRITING, AND THE MATERIALS OF BOOKS	[41]
[CHAPTER VI.]
CHANGES INTRODUCED IN THE COURSE OF TIME IN THE FORMS OF LETTERS, AND IN THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF WRITING	[52]
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE COPYISTS; AND THE PRINCIPAL CENTRES OF THE COPYING BUSINESS	[61]
[CHAPTER VIII.]
INDICATIONS OF THE SURVIVANCE OF ANCIENT LITERATURE, THROUGH A PERIOD EXTENDING FROM THE DECLINE OF LEARNING IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY, TO ITS RESTORATION IN THE FIFTEENTH	[77]
[CHAPTER IX.]
THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY	[97]
[CHAPTER X.]
SEVERAL METHODS AVAILABLE FOR ASCERTAINING THE CREDIBILITY OF ANCIENT HISTORICAL WORKS	[102]
[CHAPTER XI.]
EXCEPTIONS TO WHICH THE TESTIMONY OF HISTORIANS, ON PARTICULAR POINTS, MAY BE LIABLE	[119]
[CHAPTER XII.]
CONFIRMATIONS OF THE EVIDENCE OF ANCIENT HISTORIANS, DERIVABLE FROM INDEPENDENT SOURCES	[132]
[CHAPTER XIII.]
GENERAL PRINCIPLES, APPLICABLE TO QUESTIONS OF THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF ANCIENT RECORDS	[160]
[CHAPTER XIV.]
RELATIVE STRENGTH OF THE EVIDENCE WHICH SUPPORTS THE GENUINENESS AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES	[177]
[CHAPTER XV.]
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE PRECEDING STATEMENTS:—A MORNING AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM	[204]
[CHAPTER XVI.]
FACTS RELATING TO THE CONSERVATION, AND LATE RECOVERY, OF SOME ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS	[226]
[CHAPTER XVII.]
THE PROCESS OF HISTORIC EVIDENCE EXEMPLIFIED IN THE INSTANCE OF HERODOTUS	[267]
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
METHOD OF ARGUING FROM THE GENUINENESS, TO THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS	[306]
[CHAPTER XIX.]
EXAMPLES OF IMPERFECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE:—HERODOTUS	[336]
[CHAPTER XX.]
RECENT EXPLORATIONS, CONFIRMATORY OF THE TRUTH OF ANCIENT HISTORY: HERODOTUS AND BEROSUS	[358]
[CHAPTER XXI.]
INFERENTIAL HISTORIC MATERIALS	[371]
[CHAPTER XXII.]
THE MODERN JERUSALEM—A VOUCHER FOR THE LITERATURE OF ITS ANCIENT OCCUPANTS	[399]

HISTORY
OF THE
TRANSMISSION OF ANCIENT BOOKS.

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CHAPTER I.
INTENTION OF THE PRESENT ARGUMENT.

The credit of ancient literature, the certainty of history, and the truth of religion, are all involved in the secure transmission of ancient books to modern times. Many of the facts connected with the history of this transmission are to be found, more or less distinctly mentioned, in every work in which the claims of the Holy Scriptures are advocated. But these facts are open to much misapprehension when they are brought together to subserve the purposes of a single argument. It is the intention of this volume therefore to lay them before general readers, as they stand apart from controversy, and as if no interests more important than those of literature were implicated in the result of the statements we have to make.

Nothing can be more equitable than that the genuineness and authenticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures should be judged of by the rules that are applied to all other ancient books; nor is anything more likely to produce a firm and intelligent conviction of the validity of the claims advanced for the Holy Scriptures, than a clear understanding of the relative value of the evidence which supports them. To furnish the means therefore of instituting a comparison, so just in itself, and so necessary to a fair examination of the most important of all questions, is the design of these pages.

As this volume makes no pretension to communicate information to those who are already conversant with matters of antiquity, literary or historical, whatever might seem recondite, or what is still involved in controversy, has been avoided. Nor will these pages be encumbered with numerous references, which, though easily amassed, would increase the size of the volume without being serviceable to the class of readers for whom the author now writes. No facts are adduced which may not readily be substantiated by any one who has access to a library of moderate extent. But a few works, not often met with in private collections, are named at the foot of the page where special information has been derived from them.

The principal facts of ancient history, and the authenticity of the works from which chiefly our knowledge of antiquity is derived, are now freely admitted, after a few exceptive instances have been set off, which are unproved, or doubtful.

Yet on this subject, as well as upon some others, there often exists, at the same time, too much faith, and too little; for, from a want of acquaintance with the details on which-a rational conviction of the genuineness and validity of ancient records may be founded, many persons, even though otherwise well informed, feel that they have hardly an alternative between a simple acceptance of the entire mass of ancient history, or an equally indiscriminate suspicion of the whole. And when it happens that a particular fact comes to be questioned, or when the genuineness of some ancient book is argued, such persons, conscious that they are little familiar with the nature of the evidence on the strength of which the question turns, and perceiving that the controversy involves many recondite and uninteresting researches, or that it rests upon the validity of minute criticisms, either recoil altogether from the argument, or they accept an opinion, without inquiry, from that party on whose judgment they think they may most safely rely.

And it is true that such controversies may, for the most part, very properly be left in the hands of critics and antiquarians, whose tastes and acquirements qualify them for investigations that can scarcely be made intelligible to the mass of readers. Nor are the facts involved in these controversies often of any importance to the general student of history; for they do not extensively affect the integrity of that department of literature to which they belong. Yet it must be allowed that the principles on which such questions are argued, and the facts connected with the transmission of ancient literature to modern times, are in themselves highly important; and that they well deserve more attention than they often receive. Nor are these facts, when separated from particular controversies, at all abstruse, or difficult of apprehension. Indeed much of the information that bears upon the subject is in itself curious and highly interesting, as well as important.

Even in relation to those works of genius, the value of which consists in their intrinsic merits, and which would not be robbed of their beauties, though they were discovered to be spurious, an assurance of their genuineness is felt by every reader to conduce greatly to the pleasure they impart. But a much stronger feeling naturally leads us to demand this assurance in the perusal of works which profess to have reality only for their matter:—Truth is the very subject of History:—the adducing of satisfactory evidence, therefore, of the integrity of its records may well be deemed an indispensable preliminary to a course of study in that department of knowledge.

Besides its peculiar propriety in connexion with the study of history, the argument in support of the genuineness and authenticity of the existing remains of ancient literature is singularly fitted to afford a useful exercise to the reasoning faculties; and perhaps, better than any other subject, it calls into combined action those powers of the mind that are separately employed in mathematical, physical, or legal pursuits, and which, in the actual occasions of common life, can subserve our welfare only so far as they move in unison.

But reasons of still greater moment recommend the subject of the following pages to the attention of the reader; for it is certain that every one, whether or not he is contented to admit, without inquiry, the authenticity of profane history, has the highest personal concern in the truth of that particular portion of ancient history with which the Christian religion is connected; and, therefore, every one should think himself bound to convince himself of the genuineness of the books in which its principles are contained. And as the facts on which this proof depends are precisely of the same kind in profane, as in sacred literature, and as the same principles of evidence are applicable to all questions relating to the genuineness of ancient books, it is highly desirable that the proof of the genuineness of the Sacred Writings should be viewed—in its place, as forming a part only of a general argument, which bears equally upon the entire literary remains of antiquity. For it is only when so viewed, that the comparative strength and completeness of the proof which belongs to this particular case, can be duly estimated. When exhibited in this light it will be seen that the integrity of the records of the Christian faith is substantiated by evidence in a tenfold proportion more various, copious, and conclusive, than that which can be adduced in support of any other ancient writings. If, therefore, the question had no other importance belonging to it than what may attach to a purely literary inquiry, or if only the strict justice of the case were regarded, the authenticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures could never come to be controverted, till the entire body of classical literature had been proved to be spurious.

Many—perhaps most persons, in perusing works on the evidences of revealed religion, are apt to suppose that the sacred books only, or that these books, more than any others, stand in need of laboured argumentation in support of their authenticity; while, in truth, these books, less than any other ancient writings, need a careful investigation of their claims; for the proof that establishes them is on all points obvious and redundant. Indeed this very redundancy and variety of evidence—especially if it be unskilfully adduced, may actually produce confusion and hesitancy, rather than an affirmed conviction, in unpractised minds; and this perplexity is likely to be increased by the very idea of the serious importance of the subject. Thus it may happen that those very facts which, if compared with others of a similar kind, are susceptible of the most complete proof, are actually regarded with the most distrust.

In presenting to the reader, what might be called—the History of the records of History, we shall put him in position for tracing the extant works of ancient authors retrogressively, from modern times, up to the age to which they are usually attributed; and then it will be seen on what grounds—under certain limitations—the contents of these works are admitted to be authentic, and worthy of credit. In attending to the facts which we have to adduce it will appear that we are well warranted in accepting certain works as having been written in the age to which they are usually assigned, and by the authors to whom they are commonly attributed; and also in believing that they have not suffered material corruption in the course of transcription.

Further than this we may advance, and go on to show the grounds of our belief that such or such an author wrote what he believed to be true, and that he possessed authentic information on the subject of which he treats. The proof in this case must be drawn from the style and character of the work itself; from the circumstances that attended its first publication; from the corroborative evidence of contemporary writers; and from the agreement of the narrative in particular instances with existing relics of antiquity.

Evidence in support of the first part of this assumption will prove that the works in question are not forgeries:—evidence establishing the second, will show that they are not fictions.

It is obvious that these assumptions are not only distinct, but that they are independent of each other:—for one of them may be conclusively established, while the other is either disproved, or may remain questionable. A book may contain a true narrative of events, though not written by the author, or in the age, that has commonly been supposed. Or, on the other hand, it may undoubtedly be the production of the alleged author, but may deserve little credit as a professed record of facts. Thus, for example, the Cyropædia is, on good evidence, attributed to Xenophon; but there is little reason to suppose that it deserves to be considered as better than an historical romance:—the genuineness of the work is certain; but its authenticity as a history is, at the best, questionable. Yet the first of these propositions is more independent of the second, than the second can be of the first. For when the antiquity and genuineness of an historical work has been clearly demonstrated, it is seldom difficult to fix the degree of credit that is due to the author; or to discover those particular points on which there may be reason to suspect his veracity, or to question the soundness of his judgment, or to doubt the accuracy of his information.

It is then for the purpose of rendering these arguments and inferences intelligible, and more satisfactory also, than otherwise they would be, that, after giving a brief statement of this argument, we shall proceed to bring forward what relates to the manipulative and mechanical methods of multiplying copies of books, and to the diffusion, and preservation of these copies, in ancient times;—that is to say, in all times anterior to the invention of Printing, in the fifteenth century.

CHAPTER II.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE, AS TO THE AUTHENTICITY OF ANCIENT BOOKS.

The antiquity and genuineness of the extant remains of ancient literature may be established by three lines of proof that are altogether independent of each other; and though, in any particular instance, one, or even two out of the three should be wanting, the remaining one may alone be perfectly conclusive:—When the three concur, they present a redundant demonstration of the facts in question.

The first line of proof relates to the history of certain copies of a work, which are now in existence.

The second—traces the history of a work as it may be collected from the series of references made to it by succeeding writers.

The third—is drawn from the known history of the language in which the work is extant.

For understanding what belongs to the first of these three lines of evidence we ought to be acquainted with various particulars relating to the modes of writing practised among ancient nations, and to the materials employed, and to what may be called the business-system by means of which an ancient writer placed himself in communication with his readers.

In many, or in most of these particulars ancient and modern usages are very dissimilar. But something more should first be said indicative of the purpose with a view to which these facts are brought forward.

It need scarcely be said that the antiquity and integrity of a book can be open to no question, if in any case the existence of any one copy of it can be traced back, with certainty, to the time of its first publication. If, for example, a manuscript of a work in the author’s handwriting were still extant, and if the fact of its being such could by any means be proved, our argument would be concluded, and any other evidence must be deemed superfluous. There are however few such unquestionable autographs to be found, even of modern works, and none, of any ancient one. Yet the circumstances attending the preservation and transmission of manuscripts are, in some instances, as we shall see, such as to prove the antiquity and genuineness of a work with little less certainty than as if the very first copy of it were in existence.

But before we enter into the particulars of this proof it should be mentioned—especially as we intend to follow the order of time retrogressively, that the history of manuscripts need not be traced through any later period than that of the early part of the fifteenth century, when most of the classic authors passed through the press. For the invention of printing has served, as well to ascertain, beyond doubt, the existence of books at certain dates, as to secure the text from extensive interpolation and corruption. A printed book is not susceptible of subsequent interpolation or alteration by the pen: it bears also a date, and the issuing of different editions of the same work from distant places, would render any falsification of date in one of them, or any material corruption of the text by an editor, a nugatory attempt. For example, there are now extant, printed copies of the history of the Peloponnesian war, dated “Venice, 1502;” other copies of an edition of the same work are dated “Florence, 1506;” others are dated “Basil, 1540;” and others, printed within a few years of the same time at Paris and Vienna. On being compared with each other, these editions are found to agree in the main; and yet to disagree in many small variations of orthography, syntax, or expression; so as to prove that they were derived independently from different manuscripts; and not successively from each other. These printed editions, therefore, sufficiently prove the existence of the work in the fifteenth century; and also that the text of the modern editions has not been materially impaired or corrupted during the last four hundred years.

But let it now be imagined, that there are no other means of ascertaining the antiquity and genuineness of the classic authors than such as may be collected from the history of existing manuscripts. Our object then will be to discover to what age they may clearly be traced; and to deduce from the facts some sure inference relative to the length of time during which those works have been passing through the hands of copyists.

The date of an ancient manuscript may be ascertained by such means as the following:—

1. Some manuscripts are known to have been carefully preserved in the libraries where they are now found, for several centuries:—for not only have they been mentioned in the catalogues of the depositories to which they belong, but they have been so accurately described by eminent scholars of succeeding ages, that no doubt can remain of their identity. Or even if they have changed hands, the particulars of the successive transfers have been authentically recorded.

2. A large proportion of existing manuscripts are found to be dated by the hand of the copyists, and in such a manner as to leave no question as to the time when the copy was executed.

3. Many manuscripts have marginal notes, added evidently by later hands, which through some incidental allusion to persons, events, or particular customs, or by the use of peculiar forms of expression, indicate clearly the age of the notes, and therefore carry that of the original manuscript somewhat higher.

4. The remote antiquity of a manuscript is often established by the peculiar circumstance of its existing beneath another writing. These re-written manuscripts—palimpsests, or rescripts, as they are termed, afford the most satisfactory proof of antiquity that can be imagined. Parchment, which has always been a costly material, came to be greatly enhanced in price at the time when paper, manufactured from the papyrus of the Nile, began to be scarce, and just before the time when that formed from cotton—called charta bombycina, was brought into general use. At the same period, owing to the general decline of learning, the works of the classic authors fell into very general neglect. Those, therefore, who were copyists by profession, and the monks especially, whose libraries often contained large collections of parchment books, availed themselves of the valuable material which they possessed, by erasing, or washing out, the original writing, and then substituting lives of the saints, religious romances, meditations, or such other inanities as suited the taste of the times. Nevertheless, often, the faithful skin, tenacious of its pristine honours, retained the traces of the original writing with sufficient distinctness to render it still legible. These rescripts, therefore, offer to us a double proof of the antiquity of the work which first occupied the parchment; for in most cases the date of the monkish writing is easily ascertained to be of the twelfth, or even the ninth century. The writing which first occupied such parchments must, of course, be dated considerably higher; for it is much more probable that old, than that recent books should have been selected for the purpose of erasure. Some invaluable manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures, and not a few precious fragments of classic literature, have been thus brought to light.

5. The age of a manuscript may often be ascertained, with little chance of error, by some such indications as the following:—the quality or appearance of the ink; the nature of the material; that is to say, whether it be soft leather, or parchment, or the papyrus of Egypt, or the bombycine paper; for these materials succeeded each other, in common use, at periods that are well known;—the peculiar form, size, and character of the writing; for a regular progression in the modes of writing may be traced by abundant evidence through every age from the remotest times;—the style of the ornaments or illuminations, as they are termed, often serves to indicate the age of the book which they decorate.

From such indications as these, more or less definite and certain, ancient manuscripts, now extant, are assigned to various periods, extending from the sixteenth, to the fourth century of the Christian era; or perhaps, in one or two instances, to the third, or second. Very few can claim an antiquity so high as the fourth century: but not a few are safely attributed to the seventh; and a great proportion of those extant were unquestionably executed in the tenth; while many belong to the following four hundred years. It is, however, to be observed, that some manuscripts, executed at so late a time as the thirteenth, or even the fifteenth century, afford clear internal evidence that, by a single remove only, the text they contain claims a real antiquity, higher than that even of the oldest existing copy of the same work. For these older copies sometimes prove, by the peculiar nature of the corruptions which have crept into the text, that they have been derived through a long series of copies; while perhaps the text of the more modern manuscript possesses such a degree of purity and freedom from all the usual consequences of frequent transcription, as to make it manifest that the copy from which it was taken, was so ancient as not to be far distant from the time of the first publication of the work.

Most, if not all, the Royal and Ecclesiastical and University libraries in Europe, as well as many private collections, contain great numbers of these literary relics of antiquity: and some of them could furnish manuscripts of nearly the entire body of ancient literature. There are few of the classic authors that are not still extant in several manuscript copies; and of some, the existing copies are almost numberless.

Although all the larger ancient libraries, such, for example, as those of Alexandria, of Constantinople, of Athens, and of Rome, were destroyed by the fanaticism of barbarian conquerors; yet so extensive a diffusion of the most celebrated works had previously taken place, throughout the Roman empire, and beyond its limits, that all parts of Europe and Western Asia abounded with smaller collections, or with single works in the hands of private persons. When learning had almost disappeared among the people, monasteries and religious houses became the chief receptacles of books; for almost every such establishment included individuals who still cultivated literature and the sciences with ardour; and who found no difficulty in amassing almost any quantity of this generally neglected property.

Happily for literature, religious houses were places of greater security than even the strongholds of the nobles, or the palaces of kings, which by conquest or revolution were, from time to time, violently rent from their possessors. Meantime, these sacred seclusions were usually respected, even by the fiercest invaders. Through a long course of ages, monasteries were occupied by an order of men who succeeded each other in a far more tranquil course of transition than has taken place in any other instance, that might be named. The property of each establishment (and its literary property was always highly prized) passed down, from age to age, as if under the hand of a permanent proprietor, and it was therefore subjected to fewer dispersions or destructions than the mutability of human affairs ordinarily permits.

Every church, and every convent and monastery had its library, its librarian, and its other officers, employed in the conservation of the books. Connected with the library was the Scriptorium—the hall or chamber where the elder or the educated monks employed themselves in making copies of such books as were falling into decay; or of such as there was still some demand for, in the open world.

By means such as these it was that the literature of more enlightened ages has been preserved from extinction; and when at length learning revived in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a large portion of those long-hoarded volumes flowed into the collections of the munificent founders of libraries, and there, having become known to the learned, they were speedily consigned to the immortal custody of the press.

The places in which these remains of ancient literature had been preserved, during the middle ages, were too many, and they were too distant from each other, and they were too little connected by any kind of intercourse, to admit of a combination or conspiracy having for its object any supposed purposes of interpolation or corruption. Possessing therefore as we do, in most cases, copies of the same author, some of which were drawn from the monasteries of England, others from those of Spain, and others collected in Egypt, Palestine, or Asia Minor, if, on comparing them, we find that they agree, except in variations of little moment, we have an incontestable proof of the care and integrity with which the business of transcription had generally been conducted. For it is evident that if the practice of mutilation, interpolation, and corruption, had to any considerable extent been admitted, the existing remains of ancient authors, after so long a time, would have retained scarcely a trace of integrity or uniformity. A licentious practice of transcription, operating through the course of a thousand or fifteen hundred years, must have resulted, not in giving us the connected and consistent works we actually possess, but only a heterogeneous mass of mangled fragments.

But now, if the general accordance of existing manuscripts attests the prevailing care, and even the scrupulousness of those through whose hands they passed, the peculiar nature of the diversities that do exist among the several copies of the same author, serves to establish a fact which, if we did not know it by other means, it would be of the highest importance to prove: namely, that these works had already descended through a long course of time, when the existing copies were executed. This fact is especially apparent in the case of the earlier Greek authors; for while some copies retain uniformly the peculiarities of the dialect in which the author wrote; in others, these peculiarities are merged in those more common forms of the language which prevailed after the time of the decline of the Greek literature. These deviations in orthography, or in construction, from the author’s text, were evidently made by successive copyists in compliance with the tastes of purchasers of books in different countries; nor were they likely to have been effected by transcribers of the middle ages, when these books were no longer in use by readers to whom the language was vernacular, and to whom, alone, an accordance with the colloquial forms of the language could be a matter of any importance.

Books in a dead language, and which can be intended for the use of the learned only, will never be accommodated to the colloquial fashions of an intermediate period. Let us consider how it would be in an instance familiar to us. If, for example, in examining two editions of the poems of Chaucer, one of them should be found to retain the original peculiarities of orthography, proper to the author’s time, while, in the other, those peculiarities are all softened down into the forms adopted in the reign of Elizabeth, we should certainly attribute the edition to that period rather than suppose the corrections to have been made by a modern editor.

Again:—some copies of ancient authors present instances in which, when a passage is compared with the same in another copy, it is easy to perceive that an early transcriber, having fallen into an error, more than one succeeding transcriber has attempted a restoration of the genuine reading; for the last conjectural emendation has plainly been framed out of two or three prior corrections.

Thus it is, then, that the existing manuscripts of the classic authors may be traced up, either by direct evidence, or by unquestionable inferences, very near to the age—and, in many instances—quite up to the age when these works were universally diffused, were familiarly known, and were incessantly quoted by other writers; and when, therefore, the history of each work may easily and abundantly be collected from the testimony of contemporary and succeeding authors. The various facts, above alluded to, serve to connect the literary remains of antiquity—now in our hands, with the period of their pristine existence:—we traverse the long era of general ignorance—that wide gulf which separates the intelligence and civilization of antiquity from the intelligence and civilization of modern times, and we land, as it were, upon the native soil of these monuments of Mind, and we once more find ourselves surrounded by that abundance of evidence which belongs to an advanced state of knowledge. We need not wish to trace the history of manuscripts further, than to the confines of that former world of learning and refinement.

Indeed we need not be solicitous to trace the history of these literary relics a step further than fairly into the midst of the dark ages. For even if all external and correlative evidence were wanting, and if nothing were known concerning the classic authors except this—that, such as they now are, they were extant in the tenth century, more than enough would be known to make it abundantly certain that these works were the product of a very different, and of a distant age. The men of those times might indeed have been the transcribers and conservators, and perhaps even the admirers, of Thucydides, of Xenophon, of Aristophanes, of Plato, of Virgil, of Cicero, of Horace, and of Tacitus; but assuredly they were not the authors of books, such as those which bear these names. The living pictures of energy, and of wisdom, and of liberty, which these monuments of taste and genius contain, could never have been imagined in the cells of a monastery, nor composed in an age when little was to be seen abroad but ignorance, violence, and slavery; and little found within but a dreaming philosophy, and a degrading superstition. It is not the prerogative of the human mind, however great may be its native powers, to trespass far beyond the bounds of the scene by which it is immediately surrounded, or to frame images of things which, in their elements, as well as in their adjuncts, belong to a system and an economy altogether unknown to the men of that time. To the genius of man it is given to imitate, to select, to refine, and to exalt; but not to create.

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The general import of the facts that have thus been briefly stated, is this, namely, that the books now extant, and which are usually attributed to the Greek and Roman writers, have, such as we find them, descended from a very remote age. But this general affirmation must always be understood to include an exception of those smaller omissions, additions, and alterations in the text, which have taken place, either by design, or inadvertency, in the course of often repeated transcriptions.

The actual amount and the importance of these corruptions of the text of ancient authors is likely to be overrated by general readers, who seeing that the subject is continually alluded to in critical works, and knowing that criticisms upon “various readings” often occupy a space five times exceeding that which is filled by the text, and that not seldom they become the subject of voluminous and angry controversies, are led to suppose that questions upon which the learned are so long and so seriously employed, cannot be otherwise than weighty and substantial. With a view of correcting this impression, so far as it may be erroneous, we shall now briefly explain the general nature, the causes, and the extent of these variations and corruptions.

By far the greater proportion of all “various readings”—perhaps nineteen out of twenty, are purely of a verbal kind, and they are such as can claim the attention of none but philologists and grammarians: a few may deserve the notice of every reader of ancient literature; and a few demand the consideration of the student of history. But, taken in a mass, the light in which they should be regarded is that of their furnishing a significant and conclusive proof of the care, fidelity, and exactness with which the business of copying was ordinarily conducted. For it is certain that nothing less than a high degree, as well of technical correctness, as of professional integrity, on the part of those who practised this craft, could have conveyed the text of ancient authors through a period—in some instances—of two thousand years, with alterations so trivial as are those which, for the most part, are found actually to have taken place.

When the discrepancies of manuscripts of an author are such as materially to affect the sense of a passage in itself important, so as to demand the exercise of discrimination on the part of the student of history, it becomes necessary to understand, and to bear in mind, what were probably the most common sources of such diversities. The following may be named as the most common causes of the various readings which are met with in comparing several copies of the same ancient author.

1. Nothing can be more probable than that authors who long survived the first publication of their works, should, from time to time, issue revised copies of them; and each of these altered copies would, if the work were in continual request, and were widely diffused, become the parent, as we may say, of a family of copies. Thus it would be that, without any fault on the part of the transcribers, a considerable amount of such diversities would be originated, and perpetuated. A large proportion, perhaps, of those variations which occupy the diligence and acumen of editors and critics, and for the rectification of which so many learned conjectures are often hazarded, have, in fact, arisen from the author’s own hand in revising the copies which, at intervals, he delivered to his amanuenses. The perpetual opportunity afforded for introducing corrections, when a book was continually in request, would not fail to encourage, in fastidious authors, the habit of frequent revision: meantime transcribers, in distant countries, might have no opportunity to collate the earlier with the later exemplars. This source of various readings seems to have been too little adverted to by critics; though it might serve to solve some perplexing questions relative to the genuineness of particular expressions or sentences, which have fallen under suspicion from their non-existence in certain manuscripts.

2. Some errors would, of course, arise from the mere inattention, carelessness, or the ignorance of transcribers; and yet fewer, probably, than may at first be imagined; for besides that those who spent their lives in this occupation would generally acquire a high degree of technical accuracy of eye, ear, and hand, and that correctness and legibility must have been the qualities upon which, principally, the marketable value of books depended; it is known that in the monasteries, from whence the greater part of all existing manuscripts proceeded, there were persons, qualified by their superior learning for the task, whose office it was to revise every book that issued from the Scriptorium. Errors of inadvertency must, nevertheless, have occurred. If the author to be transcribed was read by one person, while several wrote from his voice, the process would be open, not only to the mistakes of the reader’s eye, and to those of the writer’s hand; but especially to those of the writer’s ear; for words, similar in sound, might often be substituted, one for the other. Instances of this sort are of frequent occurrence, and the knowledge of the probable cause often serves to suggest the proper correction. If the writer read for himself, he would be liable to mistake letters of similar shape—to mistake the sense by a wrong division of words in his manner of reading, in consequence of which he might involuntarily accommodate the orthography or the syntax to the supposed sense. The frequent use of contractions in writing was a very common source of errors; for many of these abbreviations were extremely complicated, obscure, and ambiguous, so that an unskilful copyist was very likely to mistake one word for another. No parts of ancient books have suffered so much from errors of inadvertency as those which relate to numbers; for as one numeral letter was easily mistaken for another, and as neither the sense of the passage, nor the rules of orthography, nor of syntax, suggested the genuine reading, when once an error had arisen, it would most often be perpetuated, without remedy. It is, therefore, almost always unsafe to rest the stress of an argument upon any statement of numbers in ancient writers, unless some correlative computation confirms the reading of the text. Hence nothing can be more frivolous or unfair than to raise an objection against the veracity or accuracy of an historian, upon some apparent incompatibility in his statement of numbers. Difficulties of this sort it is much better to attribute, at once, to a corruption of the text, than to discuss them with ill-spent assiduity.

3. The assumption of short marginal notes into the text, appears to have been a frequent source of various readings. When such notes supplied ellipses in the author’s language, or when they conduced much to the perspicuity of an obscure passage, the copyist would be very likely to incorporate the exegetical phrase, rather than that it should either be lost to the reader, or should deform the margin.

4. Transcribers frequently thought themselves free to substitute modern for obsolete words or phrases; and sometimes they consulted the wishes of their customers, by exchanging the forms of one dialect (of the Greek) for those of another; or, more often, for the common forms of the language. Alterations of this kind have often been the occasion of bringing authentic works under needless suspicion; for when the text has contained words or phrases which are known to belong to a later age than that of the supposed author, such incongruities have seemed to afford proofs of spuriousness.

5. Intentional omissions, interpolations, or alterations, were unquestionably sometimes ventured on by transcribers. But so many are the means we possess for detecting any such wilful corruptions—drawn from a comparison of different manuscripts, or from the incongruity of the interpolated passage, that there is perhaps, altogether, more probability that, from some accidental peculiarity of style, genuine passages of ancient authors should fall under suspicion, than that any actually spurious portions should entirely escape suspicion and detection.

Of the above-mentioned sources of the various readings found in the text of ancient authors, it should be remembered that the operation of the first was confined to the short term of the author’s life; nor indeed, whatever may be the amount or importance of variations arising from this source, must they go to swell the number of corruptions of the text. The second source of variations was indeed open during the lapse of many centuries; yet it has always been held in check by the diligent collation of copies, on the part of industrious critics, from age to age: and a large proportion of errors, arising from mere inadvertency, are either so palpable as to suggest the means of their own correction; or they are so trivial as to merit no attention, except from those who charge themselves with the responsibilities of an editor. There is, besides, reason to believe that not a few existing copies of the most celebrated authors, present a text that has passed through the process of transcription not oftener than once or twice; and that each time the copy has been executed with scrupulous exactness. Variations arising from the third and fourth sources, have perhaps occasioned to critics and editors more perplexity than those springing from any other cause; and yet these differences are rarely of any moment, so far as the sense of the author is concerned: they can be deemed important only when they tend to perplex the question of the date or the genuineness of a book. Corruptions of the fifth class must be acknowledged materially to affect the credit and value of ancient literature, so far as there can be any reason to suspect their existence; and every diligent student of history will think the investigation of cases of this kind deserving of his utmost attention.

CHAPTER III.
THE DATE OF ANCIENT WORKS, INFERRED FROM THE QUOTATIONS AND REFERENCES OF CONTEMPORARY AND SUCCEEDING WRITERS.

Let us now suppose, that the Greek and Latin authors are extant only in the printed editions—that is to say, that every one of the ancient manuscripts has long since perished, and that the facts that have been referred to in the preceding pages are out of our view, or unknown. Our business then would be, to collect from these works such a series of mutual references, as should both prove the identity of the works now extant with those so referred to; and also fix the relative places of the several writers in point of time.

A single reference, found in one author, to the works of another, who, in his turn, needs the same kind of authentication, may seem to be a fallacious, or insufficient, and obscure kind of proof; for this reference or this quotation may possibly be an interpolation; or the reference may be of too slight or indefinite a kind to make it certain, that the work now extant is the same as that so referred to. In truth, the validity of this kind of proof arises from its amount, from its multifariousness, and from its incidental character. For although a single and solitary testimony may be inconclusive, many hundred independent testimonies, all bearing upon the same point, are much more than sufficient to remove every shadow of doubt; some of these references may be slight and indefinite, but others are full, particular, and complete. If some are formal and direct, and such therefore as might be supposed to have been inserted with a fraudulent design, others are altogether circuitous and purely incidental. If some have descended to us through the same channels, others are derived from sources as far removed as can be imagined from the possibility of collusion.

But a work may happen to want this kind of evidence, and yet, on other grounds, it may possess a valid claim to genuineness. In fact, almost all the existing remains of ancient literature are abundantly authenticated by the numerous and explicit quotations from them, or descriptions of them, that occur in other works. And there are very few books that do not contain some direct or some indirect allusions to other works: so it is that the remains of ancient literature, taken as a mass, contains within itself the proof of the authenticity of each part.

The nature of the case gives to this body of references a pyramidal form. In the most remote age it is, of course, small in amount; in the next age it becomes much more ample and substantial; and in later periods, it spreads itself over the entire surface of literature.

The literature of the Greeks was national and original; they borrowed from their neighbours less in poetry, philosophy, and history, than in religion, or the arts: their early writers were not, in the modern sense of the term, men of learning; their works were composed at the impulse of genius, and of the moving spirit of the times. The habit of literary allusion and quotation had not then been formed, nor indeed was it congruous with this order of intellectual production; and yet the early Greek writers contain mutual references, which, if not numerous, are sufficient to establish and ascertain, in most instances, the genuineness of each.

The second period of Greek literature, dating from the times of Alexander, and reaching down to the overthrow of the Greek national independence by the Romans, was, in the natural order of things, an era of learning, of criticism, and of imitation. The writers of this period, therefore, abound with references of all kinds to their predecessors and contemporaries. A second age of literature holds up a mirror of the first. Erudition, amplitude, comprehension, method, labour, take the place of spontaneous effort, and of intuitive taste. Commentators, compilers, and collectors abound; and the writers of such an age seem to perform the functions of caryatides in the temple of learning; as if their only business was to sustain the pediment which chiefly attracts the admiration of spectators. Among writers of this class, therefore, we are to look for a copious harvest of quotations; and in their pages we shall rarely fail to meet with evidence bearing upon any question of the genuineness of an ancient writer.

The Romans borrowed everything but energy of character and practical good sense, from the Greeks. Their literature, from the first, was of a derived character; their writers added learning to what might be their native genius; and their works reflect the literature of their masters. Sufficiently ample allusions, therefore, to the most celebrated of the Greek authors, as well as to those of their countrymen, are found scattered throughout the Latin classics.

Both the Greek and Latin writers of later ages were well acquainted with the literature of brighter times; and they have left in their works ample means for bringing down the chain of references to the time of the decline of learning in Europe—to that time up to which we have already traced the history of existing manuscripts; so that the two lines of evidence unite about midway between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries.

The nature, extent, and validity of the evidence that may be derived from the mutual references of authors, will be best exhibited by a classification of its several kinds under the following heads:—

1. Literal quotations, whether the author cited is named or not. Such quotations serve the double purpose of proving the existence of the work quoted in the time of the writer who makes the reference, and of identifying, and sometimes even of correcting, the extant text. If, for example, in subsequent writers, we find only a dozen or twenty sentences, taken from different parts of an earlier work, the verbal coincidence is sufficient to prove that the work, such as we now find it, is the same as that quoted. When such quotations are numerous and exact, they afford the best means, either of restoring the genuine reading of authors, or of judging of the comparative purity of different manuscripts. For frequently these quotations seem to have suffered less in the course of transcription than either the other parts of the work in which they are found, or than that from which they are taken. The reason of this difference may readily be imagined:—either the author himself quoted from a copy purer than any that are now extant; or the transcriber, meeting with a passage which he remembered to belong to a well-known work, consulted the original, of which he had a good copy, and the very circumstance of doing so would naturally induce somewhat more of care than in ordinary transcription.

2. Incidental allusions are often met with, either to the words or to the sense of an author, sufficiently obvious to prove that the one writer was known to the other; and yet they are too incidental and remote to be regarded as an interpolation. In questions of apparent difficulty, such accidental references may be conclusive in proof of the existence of a work at a certain time. Among the ancient historians, there are instances in which two writers, who do not mention each other, narrate the same facts with so many coincidences of method, or of details, embellishments, or reflections, as to make it certain either that both narratives were derived from the same source; or that the one was copied from the other. And if the one narrative has altogether the air of originality, and is in accordance with the writer’s style and spirit, the other writer must be held to be the quoting party, and therefore he establishes the prior existence of the work from which he has borrowed.

3. Nearly every one of the principal authors of antiquity has been explicitly mentioned, or criticised, or described, by later writers. Lists of their works have been given, with summaries of their contents; or they have been made the subjects of connected commentaries, by means of which the mass of the original work may be identified, and collated, with existing copies. Books of this secondary class are usually fraught with references to the entire circle of literature that was extant in the writer’s time. There are also extant several works containing the lives of ancient authors, with accurate lists of their works. These biographical pieces, while they have on one hand afforded a security against the production of spurious works, on the other hand have given occasion to such attempts; for if some treatise, known to have been written by a celebrated author, was believed to have perished, an opportunity was presented for composing one which should correspond with the description given of it. But such spurious works must always be deficient in positive evidence, nor will they fail to betray the imposition by some glaring inconsistencies in style, or in matter. The lives of statesmen and warriors often contain such allusions to the writers of the same age, as suffice to prove the time when they flourished. All the information we possess on this head is, in many instances, derived from allusions of this sort.

4. A copious fund of quotations is contained in some ancient treatises on particular subjects, in which all the authors who have handled the same topic are mentioned in the order of time.

5. Controversies, whether literary, political, or religious, have usually occasioned extensive quotations to be made from works of all classes; and, on the spur of an acrimonious disputation, many obscure facts have been adduced, which, by some circuitous connexion with other facts, have served to determine questions of literary history.

6. Among all the means for ascertaining the antiquity and genuineness of ancient books, none are more satisfactory or more complete than those afforded by the existence of early translations. Indeed, if such translations can be proved to have been made near to the time at which the author of the original work is believed to have lived, and if they correspond, in the main, with the existing text—and if they have descended to modern times through channels altogether independent of those which have conveyed the original work—and if, moreover, ancient translations of the same work, in several languages, are in existence, no kind of proof can be more perfect, or more trustworthy. In such cases every other evidence might safely be dispensed with. Ancient translations serve also the important purpose of furnishing a criterion by which to judge of the comparative merits of manuscripts, and by which also to determine questions of suspected interpolation.

Although the genuineness of by far the greater part of ancient literature is established by a redundancy of testimonies, such as those here described, there will of course be some few instances of works which, though probably genuine, are so destitute of external proof that they must remain under doubt; and there are also some few which, though probably spurious, possess just so much plausible proof of genuineness as serves to maintain a place for them on the ground of controversy. The two together, therefore, will yield some number of disputable cases. The controversies that have actually been carried on relative to such doubtful works have served to show the exceedingly small chance which any actually spurious work can have of escaping suspicion and detection. And thus these discussions furnish, implicitly, the strongest grounds for relying upon the genuineness of those works against which even a captious and whimsical scepticism can maintain no plausible objection.

CHAPTER IV.
THE ANTIQUITY AND GENUINENESS OF ANCIENT BOOKS MAY BE INFERRED FROM THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGES IN WHICH THEY ARE EXTANT.

A language is at once the most complete, and it is the least fallible of all historical records. A poem or a history may have been forged; but a language is an unquestionable reality. The bare circumstance of its existence, though it may long have ceased to be colloquially extant, proves, in substance, what it is which history has to communicate. If we did but possess a complete vocabulary of an ancient language, and if we were to digest the mass in accordance with an exact principle of synthesis, we should frame a model of the people that once used it—a model more perfect than any other monuments can furnish: and on this ground we need fear no falsifications, no concealments, no flatteries, no exaggerations. The precise extent of knowledge and of civilisation to which a people attained—nothing more and nothing less, is marked out in the mass of words of which they were accustomed to make use.

A language, if the comparison may be admitted, might be called a cast of the people who spoke it—a cast, taken from the very life; and it is one which represents the world of mind, as well as the world of matter. The common objects of nature—the peculiarities of climate—the works of art—the details of domestic life—political institutions—religious opinions and observances—philosophy, poetry, and art—every form and hue of the external world, and every modification of thought, find their representatives in the language of the people.

In any case, therefore, if we have a complete knowledge of a language—that is to say, of the words of which it consists—we possess a mass of facts by aid of which to judge of the claims to authenticity of every work in which that language is embodied. And if, in addition to a knowledge of its vocabulary, the laws of its construction also, and the nicest proprieties of its syntax and style are known; and if, moreover, the changes that have taken place from age to age in the sense of words, and in modes of expression, are understood, we then possess ample and exact data with which to compare any book that pretends to antiquity. A writer who employs his native language must be expected to conform himself to its usages; and we should find him adhering, more or less strictly, to the peculiarities of the age in which he writes: his vocabulary, moreover, will include that compass of words which his subject demands, and which the language affords.

It is true that such a degree of skill in a dead language may be acquired as may enable a writer to use it with so exact a propriety as shall deceive, or at least perplex, even the most accomplished scholars. But the difficulty of avoiding every phrase of later origin, and all modern senses of those words which are continually passing from a literal to a metaphorical meaning, is so great, as to leave the chances of escaping detection extremely small. Yet, as such a chance still remains within the range of possibility, this line of evidence cannot be reckoned absolutely conclusive, but must only be employed as subsidiary to those other evidences that bear upon questions of authenticity.

The minute changes which are continually taking place in most languages, and the history of which, when known, serves often to ascertain the date of ancient books, are of two kinds; namely, those which result necessarily from actual changes in the objects represented by words, and those which are mere changes in the use and proprieties of language itself.

Language being a mirror, reflecting all the communicable notions of the people who use it, every mutation in the condition of the people must bring with it, either new terms, or new combinations of words; and as the particular circumstances which introduce such additions or alterations are often known, their occurrence in an author may serve to fix the date of the book, almost with certainty.

Moreover, there is a progression in language itself, independent of any alterations in the objects represented by words. Whenever a vocabulary affords a choice of appellatives, even for immutable objects or notions, the caprices of conversation or of literature—affectation perhaps, or excessive refinement, will, from time to time, occasion a new selection to be made. In all those terms, especially, which either bring with them ideas too familiar to accord with the proprieties of an elevated style, or which are in any degree offensive to delicacy, there will take place a continual, and, sometimes, even a rapid, substitution of new for old phrases—not because the new are in themselves more dignified, or more pure than the old; but because, when first introduced, they are untainted by gross associations or vulgar use.

Every language, therefore, copious specimens of which are extant, and of which the progress is known, contains a latent history of the people through whose lips it has passed, and furnishes to the scholar a series of recondite dates, by means of which literary remains may almost with certainty be assigned to their proper age. This sort of evidence bears the same relation to the history of books, which that derived from the successive changes known to have taken place in the mode of writing bears to the history of manuscripts. It is of a subsidiary kind, and from its very indirectness it often deserves peculiar attention.

We have now seen on what grounds it is, generally, that with reasonable confidence the extant works of ancient authors may be accepted as being such in truth. In presenting this statement of the case, nothing more has been attempted than to offer an outline or brief summary of the argument before us. Certain parts of this argument, as the reader will at once perceive, would admit of much amplification; and in any instance in which the genuineness of a particular manuscript, or the authenticity of an ancient work were alleged to be questionable, every part of the evidence would require to be brought forward in all its details, and to be narrowly scrutinized.

CHAPTER V.
ANCIENT METHODS OF WRITING, AND THE MATERIALS OF BOOKS.

As our present inquiry relates to Books, it will not be expected to include anything concerning ancient methods of engraving inscriptions upon marbles, metals, or precious stones. Yet it should be remembered that a knowledge of inscriptions is often highly important, as furnishing subsidiary and independent means of determining the age of manuscripts, as indicated by the character of the writing. For as there are extant almost innumerable specimens of writing upon the more durable materials, and as these specimens belong to every age from the very earliest times, and as such inscriptions usually contain, either an explicit date, or some allusion to public persons or events, they serve to determine, beyond doubt, the successive changes that have taken place in the form of letters, and in the modes of writing.