On the first leaf of the same volume, there is a note in a more ancient hand; to this effect:—
“This book belonged to the monk Habibai, who presented it to the holy convent of the Church of Deipara, belonging to the Syrians in the Desert of Scete. May God, abounding in mercies and compassion, for the sake of whose glorious name he set apart and gave this spiritual treasure, forgive his sins, and pardon his deficiencies, and number him among His own elect in the day of the resurrection of his friends, through the prayers of all the circle of the saints! Amen, Amen.—Son of the living God, at the hour of Thy judgment, spare the sinner who wrote this!”
The way in which this volume was put together is characteristic of the times in which it was done, and of that union of religious feeling and of literary (not heedlessness but) inobservance, which attach to the monastic mode of life after it has subsided into its inert and mindless condition. Dr. Cureton says that
“the volume containing the Fragments that are now published, were taken, as it would appear, almost by hazard, without any other consideration than that of their being of the same size, and then arranged, so as to form a complete copy of the Four Gospels. There were several other volumes in the Nitrian Library made up in this manner. The person who arranged them seems to have had no idea of selecting the scattered parts of the same original volume, which had fallen to pieces, but merely to have taken the first leaves which came to his hand, which would serve to complete a copy of the Gospels, and then to have bound them together. In this way it came to pass, that parts of three or four manuscripts were found mixed up with three or four others, written at different times, and by different scribes; and sometimes, indeed, not even of the same exact size, apparently without regard to any other circumstance than merely to render the context perfect.”
So far as could be done, this intermixture of leaves has been remedied, by bringing the corresponding portions of the same copy again into their original juxtaposition, so as to constitute continuous copies of several different manuscripts. Within the one volume, such as it had been obtained from the Nitrian monastery, there were included some leaves of thick vellum, apparently transcribed in the sixth or seventh century, and written in a very large, bold hand, with divisions of sections—some of very thin and white vellum, in a large hand, in two columns, similar to the former; but apparently rather older; and some in a different style and of other dates.
Dr. Cureton expresses his belief (as to portions at least) of what has thus been recovered, that they were transcribed in or about the middle of the fifth century; and that they represent a text—especially so far as concerns the recovered portions of the Gospel of St. Matthew—which has been unknown to European scholars; and is, therefore, “of the highest importance for the critical arrangement of the text of the Gospels.”
The use to be made of this ancient copy is not a subject properly belonging to this volume; but it will be well that the reader should bring into his own view the highly significant facts that are, as we may say, linked together in an instance of this sort. Let us then recount them: and we may do so with the more satisfaction, inasmuch as they are now so recently made public; and because, also, the instance, taken in all its circumstances, may stand as fairly representative of very many of those which constitute the evidence adducible in proof of the safe transmission of ancient books to modern times.
The Church writers of the fourth and fifth centuries make frequent references to the monastic establishments of the Scetic desert.[6] In these religious houses, well-ordered and amply furnished as they were in those times, the business of copying books was a principal occupation of such of the recluses as were inclined by their habits and tastes to pursue it. There are notices of these establishments from time to time, down to the Mahometan era; when, although some of the monasteries were dismantled or plundered, more of them were treated indulgently, or even reverentially, by the Arabian conquerors. Several Saracenic writers mention the Nitrian monasteries in a style of oriental encomium. With varying fortunes, the principal of them—that especially of St. Mary Deipara—maintained their existence, and were, at times, even in a flourishing condition, during what are called the Dark Ages. Great additions were made to the libraries, and particularly in the class of Syriac and Aramaic books, which had been brought from similar establishments in Mesopotamia and the remoter East. Incidental notices in evidence of the continuance, and, to some extent, of what we may call the vitality, of four or five of these Nitrian religious houses, may be collected from the writers, in succession, who refer to Egypt, and to its ecclesiastical affairs—down to modern times—or, as we should say, to the revival of learning in Europe. An Arabian author of the fifteenth century affirms that the monasteries, formerly a hundred in number, were, in his time, seven only; but he specifies that of St. Macarius, and speaks of it as a fine building, though its occupants were few.
From about this time, therefore—namely, from the fifteenth century, and until our own times—these ancient structures, with their dosing inhabitants, the mindless guardians of whatever they might contain—have remained as sepulchres, subjected to no other invasions or spoliations than those of Time. The dust of one year has settled down upon the dust of preceding years, in these oven-like vaults, through the tranquil lapse of four centuries. Some peculiar circumstances have contributed to ensure the preservation of the manuscripts hoarded in these tombs, and these ought to be kept in view. Among these are, first, the slumbering ignorance of the monks, together with the unknowing superstition with which they guard their libraries: along with this is the jealousy of the monks toward their abbots; the brethren always suspecting their superiors of an intention to purloin, and to make a commerce with, the books which were held to be the property of the community. Again, there is to be noticed a usage of the copyists, and of the owners of costly manuscripts—namely, that of subjoining a note to the last page of a book, imprecating curses upon any one who should dare, at any distant time, to dispose of, or to alienate the book for his private advantage. Not the least effective of these conservative circumstances has been this—that, in some instances, the entire contents of a monastic library have—in some moment of danger, while an enemy was thundering at the gate—been huddled into a cellar or a vault, and there covered with rubbish—safe for a hundred years or more. It was just in this condition that a large portion of the manuscripts which are now carefully preserved in the British Museum, was discovered by those who have lately succeeded in bringing them off.
In the lapse of these last four centuries, the monasteries of the Egyptian desert have frequently been visited by European travellers and men of learning. Among these was Robert Huntington, afterwards bishop of Raphoe, whose collection of Oriental manuscripts has found its home in the Bodleian Library: this visit was in the year 1678 or 1679. The celebrated Joseph Simon Asseman, in the year 1715, who had been preceded by his cousin Elias, examined these collections and brought away, to enrich the Vatican, a small number of books—Arabic, Coptic, and Syriac. About the same time the Jesuit Claude Sicard visited those of the monasteries that were still inhabited, and found the books packed in chests, covered with dust, and in a neglected condition; they were stowed away in the tower or keep (above mentioned).