The habit of writing on vellum belongs to Asia. The first mention of it that we meet with occurs in the 58th [pg 155] chapter of the 5th book of Herodotus, where the historian tells us that the Ionians wrote on the skins of sheep and goats because they could not get “byblus,” or as we best know it, papyrus. Vellum remained in comparative obscurity till the time of Eumenes II, King of Pergamum. That intelligent potentate, wishing to enlarge his library and being thwarted by the Ptolemies who refused out of jealousy to supply him with papyrus, improved the skins of his country[197], and made the “charta Pergamena,” from whence the term parchment has descended to us. It will be remembered that St. Paul sent to Ephesus for “the books, especially the parchments[198].” There is evidence that vellum was used at Rome: but the chief materials employed there appear to have been waxen tablets and papyrus. Martial, writing towards the end of the first century, speaks of vellum MSS. of Homer, Virgil, Cicero, and Ovid[199]. But if such MSS. had prevailed generally, more would have come down to us. The emergence of vellum into general use is marked and heralded by the products of the library at Caesarea, which helped by the rising literary activity in Asia and by the building of Constantinople, was probably the means of the introduction of an improved employment of vellum. It has been already noticed[200], that Acacius and Euzoius, successively bishops of Caesarea after Eusebius, superintended the copying of papyrus manuscripts upon vellum. Greek uncials were not unlike in general form to the square Hebrew letters used at Jerusalem after the Captivity. The activity in Asiatic Caesarea synchronized with the rise in the use of vellum. It would seem that in moving there Origen deserted papyrus for the more durable material.
A word to explain my argument. If vellum had been in constant use over the Roman Empire during the first three centuries and a third which elapsed before B and א were written, there ought to have been in existence some remains of a material so capable of resisting the tear and wear of use and time. As there are no vellum MSS. at all except the merest fragments dating from before 330 a.d., we are perforce driven to infer that a material for writing of a perishable nature was generally employed before that period. Now not only had papyrus been for “long the recognized material for literary use,” but we can trace its employment much later than is usually supposed. It is true that the cultivation of the plant in Egypt began to wane after the capture of Alexandria by the Mahommedans in 638 a.d., and the destruction of the famous libraries: but it continued in existence during some centuries afterwards. It was grown also in Sicily and Italy. “In France papyrus was in common use in the sixth century.” Sir E. Maunde Thompson enumerates books now found in European Libraries of Paris, Genoa, Milan, Vienna, Munich, and elsewhere, as far down as the tenth century. The manufacture of it did not cease in Egypt till the tenth century. The use of papyrus did not lapse finally till paper was introduced into Europe by the Moors and Arabs[201], upon which occurrence all writing was executed upon tougher substances, and the cursive hand drove out uncial writing even from parchment.
The knowledge of the prevalence of papyrus, as to which any one may satisfy himself by consulting Sir E. Maunde Thompson's admirable book, and of the employment of the cursive hand before Christ, must modify many of the notions that have been widely entertained respecting the old Uncials.
1. In the first place, it will be clear that all the Cursive MSS. are not by any means the descendants of the Uncials. If the employment of papyrus in the earliest ages of the Christian Church was prevalent over by far the greater part of the Roman Empire, and that description is I believe less than the facts would warrant—then more than half of the stems of genealogy must have originally consisted of papyrus manuscripts. And further, if the use of papyrus continued long after the date of B and א, then it would not only have occupied the earliest steps in the lines of descent, but much later exemplars must have carried on the succession. But in consequence of the perishable character of papyrus those exemplars have disappeared and live only in their cursive posterity. This aspect alone of the case under consideration invests the Cursives with much more interest and value than many people would nowadays attribute to them.
2. But beyond this conclusion, light is shed upon the subject by the fact now established beyond question, that cursive handwriting existed in the world some centuries before Christ[202]. For square letters (of course in writing interspersed with circular lines) we go to Palestine and Syria, and that may not impossibly be the reason why uncial Greek letters came out first, as far as the evidence of extant remains can guide us, in those countries. The change [pg 158] from uncial to cursive letters about the tenth century is most remarkable. Must it not to a great extent have arisen from the contemporary failure of papyrus which has been explained, and from the cursive writers on papyrus now trying their hand on vellum and introducing their more easy and rapid style of writing into that class of manuscripts[203]? If so, the phenomenon shews itself, that by the very manner in which they are written, Cursives mutely declare that they are not solely the children of the Uncials. Speaking generally, they are the progeny of a marriage between the two, and the papyrus MSS. would appear to have been the better half.
Such results as have been reached in this chapter and the last have issued from the advance made in discovery and research during the last ten years. But these were not known to Tischendorf or Tregelles, and much less to Lachmann. They could not have been embraced by Hort in his view of the entire subject when he constructed his clever but unsound theory some forty years ago[204]. Surely our conclusion must be that the world is leaving that school gradually behind.