Libraries
libraries
Collections of books accumulated and made accessible for public and private use. Public libraries existed in the ancient civilizations of Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. After the introduction of Christianity each church became the nucleus of a library, as a collection of books was needed for church services. Among the earliest accumulations was the library founded at Jerusalem principally by Bishop Alexander, c.260, which contained letters and historical documents. More important was the library of Caesarea in Palestine collected by the martyr Pamiphilus (died 308), which contained a number of manuscripts used by Origen in Rome. Pope Damasus (366-384) built a record office (archivum) in Rome which served as a depository of official documents, a library, and chancery, and was connected with the Basilica of Saint Lawrence. Pope Agapetus (535-536) erected a building on the Caelian Hill, later known as the Library of Saint Gregory. At the breakup of the civilization of the Roman Empire monasticism became the great influence which contributed more than anything to preserve in the West some remnants of learning of the classical period. The Benedictine monks especially were the collectors, translators, and book-makers of the early Middle Ages. Notable is the fact that liberal regulations were framed for rendering the books in the monastic collections accessible to the reading public. The monastic libraries of England were outstanding. Those of York, Croyland, Whitby, and Durham possessed good collections at an early date. Among the famous libraries in Europe may be mentioned those of the monastic communities of Fulda, Corvey, and Saint Gall in Germany, Monte Cassino in Italy , and Fleury and Cluny in France. With the revival of classical studies and secular literature, book-collecting became popular among rulers and private persons and there was a decline in the monastic learning in Europe. In England the destruction of the monasteries during the Reformation resulted in the loss of many valuable collections. Foremost among the agencies which have contributed to the collection and preservation of books in later times is the papacy. Popes have founded numerous libraries and enriched them with manuscripts and documents. They have also indirectly established libraries by founding universities. Among the famous libraries are: the Vatican, Rome, founded by Pope Nicholas V, 1450; the Ambrosian, Milan, founded by Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, 1603-1609; the Angelica, Rome, founded by Angelo Rocca, O.S.A., 1614; the Casanatense, Rome, founded by Cardinal Girolamo Casanata, 1698; the Mazarin, Paris, founded by Cardinal Mazarin, 1643; the Mediceo-Laurenziana, Florence, founded by Clement VII, 1671, and the library of Louvain University, founded 1627, on a collection bequeathed to the university by Beyerlinck. It was destroyed by the Germans, 1914, but has since been reconstructed.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Libraries
Libraries, that is to say, collections of books accumulated and made accessible for public or private use, were known to the ancients before the coming of Christ. Probably the most ancient library of which we have any precise knowledge is that of Tello in Mesopotamia, discovered through the excavations of M. de Sarzec and now in great part removed to the Louvre. It seems to have consisted of more than 20,0000 tablets inscribed with cuneiform writing and belonging to the time of Gudea, ruler of Lagash, about 2500 B.C. Still more extensive was the royal library of Nineveh, formed by Sargon, King of Assyria from 722 to 705 B.C., and by his great-grandson Ashurbanipal (668 to 628 B.C.). The latter monarch sent scribes to the ancient cities of Babylonia and Assyria, where libraries existed, to make copies for him of rare and important works, and it seems certain that the collection comprised texts, impressed of course upon clay tablets, dealing with every branch of learning and science known to the wise men of his day. More than twenty thousand of these tablets have been brought to Europe and are now preserved in the British Museum. All the more important texts are marked with a formula attesting that they belong to the palace of Ashurbanipal, and the formulas concludes with an imprecation interesting to compare with those so often fount in the manuscripts of medieval libraries: “Whosoever shall carry off this table, or shall inscribe his name upon it side by side with mine own, may Ashur and Belit overthrow him in wrath and anger, and may they destroy his name and posterity in the land” (Wallis, Budge, and King, “Guide to Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities”, 1908, p. 41). In Egypt collections of papyrus rolls must undoubtedly have been made, though the more perishable nature of the material has not permitted any considerable remains to be preserved from the earlier ages of Egyptian history. Of collections of books among the Jews little is known, though certain passages in the Historical books of the Old Testament (e.g., 2 Samuel 1:18; 1 Kings 11:41; 14:19; 15:23, etc.) suggest that there must have been repositories where books might be consulted. Moreover, we find in II Mach., ii, 13, a distinct statement that Nehemias founded a library and “gathered together out of the countries, the books both of the prophets, and of David, and the epistles of the Kings, and concerning the holy gifts.”
With regard to pagan Rome and Greece we have more precise evidence. Pisistratus is said to have formed a library which was carried off to Persia by Xerxes and afterwards restored. Aristotle, the philosopher, as his writings prove, must certainly have had some sort of library at his command, and this collection, after coming to Athens, is said to have been ultimately take by Sulla to Rome. But by far the most famous libraries of the Greek world were those of Pergamum and Alexandria. The former, which had been formed by the kings of the family of Attalus from about the year 200 B.C., must have been a very remarkable collection. Modern archaeological exploration has identified the site of this library with certain rooms in the precincts of the temple of Athene (see Conze in the “Sitzungsberichte” of the Berlin Academy, 1884, 1259-70). As for the books themselves, we learn from Plutarch that two hundred thousand volumes, or rather rolls, were removed by Mark Anthony to Alexandria and given to Cleopatra to replace the library which had been accidentally destroyed by fire in Julius Caesar’s Egyptian campaign. The library so destroyed, which was known as that of the Musaeum, was formed by Ptolemy Philadelphus about 260 B.C. It is to this library that the legend attaches of the origin of the Septuagint, as recorded in the apocryphal, but very ancient, “Letter of Aristeas”. According to this legend, Demetrius Phalereus, the keeper of the library, advised his master, King Ptolemy, to endeavour to obtain for it a translation of the Law of the Jews. Envoys were accordingly dispatched to the High Priest Eleazar of Jerusalem, who sent seventy (or, more exactly, seventy-two) scholars to Alexandria to make the Greek version required. the work was completed in seventy day, and the translation was read aloud by Demetrius and approved as final.
The “Musæum” (i.e., building consecrated to the Muses), which contained this, the older of the two libraries, seems to have been located within the precincts of the palace, but the other, of later date, was formed in connection with the temple of Serapis, hence called the Serapeum. Much havoc was wrought among its treasures when Bishop Theophilus made his attack upon pagan worship at Alexandria in A.D. 390, and whatever remained of the library must have perished after the incursion of the Arabs in 641. although Polybius, writing in the second century before Christ, speaks (xii, 27) as though libraries would naturally be found in any large town, it is only in the last years of the Roman Republic that we hear much of libraries in Rome itself. At first these collections were in private hands — Cicero, for example, seems to have take much pains in acquiring books — but, after an unfulfilled project of Julius Caesar to form a library for public use, C. Asinius Pollio carried this idea into execution a little later by means of the spoils he had obtained in his Illyrian campaign 39 B.C. The Emperor Augustus himself soon followed the same example, and we hear of the collections of both of Greek and Latin Books formed by him, first in the Porticus Octaviae, which he restored about the year 33 B.C., and, secondly, within the precincts of the temple of Apollo on the Palatine, dedicated in 28 B.C. From this time forth public libraries multiplied in Rome under the imperial patronage of Tiberius and his successors, until they numbered, it is said, as many as twenty-six in all. From allusions in such writers as Ovid, Horace, and Aulus Gellius, it seems probable that these libraries, for example that of the Palatine Apollo, were furnished with copies of books on all subjects, and that soon as a new work of any well-known writer was given to the world the Roman libraries acquired it as a matter of course. We also know that they were administered by special officials, and that they served as places of resort for literary men, while one or more of them — notably the Bibliotheca Ulpia in the forum of Trajan — were used a depositories for the public archives.
At the time that Christianity appeared upon the scene in Rome, it is interesting to learn from Seneca how firm a hold the fashion of maintaining libraries, either public or private, had taken of Roman society. “What”, asks Seneca, “is the use of books and libraries innumerable, if scarce in a lifetime the master reads the titles? . . . Forty thousand books were burnt at Alexandria. I leave to others to praise this splendid monument of royal opulence . . . . Procure as many books as will suffice for use, but not one for show. . . . Why should you excuse a man who wished to possess book-presses inlaid with arbor-vitae wood or ivory, who gathers together masses of authors either unknown or discredited, and who derives his chief delight from their edges and their tickets? You will find, then, in the libraries of the most arrant idlers all that orators or historians have written — bookcases built up as high as the ceiling. Nowadays a library takes rank with a bathroom as a necessary ornament of a house. I could forgive such ideas, of they were due to extravagant desire for learning. As it is, these productions of men whose genius we revere, paid for at a high price, with their portraits ranged in line above them, are got together to adorn and beautify a wall” (De Tranquil. Animi, xi).
These were the fashions that prevailed in the more cultured circles of the roman Empire at the time when Christianity began its life-and-death struggle with paganism. the use of books, even if attended with a certain amount of shallow affectation, was not a weapon which the Church could afford to neglect. In itself the accumulated learning of past ages was a good influence, and the teachers of the new faith were not slow in striving to enlist it on their side. In any case some small collection of books was needed for the church services which seem from the very beginning to have consisted in part — as does the Divine Office of the present day — of readings from the Old and New Testaments, and from works of Christian instruction and edification. In this way every church that was founded became the nucleus of a library, and we need not be surprised to find St. Jerome counselling Pammachius (Ep. xlix,3) to make use of these collections (ecclesiarum bibliothecis fruere), and apparently assuming that wherever there was a congregation of the faithful suitable books would be available. But there must, of course, have been certain centres where, on account of their position, antiquity, or the exceptional generosity of benefactors, more important accumulations existed. Of these the earliest known to us is the library formed at Jerusalem, principally by Bishop Alexander, about the year 250, and containing, as Eusebius attests, a number of letters and historical documents (Hist. Eccles., VI, xx). Still more important was the library of Caesarea in Palestine. This was collected by the martyr Pamphilus, who suffered in the year 308, and it contained a number of the manuscripts which had been used by Origin (Jerome, In Titum, III, ix). At about the same period again we hear that, in the persecution which devastated Africa (303-304), “the officers went to the church at Cirta, in which the Christians used to assemble, and they despoiled it of chalices, lamps, etc., but when they came to the library [bibliothecam], the presses [armaria] were found empty” (see appendix to Optatus).
Julian the Apostate, in 362, demanded that the books formerly belonging to George, the Arian Bishop of Alexandria, including “many philosophical and rhetorical works and many of the doctrines of the impious Galileans”, should be sent him for a library formerly established by Constantius in the imperial palace (Julian, Epist. ix). On the other hand, when St. Augustine was dying, “he directed that the library of the church and all the books should be carefully kept for posterity forever”, and “he bequeathed libraries to the church containing books and treatises by himself or other holy persons” (Possidius, “Vita Aug.”, n.31). In Rome it would seem that Pope Damasus (366-384) built a record-office (archivium) which, besides being the depository of official documents served also as library and chancery. It was connected with the Basilica of St. Lawrence, on the facade of which was an inscription which ended with the three following lines: Archivis fateor volui nova condere tecta. Addere praeterea dextra laevaque columnas. Quae Damasi teneant proprium per saecula nomen. (“I confess that I have wished to build a new abode for archives and to add columns on the right and left to preserve the dame of Damasus forever.”)
It is no doubt this building which St. Jerome refers to as “chartarium ecclesiæ Romanæ”. De Rossi and Lanciani conjecture that Damasus, following the model of one of the great libraries of Rome, which in its turn had imitated the arrangement of the famous library of Pergamum, had first build a basilica dedicated to St. Lawrence and then added on the north and south sides a colonnade from which the rooms containing the records would be readily accessible (Lancianai, Ancient Rome, pp. 187-190). Whether this building did or did not ever strictly deserve the name of a library, we have evidence that Pope Agapetus (535-36) set about the erection of another building on the Coelian Hill intended for the keeping of books and afterwards known as the Library of St. Gregory. There, at any rate, an inscription was to be read in the ninth century speaking of the long array of portraits which adorned the walls and, amongst the rest, of that of Pope Agapetus: Hos inter residens Agapetus jure sacerdos Codicibus pulchrum condidit arte locum. (“Mid these by right takes Agapetus place, who built to guard his books this fair abode.”)
The celebrated Cassiodorus, who had been the friend of Agapetus, withdrew from the world in his declining years and gathered round him a religious community at Vivarium, in Southern Italy. There he formed a library as an adjunct of primary necessity for such an institute. Further, he enjoined upon the brethren that if they met with any book which he wanted they should make a copy of it, “that by the help of God and their labour the library of the monastery might be benefited” (De Inst. Div. Lit., viii). Cassiodorus also tells us a good deal about his library contrivances.
But at the break-up of the civilization of the Roman Empire the great influence which contributed more than anything else to preserve in the West some scattered remnants of the learning of the classical period was undoubtedly monasticism,and in particular that form of monasticism which was identified with the Rule of St. Benedict. Even in Africa, as the rule of St. Pachomius and the writings of Cassion clearly show, the maintenance of the ideal of coenobitical life was in some measure dependent upon the use of books. St. Pachomius, for example, enjoined that the books of the house were to be kept in a cupboard in the thickness of the wall. Any brother who wanted a book might have one for a week, at the end of which he was bound to return it. No brother might leave a book open when he went to church or to meals. In the evening the officer called the “second” — that is the second in command — was to take charge of the books, count them, and lock them up (see P.L., XXIII, 68, and cf. Butler, “Palladius”, I, 236). we know from a letter of St. Augustine’s that at Hippo even the nuns had a library, and that it was the duty of one of the sisters to distribute and then to collect the books at the hours set apart for reading. Nor could the large place that study — but more particularly the study of the Scriptures — played in the lives of ascetic women at the close of the fourth century, be more clearly illustrated than in the story of St. Melania the younger, the friend of St. Augustine and St. Jerome, who made it a rule to spend daily a prescribed time in reading, and whose labours as a scribe were long renowned. But of all the written documents which have influenced the preservation of books, the text of the Rule of St. Benedict is the most important. Upon this is chiefly based that love of learning distinctive of the great monastic orders: “Idleness”, says the Rule, “is an enemy to the soul, and hence at certain times the brethren ought to occupy themselves with manual labour and at others with holy reading . . .” And, after specifying the hours to be devoted to reading at various seasons, the Rule further lays down: During Lent let them apply themselves to reading from morning until the end of the third hour. . . An in these days of Lent let each one receive a book from the library and read it all through in order. These books are to be given out at the beginning of Lent. Above all let one or two seniors be appointed to go round the monastery at the hours when the brethren are engaged in reading and see that there be no slothful brother giving himself to idleness or to foolish talk and not applying himself to his reading, so that he is thus not only useless to himself but a distraction to others. If such a one be found (which God forbid) let him be corrected once and a second time, and the Rule adds that if all this be ineffectual, the delinquent is to be chastised in such a way as to strike terror into others.
That these principles were fully taken to heart, and bore fruit in the respect shown for books and in the zeal displayed to acquire them, was nowhere more clearly proved than in England. The whole life of the Venerable Bede might serve to illustrate this theme. But it is Bede who tells us from first hand knowledge of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, who, having visited Rome in 671, “brought home not a few books of all-divine erudition, either bought for a fixed price or given hem by the kindness of friends; and when on his return he came to Vienne he received those which he had bought and entrusted to his friends there” (Hist. Abbat., iv). In 678 he paid another visit to Rome and “brought home a multitude [innumerabilem copiam] of books of every kind”. In his last illness Benedict Biscop gave directions that the very noble and complete library which he had brought from Rome as necessary for the instruction of the Church, should be scrupulously preserved entire and neither suffer injury through want of care nor be dispersed (Hist. Abb., xi). It was from this collection, which was doubled by the energy of Ceolfrid his successor (Hist. Abb., xv). It was from this collection, which Ceolfrid enriched with three new copies of the Vulgate and with one of the Itala, that the famous Codex Amiatinus (q.v.) was taken, which Ceolfrid on a later occasion carried with him to Italy as a present for the pope. This manuscript, now in the Laurentian Library in Florence, has been described as “perhaps the finest book in the world” (White in “Studia Biblica,” II, 273), but it seems not to have been the work of native scribes but of Italians brought over to England.
Although Jarrow had not itself a great scriptorium with a staff of trained copyists — such as, for example belonged to Lindisfarne, which followed Irish traditions, and to Canterbury, where the dominant influence was Italian — still, through Archbishop Egbert, whom Bede loved and visited at York, Ceolfrid’s library must have exercised a profound influence upon Alcuin (q.v.), and through him again upon the scholarship of all Western Christendom. Alcuin was the librarian of the fine collection of books which Egbert had formed in the monastery at York, and in one of his poems he gives a rather florid account of its contents (Migne, P.L., CI, 843) which has been described as the earliest catalogue of any English library. If we could trust this list, the collection was really one of extraordinary range, including, not merely the best-known of the Latin Fathers, but Athanasius, Basil, and Chrysostom, among the Greeks, and besides these a certain number of historians, with philosophers like Aristotle and Boethius, with the most representative of the Latin classics and a fair sprinkling of grammarians. When Alcuin became the trusted adviser of Charlemagne, that great monarch’s influence was everywhere exerted to foster the spread of learning and the accumulation of books. In an ordinance of 789, Charlemagne made provision for the setting-up of schools for boys in which he directed that “in every monastery and cathedral [episcopium]” they were to learn “the psalms and canticles, plain chant, the computus [or regulation of the calendar] and grammar”. And he adds, “Let them also have Catholic books well corrected.”
All this, directory or indirectly, must have given an immense stimulus towards the formation of libraries in Western Europe. Neither can we leave out of account the great influence which had been exerted at a somewhat earlier period by St. Columban and the Irish missionaries who settled at Luxeuil in France, at St. Gall in Switzerland, at Bobbio in Italy, at Wurzburg in Germany, and in many other places. Still as at St. Gall, for example, the Benedictine Rule often supplanted the Columban, and it was in its Benedictine days that the Swiss abbey attained it greatest renown as a center of learning, and formed the library which still exists. Many, however, of its most precious volumes were at one time removed to Reichenau as a measure of safety, and they seem not to have been all returned to their owners when quiet was restored. At the same time there is abundant evidence for the existence of a system of lending manuscripts by one house to another among friendly monasteries, for the purpose of transcription and collation. This latter process may often be traced in the copies which still survive: for example, two of our oldest manuscripts of Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History” have evidently been collated, and the readings of one transferred to the other.
The most famous libraries of the Carlovingian period were those of Fulda, Reichenau, Corvey, and Sponheim in Germany, and those of Fleury, St-Riquier, Cluny, and Corbie in France. the library of Fulda, under the great scholar Rhabanus Maurus, was regarded as the best equipped in Christendom, and a contemporary speaks of the books he was there as “almost countless”. Even at the beginning of the sixteenth century the abbey still possessed nine hundred volumes of manuscripts, most of which seem to have been destroyed or scattered in the Thirty Years’ War. In the case of Reichenau we still possess the catalogue made by the librarian, Reginbert, before A.D. 831, which enumerates over 500 works contained in 256 volumes. All the libraries just mentioned owed directly or indirectly a good deal to the support of Charlemagne. In southern Italy the Abbey of Monte Cassino, the cradle of Benedictine monasticism, well illustrates the perils to which books were exposed owing to the wildness of the times. After it had been demolished by the Lombards in the sixth century, the monastery was rebuilt, and a new library painfully brought together. But in the ninth century came the Saracens, and when the abbey was despoiled the library perished in the flames. None the less, the monks set to work once more to acquire books and to make new copies, and this collection of manuscripts, which still survives, is among the most remarkable in Italy.
In Spain, at an earlier date, we gain some insight into the ornamentation of a well-appointed library from certain verses written by St. Isidore of Seville (600-636) to inscribe upon the portraits which hung over his book-presses. Upon the door of the room were also displayed another set of verses as a warning to talkative intruders, the last couplet of which runs: Non patitur quenquam coram se scriba loquentem; Non est hic quod agas, garrule, perge foras. Which may be rendered: A writer and a talker can’t agree; Hence, idle chatterer; ’tis no place for thee. Speaking of Western Europe as a whole, we may regard it as an undisputed principle throughout the Middle Ages that a library of some sort was an essential part of every monastic establishment. “Claustrum sine armario, castrum sine armamentario”, ran the adage; that is to say, a monastery without a library is a fort without an armoury. In all the developments of the Benedictine Rule, regulations of some kind are laid down for the use of books. We may quote, for example, the directions given by Lanfranc for the annual calling-in of library books on the first Sunday of Lent. The monks are bidden to bring back all books to the chapter house, and thereupon, “let the librarian read a document [breve] setting forth the names of the brethren who have had books during the past year; and let each brother when he hears his own name pronounced, return the book which has been entrusted to him for reading, and let him who is conscious of not having read the book through which he has received, fall down upon his face, confess his fault, and pray for forgiveness. And let the aforesaid librarian hand to each brother another book for reading; and when the books have been distributed in order, let the aforesaid librarian in the same chapter put on record the names of the books and of those who receive them.”
J.W. Clark gives a summary of the arrangements peculiar to the different orders. Both the Cluniacs and Benedictines, he says, put the books in charge of the precentor, and often also styled armarius, and there is to be an annual audit and registration similar to that just described. Among the later Benedictines we also find a further regulation that the precentor is to keep all in repair and personally to supervise the daily use of the manuscripts, restoring each to its proper place when done with. Among these later Benedictine rules, as found, for example, at Abingdon at the end of the twelfth century, first appears the important permission to lend books to others outside the monastery on receipt of an adequate pledge. The Carthusians also maintained the principle of lending. As for the monks themselves, each brother might have two books, and he is to be specially careful to keep them clean. Among the Cistercians a particular official has charge of the books, about the safety of which great care is to be taken, and at certain times of the day he is to lock the press. This last regulation is also observed by the Premonstratensians, who further require their librarian to take note of books borrowed as well as books lent. Finally, the Augustinians, who are very full in their directions regarding the use of the library, also permit books to be lent outside, but insist much on the need of proper security (see Clark, “Care of Books”, 58-73).
The importance of the permission to lend consists, of course, in this: that the monasteries thus became the public libraries of the surrounding district and diffused much more widely the benefit afforded by their own command of books. The practice no doubt involved much risk of loss, and there was a disposition sometimes manifested to forbid the lending of books altogether. On the other hand, it is clear that there were those who looked upon this means of helping their neighbors as a duty prescribed by the law of charity. Thus, in 1212, a synod held in Paris passed the following decree: We forbid those who belong to a religious order to formulate any vow against lending their books to those who are in need of them; seeing that to lend is enumerated among the principal works of mercy. After due consideration let some books be retained in the house for the use of the brethren; but let others according to the decisions of the abbot be lent to those who are in need of them, the rights of the house being safeguarded. In future no penalty of anathema is to be attached to the removal of any book, and we annul and grant absolution from all anathemas of the sort.” (Delisle in “bib. de l’Ecole des Chartes”, Ser. 3, I, 225). It is noteworthy, also that in this same thirteenth century many volumes were bequeathed to the Augustinian house of St. Victor, Paris, on the express condition that they should be so lent. No doubt most of the lending was for the benefit of other monasteries, either for reading or, still more often, for the purpose of making a copy. Against the dangers thus incurred it would seem that some protection was sought by invoking anathemas upon the head of the faithless borrower. How far excommunications were seriously and validly enacted against the unlawful detainers of such volumes is a matter of some uncertainty, but, as in the case of Ashur-ban-i-pal’s cuneiform tablets, the manuscripts of medieval monasteries frequently contain on the fly-leaf some brief form of malediction against unjust possessors or detainers. For example, in a Jumieges book we find: Should anyone by craft or any device whatever abstract this book from this place [Jumieges] may his soul suffer in retribution for what he has done, and may his name be erased from the book of the living and not be recorded among the Blessed. But in general such formulae were more compendious as, for example, the following found in many St. Alban’s books: “this book belongs to St. Alban. May whoever steals it from him or erases his inscription of ownership [titulum deleverit] be anathema. Amen.”
The high value set on books is also emphasized by the many decrees enjoining care in their use. “When the religious are engaged in reading”, says an order of the General Benedictine Chapter, “They shall, if possible, hold the books in their left hands, wrapped in the sleeve of their tunics and resting on their knees, their right hands shall be uncovered, with which to hold and turn the leaves of the aforesaid books” (Gasquet, “Old English Bible”, 29). Numberless other appeals recommending care, tenderness and even reverence, in the treatment of books might be quoted from medieval sources. In the “Philobiblon” of Bishop Richard of Bury we have a whole treatise upon the subject, written with an enthusiasm which could not have been exceeded by a nineteenth-century bibliophile. He says, for example (chap. xvii): “And surely next to the vestments and vessels dedicated to our Lord’s Body, holy books deserve to be rightly treated by the clergy, to which great injury is done so often as they are touched by unclean hands.” This care naturally extended to the presses in which the books were permanently lodged. The Augustinians, in particular, had a formal rule that “the press in which the books are kept ought to be lined inside with wood, that the damp of the walls may not moisten or stain the books”, and devices were further suggested to prevent the books from being “packed so close as to injury each other, or delay those who want to consult them” (Clark, “Care of Books”, 71).
Still, the monastic system did not until much later make provision for any separate room to be used as a library. It was in the cloister, in which little alcoves called “carrels” were fitted up, securing a certain amount of privacy for each student, that the literary work of the house, whether in reading or transcribing, was mainly done. The result of this system was that the books were not kept all together but preserved in presses in different parts of the building. At Durham, for example, “some were kept in the church, others in the ‘spendiment’ or treasury, and others again in the refectory, and in more than one place in the cloister” (Gasquet, “Old Eng. Bible”, 10). this scattering of the books was the more likely to happen because, from the very nature of the case, a collection of volumes written by hand and kept up only by limited monastic resources could never be very vast. Until the art of printing had lent its aid to multiply books and to cheapen them, a comparatively small number of cupboards were sufficient to contain the literary treasures of the very largest monastery. At Christ Church, Canterbury, Henry de Estria’s Catalogue of about the year 1300 enumerates 3000 titles in some 1850 volumes. At Glastonbury in 1247 there were 500 works in 340 volumes. The Benedictines at Dover in 1389 possessed 449, while the largest English monastic library, so far as is known to us, viz., that at Bury St. Edmunds, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, contained 2000 volumes.
The practice just referred to, of scattering books in different presses and collections, was probably also much influenced by the custom of lending, or allowing outsiders to consult, books, upon which something has previously been said. Naturally, there will always have been volumes which any community, monastic or collegiate, reserved for the exclusive use of its members. Liturgical books and some ascetical treatises, particular copies of the scripture, etc., will have belonged to this class, while there will have been divisions even among the books to which the outside world had access. The following passage, for example, is very suggestive. Thomas Gascoigne says of the Franciscans at Oxford about the year 1445: “They had two libraries in the same house; the one called the convent library, and the other the library of the schools; whereof the former was open only to graduates; the latter to the scholars they called seculars, who lived among those friars for the sake of learning”. All this must have been very inconvenient, and it is not surprising that in the course of the fifteenth century the desirability of gathering their library treasures into one large apartment where study might be carried on occurred to the authorities of many monastic and collegiate institutions. During the whole of this period, therefore, libraries of some pretensions began to be build. Thus, to take a few examples, at Christ Church, Canterbury, a library, 60 feet long by 22 broad, was built by Archbishop Chichele, between 1414 and 1443, over the Prior’s Chapel. The library at Durham was constructed between 1416 and 1446, by Prior Wessyngton, over the old sacristy; that at Cîteaux, in 1480, over the scriptorium, or writing-room, forming part of the cloister; that at Clairvaux, between 1495 and 1503, in the same position; that at the Augustinian monastery of St-Victor in Paris, between 1501 and 1508; and that at St-Germain des Pres in the same city, about 1513, over the south cloister.
The transformation of Clairvaux is easy to understand on account of two descriptions left us at a later date. A visitor in 1517 tells us: “On the same side of the cloister are fourteen studies [the carrels] where the monks write and study; and over the said studies is the new library, to which one mounts by a broad and lofty spiral staircase from the aforesaid cloister.” The description goes on to extol the beauty of this new construction, which, adapting itself, of course, to the shape of the cloister below, was 198 feet long by 17 wide. In it, we are told, “there were 48 seats [bancs] and in each seat four shelves [poulpitres] furnished with books on all subjects”. These books, although the writer does not say so, were probably chained to the shelves after the custom of that period. At any rate this is what the authors of the “Voyage litteraire”, two hundred years later, say of the same library: from the great cloister you pass into the cloister of conversation, so called because the brethren are allowed to converse there. In this cloister there are twelve or fifteen little cells [the carrels], all of a row, where the brethren formerly used to write books; for this reason they are still called at the present day the writing rooms. Over these cells is the Library, the building for which is large, vaulted, well lighted, and stocked with a large number of manuscripts fastened by chains to desks, but there are not many printed books. This, then, is a type of the transformation which was going on in the last century of the Middle Ages, a process immensely accelerated, no doubt, by the multiplication of books consequent upon the invention of printing. the newly constructed libraries, whether connected with universities, or cathedrals, or religious houses, were rooms of considerable size, generally broken up into compartments or stalls, such as may still be seen in Duke Humphrey’s Library in the Bodleian at Oxford. Here the books were chained to the shelves, but they could be taken down and laid upon the desk at which the student sat, and at which he could also use his writing materials without inconvenience. Some few survivals of this old arrangement, for example at Hereford Cathedral, and a Zutphen (where, however, the chained books can only be consulted standing), still exist. But it was not for very many years that this system lasted, except as a perpetuation of old tradition.
MODERN LIBRARIES
Foremost among the agencies which have contributed to the collection and preservation of books in later times is the papacy. The popes, as munificent patrons of learning, have founded a number of libraries and enriched them with manuscripts and documents of the greatest value. The most important of these papal foundations is the Vatican Library, which will be described in another article (see VATICAN LIBRARY). Indirectly, also the popes have furthered the establishment of libraries by founding and encouraging universities. Each of these naturally regarded the library and the indispensable means of research; and in modern times especially these university collections have been enriched by the ever-growing mass of scientific literature. It is interesting to note that the nucleus of the library was often obtained by taking over the books and manuscripts which had been preserved in monasteries and other ecclesiastical establishments. A glace at the history of the universities will show how much they are indebted in this respect to the care and industry of the monks (see, e.g., the brief accounts in “Minerve”, II, Strasburg, 1893). From the same sources came, in many instances, the books which served as the beginnings of the libraries founded by sovereigns, princes, churchmen, national governments, municipalities, and private individuals. In recent times, moreover, numerous and successful attempts have been made to provide the people at large with the facilities which were once the privilege of the student. Among the efficient means for the diffusion of knowledge must be reckoned the public library which is found in nearly every town of importance. While this multiplication of libraries is due chiefly to the advance in popular education, it has led, on the other hand, to the creation of what might be called a special ar or science. Much attention is now given to the proper housing and care of books, and systematic instruction is provided for those who are to engage in library work. It is not surprising, then, that, along with the growing realization of the value and importance of libraries, there would gradually have come about a fairer appreciation of what was done by the Church of the preservation of books.
The following list gives the founders and dates of some famous libraries: Ambrosian (q.v.), Milan; Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, 1603-09. Angelica, Rome; Angelo Rocca, O.S.A., 1614. Bodleian, Oxford; Sir Thomas Bodley, c. 1611. British Museum, London; George III and George IV (largely with manuscripts taken from monasteries by Henry VIII), c. 1795. Casanatense, Rome; Cardinal Girolamo Casanata (q.v.), 1698. Congressional, Washington; U.S. Government, 1800. Mazarine, Paris; Cardinal Mazarin, 1643; public 1688. Mediceo-Laurenziana, Florence; Clement VII, 1571. Nationale, Paris; Charles V of France, 1367. Royal, Berlin; Elector Fred. William, c. 1650. Royal, Munich; Duke Albert V, c. 1560. Valiceliana, Rome; Achile Stazio, 1581. Vatican, Rome (See VATICAN LIBRARY).
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CLARK, The Care of Books (Cambridge, 1902), a work of the very highest value and indispensable to any fuller study of the subject; POHLE AND STAHL in Kirchenlex. s. v. Bibliotheken; SCUDAMORE in Dict. of Christ. Antiq.; GASQUET, Mediaeval Monastic Libraries in the Old English Bible and other Essays (London, 1897), 1-61; EHRLE, JAMES, and others in Fasciculus; Joanni Willis Clark Dicatus (Cambridge, 1909); GOTTLEIB, Ueber mittelalterliche Bibliotheken (Leipzig, 1890); EDWARDS, Memoirs of Libraries, 2 vols., (London, 1895); PAULY-WINOWA, Realencyklopadie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft (1893-); BECKER, Catalogi Bibliothecarum antiqui (Bonn, 1885); JAMES, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover (Cembridge, 1903); MACRAY, Annals of the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1890); ROBINSON AND JAMES, The Manuscripts of Westminster Abbey Monastery (Cambridge, 1898); BASS-MULLINGER in The Cambridge Hist. of English Literature, IV (Cambridge, 1909), 415-34; DELISLE, in Bib. de l’Ecole des Chartes (1849), 216-31; ID., Cabinet des MSS. de la Bib. Nationale (3 vols., Paris, 1874-76); THOMAS, The Philobiblon of Richard of Bury (London, 1888).
HERBERT THURSTON Transcribed by Anna M. Donnelly
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IXCopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Libraries
In the early Church, as soon as churches began to be erected, it was customary to attach libraries to them. In these were included not only the liturgical and other Church books, and MS. copies of the holy Scriptures in the original languages, but also homilies and other theological works. That they were of some importance is evident from the manner in which they are referred to by Eusebius and Jerome, who mention having made use of the libraries at Jerusalem and Caesarea. Eusebius says he found the principal part of the materials for his Ecclesiastical History in the library at Jerusalem. One of the most famous was that attached to the church of St. Sophia, which is supposed to have been commenced by Constantine, but was afterwards greatly augmented by Theodosius the Younger, in whose time there were not fewer than one hundred thousand books in it, and a hundred and twenty thousand in the time of Basilicus and Zeno. No doubt a particular reason for thus collecting hooks was their great expense and rarity before the art of printing enabled men to possess themselves the works they needed for thorough research. In churches where the itinerant system prevailed libraries possessed by churches would even in our very day prove a source of pleasure, and timesaving as well. Indeed, in some of the larger cities here and there, cogregations are already advocating this plan.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Libraries
lbra-riz, lbrer-iz:
1.The Bible a Library
2.Mythological and Apocryphal Libraries
3.Libraries for the Dead
4.Memory Libraries
5.Prehistoric and Primitive Libraries
6.Mesopotamian Period
7.Patriarchal Period
8.Egyptian Period
9.The Exodus
10.Palestine at the Conquest
11.Period of the Judges
12.Saul to the Maccabees
13.New Testament Times
14.Bookcases and Buildings
LITERATURE
A library is a book or books kept for use, not for sale. A one-book library is just as much a library as a one-cell animal is animal. The earliest libraries, like the earliest plants and animals, were very simple, consisting of a few books or perhaps only a single tablet or manuscript. An archive is a library of official documents not in active use; a registry, a library of going documents.
1. The Bible a Library:
The Bible is itself a library. During the Middle Ages it was commonly called, first, The Divine Library, and then, The Library (Bibliotheca), in the same exclusive sense as it is now known as The Book (Biblia as Latin singular). Even the word Bible itself is historically Library rather than Book (for it was originally the neuter plural Biblia, The Books; compare Dan 9:2). The Bible is also a library in that it is an organized collection of books rather than a single work.
This fact that the Bible is itself a library is increasingly mentioned of late, especially in Old Testament studies (Kent, Narratives of the Beginnings of Hebrew History, 1, The Old Testament as a Library; Delitzsch, Babel and Bible, 4, the Old Testament, that small library of books of the most multifarious kind). Its profound bearing on the theory of the composition and inspiration of the Bible (compare BOOK) has given the fact new significance and makes an understanding of the nature of a library one of the best tools for the interpretation of the Bible in the face of modern problems. While it is not possible to elaborate this within these limits, it may be said briefly that the logical end of the application of the doctrine of evolution to books and libraries is that the Bible is, like man, the result of natural selection, and is as unique among books as man among the animals. And, whatever may be true of men, in the case of books the formation of a book-library by natural selection tends toward the elimination of error. The more numerous the individuals and the longer the period, the greater the reduction of error, so that the logical inference as to the Bible is that on purely natural grounds it may be, or is, the nearest approximation to inerrancy among books, because of its history as a library. This does not quite lead to the position that the Bible is as unique among books as Jesus Christ among men, but under the doctrine of a creative Providence, it does imply what may be called real superhuman authorship and authority.
2. Mythological and Apocryphal Libraries:
Somewhat apart from historical libraries, but closely connected with Bible study, are the alleged superhuman libraries, libraries of, or written by, the gods, libraries for the dead and apocryphal libraries. The Vedas are said to have existed as a collection even before the Creator created Himself (Manu 1 21). All religions have their book-gods – Thoth and Seshait, Apollo, Hermes, Minerva, Ida, Bridget, Soma, Brahma, Odin, Kvasir, Ygdrasil and many others. To the ancient Babylonians the whole firmament was a library of celestial tablets. The mythological ideas often have important bearing on Biblical doctrines, e.g. the Creation, the Word, the Tree of Life, the Book of Life, the Holy Spirit. Apocryphal libraries include the library which Yahweh is alleged to have formed on the 7th day of creation on a mount East of the Garden of Eden, and other libraries ascribed to Enoch, Noah and Seth. See for this the Old Testament pseudepigrapha.
3. Libraries for the Dead:
Another class of collections of real books, written or gathered for mythological purposes, is what may be called libraries for the dead. It is well known that in most countries of antiquity, at one time or another, and among primitive people like the American Indians, in modern times, it has been the custom to bury with the dead the things which friends thought would be useful in the Elysian fields or happy hunting grounds, or on the way thither – the bow and horse of the warrior, the ushabti servants, children’s playthings, the models of food objects, and so on. This same motive led also to the burying of books with the dead. For long periods in the history of Egypt every Egyptian of any position was buried with one or more books. These books were not his chance possessions, buried with him as, in some burials, all a man’s personal belongings are, but books selected for their usefulness to him after death. For the most part these were of the nature of guidebooks to the way to the heavenly world, magic formulas for the opening of doors, instruction as to the right method of progress toward, or introduction into, paradise, etc. These books were afterward gathered together and form what is now known as the Book of the Dead and other such books.
4. Memory Libraries:
In modern times the actor or professional story-teller often has in memory a collection of remembered books which is in effect a library. Among primitive peoples the medicine-man was literally a library of tribal traditions. The priests of India and the minstrels of Greece or of the Middle Ages often had a large repertory. By the prevailing theory of the origin of the books of the Old Testament such memory traditions, transmitted orally, were the chief source of the Hexateuch, but in view of what is now known of the library situation of the time, this must be doubted.
5. Prehistoric and Primitive Libraries:
In general terms it may be said that when man began not only to make but to keep records, libraries began. Even a memorial stone contains the germ of a mnemonic library. The primitive medicine-man’s collection of notched message sticks, tallies, quipus or wampum belts is a great advance in complexity on these, and the simplest collection of picture narratives of Hottentot or American Indian, an advance on this. A combination of pictures with signs is still another forward step, and this step is already to be found in the Pyrenean caves of the Stone Age (see WRITING). Most of these earliest libraries were kept at the sanctuary. The gathering together of books in libraries had its origin in the ideas of (1) preservation, (2) gathering together like books in order to join together their contents, and (3) circulation – the great modern expansion of the idea. The owner of flocks and herds gathers together his lists of cattle or other possessions, his receipts for purchases and record of sales, whether these are recorded on the walls of his cave or on wooden tallies or on knotted cords or on clay tablets gathered in little jars and buried under the floor of his house. Large owners and sovereigns and the temples of Egypt and Assyria gathered large stores of these archival records and with them records of tribute, oracles, etc. As early as 2700 BC we have the account of King Dedkere Isesi, his archival library and his librarian Senezemib. The annals of Thutmose III were preserved in the palace library as well as cut in selections on the walls of the temple. A few years later, and we know that the archival records were kept in a special room in the palace at Amarna – and many of the records themselves were found there. All this was before the year 1300.
6. Mesopotamian Period:
Bible history through Genesis 10 covers the whole civilized world, but its main line up to about 2000 BC is almost wholly Mesopotamian. Up to the time of Abram’s migration from Haran, the history of Biblical libraries and the history of Babylonian and Sumerian libraries are one. Most of the cities mentioned in this period are now known to have had collections of books in those days. At the time when Abram left Haran there were hundreds of collections of written documents in scores of different geographical localities and containing millions of tablets.
7. Patriarchal Period:
From Abram’s emigration out of Haran to Jacob’s emigration to Egypt was, on the face of Biblical data, mainly a time of wandering in Palestine, but this was not wholly nomad nor wholly Palestinian. Whether there were libraries in Palestine at this time or not, the Patriarchs were all in close personal contact with the library lands of Babylonia and Egypt. Abram himself was familiar with both Mesopotamia and Egypt. His son Ishmael married an Egyptian, his son Isaac a Mesopotamian. His grandson Jacob married two wives from between the rivers, and had himself 20 years’ residence in the region. While it does not appear that Isaac lived at any time either in Syria or in Egypt, during most of his life all the members of his nearest family, father, mother, wife, sons’ wives, had had from one to three score years’ life in the mother-country. Whether there were public records in this region at this time is another matter, but it would seem that the whole region during the whole period was under the influence of the Babylonian civilization. It was freely traversed by trading caravans, and the Hittite and Mesopotamian records extend at least a little back into this period.
8. Egyptian Period:
The Egyptian period of Bible history begins with the immigration of Jacob and his sons, but fringes back to the visit of Abram (Gen 12:10-20), if not to Mizraim of Gen 10:6. On the other hand, it ends properly with the exodus, but fringes forward through frequent points of contact to the flight of the Virgin and Pentecost. Whether the sojourn was 430 or 215 years, or less, it was a long residence at a time when libraries were very flourishing in Egypt. Already at the time of Abram’s visit, collections of books, not only of official accounts, but of religious texts, medical texts, annals, and the like, had been common in Egypt for nearly 1,000 years, and had perhaps existed for 1,000 years or more before that.
Under the older of the modern datings of the exodus, the period of the sojourn included the times of Thothmes III (Thutmose), and in this reign there are peculiarly interesting records, not only of the existence of temple and palace libraries, but of the nature of their contents. The official recorder of Thothmes III, accompanying him on his campaign in Syria and Palestine, set down each day the events of the day, while he or others also made lists of tribute, spoils, commissary matters, etc. These daily records were deposited in the palace library, as it appears, but a narrative compiled from these and written on a leather roll was deposited in the temple library, and from this roll in turn an abstract was engraved on the walls of the temple, where it remains to this day. This probably gives the library situation of the time in a nutshell: (1) the simple saving of utilitarian documents, often on papyrus or wood tablets, (2) the gathering of books written for information on more durable material, (3) preserving choice books for posterity by a local series of inscriptions.
The rolls must have been kept in chests or small boxes, like the box containing the medical papyri of King Neferikere some 1,300 years before, or the many boxes at Edfu long after. Many pictures of these book-chests or bookcases are found in the monuments (Birt, Buchrolle, 12, 15 ff).
Again, the palace library of King Akhnaton (circa 1360 BC) at Amarna, which contained collections of the royal foreign correspondence on clay tablets, has been excavated. Its bricks bear the inscription, Place of the records of the palace of the king, and some hundreds of tablets from this spot have been recovered.
At the time of the exodus there were thus probably libraries in all palaces, temples and record offices, although the temple libraries were by no means confined to sacred writings or the palace to secular. There were also at least archives, or registers, in the royal treasury and in all public departments. Schools for scribes were, it would seem, held in the palace, temple and treasury libraries. There were, therefore, apparently, at this time millions of documents or books, in hundreds of organized collections, which could be called archives or libraries.
9. The Exodus:
Supposing any exodus at all, Moses and Aaron and all the Hebrew officers (scribes or writers) under the Egyptian taskmasters (Exo 5:6, Exo 5:10, Exo 5:14, Exo 5:15, Exo 5:19), brought up as they were in the scribal schools, were of course quite familiar with the Egyptian ways of keeping their books. It is not surprising, therefore, to find the first and chief provision which Moses made for the Tabernacle was a book-chest for the preservation of the sacred directions given by Yahweh. It makes little difference whether the account is taken in its final form, divided horizontally into Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua, or divided perpendicularly into J, E, D, the Priestly Code (P), the fact of the ark and enough of its details are given even in the very oldest sources to show that the authors understood the ark to be a glorified book-chest in or near which were kept written documents: the tables of stone, the inscribed rod, all the testimony given from the mercy-seat which formed its lid, and perhaps the Book of Deuteronomy. The ark is in fact much the size and shape of a portable bookcase, and the Septuagint translation renders the word by the ordinary technical Greek word for the book-chest (kibotos; compare Birt, op. cit., 248-49). It appears also to have been the later Hebrew word for book-chest (compare Jewish Encyclopedia, II, 107 ff). At the exodus, whenever that may have been, Moses is alleged to have made the ark the official library, and in it apparently he is thought to have kept the oracles as uttered from time to time and the record of his travels from day to day (as well as the tables of stone), precisely as the scribe of Thutmose recorded his Syrian campaigns from day to day. This record (if it was a record) was in all likelihood on a leather roll, since this became the traditional form of books among the Hebrews, and this too was like the annals of Thutmose. When the tribes separated to North and South, the books may have been either separated or copied, and doubtless they suffered much wear and tear from the harsh times until we find Dt turning up again in a temple library (2Ki 22:8 ff; 2Ch 34:14 ff).
The evidence from Egyptian Babylonian, Mitannian, Amorite and Hittite documents shows the existence of official chanceries and by implication of archives throughout the whole region of Syria and Palestine at the time when the Hebrew invasion began (Winckler, Tell el-Amarna Tablets).
10. Palestine at the Conquest:
The Tell el-Amarna Letters and the tablets from the Hittite archives at Boghaz-keui (Winckler, Deutsche Orientalische Gesellschaft Mitt., 1907, number 35) include actual letters from the princes, elders and governors of dozens of places, scattered all over this region from Egypt to the land of the Hittites and the Mitannians. These places include among others Jerusalem, Damascus, Tyre, Sidon, Acco, Ashkelon, Gaza, Lachish, Keilah and Aijalon.
Remains of two of such archival libraries have been dug up – one at Lachish and one at Taanach near Megiddo, both dating back to the 14th century BC.
Whether there were temple libraries as well does not appear so clearly from external evidence but may probably be inferred from the names, Debir and (perhaps) Nebo, as well as from the well-known fact that each of the many city-lands must have had its center of worship. When it was thought that writing did not exist to any extent in Palestine before the time of David, it was the fashion to account for the name of the city of Kirjath Sepher, the City of Books, by curious tours de force of conjectural emendation (Sephur for Sepher, Tabor for Debir), but with the recent progress of excavation the possibility of the name has been fully established and the insight of Sayce probably justified.
11. Period of the Judges:
That the situation at the Conquest continued also during the period of the Judges appears from sundry considerations: (1) The fact that all the surrounding nations, Moabites, Edomites, Amorites, Hittites, Mitannians, etc., were literate nations with public archives. (2) The high state of organization under David requires an evolutionary background. (3) Even the extreme (and quite untenable) theory that the Hebrews were illiterate wild Arab nomads and remained so for a long time would actually demonstrate the matter, for, as has been pertinently observed (Sellin, Einl, 7), many at least of the Canaanite cities were not destroyed or even occupied for a long time, but were surrounded by the Hebrews, and finally occupied and assimilated. It follows, therefore, that the archival system continued, and, under this theory, for a long time, until the Hebrews absorbed the culture of their neighbors – and, by inference, libraries with the rest. (4) Taking the evidence of the documents as they stand, the matter is simple enough; various works were kept in or near the ark. Joshua added to these at least the report of a boundary commission (Jos 18:9, Jos 18:10) which was brought to the sanctuary, and Samuel laid up the book that he wrote before Yahweh, i.e. at the ark. Moreover, the Books of Jasher, the Wars of Yahweh, etc., imply a literature which in turn implies libraries. Whenever or however composed, there is no good reason to distrust their historical existence. (5) Even on the extreme critical hypothesis, Most of the stories found in the first 8 books of the Old Testament originated before or during the age of song and story (circa 1250-1050) (Kent, Beginnings, 17). (6) To this may also be added, with all reservations, the mysterious metal ephod which appears only in this period. The ephod seems to have been either (a) a case (BDB, 66) or (b) an instrument for consulting an oracle (BDB, 65). The linen ephod had a pouch for the Urim and Thummim. The metal ephod seems to be distinguished from the image and may have contained the written oracular instructions (torah?) as well as the oracular instruments. (7) The Kenite scribes of Jabez (1Ch 2:55); the simple fact that a chance captive from Succoth could write out a list of names and some one at least of the rudest 300 survivals of Gideon’s 32,000 primitive warriors in those bloody frontier times could read it, the reference to the staff of the muster-master, marshal or scribe, and the governors (inscribers), in Deborah’s Song, point in the same direction.
While, therefore, the times were doubtless wild, the political unity very slight, and the unity of worship even less, there is evidence that there were both political and religious libraries throughout the period.
12. Saul to the Maccabees:
Beginning with the monarchy, the library situation among the Israelites appears more and more clearly to correspond with that of the surrounding nations. The first act the recorded after the choice and proclamation of Saul as king was the writing of a constitution by Samuel and the depositing of this in the sacred archives (1Sa 10:25). This document Septuagint biblon) was perhaps one of the documents (words) of Samuel whose words (1Ch 29:29, history, chronicles, acts, book, etc.) seem to have been possibly a register kept by him, perhaps from the time that he succeeded Eli, as later the high-priestly register (day-book) of Johannes Maccabeus was certainly kept from the beginning of his high-priesthood (1 Macc 16:24).
Whether these words of Samuel were equivalent to the technical register or book of the words of days or not, such registers were undoubtedly kept from the time of David on, and there is nothing so illuminating as to the actual library conditions of the times as the so-called chronicles, histories or acts – the registers, journals or archives of the time. The roll-register seems to be called in full the book of the words of days, or with explanatory fullness book of the records of the words of days, but this appears to be an evolution from words of days or even words, and these forms as well as the abbreviations book of days and book are used of the same technical work, which is the engrossing in chronological book-form of any series of individual documents – all the documents of a record-office, general or local. The name is used also of histories written up on the basis of these register-books (the Books of Chronicles are in Hebrew, words of days) but not themselves records. These charter-books, of course, so far as they go, mirror the contents of the archives which they transcribe, and the key to the public-library history of the period, both sacred and royal, as regards contents, at least, is to be found in them, while in turn the key to the understanding of this technical book-form itself lies in the understanding of the word as a technical book-form.
The word in Hebrew is used of books, speeches, sayings, oracles, edicts, reports, formal opinions, agreements, indictments, judicial decisions, stories, records, regulations, sections of a discourse, lines of poetry, whole poems, etc., as well as acts, deeds, matters, affairs, events and words in the narrowest sense. It is thus very exactly, as well as literally, translated in the Septuagint by logos, which as a technical book-term (Birt, Antikes Buchwesen, 28, 29) means any distinct composition, long or short, whether a law, an epigram, or a whole complex work. The best English equivalent for this work-complete-in-itself, in the case of public records, is document, and in the case of literary matters, it is work or writing. The words of Samuel or David thus are his acts or deeds in the sense, not of doings, but of the individual documentary records of those doings quite in the modern sense of the acts and proceedings of a convention, or the deeds to property.
In the plural, dibhre and logoi or logia alike mean a collection of documents, works or writings, i.e. a library. Sometimes this is used in the sense of archives or library, at other times as a book containing these collected works.
These collected documents in register-form constituted apparently a continuous series until the time when the Book of Chronicles was written and were extant at that time: the words of Samuel, chronicles and last words of David (1Ch 23:27; 1Ch 27:24), the book of the words (acts) of Solomon (1Ki 11:41), the book of the words of days of the kings of Judah, and the book of the words of days of the kings of Israel – the kingdoms after division each having naturally its own records.
The general situation during the period as to archival matters is pretty well summarized by Moore in the EB. From the time of Solomon, and more doubtfully from the time of David, he recognizes that records were doubtless kept in the palace, and that the temples also doubtless had their records, while there may have been also local records of cities and towns. These records contained probably chief events, treaties, edicts, etc. – probably brief annals never wrought into narrative memoirs. The temple records contained annals of succession, repairs, changes, etc. (EB, II, 2021-28). The records were, however, probably not brief, but contained treaties, etc., verbatim in full. To this should moreover be added the significant fact that these archives contained not only business records but also various works of a more or less literary character. Those mentioned include letters, prophecies, prayers, and even poems and Wisdom literature. The words of the kings of Israel contained prayers, visions and other matter not usually counted archival. The acts (words) of Solomon also contained literary or quasi-literary material. According to Josephus the archives of Tyre contained similar material and this was also true of the Amarna archives (circa 1380 BC) and those at Boghazkeui, as well as of the palace archives of Nineveh and the great temple archives of Nippur and Abu Habeh (Sippara). So, too, in Egypt the palace archives of King Neferikere contained medical works and those of Rameses III, at least, magical works, while the temple archives in the time of Thutmose III (Breasted, Ancient Records) contained military annals, and those of Denderah certainly many works of a non-registerial character. The temples of early Greece also contained literary works and secular laws as well as temple archives proper.
In short, the palace collections of Israel were no exception to the general rule of antiquity in containing, besides palace archives proper, more or less of religious archives and literary works, while the temple collections contained more or less political records and literary works.
This record system in Israel and Judah, as appears from the Old Testament itself, was the system of Persia in Old Testament times. It was the system of the Jews in Maccabean times, of Egypt during this whole period and for centuries before and after, and of Northern Syria likewise at about this time (Zakar-Baal, of Gebal, circa 1113 BC). The books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, whenever written, reveal the same system, Exodus to Numbers being in the form of a register, and Dt represented as an abstract prepared for engraving on stone, a use which Joshua is said to have made of it. We have, therefore, the same system existing before and after and on all sides geographically.
All this neighboring practice points to a system of (1) archival collections, (2) contemporary book registers, (3) contemporary publication by inscription, and, in the light of these, the Old Testament method, from the time of David at least, becomes clear, certainly as to archival collections and registers and hardly less so as to the setting-up of inscriptions in permanent material. Even if D is not earlier than 621 BC, it assumes public inscription long before that time, quite comparable in extent to the inscriptions of Thutmose III or King Mesha of Moab, and, although few long inscriptions have been recovered thus far, there is at least the Siloam inscription (compare also Isa 30:8; Job 19:23, Job 19:24; Isa 8:1; Jer 17:1; also the Decalogue). Each one of these three elements (even the collection of inscriptions in the temple) was, it must be remembered, called in antiquity a library.
The reference to the books in Dan (Jos 9:2) may possibly point to or foreshadow the synagogue library.
Little weight is generally and properly given to the statement of 2 Macc 2:13, that Nehemiah founded a library and gathered into it the writings about the kings, the prophets and David, and the letters of the kings concerning votive offerings, but it is, as a matter of fact, evident that he, as well as Judas Maccabeus, who is linked with him in the statement, must have done just this.
From the time of the Septuagint translated, the idea of the library (bibliotheke) and even the public library (books of the people, i.e. public records) was familiar enough, the Septuagint itself also, according to Josephus, linking the temple library of Jerusalem with the Alexandrian library through the furnishing of books by the former to the latter for copying.
13. New Testament Times:
With the Roman conquest and the rise of the Idumeans, naturally the methods developed in accordance with Roman practice. It appears from the frequent references of Josephus that the public records were extensive and contained genealogical records as well as official letters, decrees, etc. The triple method of record continues. It appears, further (Blau, 96; Krauss, III, 179), that there were libraries and even lending libraries in the schools and synagogues, not of Palestine only, but wherever Jews were settled. Josephus and Chrysostom with the Mishna confirm the already very clear inference from Luke’s account of our Lord’s teaching in the synagogue that at this time, and probably from the beginning of the synagogue, the books, the manner of their keeping and the ritual of their using were already essentially as in the modern synagogue. The first preaching-places of the Christians were the synagogues, and when churches succeeded these, the church library naturally followed, but whether in Bible times or not is a matter of conjecture; they appear at least in very early churches.
Whether the rich secular literature to which Josephus had access was in public or private libraries does not appear directly. It is well known that it was as much a part of Roman public policy in Herod’s time to found public libraries in the provinces as it was to restore temples. Twenty-four such provincial libraries, chiefly temple libraries, are known.
The Roman practice of the time still mixed literary with the archival material, and it is likely therefore that the public records of the Jewish temple had in them both Greek and Latin secular books in considerable quantity, as well as the Greek Apocrypha and a large amount of Aramaic or late Hebrew literature of Talmudic character.
14. Bookcases and Buildings:
As to the receptacles and places in which the books were kept, we have reference even in the Hebrew period to most of the main forms used among the nations: the wooden box, the clay box or pot, the pouch, and on the other hand, once, the house of books so familiar in Egyptian use and apparently referring to an individual chamber or semi-detached building of temple or palace. Most significant, however, is the statement that the books were kept in the palace and temple treasuries or storehouses.
The sacred ark (‘aron), whatever it may have originally contained, was looked on when D was written as a sacred wooden book-chest, and the ark in which the teaching priests carried the law about for public reading was in fact likewise a chest.
Such chests were common among the Jews later, some with lids and some with side-opening (Jewish Encyclopedia, II, 107-108; Blau, 178). It is tempting to find in D, where the book is to be put by (the King James Version in) the side of the ark (Deu 31:26), a chest having both lid and openings in the side, but more likely perhaps D means a separate chest, like the coffer or pouch with the golden mice, which was also put by the side (miccadh) of the ark (1Sa 6:8).
In the New Testament the cloak which Paul left behind at Troas (2Ti 4:13) was probably (Wattenb., 614; see also Birt and Gardthausen), if not a wooden capsa, at least some sort of bookcase or cover.
The earthen vessel in which Jeremiah (Jer 32:14) puts the two books (translated deeds), one sealed and one unsealed, was one of the commonest bookcases of the ancient world. This information has lately been widely reinforced and associated with Biblical history by the discovery of the Elephantine papyri, which were, for the most part, kept in such clay jars (Meyer, Papyrusfund, 15). The word Pentateuch perhaps harks back to a five-roll jar, but more likely to a basket or wooden box with five compartments (Blau, 65; Birt, Buchrolle, 21, 22). It was the collective label of a five-roll case, whether of earthenware, wood or basket work.
The pouch or bag bookcase has perhaps its representative in the phylactery (Mat 23:5), which was a sort of miniature armarium in that each of the four little rolls of its four compartments was technically a book (sepher). This name is commonly explained as an amulet guarding against evil spirits, but the term actually occurs in the papyri (Bibliophylax) of the preservation of books.
The house of books (Ezr 6:1 margin) or place of books is a very close parallel to bibliotheke, by which (in the plural) it is translated in the Septuagint. The phrase was a common term in Egypt for library, perhaps also sometimes for scriptorium or even registry, and it points to a chamber or semi-detached room or building where the book-chests, jars, etc., were kept. That at Edfu is a semi-detached room and contained many such cases.
While there is little record of libraries in Biblical times, the very formation of the Canon itself, whether by the higher critical process, or by natural processes of gathering whole literary works, implies the gathering together of books, and the temple libraries common to both Egypt and Assyria-Babylonia are almost inevitably implied wherever there was a temple or sanctuary, whatever may be the facts as to the temple libraries. According to Hilprecht there were certainly such libraries and from very ancient times. The palace library of Assurbani-pal, though itself a discovery of the last times, brings the story down to the times of the written history. For the rest of the story see literature below, especially Dziatzko, Bibliotheken, and the article on Libraries in the Encyclopedia Britannica (11th edition). See also NINEVEH, LIBRARY OF.
In the earlier period at least and including for the Jews the New Testament times, the particular locality in palace or temple seems to have been the treasury. In the Book of Ezra, search for the decree of Cyrus was to be made in the king’s treasure-house (Ezr 5:17), and was made in the house of books where the treasures were laid up (Ezr 6:1 m). The document was finally found in the palace at Ecbatana – so too in 1 Macc 14:49 the archives are placed in the treasury.
In New Testament times there had already been a good deal of development in the matter of library buildings. A general type had been evolved which consisted of (1) a colonnade, (2) a lecture-room, a reading-room or assembly room, (3) small rooms for book storage. Such accounts as we have of the Alexandrian libraries, with the excavations at Pergamus, Athens and Rome, reveal the same type – the book-rooms, the colonnade where masters walked or sat and talked with their pupils, the rooms for assembly where the senate or other bodies sometimes sat. In short, as long before in Egypt, whether in palace or temple, the place of teaching was the place of books.
It is significant thus that our Lord taught in the Treasury, which in Herod’s Temple was in the court of the temple proper – probably the porticos under the women’s gallery, some of the adjoining rooms being used for books. As this was within the barrier which no Gentile could pass, Herod must have had also a library of public records in the outer colonnade. See further, NINEVEH, LIBRARY OF.
Literature.
Ludwig Blau, Studien zum althebraischen Buchwesen, Strassburg i, E, 1902, 178-80: Sam. Krauss, Talmudische Archaologie, Leipzig, 1912, III, 193-98; J.W. Clark, Care of Books, Cambridge, 1901; E. C. Richardson, Biblical Libraries: A Sketch of Library History from 3400 BC to 150 AD. London. Oxford University Press, 1914. See the literature under WRITING.