III.

ANCIENT PAPYRUS AND THE MODE OF MAK

ING PAPER FROM IT.

[From the Library Journal, vol. iii., No. 10, November, 1878.]

THE Egyptian papyrus plant has played so important a part among ancient materials for writing that perhaps the Library Journal is a not inappropriate place for the correction of a common error respecting it,—an error found not only in popular works, but in many of deservedly high reputation. In Adam's Roman Antiquities, for example, we read that "the papyrus was about ten cubits high, and had several coats or skins above one another, like an onion, which they separated with a needle" (p. 424, New York ed., 1828). In the article "Liber," in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, the writer says, "The papyrus-tree grows in swamps to the height of ten feet or more, and paper was prepared from the thin coats or pellicles which surround the plant." Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon, under 3:370g, defines the word, first as "the inner bark of the papyrus," and then as "the paper made of this bark." A similar account is given in the Lexicons of Jacobitz and Seiler, Pape, and Rost and Palm's edition of Passow, under 3370 and átvрos; so also in the common Latin dictionaries, English and German, under "Papyrus"; and in many encyclopædias, -c.g., the Encyclopædia Britannica, 8th edition, art. “Paper," v. 17, p. 247; and Pauly's Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Alterthumswissenschaft, v. 5, pp. 1155, 1156. Other works of very high character contain this representation, as Becker's Charikles, 2te Aufl. (1854), v. i. p. 282 ff., in an elaborate note (compare the English translation, p. 161, n. 12); Guhl and Koner's Life of the Greeks

and Romins, translated from the third German edition (Lond. 1875), p. 198 ff., which speaks of the stem of the papyrus plant as having about twenty "layers of bark"; and so even Marquardt, Römische Privatalterthümer, Abth. 2 (1867), p. 390, who has given in general a wonderfully complete and accurate account of all that relates to the writing and book-making of the ancient Romans.

These are high authorities; but it is safe to say that the statements which have been italicized in the quotations given above are wholly erroneous. The papyrus plant (Cyperus papyrus of Linnæus, or Papyrus antiquorum, Willd.) belongs to the family of Cyperaceæ, or sedges: it is an endogenous plant, with a triangular stem; and to talk about its "inner bark," and "layers" like the coats of an onion, is a simple absurdity. One might as well speak of "the inner bark" of a stalk of Indian corn, or of a bulrush. The error has originated from ignorance or forgetfulness of the elements of botany, and the consequent misinterpretation of the passage in Pliny (Hist. Nat., xiii. 11-13, al. 21-27), which is our chief source of information about the ancient manufacture of paper from this plant. One of the words which Pliny uses to describe the very thin strips into which the cellular substance of the stem was sliced in making the paper is philyra, which strictly denotes the inner bark of the linden tree, also employed as a writing material. Hence, the papyrus has been conceived of as an exogenous plant, with its outer and inner bark, and has actually been called a "tree"!

But though the error to which I have referred has widely prevailed, and seems to have a tenacious vitality, it must not be supposed that it is universal. The botanists, of course, have not made such a mistake; see, e.g., Sprengel, art. "Papyrus," in Ersch and Gruber's Allgem. Encycl., Sect. 3, Theil II (1838), p. 230; Tristram's Nat. Hist. of the Bible, 2d ed. (1868), p. 435; and Le Maout and Decaisne's General System of Botany, translated by Mrs. Hooker (1873), p. 880. A correct account is also given in Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, v. 3, p. 148, and in Wattenbach's Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter (1871), p. 67. The

most thorough article on the subject with which I am acquainted is the "Mémoire sur le papyrus et la fabrication du papier chez les anciens," by M. Dureau de la Malle, in the Mémoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Institut de France), tom. 19, pt. 1 (1851), pp. 140-183, in which the passage of Pliny above referred to is fully explained. See also the " Dissertation sur le papyrus," by the Count de Caylus, in the Mémoires de l'Acad. des Inscriptions et BellesLettres (1752-54), tom. 26, pp. 267–320.

It may be worth while, perhaps, to call attention to another mistake in the English translation of Guhl and Koner's Life of the Greeks and Romans, already cited. We there read (p. 198), in the account of making paper from the papyrus plant: "The stalk... was cut longitudinally, after which the outer bark was first taken off; the remaining layers of bark, about twenty in number (philura), were carefully severed with a pin; and, afterwards, the single strips plaited crosswise; by means of pressing and perforating the whole with lime-water, the necessary consistency of the material was obtained." Lime-water, indeed! The German Leimwasser and the English lime-water are very different things. What is meant is glue-water, water in which gluten (Germ. Leim) has been dissolved. See Pliny, Hist. Nat., xiii. 12, al. 26.

On the botanical questions respecting the papyrus of Sicily, Syria, and ancient Egypt, see particularly Parlatore, "Mémoire sur le papyrus des anciens et sur le papyrus de Sicile," in the Mém. présentés par divers savants à l'Acad. des Sciences, tom. 12 (1854), pp. 469-502, with 2 plates. Parlatore makes two distinct species, and Tristram agrees with him; but Otto Böckeler, in a recent monograph, "Die Cyperaceen des Königlichen Herbariums zu Berlin," in the Linnaca, Bd. 36 (1869-70), pp. 303, 304, regards the Cyperus syriacus of Parlatore as only a variety of the Cyperus papyrus of Lin

næus.

IV.

ON THE COMPARATIVE ANTIQUITY OF THE SINAITIC AND VATICAN MANUSCRIPTS

OF THE GREEK BIBLE.

[From the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. x., No 1, 1872.]

THE present essay was suggested by a recent work of the Rev. J. W. Burgon, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, entitled The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark Vindicated against recent Critical Objectors and Established (London, 1871). In one of the Appendixes to this volume (pp. 291-294), Mr. Burgon has a dissertation "On the Relative Antiquity of the Codex Vaticanus (B) and the Codex Sinaiticus (x)," in which he maintains that certain "notes of superior antiquity," which he specifies, "infallibly set Codex B before Codex, though it may be impossible to determine whether by fifty, by seventy-five, or by one hundred years" (p. 293). He does not doubt that they are "the two oldest copies of the Gospels in existence"; but, "if the first belongs to the beginning, the second may be referred to the middle or latter part of the fourth century" (p. 70). Tischendorf, on the other hand, now assigns both MSS. to the middle of the fourth century; and even maintains that one of the scribes of the Sinaitic MS., whom he designates by the letter D, wrote the New Testament part of the Codex Vaticanus. Mr Burgon's arguments are for the most part new, and have not, so far as I am aware, been subjected to any critical examination. Few scholars, in this country at least, have the means of testing the correctness of his statements. His book in general, and his discussion of the present subject in particular, have been highly praised; and he writes throughout in the tone of one who teaches with

authority. It has seemed to me, therefore, that a review of the arguments put forth with such confidence might be of interest.

In the present investigation, I have relied chiefly on the original edition of the Sinaitic MS. published by Tischendorf in 1862 in four volumes folio, printed in fac-simile type, with nineteen plates of actual fac-similes of different parts of the MS.; and on the similar edition of the Codex Vaticanus now publishing at Rome, of which three volumes have thus far appeared, two of them containing the Old Testament as far as the end of Nehemiah, and the other the New Testament part of the MS. I have also used Tischendorf's fac-simile edition of the Codex FridericoAugustanus (another name for forty-three leaves of the Sinaitic MS.), published in 1846; his Novum Testamentum Vaticanum (1867) with the Appendix (1869); and his Appendix Codicum celeberrimorum Sinaitici Vaticani Alexandrini with fac-similes (1867).

Mr. Burgon's arguments are as follows: (1) "The (all but unique) sectional division of Codex B, confessedly the oldest scheme of chapters extant, is in itself a striking note of primitiveness. The author of the Codex knew nothing, apparently, of the Eusebian method."

The Vatican MS. has in the Gospels a division of the text into chapters, which differs from that found in most MSS. from the fifth century onward, and appears, so far as is known, in only one other MS., the Codex Zacynthius (=), of the eighth century. It has also a peculiar division into chapters in the Acts and Epistles. Mr. Burgon finds in its scheme of chapters "a striking note of primitiveness." But the Sinaitic has no division into chapters at all, a prima manu. Is not that quite as primitive? Further, Mr. Burgon's argument appears to be of a circular character. The only proof of the high antiquity of the "scheme of chapters" referred to is its existence in the Vatican MS.

It may be worth while, perhaps, to remark that the Roman edition of the Vatican MS. seems to afford evidence (p. 1272,