The skins of animals--sheep, lambs, and calves, and, sometimes, of
antelopes, goats, asses, and swine--have served, and from the earliest
use of written language, as the favored and the best material upon
which to write. By different modes of treatment the skins of animals
were converted into "leather," "parchment," and "vellum," respectively,
as the finished product. _Leather_, tanned soft, and usually dyed red
or yellow, was the material earliest used by the Hebrews. Upon this
they wrote their statutes and religious history, and especially the
Scroll of the Law. The Yemanite Rolls (Pentateuch and other writings)
are all of red skin; and the Pentateuch rolls for the Jews of a certain
section of China are of white leather.[24] According to Ctesias and
Herodotus, the royal archives of ancient Persia were written on
leather. Extant leather rolls are ascribed to the date of about 2,000
B. C. And there are treasured skin-rolls, in the British Museum and
elsewhere, which are believed to have been prepared and inscribed as
early as 1,500 B. C.
_Parchment_, also made from skins, was prepared by a different process
than the tanning of leather. The word "parchment" comes from the
name of the city of ancient Mysia--Pergamos or Pergamum--where its
manufacture was originated and was carried on for centuries. Parchment,
though known for centuries before the Christian Era, was used by the
Greek and Roman writers to only a limited extent for a period of
some centuries, owing to their continued preference for the papyrus
production. The more general use of parchment was finally accelerated
by necessity, and on this wise: Ptolemy Philadelphus (prompted perhaps
by envy for the growing literary achievements of the kings of Pergamos
and by jealousy for the supremacy of Alexandria) laid an embargo upon
the exportation of the papyrus, then exclusively produced in Egypt.
This restriction necessitated and accelerated the manufacture of
parchment and thus stimulated its use, though papyrus continued to be,
until after the beginning of the Christian Era, the more common and the
cheaper though less durable material for receiving and perpetuating
literature.
Parchment is not only one of the earliest--and the very best--but
next to the baked tablets, the most durable material for all written
productions. The employment of parchment to record and preserve
literature spread from Pergamos throughout Europe and, because of its
superior quality and its greater durability, came into the preëminence
which it held until the invention of paper. Most of the existing
manuscripts of a greater age than the sixth century are written on
parchment. Indeed, its use for important and valuable documents, as
embossed records and resolutions of respect, and diplomas and the like,
has survived unto the present time.
_Vellum_ is the designation for a finer quality of writing material
made from calf skins or skins of antelopes. Some of the oldest, best,
and clearest of the existing copies of the Bible--notably, the Vatican
and the Sinaitic manuscripts--are written on vellum.
The skins of animals, however prepared to receive writing, were cut
into strips and, at the first, were fastened together in a continuous
roll--sometimes to the extent of a hundred feet or more in length.
The last strip of the manuscript was attached to a reed or stick,
called the _umbilicus_, around which, somewhat as a mounted map or a
window-shade, the whole length was rolled. It is to be remembered that
the first books, whether of parchment or papyrus, were not made up
of leaves and pages but of rolls--were, literally, "volumes." These
rolls were written usually on but one side of the material, in narrow,
cross-wise columns. A volume was unrolled and re-rolled, as read; was
"closed" by rolling it up around the umbilicus; and was "fastened" by
tieing it with a string--was often "sealed" with wax. [In the book of
Revelation (5:7-9) there is portrayed the breaking of the "seals" in
order to read the contents of the book.] The Hebrew scriptures, used in
the synagogue worship, were "books" of this form, as likewise was the
"book" referred to in the fortieth psalm, "In the volume of the 'book'
it is written of me."
It is not determinable, either at what time or for what reasons, the
change was made in the form of the manuscript from the continuous
roll to the book of separate leaves. As we have noted, it is the
fact that "necessity is the mother of invention," the world over and
throughout history. It is also the fact that the improvements of
inventions have ever been the order of development, inasmuch as few
inventions, if any, in any age or realm, have ever come into existence
full-grown--are other than improvements, and sometimes after long and
patient and untiring persistence, upon earlier and it may be crude and
imperfect originals. Thus the improvements in the preparation of skins
and papyrus, making it possible to use both sides of the materials,
doubtless facilitated the transition to the book of leaves and pages.
This change was gradual and was furthered or even occasioned it may
be by utilitarian demands, or was prompted by economy in the use
of book-making materials which were constantly enhancing in value.
Professor Dobschütz has this to say concerning the change from the
papyrus roll to the parchment book: "The use of this latter form seems
to originate in the law schools; the codex, or parchment book, is at
first the designation of a Roman law-book. But at an early date the
Christian Church adopted this form as the more convenient one and gave
it its circulation."[25] The fact that parchment and vellum increased
in cost and became less and less available as writing material led
to the custom, during periods of the Middle Ages, of transcribing
one work over another, and after the earlier had been obliterated.
This "composite" writing was a "palimpsest," called, technically, a
_codex rescriptus_, and many times obscured or destroyed an ancient
and valuable production. Some of these "palimpsests," though fragments
of ancient literature, both sacred and classic, are valuable and have
been "recovered" or restored by the use of chemical reagents coupled
with the all but infinite patience of the decipherers. A commentary
of the Psalms by Augustine, written over Cicero's "De Republica," and
a treatise of little value by a Syrian monk, Ephraem, superimposing a
valuable fifth century manuscript of the New Testament, are examples of
palimpsests in classic and Biblical literature. Some of the writings
of Livy and certain books of Pliny the Younger have been recovered
from superimposed writings of little or no historical value. Two facts
concerning the change in the form of manuscript books are demonstrable:
(1) That the first books were "rolls" or "volumes"; and (2) that, early
in the Christian Era, books of "leaves" had come into relatively common
use.
It is not an insignificant fact that the earliest manuscripts in the
form of books with leaves show the largest number of columns to a
page--approximating thus more nearly the continuous columns of the
earlier "roll" book. In other words, the earliest and best known of
the Greek manuscripts of the Bible--the manuscripts which are most
relied upon by the scholars for all critical, scriptural study--the
codices known, respectively, as the "א," or the Sinaitic, treasured
at Petrograd; the "B," or the Vatican, kept at Rome; the "A," or the
Alexandrian, deposited in the Manuscript Room of the British Museum;
and the "C," or the Ephraem, the famous "palimpsest" preserved in the
National Library at Paris (all of them written in the fourth and fifth
centuries) are "books" of leaves--the one most similar to the ancient
"roll" book in form and arrangement of the pages being, presumably, the
oldest.
It has relation to our discussion and is of illustrative interest and
value while considering ancient literature to note, in this connection,
some characteristics of these preëminent manuscripts of the Bible to
which we have just alluded. The Sinaitic Manuscript--one of the most
valuable copies of the scriptures in the Greek tongue--was unearthed by
Professor Tischendorf in the convent of St. Catharine, Mt. Sinai, in
1859, and dates, in the judgment of the critics, from the middle of the
fourth century A. D. This Manuscript is transcribed on 346½ leaves of
vellum, each leaf being 13½ inches in width and 14-7/8 inches in height
and contains four columns of 48 lines each to a page, or eight columns
to the open book. The Vatican Manuscript, written at about the same
time, has three columns to a page, or six columns to the open book. The
Alexandrian Manuscript, written in the fifth century, has two columns
to a page. The Ephraem Manuscript, also written in the fifth century,
has but a single column to a page. The Sinaitic Manuscript, because of
its distinction in having the largest number of columns to a page, has
been given, by some of the Biblical scholars, the first rank among the
oldest extant copies of the Christian scriptures. The basis for this
estimate is, largely, its nearer approach to the ancient rolls with
their cross-wise columns.