The Manuscript as Meaning, From Physical Form to Scholarly Interpretation

“ Indeed, so conservative is a good binding, that many a worthless book has had an honoured old age, simply out of respect to its outward aspect; and many a real treasure has come to a degraded end and premature death through the unsightliness of its outward case and the irreparable damage done to it in binding.
The weapon with which the binder deals the most deadly blows to books is the "plough," the effect of which is to cut away the margins, placing the print in a false position relatively to the back and head, and often denuding the work of portions of the very text. ”

“ The monks have torn out the text from the cover, and left it behind; there was no more room for the manuscript in the crowded bag. The treasure is lost to science. Our hand touches what was once the cover of the manuscript, and we cannot help having the bitter feeling of sorrow for what is irreparable, the same as if it had passed away in our sight. But we return to the light in possession of our faculties, and must do our duty in making available to our generation, and those who come after us, what remains. ”

“ Everything not worth the trouble of reprinting—that is to say everything, with the exception of a few fortunate fragments—will have disappeared, and the more rapidly that the material substance of books has become more precarious. Even the discovery of a durable paper would not give absolute assurance of survival, because of the temptation to employ this excessively strong paper for a thousand other purposes. Thus the value of the parchment has often led to the sacrifice of a manuscript, just as gold articles go necessarily to the smelting-pot once the style has changed. ”

“ No one could serve a writ upon thought and take up its body. It has no longer a body. The manuscript was the body of the masterpiece; the manuscript was perishable, and carried off the soul,—the work. ”

“ Because every thought, either philosophical or religious, is interested in perpetuating itself; because the idea which has moved one generation wishes to move others also, and leave a trace. Now, what a precarious immortality is that of the manuscript! How much more solid, durable, unyielding, is a book of stone! ”

“ While the quantity of information saved has increased dramatically over the centuries, the durability of media has decreased exponentially. That is to say, the clay tablets from ancient Sumeria can still be seen today, medieval manuscripts on animal parchment are perfectly readable, and paper correspondence from the Renaissance is still in good condition. ”

“ Those who are in the habit of looking at such things, know how commonly early printed books, whose binding has undergone the analytical operation of damp, or mere old age, disclose the under end pieces of beautiful and ancient manuscript. They know how freely parchment was used for backs and bands, and fly-leaves, and even for covers. The thing is so common, that those who are accustomed to see old books have ceased to notice it. ”

“ The second manner of faking in decorating the cover of a book is to use some old iron stamps for the impress on the leather of the binding. Some of these old implements that have escaped destruction are now used to advantage, especially to stamp decorative coats of arms on imitation antique bindings, so that the buyer should think the books have come straight from the former library of a nobleman. The faker has used this trick successfully with Americans particularly. ”

“ It has been said that this Bible of 42 lines was printed with intent to cheat purchasers, so that it might be sold as a manuscript. There is a legend that Fust did attempt the cheat at Paris, but there is no good authority for the libel, which scarcely deserves examination. There were, no doubt, during the fifteenth century, many who could not perceive the dissimilarities between manuscript and printed books, but these men were not book-buyers. To the intelligent book-buyer, the features of dissimilarity were conspicuous. ”

“ One must bear in mind how assiduously medieval scribes copied everything that appeared to be of any importance to them, and how each new copy by virtue of human fallibility or self-sufficiency must have suffered in the making, and it is only by very careful comparison of the various manuscripts that the original text may be rehabilitated. ”

“ Those who have been long accustomed to inspect and examine ancient manuscripts acquire a certain tact in judging of the age of a book from the condition of the ink, its colour and composition, which cannot be explained to others, and for the exercise of which no rules can be laid down. But in cases where a fraud is suspected, this nice habit of the eye often detects at once the imposition. It is perhaps more practicable to give to a picture, than to a manuscript, the hue of antiquity by artificial means. ”

“ Monks advanced in age were alone allowed to transcribe them, and after their completion they were read—revised—and reread again, and it is by that means that so uniform a reading has been preserved, and although slight differences may here and there occur, there are no books which have traversed through the shadows of the dark ages, that preserve their original text so pure and uncorrupt as the copies of the Scriptures, the fathers of the church, and the ancient writings of the classic authors ”

“ He has nothing to gain by it all, they say; he does not make money, like the forger of a cheque; he can seldom sell his forgery to advantage, as the latest biblical forger, Shapira, of the sham manuscript gospel, discovered. He merely poisons the very wells of history and throws doubt on all original “sources.” People who reason thus forget that every artist takes joy in his art, and that all art is imitation. The art of the forger is to imitate ancient manuscripts and inscriptions. L’Art pour l’art is his motto. He revels in his own cleverness and power of deceiving others. ”

“ The criminal abuse of ink is not infrequent by evil- disposed persons who try by secret processes to reproduce ink phenomena on ancient and modern documents. While it is possible to make a new ink look old, the methods that must be employed, will of themselves reveal to the examiner the attempted fraud, if he but knows how to investigate. ”

“ But this anachronism of fashion may be detected, as well by other circumstances we are soon to mention, as from the air of constraint which pervades the whole manuscript: the rather as the scribe will now and then fall into the more familiar manner of his contemporaries; especially when writing those small letters which our Biblical manuscripts of all dates (even the most venerable) perpetually crowd into the ends of lines, in order to save space. ”

“ When once the separation of words had become habitual, the old continuous mode of writing would be found troublesome to the eye, and even the old 'uncial' or rounded capital letters would at length prove an obstacle to use. Had biblical manuscripts of the uncial ages been habitually treated with ordinary respect, much more invested with high authority, they could not have been so often turned into 'palimpsests', that is, had their ancient writing obliterated that the vellum might be employed for fresh writing, not always biblical. ”

“ That manuscript had a curious history and certainly deserves a place in a Museum. I heard lately that Gabriel Wells, [Pg 75] the American collector, has got hold of it. J. C. had made alterations in black ink, the magazine editor had gashed it horribly in red; and when the book publisher came to restore the mangled corpus he could do so, intelligibly for the printer, only by an extravagant use of green ink. You see, there was no duplicate copy of the original. Always make duplicates. If you don’t, and if you are a writer of J. C.’s size, your manuscripts may some day be priceless. ”

“ Naturally the ancient scribes sought to diminish their toil by abbreviations and contractions of words. These abbreviations form one of the chief difficulties that a person meets with when he begins to read Latin and Greek manuscripts, and a large number of them are explained by Mr. Thompson. In describing the several styles of Greek writing Mr. Thompson divides manuscripts written on papyrus from those on vellum. He considers first the book hand on papyrus, next the cursive hand on the same material, then the uncial hand on vellum, and lastly the mediæval minuscule writing. ”

“ The abridged history of Rome, by Paterculus, has [Pg 178] come down to our times only in a single manuscript, and that one is so much corrupted, that critics have despaired of restoring the text to its purity. It happens, also, that this history is quoted by one ancient author only—Priscian, a grammarian of the sixth century. Yet, notwithstanding this scantiness of the evidence, and this corruption of the single existing copy, the genuineness of the work is fully admitted by scholars. ”

“ For assuredly, if the genuineness of charters and public deeds is doubted, the authority of ancient manuscripts in general is also called in question; and, if these doubts can be substantiated, it will appear that those who employ themselves in collating the printed editions of the Fathers, or other sacred books, with ancient manuscripts, spend their labour in vain. And hence, too, we must believe, contrary to the opinion of all learned persons, who think the world greatly indebted to the labours of the monks in transcribing books, that they toiled to no good purpose. ”

“ But so many are the means we possess for detecting any such wilful corruptions—drawn from a comparison of different manuscripts, or from the incongruity of the interpolated passage, that there is perhaps, altogether, more probability that, from some accidental peculiarity of style, genuine passages of ancient authors should [Pg 26] fall under suspicion, than that any actually spurious portions should entirely escape suspicion and detection. ”

“ These were detached sheets: there was no distinction then between book or letter paper.
A careful study of paper-marks would be interesting [47] and valuable if the authenticity or age of old papers or drawings were doubted, though the question of forgery scarcely ever arises, for so much knowledge and ingenuity would be required to produce a manuscript which would deceive an adept and pass muster as a veritable antique, that fraud of this kind is well-nigh impossible. ”

“ Or again, only a single document may have survived to us out of a long series, like a single chapter out of a book, leading us to form a wholly wrong idea of the author's meaning and the object of the work he had written or compiled. We all know how dangerous it is to explain a passage apart from its context, and to what erroneous conclusions such a practice is likely to lead. ”

“ A test as to whether an artist has succeeded is to observe, when the book is shown to anyone, whether the words are noticed at all, or if the decoration only is admired without any apprehension as to what the words are about. If the latter is the case, then, to some extent, the artist has failed. A manuscript that has been illuminated in the right spirit should enable the reader to understand and appreciate the words better. ”

“ How shall the peering student of musty records behold the wink in the long-vanished eye of the writer, the smile on the skull of the reader? A frigid note may veil a burning love; a tropic outburst disguise a dying passion. Who has the clue to these things? And in the literature of an age the things that are understood are exactly the things that are not written down, and thus the things that are written down are the things that are not understood. What would we not give for a little realistic description of houses, clothes and furniture in the Bible! ”

“ If those works which we believe to be genuine are not so in fact, we may be said to hold all the blessings of social and intellectual advancement by a forged title. For on such a supposition the first stock, or the rudiment of our advantages has sprung from a mass of fabrications. No one entertains such a supposition; and yet it must be admitted if any general objections are to be allowed to disparage the mode in which ancient literature has been transmitted to modern times. ”

“ Yet the mere inspection of a small number of these relics of antiquity may convince any one of the reality and distinctness of those progressive changes in the modes of writing upon which such discriminations are founded. The architecture of different periods is not more characteristic of the age to which it belongs, than is the style of writing in manuscripts; nor is there less certainty in determining questions of antiquity in the one case, than in the other. ”

“ Pious intent of the original writers, shaping their facts to suit their theories—later assumptions of inspiration and infallibility in the records—theologic systems quarried and built out of these materials—the supposed dependence of the most precious faiths of mankind upon these misreadings of history,—all these influences, with the lapse of time, have buried so deeply the original facts, that the exhuming and revivifying of the true story, or at least a tolerable similitude of its main lines, has imposed a gigantic task upon modern scholarship. ”

“ From this brief account of the materials successively employed for books, it will be obvious, that a knowledge of the changes which these several manufactures underwent will often serve, especially when employed in subservience to other evidence, to ascertain the age of manuscripts; or at least to furnish the means of detecting fabricated documents.
The preservation of books, framed as they are of materials so destructible, through a period of twelve, or even fifteen hundred years, is a fact which might seem almost incredible ”

“ But if it can be proved that either from a deliberate desire to deceive, or from an incapacity to weigh evidence and to distinguish between fact and fiction, they have transmitted a huge mass of foolish fables as authentic history, then their testimony is worth nothing, and the story of an oral law having no other evidence must be classed amongst the other fables which have come down to us on their authority. ”