Scribes

“ The Scribes were the doctors of law, of theology, the interpreters of the Book, the masters of the Scriptures, and represented the authority of word and of tradition; and He had come to transform the Word and to regenerate the tradition. These three orders of men 243never could forgive Him even after they had sent Him to Golgotha. ”

“ Scribes, no doubt, tended to pay most attention to works of the most popular sort, and it is, therefore, no matter for wonder if the works of conscientious travellers, such as we have been describing, did not obtain anything like a wide circulation within a short period of their production. ”

“ Many important works have not been printed, and the copies required of these must be prepared by scribes. [367] The scribe who ceases his work because of the invention of the printing-press can be no true lover of books, in that, regarding only the present, he gives no due thought to the intellectual cultivation of his successors. The printer has no care for the beauty and the artistic form of books, while with the scribe this is a labour of love. ”

“ But it is evident that the Scribes at an early day, certainly as early as the beginning of the Christian era, determined to have a uniform and an unchangeable text. For this purpose they chose some manuscript copy of the Scriptures, doubtless the one which seemed to them most accurate, and made that the standard ”

“ Rubricating, or the adding of Red, or other coloured, letters, line-finishings, or signs, to a MS. or Book, in which the main body of the text is already completed in black, constitutes in itself a very useful and effective form of decoration. It is, moreover, a connecting link between plain writing and illumination proper; and we may safely assume that the artists who made the beautiful illuminations of the Middle Ages were trained as scribes and rubricators. ”

“ Individual usage must count for a good deal: {106}also the scribes in copying and recopying our text must to a considerable extent have obliterated the earlier practice. Metre and syntax combine to make it probable that, in line 9 of our poem, the scribe has inserted the unnecessary article þāra before ymbsittendra: and in the rare cases where we have an O.E. poem preserved in two texts, a comparison proves that the scribe has occasionally interpolated an article. ”

“ Sometimes scribes were employed merely to save the monks trouble. At Corbie, in the fourteenth century, the religious neglected to work in the writing-room themselves, but allowed benefactors to engage professional scribes in Paris to swell the number of books. ”

“ Strabo tells us that as the making of books became a common undertaking, there was constant complaint at the inaccuracies and deficiencies of the copies offered for sale, which had in many cases been prepared by ignorant scribes writing hastily and carelessly, and which had not afterwards been collated [183] with the original text. ”

“ Alas me ! men do not know that the same sun gathers the dews which water the forget-me-not, drooping at noonday, and drives through the sky the irresistible storm that shatters the forest in its thunderous march, and piles the ruins of a mountain in an Alpine avalanche. The same soul which thundered its forked lightning on Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, poured out poetic parables from his golden urn, spreading forth the sunshine of the beatitudes upon friend and foe, and, half in heaven, breathed language wholly thence,—"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." ”

“ We may still hear in the Egyptian Arabic of to-day the very words which were written by Semitic Babylonian scribes upon their tablets some four or five thousand years ago. A Semitic people would have been the last to borrow the language of its less-civilized neighbours without any assignable reason. The fact, consequently, that the pioneers of Babylonian culture spoke an agglutinative language fully justifies us in concluding that they belonged to a race that was not Semitic. ”

“ They who have ears of hearing, who come to Me with sincere affection, with a pure desire of faith and truth, to them I will clearly reveal celestial verities ; and I will assist them in the path of virtue, by which they may arrive at the kingdom of God. But they who have not this pure desire of the truth, but indulge in their own lusts and errors—as ye do, 0 ye Jews and Scribes—from them shall be taken away, by degrees, that little knowledge of Divine things which they do possess, and they shall become wholly blinded. ”

“ But if we think for a moment of how the manuscript books to which the early printers were accustomed had been produced we shall see that it was the most natural thing in the world. A scribe would take his quire of paper or vellum, and if he were a high-class scribe, mindful of the need of keeping his text clean, he would leave his first leaf blank and begin at the top of his second. ”

“ But there are two tests of a more objective character that may be used—orthography, and indication of lacunae or other faults in his exemplar. A scribe who preserves in his spelling the traces of a bygone age is probably trustworthy. If faithful in small things, he is likely to be faithful in great. A scribe again who scrupulously records the presence of a lacuna or illegibility in what he is copying, inspires us with confidence in the rest of his work. ”

“ All are here on an equal footing; the most finished writer and the most imperfect scribbler are on the same level; they are equally capable of the exquisite enjoyment of discovery, they are equally susceptible of the feelings of delight that gush upon the heart as every forward step discloses fresh prospects, and brings a still more new horizon, if I may so speak, to view. ”

“ Scrivener, skriv′en-ėr, n. a scribe: a copyist: one who draws up contracts, &c.: one who receives the money of others to lay it out at interest.—n. Scriv′enership. [O. Fr. escrivain (Fr. écrivain) —Low L. scribanus—L. scriba, a scribe.]
Scrobe, skrōb, n. a groove in the rostrum of weevils or curculios, or on the outer side of the mandible.—adjs. ”

“ As with other men of sensitive organization, the mood of the hour, a good or a bad pen, a ready or an obstructed flow of thought, would all be reflected in the formation of the written letters and words. In the manuscript of the fragmentary sketch which has just been published in a magazine, which is written in an ordinary commonplace- book, with ruled pages, and in which the author had not yet become possessed with the spirit of the story and characters, the handwriting is deliberate and clear. ”

“ But I hear that of all those who expect my praise the most numerous and most confident are the authors. The scribbler, who has been guilty of a tiresome volume which you have refused to read, still writes with the same industry as at first, for he has patience, and can wait for the applause of Posterity. He who has had the good fortune to be read and commended by you has no reason to suppose that I shall be less pleased by his work ”

“ Let them earnestly seek out for themselves correctly written books to transcribe, that the flying pen may speed along the right path. Let them distinguish the proper sense by colons and commas, and set the points, each one in its due place, and let not him who reads the words to them either read falsely or pause suddenly. It is a noble work to write out holy books, nor shall the scribe fail of his due reward. ”

“ A scribe could only write what the abbot or precentor set him. When his portion had been given out he could not change it for another. [193] If he were set to copy Virgil or Ovid or some lives of the saints the task would conceivably be pleasant. But such was seldom the scribe’s fortune. The continual transcription of Psalters and Missals and other service books must have been infinitely wearisome, at any rate, to the less devout members of the community. In some large and enterprising houses a scribe copied only a fragment of a book. ”

“ Setting-out.—An inscription of any size, or one requiring complex or very nice arrangement, is set-out in faint, sketchy outline of lead pencil or chalk. Simple writing is not set-out, but such slight calculation or planning as is necessary is carried out mentally, or on a scrap of paper. By practice the scribe, like the compositor, can fit his lettering to the given space with ease and accuracy. ”

“ Scribimus indocti doctique passim, [1] may be more truly said of the historian and biographer, than of any other species of writing; for all the arts and sciences (even criticism itself) require some little degree of learning and knowledge. Poetry, indeed, may perhaps be thought an exception; but then it demands numbers, or something like numbers: whereas, to the composition of novels and romances, nothing is necessary but paper, pens, and ink, with the manual capacity of using them. ”

“ A careful scribe may not only make fewer mistakes of his own, but he may correct manifest faults of the manuscript from which he copies, and avail himself of the testimony of others, so as to revise and improve the text of that on which he chiefly relies. ”

“ The inscription to the Dunciad is now printed and inserted in the poem. Do you care I should say any thing farther how much that poem is yours? since certainly without you, it had never been. Would to God we were together for the rest of our lives! the whole weight of scribblers would just serve to find us amasement, and not more, I hope you are too well employed to mind them: every stick you plant, and every stone you lay, is to some purpose; but the business of such lives as theirs, is but to die daily, to labour, and raise nothing. ”

“ There never was such a mighty scribbler as I later became and am even now. I am one who loves, like a drunkard his drink, the smell of ink, and the sight of a great pile of white sheets that may be scrawled over with words, always gladdens me ... ”

“ The result of the scribbling, the tale of perfect balance, all the elements of the tale understood, an infinite number of minute adjustments perfectly made, the power of self-criticism fully at work, the shifting surface of word values and color in full play, form and the rhythmic flow of thought and mood marching forward with the sentences—these are things of a dream, of a far dim day toward which one goes knowing one can never arrive but infinitely glad to be on the road. ”

“ Scribblers will feed on each other, and if we insist on being scribblers we must consent to be fed on. We must try to endure philosophically what we cannot help, and ought not, I suppose, to wish to help.
It is the custom at our table to vary the usual talk, by the reading of short papers, in prose or verse, by one or more of The Teacups, as we are in the habit of calling those who make up our company. ”

“ And that is just what we are: children that have not learnt to read let loose upon the library of the universe; and all that we can do is to pull the books about and play games with them and scribble on their pages. Everywhere the earth is defaced with our meaningless scribbling, and we tell ourselves that it means something because we want to scribble. Or sometimes we tell ourselves that there is no meaning in anything, no more in the books than in our scribble. ”

“ In writing the text of a work, the scribe might choose to make use of separate sheets of papyrus, κολλήματα, schedae, and then join them to one another consecutively so as to make up the roll; or he might purchase from the stationers a scapus, or ready-made roll of twenty sheets at most; and if this length were not sufficient, he might add other sheets or scapi, and thus make a roll of indefinite length. ”

“ Yet Ordinary Writing and even scribbling has had, and still might have, a good influence on the art of the Letter maker, and at least the common use of pen, ink, & paper makes it a simple matter for any one to essay a formal or ‘book’ hand. A broad nib cut to give clean thick and thin strokes (without appreciable variation of pressure) will teach any one who cares to learn, very clearly and certainly. And though much practice goes to the making of a perfect MS., it is easier than people suppose to make really beautiful things by taking a little pains. ”

“ Scribb′lings. [A freq. of scribe.]
Scribble, skrib′l, v.t. to card roughly, as wool.—ns. Scribb′ler, a machine for doing this, or a person who tends such; Scribb′ling, the first carding of wool or cotton; Scribb′ling-machine′, a coarse form of carding-machine. [Scand., Sw. skrubbla, to card.]
Scribble-scrabble, skrib′l-skrab′l, n. an ungainly fellow. [Reduplicated from scrabble.]
Scribe, skrīb, n. a writer: a public or official writer: a clerk, amanuensis, secretary: (B.) an expounder and teacher of the Mosaic and traditional law: a pointed instrument to mark lines on wood, &c.—v.t. ”

“ Such an author as Scribe is a national museum of invention—a never-failing source of new enjoyment to his lively countrymen, and he has probably tasted the pleasures of a bright and lasting reputation as fully as any author living. ”

“ Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through, He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew: Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain, The creature's at his dirty work again, Throned in the centre of his thin designs, Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines! ”

“ Scrivener is the most accomplished living exponent. We hear it confidently asserted that the contention is nothing else but an irrational endeavour on the one part to set up the many modern against the few ancient Witnesses;—the later cursive copies against the “old Uncials;”—inveterate traditional Error against undoubted primitive Truth. The disciples of the new popular school, on the contrary, are represented as relying exclusively on Antiquity. We respectfully assure as many as require the assurance, that the actual contention is of an entirely different nature. ”