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Title: History of the transmission of ancient books to modern times; together with the process of historical proof: A concise account of the means by which genuineness of ancient literature generally, and the authenticity of historical works especially are ascertained including incidental remarks upon the relative strength of the evidence usually adduced in behalf of the Holy Scriptures
Author: Taylor, Isaac
Language: English
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OF ANCIENT BOOKS TO MODERN TIMES; TOGETHER WITH THE PROCESS OF
HISTORICAL PROOF ***
HISTORY
OF
THE TRANSMISSION OF ANCIENT BOOKS
TO MODERN TIMES;
TOGETHER WITH
THE PROCESS OF HISTORICAL PROOF;
OR,
A CONCISE ACCOUNT OF THE MEANS
BY WHICH THE GENUINENESS OF ANCIENT LITERATURE GENERALLY,
AND THE AUTHENTICITY OF HISTORICAL WORKS ESPECIALLY,
ARE ASCERTAINED;
INCLUDING INCIDENTAL REMARKS
UPON THE RELATIVE STRENGTH OF THE EVIDENCE USUALLY ADDUCED
IN BEHALF OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
BY ISAAC TAYLOR.
VERI SCIENTIA VINDEX.
A New Edition, Revised and Enlarged.
LONDON:
JACKSON AND WALFORD,
18, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD.
1859.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY RICHARD CLAY, BREAD STREET HILL.
PREFACE.
Two books which appeared more than thirty years ago, and which have
been long out of print, are brought into one in this volume. The second
of them--the “Process of Historical Proof,” was, in fact, a sequel to
the first--the “History of the Transmission of Ancient Books to Modern
Times.” In now reprinting the two, as one, it has not been difficult
to give continuity to the whole: this has been effected, partly by
removing from each volume portions which seemed to be of secondary
importance, and to be not closely related to the principal intention
of the work; and partly by introducing several entire chapters of new
material; and by the insertion of additional paragraphs throughout.
What is new in this volume occurs chiefly in the mid portions of it,
and at the end.
In the course of this thirty years, the labours of critics, combined
with the researches of learned travellers, have thrown much light upon
all parts of the subject which is compendiously treated in this volume.
No reader who is fully informed in this department will need to be told
that, within the limits of a volume such as this, nothing more than the
most concise mention of these recent labours and researches could be
attempted: they are referred to only in the way of suggestion and of
sample. At the first, the two books above mentioned were intended to
find a place in a course of general educational reading; and it is only
as coming within the range of a purpose such as this, that the Reprint
is now offered to the public.
In excluding from the Reprint some chapters of the two volumes which
related expressly to the Biblical argument, or “Christian Evidences,”
I have been influenced by several reasons--such as these: The first
of them is this, that what may be regarded as the _religious_ aspect
of the general subject has no direct claim to be included in the
treatment of it. In the next place, I have believed--and think so
decisively--that, for the very purpose of bringing the Biblical
argument home, with the greatest force, to the convictions of
intelligent young persons, the subject should be fully understood
in its broadest aspect. When it is thus presented, and when it is
thus understood, well-informed and ingenuous persons will see and
feel, irresistibly, that, as compared with any other mass of facts
belonging to literary antiquarianism, and to historic evidence, the
Biblical evidence is many times more ample, and various, and is more
unquestionably certain, than even the best and the surest of those
masses of facts.
There is yet another reason that has induced me to retrench, in
this Reprint, much that, thirty years ago, might seem proper to the
treatment of the subject. In this course of time a great change has
had place upon the field of argument touching Christianity and its
origin. Although disbelief may have spread widely of late, the argument
concerning Christianity has been narrowed on every side of it. Much
that, a while ago, was thought to need the production of proof, has,
within a few years, quite ceased to be spoken of as questionable.
Several elaborate and ingenious endeavours to bring, first, the
_documents_ of Christianity, and then, the _historic import_ of
those documents, into doubt, have signally failed, and in fact they
are abandoned as nugatory and hopeless. It would, therefore, be a
superfluous labour at this time to defend positions which have ceased
to be assailed.
The course of adverse thought, at this time, in relation to the
religion of Christ--the only religion concerning which any question can
be raised--has this tendency, namely, to divert attention by all means,
and as much as possible, from _the past_; and to engage all attention,
and to concentrate it, upon the _present moment_, and upon its tangible
and secular interests. This is now the aim of those writers, in the
departments of Philosophy--physical and abstract, who would subvert
Christianity, and who labour to do so by drawing the thoughts of the
educated classes away from it--away from its neighbourhood. If it be
so, then it must be well for those who take the other side, to do what
they may for calling back the same classes, and for challenging them to
acquaint themselves anew with History, and to assure themselves of its
incontestible certainty.
STANFORD RIVERS,
_February, 1859_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
INTENTION OF THE PRESENT ARGUMENT 1
CHAPTER II.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE, AS TO THE AUTHENTICITY OF ANCIENT BOOKS 9
CHAPTER III.
THE DATE OF ANCIENT WORKS, INFERRED FROM THE QUOTATIONS
AND REFERENCES OF CONTEMPORARY AND SUCCEEDING WRITERS 28
CHAPTER IV.
THE ANTIQUITY AND GENUINENESS OF ANCIENT BOOKS MAY BE INFERRED FROM
THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGES IN WHICH THEY ARE EXTANT 36
CHAPTER V.
ANCIENT METHODS OF WRITING, AND THE MATERIALS OF BOOKS 41
CHAPTER VI.
CHANGES INTRODUCED IN THE COURSE OF TIME IN THE FORMS OF LETTERS,
AND IN THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF WRITING 52
CHAPTER VII.
THE COPYISTS; AND THE PRINCIPAL CENTRES OF THE COPYING BUSINESS 61
CHAPTER VIII.
INDICATIONS OF THE SURVIVANCE OF ANCIENT LITERATURE, THROUGH A PERIOD
EXTENDING FROM THE DECLINE OF LEARNING IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY, TO ITS
RESTORATION IN THE FIFTEENTH 77
CHAPTER IX.
THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 97
CHAPTER X.
SEVERAL METHODS AVAILABLE FOR ASCERTAINING THE CREDIBILITY
OF ANCIENT HISTORICAL WORKS 102
CHAPTER XI.
EXCEPTIONS TO WHICH THE TESTIMONY OF HISTORIANS, ON PARTICULAR
POINTS, MAY BE LIABLE 119
CHAPTER XII.
CONFIRMATIONS OF THE EVIDENCE OF ANCIENT HISTORIANS, DERIVABLE
FROM INDEPENDENT SOURCES 132
CHAPTER XIII.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES, APPLICABLE TO QUESTIONS OF THE GENUINENESS
AND AUTHENTICITY OF ANCIENT RECORDS 160
CHAPTER XIV.
RELATIVE STRENGTH OF THE EVIDENCE WHICH SUPPORTS THE GENUINENESS
AND AUTHENTICITY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 177
CHAPTER XV.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE PRECEDING STATEMENTS:--A MORNING AT
THE BRITISH MUSEUM 204
CHAPTER XVI.
FACTS RELATING TO THE CONSERVATION, AND LATE RECOVERY, OF
SOME ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS 226
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PROCESS OF HISTORIC EVIDENCE EXEMPLIFIED IN THE INSTANCE
OF HERODOTUS 267
CHAPTER XVIII.
METHOD OF ARGUING FROM THE GENUINENESS, TO THE AUTHENTICITY
OF THE HISTORY OF HERODOTUS 306
CHAPTER XIX.
EXAMPLES OF IMPERFECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE:--HERODOTUS 336
CHAPTER XX.
RECENT EXPLORATIONS, CONFIRMATORY OF THE TRUTH OF ANCIENT
HISTORY: HERODOTUS AND BEROSUS 358
CHAPTER XXI.
INFERENTIAL HISTORIC MATERIALS 371
CHAPTER XXII.
THE MODERN JERUSALEM--A VOUCHER FOR THE LITERATURE OF ITS
ANCIENT OCCUPANTS 399
HISTORY
OF THE
TRANSMISSION OF ANCIENT BOOKS.
CHAPTER I.
INTENTION OF THE PRESENT ARGUMENT.
The credit of ancient literature, the certainty of history, and the
truth of religion, are all involved in the secure transmission of
ancient books to modern times. Many of the facts connected with the
history of this transmission are to be found, more or less distinctly
mentioned, in every work in which the claims of the Holy Scriptures are
advocated. But these facts are open to much misapprehension when they
are brought together to subserve the purposes of a single argument. It
is the intention of this volume therefore to lay them before general
readers, as they stand apart from controversy, and as if no interests
more important than those of literature were implicated in the result
of the statements we have to make.
Nothing can be more equitable than that the genuineness and
authenticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures should be judged
of by the rules that are applied to all other ancient books; nor is
anything more likely to produce a firm and intelligent conviction
of the validity of the claims advanced for the Holy Scriptures,
than a clear understanding of the relative value of the evidence
which supports them. To furnish the means therefore of instituting a
comparison, so just in itself, and so necessary to a fair examination
of the most important of all questions, is the design of these pages.
As this volume makes no pretension to communicate information to those
who are already conversant with matters of antiquity, literary or
historical, whatever might seem recondite, or what is still involved
in controversy, has been avoided. Nor will these pages be encumbered
with numerous references, which, though easily amassed, would increase
the size of the volume without being serviceable to the class of
readers for whom the author now writes. No facts are adduced which
may not readily be substantiated by any one who has access to a
library of moderate extent. But a few works, not often met with in
private collections, are named at the foot of the page where special
information has been derived from them.
The principal facts of ancient history, and the authenticity of the
works from which chiefly our knowledge of antiquity is derived, are now
freely admitted, after a few exceptive instances have been set off,
which are unproved, or doubtful.
Yet on this subject, as well as upon some others, there often exists,
at the same time, too much faith, and too little; for, from a want
of acquaintance with the details on which-a rational conviction of
the genuineness and validity of ancient records may be founded, many
persons, even though otherwise well informed, feel that they have
hardly an alternative between a simple acceptance of the entire mass of
ancient history, or an equally indiscriminate suspicion of the whole.
And when it happens that a particular fact comes to be questioned, or
when the genuineness of some ancient book is argued, such persons,
conscious that they are little familiar with the nature of the evidence
on the strength of which the question turns, and perceiving that the
controversy involves many recondite and uninteresting researches, or
that it rests upon the validity of minute criticisms, either recoil
altogether from the argument, or they accept an opinion, without
inquiry, from that party on whose judgment they think they may most
safely rely.
And it is true that such controversies may, for the most part, very
properly be left in the hands of critics and antiquarians, whose tastes
and acquirements qualify them for investigations that can scarcely be
made intelligible to the mass of readers. Nor are the facts involved
in these controversies often of any importance to the general student
of history; for they do not extensively affect the integrity of that
department of literature to which they belong. Yet it must be allowed
that the _principles_ on which such questions are argued, and the
facts connected with the transmission of ancient literature to modern
times, are in themselves highly important; and that they well deserve
more attention than they often receive. Nor are these facts, when
separated from particular controversies, at all abstruse, or difficult
of apprehension. Indeed much of the information that bears upon the
subject is in itself curious and highly interesting, as well as
important.
Even in relation to those works of genius, the value of which consists
in their intrinsic merits, and which would not be robbed of their
beauties, though they were discovered to be spurious, an assurance
of their genuineness is felt by every reader to conduce greatly to
the pleasure they impart. But a much stronger feeling naturally leads
us to demand this assurance in the perusal of works which profess
to have reality only for their matter:--Truth is the very subject
of History:--the adducing of satisfactory evidence, therefore, of
the integrity of its records may well be deemed an indispensable
preliminary to a course of study in that department of knowledge.
Besides its peculiar propriety in connexion with the study of history,
the argument in support of the genuineness and authenticity of the
existing remains of ancient literature is singularly fitted to afford
a useful exercise to the reasoning faculties; and perhaps, better
than any other subject, it calls into combined action those powers of
the mind that are separately employed in mathematical, physical, or
legal pursuits, and which, in the actual occasions of common life, can
subserve our welfare only so far as they move in unison.
But reasons of still greater moment recommend the subject of the
following pages to the attention of the reader; for it is certain that
every one, whether or not he is contented to admit, without inquiry,
the authenticity of _profane_ history, has the highest personal concern
in the truth of that particular portion of ancient history with which
the Christian religion is connected; and, therefore, every one should
think himself bound to convince himself of the genuineness of the books
in which its principles are contained. And as the facts on which this
proof depends are precisely of the same kind in profane, as in sacred
literature, and as the same principles of evidence are applicable
to all questions relating to the genuineness of ancient books, it
is highly desirable that the proof of the genuineness of the Sacred
Writings should be viewed--in _its place_, as forming a part only of a
general argument, which bears equally upon the entire literary remains
of antiquity. For it is only when so viewed, that the comparative
strength and completeness of the proof which belongs to this particular
case, can be duly estimated. When exhibited in this light it will
be seen that the integrity of the records of the Christian faith
is substantiated by evidence in a tenfold proportion more various,
copious, and conclusive, than that which can be adduced in support of
any other ancient writings. If, therefore, the question had no other
importance belonging to it than what may attach to a purely literary
inquiry, or if only the strict justice of the case were regarded, the
authenticity of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures could never come to
be controverted, till the entire body of classical literature had been
proved to be spurious.
Many--perhaps most persons, in perusing works on the evidences of
revealed religion, are apt to suppose that the sacred books only, or
that these books, more than any others, stand in need of laboured
argumentation in support of their authenticity; while, in truth,
these books, less than any other ancient writings, need a careful
investigation of their claims; for the proof that establishes them
is on all points obvious and redundant. Indeed this very redundancy
and variety of evidence--especially if it be unskilfully adduced, may
actually produce confusion and hesitancy, rather than an affirmed
conviction, in unpractised minds; and this perplexity is likely to be
increased by the very idea of the serious importance of the subject.
Thus it may happen that those very facts which, if compared with others
of a similar kind, are susceptible of the most complete proof, are
actually regarded with the most distrust.
In presenting to the reader, what might be called--the History of the
records of History, we shall put him in position for tracing the extant
works of ancient authors _retrogressively_, from modern times, up to
the age to which they are usually attributed; and then it will be seen
on what grounds--under certain limitations--the contents of these works
are admitted to be authentic, and worthy of credit. In attending to the
facts which we have to adduce it will appear that we are well warranted
in accepting certain works as having been written in the age to which
they are usually assigned, and by the authors to whom they are commonly
attributed; and also in believing that they have not suffered material
corruption in the course of transcription.
Further than this we may advance, and go on to show the grounds of
our belief that such or such an author wrote what he believed to be
true, and that he possessed authentic information on the subject of
which he treats. The proof in this case must be drawn from the style
and character of the work itself; from the circumstances that attended
its first publication; from the corroborative evidence of contemporary
writers; and from the agreement of the narrative in particular
instances with existing relics of antiquity.
Evidence in support of the first part of this assumption will prove
that the works in question are not _forgeries_:--evidence establishing
the _second_, will show that they are not _fictions_.
It is obvious that these assumptions are not only distinct, but
that they are independent of each other:--for one of them may be
conclusively established, while the other is either disproved, or may
remain questionable. A book may contain a true narrative of events,
though not written by the author, or in the age, that has commonly been
supposed. Or, on the other hand, it may undoubtedly be the production
of the alleged author, but may deserve little credit as a professed
record of facts. Thus, for example, the Cyropædia is, on good evidence,
attributed to Xenophon; but there is little reason to suppose that it
deserves to be considered as better than an historical romance:--the
_genuineness_ of the work is certain; but its authenticity as a history
is, at the best, questionable. Yet the first of these propositions is
more independent of the second, than the second can be of the first.
For when the antiquity and genuineness of an historical work has
been clearly demonstrated, it is seldom difficult to fix the degree
of credit that is due to the author; or to discover those particular
points on which there may be reason to suspect his veracity, or to
question the soundness of his judgment, or to doubt the accuracy of his
information.
It is then for the purpose of rendering these arguments and inferences
intelligible, and more satisfactory also, than otherwise they would be,
that, after giving a brief statement of this argument, we shall proceed
to bring forward what relates to the manipulative and mechanical
methods of multiplying copies of books, and to the diffusion, and
preservation of these copies, in ancient times;--that is to say, in all
times anterior to the invention of Printing, in the fifteenth century.
CHAPTER II.
STATEMENT OF THE CASE, AS TO THE AUTHENTICITY OF ANCIENT BOOKS.
The antiquity and genuineness of the extant remains of ancient
literature may be established by three lines of proof that are
altogether independent of each other; and though, in any particular
instance, one, or even two out of the three should be wanting, the
remaining one may alone be perfectly conclusive:--When the three
concur, they present a redundant demonstration of the facts in question.
The _first_ line of proof relates to the history of certain copies of a
work, which are now in existence.
The _second_--traces the history of a work as it may be collected from
the series of references made to it by succeeding writers.
The _third_--is drawn from the known history of the _language_ in which
the work is extant.
For understanding what belongs to the first of these three lines of
evidence we ought to be acquainted with various particulars relating
to the modes of writing practised among ancient nations, and to the
materials employed, and to what may be called the business-system by
means of which an ancient writer placed himself in communication with
his readers.
In many, or in most of these particulars ancient and modern usages are
very dissimilar. But something more should first be said indicative of
the purpose with a view to which these facts are brought forward.
It need scarcely be said that the antiquity and integrity of a book
can be open to no question, if in any case the existence of any one
copy of it can be traced back, with certainty, to the time of its
first publication. If, for example, a manuscript of a work in the
author’s handwriting were still extant, and if the fact of its being
such could by any means be proved, our argument would be concluded, and
any other evidence must be deemed superfluous. There are however few
such unquestionable _autographs_ to be found, even of modern works,
and none, of any ancient one. Yet the circumstances attending the
preservation and transmission of manuscripts are, in some instances, as
we shall see, such as to prove the antiquity and genuineness of a work
with little less certainty than as if the very first copy of it were in
existence.
But before we enter into the particulars of this proof it should
be mentioned--especially as we intend to follow the order of time
_retrogressively_, that the history of _manuscripts_ need not be traced
through any later period than that of the early part of the fifteenth
century, when most of the classic authors passed through the press.
For the invention of printing has served, as well to ascertain,
beyond doubt, the existence of books at certain dates, as to secure
the text from extensive interpolation and corruption. A printed book
is not susceptible of subsequent interpolation or alteration by the
_pen_: it bears also a date, and the issuing of different editions
of the same work from distant places, would render any falsification
of date in one of them, or any material corruption of the text by an
editor, a nugatory attempt. For example, there are now extant, printed
copies of the history of the Peloponnesian war, dated “Venice, 1502;”
other copies of an edition of the same work are dated “Florence,
1506;” others are dated “Basil, 1540;” and others, printed within a
few years of the same time at Paris and Vienna. On being compared
with each other, these editions are found to agree _in the main_; and
yet to disagree in many small variations of orthography, syntax, or
expression; so as to prove that they were derived independently from
different manuscripts; and not successively from each other. These
printed editions, therefore, sufficiently prove the existence of the
work in the fifteenth century; and also that the text of the modern
editions has not been materially impaired or corrupted during the last
four hundred years.
But let it now be imagined, that there are no other means of
ascertaining the antiquity and genuineness of the classic authors than
such as may be collected from the history of existing manuscripts. Our
object then will be to discover to what age they may clearly be traced;
and to deduce from the facts some sure inference relative to the length
of time during which those works have been passing through the hands
of copyists.
The date of an ancient manuscript may be ascertained by such means as
the following:--
1. Some manuscripts are known to have been carefully preserved in the
libraries where they are now found, for several centuries:--for not
only have they been mentioned in the catalogues of the depositories
to which they belong, but they have been so accurately described by
eminent scholars of succeeding ages, that no doubt can remain of their
identity. Or even if they have changed hands, the particulars of the
successive transfers have been authentically recorded.
2. A large proportion of existing manuscripts are found to be dated by
the hand of the copyists, and in such a manner as to leave no question
as to the time when the copy was executed.
3. Many manuscripts have marginal notes, added evidently by later
hands, which through some incidental allusion to persons, events, or
particular customs, or by the use of peculiar forms of expression,
indicate clearly the age of the notes, and therefore carry that of the
original manuscript somewhat higher.
4. The remote antiquity of a manuscript is often established by the
peculiar circumstance of its existing _beneath_ another writing.
These re-written manuscripts--palimpsests, or rescripts, as they are
termed, afford the most satisfactory proof of antiquity that can be
imagined. Parchment, which has always been a costly material, came to
be greatly enhanced in price at the time when paper, manufactured from
the papyrus of the Nile, began to be scarce, and just before the time
when that formed from cotton--called charta bombycina, was brought
into general use. At the same period, owing to the general decline
of learning, the works of the classic authors fell into very general
neglect. Those, therefore, who were copyists by profession, and the
monks especially, whose libraries often contained large collections of
parchment books, availed themselves of the valuable material which they
possessed, by erasing, or washing out, the original writing, and then
substituting lives of the saints, religious romances, meditations, or
such other inanities as suited the taste of the times. Nevertheless,
often, the faithful skin, tenacious of its pristine honours, retained
the traces of the original writing with sufficient distinctness to
render it still legible. These rescripts, therefore, offer to us a
double proof of the antiquity of the work which first occupied the
parchment; for in most cases the date of the monkish writing is
easily ascertained to be of the twelfth, or even the ninth century.
The writing which _first_ occupied such parchments must, of course,
be dated considerably higher; for it is much more probable that old,
than that recent books should have been selected for the purpose of
erasure. Some invaluable manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures, and not a
few precious fragments of classic literature, have been thus brought to
light.
5. The age of a manuscript may often be ascertained, with little chance
of error, by some such indications as the following:--the quality or
appearance of the ink; the nature of the material; that is to say,
whether it be soft leather, or parchment, or the papyrus of Egypt,
or the bombycine paper; for these materials succeeded each other, in
common use, at periods that are well known;--the peculiar form, size,
and character of the writing; for a regular progression in the modes of
writing may be traced by abundant evidence through every age from the
remotest times;--the style of the ornaments or _illuminations_, as they
are termed, often serves to indicate the age of the book which they
decorate.
From such indications as these, more or less definite and certain,
ancient manuscripts, now extant, are assigned to various periods,
extending from the sixteenth, to the fourth century of the Christian
era; or perhaps, in one or two instances, to the third, or second. Very
few can claim an antiquity so high as the fourth century: but not a few
are safely attributed to the seventh; and a great proportion of those
extant were unquestionably executed in the tenth; while many belong to
the following four hundred years. It is, however, to be observed, that
some manuscripts, executed at so late a time as the thirteenth, or even
the fifteenth century, afford clear internal evidence that, by a single
remove only, the text they contain claims a _real_ antiquity, higher
than that even of the oldest existing copy of the same work. For these
older copies sometimes prove, by the peculiar nature of the corruptions
which have crept into the text, that they have been derived through
a long series of copies; while perhaps the text of the more modern
manuscript possesses such a degree of purity and freedom from all the
usual consequences of frequent transcription, as to make it manifest
that the copy from which it was taken, was so ancient as not to be far
distant from the time of the first publication of the work.
Most, if not all, the Royal and Ecclesiastical and University libraries
in Europe, as well as many private collections, contain great numbers
of these literary relics of antiquity: and some of them could furnish
manuscripts of nearly the entire body of ancient literature. There
are few of the classic authors that are not still extant in _several_
manuscript copies; and of some, the existing copies are almost
numberless.
Although all the larger ancient libraries, such, for example, as
those of Alexandria, of Constantinople, of Athens, and of Rome, were
destroyed by the fanaticism of barbarian conquerors; yet so extensive
a diffusion of the most celebrated works had previously taken place,
throughout the Roman empire, and beyond its limits, that all parts of
Europe and Western Asia abounded with smaller collections, or with
single works in the hands of private persons. When learning had almost
disappeared among the people, monasteries and religious houses became
the chief receptacles of books; for almost every such establishment
included individuals who still cultivated literature and the sciences
with ardour; and who found no difficulty in amassing almost any
quantity of this generally neglected property.
Happily for literature, religious houses were places of greater
security than even the strongholds of the nobles, or the palaces
of kings, which by conquest or revolution were, from time to time,
violently rent from their possessors. Meantime, these sacred seclusions
were usually respected, even by the fiercest invaders. Through a
long course of ages, monasteries were occupied by an order of men
who succeeded each other in a far more tranquil course of transition
than has taken place in any other instance, that might be named. The
property of each establishment (and its literary property was always
highly prized) passed down, from age to age, as if under the hand
of a permanent proprietor, and it was therefore subjected to fewer
dispersions or destructions than the mutability of human affairs
ordinarily permits.
Every church, and every convent and monastery had its library, its
librarian, and its other officers, employed in the conservation of the
books. Connected with the library was the _Scriptorium_--the hall or
chamber where the elder or the educated monks employed themselves in
making copies of such books as were falling into decay; or of such as
there was still some demand for, in the open world.
By means such as these it was that the literature of more enlightened
ages has been preserved from extinction; and when at length learning
revived in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a large portion
of those long-hoarded volumes flowed into the collections of the
munificent founders of libraries, and there, having become known to the
learned, they were speedily consigned to the immortal custody of the
press.
The places in which these remains of ancient literature had been
preserved, during the middle ages, were too many, and they were too
distant from each other, and they were too little connected by any kind
of intercourse, to admit of a combination or conspiracy having for its
object any supposed purposes of interpolation or corruption. Possessing
therefore as we do, in most cases, copies of the same author, some of
which were drawn from the monasteries of England, others from those of
Spain, and others collected in Egypt, Palestine, or Asia Minor, if, on
comparing them, we find that they agree, except in variations of little
moment, we have an incontestable proof of the care and integrity with
which the business of transcription had generally been conducted. For
it is evident that if the practice of mutilation, interpolation, and
corruption, had to any considerable extent been admitted, the existing
remains of ancient authors, after so long a time, would have retained
scarcely a trace of integrity or uniformity. A licentious practice of
transcription, operating through the course of a thousand or fifteen
hundred years, must have resulted, not in giving us the connected and
consistent works we actually possess, but only a heterogeneous mass of
mangled fragments.
But now, if the general accordance of existing manuscripts attests the
prevailing care, and even the scrupulousness of those through whose
hands they passed, the peculiar nature of the diversities that do exist
among the several copies of the same author, serves to establish a fact
which, if we did not know it by other means, it would be of the highest
importance to prove: namely, that these works _had already descended
through a long course of time, when the existing copies were executed_.
This fact is especially apparent in the case of the earlier Greek
authors; for while some copies retain uniformly the peculiarities of
the dialect in which the author wrote; in others, these peculiarities
are merged in those more common forms of the language which prevailed
after the time of the decline of the Greek literature. These deviations
in orthography, or in construction, from the author’s text, were
evidently made by successive copyists in compliance with the tastes
of purchasers of books in different countries; nor were they likely
to have been effected by transcribers of _the middle ages_, when
these books were no longer in use by readers to whom the language was
vernacular, and to whom, alone, an accordance with the colloquial forms
of the language could be a matter of any importance.
Books in a dead language, and which can be intended for the use of the
learned only, will never be accommodated to the colloquial fashions of
an intermediate period. Let us consider how it would be in an instance
familiar to us. If, for example, in examining two editions of the
poems of Chaucer, one of them should be found to retain the original
peculiarities of orthography, proper to the author’s time, while, in
the other, those peculiarities are all softened down into the forms
adopted in the reign of Elizabeth, we should certainly attribute the
edition to _that_ period rather than suppose the corrections to have
been made by a modern editor.
Again:--some copies of ancient authors present instances in which,
when a passage is compared with the same in another copy, it is easy
to perceive that an early transcriber, having fallen into an error,
more than one succeeding transcriber has attempted a restoration of the
genuine reading; for the _last_ conjectural emendation has plainly been
framed out of two or three prior corrections.
Thus it is, then, that the existing manuscripts of the classic authors
may be traced up, either by direct evidence, or by unquestionable
inferences, very near to the age--and, in many instances--quite
up to the age when these works were universally diffused, were
familiarly known, and were incessantly quoted by other writers; and
when, therefore, the history of each work may easily and abundantly
be collected from the testimony of contemporary and succeeding
authors. The various facts, above alluded to, serve to connect the
literary remains of antiquity--now in our hands, with the period
of their pristine existence:--we traverse the long era of general
ignorance--that wide gulf which separates the intelligence and
civilization of antiquity from the intelligence and civilization of
modern times, and we land, as it were, upon the native soil of these
monuments of Mind, and we once more find ourselves surrounded by that
abundance of evidence which belongs to an advanced state of knowledge.
We need not wish to trace the history of _manuscripts_ further, than to
the confines of that former world of learning and refinement.
Indeed we need not be solicitous to trace the history of these literary
relics a step further than fairly into the midst of the dark ages.
For even if all external and correlative evidence were wanting, and if
nothing were known concerning the classic authors except this--that,
such as they now are, they were extant in the tenth century, more than
enough would be known to make it abundantly certain that these works
were the product of a very different, and of a distant age. The men of
those times might indeed have been the transcribers and conservators,
and perhaps even the admirers, of Thucydides, of Xenophon, of
Aristophanes, of Plato, of Virgil, of Cicero, of Horace, and of
Tacitus; but assuredly they were not the _authors_ of books, such as
those which bear these names. The living pictures of energy, and of
wisdom, and of liberty, which these monuments of taste and genius
contain, could never have been imagined in the cells of a monastery,
nor composed in an age when little was to be seen abroad but ignorance,
violence, and slavery; and little found within but a dreaming
philosophy, and a degrading superstition. It is not the prerogative of
the human mind, however great may be its native powers, to trespass far
beyond the bounds of the scene by which it is immediately surrounded,
or to frame images of things which, in their elements, as well as in
their adjuncts, belong to a system and an economy altogether unknown to
the men of that time. To the genius of man it is given to imitate, to
select, to refine, and to exalt; but not to create.
* * * * *
The general import of the facts that have thus been briefly stated,
is this, namely, that the books now extant, and which are usually
attributed to the Greek and Roman writers, have, such as we find
them, descended from a very remote age. But this general affirmation
must always be understood to include an exception of those smaller
omissions, additions, and alterations in the text, which have taken
place, either by design, or inadvertency, in the course of often
repeated transcriptions.
The actual amount and the importance of these corruptions of the text
of ancient authors is likely to be overrated by general readers,
who seeing that the subject is continually alluded to in critical
works, and knowing that criticisms upon “various readings” often
occupy a space five times exceeding that which is filled by the text,
and that not seldom they become the subject of voluminous and angry
controversies, are led to suppose that questions upon which the learned
are so long and so seriously employed, cannot be otherwise than weighty
and substantial. With a view of correcting this impression, so far as
it may be erroneous, we shall now briefly explain the general nature,
the causes, and the extent of these variations and corruptions.
By far the greater proportion of all “various readings”--perhaps
nineteen out of twenty, are purely of a _verbal_ kind, and they
are such as can claim the attention of none but philologists and
grammarians: a few may deserve the notice of every reader of ancient
literature; and a few demand the consideration of the student of
history. But, taken in a mass, the light in which they should be
regarded is that of their furnishing a significant and conclusive
proof of the care, fidelity, and exactness with which the business
of copying was ordinarily conducted. For it is certain that nothing
less than a high degree, as well of technical correctness, as of
professional integrity, on the part of those who practised this craft,
could have conveyed the text of ancient authors through a period--in
some instances--of two thousand years, with alterations so trivial as
are those which, for the most part, are found actually to have taken
place.
When the discrepancies of manuscripts of an author are such as
materially to affect the sense of a passage in itself important, so as
to demand the exercise of discrimination on the part of the student
of history, it becomes necessary to understand, and to bear in mind,
what were probably the most common sources of such diversities. The
following may be named as the most common causes of the various
readings which are met with in comparing several copies of the same
ancient author.
1. Nothing can be more probable than that authors who long survived
the first publication of their works, should, from time to time,
issue revised copies of them; and each of these altered copies would,
if the work were in continual request, and were widely diffused,
become the parent, as we may say, of _a family_ of copies. Thus it
would be that, without any fault on the part of the transcribers,
a considerable amount of such diversities would be originated, and
perpetuated. A large proportion, perhaps, of those variations which
occupy the diligence and acumen of editors and critics, and for the
rectification of which so many learned conjectures are often hazarded,
have, in fact, arisen from the author’s own hand in revising the copies
which, at intervals, he delivered to his amanuenses. The perpetual
opportunity afforded for introducing corrections, when a book was
continually in request, would not fail to encourage, in fastidious
authors, the habit of frequent revision: meantime transcribers, in
distant countries, might have no opportunity to collate the earlier
with the later exemplars. This source of various readings seems to have
been too little adverted to by critics; though it might serve to solve
some perplexing questions relative to the genuineness of particular
expressions or sentences, which have fallen under suspicion from their
non-existence in certain manuscripts.
2. Some errors would, of course, arise from the mere inattention,
carelessness, or the ignorance of transcribers; and yet fewer,
probably, than may at first be imagined; for besides that those
who spent their lives in this occupation would generally acquire a
high degree of technical accuracy of eye, ear, and hand, and that
correctness and legibility must have been the qualities upon which,
principally, the marketable value of books depended; it is known that
in the monasteries, from whence the greater part of all existing
manuscripts proceeded, there were persons, qualified by their superior
learning for the task, whose office it was to revise every book that
issued from the Scriptorium. Errors of inadvertency must, nevertheless,
have occurred. If the author to be transcribed was read by one person,
while several wrote from his voice, the process would be open, not
only to the mistakes of the reader’s eye, and to those of the writer’s
hand; but especially to those of the writer’s ear; for words, similar
in sound, might often be substituted, one for the other. Instances of
this sort are of frequent occurrence, and the knowledge of the probable
cause often serves to suggest the proper correction. If the writer read
for himself, he would be liable to mistake letters of similar shape--to
mistake the _sense_ by a wrong division of words in his manner of
reading, in consequence of which he might involuntarily accommodate the
orthography or the syntax to the supposed sense. The frequent use of
contractions in writing was a very common source of errors; for many of
these abbreviations were extremely complicated, obscure, and ambiguous,
so that an unskilful copyist was very likely to mistake one word for
another. No parts of ancient books have suffered so much from errors
of inadvertency as those which relate to _numbers_; for as one numeral
letter was easily mistaken for another, and as neither the sense of
the passage, nor the rules of orthography, nor of syntax, suggested
the genuine reading, when once an error had arisen, it would most
often be perpetuated, without remedy. It is, therefore, almost always
unsafe to rest the stress of an argument upon any statement of numbers
in ancient writers, unless some correlative computation confirms the
reading of the text. Hence nothing can be more frivolous or unfair than
to raise an objection against the veracity or accuracy of an historian,
upon some apparent incompatibility in his statement of numbers.
Difficulties of this sort it is much better to attribute, at once, to a
corruption of the text, than to discuss them with ill-spent assiduity.
3. The assumption of short marginal notes into the text, appears to
have been a frequent source of various readings. When such notes
supplied ellipses in the author’s language, or when they conduced much
to the perspicuity of an obscure passage, the copyist would be very
likely to incorporate the exegetical phrase, rather than that it should
either be lost to the reader, or should deform the margin.
4. Transcribers frequently thought themselves free to substitute modern
for obsolete words or phrases; and sometimes they consulted the wishes
of their customers, by exchanging the forms of one dialect (of the
Greek) for those of another; or, more often, for the common forms of
the language. Alterations of this kind have often been the occasion of
bringing authentic works under needless suspicion; for when the text
has contained words or phrases which are known to belong to a later age
than that of the supposed author, such incongruities have seemed to
afford proofs of spuriousness.
5. Intentional omissions, interpolations, or alterations, were
unquestionably sometimes ventured on by transcribers. 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 fall under suspicion, than that
any actually spurious portions should entirely escape suspicion and
detection.
Of the above-mentioned sources of the various readings found in the
text of ancient authors, it should be remembered that the operation of
the _first_ was confined to the short term of the author’s life; nor
indeed, whatever may be the amount or importance of variations arising
from _this_ source, must they go to swell the number of _corruptions_
of the text. The _second_ source of variations was indeed open during
the lapse of many centuries; yet it has always been held in check by
the diligent collation of copies, on the part of industrious critics,
from age to age: and a large proportion of errors, arising from mere
inadvertency, are either so palpable as to suggest the means of their
own correction; or they are so trivial as to merit no attention,
except from those who charge themselves with the responsibilities
of an editor. There is, besides, reason to believe that not a few
existing copies of the most celebrated authors, present a text that has
passed through the process of transcription not oftener than once or
twice; and that each time the copy has been executed with scrupulous
exactness. Variations arising from the _third_ and _fourth_ sources,
have perhaps occasioned to critics and editors more perplexity than
those springing from any other cause; and yet these differences are
rarely of any moment, so far as the sense of the author is concerned:
they can be deemed important only when they tend to perplex the
question of the date or the genuineness of a book. Corruptions of the
_fifth_ class must be acknowledged materially to affect the credit
and value of ancient literature, so far as there can be any reason to
suspect their existence; and every diligent student of history will
think the investigation of cases of this kind deserving of his utmost
attention.
CHAPTER III.
THE DATE OF ANCIENT WORKS, INFERRED FROM THE QUOTATIONS AND REFERENCES
OF CONTEMPORARY AND SUCCEEDING WRITERS.
Let us now suppose, that the Greek and Latin authors are extant only
in the printed editions--that is to say, that every one of the ancient
manuscripts has long since perished, and that the facts that have been
referred to in the preceding pages are out of our view, or unknown. Our
business then would be, to collect from these works such a series of
mutual references, as should both prove the identity of the works now
extant with those so referred to; and also fix the relative places of
the several writers in point of time.
A single reference, found in one author, to the works of another,
who, in his turn, needs the same kind of authentication, may seem
to be a fallacious, or insufficient, and obscure kind of proof; for
this reference or this quotation may possibly be an interpolation; or
the reference may be of too slight or indefinite a kind to make it
certain, that the work now extant is the same as that so referred to.
In truth, the validity of this kind of proof arises from its _amount_,
from its _multifariousness_, and from its _incidental character_. For
although a single and solitary testimony may be inconclusive, many
hundred independent testimonies, all bearing upon the same point, are
much more than sufficient to remove every shadow of doubt; some of
these references may be slight and indefinite, but others are full,
particular, and complete. If some are formal and direct, and such
therefore as might be supposed to have been inserted with a fraudulent
design, others are altogether circuitous and purely incidental. If some
have descended to us through the same channels, others are derived
from sources as far removed as can be imagined from the possibility of
collusion.
But a work may happen to want this kind of evidence, and yet, on
other grounds, it may possess a valid claim to genuineness. In fact,
almost all the existing remains of ancient literature are abundantly
authenticated by the numerous and explicit quotations from them, or
descriptions of them, that occur in other works. And there are very few
books that do not contain some direct or some indirect allusions to
other works: so it is that the remains of ancient literature, taken as
a mass, contains within itself the proof of the authenticity of each
part.
The nature of the case gives to this body of references a pyramidal
form. In the most remote age it is, of course, small in amount; in
the next age it becomes much more ample and substantial; and in later
periods, it spreads itself over the entire surface of literature.
The literature of the Greeks was national and original; they borrowed
from their neighbours less in poetry, philosophy, and history, than
in religion, or the arts: their _early_ writers were not, in the
modern sense of the term, men of learning; their works were composed
at the impulse of genius, and of the moving spirit of the times. The
habit of literary allusion and quotation had not then been formed, nor
indeed was it congruous with this order of intellectual production; and
yet the early Greek writers contain mutual references, which, if not
numerous, are sufficient to establish and ascertain, in most instances,
the genuineness of each.
The second period of Greek literature, dating from the times of
Alexander, and reaching down to the overthrow of the Greek national
independence by the Romans, was, in the natural order of things,
an era of learning, of criticism, and of imitation. The writers of
this period, therefore, abound with references of all kinds to their
predecessors and contemporaries. A second age of literature holds up
a mirror of the first. Erudition, amplitude, comprehension, method,
labour, take the place of spontaneous effort, and of intuitive taste.
Commentators, compilers, and collectors abound; and the writers of such
an age seem to perform the functions of _caryatides_ in the temple of
learning; as if their only business was to sustain the pediment which
chiefly attracts the admiration of spectators. Among writers of this
class, therefore, we are to look for a copious harvest of quotations;
and in their pages we shall rarely fail to meet with evidence bearing
upon any question of the genuineness of an ancient writer.
The Romans borrowed everything but energy of character and practical
good sense, from the Greeks. Their literature, from the first, was
of a derived character; their writers added learning to what might
be their native genius; and their works reflect the literature of
their masters. Sufficiently ample allusions, therefore, to the
most celebrated of the Greek authors, as well as to those of their
countrymen, are found scattered throughout the Latin classics.
Both the Greek and Latin writers of later ages were well acquainted
with the literature of brighter times; and they have left in their
works ample means for bringing down the chain of references to the
time of the decline of learning in Europe--to that time up to which
we have already traced the history of existing manuscripts; so that
the two lines of evidence unite about midway between the fifth and the
fifteenth centuries.
The nature, extent, and validity of the evidence that may be derived
from the mutual references of authors, will be best exhibited by a
classification of its several kinds under the following heads:--
1. Literal quotations, whether the author cited is named or not.
Such quotations serve the double purpose of proving the existence of
the work quoted in the time of the writer who makes the reference,
and of identifying, and sometimes even of correcting, the extant
text. If, for example, in subsequent writers, we find only a dozen
or twenty sentences, taken from different parts of an earlier work,
the verbal coincidence is sufficient to prove that the work, such as
we now find it, is the same as that quoted. When such quotations are
numerous and exact, they afford the best means, either of restoring
the genuine reading of authors, or of judging of the comparative
purity of different manuscripts. For frequently these quotations seem
to have suffered less in the course of transcription than either the
other parts of the work in which they are found, or than that from
which they are taken. The reason of this difference may readily be
imagined:--either the author himself quoted from a copy purer than
any that are now extant; or the transcriber, meeting with a passage
which he remembered to belong to a well-known work, consulted the
original, of which he had a good copy, and the very circumstance of
doing so would naturally induce somewhat more of care than in ordinary
transcription.
2. Incidental allusions are often met with, either to the words or to
the sense of an author, sufficiently obvious to prove that the one
writer was known to the other; and yet they are too incidental and
remote to be regarded as an interpolation. In questions of apparent
difficulty, such accidental references may be conclusive in proof
of the existence of a work at a certain time. Among the ancient
historians, there are instances in which two writers, who do not
mention each other, narrate the same facts with so many coincidences of
method, or of details, embellishments, or reflections, as to make it
certain either that both narratives were derived from the same source;
or that the one was copied from the other. And if the one narrative
has altogether the air of originality, and is in accordance with the
writer’s style and spirit, the other writer must be held to be the
quoting party, and therefore he establishes the prior existence of the
work from which he has borrowed.
3. Nearly every one of the principal authors of antiquity has been
explicitly mentioned, or criticised, or described, by later writers.
Lists of their works have been given, with summaries of their contents;
or they have been made the subjects of connected commentaries, by means
of which the mass of the original work may be identified, and collated,
with existing copies. Books of this secondary class are usually fraught
with references to the entire circle of literature that was extant in
the writer’s time. There are also extant several works containing the
lives of ancient authors, with accurate lists of their works. These
biographical pieces, while they have on one hand afforded a security
against the production of spurious works, on the other hand have given
occasion to such attempts; for if some treatise, known to have been
written by a celebrated author, was believed to have perished, an
opportunity was presented for composing one which should correspond
with the description given of it. But such spurious works must always
be deficient in positive evidence, nor will they fail to betray the
imposition by some glaring inconsistencies in style, or in matter.
The lives of statesmen and warriors often contain such allusions to
the writers of the same age, as suffice to prove the time when they
flourished. All the information we possess on this head is, in many
instances, derived from allusions of this sort.
4. A copious fund of quotations is contained in some ancient treatises
on particular subjects, in which all the authors who have handled the
same topic are mentioned in the order of time.
5. Controversies, whether literary, political, or religious, have
usually occasioned extensive quotations to be made from works of all
classes; and, on the spur of an acrimonious disputation, many obscure
facts have been adduced, which, by some circuitous connexion with other
facts, have served to determine questions of literary history.
6. Among all the means for ascertaining the antiquity and genuineness
of ancient books, none are more satisfactory or more complete than
those afforded by the existence of early translations. Indeed, if
such translations can be proved to have been made near to the time at
which the author of the original work is believed to have lived, and
if they correspond, in the main, with the existing text--and if they
have descended to modern times through channels altogether independent
of those which have conveyed the original work--and if, moreover,
ancient translations of the same work, in _several languages_, are in
existence, no kind of proof can be more perfect, or more trustworthy.
In such cases every other evidence might safely be dispensed with.
Ancient translations serve also the important purpose of furnishing a
criterion by which to judge of the comparative merits of manuscripts,
and by which also to determine questions of suspected interpolation.
Although the genuineness of by far the greater part of ancient
literature is established by a redundancy of testimonies, such as those
here described, there will of course be some few instances of works
which, though probably genuine, are so destitute of external proof that
they must remain under doubt; and there are also some few which, though
probably spurious, possess just so much plausible proof of genuineness
as serves to maintain a place for them on the ground of controversy.
The two together, therefore, will yield some number of disputable
cases. The controversies that have actually been carried on relative
to such doubtful works have served to show the exceedingly small
chance which any actually spurious work can have of escaping suspicion
and detection. And thus these discussions furnish, implicitly, the
strongest grounds for relying upon the genuineness of those works
against which even a captious and whimsical scepticism can maintain no
plausible objection.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ANTIQUITY AND GENUINENESS OF ANCIENT BOOKS MAY BE INFERRED FROM
THE HISTORY OF THE LANGUAGES IN WHICH THEY ARE EXTANT.
A language is at once the most complete, and it is the least fallible
of all historical records. A poem or a history may have been forged;
but a language is an unquestionable reality. The bare circumstance
of its existence, though it may long have ceased to be colloquially
extant, proves, in substance, what it is which history has to
communicate. If we did but possess a complete vocabulary of an ancient
language, and if we were to digest the mass in accordance with an exact
principle of synthesis, we should frame a model of the people that once
used it--a model more perfect than any other monuments can furnish:
and on this ground we need fear no falsifications, no concealments, no
flatteries, no exaggerations. The precise extent of knowledge and of
civilisation to which a people attained--nothing more and nothing less,
is marked out in the mass of words of which they were accustomed to
make use.
A language, if the comparison may be admitted, might be called a
_cast_ of the people who spoke it--a cast, taken from the very life;
and it is one which represents the world of mind, as well as the
world of matter. The common objects of nature--the peculiarities of
climate--the works of art--the details of domestic life--political
institutions--religious opinions and observances--philosophy,
poetry, and art--every form and hue of the external world, and every
modification of thought, find their representatives in the language of
the people.
In any case, therefore, if we have a complete knowledge of a
language--that is to say, of the words of which it consists--we possess
a mass of facts by aid of which to judge of the claims to authenticity
of every work in which that language is embodied. And if, in addition
to a knowledge of its vocabulary, the laws of its construction also,
and the nicest proprieties of its syntax and style are known; and if,
moreover, the changes that have taken place from age to age in the
sense of words, and in modes of expression, are understood, we then
possess ample and exact _data_ with which to compare any book that
pretends to antiquity. A writer who employs his native language must
be expected to conform himself to its usages; and we should find him
adhering, more or less strictly, to the peculiarities of the age in
which he writes: his vocabulary, moreover, will include that compass of
words which his subject demands, and which the language affords.
It is true that such a degree of skill in a dead language may be
acquired as may enable a writer to use it with so exact a propriety
as shall deceive, or at least perplex, even the most accomplished
scholars. But the difficulty of avoiding every phrase of later origin,
and all modern senses of those words which are continually passing
from a literal to a metaphorical meaning, is so great, as to leave the
chances of escaping detection extremely small. Yet, as such a chance
still remains within the range of possibility, this line of evidence
cannot be reckoned absolutely conclusive, but must only be employed
as subsidiary to those other evidences that bear upon questions of
authenticity.
The minute changes which are continually taking place in most
languages, and the history of which, when known, serves often to
ascertain the date of ancient books, are of two kinds; namely, those
which result necessarily from actual changes in the objects represented
by words, and those which are mere changes in the use and proprieties
of language itself.
Language being a mirror, reflecting all the communicable notions of
the people who use it, every mutation in the condition of the people
must bring with it, either new terms, or new combinations of words;
and as the particular circumstances which introduce such additions or
alterations are often known, their occurrence in an author may serve to
fix the date of the book, almost with certainty.
Moreover, there is a progression in language itself, independent of any
alterations in the objects represented by words. Whenever a vocabulary
affords a choice of appellatives, even for immutable objects or
notions, the caprices of conversation or of literature--affectation
perhaps, or excessive refinement, will, from time to time, occasion a
new selection to be made. In all those terms, especially, which either
bring with them ideas too familiar to accord with the proprieties of an
elevated style, or which are in any degree offensive to delicacy, there
will take place a continual, and, sometimes, even a rapid, substitution
of new for old phrases--not because the new are in themselves more
dignified, or more pure than the old; but because, when first
introduced, they are untainted by gross associations or vulgar use.
Every language, therefore, copious specimens of which are extant, and
of which the progress is known, contains a latent history of the people
through whose lips it has passed, and furnishes to the scholar a series
of recondite dates, by means of which literary remains may almost with
certainty be assigned to their proper age. This sort of evidence bears
the same relation to the history of _books_, which that derived from
the successive changes known to have taken place in the mode of writing
bears to the history of _manuscripts_. It is of a subsidiary kind, and
from its very indirectness it often deserves peculiar attention.
We have now seen on what grounds it is, generally, that with reasonable
confidence the extant works of ancient authors may be accepted as
being such in truth. In presenting this statement of the case, nothing
more has been attempted than to offer an outline or brief summary of
the argument before us. Certain parts of this argument, as the reader
will at once perceive, would admit of much amplification; and in any
instance in which the genuineness of a particular manuscript, or the
authenticity of an ancient work were alleged to be questionable, every
part of the evidence would require to be brought forward in all its
details, and to be narrowly scrutinized.
CHAPTER V.
ANCIENT METHODS OF WRITING, AND THE MATERIALS OF BOOKS.
As our present inquiry relates to _Books_, it will not be expected to
include anything concerning ancient methods of engraving inscriptions
upon marbles, metals, or precious stones. Yet it should be remembered
that a knowledge of inscriptions is often highly important, as
furnishing subsidiary and independent means of determining the age
of manuscripts, as indicated by the character of the writing. For as
there are extant almost innumerable specimens of writing upon the more
durable materials, and as these specimens belong to every age from the
very earliest times, and as such inscriptions usually contain, either
an explicit date, or some allusion to public persons or events, they
serve to determine, beyond doubt, the successive changes that have
taken place in the form of letters, and in the modes of writing.
MATERIALS OF ANCIENT BOOKS.
No material for books has, perhaps, a higher claim to antiquity than
the skin of the calf or goat, tanned soft, and which usually was
dyed red or yellow: the skins, when thus prepared, were most often
connected in lengths, sometimes of a hundred feet, sufficient to
contain an entire work; or one _book_ of a history or treatise, which
then formed a roll, or _volume_. These soft skins seem to have been
more in use among the Jews and other Asiatics than among the people of
Europe. The copies of the Hebrew Scriptures, found in the synagogues of
the Jews, are often of this kind: the most ancient manuscripts extant
are some copies of the Pentateuch, on rolls of crimson leather.
Parchment--Pergamena, so called long after the time of its first use,
from Pergamus, a city of Mysia, where the manufacture was improved and
carried on to a great extent, is mentioned by Herodotus and Ctesias,
as a material which had been from time immemorial used for books. It
has proved itself to be, of all others, except that above mentioned,
the most durable. The greater part of all those manuscripts, now in
our hands, that are of higher antiquity than the sixth century, are on
parchment; as well as, generally, all carefully written, and curiously
decorated manuscripts, of later times. The palimpsests, mentioned in a
preceding chapter, are usually parchments.
The practice, which is still followed in the East, of writing upon the
leaves of trees, is of great antiquity. The leaves of the mallow, or
of the palm, were those the most used for this purpose; sometimes they
were wrought together so as to form larger surfaces; but it is probable
that so fragile and inconvenient a material was employed rather for
ordinary purposes of business, letter-writing, and the instruction of
children, than for books, intended for preservation.
The inner bark of the linden or teil tree, and perhaps of some others,
called by the Romans _Liber_, by the Greeks _Biblos_, was so generally
used as a material for writing, as to have given its name to _a book_,
in both languages. Tables of solid wood called _codices_--whence the
term _codex_, for a manuscript, on any material, has passed into common
use--were also employed; but this was chiefly for legal documents,
on which account a system of laws came to be called--a Code. Leaves
or tablets of lead, or of ivory, are frequently mentioned by ancient
authors as in common use for writing. But no material or preparation
seems to have been so frequently employed, on ordinary occasions,
as tablets covered with a thin coat of coloured wax, which might be
readily removed by an iron needle, called a _style_; and from which the
writing was as easily effaced, by applying the blunt end of the same
instrument.
But during many ages the article most in use, and of which the
consumption was so great as to form a principal branch of the commerce
of the Mediterranean, was that which was manufactured from the papyrus
of Egypt. Many manuscripts written upon this kind of paper in the
sixth, and some even so early as the fourth century, are still extant.
It formed the material of by far the larger proportion of all books
from very early times till about the seventh or eighth century, when it
gradually gave place to a still more convenient manufacture--our modern
paper.
The papyrus, or reed of Egypt, grew in vast quantities in the stagnant
pools that were formed by the annual inundations of the Nile. The
plant consists of a single stem, rising sometimes to the height of
ten cubits: this stem, gradually tapering from the root, supports a
spreading tuft at its summit. The substance of the stem is fibrous,
and the pith contains a sweet juice. Every part of this plant was
put to some use by the Egyptians--so ingenious and so industrious as
they were. The harder and lower part they formed into cups and other
utensils; the upper part into staves, or the ribs of boats: the sweet
pith was a common article of food; while the fibrous part of the stem
was manufactured into cloth, sails for ships, ropes, strings, shoes,
baskets, wicks for lamps, and, especially, into paper. For this purpose
the fibrous coats of the plant were peeled off, throughout the whole
length of the stem. One layer of fibres was then laid across another
upon a block, and being moistened, the glutinous juice of the plant
formed a cement, sufficiently strong to give coherence to the fibres;
when greater solidity was required, a size made from bread or glue was
employed. The two films being thus connected, were pressed, dried in
the sun, beaten with a broad mallet, and then polished with a shell.
This texture was cut into various sizes, according to the use for which
it was intended, varying from thirteen, to four fingers’ breadth, and
of proportionate length.
By progressive improvements, which were made especially when the
manufacture came into the hands of the Roman artists, this Egyptian
paper was at length brought to a high degree of perfection. In later
ages it was made of considerable thickness--perfect whiteness, and
an entire continuity and smoothness of surface. Nevertheless, it
was, at the best, so friable, that when durability was required, the
copyists inserted a page of parchment between every five or six pages
of the papyrus. Thus the firmness of the one substance defended the
brittleness of the other; and great numbers of books, constituted in
this manner, have resisted the accidents and decays of twelve centuries.
Three hundred years before the Christian era, the commerce in the
paper of Egypt had extended over most parts of the civilised world;
and long afterwards it continued to be a principal source of wealth to
the Egyptians. But at length the invention of another material, and
also that interruption of commerce which ensued in consequence of the
conquest of Egypt by the Saracens, banished the Egyptian paper from
common use. Comparatively few manuscripts on this material are found of
later date than the eighth or ninth century; although it continued to
be occasionally used long afterwards.
The charta bombycina, or cotton paper, which has often improperly been
called _silk_ paper, had unquestionably been manufactured in the East
as early as the ninth century, and probably much earlier; and in the
tenth century it came into general use throughout Europe. Not long
afterwards, this invention was made still more available for general
purposes by the substitution of old linen, or cotton rags, for the raw
material; for by this means both the price of the article was reduced,
and its quality greatly improved. The cotton paper manufactured in the
ancient mode is still used in the East, and is a beautiful fabric; it
is also extensively used in the United States.
From this account of the materials successively employed for books, it
will be obvious, that a knowledge of the changes which these several
manufactures underwent from age to age, will often make it easy, and
especially when employed in subservience to other evidence, to fix
with certainty the date of manuscripts; or at the least, to furnish
infallible means for 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; especially so
as the decay of far more durable substances, within a much shorter
period, is continually presented to our notice. Yet so it is, that
while the massive walls of the monasteries of the middle ages are often
seen prostrate, and their materials fast mingling with the soil, the
manuscripts, penned within them, or perhaps at a time when these stones
were yet in the quarry, are still fair and perfect, and glitter with
their gold and silver, their cerulean and their cinnabar.
It must be remembered, however, that the materials of books, although
destructible, are so far from being in themselves perishable, that
so long as they are defended from positive injuries, they appear to
suffer scarcely at all from any intrinsic principle of decay, or to
be liable to any perceptible process of chemical decomposition. No
one, says Mabillon, unless totally unacquainted with what relates to
antiquity, can call in question the great durability of parchments;
since there are extant innumerable books, written on that material,
in the seventh and sixth centuries; and some of a still more remote
antiquity, by which all doubt on that subject might be removed. It
may suffice here to mention the Virgil of the Vatican Library, which
appears to be of more ancient date than the fourth century; and another
in the King’s Library little less ancient: also the Prudentius, in
the same library, of equal age; to which you may add several, already
mentioned, as the Psalter of S. Germanus, the Book of the Councils, and
others, which are all of parchment.
The paper of Egypt, being more frail and brittle, might be open to
greater doubt; and yet there are books of great antiquity, by which its
durability may be established.
Books have owed their conservation, not merely to the durability of the
material of which they were formed; but to the peculiarity of their
being, at once precious, and yet (in periods of general ignorance) not
marketable articles; they were of inestimable value to a few, while
absolutely worthless in the opinion of the multitude. They were also
often indebted for their preservation, in periods of disorder and
violence, to the sacredness of the roofs under which they were lodged.
THE INSTRUMENTS OF WRITING, AND INKS.
The instruments used for writing would, of course, be such as were
adapted to the material on which they were to be employed. For writing
upon the brazen, leaden, or waxed tablets, above mentioned, a needle,
called a style, was used, the upper end of which, being smooth and
flat, served to obliterate the marks on the tablet, as occasion might
require. These styles were at first most often formed of iron or brass;
but afterwards of ivory, bone, or wood. Indeed a fatal use having been,
on several occasions, made of these pointed weapons by angry partisans
in the public courts, the use of iron styles was prohibited; Cæsar,
when attacked by the conspirators, is said to have used his iron style
as a dagger, and with it to have pierced the arm of one of them: and
the story of the Christian schoolmaster, Cassianus, is well known, who
is said to have been killed by his scholars, armed with their styles:
other similar instances are recorded.
For the purpose of writing with fluid ink, a calamus, formed generally
from a reed of the Nile, was used. Persons of distinction often wrote
with a calamus of silver. The use of quills seems to have been of
ancient date; but long after the time when the fitness of the quill for
the purpose of writing had become known, the calamus of reed continued
to be preferred. The scalpel, or knife employed for trimming the pen,
the compasses, for measuring the distances of the lines, and the
scissars, for cutting the paper, are always seen on the desk of the
writers in the decorations attached to many ancient manuscripts.
The ink most used by the ancients has been said, but on rather
uncertain authority, to have consisted of the black liquor found in
the cuttle fish. But it has been proved by chemical analysis that an
opaque ink, very different from the mere dye or stain used at present,
was commonly employed by the transcribers of books. This opaque ink
seems, like the China ink, to have been formed from the finest soot of
lamps, in which the purest combustibles were burnt. The coal of ivory,
or of the finer woods, powdered, was also in use; these or similar
substances, mixed with gums, and diluted with acids, formed a pigment
that was much more durable than our modern ink; but it was also far
less fluent, and therefore less adapted to a rapid and continuous
movement of the pen.
The ink, says Montfaucon, which we see in the most ancient Greek
manuscripts, has evidently lost much of its pristine blackness; yet
neither has it become altogether yellow or faint, but is rather tawny
or deep red, and often is not far from a vermilion. This appears in
many manuscripts of the fourth and following centuries. Yet there are
some written with an ink more skilfully composed, which have preserved
their first blackness. It has happened also, when the surface of the
parchment, instead of being polished, was spongy, that the ink has
become yellow. In all the bombycine manuscripts, owing to the nature
of the material, a separation of the parts of the ink has taken
place; the grosser part standing on the surface, while the finer has
penetrated the substance of the paper.
Inks of various colours, especially red, purple, and blue, and also
gold and silver inks, were much used by the ancients: few manuscripts
are destitute of some such ornamental diversities of colour; and many
are splendidly recommended to the eye by these means. There was a
purple ink, which was appropriated to the use of the emperors, and
was called the sacred encaustic; but a dye, not easily distinguished
from that which appears upon some imperial charters, is very commonly
found in ancient books. And it is said that they must have had a nice
sight who could so distinguish between the two as to have detected a
violation of the law on this subject. The subscription commonly seen at
the end of Greek manuscripts, containing the name of the transcriber,
with the year, month, day, indiction, and sometimes the hour when the
copy was finished, are most often written in the imperial colour,
especially in the times of the lower empire; or if not in that ink, in
one that cannot now be distinguished from it.
The titles of chapters were frequently written alternately in red and
cerulean: marginal notes, most often in the latter colour. Books of a
later date often have all the capitals of a bright green. The Greeks,
more frequently than the Romans, used golden ink; and many Greek
manuscripts are extant in which, not the titles and capitals only,
but whole pages, are elegantly written in a pigment of the precious
metals: but it was rather upon ecclesiastical than profane literature
that this honour was bestowed. The works of the Fathers, chiefly, were
so adorned, and sometimes the Gospels: there is extant a copy of the
four Evangelists, written upon purple parchment, in letters of gold
throughout. The practice of using gold and silver inks was so common,
that the manufacture of them became a distinct business; and those
who were skilled in this sort of writing seldom followed any other
employment than that of inserting the titles, capitals, or emphatic
words, in copies that had been executed by inferior hands. Several
curious recipes for the preparation of the precious pigments are given
by the later Greek waiters.
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.
CHAPTER VI.
CHANGES INTRODUCED IN THE COURSE OF TIME IN THE FORMS OF LETTERS, AND
IN THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF WRITING.
An exact uniformity in the shapes of letters, and in the general
appearance of writing, is hardly maintained for so long a period as
fifty years in any language, especially if it be widely diffused.
Within that space of time, the fashion of our own typography has
undergone several changes, so perceptible as to afford a tolerably
certain criterion of the date of books. No person, for example, who is
familiar with books, would find it difficult, merely from the character
of the type, to discriminate the age of works published at the several
periods of 1775, 1800, 1825, and 1855. On similar grounds a knowledge
of the successive changes introduced by caprice, accident, or a regard
to convenience, in the ancient modes of writing, affords an almost
certain means of determining the age of manuscripts.
The knowledge requisite for the exercise of this discrimination is
derived, in part, from incidental allusions to modes of writing which
occur in some ancient authors; but principally from an extensive
comparison of manuscripts themselves, and from a comparison of
manuscripts with inscriptions upon marbles, brazen tablets, or coins.
From these sources may be collected a sufficiently precise idea of the
character or fashion of writing prevailing in each century, from the
second, to the fifteenth, of the Christian era.
The oldest Greek manuscripts that are extant differ little in the
form of the letters, or the general appearance of the writing, from
inscriptions belonging to the corresponding periods. They are written
in capitals, called uncials, without division of words, and without
marks of accentuation or punctuation. About the seventh century, the
custom of affixing the accents and aspirates appears to have been
introduced; at the same time a greater degree of precision was observed
in the formation of the letters, and also in the directness and the
parallelism of the lines. To these improvements was added a change in
the form of those letters which most impeded the rapid movement of the
pen.
In the eighth and ninth centuries a mode of writing, which had been
long before practised by notaries and by the secretaries of public
persons, was adopted by the transcribers of books. This was a kind of
running-hand, those who invented, or who most used it, being called
tachygraphoi--swift writers. To adapt the Greek letters to the purpose
of public business and common life, the square forms had been changed
for curves, and uprights for slopes: and while a radical resemblance
to the primitive character was preserved, facility and freedom were
obtained.
The uncial character was not, however, altogether abandoned by the
copyists; but modifications of it were introduced with a view to obtain
greater facility: for the unconnected and upright squares formerly
used, seemed still more operose in execution after the running-hand
had been adopted. The copyists of the eighth century introduced the
practice of commencing books or chapters with a letter of large size,
which they usually distinguished by grotesque decorations, somewhat in
the manner seen in the printed books of the sixteenth century.
Those who gained their living by copying books found so great an
advantage in the adoption of the swift, or tachygraphic character,
that they presently sought to improve it by every device that might
favour the uninterrupted movement of the pen; not content with joining
the letters of each word, they combined them in forms that often bore
little or no resemblance to the component characters. The books of
the tenth and following centuries abound with these contractions,
abbreviations, and symbols. Many entire words of common occurrence
were indicated by single turns of the pen. A great part of these
contractions were adopted by the first printers, and many of them
continued in use until a very recent date.
The manuscripts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are
distinguished by a degeneracy in the mode of writing, and by a growing
abuse of the principle of celerity and facility. To these symptoms
of the influence of a mercantile motive, put into activity by an
increasing demand for books, may be added the practice of discharging
the writing of old parchments, which prevailed at the same period more
extensively than heretofore. A vast number of books of this sort,
written upon erased parchments, are to be met with, executed in the
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. In most instances, the
first writing is utterly obliterated; yet the marks of the erasure
are still evident. Thus in a MS. above described, not a letter, not a
point, of the ancient writing remains; but on many of the leaves may be
discerned ruled lines, either transverse or perpendicular, which having
been deeply impressed upon the parchment could not be effaced; so that
those old lines often crossed the new writing. Other pages of the same
MS. present no such indications; the leaves having probably been taken
from different books. In another MS., executed in the year 1186, though
the ancient writing is generally obliterated, yet in a few places,
if closely inspected, the ends of the letters may be perceived. In a
word, if all the books of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are
examined, there will appear to be almost as many written upon erased,
as upon new parchments.[1] I am of opinion, that many authors extant in
the time of Photius, and even in that of Porphyrogenitus, were utterly
destroyed by the prevalence of this pernicious practice. This plague,
as it may be termed, spread its devastation among ancient books first
in the twelfth century, and continued its ravages during the thirteenth
and fourteenth. The same thing is rarely to be observed in bombycine
manuscripts: I have met with one book only of this material in which
the first writing had been erased, and a second induced. The Greek
writers of these times ordinarily erased a better work for the sake
of substituting a worse; either one of their own inane productions,
or those works of which there is no scarcity among MSS. The extremest
ignorance must certainly have pervaded Greece in those times, when
what related to ancient history, or to polite learning, was not valued
a straw by the writers, who rather than purchase new parchment,
destroyed, without scruple, ancient books.
A progression similar to that which took place in Greek writing,
distinguishes manuscripts in the Latin language, and affords a like
criterion of antiquity. Several manuscripts believed, on good evidence,
to belong to the third and fourth centuries, are extant, which
present a style of writing nearly allied to that which appears in the
inscriptions of the same period. But the uncial character gave place
to the small letter at an earlier date among the Roman, than among the
Greek copyists; yet they seem to have availed themselves of the change
in a much less degree for the purposes of celerity. Indeed, there is
little more of continuity, or of abbreviation in the small, than in the
large character. Towards the tenth century the Latin scribes adopted
a square and heavy character, similar to that which is seen in legal
documents. This wide and full-faced letter was so much exaggerated by
the writers of the fourteenth century, as almost to blacken the page
with its massiveness. Still, a handsome regularity and a fair degree
of legibility were maintained. There are, indeed, some manuscripts of
this period extant which, for mathematical exactness and beauty, might
almost challenge comparison with printed books.
Nothing less, it is obvious, than a long-continued and extensive
examination of ancient manuscripts, can confer upon any one such a
degree of skill in discriminations of this kind, as might warrant his
giving an opinion in a case of difficulty. 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. Particular instances may perplex or deceive the
best-informed and the most acute observers; but the greater number of
cases admit of no question.
FORM OF ANCIENT BOOKS, AND THEIR ILLUMINATIONS.
The mode of compacting the sheets of their books remained the same
among the Greeks during a long course of time: little, therefore,
pertinent to our argument, is to be gathered on this head. The sheets
were folded three or four together, and separately stitched: these
parcels were then connected nearly in the same mode as is at present
practised. Books were covered with linen, silk, or leather.
Sometimes the page was undivided; sometimes it contained two, and in a
few instances of very ancient manuscripts, three columns. A peculiarity
which attracts the eye in many Greek manuscripts, consists in the
occurrence of capitals on the margin, some way in advance of the line
to which they belong; and this capital sometimes happens to be the
middle letter of a word. For when a sentence finishes in the middle of
a line, the initial of the next is not distinguished, that honour being
conferred upon the incipient letter of the next line; as thus--
THEGREEKSENTERING
THEREGIONOFTHEMA
CRONESFORMEDANAL
T LIANCEWITHTHEM.AS
HEPLEDGEOFTHEIR
FAITHTHEBARBARIANS
GAVEASPEAR.
The Greeks, especially in the earliest times, divided their
compositions into verses; or into such short portions of sentences as
we mark by a comma, each verse occupying a line; and the number of
these verses is often set down at the beginning or end of a book. The
numbers of the verses were sometimes placed in the margin.
Much intricacy and difficulty attends the subject of ancient
punctuation; nor could any satisfactory account of the rules and
exceptions that have been gathered from existing manuscripts be
given, which should subserve the intention of this work. Generally
speaking, and yet with frequent exceptions, the most ancient books
have no separation of words, or punctuation, of any kind; others have
a separation of words, but no punctuation; in some, every word is
separated from the following one by a point. In manuscripts of later
date a regular punctuation is found, as well as accentuation. These
circumstances enter into the estimate when the antiquity of a book is
under inquiry; but the rules to be observed in considering them cannot
be otherwise than recondite and intricate.
Few ancient books are altogether destitute of decorations; and many
are splendidly adorned with pictorial ornaments. These consist either
of flowery initials, grotesque cyphers, portraits, or even historical
compositions. Sometimes diagrams, explanatory of the subjects mentioned
by the author, are placed on the margin. Books written for the use
of royal persons, or of dignified ecclesiastics, usually contain the
effigies of the proprietor, often attended by his family, and by some
allegorical or celestial minister; while the humble scribe, in monkish
attire, kneels and presents the book to his patron.
These illuminations, as they are called, almost always exhibit some
costume of the times, or some peculiarity which serves to mark the age
of the manuscript. Indeed a fund of antiquarian information, relative
to the middle ages, has been collected from this source. Many of these
pictured books exhibit a high degree of executive talent in the artist,
although labouring under the restraints of a barbarous taste.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Montfaucon.
CHAPTER VII.
THE COPYISTS; AND THE PRINCIPAL CENTRES OF THE COPYING BUSINESS.
It is a matter of some importance to know by what class of persons,
chiefly, the business of copying books was practised; and it gives
no little support to our confidence in the genuineness of existing
manuscripts, to find that individuals of all ranks, influenced by
very different motives, were accustomed to devote themselves to this
employment. From the earliest times in which literature flourished,
there were, in all the principal cities of Greece and its colonies,
great numbers of professional scribes; that is to say, persons who
gained their subsistence by copying books. Labourers of this class,
it may well be supposed, aimed, in general, at nothing but to gain
custom by the fairness and the fidelity of their copies. But it appears
to have been not uncommon for persons of rank and leisure to occupy
themselves in this employment. Thus it is that in the list of copyists
we find the names of the nobles of the Constantinopolitan empire.
Some created their libraries for themselves by transcribing every
book that came in their way. To persons of a sedate temper, or who by
indisposition were confined to their homes, this occupation may be
imagined to have been highly agreeable. Nor was it a wasted labour to
those who had leisure at command; since the high price of books made
the collection of a library, by purchase, scarcely practicable, except
to the most opulent.
The influence of Christianity very greatly extended the practice
of private copying; for motives of piety operated to stimulate the
industry of very many in the good work of multiplying the sacred
books, and the works of Christian writers. The highest dignitaries
of the Church, and princes even, thought themselves well employed in
transcribing the Gospels and Epistles, the Psalter, or the homilies or
meditations of the Fathers; nor were the classic authors, as we shall
see, entirely neglected by these gratuitous copyists.
But from the third or fourth century downwards, the religious houses
were the chief sources of books, and the monks were almost the only
copyists. The employment was better suited than any other that can
be imagined, to the rules, and usages, and to the modes of feeling
peculiar to the monastic life. The mental and bodily inertness which
the spirit and rules of the conventual orders tended to produce, when
conjoined, in individuals, with some measure of native industry,
would find precisely a field for that lethargic assiduity which it
needed, in the business of copying books. In many monasteries this
employment formed the chief occupation of the inmates; and by few was
it altogether neglected.
Various appellations occur in the Greek authors, by which the several
orders of writers were designated. Among the scribes or notaries
attached to the service of public persons, there were always some who
were eminent for the rapidity with which they wrote, and who therefore
bore the title of _tachygraphoi_, or “swift writers.” But those who
followed the business of copying books, in which legibility was the
chief excellence, generally called themselves _kalligraphoi_, or “fair
writers.” Yet these appellations are often used interchangeably.
The copyists usually subscribed their names at the end of every book,
with the year in which it was executed: to which they often added the
name of the reigning emperor; sometimes, though rarely, the name of
the patriarch of Constantinople, for the time being, is added to the
subscription of the copyist. Manuscripts written in Sicily, bear the
name of its kings; those executed in the East, mention the Arabian or
Turkish princes. The Greeks of the early ages commonly dated from the
creation of the world, which they placed 5508 years before Christ.
Sometimes they reckoned time from the death of Alexander the Great;
sometimes from the accession of Philip Aridæus; sometimes from the
accession of Diocletian; and, occasionally, they give some notice of
the signal events of their times. From these incidental references
much important historical information has often been collected. These
signatures are usually written by the hand of the transcriber of the
book.
Besides the signature of the copyist, the margins of many manuscripts
contain notes--often very trivial or absurd, from the hands of
successive proprietors of the book; each accompanied with some date
or reference to persons or events, serving to fix the time of the
annotator, and, by inference, proving the antiquity of the manuscript.
In a few instances the transcribers copied the subscription of the
transcribers of the book from which they wrote; and if that former
subscription bears a date, we have a double indication of antiquity.
The fidelity of the copyists, and the genuineness and integrity of
ancient manuscripts, have been warmly and learnedly defended by the
laborious Father Mabillon, on every occasion throughout his great
work, _De Re Diplomatica_.[2] The leading motive which impelled the
indefatigable author to the prosecution of the researches of which
this work gives the result, seems to have been the desire to establish
the genuineness and integrity of ecclesiastical, and especially of
monastic charters. In the course of his inquiries, he brings forward a
vast variety and amount of information relating to the modes of writing
practised in the monasteries, and in the courts of the French kings,
during the middle ages. These facts are of course most available in
arguments that relate to the genuineness and antiquity of existing
manuscripts in the _Latin_ language; but there is so much of the
substance of the argument touching the genuineness of all ancient
writings in the following passages, that they may well be placed
before the reader. The work itself is little likely to come under the
eye of those for whom this volume is intended.
This learned writer says:--“Before I conclude this supplement, I
think it may be proper to say something concerning the integrity and
authority of ancient books, which some persons dispute. 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.
Such persons, to give colour to their opinion, affirm that the existing
ancient manuscripts were executed by ignorant men, whose blunders
are easily perceived by the learned; and on this prejudice they have
founded the decision, that manuscripts having been written, for the
most part, by unskilful hands, and derived many from one, are of little
avail in understanding or restoring an author.
“But if this principle were admitted, our confidence in the printed
editions, as well as in the ancient manuscripts, must fall to the
ground. Neither the acts of councils, the works of the Fathers, nor
the Holy Scriptures, would retain any authority. For whence, I ask,
proceeded the printed editions, both of profane and sacred writers?
were they not derived from ancient manuscripts? If, therefore, these
are of no authority, those can have none; and thus, by this paradoxical
opinion, the foundations, both of literature and of religion, are torn
up. And, on this principle, there would be no force in the argument
used by St. Augustine against the Manichæans, who calumniously affirmed
every place of Holy Scripture, by which their errors might be confuted,
to be falsified and corrupted. But Augustine, in reply to Faustus,
reminds him that whoever had first attempted such a corruption of the
Scriptures, would have immediately been confuted by a multitude of
ancient manuscripts, which were in the hands of all Christians.
“On this principle the labours of the Fathers, Jerome, Augustine, and
others, in collating ancient books with modern copies, would have been
fruitless. In vain the appeals of councils to such authorities for the
determination of controversies; in vain the costs and cares of princes
and kings in collecting manuscripts from the remotest countries. And
if the case be thus, the Vatican, the Florentine, the Ambrosian, and
the royal (French) libraries are nothing better than useless heaps of
parchment. And it was to no purpose that the Roman pontiffs and the
kings of France, as well as other prelates and princes, sent learned
men to the farthest parts of the East to obtain ancient books in
the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and other languages. And then the ancient
transcribers must lose their credit, and especially the monks, who
devoted themselves entirely to the copying of books; such were the
disciples of St. Martin, among whom, according to Sulpicius, no art
but that of writing was practised. For they thought they could not be
better employed than while at once edifying themselves in the continual
perusal of the Holy Scriptures, and spreading the precepts of the Lord
far and wide by their pens. Of this opinion was the pious Guigo: ‘As
we cannot preach the word with our lips,’ says he, ‘let us do it with
our hands; for as many books as we transcribe, so many heralds of the
truth do we send forth.’ And thus also Peter the venerable, writing to
Gislebert, a recluse, exhorts him to diligence in this exercise: ‘For
so you may become a silent preacher of the Divine Word; and though your
tongue be mute, your hand will speak aloud in the ears of many people.
And in future times, after your death, the fruit of your toils will
remain, even as long as these books shall endure.’
“If it is affirmed that the manuscripts we possess were, for the most
part, written by unlearned persons; are they therefore undeserving of
regard? In the first place, I deny that they were generally written by
the unlearned. Certainly the blessed martyr Pamphilus, who wrote out
the greater part of the works of Origen, was not unlearned; nor was
Jerome unlearned, nor Hilarius. Of Fulgentius, the celebrated bishop
(of Ruspa), it is reported that he was famed for his skill in the
writer’s art. The same praise was earned by those holy men Lucianus,
Philoromus, and Marcellus; also by the blessed Plato and Theophanus.
The blessed Marcella the younger, as says Jerome, wrote quickly and
without fault. The venerable Bede, Radbert, Raban and others among our
learned men, discharged the function of copyists, not of their own
works only, but of those of others.
“And even if the greater part of manuscripts were written by unlearned
men, they are not therefore to be accounted unskilful copyists,
provided they read and copied accurately. Experience proves every day
that those compositors are not the most correct who understand Latin,
but that such are commonly the most faulty; especially in attempting to
correct that which they do not properly understand, and which those who
know nothing of the language set up accurately. But let it be granted
that the copyists were unlearned: we know that the printed editions are
not derived from a single copy, but from a comparison of many: the most
careless scribe does not always err, and where he does, his mistakes
are amended by the collation of the copies of others.
“In a word, there were in all well-ordered churches and monasteries,
not only learned writers who transcribed books themselves, but learned
correctors, who compared the copies made by others with the originals,
and amended whatever was erroneous. A devoted scribe, says Trithemius,
when he has carefully written a book, compares it anew with the
original, and subjects it to a diligent revision. Many instances might
be adduced in proof of this revision and correction of manuscripts.
One or two may suffice. In the library of the Vatican there is a
manuscript written towards the close of the fifth, or in the beginning
of the sixth century, containing the books of St. Hilary on the
Trinity, which has been collated with an older copy by some studious
person, as appears by a note at the end. Again, Paul Warnefrid, deacon
and monk of Casina, having copied the epistles of Gregory the Great,
sent the book to Adalhard, abbot of Corbeia, requesting him to revise
the copy; but the abbot, fearing lest he might alter the genuine text
of so learned a doctor, contented himself with placing a mark in the
margin at every place where there appeared to him to be an error.
“But it is affirmed that there are many faulty, and many falsified
manuscripts. That there are not a few faulty books I grant; but that
there are many falsified manuscripts I stoutly deny. The difference
between a _faulty_ and a _falsified_ book is essential: of the former
sort are those which, from the mistakes or negligence of the writer,
contain some blemishes: of the latter kind are those which have been
wilfully corrupted. Many, indeed, may appear to be falsified which are
not so really, nor are even faulty. Which I may thus explain.--It could
not but happen that the copyists, in transcribing large works, should
sometimes wander from the true reading--putting perhaps one word for
another. When they observed their error, they might rectify it in two
ways, either by erasing the word and inserting the genuine reading; or
by inserting the true word beneath the other, which they marked with
points. Now some persons, not understanding this, or purposely putting
upon it an unfavourable construction, found upon the first case a
charge of _erasure_, and in the second, place both words in the text of
the author, though the pointed word ought to be omitted. Sometimes also
it happened that words or initials written in vermilion, having grown
pale, were renewed by a later hand, which alterations have occasioned
an unfounded suspicion of falsification.”
The pens of the monastic scribes were chiefly occupied in transcribing
religious books, the Holy Scriptures, the works of the Fathers, the
lives of saints, books of meditations and prayers; yet the classic
authors were not neglected. “The Monastery of Pomposia has been much
improved since the time of its founder Guido [about 1025], renowned for
sanctity. Incited by the fame of his piety great numbers assumed the
sacred habit in his church; marquesses, counts, and sons of noblemen
have laid aside the pomps and pleasures of the world to follow there
the duties of religion. Among these my master Jerome, afterwards
abbot, was trained up from his earliest years to follow the monastic
life, and made great proficiency in grammar and logic. He, for the
edification of the brotherhood, set himself to collect the works of
learned men; in order that amidst the variety, all might meet with the
information they sought for. Bonus--good--both in name and life, who
was first a hermit and afterwards a monk, was his librarian, a man
esteemed by all as a perfect scholar, and so eager in the acquisition
of books that he purchased all he met with, however indistinctly they
were written; for the abbot determined to have them all transcribed
for his library: and by his care almost all are now copied. He is ever
inquisitive for religious books of all kinds, so that the church of
Pomposia is become the most renowned in Italy. Thus by the goodness of
God our thirst of knowledge is increased by knowing. Indeed the abbot’s
desire of enriching his church with these treasures is unbounded. But
envious persons may ask, Why does this reverend abbot place the heathen
authors, the histories of tyrants, and such books, among theological
works? To this we answer in the words of the apostle, that there are
vessels of clay as well as of gold. By these means the tastes of all
men are excited to study--the intention of the gentile writings is the
same as that of the Scriptures, to give us a contempt for the world and
secular greatness.”[3]
By these or similar apologies those of the monks, and there were some
such in most houses, who possessed taste and learning, excused, to the
more devout, the attention they bestowed upon the works of the profane
authors. That the Greek and Latin classics were known and studied
during what are called the dark ages, is capable of abundant proof, as
we shall presently see. And those whose taste led them to be conversant
with these writings took care, by the labours of their hands, to
perpetuate the works they most admired.
During the flourishing period of the Grecian republics, that is, from
the defeat of Xerxes to the time of Alexander the Great, many of the
Greek colonies almost equalled, or even surpassed, the mother country
in wealth, refinement, and intelligence. In the neighbouring islands of
the Ægean Sea--in Asia Minor--in Italy and in Sicily, literature and
philosophy were as eagerly cultivated as at Athens. Many of the most
distinguished writers and philosophers were natives of the colonies;
and if Greece itself was the principal seat of learning, and the
fountain head of books, whatever was there produced quickly found its
way to distant settlements; for to every city along the shores of the
Mediterranean, and of the Euxine, there was a constant exportation of
books: in many of these remote cities libraries were collected, and the
business of copying was extensively carried on.
After the time of Alexander, Grecian literature flourished nowhere so
conspicuously as at Alexandria in Egypt, under the auspices of the
Ptolemies. Here all the sects of philosophy had established themselves;
numerous schools were opened; and, for the advancement of learning,
a library was collected, which was supposed, at one time, to have
contained 700,000 volumes, in all languages. Connected with the library
there were extensive offices, in which the business of transcribing
books was carried on very largely, and with every possible advantage
which royal munificence on the one hand, and learned assiduity on the
other, could insure. Nor did the literary fame of Alexandria decline
under the Roman emperors. Domitian, as Suetonius reports, sent scribes
to Alexandria to copy books for the restoration of those libraries
that had been destroyed by fire. And it seems to have been for some
centuries afterwards a common practice for those who wished to form a
library, to maintain copyists at Alexandria. The conquest of Egypt by
the Saracens, A.D. 640, who burned the Alexandrian Library, banished
learning for a time from that, as from other countries, which they
occupied.
Attalus, and his successors, the kings of Pergamus, were great
encouragers of learning; and the copying of books was carried on to so
great an extent in their capital as to occasion the establishment of
a vast manufacture of prepared skins (as mentioned above) which long
continued to be a considerable article of commerce. The library of the
kings of Pergamus is said to have contained 200,000 books.
During upwards of a thousand years, from the reign of Constantine until
the fall of Constantinople, in the fifteenth century, that city was
the principal seat of learning, and the chief source of books. The
Byzantine historians are frequent in their praises of the munificence
of the emperors in purchasing books, and in providing for their
reproduction. The manuscripts executed at Constantinople are often
remarkable for the great beauty of the writing, and the splendour
of the decorations. Besides the imperial libraries, the churches
and monasteries of the city were enriched with collections, more or
less extensive, and in all of them the business of transcription was
constantly and actively pursued.
A large number of existing manuscripts are dated from the monasteries
of the country immediately surrounding the metropolis of the eastern
empire; and many also, from those of Asia Minor, from the islands of
the Ægean Sea, and especially from Cyprus.
But no spot was more famed for the production of books than Mount
Athos--the lofty promontory which stretches from the Macedonian coast
far into the Ægean Sea. The heights and the sides of this mountain
were almost covered with religious houses, rendered by art and nature,
and by the universal opinion of the sanctity of the monks of the “holy
mountain,” so secure that neither the meditations nor employments of
the recluses were disturbed by the approach of violence. The chief
occupation of the inmates of these establishments is affirmed to have
been the transcription of books, of which each monastery boasted a
large collection.
Many extant manuscripts prove that the copying of books was practised
extensively during the middle ages in the monasteries of the Morea, in
those of the islands of Eubœa and of Crete. This latter island seems
indeed to have been a place of refuge for men of learning during the
latter periods of the eastern empire, who found in its monasteries,
both shelter, and the means of subsistence.
Fifty religious establishments in Calabria, and the kingdom of Naples,
are mentioned, from which proceeded a large number of books afterwards
collected in the libraries of Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan.
In the monasteries of western Europe also, and especially in those of
the British Islands, this system of copying was carried on. Though
there were considerable diversities in the rules and practices of the
monks of different orders, the elements of the monastic life were in
all orders and in every country the same; and generally speaking,
wherever there were monasteries, there was a manufacture of books.
Yet, in some houses, these labours of the pen were much more worthily
directed than in others. For while the monks of one monastery employed
themselves in transcribing missals, legends, or romances, others
enriched their libraries with splendid copies of the fathers of the
church, and of the Holy Scriptures; and some, though a smaller number,
took care to reproduce such of the classic authors as they might be
acquainted with.
The monastic institution seemed as if it were framed for the special
purpose of transmitting the remains of ancient literature--sacred
and profane, through a period in which, except for so extraordinary
a provision, they must inevitably have perished. In every country a
large class of the community--freed from the necessity of labour, and
excluded from active employments, was constrained to seek the means
of allaying the pains of listlessness; and nothing could answer this
purpose so well as the transcription of books. And to this employment,
congruous as it was with the physical habits that are induced by an
inert mode of life, and compatible, too, with the observance of a round
of unvarying formalities, was attached an opinion of meritoriousness,
which served to animate the diligence of the labourer. “This book,
copied by M. N. for the benefit of his soul, was finished in the year
----, may the Lord think upon him.” Such are the subscriptions of many
of the manuscripts of the middle ages.
Meanwhile along the cloister’s painted side,
The monks--each bending low upon his book
With head on hand reclined--their studies plied;
Forbid to parley, or in front to look,
Lengthways their regulated seats they took:
The strutting prior gazed with pompous mien,
And wakeful tongue, prepared with prompt rebuke,
If monk asleep in sheltering hood was seen;
He wary often peeped beneath that russet screen.
Hard by, against the window’s adverse light,
Where desks were wont in length of row to stand,
The gowned artificers inclined to write;
The pen of silver glistened in the hand;
Some on their fingers rhyming Latin scanned;
Some textile gold from balls unwinding drew,
And on strained velvet stately portraits planned;
Here arms, there faces shone in embryo view,
At last to glittering life the total figures grew.
FOSBROOKE.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] DE RE DIPLOMATICA, Libri vi. in quibus quidquid ad veterum
instrumentorum antiquitatem, materiam, scripturam et stilum; quidquid
ad sigilla, monogrammata, subscriptiones ac notas chronologicas;
quidquid inde ad antiquariam, historicam, forensemque disciplinam
pertinet, explicatur et illustratur. Op. et Stud. JOH. MABILLON.--Fol.
Paris, 1709.
[3] Italian Diary.
CHAPTER VIII.
INDICATIONS OF THE SURVIVANCE OF ANCIENT LITERATURE, THROUGH A PERIOD
EXTENDING FROM THE DECLINE OF LEARNING IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY, TO ITS
RESTORATION IN THE FIFTEENTH.
General epithets usually carry with them a meaning that oversteps
the bounds of truth: we hear of “the dark ages”--“the period of
intellectual night”--“the season of winter in the history of man”--and
we are apt to imagine that during the times thus designated the human
mind had become utterly palsied, and that all learning was extinct.
But in fact throughout that period, reason, though often misdirected,
was not sleeping: philosophy was rather bewildered than inert; and
learning, although immured, was not lost.
In no part of the period that extends from the reign of Justinian,
when Greek and Roman literature everywhere lay open to the light of
day, till the fall of the Constantinopolitan empire, and the revival
of western learning in the fifteenth century, do we lose the traces
even of the classic authors, much less of those that belong to sacred
literature; for in each of the intervening ages, and in every quarter
of Europe, there were writers whose works, being still extant, give
evidence of their acquaintance with most of the principal authors of
more remote times.
Under the vague impression that has been created by certain loose modes
of speaking, relative to the deep and universal ignorance said to have
prevailed throughout Europe during a space of seven hundred years, the
existence of a large number of manuscripts of the classic authors,
undoubtedly executed during those very ages of ignorance, presents a
great apparent difficulty: for, from what motive, it may be asked, or
for whose use, were these works transcribed, so frequently as that they
were found in all parts of Europe, on the revival of earning in the
fifteenth century? The facts that are now to be mentioned, will furnish
a sufficient solution of this question, by proving that, in the West
and in the East, during those times of general intellectual lethargy,
there were more than a few individuals who cultivated polite literature
with ardour, and to whom the possession and preservation of books was a
matter of the liveliest interest. The names about to be mentioned--as
the well-informed reader will recollect--bear but a small proportion
to the whole number that might be adduced: it is sufficient for our
purpose to refer to one or two writers in each century.
But before naming individual men, whose extant writings give evidence
of the continuity of literature, and therefore assure us of the safe
transmission of ancient books to modern times, it will be serviceable
to bring clearly into view what it is which is needed for constituting
the LIVING MEDIUM of this transmission. Now, for bringing this matter
home to the convictions and the consciousness of the reader, let
him take up his own family history, and pursue it, retrogressively,
inquiring how many individuals are needed--or let us rather say how
_few_--to make up a chain of historical and literary conveyance,
through any given track of time past; for instance, from this present
time, 1858, into the mid-time of the Elizabethan era, as thus:--
I will now assume the fact--whether it be true or not does not signify
to the argument--that my progenitors in a direct line were educated
persons--or if not so--that each father in the line secured for his
son an ordinary grammar-school education--instruction just sufficient
for making him cognisant of the most noted persons and authors of
preceding times; so that, in each case, if the father himself did not
teach the son, the father’s friend and townsman, the schoolmaster,
did it, as for instance:--From my father’s own lips I received the
rudiments of general history, and of literary history, so that in my
boyhood I came to be familiar with all the principal names of public
men and authors, up from that time to times indefinitely remote. This
process of paternal instruction carries me up to the last decade of
the eighteenth century: say, to the time of the breaking out of the
French Revolution. But then, my father had received, either from his
father, or from his father’s proxy, the schoolmaster, a like kind and
amount of general information, by means of which we are carried up,
without a break, to the times of Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir
Joshua Reynolds; and in fact my father distinctly remembers, when a
boy, seeing, and being in company with, some of these illustrious men,
the friends of my grandfather. Then he had received--we will suppose--a
similar initiation in literary and political history, and if so, then
we are furnished with stepping-stones up to the times of Bentley, Pope,
Swift, Addison, Watts, and although this last name would seem to stand
beyond the limit of any immediate recollections, yet it is a fact that
the “Divine Songs” have come to me by means of a single intervening
person--from one who, as a favoured little girl, learned them, standing
at the amiable doctor’s knee. Thus it is that we travel safely, and
with a distinct cognisance of the way, through more than a century
of literary conveyance. At this rate, and if we may take this last
preceding period of time as our gauge of centuries past, then we shall
require the aid of only eight or nine persons, in series, to bring
us into correspondence with Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Fewer than
this--we might take six long-lived men to put us into this position of
proximity with the worthies of the Elizabethan era.
In making good our supposition, it is not necessary to assume the fact
(which we can seldom certainly know) that there has been, in any one
family, a continuous succession of fathers and sons--the father living
long enough to instruct the son. We should rather take the case of
the intellectual filiation of college life: we imagine the learned
professor, during the last ten years of his official life, imparting
his mental substance to a hundred or two of scholars, some two or three
of whom, at least, will live to do the like, from the same chair, in
behalf of their successors. On this ground the individual teachers need
not be more than twelve, upon whose oral testimony, in succession, we
rely in passing from an age of generally diffused intelligence, to the
times of the revival of learning, and of printed books.
It will be remembered that--if indeed there were grounds of doubt
concerning the safe transmission of ancient books to modern times,
any such suspicions can attach only to the period that is usually
designated as the “Dark Ages,” and _these_ need not be reckoned as more
than seven, reaching back from the times of Dante, Petrarch, Chaucer,
Wickliffe, to the pontificate of Gregory the Great, in whose times, as
appears from his writings, the learning of the preceding ages was still
familiarly known to more than a few.
The Sixth Century of the Christian era abounds with the names of
writers in all departments of literature, many of whose works, having
descended to modern times, present ample evidence of the scarcely
diminished diffusion of general learning. Among many others, such
were--Procopius, the historian of the reign of Justinian--and Agathias,
who continued that history, and was a learned man;--Boethius, author of
what is regarded as the last specimen of pure Latinity--a poem on “the
Consolations of Philosophy;”--Hesychius, the lexicographer--Proclus,
a platonic philosopher;--Fulgentius, and Cassiodorus, ecclesiastical
writers;--Priscianus, a grammarian;--Gildas the wise, an
Anglo-Saxon historian;--Evagrius Scholasticus, an ecclesiastical
historian;--Simplicius, the commentator upon Aristotle and
Epictetus;--Marcellinus Ammianus, an historian and critic, whose works
contain copious references to ancient literature; and Stephen, of
Byzantium, a grammarian and geographer. We might take in hand the work
of this last-named writer--ΠΕΡΙ ΠΟΛΕΩΝ, as furnishing, by itself, a
sufficient mass of evidence in proof of the extensive book-learning of
those times which immediately overlook the gulf--the dark ages. This
Stephen, the geographer, in the course of his account of the cities
and towns of the ancient world, cites, or makes some reference to, the
works of more than three hundred authors, to which he had access at any
moment, while compiling his own.
The Seventh Century produced fewer writers than perhaps any other
period that can be named within the compass of literary history.
Yet there are more than enough to serve our present purpose: such
are--Theophylact of Simocatta, who has left a history of the reign of
the emperor Maurice, not very highly esteemed indeed, but abounding in
allusions to the literature of the times.
Isidore, bishop of Seville, a complete collection of whose works fills
seven quarto volumes, is a writer very proper to be mentioned in
relation to our present purpose. Confessedly the age of Mahomet was a
dull time: few indeed are the writers whose mere names have come down
to us;--and yet, even in such a time, a voluminous writer, who treats
of all kinds of subjects--religion, Church history, grammar, poetry,
astronomy, physical science, and treats some of these systematically,
might not only employ himself in labours of this kind, but also find
among his contemporaries, and the men of the next age, numerous
readers, and admirers, and copyists too, who found their account in
transcribing so vast a product of literary industry. The times of
this bishop, therefore, dark as they might be, were nevertheless
times of book-knowledge: throughout the dim period there was a class
of the learned, numerous and intelligent enough, to keep watch upon
the intellectual treasures of brighter times, to conserve the rich
inheritance of mind, and to do their office in transmitting it down,
unimpaired, to after ages. This fact is all which just now we need
think of.
What we have thus said of the seventh century--of its darkness and
its light, might be affirmed with little difference, as to the next.
Our countryman, the “Venerable Bede,” flourished in the seventh, but
lived far on into the eighth century. The writings of Bede--and we
should remember that he passed his life in the seclusion of a remote
monastery--St. Peter and St. Paul, on the Tyne, in the diocese of
Durham--afford ample proof of a wide diffusion of books, in that
age. Bede displays extensive, if not profound learning, the whole of
which he had acquired from sources that were ordinarily within the
reach of monastic students. Bede “was a man of universal learning,
not less skilled in the Greek than in the Latin tongue: a poet, a
rhetorician, an historian, an astronomer, an arithmetician, a master
of chronology and geography, a philosopher, and theologian. So much
was he admired in his own times that it became a proverbial saying
among the learned--“A man born in the farthest corner of the earth has
compassed the earth with the line of his genius.” “He was,” says Bale,
“versed in the profane authors beyond any man of that age. Physics and
general learning he derived, not from turbid streams, but from the pure
fountains; that is, from the chief Greek and Latin authors. Indeed,
there is hardly anything of value in the compass of ancient literature,
that is not to be met with in Bede, although he never travelled beyond
the limits of his native land.”
The conservative function was taken up by several of Bede’s disciples;
among them we may name Alcuin, who did much, by his learning and his
influence at the court of Charlemagne, to aid the endeavours of that
enlightened prince for the restoration of literature. He was skilled
in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages; gave lectures in all the
sciences, and founded many public schools. His works, historical and
theological, are in part extant, and they justify the reputation he
enjoyed. In his letters he familiarly quotes the classic writers.
Charlemagne, himself tolerably well acquainted with Latin and Greek
authors, zealously laboured to restore learning in the Church, and out
of it. He invited learned men to his court, employed them in making
Latin translations of the Greek classics and of the fathers, founded
public schools, and introduced regulations tending to make some degree
of education indispensable to all who held office in the Church. Of
the professors invited by Charlemagne to his court, as many came from
the British Isles as from Italy. We must not forget, says Muratori, the
praise of Britain, Scotland, and Ireland, which, in the study of the
liberal arts, surpassed all other nations of the West in those times;
nor omit to record the diligence of the monks of those countries, who
roused and maintained the glory of letters which everywhere else was
languishing or fallen.
Raban Maurus, a disciple of Alcuin, created archbishop of Mentz,
in 847, had, before his elevation, taught theology, philosophy,
poetry, and rhetoric at Paris, in the school established there by the
Anglo-Saxon monks. “A man well versed in the Holy Scriptures, and
thoroughly learned in profane literature, as his writings abundantly
testify.” He enriched the monastery of Fulda, on the Rhine, where he
received his early education, with a large collection of books; and
there he founded a school. Two hundred and seventy monks belonged to
the establishment, who were trained by him in every branch of learning.
Disciples flocked to him from all countries, and he reared for the
Church a great number of ministers well furnished for its service. He
died, 856.
One of the first professors in the University of Oxford founded (or
restored) by King Alfred, was John Scot; he afterwards went into
France, where he was honourably entertained at the court of Charles the
Bald, at whose request he translated some Greek authors into Latin:
but these versions, in which a literal adherence to the original was
observed, were scarcely intelligible to those for whose use they were
intended. His writings display, however, much various learning; they
were condemned as heretical by the Church on account of his opinions
relative to the Eucharist. Being driven from France by the order of
the pope, he took refuge in an English monastery; but there, at the
instigation of the monks, he, it is said, like Cassianus, was killed by
his scholars, with their iron styles.
Before the Danish incursions, the English monasteries and churches
abounded with men of learning; but these establishments being
broken up and the monks dispersed by the rude invaders, literature
and the arts became almost extinct in the country. Alfred, himself
a man of learning, and a various writer, effected, as is known,
much towards their restoration, by the re-establishment of the
ruined monasteries--the erection of many new ones--the endowment of
schools--the foundation of lectureships at Oxford, and by the diffusion
of his own writings, which, even if he had not been a king, would have
perpetuated his name.
Contemporary with the last-named writer was Photius, with whom no
author of that, or of several succeeding ages, can be compared: his
works hold up a mirror of the literature that was extant in his times.
Photius, educated for secular employments, and for some time engaged
in the service of Michael III., was by that emperor forcibly invested
with the dignity of patriarch of Constantinople (858) in the room
of Ignatius. That he might pass regularly to this elevation, he was
made monk, reader, sub-deacon, deacon, priest, and patriarch, in the
course of six days. From the office thus violently assumed, he was,
with little ceremony, expelled by Basilius, the successor of Michael.
Once again, at the head of a band of soldiers, he possessed himself of
the patriarchate, of which, by similar means, he was at length finally
deprived; after which he retired to a monastery, where he ended his
days. Before his elevation, he had composed the most useful and the
most celebrated of his works, the _Myriobiblon_, which contains, in the
form of criticisms, analyses, and extracts, an account of upwards of
270 works. This treasury of learning preserves many valuable fragments
from authors whose works have perished, and affords important aid
in ascertaining the genuineness of many of the remains of ancient
literature.
Eutychius, an Egyptian physician, and afterwards (933) patriarch
of Alexandria, wrote a universal history, which is still extant,
and which, though it contains numerous fables, exhibits the various
learning of the author, and of his times. Though so large a number
of existing manuscripts as appear to have been executed in the tenth
century, prove that a great degree of activity in the reproduction of
books prevailed in that age, it presents the names of few authors whose
works have descended to modern times.
The Eleventh Century is much richer in distinguished names, of which it
may suffice to mention these:--
Avicenna, an Arabian physician and Mahometan doctor, reduced the
science of medicine to a systematic form, including almost everything
that had been written on the subject by his predecessors: he was
versed in Greek literature, and is said to have committed Aristotle’s
Metaphysics to memory. The first conquests of the Saracens in Asia,
Africa, and Spain, during the seventh and eighth centuries, were
almost fatal to the interests of learning. But no sooner had they
well established their power in the conquered countries, than the
Caliphs sought to rekindle the light of knowledge. During two or three
centuries, Bagdat in the East, and Cordova in the West, were the seats,
not only of splendid monarchies, but of science, general learning,
and great refinement. It was, however, chiefly the mathematical and
physical sciences that were cultivated by the Arabians. They possessed
imperfect and corrupted translations of several of the Greek authors,
especially of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Euclid, and Dioscorides; and
they had some general, though imperfect, acquaintance with the Greek
historians. Some of the Latin translations, made by the order of
Charlemagne, were derived from these Arabian versions.
Michael Psellus, a Greek physician, and a monk, wrote upon subjects of
all kinds: “There was no science which he did not either illustrate
by his comments, or abridge, or reduce to a better method.--A man
celebrated for the extent of his acquirements in divine and human
learning, as his many works, both printed and in manuscript, evince.”
Lanfranc, by birth an Italian, was created archbishop of Canterbury by
William of Normandy; he promoted learning among the clergy, and was
himself reputed to be universally accomplished in the literature extant
in that age.
Anselm, the disciple and successor of Lanfranc, in the see of
Canterbury, was also in repute for general learning.
The works of Suidas, a Byzantine monk, like those of Photius, contain
a vast store of various learning, singularly useful on points of
criticism and literary history. The lexicon of this writer, besides
the definition of words, contains accounts of ancient authors of all
classes, and many quotations from works that have since perished.
Sigebert, a monk of Brabant, has left a chronicle of events from A.
D. 381 to his own times, 1112, and a work containing the lives of
illustrious men.
The name of Anna Comnena, daughter of the emperor Alexius Comnenus,
and wife of Nicephorus Bryennius, distinguishes the early part of the
twelfth century. She wrote an elegant and eloquent history of her
father’s reign. This work displays not only a masculine understanding,
but an extensive acquaintance with literature and the sciences.
England produced during this century several eminent writers, who
were accomplished in the learning of the age. Such were William of
Malmesbury, Henry of Huntington, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and Joseph of
Exeter--author of two Latin poems, on the Trojan war, and the war
of Antioch, or the Crusade--and, somewhat later, Stephen Langton,
archbishop of Canterbury, reckoned the most learned man of western
Europe in those times.
Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, flourished towards the close
of the twelfth century. His commentaries on Homer, besides serving to
elucidate the Greek language by many important criticisms, drawn from
sources that have since been lost, contain, like the works of Photius
and Suidas, innumerable references to the Greek classics, and thus
furnish the means of ascertaining the integrity and the genuineness of
the text of those authors, as they are now extant.
The brothers John and Isaac Tzetzes, critics and grammarians of
Constantinople, are still consulted as commentators upon some of the
Greek authors. John Tzetzes is a voluminous writer: his extant works
give evidence at once of his vast acquaintance with literature, and
of the literary facilities of that age, at least in cities such as
Constantinople.
Robert Grostest (Greathead), bishop of Lincoln, was famed for his
skill in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, as well as for the
bold resistance he made to the exactions of the popes upon the English
church. Camden says of him that “he was a man versed in the languages
and in general literature in a degree scarcely credible, when the age
in which he lived is considered; a terrible reprover of the pope, the
adviser of his king (Henry III.), and a lover of truth.”
Matthew Paris, one of the earliest of the English historians, displays
in his works an acquaintance with ancient literature, as well as a
familiar knowledge of the antiquities of his native country. Like the
bishop last named, Paris vigorously opposed the papal usurpations in
England; nor did he less courageously reprove vice in every rank at
home. His reputation as a man of learning and virtue enabled him to
effect a considerable reformation in many of the English monasteries.
He died 1259. The “Historia Major” of this writer begins with the
Norman Conquest, and is continued to the year of the author’s death,
1259.
The works of Albert, called the Great, a Dominican friar, and
afterwards, in 1260, bishop of Ratisbon, fill one-and-twenty volumes.
They are chiefly on the physical sciences, but include a sort of
encyclopædia of the learning of the age. “A man of wonderful erudition,
to whom few things in theological science, and hardly any in secular
learning, were unknown. On account of the extent and variety of his
acquirements surnamed ‘the Great’--an honour conferred upon no other
learned man during life.” Albert, like Roger Bacon, incurred among
his contemporaries the suspicion of being a magician. Learning, in
the restricted sense of the term, or the knowledge of books, though
possessed by a comparatively small class of persons, was too frequent
to excite wonder or envy; but Science, or a knowledge of nature, and
this acquired, not from Aristotle, but from experiment, was so rare,
that it seldom failed to engender both, and to occasion a dangerous
accusation of correspondence with infernal spirits.
The revival of learning is usually reckoned to have commenced in the
fifteenth century: but in the fourteenth a very decided advancement
in almost every department of literature had taken place. That the
ignorance which had prevailed in the preceding century was wearing away
from the bulk of the community in several parts of Europe, and that the
educated classes were acquiring a better taste and more expanded views,
needs no other evidence than that which is so abundantly presented in
the works of Dante, of Petrarch, of Boccatio, of Chaucer, and of Gower,
which were not merely produced in that period, but were extensively
read and admired.
Fewer instances than those given above might suffice to prove, that
at no part of that tract of time, which extends from the decline of
learning in the sixth century, to its revival in the fifteenth, was
there anything which can be called an extinction of the knowledge
of ancient literature. This proof, it must be acknowledged, is much
more complete in reference to the Greek, than to the Latin authors;
it is also more ample in relation to ecclesiastical and sacred, than
to profane literature. Of all the extant manuscripts, executed in the
middle ages, perhaps nineteen in twenty belong to the former class.
The continuance of the eastern empire till the middle of the fifteenth
century, afforded an uninterrupted protection to Greek learning during
those periods in which western Europe was laid waste by the Gothic
nations. Yet even those devastations were never universal either in
their extent, or in their kind. At times when Italy was in ashes, the
British Islands were secure. And if cities were sacked and burned, and
if castles, palaces, and cathedrals were pillaged and overthrown,
hundreds of religious houses, in strong or secluded situations,
remained untouched; or if occasionally they were subjected to the
violence of armies, or to the exactions of conquerors, they more often
lost their chests, their cups and their salvers, than their books.
Learning and the sciences can _flourish_ and advance only where
there are the means of a wide and quick diffusion of the fruits of
intellectual labour: but they may _exist_ even under the almost total
absence of such means. This was the case in Europe during the middle
ages. Knowledge rested with the few whom the inward fire of native
genius constrained to pursue it: and these few were often insulated
from each other, and unknown beyond the walls within which they spent
their lives; and often secluded also by their tastes, even from their
fellows of the same society.
In every myriad of the human race, take the number where or when we
may, there will be found a few individuals--born for thought; and if
the vocation of nature is not always stronger than every obstacle,
it is, for the most part, strong enough to overcome such as are of
ordinary magnitude. Those who are thus endowed with the appetite for
knowledge, will certainly follow the impulse, if the means of its
acquirement are presented to them in early life. Now these means were
everywhere interspersed among the nations of Europe during the middle
ages, by the monastic system; and it may be questioned whether there
were not then greater chances for drawing within the pale of learning
the native mind of every district, than are afforded even by the
present constitutions of society. The religious houses were so thickly
scattered through every country, and the continual draught from the
population for the maintenance of the numbers of their inmates (a
standing rule of the monastic establishments enjoined that the original
number of each congregation should be maintained) was so great, that
they must have taken up many more than the gifted individuals of
every neighbourhood; and yet such individuals would almost certainly
be included within that enlistment; for whenever a youth displayed a
fondness for learning, nothing better could be done for him, whether he
was the son of a peasant or a noble, than to devote him to the service
of the Church. The monasteries usually contained schools for the youth
of their vicinities. From these schools the superiors of the house had
the opportunity of selecting any who gave promise of intelligence.
In the very darkest times, learning insured to its possessor a degree
of reputation; and the heads of religious houses, in most instances,
sought to decorate their establishments with some particles of the
honours of erudition, as well as to recommend them by the possession
of relics; and many were eagerly ambitious to enhance the literary
celebrity of their communities. With this view it would be their policy
to afford the necessary means and encouragement to those who seemed
most likely to support the credit of the society. “The education of a
monk, at least in the fourteenth century, consisted of church music and
the primary sciences, grammar, logic, and philosophy--obviously that
of Aristotle. Some French and Latin must also have been included; for
these were the languages the monks were enjoined to speak on public
occasions. They were afterwards sent to Oxford or Paris to learn
theology. Such indeed was the encouragement held out to literature,
that in a provincial chapter of abbots and priors of the Benedictine
order, held at Northampton A.D. 1343, men of letters and masters of art
were invited to become monks, by a promise of exemption from all daily
services.”--_Fosbrooke._
Independently therefore of any more direct evidence, there would
be reason to believe that many if not most of the monasteries and
conventual churches, at all times, included an individual or two whose
tastes led him to devote his life to study, and who would become
the sedulous guardian and conservator of the books of the house,
directing the labours of his less intelligent brethren in the work of
transcribing such as might be falling into decay.
In the estimation of minds ruled by the love of books, even if
incapable of discriminating the precious from the worthless--the
worthless, by a principle of association, partakes, to a large degree,
of the respect that belongs in reason only to what is intrinsically
valuable. A BOOK, whatever be its subject or its merits, is viewed with
a fond covetousness by those whose passion it is to love books. This
feeling must have been strong indeed in times when books were hardly
to be purchased, and when their ideal value included a recollection
of the toil of transcription. The spirit of the ruling superstition,
which taught the attachment of an incalculable importance to objects
intrinsically worthless, must also have favoured an undistinguishing
reverence for books. We need not then be surprised to find that works
of all classes, though altogether unsuited to the taste of the times,
were reproduced, from age to age, by the monkish copyists.
While, therefore, all taste for instruction had disappeared from the
face of society--while kings and nobles were often as ignorant as
artisans and peasants, while even many of the clergy retained only some
shreds of learning, the productions of brighter ages were still hoarded
and perpetuated, and were made accessible to the few whose intellectual
ardour carried them beyond the standard of their times.
The reader who would extend his acquaintance with the subjects so
briefly referred to in this chapter will find the means of doing so
amply supplied in the work of Mr. Maitland which so conclusively
establishes the fact of the uninterrupted _continuance_ of the
intellectual life of Europe through those ages which too hastily have
been spoken of by modern writers as times of universal ignorance.[4]
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The Dark Ages; a series of Essays, intended to illustrate the state
of Religion and Literature in the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth
Centuries. By the Rev. S. R. Maitland, &c.
CHAPTER IX.
THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
More than half a century before the taking of Constantinople by the
Turks, the learned men of that city, apprehensive of the approaching
fall of the empire, had begun to emigrate into Italy, where they opened
schools, and became the preceptors of princes and the guides of the
public taste, which they directed towards the study of the classic
writers of Greece especially, and even of Rome. But it was the fall
of Constantinople in 1453 which filled the Italian cities with these
learned strangers.
The Italians of that age needed only to receive this kind of direction,
and to be aided by these means of study; for they had for some time
been placed under those peculiar circumstances which have ever proved
the most favourable to the advancement of the human mind. Throughout
a number of independent states--crowded upon a narrow space, the same
language, yet diversified by dialects, was spoken. The energy, the
rivalry, the munificence that accompany an active commerce kept the
whole mass of society in movement; while the influence of a gorgeous
superstition, which sought to recommend itself by every embellishment
that the genius of man could devise or execute, overruled the tendency
of successful trade, and directed the ambition of princely merchants
towards objects more noble and intellectual than are those which wealth
usually selects as the means of distinction.
The formation of libraries, suggested or favoured by the abundant
importation of manuscripts from Constantinople, was the means not only
of making more widely known the works of those Greek authors which had
never fallen into oblivion, but of prompting researches which issued
in the recovery of the Latin writers also, many of whom had long been
forgotten. The appetite for books having thus been quickened, neither
cost nor labour was thenceforward spared in their accumulation; and
learned men were despatched, in all directions, throughout Europe,
western Asia, and Africa, expressly to collect manuscripts. In the
course of a few years, most of the authors that are now known to
us, were brought together in the libraries of Rome, Naples, Venice,
Florence, Milan, Vienna, and Paris, where they were laid open to those
who were best qualified to give them forth anew to the world.
Thus aided by the munificence and zeal of princes and popes, the
scholars of the fifteenth century sedulously applied themselves to
the discovery, the restoration, and the publication of the remains of
Greek and Roman literature; and so it was that in the course of sixty
or eighty years, most of the works now known had been committed to the
press. Since that time some few discoveries have been made; but the
principal improvements in classic literature, of later date, have
consisted in the emendation of the text of ancient authors by means
of a more extensive collation of manuscripts than the first editors
had any opportunity to institute. This restoration of the remains of
ancient works to their pristine integrity has not been effected, like
that of a dilapidated building, or a mutilated statue, by the addition
of new materials in an imagined conformity with the plan and taste of
the original work; but by the industrious collection and replacement of
the very particles of which it at first consisted.
The invention of printing, which virtually exempts books from the
operation of the law that subjects all things mundane to the decays of
time, has greatly promoted also the process of their renovation; for,
by giving to the issue of an edition of a standard work a degree of
importance, several hundred times greater than what belonged to the
transcription of a single copy, it has called for the employment of a
proportionably larger amount of learning, diligence, and caution in the
work of revision; and then, by enabling each successive editor to avail
himself of the labours of his predecessors, the advantages belonging to
the concentration of many minds upon the same subject have been secured.
It is a fact therefore, the significance of which should be clearly
understood, that, since the fifteenth century, the lapse of time,
instead of gradually impairing and corrupting the literary remains
of antiquity, has incessantly contributed to their renovation and
purification. Indeed it may be affirmed that, in relation to the
amount, the exactitude, and the certainty of our knowledge, we are
not receding from remote ages, but are constantly approaching towards
them. In a thousand instances what was unknown, or was doubtful, or
imperfect, or corrupted, at the commencement of the fifteenth century,
has been ascertained, restored, and completed in the nineteenth.
The history and the literature of Greece and Rome--long inhumed in
monasteries, were, at the period of their re-appearance, liable to
uncertainties and to suspicions which not all the learning and industry
of that vigorous age were able to dispel. But the learning and the
industry of the four centuries that have since elapsed, constantly
directed towards the same objects, and constantly accumulating a
various mass of evidence, have left exceedingly few questions of
literary antiquity open to controversy.
Thus then, by the mention of some leading facts, we have traced the
remains of ancient literature up to the time when they passed to the
press, and when their history can no longer be regarded as obscure or
questionable. Nor can it be thought that this body of literature is now
liable to the hazards of extinction from political changes, or from the
decline of learning in this or that country; for unless a universal
devastation should take its course, at once, over every region of the
civilized world, the literature now extant in books can neither perish,
nor suffer corruption. A temple, a statue, a picture, or a gem is but
_one_; and however durable may be the material of which it consists, it
continually decays, and it is always destructible. The touch of the
sculptor moulders from the chiselled surface; and the time will come
when every monument of his genius shall have crumbled into dust, and
when his fame--lost from the marble, shall live only in the works of
the poets and historians who were his contemporaries.
Thus it is that the _written_ records of distant ages, with the
knowledge of which the intellectual, moral, and political well-being of
mankind is inseparably connected, are secured from extinction by a mode
of conservation that is less liable to extensive hazards than any other
that can be imagined. If Man be cut off from the knowledge of the past,
he becomes indifferent to the future, and thenceforward sinks into the
rudeness and ferocity of the sensual life. The redundant amplitude,
therefore, of the means by which this knowledge is preserved, only
bears a due proportion to the importance of the consequences that
depend upon its perpetuation.
CHAPTER X.
SEVERAL METHODS AVAILABLE FOR ASCERTAINING THE CREDIBILITY OF ANCIENT
HISTORICAL WORKS.
The facts referred to in the preceding chapters belong in common to
ancient books of all classes, and they tend to prove that the works of
the Greek and Roman writers--poets, dramatists, philosophers, critics,
and historians--which issued from the press in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, may, by means of various and independent evidence,
be infallibly traced up to the age in which they are commonly supposed
to have been written.
The reader’s attention is now to be directed to one class of those
ancient works, namely, those which are professedly historical; and our
object will be to ascertain on what grounds, and with what limitations,
such works deserve our confidence as truthful narratives of facts.
The very same mode of inquiry which common sense suggests, on the most
ordinary occasions, when we are called upon to estimate the value of
testimony, is applicable to all cases of the like nature. Nor can the
importance of the consequences that may be involved in the issue
of the investigation, in a peculiar instance, render it invalid, or
warrant our rejection of it as unsatisfactory.
In some lesser particulars the modes of estimating oral and written
testimony must differ; but in substance the heads of inquiry will
be the same. In the case with which we have now to do--namely, the
credibility of the testimony of ancient historians, it is natural to
consider the following points:--
1. The moral and intellectual character of the writer,--if this can be
known;
2. The means of information he possessed;
3. The time and circumstances of the first publication of the work;
4. The exceptions it may be necessary to make to his testimony on
particular points; arising either from the peculiar nature of the facts
affirmed, or from the apparent influence of prejudice--personal, or
national; and--
5. The agreement of the narrative in question with evidence derived
from other, and independent sources.
In judging then of the authenticity of an historical work we have,
in the first place, to form an estimate of the writer’s moral and
intellectual character and qualifications; supposing that the means of
forming an opinion on these points are within our reach.
If the personal integrity of an historian has happened to be put to
the proof by any well known and remarkable events, in which he was
concerned, the reader whose own character may qualify him to feel the
force of such proof, will seldom ask for better grounds of confidence;
for such errors in matters of fact as a thoroughly honest historian
may be liable to, will seldom be of vital importance. Even if no such
proof of a writer’s personal integrity exists, and if the circumstances
of his life are altogether unknown, yet almost every writer leaves
in his works sufficient indications of his moral dispositions. The
characteristics of honesty are distinct enough to secure the confidence
of candid minds; nor can an instance be adduced in which they have
been so successfully counterfeited as to have stood the test of time.
A perverse intention as certainly betrays itself in writing, as it
does in personal behaviour. Nevertheless this sort of evidence, though
it will be more satisfactory than any other to one reader, may be
unperceived by another; for cold, feeble, and suspicious minds are
destitute of the sympathies to which it appeals.
If the proofs of integrity and veracity in an historian are wanting,
or are thought to be insufficient, we must descend to that sort
of evidence which his works afford relative to his intellectual
qualifications; and these may be such as fully to warrant a general
confidence in his preference of truth to falsehood. As to the strongest
minds, such minds attach themselves to truth by an instinctive
movement: to acquire the knowledge of facts is their characteristic
passion;--to promulgate this knowledge is the function they feel
themselves born to fulfill. Nor can it happen that the falsification
of facts--in which neither personal interests nor prejudices are
involved--should present an adequate inducement to writers whose powers
of narration enable them to command more attention in the direct paths
of truth and reality, than they could hope to gain in the regions of
fiction. Every gifted mind has its sphere; and there is a native talent
for history, as well as a genius for poetry; and he who possesses
eminently the former, will as certainly make himself conversant with
realities, as he who may boast the possession of the latter will choose
to live among the creations of fancy.
If therefore an historical work displays a healthy vigour of
intellect--good sense--elevation of sentiment, and the specific
talent for narration, these qualities may safely be held to afford a
strong presumptive proof of the author’s veracity, even though there
should be no direct means of ascertaining his moral dispositions, or
his integrity. Those writers who occupy a first rank among ancient
historians may therefore safely be held to possess this presumptive
proof of their veracity; for the reputation they have so long enjoyed
is attributable, quite as much to their talent for narration, as to the
interest or importance of the story that forms the subject of their
works. These intrinsic merits contain, then, a tacit guarantee for the
authenticity of the works that are thus adorned.
On this ground, the good sense, the simplicity, the ease, and the
accuracy of Herodotus--the stern vigour, the elevation, and the dignity
of Thucydides, the graceful simplicity of Xenophon, and the philosophic
terseness of Tacitus, not only win the admiration of the reader, but,
in different degrees, these qualities invite, or demand, his confidence.
There are moreover qualities of style which, though they may not
entitle an author to a place in the first rank of writers, must secure
for him a high regard as an authentic historian. Indeed, in this
department of literature, those less brilliant and less attractive
qualities which give security as to an historian’s diligence, accuracy,
and impartiality, may well be accepted in place of the brighter
recommendations of genius, or eloquence, or powers of description.
There is a specific taste for details, there is a passion for laborious
researches, there is a superstitious regard to exactness, and an
indefatigable industry, which, though they may tire the reader who
seeks only for amusement, will secure the confidence and attention of
the intelligent student of history. Thus, for example, the assiduity
of Diodorus the Sicilian, the accuracy and good sense of Polybius, and
the minuteness and amplification of Dionysius the Halicarnassian, give
to their works a substantial value which goes far to compensate for the
want of more shining excellences.
In those historical works which have necessarily been compiled from
various documents, a sound judgment in the selection of materials must
be considered as the principal merit of an author. In this quality
some of the ancient historians were certainly deficient; and yet it
must be added that to this very want of judgment we are indebted for
the knowledge of innumerable particulars, in themselves curious, or
perhaps important, which our modern notions of method, consistency, and
propriety, would greatly have retrenched, or entirely have excluded.
Although, to a certain extent, the genius or talent of an historian
may be held to vouch for his veracity; yet it is also true that a
writer may possess a sort of genius which tends to bring his fidelity
into suspicion. If, for example, he continually indulges his taste for
scenes of splendour, or terror, or extraordinary action, or if he loves
to exhibit images of magnanimity or wisdom, surpassing the ordinary
reach of human nature; if his principal personages are heroes, or if he
seems pleased to find occasions on which to display his command of the
nervous eloquence of vituperation, we may well conclude that his genius
will have tempted him to relinquish the merit of being simply exact, or
calmly just.
A consideration of personal and national prejudices enters, of
course, into the estimate that is formed of an historian’s moral and
intellectual character. But these will be best adverted to when we come
to mention the exceptions which it is necessary to make against the
evidence of historians, on particular points.
We have next to make inquiry concerning the means of information which
may have been possessed by an ancient historian.
The same kind of confidence that is due to an historian who narrates
events in which he was personally concerned, cannot be claimed by one
who compiles the history of remote times from such materials as he can
collect: for in the former case, if we are assured of the writer’s
veracity and competency, there remains no room for reasonable doubt; at
least in reference to those principal facts of the story for the truth
of which his character is pledged. But in the other case, though we may
think well both of the writer’s veracity and judgment, the confidence
we afford him must still be conditional, and will be measured by the
opinion we form of the validity of his authorities.
The entire mass of ancient history may therefore be considered as
consisting of two kinds, namely, the _original_ and the _compiled_. In
the first class may be comprehended, not merely those narratives that
are strictly personal, such for instance as the history of the retreat
of the ten thousand Greeks, by Xenophon; or again the Commentaries
of Cæsar, which describe actions wherein the author was immediately
concerned, and was, in fact, the principal actor; but those also
which relate to the events of the author’s own times and country, and
concerning which he had the most direct and unquestionable means of
becoming accurately informed. Such are the history of the Peloponnesian
war by Thucydides; and the history of the Catiline conspiracy by
Sallust, and much of the histories and annals of Tacitus, and the
history of the reign of Justinian by Procopius; and that of her
father’s reign by Anna Comnena.
The credibility of historical works of this class must, obviously, be
determined chiefly upon the grounds mentioned in the preceding section;
that is to say, from those indications of integrity, impartiality,
and good sense, which the work exhibits. Every reader of Thucydides,
for example, feels that he may rely with confidence upon the general
authenticity of the narrative:--the caution and the unwearied assiduity
of the author in ascertaining the truth of whatever he affirms, his
exactness in minute circumstances, his eminent good sense and fairness,
and the dignity of his manner, all concur to stamp upon the work, for
the most part, the seal of truth. In _original_ histories the truth
of the story and the veracity of the writer are inseparably linked
together:--both must be admitted, or both should be denied.
But by far the greater part of all extant history belongs to the second
class; and yet, among works that must rank as _compilations_, some wide
distinctions are to be observed; for there are some of this kind of
which the authenticity is little, if at all, inferior to that of the
best original histories; while many are, in the ordinary sense of the
term, compilations, and as such deserve only a qualified confidence. In
regard to the nature and probable value of the authorities they have
relied upon, each historian--and indeed almost every separate portion
of the works of each writer--must be estimated apart. An example or
two will be sufficient to show, as well the necessity, as the mode of
exercising this discrimination.
The nine books of Herodotus afford instances of every degree of
validity in regard to the probable value of the materials that were
employed by the author. A reader who, in his simplicity, peruses that
work, throughout, with an equal faith, will be in danger of having his
indiscriminate confidence suddenly converted into undistinguishing
scepticism, by discovering the slenderness of the authority upon which
some portions of it are made to rest.
Diodorus, the Sicilian, is reported to have employed thirty years
in collecting materials for his universal history. Like Herodotus,
he visited the countries of which he speaks--consulting public
records--inspecting monuments--conversing with the learned, and
collecting books. In fact his work exhibits many proofs of this
assiduity; but yet when some of his statements are compared with those
of other writers, who were better informed on particular subjects, it
becomes apparent that he exercised too little caution in the selection
of his authorities; and that therefore the discrimination of the
reader, or of the learned annotator, must supply the want of judgment
in the writer.
The universal history of Trogus Pompeius, which is extant only in the
abridgement made by Justin, seems to have been compiled on a plan
somewhat similar to that of the work last mentioned. It is evident
that the author, in collecting his materials, employed considerable
diligence and judgment; nevertheless, in what relates to remote
nations, he shows himself often to have been egregiously misinformed.
A striking instance of this kind is furnished in the account he gives
of the history and religion of the Jews (Book xxxvi. cap. 2); for it
is evident that the author--whether it be Trogus, or Justin, must have
received his information--not from the source from which he ought
to have derived it--the Jewish records;--nor even from individuals
of that nation; but from prejudiced and ill-informed men of the
neighbouring countries of Asia or of Africa. The account given by
Tacitus (Hist. Book v.) of the same people, is little more just than is
that of Trogus. If these instances were to be taken as specimens of the
accuracy of ancient historians in all similar cases, their descriptions
of remote nations must be held to be of very little value. But there
seems reason to believe that the history and institutions of the Jews
were much less known, and were more misrepresented, than those of any
other people bordering upon the Mediterranean.
Abundant evidence proves that, from the very earliest ages, and in
almost all countries, there were persons employed and authorized by
governments to digest the current history of the state. These annals
contained, of course, the names of kings, and the records of their
acts and exploits, their decrees and wars. Each city, as well as the
capitals of empires, had its archives; and these public documents
appear to have suggested the idea of a more comprehensive form of
history. They were certainly consulted by those who, in later times,
undertook the composition of historical works: by these means there
was imparted to such works more of authenticity and exactness than may
be generally supposed. Herodotus, Thucydides, Diodorus, Pausanias,
Strabo, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, Arrian, Dion Cassius, the
Elder Pliny, and others, evidently availed themselves with all possible
diligence of such public records.
Ancient historians conversed extensively with official persons,
wherever they travelled; and it must be granted they were often
too ready to accept these oral communications as authentic. This is
especially to be observed in reference to those accounts that were
confessedly, or that seem to have been received from priests; for that
class of persons, too much accustomed to think truth their enemy, and
deception their business, would have thought themselves betraying the
interests of their order in furnishing simple facts to an inquirer.
Every city of the ancient world, where civilization had made any
progress, was crowded with columns, statues, busts, monuments,
inscriptions, by which every memorable event, and every illustrious
personage, was perpetually presented to the regards of the people, and
was retained in their recollection. It is certain that this monumental
and sculptural mode of embodying a people’s history obtained to a far
greater extent in ancient cities than it does in those of our times.
And so it was that to visit a city--to pace its public ways--to enter
its temples and its halls, was to peruse its history. The meanest
citizen--even a child, would be able to conduct an inquisitive stranger
through the streets, and to explain to him these memorials of the
past. It is difficult for us in these times, and in these inclement
latitudes, to form an adequate notion of the extent to which the
history of each people was familiarized to them by these means; or how
much the living conversed with the dead, and identified themselves with
whatever was heroic or wise in preceding times. These public monuments,
when collated with the public records, and explained by the public
voice, furnished historians with abundant materials; and so great was
the importance attached to them, that there are instances in which
historians made long journeys for the express purpose of examining
the sculptures of a city, the history of which they had occasion
incidentally to mention.
What was most wanting to give a higher value, in point of authenticity,
to the materials so diligently collected by the ancient historians
was--that general diffusion of information among neighbouring nations
which would have subjected the fables and the boastful pretensions of
each people to the animadversion of others, and thus have given room
for a more ready and complete collation of discordant evidence on the
same points. The Greeks were very little acquainted with the languages
of the surrounding nations; and they were egregiously ignorant of facts
in which they were not immediately concerned. If the literature of
the Asiatic nations had been familiarly current in Greece, and that
of Greece in Asia, both would have been purged of many errors and
frivolities; and something more of that consistency, expansion, and
good sense imparted on both sides, which were acquired by the Roman
writers in consequence of their acquaintance with the literature of
Greece. In the department of history, especially, such an interchange
of light would have enhanced immensely the value, as well as augmented
the amount of knowledge. Knowledge, like the vital fluid, corrupts
whenever it ceases freely to circulate.
On this ground, the moderns possess, incomparably, an advantage over
the ancients; and even if party interests and political prejudices
act more forcibly in modern times, the means of correction are also
vastly more efficient. European nations have, in relation to important
subjects, a common literature:--all things are known by all: national
misrepresentations are quickly noticed and chastised. The same
corrective process is actively carried on within each community; and
if particular falsifications abound, the ultimate probabilities of the
prevalence of truth are still more abundant.
In estimating the credibility of ancient writers--historians
especially, we have to consider the time and circumstances of the first
publication of such works.
To ascertain the _antiquity_ of historical works is peculiarly
important, because when that point has been placed out of doubt, we
obtain, in most instances, a conclusive proof of the general truth
of the narrative. For if a history is known to have been published,
and widely circulated, and generally admitted to be authentic, in the
very age when the principal facts to which it relates were matters
of universal notoriety, and when most of the lesser circumstances
were perfectly known to many of the author’s contemporaries, and when
some of them stood personally related to the events, we have the best
reasons for confiding in the substantial truth and accuracy of the
history.
No pretended narrative, published under circumstances such as these,
which was altogether untrue in its main elements, or which was grossly
incorrect in its details, could, by any accident, or by any endeavours,
have gained general and lasting reputation as an authentic work. No
such book could endure, and survive, the scrutiny of contemporary
antagonists; no such book could maintain its reputation through the
next age, while the means of ascertaining the truth of the narrative
were still extant, and after the interests and prejudices of the moment
had subsided.
As in relation to the sources of information that were possessed by
historians, it has been seen that historical works should be divided
into two classes--the _original_, and the _derived_; so a similar,
but not exactly an identical division must be made in relation to the
circumstances under which such books were at first published. In the
_first_ class are to be included those histories of the truth of which
the author’s contemporaries, in general, were competent judges; and in
the _second_, such, as having been drawn from rare, or recondite, or
scattered materials--relating to events remote in time or place, could
not be open to the test of public opinion, and could be estimated only
by a few of the learned class.
Histories of the _first_ kind may be termed--_popular_; those of the
_second_--_learned_. It is evident that _learned_ histories, although
on different grounds, may deserve a high degree of confidence as to
their authenticity and their accuracy; and, indeed, on the score of
impartiality and comprehensive information, and exactness in details,
they may greatly surpass any of the original narratives from which they
may have been compiled. For it is manifest that a later historian, if
he be industrious, judicious, and unprejudiced, has the opportunity
so to collect and collate the various mass of subsidiary testimonies
bearing upon particular facts, as shall impart much more of consistency
to his narrative than can belong to any earlier work on the same
subject.
But the direct proof of authenticity must belong _exclusively_
to _popular_ histories. A work of this class is, essentially, a
condensation of the common knowledge of a nation or community; it is
the universal testimony, arranged and compacted by one whose aim it
is to found his personal reputation as a writer upon the consent and
approval of his contemporaries. Let it be supposed that in passing
through the crowded ways of a metropolis, we hear, in substance, the
same account of some recent and public transaction, from a thousand
lips, and from opposing parties; or we read a narrative of this event
drawn up by a contemporary writer, whose veracity has been tacitly
or explicitly assented to by the same parties. The validity of the
evidence rests upon the same grounds in both cases; only that for
accuracy and consistency, the accepted _written_ narrative will be
found to surpass the _oral_ testimony.
We may take as an example the latter books of Herodotus, which, viewed
with reference to the distinction above mentioned, may be reckoned
as belonging to the class of popular histories, and may therefore
deserve the confidence that is due to a narrative that has generally
been accepted as true by those who were well acquainted with the
facts it describes, and many of whom were personally concerned in the
transactions it narrates. The history of the Peloponnesian war, by
Thucydides, has a still higher claim to unimpeachable authenticity,
inasmuch as the facts were more recent at the time of the publication
of the work; and because, also, the strongest motives of national
rivalry and civil discord were then in activity, and were in readiness
to crush, on the instant, any attempted misrepresentation. The author’s
hope that his work should descend to posterity, rested directly
upon such an adherence to truth, on his part, as should exclude the
opportunity of giving any plausibility to a charge of extensive or
wilful falsification.
Xenophon’s history of Greece possesses, in part, a claim to credibility
on the same ground. But the Cyropædia, on the contrary, is altogether
destitute of authentication from this source; for the Greeks, at
the time when the work was published, were far from being generally
competent to judge of the truth of the story. The same author’s account
of the expedition of Cyrus, may, in this respect, take a middle place
between the two above-named works. It was not composed, as there is
reason to believe, till many years after the writer’s return from Asia;
and though the general facts were still matters of notoriety, the
particulars could not then be universally recollected; especially as
the scene of these transactions was so remote from Greece.
The works of Sallust, the Commentaries of Cæsar, the works of Tacitus,
of Suetonius, of Polybius, claim, in whole or in part, the authority
of popular histories, having been generally accredited as authentic by
those who were well acquainted with the facts they contain.
But, excepting some small portions, or particular facts, the works
of Diodorus, of Dionysius the Halicarnassian, of Nepos, of Ælian,
of Paterculus, of Curtius, of Plutarch, of Arrian, of Appian, of
Pausanias, and many others, are to be regarded only as learned
compilations, the claim to authenticity of which is of an indirect
kind.
CHAPTER XI.
EXCEPTIONS TO WHICH THE TESTIMONY OF HISTORIANS, ON PARTICULAR POINTS,
MAY BE LIABLE.
From the very nature of the case the authenticity of an historical work
can be affirmed only in a restricted sense, and must be understood to
be open to exceptions in particular instances. Such exceptions may be
taken without impeaching the character of the writer for veracity,
or even for general accuracy. It is easy to suppose that he may have
been imposed upon in certain cases, by his informants; or he may have
reported things that were currently believed in his time, without
thinking himself personally pledged for their truth: he may not have
thought himself called upon, as an historian, to discuss questions
which might more properly be taken up by philosophers; or he may merely
have been negligent--here and there, in the course of a voluminous
work. Yet allowances of this sort must, as it is evident, be confined
to cases of an accidental kind, and should only then be brought forward
in the way of apology for a writer’s mistakes, when he is giving an
account of facts that were not immediately known to himself. For in a
narrative of events, of which the writer professes himself to have had
a personal knowledge, we must either admit his veracity, and with it
the truth of the facts; or we must deny both.
The first point to be considered, when the affirmation of an historian
in a particular instance is doubted, is--_The nature of the fact in
question_.
1. If, for example, it be a question of numbers, measures, or dates,
it is always to be remembered--as already remarked--that a peculiar
uncertainty attaches to these matters, in ancient authors, owing to the
method of notation _by letters_, which were easily mistaken, one for
another. The numbers of which armies were composed--the numbers of the
slain in battle--the population of cities--the revenues of states--the
distances of places--the weight or measure of bodies, and computations
of time, must, therefore, always be held open to question, as to what
was actually intended and written by the author: this doubt may be
entertained without in the least derogating from the credit of the work
in which they occur. Besides the probable corruption of copies in such
instances, it is to be remembered as to many of the particulars above
named, that they are far more liable to uncertainty, or mistake, than
other facts, so that scarcely any degree of diligence and care on the
part of an historian, will entirely secure him from errors on such
points.
2. Geographical details, descriptions of the objects of natural
history, or accounts of natural phenomena, must also, generally, be
considered as open to a degree of uncertainty, on account of the
imperfect information upon such subjects, which was possessed by the
ancients. And yet the names and relative distances of places in all
the countries bordering upon the Mediterranean sea, as reported by
ancient geographers and historians, have been to so great an extent
authenticated by the researches of modern scholars, that any apparent
inconsistencies should not hastily be assumed as proofs of ignorance.
But as to whatever relates to countries remote from Greece and Italy,
or lying beyond the bounds of the Persian, Macedonian, Carthaginian,
and Roman empires, it must of course be received with hesitation.
Many of these descriptions of remote countries, when they come to be
compared with the accounts of modern travellers, afford, at once,
amusing instances of exaggeration, and striking attestations of the
substantial authenticity of the works in which they occur. For the
coincidence of these accounts, in many respects, with the facts, as
they are now fully known, puts it beyond doubt that the historian had
actually conversed with natives of those countries, or with travellers;
while at the same time the distortion of the picture is precisely such
as might be expected from the channels through which the information
was derived.
3. The descriptions so frequently met with in ancient writers, of
monstrous men or animals--griffins--dragons--hydras--pygmies--giants;
or of trees bearing golden fruit, of fountains flowing with perfumed
liquids, or even with the precious metals, may, in most cases, be now
traced to their origin in actual facts, which, passing to the writer
through the medium of ignorant, fanciful, or interested reporters,
assumed the characteristic extravagance of fables. On occasions
of this kind it is much more becoming to an intelligent student of
history to make search, among the stores of modern science, for the
probable source of such accounts, than to pass them by with the sneer
of indolent scepticism. Some writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries took so much offence at certain passages of this sort in the
history of Herodotus, as to treat the entire work of that industrious
and generally accurate writer with contempt, as if it were little
better than a repository of fables. But these rash censures now fall
back upon themselves; for modern travellers, in visiting the countries
described by the father of history, find frequent occasion for noticing
the correctness of his statements, or their substantial truth, even
in those descriptions or relations which may seem the most open to
suspicion.
4. In narrating or describing natural phenomena, such as meteors,
tempests, eruptions of volcanoes, earthquakes, eclipses, all that
is needed is to remove from the narrative of the historian those
explanations, or those decorative phrases, by which he endeavoured to
accommodate such occurrences to the political events of the moment, at
the suggestion of popular superstitions.
And here we may take occasion to point out a remarkable difference,
which forms a characteristic distinction in comparing the Jewish
writers with those of other nations, as to the nature of those
marvellous or supernatural facts which they describe. The marvellous
events reported by the Greek and Roman authors may, with few
exceptions, be classed under two heads; namely--allegorical and
poetical combinations, which were so obviously fabulous as to ask
for no credence, and to demand no scrutiny; or they were mere
exaggerations, distortions, or misapplications of natural objects
or phenomena. But the Jewish historians and poets do not describe,
_as actually existing_, any such allegorical prodigies; and their
descriptions of real animals, are either simply exact, or they are
evidently _poetical_ (like those in the book of Job), but they are not
_fabulous_. They do not throw a supernatural colouring over ordinary
phenomena, or convert plain facts into prodigies. The supernatural
events they record--as matters of history, are such deviations from the
standing order of natural causes, as leave us no alternative between a
peremptory denial of the veracity of the writers, or a submission to
their affirmation of divine agency.
The freedom of the Jewish historians, poets, and prophets, from those
admixtures of the marvellous and the natural, with which other ancient
writers abound, is one of the most remarkable of their characteristics.
Their descriptions of human nature are neither heroical, nor fantastic;
their narratives of human affairs are of the simplest complexion, and
they are strictly consistent with the known modes of the time and
country. Nor is our assent taxed, on any occasion, except when an event
is recorded which, unless it had actually taken place, could not have
been affirmed by any but reckless impostors.
Besides those prodigies which are met with in profane historians, and
that only require to be freed from exaggerations appended to natural
events by ignorance, poetry, or superstition, there are other accounts
which are not to be satisfactorily explained so readily, and which
call for the exercise of some discrimination. They are of a kind that
must be accounted either altogether false, or else must imply, in some
sense, a supernatural agency. Of the former kind may well be reckoned
all, or nearly all, those alleged supernatural occurrences which no
doubt were contrived to give credit to an established superstition, or
to subserve the designs of statesmen or commanders, and which, in most
cases, rested exclusively upon the testimony of priests. On the other
hand, there are recorded, in the pages of profane historians, some few
facts, apparently beyond the range of natural causes, which cannot be
rejected as untrue, unless we do violence to the soundest principles of
evidence, and which will not be treated with uninquisitive contempt,
except by a purblind scepticism, that is more nearly allied to
credulity than to true philosophy. These peculiar cases demand a far
more full and particular consideration than it is compatible with the
design of this volume to bestow upon them.
5. The political habits and tastes of the Greeks and Romans, induced
their historians to supply the personages of their story with
formal speeches, on all remarkable occasions; for oratory was the
spring and life of every political movement; and as the machine of
government could not in fact be made to go without the impelling
force of harangues, history must not seem to omit them. Yet there is
little reason to believe that authentic reports of public speeches
were often, if ever, in the possession of historians. Indeed, these
brilliant portions of the history are often so much in the manner of
the author, as to leave the reader in no doubt to whom to attribute
them. Nevertheless it may be imagined that, on some memorable
occasions, the very words of a short speech, or the general purport of
an oration, was remembered and recorded, and so was worked into the
speech, as framed by the historian.
A compliance with the taste of the times seems also to have led some
writers to use means for diverting the attention of their readers,
and for relieving the burden of the narrative, by introducing
digressions, often of a trivial kind, which, though not announced as
mere embellishments, and which perhaps were not purely fictitious, are
evidently not entitled to an equal degree of confidence with the main
circumstances of the story.
6. The secret motives of public men, or the hidden causes of great
events, are not the proper subjects of history, which is concerned only
with such facts as may be truly and fairly known. The disquisitions
of an historian on such topics are therefore to be excepted against;
for when he so forsakes his function, he must expect to be forsaken by
his reader; his errors, on such points, do not impeach his veracity;
although they lower our opinion of his judgment.
7. Very few facts of importance, such as form the proper subjects of
history, rest entirely upon the testimony of a single historian, or are
incapable of being directly, or remotely confirmed, by some kind of
coincident evidence. Whenever therefore a question arises relative to
the truth of a particular statement, recourse must be had, either to
the testimony of contemporary writers, or to the evidence of existing
monuments. But even if all such means of corroboration should fail,
and if we meet with a perplexing silence where we might expect to find
confirmation, we are by no means justified in rejecting the unsupported
testimony, merely on the ground of this want of correlative support.
Many instances may be adduced of the most extraordinary silence of
historians relative to facts with which they must have been acquainted,
and which seemed to lie directly in the course of their narrative.
Important facts are mentioned by no ancient writer, though they are
unquestionably established by the evidence of existing inscriptions,
coins, statues, or buildings. There are also facts mentioned only
by some one historian, which happen to be attested by an incidental
coincidence with some relic of antiquity lately brought to light; if
this relic had remained in its long obscurity, such facts might (we see
with how little reason) have been disputed.
Nothing can be more fallacious than an inference drawn from the
silence of historians relative to particular facts. For a full,
comprehensive, and, if the phrase may be used, a _business-like_
method of writing history, in which nothing important--nothing which a
well-informed reader will look for, must be omitted, is the produce of
modern improvements in thinking and writing. The general diffusion of
knowledge, and the activity of criticism, occasion a much higher demand
in matters of information to be made upon writers than was thought
of in ancient times. A full and exact communication of facts has come
to be valued more highly than any mere beauties of style; at least,
no beauties of style are allowed to atone for palpable deficiencies
in matters of fact. The moderns must be taught--and pleased; but
the ancients would be pleased, and taught. Ancient writers, and
historians not less than others, seem to have formed their notions
of prose composition very much upon the model of poetry, which, in
most languages, was the earliest kind of literature. As their epics
were histories, so, in some sense, their histories were epics. Such
particulars, therefore, were taken up in the course of the narrative,
as seemed best to accord with the abstract idea of the work--not always
those which a rigid adherence to a comprehensive plan would have made
it necessary to bring forward.
8. The influence of personal or party prejudices is indefinite; and as
it may distort the representations of an historian almost unconsciously
to himself, and without impugning his general integrity, so will it, in
most instances, be difficult, especially after the lapse of ages, to
discover the extent to which the operation of such prejudices should be
allowed for. But if it cannot be ascertained how much of the colouring
of the picture is to be attributed to the medium through which an
historian exhibits his characters, yet the general hues of that medium
will hardly escape the observation of an intelligent reader; and when
once observed, the illusion is destroyed.
But in relation to the influence of prejudices of this sort, ancient
historians unquestionably appear to advantage when compared with those
of modern times. Instances of equanimity might be cited from the Greek
historians to which few parallels could be adduced, drawn from the
pages of modern writers. Like the sculptures of the same people, the
works of the Greek historians, though not wanting in the distinctive
characters, or the moving energy of life, present an aspect from which
the sublimity of repose is never lost. These writers seem to have been
conscious that they were holding up the picture of their times to the
eyes of mankind in all ages: they forgot, therefore, the passions and
interests of the moment.
With ourselves, the instantaneous diffusion of books through all ranks
of the community, places a modern author too nearly in the presence
of his contemporaries to allow him to think much of posterity. The
clamour of public opinion rings around his seclusion: his situation, in
its essential circumstances, is almost the same as that of the public
speaker--the din of the crowd fills his thoughts, and he almost forgets
the distant fame which his genius might command. This nearness of his
audience offers therefore to a modern writer every excitement and every
inducement to the indulgence of party misrepresentations. If it were
not for the correcting influences of a free press, nothing worthy of
the name of history would be produced in modern times.
9. That the Greeks were not in fact much inferior to the
representations given of them by their historians, the existing
monuments of their philosophy, of their poetry, and of their arts,
sufficiently attest. Indeed if we pass from an examination of these
monuments and remains to the perusal of Herodotus, Thucydides, and
Xenophon, we shall be far from thinking that a tone of exaggerated
encomium is to be charged upon those writers. From the pages of the
historians alone, we should fail to form an adequate idea of the
perfection that was attained in all departments of literature and art
by the people whose political affairs they narrate. Scarcely half of
the history of Greece, in a full and philosophical sense of the term,
is to be gathered from its historians:--we must seek for it rather in
the remains of its literature at large,--in museums, and cabinets, and
among the ruins that still bespread its soil.
It is not therefore this sort of general misrepresentation that is to
be suspected in the Greek historians; for more is made certain by other
means than is explicitly affirmed by them. Yet it has been supposed
that, in their accounts of military affairs, the Greek historians,
in order to enhance the glory of their countrymen in repelling the
Persian invasions, have exaggerated the power and extent of the Asiatic
monarchy, and the numbers of the armies with which those of Greece had
to contend. Some amount of misrepresentation, of this kind, may have
been admitted. But yet the pictures given by the Greek writers of the
wealth and resources of the Persian power--of the puerile ambition of
its monarchs--of the countless hosts which they drove before them, by
the lash, into Scythia, Egypt, and Europe--conquering nations rather
by devastation than by military conduct--by the mouths, more than by
the swords of their armies, are so strikingly similar to unquestionable
facts in the later history of the Asiatic empires, that, as the one
cannot be doubted, the other need not be deemed incredible.
10. The arrogance with which, under the term _barbarians_, the Greek
writers speak of all nations that were not of Greek extraction,
naturally suggests the belief that we must not expect to derive from
them a just idea of the civilization of the surrounding nations. In
truth, not a few indications may be gathered from other sources, which
authorize the belief that, in communities not very distant from Greece
itself, or its colonies, a degree of intelligence and of refinement
existed of which it was their shame to be ignorant, or their greater
shame to have taken so little notice.
11. With the Romans it was perhaps less from mere national vanity, than
from a dictate of that deep-plotted policy by which they supported
their unbounded pretensions, that they were induced to misrepresent
the resources and the conduct of the nations on whose necks they
trampled. This policy would often produce misrepresentations of a
contrary kind to those suggested by national vanity. That universal
empire was the right of the Roman arms was the principle of the state:
a reverse of fortune therefore was not simply a calamity--it was a
seeming impeachment of the high claims of the republic. The nations
must not think that their masters could anywhere find equals or rivals
in courage or military skill. A defeat hurt the political faith of the
Roman citizen more than it alarmed his fears; and he would rather waive
the glory of having broken an arm of equal strength with his own, than
confess that there was anywhere an arm of equal strength, to resist his
will. He would choose to sustain the aggravated shame of having been
beaten by an inferior, rather than redeem a part of his dishonour by
acknowledging that he had encountered a superior. A writer therefore
could not do full justice to the courage, conduct and successes of
the enemies of Rome, without offering such an outrage to the common
feeling as would have amounted almost to treason against the state.
Modern historical criticism--exercised by such a writer as Niebuhr, has
sufficed to remove from early Roman history a very large amount of the
misstatements and the exaggerations which Livy and his predecessors had
accumulated around it.
CHAPTER XII.
CONFIRMATIONS OF THE EVIDENCE OF ANCIENT HISTORIANS, DERIVABLE FROM
INDEPENDENT SOURCES.
Most of the principal facts mentioned by ancient historians, as well
as many particulars of less importance, are confirmed by evidence that
is altogether independent, both in its nature, and in the channels
through which it has reached us. In truth, although the narratives of
historians serve to connect and explain the entire mass of information
that has descended to modern times, relative to the nations of
remote antiquity, they are far from being the sole sources of that
information:--perhaps they hardly furnish so much as a half of the
materials of history. These independent sources of information may be
classed under the following heads:--
1. The remains of the _general_ literature of the nations of
antiquity:--their poetry, and their oratory especially, and their
philosophical treatises.
2. Chronological documents or calculations.
3. Facts--geographical and physical, which are unchanged in the lapse
of time.
4. Those institutions, usages, or physical peculiarities of nations,
which have been subjected to little change.
5. The existing monuments of ancient art--paintings, sculptures, gems,
coins, and buildings.
The information derivable from these sources answers two distinct
purposes, namely--in the first place, that of contributing to the
amount of our knowledge of the state of civilization among ancient
nations; and then that of furnishing the means of corroborating or
of correcting the assertions of historians on particular points. It
is obvious that to go through the particulars that are comprehended
under the general heads above-named, or to do so with any degree of
precision, would greatly exceed the limits of this book; indeed, the
object aimed at in it will be sufficiently attained by merely pointing
out, in a few instances, what is the nature, and what is the value of
this sort of corroborative evidence.
1. Corroboratory evidence, derived from books--coming as it does
through similar, if not the very same channels with those through which
we receive the works of historians, and being of the same external
form--is likely to produce less impression on the mind than its real
validity ought to command. And yet, when it comes to be examined in
detail, nothing can be more conclusive than the proof which thus arises
from coincidences of names and allusions, such as are found scattered
through the works of dramatists, orators, poets, and philosophers, with
the more formal statements of contemporary historians. If, for example,
the Greek dramatic writings--those of Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,
Aristophanes, and the Orations of Demosthenes, are collated with the
narrations of Thucydides, Xenophon, Diodorus, and Plutarch;--or if
the Epistles and the Orations of Cicero, and the Satires of Horace,
and of Juvenal, are compared with the historical works of Livy, of
Sallust, of Tacitus, and of Dion Cassius, so many points of agreement
present themselves, as must convince every one that these historical
assertions, and these allusions, must have had a common origin in
actual facts.
Yet it is not merely by presenting special coincidences, on particular
points, that the remains of ancient literature confirm the evidence of
historians; but it is also by furnishing such pictures of the people
among whom they were current, as to all points of their political,
religious, and social condition, as consist with the representations
of historians. To exhibit the full force of this sort of evidence, let
it be imagined that the names of men, and of cities, and countries,
having been withdrawn from the works of the classical poets, orators,
and philosophers, it were attempted to associate, as countrymen and
contemporaries, Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon, with Cicero, Horace
and Seneca; or Tacitus, Cæsar and Suetonius, with Isocrates, Plato and
Æschylus: every page in the one class of writers, would present some
incongruity with the accounts given of the people by the others. On
the contrary, in perusing the contemporary writers of the same nation,
whatever may be the diversities of their style or subject, we feel
that they were all surrounded by the same objects, and that they were
subjected to the same influences.
2. Those corroborative evidences that are derived from chronological
inscriptions, or from astronomical calculations, have served in some
notable instances to confirm, or to correct, the testimony of ancient
writers, in a very conclusive manner. It should be remembered that
ancient historians, being destitute for the most part of sufficiently
precise chronological information, and being themselves also less
observant of dates than the modern style of historical composition
demands, leave the subject open to many difficulties; and to these
difficulties is added that uncertainty which belongs peculiarly, as
we have before remarked, to whatever relates to numbers, in the text
of ancient authors. It must not however be supposed that ancient
chronology is altogether unfixed; for though it may be impossible now
to determine the precise time of many events, the results of different
lines of calculation are seldom so widely discordant as to be of much
importance in the general outline of history.
3. Those inequalities of the earth’s surface which have undergone
no great change within the historic period, and also the course of
rivers, and the peculiarities of climate, and the vegetable and animal
productions of each country, though they are not absolutely immutable,
have not, even in the lapse of many ages, undergone any such changes
as to perplex us in fixing the identity of ancient and modern names.
There are now open to our observation, the same scenes, and the
same physical appearances which were described, or alluded to, by
historians, twenty centuries ago; and finding, as we do, their accounts
of these permanent objects to accord with present and well-known facts,
we accept such coincidences as a pledge of the general accuracy and
authenticity of the writings in question: for if an historian is proved
to have been careful to obtain correct information on points that were
indirectly connected with his subject, it is but just to believe that
he was at least equally exact in regard to events, and to what belongs
more immediately to his narrative.
We have already adverted to the geographical accuracy of Herodotus,
and have remarked that the descriptions he gives of countries, and of
their productions, are such, for the most part, as to put it beyond
doubt that he had himself seen most of the objects which he describes.
That the Greek historians should be exact in what relates to the
geography and productions of their own narrow soil, is nothing more
than what must be expected. But when we find them accurate also in
their descriptions of regions remote from Greece, and which were very
imperfectly known to their countrymen in general, they furnish a proof
of authenticity that may be extended to cases in which we are obliged
to accept their testimony unsupported by other evidence.
A pertinent instance of this kind is furnished in the case of
Arrian’s history of Alexander’s expedition--his Indian history, and
his description of the shores of the Indian Ocean. The geographical
details which occur in these works are, in general, so exact that
modern travellers find little difficulty in identifying almost every
spot he mentions. This proof of accuracy well supports the claim to the
possession of authentic information which is advanced by the author at
the commencement of his work, where he declares that his history has
been compiled from the memoirs of Ptolemy and of Aristobulus--two of
Alexander’s generals; and that he had collated their assertions on all
points, and had added, from other sources, only such particulars as
seemed to be the most worthy of credit.
Now when Arrian’s history of Alexander’s expedition is compared with
that of Quintus Curtius, on points of geography, it will be found that
the latter writer was either utterly ignorant on the subject, or that
he was quite indifferent as to the correctness of his statements. This
proof therefore of want of diligence, or want of information, detracts
very greatly from the historian’s authority on all points which rest on
his sole testimony. We might say that it is fatal to his credit, in all
such instances. Although an able and attractive writer, Curtius awakens
the reader’s suspicion by the very character of his style, which
betrays his fondness for decoration and enlargement:--this suspicion
is then not a little enhanced when we meet with direct evidence of his
inaccuracy, in matters of fact.
The permanence of the names of places, under many modifications
in the value of vowels or consonants, affords a very curious, as
well as important means of authenticating the assertions of ancient
historians. Innumerable instances might be adduced in which the names
of obscure villages in Asia Minor, Armenia, Persia, Arabia, Palestine,
Egypt, and Nubia, recall to every reader’s recollection the names
occurring in the ancient histories of the same countries. Those remote
names could never have found their way into the pages of the Greek and
Roman historians if they had not sought, or had not carefully employed,
genuine documents in the composition of their works.
In many particulars the statements of the ancient geographers--Strabo,
Ptolemy, Pliny, Stephen of Byzantium, and Pausanias, are at variance
with each other, and with the narratives of contemporary historians;
but in by far the greater number of instances there is nearly as much
accordance as is usually found among modern travellers. And when the
ancient geography, whether collected from geographers or historians,
comes to be collated with the modern--whatever difficulties may here
and there present themselves in the way of a perfect conciliation, no
one can doubt that the former--taken as a whole--is a genuine account
of facts, collected with industry, by actual observation.
4. A similar species of confirmation arises from a comparison of the
descriptions given by ancient historians of the physical peculiarities,
the manners, and the usages of nations, with facts known to attach to
the modern occupants of the same countries. If national manners and
usages are less permanent than the features of the country, or than the
productions of the soil, they are much more so than might be supposed,
when we recollect how many revolutions have swept across the surface
of society in the course of ages. Though man is not absolutely the
creature of the soil that supports him, and though he does not retain
every peculiarity which descends to him from his progenitors, yet
neither is he ever free from some permanent mark of tribe, of climate,
or of locality. Or if, by the development of mind, and the advance of
civilization, his circumstances and his manners undergo, apparently,
a thorough change, yet even then will there remain many lesser
indications of his obsolete condition; and many habits and usages, that
are too minute and trivial to have attracted attention--if they did not
awaken historical recollections, will continue to identify the modern
with the ancient race. Four conquests, and eighteen centuries, have not
wholly obliterated from the English people all traces of their British
ancestors; and in some races, for example--the Egyptian, the Arabian,
the Jewish, and the Scythian, a much more perceptible sameness has been
maintained throughout even a longer course of ages.
Such living monuments of antiquity are not only highly curious in
themselves, but they are very significant in illustration of ancient
history. Yet it must be acknowledged that the materials for this kind
of confirmatory comment are the most abundant where they are of the
least value; and often the scantiest, where they would be the most
prized. For it is among half civilized nations, that manners and
modes of life are permanent; while the advance of intelligence and
refinement produces changes so great as to leave only the faintest
traces of aboriginal characteristics. Thus, in the plains of Asia, and
in the deserts of Africa, we find nations which, as to their physical
peculiarities, their manners and their usages, differ little, if at
all, from the descriptions given of their predecessors on the same soil
by Herodotus, or Strabo. Meanwhile the successive occupants of the
European continent--active, intelligent and free, have passed under all
forms of human life, and therefore have retained few resemblances to
their remote ancestors.
One climate, indeed, necessitates a much greater degree of permanency
in the habits of the people than another. The fervours of the
equatorial regions, and the rigours of the north, subdue man to a
passive conformity with certain modes of life. These extremes of
temperature avail much to vanquish his individual will, to forbid the
caprices of his tastes, and to restrain his invention. But in temperate
climates, almost every mode of life is found to be practicable, and
almost all modes will therefore in turns be practised.
The permanency of manners, even where the most extensive revolutions
have taken place, is strikingly displayed among the modern people of
Greece. The successive generations of six-and-twenty centuries have
passed away since the Iliad and Odyssey were composed; and yet, when
the ancient race, as it is described by Homer, comes to be compared
with the modern people, the points of sameness are very many. Not
only is the language essentially the same; but the modes of thinking
and feeling--the superstitions--the costumes--the habits of the
inhabitants of particular spots have, in a large number of instances,
been very little affected by the lapse of time. If the peculiarities
of the race, as described by Homer, may still be recognised, it is
no wonder if we find, in the present manners of the people, numerous
illustrations of the pictures drawn by the historians of a later
age. The descriptions given by Cæsar and Tacitus of the manners of
the Gauls, Britons, and Germans, are capable of receiving a like
authentication, though not in an equal degree, from usages still
existing among the northern nations of Europe.
5. The existing remains of ancient art would very nearly supply the
materials for a body of history, even if all books had perished. These
relics sometimes serve to establish particular facts, and sometimes
they afford ground from which to deduce general inferences, relative
to the wealth, the power, and the intelligence of the nations to whom
they belonged. In either case the evidence they yield is of the most
conclusive kind; for the solid material is actually in our hands,
and it is before our eyes, and in most cases it can be liable to no
misinterpretation.
So extensive are the inferences that may fairly be derived from these
existing remains, that, as to some ancient nations, we know far more
from _this_ source, than is to be gathered from the entire evidence of
written history: this, at least, is certain, that what is thus learned,
if it be in some respects vague, possesses more of the substantial
quality of knowledge, and much better deserves to be called _history_
than do those bare catalogues of the names of kings, which are often
dignified with the term. A name, or twenty names, unconnected with
general facts--or a date, serving only to bring a mere name into its
proper place in a chronological chart, may indeed impart the semblance
of history, but it affords almost nothing of the substance. What we
gather, for example, from written history, relative to the Assyrian
empire, or to the early kingdoms of Greece, is much less significant
than are the historical inferences relative to the people of Egypt,
which are fairly deducible from the remains of their architecture.
The existing monuments of art, which are available as sources of
historical information, are, 1. buildings and public works; 2.
sculptures and gems; 3. inscriptions and coins; 4. paintings, mosaics,
and vases; and 5. implements and arms.
For the purpose of confirming, or correcting, or illustrating, the
assertions of historians on particular points, recourse must most
often be had to the evidence of inscriptions and coins; and every
one knows that from these sources all the leading facts of Greek
and Roman history may be authenticated. The latter are especially
important, both on account of the information they convey, and of
the mode of its transmission to modern times. No one could call in
question the utility of inscriptions for the illustration of history:
but the student who cannot devote his undivided attention to the
subject, or who has not access to the fullest and best sources of
information, may very probably waste his time upon documents that he
will afterwards discover to be extremely fallacious. In no department
of antiquarian learning have misrepresentations, deceptions, and
errors of inadvertency more abounded. Authors who were long regarded
as unexceptionable authorities are found to deserve little confidence,
and on such points a writer who is not worthy of great confidence, is
worthy of none.
Coins are concise public records. The device they bear is seldom
devoid of some significant allusion to the peculiar pretensions of
the realm or city; the image, corresponding in form and expression
with sculptures or descriptions, fixes the identity of the personage;
and the legend furnishes names, and other specific notices. Coins,
therefore, concentrate several kinds of evidence; and, like books, by
their multitude, by their wide diffusion, and by the mode of their
conservation to modern times, they are, with very few and unimportant
exceptions, placed far beyond the reach of fraud or deception. The
cabinets of the opulent, in all countries, are filled with series
of these historical records; and the spade is every day turning up
counterparts to those already known. Statues and buildings have been
discovered here and there; but coins are the produce of every soil
which civilization has at any time visited.
Sculptures are either historical or poetical; those of the first kind
yield a confirmation to history which, though indefinite, is worthy of
attention. That the principal personages whose names occur in history
were represented by the artists of their times, is not only probable,
but is a well-known fact. Statues or busts of the most distinguished
public persons were given to the world by several artists, and they
were placed in all the principal cities of the republic or the
empire, that claimed any reflection of their glory. The principle of
competition among artists would secure some tolerable uniformity--the
uniformity of resemblance to the originals, among these statues and
busts; nor do we at all pass the bounds of probability in supposing
them to be, in general, real and good portraits. There is, besides,
in most of them, an air of individuality, which at once convinces the
practised eye of their authenticity.
So much as this being assumed, the congruity of these forms with the
character of the men, as it is presented on the page of history,
carries with it a proof of the truth of those records which few
observers of the human physiognomy will feel disposed to question.
In order to perceive the force of this kind of evidence it is not
necessary to call for the aid of any system of physiognomical science
(so called); every one’s intuitive discernment will suffice for the
purpose. Let the simplest observer of faces and forms, who has read the
history of Greece and Rome, look round a gallery of antique statues
and busts; and he will be in little danger of misnaming the heads of
Themistocles and of Alexander, of Plato and of Cicero, of Phocion and
of Alcibiades, of Demosthenes and of Euclid, of Julius Cæsar and of
Nero. To those whose eye is exercised in the discrimination of forms,
the best executed of these antique heads speak their own biography
with a distinctness that gives irresistible attestation to the
accounts of historians.
Mythological or poetical sculptures afford inferences of a more general
kind; most of which are suggested also by an examination of the
temples of which they were the furniture. The exquisite forms of the
Grecian chisel declare that the superstition they embodied, although
it was frivolous and licentious, was framed more for pleasure than for
fear;--that it was rather poetical than metaphysical. They do indicate
certainly that the religious system of the people was not sanguinary
or ferocious; and that it was not fitted to be the engine of priestly
despotism. One would imagine that the ministers of these deities were
more the servants of the people’s amusements, than the tyrants of their
consciences, their property, and their persons.
The Grecian sculptures give proof that the superstition to which they
belonged, however false or absurd it might be, was open to all the
ameliorations and embellishments of a highly refined literature. In
contrast with these are the sacred sculptures of India, which disgust
us as undisguised and significant representatives of the horrid vices
enjoined and practised by the priests. But the lettered taste of the
Greeks taught their artists to invest each attribute of evil with some
form of beauty. The hideousness of the vindictive passions must be hid
beneath the character of tranquil power; and the loathsomeness of the
sensual passions must be veiled by the perfect ideal of loveliness.
Art, left to itself, does not adopt these corrections; nor do the
authors of superstitious systems ask for them. There must be poetry,
there must be philosophy at hand, to whisper cautions to the wantonness
of art, and to confine its exuberances within the limits of propriety.
When the remains of ancient structures are examined for the purpose of
collecting thence historical information, they must be viewed under
three distinct aspects; namely--the resources that were required for
their construction--the purposes to which they were devoted, and the
taste which they display. A few instances will show the nature, and
the extent of the inferences that may fairly be drawn from such an
examination.
The remains of Egyptian architecture have long outlasted the fame of
the men whose names they were charged to transmit to distant times. Or
if some few names have been handed down by historians, or have been
drawn from their hieroglyphical concealments by the genius of modern
research, the whole amount of such discoveries may be comprised in a
few lines, and it falls very far short of conveying anything like a
history of the people. But some general facts relative to the wealth,
the commerce, the industry, the institutions, the manners, and the
superstitions of the Egyptians, have been reported by historians; and
the descriptions of that country and of its people, given by Herodotus,
Strabo, Diodorus, and Plutarch, confirmed as they are by incidental
allusions in other writers, and especially by a few significant
expressions occurring in the Jewish Scriptures, afford a tolerably
complete idea of this, the most extraordinary of all nations--ancient
or modern. Now this testimony of the historians is corroborated, with
a peculiar distinctness, by those ruins which still lead hosts of
travellers to the banks of the Nile.
These stupendous remains attest, in the first place, the unbounded
wealth that is affirmed by historians to have been at the command of
the Egyptian monarchs;--a wealth derived chiefly from the extraordinary
fertility of the country, which, like the plains of Babylon, yielded
a three hundred-fold return of grain. And as the revenues of a vast
empire were added to the home resources of the Babylonian monarchs,
so the products of a widely extended commerce came in to augment the
treasures of the Egyptian kings. The mouths of the Nile were the
centres of trade between the eastern and the western worlds; and that
river, after depositing a teeming mud in one year, bore upon its bosom
in the next, the harvest it had given, for the feeding of distant and
less fertile regions. Nor was the industry of the people--numerous
beyond example, wanting to improve every advantage of nature. But
for whom was this unbounded wealth amassed, or under whose control
was it expended? The testimony of historians coincides with that
of the existing ruins in declaring that a despotism--political and
religious--of unexampled perfection, and very unlike anything that has
since been seen, disposed of the vast surplus products of agriculture
and of commerce for the purposes of a gigantic egotism.
By what forms of exaction or of monopoly the Egyptian kings held
at their command the property and the services of the people,
cannot be certainly determined; but it seems as if one only centre
of real possession was acknowledged, and that habits of thinking
and acting--bound down to unalterable modes, by a thousand threads
of superstitious observance, favoured the tranquil transfer of all
rights to the head of the state. With such resources therefore at his
disposal, and with a people much better fitted by their temperament and
habits for labour than for war--the inhabitants of fertile plains have
ever been less warlike than those of mountainous regions--the master
of Egypt might find it easy to expend his means in realizing monstrous
architectural conceptions.
That degree of scientific skill in masonry which belongs to a middle
stage of civilization, in which the human faculties are but partially
developed, is what the accounts of historians would lead us to
expect; and it is just what these remains actually display. There is
science--but there is much more of cost and of labour than of science.
The works undertaken by the Egyptian builders were such as a calculable
waste of human life would be certain to complete; but they were not
such as involve a mastery of practical difficulties by means which
mathematical genius must devise.
The Egyptian builders could rear pyramids, or excavate catacombs, or
hew temples from out of solid rocks of granite; but they attempted no
works like those that were executed by the artists of the middle ages.
For to poise so high in air the fretted roof and slender spire of a
Gothic Minster required a cost of mind greater far than appears to have
been at the command of the Egyptian kings.
The purposes to which the structures of Egypt apparently were devoted,
agree also with the accounts of historians. The established despotism
was indeed such as to permit capricious sovereigns to indulge their
personal vanity without restraint; nevertheless, better and more wise
maxims of government were acknowledged, and often followed; and so
it is that the traces of public works of vast extent, and of great
utility, everywhere attest the intelligence and the good dispositions
of some of the Egyptian kings. Canals, piers, reservoirs, aqueducts,
are not less abundant than temples and pyramids. Indeed, the temples
of Egypt must not be placed altogether to the account either of the
vanity of kings, or of the pride of priests; for as the Roman emperors
expended a portion of the tribute of the world in the erection of
theatres for the gratification of favoured provinces, so the Egyptian
kings, for the pleasure of their subjects, reared, in all parts of
the land, those sacred menageries of worshipful bulls, crocodiles,
cows, apes, cats, dogs, onions, and other--the like august symbols of
the common religion. It is recorded that the two kings whose names
were held in execration by posterity on account of the cruel labours
they exacted from their people, were not builders of temples--but of
pyramids.
A mound of earth, one foot in height, satisfies that feeling of our
nature which impels us to preserve from disturbance the recent remains
of the dead; but a pyramid five hundred feet in height was not too tall
a tomb for an Egyptian king! The varnished doll, hideous to look at,
into which the art of the apothecary had converted the carcase of the
deceased monarch, must needs rest in the deep bowels of a mountain of
hewn stone! More complete proof of the utter subjugation of the popular
will in ancient Egypt cannot be imagined than what is afforded by the
fact, that so much masonry should have been piled, for such a purpose,
almost to the clouds. The pyramids could never touch the general
enthusiasm of the people, they could only gratify the crazy vanity of
the man at whose command they were reared. These tapering quadrangles,
as they were the product, so they may be viewed as the proper images
of a pure despotism; vast in the surface it covers, and the materials
it combines, the prodigious mass serves only to give towering altitude
to--a point.
A literature like that of Greece would have protected the Egyptians
from the toils of building pyramids:--for, had they possessed poets
like Homer, historians like Thucydides, and philosophers like
Aristotle, their kings would neither have dared, nor indeed have
wished, to attach their fame to bulks of stone, displaying no trace
of genius, either in the design, or the execution. The Egyptian kings
consigned their names to the custody of pyramids, which have long since
betrayed the trust.--The Greeks committed the renown of their chiefs to
the frail papyrus of the Nile, and the record has shown itself to be
imperishable.
The accordance of the taste displayed in the forms and embellishments
of the Egyptian temples, with the temperament and the institutions
of the people, as described by historians, deserves to be noticed;
though, of course, no very positive conclusions ought to be drawn
from facts of this class. It is the province of art, whatever may be
the material upon which it works, to combine, in various proportions,
the two elements of effect--sameness and difference--uniformity
and variety--harmony and opposition. A work of art in which these
principles should be wholly disjoined, or which should exhibit only
one of them--if that were possible--might amaze the spectator, but
could never produce pleasure. To combine them in exact accordance
with the intended effect of the work, is the perfection of art. If
the impression to be produced inclines to the side of grandeur and
sublimity, the principle of sameness or uniformity must predominate;
and every variety that is admitted in the embellishments must be
quelled by constant repetitions in the same form. But if the sentiment
to be awakened is that of pleasure--gaiety, and voluptuousness, the
second principle, or that of difference, variety, and opposition, must
triumph over the first. Now a uniform preference of one of these styles
in works of art, must be held to characterise the prevailing temper of
the people whom they are intended to please.
But now the Egyptian architecture is distinguished, perhaps beyond that
of any other people, by its subjection to the law of uniformity, and
by the apparent aim of the artist to vanquish the imagination of the
spectator by an aspect of sublimity; to kindle the sentiment of awe
was the intention; and bulk and sameness were the means.
This character of Egyptian art, which prevails almost without exception
among the existing remains of the more ancient structures, comports
well with the idea of the subjugation of the people beneath a system
of stern religious and civil despotism. And yet further, it has a
remarkable significance when considered in its relation to the nature
of the worship to which these temples were devoted. While we gaze with
amazement and awe at the massy buttresses of these structures--at their
towering obelisks--at their long ranges of columns, formed as if to
support the weight of mountains, and at the colossal guards of the
portico, we have to recollect that these temples were the consecrated
palaces of crocodiles, of cows, of ichneumons, of dogs, cats, or apes.
It seems as if, for the very purpose of effecting the most complete
degradation of the popular mind, the national superstition had been
framed from the vilest materials it was possible to find; while,
to enhance and secure its influence, a nobly-imagined art combined
every element of awful grandeur. The imagination was first seduced by
a show of sublimity, in order that the moral sense might, the more
effectually, be, in the end, trodden in the dust.
The mathematical ornaments, and the vegetable imitations of the
Egyptian architecture might be noticed, which, besides being admirably
imagined and executed, are in perfect harmony with the general taste of
the buildings, and thus consist with what we suppose to have been its
main intention. But the character of the human figures attached to many
of the temples, demands attention.
Not a few of these figures exhibit the highest degree of
excellence--within certain bounds; these bounds are--a strict adherence
to the national contour and costume (neither of which could have been
preferred by artists who had seen the people of Europe and Asia) and a
rigid observance of architectural directness of position. In a very few
examples the artists so far transgressed the rules thus imposed upon
them, as to prove that they had the command of attitudes more varied
than those which ordinarily they exhibited; indeed, it is contrary to
all analogy to suppose, that so much executive talent should exist
along with an incapacity to give more life and variety to the figure.
The Chinese, who as artists are vastly inferior to the ancient Egyptian
sculptors, ordinarily pass far beyond them as to the range of action
and position which they give to their human figures. Even if a taste
so rigid had belonged to the first stage of art, it must--unless
otherwise restricted, have admitted amelioration in the course of time.
The artists of a second age would no doubt have sought reputation by
venturing beyond the limits within which their predecessors had been
confined.
It seems then hardly possible to find a reason for that frozen
uniformity which is exhibited in the Egyptian sculptures, unless we
suppose that art--like everything else, was the slave of an omnipresent
despotism. The human forms which support the porticos or roofs, stand
and look as if they knew themselves to be in the presence of Superior
Power, Freedom of position, or an attitude of force, or of agility, or
even of inattentive repose, or any indication of individual will, would
have broken in upon the idea of universal subjection. The master of
Egypt must look upon no forms that do not speak submission.
And yet there is an air of serenity (though it be not such as springs
from the consciousness of personal dignity) tending towards gaiety, in
most of these sculptures: the look indeed is altogether servile; yet
it is unrepining, and it seems to express entire acquiescence in that
immutable order of things which transferred the rights of all to one.
That such a condition of the social system as this actually existed in
the times when the Egyptian temples were reared, must not be positively
affirmed, merely on the grounds above mentioned; but if, amidst the
ill-founded encomiums bestowed upon the Egyptian institutions by
ancient historians, there may clearly be traced the indications of a
state of unexampled subjection to fixed modes of action in the social,
the religious, and the political systems of the people, the existing
monuments of their architecture and sculpture are to be acknowledged
as according well with these indications. Yet if this accordance were
thought to be fanciful, let it be attempted to associate our notions
of the Grecian people, and their institutions, with the Egyptian
architecture and sculpture.--It would be impossible to combine ideas so
incongruous.
The Grecian architecture, although its elements were evidently derived
from that of Egypt, is contrasted with it in almost every point. The
people to whom these comparatively diminutive, and yet faultless
structures belonged, manifestly, were not masters of boundless national
wealth; but their intelligence so much exceeded their resources that
they at once reached the highest point of art, which is to induce upon
its materials a new value--a value so great, that the mere cost of the
work is forgotten. In surveying the Egyptian temples we wonder at the
wealth that could suffice to pay for them; in viewing those of Greece
we only admire the genius of the architect who imagined them, and the
taste of the people who admired them.
The plains of Greece are burdened by no huge monuments, the only
intention of which is to crush the common feelings of a nation beneath
the weight of one man’s vanity; but its surface was thick set with
temples which were the property of all--temples, free from gloom, and
unstained with cruel rites.
A more striking point of contrast cannot be selected than that
presented by a comparison of the human figures (above-mentioned) that
are attached to the Egyptian temples, with those that decorate the
Grecian architecture. The Grecian caryatides assume the attitude of as
much liberty, ease, and variety of position as may comport with the
burdensome duty of supporting the pediment: they give their heads to
the mass of masonry above them--not with the passiveness of slaves,
but as if with the alacrity of free persons. The Egyptian figures
stand like the personifications of unchanging duration; but as to the
Grecian caryatides, one might think that they had but just stepped up
from the merry crowd, and were themselves the pleased spectators of the
festivities that are passing before them.
The Roman architecture, as compared with that of India or of China,
is only so far less barbarous, as it is more Grecian. In the arts the
Romans were imitators, and they are hardly ever to be admired when they
wandered from their pattern. Those structures in which they might best
claim the praise of originality--namely--their vast amphitheatres, are
rather monuments of wealth, luxury, and native ferocity of character,
than of taste or intelligence.
The structures which shed the greatest lustre upon the Roman name, are
those public works--roads, bridges, and aqueducts, which, in almost
every country of Europe, mark the presence of their legions; and these
attest that vigour of character--that unconquerable perseverance--that
regard to utility, and especially, that steady pursuit of universal
empire, which history declares to have characterised the Roman people
and government.
The student of history, although he may not have access to museums,
and although costly antiquarian publications should never come into
his possession, may find, even in his seclusion, some visible and
palpable proofs of the authenticity of the Roman historians; for the
circuit of a few miles in many districts of the British Islands, will
offer illustrations of the narratives of Cæsar, of Tacitus, and of
Suetonius. Though the occupation of Britain by the Romans was of
shorter continuance than that of almost any other country--included
within the empire, and though their possession of the island was
always partial and disturbed, they yet made themselves so much at
home with our ancestors as that our soil teems with the relics of
their sojourn of three hundred years. Roman camps, roads, walls, and
baths;--mosaics, vases, weapons, utensils, and coins, are as abundant,
almost, in England as in Italy; and they are quite abundant enough to
substantiate the proud glories that are claimed for the Roman arms by
their historians.
If then there were room to entertain a doubt of the authenticity of the
body of ancient history--taken in the mass; or if the credibility of a
single author comes to be questioned; or if a particular fact be opened
to controversy, it is far from being the case that we are left to rely,
alone, upon the validity of general arguments in proof of the apparent
competency, veracity, and impartiality of the ancient historians; on
the contrary, we may, in almost all cases, appeal to unquestioned
facts, supporting the affirmative side of such questions. For instance,
we may compare the testimony of the historians themselves--one with
another; or with that of contemporary writers in other departments
of literature, whose allusions to public events or persons are of an
incidental kind; or we may compare the descriptions that are given by
historians of natural objects, or of national peculiarities, with the
same objects or peculiarities--still existing; or, to take a method
still more precise, and still more palpably certain, we may read
upon the face of marble, or brass, or gold, or silver, or precious
stones--long buried in the earth, explicit records of the very events,
or memorials of the very persons, mentioned by historians. Or we
may examine the remains of public works and buildings, described by
historians, and find them accordant with their accounts of the power,
tastes, and habits of the people that reared them.
Notwithstanding all these means of proof, various as they are, there
may yet remain some points of history that are not satisfactorily
attested, or that are liable to reasonable suspicion; yet as to the
great mass of facts, these will be found to be so fully established as
to render scepticism regarding them altogether absurd.
But now the proof which establishes the general authenticity of ancient
historians, and which demonstrates that their writings are, in the
main, what they profess to be--that is--genuine narratives of events,
composed and published in the age to which they are usually assigned,
carries with it, by implication, a proof of the genuineness of other
remains of ancient literature. If, for example, we have under our
touch, palpable evidence that the works of Tacitus are genuine and
authentic, we can no longer deny that the raft on which ancient books
floated down through so many ages was substantially secure; and we may
safely conclude that whatever mists may seem to hang over some parts
of the channel of transmission, the vessel and its cargo did actually
pass, undamaged, through the gloom of ages.
Though this inference may be applicable to the remains of ancient
literature more in the mass, than in detail; it nevertheless possesses
a conclusive force when brought to bear upon vague and sweeping attacks
upon the genuineness and integrity of ancient writings, as if they
were incapable of any certain proof. Those who profess to entertain
doubts of this sort, do not ordinarily apply themselves with care to
the examination of any one instance, nor attempt patiently to refute
particular proofs; but rather they fling about broad assertions,
tending to destroy all confidence in the process and medium through
which the records of antiquity have been conveyed to modern times.
Now to such vague insinuations, a full and sufficient reply is given,
when we adduce demonstrative proof of the authenticity of historical
works which could not have contained consistent and circumstantial
truth unless they had actually been written in the age to which they
are attributed. If then _some_ books have descended--entire, through
eighteen or twenty centuries, others may have done so; and if so, then
no objection can be maintained against ancient books, _à priori_; nor
can any suspicion rest upon particular works--except such as may be
justified by specific proofs of spuriousness.
CHAPTER XIII.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES, APPLICABLE TO QUESTIONS OF THE GENUINENESS AND
AUTHENTICITY OF ANCIENT RECORDS.
Civilization has not ordinarily, if indeed it has ever done so, sprung
up spontaneously in any land. A germ of the arts, and of literature,
transmitted from people to people, and passed down from age to age, has
taken root and become prolific, in a degree, proportioned generally to
the amount and variety of those elements of social and intellectual
improvement that may have been received from distant sources.
These germs of civilization may have been transported, and scattered
by colonization, by trade, or by conquest; but they are never so fully
expanded as when they are cherished by an imported literature. It is
not by comparing themselves with themselves, that individuals, or that
nations, become wise; and though there are fruits of genius which seem
to owe nothing to extraneous sources, the general perfectionment of
reason and of taste can be attained only by an extended knowledge of
what has been thought and performed by men of other nations, and of
other times.
Among all the inestimable advantages which have raised the inhabitants
of England and of France and of Germany, above those of Turkey
or of China, very few can be named that have not--directly or
indirectly--sprung from a knowledge of the civilisation, the arts,
and the literature of ancient nations. What is it that would be left
to the people of Europe, if all this knowledge, and all its remote
consequences, could at once be subtracted from their religious, their
political, and their intellectual condition? But it must be remembered
that it has chiefly been by _the transmission of books_, from age to
age, that this yeast of civilisation is now possessed and enjoyed.
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.
If we except the almost forgotten enterprise of the Jesuit, Harduin,
no such general objections are ever formally made, or insinuated,
in relation to the remains of classic literature, and this for two
reasons;--first, because an attempt to support a sceptical doctrine
of this sort would be treated by the _learned_ with contempt, as
proceeding from a whimsical love of paradox, or from an inane ambition
to attract attention; and secondly, because the _unlearned_ could
never be induced to take so much interest in a controversy of this
kind, as might reward the pains of those who attempted to delude them.
But it is otherwise in relation to the Holy Scriptures; for while
some few of the learned are, from sinister motives, willing to aid an
attempt to bring the authority of these books into suspicion, there
are always thousands of the community who may easily be engaged to
listen to objectors, and who, from their want of information, and
their incapacity to reason correctly, are easily made the dupes of any
plausible sophistry.
Nor is it merely the uneducated classes that are exposed to the
artifices of sophists; for persons whose acquirements in general
literature are respectable, seem sometimes to be perplexed by
objections of a kind which, if levelled at the remains of classic
authors, they would deem undeserving of any serious regard.
This strange, and often fatal inconsistency, may sometimes arise from
the influence of moral causes, which it does not fall within the design
of this volume to notice; but it is often attributable to a want of
attention to some common principles of evidence which, though they are
so obvious that it may seem almost frivolous to insist upon them, are
never respected by objectors, and are seldom remembered by the victims
of sophistry. The most prominent of these principles may be classed
under the five following heads.
I. Facts remote from our personal observation may be as certainly
proved by evidence that is fallible _in its kind_, as by that which is
not open to the possibility of error.
By _certain_ proof is here meant, not merely such as may be presented
to the senses, or such as cannot be rendered obscure, even for a
moment, by a perverse disputant;--but such as when once understood,
_leaves no room for doubt in a sound mind_. And this degree of
certainty is every day obtained, in the common occasions of life, by
means of evidence that is fallible in its nature, and which may be
questionable in all its parts, _separately_ considered. Let us take
such an instance as this.--A person receives letters from several of
his friends in a neighbouring town, informing him that an extensive
fire has happened the night before, in that place, in consequence
of which many of the inhabitants have been driven from their
homes:--presently afterwards, a crowd of the sufferers, bringing with
them the few remains of their furniture, passes his door:--his friends
arrive among them, and ask shelter for their families;--the next day
the papers contain a full description of the calamity. Does this person
entertain any doubt as to the alleged fact? He cannot do so; and yet
he admits that human testimony is fallacious:--he knows that men lie
much oftener, than that towns are burned down:--perhaps there is not
one of all those who have reported the fact whose veracity ought to
be considered as absolutely unimpeachable;--some of them deserve
no confidence:--and as for the public prints, they every day admit
narratives that are altogether unfounded.
Scepticism of this sort, on such an occasion, if it be supposable,
could only arise from a degree of mental perversity, not much differing
from insanity. In other words, this amount of evidence is such as
leaves absolutely no room for doubt in a sound mind; nevertheless, the
material of which it is composed--if we may so speak--is in itself
fallible, and as to all the parts of it, if _separately taken_, they
might be rejected.
Or we may take an example or two of another kind.--It has been long
affirmed by voyagers, and on their authority it has been assumed as
certain by the compilers of geographical works, and by the framers of
charts, that, midway in the Pacific Ocean, there are several groups of
inhabited islands. And the people of England, generally, think these
affirmations as certain, as that two and two are four. And yet who does
not know that voyagers are too fond of bringing home tales, invented to
amuse the weariness of a long voyage, and published to win the wonder
of the vulgar, or to turn a penny? Now it may be imagined that some
question of national importance--some argument for the remission of
taxes--depended upon proving that such islands do not exist; and then
let it be supposed that certain interested disputants are permitted to
win the ear of the common people, and to keep it to themselves: in such
a case the proof of this fact--certain as it is, might easily be made
to appear very questionable, or to be altogether unworthy of belief--in
a word, a trick of the Government, contrived to wring money from the
people!
Or again:--It has been affirmed by historians that some two hundred
years ago the Parliament of England quarrelled with their king--levied
war against him--vanquished, and beheaded him, and set up a republican
form of government, in the place of the monarchy. But in proof of
facts so improbable as these we have no better evidence than the
testimony of prejudiced political writers: the whole story rests on the
credit of old books or manuscripts; nor is there one of the writers
who have repeated the narrative that may not be convicted of some
misrepresentation; and some of them are plainly chargeable with many
direct and wilful untruths. Notwithstanding this array of objections,
yet the principal events of the civil war are, in the estimation of all
persons of sound mind, as certainly established as any mathematical
proposition. The same may be said of innumerable facts--much more
remote, or apparently obscure, than those above mentioned; and yet they
are so proved, that they cannot be questioned without doing violence to
common sense.
The difference between the proof obtained by mathematical
demonstration, and that which results from an accumulation of oral or
written testimony, is not--that the latter must always, and _from its
nature_, be less certain than the former; but that the certainty of
the former may be _exhibited_ more readily, and by a simpler and more
compact process, than that of the other. If it were denied that the
three angles of every triangle are equal to two right angles, an actual
measurement of lines, or the placing of two pieces of card one over
the other, would end the dispute in a moment: or even if the problem
were of a more complicated kind, belonging to the higher branches of
mathematical science, and therefore if it were such as could not be
made plain to an uninstructed person, by any means, or to any one by a
very brief process, yet whoever will choose to bestow time enough and
is capable of giving attention enough to the demonstration, will not
fail, at length, to be convinced of its truth; for all the parts of
which it consists are certain, and their connexion, one with another,
is also certain. But the certainty that is obtained from a mass of
testimony, oral or written, does not result from the solidity of the
separate parts, or the firmness of the cement which connects them; but
from the irresistible pressure of the multifarious mass. The strength
of mathematical demonstration is like that of a pier;--the strength of
accumulated testimony is like that of the swelling ocean when its tides
are mantling upon the shore.
II. Facts, remote from our personal knowledge, are not necessarily more
or less certain in proportion to the length of time that has elapsed
since they took place.
An illusion of the imagination, taking its rise, naturally, from the
indistinctness of our individual recollections of infancy, and from
the entire obliteration of many of the records of memory, leads us,
involuntarily, to attach an idea of obscurity, and of uncertainty, to
whatever is remote in time. And besides; if the knowledge of remote
facts has been imperfectly, or suspiciously, transmitted, and if there
be a want of direct evidence on any point of ancient history, then the
distance of time does really decrease the chances of collecting any
_new_ evidence; and therefore such facts must always be shrouded in
uncertainty.
But whatever has been well and sufficiently proved in one age, remains
not less certainly proved in the next, so long as all the evidences
continue in the same state. Indeed--as we have before remarked,
historical evidence often greatly increases in clearness and certainty
by the lapse of time. If in the time of Leo X. it was certain that
Augustus ruled the Roman world sixteen hundred years before that
period, we have no need to deduct anything from our persuasion of the
truth of the fact, on account of the four centuries which have since
elapsed. On the contrary, the proof of it has become much greater, both
in its amount, and in its clearness, now, than it was then.
The proof of the genuineness of books, even if it should not gather
particles of evidence, yet remains, from age to age, unimpaired. Nor
is the proof of the genuineness of modern works more satisfactory,
although it may be more abundant, than that of ancient books. We could
not be persuaded that the Paradise Lost was written in the last century
by some obscure scribbler; nor would it be a whit less absurd to
suppose that the Æneid was composed in the tenth century, or the Iliad
at any time subsequent to the invasion of Greece by Xerxes.
The degree of certainty that is attainable on any point of ancient
history, or literature, is regulated--not by distance of time, but by
the state of the world at the period in question; especially by the
contraction, or the diffusion of general knowledge at that time. This
certainty therefore rises and falls--it becomes bright or obscure,
alternately, from age to age, and it does so quite irrespectively of
distance of years. In sailing up the stream of time, mists and darkness
rest upon the landscape at a comparatively early stage of our progress;
but as we ascend, light breaks upon the scene in the full splendour of
a noonday sun; scarcely an object rests in obscurity, and whatever is
most prominent and important, may be discerned in its minutest parts.
III. The validity of evidence in proof of remote facts is not affected,
either for the better or the worse, by the weight of the consequences
that may happen to depend upon them.
No principle can be much more obviously true than this; and if the
reader chooses to call it a truism, he is welcome to do so: and yet
none is more often disregarded. With the same sort of inconsistency
which impels us to measure the punishment of an offence--not by its
turpitude, but by the amount of injury it may have occasioned, we are
instinctively inclined to think the most slender evidence _good enough_
in proof of a point which is of no importance; while we distrust the
best evidence as if it were feeble, on any occasion when the fact in
question involves great and pressing interests. We are apt to think of
evidence as if it were a cord or a wire, which, though it may sustain a
certain weight, must needs snap with a greater. And yet the slightest
reflection will dissipate a prejudice that is so groundless and absurd.
It is very true that the degree of care, of diligence, and of
attention, with which we examine evidence, may well be proportioned to
the importance of the consequences that are involved in the decision. A
juryman ought indeed to give his utmost attention to testimony that may
sentence a prisoner to a month’s confinement; but if he be open to the
common feelings of humanity, he will exercise a tenfold caution when
life or death is to be the issue of his verdict. This is very proper;
but no one who is capable of reasoning justly would think that, if the
proof of guilt in the former case has been thoroughly examined, and is
quite conclusive, it can become a jot less convincing, if it should be
found that some new interpretation of the law makes the offence capital.
The genuineness of the satires and epistles of Horace is allowed by
all scholars to be unquestionable; and any one who has examined the
evidence in this instance, must call him a mere sophist who should
attempt to raise a controversy on the subject. Would the case be
otherwise than it is, even though the proof of the genuineness of these
writings should overthrow the British constitution; or should make it
the duty of every man to resign his property to his servant?
The evidence of the genuineness and authenticity of the Jewish and
Christian Scriptures has, for no other reason than a thought of the
consequences that are involved in an admission of their truth, been
treated with an unwarrantable disregard of logical equity--and even of
the dictates of common sense. The poems of Anacreon, the tragedies of
Sophocles, the plays of Terence, the epistles of Pliny, are adjudged to
be safe from the imputation of spuriousness, or of material corruption;
and yet evidence ten times greater as to its quantity, variety, and
force, supports the genuineness of the poems of Isaiah, and the
epistles of Paul.
This violation of argumentative equity, in relation to the Scriptures,
has been favoured by the mere circumstance of their having to be
so continually defended. It matters little how impudently false an
imputation may be; the reply, though, in the most absolute sense,
conclusive, is apt to beget almost as much suspicion as it dissipates.
Herein consists the strength of infidel writings;--they call for a
defence of that which is attacked, and this defence seems to imply
that there is a question which may fairly be argued, and that it is in
some degree doubtful. Let the genuineness of the most indubitable of
the classics be boldly questioned in a popular style, and let it be
defended in a form level to the mode of attack--and level also to the
ignorance of the middle and lower orders, and the result would produce
quite as many cases of doubt, as of conviction.
What course ought to be pursued, or which alternative should be
adopted, if a case should arise wherein evidence, intrinsically
good, seems to support a narrative that is palpably incredible,
and contradictory to common sense, is a question that may well be
left undecided until such a case actually presents itself. No such
incongruity weighs against our acceptance of the Jewish and Christian
Scriptures; for the miracles they report, wrought for purposes so wise
and benign, accord with every notion we can antecedently form of the
Divine character and government.
IV. A calculation of actual instances, taken from almost any class of
facts, will prove that a mass of evidence which carries the convictions
of sound minds, is incomparably more often true than false.
Evidence may be spoken of as _good_ if it be such that, after an
ordinary amount of examination, it does not appear to be liable to
suspicion. However much of falsification and of error there may be in
the world, there is yet so great a predominance of truth, that any one
who believes indiscriminately will be in the right a thousand times
to one, oftener, than any one who doubts indiscriminately. Habitual
scepticism will render a man the victim of almost perpetual error.
Indeed, either to believe by habit, or to doubt by habit, must be
regarded as the symptom of a feeble or diseased mind. And yet the
former is vastly more congruous to the actual condition of mankind, and
to the ordinary course of human affairs, and is more safe, and is more
reasonable, than the latter.
No man, unless his mind is verging towards insanity, acts in the daily
occasions of common life on the principles of scepticism; for with such
a rule of action in his head, he must retreat from human society, and
take up his abode in a cavern. Not only is the sceptic an anomalous
being among his fellows, but his scepticism itself is an anomaly in his
own ordinary conduct; it is an insanity on single points, which of all
kinds is the least hopeful of cure.
Adherence to truth is an element of human nature, just as is the love
of kindred: and although the operation of both principles is liable
to interruption, such deviations from the impulses of nature must
always be held to arise from the influence of some specific inducement.
Wilful, difficult, and hazardous falsifications, prompted by no
assignable motive of interest or ambition, if indeed such are ever
attempted, need not be included in a calculation of probabilities.
If, therefore, in listening to a professed narrative of facts, we
have reason to feel secure against the ordinary motives of deliberate
falsehood; and if, on the contrary, the veracity of the narrator is
guaranteed by the circumstances in which he is placed; if, moreover,
his testimony is confirmed by a measure of independent evidence; and if
it is uncontradicted by testimony of equal value; and if the whole case
has been again and again scrupulously examined by persons of every cast
of mind--then, and in such a case, if indeed a remaining possibility of
delusion exists, it is so incalculably small, that to take it up _in
preference_ to the positive evidence, must be accounted an infatuation
arising from folly or perversity.
Let then the rule above mentioned be applied to the existing remains
of ancient literature. Among the works that were brought to light and
printed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there were not a
few--though few in comparison with the whole--which were very soon
discovered to be spurious productions--imitations of the style of
ancient authors. Although at first sight they seemed to possess a claim
to genuineness, they were soon found to be destitute of that external
evidence which may be collected from the quotations of subsequent
writers; or there was a manifest failure in the attempted imitation
of style; or there were oversights, in phrases or allusions, such as
served fully to expose the deception. All these cases stand excluded,
therefore, from the intention of our proposition; for they do not
possess evidence of authenticity that could be spoken of as _seemingly
good_.
Besides works obviously spurious, there were a few of which the claim
to genuineness was good enough to justify controversy, and which
yet find a few advocates among scholars; although the majority of
critics has returned a verdict against them. Now these doubtful works,
inasmuch as their genuineness is not generally acknowledged, may also
be excluded from our proposition; for the evidence in their favour can
barely be called--seemingly good.
Now after exclusions of this kind have been made, no one acquainted
with the evidence that supports the genuineness of the unquestioned
portion of ancient literature, and who has given attention to the
controversies which have been carried on relative to doubtful works,
and who is aware of the assiduity, the acuteness, the learning, the
eager pertinacity of research, that have been brought to bear upon
such questions, will affirm that there are ancient works, generally
supposed by scholars to be genuine, which are in fact spurious. Every
one who is competent to form an opinion on the subject grants, that
even if there be a chance that a few of the classic authors, the
genuineness of which has never been doubted, are after all spurious,
such a chance is incalculably small--it is so small, as to leave
nothing but paradoxes and absurdities in the hands of those who, on
such ground, should attempt to bring them under suspicion.
V. The strength of evidence is not proportioned to its simplicity, or
to the ease with which it may be apprehended by all persons; on the
contrary, the most conclusive kind of proof is often that which is the
most intricate and complicated.
In the mathematical sciences there are many propositions, so simple and
so readily demonstrated, that all to whom they are explained may be
supposed to carry away an equally clear apprehension of their truth;
but the higher departments of these sciences abound with theorems
which, though not in any degree less certain than the simplest axioms,
are shown to be true by means of a process which may require hours,
or even days to work it out. Among those who actually attend to all
the parts of such a process, there will be wide differences in the
kind and degree of conviction that is obtained of the truth of such
propositions. Some, though they may firmly believe the demonstration
to be perfect, as well because they have examined--one by one--the
links of which it consists, as because they know it is assented to
by calculators more competent than themselves, are yet unable, either
from the want of habit, or of capacity, to _comprehend_ the method of
proof; or to perceive distinctly the connexion of the parts, and the
real _oneness_ of the whole. They have walked in the dark over the
ground--groping their way from step to step;--they are satisfied that
they have arrived, by a right path, at a certain point, though they
cannot survey the route.
But another calculator, long practised in the refined modes of abstract
reasoning--expert in leaping with certainty over intervals which others
must slowly pace, and capable, by the vigour and comprehension of his
mind, of retaining his hold of a multitude of particulars, sees the
certainty of such operose demonstrations with as much ease as another
finds in comprehending an elementary proposition. Yet the conclusion
which perhaps not fifty men in Europe can, with full intelligence,
know to be true, is actually as true as the axiom which the schoolboy
comprehends at a glance.
Now all evidence on questions of antiquity, whether the facts be
historical or literary, thus far resembles an operose demonstration
in mathematical science, that it is remote from the intellectual
habits, and extraneous to the usual acquirements, even of well-educated
persons: very far remote, therefore, must it be from the mental range
of the uninstructed classes. The strength of our convictions, as to
matters of fact, remote in time or place, must bear proportion to
the extent and the exactness of our knowledge, and to the consequent
fulness and vividness of our conceptions of that class of objects
to which the question relates. By long and intimate familiarity with
ancient authors, and by an extensive acquaintance with the relics of
antiquity, of all kinds, the imagination of the scholar bears him back
to distant ages, with a full and distinct consciousness of the reality
of those scenes and persons. Nor is this ideal converse with remote
objects like that which is produced by fictitious narratives; for such
excursions of the fancy through unreal regions, are disconnected with
the rest of our ideas and convictions: on the contrary, the ideal
presence of an accomplished mind in the scenes of ancient history is
firmly, and by innumerable ties, combined with the knowledge of present
realities. The imagination does not flit, on the wing of a fantasy,
from the real, to an unreal world; but it tracks its way, with a steady
step, on solid ground, from times present, to times past; and the
intelligent conviction of truth travels up to the farthest point of its
progress.
To those who are thus conversant with history, all facts or
events--literary or historical--if they be satisfactorily attested,
are held in the mind with a firmness of persuasion which cannot, by
any statements, or any reasonings, however conclusive or perspicuous,
be imparted to other minds; because, neither its own powers of
comprehension, nor its variety of knowledge, can be so imparted.
CHAPTER XIV.
RELATIVE STRENGTH OF THE EVIDENCE WHICH SUPPORTS THE GENUINENESS AND
AUTHENTICITY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
Some copies of Quintilian’s Institutions of Oratory, very much
corrupted and mutilated by the ignorance or presumption of copyists,
were known in Italy before the fifteenth century. But in 1414, while
the Council of Constance was sitting, Poggio, a learned Italian, was
commissioned by the promoters of learning to proceed to that place,
in search of ancient manuscripts, which were believed to be preserved
in the monasteries of the city and its vicinity. His researches were
rewarded by discovering, in the monastery of St. Gall, beneath a heap
of long-neglected lumber, a perfect copy of the Institutions.
The manuscript, thus discovered, was soon subjected to the examination
of critics; it was collated with existing copies, it was compared with
the references of ancient authors, and thus was ascertained to be
genuine, and, in the main, uncorrupted. And yet the substance of the
evidence on which this decision rests might be comprised in a page.
The abridged history of Rome, by Paterculus, has 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. The style, the allusions, the coincidences, are such as to
satisfy those who are competent to estimate the value of this sort of
proof. But now if this proof were formally set before us, and even if
it were as much expanded as it would bear, it must look exceedingly
meagre; and, to uninformed readers, it must appear slender as a thread,
and insufficient to sustain any weighty consequence. But scholars,
in reading the book, feel that sort of conviction of its genuineness
which is experienced by a traveller, who has spent his life in passing
from country to country, conversing with men of all nations: when this
travelled person meets foreigners in the streets of London, he does not
need to look at passports before he can know whether these strangers,
whom individually he has never before seen, are Swedes, or Hungarians,
or Armenians, or Hindoos, or West Indians; the commonest observer
scarcely hesitates on such occasions; but the old traveller feels a
conviction which mocks at the demand for formal proof.
After we have excepted a few doubtful cases, the genuineness of
classic authors is perceived by scholars, with a vividness and
distinctness that is not dependent upon the quantity of assignable
evidence which must be adduced in reply to objectors. On this ground
it may be affirmed, that, if only a single manuscript, containing
certain of St. Paul’s Epistles, had been preserved, and even if no
quotations from these writings were to be found, competent scholars
(no practical consequences being implied in the question) would doubt
that these writings are in fact what they profess to be. Those minute
and indescribable characters of genuineness which meet the instructed
eye in every line of these Epistles would be enough, apart from that
argument which has been derived from the internal accordances of the
history and the letters, as exhibited by Paley in the Horæ Paulinæ.
But although the external proof of the genuineness of ancient books
might, in a large proportion of instances, be dispensed with as
superfluous, it ought not to be disregarded; especially as it is
the kind of evidence which may best be made intelligible to general
readers. Yet even this, when adduced in its particulars, is not often
duly appreciated; nor is it likely to produce its due impression,
unless it be viewed in its place among facts of the same class. We
propose, therefore, without troubling the reader with details which are
to be found, at large, in many well-known works, and which he may be
supposed to have in recollection--or within his reach--to direct him
to a few principal points of the comparison which may be instituted
between the classical and the sacred writings, in relation to the
proof of the genuineness and authenticity of each kind.
The Jewish and Christian Scriptures may then be brought into comparison
with the works of the Greek and Roman authors, in the following
particulars:--
1. The number of manuscripts which passed down through the middle ages,
in the modes which have been described in the preceding chapters.
About fifteen manuscripts of the history of Herodotus are known to
critics: and of these, several are not of higher antiquity than the
middle of the fifteenth century. One copy, in the French king’s
library (there are in that collection five or six), appears to belong
to the twelfth century; there is one in the Vatican, and one in the
Florentine library, attributed to the tenth century: one in the library
of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, formerly the property of Archbishop
Sancroft, which is believed to be very ancient: the libraries of Oxford
and of Vienna contain also manuscripts of this author. This amount
of copies may be taken as more than the average number of _ancient_
manuscripts of the classic authors; for although a few have many more,
many have fewer.
To mention any number as that of the existing _ancient_ manuscripts,
either of the Hebrew or Greek Scriptures, would be difficult. It
may suffice to say that, on the revival of learning, copies of the
Scriptures, in whole or in part, were found wherever any books had been
preserved. In examining the catalogues of conventual libraries--such
as they were in the fifteenth century, the larger proportion is
usually found to consist of the works of the fathers, or of the
ecclesiastical writers of the middle ages; next in amount are the
Scriptures--sometimes entire; more often the Gospels, the Acts, the
Epistles, or the Psalms, separately; and last and fewest are the
classics, of which, seldom more than three or four, are found in a list
of one or two hundred volumes. The number of _ancient_ manuscripts
of the Greek New Testament, or parts of it, which hitherto have been
examined by editors, is nearly five hundred.
If in the case of a classic author, twenty manuscripts, or even five,
are deemed amply sufficient (and sometimes one, as we have seen, is
relied upon), it is evident that many hundreds are redundant for the
purposes of argument. The importance of so great a number of copies
consists in the amplitude of the means which are thereby afforded of
restoring the text to its pristine purity; for the various readings
collected from so many sources, if they do not always place the true
reading beyond doubt, afford an absolute security against extensive
corruptions.
2. The high antiquity of some existing manuscripts.
A Virgil (already mentioned) in the Vatican, claims an antiquity
as high as the fourth century: there are a few similar instances;
but generally the existing copies of the classics are attributed to
periods between the tenth and fifteenth centuries. In this respect the
Scriptures are by no means inferior to the classics. There are extant
copies of the Pentateuch, which, on no slight grounds, are supposed
to have been written in the second, or the third century: and there
are copies of the Gospels belonging to the third, or the fourth, and
several of the entire New Testament, which unquestionably were made
before the eighth. But the actual age of existing manuscripts is a
matter of more curiosity than importance; since proof of another kind
carries us with certainty some way beyond the date of any existing
parchments.
3. The extent of surface over which copies were diffused, at an early
date.
The works of the most celebrated of the Greek authors always found a
place in the libraries of opulent persons, in all parts of Greece, and
in many of the colonies, soon after their first publication; and a
century or two later they were read, wherever the language was spoken.
But a contraction of this sphere of diffusion took place at the time
when the eastern empire was being driven in upon its centre; and during
a long period these works were found only in the countries and islands
within a short distance of Constantinople. As for the Latin classics,
how widely soever they might have been diffused during three or four
centuries, the incursions of the northern nations, and the consequent
decline of learning in the West, went near to produce their utter
annihilation. Many of these authors were actually lost sight of during
several centuries.
It is a matter of unquestioned history that the Jews, always carrying
with them their books, had spread themselves throughout most countries
of Asia, of southern Europe, and of northern Africa, before the
commencement of the Christian era; nor is it less certain that,
wherever Judaism existed, Christianity rapidly followed it. Carried
forward by their own zeal, or driven on by persecutions, the Christian
teachers of the first and second centuries passed beyond the limits of
the Roman empire, and founded churches among nations that were scarcely
known to the masters of the world. Nor were the Christian Scriptures
merely carried to great distances in different directions;--they were
scattered through the mass of society, in every nation, to an extent
greatly exceeding the ordinary circulation of books in those ages:
these books were not in the hands of the opulent, and of the studious
merely; for they were possessed by innumerable individuals, who, with
an ardour beyond the range of secular motives, valued, preserved,
and reproduced them. And while many copies were hoarded and hidden
by private persons, others were the property of societies, and, by
continual repetition in public, the contents of them were imprinted on
the memories of their members.
The wide, and--if the expression may be used--the _deep_ circulation
of the Scriptures, preserved them, not merely from extinction, but,
to a great extent, from corruption also. These books were at no time
included within the sphere of any one centre of power--civil or
ecclesiastical. They were secreted, and they were expanded far beyond
the utmost reach of tyranny or of fraud.
4. The importance attached to the books by their possessors.
In a certain sense, the religion of the Greeks and Romans was embodied
in the works of their poets; but the religious fervour of the people
had never linked itself with those works, as if they were the
depositories of their faith: books were the possession of the opulent
and the educated classes;--they were prized by the few as the means of
intellectual enjoyment. But Judaism first, and Christianity not less,
were religions of historical fact: the doctrines and the laws of these
religions were inferences, arising naturally from the belief of certain
memorable events, and from the expectation of other events, that were
yet to take place; the record of the past had become at once the rule
of duty, and the charter of hope. To the dispersed and hated Jew his
books were the solace of his wounded national pride: to the persecuted
Christian his books were his title to “a better country,” and his
support under present privations and sufferings. If the canonical
books are valued by the Christian of modern times who believes them
to be divine, they were valued with a far deeper sense by the early
Christians, who, on the ground of undoubted miracles, received them as
the word of Him who is omnipotent.
The veneration felt by the Jews for their sacred books was of a kind
that is altogether without parallel: the reverence of the Christians
for theirs, if it was not more profound, was much more impassioned, and
this feeling gave intensity to a sentiment wholly unlike any with which
one might seek to compare it: the fondness of a learned Greek or Roman
for his books, was but in comparison as the delight of a child with his
toys.
To this deep feeling towards the sacred writings, in the minds of
Christians, was owing, not only the concealment and the preservation of
copies in times of active persecution; but the assiduous reproduction
of them by persons of all ranks who found leisure to occupy themselves
in a work which they deemed to be so meritorious, and which they found
to be so consoling.
5. The respect paid to them by copyists of later ages.
We have seen that, throughout the middle ages, though nothing like
a widely diffused taste for the classic authors existed, yet at all
times, there were, here and there, individuals by whom they were read
and valued, and by whose agency and influence so much care was bestowed
upon their preservation as served to insure a safe transmission of them
to modern times. But that the Latin authors, at any time after the
decline of the western empire, received the benefit of a careful and
competent collation of copies there is little reason to believe. Of
the Greek authors there were issued new _recensions_ from Alexandria,
while that city continued to be the seat of learning; and some measure
of the same care was exercised by the scholars of Constantinople; yet
even there the celebrated works of antiquity suffered a great degree of
neglect during the last four centuries of the eastern empire.
But in this respect, as well as in those already mentioned, the text
of the Scriptures--Jewish and Christian--possesses an incomparable
advantage over that of the classic authors. The scrupulosity and the
servile minuteness of the Jewish copyists in transcribing the Hebrew
Scriptures are well known; in a literal sense of the phrase, “not a
tittle of the law” was slighted: not only--as with the Greeks--was the
number of _verses_ in each book noted, but the number of words and of
letters; and the central letter of each book being distinguished, it
became, as a point of calculation, the key-stone of that portion of
the volume. This unexampled exactness affords security enough for the
safe transmission of the text; and if there were any grounds for the
suspicion that the Rabbis, to weaken the evidence adduced against them
by the Christians, wilfully corrupted some particular passages, we have
other security, as we shall see, against the consequences of such an
attempt.
The flame of true piety was, at no time, extinguished in the Christian
community; nor can any century or half century of the middle ages
be named, in relation to which it may not be proved that there
were individuals by whom the books of the New Testament were known
and regarded with a heartfelt reverence and affection. There were,
besides, multitudes in the religious houses who, influenced perhaps
by superstitious notions, thought it a work of superlative merit to
execute a fair copy of the Scriptures, or any part of them; and all
the adornments which the arts of the times afforded, were lavished to
express the veneration of the scribe for the subject of his labours.
And more than this;--the Scriptures, especially in the first eight
centuries, underwent several careful and skilful revisions in the hands
of learned and able men, who, collating all the copies they could
procure, restored the text wherever, as they thought, errors had been
admitted. The prodigious labours of Origen in restoring the text of
the Septuagint version have been often spoken of. The fathers of the
Western, the African, and the Asiatic Churches--especially Jerome,
Eusebius, and Augustine, with such means as they severally possessed,
did what they could to stop the progress of accidental corruption in
the sacred text, by instituting new comparisons of existing copies.
6. The wide local separation, or the open hostility of those in whose
custody these books were preserved.
This is a circumstance of the utmost significance, and if it be not
_peculiar_ to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, yet it belongs to
them in a degree which places their uncorrupted preservation on a basis
immeasurably more extended and substantial than that of any other
ancient writings. The Latin authors were scantily dispersed over the
Roman world, and never were they in the keeping of distant nations, or
hostile parties. The Greek classics had indeed, to some extent, come
into the hands of the western nations, as well as of the Greeks, in
earlier times, and during the middle ages. And, if any weight can be
attached to the fact, some of these works were also in the keeping of
the Arabians: but they were never the subject of mutual appeal by rival
communities.
The Hebrew nation has, almost throughout the entire period of its
history, been divided, both by local separation, and by schisms.
Probably the Israelites of India, and certainly the Samaritans,
have been the keepers of the books of Moses--_apart from the Jews_,
during a period that reaches beyond the date of authentic profane
history. Throughout times somewhat less remote the Jews have not only
been separated by distance, but divided by at least one complete
schism--that on the subject of the Rabbinical traditions, which has
distinguished the sect of the Karaites from the mass of the nation.
The reproach of the Christian Church--its sects and divisions--has
been, in part at least, redeemed by the security thence arising, for
the uncorrupted transmission of its records. Almost the earliest of the
Christian apologists avail themselves of this argument in proof of the
integrity of the sacred text. Augustine especially urged it against
those who endeavoured to impeach its authority: nor was there ever a
time when an attempt, on any extensive scale--even if otherwise it
might have been practicable--to alter the text would not have raised
an outcry in some quarter. From the earliest times the common Rule
of Faith was held up for the purposes of defence or of aggression by
the Church, and by some dissentient party. Afterwards the partition
of the Christian community into two hostile bodies, of which Rome and
Constantinople were the heads, afforded security against any general
consent to effect alterations of the text. And in still later ages a
few uncorrupted communities, existing within the bounds of the Romish
Church, became the guardians of the sacred volume.
7. The visible effects of these books from age to age.
On this point also the history of the Greek and Latin classics affords
only the faintest semblance of that evidence by means of which the
existence and influence of the Scriptures may be traced from the
earliest times after their publication, through all successive ages.
The Greek and Latin authors indicated their continued existence
scarcely at all beyond the walls of schools and halls of learning.
During a full thousand years the world saw them not--governments
did not embody them in their laws or institutions;--the people had
no consciousness of them. They were less known, and less thought of
abroad, than were the ashes of the dead--than the bones, teeth, blood,
tears, and tatters of the Greek and Romish martyrs.
How different are the facts that present themselves on the side of
the Jewish and Christian Scriptures! The Jews--in the sight of all
nations--have, through a well-known and uncontested period of two
thousand five hundred years, exhibited a living model of the venerable
volume which was so long ago delivered to them, and which still they
fondly cherish. And though long since debarred from the enjoyment of
all that was splendid or cheering in their institutions, and though
rent away from their land as well as their worship, and though too
often blind to the moral grandeur of their law, and mistaken in
the meaning of their prophets, they hold unbroken the shell of the
religious system which is described in their books. Whatever in
their religion was of less value--whatever served only to cover and
protect the vital parts--whatever was the most peculiar, and the
least important, whatever might have been laid aside without damage
or essential change, has been retained by these wanderers; while that
which was precious--the sacred books excepted--has been lost.
The Christian Scriptures have marked their path through the field
of time, not in the regions of religion only, or of learning, or
of politics; but in the entire condition--moral, intellectual, and
political--of the European nations. The history of no period since the
first publication of these writings can be intelligible apart from the
supposition of their existence and diffusion. If we look back along
the eighteen centuries past, we watch the progress of an influence,
sometimes indeed marking its presence in streams of blood--sometimes in
fires, sometimes by the fall of idol temples, sometimes by the rearing
of edifices decked with new symbols; nor can the distant and mighty
movement be explained otherwise than by knowing that the books we now
hold and venerate were then achieving the overthrow of the old and
obstinate evils of idolatry. It is needless to say that the history
of Europe in all subsequent periods has implied, by a thousand forms
of false profession, and by the constancy of the few, the continued
existence of the Christian Scriptures.
8. The body of references and quotations.
The successive references of the Greek authors, one to another,
though they are amply sufficient, in most instances, to establish
the antiquity of the works quoted, furnish a very imperfect aid in
ascertaining the purity of the existing text, or in amending it where
apparently it is faulty. A large number of these references are merely
allusive, consisting only of the mention of an author’s name, with
some vague citation of his meaning. And even in those authors who make
copious and verbal quotations, such as Strabo, Plutarch, Hesychius,
Aulus Gellius, Stobæus, Marcellinus, Photius, Suidas, and Eustathius,
a lax method of quotation, in many instances, robs such quotations of
much of their value for purposes of criticism. And yet, after every
deduction of this kind has been made, the reader of the classics feels
an irresistible conviction that this network of mutual or successive
references could not have resulted from machination, contrivance, or
from anything but reality; it affords a proof, never to be refuted, of
the genuineness of the great mass of ancient literature.
But as to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, this kind of evidence,
reaching far beyond the mere proof of antiquity and genuineness, is
ample and precise enough to establish the integrity of nearly the
_entire text_ of the books in question. These writings were not simply
succeeded by a literature of a similar cast; but they actually created
a vast body of literature altogether devoted to their elucidation; and
this elucidation took every imaginable form of occasional comment upon
single passages--of argument upon certain topics, requiring numerous
scattered quotations, and of complete annotation, in which nearly
the whole of the original author is repeated. From the Rabbinical
paraphrases, and from the works of the Christian writers of the first
seven centuries (to come later is unnecessary) the whole text of
the Scriptures might have been recovered if the originals had since
perished.
If any one is so uninformed as to suppose that this kind of evidence
is open to uncertainty, or that it admits of refutation, let him, if
he has access to an ordinary English library, open the volumes of
writers of all classes since the days of Elizabeth, and see how many
allusions to Shakespeare, and how many verbal quotations from his
plays, and how many commentaries upon portions, or upon the whole of
them he can find; and then let him ask himself if there remains the
possibility of doubting that these dramas--such in the main as they now
are, were in existence at the accession of James I. If these quotations
and allusions were not more than a fifth or a tenth part of what they
actually are, the proof would not, in fact, be less conclusive than it
is.
9. Early versions.
For the purpose of establishing the antiquity, genuineness, and
integrity of the Scriptures, no other proof need be adduced than that
which is afforded by the ancient versions now extant. When accordant
translations of the same writings, in several unconnected languages,
and in languages which have long ceased to be vernacular, are in
existence, every other kind of evidence may be regarded as superfluous.
In this respect a comparison between the classic authors and the
Scriptures can barely be instituted; for scarcely anything that
deserves to be called a translation of those writers--executed at a
very early period after their first publication, is extant. But, on
the other side, the high importance attached by the Jews to the Old
Testament, and by the early Christians to the New, and the earnest
desire of the poor and unlearned to possess, in their own tongue, the
words of eternal life, suggested the idea, and introduced the practice,
of making complete and faithful translations of both.
Thus it is that, independently of the original text, the Old Testament
exists in the Chaldee paraphrases or Targums; in the Septuagint, or
Greek version; in the translations of Aquila, of Symmachus, and of
Theodosian; in the Syriac and the Latin, or Vulgate versions; in the
Arabic, and in the Ethiopic; not to mention others of later date.
The New Testament has been conveyed to modern times, in whole or in
part, in the Peshito, or Syriac translation, in the Coptic, in several
Arabic versions, in the Æthiopic, the Armenian, the Persian, the
Gothic, and in the old Latin versions.
10. The vernacular extinction of the languages, or of the idioms, in
which these books were written.
To write Attic Greek was the ambition and the affectation of the
Constantinopolitan writers of the third and fourth centuries; and thus
also, to acquire a pure Latinity, was assiduously aimed at by writers
of the middle ages; and, in fact, a few of them so far succeeded in
this sort of imitation that they executed some forgeries, on a small
scale, which would hardly have been detected, if they had not wanted
external proof.
But now the pure Hebrew--such as it had been spoken and written before
the Babylonish captivity, had so entirely ceased to be vernacular
during the removal of the Jews from their land, that immediately after
their return the original Scriptures needed to be interpreted to the
people by their Rabbis; nor is there any evidence that the power of
writing the primitive language was affected by these Rabbis, whose
commentaries are composed in the dialect that was vernacular in their
times.
As to the Hellenistic Greek of the New Testament, differing as it
does, from the style of the classic authors, and even from that of the
Septuagint, to which it is the most nearly allied, it very soon passed
out of use; for the later Christian writers, in the Greek language,
had, in most instances, formed their style before the time of their
conversion; or at least they aimed at a style, widely differing from
that of the apostles and evangelists. The idiom of the New Testament,
in which phrases or forms of speech borrowed from the surrounding
languages occur, resulted from the very peculiar education and
circumstances of the writers, which were such as to make their dialect,
in many particulars, unlike any other style; and such as could not fail
soon to become extinct.
11. The means of comparison with spurious works; or with works intended
to share the reputation that had been acquired by others.
Imitations--whether good or bad--are useful in serving to set originals
in a more advantageous light. Good imitations, calling into activity,
as they do, all the acumen and the utmost diligence of critics,
enable them to place genuine writings out of the reach of suspicion.
Bad imitations, by serving as a foil or contrast, exhibit more
satisfactorily, the dignity, the consistency, and the simplicity of
what is genuine.
Several good imitations of the style of Cicero have appeared in
different ages, and they have called for so much acuteness on the
part of critics as have materially strengthened the evidence of the
genuineness of his acknowledged works. In like manner the celebrated
epistles of Phalaris excited a learned and active controversy, the
beneficial result of which was not so much the settling of the
particular question in debate, as the concentration of powerful
and accomplished minds upon the general subject of the genuineness
of ancient books, by means of which other questionable remains of
antiquity received the implicit sanction of retaining their claims,
after they had been brought within the reach of so fiery an ordeal.
Many bad imitations of classic authors have been offered to the world,
and some such are still extant; and sometimes these are appended to
the author’s genuine works. No one can read these spurious pieces
immediately after he has made himself familiar with such as are
genuine, without receiving, from the contrast, a forcible impression of
the truth and reality of the latter. The life of Homer, for example,
which is usually appended to the history of Herodotus, and which
claims his name, and which has something of his manner, yet presents a
contrast which few readers can fail to observe.
No _good_ imitations, either of the Jewish or Christian Scriptures,
have ever appeared; but in the place of that elaborate investigation
which the existence of such productions would have called forth, other
motives of the strongest kind have prompted a fuller and more laborious
examination of the Scriptures than any other writings have endured.
Bad imitations of the style of the Scriptures--some of the Old
Testament, and many of the New--have been attempted, and are still
in existence; and they are such as to afford the most striking
illustration that can be imagined of the difference in simplicity,
dignity, and consistency, which one should expect to find, severally,
in the genuine and the spurious. The apocryphal books (which however
are not, most of them, properly termed _spurious_) afford an
advantageous contrast in this way, to the genuine or canonical writings
of the Old Testament; and as to the spurious gospels--passing under
the names of Peter, Judas, Nicodemus, Thomas, Barnabas--a very cursory
examination of them is enough to enhance, immeasurably, the confidence
we feel in the genuineness of the true Gospels and Epistles.
The preservation of these latter worthless productions to modern
times, is an extraordinary fact, and it affords proof of a state of
things, the knowledge of which is important in questions of literary
antiquity--namely, that there were many copyists in the middle
ages who wrote, and went on writing, mechanically, whatever came in
their way, without exercising any discrimination. Now there is more
satisfaction in knowing that ancient books have come down through
a blind and unthinking medium of this sort, than there would be in
believing that we possess only such things as the copyists, in the
exercise of an assumed censorship, deemed worthy to be handed down to
posterity. It is far better that we should--by accident and ignorance,
have lost some valuable works, and that, by the same means, some
worthless ones have been preserved, than that the results of accident
and ignorance should have been excluded by the constant exercise of a
power of selection governed by, we know not what rule or influence.
Nothing more pernicious can be imagined than the existence, from age
to age, of a synod of copyists sagely determining what works should be
perpetuated, and what should be suffered to fall into oblivion. Happily
for literature and religion, there were, in the monasteries, numbers of
unthinking labourers, who, in selecting the subject of their mindless
toils, seemed to have followed the easy rule of taking--the next book
on the shelf!
12. The strength of the inference that may be drawn from the
genuineness of the books to the credibility of their contents.
Nothing can be more simple or certain than the inference derived from
the acknowledged antiquity and genuineness of an historical work, in
proof of the general credibility of the narrative it contains. If it
be proved that Cicero’s Orations against Catiline, and that Sallust’s
History of the Catiline War, were written by the persons whose names
they bear; or if it were only proved that these compositions were
extant and well known as early as the age of Augustus; that they were
then universally attributed to those authors, and were universally
admitted to be authentic records of matters of fact; and if the same
facts are, with more or less explicitness, alluded to by the writers
of the same, and of the following age, there remains no reasonable
supposition, except that of the truth of the story--in its principal
circumstances, by aid of which the existence and the acceptance of
these narratives, these orations, and these allusions, so near to the
time of the conspiracy, can be accounted for.
In Sallust’s History some facts may be erroneously stated; or the
principal facts may be represented under the colouring of prejudice.
In the Orations of Cicero there may be (or we might for argument sake
suppose there to be) exaggeration, and an undue severity of censure;
but after any such deductions have been made, or any others which
reason will allow, it remains incontestably certain that, _if these
writings be genuine, the story, in the main, is true_. The sophisms of
a college of sceptics, in labouring to show the improbability of the
facts, or the suspiciousness of the evidence, would not avail to shake
our belief if we are convinced that the books are not spurious.
Nor is this inference less direct, or less valid in the case above
mentioned, than in any similar instance of more recent occurrence. It
is as inevitable to believe that Catiline conspired against the Roman
state, and failed in the attempt, as that the descendants of James II.
excited rebellions in Scotland, or that a French General was for a
short time king of Naples. In the one case, as in the others, unless
the documents--all of them, have been forged, the facts must be true.
The principle upon which such an inference is founded, scarcely admits
of an exception. Narratives of alleged, but unreal facts, may have been
suddenly promulgated, and for a moment credited; or false narratives of
events--concealed by place or circumstances from the public eye, may
have gained temporary credit. Or narratives, true in their outline, may
have been falsified in all those points concerning which the public
could not fairly judge; and thus the false, having been slipped in
along with the true, has passed, by oversight, upon the general faith.
But no such suppositions meet the case of various public transactions,
taking place through some length of time, and in different localities,
and which were witnessed by persons of all classes, interests, and
dispositions, and which were uncontradicted by any parties at the time,
and which were particularly recorded, and incidentally alluded to, by
several writers whose works were widely circulated--generally accepted,
and unanswered, in the age when thousands of persons were competent to
judge of their truth.
No one--to recur to the example mentioned above, is at liberty merely
to say that he withholds his faith from Sallust, and from Cicero, as he
might, on many points, withhold it from Herodotus, from Diodorus, or
from Plutarch. Yet even in that case, he ought to show cause of doubt,
if he would not be charged with the frivolous affectation of possessing
more sagacity than his neighbours pretend to. But in the other case,
while in professing to doubt the facts, he is not able to impugn the
antiquity of the records, he only gives evidence of some want of
coherence in his modes of thinking. He who professes not to believe the
narrative, should be required to give an intelligible account of the
existence of the writings, on the supposition that the events never
took place.
When historical facts which, in their nature, are fairly open to direct
proof, are called in question, it is an irksome species of trifling
to make a halt upon twenty indirect arguments, while the _centre
proof_--that which a clear mind fastens upon intuitively, remains
undisposed of. In an investigation that is purely historical, and which
is as simple as any that the page of history presents, it boots nothing
to say that the books of the New Testament contain doctrines which do
not accord with our notions of the great system of things; or that
they enjoin duties which are grievous and impracticable; or that they
favour despotism, or engender strifes. It avails nothing to say that
some professors of Christianity are hypocrites, and that therefore the
religion is not true. No objections of this sort weaken in any way that
evidence upon which we believe that our island was once possessed by
the Romans. But yet they have as much weight in counterpoising _that_
evidence, as they have in balancing the proof of the facts that are
affirmed in the New Testament. If such objections were ten-fold more
valid than sophistry can make them, they would not remove, or alter,
or impair, one grain of the proper proof, belonging to the historical
proposition under inquiry.
The question is not whether we admire and approve of Christianity, or
not; or whether we wish to submit our conduct to its precepts, and to
abide by the hope it offers; or intend to risk the hazards of it being
true. The question is not whether, in our opinion, these books have
been a blessing to the world, or the contrary; but simply this--whether
the religion was promulgated and its documents were extant, and were
well known throughout the Roman empire, in the reign of Nero.
There are evasions enough, by means of which we may remove from our
view the inference which follows from an admission of the antiquity
and genuineness of the Christian Scriptures. But contradiction may be
challenged when it is affirmed that, if the Gospels, the Acts of the
Apostles, the Epistles of Paul, of Peter, of John, and of James, were
written in the age claimed for them, and were immediately diffused
throughout Palestine, Asia Minor, Africa, Greece, and Italy, then this
fact carries with it inevitably the truth of the Christian system.
Remote historical facts, though incapable of that kind of palpable
proof which overrules contradiction, are yet open to a kind of proof
which no one who really understands it can doubt. Just on this ground
stand all the main facts of ancient history;--they are inevitably
admitted as true by all into whose minds the whole of the evidence
enters; and they are believed or doubted, in every degree between blind
faith and blind scepticism, by those whose apprehension of the facts is
defective, or obscure, or perverted.
When it is said that the events recorded in the four Gospels are
presented to us in a form that has been purposely adapted to exercise
our faith, it should be added, by way of illustrating the exact meaning
of the words--that the events recorded by Thucydides and Tacitus are
also presented to us in a form that is adapted to exercise our faith.
Yet it would be more exactly proper to say--that this sort of evidence
is adapted to give exercise to _reason_; for _faith_ has no part in
things which come within the known boundaries of the system in the
midst of which we are called to act our parts. And here it should
be understood that facts (intelligible in themselves) may, in the
fullest sense, be supernatural, and yet when they are duly attested,
in conformity with the ordinary principles of evidence, they as much
belong to the system with which we are every day concerned, as do the
most familiar transactions of common life.
The Scriptures do indeed make a demand upon our faith; but this is
exclusively in relation to facts which belong to a world above and
beyond that with which we are conversant, and of which facts we could
know nothing by any ordinary means of information. Our assent to
miraculous events, when properly attested, is demanded on the ground of
common sense: the facts themselves are as comprehensible as the most
ordinary occurrences; and the evidence upon which they are attested
implies nothing beyond the well-known principles of human nature. If
then we reject this evidence, we exhibit, not a want of faith, for
that is not called for; but a want of reason. To one who affected to
question the received account of the death of Julius Cæsar, we should
not say “you want faith,” but “you want sense.” It is the very nature
of a miracle to appeal to the evidence of universal experience, in
order that, _afterwards_, a demand may be made upon faith, in relation
to extra-mundane facts.
CHAPTER XV.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE PRECEDING STATEMENTS:--A MORNING AT THE BRITISH
MUSEUM.
And now, at this stage of our progress, let the reader indulge the
author to the extent of a page of metaphor or allegory.--Imagine then
that we are standing on the margin of a mighty river, the opposite
shore of which is scarcely visible; and as to the origin of this world
of waters, it is far remote and is unknown:--as to the ocean into which
it shall at length empty itself and its treasures--this is distant
also, nor do we find it anywhere laid down in our maps. The flow of
this river is tranquil--its surface is glassy; but upon this surface
there float samples and fragments, innumerable, of the products of
each of the countries which it has watered in its course:--here come
rafts, laden with well-packed bales, and there, confusedly mingled, are
things more than can be counted--torn away--rent--shattered--coated
with rust--wrapped around with weeds. Moving onward, we see the symbols
and the devices of nations long ago extinct, and the utensils of a
forgotten civilisation, and the products of lands--thousands of miles
up the stream; and these entangled with the symbols, the devices,
the rare and curious products, of some country next above us. On the
bosom of this mighty river there float samples of all things, and these
commingled in all imaginable modes.
This is our day-dream:--now for the interpretation of it. We have
imagined ourselves to be stationed in any one of the saloons of
the British Museum; or that we are passing up and down, from one
of these halls to another: and at length are coming to a rest in
the centre of the New Reading-room. The countless collections of
antiquities--marbles--coins--gems--utensils--weapons--costumes--the
manuscripts--the illuminations, and the printed books--what are all
these things, but so many relics of remote ages which, favoured by
various chances, have floated down to this, our own era, upon the broad
surface of the River of Time?
But are these tens of thousands--these hundreds of thousands of
individual objects, are they so many disjointed and disconnected
particles?--this is far from being the fact. It is a very small number
of things, in this vast collection, concerning which an instructed
Curator would acknowledge his ignorance, as to what it is, and to what
age it belongs, and of what country or people it is a relic. As to
a thousand to one of all the single contents of the British Museum,
each of them links itself, either nearly, or remotely, with the nine
hundred, ninety and nine, of its neighbours--right and left; or perhaps
with some articles that are exhibited in the opposite wing of the
building: as for instance--here is a coin, the legend upon which we
should have failed to read, or to understand, had it not been that
a Greek writer, of whose works a sole manuscript has come down to
modern times, incidentally mentions a fact concerning some obscure town
of Asia Minor, and its history, under the Roman emperors, of which
otherwise we should have been ignorant.
Let us avail ourselves of another supposition, remote as it may be
from the fact; and it is this--That the author, and the reader, of
this book, whom we imagine to be now pacing together the saloons of
the Museum, are possessed of that universality of learning, and that
vastness of antiquarian accomplishment, which enables the gentleman at
the centre table of the Reading-room to answer all inquirers, and to
aid and guide them all in carrying forward their various researches.
If, then, the author and the reader were gifted in any such manner
as this, we might then, with a sort of second sight, or a veritable
_clairvoyance_, look upon the countless stores around us as if they
were all falling into an appointed order, or were obeying some natural
law of mutual attraction and cohesion: as thus--there goes an almost
illegible manuscript, attaching itself to a colossal sculpture--much
as feathers stick themselves on to an electric conductor:--there are
coins, arranging themselves spontaneously, like a crown of laurel
leaves, around the brows of busts:--there are weapons and fragments of
armour, edging themselves on to a copy of Polybius:--there are bits of
a pediment, or the chippings of a column, claiming a standing-place
upon the Greek text of Procopius--and why? it is because these
fragments belong to an edifice of the times of Justinian, which he
has described. And now, as to the printed books, and the manuscripts,
whence many of the printed books drew their existence, if we will give
way to the ideal for a few moments, we shall see them floating out from
their shelves, in this vast circus, and knowingly arranging themselves,
in a sort of pyramidal form, as if to exhibit their real relationship
of quotation, and of reference, in the order of time--the more recent
to the more ancient--the many to the few;--until the pile--made up of
a million of books, is surmounted by the two or three that quote none
older than themselves, and that are quoted by all.
What then is our inference? It is this: that as to the persons
and the events--the doings and the notions--the thoughts and the
ways--the customs and the manners--the philosophy--the literature--the
religion--the politics--the civilisation, of the nations of all those
ages which are comprehended within the limits of what is called the
historic period--these innumerable matters are assuredly, known to us,
at this time;--and they have become known to us with this degree of
certainty (in the main) not by the precarious and insulated testimony
of a few writers, whose works have reached modern times--we know not
how; but very much otherwise than thus; for it is by means of the
inter-related, and the mutually attestative evidence of thousands of
witnesses--witnesses in stone and marble, in metallic substances, coins
and brass plates, in membranous records, and in writings upon every
other material, and in every imaginable fashion; and all these things
are so netted together and so welded, and dove-tailed, and linked,
and glued, and sealed, into a vast conglomerate, as that the combined
testimony thence accruing in support of our voluminous historic beliefs
is not less solid than are the granitic ribs of a continent; and is as
various, and as rich, as all the products of its surface--its faunas
and its floras.
So much for a momentary glance at the treasures, the vast accumulations
of the British Museum;--but now we might usefully take the SYNOPSIS in
hand, and give attention to some few of the articles that are named
in it. What we are in search of are those attestations of ancient
_written_ evidences, touching the persons, the events, the manners, the
religions, of ancient nations, which come upon us--we might say, by
surprise, and which are derived from sources altogether and in every
sense independent, and unconnected, one with another.
Take with you, in one hand, your Tacitus, Sallust, Dion Cassius;--and
in the other hand, your Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, and Ovid. These
writers--the one set as historians, the other set as poets, build up to
our view the throne, and its personages, of the Imperial Times--say,
of two centuries, reckoned back from the life-time of the last of
them. But through what channels have _the books_ come into our hands?
The editors of the printed copies assure us that there had come into
their possession, in each instance, one, two, three manuscripts, that
had been raked out of the forgotten heaps of this or that monastery,
or other conservatory of curious articles. As to the greater number
of these manuscripts, they could not be assigned to an age much
beyond the ninth century; therefore, on the supposition that they are
genuine works--the products of a time seven hundred, or a thousand
years earlier, what the editor had under his eye must have been
nothing better than a copy--from a copy--or perhaps, from several in
succession! Is not this line of proof somewhat precarious? Ought we to
trust ourselves to it?
Advance toward the left hand, from the entrance hall, and by the time
you have moved on a dozen steps, the volumes in your hands, if they
were gifted with consciousness, would begin to twitch and to jerk
themselves about, as if uneasy in being held away from their old
friends, right and left, whom they recognise, perched on the pedestals,
and fixed to the walls. Whence is it that these solid antiquities
have been brought hither? Not from those same lumber-vaults in the
monasteries, or the royal libraries of Europe, whence we have received
the aforesaid manuscripts;--not so, but from deep under-ground--from
cavities--from underneath pavements, sixty feet or more lower than the
present surface: they have been picked up in cornfields; they have been
sifted from out of heaps of rubbish; they have been taken from the
recesses of the houses of a city, buried by a volcanic eruption, many
centuries ago. These manifold samples of an ancient civilisation have
been fished up from the beds of rivers and the bottoms of lakes; and
these recoveries have been effected in all these and many other modes
over the extent of Europe, and of Southern and Western Asia, and of
North Africa. There is no possibility therefore of calling in question
this million-tongued testimony; we must not gainsay what is affirmed by
these tongues of stone and of brass, of silver and of gold.
And the more, in any instance, the coincidence is slender and remote,
or, as one might say, frivolous or unimportant, so much the surer, and
the more to be relied upon is it, in what it does affirm: as thus--Look
to your Synopsis, page 87, Compartment III.:--“A pig of lead, inscribed
with the name of the Emperor Domitian, when he was consul for the
eighth year, A.D. 82, weighing 154 lbs. It was discovered in 1731
underground, on Hayshaw Moor, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, half-way
between an ancient lead-mine, north of Pately Bridge, and the Roman
road from Ilkley (_Olicana_) to Aldborough (_Isurium_).” This pig had
slept where he was dropped about 1,650 years.
“A pig of lead, inscribed with the name of the Emperor Hadrian,
weighing 191 lbs.; found in 1796 or ’97, at Snailbeach Farm, parish of
Westbury, 10 miles south-west of Shrewsbury.” Then follow some other
pigs, whose slumbers underground have been more or less prolonged and
profound.
“A pig of lead, inscribed with the name of L. Aruconius Verecundus, and
the letters METAL. LVTVD., probably the mine of _Lutudæ_. Found near
Matlock Bank, in Derbyshire.”
“A pig of lead, inscribed CL. TR. LVT. BR. EX. ARG.; found with three
other pigs and some broken Roman pottery, at Broomer’s Hill, in the
parish of Pulborough, Sussex, January 31, 1824, close to the Roman
Road, Stone Street, from London to Chichester.”
“A pig of lead, inscribed with the name of Britannicus, the son of the
Emperor Claudius; found on the Mendip Hills, Somersetshire.”
So much for these pigs. What is it which they might say, if we were
to bring them into court? Something of this sort: At this time, in
the streets of the stannary towns in Cornwall, there are to be seen
blocks--pigs of tin, stamped in a manner similar to the lettering of
these pigs of lead in the British Museum. This stamping is effected
for the purpose of securing the dues of the Duchy of Cornwall, and the
symbols and the letters indicate the political fact that the Prince
of Wales, as Duke of Cornwall, lays a hand upon every pound of tin
that is smelted in the county; and thus, too, the stamping of the
produce of the lead-mines of Britain gives evidence of the fact that
the Romans were not merely resident in Britain at the time, but were
masters also of the island, and the lords of its mineral products. Then
the lettering itself finds its interpretation in the Roman imperial
history, and this history comes into our hands, partly as it has
been narrated by the Roman historians above mentioned; partly in the
form of sculptures, statues, busts, and bas-reliefs; and partly, and
very copiously, in the unquestionable form of the coins of the same
emperors, which alone would suffice for putting us in possession of
the series of events, greater and smaller, through a course of many
centuries. But what the reader should here keep in view is this: that
as our present thesis is--the safe and sure transmission of ancient
books, by the means of often-repeated copyings, through the lapse of
ages, an evidence to this effect--and it is the most conclusive that
can be imagined or desired, is afforded us when, in passing through
collections, such as those treasured in the British Museum, THE BOOKS
in question are found to furnish a coherent, and a continuous, and an
exact interpretation of these palpable and ponderous antiquities. Yet,
it is manifest that, unless the books were in the main genuine, they
could not have supplied any interpretations, such as are those which we
find in them.
Go on now to the historical sculptures--the statues, and the busts
of the imperial times. These, for the most part, are susceptible of
authentication by means of the coins of the same emperors, which may be
seen--by “order”--in another department of the Museum; the likenesses
are indisputable, and the historic reality of the two samples of Roman
art is thus far made good. But beyond this we may safely go. From the
Roman writers--specially Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dion Cassius--we
acquire what we need not doubt to be a true idea of the individual
character, the temperament, the education, the public and private
behaviour, and the style of the series of imperial persons, from Julius
Cæsar, onward, to the times of each of these writers. What then is the
verdict of our physiognomical instincts, when we compare the busts
or statues, for instance, of Augustus and of Tiberius, of Nero and
of Trajan? We could no more take these, one for the other, than we
could misname the portraits of Philip of Spain, or the Duke of Alva,
put by the side of George Washington, or John Howard; or misjudge
those of Oliver Cromwell, and John Milton; or of Admiral Blake, and
Alexander Pope. We need not wait until a science of physiognomy has
been concocted before we may risk a guess in writing the names under
portraits of Lord Chatham, Dr. Johnson, and Oliver Goldsmith. Mistakes,
in single instances, may be made, but not in the long run; and when,
on the one hand, we take the entire series of royal portraits, eastern
and western, from the first of the Ptolemies to Charlemagne, and, on
the other hand, the _books_ of the series of contemporary historians,
we shall receive, from this large collation of independent evidences,
an irresistible conviction of the general authenticity of the latter;
and therefore we must cease to entertain doubts on this question of the
secure transmission of ancient books to modern times.
It would be of little avail here to cite a few single instances of the
agreement of Roman coins with written history, for such instances are
countless. The reader who would wish to inform himself, in whole, or in
part, on this extensive subject, should take in hand a Medallic History
of Imperial Rome, which, as compared with the medallic treasures of
the British Museum, will give him aid in following the train of public
events through five or six centuries, exhibited and verified by the
double line of testimonies--the metallic and the literary. Or he may be
content to take, as a sufficient sample of this species of proof, the
facts he will find brought together in a small volume, “Akerman on the
Coins of the Romans relating to Britain.”
There is another field upon which a gleaning, and more than a
gleaning, may easily be made by help of the Roman poets as our
guides. These writers--and we need name only Ovid, Horace, Virgil,
and Propertius--are undoubtedly believed to have lived and flourished
as the contemporaries of Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Tiberius. Their
writings, as we have them now in our hands, are accepted as genuine;
for the criticism which demonstrates the general integrity of the
text (exceptions allowed for) is too erudite and careful to be called
in question. Consequently, these writings have safely traversed a
period of fifteen hundred years, ending with the date of the earliest
printed editions: but this transit has been made by no other means
than that of the copyists; and therefore, if, as we shall see, a
super-abundance of various and independent evidences removes the
possibility of our doubting the fact, then this mode of transmission,
precarious as it may seem, is found to be trustworthy, and our main
point is established--namely, That ancient books have indeed come down
to modern times--whole and entire. Let us look, for a moment, to this
corroborative evidence--such as we find it offered to the eye, in
passing through the saloons of the British Museum.
The Roman poets were not, perhaps, themselves very firm believers
in the Grecian mythology--considered religiously or historically:
nevertheless, they took it up--such as it had come into their
hands--and it was a splendid inheritance--a boundless treasury of
bright conceptions of superhuman power, beauty, grace; a scheme of
elegant sensuousness, with a touch of sublimity. Its fables, far
more available for poetic purposes than any system of serious truths
could have been, opened before the Roman poets a broad meadow land,
in roaming through which the imitative, more than originative turn of
the Roman mind, might gather fruits and flowers, ripe and gay, and
which asked only to be taken and enjoyed. So it is, therefore, that in
every imaginable mode of lengthened poetic narrative, and of transient
allusion, and of direct and of allusive reference, the gods and the
goddesses, and the demi-gods, and the heroes of Greece come up upon
the stage of the Roman poetry. These repetitions--these borrowings or
plagiarisms, and these flashing glances, are countless:--sometimes
they are formal; sometimes they are informal:--they are broad daylight
views in some places, and in places innumerable they are as sparks
only--visible for an instant.
Now with what objects is it that these mythologic passages are in
harmony?--with what is it that they correspond? Our answer is--With
tens of thousands of relics of ancient art which, through channels
altogether independent of those through which the books have reached
us, have come, at this time, to fill, and to over-fill the cabinets and
museums of Europe--and thus, also, our British Museum.
But then this mass of ponderable and visible evidences is inter-related
in a very peculiar manner, which should be borne in mind. We have
just now referred to the correspondence which connects the historic
sculptures--the statues and the busts of Roman personages, male and
female, and the likenesses of the same men and women which are so
copiously supplied in collections of the Roman imperial mintage. But
now we pass on to the Græco-Roman saloons--the first, the second,
and the third, as well as the basement-room. These are filled
with mythologic sculptures--recovered from the soil of Italy and
Greece:--they show us, in inimitable marbles, those same divinities,
the principal and the subordinate, which the mind of Greece had
imagined, and which the Roman artists adopted: these beautiful
creations we at once recognise as the celestial _personæ_ with whom we
have made acquaintance in the pages of the Roman poets: the conception
of superhuman grace and power is the very same; and the attendant
symbols are the same. And now furnish yourself with the requisite order
for inspecting the collection of antique gems--precious (often) as
to their material--precious, incalculably more so, by means of that
exquisite taste and that inimitable executive skill which have made
them what they are.
These microscopic sculptures, in consequence of the value of the
material, and the costliness of the work, and from their smallness,
and the facility of preservation, were eagerly sought after by the
opulent at the very time of their production; and they have been most
carefully hoarded in every age, by the same class of persons; and they
have suffered far less injury in the lapse of time than antiquities of
any other kind. Especially the _intaglios_--the indented sculptures,
are, for the most part, as perfect and sharp now as they were eighteen
hundred years ago. What is it, then, that these gems of art bring under
our modern eyes?--it is the very same ideal personages of the same
mythology;--and the symbols are the same, and the air, and the grace,
and the attributes of beauty and power are the same;--there is the same
sensuousness--there are the same ambiguous adventures;--there is the
same poetry and the same art--poetry and art, admirable, indeed, how
much soever it may be open to censure as to its moral quality.
Here then we have in view three independent, but perfectly concurrent
and _mutually interpretative_ evidences--namely, _first_, the
sculptures, _secondly_, the gems, and then the books--the poetry. If,
in examining one of these classes of antiquities, we find ourselves
at a loss in attempting to decipher its symbols or its allusions, any
such difficulty vanishes--in most instances--when we betake ourselves
to another class:--as thus--the gem expounds the statue; or the poet,
in a single verse, sheds his beam of light upon both. Thus it is
that--with the _three_ at our command--ANTIQUITY, throughout the rich
and splendid region of its mythologies, stands unveiled before us! Must
we not grant that so many coherences, and so many correspondences, and
so many interpretative agreements--countless as they are--can have had
their source in nothing but the realities of the age whence we believe
them to have descended to modern times? But if it be so, then it is
true that ancient books--to wit, the Roman poets--have been securely
sent forward--thanks to the copyists!--from age to age, through all the
intervening years of so many centuries.
If it were a volume that was now to be filled, instead of the few pages
of this chapter, and if, instead of a morning at the British Museum, an
entire season were to be diligently spent there, we should still want
space and leisure for specifying a sample only of those articles which
might properly be referred to in illustration of our present argument.
Instead of doing so, we must move forward through the Elgin Saloon,
only stopping to make this one observation--that these sculptures,
and these bas-reliefs, and these inscriptions, would be to us, at
this time, nothing better than a vast confusion--a mass of insoluble
enigmas, if we did not carry with us the written remains of the Greek
and Roman literature--the works of the historians, and the poets, and
the dramatists, and the orators, which were the creations of that same
age of refined intelligence, and exquisite taste, and artistic skill:
but so it is, that the written memorials of that brief period are found
to be available for interpreting the solid memorials of the same times,
and these again for illustrating those. It was indeed a brief period:
--it was a blossoming and a fruit-bearing summer month of the world’s
dull millennial year; and during the long period that followed it--the
autumn months, and the winter--there were none among the living who
could either have written these books, or who could have chiselled
these marbles; but the books in one manner, and the marbles in another,
have separately floated down upon the billows of time; and here we
have them, confronted under one roof--ten thousand witnesses, attesting
the reality of ancient history.
From the classic antiquities we now advance, and enter the ASSYRIAN
GALLERIES. Everybody knows, or may easily know, in what way the
sculptures, buried so many centuries, have now come to fill these
long apartments, and how they thus find a resting-place under the
roof of the British Museum. The places whence they have come, and the
circumstances of their disinterment, are (as we must suppose) known
and familiar to the visitor in whose company we are spending this
morning in its saloons. This being so, and if, moreover, we may believe
that he has become, in some degree, conversant with the literature of
ancient Greece--especially with its historians--Herodotus, Thucydides,
Xenophon, Diodorus, and also Strabo--he will be qualified to understand
what we mean in speaking of that _broad confirmation_ of the
authenticity of ancient history which it receives from a glance at the
contents of the “Assyrian Galleries.”
The above-named Greek writers, and these illustrated as they are by the
contemporary literature, give us a distinct image of Greece, and of
its people, with their intellectuality, and their religion, and their
taste; and this portraiture is quite homogeneous in itself, and, as we
have already said, it is corroborated and exhibited, in ten thousand
instances, by the sculptures, and other objects found in the saloons
we have just now visited. But now these same writers open up to us
also--sometimes formally, and sometimes incidentally--a prospect,
eastward, far over the regions outstretched beyond the limits of the
Greek civilisation. In those illimitable expanses there existed a
civilisation; but it was quite of another aspect; there was government,
and social order; but these were wholly unlike the institutions of
Greece. There were religions; but they breathed another spirit: they
uttered other voices; they spoke of a different national economy.
There was the same human nature; but it had been developed as if under
conditions proper to another world.
Now I will ask my companion to tell me with what sort of feeling it is,
that, in passing from the monuments of Grecian life, and the remains of
its arts, he enters these Assyrian galleries. Does there not take place
an involuntary impression to this effect--as if we were here setting
foot upon the soil of another world? We have crossed the threshold
that divides one phase or mode of human existence from another mode of
it; there are here displayed before us the indications of a different
climate, a different terrestrial surface; and the vegetation that
covers it is of another class, nor are the animals that roam over it
the same; and the human forms, and the visages, and the costumes, and
the attitudes, and the occupations, and the rites, are of another
mould. In these galleries we are surrounded with the symbols and the
appendages of a sombre and remorseless despotism. Greece had its
warriors and its heroes, and its many orders of mind, and each freely
developed; but _here_ the one master of prostrate millions of men is
the solitary being: all things follow, or precede, or revolve around
him: there is one will, and it carried its purposes unchecked, alike by
reason or humanity.
Here then are the monuments of a world, such as that outlying and
distant eastern world whereof we find scattered notices in the
extant remains of the Greek literature. These notices serve as the
interpretation, so far as they go, of these ponderous remains. The
historians, the orators, the poets, flourishing under a refined
civilisation, look over their enclosures, and they sketch, at points,
the far-off barbaric civilisation of Asia, and we recognise, in the
_written_ memorials of that ruder social life, the features and
characteristics of its sculptured memorials--as they are now in view.
These coincidences are, we say, _an evidence at large_ of the
authenticity of that portion of ancient history which might seem to
stand most in need of corroboration. It is a broad witnessing to the
truth. We might, however, descend to the particulars, and then might
verify this proof in very many of its details; but we must go on,
and only fix attention, for a moment, upon a single line of these
confirmatory coincidences; and it is one which carries with it a
momentous inference.
There is one body of extant writings which is not only of much earlier
date than the Greek literature--earlier even than its traditions,
but which sprung up within the circle of the Asiatic world; it is
not Grecian--it possesses not the same merits, the same graces, or
merits of a kindred order; it has its own. Asiatic it is; and yet
it was so much insulated, and it was so decisively national, that
the report it makes of the surrounding social economies, is, in a
great degree, an independent report; it looks on, as from a distance.
We may expect, therefore, to find in the Hebrew literature--in its
historians, poets, and prophets--a _reflection_ of Asiatic life,
rather than a native or home-made exhibition of it; and such is the
fact. The monster despotisms that had their seats by the side of the
Tigris and the Euphrates, appear like phantoms of destructive power,
as seen from the heights of Palestine. Now, what we affirm is this;
that the idea we obtain, in perusing the Hebrew literature, of the
Asiatic military despotisms, and of their horrific superstitions, is
conspicuously realized--it is held out to our view with a vivid force
and distinctness, as we walk up and down, gazing in awe upon these
monstrous sculptures. The Hebrew writers denounce these destroyers of
the nations; and now let us confess that they have pictured them truly;
they have not calumniated those remorseless tyrants--even the men of
these colossal busts and these bas-reliefs, when they recount their
deeds of blood, their spoliations, and their oppressions.
Besides and beyond this--which we have called a broad confirmation of
ancient history, and which arises spontaneously from the aspect of
these Assyrian antiquities--it is well known, and we are supposing our
companion to be aware of the fact, that, since the disinterment of
these Assyrian sculptures, great progress has been made in the work
of deciphering the inscriptions which appear upon many of them. At
this time it may safely be affirmed that these records, inscrutable
as they were thought to be, have spoken out their meaning. It is true
also that these utterances from a long unknown world have fallen in
with the testimony of written history--Grecian and Biblical, and
that in relation, especially, to the latter, many highly significant
coincidences have presented themselves, rewarding the patient
intelligence of those who have laboured on this field. But to this
subject we shall have occasion to return in a following chapter.
The marvels of the Egyptian galleries might lead us away even into yet
another world; but we have already touched upon the subject (pp. 146,
_and following_), and therefore hasten forward, making a momentary
stop at one object only, namely, the celebrated “Rosetta stone,” thus
described in the Synopsis:--
“The Rosetta stone, containing three inscriptions of the same import,
namely, one in hieroglyphics, another in a written character, called
demotic or enchorial, and a third in the Greek language. These
inscriptions record the services which Ptolemy the Fifth had rendered
his country, and were engraved by order of the Synod of Priests,
when they were assembled at Memphis for the purpose of investing him
with the royal prerogative. It is the key to the decipherment of the
hieroglyphical and demotic characters of Egypt. This stone was found
near Rosetta, and it appears to have been placed in a temple dedicated
to Atum by the monarch Nechao, of the twenty-sixth dynasty: it is of
basalt.”
The industry and the sagacity of a succession of learned men have
so far availed (greatly by aid of the threefold inscriptions of the
Rosetta stone) as that the history of Egypt, up to a very remote
age, has been recovered, and has been carried to its place, so as to
synchronize with that of the surrounding nations. Every such conquest,
or, as we may call it, inroad upon the dark regions of bygone ages,
gives a further confidence to our belief in the general trustworthiness
of ancient written history. The ancient historians were indeed
sometimes misinformed, or perhaps negligent in putting together their
materials; nevertheless, on the whole, they have acquitted themselves
as honest and intelligent witnesses.
In ascending the north-west staircase, we must not fail to notice
several framed and glazed specimens of Egyptian writing, which enliven
the walls. These manuscripts are on the Egyptian papyrus, the texture
of the material in several instances being quite discernible. These
should be looked at as furnishing the best possible illustration of the
statements already made in general terms (Chapter V.). What we have
there spoken of may here be (not handled indeed, but) seen.
It will now be time to bring our visit to the Museum to a close, lest
we should be allured by its multifarious treasures--the memorials of
all ages, to wander too far from our proper subject. Yet a glance must
be had at the manuscripts that are exposed to view in cases in the
saloons on the eastern side of the Museum. These manuscripts, to some
of which we must hereafter make a reference, bring under the eye all
those varieties of material, of decoration, and of character as to
the writing, which already have been briefly mentioned. Among them we
may find samples of the writer’s art, and of the art of the writer’s
brother--the decorator, as seen in the illuminations; some of them
are in the highest degree sumptuous and magnificent; others are more
business-like:--a few that have held their integrity as books through
sixteen hundred years, and many, during a thousand years. The summers
and the winters--times of war and devastation--times of peace:--years
of narrow risks from spoliation, conflagration, barbarian recklessness;
and centuries, perhaps, when, throughout noiseless days and nights
not a breath, not a hand, moved the dust that was always coming to
its long rest upon the cover! So it has been that a safe transmission
of the inestimable records of mind has had place, notwithstanding the
mischances, the storms, the violences, the ignorance, and the neglects,
of so many years.
CHAPTER XVI.
FACTS RELATING TO THE CONSERVATION, AND LATE RECOVERY, OF SOME ANCIENT
MANUSCRIPTS.
Some of the most ancient, and the most valuable of the manuscripts
which at present enrich the British Museum, have been very lately
acquired, being the product of the researches of learned travellers
in Egypt, and in the islands of the Ægæan Sea, and the countries
bordering upon it. These researches and these journeys have been
undertaken expressly for the purpose, and with the hope of discovering,
and of bringing away, some of those literary treasures which were
known, or believed, to lie neglected, and almost forgotten, in the
now dilapidated monasteries of Egypt and Greece. This hope has, to
some extent, been realized, and these labours rewarded; as we may now
briefly mention.
The desolate region which stretches away far to the west on the
parallel of the Delta of the Nile, bears the marks of having been, at
some remote period, and to a great extent, covered with water. The
remains of this dried-up sea still appear, as small lakes, filling the
cavities among the rugged hills that skirt the desert toward the valley
of the Nile. Upon the margins of these lakes is found the Natron, which
may be called natural salt-soap, and whence, also, large quantities of
pure nitre are obtained. These lakes have received their designation
from this natural product.
The district, NITRIA, is frequently mentioned by ancient authors; as
by Strabo (Book xvii.) and by Pliny (Book xxxi. 46), and again by
the Church writers of the fourth and following centuries; especially
by those of them who speak of the monastic institutions of their own
times. Around these dreary waters the monks of that time established
themselves in great numbers;--so many, indeed, that the emperor Valens,
thinking that he could find a more useful employment for them than
that of reciting the Psalter, enlisted as many as five thousand of
them in his legions. But here, notwithstanding disturbances of this
kind, these recluses continued to find a refuge from the world, and its
temptations--or so they thought; and here, by the aid of grants from
some of the better-minded of the emperors, or of opulent and religious
persons, many religious houses were constructed; some of them being
of ample dimensions, and so built as to be capable of resisting the
attacks of the marauders of the desert; and as their precincts included
spacious gardens, they might, for lengths of time, support the frugal
life of their inmates, even if besieged.
As to these establishments,[5] we find incidental notices of them
sufficient to assure us that, in some, if not in all of them, the
copying of books afforded occupation to a class of their inmates;
and that this was the fact, we now have evidence in the results of
the researches above referred to. In some instances there has been
enough of continuous life in a decaying monastery, even though the
building may seem to be little better than a huge ruin, to maintain the
“Copying-room” in some activity. In others, where a score of monks,
or even fewer, have slumbered away their term of years, they have yet
retained a vague traditionary belief in the value of the manuscripts
which they knew to lie, in heaps, in some cell or vault, never visited,
by themselves. In some cases the books, which had been huddled away
from the library in a moment of danger, when an enemy was under the
walls, have remained--safe and forgotten, in their concealment--perhaps
for centuries. Thus it has been that--by the intellectual activity of
one age, by the slumbering or the inert industry of the next period,
and at length, by the utter mindlessness of centuries--the precious
products of the ancient world have been conserved for our use in this
age. May we not well notice and admire that providential interposition
which, in these varying and precarious modes, has made us the
inheritors of the wealth of the remotest times!
Among those modern travellers who have prosecuted these researches, one
of the most eminent is the learned Tischendorff, whose labours in the
field of Biblical criticism have become known to all readers in that
line. This accomplished traveller directed his attention especially to
the monasteries of the Natron Lakes. He visited them by joining himself
to a caravan proceeding from Cairo to the Italian settlement, Castello
Cibara.--“Shortly after daybreak,” he says, “we saw in the distance
upon the left, in the middle of the Desert, a lofty stone wall, and
still further on, a second. These were two of the Coptic monasteries.
Presently afterwards one of the salt lakes glittered in the distance,
with its obscure reddish blue waters, and a flock of flamingoes sprung
out of its reeds. Upon the right was the Castello Cibara; in the
background the low Libyan hills formed a dark-red border to the whole
scene. About nine in the morning we reached our destination, and I
found in the midst of the Desert a hospitable hearth.” What follows,
although not closely related to our immediate subject, is not very
remotely connected with it; and a few sentences further may be cited.
“In the afternoon we made an excursion to the fields and lakes of
nitre. What a singular scene! In the midst of this sandy waste,
where uniformity is rarely interrupted by grass or shrubs, there
are extensive districts where nitre springs from the earth like
crystallized fruits. One thinks he sees a wild, overgrown with moss,
weeds, and shrubs, thickly covered with hoar frost. And to imagine this
winter scene beneath the fervid heat of an Egyptian sun, will give some
idea of the strangeness of its aspect.
“The existence of this nitre upon the sandy surface is caused by the
evaporation of the lakes.... The nitre lakes themselves, six in number,
situated in a spacious valley, between two rows of low sandhills,
presented a pleasing contrast, in their dark blue and red colours, to
the dull hues of the sand.... There are four Coptic monasteries at the
distance of a few leagues apart. Ruins and monasteries, and heaps of
rubbish, I observed scattered in great numbers throughout the district.
I was told that there were formerly about three hundred Coptic
monasteries in this desert.... Both externally and internally, these
monasteries closely resemble one another. Sometimes square, at others
in the form of a parallelogram, they are enclosed by walls tolerably
high, and usually about one hundred feet long. From their centre a
few palms frequently peer forth, for every monastery has a small
garden within its circuit, and is also furnished with a tower slightly
elevated above the walls, and containing a small bell.... Within the
walls are seen nothing but old and dilapidated ruins, amongst which the
monks find a habitation. The tower I have just described is insulated
from the body of the monastery, and approachable only by means of
a drawbridge supported on chains, offering thus an asylum against
enemies, who may have mastered the monastery. This tower commands the
entrance. The interior consists of a chapel, a well, a mill, an oven,
and a store-room, all required in the event of a long siege, and the
apartment assigned to the library.... Here and there, in the mural
structure of the entrances to the cells and chapelries, we obtain a
glimpse of the fragment of a marble pillar, or of a frieze, or some
similar decoration. Thus has the sordid present been built out of the
splendour and grandeur of the past.”
The scattered fragmentary remains of the architectural magnificence
of a remote age may properly be regarded as so many attestations of
those incidental notices of these same establishments which occur in
the writers of that age; and thus it is that the literary evidence,
touching the decaying and almost forgotten ancient manuscripts that
have lately been dragged forth from their concealments, is found to
consist well with the visible history of the structure wherein they
have been so long conserved.
The learned traveller from whose journal the above citations have
been made, had been anticipated in his search for manuscripts by
several European scholars; and therefore it was little that he found
available for his immediate purpose--the collation of manuscripts
of the New Testament. What we are just now concerned with are those
characteristics of Oriental stagnation and motionless decay, and of
monastic persistence, which have been the very means of ensuring an
undisturbed custody of literary treasures through the stormy passage
of many centuries. The decrepit inmates of these ruins cherish the
traditions of a more stirring time, and they are aided in doing so
by the pictures of the saints and founders of those times. Some of
these pictures are manifestly of great antiquity, and they have been
conserved, with reverential regard, by each successive series of abbots
and monks. Thus says Tischendorff:--
“The chief pictorial representations, in all the four monasteries
(those visited by him), were those of St. Macarius and St. George.
In the third, which bears the name of the Syrian, or the Virgin of
the Syrians, St. Ephraim (Ephrem Syrus, whose voluminous writings are
extant) is held in high honour. A tamarind-tree was there shown me,
which had miraculously sprouted forth from the staff of St. Ephraim,
who, upon entering the chapel, had stuck it into the ground outside. In
the second, St. Ambeschun was represented as the patron. In the fourth,
besides St. George, St. Theodore was represented on horseback, with the
vanquished dragon beneath his feet.”
In speaking of the main object of his journey, the author says:--
“The special locality set apart for the library (in these buildings)
is the tower chamber, which is accessible only by means of the
drawbridge. No spot in the monastery could be safer from the visits
of the fraternity than this. Here are seen (I speak of the first
monastery) the manuscripts heaped indiscriminately together. Lying on
the ground, or thrown into large baskets, beneath masses of dust, are
found innumerable fragments of old, torn, and destroyed manuscripts.
I saw nothing Greek; all was either Coptic, or Arabic; and in the
third monastery I found some Syriac, together with a couple of leaves
of Ethiopic. The majority of the MSS. are liturgical, though many
are Biblical. From the fourth monastery (presently to be mentioned)
the English have recently acquired an important collection of
several hundred manuscripts for the British Museum, and that at a
very small cost. The other monasteries contain certainly nothing of
much consequence; yet much might be found to reward the labour of
the search. The monks themselves understand extremely little about
the matter. Not one among them, probably, is acquainted with Coptic,
and they merely read mechanically the lessons of their ritual. The
Arabic of the olden MSS. but few can read. Indeed, it is not easy
to say what these monks know beyond the routine of their ordinary
church service. Still their excessive suspicion renders it extremely
difficult to induce them to produce their manuscripts, in spite of
the extreme penury which surrounds them. Possibly they are controlled
by the mandate of their patriarch. For my own part, I made a most
lucky discovery of a multitude of Coptic parchment sheets of the sixth
and seventh centuries, already half destroyed, and completely buried
beneath a mass of dust. These were given to me without hesitation; but
I paid for the discovery by severe pains in the throat, produced by the
dust I had raised in the excessive heat.... The monks (taught at length
to think much of the value of their literary treasures) are too much
accustomed to the visits and to the gold of the English.”
Among these “English” whose visits and whose gold have spoiled the good
monks of the Egyptian desert, one of the most noted is the Hon. Robert
Curzon, jun., whose entertaining volume, published about ten years ago,
has brought his amusing adventures to the knowledge of most people
who read at all. Notwithstanding the notoriety of this distinguished
traveller’s discoveries and his successes in the desert, it would be
an omission of what is very pertinent to our argument, not to cite a
few paragraphs from his account of his “Visits to Monasteries in the
Levant.”
Preserved--a contradiction, as it may seem--by the very means of the
neglect and ignorance, the stupidity and the recklessness, of those in
whose custody they have been--the most valuable manuscripts have often
been converted to the meanest purposes. A learned traveller, mentioned
by Mr. Curzon, in inquiring for manuscripts, was told that there were
none in the monastery; but when he entered the choir to be present at
the service, he saw a double row of long-bearded holy fathers, shouting
the Kyrie eleison, and each of them standing, to save his bare legs
from the damp of the marble floor, upon a great folio volume, which
had been removed from the conventual library, and applied to purposes
of practical utility in the way here mentioned. These volumes, some of
them highly valuable, this traveller was allowed to carry away with
him, in exchange for some footstools or hassocks, which he presented to
the monks.
Mr. Curzon visited the Levant in 1833, and the following years: his
description of the monasteries near the Natron Lakes differs little
from that of the traveller already cited; but he was fortunate in his
researches, not merely as a first comer, but as more amply provided
with the means of purchase, and also perhaps better skilled in the
sort of diplomacy which the business in hand required. The Coptic
manuscripts which he found in one of these monasteries were most
of them lying on the floor, but some were in niches in the stone
wall; all except three were on paper. One on parchment was a superb
manuscript of the Gospels, with commentaries by the early fathers of
the Church: two others were doing duty as coverings to a couple of
large open pots or jars, which had contained preserves, long since
evaporated. “I was allowed to purchase these vellum manuscripts,
as they were considered to be useless by the monks; principally, I
believe, because there were no more preserves in the jars.” On the
floor was a fine Coptic and Arabic dictionary, which the monks would
not then sell; but some years afterwards their reluctance was overcome
by a more liberal offer. He prevailed, by aid of a tempting bottle,
to get access to a long-forgotten cellar or vault, crammed with
manuscripts in all stages of decay, but from which some were rescued,
and brought away.
The description given by this traveller, first of the desert, and then
of the contrast presented by the interior of one of these monasteries,
will enable us to understand the attractions of this secluded mode
of life to many who had retired to it from the troubles of the open
world. To men of sedentary and literary habits, especially, it would
be peculiarly attractive; and these would find their happiness through
the round of long years, in the occupation of copying books. Mr. Curzon
thus presents to us the contrast above mentioned. He says:--
“To those who are not familiar with the aspect of such a region as
this, it may be well to explain that a desert, such as that which now
surrounded me, resembles more than anything else, a dusty turnpike
road in England, on a hot summer’s day, extended interminably, both
as to length and breadth. A country of low rounded hills, the surface
of which is composed entirely of gravel, dust, and stones, will give
a good idea of the general aspect of a desert. Yet, although parched
and dreary in the extreme from their vastness and openness, there is
something grand and sublime in the silence and loneliness of these
burning plains; and the wandering tribes of Bedouins who inhabit them
are seldom content to remain long in the narrow enclosed confines
of cultivated land. There is always a fresh breeze in the desert,
except when the terrible hot wind blows; and the air is more elastic
and pure than where vegetation produces exhalations, which, in all
hot climates, are more or less heavy and deleterious. The air of the
desert is always healthy, and no race of men enjoy a greater exemption
from weakness, sickness, and disease, than the children of the desert,
who pass their lives in wandering to and fro, in search of the scanty
herbage on which their flocks are fed, far from the cares and troubles
of busy cities, and free from the oppression which grinds down the
half-starved cultivators of the fertile soil of Egypt.
“Whilst from my elevated position, I looked out on my left, upon
the mighty desert, on my right how different was the scene! There,
below my feet, lay the convent garden, in all the fresh luxuriance of
tropical vegetation. Tufts upon tufts of waving palms overshadowed the
immense succulent leaves of the banana, which in their turn rose out
of thickets of the pomegranate, rich with its bright green leaves and
its blossoms of that beautiful and vivid red which is excelled by few
even of the most brilliant flowers of the East. These were contrasted
with the deep dark green of the caroub or locust-tree; and the yellow
apples of the lotus vied with the clusters of green limes with their
sweet white flowers which luxuriated in a climate too hot and sultry
for the golden fruit of the orange, which is not to be met with in the
valley of the Nile. Flowers and fair branches exhaling rich perfume,
and bearing freshness in their very aspect, became more beautiful from
their contrast to the dreary arid plains outside the convent walls,
and this great difference was owing solely to there being a well of
water in this spot, from which a horse or mule was constantly employed
to draw the fertilizing streams which nourished the teeming vegetation
of this monastic garden.”
If we carry this picture back to those times when these Nitrian
monasteries were entire in their structure, and were complete in
all things proper to a well-appointed religious establishment--when
imperial favour, and the patronage of the wealthy were at the command
of the community--we may be inclined to think that the conventual life
might seem enviable to many in those times, who were beating about in
the storms of the open world. No doubt this tranquil existence had its
charms, even for such as relinquished much when they buried themselves
in a monastery. How attractive must it have been to those who lost
nothing in making the exchange, and to whom the vow of poverty brought
with it, in fact, an exemption from want, turmoil, labour, misery! It
was thus that these establishments kept their cells ever full, and
their refectory halls always furnished with guests.
The lively writer from whom we have cited the passages just above,
appears to have received his idea of the founders of these religious
houses from the absurd legendary literature of a later time. If he
had only taken the pains to acquaint himself with the extant writings
of some of these good men, he might perhaps have come to think of them
more worthily, and then he would have abridged a little the ridicule
he heaps upon them. As for instance,--the Great Saint of the Egyptian
monks--St. Macarius, concerning whom, and his austerities, there is
abundance of childish absurdity in the “Lausiac Memoirs,” and in
other books of that class, is, on sufficient evidence, believed to be
the author of Homilies and Treatises which indicate a sincere and a
sober-minded piety, far remote from the extravagance and the foolish
ostentation with which his later biographers have encumbered his better
fame.
It is pertinent to our present argument to say, that the existence, in
the fourth and following centuries, of works so substantially good as
are those of this Macarius, and others, is indicative of a far higher
condition of the Christian community, in those times, than we should
imagine in looking into the monkish literature of later ages. In truth,
it was the substantial merits of many of the early Christian writers
that gave an impulse to the zeal and assiduity of the copyists. We
have evidence of this in the frequent occurrence of the works of the
principal writers of the fourth century, among the now neglected heaps
of the Egyptian, and other monasteries.
From the same writer--Mr. Curzon, we may cite a description of an
Abyssinian copying apparatus, and library, and the writers there
employed--illustrative, as it is, of what has been affirmed in the
preceding chapters.
The library, or consistory, of some Abyssinian monks was their
refectory also:--
“On my remarking the number of books which I saw around me, the monks
seemed proud of their collection, and told me that there were not many
such libraries as this in their country. There were perhaps nearly
fifty volumes; and as the entire literature of Abyssinia does not
include more than double that number of works, I could easily imagine
that what I saw around me formed a very considerable accumulation of
manuscripts, considering the barbarous state of the country from which
they came. The disposition of the manuscripts in this library was very
original.... The room was about twenty-six feet long, twenty wide, and
twelve high; the roof was formed of the trunks of palm-trees, across
which reeds were laid, which supported the mass of earth and plaster,
of which the terrace-roof was composed. The interior of the walls was
plastered white with lime; the windows, at a good height from the
ground, were unglazed, but were defended with bars of iron-wood, or
some other hard wood; the door opened into the garden, and its lock,
which was of wood also, was of that peculiar construction which has
been used in Egypt from time immemorial. A wooden shelf was carried in
the Egyptian style round the walls, at the height of the top of the
door; and on this shelf stood sundry platters, bottles, and dishes for
the use of the community. Underneath the shelf various long wooden
pegs projected from the wall; they were each about a foot and a half
long, and on them hung the Abyssinian manuscripts, of which this
curious library was entirely composed.
“The books of Abyssinia are bound in the usual way, sometimes in
red leather, and sometimes in wooden boards, which are occasionally
elaborately carved in rude and coarse devices: they are then enclosed
in a case, tied up with leather thongs; to this case is attached a
strap for the convenience of carrying the volume over the shoulders,
and by these straps the books were hung to the wooden pegs, three or
four on a peg, or more if the books were small: their usual size was
that of a small, very thick quarto.”
The labour required to write an Abyssinian book, it is said, is
“immense, and sometimes many years are consumed in the preparation of
a single volume. They are almost all written upon skins; the only one
not written upon vellum that I have met with is in my possession; it
is on charta bombycina. The ink which they use is composed of gum,
lamp-black, and water. It is jet black, and keeps its colour for ever.
Indeed, in this respect, all oriental inks are infinitely superior to
ours, and they have the additional advantage of not being corrosive or
injurious either to the pen or paper. Their pen is the reed commonly
used in the East, only the nib is made sharper than that which is
required to write the Arabic character. The ink-horn is usually the
small end of a cow’s horn, which is stuck into the ground at the feet
of the scribe ... seated upon the ground, the square piece of thick
greasy vellum is held upon the knee, or on the palm of the left hand.
The Abyssinian alphabet consists of eight times twenty-six letters,
two hundred and eight characters in all; and these are each written
distinctly and separately, like the letters of an European printed
book. They have no cursive writing; each letter is therefore painted,
as it were, with the reed-pen, and as the scribe finishes each, he
usually makes a horrible face, and gives a triumphant flourish with
his pen. Thus he goes on letter by letter, and before he gets to the
end of the first line he is probably in a perspiration, from his
nervous apprehension of the importance of his undertaking. One page is
a good day’s work; and when he has done it, he generally, if he is
not too stiff, follows the custom of all little Arab boys, and swings
his head or his body from side to side, keeping time in a sort of
nasal recitative, without the help of which it would seem that few can
read even a chapter of the Koran, although they may know it by heart.”
The habitudes of Eastern nations undergo so little change in the
lapse of ages that, probably, these descriptions of things as they
are now, would differ little from a similarly graphic account of the
same operations, dated a thousand years back. Where the arts of life
remain in their rude state, all those operations which depend upon
them continue nearly the same. We may infer this from the identity
of many implements and tools, such as are now seen in Museums, with
those at present in use in the same countries; and the same inference
is warranted by what we meet with in the illuminations of ancient
manuscripts, which often exhibit the usages and methods of common life;
just as we see those of China displayed in the decorations of its
potteries, and its screens.
“The paint-brush used by the illuminators of Egypt is made by chewing
the end of a reed till it is reduced to filaments, and then nibbling
it into a proper form: the paint-brushes of the ancient Egyptians
were made in the same way; and excellent brooms for common purposes
are made at Cairo by beating the thick end of a palm-branch till
the fibres are separated from the pith; the part above, which is
not beaten, becoming the handle of the broom. The Abyssinian having
nibbled and chewed his reed till he thinks it will do, proceeds to
fill up the spaces between the inked outlines with his colours; ...
the colours are mixed up with the yolk of an egg, and the numerous
mistakes and slips of the brush are corrected by a wipe from a wet
finger or thumb, which is generally kept ready in the artist’s mouth
during the operation; and it is lucky if he does not give it a bite in
the agony of composition, when, with an unsteady hand, the eye of some
famous saint is smeared all over the nose by an unfortunate swerve of
the nibbled reed.”
These descriptions of the oriental literary craft, may perhaps fail
to bring before us what might have been witnessed in the copying-room
of a _Greek_ monastery a thousand years ago; but as to the technical
part of the operation it was not even then in a much higher state
of efficiency. For it appears that copies executed in what, to
Europeans, seems the rudest manner--as to apparatus, and implements,
and accommodation--are often of great beauty--the patient skill and
adroitness of the scribe and artist, who is never hurried in his work,
making up for the deficiencies of his appointments.
Mr. Curzon’s explorations in these Nitrian monasteries, although not
the first that had been made by European travellers and scholars, had
the effect of drawing the attention of learned persons afresh towards
them; and the result has been to bring to light very many literary
treasures which otherwise must soon have fallen into a state of
irrecoverable decay. Of these restored treasures, a very remarkable
example has just now come before the world; and the reader may inspect
it, if he has the opportunity to take in hand a sumptuous quarto,
entitled, “Remains of a very ancient Recension of the Four Gospels in
Syriac, hitherto unknown in Europe; discovered, edited, and translated
by William Cureton, D.D., &c., 1858.”
The account which the learned editor gives of this volume agrees well
with that idea of the course of things in the Nitrian monasteries which
has been brought before us in Mr. Curzon’s descriptions of what he
found there. From his Preface we learn that--
“The manuscript from which the text of the Fragments of the Gospels
contained in this volume has been printed, was one of those obtained
in the year 1842, by Archdeacon Tattam, from the Syrian monastery,
dedicated to St. Mary Deipara, Mother of God, in the valley of the
Natron lakes. It consisted of portions of three ancient copies, bound
together to form a volume of the Four Gospels, with a few leaves in a
more recent hand, added to make up the deficiencies.”
A note added to the last leaf of the volume is such as is commonly
found at the end of similar manuscripts. In it the copyist dedicates
his labour to the glory of the Holy Trinity, and commends himself
to the prayers of those who may read it--these rendered efficacious
through the prayers of “the Mother of God, and of all the saints
continually.” This note bears date in the year 1533 of the Greek
reckoning, which corresponds with the year 1221 A.D. The leaf upon
which this note occurs, and which contains some verses of St. Luke’s
Gospel, is a palimpsest vellum, “which was formerly a part of a
manuscript of the sixth or seventh century, and originally contained a
portion of the first chapter of St. Luke, in Syriac.”
On the first leaf of the same volume, there is a note in a more ancient
hand; to this effect:--
“This book belonged to the monk Habibai, who presented it to the holy
convent of the Church of Deipara, belonging to the Syrians in the
Desert of Scete. May God, abounding in mercies and compassion, for
the sake of whose glorious name he set apart and gave this spiritual
treasure, forgive his sins, and pardon his deficiencies, and number
him among His own elect in the day of the resurrection of his friends,
through the prayers of all the circle of the saints! Amen, Amen.--Son
of the living God, at the hour of Thy judgment, spare the sinner who
wrote this!”
The way in which this volume was put together is characteristic of the
times in which it was done, and of that union of religious feeling and
of literary (not heedlessness but) inobservance, which attach to the
monastic mode of life after it has subsided into its inert and mindless
condition. Dr. Cureton says that
“the volume containing the Fragments that are now published, were
taken, as it would appear, almost by hazard, without any other
consideration than that of their being of the same size, and then
arranged, so as to form a complete copy of the Four Gospels. There
were several other volumes in the Nitrian Library made up in this
manner. The person who arranged them seems to have had no idea of
selecting the scattered parts of the same original volume, which had
fallen to pieces, but merely to have taken the first leaves which came
to his hand, which would serve to complete a copy of the Gospels, and
then to have bound them together. In this way it came to pass, that
parts of three or four manuscripts were found mixed up with three or
four others, written at different times, and by different scribes;
and sometimes, indeed, not even of the same exact size, apparently
without regard to any other circumstance than merely to render the
context perfect.”
So far as could be done, this intermixture of leaves has been remedied,
by bringing the corresponding portions of the same copy again into
their original juxtaposition, so as to constitute continuous copies
of several different manuscripts. Within the one volume, such as it
had been obtained from the Nitrian monastery, there were included some
leaves of thick vellum, apparently transcribed in the sixth or seventh
century, and written in a very large, bold hand, with divisions of
sections--some of very thin and white vellum, in a large hand, in two
columns, similar to the former; but apparently rather older; and some
in a different style and of other dates.
Dr. Cureton expresses his belief (as to portions at least) of what has
thus been recovered, that they were transcribed in or about the middle
of the fifth century; and that they represent a text--especially so far
as concerns the recovered portions of the Gospel of St. Matthew--which
has been unknown to European scholars; and is, therefore, “of the
highest importance for the critical arrangement of the text of the
Gospels.”
The use to be made of this ancient copy is not a subject properly
belonging to this volume; but it will be well that the reader should
bring into his own view the highly significant facts that are, as we
may say, linked together in an instance of this sort. Let us then
recount them: and we may do so with the more satisfaction, inasmuch as
they are now so recently made public; and because, also, the instance,
taken in all its circumstances, may stand as fairly representative of
very many of those which constitute the evidence adducible in proof of
the safe transmission of ancient books to modern times.
The Church writers of the fourth and fifth centuries make frequent
references to the monastic establishments of the Scetic desert.[6]
In these religious houses, well-ordered and amply furnished as they
were in those times, the business of copying books was a principal
occupation of such of the recluses as were inclined by their habits
and tastes to pursue it. There are notices of these establishments
from time to time, down to the Mahometan era; when, although some
of the monasteries were dismantled or plundered, more of them were
treated indulgently, or even reverentially, by the Arabian conquerors.
Several Saracenic writers mention the Nitrian monasteries in a style of
oriental encomium. With varying fortunes, the principal of them--that
especially of St. Mary Deipara--maintained their existence, and were,
at times, even in a flourishing condition, during what are called the
Dark Ages. Great additions were made to the libraries, and particularly
in the class of Syriac and Aramaic books, which had been brought from
similar establishments in Mesopotamia and the remoter East. Incidental
notices in evidence of the continuance, and, to some extent, of what
we may call the vitality, of four or five of these Nitrian religious
houses, may be collected from the writers, in succession, who refer
to Egypt, and to its ecclesiastical affairs--down to modern times--or,
as we should say, to the revival of learning in Europe. An Arabian
author of the fifteenth century affirms that the monasteries, formerly
a hundred in number, were, in his time, seven only; but he specifies
that of St. Macarius, and speaks of it as a fine building, though its
occupants were few.
From about this time, therefore--namely, from the fifteenth
century, and until our own times--these ancient structures, with
their dosing inhabitants, the mindless guardians of whatever they
might contain--have remained as sepulchres, subjected to no other
invasions or spoliations than those of Time. The dust of one year has
settled down upon the dust of preceding years, in these oven-like
vaults, through the tranquil lapse of four centuries. Some peculiar
circumstances have contributed to ensure the preservation of the
manuscripts hoarded in these tombs, and these ought to be kept in
view. Among these are, _first_, the slumbering ignorance of the monks,
together with the unknowing superstition with which they guard their
libraries: along with this is the jealousy of the monks toward their
abbots; the brethren always suspecting their superiors of an intention
to purloin, and to make a commerce with, the books which were held
to be the property of the community. Again, there is to be noticed a
usage of the copyists, and of the owners of costly manuscripts--namely,
that of subjoining a note to the last page of a book, imprecating
curses upon any one who should dare, at any distant time, to dispose
of, or to alienate the book for his private advantage. Not the least
effective of these conservative circumstances has been this--that, in
some instances, the entire contents of a monastic library have--in
some moment of danger, while an enemy was thundering at the gate--been
huddled into a cellar or a vault, and there covered with rubbish--safe
for a hundred years or more. It was just in this condition that a large
portion of the manuscripts which are now carefully preserved in the
British Museum, was discovered by those who have lately succeeded in
bringing them off.
In the lapse of these last four centuries, the monasteries of the
Egyptian desert have frequently been visited by European travellers and
men of learning. Among these was Robert Huntington, afterwards bishop
of Raphoe, whose collection of Oriental manuscripts has found its home
in the Bodleian Library: this visit was in the year 1678 or 1679.
The celebrated Joseph Simon Asseman, in the year 1715, who had been
preceded by his cousin Elias, examined these collections and brought
away, to enrich the Vatican, a small number of books--Arabic, Coptic,
and Syriac. About the same time the Jesuit Claude Sicard visited those
of the monasteries that were still inhabited, and found the books
packed in chests, covered with dust, and in a neglected condition; they
were stowed away in the tower or keep (above mentioned).
In illustration of what we have said concerning the persistence of the
monks in refusing to part with their books, we may cite the evidence of
a traveller--the Sieur Granger, who visited the Natron monasteries in
the year 1730. He says, that the buildings at that time were falling
into decay, and the dust destroying the books and manuscripts, of which
the monks made no use whatever. Their own patriarch had represented to
them that the sum which the books would produce would be sufficient to
enable them to restore their churches and to rebuild their cells: but
they declared they would rather be buried in the ruins. Lord Prudhoe
visited the monasteries in 1828. After much difficulty he got access
to a chamber in which was a trap-door, through which he “descended,
candle in hand, to examine the manuscripts, where books and parts of
books, and scattered leaves, in Coptic, Ethiopic, Syriac, and Arabic,
were lying in a mass, on which,” he says, “I stood.... To appearance
it seemed as if, on some sudden emergency, the whole library had been
thrown for security down this trap-door, and that they had remained
undisturbed in their dust and neglect for some centuries.”[7]
In this manner it is that we feel our way from century to century,
keeping an eye all the way upon those remains of a distant time, the
safe transmission of which is our immediate theme. In this transit we
are now reaching the shore of the times we live in. Those fragments
of the Gospels which already we have mentioned, and many other highly
important manuscripts, which are now in the British Museum, were
obtained at different times by Dr. Tattam (Archdeacon of Bedford),
who twice visited Egypt expressly for this purpose. In one of these
monasteries, in a vault, the manuscripts and fragments of books covered
the floor, eight inches deep, where they had laid, apparently, many
years. As many as 317 books, entire or in part, were then purchased,
and they safely reached their destination: most of them are on vellum;
some on paper--all in Syriac, Aramaic, or Coptic; and these, with those
before obtained, made 360 volumes of manuscripts. Some of these volumes
contain two, three, or four distinct works, written at different
periods, but bound up together:--altogether perhaps containing not
fewer than a thousand manuscripts--derived from Mesopotamia, Syria,
and Egypt, and belonging to different times, from the fifth to the
thirteenth century. In fact, it now appears that a few of them are of a
much higher antiquity than the fifth century.
In the course of time, as the Mahometan influence extended itself
throughout the East, and became more and more exclusive and intolerant,
the Christian recluses of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Arabia gradually
retired, or were driven westward, bringing with them, when they could
do so, their books. Thus it was that the monasteries of the Egyptian
desert became stored with these manuscripts in the languages of the
East, and especially of Syria and Arabia.
The separate books of the Old and New Testament, or fragments of them,
abound in these recovered stores. Liturgies, and Lives of the Saints,
the spurious Gospels also, and the works of the early Christian
writers, together with the canons of Councils, are also largely present
among them; and altogether, many additions to religious literature,
and some few to classic literature, have hence accrued. Among these
recoveries, in the department of Christian literature, we should name
the three Epistles of St. Ignatius--believed to be the only genuine
epistles of this father. Fragments also of what are termed the Festal
Epistles of St. Athanasius, in Syriac, have been found in the same
manner; and the circumstances attaching to this one instance, as
narrated by the learned editor, are so characteristic of the times and
places which we have now in view, that they may properly be reported
in this place; the more so because the publications in which these
accounts first appeared, are of a kind rarely coming under the eye of
general readers.
It was the custom of the patriarchs--and thus of Athanasius, during
the forty years of his official life--to address a circular-letter
each year to his clergy, informing them of the day in which the Easter
solemnities were to be observed. Nothing more than some fragments of
these Epistles, in the Greek original, had reached modern times. But it
is now a Syriac version of many of them that has come to light.
The treasures of Syriac literature obtained by Dr. Tattam, in Egypt, as
we have already mentioned, were deposited in the British Museum: it was
a vast mass--a chaos of manuscripts and fragments; there were volumes,
and parts of volumes, and single sheets, and torn fragments of sheets,
large and small. This mass of commingled materials was consigned to
the care of Dr. Cureton, as belonging to his department; and it became
his duty to examine, and to report concerning the whole--a task which
seemed to defy human skill and industry. This labour, which at first
appeared to need no addition, was, however, afterwards doubled by the
arrival of another mass, almost equal to the first; for the fact had
transpired that the monks, who received payment as for their entire
library, had contrived to hold back a large portion of the whole;
which, however, was afterwards obtained by means of a further payment.
A laborious adjustment of these materials--part to part--resulted in
bringing to light several Syriac versions of treatises of which the
titles were known, but of which the Greek originals have been lost.
Among these, and claiming to be noticed, are some of the writings of
Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian; and with them the Theophania,
or “Manifestation of Christ,” of which an English translation has been
published, by the late Dr. Lee. The manuscript of this Syriac work
appears, by dates attached to it, to be not less than fifteen hundred
years old, and in fact to have been written a few years only later than
the time of the publication of the original treatise.
A curious circumstance connected with one of these ancient
manuscripts is mentioned by Dr. Cureton. To one of the leaves of
this manuscript--midway in the volume, there is attached a note to
this effect: “Behold, my brethren, if it should happen that the end
of this ancient book should be torn off and lost, together with the
writer’s subscription and termination, it was written at the end of it
thus: viz. that this book was written at Orrhoa, a city of Mesopotamia
(Edessa), by the hands of a man named Jacob, in the year seven hundred
and twenty-three, in the month Tishrin the latter it was completed; and
agreeably to what was written there, I have written also here, without
addition, and which I wrote in the year one thousand and three hundred
and ninety-eight of the era of the Greeks.”
These dates, according to our era, correspond with the years A.D.
411, for the time of the transcription of the volume, and A.D. 1086
for that of the note. What this writer anticipated as probable did
actually take place; for the end of the sheet containing the original
note of the copyist had been torn off and lost; how small then appeared
the probability that the actual fragment should have escaped so many
risks of utter destruction, and that it should be recovered. Yet so
it was! In the mass of fragments which were afterwards obtained, and
brought to England, there were several bundles, promiscuously made up,
and consisting of separate leaves or parts of leaves, which were in
fact the gatherings and sweepings from the floor, after the principal
volumes had been taken up.
“One by one,” says Dr. Cureton, “I untied the bundles (there were
about twenty) and diligently and eagerly examined their contents. As I
opened the fourth I was delighted at recognising two pieces belonging
to one of the leaves of this precious book; in the next I found a
third: and now, reader, if thou hast any love for the records of
antiquity; if thou feelest any kindred enthusiasm in such pursuits
as these; if thou hast ever known the satisfaction of having a dim
expectation gradually brightened into reality, and an anxious research
rewarded with success,--things that but rarely happen to us in this
world of disappointment--I leave it to thine own imagination to paint
the sensations which I experienced at that moment, when the loosing of
the cord of the seventh bundle disclosed to my sight a small fragment
of beautiful vellum, in a well-known hand, upon which I read the
following words.”...
These words were those of the original copyist, which had been copied
as above mentioned, and attached to another part of the volume, and
which fixed its date to the time above stated. This note had itself
been torn, yet enough of it remained entire to verify the facts that
have been reported. The first sentence of this note is written in
red, the second in yellow, and the third in black. Dr. Cureton thus
presents to view the series of facts connected with this manuscript;
and the statement of them, which we abridge, is quite pertinent to
our present purpose. It was written in the country which was the
birth-place of Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, and the city whose
king was the first sovereign who embraced Christianity; it was written
in the year of our Lord 411. It was subsequently transported to the
valley of the Ascetics, in Egypt, probably in A.D. 931, and presented
to the monastery of St. Mary Deipara. In A.D. 1086, some person with
careful foresight, fearing lest the memorial of the transcription of so
valuable a book should be lost, took the precaution to copy it into
the body of the volume. At what time in the lapse of centuries this
fear was realized is not known; but when the volume came to light in
1839, this had taken place; and in that year it was transferred from
the solitude of the African desert to London. Three years later two
fragments of it followed it to England; and in 1847, other portions
were found and restored to their places in it; and then also the
transcriber’s own notification of the date of his labours was found
in a heap of fragments, and was attached to the leaf whence it had
been torn. Through so many chances, and in traversing countries of
Asia, Africa, and Europe, it has held its way through a period of one
thousand four hundred and thirty-six years. Here then is an instance in
point, establishing the fact of the safe transmission of ancient books
to modern times.
Other instances, not less striking than this, are reported in the
pamphlet whence we have derived the one here brought forward. One of
these is that of a palimpsest, upon which was discovered the traces of
a very ancient copy of the Iliad--legible beneath a Syriac version of
an obscure author.
The subscriptions of the monastic copyists are characteristic of
the times, and of the feelings of the men to whose assiduity we are
indebted for whatever we possess of acquaintance with antiquity. The
following may be cited as an instance, and it is one among many of a
similar kind:--
“This book belongs to Daniel, a secular presbyter and visitor of the
province of Amida, who gave diligence and procured it for the benefit
of himself and of those who, possessed with the same object of love
of divine instruction, may approach it, and desire to profit their
lives by the truth that is in it. But the poor Simeon, presbyter and
a recluse, who is in the holy convent of my Lord Simeon of Cartamin,
transcribed it. May every one, therefore, who asks for it, that he may
read in it, or write from it, for the sake of the love of God, pray
for him who gave diligence and obtained it, and for the scribe, that
he may find mercy in the day of judgment, like the thief who was on
the right hand (of the cross), through the prayers of all the saints,
and more particularly of the holy and glorious and perpetual Virgin,
the Mother of God, Mary. Amen, and Amen, and Amen.”
Another of these subscriptions ends thus:--
“Whosoever removeth this volume from this same mentioned convent, may
the anger of the Lord overtake him, in this world, and in the next, to
all eternity. Amen.”
These imprecations were not impotent forms; for they took great hold
of the minds and consciences of those who had the custody of the
literary treasures of each monastery; and the instances are frequent
in which a religious (we should not call it a superstitious) fear,
availed to counterbalance the sordid motive to which collectors of
MSS. made their appeal. Shall we either blame or contemn the needy
brethren who professed their readiness to be buried under the ruins of
their monasteries rather than violate their consciences by accepting
gold for their books? These scruples--if such a word should be used in
this instance--have at length given way, and Europe--or the learned
throughout it--will turn to good account the spoils that have been thus
obtained.
Just above (p. 253), we have brought forward an instance in which we
are able, with certainty, to track our path from the Printing Press
of this very year, in following upward the history of a Manuscript
to the remote age of the copyist by whom it was executed. Another
instance, varying from this in its circumstances, has just now made
its long-desired appearance. What we refer to is Cardinal Mai’s
edition--in five quarto volumes--of the celebrated Vatican Manuscript
of the Old and New Testament (the former is, of course, the Greek
of the Septuagint). It has long been known that the Vatican Library
contained a manuscript of high antiquity, and great value; but which
was guarded with so much jealousy that a glimpse of it--or, at most,
a brief examination of a few places in it, was the utmost favour that
could be obtained from the papal authorities. Several Biblical scholars
had visited Rome for the express purpose of inspecting, or examining,
these precious remains; but with little success. One of the last of
these--Dr. Tregelles--thus describes it:--
“This MS. is on very thin vellum; the letters are small regularly
formed, uncials; three columns are on each page (with some
exceptions): the original writer placed neither accents nor
breathings, but these have been added by a later hand; they are,
however, so delicately written, and with ink which has so much
faded in colour (if indeed it ever were thoroughly black), that some
who have carefully examined the MS. have thought that the accents
and breathings were not additions to what was originally written.
It is, however, an established fact, that they did proceed from a
later corrector: this is proved by microscopic examination, and also
from their omission in places in which the later hand introduced a
correction; and also it may be remarked, that if the original copyist
had written these fine strokes with the same ink as the letters, they
would, of course, have faded in the same proportion, and thus would
now be discernible only with difficulty.
“The appearance of this MS. now is peculiar; for after the older
ink had considerably faded, some one took the trouble of retouching
the letters throughout; this was probably done to make them more
legible for actual use. When, however, this _restorer_ differed from
the original copyist in orthography, he left letters untouched; and
sometimes, he appears to have corrected the readings, or, at least,
they are corrected in ink of a similar colour; and in cursive letters.
“This MS. is void of interpunction; and the only resemblance to it
is found in a small space being left between the letters where a new
section begins. The initial letters, as left by the first copyist,
are not larger than the rest; but a later hand has added a large
initial letter in the margin, and has erased (wholly or partially) the
original initial.”
It is affirmed of this Vatican Manuscript, that “its antiquity is
shown by its palæographic peculiarities, the letters even resembling,
in many respects, those found in the Herculanean Rolls; the form of
the book, the six columns at each opening resembling, in appearance,
not a little a portion of a _rolled_ book; the uniformity of the
letters, and the absence of all punctuation:” all these points are
regarded as indicative of a high antiquity. Dr. Tregelles adds that
he had just received a single skin of an Hebrew roll; and the general
effect of that portion of a book of the rolled form, when looked at by
itself, singularly resembles one page of the Codex Vaticanus ... the
history of this Hebrew fragment is peculiar, for it was found in a dry
shaft beneath the Mosque of Omar, at Jerusalem--the ancient site of
the Temple. The three columns contain Genesis xxii. 1--xxiv. 26. The
material is a red skin, prepared for writing on one side only.
A faithful edition of this noted manuscript had long been looked for
by those engaged in the criticism of the Scriptures; and this has at
length been given to the world. During many years, the late Cardinal
Mai had been engaged in accomplishing this task; and though he did
not live to see it actually published, he had made provisions for its
appearance. With what relates to the exactness of this edition we
have nothing to do in this place:--it is said to be not altogether
faultless; but perhaps it is as little chargeable with errors as ought
to be expected, the immensity of the labour in carrying it through the
press being duly considered.
The faultiness of the _manuscript_--the mischances, and the oversights
of the original scribe, are matters immediately connected with our
subject; and it may be proper briefly to refer to them:[8] in truth, a
knowledge of the usual extent of such errors, and of the sources of
them, tends decisively to strengthen a reasonable confidence in the
general trustworthiness of the literary remains of remote times. So
much of human frailty attaches to these, as to all other labours of the
human head and hand, as should exclude a fond or superstitious regard
to them;--yet the amount of error is far from being enough to shake our
confidence in the genuineness and integrity of these precious relics of
antiquity--taken as a whole.
Some considerable portions of the original copy have, in the lapse
of ages, been torn away, or lost from it;--or in some way they have
perished:--as to the deficiency at the end, the wanting books may
perhaps never have been added:--these are the concluding portions
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the three Pastoral epistles, and the
Apocalypse. These chasms have, however, been supplied by copyists of a
later age. The errors of the original copyist are such as must attach
to labours of this kind, in which the writer either trusts to his eye,
in looking to his exemplar; or to his ear, in listening to a reader.
Each mode has its disadvantages; in the one case, words of similar
appearance are easily taken, the one for the other, even when the
substitution may have been productive of an absurd reading;--for the
mind of the writer may have gone for a moment--like the fool’s eyes--to
the ends of the earth. In this mode also a clause may easily have been
omitted, or even an entire line dropped out of its place. In the latter
mode--when a reader dictates, word by word--to the writer, the same
mischances may have had place; and in addition to these, there will be
the _mishearings_ of the scribe, and the faulty enunciations of the
reader. On the whole, the errors are such as indicate, what man at
the best is liable to--momentary lapses of attention, notwithstanding
even a high rate of habitual accuracy, and of conscientious care; they
are not more than may thus be accounted for; and as to the damage
thence arising, it is quite inconsiderable; for while one copyist
nods, another is awake; and as to the Scriptures, the abundance of
manuscripts, and of quotations, and of ancient versions, is such as
to reduce the instances of really ambiguous and important readings to
a very small number; and of these--few as they are--very few affect
at all any article of our belief, or any moral precept. The general
inference is this--that, while the aids of erudite criticism are
indispensable, for securing to us the possession of a text--the best
that may now be possible--no text which it is possible at this time
to obtain, can deserve that sort of superstitious regard with which
some religious persons would fain look at the Bible in their hand. The
most faulty text in existence may safely be regarded as a true and
trustworthy conveyance of the message of eternal life; and also as
a true and a trustworthy expression of that moral code according to
which all actions will be judged. Souls will not perish, nor even be
endangered, through erroneous readings; nor in any single instance will
it appear that the conduct and temper that are becoming to a Christian
will have been tarnished, or in any manner made less ornamental,
because an ancient transcriber of the Gospels or Epistles has written
ἡμεῖς, where he ought to have written ὑμεῖς.
The history and description of several noted ancient manuscripts of
the Scriptures, similar to that of this Vatican Manuscript, might here
be brought forward, if it were useful to do so; but, in regard to
our present purpose, it may be more serviceable to fix the reader’s
attention upon this one instance, and to insist, for a moment, upon the
value of the facts, of which it is a sample.
We have then before us--let us suppose it--now on our table--five bulky
quarto volumes, printed at Rome about fourteen years ago, but just now
brought forward. These volumes contain the Greek version of the Old
Testament--the Septuagint--and the Greek of the New Testament--and the
editor informs us that they are printed from a manuscript which has
long been stored in the Vatican library. This manuscript has in fact
been seen, and in part examined, by a succession of European scholars,
during the course of three centuries past; and a portion of it was long
ago given to the world in a printed edition. At what time, or in what
manner, this manuscript came to be where now it is found, is not known,
nor are these facts of much consequence; for when it is examined by
those whose studies and habits have made them familiar with literary
antiquarian relics--those who “by reason of use have their senses
exercised” to judge of things that differ, such persons, in narrowly
inspecting the material--the vellum--the ink--the form and disposition
of the colours--the character of the letters--the juxta-position
of words--the _species_ of sectional division, as compared with the
sectional divisions prevalent at different times:--these and other
minute characteristics being considered--these skilled persons differ
little in their judgment as to the date of the manuscript, and agree in
fixing a time about the middle of the fourth century, when it passed
from under the hand of an assiduous, and, on the whole, a careful
copyist. We are landed, therefore, let us say--in the mid years of that
century when Christianity had everywhere got the ascendancy; or some
time during the reigns of Constans and Constantius.
Now the possession of so large a quantity of very costly material--the
finest vellum, and the command of so much time as must have been
employed in executing a careful and uniform copy, in uncial letters, of
the Old and New Testament, are evidence of the fact that the copyist
was in a position favourable for accomplishing his task in an efficient
manner; nor can it be doubted that he would take proportionate care to
select a manuscript--as his exemplar--the best he could find. Probably
he would provide himself with _several_ such manuscripts for purposes
of collation, in doubtful instances; he would seek for the oldest
manuscripts that might be then obtainable. In supposing so much as
this, we assume only what it is reasonable to assume. But a manuscript
which, in the middle of the fourth century, would be accounted
ancient--we are now thinking of the New Testament--must have been, at
the least--a hundred and fifty, or two hundred years old. We have now
in our hands a great number of MSS. that are undoubtedly more than a
thousand years old--two hundred years therefore comes far within the
range of the ordinary longevity of books on vellum.
Take it as probable that the copyist whose labours are before us in the
Vatican Manuscript, had on his table manuscripts that were two hundred
years old, and then these will have been executed during the reign of
Antoninus Pius, and in Egypt probably. But now I have on _my_ table
what may enable me to form an opinion of the value of the manuscripts
which the transcriber of the Vatican Manuscript had then _his_ table;
for I have before me the voluminous works of the Christian writers of
that very time--such as Justin Martyr, Tatian, Athenagoras, Irenæus,
Clement of Alexandria, Hermias, Origen, and others:--not to come down
to a later time. These works have reached modern times through various
and independent channels; they have come abroad, drawn forth from
hiding-places, widely apart. But now these various writings abound with
quotations from the canonical books; and although these quotations
are not always exact in the wording, they are mainly identical with
the text of the Vatican Manuscript. I turn to one of the above-named
writers--Clemens Alexandrinus. The passages in the Old Testament which
he either refers to explicitly, or quotes _verbatim_, are so many,
that they make a list which fills not fewer than twelve folio pages,
double columns. Now, in turning to the places where these citations
occur, and in comparing them with the Vatican Septuagint, I find them
to correspond, word for word, in a large proportion of instances.
Clement, it is evident, had before him a Greek version of the Old
Testament, which was mainly the same as the manuscript from which the
Vatican MS. was derived. But now, if it might be imagined that a modern
editor of Clement had made alterations in the text, with the view of
bringing these quotations into conformity with the Vatican Septuagint,
any such supposition as this is excluded by the fact that, in frequent
instances, there are variations in the wording of quotations; it hence
appears that the editor has _not_ done what I might conjecture that he
would do. Besides, it is not one ancient writer, but very many that
quote the Old Testament freely, and frequently; sometimes they do so
with perfect accuracy, sometimes with less care; but yet they do it so
as to furnish over-abundant evidence of the fact that the Greek version
of the Old Testament, such as we now find it in the Vatican Manuscript,
was familiarly known to, and was in the hands of, the Christian
community at that early time;--as it had been for centuries before that
time.
We have thus adduced a few instances in which the history of particular
manuscripts may be traced up from the present time to a remote
age--some a thousand--some fourteen hundred years. Many similar
instances might be brought forward, if it were thought necessary,
or even useful, so to do; but the reader, if indeed he wishes to
acquaint himself more fully with facts of this class, may easily do
so by looking into the catalogues that have been published of the
manuscripts contained in the principal libraries of Europe; or, not to
travel far--the Bodleian, Oxford; or that of the British Museum. The
manuscripts in the Museum are the Cottonian, the Harleian, those of the
King’s Library, Ayscough’s, Hargrave’s, and the Lansdowne MSS., of all
which collections separate catalogues have been published. There are,
besides, in the Museum, several collections of Oriental manuscripts,
and many recent additions, such, for instance, as those that have
lately been obtained from the Nitrian monasteries, and which have been
mentioned above.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] I have lately brought forward some facts of this kind, relating to
an abbot of a Nitrian monastery. ESSAYS, &c.; NILUS.
[6] These are, Palladius, Eusebius, Socrates, Jerome, Rufinus,
Evagrius, Cassian; and others incidentally.
[7] An account in full of these researches appeared in No. CLIII. of
the Quarterly Review (1845), and afterwards in the Edinburgh Review.
[8] The reader who is a _student_ in Biblical criticism will know where
to look for precise information on this ground.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PROCESS OF HISTORIC EVIDENCE EXEMPLIFIED IN THE INSTANCE OF
HERODOTUS.
We have now seen in what way, and liable to what conditions, the mass
of ancient literature, including the Holy Scriptures, has been sent
forward through the long track of centuries intervening between the
times of its production and the revival of learning, and the employment
of the printing-press, in these modern times.
What I now propose to do is to place before the reader--in a single and
a very signal instance, the entire historic process; or that method
of proceeding by means of which we, at this time, may find our way
retrogressively upwards, along the high road of history from this, our
nineteenth century, to the times--four and five hundred years before
the Christian era. This journey is not of less extent than two thousand
five hundred years, and it brings us to the time of the last of the
Hebrew prophets.
A very frequent phrase in historical writings of any sort relating to
antiquity is this, “Herodotus informs us, so and so.” Now my questions,
in hearing this, are these: “This Herodotus, who was he? When did he
live? What did he write? and how do I know that the books which bear
his name on the title-page, were written by any such person, or at the
time to which they are usually assigned?” And then, supposing these
questions to be answered to my satisfaction, “What reason have I for
believing that the narratives which I find in these books are, in the
main, true? How does it appear that what I read is _history_, and is
not _fiction_?”
We select Herodotus as a sample of this process, or this method of
historic proof, for several reasons:--such as these. This Greek writer
stands forward as the “Father of history;” he is the earliest of all
extant writers of this class, excepting those of the Old Testament;
his writings embrace a great compass of subjects--in fact, they give
us, in outline or in detail, almost all we know of the nations of a
remote antiquity. Then there is this peculiar circumstance attaching to
the writings of this author, that, after having been much disparaged
in modern times, and his credit greatly lowered, he has, within a
few years, been restored to his place of authority by the greater
intelligence of recent writers; and by an extension of our knowledge of
the countries spoken of by him, as to their natural productions, their
arts, their works, and their history. Of late--and almost every year
has done something to bring about this result--Herodotus has returned
to his position; and his assailants and critics have, in consequence,
fallen out of repute. These writings, therefore, are samples at once
of the authenticity of ancient history, and of what may be called the
immortality of historic truth--its resurrection to a new life, after a
period of entombment.
To begin at the beginning;--I will now suppose that I have before me
several works in English, French, German, Italian, Latin, each of
them purporting to be--“The History of Herodotus, translated from the
Greek.” In collating these books it becomes evident that they are all
derived from some one source. But it may be well to give attention to
some facts at this stage of our progress.
We affirm that the Greek text of Herodotus, such as it now appears,
was extant some time before the publication of the earliest printed
editions. Ostensible and tangible proof of what we here allege, is
afforded by the existence, at the present time, as we shall presently
state, in several public libraries, of many manuscript copies of the
Greek text, which, by the date affixed to them, by the character of
the writing, by the appearance of the ink, and material, and by the
traditionary history of some of them, are clearly attributable to
different ages, from the tenth century to the fifteenth. But now if
it were possible to suppose that all these copies were derived from
one MS. and that one a forgery of a late date, an examination and
comparison of them, and a comparison of the manuscripts with the
printed editions, will furnish several special demonstrations of the
point affirmed. In 1474, twenty-eight years _before_ the appearance
of the first printed edition of the Greek text, Laurentius Valla, an
Italian scholar, published at Venice a Latin translation of Herodotus,
purporting to have been made from the Greek. Now if, in comparing
this translation with the Greek manuscripts that are still extant, it
were asked which is the _original_, the Latin or the Greek? no one
acquainted with the structure of language could hesitate in declaring
for the latter; for in the Latin (as in every translation) ellipses
are supplied, exegetical and connective phrases are introduced; and
what is still more decisive, there are many passages in the Greek
where an obvious and consistent sense is evidently misunderstood in
the Latin; for Valla seems, from all his translations, to have been
but imperfectly acquainted with the Greek language. In such instances
the occasion of the translator’s error may often be detected; by which
means incontestable proof is afforded of the fact now supposed to be
questioned, namely--that the Greek is the _original_, and the Latin
the translation. Again:--The Latin, as compared with the Greek, is
deficient in many entire paragraphs, and in many single sentences.
In the Greek these passages are one with the context; but in the
Latin, the hiatus is either abrupt and apparent, or it is concealed
by a connective sentence, evidently inserted as a link between the
disjoined portions of the text. Now, when evidence like this is
presented, we need not lay stress upon the traditionary history of
particular manuscripts, nor upon their apparent antiquity, nor upon
the genuineness of the dates affixed to them; for from the facts
actually before us, we can draw only one inference. Without going
further, therefore, we may conclude with certainty, that several
Greek manuscripts of Herodotus were in existence some time before the
publication of the printed editions; and by consequence, the averments
of the first editors are confirmed, who declare that they derived
_their text_ from manuscripts--already known to the learned.
The Greek text of Herodotus was, for the first time, printed by
Minutius Aldus, at Venice, September, 1502. Copies of this beautiful
and correct edition, “corrected by a collation of many manuscripts,”
are still extant:--it is distinguished by its retention of the forms of
the Ionic dialect--a proof that the editor followed a pure and ancient
manuscript, for the Ionic forms are generally lost in those copies, the
text of which has passed through many transcriptions. This edition,
with corrections and notes, was reprinted at Basil, in 1541, and again
in 1557, by Joachim Camerarius. In 1570 the Aldine text of Herodotus
was printed at Paris, by Henry Stephens, who does not profess himself
to have collated manuscripts. The title-page declares that the books
were “ex vetustis exemplaribus recogniti:” but in his second edition,
Stephens confesses that up to that time he had not been able to procure
an ancient copy by which to correct the text; he must, therefore, in
the phrase just quoted, be understood to refer to the manuscripts
that were consulted by Aldus. G. Jungerman, assuming the edition just
mentioned as the basis of his own, in which however he made, without
specification, many conjectural emendations, printed the Greek text, at
Frankfort, in 1608. This was the first edition in which the text was
divided into sections, as it now appears. The London edition, dated
1679, and published under favour of the name of the learned Thomas
Gale, was derived, without acknowledgment, from that of Jungerman.
Hitherto the editions were only successive reprints of the Aldine text;
and came, therefore, all from a single source; but in 1715, an edition
of Herodotus was published at Leyden, under the care of J. Gronovius,
who collated the former editions with some manuscripts before unknown,
or not examined. A Glasgow edition appeared in 1761; and two years
later that of Wesseling, printed at Amsterdam. Some quotations from
this editor’s preface will give the general reader a good idea of
the method of conducting these literary labours, and of the security
afforded for the purity of the text of ancient authors. Several German
and Dutch editions have appeared since that of Wesseling; the most
esteemed are those of Borheck, Reiz, Schaefer, and Schweighæuser. Of
the laborious care bestowed by the learned editors upon these editions,
the following citations from their Prefaces will give evidence.
Wesseling says:--
“The forms and proprieties of the Ionic dialect I have restored,
wherever they could be gathered clearly _from the ancient codices_, and
have replaced some readings which, without cause, had been rejected.
Innumerable passages I have relieved from errors, yet _very rarely
on mere conjecture_, and only in those words which the genius of the
language would not admit; and in many instances have thought it enough
just to point out the means of amending the text, where it is evidently
corrupted.” In quoting this passage from Wesseling, Schweighæuser says,
“Neither have we, except in a very few places, admitted conjectural
emendations into the text; and these only where it was evident that
all the readings of all the existing copies were corrupted; and where
an emendation presented itself which not merely seemed probable, but
which was so clear and certain as to need no argument in its favour.”
Very judiciously, this editor refuses to impute to the temerity or
ignorance of copyists _all_ the variations from the Ionic forms; since
it is evident that Greek writers who adopted _one_ of the dialects,
allowed themselves the liberty of occasionally using the common forms
of the language: he therefore restores the ionicisms only when he has
the authority of MSS. for so doing. Of Wesseling’s extreme caution,
Schweighæuser thus expresses his opinion:--In this edition, excepting
a few errors, easily corrected, or some cases which may be open to
disputation, the learned have nothing to complain of; unless it be,
that, in adopting better readings, warranted by MSS., as well as in
correcting, on probable conjecture, some places manifestly faulty in
all copies, the Editor was too timid--so much so, indeed, that many
approved readings which he might well have admitted into the text, he
ventured not to adopt. And often he preferred to leave, untouched,
manifest and gross corruptions, rather than to put in their place his
own emendations, or those of others, though decidedly approved by
himself. As to conjectural emendations, even in those places where
all the MSS. are plainly in fault, we have seen him, in his preface,
ingenuously confess that he had rather be thought too cautious, than
too bold: and who would not esteem, yes and admire, rather than
condemn, this illustrious man, blaming his own timidity in this
sort:--“In attempting to restore the language of Herodotus, I have
been restrained often by more than a due timidity; but such is my
nature.” This editor, in his preface, states that, having been applied
to, to superintend a reprint of Wesseling’s Herodotus, he had declined
doing so, unless he should be able to obtain, from the French king’s
library, the loan of the MSS. of Herodotus, there preserved:--the
troubles of the times preventing this, he sought for some one, residing
at Paris, who would freely undertake the irksome and painful toil of
collating Wesseling’s text with all those codices; and at length, by
means of a learned friend, he met with a young man, a native of Greece,
who executed the task of comparing the text--word by word--with the
five principal manuscripts in the library, and making a _separate_ list
of the various readings in each.
From the mass of variations brought before him, the office of the
editor is to select that one which most recommends itself, either by
the superior authority of the codex in which it appears, or by its
particular probability, or seeming accordance with the author’s style
or meaning, or with the proprieties of the language. And not seldom
it happens that the most inferior copies have chanced to preserve an
evidently genuine reading, where the best have, as plainly, erred.--“No
MS.,” an eminent critic has said, “ought to be thought unworthy of
being consulted.” Yet in cases of importance, where there may be
room for doubt among the existing variations, the canon must be
obeyed which enjoins that, “Codices should rather be _weighed_ than
numbered.” Although discussions on subjects of this kind cannot but
seem uninteresting, and even trivial to general readers--and perhaps
absurd, when the gravity and strenuousness with which, sometimes, the
most minute points are argued, is observed; yet it ought never to be
forgotten that _the credit_, _the purity_, and _the consistency_ of
ancient literature, are very greatly promoted by the indefatigable
zeal of those who devote their lives to these learned and unattractive
labours.
But I now look into some of the printed editions. For instance, here
is a small folio volume, in excellent style, as to type, and paper,
and execution, printed in Paris, MDLXX, and edited by Henry Stephens.
I have also in hand the edition edited by J. Schweighæuser, in four
volumes octavo, reprinted in London, 1822; and also a more recent
edition, namely--that of Professor Gaisford, in two volumes octavo.
Besides these there are ten other editions of the Greek text--German,
Dutch, and English. I open these several editions, at hazard--say at
the beginning of the third book--THALIA: I find that they correspond,
word for word, for some way on; but in the fifth line I find an
unimportant variation--one form of a word is used instead of another;
and further on the order of the words is a little different, but the
sense is the same. Sometimes one particle or expletive is used instead
of another; sometimes those expletives that barely affect the sense
in any way, are omitted. Frequently the orthography of proper names
is differently given in the different editions. Very rarely are these
variations of so much importance as would affect the sense in a
translation. But now, from the fact of the verbal identity of these
editions throughout by far the larger part of them, and also from the
occurrence of not infrequent, and yet inconsiderable differences,
I infer, first--that they have all had a common source in some one
original exemplar; and, secondly--that there have been many copyings
from that first copy; and that it has been in the course of these
repetitions, in which the ear, the eye, and the hand of many writers
have done their part, that these departures from the author’s first
copy have taken place. In a word, the _printed_ editions have followed
_manuscripts_; and these have undergone those chances, and those
mischances which, in the ordinary course of things, must attach to a
process like this, notwithstanding the care and the fidelity of those
who practise it.
The next step, then, is to make search for those ancient manuscripts,
or for some of them, whence these printed editions have been derived.
About fifteen such manuscripts are now known, and may be inspected
in public or private libraries. One of the purest of these is
preserved in the French King’s library (now the Imperial) and it
is thus described.--It is a parchment in folio, purchased in 1688,
containing the nine books of Herodotus. This codex is by far the best
of all, and appears to have been executed in the 12th century. It
is distinguished by its uniform retention of the forms of the Ionic
dialect--an indication of the antiquity and purity of the copy from
which it was derived. The same library contains also several other
MSS. of this author, which are thus described--A codex on paper,
formerly belonging to the Colbertine library, containing the nine
books of Herodotus: in the margin are notes of some value. This MS.
was executed in 1372. A copy on paper, written in the year 1447. The
negligence of the copyist is, in this instance, much to be complained
of, for sometimes entire phrases are wanting. Yet it contains some
readings that deserve attention. A MS. on paper, dated 1474. Besides
the nine books of Herodotus, this codex contains parts of the works
of Isocrates, and Plutarch, together with a lexicon of words peculiar
to Herodotus. A MS., which along with extracts from several Greek
authors, contains part of the first book of Herodotus, as far as c.
87. Although this codex is of late date, the extract from Clio appears
to have been made from a very ancient copy. Some other codices in
the same library afford also parts of our author’s work. There is a
codex formerly in the Florentine library, which from the condition of
the parchment, and the antique style of the writing, is manifestly
of great antiquity. Montfaucon assigns it to the tenth century. This
codex belongs to the same family as that of Askew, and the Medicean.
Yet neither was it copied from the latter, with which, indeed, it
might dispute the palm of excellence; but being derived from a more
ancient source, it offers many approved readings, differing from the
Medicean, where that is in fault, or where it offers no emendation of
the common text. This Medicean codex is thus described in the Catalogue
of the Florentine library: “Herodotus:--a very ancient codex, valuable
beyond all praise. It is on paper, in quarto, well preserved: executed
in the tenth century. The titles of the books are in uncial letters
of gold; it contains 374 pages.” This copy was followed with a too
superstitious reverence by Gronovius; yet being compelled to consult
it in the public library, and under the eye of the librarian, he has
not seldom mistaken its readings. A MS. of Herodotus, formerly in the
library of Archbishop Sancroft, and afterwards in that of Emmanuel
College, Cambridge, has been deemed of high antiquity, and great value.
The libraries of Oxford contain also some codices of our author, and
several are known to be in the possession of private persons. “These
manuscript copies,” says Wesseling, “brought to light from various
places, have not, it is manifest, originated all from one source (in
modern times). Where the copy followed by Valla is torn or defective,
there also the Vienna, the Vatican, and the Oxford MSS. are wanting.
And in what these are remarkable, so is the Florentine. But the
Medicean MS., that of Cardinal Passio, and of Askew, for the most part
agree. The three first mentioned, seem to have been derived all from
some one more ancient parchment, the writer of which, offended perhaps
at the frequent digressions of the first book, very daringly cut them
all off; and lest the hiatus should seem harsh, he skilfully fitted the
parts, so as to preserve the continuity of the style. The three last,
on the contrary, were derived from the copy of a transcriber better
informed, who scrupled to make any needless alterations. A great number
of the various readings which distinguish these MSS. are attributable
to the copyists who have substituted the common forms of the language,
and words better known, in the place of the Ionic forms and of obsolete
words.”
All that is of any importance in proof of the genuineness and
integrity of ancient books, is to know that there are _now_ in
existence _several_ copies, evidently of older date than the first
printed edition of the author; and that these copies, by their general
agreement, and, not less so, by their smaller diversities, prove, at
once, their derivation from the same original, and their long distance
from that original; since many of these diversities are such as could
have arisen only from many successive transcriptions. Beyond these
simple facts, the knowledge of codices, and of various readings, is
interesting to none but editors and critics.
We may now fairly assume as certain, so much as this--that the work
before us--mainly such as we now have it in our hands, is _an ancient
work_, and that it has come down to modern times in that mode of
which, in the preceding chapters, we have given some account, and
have adduced several instances. Our next question is this--To what
age this work ought to be attributed? Or this--When did the author
live and write? In obtaining an answer to this question, or to these
two questions--considered as one, we must look to that succession of
writers, retrogressively examined, who mention Herodotus, and his
History, who describe it, and make quotations from it, or who give
summaries of its contents. The proper and the most complete proof
of the antiquity and genuineness of ancient books, is that which is
thus derived from their mutual references and quotations. There is
an independence in this kind of evidence which renders it, when it
is precise and copious, quite conclusive. It is not the evidence of
witnesses, who first have been schooled and cautioned, and then brought
into court to do their best for the party by whom they are summoned;
but it is the purely incidental testimony of unconnected persons, who,
in the pursuit of their particular objects, gather up, and present to
us, the facts which we were in search of. Besides--these facts have a
peculiarity, which renders them eminently capable of furnishing precise
and conclusive proof. A book is an aggregate of many thousand separable
parts, each of which, both by the thought it contains, and by the
choice and arrangement of the words, possesses a perfect individuality,
such as fits it for the purpose of defining or identifying the whole
to which it belongs; and if several of these definite parts are
adduced, the identification is rendered the more complete. This kind of
definition is moreover capable of being multiplied, almost without end;
for each writer who quotes a book, having probably a different object
in view, selects a different set of quotations, yet all of them meeting
in the same work. We are thus furnished with a complicated system of
concentric lines, which intersect nowhere--but in the book in question.
Then it is to be remembered that each of these quoting writers stands
himself as the centre of a similar system of references, so that the
complication of proof becomes infinitely intricate, and therefore
it is so much the more conclusive. It is again involved, and so is
rendered secure, by the occurrence of double or triple quotations;
for example--Photius quotes Ctesias--quoting Herodotus. The proof of
genuineness in the instance of a standard author, is by such means as
these extended, attenuated, and involved in a degree to which no other
species of evidence makes any approach.
It hardly needs to be said, that this high degree of certainty,
resulting from the complication, as well as the number of testimonies,
belongs only to works that are explicitly and frequently quoted by
succeeding writers. And yet this sort of proof is deemed to be in its
nature so valid and satisfactory, that a very small portion of it is
ordinarily admitted as quite sufficient. If, for instance, a book is
explicitly mentioned only by one or two writers of the next age, the
evidence is allowed to decide the question of genuineness; unless when
there appears some positive reasons to justify suspicion. But with
_questionable_ matters we have not now to do.
It cannot be thought necessary to adduce separately, any proof of the
genuineness of the works that are about to be cited; since they all
possess an established character, resting upon evidence of the same
kind as that which is here displayed in the case of Herodotus. To bring
forward all this proof, in each instance, would fill volumes.
We have seen that many manuscript copies of Herodotus, of which several
are still preserved, were extant before the first printed editions
appeared; and from a comparison of these manuscripts, as well as from
the date which some of them bear, and from their seeming antiquity,
it is evident that the work had then been in existence much longer
than three hundred years; for these several manuscripts exhibit, as we
have said, in their various readings, those minute diversities which
are found to arise from repeated transcriptions, made by copyists
in different ages and countries--some of these copyists being exact
and skilful, while others were careless and ignorant. This proof
of antiquity is more conclusive than that which arises from a mere
traditionary history of a single manuscript, or from a date affixed
to a copy; for the date may be spurious, or the tradition may be
unauthentic; but in the various readings we have before our eyes a
species of decay, which time alone could produce.
It is thus that we have assumed it as certain, that the text of this
author was extant at least as early as the twelfth century. And if it
were supposed that we could not trace the history of these manuscripts
higher than that time, then we should turn to this other species of
evidence, namely--that arising from the quotations of a series of
writers, extending upwards from the age in which the history of the
manuscripts merges in obscurity, to the very age of the author.
The evidence which we adduce for this purpose we divide into two
portions;--in the first portion proving--that the history of Herodotus
was known to the learned during a period of a thousand years, from A.D.
1150 to A.D. 150.
Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica, flourished in the latter part
of the twelfth century. His Commentaries upon the Iliad and Odyssey
of Homer, contain many references to Herodotus, that are more or less
full and precise. Among these, the following afford sufficient proof
of the point we have to establish; for they leave no room to doubt
that the History of Herodotus, as now extant, was in the hands of this
learned prelate. In the course of these commentaries he says, “But
Herodotus seems to resemble Pherecydes and Hecatæus, who (in writing
history) threw aside the adornments of the poetic style.” Again,
“Herodotus (Erato 74) says that Nonacris is a city of Arcadia where
the waters of Styx arise.” Again, “Herodotus, that sweet writer of the
Ionic.” Eustathius cites our author to illustrate the meaning of the
word _mitra_--girdle or turban. On the word _phalanx_ he quotes from
the fourth book a sentence in which Herodotus calls Pythagoras “a man
eminent among the Greeks for his intelligence.” He quotes a passage
relative to the Egyptian bread from the second book. Again, “Menelaus
certainly visited those other Ethiopians whom Herodotus describes as
bordering upon the Egyptians:” he alludes to the account given by our
author of the sheep sacred to the sun in Apollonia. Eustathius quotes
Herodotus, in proof that the Athenians were of Pelasgian origin.
Suidas, a learned Byzantine monk, is believed to have flourished at the
close of the eleventh century. His Lexicon contains a brief Life of
Herodotus; besides which, there occur under other words, not fewer than
two hundred incidental references to different parts of the history.
They are for the most part verbal citations of a very exact kind,
adduced in illustration of the meaning, or the orthography of words.
Photius, the learned and ambitious patriarch of Constantinople, belongs
to the ninth century. This writer has preserved the only portions
that remain of the Persian and Indian history of Ctesias, who, as we
shall see, gives a nearly contemporaneous testimony to Herodotus.
The Myriobiblon of Photius consists of notices and abridgments of
two hundred and eighty works which he had read, and it affords
therefore much information available in determining questions of
literary antiquity. Many works were extant in the ninth century--at
Constantinople especially, which disappeared in the following age; and
Photius, who had free access to the extensive libraries of that city,
wanted no advantage which might fit him for the task of reviewing
the literature of the preceding ages. When therefore he quotes and
describes a work, and speaks of it confidently as having been long
known in the world, and generally received as a genuine production of
the author whose name it bears, his evidence carries up the proof to
a still more remote age; for no _spurious_ work, recently produced,
could have been so mentioned by a critic of great learning and sound
judgment. In the Myriobiblon, besides some incidental references to
Herodotus, we find the following account (Art. 60) of him:--“We have
perused the nine historical books of Herodotus, bearing the names of
the Nine Muses. This writer uses the Ionic dialect, as Thucydides
employs the Attic. He admits fabulous accounts, and frequent
digressions, which give a pleasing flow to the narrative; though
indeed this manner of writing violates the strict proprieties of the
historical style, in which the accuracy of truth ought not to be
obscured by any mixtures of fable, nor the end proposed by the author
to be long lost sight of. He begins the history with the reign of
Cyrus--the first of the Persian kings--narrating his birth, education,
elevation, and rule; and he brings it down as far as the reign of
Xerxes--his expedition against the Athenians, and his flight. Xerxes
was indeed the fourth king from Cyrus--Cambyses being the second, and
Darius the third; for Smerdes the Mage is not to be reckoned in the
line of kings, inasmuch as he was an usurper who possessed himself of
the throne by fraud. With Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius,
the history closes (the close of the war with Greece), nor indeed is
it carried to the end of his reign; for Herodotus himself flourished
in those very times, as Diodorus the Sicilian, and others relate, who
mention the story that Thucydides, while yet a youth, was present with
his father when Herodotus read his History in public, on which occasion
he burst into tears; which being observed by Herodotus, the historian
turned to the father and said, ‘O! Olorus, what a son have you, who
thus burns with a passion for learning!’”
This description of the work, although concise, is abundantly
sufficient to prove the existence of the text (as now extant) in the
age of Photius, whose testimony establishes also the fact that it had
then been long known and reputed as a genuine production of Herodotus,
while the exceptions made against certain fabulous digressions contain
an explicit acknowledgment that the history was generally received as
authentic.
Stephen of Byzantium, author of a geographical and historical lexicon,
flourished in the middle of the sixth century. He very frequently
refers to Herodotus. Art. _Thurium_, he quotes an epigram relating to
him; and under the following words references to him occur:--_Abarnus_,
a city, region, and promontory of Pariana, which Herodotus in his
fourth book, says, is called _Abaris_. _Arisbe_--Herodotus and Jason
call it _Arisba_. _Archandroupolis_, a city of Egypt, according
to Herodotus, in his second book. _Assa_, a city near Mount Atho,
mentioned by Herodotus, in his seventh book. _Thalamanæi_, a nation
subject to the Persians. _Inycum_, a city of Sicily, called by
Herodotus, _Inychos_. Herodotus appears to have been one of the
principal authorities of this writer, and his citations are usually
correct.
Marcellinus, a critic of the sixth century, in his “Life of
Thucydides,” mentions Herodotus descriptively, and compares him on
many points with his rival. Omitting many less direct allusions, the
following may be mentioned. He commends the impartiality of Thucydides,
who did not allow his personal wrongs to give any colouring to his
narrative of facts--a degree of magnanimity uncommon, he says,
among historians--“For even Herodotus, having been slighted by the
Corinthians, affirms that they fled from the engagement at Salamis.”
Describing the lofty style of Thucydides, he compares it with that
of Herodotus, which, he says, “is neither lofty like that of the
Attic historian, nor elegant like that of Xenophon.” On the ground
of authenticity also, he compares the two historians, giving the
advantage in this respect to the younger; while he charges the former
with admitting marvellous tales, citing, as an example, the story of
Arion and the dolphin: and, towards the close, he repeats the incident
already mentioned, said to have taken place when Herodotus read his
History in public.
Procopius, the historian of the reign of Justinian, wrote about the
middle of the sixth century. He cites Herodotus in precise terms:--“Now
Herodotus, the Halicarnassian, in the fourth book of his History, says,
that the earth, though distributed into three portions--Africa, Asia,
and Europe, is one; and that the Egyptian Nile flows between Africa and
Asia.” (Gothic Wars, b. IV.)
Stobæus lived a century earlier than the last-named writer. In
illustration of various ethical topics, he collects the sentiments of
a multitude of authors, and amongst the number, of Herodotus. Short
sentences from the historian are adduced in four or five places, and
there is one of some length.
The Emperor Julian makes several allusions to our author:--thus, in
his first oration in praise of Constantine, he says, “Cyrus was called
the father, Cambyses the lord of his people.” In the exordium of his
Epistle to the Athenian people, several distinct allusions to the
history of the Persian invasion occur; and in the Misopogon the story
of Solon and Crœsus, as related by Herodotus, is distinctly mentioned.
In mentioning the principal Greek authors (Epist. XLII.), Herodotus is
included. And in an epistle not now extant, but quoted by Suidas (Art.
_Herodotus_), the apostate, as he is there called, cites the historian
as “the Thurian writer of history.”
Hesychius, the Lexicographer, lived in the third century. He makes
several quotations from our author--as thus:--“_Agathoergoi_--persons
discharged from the cavalry of Sparta--five every year, as Herodotus
relates.” “_Basilees_--judges; according to Herodotus, the avengers
of wrong.” “_Zeira_--a zone, according to Herodotus.” “_Canamis_,
_Tiara_--the bonnet of the Persians, according to Herodotus.”
_Zalmoxis_--the account given of the Getæ, is quoted at length.
Athenæus, a critic of the second century, quotes our author in the
following, among other instances: “Herodotus, in his first book, writes
that the Persian kings drink no water except that which is brought
from the Choaspian spring at Susa, which is carried for their use
wherever they travel.” “Herodotus, comparing the Grecian entertainments
with those of the Persians, relates that the latter pay a peculiar
regard to their natal day.” “Herodotus, in his seventh book, says that
those Greeks who entertained Xerxes on his way, were reduced to such
distress, that many of them left their homes.” “Herodotus relates that
Amasis, king of Egypt, was accustomed to jest very freely with his
guests.”
Longinus, the celebrated secretary of Queen Zenobia, quotes our author
several times in his treatise on the Sublime. “Was Herodotus alone
an imitator of Homer?”--the address of Dionysius to the Phocæans is
quoted, “Our affairs, Ionians! have reached a crisis--we must be free
or slaves;” he quotes with high commendation a passage, in which our
author describes the course of the Nile between Elephantine and Meroe.
There is a quotation from the first book, also the story of Cleomenes
in the fifth book is quoted:--“Cleomenes devoured his own flesh.”
Diogenes Laertius, author of the “Lives of the Philosophers,” brings
the line of testimonies up to the time above mentioned: he makes the
following references to our author. In his Preface, he refers to the
assertions of Herodotus relative to the Mages, and to Xerxes, whom he
affirms to have lanced darts at the sun, and to have thrown fetters
into the sea. In the _Life of Pythagoras_, a passage is quoted relative
to Zamolxis, who was worshipped by the Getæ.
It is obvious that if the testimonies which are next to be adduced
are full and conclusive, they will, in point of argument, supersede
those which have been already brought forward; for if it can be
satisfactorily proved that the now-existing text of Herodotus was known
more than two thousand years ago, it cannot be necessary to prove that
it was extant at any intermediate period. Nevertheless the above-cited
authorities do not merely serve the purpose of completing our chain of
evidence, but they are important in proving that the work, far from
having been lost sight of in any age, was always familiarly known to
scholars. We may therefore feel assured that copies were to be found
in most libraries--that the work was frequently transcribed; and that,
as the existing manuscripts indicate, we are not dependent upon the
accuracy of one or two copyists only, for the integrity of the text.
We have now to show that the history of Herodotus was in existence, and
was known to a succession of writers from the age of the writer last
mentioned, up to his own times--or about B.C. 440.
A period of six or seven hundred years, ending in the second century of
the Christian era, includes the brightest times, both of Grecian and
of the Roman literature. Evidence of the most conclusive kind on all
questions of literary history may therefore be collected in abundance
from the writers of those ages. Innumerable quotations from all the
principal authors are found on the pages of almost every prose writer
whose works have descended to modern times. The critics and historians,
especially, furnish abundantly the evidence we are in search of. We
begin this second series with--
Pausanias, who, in his historical description of Greece, has frequent
occasion to cite the authority of Herodotus. Of these citations
the following may be mentioned:--In a digression relating to the
Ethiopians, he quotes from the second, and from the fourth book;
“For the Nasamones, whom Herodotus considers as the same with the
Atlantics, and who are said to know the measure of the earth, are
called by the Libyans, dwelling in the extreme parts of Libya, near
Mount Atlas--Loxi.” “Agreeably to this Herodotus tells us that in
Scythia shipwrecked persons sacrificed bulls to a virgin, called by
them Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon.” The story of Io is referred
to: he quotes from Herodotus a prediction of the Delphic oracle; he
authenticates a story told by our author; “these particulars as they
are accurately related by Herodotus, it would be superfluous for me
to repeat.” He refers to the orthography of a name: “and Herodotus
in his History of Crœsus informs us that this Labotas was under the
guardianship of Lycurgus, who gave laws to the Lacedæmonians; but he
calls him _Leobotas_.” In this form, in fact, the name now stands in
the Greek text:--minute correspondences of this kind vouch for the
correct transmission of ancient books. He affirms that at Tænarus was
to be seen “Arion the harper, sitting on a dolphin. And the particulars
respecting Arion and the dolphin Herodotus relates, as what he himself
heard, in his account of the Lydian affairs.” Book X. 32, “As to the
name of the city, I know that Herodotus, in that part of his History in
which he gives an account of the irruption of the Persians into Greece,
differs from what is asserted in the oracles of Bacis.”
Lucian of Samosata devotes some pages to Herodotus, whose style he
characterises and commends; and he relates particularly the mode
adopted by the historian for making his work known to the Greeks, so
that wherever he appeared all might say--That is Herodotus who wrote
the history of the Persian war in the Ionian dialect, and who so
gloriously chanted our victories.
Hermogenes, a rhetorician and the contemporary of Lucian, gives the
following description of the historian’s style: “The diction of
Herodotus is pure, easy, and perspicuous. Whenever he introduces fables
he employs a poetic style. His thoughts are just, his language graceful
and noble. No one excels him in the art of describing, after the manner
of the poets, the manners and characters of his different personages.
In many places he attains greatness of style, of which the conversation
betwixt Xerxes and Artabanus is an example.”
Aulus Gellius, a miscellaneous writer, abounds with references to
authors of every class. In his Attic Nights, Herodotus is frequently
mentioned, as for example--he quotes at length the story of Arion.
Again: “Yet Herodotus, the historian, affirms, contrary to the opinion
of almost all, that the Bosphorus or Cimmerian Sea is liable to be
frozen.” There is a verbal quotation from the third book, relative to
the lioness, and another, of the fable of the Psyllians.
The evidence of Plutarch is sufficiently ample and conclusive to bear
alone the whole burden of our argument. The writings of Plutarch,
having in every age enjoyed the highest reputation, have descended to
modern times, abundantly authenticated:--among them there is a small
treatise (if it be genuine, which is very questionable) entitled “Of
the Malignity of Herodotus.” The historian, in his account of the
Persian invasion, affirms the conduct of the Bœotians on various
occasions to have been traitorous and pusillanimous. Now Plutarch was
a Bœotian, and he felt so keenly the infamy attached by Herodotus
to his countrymen, that, with the hope of wiping out the stain, he
endeavoured if possible, to destroy the reputation of our author, by
advancing against him the heavy charge of a malignant falsification
of facts throughout his history. To effect his object, he reviews
the entire work, bringing to bear upon every assailable point the
utmost efforts of his critical acuteness, and all the stores of his
learning. The specific charges advanced against Herodotus in this
treatise must, to a modern reader, appear for the most part, extremely
frivolous. So far as they may seem to be more serious, they have been
fully refuted by several critics. But our business, at present, with
Plutarch’s treatise, is to derive from it a proof of the genuineness
and general authenticity of the work which is the subject of our
argument. In the first place, then, this treatise, by its many and
exact references to all parts of the History, proves beyond a doubt
that the Greek text, as now extant, is substantially the same as that
read by Plutarch--or rather by this writer who assumes his name, at the
time now in view. In the second place, Plutarch’s tacit acknowledgment
of the work as the genuine production of Herodotus, may be taken as
affording alone a sufficient proof of that fact;--for if it had been
at all questionable--if any obscurity had rested upon its traditionary
history, this writer, whose learning was extensive, could not have been
ignorant of such grounds of doubt; nor would he have failed to take the
short course of denying at once the authenticity of the book. The five
hundred years which intervened between the times of Herodotus and of
Plutarch, were ages of uninterrupted and widely-diffused intelligence
and erudition;--much more so than the last five hundred years of
European history: and Plutarch had more ample means of ascertaining the
genuineness of the History attributed to Herodotus, than a critic of
the present day possesses in judging of the genuineness of Froissart,
or of Abulfeda. In the third place, this small treatise yields an
implicit testimony in support of the general truth of the history
itself; for in leaving untouched all the main parts of the story, and
in fixing his criticisms upon minor facts, and upon the mere colouring
given to the narrative, this critic virtually acknowledges that the
principal facts are unquestionable. It may be affirmed that he has
in fact, on the whole, rather established the authenticity of the
History against which he levels his critical weapons, than succeeded in
destroying its credit.
Josephus quotes and corrects Herodotus--in the Jewish Antiquities; and
in his reply to Apion he mentions him descriptively more than once,
as where he enumerates the Greek historians; a few pages further, he
notices the remarkable fact that “neither Herodotus nor Thucydides nor
any of their contemporaries make the slightest mention of the Romans.”
Presently afterwards he quotes Manetho in opposition to Herodotus, in
his account of Egyptian history: and some pages further, he makes an
exact quotation from the second book.
Quintilian compares Herodotus with Thucydides: “Herodotus, sweet,
bland, and copious.” “In Herodotus, as I think, there is always a
gentle flow of language.” “Nor need Herodotus scorn to be conjoined
with Livy.”
Strabo, the most learned, exact, and intelligent of the ancient
geographers, very frequently cites our author, upon whose statements
he makes some severe criticisms; yet without impugning the general
authenticity of the History. Art. _Halicarnassus_. “Among the
illustrious men born at this place is Herodotus, the historian, who
is called the Thurian, because he joined himself to a colony at that
place.” “It was not improperly said by Herodotus, that the whole of
Egypt, at least the Delta, was a gift of the river.” Strabo refers to
the account given of the voyage round Africa, attempted by the order
of Darius. He refers to, and quotes the authority of Herodotus, who
affirms that at Memphis in Egypt there was a temple of Neptune.
The last-named writer brings our series of testimonies up to the
commencement of the Christian era. In passing up the stream of time, we
meet next with--
Dionysius, the countryman of Herodotus, and author of the “Roman
antiquities,” and of several critical treatises. In one of these,
entitled “The Judgment of Ancient Writers,” and in another, addressed
to Cn. Pompey, Dionysius gives a minute account of the style, method,
and comparative merits of our author. In the book on composition, he
makes a long and literal quotation from the first book. In giving the
character of Thucydides, he thus speaks of Herodotus:--“Herodotus
the Halicarnassian, who survived to the time of the Peloponnesian
War, though born a little before the Persian War, raised the style of
writing history: nor was it the history of one city or nation only
that he composed; but included in his work the many and various affairs
both of Europe and Asia. For beginning with the Lydian kingdom, he
continues to the Persian War--relates whatever was performed by the
Greeks and Barbarians during a period of 240 years--selecting whatever
was most worthy of record, and connecting them in a single history;
at the same time gracing his work with excellencies that had been
neglected by his predecessors.” Several descriptive commendations of a
similar kind might be adduced from the critical writings of this author.
Contemporary with Dionysius, though a few years his senior, was
Diodorus the Sicilian. This learned and laborious historian passes
over much of the same ground with Herodotus, to whom he makes several
allusions. In discussing the question relative to the inundations of
the Nile, he states and controverts the opinion advanced by Herodotus
on that subject. Further on, he rejects as fabulous the accounts given
by Herodotus and others of the remote history of Egypt, and professes
to follow the public records of the Egyptian priests; yet he had before
eulogised our author as a writer “without a rival, indefatigable in his
researches, and extensively learned in history.” Diodorus states the
various opinions of writers relative to the Median empire, and among
these, Herodotus: “Now Herodotus, who lived in the time of Xerxes,
affirms that the Assyrians had governed Asia during a period of 500
years before it was subjugated by the Medes.”
Our author was known to the Roman writers. Cornelius Nepos evidently
follows him in some passages, though he professes to adhere chiefly to
the authority of Theopompus, Thucydides, and Xenophon. Cicero bestows
upon him high commendation in several places, declaring that “so far
as his knowledge of the Greek language permitted him to enjoy it, the
eloquence of the historian (whom he terms ‘the Father of History’)
gave him the greatest delight:”--that his language “flows like an
unobstructed river:”--and that “nothing can be more sweet than his
style.”
Pliny the Elder refers to Herodotus frequently; as thus--“If we
credit Herodotus, the sea once extended beyond Memphis, as far as
the mountains of Ethiopia:” speaking of the inundation of the Nile,
he quotes our author--“the river, as Herodotus relates, subsides
within its banks on the hundredth day after its first rise.” Passing
references occur in many places:--“Herodotus, more ancient and a better
authority than Juba;” “Herodotus says that ebony formed part of the
tribute rendered by the Ethiopians to the kings of Persia;” “this
author composed (corrected) his History at Thurium in Italy, in the
310th year of Rome.”
Scymnus of Chios, of whose writings some fragments only remain,
professes, in his Description of the Earth, to report what “Herodotus
has recorded in his History.” This writer is believed to have
flourished in the second century before the Christian era.
Aristotle cites Herodotus as an example of the antiquated, continuous
style. “If the works of Herodotus were turned into verse, they would
not by that means become a poem, but would remain a history.” In his
History of Animals he charges our author with an error, in affirming
that “at the siege of Ninus, an eagle was seen to drink;” but no such
assertion is to be found in the works of the historian: probably a
passage of some other writer was quoted by Aristotle from memory, and
erroneously attributed to Herodotus; or possibly he quoted some work
of this historian which has since perished. The ambiguous reply of the
Pythian to Crœsus is quoted, though not explicitly from Herodotus.
Ctesias, an abstract of whose works is preserved by Photius, is very
frequently quoted by ancient authors. He was a Greek physician, who
accompanied the expedition led against Artaxerxes by his brother, the
younger Cyrus. Though a few years younger, he was contemporary with
Herodotus: his testimony therefore brings the series of evidences up
to the very time of our author. Ctesias, having fallen into the hands
of the Persians at the battle of Cunaxa, was detained at the court of
Artaxerxes as physician, during seventeen years; and it seems that,
with the hope of recommending himself to the favour of “the great
king,” and of obtaining his own freedom, he undertook to compose a
history of Persia, with the express and avowed design of impeaching the
authority of Herodotus, whom, in no very courteous terms, he accuses
of many falsifications. The jealousy and malice of a little mind are
apparent in these accusations. Nothing can be much more inane than the
fragments that are preserved of this author’s two works--his History of
Persia, and his Indian History; yet, though possessing little intrinsic
value, they serve an important purpose, in furnishing a very explicit
evidence of the genuineness and general authenticity of the work which
Ctesias laboured to depreciate. If the account given by Herodotus of
Persian affairs had been altogether untrue, his rival wanted neither
the will nor the means to expose the imposition. But while, like
Plutarch, he cavils at minor points, he leaves the substance of the
narrative uncontradicted.
Thucydides, the contemporary and rival of Herodotus, whose writings
are said to have kindled in his young mind the passion for literary
distinction, makes only an indistinct allusion to the History; yet
this allusion is such as can hardly be misunderstood. Book I. 22, in
explaining the principles by which he proposed to be guided in writing
his History, he glances sarcastically at certain writers, who, in
narrating events that had taken place in remote times, mix fables with
truth, and who seem to have aimed rather to amuse than to instruct
their readers. He then immediately mentions the Median war, which forms
the principal subject of his rival’s work, and of which that work was
the well-known record. But if this allusion may not be admitted in
evidence, our chain of proof is complete without it.
Citations or allusions similar to these might be brought forward
almost without number; but every purpose, both of illustration and
of argument--if argument were needed, is accomplished as well by a
few as by many. From the entire mass of testimonies, if we were to
select, for example, those of Photius, of Dionysius, and of Diodorus,
we have proof enough of the genuineness and integrity of the work; for
the existence of these testimonies could not be accounted for on a
contrary supposition, in any reasonable manner. And when we find the
work reflected, as it were, more or less distinctly, from almost the
entire surface of ancient literature, no room is left for doubt. The
writers of every age, from the time of the author, speak of the work
as being well known in their times:--none of them quote it in any such
terms as these, “an ancient history, said to have been written by
Herodotus:”--or, “a history which most persons believe to be genuine;”
for they all refer to it as a book that was in every one’s hands. If,
therefore, the History had been produced in any age subsequent to
that of Herodotus, the author of any such spurious work must have had
under his control, for the purpose of interpolation, not only a copy
of every considerable work that was extant in his time, but every copy
of every such work:--he must in fact have new created the entire mass
of books existing in the eastern and western world at the time; and he
must have destroyed all but his own interpolated copies; otherwise,
some copies of some of these works would have reached us in which these
interpolated quotations from Herodotus were wanting. Although such
suppositions are extravagant, yet let us attempt to realise one or two
of them.
We may imagine then that this History, pretending to be an ancient
work, was actually produced in the ninth century, by some learned
monk of Constantinople. On this supposition, we must believe that
the copyists of that time, in all parts of the Greek empire, having
been gained over by the forger to favour the fraud, issued new and
ingeniously interpolated copies of the following authors:--namely,
Procopius, Stephen, Stobæus, Marcellinus, Julian, Hesychius, Athenæus,
Longinus, Laertius, Lucian, Hermogenes, Pausanias, Aulus Gellius,
Plutarch, Josephus, Strabo, Dionysius, Diodorus, Aristotle, Ctesias,
and many others that are not cited above. Then to this list must be
added many works that were extant in the ninth century, but since lost.
All the previously existing copies of these authors must have been
gathered in, and destroyed; but even this would not be enough; for the
Byzantine writers must have had the concurrence of the Latin copyists,
throughout the monasteries of western Europe; otherwise, the works of
Cicero, and of Quintilian, and of Pliny, would not have contained those
references to the History which we actually find in them. Now to effect
all this, or a twentieth part of it, was as impracticable in the middle
ages, as it would be for us to alter the spots in the moon--for the
things to be altered were absolutely out of the reach of those whom we
suppose to have made the attempt.
But as to these supposed interpolations, it was not formal sentences,
or distinct paragraphs--wedged in where they seem to have little
fitness, but citations or allusions of an incidental kind, proper to
the connexion in which they occur, and perfectly congruous with the
text.
Let it next be supposed that the genuine History of Herodotus--referred
to as we have seen by earlier writers, had perished, or was supposed to
have perished, about the seventh century; and that some writer of the
ninth century composed a work which should pass in the world for the
genuine History. Now, to effect this, he must have had in his memory,
as he went along, the entire body of ancient literature, both Greek and
Roman; or otherwise he could not have worked up all the references and
quotations of earlier authors, so as to make them tally, as we find
they do, with his spurious production: and if any of these authors were
unknown to him, or forgotten, then we should find discrepant quotations
that could not be verified. Moreover, as the genuine work was certainly
in existence and widely diffused in the _sixth_ century, no writer
wishing to make such an attempt could think himself secure against the
existence of some copies of the genuine work, which, if brought to
light, would at once expose his own to contempt.
Or if a forgery had been attempted at a time nearer to that of the
alleged author, then, in proportion as we recede from difficulties
of one kind, we run upon those of another kind. For if, to avoid the
absurdity of supposing that a huge mass of books, scattered through
many and distant countries, were at once called in, and re-issued with
the requisite interpolations, we imagine that the work was forged at
an earlier time, when fewer testimonies needed to have been foisted
into existing books; then we come to a period when learning was at its
height--at Alexandria--throughout Greece, and its colonies--when every
fact connected with the history of books was familiarly known; when
many large libraries existed--when, therefore, no standard work could
disappear, or could be supplanted by a spurious one; much less could a
work which had never before been heard of, create to itself the credit
of a book long and familiarly known: how could the learned in the
east and the west be persuaded that a work, newly produced, had been
in their libraries for a hundred years? Though the knowledge of books
is more widely diffused in modern, than it was in ancient times, yet
among those who addict themselves to literature, there is not now more
of erudition, of intelligence, of discrimination, than were displayed
in the three or four centuries of which the Augustan age formed the
centre. To issue a voluminous history, and to persuade the world that
it had been known during the last two hundred years, is an attempt not
more impracticable in the present day, than it would have been in the
times of Dionysius, of Cicero, of Quintilian, or of Plutarch.
If we carry our supposition still higher, that is to say, till we get
free from all the difficulties above-mentioned, then we gain nothing.
The fact principally important as an historical question is granted,
namely, that the History was actually extant at, or very near the time,
commonly supposed; and then the only point in dispute is the bare name
of the author, which, so far as the truth of the history is involved,
is a question of inferior consequence. Yet let us pursue this doubt a
step further;--If Herodotus, the Halicarnassian, were a real person,
known in his time as a writer, then some self-denying forger made over
to this Herodotus all the glory of being the author of so admirable a
work; and this Herodotus accepted the generous fraud, and acted his
part to give it credit. But if the name and designation be altogether
fictitious--the real author concealing himself; then how happened it
that the Greeks of that age should speak of Herodotus as of a real
person whom they had known, honoured and rewarded? In preference to any
such impracticable hypothesis, who would not rather accept as true the
affirmation which the work bears upon its front?
But now we take up another supposition. After tracing as we have done,
the history of the work in question, up through a continued series of
quotations, in the Greek and Latin writers, and obtaining by that means
a conclusive proof of its antiquity, we may imagine that there is in
existence a Persian translation of the History of Herodotus, which, by
the peculiarities of its style, as well as by external evidence, is
ascertained to have been executed in the time of Artaxerxes. Another
translation of the same work is then brought forward in the language
of ancient Carthage, which, except in this (supposed) translation,
has been long extinct. And there is another in the Coptic, or ancient
language of Egypt; and another in the Latin, of the time of Plautus
and Terence. If these several translations had each descended to
modern times, through some independent channel, and if each possessed
a separate mass of evidence in proof of its antiquity; and if, when
collated among themselves, and with the Greek original, they were found
to harmonize, except in those variations which must always belong to a
translation; then, and in such a case, we should possess an instance
of that sort of redundant demonstration which in fact does belong in
full to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; but to no other writings
whatever.
Let it now be granted as _possible_ that a writer of a later age, who
was a perfect master of the Greek language, who possessed an endless
fund of various learning, and who was gifted in a high degree with the
imitative faculty, might produce nine books like those of Herodotus,
which, supposing there were no external evidence to contradict the
fraud, might pass as genuine. To affirm that a forgery such as this is
_possible_, is to allow the utmost that our knowledge of the powers
of the human mind will permit to be granted; and much more than the
history of literary forgeries will warrant us to suppose: for all the
attempts of that sort that have been detected, either abound with
manifest incongruities; or if executed by men of learning and ability,
they have been formed upon a small scale, and have excluded, as far as
possible, all exact references to particular facts.
But the work before us is of great extent; its allusions to particular
facts are innumerable, precise, and incautious; its style and dialect
are proper to the age to which it pretends:--in a word, it is in
every respect what a genuine production of that age ought to be. If
then it were to be judged of, on the ground of internal evidence
alone, no scholar could for a moment hesitate to decide in favour of
its genuineness. The reader will recollect that the supposition of a
forgery in a later age is excluded by the evidence already adduced in
this chapter.
CHAPTER XVIII.
METHOD OF ARGUING FROM THE GENUINENESS, TO THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE
HISTORY OF HERODOTUS.
That the Greek text of Herodotus, such as it now appears--small verbal
variations only excepted, was extant and well known in Greece, at least
as early as the commencement of the Peloponnesian war (B.C. 431), is
the conclusion that is warranted by the evidence already adduced.
It now remains to inquire how far this proof of the antiquity and
genuineness of the work carries with it a proof of the general truth of
the History.
In a civilized community, where a free expression of opinion is
allowed, and where opposing interests actually exist, a writer,
who professes to compile an authentic account of transactions
that are still fresh in the recollection of the people, can move
only within certain limits, even if he might wish to misrepresent
facts.--Circumstances, known only to a few, may be falsified--motives
may be maligned--actions may be exaggerated--wrongs and sufferings
may be coloured by rhetorical declamation--fair characters may be
defamed, and foul ones eulogised:--these are nearly the boundaries of
falsification. But if personages altogether fictitious are made the
heroes of the story--if invasions, battles, sieges, conspiracies, are
described which never happened--if, in a word, the entire narrative
is a fiction, then it ranks in a different class of productions, nor
could it ever gain credit as an authentic account of real and recent
events. The same evidence, therefore, which establishes the existence
of an historical work at a time near to that of the events it records,
establishes also the _general authenticity_ of the narrative;--for the
work is not only mentioned by contemporary writers, but it is mentioned
_as a history_. This character granted to the book by the author’s
contemporaries contains, by condensation, the suffrages of the whole
community. In substance, we hear the people of Greece assenting to the
historian in relation to those principal portions of his narrative, at
least, of which they were qualified to form an opinion, and relative to
which no writer would attempt to deceive them.
Equity demands that we treat an historian conformably with his
own professions. When he narrates events as well known to his
contemporaries as to himself, he is not to be considered as sustaining
any other responsibility than that of telling his story well:--in such
instances we may ask for proof of his impartiality, or of the soundness
of his judgment, but not of his veracity, which is not taxed. But when
he relates incidents of a private or remote kind;--when he makes a
demand upon the confidence of his contemporaries by affirming things in
relation to which _they_ could not generally detect his misstatements
if he erred;--then, and in such cases, we may fairly search for
evidence bearing upon the historian’s character, and circumstances,
and his means of information. This is an important distinction, never
to be lost sight of in reading history;--and the inference it contains
is this--that a history of _public_ transactions, published while many
of the actors were still living, and while the events were familiarly
remembered by a large number of persons, and which was commonly
received as authentic, must be accepted, as to its principal facts, as
true, even though there should be reason to suspect the impartiality,
the veracity, or the judgment of the writer; but if in these respects,
he is entitled to a common degree of confidence, then nothing more than
a few errors of inadvertency can, with any fairness, be deducted from
the narrative.
Every historical work, therefore, needs to be analyzed, and to have
its several portions separately estimated.--Whatever is remote or
particular will claim our credence according to the opinion we may
form of the historian’s veracity, accuracy, judgment, and his means of
information; but the truth of narratives relating to events that were
matters of notoriety in the writer’s time, rests altogether upon a
different ground; being necessarily involved in the fact that the work
was published and accepted as authentic at such or such a date. The
strength of this inference will best appear by examining a particular
instance.
In adherence to the distinction above mentioned, we must detach from
the History of Herodotus the following portions (not as if they
were proved to be false, or even improbable; but simply because
the truth of them cannot be _directly inferred from the fact of
the genuineness of the work_). First--Geographical and antiquarian
descriptions of countries remote from Greece: Secondly--The early
history of such countries, and indeed the early history of Greece
itself: Thirdly--Events or conferences said to have taken place at
the Persian court during the war with Greece; and lastly, many single
incidents, reported to have happened among the Greeks, but which rest
upon suspicious or insufficient evidence. After making deductions
of this sort, there will remain--all those principal events of the
Persian invasion which were as well known to thousands of the author’s
countrymen and contemporaries as to himself; and in describing which
his responsibility is that of an _author_ only, who is required
to digest his materials in the best manner he can--not that of a
_witness_, called to give evidence upon a matter of doubt.
The leading events which we may accept as vouched for by the antiquity
and genuineness of the work are these--The invasion of Greece by a
large Asiatic army, about five-and-forty years before the publication
of the History:--the defeat of that army by the Athenians and Platæans
on the plains of Marathon:--a second invasion of Greece ten years
afterwards, by an immense host, gathered from many nations:--the
desertion of their city by the Athenians:--an ineffectual contest with
the invaders at the pass of Thermopylæ:--the occupation of Athens by
the Persians:--the defeat of the invading fleet at Salamis:--the
retreat of the Persians, and their second advance in the following
year, when the destruction of Athens was completed; and--the final
overthrow of the Asiatic army at Platæa and Mycale. That these events
actually took place--assuming the History to be genuine--will appear if
the circumstances of the case are examined.
At the time when, as it has been proved, the History of Herodotus was
generally known and received as authentic, the several states of Greece
were marshalled under the rival interests of Athens and Sparta; and an
intestine war, carried on with the utmost animosity, raged by turns
in all parts of this narrow territory. Such a period, therefore, was
not the time when flagrant misrepresentations of recent facts, tending
to flatter the vanity of one of these rival states, at the expense
of the honour of others, could be endured, or could gain any credit.
The Athenians gloried, beyond all bounds of modesty, in having, with
the assistance of the Platæans only, repelled the Median invasion on
the plains of Marathon. But would this boast have been allowed--would
the account of the battle given by Herodotus have been suffered to
pass without contradiction by the other states, if no such invasion
had actually taken place, or if it had been much less formidable than
is represented by the historian; or if the other states had in fact
been present on the field? Our author affirms that the Lacedæmonians,
though fully informed of the danger which threatened the independence
of Greece, persisted in a scrupulous adherence to their custom of
not setting out upon a military expedition till after the full moon.
In the meantime the battle took place, and a body of two thousand
Lacedæmonians, afterwards despatched from Sparta, reached the field of
battle only time enough to gratify their curiosity by a sight of the
slaughtered Medes. This absence of their allies was ever afterwards
made matter of arrogant exultation by the Athenians; and the historian,
in giving his support to their boast, dared the contradiction of one
half of the people of Greece.
The second invasion of Greece, conducted by the Persian monarch
in person, took place ten years after the defeat of the first at
Marathon; or about five and thirty years before the publication of the
History: many individuals, therefore, were then living who took part
in the several battles and engagements; and every remarkable event of
the war was then as well known and remembered in Greece as are the
circumstances of the French Revolution by the people of Europe at the
present time (1828).
Our immediate purpose does not demand that we should examine the
credibility of the description given by Herodotus of the Asiatic
army; for even if it were proved that the numbers stated by him are
exaggerated, the principal facts would not be brought into doubt; nor
would even the credit due to the historian be much impeached; for in
all these particulars he is careful, again and again, to remind the
reader that he brings forward the best accounts he could collect--not
vouching for their absolute accuracy. That he did avail himself of
authentic documents in compiling this description is rendered evident
by the graphic truth and propriety of all the particulars. Indeed the
picture of the Persian army, and of its discipline and movements, is
strikingly accordant with the known modes of Asiatic warfare. The army
of Xerxes consisted of a small body of brave and well-disciplined
troops--Medes, Persians, and Saces, which, if it had been ably
commanded, and unencumbered, might very probably have succeeded in
their enterprise; but being impeded and embarrassed by the presence of
a vast and disorderly mob of half-savage or dissolute attendants, they
were, at every step, surrounded by a wide-spreading desolation--more
fatal than the enemy, which rendered the advance of the army in the
highest degree difficult, and its retreat desperate. To all this,
parallel instances may be adduced from almost every page of Asiatic
history.
When speaking of the twenty Satrapies of Darius, Major Rennell, in his
Essay on the Geography of Herodotus, avails himself of the information
contained in our author’s description of the army of Xerxes, to which
he attributes a high degree of authority. Now it is evident that,
unless Herodotus had possessed authentic and accurate documents, it
would have been impossible for him to have given the consistency of
truth to two distinct accounts of nations and of people, so various
and so remote from Greece. “Although,” says this writer, “there are
some errors in the description, as there must necessarily be where the
subject is so very extensive, yet it is on the whole so remarkably
consistent, that one is surprised how the Greeks found means to acquire
so much knowledge respecting so distant a part. It is possible that
we have been in the habit of doing them an injustice, by allowing
them a less degree of knowledge of the geography of Asia, down to
the expedition of Alexander, than they really possessed; that is, we
have, in some instances, ascribed to Alexander, certain geographical
discoveries which perhaps were made long anterior to his expedition....
We shall close the account of the Satrapies, and our remarks on the
armament of Xerxes, with some additional ones on the general truth of
the statement of the latter, and on the final object of the expedition.
Brief as the descriptions in the text are, they contain a great variety
of information, and furnish a number of proofs of the general truth of
our author’s history; for the descriptions of the dress and weapons of
several of the remote nations, engaged in the expedition of Xerxes,
agree with what appears amongst them at this day; which is a strong
confirmation of it; notwithstanding that some attempts have been made
to ridicule it by different writers. Herodotus had conversed with those
who had seen the dress and weapons of these tribes during the invasion;
and therefore we cannot doubt that the Indians clothed in cotton, and
with bows made of reeds (i. e. bamboos), were amongst them: of course,
that the great king had summoned his vassals and allies, generally,
to this European war; a war intended, not merely against Greece, but
against Europe in general, as appears by the speeches of Xerxes, and
other circumstances.... The evident cause of the assemblage of so many
nations was that the Europeans (as at the present day) were deemed so
far superior to Asiatics as to require a vastly greater number of the
latter to oppose them. This is no less apparent in the history of the
wars of Alexander, and of the wars made by Europeans in the East in
modern times. However, we do not by any means believe in the numbers
described by the Greek historians; because we cannot comprehend,
from what is seen and known, how such a multitude could be provided
with food, and their beasts with forage. But that the army of Xerxes
was great beyond all example, may be readily believed, because it
was collected from a vastly extended empire, every part of which, as
well as its allies, furnished a proportion; and if the aggregate had
amounted to a moderate number only, it would have been nugatory to levy
that number throughout the whole empire; and to collect troops from
India and Ethiopia to attack Greece, when the whole number required
might be collected in Lower Asia.”
It seems impracticable, from the existing evidence, to ascertain how
great a deduction ought to be made from the calculations of Herodotus,
as to the numbers of the invading army; but it is easy to believe that
his authorities, which unquestionably were authentic in what relates
to the description of the forces, might lead him astray, without any
fault on his part. Or probably, as the numbers exceeded the facilities
of common computation, some conjectural mode of calculation was adopted
by the contemporary Greeks, which might easily exceed the truth.--For
example, the length of time occupied by the barbarian train in passing
certain defiles:--or the very fallacious mode of reckoning employed
by the Persians was perhaps followed:--this, as Herodotus describes
it, consisted in counting ten thousand men, who were packed in a
circle as closely as possible, and a fence formed round them: they
were then removed, and the entire army, in turns, was made to pass
within the inclosure: the whole was thus counted into ten thousands.
But how probable is it, that, by the inattention of the persons who
conducted this process, the successive packages were less and less
dense.--Seven thousand men might easily seem to fill the space in
which ten had been at first crammed. Nor is it at all safe to argue _à
priori_ on the supposition that so many could not have been supported
on the march. The power which drew a large levy of men from twenty-nine
nations, might also drain those nations of their grain. A vast fleet of
flat-bottomed barges attended the army along the coast; and as soon as
this fleet was separated from it, all the extremities of famine were
suffered by the retreating host. This armament is not fairly compared
with those which, in later times, have traversed the continent of Asia;
for in these instances the aid of an attendant fleet was not available.
Without this aid the distant movement of five hundred thousand men is
scarcely practicable; with it, three or four times that number might
with little difficulty be led a distance of three or six months’ march.
This important difference has not been duly regarded by those who
have discussed the question. If then such a deduction from the army
of Xerxes is made as may readily be accounted for from the inaccurate
mode of computation employed by the Persians or the Greeks; and if
the attendance of so large a fleet of store ships is considered, we
may well hold Herodotus excused from the charge, either of deliberate
falsification, or of intended exaggeration.
If it were alleged that Herodotus discovers an inclination on every
occasion to place the conduct of the Athenians in the most advantageous
light, it may be replied that, if such a disposition is charged upon
him, then his substantial impartiality, and the authenticity of the
narrative are convincingly proved, by his allowing to the Spartans the
undivided and enviable glory of having first encountered the invaders
at the pass of Thermopylæ. In relating this memorable action he affirms
that all the allies under the command of Leonidas, excepting only
a small body of Thebans and of Thespians, retired from the pass as
soon as it was known that they were circumvented by the Barbarians;
and he plainly attributes this desertion to the prevalence of
unsoldier-like fears. This statement therefore--like many others in the
History--challenged contradiction from the parties implicated in the
dishonour.
In recounting the naval engagements which took place in the Eubœan
straits, the historian contents himself with affirming that, after a
doubtful contest, each fleet retired to its station; and he attributes
the final success of the Greeks, not so much to their valour and
skill, as to a divine interposition, which, by a violent storm, so far
diminished the Persian fleet that the two armaments were reduced to an
equality.
The ill success of the Greeks in attempting to oppose the advance of
the Barbarians at Thermopylæ, and the losses they had sustained in
several naval engagements, having reduced them almost to despair, the
Athenians, thinking it impracticable to defend Attica, abandoned their
city, and took refuge on board their ships, and in the neighbouring
islands. The invader therefore was allowed, without opposition, to
execute his threat--that he would retaliate upon the Athenians the
burning of Sardis. Here then we arrive at a definite fact, which may be
considered as forming the central point of the History. If this fact be
established, most of the subordinate incidents must be admitted to have
taken place, as they were nothing more than either the proper causes,
or the effects, of this main event.
Within so short a period as five and thirty, or forty years, it could
not be a matter of doubt or controversy among the Athenians, or indeed
with any of the people of Greece, whether Athens had been occupied by
a foreign army--its halls and temples overthrown or burned--its sacred
groves cut down, and its surrounding gardens and fields devastated. But
while several thousand citizens were still living, who had attained an
adult age at the time of the alleged invasion, and while the structures
of the new city were in their first freshness, or were scarcely
completed; and while, if it had actually taken place, the marks of
this destruction must have been everywhere apparent, a history is
published, and is universally applauded, in which this invasion of
Attica, and this destruction of Athens are particularly described. Can
then this fact be reconciled with the supposition that no such events
had really taken place--that these arrogant citizens had never been
driven from their homes? Can we believe that, for the sake of assuming
to themselves the glory of having repelled such an invasion, the
entire people of Athens would have given their assent to a fictitious
narrative, which every one of them must have known had no foundation
in truth? or, if such an infatuation had prevailed at Athens, would
their neighbours--the Corinthians, and the Bœotians, have left such a
falsehood uncontradicted?
It is evident that, unless a powerful invasion of Greece had taken
place, Athens--the principal city of Greece, could not have been
occupied and destroyed; and unless that invasion had been speedily
repulsed, Athens could not have regained that wealth, and power, and
liberty which, on other evidence, it is known to have possessed in
the first years of the Peloponnesian war. Here then, if the truth of
the History of Herodotus were to be argued, the question must come to
its issue. If it were denied that such an invasion of Greece happened
at the time affirmed by our author, then the fact of the general
diffusion, and the high credit, of the History of Herodotus, throughout
Greece, must be shown to consist with that denial. On the other hand,
an apologist for Herodotus, having established the antiquity and
genuineness of the work, must not be required, either to defend the
veracity of the historian, or to adduce corroborative evidence in
proof of the fact, until the difficulty which rests upon the contrary
hypothesis has been disposed of.
The account given by Herodotus of the subsequent events of the Persian
war--that is to say--the defeat of the Asiatic fleet at Salamis--the
retreat of Xerxes--the second occupation of Athens in the following
spring by the Persians under the command of Mardonius; and the final
discomfiture and destruction of the Barbarian army at Platæa and at
Mycale, follow of course, as substantially true, if the preceding
facts are established. It must however be observed that a peculiar
character of authenticity belongs to this latter portion of the
History: for though the issue of the war was indeed highly gratifying
to the vanity of the Greeks, one would almost think that the historian
wished, as far as possible, to check their exultation, or to balance
the vaunts of each of the states by some circumstances of dishonour.
For instance--no veil is drawn over those almost fatal contentions for
precedency by which the counsels of the confederates were distracted;
nor are the treasons and the interested conduct of the chiefs concealed
or excused. The pusillanimity of some, and the fears of all are
confessed: indeed so much of infamy or of discredit is thrown by
Herodotus upon individuals, and upon the whole community, that his
boldness in publishing such statements, and the candour of the Greeks
in admitting them, are alike worthy of admiration. Nor can we believe
otherwise than that a full conviction of the substantial truth of these
statements at once inspired the writer with this courage, and compelled
his hearers to exercise this forbearance. It cannot seem surprising
that, in later times, some writers, jealous for the honour of Greece
at large, or of some particular state, should attempt to remove these
blots, by impugning the credit of the historian. Yet even in making
this attempt, they venture no further than to call in question his
account of a few particular transactions, or to dispute those portions
of the work which relate to remote times, and distant nations.
We have seen that the history of the Persian invasion, as given by
Herodotus, is, in its main circumstances, established by the mere fact
that the work was known, and had been accepted as authentic, within
forty years of the events it records, This then is not an instance in
which the veracity of the historian needs to be vindicated, or in which
our faith in his veracity must be dependent upon other evidence. Yet it
is natural to look around for such other evidence as may be found to
bear upon the history. We have a good right to suppose that events of
such magnitude as those which Herodotus relates, would be mentioned,
more or less explicitly, by other writers of the same age--whether
philosophers, poets, orators, or historians. And this in fact is the
case in the instance before us; for almost every writer--contemporary
with Herodotus--whose works are extant, makes allusions of a direct or
indirect kind to the Persian invasion. Some of the authors already
adduced in proof of the antiquity and genuineness of the history, must
now be recalled to give evidence as to the matter of fact.
Pindar, the prince of lyric poets, is reported to have died at the
age of eighty, and was born about B. C. 521, and was in mid-life at
the time of the Persian invasion. The odes now extant were recited
in Greece before the history of Herodotus was composed. The subject
of these compositions are the praises of the victors at the Olympic,
the Isthmian, the Pythian, and the Nemean games; and in extolling his
heroes, the poet finds occasion to refer to the glories of the cities
to which they belonged: they contain therefore many allusions to the
events of Grecian history; and as these odes were recited at all the
great festivals, the allusions were such as the mass of the people
could not fail to understand. This sort of incidental and brief notice
of public events, intended to kindle the enthusiasm of the audience,
must of course rest upon the knowledge, or the convictions of those to
whom they were addressed. In the first of the Pythian odes, a rapid
sketch is given of the principal events of the Persian war.--Such
defeat as they suffered by the Syracusan prince, who, manning the swift
ships, with the youth, delivered Greece from heavy servitude.--I would
choose the praise won by the Athenians at Salamis:--or I would tell at
Sparta the fight near Mount Cithæron, in which the Medes with their
curved bows (ἀγκυλότοξοι) were oppressed.--The Median bow as seen in
the bas-reliefs of Persepolis, is very properly described by this
epithet--it is very long, and much curved, even in its extended state.
These allusions may be explained by referring to those places in
Herodotus, where it is related, that, while Xerxes was advancing
towards Greece, the Athenians and Lacedæmonians sent an embassy to
Gelon, tyrant of Syracuse, to ask his aid against the Barbarian: this
he refused to grant, except upon conditions with which the Greeks
could not comply. Yet he fitted out a fleet, and engaged and defeated
the Carthagenians, commanded by Amilcar, who had been incited by the
Persians to join in the war upon the Greeks: by this victory Greece was
delivered from the danger of an attack which must have proved fatal
to its liberties; for if the Carthagenian fleet had arrived in the
Archipelago, and had joined the Persians, the Greeks could hardly have
withstood so vast a combination. The next allusion is to the engagement
at Salamis, in which the Athenians, as Herodotus affirms, took the
principal part: and the last, is to the final defeat of the Barbarians
near Platæa, at the foot of Mount Cithæron. In this battle the Spartans
were the most distinguished. In the fifth Isthmian ode, another
allusion to Salamis occurs--where men innumerable met their death, as
by a hail-storm of destruction.
Æschylus, the father of tragedy among the Greeks, had reached manhood
at the time of the first invasion of Greece, and took part in the
battle of Marathon: he was present also in the engagement at Salamis,
and again at the battle of Platæa. Seven only of his seventy tragedies
have descended to modern times:--one of these is entitled “The
Persians.” The scene is laid at Susa in Persia, and the time supposed
is during the absence of Xerxes in Greece. The play is opened by a
chorus of elders, who discourse anxiously concerning the fate of the
expedition;--All Asia is exhausted of men:--wives count the days, and
mourn the long absence of their warrior-consorts--Atossa the queen
enters dejected, and recounts a portentous dream:--a messenger then
arrives from Greece: he reports the defeat of the Persian fleet, and
the retreat of Xerxes:--in relating the particulars, he glances at the
circumstances which preceded the engagement at Salamis, as mentioned
by Herodotus--That a messenger (sent by Themistocles) informed Xerxes
that the Greeks were about to disperse; to prevent which he imprudently
surrounded them:--an engagement ensued, of which Xerxes was a spectator
from a neighbouring hill:--the Persians are defeated;--those who
occupied the island (of Psyttalea) were all slain. The army, in its
retreat, suffers the extremity of cold, hunger, and thirst. On hearing
this, the queen invokes the shade of Darius, which appears.--Atossa
repeats the story of his son’s defeat:--The shade predicts the fatal
battle of Platæa, and the destruction of the army. In the closing
scene, Xerxes himself arrives, bewailing his misfortunes, and bringing
back nothing but an empty quiver. The only material point in which
Æschylus differs from Herodotus, is in reckoning the Greek fleet at
three hundred, instead of seven hundred sail:--this is evidently
a poetic deviation from fact, intended to enhance the glory of the
victory.
Of all the Greek historians, none bears so high a character for
authenticity and for exactness in matters of fact as Thucydides: his
impartiality, his laborious collection, and his judicious selection of
materials, and his rejection of whatever seemed to rest on suspicious
evidence, are apparent on almost every page of the history of the
Peloponnesian war. This history was published about sixty years after
the expedition of Xerxes. Thucydides had conversed with many of
those who had taken part in the battles described by Herodotus. Many
allusions to the events of the Persian invasion occur in the course
of the work, and they are all of that kind which is natural, when
an historian refers to facts which he supposes to be fresh in the
recollection of his readers. The introductory sections of the history
contain an outline of Grecian affairs, from the earliest times to the
commencement of the war between Athens and Sparta. In this preliminary
sketch, the leading circumstances of the invasion, as related by
Herodotus, are mentioned; such as--the war and conquests of Cyrus
and Cambyses--the subjugation of the Greeks of Asia Minor--the naval
power of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos--the Median war, the reigns of
Darius and of Xerxes, and the conduct of Themistocles.--The expulsion
of the Pisistratidæ from Greece, the battle between the Medes and the
Greeks at Marathon, and, ten years afterwards, the second invasion
of Greece by the Barbarians--the desertion of their city by the
Athenians, and their taking refuge on board their ships.--Not many
years after the expulsion of the tyrants from Greece, happened the
battle between the Medes and the Athenians at Marathon; and ten years
after that battle, the Barbarians arrived with a great armament,
intended to reduce the Greeks to bondage. In this imminent danger,
the Lacedæmonians, who were more powerful than the other states, took
the command in the war. The Athenians, as the Medes advanced, having
resolved to abandon their city, collected all their goods, and went
on board their ships, and from that time became a maritime people.
After, by their united efforts, the Greeks had repulsed the Barbarians,
the several states, as well those which fell away from the king, as
those which had fought with the Greeks, took part, some with the
Athenians, and some with the Lacedæmonians.--Again, Thucydides refers
to--the late Median war--which, he says, was quickly terminated in
two battles and two naval engagements. The battle of Marathon, and
the burial of the slain upon the field, are afterwards mentioned; and
in a funeral oration pronounced by Pericles (whether really so or not
is of no consequence to the argument) the exploits of the Athenians
in repelling the Barbarians are spoken of as being too well known to
need to be particularized; and again, the conflict at Thermopylæ is
mentioned;--the battle of Platæa, and the engagement at Artemisium. The
defeat of the Medes, the devastation of Athens, and its restoration
are narrated. The distance of time, namely, fifty years, between the
defeat of Xerxes, and the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, is
mentioned.--All these actions which took place either among the Greeks,
or between them and the Barbarians, were included within a period
of nearly fifty years, reckoning from the retreat of Xerxes, to the
commencement of the present war.
These, and some other allusions to the events of the Persian invasion,
coinciding as they do with the more ample narrative given by Herodotus,
and coming from an historian who made it his boast that he admitted
nothing into his work which was not supported by satisfactory
evidence, and who, moreover, was disposed rather to detract from the
credit of his rival, than to confirm it, must be held to furnish the
most conclusive kind of independent testimony. Indeed, the express
affirmation of Thucydides that Athens was destroyed by the Persians,
affords alone a sufficient proof of the fact; for no such affirmation
as this could either have been made, or tolerated, within sixty years
after the event, unless it were universally known to be true.
Lysias the orator, at the early age of fifteen years, it is said,
accompanied Herodotus and other Athenians to Thurium: after a long
residence in Italy, he returned to Athens, where he distinguished
himself by his eloquence. In a funeral oration, pronounced in honour of
the Athenians who fell in the Corinthian war, he speaks of the Persian
war.--The king of Asia, unsatisfied with his present greatness, and
actuated by a boundless ambition, prepared an army of 500,000 men,
hoping by this mighty force to reduce Europe under his subjection....
With such rapidity was the victory (at Marathon) accomplished, that
the other states of Greece learned by the same messenger the invasion
of the Persians, and their defeat; and without the terror of danger,
felt the pleasure of deliverance. It is not surprising, then, that such
actions, though ancient (about eighty years) should still retain the
full verdure of glory, and remain to succeeding ages the examples and
the envy of mankind.... Many causes conspired to engage Xerxes, king
of Asia, to undertake a second expedition against Europe.... After ten
years preparation, he landed in Europe, with a fleet of 1200 sail, and
such a number of land forces, that it would be tedious to recount even
the names of those various nations by whom he was attended.... He made
a journey over land, by joining the Hellespont, and a voyage by sea, by
dividing Mount Athos. The orator then briefly mentions the engagements
at Artemisium and Thermopylæ, the abandonment of Athens, and the
removal of the citizens to Salamis:--their city was deserted, their
temples burnt or demolished, their country laid waste.
Isocrates flourished a few years later than Lysias, yet he was
contemporary with Herodotus. One of his orations, pronounced in praise
of the Athenians, contains passages to the same effect. They first
(the Athenians) signalized their courage against the troops of Darius
(at Marathon).... The Persians, a short time after renewed their
attempts, and Xerxes himself, forsaking his palace and his pleasures,
ventured to become a general. At the head of all Asia he formed the
most towering designs. For who, though inclined to exaggeration, can
come up to the reality? The conquest of Greece appeared to him an
object below his ambition.--Designing to effect something beyond human
power, he projected that enterprise, so celebrated, of making his army
sail through the land, and march over the sea; and he carried this
idea into execution by piercing Mount Athos, and by throwing a bridge
over the Hellespont. Against a monarch so proud and enterprising, who
had executed such vast designs, and who commanded so many armies, the
Lacedæmonians, dividing the danger with Athens, drew themselves up
at Thermopylæ. With a thousand of their own troops, and a small body
of their allies, they determined in that narrow pass to resist the
progress of all his land forces. While our ancestors (the Athenians
of the _last_ generation) sailed with sixty galleys to Artemisium,
and expected the whole fleet of the Barbarians.... The Lacedæmonians
perished to a man; but the Athenians conquered the fleet they had
undertaken to oppose. Their allies were dispirited. The Peloponnesians,
occupied for their own safety, had begun to fortify the Isthmus.... The
enemy approached Attica with a fleet of twelve hundred sail, and with
land forces innumerable.... The Athenians assembled all the inhabitants
of their city, and transported them into the neighbouring island.--And
where shall we find more generous lovers of Greece than those who in
its defence abandoned their abodes, suffered their city to be ravaged,
their altars to be violated, their temples to be burned to the ground,
and all the terrors of war to rage in their native country?... Athens,
even in her misfortunes, furnished more ships for the sea-fight off
Salamis, which was to decide the fate of Greece, than all the other
states together; and there is no one, I believe, so unjust as to deny,
that by our victory in that engagement the war was terminated, and the
danger removed.
Ctesias, as we have seen, affords a testimony conclusive in favour of
the antiquity of the history attributed to Herodotus. We have now to
adduce his evidence on the subject of the Persian invasion--reminding
the reader that his history of Persia was composed with the avowed
design of invalidating the account given by Herodotus of Persian
affairs: he thus speaks of the expedition of Xerxes:--Xerxes, having
collected a Persian army, consisting, besides the chariots of war,
of eight hundred thousand men, and a thousand galleys, led them into
Greece by a bridge which he had caused to be constructed at Abydos. It
was then that he was accosted by Demaratus the Lacedæmonian, who passed
with him into Europe, and who endeavoured to dissuade the king from
attacking the Lacedæmonians. Xerxes arriving at the pass of Thermopylæ,
placed ten thousand men under the command of Artapanus, who there
engaged Leonidas--chief of the Lacedæmonians. In this conflict a great
slaughter of the Persians took place, while not more than three or
four of the Lacedæmonians were slain. After this Xerxes sent twenty
thousand men to the field; these also were overcome, and though driven
to fight by blows, were still vanquished. The next day he sent forward
fifty thousand men; but as these also failed in their attack, he no
longer attempted to fight. Thorax the Thessalian, and Calliades and
Timaphernes, princes of the Trachinians, were then present (in the
Persian camp) with their troops. These, with Demaratus, and Hegias of
Ephesus, Xerxes called into his presence, and from them he learned that
the Lacedæmonians could by no means be vanquished unless they were
surrounded and attacked on all sides. Forty thousand Persians were
therefore despatched under the command of these two Trachinian leaders,
who traversing a difficult path, came behind the Lacedæmonians. Thus
surrounded, they fought valiantly, and perished to a man. Again
Xerxes sent an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men, commanded
by Mardonius, against the Platæans: it was the Thebans who incited
the king against the Platæans. Mardonius was met by Pausanias the
Lacedæmonian, at the head of not more than three hundred Spartans--one
thousand of the people of the country--and about six thousand from the
other cities. The Persian army being vanquished, Mardonius fled from
the field wounded. This same Mardonius was sent by Xerxes to pillage
the temple of Apollo; but to the great grief of the king, perished in
the attempt by a hail-storm.
Xerxes next advanced with his army to Athens; but the Athenians having
fitted out one hundred and ten galleys, fled to the island of Salamis:
he therefore entered the deserted city, and burned it, except only the
citadel, which was defended by a few who remained; but they retiring by
night, he burned that also. The king then advancing to the narrowest
part of Attica, called Heracleum, began to construct a mole towards
Salamis, with the intention of marching his army on to the island. But
by the advice of Themistocles the Athenian, and of Aristides, a body of
Cretan archers was brought up to obstruct the work. A naval engagement
then took place between the Persians and the Greeks, the former having
more than a thousand ships, commanded by Onophas--the latter seven
hundred. Yet the Greeks conquered, and the Persians lost five hundred
ships. Xerxes himself, by the counsel and contrivance of Themistocles
and Aristides, fled:--not fewer than one hundred and twenty thousand
men having perished on the side of the Persians in the several actions.
Passages to this effect occur in the Myriobiblon of Photius.
In those particulars in which this account of the Persian invasion
differs from that of our author, no one who carefully compares the
two, can hesitate to give his confidence to Herodotus rather than to
Ctesias, not only because he lived some years nearer to the events; but
because his narrative displays more judgment, more consistency, and
more probability, and is also better supported by other evidence. It is
enough for our present purpose that this writer affirms the same great
events to have taken place--that the Persian king led an immense army
into Greece, where he met a total defeat.
Of the authors whom we have cited, the first two--Pindar and Æschylus,
had reached maturity at the time of the Persian invasion, and were
personally concerned in its events, and composed the works to which
we have referred while Herodotus was yet a youth. Though poets, they
represent the victories of the Greeks as recent facts, well known
to their hearers, and the slightest allusion to which was enough to
kindle the national enthusiasm. The other writers--Thucydides, Lysias,
Isocrates, and Ctesias, were also contemporary with Herodotus; and
two of them were his professed rivals. From their evidence it is
apparent that the events of the Persian invasion were matters of common
knowledge and conversation, and were the themes of writers in every
class among the Greeks, in the very age in which they are said to have
taken place.
It follows therefore that the historian of these transactions is not to
be regarded as if he were the author of a narrative for the truth of
which he is individually responsible, and in which we cannot confide
until we have proof of his veracity. He is rather the collector of
facts that were universally acknowledged by his contemporaries:--and
the truth of the history rests upon the fact that it was published, and
was accepted, while the individuals to whom the events were known were
still living.
If we look to the Greek writers of the next and of the following age,
we find the same general facts affirmed or alluded to--orators, poets,
and historians, hold the same language, and assume it as certain that
their ancestors gloriously repulsed an innumerable Asiatic army. But
historical proof of a _traditionary_ kind differs essentially from that
which it is just now our intention to display; we therefore do not
bring it forward in the present instance.
In a preceding chapter (XV.) we have referred to the mass of evidence,
confirmatory of the _written_ testimony of ancient Historians, which
might be brought forward from the treasures of the British Museum.
In many instances the _general_ truthfulness of Herodotus, and his
exactness also, are vouched for in the most substantial and convincing
manner, by objects of various kinds, to which the reader may have
access any day in that vast collection. Yet in relation to such
instances there may be room for a cautionary remark; and it is of this
kind.--
There is a tendency in the mind to relieve itself from the labour of
_thinking_, by accepting, without inquiry, any sort of proof that
offers itself to the senses--to the eye and to the touch. In this
manner we may fall into the habit of forgetting, or of neglecting,
the direct and proper evidence of _written_ and authentic testimony,
while we are occupied with that which _seems_, although it may not be
so in reality, to be more convincing, or to be less precarious; as for
example: after giving attention to the evidence that has been adduced
in the preceding chapters, we may feel assured of the fact--that the
Greeks and Persians did fight on the plains of Marathon. There is then
shown to us a seal, which, on good evidence, we know to have been
picked up upon the very spot that still bears that name in Greece:
the device upon this gem is manifestly Persian;--the winged lions are
almost a copy of the bas-reliefs still existing on several ruins in
Persia: we conclude therefore that this relic of antiquity belonged to
a chief of the Persian army, and we accept it as a palpable proof of
the truth of the historian’s narrative: and though that narrative thus
gains, in our view, a confirmation, it does so by losing something of
its proper weight; and we are afterwards inclined to think, that if the
_tangible_ proof were withdrawn, the _written_ proof would stand less
firmly than it did before.
Then again, in relying upon the evidence of gems, inscriptions, or
sculptures, not merely as illustrations of history, but as proofs of
its truth, we may sometimes substitute the worse kind of evidence
for the better.--The relics of ancient art, in very many instances,
derive their meaning, and draw their historic value from the
concurrent testimony of _written_ history: the entire _proof_ is a
product of the _two_ taken together. Then it must not be forgotten
that the _traditionary_ history of the relic is often of doubtful
authenticity--resting perhaps upon the word of those who had a
commodity of indefinite value to sell;--or the workmanship may be of a
later age than the antiquary is willing to admit;--or the inscription
may have been placed by authority out of the reach of that opinion
to which an historian is always amenable. An arrogant republic, or a
vain-glorious tyrant, might, without fear, stamp bold lies upon coins,
or engrave impudent untruths upon the entablatures of temples; and
the brazen or the marble record may receive from the modern antiquary
a degree of respect which it never won from contemporaries. Herodotus
mentions some instances of this kind. An intelligent inquirer into the
truth of remote facts will usually give more confidence to the explicit
assertions of one with whose character and qualifications he is in some
measure acquainted, than he does to positive averments that come from a
party altogether unknown. Now an historian is a person concerning whose
veracity, discretion, and intentions we have the means of forming our
own opinion; but in admitting the evidence of inscriptions and coins,
we receive a testimony--knowing perhaps nothing of the witness.
CHAPTER XIX.
EXAMPLES OF IMPERFECT HISTORICAL EVIDENCE:--HERODOTUS.
The object of the preceding pages has been to display, in its several
parts, that chain of evidence, by means of which a high degree of
certainty in matters of antiquity is attainable. And it appears that
there are cases in which the proof of remote facts rests, as it were,
in our own hands, so that, irrespectively of the veracity, or accuracy,
or impartiality of the witnesses, our assent is demanded on the ground
of the constancy of the laws of the social system. In such cases, a
consideration of distance of time does not enter into the argument; for
the proof remains from age to age unimpaired; or rather, we are carried
by this proof up to the times of the events in question, and are now
as competent to judge of the validity of the evidence as we could have
been if we had lived in that age.
The real difference between this absolute proof and every other sort
of historical evidence, will be best exhibited by adducing some
instances of a different kind; and in taking our examples from the same
author--Herodotus, we place both kinds of evidence upon the same level,
so far as the personal qualities and the merits of the historian are
concerned in the argument.
The distinctive character of all such historical evidence as ought
to be called _imperfect_, is this--that it comes to us through some
_medium_, upon the trustworthiness of which we must more or less
implicitly rely. Ordinarily, this medium is the veracity, or the
accuracy--the learning, or the impartiality, of the historian. In such
instances the _immediate proof_ stands beyond our reach; and instead
of being able to handle and inspect it for ourselves, we can only
inspect it at a distance, and, by the best means in our power, estimate
its probable value. This secondary evidence may indeed sometimes rise
almost to absolute certainty; in other cases it may possess scarcely an
atom of real weight. The first book of Herodotus will furnish examples
of both sorts, and some in every degree between the two extremes.
In the introductory sections of his history, Herodotus refers to those
mutual aggressions which were ordinarily assigned by the authors of his
times as the origin of the animosity which had so long raged between
the Greeks and the people of Asia: thus he mentions the abduction of
Io from Argos by the Phœnicians--of Europa from Tyre--of Medea from
Colchis, and of Helen from Sparta; which last act of violence produced,
he says, the Trojan war, and which the Persians, as he affirms, were
wont to allege as a perpetual justification of every enterprise they
might attempt against the Greeks.
These events took place--if at all--from thirteen to eight hundred
years before the time of Herodotus: the last of them, the Trojan war,
may well be regarded as substantially true on the authority of the
poems of Homer, which bear the character of history too strongly to
be treated as mere fiction. As to the abductions above-mentioned,
they are to be regarded as samples of the manners of the times:--such
circumstances, and many others to which neither poets nor historians
have given celebrity, no doubt took place on the shores of the Ægæan
sea--favourable as these have ever been to piratical enterprises. Yet
if we can believe that Herodotus actually examined for himself the
writings of the “Persian historians” whom he quotes, and if he there
found coincident narratives of the above-mentioned outrages, these
vague traditions would then acquire something like the authority of
history.
There is a fact affirmed by the historian in the outset of his history
which deserves a passing notice:--he says, that “the Phœnicians, coming
from the shores of the Red Sea (the Persian Gulf, or the Indian Ocean)
settled upon the borders of _this_ sea (the Mediterranean) in the
country they now inhabit; whence they made distant voyages, carrying
on the commerce of Egypt and Assyria, with the surrounding countries.”
This emigration of the Phœnicians--which in itself is by no means
improbable--the distance between the two seas being not great, and such
emigrations being frequent in ancient times--is mentioned by several
ancient authors, though denied by Strabo; nevertheless it provoked
the ridicule of Voltaire, who asks, “What does the father of history
mean in the commencement of his work, when he says that, ‘the Persian
historians relate that the Phœnicians were the authors of all the wars;
and that they came from the Red Sea to ours’? It seems then that they
embarked on the Gulf of Suez--passed through the straits of Babel
Mandel--coasted along the shores of Ethiopia--crossed the Line--doubled
the Cape of Tempests, since called the Cape of Good Hope--ascended the
sea between Africa and America, which is the only way in which they
could come--re-crossed the Line, and entered the Mediterranean by the
Pillars of Hercules, which would have been a voyage of more than four
thousand marine leagues, at a time when navigation was in its infancy!”
This passage is a sample of this writer’s ignorance and audacity in
dealing with history; and it is an instance of the ease with which
a charge of absurdity or falsification may be made out against an
historian by a writer who is at once destitute of learning and of
candour. “M. Voltaire,” says Larches “would have spared himself this
criticism, had he possessed even a moderate knowledge of the Greek
language. If Herodotus had intended to intimate that the Phœnicians
came by sea, he would have employed another Greek idiom. Besides,
he would not have added, that ‘they _then_ undertook long voyages;’
as, on the supposition of their having come by sea, they had already
made a voyage much longer and more perilous than any they afterwards
undertook. But if there remained any doubt as to the meaning of the
passage, the author removes it in another place (Polymnia, 89): ‘These
Phœnicians, as they themselves say, formerly inhabited the shores of
the Red Sea, whence _passing over_, they now occupy the maritime part
of Syria.’”
The History--properly speaking--commences with the story of Crœsus,
king of Lydia, who reigned at Sardis about a century before the time
of Herodotus. The Greeks, especially those of Asia Minor, maintained a
frequent intercourse with the Lydians, and must therefore have had some
general knowledge of their history; and it is evident that our author
made himself acquainted, by personal researches, with such records
and traditions as he could find at Sardis. But between his time and
the reign of Crœsus, that city had once and again been pillaged, its
government overthrown, the manners of its inhabitants changed, and
probably, most of the ancient families had been banished, exterminated,
or reduced to poverty; their places being supplied by Persians and
Greeks. It must therefore be believed, that the authentic records of
the state had to a great extent been dissipated, and that little better
than vague reports remained to be collected when Herodotus visited
Sardis. We are not therefore to be surprised if we find an air of the
fabulous in the story of Crœsus and of his predecessors, the kings
of Lydia. Nevertheless, some of the leading facts were authenticated
by those gifts, of various kinds, that had been consecrated by the
Lydian kings at Delphi, and many of which were preserved in the temple
of Apollo, at that place, in the time of Herodotus: these gifts, by
the inscriptions they bore, served to verify the accounts elsewhere
received. At Delphi, Herodotus not only inspected vessels of gold and
silver, preserved in the temple where the oracles were given, but he
received from the priests _their own copies_ of the many responses
which he quotes in the course of his work. In these vaticinative verses
the craft of the priests who composed them is often sufficiently
apparent: and whatever they may be, their _genuineness_ rests entirely
upon the honesty of the Delphian priests, from whom our author
received them. Yet the subject of the ancient oracles should not be
passed by without acknowledging that, amidst all the glaring frauds,
and the frivolous evasions, and the interested compliances with the
wishes of the applicants, which characterise these responses, there
is apparent also in some of them a knowledge of contemporary--though
remote events, and of a sagacity in relation to the future, which is
not satisfactorily explained without admitting the interposition of a
super-human agency. An absolute denial of any such intervention, while
it is unsupported by a true philosophy, does violence to the principles
of historical evidence; nor is it demanded by any argumentative
necessity.
The interlocution between Crœsus and Solon--the Athenian legislator,
as related by Herodotus, may fairly be numbered among those dramatic
embellishments with which ancient writers--and our author not less than
others--thought themselves at liberty to relieve the attention of their
readers. It need not be questioned that Solon visited Sardis; and it
is not improbable that some rebuke of the Lydian king’s preposterous
vanity--really uttered by the Grecian sage, may have formed the text of
this long conversation.
The story of Adrastus, the Phrygian refugee, and of Atys, the son
of Crœsus, if founded in fact, are evidently much indebted to the
ingenuity of the narrator. Though these incidents may seem puerile to a
modern reader, we ought to carry ourselves back to the author’s times,
before we pronounce them to be altogether improper in the place where
they appear. A student of history who reads only modern compilations
will fail to obtain that just and exact idea of antiquity which these
excrescent parts of the works of ancient historians convey.
The history of Crœsus is interrupted by a long digression, in which
our author gives a sketch of the early history of the Athenians and
Lacedæmonians. On these points he could be at no loss for traditions,
or other sources of information; and here also he was open to
correction from his contemporaries, who were as well informed as
himself in matters of Grecian history. Yet the reader should not lose
sight of the _dates_ of the events severally mentioned, in forming his
opinion of the value of the evidence. It is the manner of Herodotus
to relate unimportant circumstances which took place--if at all--five
hundred, or a thousand years before his time, with as much minuteness
of detail, and as much confidence, as when he is describing recent
events. Frequently, it may be supposed, he followed what he deemed
authentic documents; but as we have no sufficient means of forming an
opinion on the subject, such recitals are not to be admitted among
the established points of history, unless they are confirmed by a
coincidence of authorities.
The narrative of the war between Crœsus and Cyrus, which ended in the
final dissolution of the Lydian kingdom, is resumed, sect. 69. The
leading events of this war could not fail to be well known at the time
in Greece; for besides that the intercourse between Greece and Asia was
frequent, Crœsus was on terms of friendship with the Lacedæmonians,
and was everywhere celebrated for the magnificence of his offerings
to the Delphic god: moreover, the fall of Sardis, and the consequent
conquests of the Persians in Asia Minor, brought a formidable enemy
to the very door of Greece, and obliged the several states to inform
themselves much more exactly than heretofore, of the affairs of their
Asiatic neighbours. We may therefore place the conquests of Cyrus in
Asia Minor among the authenticated facts of history. Yet from the
details, as given by Herodotus, some considerable deductions must be
made; for there is an air of dramatic embellishment apparent throughout
the narrative. Sardis was taken by Cyrus about one hundred years before
Herodotus wrote his history: it is not therefore probable that he had
the opportunity of verifying his authorities by consulting any living
witnesses of the event: it is more likely that he worked up, in his own
manner, some floating traditions received from the Asiatic Greeks.
Crœsus, confounded by misfortunes which seemed to give the lie to
the Delphic god, whose favour and advice he had courted by gifts
of unexampled richness, requested permission of Cyrus to send the
fetters he had worn, to Delphi, to be laid on the threshold of the
temple;--directing the messenger to ask the Grecian god--If it was his
custom to delude those who had merited the best at his hands. This
request was granted; and the Lydian messenger brought back a reply
which, whether or not it may be considered as genuine, is curious, if
taken as a specimen of the policy and style of the Pythian:--
--When the Lydians arrived and delivered their message, the Pythian
is said to have replied--That even the god could not avert the decree
of fate. That Crœsus, the fifth in descent, suffered for the sin of
his progenitor, who being a servant of the Heraclidæ, consented to the
guile of the woman, and slew his master; taking possession without
right, of his place and honour. That yet Apollo _had endeavoured_ to
defer the fall of Sardis till the next generation; but that _he had
not been able to move the Fates_, who would no further yield to his
solicitation than, as a special favour to Crœsus, to place the taking
of Sardis three years later than otherwise it would have happened. Let
Crœsus therefore know that he is a captive three years later than the
Fates had decreed; and then remember that Apollo rescued him when about
to be burned. As to the response, Crœsus had no right to complain;
for the god had foretold that if he invaded the Persians, he would
overthrow a great empire; and if upon this he had wished to be better
informed, he should have inquired again, whether his own empire, or
that of Cyrus was intended. Wherefore, as he had neither understood the
oracle, nor asked for its meaning, he might take the blame to himself.
Having dismissed the Lydian affairs, Herodotus proceeds to give a
sketch of the history of the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, and to
relate the story of the elevation of Cyrus to supreme power in Upper
Asia. That he had visited Persia cannot reasonably be questioned;
nor need it be doubted that he diligently availed himself of every
means in his power to acquire information. Whether he was master of
any of the eastern languages does not certainly appear; for though he
frequently refers to the Persian historians, and though, in one place
(139), he makes a philological remark on a peculiarity of the Persian
language, we must ask more direct proof than this of his possessing
an accomplishment so rare among the Greeks. We must however believe,
that, at least by means of an interpreter, he had consulted the
Persian writers. In commencing the history of Cyrus, he says--I shall
follow those Persian writers who, without endeavouring to exaggerate
the exploits of Cyrus, seem to adhere to the simple truth;--yet not
ignorant that three different accounts of him are abroad.--Whether
these three accounts are in fact those given by himself, by
Ctesias, and by Æschylus, cannot be ascertained. It is evident that
exaggerations and errors abounded among the oriental historians: the
Greeks therefore, having at best a very imperfect access to these
discordant authorities, must be perused with caution: it would be
unsafe to rely with confidence upon any of these narratives; or to
found upon them objections to statements which we derive from sources
that are much more credible.
A general conformity with facts is all that we ought to expect from
the Greek historians when they speak of the remote history of Asia.
Herodotus at Babylon, or at Susa, must have been almost entirely
dependent upon the good faith of the learned men with whom he
happened to form acquaintance; and even if we give them credit for
as much honesty as is usually practised on similar occasions towards
foreigners--and him for a great measure of diligence and discretion,
we shall scarcely find reason for considering these portions of the
work to be true, otherwise than as to the general outline of events.
Herodotus must however be allowed to rank above Xenophon, on the
ground of authenticity; for the Cyropædia is only a political romance.
Diodorus Siculus had access to sources of information that were not
open to Herodotus; and the statements of the later may be admitted in
correction of those of the earlier historian. Justin, or rather Trogus,
seems to follow our author in his incidents, varying from him only in
the order of some events. Josephus, in his reply to Apion, treats the
Greek historians with contempt when they presumed to speak of Asiatic
affairs; urging against them their many contradictions, and their want
of really ancient and authentic documents, and quoting, as of higher
authority, several works of which these citations are almost the only
remaining fragments. Without impeaching the character of Herodotus,
we may peruse the earlier portions of his history as an entertaining
narrative, held together by a connected thread of truth, and supporting
a series of incidents which, though characteristic of the times, are
of very questionable historical authority. Of this kind is the story
of the birth and early adventures of Cyrus, in which the art of the
narrator in working up his materials, is apparent.--Probably some
popular tales communicated to our author in Persia, were adapted by
him to the taste of the Greeks. In his account of the manners, usages,
habits, and buildings of the nations he visited, and of the features
and productions of the countries through which he travelled, our
author is deserving of a high degree of confidence; and though a few
particulars,--plainly fabulous, are mingled with these descriptions,
they must be admitted to take a place among the most valuable of the
remains of ancient literature.
The narrative of the subjugation of the Ionians and Æolians of Asia
Minor, by the Persians, stands, for the most part, upon a higher ground
of authority than those which precede, and those which immediately
follow it; not only because the transactions were comparatively recent;
but because the affairs of these Asiatic Greeks were, at all times,
well known to those of Europe.
The capture of Babylon by Cyrus was an event too remarkable in itself,
and in the extraordinary circumstances attending it, to leave room
for much diversity among the accounts of it which were transmitted
to the next age. The Greek historians differ but little in relating
this memorable event, and their testimony, independent as it is, when
collated with the circumstantial predictions of the Hebrew prophet,
deserves peculiar regard. If the history of Herodotus had no other
claims to attention, it would have claim enough by affording, as it
does, in several signal instances, an unexceptionable testimony in
illustration of the fulfilment of prophecy.
The expedition of Cyrus against the Massagetes, a Scythian nation, in
which he perished, closes the first book of the history. Here again
there may be reason to suspect a want of authentic information. The
scene of action was remote, not merely from Greece, but from Persia,
and the survivors of the Persian army told, when they returned, each
his own tale of wonder: nor is it probable that any other account of
the war was extant in the time of Herodotus than what had been received
from these persons.
The instances that have now been mentioned, occurring in the first
book of Herodotus, may serve as examples of the different degrees of
authority which may belong to different portions of an historical
work--dependent both upon the means of information possessed by the
writer, and upon his liability to contradiction and correction from his
contemporaries. It is enough if we keep in view the general principles
stated above (chap. XIII.), in adhering to which, we have a sufficient
guidance in perusing a work like that of Herodotus, combining as it
does, materials of all kinds, more or less valuable and authentic.
As to some of the facts he relates, we may regard them as absolutely
certain, others as doubtful, improbable, or unreal. With the worst
intentions, and the meanest qualifications, an historian of recent
events, whose writings are received in his own times as authentic,
can seldom be charged with glaring falsifications of facts; on the
other hand, the most cautious, industrious, and scrupulous writer,
who compiles the history of remote times, and of foreign nations, may
innocently wander very far from the path of truth. It would subserve no
useful purpose to adduce a larger sample of instances in illustration
of these obvious principles. We may now give some account of those who
have signalised themselves as the assailants of this great writer.
Herodotus, as we have already said, was severely reprehended by several
ancient writers, especially by Ctesias, Manetho, Diodorus Siculus,
Strabo, Josephus, and, above all, by Plutarch, or by the angry writer
who assumes his name. The grounds of exception taken by these writers
are, in a few instances just; in most cases, the influence of prejudice
or petty jealousy is apparent; yet none of these criticisms affect
that part of the history which alone we allege to be unquestionably
authentic. But modern authors also have attacked the reputation of
the historian, and we may briefly notice some of these more recent
criticisms; for if it is affirmed of a portion of this history, that
its truth is absolutely certain, it ought to be shown that the facts in
behalf of which so high a claim is advanced have never been called in
question--or never, with any degree of plausibility.
Certain critics, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, taking
offence at some of the less authentic portions of this work, and
especially at some ill-understood descriptions of animals and plants,
speak of the historian as a compiler of fables: thus Ludovicus Vives,
a learned Spaniard, well known in England during the reign of Henry
VIII., speaks of the books of Herodotus as abounding in things untrue.
Another says, “Herodotus, that he might not seem to have omitted
anything, brought together, without selection, matters of all kinds;
of which the greater part were derived, not from ancient records, but
from the fables of the vulgar. And although his style is agreeable, and
even elegant, he forfeits the confidence of those who exercise a sound
and impartial judgment; for such readers cannot give credence to a work
so crammed with various narrations.--By some indeed he is called the
‘father of history;’ but by others he is justly named the ‘father of
fables.’”
Bodin, in his “Method of History,” says, “I wonder that Cicero should
have designated Herodotus alone as the father of history, whom all
antiquity accuses of falsehood; for there cannot be a greater proof
that an historian is unworthy of credit, than that he should be
manifestly convicted of error by all writers. Nevertheless I do not
think that he ought to be wholly rejected; for besides the merit of
eloquence, and the charm of the Ionic sweetness, there is in him much
that holds forth antiquity, and many things in the latter books of his
history, are narrated with an exact adherence to truth.”
Wheare, in his “Method of reading History,” thus speaks of our author:
“Although Herodotus gives some relations that are not much better than
fables, yet the body of his history is composed with eminent fidelity,
and a diligent pursuit of truth. Many of those less authentic
narratives he himself introduces by saying that he reports not what he
thinks true, but what he had received from others.”
“It would be absurd,” says Isaac Vossius, “to confide in Herodotus
alone, in what relates to Persian and Babylonian affairs; seeing that
he was unacquainted with the Persian language, and unfurnished with the
records of any of the nations of the east.” Bishop Stillingfleet speaks
of the historian very much in the same strain as the authors above
quoted. He has also been uncourteously treated by some later writers;
of these Voltaire is the most distinguished. Whenever occasion presents
itself he labours to cast contempt upon the father of history. Of this
writer’s ignorance and flippancy in commenting upon Herodotus, we have
already adduced an example: others of a similar kind might easily be
cited. Thus, he represents the historian as _affirming_, in a number
of instances, what he professes only to report; as the story of Arion,
and that of the Lydians who are said to have invented various games to
allay the pains of hunger. He denies as utterly incredible the account
given by Herodotus of the dissolute manners of the Babylonians: “that
which does not accord with human nature, can never be true.” Yet the
customs alluded to are expressly affirmed to have prevailed there by
Strabo, and are distinctly mentioned by a writer whose evidence in
such a case need not be suspected--Baruch, VI. 43; and usages not less
revolting are known to have been established in many ancient cities.
In several instances, either from ignorance or malice, Voltaire
mistranslates Herodotus, in such a manner as to create an absurdity
or impropriety which does not exist in the original; and sometimes he
cites passages that are nowhere to be found in our author. Herodotus,
(Thalia, 72) affirms that it was the custom of the Scythians to impale
a number of persons, having first strangled them, as a part of the
funeral rites with which their kings were honoured. But Voltaire makes
the historian affirm that the victims of this barbarous custom were
impaled alive; and he then finds occasion to deny the truth of the
story. If there are any, who, at this time, think Voltaire’s criticisms
upon the Scriptures worthy of any regard, they would do well to
examine, with some care, the grounds of his remarks upon Herodotus.
If in the case of a Greek historian, towards whom we may suppose him
to have entertained no peculiar ill feeling, we find him displaying
ignorance, indifference to truth, and a senseless flippancy--what may
we expect when he attacks those writings towards which he avows the
utmost hostility of intention?
Under all these attacks Herodotus has not wanted apologists; and
while the writers above mentioned, taking an unfair advantage of some
doubtful, or evidently fabulous passages, for the truth of which the
historian does not pledge himself, have accused him of a want of
veracity; others, more candid, have entered into the details of these
accusations, and have shown, either that the author’s credit is not
really implicated in the narratives he brings together; or that these
accounts are much better founded than, at first sight, they may appear.
The editors and translators of Herodotus--such as Aldus, Camerarius,
Stephens, Wesseling, Gronovius--have undertaken his defence; in some
instances establishing the disputed facts; in others excusing the
author from the charge of falsification. These discussions relate, for
the most part, to those portions of the history which we have excluded
from our present argument; and with which therefore we have here no
immediate concern.
“Few writers,” says Larcher, “have united in so eminent a degree as
Herodotus the various excellences proper to an historian. Let us in
the first place speak of his love of truth. Whoever reads his history
with attention, easily perceives that he has proposed to himself
no other object but truth; and that when he entertains a doubt he
adduces both opinions, leaving it to his readers to choose which they
please of the two. If any particular seems to himself unauthentic
or incredible, he never fails to add that he only reports what has
been told him. Among a thousand examples I shall cite but two.--When
Neco ceased to dig the canal which was to have led the waters of the
Nile into the Arabian Gulf, he despatched from this gulf certain
Phœnicians, with orders to make the circuit of Africa, and to return
to Egypt by the Pillars of Hercules, now known as the Straits of
Gibraltar. These Phœnicians returned to Egypt the third year after
their departure, and related, among other things, that in sailing
round Africa, they had had the sun (rising) on their right hand.
Herodotus did not doubt that the Phœnicians actually made the circuit
of Africa; but as astronomy was then in its infancy, he could not
believe that in this voyage they had really seen the sun on the right
hand:--‘this fact,’ says he, ‘appeared to me by no means credible; yet
perhaps there are those to whom it may seem so.’
“Another point which has not been duly attended to is, that very often
he commences his narrative thus--The Persians--The Phœnicians--The
Egyptian Priests, have told me this or that. These narrations, which
sometimes extend to a considerable length, are, in the original,
throughout, made to depend upon this word φασί--_they say_, either
expressed or understood. The genius of our modern languages obliging
us to retrench these phrases, it often happens that Herodotus is made
to say in his own person what in fact he reports in the third person.
Thus things have been attributed to him, for the authenticity of which
he is very far from vouching.
“He travelled in all the countries of which he has occasion to speak,
he examined with scrupulous attention the rivers and streams by which
they are watered--the animals which belong to them--the productions
of the earth--the manners of the inhabitants--their usages, as well
religious as civil;--he consulted their archives, their inscriptions,
their monuments; and when these means of information failed him, or
appeared to him insufficient, he had recourse to those among the
people who were reputed to be the most skilled in history. He even
carried his scrupulosity so far, that though he had no just reason
for distrusting the priests of Memphis, he repaired to Heliopolis
(Euterpe, 3), and then to Thebes, in order to discover if the priests
of the latter city agreed with those of Memphis.
“One cannot refuse confidence to an historian who takes such pains to
assure himself of the truth. If, however, notwithstanding all these
precautions, it has sometimes happened to him to be deceived, I think
he deserves in such instances rather indulgence than blame. Herodotus
is not less exact in all matters of Natural History than in historical
facts. Some ancient writers have dismissed, as fabulous, some
particulars which have since been verified by modern naturalists--much
more learned than the ancients. The celebrated Boerhaave did not
hesitate to say, in speaking of Herodotus--‘modern observations
establish almost all that great man’s assertions.’”
Some English writers also, wishing, as it seems, like Voltaire, to
bring all history under suspicion, by endeavouring to prove that the
best authenticated facts may, with some show of reason be questioned,
have impugned the testimony, not of Herodotus alone, but of all the
Greek historians.
In recent times all this ground has been so well and thoroughly
explored by writers eminently qualified for the task, that it would be
quite a superfluous labour to refute those whose criticisms have passed
into oblivion.[9]
Writers who, on general grounds, have laboured to show that Herodotus
vastly exaggerates the power, valour, energy, of the Greeks, as
compared with the Asiatic nations, have forgotten that, in estimating
his testimony in this case, we are abundantly furnished with
independent evidences--touching, as well the Asiatic, as the European
civilisation, at the times in question. These existing monuments on
the one side, leave no room to doubt that the soil of Greece, during a
long course of time, supported a numerous people, eminently endowed
at once with the physical qualities of strength, beauty, alacrity, and
courage, and with a mental conformation, combining the ratiocinative
and imaginative faculties in the happiest proportions. There is proof
before us that these advantages, inherent in the race, were improved;
that a very high degree of civilisation in almost all its branches,
and of refinement, was attained; that the resources of an extensive
commerce were possessed, and a large amount of political power
acquired, by the Greeks; or to express all at once--that the Greeks
were then, what the nations of western Europe are now, as compared with
the nations of Asia.
Even if it could be made to appear probable that, in the first ages of
the world, Asia--and in Asia, Persia, was the centre of civilisation,
yet it must be granted, that, so far as authentic history reaches,
the picture of the Asiatic nations is uniform in its character and
colouring. Asia has indeed produced some races distinguished by a
fierce energy, by romantic courage, by loftiness and richness of
imagination. But in no people of Asiatic origin that has displayed at
once, and in combination, the effective energy, the high intelligence,
the taste, the well-directed and sustained industry, which belong to
the more advanced of the European nations:--never have its hordes risen
to that level on the scale of intelligence at which men become at once
desirous of political liberty, and capable of enjoying so great a good.
The relation which modern European armies--those of the Portuguese, the
Dutch, the French, and the English, have always borne to the native
forces of India, is very much the same as that which history affirms
to have existed in all ages between the people of the East and of the
West. Though the latter have not driven the former before them like
sheep, they have at length prevailed over them, as courage conquers
rage, as mind subdues mere force, and as skill is more than numbers.
It is, in substance, the same story that we read, whether the page of
history presents us with the exploits of Clive in India, or of Pompey
in Parthia and Syria, or of Miltiades at Marathon, or of Alexander in
Persia.
The narrative of Herodotus is therefore substantially the first chapter
of the history of the enduring conflict between Asia and Europe; and
this commencement of the story is in harmony with all its subsequent
events. On the one side is seen a reckless despotism, seated on the
shoulders of a boundless population, and which, at the instigation of
a puerile or a ferocious ambition, lets forth a deluge of war, the
course of which was as little directed by skill, as it was checked
by humanity. On the other side are seen much smaller means, employed
with incomparably greater intelligence; and excepting only the partial
events of war, the general issue has ever been the same.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Some of these were named in the first edition of this book; but it
would be a waste of space to bring them forward anew.
CHAPTER XX.
RECENT EXPLORATIONS, CONFIRMATORY OF THE TRUTH OF ANCIENT HISTORY:
HERODOTUS AND BEROSUS.
What we are now doing is to adduce a few samples of the means that
are available for establishing the truth of the more remote facts of
ancient history, according to those general principles which have
already been explained--taking Herodotus as our first, and Berosus as
our second instance. In the tenth chapter (p. 112) a brief reference
has been made to those statues, busts, monuments, inscriptions, whence
ancient historians drew a portion of their materials. But more than
a few of these solid vouchers for the truth of written history have
come down to modern times, and are accessible, either on the sites of
ancient cities, or in museums. In the twelfth chapter (pp. 141-157),
these now-extant evidences are again, and more particularly referred
to. In the fifteenth chapter a glance at the contents of the British
Museum brings this species of evidence yet further into notice, and we
there (p. 219) make a passing reference to Herodotus, as one amongst
those writers--indeed, the foremost of them, whose testimony finds
confirmation in the sculptures of the Grecian, the Assyrian, and the
Egyptian saloons.
To this particular subject, therefore, we now return; but shall think
it sufficient to name, at hazard, a few among the very many instances
which might be adduced, of a similar kind, and which possess, in
different degrees, the same historic value. The reader will understand
that nothing more can be attempted within the limits of a volume like
this, than to state the general principles of historic evidence, and
to illustrate such statements by a few examples. This has been done
at large, in the instance of Herodotus (as we have just now said) by
several eminent writers of modern times, namely, the editors of the
Greek Text; and still more effectively by some of later date--French
and German. Among English writers we should mention Sir John Ker
Porter, in his Travels in Persia; Major Rennell, in his Essay on the
Geography of Herodotus; Mr. Layard, in his “Nineveh and its Remains,”
and his later work, “Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon.”
To the same purpose much of illustrative and incidental discussion
finds a place in Grote’s “History of Greece,” and in Mure’s “Critical
History of the Language and Literature of Greece.” More specifically
these subjects come forward in the Papers and Essays of Dr. Hincks,
and of Sir H. Rawlinson, and in many of the elaborate notes, and
the subjoined essays of the now forthcoming work, “The History of
Herodotus: a New English Version,” by Mr. Rawlinson, Sir H. Rawlinson,
and Sir J. G. Wilkinson. In these works--accessible to the English
reader, and which are found in most libraries--ample and precise
information may easily be obtained, of the same kind as that of which
a few instances only are here adduced. Major Rennell’s Essay on the
Geography of Herodotus, has already been referred to (p. 312), and it
might here again be brought forward, for furnishing instances attesting
the fact that the Greek historian, not content with collecting
materials at second hand, and at home, had actually visited most of
the countries of which he gives any particular account, and certainly
Mesopotamia and Egypt, and to some extent Scythia, and Northern Africa
also, beside the southern parts of Italy; and it may be affirmed,
as to this great extent of lands, that, in their now actual natural
features, their products--animal and vegetable, the customs and usages
of the people, and especially in those enduring architectural monuments
which attract the attention of modern travellers, these countries
furnish visible and tangible vouchers in support of the reputation of
Herodotus--giving evidence, as they do, of his industry, intelligence,
and, generally, of the exactness of his reports and descriptions.
Sir Robert Ker Porter[10] finds frequent occasion to name this same
authority in illustration of existing antiquities. “How faithfully,”
he says, “do these vestiges agree with the method of building in
Babylon, as described by Herodotus!... the bricks intended for the
walls were formed of the clay dug from the great ditch that backed
them; they were baked in large furnaces, and in order to join them
together in building, warm bitumen was used; and between each course
of thirty bricks, beds of reeds were laid interwoven together. The
bitumen was drawn from pits near the Euphrates, which pits exist at
this day.” Since the time (1821) of Sir R. Ker Porter’s explorations
in Babylonia, so much has been done in these regions that we turn of
course to more recent authorities: these, although they do not deprive
his writings of all value, supersede them to a great extent. Chiefly
within the last ten years, and entirely within these thirty years,
unexpected progress has been made in deciphering the inscriptions that
abound among the remains of this region; and it may now be affirmed
that the dark unknown of remote Asiatic history stands revealed before
us. This recent revelation--this solving of what had been regarded
as inscrutable mysteries--has taken effect in various degrees,
upon the existing written histories of Assyria, Babylonia, Persia,
Scythia--confirming much--correcting much; and utterly demolishing
the credit of some portions of this hitherto-accepted history. It is
thus that the tangible and the visible remains of remote ages, as now
_interpreted_, have effected an extensive reform in this department of
human knowledge. If, in a few words, we were to state what has been
the general result of these discoveries, it would be in this way--The
recent interpretation of the inscriptions heretofore, or recently
known, and which are found upon bricks, upon slabs and sculptured
surfaces, and upon the face of rocks, has, in several remarkable
instances, furnished evidence confirmatory of Hebrew Scripture history;
it has given a _general_ support to the statements of Herodotus, as
well as to those of Diodorus the Sicilian; at the same time correcting
those statements in various particulars; it has irrecoverably
annihilated the testimony of Ctesias--the rival and the bitter enemy
of Herodotus; and on the other hand it has, to a great extent, given
authentication to what is extant of the Chaldæan writer--Berosus. To
this last instance we must presently revert.
In mentioning (Chapter XI.) the exceptions to which the testimony of
ancient historians may be open--without impugning their veracity,
we have of course claimed indulgence for them in relation to events
remote, both in time and place from themselves, and for a knowledge
of which they must have been dependent upon precarious sources of
information. Nevertheless there are many instances of this very sort
which have received from the industry of modern travellers very
remarkable confirmation. One such instance comes before us in an
early, or, as we may call it, the preliminary portion of the history
of Herodotus. In speaking of Lydia and of its people, he says that it
contains little worthy of note--less, indeed, than other countries--yet
it has one structure of enormous size, to which nothing is comparable,
after we have excepted the buildings of Egypt and of Babylon:--this is
the tomb of Halyattes, the father of Crœsus, the foundation of which
consists of immense blocks of stone, and otherwise of a mound of earth.
This structure has now outlasted the revolutions of two thousand four
hundred years, or more, and lately it has, with sufficient certainty,
been identified by modern travellers. It is found upon the northern
bank of the river Hermus, in the plain between Mounts Temnus and
Siphylus. Mr. Hamilton thus describes the principal tumulus, generally
designated as the tomb of Halyattes:--“It took us about ten minutes
to ride round its base, which would give it a circumference of nearly
half a mile. Toward the north it consists of the natural rock, a white,
horizontally stratified, earthy limestone, cut away so as to appear as
part of the structure. The upper portion is sand and gravel, apparently
brought from the bed of the Hermus. Several deep ravines have been worn
by time and weather in its sides, particularly on that to the south;
we followed one of these as affording a better footing than the smooth
grass, as we ascended to the summit. Here we found the remains of a
foundation nearly eighteen feet square, on the north of which was a
huge circular stone, ten feet in diameter, with a flat bottom, and a
raised lip or edge, evidently placed there as an ornament on the apex
of the tumulus.”
The Prussian consul at Smyrna, M. Spiegenthal, has examined this
monument with more care, and has explored the interior. He gives
the average diameter of the mound as 281 yards, which would require
a circumference of about half a mile, as roughly estimated by Mr.
Hamilton. “Carrying a tunnel into the interior of the mound, he
discovered a sepulchral chamber composed of large blocks of white
marble, highly polished, situated almost in the centre of the tumulus.
The chamber measured about 11 feet by 8, and was 7 feet in height. It
was empty, and contained no inscription or sarcophagus. This chamber,
no doubt, had been entered and ransacked in remote times, and its
treasures, whatever they may have been, carried off. There can be
little doubt that this marble chamber was the actual resting-place of
the Lydian king, who died according to our chronologies, B.C. 568.”
This structure, when seen by Herodotus, was a recent work--say about
130 years had passed over it: it is now a mound, crumbling into a
formless mass:--meantime the description of it--even this page of
Greek--in my view--is, as to its historic and its literary integrity,
as fresh and as perfect as it was two thousand years ago--yes, and
it is as imperishable as anything mundane can be. This Greek text
will cease to exist--never--unless a deluge of water, of fire, or of
universal barbarism shall come to wrap this planet in its pall.
As nothing is attempted in this volume beyond the illustration of the
method or process of historical evidence, we take only a glance at
those visible confirmations of our author’s testimony, which are now
directing the curiosity of the learned men of Europe, toward the levels
of Mesopotamia--the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates. The mounds, the
basement works, the gigantic sculptures, the inscriptions, combine to
give evidence concerning Nineveh, and Babylon, and Persepolis, and in
doing so shed a light upon remote antiquity, which, while it extends
the limits of what is called “the historic period,” avails also at
once to correct and to corroborate the extant written materials of
history. Heretofore the existence of very many contradictions in these
literary materials, and the suspicious aspect of portions of it, had
thrown a vague uncertainty over the whole. But the course of inquiry,
at this time, has a discriminative tendency, and it will, in its
results, undoubtedly enable those who shall be competent to the task,
to set off the true and certain, from the false and the doubtful,
throughout the entire range of ancient history. Far more important
than the determination of any particular problems in the Assyrian, or
Babylonish, or Persian history, such as the disputed date of wars, or
the succession of monarchs, is the exclusion of those loose modes of
thinking and of writing, the aim and _intention_ of which has been to
bring all history under suspicion, and thus to divert attention from
the _past_ universally, and to fix the thoughts of men upon the things
of the day, and the objects of sense.
Between the written history which has reached modern times, in the
modes that have been mentioned in the preceding chapters, and the
now extant substantial monuments of the same times, there is a
correspondence which can in no way be accounted for, otherwise than by
assuming the genuineness and the authenticity of the former.
“The great temple of Babylon, regarding which the Greeks have left so
many notices, is beyond all doubt to be identified with the enormous
mound which is named _Mujellibêh_ by Rich, but to which the Arabs
universally apply the title of _Bábil_. In the description, however,
which Herodotus gives of this famous building, he would seem to
have blended architectural details which applied in reality to two
different sites; his measurement of a stade square, answering pretty
well to the circumference of Babil, and his notices, also, of the
chapels and altars of the god, being in close agreement with the
accounts preserved in the inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar, of the high
place of Merodach at Babylon; while, on the other hand, the elevation
of seven stages, one above the other, and the construction of a
shrine for the divinity at the summit of the pile, must necessarily
refer to the temple of the Planets of the Seven Spheres at Borsippa,
now represented by the ruins of Birs-Nimrud.”--SIR H. RAWLINSON:
_Herodotus_, vol. i. p. 321.
“On the whole, we may conclude with tolerable confidence, that in the
great northern mound of Babylon, we have the remains of that famous
temple which Herodotus describes so graphically, and which ancient
writers so generally declare to have been one of the chief marvels of
the eastern world. Its bricks bear the name of Nebuchadnezzar, who
relates that he thoroughly repaired the building; and it is the only
ruin which seems to be that of a temple, among all the remains of
ancient Babylon.”--_Idem._
In the course of these recent explorations, an instance has presented
itself which, in a very peculiar manner, illustrates our proper
subject in this volume, namely--the trustworthiness of that mode of
transmission which has brought ancient books into our hands.
Berosus, or Ber Oseas, a Chaldean priest and historian, flourished and
wrote at Babylon in the times of Alexander’s immediate successors.
His work--the History of Babylonia, has failed to come down to modern
times; but it was extant in the early centuries of the Christian era;
and it was very frequently mentioned, and cited at length, by writers
of those times. This history is confidently appealed to, and is quoted
by Josephus; and passages drawn from it are found in Tatian, Eusebius,
Clemens Alexandrinus, Athenæus, Agathias, and others. Altogether, when
these variously derived quotations are brought together, they form a
mass--broken indeed into fragments, but yet sufficient for subserving
highly important purposes in clearing up the ancient history of the
East. In converting this remarkable instance to our purpose in this
argument, we have _first_ to point out the illustration it affords
of the reality, and the truthfulness of that system of quotation to
which, again and again, we have directed the reader’s attention. Here
we have before us a case in which fragmentary citations, and incidental
references--made by a number of writers, are found so to consist, and
to agree one with another, as to authenticate at once the writer who
is quoted, and the writers who quote: it is a mutually corroborative
testimony. But in the next place, these fragments have lately received
a kind of authentication that was little looked for, and which indeed
deserves peculiar regard. What we here refer to is the trilingual
Rock-Inscription which recently has received its interpretation.
In referring to this instance, and in converting it to our present
purpose, we must be understood to assume, what we believe ought not
to be doubted, namely, the validity of that system of interpretation
which has at length given us the English of these inscriptions. A few
passages we now quote are from Rawlinson’s Herodotus. The following
(vol. ii. p. 590) describes the Rock-Inscriptions of Behistun.
“Behistun is situated on the western frontier of the ancient Media,
upon the road from Babylon to the southern Ecbatana, the great
thoroughfare between the eastern and the western provinces of the
ancient Persia. The precipitous rock, 1,700 feet high, on which the
writing is inscribed, forms a portion of the great chain of Zagros,
which separates the high plateau of Iran from the vast plain watered
by the two streams of the Tigris and Euphrates. The inscription is
engraved at the height of 300 feet from the base of the rock, and can
only be reached with much exertion and difficulty. It is trilingual:
one transcript is in the ancient Persian, one in Babylonian, the other
in a Scythic or Tatar dialect. Col. Rawlinson gathers from the monument
itself that it was executed in the fifth year of the reign of Darius,
B. C. 516.”
In these inscriptions, covering a large surface of the native rock,
Darius, the great king, tells the world who he is, what he has done,
what wars he has waged, what countries he has conquered, and what
structures he has raised:--
“I (am) Darius, the great king, the king of kings, the king of Persia,
the king of the (dependent) provinces, the son of Hystaspes, the
grandson of Arsames the Achæmenian.”
We have mentioned (p. 256) what was the usage of the copyists in
commending their labours to the care of the men of after times, and
in attaching tremendous anathemas to the crime of destroying, or of
alienating the book. Here, now, a curious coincidence presents itself;
for this great king, in bringing this sculptured record of his reign to
a close, thus utters his will:--
“Darius the king says,--If seeing this tablet, and these images, thou
injurest them, and preservest them not as long as my seed endures,
(then) may Ormazd be thy enemy, and mayest thou have no offspring; and
whatever thou doest, may Ormazd curse it for thee.”
As to the available value of these inscriptions, Mr. Rawlinson thus
writes (vol. i. p. 432):--
“Until quite recently the most obscure chapter in the world’s history
was that which related to ancient Babylonia. With the exception of the
Biblical notices regarding the kingdom of Nimrod, and the confederates
of Chedor-laomer, there was nothing authentic to satisfy, or even
to guide research.... The materials accumulated during the last few
years, in consequence of the excavations which have been made upon
the sites of the ruined cities of Babylonia and Chaldæa, have gone
far to clear up doubts upon the general question. Each succeeding
discovery has tended to authenticate the chronology of Berosus, and
to throw discredit upon the tales of Ctesias and his followers....
The chronology which we obtain from the cuneiform inscriptions in
this early empire, harmonises perfectly with the numbers given in
the scheme of Berosus.... It is evident that the chronological
scheme of Berosus ... is, in a general way, remarkably supported and
confirmed.... As to the chronology of Ctesias, it is irreconcileable
with Scripture, at variance with the monuments, and contradictory to
the native historian, Berosus, whose chronological statements have
recently received such abundant confirmation from the course of
cuneiform discovery.... It may therefore be discarded as a pure and
absolute fiction; and the shorter chronology of Herodotus and Berosus
may be followed. The scheme of these writers is in tolerable harmony
with the Jewish records, and agrees also sufficiently well with the
results at present derivable from the inscriptions.”
Our object here is not to determine disputable points in ancient
history, but merely to exhibit, in its several parts, the method, or
process, of historic proof. With this view, only, before us, we need
not do more than bring forward these _samples_ of this method, in its
several kinds. It would be easy, if useful, to go on--from book to
book of the History of Herodotus--finding confirmations or corrections
of his narratives and descriptions, and much that would be pertinent,
derived from the pages of modern travellers, or from the contents of
museums. But to do so would lead us far, and indeed would fill bulky
volumes. The facts, thus far briefly adduced, furnish the intelligent
and studious reader with _suggestions_ for prosecuting inquiries, on
this ground, to any extent to which his taste or his purposes may lead
him onward.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Travels in Georgia, Persia, Armenia, Ancient Babylonia, &c. Two
vols. quarto, 1821.
CHAPTER XXI.
INFERENTIAL HISTORIC MATERIALS.
A book may come into my hand which contains no narrative of events--no
allusion to the persons or transactions of the author’s times--in a
word, nothing, from the first page to the last, which in a direct
manner should enable me to assign a date to it. Nevertheless, such a
book may actually possess much historic significance, and it may take
its place among those materials of which a writer of history will
eagerly avail himself. This assertion may need some explanation; as
thus:--
Each nation, as distinguished from other nations, its contemporaries,
and each period in the world’s history, as compared with periods
anterior to it and subsequent, has its characteristics, its moral
tone, its intellectual range, and its tastes; it has its principles,
its modes of reasoning, and especially its condition as a season,
either of progress and expansion, or of decay and decline. Now these
characteristics are important in themselves, and they are often highly
so, in clearing up historic problems.
Nevertheless historians seldom afford _direct_ information illustrative
either of the moral or the intellectual condition of ancient nations;
nor indeed is this deficiency much to be regretted, for such subjects
are too indefinite to be treated in the style proper to history; and
when historians philosophise, they bring the simplicity of their
testimony into just suspicion. Besides, the mental condition of a
people can be fairly estimated only by being placed in comparison with
that of others; and few writers, how extensive soever may be their
acquaintance with facts, are qualified to arbitrate between their
contemporaries, and their predecessors, or between their own countrymen
and their neighbours.
Yet although information of this sort may not present itself on the
pages of historians, it may be derivable from other sources; for when
the literary monuments of an ancient people are in existence, the
knowledge we are in search of may be collected with a high degree
of certainty therefrom. Yet the process may be nice and difficult,
inasmuch as the indications from which it is to be gathered are more
or less recondite. For this very reason the conclusions we obtain by
a course of inferences and comparisons, may be the more exempt from
suspicion. The pages of historians may be swelled with descriptions of
the resources, the foreign influence, the population, and the polity of
empires; meantime an intelligent inquirer may obtain--from the casual
hints and allusions of writers of a less pretentious class, a true
knowledge of the taste and the morals of a people.
It is obvious that we are not to attach much value, in this sense,
to the embittered sarcasms of misanthropes, or to the epigrams of
satirists, who hold up to view the two corrupted extremes of a social
system--namely, the pampered favourites, and the desperate outcasts of
fortune. Nor should we listen, without caution, either to the dreams of
poets, from whose pictures the ills of reality have been discharged,
or to the averments of philosophers, who are often less true to nature
than even the poets.
Inferences, in an inquiry of this kind, may be drawn from what is
recorded of--the modes of life, and the domestic usages, and the
amusements of a people; or from the characteristics of their worship;
or from the popular feeling, whether of approbation, surprise, or
abhorrence, that is excited by the actions of public persons.
Valid information also is to be gathered from the enactments of a
people whose moral condition is under inquiry. This sort of material is
either that which is fixed, and has been consigned to the executive, by
legislative authority; or that which floats at large in those ethical
writings which have taken a permanent place in the literature of the
country. In deriving inferences from the first--namely, the sanctioned
laws of a people, several distinctions must be observed; for we must
not bring forward antiquated laws; and in examining recent enactments,
the political circumstances of the time must not be forgotten, for
the momentary interests of parties, or of individuals, not seldom
produce legislative decisions that are altogether anomalous, as to the
condition of the people. Often mere chance has had sway in senates, and
may have exercised more influence in the grave business of law-making
than the sage and solemn forms of the place would seem to bespeak.
But it must be with the last-named source of information only that we
shall now have to do. What we say is this--That, with due caution,
substantial information relative to the moral and intellectual
condition of a people, may be collected from the ethical writings that
have been accepted and approved among them. This proposition carries
several important consequences, and it may be well to illustrate it by
some examples.
Every hortatory composition contains, explicitly or by implication, two
fixed points, which it is the business of the inquirer to ascertain.
One of these is much more readily found than the other; yet there
exists a means of measuring the distance between the two; so that the
one being determined, the other also may be discovered:--for example,
The first point ascertainable in an ethical composition is--the system
of morals, or the standard of excellence which the author has imagined,
and which he recommends and enforces. This point may be termed _the
ideal level of the writer’s mind_ in morals, and it is in most cases
quite easy to be fixed. The second, and less obvious point, and that
which is the very object of our inquiries, is--the actual state of
morals among those whom the writer addresses, and which may be called
_the real level of popular morals_. Our business then is to find this
last or unknown point, by measuring the distance between the two. Now
this distance is more or less distinctly indicated by the tone of
every ethical composition. We have then in our problem three terms:
one known, one demanded, and a middle term, connecting the two, which
remains to be worked out of the materials before us.
The distinctness of the indications from which our middle, or
_measuring term_, is to be formed, will vary greatly in different
cases. In works of a philosophical cast they will be extremely faint,
and perhaps not available for our purpose; while in treatises that
are of a simple and popular character, and which consist of precise
exhortations--reproofs and advices--there will be little difficulty in
drawing the inferences we are in search of. It will be found, also,
that serious writers are more safe guides than those that indulge in
satire; for the satirist seeks for extremes.
We say that writings of a philosophic or moral cast, and in which there
occurs no allusion to events or to individual persons, may nevertheless
be made available as the materials of history.--Two or three instances
will show what we mean. We take our first example from a book which
is as abstract in its form and style as any that could be found; and
give, in brief, the purport of a section on Magnanimity, in Aristotle’s
Ethics.
Magnanimity, says Aristotle, is a quality conversant with what is
great. But what things are these? He then may properly be termed
magnanimous who deems himself worthy of great things, and who is so,
in truth. For he who thus deems of himself without cause is a fool. He
whose merits are equal only to a humble station, and who thus thinks
of himself, is called wise, not magnanimous; for magnanimity belongs to
what is actually great. In like manner, as handsomeness belongs only to
height of stature; those who are small, may be comely, or symmetrical,
but not handsome. On the other hand, one who falsely deems himself to
possess great merit, is called vain--a term which can never properly
belong to those who are truly great. Again; one who under-rates his
merits is mean-spirited, whether his real deserts be great, moderate,
or slender; since he still thinks that less than he possesses is his
due: especially is he pusillanimous who thus disparages great qualities
in himself; for what would such a man do if destitute of that merit?
He, therefore, who is truly magnanimous, is of necessity a good man;
and whatever there is great in any virtue belongs to him. It befits
not him to flee, wringing his hands, nor to do wrong to any one; for
why should he commit unworthy actions to whom nothing great can be
added?--Wherefore this greatness of soul seems to be a sort of ornament
to all the virtues--enhancing all of them, and not, by any means,
consisting without them. True greatness of soul is therefore rare,
since it demands the perfection of probity and goodness. Magnanimity is
peculiarly displayed both in honour and in disgrace; for the great man,
when surrounded by opulence and by assiduous attendants, experiences
only a moderate happiness; since what he enjoys is not more than what
befits him; or perhaps, not so much; for virtue can hardly ever be said
to possess its due reward. The honours bestowed upon him he therefore
calmly admits as being, though not equal to his merits, the utmost
that those around him have to bestow; while ordinary or mean praises
he utterly contemns; for of such he deems himself undeserving. In like
manner he despises disgrace; for he knows that it is unjustly cast upon
him. Thus, in prosperity he is not elated; in adversity not dejected.
Without attempting to draw inferences too far from a passage like this,
it may fairly be said to indicate the existence of popular notions of
moral greatness, more refined than those of nations merely warlike;
and far exalted above those of a people--merely commercial. The
writer must, in his own country, have seen examples of heroic virtue
which approached the perfect image he exhibits. One is not surprised
to learn that he belonged to the race which produced Aristides,
Cimon, Epaminondas, and Phocion. It is observable that Aristotle’s
magnanimous man is decked only with the honours that befit a _citizen_,
or a distinguished leader in a republic--not with the gaudy shows of
oriental despotism: it is not deemed a becoming part of his hero’s
glory that millions of his species should lay in the dust at his feet.
We may also fairly remark, that this acute thinker had evidently no
idea of that peculiar sentiment which is engendered, in great minds,
by an habitual reference to the moral attributes of the Deity: his
hero is a purely _mundane_ person; or, if we might so accommodate the
term--he is _atheistical_. Neither did his notion of moral greatness
include that humility which springs from a sense of delinquency, or
imperfection, in the sight of the Supreme Lawgiver and Judge. If
ideas of this class had at all been known to the Greeks of that age,
or if they had come within the writer’s view, he would assuredly have
included them among his definitions, whether he thought them worthy of
commendation, or not so. For his manner is to omit no abstract idea
that bears any relation to his topic.
To what extent sentiments like those mentioned by Aristotle were
prevalent in his times, it is not easy to ascertain from the passage
just quoted; since the treatise in which it appears is of an abstract,
not of a hortatory character; yet it contains one expression which,
on the principle of our present argument, we should call _a term of
measurement_; he says, that true magnanimity is exceedingly rare, or
hard to be attained; in other words, that it was much easier to find,
among the writer’s countrymen, an Alcibiades than an Epaminondas. But
the historical significance of a passage like this will best appear by
bringing it into comparison with a quotation, on a similar topic, from
the most eminent of the Roman moralists.
Cicero’s Treatise, De Officiis, is abstract rather than hortatory; and
yet, compared with the Ethics of Aristotle, it is less metaphysical,
and it approaches nearer to the modern idea of a practical work.
Without designedly painting the manners, or formally estimating the
morals of his times, this great writer furnishes, in his various
compositions, many indications from which the state of both may be
inferred. Of all social bonds, none, he says, can be found more weighty
or more dear, than that which binds each one of us to our country.
Dear are our parents, dear our children, relatives, friends; but in our
country are centred the endearments of all--for which, what good man
would hesitate to die, if his death might promote its interests? Whence
the more detestable is the ferocity of those who, by every crime,
rend their country; and who have ever been busied in accomplishing
its ruin. Actions performed magnanimously and courageously we are
wont to applaud, as it were, with a fuller mouth. Hence the themes
of orators on Marathon, Salamis, Platæa, Thermopylæ, Leuctra; hence
our Cocles, hence the Decii, hence Cnæus and Publius Scipio, hence
Marcellus, and others without number; for the Roman people especially
excels in greatness of soul. Indeed, our love of military glory is
declared by the fact, that our statues are adorned with the garb of the
warrior. But that elevation of soul which displays itself in dangers
and labours, if it wants probity--if it contends not for public, but
private advantages, becomes a vice. Not merely is it not a virtue, but
is rather to be deemed a ferocity--repulsive to human nature. Well
therefore is fortitude defined by the Stoics, when they say, it is
‘virtue defending right.’ Wherefore no man who has attained the praise
of fortitude has been renowned for treachery or mischief; for nothing
can be laudable which is unjust. Those, therefore, are to be esteemed
valiant and magnanimous, not who commit, but who repress wrongs. That
true and wise greatness of soul, which is indeed laudable and consonant
to nature, regards deeds more than fame; and would rather be, than
seem illustrious. And he is not to be reckoned among great men who is
dependent upon the erring opinion of the thoughtless multitude. For
lofty spirits, always thirsting for glory, are easily driven on to what
is unjust. And it is indeed hard to find one who, while he undergoes
labours and dangers, does not seek glory as the wages of his exploits.
In these expressions there is conspicuous that paramount passion--the
love of country, which belonged so peculiarly to the Roman
people--which was a principal cause of the growth of their power,
and which, though then on the wane, was not extinct in the age when
the state ceased to be free:--no good man would hesitate to die for
his country’s good--this was a sentiment more characteristic of the
Romans than of the Greeks. The Grecian chiefs not seldom betrayed
their country for gold; those of Rome, scarcely ever. Then the
military spirit is much more prominent in the one instance than in the
other. Cicero’s great man is, of course, a warrior; Aristotle’s is a
statesman: the Roman obtains _glory_; the Greek, _honour_, _dignity_.
The one, if destitute of probity, becomes the factious destroyer of
his country, and is regardless of dangers and toils: the other--merely
vain. The Greeks addicted themselves to war to defend their liberties,
and to determine their intestine quarrels; but the Romans did so from
the innate love of combat, and the insatiable desire of conquest. Both
moralists make true virtue essential to true magnanimity; but the Greek
proves this necessary connexion on abstract principles; the Roman
insists that _utility_ must be made the ultimate rule of conduct;
and this principle is expressive of that practical feeling in which
the Romans so much excelled the Greeks. If then, by some error, the
passages above quoted were attributed--each to the other writer, a
reader well acquainted with the history of the two people, would not
fail to detect the incongruity of the sentiments and the phraseology.
The two authors hold essentially the same opinions; but the one thinks
like the companion of sophists, the other like the friend of soldiers.
This perceptible difference between the two is an index to the
_historical significance_ of both.
We shall now cite a passage on a subject not very dissimilar, from a
modern writer; and the reader will perceive that a great change and
improvement has taken place in the sentiments of mankind, between the
times of the ancient writers and the modern.
The duty (of respecting the natural equality of men) says Puffendorf,
is violated by pride or arrogance, which leads a man, without cause,
or without sufficient cause, to prefer himself to others, and to
contemn them as not on a level with himself. We say _without cause_;
for when a man rightfully demands that which gives him pre-eminence
over others, he may properly exercise and maintain that advantage--yet
avoiding absurd ostentation or contempt of others. As, on the other
hand, any one properly renders honour or preference to whom it is due.
But a true generosity or greatness of soul is always accompanied by
a certain seemly humility, which springs from the reflection we make
upon the infirmity of our nature, and the faults which heretofore we
may have committed, or which yet we may commit, and are not less than
those of other men.... It is a still greater offence for a man to make
known his contempt for others by external signs, as by actions, words,
gestures, a laugh, or any other contumelious behaviour. This offence is
to be deemed so much the greater, inasmuch as it so excites the minds
of others to wrath and the desire of revenge. Thus it is that many may
be found who would rather put their life in immediate peril, and much
rather break amity with their neighbours, than sustain an unrevenged
affront. Since, by this means, honour and reputation are injured, the
unblemished integrity of which is essential to peace of mind.
The latter sentences of this passage preclude the idea that the writer
lived in times when a sordid, or servile insensibility to reputation
had extinguished those sentiments to which so much importance, and so
much merit, was attributed by ancient warlike nations. At the same
time, the first part of it contains a corrective sentiment, of which
scarcely a trace is to be found in any of the Greek or Roman writers--a
sentiment plainly arising from an enhancement of the notion of _moral
responsibility_, and from a far higher estimate of the nature of
virtue. In other words, the two first quoted writers were polytheists;
the last was a Christian.
Our next instance is taken from the Enchiridion of Epictetus. The icy
sophism of the Stoics had found some admirers at Rome before the times
when the ancient republican severity of manners had disappeared. But
_theoretical_ stoicism does not reach its perfection till some time
after _practical_ stoicism has become obsolete. It is a reaction in the
_moral_ world, produced by the rank exuberance of luxury, sensuality,
effeminacy, and the arrogance of preposterous wealth. If, therefore,
the date of the Enchiridion were unknown, it would be more safely
attributed to the times of Domitian, than to the age of Cincinnatus,
or of Cato. In reading the following passage one may readily imagine
the lame sage,[11] wrapping himself in his spare blanket, and his ample
self-complacency, as he makes his way--unnoticed, through the insolence
and voluptuousness of imperial Rome.
--If it ever happens to thee to turn from thy path with the intent
to gratify any one, know that thou hast lost thy institute (_i.e._
forsaken thy _rule_). Let it be enough for thee, on all occasions, to
be--a philosopher. But if, indeed, thou desirest to seem a philosopher,
look to thyself, and be content with that. Let not such thoughts as
these trouble thee--I live without honours, and am no where accounted
of.... Is some one preferred to thee at table, or saluted before thee,
or consulted before thee? If these things are goods, thou oughtest
to congratulate him to whose lot they fall; if they are ills, do not
grieve because they have not befallen thee. But remember, that as thou
dost not pay attention to those things by which exterior advantages are
obtained, it cannot be that they should be given thee. For how can
he who stays at home fare the same as he who goes abroad?--or can the
same things happen to him who is obsequious, and to him who is not?--to
him who praises, and to him who praises not? Thou wilt be unjust and
greedy if, without having paid the price at which these things are
sold, thou dost expect to receive them freely. Now, what is the price
of a lettuce?--say a farthing: one therefore pays his farthing, and
takes his lettuce; but thou dost not pay, and dost not take. Think
not thyself in worse condition than he. For as he has his lettuce, so
thou hast the farthing thou didst not pay. And thus it is in other
things.--Thou hast not paid the price at which an invitation to a feast
is sold: for he who makes a feast sells invitations for flattery--for
obsequiousness. Give then the price, if thou thinkest the bargain to
thy advantage. But if thou likest not to afford the cost, and yet
wouldst receive the things, thou art at once greedy and foolish. And
hast thou then nothing instead of the feast? Yes, truly; thou hast
this, that thou didst not commend one whom thou didst not approve; nor
hast thou had to bear his insolence on entering his halls.
Many admirable sentiments are to be found in the writings of
Epictetus; though, for a portion of them, there may be reason to
believe he was indebted to Christianity, of which obligation he makes
no acknowledgment. The treatise from which this passage is derived
furnishes an example of that laborious and unsuccessful conflicting of
pride with pride, which is natural to men of superior intelligence,
who occupy an inferior condition, and are surrounded by vulgar
insolence, servility, and profligacy. There was evidently a _class_
of persons in the author’s time in circumstances like his own--that
is to say--intellectualists, who, as a defence against the scorn of
worldlings, put on a mail of steely logic.
The Enchiridion, if regarded as _a material of history_, may fairly
support the inference that, in the writer’s time, wealth and luxury
had triumphed over stern principles and severe manners;--that the
philosophical character had ceased to command general respect, as it
did at Athens in the age of Plato;--and that philosophy itself, having
passed its prime, was fast becoming palsied and querulous.
A comparison, at once curious and instructive, might be drawn between
two writers who, at first sight, may seem too unlike to be named
together--Epictetus and Thomas à Kempis. Yet quotations from the
Enchiridion and the De Imitatione, might be adduced in proof of a
real affinity. There is even a similarity in the form of the two
works; for both writers, in a style of severe and laconic simplicity,
address their pointed aphorisms--now to themselves, now to their
half-refractory disciple, much in the manner of a nurse, upbraiding
a pettish child. A _monotony_, both of _principle_ and of _topics_,
pervades both books. Both authors compel Wisdom to ascend the summit of
a snow-girt peak, where she can be neither approached, nor even heard,
by the mass of mankind. Both writers were in fact, though on widely
different principles, not only recluses from the ordinary walks of
human life, but recusants of the common emotions of our nature. And
both, by an implicit contrast, exhibit the falling condition of the
social system of their times. Yet there is this difference between the
two, that while the Stoic presents to view the darkness of paganism,
enlivened by a glimmer from Christianity, the Monk holds forth the
brightness of Christian truth, dimmed by the errors of superstition.
The moral treatises of Plutarch are of a practical, more than of a
philosophical kind, and they yield therefore abundant indications,
as well of the opinions, as of the manners of his age. In truth, the
student of history would hardly need other aid in ascertaining the
religious and moral sentiments of the times of Trajan, than he may
find in the pages of this writer. Among this author’s moral pieces
there is one that is curious, and valuable too, as a material of
history--namely, the tract on Superstition--_the dread of dæmons_.
With great force of language and aptness of illustration, he depicts
the mental torments of the man who believes the gods to be malignant,
inexorable, and capricious; and he contrasts this unhappy temper with
the comparatively harmless error of those bolder spirits who cast
away altogether the belief and fear of supernal beings; and while
he recommends “the mean of piety,” he decidedly prefers atheism to
superstition.
What say you?--The man who thinks there are no gods is impious? But is
not he who thinks them to be cruel and malignant, chargeable with an
opinion that is much more impious? For my own part, I would rather that
men should say, ‘There is no such person as Plutarch,’ than that they
should affirm that Plutarch is a man capricious, instable, prone to
wrath, revengeful of accidental affronts, pettish; one who, if you have
neglected to invite him with others to a feast, or if, being otherwise
engaged, you have failed to salute him at your gate, will devour you,
or seize and torture your son; or will send a beast, which he keeps for
the purpose, to ravage your fields.
Plutarch speaks of four states of mind, as known and existing in
his times--namely, 1. The wise piety, which he recommends, and
which forms the medium between superstition and atheism.--2. The
joyous or _festive_ worship of the gods, in which he sees nothing to
reprehend.--3. A bold rejection of all religion, which he thinks _an
error_, though an innocent error:--and 4. Superstition, which is not
merely an error, but a practical evil of the worst kind. Of the first
he says almost nothing; nor does he offer a single hint explanatory
of the mode in which the gods and goddesses of the Greek mythology
might be made the objects of a devout and reasonable piety:--and yet
piety without a god, must be an unmeaning term. Plutarch’s piety is
a vague sentiment, which he feels to be proper to human nature, and
highly beneficial; but which was absolutely destitute of solid ground,
or certainty; for no invisible being or beings were known to him whom
he could both love and fear. Even if the philosopher, by a course of
doubtful reasonings, might work out for himself an idea of the Deity,
such as might keep alive the sentiment of piety, no such abstruse
notion could be brought within the apprehension of the vulgar. What is
there then left to the vulgar?--not atheism--for that is an error:--not
superstition; for that is a tormenting mischief:--nothing remains but
the festive worship of the gods; and this, with all its impurities, and
all its follies, was the only portion that could be assigned to the
millions of mankind:--Plutarch knew of no alternative on which to found
the religious sentiments of men. Yet on another occasion he expresses
his opinion strongly as to the necessity of religion for the support of
the social system.--It seems to me that it were easier to build a city
without a foundation, than to construct or to preserve a polity, from
which all belief of the gods should be removed. Yet how great soever
were the evils of atheism, he deemed those arising from superstition
to be greater. According to his testimony, when the only theology
known to the Greeks took possession of timid minds, it rendered life
intolerably burdensome.--Of all kinds of fear, none produces such
incurable despondency and perplexity as superstition. He who never goes
on board a ship, does not fear the sea; nor he the combat, who is not a
soldier; nor he the robbers, who stays at home; nor does the poor man
fear informers, nor he who is low, the eye of envy; nor he who inhabits
Gaul, earthquakes; nor the Ethiopian, the thunderbolt. But the man who
dreads the gods, dreads all things;--the earth, the sea, the air, the
heavens, darkness, light, noise, silence, dreams. The slave in slumber
forgets his master, the captive his chain, the wounded and the diseased
their anguish:--kind sleep, friend of the sufferer, how sweet are thy
visits! But superstition admits not even this solace; it accepts no
truce, it gives no breathing time to the mind, nor permits the spirits
to rally or to dispel its harsh and grievous surmises. But like the
very region of the wicked, so the dreams of the superstitious man
abound with terrific apparitions, and fatal portents: and this passion,
always inflicting punishments upon the distracted spirit, scares the
man from sleep by visions. And he--self-tortured, believes himself
obliged to comply with fearful and monstrous behests. Such a man, when
he awakes, instead of contemning his dreams, or smiling with pleasure
in finding that what had disturbed him has no reality, still flies
before an innoxious shadow, while at the same time he is substantially
deluded by falling into the hands of conjurers and impostors, who strip
him of his money, and impose upon him various penances.
The tortures inflicted upon timid spirits by the Grecian
polytheism are depicted with not less force by the observant
Theophrastus.--Superstition is a desponding dread of divinities
(dæmons). The superstitious man, having washed his hands in the sacred
font, and being well sprinkled with holy water from the temple, takes
a leaf of laurel in his mouth, and walks about with it all the day. If
a weasel cross his path, he will not proceed until some one has gone
before him, or until he has thrown three stones across the way. If he
sees a serpent in the house, he builds a chapel on the spot. When he
passes the consecrated stones, placed where three ways meet, he is
careful to pour oil from his cruet upon them: then falling upon his
knees, he worships, and retires. A mouse, perchance, has gnawed a hole
in a flour-sack: away he goes to the seer, to know what it behoves
him to do; and if he is simply answered, ‘Send it to the cobbler
to be patched,’ he views the business in a more serious light, and
running home, he devotes the sack as an article no more to be used.
He is occupied in frequent purifications of his house; saying that
it has been invaded by Hecate. If in his walks an owl flies past, he
is horror-struck, and exclaims--Thus comes the divine Minerva. He is
careful not to tread upon a tomb, or to approach a corpse; saying that
it is profitable to him to avoid every pollution. On the fourth and
seventh days of the month, he directs mulled wine to be prepared for
his family; and going himself to purchase myrtles and frankincense,
he returns, and spends the day in crowning the statues of Mercury and
Venus. As often as he has a dream, he runs to the interpreter, the
soothsayer, or the augur, to inquire what god or goddess he ought to
propitiate. Before he is initiated in the mysteries, he attends to
receive instruction every month, accompanied by his wife, or by the
nurse and his children. Whenever he passes a cross-way, he bathes
his head. For the benefit of a special purification, he invites the
priestesses to his house, who, while he stands reverently in the midst
of them, bear about him an onion, or a little dog. If he encounters a
lunatic, or a man in a fit, he shudders horrifically, and spits in his
bosom.
The four centuries that had intervened between Theophrastus and
Plutarch, during which a philosophical atheism had spread widely among
the educated classes, had not, it appears, lessened the terrific
influence of the Grecian polytheism over melancholy minds. On the
contrary, it seems to have been enhanced rather than diminished; for
the language of Plutarch is stronger than that of Theophrastus. The
verisimilitude of both descriptions, and their accordance, leave no
room to doubt that this effect of the religious belief of the Greeks
was of frequent or ordinary occurrence among them. Indeed there is
reason to think that few persons of serious temper, even though imbued
with the spirit of the sceptical philosophy, could free themselves
from the burdensome scrupulosities and the horrific fears which attend
every form of polytheism, and from which neither the refinement, nor
the scepticism, nor the voluptuousness, nor the frivolity, nor the good
taste, nor the subtile reasonings of the Greeks, could emancipate the
devotees of their religion. The philosophic Julian might be named in
illustration of this assertion. Beside his hatred of Christianity, his
conduct was evidently influenced on many occasions by a very honest
dread of the capricious dæmons whose falling interests he so zealously
upheld: witness his magical practices.
It will be seen that passages such as those above quoted, possess a
substantial value, when brought to their place among the materials of
history. Ethical writers reflect the image of the principles and the
manners of their times. In some instances we may infer too much; in
others may mistake a partial for a general representation; but if,
with due caution, we review a wide field of ethical literature, the
_general result_ of such an induction cannot differ much from truth.
If, for example, from the entire series of Greek writers, all passages
of a purely ethical kind were to be extracted, and were arranged
in chronological order, the collection would afford the means of
ascertaining, not only the system of morals and religion that was known
to that people, but also the actual state of morals and manners, as
it varied from age to age. With such materials before us, there would
be less room for conjecture, and less danger of error, in determining
the moral condition of the people, than is found in ascertaining the
extent of their political power, or the amount of their national
wealth. Upon ethical passages, such as those we have adduced above,
one fact presents itself--namely, that in the profane authors there
is little of direct admonition or reproof, and rarely an appeal to a
recognised standard of right. The reason is obvious. The Greek and
Roman ethical writers discuss questions of morality in the tone proper
to a learned disquisition, each saying the best things in the best
manner he could:--no man was authorized to do more than propose his
opinion: no feeling of official responsibility, no high solicitude,
gave seriousness or force to his manner. Morals were not founded
upon religion: on the contrary, an ethical treatise, containing the
expression of reason and conscience, was at once a virtual refutation
of the national theology, and a sarcasm upon the gods. Especially
it is to be observed, that the instruction and reformation of the
mass of mankind entered not into the contemplation of moralists
and philosophers, who, while they amused one another with eloquent
disquisitions, were not troubled by the thought that the millions of
their fellow-men remained, from age to age, untaught in wisdom and
virtue.
Not so was it with the people of Palestine. Not philosophy, but
morality, was paramount; and morality was taught in its dependence upon
religion. And it was not to a small class in the community, but to the
people at large, that ethical writings were addressed:--and it was
not for amusement, but for reproof, that they were so addressed:--and
these writers, instead of propounding their individual opinions, and
supporting those opinions by abstract reasonings, took the short course
of appealing to a known standard of right and wrong. They speak to
their fellow-men as from on high, and in the tone of authority; and
each acquits himself, with gravity, of a weighty responsibility. From
the writers of Palestine the modern Western nations have learned the
style of instruction, admonition, and reproof, and this can have its
origin, and derive its force, and maintain its influence, only from a
Divine Revelation, entrusted to the administration of human agents.
But our present object leads us to remark that, whether or not this
peculiarity of the Jewish and Christian writings be attributed to their
Divine origination, it renders them far more available as historical
documents, than are the writings of other ancient nations. For
inasmuch as these compositions unite the several qualities of being
_authoritative_, _hortative_, and _popular_, they leave nothing to be
wished for in ascertaining, either the moral level of the writer’s
mind, or the actual level of manners in his times. It is evident
that an appeal to a fixed standard, and an admonitory application of
its known rules to the existing practices of the people, completes
the requisite _data_ of the historical problem above-mentioned. In
the standard we have a known quantity; and in the hortatory forms of
address, we have a mean of measurement, by which the actual state of
morals may be ascertained.
An inquiry of this kind, if pursued in its details, would prove the
existence and operation of an ethical system, so pure and perfect,
that all after nations to whom it has been made known, have found
nothing left to them but to admire and adopt its principles. What
can the modern moralist do but work up the materials which he finds
ready to his hand in the New Testament? To devise a new theology, or
to invent a new morality--which should recommend itself to the common
sense of mankind, would be as impracticable as to propose a new set
of mathematical axioms. Truth is single and simple; and when once
discovered, it must be adopted and followed. As a matter of history, it
appears that the writers of ancient Palestine have taken possession of
the regions of religion and morality.
But it would be practicable to ascertain, not only the system of morals
taught by the Jewish and Christian writers; but the actual state
of morals among those whom they immediately addressed. The Hebrew
prophets furnish ample means for pursuing such an inquiry; but the
unstudied earnestness of the Apostles, and especially the epistolary
form of their compositions, would render the task of the inquirer easy,
and conclusive in its results. In an argument of this kind we should
not be entitled to conclude that the persons addressed were blameless
in their lives--because their teachers address them as “Saints”--a
conventional term. Our inferences must be of a less ambiguous kind. We
must assume nothing but what is necessary to give consistency to the
writer’s assertions:--in other words, we are to assume just as much as
is found to be safe and reasonable in the interpretation of any ancient
author.
In the Epistles to the Galatians and the Corinthians, we find proof
that Paul was not the man to spare the faults or errors of those to
whom he wrote; and each of his letters affords some evidence as well of
his quick-sightedness, as of his sincerity. Men will more easily bear
to be charged with vices, or with evil tempers, than to be reproached
for dulness of apprehension: but in an Epistle addressed, as it seems,
to the better-informed class of his own nation, he does not hesitate to
blame their inaptitude and non-proficiency. (Heb. v. 11, 14.) Instances
of a similar kind are the characteristics of the writer’s manner.
If a father in writing to a son addresses him in the language of
approving affection; and if his admonitions relate only to the graces
of an amiable deportment and temper, it is fair to conclude that the
character of the son is unstained by grievous vices; for such a letter
would not be addressed by a wise parent to a son who was “wasting his
substance in riotous living.” This inference would be confirmed, if
we found the same father writing to another son in terms of mingled
affection, remonstrance, and severe reproof; and that he urged upon
him, with pungent persuasions, the virtues of justice and temperance.
Now it is an inference of this kind that we are entitled to draw
from Paul’s Epistles. In some of them he discharges the painful duty
of administering stern reproof on points of common morality; and in
these instances he carries the requirements of virtue as far as can
be imagined possible; and he enforces his injunctions by the most
awful sanctions. Such is the writer, and such is his system of morals.
But the same moralist, in addressing other societies, writes in the
style of a happy father to an exemplary son. The Epistles to the
Philippians, the Thessalonians, and the Ephesians are of this kind; and
the inference is this--that these societies were in a state not far
below the writer’s own standard of morals. In every society there will
be a diversity of character, and in every numerous society there will
be those to whom a wise teacher will address strongly-worded cautions,
on the prime articles of morality. So it is in these Epistles; and the
passages are vouchers for the writer’s consistency and faithfulness.
These more serious admonitions are, however, manifestly addressed to _a
minority_, or to an individual; or they are directed to persons who are
not within the pale of the society.
A passage so often quoted (Phil. iv. 8) might be compared to the last
sedulous touches of an accomplished artist, who having completed an
excellent piece of work, reluctantly withdraws his hand while it seems
yet possible to add a higher lustre to its polish. Passages like these,
from such a writer, whose discrimination and whose sincerity are
proved, afford the best kind of evidence in attestation of purity of
manners among the Christians of Philippi.
Other of the Epistles of Paul, as well as those of James, Peter, and
John, furnish instances to the same effect. The result of bringing
them forward would be proof irrefragable, that the teaching of the
apostles had produced a high degree of conformity to that new and
refined standard of morals which they promulgated:--it would show that,
in many cities of the Roman world, where, formerly, nothing had been
seen but shameless dissoluteness, and abominable idolatries; or, at
the best, Jewish sanctimoniousness, or philosophical pride, societies
were formed, which had been collected chiefly from the humbler classes,
and in which the full loveliness of virtue was suddenly generated and
expanded, and produced its fruits. Not only were the gods expelled by
the new doctrine, but the vices also.
Facts and inferences of this kind have often been brought forward by
writers who have taken up the Christian argument: we in this place are
not taking up that argument as if it were our subject and purpose in
this volume. The facts above briefly referred to, and the inferences
that are thence derivable, fairly challenge for themselves a place
as belonging to a summary of the method or process of historical
proof. For if we affirm that various passages occurring in the
ethical writings of Aristotle, and of Cicero, and of Epictetus,
and of Theophrastus, and of Plutarch, are highly significant, as
materials of history, it must be proper also to show that the apostolic
Epistles--ethical as they are--come within the same range, and should
be duly regarded as authentic evidences, touching the moral condition
of the community within which they were circulated, and involving
therefore the truth and the excellence of the religion which then
spread itself throughout the Roman world.
FOOTNOTES:
[11]
Servus Epictetus sum natus; _corpore claudus_.
Irus pauperie, deliciæ Superum.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE MODERN JERUSALEM--A VOUCHER FOR THE LITERATURE OF ITS ANCIENT
OCCUPANTS.
In the twelfth chapter of this volume, and particularly at p. 141
and to the end, we have referred to those monuments of ancient
art--buildings, sculptures, coins, which, as materials of history,
are available in confirming or correcting the statements of ancient
writers; and again in the twentieth chapter, we have brought forward
(as samples only) some instances in which the existing remains of
antiquity may be appealed to, as vouchers for the truthfulness of one
of these writers--Herodotus.
Then in the fourteenth chapter we have seen what is the relative
strength of that evidence which vouches for the genuineness and for
the authenticity of the Holy Scriptures, as compared with that on
the ground of which classical literature is accepted as real, and
trustworthy. The superiority which we have claimed for the canonical
writings results from:--1. The number of copies that have come down
to modern times. 2. The high antiquity of some of these extant
manuscripts. 3. The extent of geographical surface over which copies
were diffused at an early date. 4. The importance attached to them
by their possessors. 5. The reverential care with which manuscripts
were executed. 6. The separation, and the mutual hostility of those in
whose custody the books were conserved. 7. The visible influence of the
writings upon the conduct and opinions of nations, from age to age. 8.
The mass, and the intricacy of quotations from them. 9. The existence
of ancient versions. 10. The vernacular extinction of the languages in
which the books were written. 11. The means of comparison with spurious
and imitative books. 12. The strength of the inference derivable from
the genuineness of the books, to the credibility of their contents. The
facts referred to under these twelve heads well deserve the reader’s
careful attention, and with this view they are here recapitulated.
But now there is one ground of comparison, quite proper to an argument
of this sort, to omit all allusion to which might seem to indicate a
consciousness of weakness; for, on the ground which is now in view,
there is an apparent advantage largely on the side of classical
literature, and profane history. Let us then look into this defective
portion, as it may seem, of the Biblical evidence, and measure its
actual importance.
With this purpose in view, we return, for an hour, to the British
Museum. In passing through these saloons we find ourselves visibly
confronted with the memorials of each of the principal developments
of ancient civilization; and with some also of those that were very
limited, and obscure, and temporary. Ample and multifarious, and
admirable are the monuments--in marble and in metal, of what the men
of other countries have been, and of what they have done, in ages
so long gone by. Here, for instance, is the Egypt of three or four
thousand years ago--its people, and their employments; and here its
despotisms, its dynasties--so many--are set forth in their gigantic
semblances; and we may actually touch surfaces that were chiselled and
polished at the time when--or before that time, Abraham was journeying
from Mesopotamia towards Canaan. Here also is the Assyrian despot,
and here the Babylonian and the mighty builder, and the lord of fifty
nations--here they now hold their court, and show us before what
glories, and what terrors it was that millions of men bent the knee,
and kissed the dust, in the times of Samuel, and of Solomon, and of
Hezekiah. Here are substantial displays of the earliest developments
of the human mind, under wholly different conditions--physical,
social, political. Here are the earliest conceptions of Greek taste,
intelligence, and free ideality; all these are vouched for; and
mementos are before us of the Lycian people also, and of the Lydian,
and of the Etruscan; and as we come down to later times, Greek art,
and Roman art, bring us into familiar correspondence, not only with
national characteristics, but with the individual persons of those
ages. Now, during those times, the people of Palestine were passing
from the lower to the upper culminating point of their national
existence. Where, then, in this great assemblage of the nations of
antiquity--where is Palestine? Are there none here to represent her,
and to challenge a place for a people whose literature has pervaded
the civilised world? The books of the people of Palestine are in
every home--in every sacred edifice--they are found in palaces, and in
cottages, and they are treasured near to the hearts of the good--high
and low, and are extant in the memories of all. Why then should not
the men of Palestine, and why should not its religious rites, be
represented in the marbles, and in the metals, of our museums?
It may indeed be said that the ancient Palestine is not altogether
absent from the museums of Europe; for among tens of thousands of
samples of the mintages of antiquity, there are found a few coins of
the Maccabean times, with their innocent and homely symbols; and in
the series of the Imperial coins there are some vouchers for the fact
of the overthrow of the Jewish state; there is the woman seated by the
palm--the representative of the Judæa Devicta. Need we ask the reason
of this absence of sculptured memorials of this one among the nations
of antiquity?--The want of sculpture is, in truth, this people’s glory;
the absence of the vouchers we might look for is indeed a voucher,
attesting the noblest of all distinctions--that of having so long
possessed and maintained, a free social polity, and a true theology.
If at this time an order were given to remove from the British Museum
all memorials of the cruel tyrannies, and of the sensual idolatries of
Egypt, and of Assyria, and of Greece, and of Rome--if every article
were expelled that gives evidence of the oppressive despotisms, or of
the vicious religions of ancient nations, how meagre an exhibition
would remain after such a clearance had been effected! It is therefore
this people’s glory--a glory unrivalled--that no sculptures are extant
to represent it in the museums of Europe! Nevertheless, there are
monuments of its history to be found, if we look for them where it is
reasonable to make the search; namely, in Palestine itself, and at
Jerusalem especially.
A few--say five or six--of the principal cities of antiquity, have
continued to be inhabited from the very earliest times to this
time;--such are--Damascus, Constantinople, Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem.
The consequences of this uninterrupted occupation of the same sites,
have been--more or less so in each instance--such as these--the
preservation of some of the most ancient basement structures; the
superposition of the structures of each age, in layers or deposits,
resembling the strata of the earth’s crust; the commingling of older
materials with the more recent buildings in the mason’s work; and,
generally, the creation of a modern town, lifted up, as one might
say, upon the head and shoulders of the ancient city. Such cities,
in exploring which we find evidence of their having undergone these
several conditions, may fitly be called--HISTORICAL CITIES; and from
these sources alone--or if there were none else available--we might
gather abundant materials, adapted to the purpose of illustrating the
_written history_ of nations, and of giving to it the most conclusive
confirmations.
The briefest exemplification of what we here affirm, taking up two or
three instances only, would occupy a great space. The educated reader
does not need to be told what has actually been done, in this way,
in regard to Athens and Rome. Something of the same kind has, also,
within a few years, been effected in relation to Jerusalem; but in
this instance very much remains to be done; and much will undoubtedly
be effected, at no distant time, when the Turkish guardianship of
Palestine shall have ceased; or when Mahometan jealousy shall have
given way to European intelligence. We advert to this instance, in
concluding this volume, because it properly brings into view--at once,
the several kinds of facts and statements which belong to our argument.
It is thus, then, that we bring the modern Jerusalem into our prospect.
Two short periods excepted--after the capture and overthrow of the
city--Jerusalem has been inhabited, _continuously_, throughout a
period of three thousand years; and during all that length of time a
written history has attended its fortunes, even from the earliest age,
to this present time. If in this place indulgence might be given to a
metaphor--and to such a metaphor--we should say that, looking at the
entire mass of authentic history as an organic body, Jerusalem--the
same hard material from age to age--is the vertebral stay of all
history; or, in homely phrase, that this one city is the very back-bone
of chronology. This is certain, and it has become more and more evident
from year to year of late, that in every instance in which the leading
events of the Hebrew and Jewish history may be ascertained with
precision, such fixed points send forth ribs which give support to the
loose matters of Egyptian, and Assyrian, and Persian and Macedonian
history.
It is peculiar to this one ancient city to have passed under the
hand, and to have been for a length of time in the occupation of each
of the great empires that have had a place and a name in the world,
during the course of three thousand years. Each of these powers has
solidly monumented itself within, and about its walls. A narrow space
indeed is this to contain the architectures of ten empires; or, to be
more precise, of seven empires, and of three royal holdings. Yet so
it is; and in attestation of the fact, and as a consequence of it,
if at this moment we were fitting ourselves out for a six or twelve
months’ explorative sojourn in the Holy City, we should think it
indispensable to pack our portmanteaus with books, ancient and modern,
which, retrogressively catalogued, would include--I. The principal
modern works or guide-books, which show what the Franks have done in
recent times in the way of church-building, monasteries, hospitals,
hospices, and private residencies. II. Such records as there may be
(if any) of Turkish doings in the same or similar modes; and much has
been done by the pashas in the repairs of the walls, and in alterations
and repairs within and around the Haram. III. The Arabic writers (they
are more than a few), the post-Islamic, and the ante-Islamic--such as
Abulfeda, and others, in whose writings incidental notices, at least,
occur of the Saracenic structures of their “Al Kuds.” There is much
relating to the mosque of Omar, and of Al Aksa. IV. The entire mass
of the crusading histories--the writers who are brought together in
that bulky folio, the “Gesta Dei per Frankos.” With these there must
come very many writers of the fifteenth and following centuries, who
treat of the topography of Palestine, such as Adrichomius, in the
“Theatrum Terræ Sanctæ.” V. The Byzantine writers who touch upon the
churches and monasteries of the Holy Land; with Procopius, and his
account of the buildings of Justinian: the early Itineraries, Greek
and Latin; and among these Jerome must find his place. VI. Some of the
Greek Fathers--Cyril of Jerusalem and Eusebius. VII. The Greek and
Roman profane historians, in series; from whom we learn all that can
be known of the fate and fortunes of the city after its overthrow,
and during the years of its desecration, as the Ælia Capitolina, by
heathen temples and their impure rites. VIII. Josephus, and the Book of
Maccabees, are our authority as to Herod’s structures, of which many
unquestionable remains are discernible among the ruins of the city. The
same writer, and perhaps some of the rabbis, give the evidence that is
required for interpreting the existing remains of the Asmonean period;
thenceforward, or, we should say, higher up, it is--IX. To the Hebrew
prophets and historians that we must look for the light we need, so far
as the _written_ memorials of the times of Ezra, Nehemiah, Hezekiah,
Solomon, David, may afford it.
Thus it appears that, in carrying forward those explorations which
already have in part been made, and which are now in progress, and
which may be effected hereafter at Jerusalem, what we are doing, and
what we shall yet be doing, is this--we are taking up the ancient
written records of this city, page after page, and we are verifying
each of our authorities by aid of the architectural remains of the same
times--even from the remotest periods, down to this age. It is this
Jerusalem which, beyond any other ancient site, furnishes the means,
and the material, for thus collating and verifying the literary records
of a people, by means of its extant monuments.
Architectural remains, such as those are which invite the labours of
the antiquary at Athens, and at Rome, and at Jerusalem, require to be
examined in relation to four distinguishable subjects;--as first--the
_materials_ (in a geological sense) that have been employed; and the
question to be answered is--Whence have these been drawn--whether from
quarries near at hand, or from a remote region? The _second_ of these
inquiries relates to the style and quality of the _mason’s work_--that
is to say, we have to note any peculiarity that may belong to the mode
of squaring blocks of stone, and of fitting them one to another, and
of placing them in layers; or to the manufacture of bricks, if these
are in question. The _third_ inquiry is properly _architectural_,
and it has respect to the decorative style of the structure, and its
aspect, and its beauty, considered as a work of taste. There then
follows the _fourth_, and it is a most important question--Are these
courses of masonry where we now find them--in their original, their
primeval position; or have these blocks been dislodged, and overthrown,
and scattered, and in some after-time reassembled and made use of by
the builders of a later period? This last is often the determinative
inquiry, in relation to doubtful points of history; and in the instance
just now before us, it has a peculiar significance, inasmuch as
there is reason to conjecture that some, at least, of the ponderous
masses--the prodigious blocks, whereupon the heterogeneous structures
of the modern Jerusalem take their rest--have been dislodged, upheaved,
turned about, and again replaced, as at first, more than once or twice
in the lapse of ages.
To the first of the above-named questions our answer is easy;--the
material of the ancient Jerusalem was drawn from quarries quite near
at hand: it is the lime-stone rock of the very site of the city.
This has always been supposed; and the fact has lately been more
fully ascertained by the explorations of Dr. Barclay,[12] an American
physician, and long a resident at Jerusalem. Within the vast caverns
that undermine Bezetha, and at a great depth below the surface of the
present city, the mother-rock shows, beyond a doubt, what masses have
been hewn from it, namely, those large blocks, sixty feet in length,
which underlie the Haram wall, and the city wall, in many places, and
much of the interior of the city. In those caverns, such as we now
find them, these blocks were squared, and their edges bevelled, and
their surfaces--the upper and the under, were nicely prepared for their
adjustments, according to the methods of a highly refined masonic
art. As to this art of the _builder_, it is such as could have been
practised by none but a people well advanced in practical intelligence,
and that were in the enjoyment of the opulence and the tranquillity
proper to a secure political condition. The mason’s work which is
peculiar to, and characteristic of, the cyclopean substructures of the
Haram, and the ancient city wall, is of a kind that fixes attention
when once it has been seen, and it is such as speaks its remote origin
almost as intelligibly as an inscription could do.
The _architectural_ characteristics of Jerusalem, as well of the
ancient, as the modern city, cannot but be intelligible to those who
are conversant with this branch of antiquarian lore. We easily read the
various fortunes of the city, indicated right and left, in-doors and
out of doors, scattered upon the surface, and deep in wells, tanks,
and caverns, built into walls, and confusedly mixed with the chiselled
labours of the workmen of other ages. The one source of ambiguity is
that which arises from these disorderly commixtures, when a fragment,
a capital, an entablature, which is manifestly Roman, or Byzantine, or
Norman, stands so transfixed upon a structure whereupon it is embedded,
as to conceal what might indicate the chronology of the earlier work.
Nevertheless, amid many such indeterminable questions, there can be no
question on the general ground, that, in and among the architectural
remains of Jerusalem, we are looking at specimens of the builder’s
art, in all the stages, and in all the styles and fashions that have
belonged to it, from the most remote times to the latest.
As to the fourth of the above-named heads of inquiry, fall of historic
significance as it is, a solution of the problems belonging to it must
await a time when this site shall yield itself up, without reserve or
restraint, to the industry and intelligence of European antiquarians.
We have need to be reminded of the fact, that, as we become familiar
with the books of the Old Testament in childhood, it is not until years
later that we learn to correct the wrong chronological conceptions
which have arisen from the misadjustment of them as to their order of
time. These early erroneous notions continue to haunt the imagination,
perhaps through life, and we lose sight of, or quite forget the
fact that a period of four or five hundred years intervenes between
prophets that take their turn to be read, in the mornings and evenings
of a week. Under the misguidance of these chronological errors, we
are likely to carry forward, into the era of a people’s maturity,
conceptions which belong only to the age of their patriarchal and
nomadic simplicity. Some few instructed readers of the Bible may be
quite exempt from any such misconceptions; but probably it is many
that are subject to them. Moreover, the grave tones of the inspired
writers, and their singleness of purpose, so unlike the conventional
and sophisticated manner of other writers, favours the idea that the
Hebrew nation continued, from age to age, to live on in a condition of
pastoral simplicity.
Such was far from being their condition; and a more attentive perusal
of the historical books of the Old Testament, and of the prophets,
will suggest, and more than merely suggest the belief, that this
ancient people had reached a stage of advancement in the arts of
life--substantial and decorative--which places them, at the least, on a
level with any people that were their neighbours and contemporaries, or
of any that are known to us by their records and by their monuments. It
is true that we are used to think of Solomon’s temple as a magnificent
structure; and yet the descriptions given of it in the Books of Kings
and Chronicles, convey an impression rather of its metallic splendour
and its richness of decoration, than of the cyclopean style of the
masonry that sustained it. Was it, in truth, a great work in an
architectural sense? This question admits of a probable answer. The
series of prophets, in discharge of their function as the reprovers of
national sins, mention and rebuke the sumptuous style and the luxurious
manners of those who then were the princes of the people; yet they make
no boast, as if they were proud of the wealth, and the arts, and the
instructed skill of their countrymen. Nevertheless there occur, in many
parts of the prophetic writings, incidental allusions to the splendour
of the private structures of the city--houses of hewn stone, houses
ceiled with costly woods, decorated with ivory and gold, and fitted
up with every device which elaborate luxury might ask for, are spoken
of even by some of the earlier prophets. We must believe, therefore,
that the Jerusalem of the ancient monarchy was a city of palaces and of
princely mansions, in constructing which no cost had been spared.
Here, then, the two portions of an inferential argument come into
contact; and it is just at the basement line of the palaces and the
mansions of the ancient Jerusalem that they do so. The juncture is of
this sort;--we hold in our hand the various literature of an ancient
people; this literature has traversed the fields of time in those
several modes of conveyance to which, in the preceding pages, we have
given attention; it has thus come into our hands _safely_; it stands
attested in modes so many and so sure, that now to speak of it as
if it were questionable would be a mere prudery and an affectation.
Up and down throughout these writings we find incidental notices of
the sumptuous style of the upper classes of the people, in their
modes of living, and in the decoration of their public and private
buildings; at least it is so as to what were the visible parts of such
structures. The kings and the nobles of the Hebrew monarchy were men
of great wealth; ample revenues were at their command, and they spent
their incomes magnificently. Looking to the documents--the parchment
rolls--the volumes of the prophets of those ages, such are the
inferences we must derive from them.
But what objects are those that present themselves when, with the
pick in hand, we go down to the levels of the ancient Jerusalem? What
we there find are courses of highly-wrought masonry, with which, as
to the dimensions of the single blocks, and the labour that has been
bestowed upon them, nothing can be compared unless it be in Egypt
and at Palmyra. The inference is valid, namely, that the people of
this city--even those whose structures, sacred and domestic, underlie
the monuments of eight or nine successive empires or kingdoms--the
primeval people--must have been wealthy, and far advanced in the arts,
and large also in their conceptions, and bold in their enterprises.
They were a people great and well civilised, and they were so at a time
when, as the Greek historian tells us, the ancestors of his nation were
petty marauders by sea and land, and were feeding upon acorns!
Such are the conclusions which we arrive at after a careful perusal
of the literature of the Hebrew people, if now, at this day--and yet
it is in a sense which he did not intend--we listen to the invitation
of one of its poets, who challenges us to “Walk about Zion, and to go
round about her,” and to “tell the towers thereof, and to mark well her
bulwarks, and to consider her palaces;” for in doing so we shall find
the means for confirming ourselves in those convictions, the strength
of which concerns each of us in the most intimate manner.
THE END.
B. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] “City of the Great King.”
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious errors in punctuation have been fixed.
Page 7: “on good evidncee” changed to “on good evidence”
Page 87: “the _Myriobiblion_” changed to “the _Myriobiblon_”
Page 99: “subjects al things mundane” changed to “subjects all things
mundane”
Page 129: “than is explicitl affirmed” changed to “than is explicitly
affirmed”
Page 167: “is rgulated” changed to “is regulated”
Page 241: “illuminations o ancient manuscripts” changed to
“illuminations of ancient manuscripts”
Page 259: “prepare for writing” changed to “prepared for writing”
Page 385: “rom the ordinary walks” changed to “from the ordinary walks”
Page 399: “over which copie” changed to “over which copies”
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