Page:Biblical Libraries (Richardson).djvu/246

 Apostolical places were there when the apostles were—some were destroyed before their day, some not founded until after them, but in very many cases it can be said that these known libraries were the libraries which the apostles saw and which they may have used and perhaps did use, as to their teaching porticos at least, as they in fact used the temple porticos in Jerusalem and the porticos of Athens. Even the later libraries; the library of Celsus at Ephesus, Hadrian's library at Athens and the library of Timgad, at least throw light on the type of public library buildings of the Apostolical times, which lie between the time of these libraries and the earlier libraries of Rome and Pompeii.

The first public libraries with which the apostles came in contact in the western world were the libraries of the synagogues, which they found in all the cities and which they used. The earliest