Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/344

 332 The Library. structed. A considerable number of books were used by the anonymous author of the Philosophumena and Hippolytus, (whose statue stood either in his own library or in that of the church, and was apparently the gift of his pupils and friends). The care which was taken at this early time, not only that the sacred books, but that books relating to Christian doctrine and history should be copied, is shown by those who have edited the epistle of the Church of Smyrna on the martyrdom of Polycarp; in Irenaeus of Lyons; by Origen, Lucian, Pamphilus and Antoninus, who continued occupied with the emendation of the sacred writings when they were already in prison and condemned to death. 1 Concerning the libraries of the churches before the time of Constantine, express testimony remains in the acts of the magis- trates in Africa who carried out the commands of Diocletian and Maximian, that the meeting-houses of the Christians should be destroyed, and their books burnt. In the acts of Munatius Felix we read : " When we had come to the house in which the Christians met ... we came into the library, and found the lockers empty." Then Bishop Paul confesses that the readers have the books, from each of whom the manuscripts had to be sought singly. They found in all thirty-two, some large and some smaller, and four " quiniones " (sic). Alfius Caecilianus, the duumvir of the town, " came to the place where the Chris- tians held their sermons, and took from it the tribunal and letters of salutation." These were, no doubt, the letters of the bishops sent with the travelling brethren (fmtres peregrinantes), who are said to have been formed into a body in the 4th century. Lastly, in these acts mention is made of " MSS. precious, most precious," which a man had hidden lest he should be made to re- store, and said that they had been burnt. Mensurius, Bishop of Carthage (A.D. 311) wrote that " he had taken away and preserved the sacred MSS. lest they should be found by the persecutors, and had sent into the basilica certain infamous writings of the new heretics ; and that when the persecutors had found these and taken them off, they asked nothing more. But that certain Carthaginians had afterwards suggested to the proconsul, that those who had been sent to carry off and burn the scriptures of the Christians had been fooled, for they had only found a few things which did not belong to them ; that the MSS. were being 1 De Rossi, xiii.-xiv.