Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/346

 334 The Library. more particularly were kept, and these were entrusted to deacons. But to show how complete must have been the destruction carried out at Rome at the time of the persecution of Diocletian, it is only necessary to point out that Gregory the Great, in reply to a letter from Eulogius of Alexandria, asking about some of the acts of the early martyrs, wrote that he had found at Rome nothing except one martyrology, and this collected into one volume. (Epp. viii., 2g.) That the destruction of these may be traced to Diocletian is the opinion of Baronius, and nearly all subsequent writers. 1 Concerning the epistles of the Popes, and their preservation in the form which afterwards came to be known as the " Regesta," nothing has been handed down earlier than the 4th century. But Tertullian (A.D. 160-240) mentions a MS. pre- served in the archives at Rome. The Epistle of St. Clement (the second Pope) to the Corinthians, at the end of the ist century, and similar early documents have come to us, not from Rome, but from the libraries of the east, Egypt and Africa. Coming down to the peace of Constantine (A.D. 325) we know that, with gifts of all sorts, books were certainly given to the Church, and the first actual existing example of a donation to the Church, that known as the Cornutian MS., expressly mentions sacred and liturgical books. 2 The Epistle of Constantine to Eusebius, and his answer, concerning the copies of fifty books which the Emperor gave for the use of the church at Constanti- nople, is well known, as well as St. Jerome's remark that instead of having books in uncial letters of gold and silver, written upon purple parchment, he preferred having work-day copies, well emendated. 8 With regard to the lists of the poor and needy, and the care with which they were made, we have evidence from the 3rd century onwards, and in the gth century we have the statement of John the Deacon, that in the archives of the Lateran Palace there still existed the huge paper volume (prcegrande volumen) in which the names, and ages, and professions of all of both sexes, not only in Rome, but its suburbs and neighbouring cities, as well as among the cities on the seaboard for a great distance, were preserved. But it must be repeated that no documentary evi- 1 De Rossi, p. xxi. 2 The Cornutian MS. is of the year 471. De Rossi, I.e., xxxv.
 * De Rossi, xxxv.