| c. 240–250: Origen’s and Ambrosius’ books brought to Caesarea |
Origen’s personal library and the books supplied by his patron Ambrosius were moved from Alexandria to Caesarea and became the core of the famous “library of Pamphilus.” This is the earliest clear case of a large Christian book–collection being physically transferred into Palestine and then systematically expanded there. Eusebius and later writers describe Origen’s Caesarean collection as large and varied, including scriptural, philosophical, and grammatical works; modern scholarship stresses that Origen’s and Ambrosius’ codices were relocated to Caesarea and then formed the nucleus of the research library that Pamphilus organized. |
| c. 260–310 – Pamphilus’ collection and cataloguing of the Caesarea library |
Eusebius reports that Pamphilus assembled at Caesarea a library of Origen and other ecclesiastical writers: HE VI.32.3: “of the library he [Pamphilus] collected of the works of Origen and of other ecclesiastical writers”). Jerome elaborates that the blessed martyr Pamphilus wanted to rival Pisistratus and Demetrius of Phalerum in zeal for a sacred library, searching the whole world for “true and eternal monuments,” and especially hunting down Origen’s books which he then dedicated to the church of Caesarea: Ep. 34.1–2: Beatus Pamphilus martyr . . . cum Demetrium Phalereum et Pisistratum in sacrae bibliothecae studio vellet aequare imaginesque ingeniorum, quae vera sunt et aeterna monumenta, toto orbe perquireret, tunc vel maxime Origenis libros inpensius persecutus Caesariensi ecclesiae dedicavit… hic cum multa repperiret et inventorum nobis indicem derelinqueret, centesimi vicesimi sexti psalmi commentarium et phe litterae tractatum ex quo, quod non inscripsit, confessus est non repertum. Jerome adds in De viris ill. 75 that Pamphilus “burned with so great a love for the divine library that he copied out in his own hand the greatest part of Origen’s works, which to this day are contained in the library at Caesarea”: Pamphilus presbyter . . . tanto bibliothecae divinae amore flagravit, ut maximam partem Origenis voluminum sua manu descripserit, quae usque hodie in Caesariensi bibliotheca habentur. Together these notices show Pamphilus as the principal architect and cataloguer of the Caesarean theological library (especially its Origenian holdings), actively acquiring, copying, and indexing works for the collection. |
| Early 4th c. – Reconstructed contents of Eusebius of Caesarea’s library at Caesarea (per Andrew Carriker) |
Andrew Carriker, in The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea (Brill, 2003), reconstructs the holdings of the Caesarean theological library from Eusebius’ own citations and allusions. On this basis he argues that the Origen–Pamphilus–Eusebius library, already famous in late antiquity as one of the great scholarly collections, contained a remarkably wide range of material: pagan philosophy (Plato, Plotinus, Porphyry, Numenius, Stoic handbooks, Aristotelian and doxographic works), historians and chronographers (Diodorus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Alexander Polyhistor, Manetho, Jewish and Near Eastern histories), Jewish literature (Josephus, Aristeas, Aristobulus, a large Philo corpus, and various Jewish apocrypha), a rich Christian section (Clement of Alexandria and Rome, Irenaeus, Justin, Hippolytus, Dionysius of Alexandria, Julius Africanus, Hegesippus, Tatian, Tertullian, Melito, Methodius, etc.), a substantial Origen file (commentaries, homilies, Hexapla/Tetrapla, letters), and many apocryphal/apocryphoid gospels and acts (Gospel of the Hebrews, Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Matthias, Acts of Andrew, Acts of Peter, Acts of John, Preaching of Peter, Protoevangelium of James, and others). Carriker’s summary list (drawn from explicit quotations and named titles) runs to dozens of philosophical and historical works and well over a hundred Jewish and Christian writings, illustrating the scale and diversity of the Caesarean library that later bishops (Pamphilus, Eusebius, Euzoius) were understood to maintain and augment. |
| Early 4th c – Eusebius’s Chronicle source lists and omission of Clement of Alexandria |
Andrew Carriker notes that although Eusebius cites Clement of Alexandria many times elsewhere, he does not include Clement among his stated sources for Hebrew history in the Chronicle, even though he explicitly quotes Clement’s Stromateis by name (Schoene I.121; Karst p. 57). Carriker treats this as an instance of Eusebius “erring by omission” in his source-summaries and as evidence that Eusebius likely knew Clement’s works firsthand despite not listing him among his Hebrew-historical authorities. (Andrew Carriker, The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea, Supp. to Vigiliae Christianae 67, Leiden 2003; PDF e.g. at https://darlenenbocek.com/wp-content/up ... esarea.pdf.) |
| c. 360s–370s – Acacius and Euzoius of Caesarea attempt to restore the Origen–Pamphilus library |
Jerome reports that the famous library at Caesarea, “collected by Origen and Pamphilus,” had already been damaged and that bishops of the see tried to restore it “on parchments” (i.e. in parchment codex form). In De viris inlustribus 113 he names only Euzoius, saying that he “with great pains attempted to restore on parchments the library, collected by Origen and Pamphilus, which had already suffered injury” (“plurimo labore corruptam iam bibliothecam Origenis et Pamphili in membranis instaurare conatus est”). In a nearly identical sentence in Letter 34.1 Jerome explicitly names both Acacius and Euzoius: “quam ex parte corruptam Acacius, dehinc Euzoius, eiusdem ecclesiae sacerdotes, in membranis instaurare conati sunt.” Modern discussion (Carriker, The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea, 2003, 23–27) and Jeremy M. Schott’s “Afterword. Receptions” (Center for Hellenic Studies, https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/afterwo ... -m-schott/) treat these passages as evidence that the Origen–Pamphilus theological library at Caesarea was still a major collection in the later fourth century and that Acacius and Euzoius saw the repair, recopying, and maintenance of that library as part of their episcopal duty. |
| Mid–late 4th c. – Works of Acacius, Euzoius, and Gelasius added to the Caesarean library |
Alongside the older Origen–Pamphilus holdings, the local episcopal authors themselves now contribute new books to the Caesarean collection. Acacius of Caesarea writes a commentary on Ecclesiastes in seventeen books, six books of Miscellaneous Questions, a biography of Eusebius, and other works, which are transmitted and associated with the see’s theological library. Euzoius, his fellow successor of Eusebius, also composed works, though their titles are no longer known. To these are later added the writings of Gelasius of Caesarea, who extends Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History down to his own time and composes a work against the Anomoeans and probably a catechetical treatise, further enlarging the corpus of Caesarean historiography and dogmatic literature preserved in the library. |
| Middle–late 4th c. – Gregory Nazianzen, Hilary of Poitiers, Eusebius of Vercelli use the Caesarea library |
In the middle and later fourth century, the Caesarean library is actively used by major figures. Gregory Nazianzen studies at Caesarea as a youth under the rhetorician Thespesius, alongside his fellow-pupil Euzoius, so he would have had direct access to the Origen–Pamphilus collection. Later, during the Arian controversy, Western bishops in exile also likely draw on the same library: Hilary of Poitiers (exiled c. 356–361) probably obtains Origen’s commentary on the Psalms there, which becomes the basis for his own psalm-commentary, while Eusebius of Vercelli (exiled c. 355–362, held at Scythopolis and then in the Thebaid) translates Eusebius of Caesarea’s commentary on the Psalms, again quite possibly from a Caesarean exemplar. All of this implies that, even after Eusebius’ death, the theological library at Caesarea continues to function as a reference collection for both Eastern and Western bishops engaged in scriptural exegesis and anti-Arian polemic (Carriker, Library of Eusebius, pp. 27–30). |
| c. 370s–390s – Jerome’s visits to the Caesarea library and use of Pamphilus’ Origen codices |
Jerome personally visited the theological library at Caesarea Maritima and briefly notes its history under Eusebius’ successors in De viris inlustribus, where he mentions the restoration efforts of Acacius and Euzoius. In his correspondence he indicates that it was probably from the Caesarean library that he obtained Pamphilus’ own copy of Origen’s Commentary on the Twelve Prophets, which he describes in rapturous terms: he “hugs and guards” these volumes “with such joy” that he considers himself as rich as Croesus, adding that, if a single epistle of a martyr brings such joy, how much more “so many thousand lines” that seem written in the martyr’s blood. From this same Caesarean milieu Jerome also drew heavily on Eusebius’ works, translating and updating the Chronici Canones and Onomasticon, and using Eusebius’ Commentary on Isaiah as a major source for his own Isaiah commentary. See Jeremy M. Schott, “Afterword. Receptions,” in Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations (CHS), especially the section on Jerome’s reception of Eusebius and the Caesarea library, available at: https://chs.harvard.edu/chapter/afterwo ... -m-schott/ |
| Late 4th c. – Jerome’s visits to the Caesarea library and access to Pamphilus’ Origen volumes |
Jerome visits the theological library at Caesarea and later reports that it still holds the Origen–Pamphilus collection. In De viris inlustribus 75 he says he “found” (manu eius exarata repperi) Pamphilus’ copy of Origen’s Commentary on the Twelve Prophets and treasures it “as the wealth of Croesus,” almost as if the book were written in the martyr’s blood. Modern analysis (Carriker; Schott) stresses that Jerome probably used an exemplar from the Caesarean library with a colophon like that preserved in Codex Sinaiticus (“collated and corrected against the Hexapla of Origen… Pamphilus corrected the volume in prison”), rather than Pamphilus’ literal handwriting. Jerome’s testimony shows, first, that the Caesarea library still functioned as a working scholarly collection in his day, and second, that specific Origen–Pamphilus volumes with martyrdom-related colophons could be consulted, copied, and emotionally valorized by later readers. (Jerome De viris inlustribus 75; Schott, “Afterword: Receptions,” in Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradition and Innovations; Carriker, The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea.) |
| Medieval Markan catena scholion on the longer ending; reference to a “Palestinian Gospel of Mark” |
As summarized by Mark Buckley, the Catena in Marcum is an “open book” commentary on Mark, built from patristic excerpts (around a third from John Chrysostom’s Homilies on Matthew), and repeatedly revised in its manuscript tradition. In one scholion on Mk 16:9ff (the longer ending), the compiler notes that, although the material after “when he rose early” is absent from “the largest number of copies” and is “customarily considered spurious,” he has nonetheless added it because he found it in “the most accurate copies” and “in accordance with the Palestinian Gospel of Mark, which holds the truth” (καὶ κατὰ τὸ Παλαιστηναῖον εὐαγγέλιον ὡς ἔχειν ἀλήθειαν Μᾶρκον). This notice implies a localized Palestinian Markan textual tradition, associated—at least rhetorically—with especially “accurate” copies, and so is sometimes adduced in discussions of Palestinian libraries and their gospel texts. The “Palestinian Gospel of Mark” mentioned here is otherwise unattested; the entry is credited to Mark Buckley (online discussion). |
| 9th c. report in Photius about an earlier forged “fifth Gospel” deposited in Eusebius’ Palestinian libraries |
Photius, summarizing the work of Theodore “of Antioch” (usually identified as Theodore of Mopsuestia), reports that Theodore wrote five books Against Those Who Say that Men Sin by Nature and Not by Choice. In this summary Photius says that the heresy Theodore opposes began in the West, whose “founder” (whom Photius cannot clearly name, perhaps surnamed “Aram”) devised a “fifth Gospel,” forged it, and “put it into the libraries of Eusebius of Palestine.” This same founder is said to have rejected the ancient Greek Scriptural translations (LXX, Symmachus, Aquila, and others) and instead produced a private new version of his own, although he had no proper Hebrew training but relied on “certain grovelling Hebrews.” This gives us a very early literary accusation of someone forging a Gospel and deliberately inserting it into the Palestinian/Eusebian library system. It is not tied to a specific codex we can still identify, but it shows that the idea of “planting” a suspect gospel in a Palestinian collection was already part of Byzantine heresiological discourse centuries before the modern controversies you’re tracing. |
| Fifth–sixth centuries – Continuing activity of the Caesarea library (copying, teaching, and corrections to major codices) |
Even after the fourth century, Caesarea remained a prosperous city and an important scholarly center. The famous Caesarea library continued to function as a scriptorium and reference collection. In the fifth–sixth centuries, manuscripts were still being copied and corrected there; an important example is Codex Sinaiticus, whose unfinished text was corrected at Caesarea and probably bound there, indicating that Origen–Pamphilus traditions of biblical scholarship and textual work were still alive. During this period notable figures such as Orion of Egyptian Thebes and Procopius of Gaza taught at Caesarea, and Procopius of Caesarea studied there, all presumably making use of the city’s scholarly resources, including the library. At the same time, however, Caesarea’s ecclesiastical and civil pre-eminence declined: Jerusalem was elevated to patriarchal status at Chalcedon (451), and Caesarea’s civil jurisdiction was progressively reduced as its province was subdivided. Thus the library continues as a working center of copying and correction (including its role in the history of Codex Sinaiticus) even as Caesarea’s institutional primacy wanes. |
| c. 614–640/1 – Destruction and dispersal of the library of Caesarea |
Archaeological and literary evidence indicates that Caesarea was captured by the Sassanid Persians in 614 (apparently with limited damage) and, more decisively, by Arab forces after a siege of six–seven years around 640/1. Modern reconstructions argue that, just before and during the Arab conquest, many Greek elites and churchmen fled Palestine, and it is plausible that some carried books from the Caesarean library with them during this period. As a result, “it seems unlikely that the library at Caesarea survived the vicissitudes of the seventh century”: if it was not destroyed outright in the successive captures of the city, its holdings were probably gradually dispersed both by conquerors and by the departing Caesarean elite. |
| Early 7th c. – Isidore of Seville’s report of “almost 30,000 rolls” in Pamphilus’ Caesarean library |
In Etymologiae VI.6.1, Isidore of Seville, summarizing Jerome but adding his own figure, says that among Christians “the martyr Pamphilus, whose life Eusebius of Caesarea wrote, first attempted to equal Pisistratus in his zeal for a sacred library,” and that Pamphilus had in his library “almost thirty thousand volumina.” This number of volumina (rolls) is not given by Jerome and appears to be Isidore’s own extrapolation based on the fame of the Caesarean collection. Modern discussion notes that Isidore has clearly taken the Pisistratus/Demetrius comparison from Jerome, Ep. 34.1, but the specific figure “nearly 30,000” is independent, giving a late–antique traditional estimate for the scale of Pamphilus’ Origen–Christian library at Caesarea. |
| 8th c.: John of Damascus at Mar Saba using a Clementine letter-collection |
John of Damascus spent decades as a monk at Mar Saba. In his Sacra Parallela he cites material “from the letters of the most holy Clement, author of the Stromateis,” and one extract is explicitly labeled as coming from the “twenty-first letter of Clement the Stromatist.” This implies that the Mar Saba library then possessed a substantial Clementine dossier, containing at least twenty-one letters of Clement of Alexandria. Modern scholars therefore infer that by the 8th century a sizeable collection of Clement’s letters had reached Mar Saba and was being read and excerpted there. This in turn dovetails with the Mar Saba manuscript of the Letter to Theodore, whose incipit presents it as “from the letters of the most holy Clement, [author] of the Stromateis, to Theodore”: the fragment is plausibly one item from that broader Clementine letter-collection, whose earlier presence at Mar Saba presupposes movements of Clement’s works through the Palestinian monastic network (Caesarea–Jerusalem–Mar Saba). |
| c. 1453–late 15th c: Western plundering after the fall of Byzantium |
Greek books from Athos, Meteora, Epirus, Cyprus, Albania and other monasteries are carried off to the West. Many are destroyed in wars by Turks and Venetians; others are plundered and gathered by Bessarion of Trebizond and his successors and handed over to the library of St Mark in Venice. Forefathers’ carefully preserved collections in East and West suffer devastation, but “in their place” new “choice manuscripts and printed books” begin to be provided for the patriarchal libraries of the East. |
| Post-Byzantine Ottoman era (early): formation of patriarchal libraries |
An “apostle of the Lord” travels through Christian lands and cities, receiving benefactions and also manuscript books and spiritual works. Gatherings of manuscripts and printed books increase so that the libraries of Constantinople and Jerusalem become “illustrious and renowned.” His successors and the Jerusalem Brotherhood consciously protect “ancestral treasures” and orthodox truth. Educated Jerusalem youth on frequent journeys rescue “ancient and most precious books” from Islamic devastation, keep some in the Metochion of the All-holy Tomb in Constantinople, and send others to Jerusalem to be stored “with the other relics,” forming a consolidated body of study-books in the libraries of the All-holy Tomb. |
| 17th c (before/under Dositheos): St Sabas laura in decline |
Official Arabic documents read at St Sabas show that the laura once flourished with prosperous monastic life and dependent settlements, but is later darkened by Islam and Arab religious influence. Continuous Arab raids scatter dependent monasteries; most are laid waste. In these circumstances, the laura is “deprived of many of its books and manuscripts.” |
| Late 17th c: Nektarios and Dositheos rebuild St Sabas and create two libraries |
After periods of abandonment and Arab occupation (two tribes, Ambesides in the north, Tamarites in the south), Nektarios repairs the external wall; Dositheos later expels the Tamarites, walls the vulnerable extremities, repairs the interior, and makes St Sabas once more a secure monastic dwelling. At that time two libraries are housed under one roof: a small library in the great church on the south side, and a larger one in the great tower of Justinian. Into them are placed manuscripts found lying in caves, cells and other spots, as well as books brought from the holy monastery of the Angels within Jerusalem (former Serbian house), from another “great monastery” without inhabitants, from the divine church of the Resurrection, and parchment manuscripts that had belonged to the desert monastery of St Gerasimos and John the Forerunner. The laura becomes a multinational hermit centre (Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, other Orthodox peoples), and now preserves, among other things, the entire Dodekabiblos of Dositheos with his own marginal notes. |
| Late 17th c: Dositheos rescues individual manuscripts and acquires Iberian properties |
Dositheos notes in an autograph that a parchment codex of Job, belonging to Rossini monastery, was found “dishonourably thrown aside” in the metropolis of Melnik; it is taken to become an “eternal possession” of the Holy Sepulchre and is catalogued in the Koinon library (no. 8, now 5). In the same era, Iberian monasteries around Jerusalem fall into poverty: discipline collapses, learning is neglected, manuscripts are ruined. The Iberians incur huge debts; to keep their properties from falling to strangers, Dositheos pays the debts and becomes owner of all Iberian possessions; after some years the Iberians disappear. Their properties (and whatever books survive) pass into the control of the Patriarchate. |
| Late 17th c: Monastery of the Precious Cross and Katamonas books |
The monastery of the Precious Cross, governed by a hegoumenos appointed by the patriarch, has its own library. When the hegoumenos is learned he orders and cares for it; when uneducated, the library is neglected, books deteriorate, and fall prey to ignorant sacristans. Nearby the Iberian village and its small monastery of Symeon son of Theodore (“Katamonas”) are overthrown by Arabs. After receiving its “few books and icons,” the monks of the Holy Cross bring the books into their library and hang the icons in their church, where the icons still survive “down to our own day.” |
| 17th–18th c: Caves used as monastic and lay book-storehouses |
Caves around St Sabas, including the cave of John Koumanos and a long natural cave above the chapel of St Nicholas, are used as hidden storehouses. Monks of St Sabas find there a Psalter and a Gospel (both small parchment codices) and wax tablets, preserved without corruption of script or colour. These manuscripts pass from hand to hand, eventually reaching archimandrite Joel; his nephew Gerasimos of Lydda brings them to the library of the Theological School of Jerusalem, where they are still kept. The caves also contain icons, slips of paper, crosses, and other precious objects. In times of Arab raids, monks from surrounding monasteries and Christians from Bethlehem and other villages carry their books, icons, vessels and valuables there for protection. |
| Early 18th c (c. 1710–1730): Destruction of the great cave storehouse at St Sabas |
On the eve of St Sabas’s commemoration, a sacristan enters the common cave-storehouse with a candle to fetch items for decorating the church. Through some accident, the candle ignites something; the “very rich storehouse” becomes a victim of fire. So many manuscripts burn that the removal of the parchments lasts a whole year, and passage in front of St Sabas’s tomb is difficult. From monastic tradition and scattered notes in various manuscripts, it is known that countless manuscripts perished, obliterating many earlier “insights and understandings” and dealing a heavy blow to Greek philology. One manuscript with a note by monk Dionysios, describing the cave as a place “where there are many books and wondrous relics…,” is found in the cave and is now kept in the tower-library. Half-burned parchment fragments remain in rock fissures. Many of Dionysios’s annotations on unusual events survive scattered in various manuscripts and printed books. |
| 17th–18th c: Arabic, Syriac, Abyssinian and Greek holdings build up in Koinon and tower libraries |
Over time, the library of the Koinon of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the tower-library at St Sabas acquire many manuscripts on thick paper, some in Syriac and some in Abyssinian. Some are sent from Jerusalem; others belong to Syrians and Abyssinians who become monks there and whose books remain in the libraries after their deaths. At various times, many Arabic manuscripts on bulky paper are acquired: some bought by patriarchs, some dedicated by Christian Arabs, others sent to St Sabas during raids for safekeeping and later becoming library property after the donors’ deaths. |
| 17th–18th c: Libraries of the Holy Sepulchre as open scholarly repositories |
The libraries of the Holy Sepulchre (including the Koinon and associated collections) are described as being “held in common for all learned men, both Greeks and Europeans,” freely accessible, and as places from which “proceeded the bright threads of knowledge of both inner and outer education.” |
| Late 18th–early 19th c: Plundering by “barbarous mob of the so-called pious” and losses to Paris |
During persecutions “unto death” by a barbarous mob of the “so-called pious,” the library in the buildings adjoining the Holy Sepulchre is plundered. Many rare books are destroyed or thrown away “as useless scraps of paper.” Learned men manage to smuggle some books out of the “accursed enclosure” and hide them; others pass from person to person and now likely enrich private libraries. Later it is noted that the public library of Paris alone holds more than fifty manuscripts (parchment and paper) taken at various times from this Holy Sepulchre library. Among them is Kosmas the Melodos’s Interpretation of the Canons: originally gifted by Patriarch Polykarpos to the Holy Sepulchre, then donated to the metropolis of Anchialos, and finally removed from there to Paris. |
| Before 1821: Quiet removals and pledged manuscripts from the Phanar |
Within the Holy Sepulchre library there remain “very many proofs” showing that, before the Greek Revolution, various works, manuscripts and printed books were taken and lost. In the Phanar, many learned men and dignitaries hold autograph manuscripts and printed books from the metochion library as pledged items under written receipts. When the Greek Revolution breaks out and many of these men are executed, the books pass to the Ottoman Government, which appeals to Patriarch Chrysanthos for their preservation. Chrysanthos entrusts them to Nikolaos Photeiou. Patriarch Polykarpos of Jerusalem repeatedly demands their return, but Nikolaos retains them and “all of them were lost,” representing a major confiscation and disappearance of metochion holdings. |
| c. 1800 – Nikodemos initiates centralisation of manuscripts at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem |
Within the broader 19th-c. “renewal,” Patriarch Nikodemos orders that ancient manuscripts scattered in monasteries across Palestine be gathered into a single patriarchal library in Jerusalem; monks from Mar Saba and other houses begin transferring their older codices into this central collection, reviving the role of the old theological library of the patriarchate as a major centre of learning.https://www.academia.edu/3508389/The_Ea ... em_Society |
| Early 19th c: National persecutions, sales, and survival at Aretsou |
During a “dreadful persecution of the nation,” many things are plundered; other items sent elsewhere for safety are lost; some books are even sold by monks lacking necessities. Nevertheless, many books of the Holy Sepulchre library survive in the small library of the township of Aretsou (Rousion), bearing autograph dedicatory notes of patriarchs or other donors who had originally offered them to the Holy Sepulchre. |
| 1801: English travellers and three St Sabas manuscripts |
In 1801 two English travellers journey from Constantinople to Jerusalem. By letter of Patriarch Anthimos they receive from the libraries of St Sabas one Gospel, one Psalter, and the Epistles of the Apostles, all written on parchment. These volumes leave the laura and likely pass into Western collections. |
| Pre-1808: Library in the church of the Resurrection |
In the most venerable church of the Resurrection a distinct library arises, founded long ago by a learned sacristan who, imitating lamented patriarchs, constructs a library for safeguarding “the priceless treasure of our ancestral magnanimity.” It is enriched by rare manuscripts and printed books offered by Hagiotaphite brethren and pilgrims. Down to 1808 it holds more than 800 volumes, mostly manuscripts with some European printed books, including Slavic and Hebrew works. Among the parchment manuscripts are not only Greek texts but also Arabic, Slavic and Hebrew. Some parchment codices from this library later end up in the library of the Koinon of the All-Holy Sepulchre. |
| 1808: Fire destroys the Resurrection library |
In 1808 the church of the Resurrection is set on fire; the library becomes fuel for the flames along with many very ancient and precious relics, causing serious harm to Greek learning. Afterwards, only up to 38 manuscripts, mostly on parchment, are preserved in the sacristy. There are also four parchment Gospel books and many volumes with pictures of the Evangelists and explanatory iconographic texts, some ancient and some recent. |
| Early–mid 19th c: Seraphim of Mytilene and Resurrection library enrichment |
About sixty years before the author, the calligrapher hieromonk Seraphim of Mytilene begins, at his own expense, an adornment project for the church of the Resurrection, commissioning designs from leading European craftsmen. In connection with this work, he “increases this library in many ways.” By the author’s own time this library is again “rich in books of many kinds” and supplies great benefit to lovers of learning. Its holdings now include manuscripts of Hagiotaphite fathers (Clement, Benjamin Ioannides, Gregory Palamas and others) containing historical material, instructions, and records of important events (approbations and replies) that document their teaching. |
| 1821 – Scholz’s discovery of neglected manuscripts at Mar Saba |
During a visit to the Mar Saba monastery in 1821, the German scholar Johann Martin Augustin Scholz discovers about 200 abandoned manuscripts “in total disorder,” including 8th–9th-century codices and many from the 12th–13th centuries, plus around 20 Arabic manuscripts and 50 printed books; he secretly numbers them in sequence so he can cite them later, providing one of the first systematic scholarly surveys of Mar Saba holdings that would later feed the central Jerusalem collections.https://www.academia.edu/3508389/The_Ea ... em_Society |
| 1837 – Transfer of 700 manuscripts to the Patriarchal Library |
In 1837 some 700 manuscripts are formally handed over from outlying monasteries—especially Mar Saba—to the patriarchal library in Jerusalem, significantly enlarging the central archive of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and embodying Nikodemos’ policy of concentrating the scattered monastic book-treasures in the Holy City.https://www.academia.edu/3508389/The_Ea ... em_Society |
| 1839: Anthimos’s major re-ordering and destruction of damaged books |
After many years of national turmoil and local disturbances, a large body of books suffers from dust, damp and other destructive factors. In 1839 the “ever-memorable” Anthimos, then much-occupied but a lover of letters, undertakes a thorough cleansing and arrangement of the library. Many books are found spoiled and useless and are thrown into the monastery ovens. Large globes and coloured geographical maps dedicated by Chrysanthos Notaras are burned because damp has ruined them; Chrysanthos’s astronomical and mathematical instruments are mostly destroyed. Only a few instruments survive in the library of the Theological School of Jerusalem, and “not a few” corroded instruments remain in a chest in the metochion library in Constantinople. At this time, by patriarchal command, a number of valuable books are also transferred from various monasteries and joined to the central library of the Koinon, enriching it and making it more useful to Hagiotaphite clergy and learned visitors. From that time on the patriarchs ensure that the library is kept in good order and cleanliness. |
| 1844 – Tischendorf’s reports on Jerusalem-area monastic archives |
On his 1844 tour of Palestine, Constantine von Tischendorf reports that the Monastery of the Cross near Jerusalem holds about 400 “Gregorian” (i.e. Georgian) manuscripts and a mixed archive of Syrian, Arabic, Armenian, Greek and Slavonic codices, and that another archive is concealed in a tower at Mar Elias monastery with Greek, Russian, Wallachian, Arabic, Syrian and Ethiopian manuscripts; he also notes that many Georgian manuscripts have already been sold to Europe and that a further collection has recently been discovered at Mar Saba, underscoring both the richness and ongoing depletion of Jerusalem-linked monastic libraries feeding (and leaking from) the patriarchal collections.https://www.academia.edu/3508389/The_Ea ... em_Society |
| 1845: Ioannikios’s mismanagement of the Constantinople metochion library |
In 1845 a hieromonk Ioannikios of Chaldia, experienced in monastic life but uneducated and extremely superstitious, is made librarian. Under his tenure many Latin works disappear and manuscripts are lost, including dissertations and treatises of learned men, copies from rare manuscripts, and letters of wise men. |
| Early–mid 19th c: Anthimos as librarian, centralization and annotations |
As librarian, Anthimos arranges the central patriarchal library well and enriches it with books of every sort: some sent by Patriarch Polykarpos (bearing his name), others gathered from holy monasteries within and around Jerusalem, and also from “our own people and foreigners.” He studies many manuscripts, especially rare ones, marking them with notes. Some of his notes appear on books of the laura of St Sabas; others are preserved in the acts of the holy places and patriarchal letters (copied by 28 scribes). At least one such codex (of Georgios Frantzis) and a detailed typikon on parchment (covering the Lenten office and the 12 “stations” of the Holy Passion) are now specifically located in the library of the Theological School of Jerusalem. |
| 19th c: Europeans carry off many manuscripts |
According to the elders of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, a great number of manuscripts are carried off at various times by Europeans. In those dreadful times many dispersed items “slip away” and others are lost in different ways. The catalogues of these libraries, having been dedicated long ago, are incomplete, making it impossible to know how many and what kinds of manuscripts were destroyed or removed into other public and private libraries. |
| 19th c: Synodical purging and transfer of duplicates to St Sabas |
A synodical decision orders a “purging of the books.” Single and triple copies of manuscripts and printed books are, for the most part, transferred from the central libraries to the library of St Sabas. Among them are over forty lesson-books full of Homeric material, tragedies and classical discourses loaded with scholia and unpublished philological and theological notes, plus later manuscripts containing composition themes, epigram rules, poems, and grammatical treatises. All these are preserved in the largest turret of the tower-library, which also houses many long, bulky codices containing most of the works of St John Chrysostom, turning the tower into a major classical and patristic repository. |
| 1852–1858: Two-way circulation between St Sabas and Jerusalem libraries |
In 1852 Dionysios Kleopas, director of the Theological School of Jerusalem, visits St Sabas with the author and inspects its libraries. They find manuscripts “of great value” which they take and transfer to Jerusalem. After two years (1854), when the monastery of the Holy Cross becomes a Theological School, these manuscripts are deposited in its library for greater security with patriarchal approval. In 1858 these manuscripts are transferred back to St Sabas by patriarchal command; more than twenty (mostly parchment) are set apart, and the author receives copies of them. Three other manuscripts, however, remain in the library of the Theological School of Jerusalem by patriarchal decision. |
| 1856 – Monastery of the Cross converted into theological school with archive and museum |
In 1856 the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem is transformed into a theological school; new wings are added with reception halls, an archive, a museum and administrative offices, and its manuscripts (including Georgian and multi-lingual holdings already noted by Scholz and Tischendorf) are reorganized as part of a more “modern” institutional complex closely tied to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and its educational mission.https://www.academia.edu/3508389/The_Ea ... em_Society |
| 19th c snapshot: holdings in Koinon, tower, and metochion libraries |
Despite many vicissitudes, the metochion library of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople still holds 490 manuscripts (some parchment, most paper) under a steward’s supervision. The Koinon library in Jerusalem and the tower-library at St Sabas together preserve numerous Syriac, Abyssinian and Arabic manuscripts on thick paper, acquired through purchases, donations, and safekeeping arrangements. The libraries of the Holy Sepulchre remain central scholarly repositories, openly used by Greek and European scholars. |
| Later 19th c: Donors and growth of the Theological School library |
Polykarpos the chamberlain, “in his zeal for noble things,” enriches the library by ordering costly learned writings from Europe. The venerable elder Seraphim, sacristan of the Resurrection and overseer of the Theological School, donates over one hundred volumes of various works, carefully selected by the Koinon. Archimandrite Anthimos the Lesvian, one of the learned living in Europe, gives the School essential instruments for experimental physics. Together with the codices of Georgios Frantzis, the Passion typikon, the Psalter and Gospel from the cave of John Koumanos, and other Hagiotaphite manuscripts, these gifts shape the Theological School’s library as a major modern arm of the patriarchal book-system. |
| Discovery of Codex Hierosolymitanus (H 54) in the metochion |
Around 1873, while cataloguing the library of the Jerusalem Monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople (the Patriarchal metochion), Metropolitan Φιλόθεος Βρυεννίος finds an 11th-century parchment codex dated 1056 and signed by the scribe Λέων νοτάριος. Interested chiefly in the Synopsis of the Old and New Testaments and the Ignatian material, he edits and publishes from this codex the epistles of Clement and the Ignatian letters in 1875. This is the “discovery” and first scholarly use of the codex itself within the Jerusalem Patriarchate’s Constantinople holdings, but the Didache at the end is not yet singled out as significant. |
| Recognition and publication of the Didache within H 54 |
Between 1875 and 1883, Bryennios re-examines the codex and recognises that the final leaves contain a previously unknown work, the Διδαχή τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων. Realising its importance, he prepares an edition and publishes the Didache separately in 1883. This constitutes a distinct second stage: the text of the Didache, long present but unnoticed in a Jerusalem-owned manuscript, is now identified, edited, and “unveiled” to the scholarly world as an independent work. |
| 1881: Author’s synthesis and appeal |
Writing in Jerusalem on 12 October 1881, the author describes the vicissitudes of Greek manuscripts in Palestine and Syria under tyranny and invasion, and the zeal of later patriarchs who, with great toil and expense, assembled and preserved as many manuscripts as possible in the patriarchal and Holy Sepulchre libraries. He admits his work is weak and imperfect, and offers his catalogue and historical notes as preliminary material from which future scholars may produce better, more complete works on these collections. |
| 1882: Duplicates sent from the Holy Sepulchre to Samos |
In 1882 the abbot of Samos petitions that, if the Holy Sepulchre libraries have triple and multiple copies of various works, some copies be sent to the newly built library on Samos. The Patriarch of Jerusalem approves and orders a selection. The author selects fifty copies of various works from the duplicates and sends them to Samos in March, extending the influence of the Jerusalem patriarchal collections into another Greek ecclesiastical library. |
| 1891: Papadopoulos-Kerameus catalogue of the manuscripts |
Palaeographer Athanasios Papadopoulos-Kerameus publishes the first full catalogue of the manuscripts then “in the present Library of the Patriarchate.” He distinguishes three major collections: 645 manuscripts belonging to the Patriarchate itself, 706 from the monastery of Saint Sabas, and 147 from the monastery of the Holy Cross, plus several smaller groups. The contents range from biblical and liturgical material to literary, legal and mathematical works in several languages (including Arabic, Slavonic and Armenian). This is the first systematic snapshot of how the older movements (Jerusalem ↔ Mar Saba ↔ Holy Cross, etc.) have crystallised into three big, named blocs of codices within the Patriarchate by the end of the nineteenth century. |
| 1891–1898: Analekta Hierosolymitikēs Stachyologias |
Between 1891 and 1898 Papadopoulos-Kerameus also publishes five volumes of Analekta Hierosolymitikēs Stachyologias (“Jerusalemite gleanings”), editing large numbers of texts and short document-lists dealing with the history of the Greek Patriarchate of Jerusalem and, more broadly, with aspects of Ottoman administration in the region. These volumes effectively “surface” many of the very acts, letters, and monastic documents that underlie the movements recorded in this table, but modern scholarship has used them surprisingly little. In tabular terms, they form a dense, documentary layer sitting on top of the earlier narrative evidence extracted from the nineteenth-century Greek history of the libraries. |
| c. 1887 – Papadopoulos-Kerameus & the Apollodorus “Codex Sabbaiticus” (no. 366) |
While studying Greek manuscripts in the Jerusalem Patriarchate, Athanasios Papadopoulos-Kerameus discovered fragments of a late-fourteenth-century epitome of the Library attributed to Apollodorus the Grammarian. The codex, now shelf-marked 366 in the patriarchal library, had formerly belonged to the laura of St Sabas and is therefore known as the “Codex Sabbaiticus.” Together with a related Vatican manuscript (no. 950, found in 1885), it supplied previously lost portions of the ending of the Library and became a primary textual witness for modern editions of pseudo-Apollodorus. |
| 1891 – Edition of Philo of Carpasia, “Letter to Eucarpios,” from Mar Saba ms 408 in the Jerusalem Patriarchate |
In volume 1 of Analekta Hierosolymitikes Stachyologias (1891) Papadopoulos-Kerameus printed, for the first time, Philo of Carpasia’s “Letter to Eucarpios” (item 16, pp. 393–399). He edited the text from Jerusalem Patriarchate manuscript St Sabas 408 (9th–10th century), fols. 34–40, a codex originating from the laura of St Sabas (Mar Saba) but held in the patriarchal collection at Jerusalem. This publication not only brought to light an otherwise inaccessible piece of late-antique episcopal correspondence, but also documented the contents and provenance of one of the key Mar Saba codices within the Jerusalem Patriarchate’s holdings. |
| 1891 onward: modern cataloguing and internal finding-aids |
From the same period, a series of more specialised cataloguing efforts begins to describe specific language-groups within the Jerusalem collections. Robert P. Blake, as a young man, catalogues the Georgian manuscripts of the Patriarchate; Koikylides prepares checklists for the Arabic and Syriac manuscripts and for additional Greek codices; fugitive lists even exist for the Slavonic and Ethiopic material. Building on Papadopoulos-Kerameus’ printed catalogue, these tools give modern researchers partial maps of the multi-lingual holdings that the table has followed as they move between the Patriarchate, Saint Sabas, and the Holy Cross. At the same time, the on-site librarian Father Aristobulos maintains his own “excellent and complete” manuscript catalogue inside the Patriarchate, which the visiting scholars explicitly treat as their practical guide when they undertake an independent physical exploration of the library rather than relying solely on older printed aids. This internal register is the direct institutional descendant of the nineteenth-century cataloguing and re-ordering we have already documented. |
| State of the collections in modern scholarship according to Papadopoulos-Kerameus |
Despite all this cataloguing, the author quoted notes that the present state and exact disposition of the Patriarchate’s manuscript collections remain unknown to him; unlike the Greek Patriarchates of Alexandria and Sinai, there is (at the time he writes) no detailed, systematic programme of scholarly exploitation and description of the Jerusalem holdings as a whole. This marks a kind of historiographical “gap”: after the intense internal re-organisation and the comprehensive enumeration by Papadopoulos-Kerameus, modern research still lacks a single, up-to-date map of how those older collections have been further rearranged, depleted, or enriched. |
| Late 19th – early 20th c: emergence of modern archives at the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate |
Alongside the consolidation of the manuscript libraries (Patriarchate, Holy Sepulchre, Mar Saba, Holy Cross), the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem also began to function as a modern archival institution. Patriarchal chancery records, legal and fiscal documents, and other “acts” relating to the community and its properties started to be consciously preserved and consulted as historical documentation rather than merely current paperwork. This process, situated in the broader late-Ottoman transition from private and monastic record-keeping to institutional archives in Jerusalem, is analysed in O. Shay, “The Early Stages of Historical Documentation and Modern Archives in Jerusalem Society at the End of the Ottoman Period,” in M. Kasimoglu (ed.), Strategies for Tourism Industry – Micro and Macro Perspectives (InTech, 2012). The article is available online at: http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/35721.pdf |
| 1906 – Heiberg and the Archimedes Palimpsest at the Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre |
The Danish scholar J. L. Heiberg examines a 13th-century Greek prayer-book in the library of the Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople (a dependency of the Jerusalem Patriarchate) and recognizes that its erased under-text contains previously unknown works of Archimedes (The Method, Stomachion). This “Archimedes Palimpsest” had been in the Patriarchate’s possession since at least the 19th century. Heiberg’s identification of the underlying scientific texts—made while the codex was still in a Jerusalem-owned collection—is one of the most significant manuscript discoveries connected with the Patriarchate. |
| Early 20th c. – Opening of the Greek Patriarchal Library to outside scholars |
After the First World War the Greek library in the Old City of Jerusalem is explicitly described as open, with Jewish geographer Yeshayahu Press in 1921 noting access to its collection of ancient Greek-Orthodox manuscripts; this marks a shift from the older, inward-facing monastic archive toward a patriarchal library conceived as a resource for broader scholarly use.https://www.academia.edu/3508389/The_Ea ... em_Society |
| 1910 book-list at Mar Saba; Morton Smith’s discussion (Nea Sion 52, 1960) |
A handwritten Greek list compiled at Mar Saba in 1910 records the printed books then kept in the monastery library. The catalog itself enumerates 191 titles (printed volumes). Morton Smith later described this list in his article on the Greek manuscripts of the Monastery of Saint Sabas in Nea Sion 52 (1960), p. 256, item 76, noting that it is a catalog of the printed books and that there is no evidence in it for the presence of the 1646 Vossius edition of Ignatius. As far as published descriptions indicate, Smith does not give a separate overall total for all books in the monastery library beyond the fact that the 1910 list contains 191 printed titles; the number 191 therefore reflects the size of that printed-book catalog, not a complete census of every printed and manuscript volume at Mar Saba. |
| c. 1920s – W. H. P. Hatch’s photographic campaign in Jerusalem |
New Testament textual critic William H. P. Hatch undertakes a major photographic campaign of Greek biblical manuscripts in the Eastern Mediterranean. As part of this work he photographs a substantial number of Greek New Testament codices in the library of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem (as well as at Sinai). These glass-plate photographs, later preserved and described in Boston and Washington, D.C., made many Patriarchate manuscripts widely accessible for the first time and led to the identification and description of numerous individual Jerusalem New Testament manuscripts in modern catalogues. |
| 1922 – Founding of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Museum (library + archive) |
A few years later, on the initiative of Bishop Timotheos, the Patriarchate formally establishes its museum, combining the library and archive and inaugurating it to the public in 1922; guidebooks by the mid-20th century describe this institution as maintaining a library of ancient Greek manuscripts alongside collections of antiquities and paintings, thereby institutionalising the patriarchal manuscript holdings as a public cultural museum as well as an ecclesiastical archive.https://www.academia.edu/3508389/The_Ea ... em_Society |
| 1923: printed-book catalogue of Mar Sabas (Tselikas) |
Agamemnon Tselikas, in his study of the “Jerusalem” codex and the Mar Sabas library, reproduces as an appendix a 1923 catalogue of the printed books of the laura of Saint Sabas. This list, drawn up at the monastery itself, shows which of the books formerly sent from Jerusalem to the laura. This 1923 list functions as a late control-point: it provides concrete evidence of the Mar Sabas side of the traffic between Jerusalem and the desert, complementing the nineteenth-century descriptions of transfers from Saint Sabas to the Koinon of the Holy Sepulchre and to the Theological School of Jerusalem, and allowing us to see which parts of that flow are still locally documented in a post-Ottoman inventory. |
| 1949–1950: Microfilming and first systematic “external” survey of the Patriarchal Library |
Under the auspices of the American Schools of Oriental Research and with technical support from the Library of Congress, a 15-person team set up generators and cameras inside the Greek Patriarchal Library in Jerusalem (housed in a modest building where the manuscripts sit in a sixth-century Nestorian chapel). The collection, which had been brought together c. 1880 from the former libraries of Mar Saba, the Holy Sepulchre, the Holy Cross, and others, contained about 2,400 manuscripts in eleven languages, dating from the ninth century onward. The expedition adopted a selective strategy similar to that used at Sinai: all biblical MSS, early liturgical and patristic material, dated MSS up to 1600, and items specifically requested by scholars were prioritized. In total, 1,031 Patriarchal manuscripts were microfilmed (679 Greek, 131 Georgian, 26 Syriac, plus complete coverage of small Slavonic and Ethiopic groups and selected Turkish, Persian, Latin, and Armenian items). This was the first large-scale technical “capture” of the Patriarchate’s composite Jerusalem collection and effectively created an off-site surrogate of roughly half the library for scholarly use worldwide. |
| 1958–1960: Morton Smith’s Mar Saba survey and the discovery of the letter to Theodore |
In 1958 the Jerusalem Patriarchate granted Morton Smith access to its dependency, the laura of Mar Saba, to catalogue its Greek manuscripts for publication in Nea Sion. While working in the tower library, he systematically examined codices—including marginalia and writing in blank end-leaves—under the general mandate of describing the Patriarchate’s holdings at Mar Saba. During this work he found, in the end-papers of a printed 1646 edition of the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (the Vossius edition), an 18th-century Greek hand copying a previously unknown letter of Clement of Alexandria addressed “to Theodore,” containing excerpts from a longer Gospel of Mark. Smith photographed the pages and later published both his Mar Saba manuscript catalogue and the text of the Clementine letter (first in 1960 in Greek, then at length in 1973). From the Patriarchate’s point of view, this episode belongs to the ongoing effort (since Papadopoulos-Kerameus and others) to identify, catalogue, and sometimes re-centralize materials in its dependent monasteries; the Vossius volume with the letter to Theodore was, at this stage, still physically part of the Mar Saba library under Jerusalem’s ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but now documented and “brought into view” for the wider scholarly world via Smith’s descriptions and photographs. |
| 1960 – Morton Smith’s Mar Saba manuscript survey and Greek catalogue |
Morton Smith publishes his survey of the Mar Saba collection in two linked pieces: the English article “Monasteries and Their Manuscripts” in Archaeology 13 (1960) 172–177, and the long Greek catalogue “Ελληνικά χειρόγραφα ἐν τῇ μονῇ τοῦ ἁγίου Σάββα” (Hellenika Cheirographa en tei Monei tou Hagiou Sabba) in Νέα Σιών 52 (1960) 110–126, 245–255. These publications draw on his inspection trips to Mar Saba (1941, 1958) and provide a systematic list of the Greek manuscripts in the tower library (his notes run at least up to item no. 489). Smith estimates that there are between 400 and 500 books in the tower library and discusses the earlier 1910 handwritten book-list of 191 titles. The Nea Sion catalogue thus becomes a key twentieth-century “snapshot” of the Mar Saba holdings as they relate to the Jerusalem Patriarchate, and is later used as a control point in debates about the physical status and movement of specific volumes (such as the Voss edition later associated with the Letter to Theodore and the “Secret Gospel of Mark”). |
| 1950s–1960s – Fuller description of Jerusalem Patriarchate collections in modern reference works |
On the basis of Papadopoulos-Kerameus’ catalogues, Clark’s microfilms and Hatch’s photographs, 20th-century New Testament and patristic reference works (e.g. Nestle–Aland lists, Kurzgefasste Liste) register dozens of Jerusalem Patriarchate biblical and patristic manuscripts under standard Gregory–Aland numbers or other sigla. This does not represent new physical finds so much as the “discovery” of the Patriarchate’s codices by the wider scholarly community, as their contents and significance are systematically integrated into global manuscript lists and critical editions. |
| 1970s (c. 1976–1977): Transfer of the Voss 1646 Ignatius volume and handling by Kallistos Dourvas |
Some years after Smith’s publications, the printed Voss 1646 Ignatius volume containing the Clementine letter was transferred from the Mar Saba monastery into the central Patriarchal Library in Jerusalem. Later reports identify the Patriarchal librarian Kallistos Dourvas as the one who, once the book was in Jerusalem, removed the leaves with the letter to Theodore from the binding and had new photographs made of the pages, treating the Clementine text as a special item rather than leaving it as “mere” end-paper marginalia. Accounts of the internal shelving vary, but the volume and its separated leaves were reportedly placed in the part of the Patriarchal stacks where pseudonymous or doubtful works (pseudepigrapha) were kept, reflecting institutional hesitation about the text’s authenticity while still recognizing it as part of the Patriarchate’s documentary heritage. At some later point the physical leaves with the letter to Theodore ceased to be locatable in the Patriarchal Library, so that, for present work on the Patriarchate’s history and holdings, Smith’s photographs and the later Dourvas/Olympiou photographs function as the only surviving witnesses to this particular piece of the Jerusalem collection’s modern evolution. |
| Late 20th c. – Scientific rediscovery of the Archimedes Palimpsest (Jerusalem provenance) |
After being removed from the Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre in the early 20th century, the Archimedes Palimpsest surfaces in Paris and is sold at auction in 1998, leading to an extensive program of multispectral imaging and conservation. Although this work happens outside the Patriarchate, the codex is repeatedly traced back to the Jerusalem Patriarchate’s Constantinople dependency, where Heiberg had first recognized its Archimedean under-text. The renewed study shows just how important this former Patriarchate manuscript is for the history of Greek science. |
| 1990s–2010s – “Cassian the Sabaite” and Sabaitic codices from the Jerusalem Patriarchate milieu |
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, a series of studies by Metrouzius (Markus) Tzamalikos and others argued that a group of anonymous Greek ascetic texts, preserved in “Sabaitic” manuscripts (codices originating from the monastery of Saint Sabas and now dispersed among several repositories, especially the Greek Patriarchal Library in Jerusalem and the library of Saint Catherine on Sinai), should be attributed to a previously unrecognized Greek author dubbed “Cassian the Sabaite.” These works include monastic conferences and doctrinal treatises that had long been catalogued but were not recognized as a coherent corpus. The “discovery” here is not a single new codex, but the identification and re-framing of existing Sabaitic manuscripts in the Jerusalem Patriarchate orbit as the oeuvre of a distinct Greek Father of the Church, rooted in the Mar Saba tradition. (The precise shelfmarks and present locations of all relevant codices require the unpublished or hard-to-access detailed catalogues of the Patriarchal Library and associated Sabaitic collections.) |
| Late 20th–early 21st century – Renewed work on Sabaitic codices and apocryphal gospels in the Patriarchal collections |
Building on the microfilm copies produced in 1949–50 and on printed catalogues (Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Blake, Koikylides, etc.), scholars of apocryphal gospels and late-antique Christian literature have re-examined Sabaitic manuscripts that once belonged to Mar Saba but are now largely in the Greek Patriarchal Library at Jerusalem or closely related monastic libraries. A conspicuous case is the study of “Sabaitic” codices that preserve the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and other apocryphal material, which has clarified the textual history and medieval reception of these writings and has drawn renewed attention to the Jerusalem Patriarchate’s role as custodian of Sabaitic manuscript clusters. This work does not represent new codices being unearthed so much as previously under-used Jerusalem-Patriarchate manuscripts being mined for new textual and historical insights. |
| c. 2000s–2020s – Release and re-use of Clark’s Jerusalem microfilms |
The Library of Congress and partner institutions begin systematically making Clark’s 1949–50 microfilms of Jerusalem Patriarchate manuscripts available to scholars and the public. Checklists and digital projects (for example, catalogues of 77 Jerusalem New Testament manuscripts derived from Clark’s films) allow researchers worldwide to “rediscover” many Patriarchate codices without travelling to Jerusalem, including previously little-used Georgian, Slavonic and Ethiopic items. This greatly broadens the effective scholarly “unveiling” of the Patriarchate’s manuscript heritage, even though the physical manuscripts have been known locally for over a century. |
| Concluding note – Movements of books between Mar Saba and the Jerusalem Patriarchate and the impossibility of a complete Mar Saba book-list |
Over many centuries books have moved repeatedly between the laura of Mar Saba and the libraries of Jerusalem, so that no “accurate” or exhaustive list of all volumes ever kept at Mar Saba can be reconstructed. Papadopoulos-Kerameus’ catalogues for the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem already describe numerous “Sabbaitic” codices now housed in the patriarchal library rather than at the monastery itself, and modern editors note that the Jerusalem collection is explicitly composite, formed from the former libraries of St Saba, the Holy Sepulchre, the Holy Cross and other houses. In the mid-20th century Kenneth W. Clark’s microfilming project at Jerusalem again worked only with what was then on the shelves of the Patriarchate, while relying on Papadopoulos-Kerameus and Koikylides as partial guides, thus documenting yet another shifting snapshot rather than a fixed canon of “Mar Saba books.” |
| Later reports and list evidence |
Later reports add further stages in this circulation. A handwritten Mar Saba book-list compiled in 1910 (listing 191 titles) and discussed by Morton Smith in Nea Sion 52 (1960) shows what printed volumes happened to be in the monastery library at that date, but says nothing about the many older manuscripts that had already been removed to the Jerusalem Patriarchate or lost, and it provides no evidence that Voss’s 1646 Ignatius edition (with the Clement-to-Theodore marginalia) was ever on those shelves. Modern Greek scholars such as Tselikas have also drawn attention to a 1923 record of books sent between Jerusalem and Mar Saba, further illustrating the continued back-and-forth movement of volumes in the 20th century. Taken together with the much earlier evidence for a Clementine letter-collection at Mar Saba in the time of John of Damascus, and with the repeated transfers of “Sabbaitic” codices into the patriarchal library, all surviving catalogues and hand-lists (Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Koikylides, Clark’s microfilms, the 1910 list, Tselikas’ note) can only offer episodic glimpses. They confirm a long history of circulation between Mar Saba and Jerusalem, but they also guarantee that any attempt to produce a definitive inventory of all books ever held at Mar Saba is impossible: the record is fragmentary, dispersed across centuries, and heavily dependent on accidents of survival and cataloguing. |
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