Feb. 3. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



77 



LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY Z, 1855. 



iJ0tci. 



BOOKS BURNT. 



Having been accustomed to enter in my adver- 

 saria any notices which I have met with in the 

 course of my reading, of the destruction of books 

 by fire, permit me to forward to you the first 

 portion of my collection. There is a second 

 series of notes of the formation or existence of 

 ancient libraries, which I shall be happy after- 

 wards to send as a farther contribution to the 

 history of books and their fortunes. No doubt 

 many of these are already known to your readers, 

 but perhaps they have not appeared in a collected 

 form. My time does not permit me to arrange 

 them in chronological order. I give my authori- 

 ties where I find them recorded. You have cor- 

 respondents who will, no doubt, make additions to 

 this list, which may be considered supplementary 

 to the notices of books burnt by the hangman, 

 which have already appeared in your pages. 



Ic is pretended, that about the year of the 

 world 3700, the Chinese Emperor Che-hwang-te 

 ordered all books to be burnt ; and that after this 

 event, in the metal vases were left the only monu- 

 ments of the ancient characters. (^Asiatic Journal, 

 vol. ii. p. 259.) 



Jehoiakim burnt the prophecies of Jeremiah, 

 after cutting them with a knife. (Jer. xxxvi. 

 23. &c.) 



In Acts xix. 19. it is recorded that those at 

 Ephesus "who used curious arts, brought their 

 books together and burnt them before all men." 



Socrates, the historian, relates (book i. 6.), that 

 Constantine the Great ordered, that "if any 

 writing of Arius" was found, it should be forth- 

 with committed to the flames, to destroy not only 

 the heresy, but every memorial of it. Any one 

 who, after this, secreted any of Arius's books, did 

 so on pain of death. To the same eifect writes 

 Sozomen, i. 20. 



After this, heretical books were commonly or- 

 dered to be removed in the same way. This will 

 account for the fact, that so few of the writings of 

 reputed heretics now remain. 



The destruction of the famous library of Alex- 

 andria in A.D. 642 by Omar, is too well known to 

 need description. 



The Council of Constance in 1414 condemned 

 the writings of Wiclif to the flames, and added 

 the condemnation of the author's bones. The 

 same Council burnt Hus, the author of the heretical 

 I'ooks. 



Luther copied the example of his teachers, and 

 in 1520 burnt publicly the Pope's bull, the de- 

 cretals, canon law, &c., at Wittemberg. But we 

 must remember that Luther's writings had been 



already burnt at Mentz, Lou vain, and ' other 

 places. 



Many books have been burnt privately as well 

 as publicly in consequence of the decision of the 

 Council of Trent concerning heretical writings. 



The burning of two-thirds of the Sibylline 

 books by Amalthea, in the reign of Tarquin the 

 Proud, is well known. (Comp. A. Gell. i. 19., and 

 Plin. Nat. Hist. xiii. 13. 27.) The library of 

 Pisistratus escaped burning at the destruction of 

 Athens by Xerxes, who removed the books to 

 Persia. (A. Gell. vi. 17.) 



The Alexandrian library was in part burnt at 

 the siege of that city, but not intentionally. (A. 

 Gell. vi. 17.) 



In 435, an Armenian council ordered the writ'- 

 ings of Nestorius to be publicly burnt. 



In 680, at a general council at Constantinople, 

 the writings of Honorius, Bishop of Rome, and of 

 others, were condemned as heretical and burnt. 



In 868, a Roman council issued a condemnation 

 of Photius, and adjudged to the flames his book 

 against Pope Nicholas. 



In 869, at Constantinople, the writings of Pho- 

 tius and of his defenders were ordered to be burnt 

 before the synod. 



In 904, at Ravenna, the acts of the council, 

 which condemned Formosus the Pope at Rome, 

 were rescinded and burnt. 



In 1209, the second Council of Paris prohibited 

 and burnt the writings of Aristotle and of others. 



In 1410, a convocation at Oxford condemned 

 and burnt the writings of John Wiclif. They 

 were again burnt in 1412, at Rome. 



In the destruction of Herculaneum in a.b. 79, 

 many books were burnt ; many others yet remain 

 more or less injured by fire. 150 volumes were 

 discovered in 1754. 



It is said that books, to the number of 200,000^ 

 were burned in a.d. 476 at Constantinople by 

 order of Leo I., Bishop of Rome. 



Many of the books of Galen are known to have 

 been burnt in his own house at Rome. One ac- 

 count says he wrote no fewer than 300 volumes, 

 the greater part of which were burnt in the 

 Temple of Peace, where they had been deposited. 



There was a great destruction of books at the 

 sacking of Rome by Genseric the Goth. The 

 same is recorded of the overthrow at Athens. 

 And of the destruction of Jerusalem, by the 

 Romans under Titus. 



Augustin says : 



" Ezra, the priest of God, restored the law which had 

 been burnt by the Chaldeans in the archives of the 

 temple." — 0pp., vol. iii. part ii. App. 



Honorius III., in a.d. 1216, condemned the 

 writings of John Scotus Erigena to be burnt. 



In the fifth century, Marcian, the Roman em- 

 peror, issued an edict in which he condemned to 

 the flames the writings of Eutyches. 



