628 KANSAS CITY RE.VIEW OF SCIENCE. 



Abulfaragius was born {Compendium memorabilium ^-Egyptt, Tubingen, 1789). It 

 is probable Abulfaragius was indebted to Abdollatiph for his first information con- 

 cerning this story. Neither gives any authority for his statements. So much 

 for the external evidence. 



The internal evidence is strong against the story. John, the Grammarian, who- 

 is said to have requested the books from Amru, was the last disciple of the Neo- 

 Platonic Ammonius Saccas, and was surnamed Philoponus (lover of labor) on ac- 

 count of his laborious studies of grammar, and philosophy. Some of his treatises 

 are still extant, one being in Fabricius' Bibliotheca Grczca, ix, pp. 458-468 (See 

 Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Vol. 5, p. 228). Now, John was dead before Alex- 

 andria was captured, December 21-22, 640. (See V>^t^\^xx€% Historical Difficul- 

 ties, London, 1868, page 36). The foundation of the story, John's request, is 

 therefore false. 



Second. In a letter from Amru to Omar (Etuychius Annales ii, 319), Alex- 

 andria is described as containing 4000 baths. The volumes were doubtless 

 mostly parchment (what an absurd idea to heat baths with parchment!), and to 

 keep 4000 baths heated six months, what an enormous quantity of MSS would be 

 required. The Alexandrian baths were constructed on the Hypocaust principle, 

 we are told, that is, the fires were kept burning in a vaulted chamber below, 

 from which by tubes the upper rooms were heated; and to keep one such heated 

 would require over one hundred MSS per day ; more likely several hundred. 

 But taking one hundred per day for 4000 baths, in one day 400,000 volumes would 

 be consumed, and in six months nearly seventy-five millions would be required. 

 Supposing the library contained 700,000 volumes, then for 4000 baths to con- 

 sume them in six months would be an average of less than one MS a day for 

 each bath. This part of the story is a palpable falsehood. 



Third. The destruction of the religious books of the Jews and Christians was 

 opposed to the orthodox precepts of the Mohammedans. The Khalifs forbade, 

 under heavy penalties, the destruction of all such works, and we have no record 

 of any such acts of vandalism in the early conquests of the Saracens, and it was 

 decreed that the works of profane science, historians or poets, physicians or 

 philosophers, might be lawfully applied to the use of the faithful. See Reland, 

 de Jure Militari APohammedanorum, in his third volume of Dissertation, p. 37 ; 

 quoted in Gibbon, v. 230.) 



None of the Greek writers, who were bitterly hostile to the Saracens, allude 

 to their burning of the Library. Even Abulfaragius in the original Syriac version 

 of his Chronicle did not refer to the burning; it was only when he came to prepare 

 his abridgment in Arabic, in his old age, that he added this narrative. 



Among the first to dispute the truth of Abulfaragius' story was Reinaudot, 

 in his Histoire des' Patriarches d' Alexandrie, page 170. Succeeding him. Gibbon 

 advanced cogent reasons for a rational skepticism as to its truth. (^Decline and 

 Fall, chapter 51, Vol. 5, pp. 228-231, Harper's Ed). Since Gibbon, Reinhard 

 (in a special dissertation published at Gottingen in 1792), Assemanni, and many 

 others have declared against its truth. Octave Delepierre, Secretary of Legation. 



