PREFACE

Gabriel added moreover, that there was no small hope that, through the favor of John, the Patriarch of Alexandria, to whom those Nitrian monks were subject, and with the added assistance of some industrious and diligent man, some part of those Codices might easily come into possession. When the Supreme Pontiff heard and approved of these things most willingly, he commanded Gabriel that he himself, or another whom he judged suitable, should vigorously carry out those things he had opportunely suggested.

It happened conveniently that Elias my cousin, a learned man and one eminently versed in Oriental letters throughout his whole life, was contemplating his return to Syria, the business for which he had been sent to Rome by the aforementioned Stephen, Patriarch of Antioch, having been nearly brought to a conclusion. Having found such a man, upon Gabriel's recommendation, the Pontiff decided that no further deliberation was needed; he ordered Elias, first provided with the necessary provisions, to hasten quickly with letters of recommendation from the same Gabriel to John, the Patriarch of Alexandria, and to press the business of the Codices with "sails and oars," as the saying goes. Dismissed from the City with these mandates as spring was approaching in the year 1707, Elias reached Alexandria barely when summer was already advanced, having experienced a journey by land and sea that was by no means favorable. Proceeding thence to Cairo, he met the Patriarch John and explained the reason for the journey he had undertaken. The Patriarch—who shrank from the Catholic Church more out of fear of the Turkish Magistrate than by his own inclination or character, but was otherwise courteous, very humane, and extremely well-disposed toward Europeans—omitted no kindness or indulgence toward his guest Elias. Having granted him provisions without delay, and letters to the Scetic monks, the owners of the Codices, he dismissed him most honorably. He also added two companions, a thing most necessary on a dangerous journey infested with Hagarine robbers: one was a noble Copt named John, the other was the Procurator and a monk of the aforementioned Monastery in the same Patriarch's Court.

Having begun the journey through the deserts of Nitria with these companions, he arrived at the Scetic Monastery on the sixth day before the Kalends of July of the same year. The Scetic Monastery is distant from the city of Cairo about eighty miles. The charity of the Oriental monks toward guests, even in their meager circumstances, is incredible. They were urged, moreover, by the hope of gaining the favor of the Alexandrian Prelate by whom Elias had been sent, and by the extreme courtesy of Elias himself and his skill in the Arabic tongue, so that the Egyptians could detect in him nothing foreign, nothing discordant with their own customs. Wherefore, with a great show of goodwill, the Syrian man was received into the Monastery of the Syrians. Here he finally found the Library which he had sought by land and sea. You would have called it a cavern, filled with Codices piled up and packed together at random. There were read Codices written in the Arabic and Egyptian languages, but for the most part in Syriac, which Moses of Nisibis, formerly the Superior of the same Monastery, had brought there in the year of Christ 932, having purchased them in Mesopotamia or received them as gifts, as is known from the inscription of almost every Codex. But Elias, a man of no unrefined taste, groaned that the most noble fruits of the human mind...