A great feature of the convent of Sinai was its library, where the monks amassed books and manuscripts, and added to the world’s literature by copying and writing. The place was a polyglot centre. Antoninus Martyr found three Fathers there who spoke Latin, Greek, Syriac, Egyptian (Coptic), and Bessam (Persian), and many interpreters in each language (c. 37). The hermit Simeon, who came into Europe about the year 1025, spoke Egyptian, Syriac, Arabic, Greek and Roman (_i.e._ Latin). The contents of the library, in spite of losses incurred at different times, are still considerable. Among its most notable treasures was the _Codex Sinaiticus_, dated to about the year 400, which helped to revise the text of most of the Greek Old Testament, of the New Testament, and of some important early Christian works, including the _Shepherd of Hermas_. Attention was attracted to this _Codex_ by Tischendorf, who came to the convent in 1844 to inspect the MSS., and having identified some of its pages, returned in 1853, in 1854, and in 1859, when he finally acquired it for Petrograd, a facsimile copy being deposited at the convent. A few leaves are at Leipzig. Another notable treasure was a Syriac _Codex_ of the Gospels of a very early date, which was discovered as a palimpsest and photographed by the sisters, Mrs. Smith-Lewis and Mrs. Gibson, in 1893. Again, there was the _Evangeliarium Theodosianum_, a collection of passages from the New Testament written in gold lettering on parchment, which was seen and described by Burckhardt in 1816, and is dated to about the year 1000. The Greek MSS. that are in the library were recently examined and catalogued by Prof. Gardthausen of Oxford. The list contains 1230 entries of MSS. that are all of a religious character. Prof. Gardthausen noted the names of over two hundred scribes, and other details which show that some of the MSS. came from Crete, Cairo, and Cyprus.[206] The Syriac and Palestinian-Syriac MSS. were catalogued by the ladies Smith-Lewis and Gibson. They are over three hundred in number. The Christian Arabic MSS. catalogued by the same ladies, amounted to six hundred and eighty entries.[207]