“But if this principle were admitted, our confidence in the printed editions, as well as in the ancient manuscripts, must fall to the ground. Neither the acts of councils, the works of the Fathers, nor the Holy Scriptures, would retain any authority. For whence, I ask, proceeded the printed editions, both of profane and sacred writers? were they not derived from ancient manuscripts? If, therefore, these are of no authority, those can have none; and thus, by this paradoxical opinion, the foundations, both of literature and of religion, are torn up. And, on this principle, there would be no force in the argument used by St. Augustine against the Manichæans, who calumniously affirmed every place of Holy Scripture, by which their errors might be confuted, to be falsified and corrupted. But Augustine, in reply to Faustus, reminds him that whoever had first attempted such a corruption of the Scriptures, would have immediately been confuted by a multitude of ancient manuscripts, which were in the hands of all Christians. “On this principle the labours of the Fathers, Jerome, Augustine, and others, in collating ancient books with modern copies, would have been fruitless. In vain the appeals of councils to such authorities for the determination of controversies; in vain the costs and cares of princes and kings in collecting manuscripts from the remotest countries. And if the case be thus, the Vatican, the Florentine, the Ambrosian, and the royal (French) libraries are nothing better than useless heaps of parchment. And it was to no purpose that the Roman pontiffs and the kings of France, as well as other prelates and princes, sent learned men to the farthest parts of the East to obtain ancient books in the Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and other languages. And then the ancient transcribers must lose their credit, and especially the monks, who devoted themselves entirely to the copying of books; such were the disciples of St. Martin, among whom, according to Sulpicius, no art but that of writing was practised. For they thought they could not be better employed than while at once edifying themselves in the continual perusal of the Holy Scriptures, and spreading the precepts of the Lord far and wide by their pens. Of this opinion was the pious Guigo: ‘As we cannot preach the word with our lips,’ says he, ‘let us do it with our hands; for as many books as we transcribe, so many heralds of the truth do we send forth.’ And thus also Peter the venerable, writing to Gislebert, a recluse, exhorts him to diligence in this exercise: ‘For so you may become a silent preacher of the Divine Word; and though your tongue be mute, your hand will speak aloud in the ears of many people. And in future times, after your death, the fruit of your toils will remain, even as long as these books shall endure.’