“If it is affirmed that the manuscripts we possess were, for the most part, written by unlearned persons; are they therefore undeserving of regard? In the first place, I deny that they were generally written by the unlearned. Certainly the blessed martyr Pamphilus, who wrote out the greater part of the works of Origen, was not unlearned; nor was Jerome unlearned, nor Hilarius. Of Fulgentius, the celebrated bishop (of Ruspa), it is reported that he was famed for his skill in the writer’s art. The same praise was earned by those holy men Lucianus, Philoromus, and Marcellus; also by the blessed Plato and Theophanus. The blessed Marcella the younger, as says Jerome, wrote quickly and without fault. The venerable Bede, Radbert, Raban and others among our learned men, discharged the function of copyists, not of their own works only, but of those of others. “And even if the greater part of manuscripts were written by unlearned men, they are not therefore to be accounted unskilful copyists, provided they read and copied accurately. Experience proves every day that those compositors are not the most correct who understand Latin, but that such are commonly the most faulty; especially in attempting to correct that which they do not properly understand, and which those who know nothing of the language set up accurately. But let it be granted that the copyists were unlearned: we know that the printed editions are not derived from a single copy, but from a comparison of many: the most careless scribe does not always err, and where he does, his mistakes are amended by the collation of the copies of others. “In a word, there were in all well-ordered churches and monasteries, not only learned writers who transcribed books themselves, but learned correctors, who compared the copies made by others with the originals, and amended whatever was erroneous. A devoted scribe, says Trithemius, when he has carefully written a book, compares it anew with the original, and subjects it to a diligent revision. Many instances might be adduced in proof of this revision and correction of manuscripts. One or two may suffice. In the library of the Vatican there is a manuscript written towards the close of the fifth, or in the beginning of the sixth century, containing the books of St. Hilary on the Trinity, which has been collated with an older copy by some studious person, as appears by a note at the end. Again, Paul Warnefrid, deacon and monk of Casina, having copied the epistles of Gregory the Great, sent the book to Adalhard, abbot of Corbeia, requesting him to revise the copy; but the abbot, fearing lest he might alter the genuine text of so learned a doctor, contented himself with placing a mark in the margin at every place where there appeared to him to be an error.