Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” What the preacher here means is that the words of the wise stimulate the reader to good thoughts; the words “members of collections” refer to wise words which have been embodied in collections of sayings; all these come from God, the one Shepherd. A warning is then given as to the reading of other literature; “the editor would deter his pupils from unorthodox or heathen literature by the thought of the weariness of study.”[265] The passage shows that there must have been a quantity of unorthodox literature available. “Books” of another character were Aramaic Targums which were certainly much in use in pre-Christian times[266] as well as later; these are often referred to in the Talmud.[267] It is said in one of the Midrashic[268] works that when the Israelites were in Egypt they possessed rolls in the reading of which they delighted every Sabbath; the statement is, of course, merely pictorial, but it implies the spread of literature—though, to be sure, at a much later time than that referred to. Among “books” mentioned by name are the following[269]: “Megillath Taanith,” which enumerates and discusses fast-days which should not be observed as fasts because joyful events occurred on them in days gone by; this probably belongs to the first century of our era. Of about the same date is “The roll of Genealogies”; what the precise contents of this work were is not known, as only one quotation occurs in the Talmud, in the tractate Jebamoth 49_b_. Rabbi Jochanan ben Nuri, a contemporary of Rabbi Akiba, possessed, we are told, a “Megillath Sammānim” (“The roll of powders”), in which is given a list of spices used for making incense; this, it is said, was an heirloom belonging to the “house of Abtinas.” Rabbi Chijja (third century A.D.) had a “book” called “Megillath Sethārim” (“The roll of hidden things”), in this he wrote down precepts and the like which, it is said, did not receive general approval. Besides these Strack gives references to a large number of Haggadic[270] and Halakic[271] “books” which need not be enumerated here. But the most striking proof of the existence of “books” in more or less general use is afforded by the recently found[272] Aramaic _papyri_ of Elephantiné (belonging to the fifth century B.C.). We have already referred to these,[273] and shall have to speak in some detail about one of these _papyri_ in dealing with the Book of Tobit; but, so far as we are now concerned, the main fact is worth recording that centuries before the beginning of the Christian era numbers of Aramaic _papyri_ were to be found in private houses; the contents of these _papyri_ varied from household accounts and _memoranda_ to such a story as “The history of the wise Achikar.”[273]