East the works of Aristophanes
were so much admired by St. Chrysostom that he slept with them under his
pillow. Perhaps the Saint enjoyed the reflections of the comedian upon
the superstitions of his day, or he may have had a secret liking for the
drama, and in one place he observes how much the world resembles a
stage. There seems to have been a conflict in his breast, as no doubt
there was in many at the time, between love of the classics and
religious scruples; he tells us that he dreamed one night that he was
being whipped by the devil for reading Cicero.

We may observe that the Eastern world was not at this time in such a
benighted state. Theodosius the younger founded in A.D. 425,
an academy and library at Constantinople, which, when it was destroyed
by the Turks contained 120,000 volumes. Nothing brings before us more
forcibly the state of ignorance in which the Western world was now sunk
than the scarcity of books. The price of them in the middle ages was so
great that a man who presented one to a monastery, thought he merited
eternal salvation. Documents were drawn up and duly signed when a book
passed from one person to another--and in the eighth century a library
of 150 volumes was regarded as something magnificent.[33]

The state of ignorance among the Saxons may be imagined from the fact
that Alfred was twelve years old before he could get a master capable of
teaching him the alphabet, and even after the invention of paper in the
eleventh century books were very scarce. The cause of the scanty supply
of literature was not only the general destruction which had taken
place, but also that there was no demand for it. Archbishop Lanfranc,
with a view to improve education in England, directed in 1072 that a
book should be given to each of the monks, who were to be allowed a year
to read it, and what follows gives us some idea of the indolence of
these representatives of learning, for it was ordered that if the monk
has not then read it he is to prostrate himself, and ask pardon of the
abbot. The monks of Winchester were probably not much troubled in this
way, for some time afterwards the library of the bishop of that diocese
only consisted of seven books. What must then have been the ignorance of
the masses of the population! We should scarcely believe that such a
relapse could have taken place had we not seen the centres of
civilization in the world successively succumbing, and the greatest
cities becoming d