A Look at the Chester Beatty Treasures

“RICH in the treasures of so many lost civilizations, . . . dazzling in the beauty of its miniatures and paintings.” That is how former curator R. J. Hayes summed up the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, Ireland. It is home to a vast collection of priceless antiquities, exquisite works of art, and rare books and manuscripts of almost inestimable value. So who was Chester Beatty? And what treasures did he collect?

Alfred Chester Beatty, born in 1875 in New York, U.S.A., was of Scottish, Irish, and English ancestry. By the time he was 32 years old, he had made a large personal fortune as a mining engineer and consultant. All through his life, he used his considerable resources to collect things of beauty and excellence. When he died in 1968 at the age of 92, Beatty left his entire collection to the people of Ireland.

What Did He Collect?

Beatty’s collections are extensive and varied. Only about 1 percent are exhibited at any one time. He gathered rare and precious items from many different periods and cultures spanning thousands of years​—from medieval and Renaissance Europe as well as from numerous Asian and African countries. For example, his collection of exquisite Japanese woodblock prints is considered one of the finest in the world.

Standing in complete contrast with works of fine art is an intriguing collection of over a hundred Babylonian and Sumerian clay tablets with ancient cuneiform writing. People living in Mesopotamia over 4,000 years ago inscribed minute details of their lives on wet clay tablets, which were then baked. Many such tablets have survived to our day, giving us clear evidence of the antiquity of writing.

A Fascination With Books

It seems that Chester Beatty was attracted by the artistry involved in making fine books. He collected thousands of secular and religious volumes, including some intricately decorated copies of the Koran. He was, says one writer, “enthralled by the mathematical proportions of the Arabic script, . . . and his sense of colour was excited by the embellishment of the calligraphy with gold and silver leaf and other vivid minerals.”

Jade fascinated Chester Beatty, even as it did some of the emperors of China in earlier centuries. They considered fine jade to be the most precious of all minerals, far more valuable than gold. These rulers commissioned skilled craftsmen to transform blocks of jade into smooth, thin sheets. Gifted artists then filled these jade pages with delicate calligraphy and illustrations etched in gold, thus producing some of the most astonishing books ever made. Beatty’s collection of these books is world renowned.

Priceless Bible Manuscripts

For lovers of the Bible, Chester Beatty’s greatest treasures are in his vast collection of ancient and medieval Bible manuscripts. Beautiful illuminated manuscripts reflect the patience and artistry of  the scribes who copied them by hand. The printed books display the skill and craftsmanship of early bookbinders and printers. For instance, the Biblia Latina was printed in Nuremberg in 1479 by Anton Koberger, who lived about the time of Johannes Gutenberg and is described as “one of the most important and active of the early printers.”

One exceptional exhibit in the Chester Beatty Library is an early fourth-century vellum manuscript by Ephraem, a Syrian scholar. Ephraem quotes extensively from a second-century work called the Diatessaron. In it the writer Tatian merged the four Gospel accounts of Jesus Christ’s life into a single harmonious narrative. Later writers made reference to the Diatessaron, but no copies of it have survived. Some 19th-century scholars even doubted its existence. In 1956, however, Beatty discovered Ephraem’s commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron​—a discovery that added to the existing evidence of the Bible’s authenticity and truthfulness.

A Treasure Trove of Papyrus Manuscripts

Beatty also collected a huge number of papyrus manuscripts, both religious and secular. Over 50 papyrus codices are dated earlier than the fourth century C.E. Some of these papyri were rescued from great heaps of papyrus​—essentially wastepaper dumps—​that lay undiscovered for centuries in the Egyptian desert. Many papyrus documents were in a very fragmented state when put up for sale. Dealers would turn up with cardboard boxes full of papyrus scraps. “Those who were interested in buying them would simply dip in and pick out the biggest fragment that contained the most writing,” says Charles Horton, curator of the Western Collections of the Chester Beatty Library.

Beatty’s “most sensational discovery,” says Horton, consisted of precious Biblical codices that “included some of the earliest known copies of the Christian Old and New Testament.” Dealers who knew the value of the codices might well have torn them up to sell separate parts to different buyers. However, Beatty was able to buy the bulk of the find. Just how significant are these codices? Sir Frederic Kenyon describes their discovery as “by far the most important” since Tischendorf discovered the Codex Sinaiticus in 1844.

These codices are dated between the second and fourth centuries C.E. Among books of the Hebrew Scriptures in the Greek Septuagint version are two copies of Genesis. These are of special value, says Kenyon, “because the book [of Genesis] is almost wholly lacking in the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus,” fourth-century vellum manuscripts. Three codices contain books of the Christian Greek Scriptures. One has most of the four Gospels and much of the book of Acts. The second codex, with additional leaves that Beatty obtained later, has an almost complete copy of the apostle Paul’s letters, including his epistle to the Hebrews. The third codex contains about one third of the book of Revelation. According to Kenyon, these papyri have “strengthened very materially  the basis​—already very strong—​of our confidence in the text of the New Testament as it has come down to us.”

The Chester Beatty Biblical papyri show that Christians began to use the codex, or leaf-book, in place of the unwieldy scroll at a very early date, likely before the end of the first century C.E. The papyri also show that with writing materials in short supply, copyists often reused old papyrus sheets. For example, one Coptic manuscript of part of John’s Gospel is written “in what seems to be a school exercise-book containing Greek sums.”

These papyrus documents are not dazzling in beauty, but they are priceless. They are a visible, tangible link to the very beginnings of Christianity. “Here, right in front of your own eyes,” says Charles Horton, “you can see the kind of books used by some of the earliest Christian communities​—books that were treasured by them.” (Proverbs 2:4, 5) If you have an opportunity to examine some of these treasures in the Chester Beatty Library, you will not be disappointed.

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Japanese woodblock print by Katsushika Hokusai

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The “Biblia Latina” was among the earliest printed copies of the Bible

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Ephraem’s commentary on Tatian’s “Diatessaron” reinforces the authenticity of the Bible

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Chester Beatty P45, one of the oldest codices in the world, contains most of the four Gospels and much of the book of Acts in a single volume

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Reproduced by kind permission of The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin

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All images: Reproduced by kind permission of The Trustees of the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin