Editors
Comment - This item was sent into us by one of our customers who retrieved it
from the internet.
We would be happy to publish other similar book related items
of a humorous nature.
In an ancient monastery in a far away place, a new monk arrived to join his brothers in copying books and scrolls in the monastery's scriptorium. He was assigned as a rubricator on copies of books that had already been copied by hand.
One day he asks Father Florian, the Armarius of the Scriptorium, "Does not the copying by hand of other copies allow for chances of error? How do we know we are not copying the mistakes of someone else? Are they ever checked against the original?"
Fr. Florian is set back a bit by the obvious logical observation of this youthful monk. "A very good point, my son. I will take one of the latest books down to the vault and compare it against the original."
Fr. Florian went down to the secured vault and began his verification. A day passed and the monks began to worry and went down looking for the old priest. They were sure something might have happened. As they approached the vault they heard sobbing and crying; they opened the door and found Fr. Florian crying over the new copy and the original ancient book, both opened before him on the table. It was obvious to all that the poor man had been crying his old heart out for a long time.
"What is the problem, Reverend father?" asked one of the monks.
"Oh, my Lord," sobbed the priest, "the word is 'celebrate'!!"