PERGAMENA. - P. or parchment (in Latin membrana) is animal skin tanned according to a process which, according to Pliny the Elder (Nat. hist., XIII, 11), citing Varro, was discovered by Eumenes II king of Pergamon when, at the beginning of the 2nd century B.C., Ptolemy king of Egypt forbade the exportation of papyrus in order to prevent the Library of Pergamon from developing and eclipsing that of Alexandria. In reality, from the most distant times leather had been used to receive writing among the Egyptians themselves, the Hebrews, the Assyrians, the Persians and the Greeks, who later designated with the name diphtherai also other materials that served for writing. But the technique adopted at Pergamon and the industry that derived from it were without doubt, by then, those that gave the name to p. (pergamemum).
Generally the skin of sheep, ox or goat was used, which, well scraped, was then immersed in hot water to be degreased, then put to dry and rubbed, without any other tanning, with powdered chalk, and finally cleaned with pumice stone or another substitute. The material thus obtained was marvellously suited to receive writing, presented a smooth and sufficiently solid surface and could be used indifferently on both sides; moreover it was preserved far better than papyrus, reacting excellently to the influence of external agents and, contrary to papyrus, easily withstood erasure, which contributed to its diffusion. Indeed, among manuscripts on p., especially during the Middle Ages, there are found numerous palimpsests (v.), that is to say manuscripts on which the original writing had been scraped off to write a new text on them.
P. was at first used for writing letters, documents, brief notes; later it was used for the making of books; nevertheless its industry became widespread only slowly and had to wait three centuries before it triumphed completely over papyrus, whose use was gradually lost starting from the 4th century. Doubtless, around the 11th century, rolls and sheets of papyrus of the pontifical Chancery were still known, but they must be considered as exceptions that owed their existence only to a fondness for a material by then scarce and become very rare.
It is today established that the first books in p. were prepared in the form of a roll, although no classical example of them is preserved (it is known that rolls were much in use among the Hebrews, who employed them for their sacred book, the Tóráh). Their length was generally that of the skin employed, but where necessary longer rolls were sewn and made up. Purple-dyed p. was also used in the earliest times to cover papyrus rolls, and this was certainly the first appearance of the binding. Nevertheless the form of the roll must have been unwieldy and somewhat inconvenient, if in the 2nd century A.D. it was already thought to give books the same form as the ancient wax tablets (from which they also took the name of codices or caudices). The oldest codices preserved on p. go back to the 4th or 3rd century A.D.; as for membranaceous documents, the oldest that have come down to us are from the 7th century. Among the codices some were written in letters of gold or silver, and some have come down to us, already from the 6th century, such as the famous Silver Codex of the Gothic Gospels of Ulfilas, at Uppsala, and, in Italy, the Purple Codex of the cathedral of Rossano Calabro. Many other purple codices are also preserved from the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries, especially from the Carolingian period, in which entire volumes were written with inks of several colours, blue, green, violet, yellow, the first particularly for the colouring of initials, together with red, which, in the oldest membranaceous codices, is found especially in the initial lines, in the titles and in the subscriptions (colophon). Red then remained for the initials, for the titles and the captions of chapters and paragraphs (whence rubrica and rubricare) and sometimes for marginal annotations, signatures, catchwords, more widely in liturgical books.
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through the spontaneous zeal of converts during his Ephesian preaching (54-57).
At Ephesus foreigners from all of Asia gathered for the Artemisia (v. DIANA); for which reason this city lent itself to becoming a centre of Christian irradiation. An index of the rapid progress of the Gospel in the province are the greetings of the « Churches of Asia » already in 1 Cor. 16, 19. The habit then of Paul of targeting the major centres of the regions to be evangelized, his having sent (Col. 1, 7; 4, 12 ff.) Epaphras (v.) to the Phrygian cities of Colossae (v.), Laodicea (v.), Hierapolis leads one to believe that he did not neglect the famous city of Mysia. At that time, however, the splendour of P. was being dimmed before its rival Ephesus (v.), which had effectively become the most important city of the province and the seat of the proconsul. Perhaps for this reason Ephesus is named in first place among the seven Churches (Rev. 1, 11), while P. comes third, after Smyrna.
The first Christian conquests at P. could take place, as elsewhere, among the Jews (a Jewish community at P. is attested by Flavius Josephus, Antiq. Iud., XIV, 10, 22); but the ethnic-Christian element must soon have become prevalent, as can also be inferred from the characteristics of those Nicolaitans (v.), who are a scandal for the community, comparable to that stirred up by Balaam to the harm of Israel: idolatry and fornication (Rev. 2, 14 ff.).
The whole letter addressed to the Church of P. fits well into such an environment. To the imperial power, there divinized, is opposed the power of Christ; to the ius gladii of the representative of Rome, who persecuted the Church, the two-edged sword of Christ (ibid. 2, 12). That P. could be considered as « throne of Satan » and the place where Satan dwells (ibid. 2, 13) is explained by the varied idolatrous manifestations that took place in the many temples scattered on the slopes of the Acropolis and in the lower city.