Paʹlimpsest

A parchment on which the original writing has been effaced, and something else has been written. (Greek, palin, again; psao, I rub or efface.) When parchment was not supplied in sufficient quantities, the monks and others used to wash or rub out the writing in a parchment and use it again. As they did not wash or rub it out entirely, many works have been recovered by modern ingenuity. Thus Cicero’s De Republica has been restored; it was partially erased to make room for a commentary of St. Augustine on the Psalms. Of course St. Augustine’s commentary was first copied, then erased from the parchment, and the original MS. of Cicero made its appearance.