Ben C. Smith wrote: ↑Tue Feb 13, 2018 1:59 pm
I have been interested in ancient book publication for a good long while now: partly because of my own interest in books, partly because of how complex and challenging it can be to sort it all out, and partly because it may help me devise realistic models for how early Christian and Jewish texts came into being. On this thread I will simply lay out some of the ancient evidence for how ancient books were disseminated, and what could happen to them in the process.
Two Stages of Dissemination
The ancients knew of (at least) two very distinct steps in the dissemination process. One first made notes or memoirs; then one crafted, if desired, those notes or memoirs into a polished rendition for official publication: ...
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It is clear that, while the notes or memoirs stage was considered a normal step in arriving at a polished product for publication, there was not always a perceived necessity to push the text beyond that first stage, especially in a didactic situation such as that described by Galen.
Multiple Editions
Sometimes an author, upon publishing (in whatever sense) a work, might republish it:
Tertullian, Against Marcion 1.1.1-2: 1 Nothing I have previously written against Marcion is any longer my concern. I am embarking upon a new work to replace an old one. My first edition [primum opusculum], too hurriedly produced, I afterwards withdrew, substituting a fuller [pleniore] treatment. This also, before enough copies [exemplariis] had been made, was stolen from me by a person, at that time a Christian but afterwards an apostate, who chanced to have copied out some extracts very incorrectly [mendosissime], and shewed them to a group of people. 2 Hence the need for correction [emendationis necessitas facta est]. The opportunity provided by this revision has moved me to make some additions. Thus this written work, a third succeeding a second, and instead of third from now on the first, needs to begin by reporting the demise of the work it supersedes, so that no one may be perplexed if in one place or another he comes across varying forms of it [varietas eius].
Obviously, if a person can hijack an edition of a work, then it seems unlikely that any edition of that work can have
truly been withdrawn from circulation in antiquity. Multiple editions of the same work in circulation might be a good source for textual variants.
Bootlegged Editions
The extract from Tertullian above gives an example of bootlegging, as does the following:
Quintilian, Oratory Institution 1, preface 7-8: Two books [duo... libri] are now circulating under my name on the art of rhetoric which were neither published [editi] by me nor agreed to for this purpose. For the one is a lecture held over two days that the boys to whom it was presented took down, the other a lecture captured [in print] for many days, as much as the good youths were able to follow in notation, but it was with too much love that they rashly made them available by doing me the honor of publication [editionis honore]. Wherefore in these books some things will also be the same [eadem aliqua], many things changed [multa mutata], many more added [plurima adiecta], all things more truly composed and elaborated as much as we are able.
Any situation involving oral teaching would be susceptible to this kind of treatment at the hands of listeners, whether well meaning or not.
Additions & Subtractions
We have rather many indications from antiquity that books were regularly subtracted from or added to (interpolated):
Revelation 22.18-19: 18 I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in this book; 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.
Artemidorus, Oneirocritica 2.70: 70 I ask those who read my books not to add to or remove anything from the present contents. For any person who is able to add points to my work would more easily write a work of his own. And if certain things that I have written in these books seem superfluous, the reader should use only those things that please him without discarding the rest of the books. For he should realize that it was out of obedience to Apollo, the overseer god and guardian of all things in addition to being my own native god, that I undertook this treatise. Apollo has encouraged me in the past, and now especially, when I have made your acquaintance, he clearly presides over my work, and has all but commanded me to compose this work.
Eusebius, Church History 4.23.12: 12 The same writer [Dionysus of Corinth] also speaks as follows concerning his own epistles, alleging that they had been mutilated: "As the brethren desired me to write epistles, I wrote. And these epistles the apostles of the devil have filled with tares, cutting out some things and adding others. For them a woe is reserved. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at if some have attempted to adulterate the Lord's writings also, since they have formed designs even against writings which are of less account." There is extant, in addition to these, another epistle of Dionysius, written to Chrysophora, a most faithful sister. In it he writes what is suitable, and imparts to her also the proper spiritual food. So much concerning Dionysius.
Rufinus, preface to On the Falsification of the Books of Origen: I do not think it can be doubted that it could in any way happen that a man of such an education and so prudent — which of course even his accusers can grant — a man who was neither foolish nor insane, would have written what is contrary to himself and repugnant to his own opinions. Or even if we grant that this could in some way have happened — for perhaps someone will say that in the decline of life he might have forgotten what he had written in his youth, and that he later brought forth things at variance with what he had formerly thought — what shall we do about the fact that sometimes in the very same passages, and, so to speak, in practically the next section, an opinion is found inserted that is of a contradictory sense? Could he have forgotten his own views in the same chapter of the same book, [or] sometimes, as we have said, immediately in the next section? For example, when he had said just before that nowhere in all the Scripture is it found that the Holy Spirit was said to have been made or created, would he immediately add that the Holy Spirit had been made along with the rest of the creatures? Or again, could he who has pointed out that the Father and the Son are of one substance — which is said in Greek as ὁμοούσιος — have said in the immediately subsequent sections that he is of another substance and was created, the one whom he had but a little before declared to have been born of the very nature of God the Father? Or again, concerning the resurrection of the flesh, was it possible that he who so clearly declared that the nature of the flesh ascended with the Word of God into heaven, and there appeared to the heavenly powers, presenting to them a new and marvelous sight of himself, has said, on the other hand, that this [flesh] is not to be saved? Since, then, these things could not happen even to a man who was out of his mind and who was not sound in the brain, I will briefly clarify the cause of this to the best of my ability.
We also have rather many indications that entire books could be forged under false names, but that topic seems to deserve a treatment unto itself. Bart Ehrman has published books dealing with ancient forgery of books.
I conclude (for now) with a quote from a modern researcher on the topic at hand:
Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church, pages 84-85: In providing copies of a work to friends an author effectively surrendered further personal control over the text. A recipient might make her copy available to another, who could then make a copy in turn. No expense was involved other than the cost of materials and, if need be, the services of a scribe. In this way copies multiplied and spread seriatim, one at a time, at the initiative of individuals who lay beyond the author's acquaintance. Since every copy was made by hand, each was unique, and every owner of such a copy was free to do with it as he or she chose. In this way a text quickly slipped beyond the author's reach. There were no means of making authoritative revisions, of preventing others from transcribing or revising it as they wished, of controlling the number of copies made, or even of assuring that it would be properly attributed to its author. In principle the work became public property: copies were disseminated without regulation through an informal network composed of people who learned of the work, were interested enough to have a copy made, and knew someone who possessed the text and would permit it to be duplicated. Thus a text made its way into general circulation gradually and for the most part haphazardly, in a pattern of tangents radiating from the points, ever more numerous, where the text was available for copying.
It is my feeling that the hazards of ancient book publication may have
particular implications for how early Christian and Jewish texts have come down to us.
Ben.