My Second New Topic (I Want People to Like Me)

[Secret Alias]

Do you think there is a relationship with Paul's 13 Epistles? If you do maybe we can be friends.

[Peter Kirby]

There's certainly something to be said about the reception history and influence of the letter collection(s) attributed to Plato. I found this comment showing that there was awareness of a letter collection attributed to Plato in the first century. Two different "orders" are known, with an assumption here that the larger collection preceded the smaller one. The ancient references are important because most of the manuscripts are not themselves ancient.

https://clahresearch.wordpress.com/2018 ... he-orders/

Putting aside the question of authenticity, the earliest evidence for the existence of the collection suggests it was formed fairly early: Diogenes Laertius (3.61), reporting the content of Thrasyllus’ division of Plato into nine groups of four works each (the ‘tetralogies’), gives the same addressees for the thirteen letters as in our manuscripts (with one exception, Aristodemus for Aristodorus, which is probably an error). This suggests the collection was formed at least by the first century AD, possibly earlier, since Cicero (first century BC) refers to letters 7 (Tusc. Disp. 5.35; De Fin. 2.28) and 9 (De Fin. 2.14 and De Off. 1.7); part of letter 8 (356a6-8) survives in a third century BC papyrus (P.Worp=P.Lugd. Bat. XXXIII 1).

The collection has survived in two orders. The first is the order 1-13, which has descended as part of the wider Platonic corpus (and which is reflected in modern printed editions of the collection). This is the oldest order and seems to have been preserved intact at least since the arrangement of Thrasyllus (first century AD), positioning the letters at the end of the ninth tetralogy. The oldest manuscripts of the Platonic corpus are Parisinus 1807 (=9th century AD) and (of about the same age) its apograph Vaticanus 1 (ninth-tenth century AD), both of which contain the letters in the order 1-13, positioned at the end of the ninth tetralogy, followed by the Definitions and the spurious dialogues.

The 1-13 order seems to reflect a narrative with flashbacks in letters 1-4, a pause in letters 5 and 6, with the narrative continuing in letters 7 and 8, focusing on Plato’s unhappy association with the Syracusan court. The last five letters (9-13) take us back to an earlier stage, before the end of the events as described by letter 8. The narrative is thus roughly chronological in the first section (1-8), the events being presented in dramatic retrospect, which the second section (9-13) then exploits to advert to the dramatic irony of the earlier phase of the relationship between Plato and Dionysius II.

The second order, which has received much less scholarly attention, is derivative from the first one; it consists of a selection of the thirteen without interrupting their order: 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 10. These six letters address respectively Dionysius II (the tyrant of Syracuse, the addressee of both 1 and 2), Dion (engaged in a struggle for control of Syracuse, who overcomes Dionysius II but is later killed), Perdiccas III, king of Macedonia, Archytas of Tarentum (the philosopher and general), and finally Aristodorus (in a very brief letter commending him for his support of Dion; he is otherwise unknown). This order needs more attention, but one can perhaps see that the first three letters tell briefly the story of Plato’s association with Dionysius II and then his support for Dion, who has overcome Dionysius II, thus miniaturising the story of the struggles for supremacy at Syracuse, while the latter three letters show Plato engaged in more typical epistolary communication, writing a letter of recommendation (letter 5) and apparently responding to one in letter 9, while writing a short affirmation of his addressee’s ‘true philosophy’ in letter 10.

As such the selection perhaps reflects the context in which it is found in the manuscripts, since in the manuscripts reflecting the derivative order 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 10, the letters are transmitted mainly with other Greek epistolographers, especially philosophers, often near the collections of the letters of the Socratics and the Cynics. When exactly these collections of epistolographers (or ‘epistolaria’) were compiled is uncertain, but they could date as back as early as the fourth century AD, because the collection 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 10 is often preceded by excerpts from letter 2, which are also found in Stobaeus (fifth century AD).

In a very important sense, then, this post on the Plato collection epitomises the project: we’re attempting not only to establish ancient ordering(s), but also the effects those orders have on reading practices including especially ancient orders that have been neglected in the modern critical tradition. Much more work remains to be done!

[Peter Kirby]

It's well known that Pauline letter collection(s) address 7 churches (+/- how Ephesians is understood), as does the letter collection embedded in Revelation. There's also a 7 letter collection attributed to Ignatius.

Perhaps it's significant that Plato's letters basically have 7 different addressees (or categories of addressees), like the Ignatius collection and the Revelation collection, and (just possibly) like an early form of the Pauline letter collection (without the pastorals, possibly without Philemon).

If this makes sense, then the Pauline letter collection is in a way more similar than the others to the letter collection attributed to Plato, given the way it doubles up on some addressees (e.g. multiple letters to the Corinthians).

I'm not sure if this is enough to show direct influence of Plato's letter collection here, but it does seem like people did pay attention to the number of items in such collections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistles_(Plato)

The addressees of the Epistles fall into three main categories. Four are addressed to Dionysius II of Syracuse (i, ii, iii, xiii), four to Dionysius' uncle Dion and his associates (iv, vii, viii, x), and five to various others (the Fifth to Perdiccas III of Macedon; the Sixth to Hermias of Atarneus, Erastus, and Coriscus; the Tenth to Aristodorus; the Eleventh to Laodamas; and the Ninth and Twelfth to Archytas).

[Secret Alias]

Might also be the source of the four = one gospel.