aa5874

Was it common in antiquity for writers of sacred works to sell their writings to the public? For example, gMark, when was it considered sacred and was it likely to be sold for profit?

In any given sect, would the followers be expected to each have a complete written text of the sacred writings or would there be only one sacred writing and only seen by a high ranking official within the sect?

When Justin Martyr wrote 'First Apology' to the emperor, did he write only one copy originally and did Justin sell copies of "Dialogue to Trypho" to the public?

I am beginning to realise that it must not be assumed that all writings of antiquity were widely circulated, some may have been only known within a very small circle.

Sheshbazzar

I believe that is the very reason that many early Christian writings went virtually unchallenged even when their contents were obviously either fabricated or historically incorrect. Having no regular dissemination amongst the populace or exposure to opposition viewpoints, these documents would only need have outlasted anyone contemporary who might have otherwise been able to debunk their claims.

DCHindley

aa,

I've wondered that too.

There is a fairly thorough discussion of these issues in Harry Gamble's Books and Readers in the Early Church (or via: amazon.co.uk) (Yale UP, 1995). It pretty much covers the formal publication process in antiquity, mainly among the elite classes. However, he does cover the role of booksellers in disseminating these works (pages 53, 86-87, 91-92).

Early Christian literaure, on the other hand, not being literary or scientific productions of the elite classes, may have gone through somewhat different processes of creation, editing and publication than Gamble describes.

Suggestions for the editing and publication of the Pauline letters is offered by David Trobisch in Paul's Letter Collection (or via: amazon.co.uk) (1994, 2001), and for the NT as we have it today in First Edition of the New Testament (or via: amazon.co.uk) (2000).

I have long argued that the synoptic gospels and Acts were essentially propaganda (I use the term in its neutral sense), perhaps better paraphrased as "apologies," serving a similar function as Justin's Apologies did (but obviously written in different genres).

But, how does one publish an apology anyway? It has been suggested (I am going off the top of my head, I could not provide citations at the moment) that Justin and the other's publishing formal apologies (as opposed to informal ones like the gospels or Acts, although it was probably similar) never really expected the emperors to actually read them (or listen to them being read). It was released on the bookseller market in order to spread the word (i.e., "explain") what Christianity was all about (in the writer's time and circle at least) to the non-Christian world.

I don't know if they had them copied and distributed to booksellers for free in hopes that they would get passed around, or just offered for sale to other Christians as a fundraising tool, in which case it would have really amounted to preaching to the choir. They could also donate them to pagan patrons, etc.

To me, early Christianity was in origins a revolutionary movement that in time, on account of having lost any hope of political overthrow of Roman rule, evolved into a form of mystery religion. In the time I think the gospels and other NT literature was written (very late 1st and 2nd century CE), Christianity was no longer the subversive revolutionary movement that the common Roman subject thought of it as, and the Christiand had to set them "straight" and get some positive PR.

DCH

aa5874

Was "Against Marcion" just a personal gripe from Tertullian that virtually no-one read, or was it on the "best-sellers" list?

If one looks at the situation today, we have biblical scholars or writers who get their writings publish although their views are not mainstream and do not in general represent the doctrine of any Church, now if the writings of these fringe scholars are collected and stored for hundreds of years and all other mainstream writings are deliberately discarded and destroyed, then those fringe writings, when read hundreds of years later, would not really reflect the doctrines or postions of the Church today.

Would it be possible for some-one to find a copy of an Earl Doherty writing, let's a thousand years from now, and think that Earl Doherty was an evangelist and a missionary who converted millions to the mythical Jesus?

DCHindley

I think Tertullian wrote his works to be read. He was a lawyer by trade, and apparently a good one, but lawyers in his time and location were generally more rhetoricians than law experts as we think of lawyers today.

However, I think he got read by Christians who were literate and attached to households of patrons who allowed them enough freedom to do private thinking unrelated to their work for the patron, including buying of or paying for the copying of books not on the patron's "favorite authors" list. This had to represent a miniscule portion of the Christian population, and would be folks like Origen and Clement of Alexandria.

Passages from Tertullian's works may have been read aloud to small discussion groups of similar minded "sophisticated" Christians, and those of his ideas and opinions that resonated among the hearers may then pass down verbally to those they associated with. Like apologists today, they get asked leading questions about their faith, either attacking it for some perceived defect (superstition, subversive, unrefined or common), or in an attempt to steer them to a different intrpretation of it (gnostic or Marcionite), and the faithful want to have ready replies. Marcion was, in effect, the Josh McDowell of N. African Christianity. Origen and Clement of Alexandria served similar roles in Alexandria and/or Asia Minor.

That is a whole different process than modern publication in the west, where the vast majority are literate, books are printed from plates and not hand copied, and are plentiful and relatively cheap.

I do not think that Earl would be considered the messiah of mythicism in your scenrio because he never claims to be such and the context of his narrative would tell us that he is proposing an alternative explanation to the more commonly accepted ones.

Now, if you were to propose that the only thing future historians had to go on about Earl was what was said about him by JM proponents here, they'd conclude he walked on water! That is why primary sources (Earl's own works) are preferable to secondary sources (hearsay).

DCH

aa5874

If Christians were being persecuted and executed for their beliefs, then I find it difficult to think that their writings were well circulated. And, as in "Against Celsus", Christians are depicted as followers of some type of secret religion, where they have their meetings in secret.

The picture I am getting of Christianity, that is followers of Jesus, believers of the bodily resurrection , in the 2nd century, is that of extremely small fragmented sects whose writings probably mainly circulated within a small network.

Paganisn was orthodox, the emperors were all pagans, the believers of the bodily resurrection of Jesus were considered atheists and Christians in general, they were being persecuted and killed, they may have their properties confiscated and incarcerated.

They had to go underground, they operated in secret, it would follow that their writings circulated secretly and under clandestine conditions. And I think that is why, according to Justin Martyr, Theophilus and others, that many false rumours were spread about Christians, like sacrificing babies when they meet in their secret sessions.

After encountering so much blantant errors, mis-leading, and completely fictious information both in the NT and the writings of the Church fathers, it is my view that it is likely that these writings may not have been circulated publicly, since they would have been immediately recognised as fraudulent or filled with errors.

When one reads Suetonius "Twelve Caesars", one sees detailed writings, where chronology, characters and events are presented very comprehensively, however no such details are presented by any of the four anonymous authors and the Church fathers about Christianity, theirs are a chronological nightmare, with unknown characters and events operating in the supernatural world.

Did Suetonius ever read or see gMark or the epistles of Ignatius?

This is Suetonius' description of Tiberius who lived at the same time as the so-called Jesus.
What would the public expect to read about Jesus after reading Suetonius' description of Tiberius who lived during the same time as the so-called Jesus?

Matthew 1.18 I wonder if Suetonius or the public ever saw or read about that Jesus or was it being circulated in secret by a persecuted secret society, as Pliny the younger and Celsus seemed to imply.

andrewcriddle

On the other hand Celsus seems to have been able to get hold of and read Christian writings as a preliminary to writing an attack on Christianity.

It was only the later organised Empire-wide persecutions that took action against the possession of Christian literature as such.

IMO it was not difficult for people who really wanted to get to read Christian writings, however "really wanted" would in practice, given the illegal status of Christianity, mean the small group of believers and sympathizers and the even smaller group of committed opponents.

Andrew Criddle

Roger Pearse

We learn from the preface of Tertullian Adversus Marcionem that the work we now have -- 5 books -- is the third edition. A first edition was too brief; a second was stolen by a "former brother" who published it for money before it was quite completed (it is possible that some of it survives in the second half of Adversus Judaeos), and thus he was driven to a third version.