Roger Pearse

Not that I can see:

stephan huller

Roger, I should have known better with mountainman. Thanks for that. But back to the topic at hand.

But were all Christian despised? Remember Irenaeus's statement in AH 4.30.1 - 4 and the parallel in the Philosophumena, Dio Cassius and Eusebius 5.27. They weren't despised at the time of Commodus nor through the Severan period. Yes Alexandrian and Egyptian Christians were persecuted but not the Roman Church.

How were books accepted into the library? Were they purchased or donated by citizens and could they be refused?

Roger Pearse

You are welcome to your opinion, of course.

stephan huller

There is also this statement at the end of the Martyrdom of Polycarp:

The implication in the Moscow manuscript is that these things were kept in Rome. But where?

stephan huller

But if the Roman Church was favored in this period (Eusebius, Irenaeus, Philosophumena etc) especially in the age of Commodus and if the desire was there on the part of Irenaeus et al to preach their message to the better members of society what logical reason can there be to Christian writings not being present in the public libraries if no policy of discrimination can be demonstrated in that period. I am not saying I can prove it yet. It is just an open question with no answer. At least as far as I can see.

stephan huller

I think Irenaeus would have frowned on the idea of a 'secret collection' of books for the Christian church. Either the Christians had an open library for people to read as they wanted or they were in the public libraries, but they weren't kept hidden and secret like the heretics.

stephan huller

Bart Ehrman speaks about Pionius bringing the text of the Martyrdom of Polycarp 'out of hibernation' but from where? What library?

http://books.google.com/books?id=-pT...%3A%22&f=false

stephan huller

From this article:
and again:

Moreover Christian books could have come through a backdoor as it were of a private collection donated or appropriated to the public library:

Roger Pearse

Sam,

Stephan was perhaps a little abrupt, since he is chasing a particular idea. But your questions are reasonable, if off-topic. However Stephan is right, that you need to do a little research on these subjects, because writing essays in reply is not what any of us are here to do.

Here's a couple of pointers.

We do not date works based on the earliest extant copy. The earliest copy of most classical texts is 9th century. Ancient works do refer to each other, and later writers to them, so we get a clear idea of who is what. Eusebius' Church History in particular lists and quotes large numbers of early works, many of them lost. (The Syriac version of this exists in a 6th century copy that I have handled myself, I should add). Papyrus fragments exist of all sorts of things. I believe papyrus gospel copies are known from ca. 200 AD on.

Now I don't really think you are asking us to define Christianity to you? or I hope not. The concept of Christianity is found in the New Testament. Christ taught his apostles and other followers; the apostles' teaching to others defines "Christian" (heretics are obliged to fake texts under their names); the churches that they founded referenced this fact, and the memory of their teaching, to keep a clear idea of what they did and did not believe (hence lists of bishops, to show that the teaching was the same). Remember that John the apostle lived to 100 AD; and his disciple Polycarp was teaching in Rome in 155 AD; and Irenaeus, who knew Polycarp, was writing ca. 180 AD. There were doubtless many other such links.

Now you will find English translations of almost all the Christian literature until 325 AD here, and selections of material thereafter.

The founders of Christianity and their associates wrote the collection of books now known as the New Testament, and anything that had any real claim to belong to that circle ended up in that list, and circulated among the churches that they founded. Their successors are called the "apostolic fathers" and form a collection of late first / early second century literature. Notable among these are Ignatius and Polycarp.

We have ten authors from the second century. By 150 AD we move into the era of the apologists, and Justin Martyr is the man of the hour. Our knowledge of Christian literature in this period is distorted by an accident in the 10th century, where a bunch of early apologetic literature was collected for Arethas of Caesarea. Other forms of literature were not so lucky. Ca. 180 AD we have Irenaeus -- there is a papyrus fragment of his Adversus Haereses from the same date in existence, remarkably -- and then ca. 193 we have Tertullian. In the 3rd century we have a great deal of literature, notably Cyprian.

The idea of a "public library" in the modern sense is an anachronism. Such institutions did not exist in the ancient world.

Collections of books belonging to the state might exist anywhere. Athens had public official copies of the works of the dramatists, which were stolen by a ruse by Ptolemy and placed in the library of Alexandria.

Remember also that temples were repositories of objects of value, and that priests might have libraries.

Access to these collections would depend entirely on who you were, and on local policy. Think of them as private libraries which were made accessible more generally.

It was a private library.

Hebrew texts were owned by Jews. Greek translations of them were in the library of Alexandria.

Coptic did not exist until the 3rd century AD (there was Old Coptic). Turkish did not exist until modern times. Persian literature of antiquity was often oral; the Avestan texts were not written down until the 4th century, possibly in response to the Christian bible and the Christianisation of the Roman empire in the same period. Syriac and Aramaic texts probably were held in places like Edessa; parts of the Syriac/Aramaic world.

Yes. And inside Rome as well. When Fronto makes use of the library at the Domus Tiberiana, this is an imperial residence, rather neglected, and he finds that he can borrow books by bribing the freedmen in charge.

You are thinking of the age of printing, I see. In the modern age books are produced in quantities by publishers/printers, and sent to shops and stored in libraries for public access. None of these things are true in the age of hand-copying. A writer might read his work to friends, and produce a final draft, which slaves then copied. These copies might be sent to friends. They might be "released" for sale, by copying by bunches of slaves, as Cicero's works were. But there was no copyright. Anyone who got a copy could make more, by getting his own slave to make one.

The works of Mani were circulated in the usual way, from the 3rd century, by copying of individual copies.

I can see why Stephan got impatient, you know? These are wildly large questions. Zoroaster left no manuscripts. His teaching was oral. It was written down, as I said above, in Sassanid Persian times. Most of it is lost; the Moslems destroyed the "Grand Avesta" that was in every fire temple.

I know nothing about Buddhist mss; sorry.

Works travelled along the Silk Road in the middle ages by the same process as they went anywhere else. People made copies by hand, and then people took those copies elsewhere.

I hope this helps. But please; don't ask us to write essays on the entire history of knowledge, particularly in a somewhat truculent way. People get annoyed. Smaller questions, please, and one at a time.

I'm sure that someone will disagree with more or less every statement in what I have just written. I have not written with footnotes to every sentence, however; instead I have presumed that the query is honest and tried to give a brief, honest reply.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

stephan huller

I think you did a good job answering these leading questions which were put forward by a participant who already 'knows' where he wants the evidence to go and will be unhappy that your answers contradict his presuppositions.