stephan huller

None. But Irenaeus repeatedly says that 'everyone' who wants to can check the canonical gospels put forward by the Church and 'see' for themselves that they are authentic. This as a juxtaposition against the heretics who have a 'secret gospel' (Praescript 22 etc). Some might take that to mean that outsiders should come to local church locations and 'see for themselves.' But I find that hard to believe - i.e. that outsiders could come into local house churches and grab a manuscript and do all the stuff that was usually done in a library setting. I think a library is the most likely place to conduct 'library activities.'

Roger Pearse

It is always good to quote the original, as you do here. It shows us that the first quote is rather misleading.

Do you notice how the reference to Philo and Josephus being in the library is worded? It is "they were so good that they were actually thought worth including in the library!!!" These libraries are not general repositories, therefore; but select collections of materials "so much admired" (by the elite).

In other words, far from demonstrating that Christian works were in the public libraries, surely these demonstrate that the libraries held very restricted collections? That is, that it is most unlikely that Christian literature -- material hardly "so much admired" -- was found in them, at least until the 4th century.

stephan huller

I thought about that. But my take was that Jews generally spoke Aramaic and these select examples - i.e. Philo and Josephus - were 'good enough' to worthy of entry into the library because of their command of Greek.

watersbeak

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.i.html

So, this is a Latin version of a text originally written in Greek, and then reconstructed in the fourth century. Perhaps Irenaeus has it exactly right. Or, maybe this is a fictitious reference. Does Tatian comment on Irenaeus? What about Ephrem the Syrian? The Syrian discussed his countryman, Tatian, right, what about his other countryman, Irenaeus?

If we had asked Eusebius this question: Which libraries in the Roman Empire, past or present, contained "Christian" books, would Eusebius not have replied:
The gospels are found in _____, and the epistles are located in _________?

I cannot imagine Eusebius including commentaries as equivalent to gospels/epistles, i.e. "received texts", that is, texts coming from god, himself. "Christian" texts elaborate the divinity of Jesus, not the problems of Marcion. I doubt that the fourth century bishop, and trusted associate of the emperor, would have equated Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with Epiphanius, and Eusebius' predecessors, Origen and Pamphilus, or Tertullian.

Those persons' writings are of importance to us, and we think of them as "christian", but their writings are just human scribbles, not divine doctrine. For a library to contain "Christian" texts, it must have possessed the 4 gospels, in my opinion.

Sam

stephan huller

I stand by my assertion that Christian works were in the libraries. Jewish works were 'good enough' by virtue of their ability to write in Greek. Just look at the context of the statement in Eusebius. Philo spoke in front of the senate and Josephus imitated the Roman Histories of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. But Christians were Gentiles, had full command of Greek (and Latin) and were by and large making their appeal to the 'good people' of the Empire. I have little doubt about the apologists and third century writers being present in the libraries. My only question now is whether Celsus encountered the canonical gospels and the letters of Paul in the libraries. I don't know for certain about that.

Roger Pearse

You're welcome.

Yes, but the idea you put forward is an odd one. Most normal people wouldn't hold it, because everyone knows that it is found in Acts, in Pliny the Younger, and so on. So I wondered where you got it from: not to pillory you, but to warn you against that source. It's clearly something weird.

I did a TLG search on xristianoi. I get:

* Lucian, The passing of Peregrinus (and surely it's also in his Alexander of Abuteichnos?)
* Acts and Passion of Apollonius (= a martyrdom)
* Acts of John (apocryphal)
* Acts of Justin and his friends, 3x (= a martyrdom; these are authentic martyrdoms, not the fictions of the late 4th c. on)
* Cassius Dio (books 70, 71 and in Xiphilinus' epitome)
* Martyrdom of Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice
* Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, Stromata, fragments
* Marcus Aurelius' Meditations
* The Rhetorica Anonyma (what's that?)
* Justin Martyr's Apology, Dialogue (in lots of places)
* Letter to Diognetus (lots)

That's 50 results, all 2nd century, I think. (There are many more results, of course)

A couple more:

* Athenagoras,
* Celsus (lots)

stephan huller

With respect to Irenaeus, the Latin version is generally acknowledged to have been written or translated shortly after the Greek and was available in Carthage and Alexandria very shortly thereafter. I have always wondered how Clement, Cyprian and Tertullian all got their hands on Irenaeus. The answer IMO is again the public libraries.

Roger Pearse

Ah, no. The CCEL words are a bit concise.

The Latin translation is complete, and dates from the 5th c. It's perfectly sound. There is also an Armenian translation of books 4-5. So we have two sources for the Greek text of those two books.

CCEL is saying that substantial remains of the original Greek first book can be reconstructed today, by modern scholars, from quotations in Hippolytus and Epiphanius.

It is a great mistake to introduce the question of interpolation every time an author says something we find awkward. Because, of course, everyone can do it, for every passage in every author, and pretty soon we are not writing history based on ancient texts, but polemic based on selection, omission and misrepresentation. In general always presume a text has come down to us OK (for all normal historical purposes) unless there is a specific hard reason to suppose something amiss with a particular passage. People did copy books for a reason: they wanted a copy, not something different.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

stephan huller

I have this somewhere in the accompanying text to the Acts of the Pagan Martyrs called I think - the Acts of the Christian Martyrs. It is in Greek and Latin and for some strange reason Apollonius is called 'Apollos' throughout.

stephan huller

The Armenian references for Book Four I think are fragmentary and translated into German in the last century.