Bible studies, contributions chiefly from papyri and ... - Predestination

16 BIBLE STUDIES. [202, 203
to the genuine man. From the epistle that was genuine in
a mere literary sense there was but a step to the fictitious
epistle ; while the genuine letter could at best be mimicked,
the genuine epistle was bound to be imitated, and, indeed,
invited to imitation. The collections of genuine letters
indirectly occasioned the writing of epistles : the collections
of genuine epistles were immediately followed by the litera-
ture of the fictitious epistle.
II.
7. In the foregoing remarks on questions of prin-
ciple, the author has in general tacitly presupposed the
literary conditions into which we are carried by the Graeco-
Koman civilisation, and by the modern, of which that is
the basis. ^ These inquiries seem to him to demand that we
should not summarily include all that has been handed down
to us bearing the wide, indefinite name of letter, under
the equally indefinite term Literature of letters (Brief-
litteratur), but that each separate fragment of these in-
teresting but neglected compositions be set in its proper
place in the line of development, which is as follows
—
real
letter, letter that has subsequently become literature, epistle, ficti-
tious epistle. Should it be demanded that the author fill
up the various stages of this development with historical
references, he would be at a loss. It has been already in-
dicated that the first member of the series, viz., the letter,
belongs to pre-literary times : it is not only impossible to
give an example of this, but also unreasonable to demand
one. With more plausibihty one might expect that some-
thing certain ought to be procured in connection with the
other stages, which belong in a manner to literary times,
' The history of the literature of " letters " among the Italian Humanists
is, from the point of view of method, specially instructive. Stahr, Avistutelia,
ii., p. 187 f., has already drawn attention to it. The best information on
the subject is to be found in G. Voigt's Die Wiederbelebung dcs classisclien
Altcrthumfi odcr das erste Jahrhundert des Humanismus, ii.", Berlin, 1893,
pp. 417-436.