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

26 BIBLE STUDIES. [217, 218
often been considered as epistolographers, and the misunder-
standing may have been abetted by the vulgar notion that
those celebrated men had the consciousness of their cele-
brity even when they laughed and yawned, and that they
could not speak or write a single word without imagining
that amazed mankind was standing by to hear and read. We
have not as yet, in every case, identified those whom we
have to thank for real letters. But it will be sufficient for
our purpose if we restrict ourselves to a few likely instances.
The letters of Aristotle (f 322 B.C.) were published at a
very early period : their publication gave the lie, in a very
effective manner, to a fictitious collection which came out
shortly after his death. ^ These letters were " true letters,
occasioned by the requirements of private correspondence,
not products of art, i.e., treatises in the form of letters ".^
This collection is usually considered to be the first instance
of private letters being subsequently published.^ It is there-
fore necessary to mention them here, though, indeed, it is
uncertain whether anything really authentic has been pre-
served among the fragments which have come down to us ;
by far the greater number of these were certainly products
of the fictitious literary composition of the Alexandrian
period.^—The case stands more favourably with regard to
the nine letters transmitted to us under the name of Isocrates
(f 338 B.c.).^ The most recent editor" of them comes to
the following conclusions. The first letter, to Dionysios, is
authentic. The two letters of introduction, Nos. 7 and 8, to
Timotheos of Heracleia and the inhabitants of Mitylene
respectively, bear the same mark of authenticity :
^ Von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Antigonos vmi Karystos, p. 151.
- Stahr, Aristotelia, i., p. 195.
"so
*
much
' Von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Antigonos von Karystos, p. 151 ; Suse-
mihl, ii., 580.
^ Hercher, pp. 172-174. ^ Susemihl, ii., 580 f.
« Hercher, pp. .319-336.
"Von Wil&movfitz-MoeWendorfi, Aristoteles U7id AtJien, ii., pp. 391-399.
It is unfortunate that some of the most recent critics of Paul's Letters had
not those few pages before them. They might then have seen, perhaps,,
both what a letter is, and what method is.