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

30 BIBLE STUDIES. [221, 222
ing of similar literary transactions.
" Cicero did not himself
collect the letters he had written, still less publish them, but
even during his lifetime his intimate friends were already
harbouring such intentions." ^ " After Cicero's death the
collecting and publishing of his letters was zealously promoted
; in the first place, undoubtedly, by Tiro, who, while
Cicero was still hving, had resolved to collect his letters." ^
Cornehus Nepos, according to a note in that part of his
biography of Atticus which was written before 34 B.C., had,
even by that date, a knowledge, from private sources, of the
'^
letters to Atticus " they were not as yet published, indeed,
;
as he expressly says, but, it would appear, already collected
with a view to publication. The first known mention of a
letter from Cicero's correspondence being published is found
at the earliest " in Seneca."^ The following details of the
work of collection may be taken as established."^ Atticus
negotiated the issue of the letters addressed to him, while
the others appear to have been published gradually by Tiro ;
both editors suppressed their own letters to Cicero. Tiro
arranged the letters according to the individuals who had
received them, and published the special correspondence of
each in one or more volumes, according to the material he
had. Such special materials, again, as did not suffice for a
complete volume, as also isolated letters, were bound up in
miscellanea (embracing letters to two or more individuals),
while previously pubhshed collections were supplemented in
later issues by letters which had only been written subse-
quently, or subsequently rendered accessible. The majority
of these letters of Cicero are " truly confidential outpourings
of the feelings of the moment," ^ particularly those addressed
to Atticus— " confidential letters, in which the writer ex-
' Teuffel-Schwabe, i., p. 357, quotes in connection with this Cic. ad
Attic, 16, 5 6 (44 B.C.) mearum epistularmn nulla est a-vvaywyf), sed habet Tiro
instar LXX, et quidem su7it a. te quaeda^n swne.ndae ; eas ego opm-tet perspiciam,
corrigam ; turn denique edentur,—and to Tiro, Fam., 16, 17i (46 B.C.) tuas quc-
que epistulas vis referri in volumina.
•i Teuffel-Schwabe, i., p. 357. ^ Ibid.
* Ibid., p. 358. •* Ibid., p. 83.