The Scarcity of Scribes in the Late Roman Empire

 

Roman Sarcophagus Relief 2nd CE

(William Rockhill Nelson Trust)

 

While reading through an article by Raffaella Cribiore I came across a reference to the scarcity of scribes in the late Roman Empire. 

"Texts copied in book hands were produced at a slower pace and a higher cost. Such specialized scribes were not always available and may have been in high demand. We know that some writers, such as Cassius Longinus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Basil of Caesarea, deplored their scarcity." (Cribiore, 258)

In a cover letter that accompanied his Contra Eunomium I, Gregory of Nyssa wrote to two students of Libanius, John and Maximian apologizing for the long delay of his work.

"We Cappadocians are poor in almost all the things that make those who possess them happy—and poor especially in those able to write. This indeed is the reason for the long delay of my treatise, for though my refutation of the heresy has been finished for some considerable time, there was no one to transcribe it. It was this lack of copyists that in all likelihood brought on us the suspicion of slackness or of inadequacy for the task" (Ep.15, trans., Anna M. Silvas)

In a letter to the Presbyter Paeonius Basil of Caesarea wrote 

"I have had no writer with me, neither calligraphist, nor short-hand. Of all those whom I happen to employ, some have returned to their former mode of life, and others are unfit for work from long sickness" (Ep. 134)

It was so bad for Basil that he took to training his own scribes for the task. Note his instructional letter to a scribe in training.

"Write straight and make the lines straight. Do not let your hand go too high or too low. Avoid forcing the pen to travel slantwise, like Aesop's crab. Advance straight on, as if following the line of the carpenter's rule, which always preserves exactitude and prevents any irregularity. The oblique is ungraceful. It is the straight which pleases the eye and does not allow the reader's eyes to go nodding up and down like a swing-beam. This has been my fate in reading your writing. As the lines lie ladderwise, I was obliged, when I had to go from one to another, to mount up to the end of the last: then, when no connection was to be found, I had to go back, and seek for the right order again, retreating and following the furrow, like Theseus in the story following Ariadne's thread. Write straight, and do not confuse our mind by your slanting and irregular writing." (Ep. 334)

Similarly, in his reply to Porphyry, Longinus of Athens complains that there are few scribes available to make copies of books.

"Whatever else you may be expecting, do not hope for anything new of my own, or even for the earlier works which you tell me you have lost; for there is a sad dearth of copyists here. I assure you it has taken me all this time to complete my set of Plotinus, and it was done only by calling off my scribe from all his routine work and keeping him steadily to this one task." (Porphyry, Vita Plotini, 19)

The anecdotal evidence from these 3rd and 4th century figures indicates that there was a scarcity of high-quality scribes. Even for those who were well educated and connected to others across the empire, finding a good copyist could be a difficult task.

_____________

Raffaella Cribiore, "The Dissemination of Texts in the High Empire." American Journal of Philology 140, no. 2 (2019): 255-290

Anna M. Silvas, Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters, Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2007)

Basil the Great and Ancient Manuscripts

Basil the Great

 A previous post discussed the useful life of ancient papyrus books and a few Church fathers that mentioned ancient manuscripts in their writings. It is a real treat when an ancient author explicitly references a textual reading, it is even more exciting when they mention the age and number of manuscripts that contain a particular reading.

The Majority of Copies
Basil of Caesarea (ca. 329-379 CE) explicitly mentions an interesting textual variant, Luke 22:36, in his Asceticon, Shorter Responses, 251. Here Basil mentions a reading that is found today in only one manuscript, the 5th century Codex Bezae (Nestle, Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, 340). Here Basil quoted Luke 22:36;

He [Jesus] said to them, “But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one." (ESV)

Basil notes that the majority of manuscripts (τα πολλα των αντιγραφων) contain the future tense "the one who has no money bag will take it" and today this reading is preserved in Codex Bezae alone. Basil apparently preferred the minority reading, the imperative "the one who has a moneybag take it" as it stands in modern Greek editions and English translations. We can tentatively infer from Basil's statements (whether by conscious editing or by chance) that textual traditions dominant in certain regions were later superseded.
It would have been difficult (even impossible) for ancient scholars to accurately assess the number of manuscripts that contained a particular reading. But knowledge of the broader textual tradition of the New Testament must have been accessible to a degree (at least in the region of Asia Minor) because Basil makes reference to "majority of manuscripts."

The Oldest Copies Handed Down
Basil made another interesting reference to an important textual variant in Ephesians. In his Against Eunomius 2.19, Basil used Ephesians 1:1 in countering Eunomius;

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are [in Ephesus], and are faithful in Christ Jesus." (ESV)

Basil left out the bracketed words "in Ephesus" and quoted the sentence as "to the saints who are" and declared that "those who came before us handed it down in this form, and we have found it in the oldest copies" (Donaldson, Explicit References, Vol II, 501). Though the vast majority of manuscripts today contain [in Ephesus], some of the oldest extant manuscripts of Paul's epistles do not contain this phrase, P46, Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus among others (Metzger, A Textual Commentary, 532; Comfort, New Testament Text, 577-579).

Codex Sinaiticus (4th cen.) with the marginal note "in Ephesus."

In referring to the manuscripts that did not read "in Ephesus," Basil used the same word, "παλαιος," that the corrector in the Colophon of Pamphilus in Codex Sinaiticus used to describe the "extremely old copy" that Sinaiticus was corrected against (see discussion here). If we consider again the useful life of ancient papyrus manuscripts, Basil was likely referring to copies of Ephesians that were a hundred or more years old.
Another interesting aspect of Basil's comment is that he wrote that these "ancient copies" were "handed down" from "those who came before." Basil used the verb "παραδεδωκασι" (handed down), a phrase that implies a formal tradition or body of teaching. This verb is related to the noun used by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:15, "παραδoσεις" to refer to the traditions he passed along to the Thessalonian Christians;

So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions (παραδoσεις) that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. (ESV)

Basil sheds some light on how he might have known which reading was in the "majority of manuscripts." When a textual variant changed the meaning of a text, how it was interpreted, or that it was traced to widely known editorial activity, then it may have been more widely known and even disseminated within Christendom. This must have happened in the case of  Asclepiodotus and Theodotus who apparently were altering their text to better accommodate their doctrinal views.
Eusebius wrote 120 or so years after the time of Asclepiodotus and Theodotus, yet he knew of their editing practices. This account he had learned from "a laborious work by one of these writers against the heresy of Artemon" which is no longer extant and is attributed to various Church fathers (Eusebius Hist. eccl. 5.28, NPNF 2.1:246). Perhaps Basil had learned of the age and preference for the manuscripts that did not contain "in Ephesus" through the writings of other Church fathers, such as Origen, who discussed this variant as well (Metzger, A Textual Commentary, 532).

Bibliography
Comfort, Philip W. New Testament Text and Translation Commentary. Carol Stream: Tyndale House, 2008.

Donaldson, Amy M. "Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings Among Greek and Latin Church Fathers" (PhD diss., University of Notre Dame) 2009.

Metzger, Bruce M. A Textual Commentary On The Greek New Testament. 2nd ed. New York: United Bible Societies, 1994.

Nestle, Eberhard. Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the Greek New Testament. Translated by W. Edie. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1901.

The Library of Caesarea: Exceptional or Representative?

6th cen. fresco discovered beneath the Lateran Chapel in
Rome, probably part of the ancient Lateran library

The previous article discussed the use of book-lists to inventory library collections in antiquity. George Houston's Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity, investigated several surviving book-lists on papyri and examined their features. These book-lists are representative of ancient practice and are illustrative of Christian book collections as well. In particular, Pamphilus cataloged the holdings of the Caesarean Library and later writers, such as Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 6.32.3), and Jerome (Vir ill. 38.), most likely utilized these lists in their studies.
But one may ask, "How representative of other Christian centers was the Caesarean Library? Was it exceptional?"

Early Christian Libraries
Eusebius tells us that Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, founded a library in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 3rd century (Hist. eccl. 6.20.1). This library of Jerusalem appears to have had extensive holdings and contained the works of Beryllus, Hippolytus, and the Dialogue of Caius with  Proclus (Hist. eccl. 6.20.2-3).
There seems to be no explicit mention of a library in Alexandria Egypt. But there was a famous catechetical school in Alexandria which flourished under Pantaenus in the late second century and later under Clement and Origen. Judging by the diversity of sources used by Clement and Origen (before he moved to Caesarea) there must have been an extensive library connected with the school (Gamble, Books and Readers, 161). It is likely that the Caesarean Library was patterned after the library of the catechetical school in Alexandria. Pantaenus personal library may have made up the nucleus of the Alexandrian catechetical school library in much the same way as Origen's personal library formed the nucleus of the Caesarean library.

Congregational Libraries
There are no other major libraries explicitly mentioned for other Christian centers in the first and second centuries. But most Church congregations would have had collections of Christian writings, epistolary material from inter-Church communications, and other archival material (Gamble, Books and Readers, 144). As early as the letter of 1 Clement (ca. 96 CE), one can ascertain that Clement must have had a modest library at his disposal in Rome for writing his letter to the Corinthian Church. Just a decade or so later Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 112 CE) indicated specific collections of writings when he referenced the "archives" of Old Testament writings (Ign. Phld. 8.2) and made reference to the letters of Paul (Ign. Eph. 12.2). The author of 2 Clement, in the early second century, alluded to specific book collections when making reference to "the books and the apostles" (2 Clem. 14.2).
Justin Martyr (ca. 140 CE) in Rome wrote of the universal practice of reading from Christian literature;

And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together to one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. (Apology, 1.67; ANF 1:186)

Of course, reading every Sunday would be impossible if Church congregations had no collections of books from which to select.
Irenaeus of Lugdunum, Gaul (France, ca. 180), had an impressive array of Christian literature at his disposal, orthodox and gnostic (Haer. 1.31.2). These gnostic and "heretical" writings must have been largely available because Irenaeus criticized Christians for not reading and familiarizing themselves with their "false" doctrines (Haer. 4.preface.2.).
Melito of Sardis (died ca. 180), was a Jewish Christian who wrote extensively on the Passover, the canon of the Old Testament, and composed an Apology to Marcus Aurelius (Hist. eccl. 4.13.8; Vir ill. 24).
These Church fathers are merely representative of the prolific literary out-put of many Church leaders of the first through the third centuries (Hippolytus, Tertullian, etc). These scholars must have had extensive book collections at their disposal and many of them wrote expecting their readers to understand their references to Christian literature.
By the time of the great persecution under Diocletian in 303, book collections in Church congregations had become so numerous that Roman officials began to round them up and burn them (Gamble, Books and Readers, 145). Even in places as far reaching as the town of Cirta in Numidia North Africa Roman officials located extensive book collections (Gamble, Books and Readers, 145). The Martyrdom of St. Felix and The Martyrdom of Saints Agape, Irene, and Chione, each give evidence of sizable Church libraries (Gamble, Books and Readers, 145-148).

Mosaic of a Book Cabinet 5th cen.

Christian Book Lists
Let us return to our original question, "How representative of other Christian centers was the Caesarean Library? Was it exceptional?" When it came to the practice of inventorying the library holdings, the Caesarean library was no exception. This practice appears to have been common in Roman society (Houston, Inside Roman Libraries, 39-40). Besides Pamphilus's cataloging efforts, there is an example of a Church or monastic community inventorying their holdings in the papyrus fragment dating to the early fourth century, P. Ash. Inv. 3, which lists out Old Testament writings, Gospel writings, and even a copy of the Shepherd of Hermas (Gamble, Books and Readers, 149).
Certainly, the Caesarean library was exceptional in its connections with Origen, and Eusebius. But this library was not exceptional in its collecting of Christian literature and cataloging of its holdings, as it was a Roman practice to do so. Therefore, anywhere there was a book-collection, there was likely a book-list to go with it.

Bibliography
Gamble, Harry Y. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995

Gregory, Andrew. The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.


Hill, C. E. Who Chose the Gospels? Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy. New York City: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Houston, George W. Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2014

Library Lists and Early Christian Canon

I recently finished reading through George W. Houston's Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity. Houston's detailed study of Roman libraries has opened new ways of looking at early Christian book collections (see previous entry on the useful life of ancient books).

Ancient Papyrus Book Lists
In chapter two of Inside Roman Libraries, Houston recounted an offhand remark that Cicero made to his slave-scribe Tiro;

Put the books away, and compile the list when Metrodorus [the doctor] tells you it’s OK, since you have to live by his instructions. (Cic. Fam. 16; Houston, Inside Roman Libraries, 39, n 1)

Apparently Tiro had fallen ill and Cicero was sending some books his way and wanted him to write up a list, an inventory of the collection, as soon as the physician gave Tiro a clean bill of health. Compiling an inventory list of a book collection was a common practice in antiquity as Cicero's comment to Tiro illustrates. Several of these lists have managed to survive into modern times (see picture of P.Ross.Georg. 1.22). Houston examined these surviving papyrus book lists in detail in chapter two of Inside Roman Libraries. Besides giving the author's name and the title of the work, some of these lists inventoried the books in alphabetical order by the author's name, indicated a particular work's completeness, that is, whether all of the work was represented, and the number of opisthographs [a book copied on the back of a re-used roll] (Houston, Inside Roman Libraries, 43). One list in particular may even have given some indication as to where the books in the list were stored, in a case, or in a specific room (Houston, Inside Roman Libraries, 84).

P.Ross.Georg. 1.22, an ancient book list

The Book Lists of Pamphilus
The previous article briefly examined the library of Pamphilus, the copies he produced, and the long useful life these manuscripts may have had. Houston's examination of ancient book lists illuminates another aspect of Pamphilus's scholarly activity, his cataloging of the library holdings. Eusebius wrote in his Church History;

After showing how great the diligence of Pamphilus was in divine things, we give in that a catalogue of the library which he collected of the works of Origen and of other ecclesiastical writers. Whoever desires may learn readily from this which of Origen’s works have reached us. (Hist. eccl. 6.32.3; NPNF 1:277)

Apparently in Eusebius's Life of Pamphilus, which is no longer extant, he gave a detailed list of the holdings of the Caesarean Library. This detailed list was made by Pamphilus himself and helped Eusebius indicate to his readers which works of Origen were still present in the library. Jerome may have also worked from these inventory lists, which were still available in the 5th century, in order to write-out the titles of Origen's works in his letter to Paula (Ep. 33; Gamble, Books and Readers, 157).

Eusebius also gave a detailed list of Clement of Alexandria's works (Hist. eccl. 6.13). It is possible that Eusebius was working from another inventory list of Pamphilus that cataloged the library's holdings of Clement's works. Jerome seems to have worked from the same list when he wrote about Clement in his Lives of Illustrious Men (Vir ill. 38). Of course, Jerome could have simply been working from Eusebius's Church History, but because the lists in Eusebius and Jerome differ slightly, it is more likely that they were working from a similar source.
It is possible that these works of Clement and Origen were recognizable collections in the library of Caesarea and kept in specific containers, shelves, or rooms. As mentioned above, Houston noted in Inside Roman Libraries, that some of the book lists preserved on papyrus actually gave a location for the cataloged books (p. 84). Houston also noted that some collections retained their identities for quite some time, such as the book collections of Lucullus and Sulla (p. 36) Galen mentioned that the collections of  “Callinia, Atticiana, and Peducaeana,” which contained accurate copies of various works, were destroyed in a fire (Houston, Inside Roman Libraries, 29). The book lists of Pamphilus, and the recognizable collections in the Library of Caesarea that they cataloged, would have been valuable for ancient scholars who sought out the authentic works of Clement and Origen. These book lists could have functioned as a means by which scholars could check copies of Origen's or Clement's works in order to verify their authenticity and check their textual accuracy.

Early Canon Lists
If we can take the Caesarean Library and the inventory lists as representative of other Christian libraries, and I think there is good reason to assume this. Then, Church libraries of major Christian centers such as Rome, Ephesus, Corinth, Smyrna, Antioch, and others, would have had similar inventory lists of their collections as well. Perhaps these lists aided early Christians in verifying certain writings as "authentically" apostolic. The author of the Muratorian fragment may have drawn upon just such a book-list when describing which writings were being read and accepted as authentically apostolic (Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament, 305-307). By comparing the inventory lists of major Christian centers, an ancient scholar would be able to determine which writings were being studied and/or read in the Churches.

Bibliography
Gamble, Harry Y. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Houston, George W. Inside Roman Libraries: Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2014

Metzger, Bruce Manning. The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.

Papias, "The Living Voice," and a WW2 Veteran

I have recently befriended a 92 year old World War Two veteran of the Army's  First Infantry Division. Because he entered the service early in the war, he saw action for over two years in some of the most fierce and pivotal battles of the European theater. I have become enthralled with the stories of his childhood during the depression era, and of course, with his combat experience in the war.

D-Day June 6th 1944

Each time that I have sat down to talk with him I quickly loose track of time, and it is not uncommon for us to talk for three hours non-stop. I came away exhausted after one of our discussions because I had apparently been sitting on the edge of my seat, tense with anticipation, as he recalled his landing on Omaha beach on that fateful June day of 1944.

I could not help but wonder if this was the same feeling that Christians of the late first century had while they sat around the aged apostle John as he recounted his experiences with Jesus and the apostles. Irenaeus wrote that John lived a very long life;

"...the Church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, and having John remaining among them permanently until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the apostles." (Adv. Haer. 3.4; ANF1)

Polycarp of Smyrna (died ca. 155CE) is said to have recounted stories that he had heard as a young man from the elderly apostle John. Stories that Polycarp told when he was himself an old man (Adv. Haer.  3.4 and Iren. Frag. II; ANF1).
The most famous account of listening to the elderly John comes from Papias, who wrote in his Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord;

"I will not hesitate to set down for you, along with my interpretations, everything I carefully remembered, guaranteeing their truth. . . . And if by chance someone who had been a follower of the elders should come my way, I inquired about the words of the elders—what Andrew or Peter said, or Philip, or Thomas or James, or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the Lord’s disciples were saying. For I did not think the information from books would profit me as much as information from a living and abiding voice. (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.39.3-4)"[1]

Now that I have spent some time with this World War Two veteran, I understand better why Papias would write that he preferred a "living and abiding voice" over what he could read in written accounts. It is not that Papias refused to read books at all, but that he enjoyed sitting on the edge of his seat as the elderly John and the other aged apostles and followers of Jesus and the apostles recounted their stories and experiences. I cannot wait until the next time I can put down William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in order to sit next to this World War Two veteran and listen to his experiences first hand.

---

[1] Michael W. Holmes, ed., The Apostolic Fathers: Greek texts and English Translations (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999), 565.

 

Eusebius and New Testament Textual Corruption: Part 2

I posted a link to one of my recent posts over on the New Testament Textual Criticism Facebook page and received a lengthy and engaging response that required more detail than a comment on Facebook would allow. I dealt with the first discussion in the previous post and more discussion followed in response to this post. I now hope to engage with the first point concerning textual corruptions. In a following post I will address the issue of Eusebius and the canonicity of certain books of the New Testament and the nature of the Cesarean library.

It is a true that there is no way to verify that Eusebius was recounting the story of Asclepiodotus and Theodotus correctly, we have to take his word on this, just as we do with all of his other quotations. I do not see why we should doubt that Eusebius is not accurately quoting the source. For example, most scholars take his quotation (Hist. eccl. 3:39.1-3; 15-16) from Papias’ “The Sayings of the Lord” seriously and these fragments are given in critical editions of the Apostolic Fathers (i.e. Holmes). Even if this account is fictional, it is representative of real occurrences that are known from the second century, such as the allegations against Marcion, that theologically motivated textual changes were being made. Deliberate corruptions often occurred during the process of transmitting,

circulating, and publishing ancient works.

In the case of Asclepiodotus and Theodotus recounted by Eusebius, I am not sure why we should not expect that there would have been no way to check these readings. Asclepiodotus and Theodotus had to get their exemplars of scripture from somewhere, those who lent them their bookrolls (or more likely codices) of the New Testament writings would know that these individuals changed the text (majorly) from the exemplars they loaned them, perhaps even years after they were loaned as the following example will illustrate. 
William Johnson in his work Readers and Reading Culture, drew attention to a group of bookrolls of classical texts from Roman Oxyrhynchus that contained marginal notations attributing different readings to different scholars (p.185-190; see especially the appendix p.193-199 for a list of bookrolls). One example Johnson noted on page 189, a marginal note in POxy 24.2387;

"This [passage] is wrongly inserted in copies [also in the] fifth (book), and in that book it was bracketed [in] Aristonicus's copy, but was left unbracketed in Ptolemy's."

This bears witness to a book-culture in which differing readings were attributed to different schools/scholars. I find it interesting that differing readings were marked by various notations, the "chi" being one of them. I am not suggesting that Christians necessarily treated their manuscripts in the same "scholarly" fashion, Christians had a different social view of reading than the Greco-Roman culture, and because of this Christian manuscripts were much more "serviceable" with a view to "practicality." However, there were some early Christians that did show a concern and care for their texts (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, etc). P66 shows some "diplai" in the text which may have been used to indicate differing readings (see Brice Jones' blog article). It is not unusual then to assume that the changes made by Asclepiodotus and Theodotus would have gone unnoticed/unchecked by the larger Christian community.
Antiquity and early Christianity are replete with references to situations where corruptions in the texts of works occurred and were noticed. These were corrected by either the author (re)producing an authorial copy, or reproducing/rewriting the text and re-circulating it (see Gamble, Books and Readers, 118-119).
Quintilian in the preface to his Institutes of Oratory wrote;

"I have been all the more desirous of so doing [writing this work on oratory] because two books on the art of rhetoric are at present circulating under my name, although never published by me or composed for such a purpose. One is a two days' lecture which was taken down by the boys who were my audience. The other consists of such notes as my good pupils succeeded in taking down from a course of lectures on a somewhat more extensive scale. I appreciate their kindness, but they showed an excess of enthusiasm and a certain lack of discretion in doing my utterances the honour of publication. Consequently in the present work although some passages remain the same, you will find many alterations and still more additions, while the whole theme will be treated with greater system and with as great perfection as lies within my power." (Inst. Or. 1. pr. 7-8)

Quintilian knew of these inferior texts because they were circulating within a community, his community. This problem of inferior texts circulating also plagued Christian writers as well. Tertullian wrote in his Adversus Marcionem,

"I am embarking upon a new work to replace an old one. My first edition, too hurriedly produced, I afterwards withdrew, substituting a fuller treatment. This also, before enough copies had been made, was stolen from me by a person, at that time a Christian but afterwards an apostate, who chanced to have copied out some extracts very incorrectly, and shewed them to group of people. Hence the need for correction. The opportunity provided by this revision has moved me to make some additions. Thus this written work, a third succeeding a second, and instead of third from now on the first, needs to begin by reporting the demise of the work it supersedes, so that no one may be perplexed if in one place or another he comes across varying forms of it." (Adv. Marc. 1.1)

 There was very little that could be done in the case of corrupted texts. When writing to his brother Quintus, Cicero wrote 

“As to the Latin books, I don't know which way to turn—they are copied and exposed for sale with such a quantity of errors!” (Cic. Quint. 3.6). 

The only recourse an ancient author had was to re-publish the text and notify those within the social networks that a newer/better text was being released for circulation in hopes that this new edition would supplant the inferior copies that were circulating. And this could only be done if those within the social-circle willingly desired to obtain a copy of this new work. In other words, it was through sheer popularity and demand that the new edition would out-do, so to speak, older or corrupted editions. I will come back to this fact of ancient publication practices in the next post, when addressing the issue of Eusebius and the canonicity of certain books. The important thing to note here is that (major) changes in a text were noticed. 
Early Christian writings were produced and circulated within social networks and the work of authors only gained popularity through word of mouth. Early Christianity evidences lively interaction even as early as the first century. We see Paul (or at least the first century Pauline school) alluding to this in Col 4:16 (see earlier post) and even expecting it. Clement of Rome wrote to Corinth because he had heard of their circumstances (all the way across the Adriatic) which required his interaction and communication thus occasioning the letter (see 1 Clem. 63:3-4, 65:1). Ignatius wrote to churches along his route to Rome and these in-turn interacted with each other (Phil. 11.2, Smyr. 12.1). Polycarp wrote to Philippi in answer to their request and appended copies of Ignatius’ letters within a short amount of time after Ignatius passed through the area (Poly. Phil. 13:1-2). At the end of the martyrdom of Polycarp we see a series of colophons attesting to sources from which copies of the martyrology were obtained which reveal a community of Christians circulating and interchanging literature (see Kim Haines-Eitzen discussing this in Guardians of Letters, 80-81). When the Shepherd of Hermas was written in the mid second century it was already being quoted by Irenaeus in 180, Clement ca. 200 and copies of it are located all the way across the Mediterranean in Egypt by the end of the second century (Kim Haines-Eitzen Guardians of Letters, 77). This reveals a rapid interchange within the earliest segments of Christianity. These same channels would facilitate the ability to retrieve copies of early Christian literature, ideas, doctrine, theology, and make MAJOR changes in the text of manuscripts known. It is because there was such an interchange of Christians in the first two centuries of the Christan era that Michael Holmes can write of a "macrolevel stability" with a "microlevel fluidity" of the New Testament text (Holmes, From Original Text to Initial Text, 674).

Coupled with this, there is evidence, though scant, of some churches, even smaller provincial congregations, having a collection of writings at their disposal (see Gamble, Books and Readers, 198-202). It appears that this account concerning Asclepiodotus and Theodotus occurred in Rome ca. 198-217 (Haines-Eitzen, Gaurdians of Letters, 37). Origen wrote that Celsus, the second century philosopher who was an ardent critic of Christianity, obtained copies of at least Matthew and very likely the other gospels as well (Origen Contra Celsum 2.34; C. E. Hill, Who Chose the Gospels?, 155-157). And from the perspective of Celsus, these gospels were being read by a large majority of Christians in Rome, he called them the "Great Church" (Origen Contra Celsum, 5.59).
 I will end with this caveat. When I say "major changes" to the text, I am using as a definition the description Michael Holmes gave after summarizing the textual evidence of the four gospels and Acts,

"In short, a very high percentage of the variation evident in the text of the Four gospels and Acts affects a verse or less of the text. On this level, the fluidity of wording within a verse, sentence, or paragraph is sometimes remarkable. At the same time, however, in terms of overall structure, arrangement, and content, these five documents are remarkably stable. They display simultaneously, in other words, what one may term microlevel fluidity and macrolevel stability."
(Holmes, From Original Text to Initial Text, 674).

Because of the "serviceability" of  early Christian manuscripts, it is understandable that "microlevel" variation would occur, but any "macrolevel" alterations to the text, "in terms of overall structure," these levels of changes would have more than likely been noticed. But Christians would have been powerless to control these corruptions. The only way would be through that of consensus, in which the larger social network of Christians would only wish to copy the "best" manuscripts, or at the very least, those with not "macrolevel" (i.e. major) alterations.
There is very little else I can say, except for expounding on what I have already said, to make the case that larger corruptions would have been noticed in the text. Therefore I will not respond to further queries in this regard. I hope to address the issues of Eusebius and the canonicity of some books in the near future.
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Eusebius and New Testament Textual Corruption (Part 1)

Eusebius and New Testament Textual Corription: Part 3

The above are in response to these previous posts

Asclepiodotus and Theodotus, the Banker: 'Corruptors' of Scripture 

A Riot in the North African Church! Augustine on Jerome's Translation of the Bible

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Bibliography

Gamble, Harry Y. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

Haines-Eitzen, Kim. Guardians of Letters Literacy, Power and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Hill, C. E. Who Chose the Gospels? Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy. New York City: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Holmes, Michael W. “From ‘Original Text’ to ‘Initial Text’: The Traditional Goal of New Testament Textual Criticism in Contemporary Discussion.” Pages 637-681 in The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the Status Quaestionis. Second Edition. Edited by Bart D. Ehrman and Michael W. Holmes. New Testament, Tools, Studies and Documents 42. Leiden: Brill, 2013.

Johnson, William A. Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities. Edited by Joseph Farrell and Robin Osborne. Classic Culture and Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Eusebius and New Testament Textual Corruption

I posted a link to one of my recent posts over on the New Testament Textual Criticism Facebook page and received a lengthy and engaging response that required more detail than a comment on Facebook would allow. I quoted the relevant portions of the question within the body of this blog post as I attempted to engage them critically. I hope that in my cutting and pasting I am not misrepresenting in any way.

“If we grant that copyists changed the texts, on what basis can we say that such changes would be noticed?”

We can say that the changes would very likely be noticed (eventually) because of what we do know (which is scant for sure) about ancient publishing practices. As Kim Haines-Eitzen noted in Guardians of Letters, “Classical and Christian literature alike appear to have circulated by the agency of social networks” (p. 78). Asclepiodotus and Theodotus would have received a copy of the particular New Testament writing that they were “altering” from other Christians (scribes) who themselves owned copies. This process would have occurred through a social network. Once a copy was made by either Asclepiodotus or Theodotus and these copies were then used to teach from and read from in their churches. The Christian circle from which the exemplar was obtained would still have contacts with Asclepiodotus and Theodotus’s circle. This interchange between these Christian groups would allow Christians who moved between them to “hear” or “read” the differences between the texts of the two communities.

I must confess that I “cherry-picked” the quote from Eusebius without fully grasping the surrounding context. It appears that Eusebius was actually quoting from a writer that was roughly contemporaneous with the events described and that the event in Hist. Eccl. 5.28.13-18 is a lengthy quotation from this writer. In Hist. Eccl. 5.27 he mentions the works of several theologians and apologists that were contemporaneous with the events in question and some of them he does not know the names of. Because Eusebius does not mention the name of the source he is quoting from, it is very likely that he did not know who actually wrote it. This in itself brings into question the trustworthiness of the account. Yet, there seems to be no reason to not take it at face value and trust it as a real contemporary account, or at the very least reflect circumstances that would have realistically happened and probably did happen.
Now to answer one of your other questions;

“For example, in the case of the adoptionists, they changed the texts (I'm not sure to what degree) and were found out by Eusebius. But perhaps Eusebius only noticed because they were adamant adoptionists, which automatically raises suspicions about their texts (assuming they grounded their adoptionism in scriptural witnesses). In other words, were the changes noticed because texts were read by many, or were they noticed because of the unique qualifications of Eusebius?”

As I noted above, apparently it was not Eusebius who noticed these difference but a contemporary writer. It is difficult to know if this writer knew of their adoptionist tendencies and then went looking for other issues or not, it is impossible to tell from the scarcity of the information. But whether they found out about the changes first, or they went looking for their scribal alterations after hearing of their “heresy” makes no difference in my mind. In either way they would have learned about the changes through the same social networks that Asclepiodotus and Theodotus obtained an exemplar of the New Testament book(s) they copied from and subsequently “altered.”

“If we had a scribe/copyist who felt a passage was wrong and they correct it, would that be caught by a congregation/theologian? In the case of the OT readings, there could be a local comparison, but in case of the NT readings, perhaps there would not be.

Eusebius' recounting of the controversy points out that Christians in some situations could be adamantly opposed to a perceived corruption in the text and yet have no recourse to other copies of the text, pushing them to ask Jewish advice. What would happen if the text was in the NT?”

(I think you ment the say "Augustine's recounting.") Again, because early Christian writings were circulated within social constructs, it is difficult to imagine that there would be no other copies of the New Testament from which to compare. But I suppose it could be possible.

“So for example, Eusebius could claim that Jesus said he would be three days in the earth, not three days and nights. He could claim that there are texts circulating that are corrupt, and i don't know who could really oppose him on this, given that he had the means to actually produce these texts. Since the change in meaning would be negligible for most people, it could be accepted and even become the dominant reading in the future.”

Eusebius’ work of Church History would itself have been published and circulated within a community of Christians and non-Christians, as apparently Celsus and Justin Martyr’s Jewish friend Trypho could obtain copies of the gospels and study them. These social circles would have copies of their own, again, to compare and examine Eusebius’ claims. It is hard to imagine the Christians who requested copies of Eusebius’ Church History in order to make a copy for themselves did not have access to the Library at Ceaserea. Especially considering Eusebius’ successor Pamphilus was famous for lending out copies and even giving away copies of texts to outsiders (see Jerome Apology against Rufinus 1.9).

“In the example from the blog the mistake was made because the phrase in question was used liturgically. But for the majority of the Bible, this does not apply.”

I can only answer this question by quoting Harry Gamble,

 “Although from time to time the Church appealed to various criteria of canonicity (e.r. authorship, derivation from the apostolic period, orthodoxy, etc.), the ultimate criterion for the canonical, authoritative status of a book was its reception by the Church, and there could be no more certain or compelling indication of reception by the church than that such a book had over long years been publicly read in the service of worship” (Literacy, Liturgy, and the Shaping of the New Testament Canon, 37).

I would say that for the majority of the New Testament, it had been read in the Church in the early periods of the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries, otherwise they would not have been considered in official lists of canonical books in the later Church councils.
I am not trying to say that manuscripts could never be corrupted or that Christians in the congregation would riot at the slightest changes in the text. It has been well documented scholarly sources that New Testament texts were "servicable" (see especailly Harry Gamble and Larry Hurtado) and slight differences in the text would be expected. But I find it hard to believe that major or significant alterations could have taken place at the earliest stages of a work being circulated without the author eventually learning about it. But it did happen, again, as the ancient authors lamented over this fact.
Thank you again for your excellent and engaging questions!
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Eusebius and New Testament Textual Corription: Part 2

Eusebius and New Testament Textual Corruption: Part 3

The above are in response to these previous posts

Asclepiodotus and Theodotus, the Banker: 'Corruptors' of Scripture 

A Riot in the North African Church! Augustine on Jerome's Translation of the Bible