Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World

Philosophers, Jews and Christians

H. Greg Snyder

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781134603367
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World presents a comprehensive and accessible survey of religious and philosophical teaching and classroom practices in the ancient world. H. Gregory Snyder synthesizes a wide range of ancient evidence and modern scholarship to address such questions as how the literary practices of Jews and Christians compared to the literary practices of the philosophical schools and whether Christians were particularly noteworthy for their attatchment to scripture.
Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World will be of interest to students of classics, ancient history, the early Christian world and Jewish studies.

1
“Not Subjects of a Despot”: Stoics

While on holiday in the country, Cicero wished to consult some books not in his possession, so he repaired to the library of his friend Lucullus. There, he found Marcus Cato "surrounded by piles of Stoic books."¹ Stoics were apparently famous for their literary production: Plutarch describes Chrysippus as a man who put down absolutely everything that came into his head, while Lucian satirizes the bookishness of Hcrmotimus, an aspiring and rather ingenuous adherent of Stoicism.² Members of the School had a reputation, it seems, for being eager producers and consumers of books.

In this and subsequent chapters, I will generally follow a basic template when approaching the literary practices of the Schools, moving from less invasive to more invasive procedures. So I will consider whether the group(s) in question bothered to collect and organize their School texts, and whether they sought to maintain them through textual criticism. Then, we shall ask about the practice of commentary. Following this, we will explore more invasive procedures that involve "re-presenting" the texts: altering them either by epitomizing, paraphrasing, or expanding. Finally, we shall pursue the question of use, exploring any available testimony that promises to shed light on the way that members of these groups used books in their gatherings.

Placing the Stoics up against this template, we find it possible to vault quickly over the first few sections. While it would be rash to claim that no Stoics cared to organize and preserve their texts or to write commentaries upon them, the lack of evidence about these types of activities suggests that Stoics simply did not pursue these practices as avidly as members of other Schools. There is little evidence that Stoics thought it important to establish a recognized canon of the works of their founders, or to engage in textual criticism on these works; nor did they write commentaries on the texts of Zeno, Chrysippus, or Cleanthes. The Suda, a tenth-century encyclopedia of ancient words, writers, and writings, attributes a four volume commentary to a certain Aristocles of Lampsacus, but Aristocles is otherwise unknown and the Suda is notoriously unreliable in such matters.³ They preferred, it seems, to comment on Homer; perhaps Homer should be considered a school text for Stoics. Some Stoic writers and teachers repackaged the writings of their founder-figures: Cornutus' Epidrome is one example, and this will be treated before we broach the subject of use. What we do have in relative abundance is evidence from Epictetus and Seneca about the role of written texts within two very different kinds of teaching situations. In his notes from Epictetus' class, Arrian shows how written texts functioned in one philosopher's classroom. Seneca's correspondence with Lucilius yields a glimpse of the role of books in another philosopher's private reflection and moral formation. The Diatribes of Musonius Rufus will occupy us briefly, but the material from Epictetus and Seneca offers the most promise.

“Things handed down to us”: re-presented texts

As this study proceeds, it will become evident that adherents of many of the Schools (and schools) under investigation epitomized, anthologized, commented upon, and freely rewrote their central texts. As noted, however, there is very little evidence for these practices in the case of the Stoics. One partial exception is Cornutus' Compendium of the Traditions of Greek Theology, or Epidrome, a book containing etymological remarks on ancient myths that the author has culled from earlier Stoic texts and traditions and re-presented in convenient handbook form.⁴ A contemporary of Seneca, L. Annaeus Cornutus was the author of numerous philological, philosophical, and rhetorical works; he was also a mentor to Persius and Lucan.⁵ Apart from the Epidrome, we possess only fragments and echoes of many lost works: one directed against Aristotle's Categories, a book on the soul, commentaries on Virgil, a treatise on figurative language, an unknown number of books on rhetoric, on Latin orthography, and finally a two-volume work, probably on Stoic physics.⁶ His exile (or death, according to some sources), probably took place between 63 and 65 CE.⁷

At the conclusion of the Epidrome, Cornutus expresses his hopes for the book:

Although this {the subject matter of the work as a whole} has been said at greater length and in greater detail by the older philosophers, it was my desire to hand them on to you in this condensed form in our days. For a ready knowledge of these matters even to this brief extent is useful.

The goal is that "young men be introduced to piety but not to superstition, and taught to sacrifice and to pray, to worship and to take oaths in proper fashion and appropriate moderation in whatever situation may arise."⁸ In short, Cornutus hopes that readers of this work might become properly educated citizens, neither departing from their cultural heritage, nor accepting it in a naive and superficial way. Encouraging as it does the proper practice of piety, sacrifice, and prayer, the enterprise is thoroughly religious in character — hardly philosophical by modern standards.

At first glance, the Epidrome does not exhibit the features of a Stoic school text; none of the Stoic fascination with dialectic is in evidence, for example. Instead, the author uses etymology to interpret ancient myths in terms of Stoic physics. Information about the origin and structure of the universe is concealed within the names of mythological characters. Here is how the text begins:

The "Heaven (ouranos)," my child, encloses in its circle the earth, the sea, and all things upon the earth and in the sea. And that is why it obtained its designation: because it is the upper boundary (ouros) of the universe and delimits (horizōn) nature. There are some, however, who say that it is called ouranos from its "tending to (ōrein or ōreuein)," i.e., guarding, entities .... Yet others derive it from "to be seen above (borasthai anō)."⁹

The etymology of Hera, for example, derives from the Greek term for air (aēr). So when the myth-makers report that Zeus punished Hera by hanging her from the ether, attaching heavy weights to her feet, it means that air is stretched downwards, anchored by earth and sea (Epidr. 26.14—15). Kronos is said to devour his children since Time (chronos) likewise devours all things (Epidr. 7.4—5); Apollo (the sun) and Artemis (the moon) are both represented as archers because of their far-ranging rays (Epidr. 65.1—4). Ancient poets, says Cornutus, are simply discussing Stoic physics in a mythopoetic idiom.

Careful study shows that the Epidrome owes extensive debts to earlier Stoic literature. Judgments about sources are problematic, however, since Cornutus never gives a citation for any of his etymologies. Zeno, Chrysippus, and Cleanthes are clearly among his sources, as are other Stoic teachers.¹⁰ Cornutus' decision not to explicitly name his sources is puzzling: it would have been a simple matter to insert, "Chrysippus said," or "Zeno wrote," and by doing so to create an aura of hoary venerability for his remarks. It may be that the genre of the work is incompatible with extensive citation of sources, i.e., it is a school handbook, rather than a scholarly treatise. Alternatively (or additionally), these observations may have been considered "school property," relieving any need for explicit citation. He is almost certainly drawing on works similar to the Epidrome, texts which he would have inherited from his own teachers. Written traditions within the Stoic School appear to have been in a rather amorphous state, consistent with the lack of attention to activities such as commentary and canonization. Indeed, Seneca says as much when he speaks of the "unruly multitude ((turba)" of Stoic writings:

Suppose we should desire to sort out each motto from the general stock (ex turba); to whom shall we credit them? To Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Panaetius, or Posidonius? We Stoics are not subjects of a despot: each of us lays claim to his own freedom.¹¹

Stoics were certainly not unique in circulating their texts in fragmented and partial forms; compared to the other School literature we will encounter, however, Stoic writings were indeed a very unruly mob, as Seneca says.

The only time that Cornutus does mention one of his predecessors, it is for the sake of disagreement. In a discussion about Heracles, Cornutus makes a dig at Cleanthes:

And it is indeed possible to understand the twelve labors as pertaining not to the hero but to the god, as Cleanthes did. But it does not appear to be necessary to always give priority to that inventor of ingenious arguments.¹²

The remark about ingenious arguments carries a pejorative air, and echoes the many criticisms directed at Stoics for their seemingly endless fascination with intricate and eristical arguments.

While it is not evident from the Epidrome, we know that Persius bequeathed all of his 700 volumes of Chrysippus to Cornutus; presumably, these documents were used and prized by both men. So we may safely infer that the writings of Chrysippus and perhaps Cleanthes, too, were found in Cornutus' house, and that they must have played some role in the education that went on there. The Epidrome, however, is not a way of approaching the texts of Zeno, Chrysippus, or Cleanthes as ends in themselves. Instead, it culls material from various Stoic sources in order to provide a tool for the proper understanding of something else; namely, ancient myths. In this case, Stoic texts are cannibalized rather than rewritten.

“See how well I read”: texts in use

Musonius Rufus

While the Diatribes and Fragments of Musonius Rufus are also of obvious interest for the philosophy of the Late Stoa, they are of slight importance in providing evidence for the use of texts in teaching environments. Their editor has reworked and polished them to such a degree that many of the interesting and informative details about pedagogical procedures in Musonius' school have been lost:

Lucius is consciously playing the role of Xenophon to his Socrates and so consistently transforming what must have been scenes of vivid discussion full of the rapid give and take of debate into rather conventionalized essays on ethical questions that the portrait of Musonius loses sharpness and vigor.¹³

It was the unusual, rather than the usual, that merited preservation, whereas we are more interested in the day-to-day regimen of teaching and learning.¹⁴ We shall see that Chrysippus was a very real presence in Epictetus' classroom; we would not know that Chrysippus even existed, based on Musonius' Discourses, which feature two references to Zeno, one to Cleanthes, and none to Chrysippus. Nor do we find any references to books by these authors.¹⁵

Nevertheless, in spite of appearances, Musonius probably spent a great deal of time guiding his students through technical material. It was the business of philosophy to discriminate good arguments from bad ones, and this required the study of logic. Philosophy must confer on its devotees "the ability to remain superior to others in debate, to distinguish the false from the true, and to refute the one and to confirm the other," and it is practically assured that Musonius drilled his students in these skills.¹⁶ Epictetus reports that Musonius chided him for overlooking the missing member in a syllogism.¹⁷ But while it is virtually assured that Musonius dealt with technical material, it seems that he did not use classic Stoic texts in a systematic way as a vehicle for this kind of instruction.

It is entirely possible that Musonius would have cited Stoic authors as authorities, but this brief glimpse at his pedagogy suggests that it was Musonius himself who was the chief center of authority in the class, not the written texts of founder-figures. In fact, Musonius claims that the ideal classroom situation would be found in the fields, with students observing their teacher bearing up under hardship and toil. "What is there to prevent a student while he is working from listening to a teacher speaking about self-control or justice or endurance?"¹⁸ That philosophical instruction could take place in such a setting (even ideally), where the trappings of texts, tablets, and notes would have no place, suggests that written texts and detailed explication of them were not of paramount importance for Musonius' pedagogy.

Epictetus

Happily, Arrian's notes from Epictetus' class provide us with a fairly unvarnished account of life in a Stoic school. Relative to his teacher Musonius, Epictetus devoted significant amounts of attention to the reading and discussion of Stoic texts.¹⁹ It is not an easy matter, however, to discern exactly which texts were considered central. After a brief discussion of the authors and writings found in Epictetus' class, we will explore the fourfold method that he used for the examination of texts.²⁰

Many different works and writers are mentioned in the Discourses, but without doubt Epictetus prizes the writings of Chrysippus above all others. Other philosophers, most prominently Socrates and Diogenes, are often used for illustrative purposes, but the works of Chrysippus form the backbone of the curriculum. Epictetus mentions him more frequently than any other author, and portrays him as the "exegete of nature," which is high praise in Stoic circl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of plates
• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• General introduction
• 1 "Not subjects of a despot": Stoics
• 2 "Salvation through each other": Epicureans
• 3 A library lost and found: Peripatetics
• 4 Books beneath a plane tree: Platonists
• 5 Jewish and Christian groups
• General conclusions
• Appendix: What did Thaumasius want?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index