Christians and Book-Burning in Late Antiquity

I’ve just finished reading Dirk Rohmann, Christianity, Book-Burning and Censorship in Late Antiquity (De Gruyter, 2016; Baylor University Press, 2017), a detailed and wide-ranging study of the effects of Christianity on the survival of classical literature.

Since at least Gibbon (19th century), there have been claims that the “triumph” of Christianity led to the wholesale destruction of the literary heritage of “pagan” antiquity.  Rohmann, therefore, sets out to conduct an analysis that is a free as he can make it from either this sort of anti-Christian animus or simplistic Christian apologetics.

Rohmann’s main theses are (1) that the state-sponsored burning of books is first attested in Diocletian’s order to destroy books owned by Manichaeans, Egyptian alchemists and Christians (early 4^th century AD); (2) that thereafter, as Christianity acquired cultural and political clout, ecclesiastical leaders and Christian rulers turned the tables and at various time sought to suppress or destroy some pagan texts; (3) that the writings that Christian leaders opposed were those that were associated with anti-Christian efforts, those that were regarded as supporting heretical teachings, and those that were thought to be inhabited by demons that could lead readers into heresy and/or sin; (4) that more ancient writings were lost through neglect and the failure to copy them than were destroyed actively; and (5) that the actual events and actions were typically localized (and so limited), various (and so not systematic), and often symbolic (and so, in themselves, not all that effective).

The period that Rohmann focuses on lies outside my area of competence, and so I shall have to defer to other historians of “late antiquity” (especially 4^th century and thereafter) for a judgement on his specific analysis of relevant evidence.  But I think that Rohmann’s work deserves the attention of scholars of that period.

Unfortunately, however, in the early pages of the book, I note some puzzling errors, especially concerning book formats.  For example, Rohmann states (p. 1) that “ancient codices were mostly made out of parchment.”  Perhaps he meant this to characterize codices in “late antiquity,” for it surely is incorrect in the earlier centuries, in which most codices by far were constructed of papyrus.  It really is only in the 4^th century AD that the the dominance of parchment as the preferred writing material is in full flow.

In another passage, Rohmann states “by comparison to papyrus, parchment codices could keep more content and allowed for easier cross-referencing . . . (p. 11).  But, again, he either doesn’t understand the matter or has stated himself badly.  For the writing material makes no substantial difference to the amount of writing, whether papyrus or parchment.  I presume that he’s garbled a claim made by others that, in comparison with the bookroll, the codex could accommodate more text and was easier to cross-reference.

I should also indicate, however, that this claim is dubious.  Ancient bookrolls could accommodate pretty much the amount of text desired, as evident by the Isaiah scroll from Qumran (7.34 metres/24 feet long), or other scrolls from antiquity even much longer, as much as 15 metres.[1]  Granted, by the 4^th century AD codex construction had progressed to allow the whole of the Christian Bible to be included in a single codex.  But the Christian preference for the codex preceded this by as much as two centuries, and (with a few notable exceptions) the earliest Christian codices tended to contain relatively modest amounts of text (e.g., a single Gospel).  So the Christian preference for the codex was not based on its putative capacity to contain larger bodies of text.

In yet another passage we seem to have a related confusion.  Rohmann points to two “dominant cultural trends of Late Antiquity . . . the emergence of Christianity as the state religion and the transcription of ancient texts from papyrus to parchment, a process that can be linked to Christianisation” (pp. 15-16).  Yet again, he either misunderstands or mis-states the phenomenon in question.  The process that may be linked to “Christianisation” in the 4^th century AD and thereafter is the transition from the bookroll to the codex, not a change in writing material.  Granted, it so happens that in the same period parchment was becoming the more frequently used writing material, but this had nothing demonstrable to do with Christianity.  For Christians had been happily using papyrus for centuries!   What Christians preferred, especially for the texts that they treated as scripture, was the codex bookform.[2]

As I say, I hope/trust that Rohmann’s discussion of attitudes and actions toward pagan literature in Late Antiquity is more accurate and sound.  You can’t be an expert in everything, as I know well.  But it is unfortunate that these errors about early bookforms and writing material mar this otherwise impressive study.

[1] The master-study of the ancient literary bookroll is William A. Johnson, Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004).  For a summary treatment, William A. Johnson, “The Ancient Book,” in The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, ed. Roger S. Bagnall (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 256-81.

[2] See my discussion of the matter in Larry W. Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts:  Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Eerdmans, 2006), 43-93.