01.02 - PROLEGOMENA TO THE BIBLICAL LETTERS AND EPISTLES.

ii.

PROLEGOMENA TO THE BIBLICAL LETTERS AND EPISTLES.

7. In the foregoing remarks on questions of principle, the author has in general tacitly presupposed the literary conditions into which we are carried by the Graeco-Roman civilisation, and by the modern, of which that is the basis.²² These inquiries seem to him to demand that we should not summarily include all that has been handed down to us bearing the wide, indefinite name of letter, under the equally indefinite term Literature of letters (Brieflitteratur), but that each separate fragment of these interesting but neglected compositions be set in its proper place in the line of development, which is as follows—real letter, letter that has subsequently become literature, epistle, fictitious epistle. Should it be demanded that the author fill up the various stages of this development with historical references, he would be at a loss. It has been already indicated that the first member of the series, viz., the letter, belongs to pre-literary times: it is not only impossible to give an example of this, but also unreasonable to demand one. With more plausibility one might expect that something certain ought to be procured in connection with the other stages, which belong in a manner to literary times, and, as such, can be historically checked. But even if the broad field of ancient “letters” were more extensively cultivated than has hitherto been the case, still we could establish at best no more than the first known instance of a subsequent collection of real letters, of an epistle or of a fictitious epistle, but would not reach the beginnings of the literary movement itself. The line in question can only be drawn on the ground of general considerations, nor does the author see how else it could be drawn. No one will question that the real letter was the first, the fictitious epistle the last, link in the development; as little will any one doubt that the epistle must have been one of the intervening links between the two.²³ The only uncertainty is as to the origin of the epistle itself; it, of course, presupposes the real letter, being an imitation of it; but that it presupposes as well the collection of real letters, as we think probable in regard to Greek literature, cannot be established with certainty for the history of literature in general. As a matter of fact, the epistle, as a form of literature, is found among the Egyptians at a very early period, and the author does not know how it originated there. The Archduke Rainer’s collection of Papyri at Vienna contains a poetical description of the town of Pi-Ramses, dating from the 12th century B.C., which is written in the form of a letter, and is in part identical with Papyrus Anastasi III. in the British Museum. This MS. “shows that in such letters we have, not private correspondence, but literary compositions, which must have enjoyed a wide circulation in ancient Egypt; it thus affords us valuable materials towards the characterisation of the literature of ancient Egypt”.²⁴ If, therefore, we can hardly say that the epistle first originated among the Greeks, yet, notwithstanding the above facts, we may assume that it might arise quite independently under the special conditions of Greek Literature, and that, in fact, it did so arise.

8. Now whatever theory one may have about the origin of the epistle among the Greeks, that question is of no great importance for the problem of the historian of literary phenomena in general, viz., the analysis into their constituent parts of the writings which have been transmitted to us as a whole under the ambiguous name of “letters”. What is important in this respect are the various categories to which those constituent parts must be assigned in order that they may be clearly distinguished from each other. We may, therefore, ignore the question as to the origin of these categories—like all questions about the origin of such products of the mind, it is to a large extent incapable of any final solution; let it suffice that all these categories are represented among the “letters” that have been transmitted from the past. The usage of scientific language is, indeed, not so uniform as to render a definition of terms superfluous. The following preliminary remarks may therefore be made; they may serve at the same time to justify the terms hitherto used in this book.

Above all, it is misleading merely to talk of letters, without having defined the term more particularly. The perception of this fact has influenced many to speak of the private letter in contradistinction to the literary letter, and this distinction may express the actual observed fact that the true letter is something private, a personal and confidential matter. But the expression is none the less inadequate, for it may mislead. Thus B. Weiss,²⁵ for instance, uses it as the antithesis of the pastoral letter (Gemeindebrief); a terminology which does not issue from the essence of the letter, but from the fact of a possible distinction among those to whom it may be addressed. We might in the same way distinguish between the private letter and the family letter, i.e., the letter which a son, for instance, might send from abroad to those at home. But it is plain that, in the circumstances, such a distinction would be meaningless, for that letter also is a private one. Or, take the case of a clergyman, acting as army chaplain in the enemy’s country, who writes a letter²⁶ to his distant congregation at home; such would be a congregational letter—perhaps it is even read in church by the locum tenens; but it would manifestly not differ in the slightest from a private letter, provided, that is, that the writer’s heart was in the right place. The more private, the more personal, the more special it is, all the better a congregational letter will it be; a right sort of congregation would not welcome paragraphs of pastoral theology—they get such things from the locum tenens, for he is not long from college. The mere fact that the receivers of a letter are a plurality, does not constitute a public in the literary sense, and, again, an epistle directed to a single private individual is not on that account a private letter—it is literature. It is absurd, then, to define the specific character of a piece of writing which looks like a letter merely according to whether the writer addresses the receivers in the second person singular or plural;²⁷ the distinguishing feature cannot be anything merely formal (formal, moreover, in a superficial sense of that word), but can only be the inner special purpose of the writer. It is thus advisable, if we are to speak scientifically, to avoid the use of such merely external categories as congregational letter, and also to substitute for private letter a more accurate expression. As such we are at once confronted by the simple designation letter, but this homely term, in consideration of the indefiniteness which it has acquired in the course of centuries, will hardly suffice by itself; we must find an adjunct for it. The term true letter is therefore used here, after the example of writers²⁸ who are well able to teach us what a letter is. When a true letter becomes literature by means of its publication, we manifestly obtain no new species thereby. To the historian of literature, it still remains what it was to the original receiver of it—a true letter: even when given to the public, it makes a continual protest against its being deemed a thing of publicity. We must so far favour it as to respect its protest; were we to separate it in any way from other true letters which were fortunate enough never to have their obscurity disturbed, we should but add to the injustice already done to it by its being published. A new species is reached only when we come to the letter published professedly as literature, which as such is altogether different from the first class. Here also we meet with various designations in scientific language. But the adoption of a uniform terminology is not nearly so important in regard to this class as in regard to the true letter. One may call it literary letter,²⁹ or, as has been done above for the sake of simplicity, epistle—no importance need be attached to the designation, provided the thing itself be clear. The subdivisions, again, which may be inferred from the conditions of origin of the epistle, are of course unessential; they are not the logical divisions of the concept epistle, but simply classifications of extant epistles according to their historical character, i.e., we distinguish between authentic and unauthentic epistles, and again, in regard to the latter, between innocent fabrications and forgeries with a “tendency”. Furnished with these definitions, we approach the immense quantity of written material which has been bequeathed to us by Graeco-Roman antiquity under the ambiguous term ἐπιστολαί, epistulae. The sheets which we have inherited from the bountiful past, and which have been brought into confusion by legacy-hunters and legal advisers, so to speak, perhaps even by the palsied but venerable hand of their aged proprietrix herself, must first of all be duly arranged before we can congratulate ourselves on their possession. In point of fact, the work of arrangement is by no means so far advanced as the value of the inheritance deserves to have it.³⁰ But what has already been done affords, even to the outsider, at least the superficial impression that we possess characteristic representatives, from ancient times, of all the categories of ἐποιστολαί, which have been established in the foregoing pages.