Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics (13 page)

At other times authors complained about writers who plagiarized their own work, none more memorably than Martial: “You mistake, you greedy thief of my works, who think you can become a poet at no more than the cost of a transcript and a cheap papyrus roll. Applause is not acquired for six or ten sesterces” (
Epigrams
1, 66).
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When plagiarism was detected in antiquity, it often had actual social repercussions. Thus Vitruvius recounts an incident involving Aristophanes of Byzantium, one of the judges of a literary contest staged by the King of Pergamum to celebrate the dedication of his famed library. Aristophanes, we are told, had “read every book in the library,” and when the authors who presented their work were judged, he ruled that only one was worthy of the prize, to the consternation of the other judges and the king. But Aristophanes demonstrated that except for the one, all the “others recited borrowed work whereas the judges had to deal with originals, not with plagiaries [ceteros aliena recitavisse; oportere autem iudicantes non furta sed scripta probare].”
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The king was more than a little dubious about the claim, and so Aristophanes proceeded to quote passages from books in the library to prove his point. The result, Vitruvius tells us, was that the plagiarizers were forced “to confess they were thieves [coegit ipsos furatos de se confitieri]. The king then ordered them to be brought to trial for theft. They were condemned and
in disgrace, while Aristophanes was raised to high office and became librarian” (Book 7, Preface 7).

On occasion the condemnation for plagiarism led to even harsher reactions. Thus we learn of the expulsion of Empedocles from the school of Pythagoras, on the grounds of plagiarism: “Timaeus in the ninth book of his
Histories
says he [Empedocles] was a pupil of Pythagoras, adding that, having been convicted at that time of stealing his discourses
he was, like Plato, excluded from taking part in the discussions of the school.” (Diogenes Laertius,
Lives
, 8.54).

Elsewhere Vitruvius himself delivers a stringent judgment on those who engaged in the practice of plagiarism: “While, then, these men [viz. Those who left a written record of past events and philosophies] deserve our gratitude, on the other hand we must censure those who plunder their works and appropriate them to themselves” (Book 7, Preface 3). This attitude coincides with other ancient discourse about the practice, as in Polybius’ off-the-cuff comment on authors who discuss “genealogies, myths, the planting of colonies, the foundations of cities and their ties of kinship”; Polybius laments the fact that since so much has already been written about such things, a modern writer who discusses them either rehashes what others have said or worse, “represents the work of others as being his own,” a procedure that he calls “a most disgraceful proceeding”
.
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Equally harsh is Pliny the Elder, who in his
Natural History
discusses his own practices of citation in contrast to those who are “of a perverted mind and a bad disposition” and steal the work of others to pass off as their own (
Natural History
, Preface 20–23):

For I consider it to be courteous and to indicate an ingenuous modesty, to acknowledge the sources whence we have derived assistance, and not to act as most of those have done whom I have examined. For I must inform you, that in comparing various authors with each other, I have discovered, that some of the most grave and of the latest writers have transcribed, word for word, from former works, without making any acknowledgement; … For it is indeed the mark of a perverted mind and a bad disposition, to prefer being caught in a theft to returning what we have borrowed (obnoxii profecto animi et infelicis ingenii est deprehendi in furto malle quam mutuum redder).
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It is a genuine question concerning how relevant the ancient discourse on plagiarism is to the “unacknowledged borrowings” found throughout the early
Christian literature. Assuming the two-source hypothesis, Matthew and Luke both acquired considerable amounts of their material, often verbatim, from Mark and Q, without acknowledgment. But if plagiarism is defined as taking over the work of another and claiming it as one’s own, possibly the charge does not apply in these cases, as all the writings in question are anonymous. That is to say, the later Synoptic authors are not claiming anything as their own, as they do not even name themselves. The same would apply to the extensive and often verbatim reproduction of the Protevangelium Jacobi in such later texts as the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, in that the later author does not claim the earlier work as his own, since he is, in fact, writing pseudonymously.

A comparable situation obtains in the wholesale incorporation of the Didascalia Apostolorum, the Didache, and the Apostolic Traditions in the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions. But here the situation is somewhat more complex. Two of these earlier works are anonymous, making it difficult to give credit where credit was due. The Didascalia, on the other hand, was inherited as a forgery—it falsely claims to be written by the apostles—and is itself embedded in another work that is also a forgery, also allegedly written by the apostles. Why would a forger need to credit an earlier work that he allegedly (but in fact did not) write himself?
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Or consider the case of 2 Peter and Jude. There is little doubt that the former borrowed a good deal of the latter in its polemic against nefarious but unidentifiable opponents. But the source of the argument is a forgery, as is the text that uses the source. Can a forger commit plagiarism? In one sense he obviously has borrowed the work of another without acknowledgment, or as the ancient sources would put it, he has “stolen” his work. But in another sense he has not claimed that work as his own, since he does not give his own name so as to take credit for what his stolen material says. In all these instances we are dealing with complex literary relations that do not neatly line up in taxonomies of fraudulence, either ancient or modern.

It is widely thought that the invention of speeches and faux documents in historical narratives, and the creation of historical narratives themselves, are analogous to literary forgery. In all such instances an author fabricates materials and passes them off as historical when in fact they are products of his own imagination, much as a forger writes a work claiming to be someone else, possibly imagining, or purporting, that what he says is what the other person would have said had he had the opportunity. Sometimes it is inferred that since the fabrication of, say, speeches in historical narratives was seen as an acceptable practice, the forging of writings in the names of others must have been seen as acceptable as well. In the next chapter we will see that this leap of logic is an entirely modern one, as ancients are
consistently negative in their appraisal of literary forgery. For now, it is enough to note that even with respect to fabrication there was not a consistent and universal opinion among ancient writers.

For the general approbation of historians who invented the speeches of their protagonists, appeal is normally made to the comments of Thucydides in his
History of the Peloponnesian War:

As to the speeches that were made by different men, either when they were about to begin the war or when they were already engaged therein, it has been difficult to recall with strict accuracy the words actually spoken, both for me as regards that which I myself heard, and for those who from various other sources have brought me reports. Therefore the speeches are given in the language in which, as it seemed to me, the several speakers would express, on the subjects under consideration, the sentiments most befitting the occasion, though at the same time I have adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of what was actually said.
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The practice of one historian, of course, does not necessarily reflect the practices of an era. But also to be considered is the sheer force of the ancient historians’ dilemma: they needed, or at least wanted, to incorporate speeches in their accounts but usually had no means whatsoever of knowing what was actually spoken on the occasion. Moreover, there are other less frequently cited comments in our sources that reflect a similar attitude. And so, for example, Fronto mentions the practice of historians and annalists inventing letters thought to be appropriate to the occasion: “There are extant letters in both languages, partly written by actual leaders, partly composed by the writers of histories or annals, such as that most memorable letter in Thucydides of the general Nicias sent from Sicily.”
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And as Cicero has his character Brutus state, when disagreeing with the first-person narrator’s description of the death of Coriolanus: “At this he smiled and said: ‘As you like, since the privilege is conceded to rhetoricians to distort history in order to give more point to their narrative’ (concessum est rhetoribus ementiri in historias, ut aliquid dicere possint argutius)” (
Brutus
, 11.42).
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Other authors, however, were willing to concede this privilege
only
to rhetoricians, not to historians, whose task it was to record what actually happened in the past—speeches and all—rather than to invent words and deeds that simply seemed appropriate. No one expressed this alternative view more forcefully than Polybius, whose comments are directed against the historian Phylarchus,
whose account of the Cleomenic War took very much a Thucydidian approach to speeches, much to Polybius’ chagrin and even outrage:

This sort of thing he keeps up throughout his history, always trying to bring horrors vividly before our eyes. Leaving aside the ignoble and womanish character of such a treatment of his subject, let us consider how far it is proper or serviceable to history
A historical author should not try to thrill his readers by such exaggerated pictures, nor should he, like a tragic poet, try to imagine the probable utterances of his characters or reckon up all the consequences probably incidental to the occurrences with which he deals, but simply record what really happened and what really was said
however commonplace. For the object of tragedy is not the same as that of history but quite the opposite. The tragic poet should thrill and charm his audience for the moment by the verisimilitude of the words he puts into his characters’ mouths, but it is the task of the historian to instruct and convince for all time serious students by the truth of the facts and the speeches he narrates, since in the one case it is the probable that takes precedence, even if it be untrue, in the other it is the truth, the purpose being to confer benefit on learners.
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