“BURNING KNOWLEDGE”: STUDIES OF BOOKBURNING IN ANCIENT ROME DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Daniel Christopher Sarefield, M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2004 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Timothy E. Gregory, Adviser Professor Sarah Iles Johnston _______________________ Professor Fritz Graf Adviser History Graduate Program Copyright by Daniel Sarefield 2004 ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates the ancient Roman practice of bookburning. The public destruction of religious writings by fire was a development of the Hellenistic period. It was in this period that strictly religious associations began to develop and writing was first becoming important for religious practices of many kinds, and for the dissemination of religious ideas. The earliest incidents of bookburning suggest that this action was taken from time to time against religious activities and practitioners that were outside of the supervision and control of Roman officials, who saw these novel and foreign practices as a threat to the proper religious observances that were believed to ensure the harmony with the gods upon which the security and stability of Roman society depended. To burn a forbidden book was, therefore, an act of piety on the part of the destroyer, who in this early period was invariably a representative of the state. It was commonly performed as a religious ritual and care was taken to make certain that it was seen by the greatest number of witnesses. During the period of the Roman Empire, further developments to the practice of bookburning occurred as this ritual came to be used by religious officials in intercommunal conflicts within the Graeco-Roman religious milieu. They were not strictly representatives of the state. Bookburning became a method by which religious ii communities and authorities could express their power and opinions regarding their rivals and their beliefs. However, Roman emperors continued to authorize and even oversee bookburning for the same reasons as their predecessors during the Roman Republic. With the rise of Christianity to the status of Roman state religion during the fourth century C.E., bookburning came to be an activity performed by a wide range of individuals, from imperial officials, to bishops and other Christian religious authorities, and even pious laypersons. The purpose of bookburning remained the protection of harmony with the divine, but the locations and performers of these destructions came to associate this activity more and more with the interests of the Christian Church. iii To my mother and father iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my adviser, Timothy Gregory, who has been a tremendous source of encouragement and intellectual support throughout my time at Ohio State. I also wish to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Sarah Johnston and Fritz Graf. Both offered invaluable insights and criticisms as I worked through drafts of the manuscript and this final version would be much poorer but for their guidance. Anthony Kaldellis read drafts of all of the chapters and helped to improve them enormously, for which I am very grateful. My graduate student colleagues David Pettegrew, Jack Wells, and William Caraher also read and commented on earlier versions of many of the chapters and provided precious references while I was still conducting my research. Thanks also to my M.A. thesis adviser, Jack Balcer, who believed I had potential and encouraged me to pursue my own interests. Of course, I could not have survived the rigors of graduate student life and a dissertation without the support and encouragement of my friends and family. I owe a very special thanks to my wife, Tracey, who was always ready to give encouragement and showed tremendous patience. Thanks also to my brother, John Sarefield, who sent me books and took me bookshopping when I visited him in Manhattan on breaks—gifts greater than gold to a poor graduate student! I also wish to thank my friends, including v Lisa Betts, Michael Croft, Christine Dobbler, Dean DeMatteis, Angie Hobbes, Delia Houston, Eric Houston, Tim Maurer, Sanito Mendoza, Brad Roark, and especially Mark Ghent. To my parents, last but certainly not least, my eternal gratitude. vi VITA January 13, 1969………………………...Born – Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1995–1996……………………………… Isthmia Fellow, Department of History, The Ohio State University 1996……………………………………...M.A. History, The Ohio State University 1996–1999……………………………….Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 1999–2002……………………………….Small Section Lecturer, The Ohio State University 2002–2004……………………………….Managing Editor, Exploring the European Past: Texts and Images, Department of History, The Ohio State University FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract…………………….…………………………………………………………..ii Dedication……………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………..….v Vita……………………………………………………………………………………vii Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………..……x Chapters 1. Introduction: The Logic of Bookburning………………………….………….....1 1.1 Bookburning: A Historical Problem?…………………………………...1 1.2 Historiographical Considerations……………………………………...12 2. Burning Occult Religious Texts in the Roman World………….……………...30 2.1 The Early Destruction of Occult Religious Texts in the Roman World…………………………………………………………………..33 2.2 The Textualization of Occult Practices in the Mediterranean World…………………………………………………………………..60 2.3 Burning Occult Religious Texts in the Later Roman World: Continuity and Change………………………….……………………..73 3. Bookburning in Religious Conflict in Roman Asia Minor: The Case of the Epicureans………………..……………………………….………….…90 3.1 Lucian’s Alexander and the Cult of Glykon at Abonouteichos…….…92 3.2 A Pagan “Holy War”…………………………………………………106 3.3 “I Command This: Burn the Teachings of This Blind Fool”…………125 3.4 Bookburning and Epicureanism……………………………….……...134 viii 4. Persecution and Bookburning in the Early Christian Church…………….…....142 4.1 The Martyrs of Lugdunum and Vienna……………………………...…145 4.2 Christianity and the Persecutions………………………………………163 4.3 “Zeus’s Glory”: The Great Persecution and the Burning of Christian Scriptures…………………………………………….…....185 5. Burning Books in the Christian Roman Empire………………………….….....213 5.1 Forging the New Establishment…………………………………….......215 5.2 Heresy, Schism, and Bookburning……………………………….……..226 5.3 Broken Temples, “Foul Bones”, and Burning Books…………….….....231 6. Conclusions...................................................................................................…...240 Bibliography…………………………………………………….……………………...243 ix ABBREVIATIONS The abbreviating conventions used in this dissertation are, with slight modifications, based on Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3d ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996); H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, rev. ed. by H.S. Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968); G.W.H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961); and G.W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, and Oleg Grabar, eds., Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999). AJP = American Journal of Philology ANRW = Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, ed. W. Hasse and H. Temporini (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1974– ) CA = Classical Antiquity C&M = Classica et Mediaevalia CIG = Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, ed. A. Boeckh (Berlin: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1828–1877) CIL = Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Berlin: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, n.d.) C.J. = Codex Justinianus CSEL = Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum series C.Th. = Codex Theodosianus, ed. and trans. Clyde Pharr (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1952) GOTR = Greek Orthodox Theological Review HSCP = Harvard Studies in Classical Philology HTR = Harvard Theological Review ILLRP = Inscriptiones Latinae Liberae Rei Publicae, ed. A. Degrassi (Florence: La Nuova Italia, [vol. 1²] 1965, [vol. 2] 1963) ILS = Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae, ed. H. Dessau (Berlin: Weidmans, 1892–1916) JAC = Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum JECS = Journal of Early Christian Studies JEH = Journal of Ecclesiastical History JHP = Journal of the History of Philosophy JHS = Journal of Hellenic Studies JRA = Journal of Roman Archaeology x JRH = Journal of Religious History JRS = Journal of Roman Studies JTS = Journal of Theological Studies PCPS = Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society P.G. = Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris: Garnier, 1857–1889) PGM = Papyri Magicae Graecae: Die griechischen Zauberpapyri. Ed. K. Preisendanz and A. Henrichs, 2 vols., 2d ed. (Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner, 1973–74) P.L. = Patrologia Latina, ed. J.-P. Minge (Paris: Garnier, 1844–1880) P&P = Past and Present TAPA = Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association VC = Vigiliae Christianae xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: THE LOGIC OF BOOKBURNING PART 1.1: BOOKBURNING: A HISTORICAL PROBLEM? This dissertation is a study of the origins of bookburning in western culture. As most readers will recognize, books and writings have been fundamental to western civilization for thousands of years. They have been a chief vehicle through which humans have organized society, recorded past events, and expressed ideas and beliefs about this world as well as that which may lie