by Scott McGill
The typology of pseudepigrapha has been detailed in an exemplary manner by Baum (2001), who distinguishes between primary pseudepigrapha, those whose author deliberately appends a false name to the text, and secondary, where various factors might attach the wrong author’s name to a work in the course of transmission. Baum offers two other useful criteria: whether the ascription is deliberate or not and whether it is intentionally or unintentionally deceptive. In addition to these criteria, a host of additional classifications and definitions can be adduced, because of the complexity of pseudepigraphy as a phenomenon: We must consider not just questions of authorship and authenticity but also various related phenomena such as parody, plagiarism, interpolations and alterations, commissioned texts, and ghostwriting. Despite the broad variety of texts that qualify as pseudepigrapha, it is necessary to stress that, in antiquity, no deliberate forgery was considered innocent or legitimate (Mülke 2008). From our modern perspective we have to agree with Grafton (1990, p. 37): “The only reason to assume that most earlier forgers were more innocent is our own desire to explain away a disquieting feature of the past.”
25.2 Origins of Pseudepigrapha in Antiquity
The concept of authorship in Greek culture first develops in the sixth century BCE. With the popularization of books and the emergence of the book market in Athens in the fifth century BCE, the concept of authorship became tied to the question of authority. A philosophical treatise produced by Plato or Aristotle would hold more sway because of a perceived external authority on the subject, as would a medical text with Hippocrates’s name on it. The phenomenon of pseudepigraphy thus accompanies the spread of books as medium of knowledge transmission, not only because of the ease with which in antiquity a titulus could be lost, changed accidentally, or “corrected,” but also because the deliberate promotion of false authorship under the guise of real authority might serve a host of purposes, such as gaining political or religious advantage, securing readership, economic gain, or simply the settling of personal grudges. In Greek literature references are found very early to the dubious authenticity of documents and authors, with questions regarding works circulating under the name of the mythical Orpheus, Musaeus, and Linus (Plato Rep. 2.364b). In some instances, forgers are referred to by name, as with the case of Onomacritus in the sixth century BCE (Herodotus 7.6; “the first known commissioned forger” [Martínez 2011]).
The initial conceptualization and systematization of literature as carried out by Aristotle and his school had to deal with such questions of authorship as a matter of course: in some cases, their conclusions persist. However, it was not until the Hellenistic era when a more rigorous, almost scientific study of literature began to develop effective methods for these questions (Quintilian Inst.Or. 1.4.3). Hellenistic scholarship made authentication of texts central and essential, developing what modern classical scholarship would term Echtheitskritik. By the middle of the third century BCE in Alexandria, the Library of the Museum started to apply classifications, distinguishing between genuine works (γνσια) and spurious (νóθα) or doubtful ones (μϕíβολα, μϕιδοξομενα or μϕιβαλλóμενα). This methodological basis of literary and grammatical study developed in Hellenistic Alexandria would exert an enormous influence on all subsequent scholarship: From antiquity to the present day, critics have inherited and applied their methods with little modification.
Greek education was based on imitation of canonical models. As education became systematized, starting in the fourth century BCE on into the Hellenistic period, schools of rhetoric began to arise in the Greek and Latin worlds, developing and spreading their educational methods and texts. The writing exercises employed in the Hellenistic educational system, called progumnásmata, instructed students to imitate established authors as a means of learning how to write prose. Depending on the level of difficulty required by the teacher, students might be asked to paraphrase or expand upon existing texts or to refute or prove a given proposition while employing appropriate rhetorical style. Since the aim was faithful imitation of the model, students might produce speeches or letters that qualified almost as a pastiche or that bore obvious affinity with the original model.
From this arose, within a hic et nunc creative framework, works that might later be considered pseudepigrapha, but that were composed without any intent to deceive: These were school exercises. The influence of this type of pseudepigrapha was limited, as such works generally do not have any extraliterary purpose, are limited to certain genres, and are usually recognizable by their lower technical and stylistic quality. But this educational method in itself provided the essential skills to anyone who might wish to employ them for other purposes as well: In this sense, the schools of rhetoric in the ancient world doubled as involuntarily schools of literary forgery.
The establishment of scholarly canons had a larger cultural effect: If a text was proven to be the product of pseudepigraphy, it would often be neglected or destroyed. In consequence, a great deal of pseudepigraphical writing is only known by secondary references or citations. In modernity, a similar process occurred again, as works that had been copied, transmitted, and studied for centuries were largely condemned to oblivion when their spuriousness was demonstrated: Scholarly interest in reprinting or commenting upon the Epistles of Phalaris plummeted after Richard Bentley demonstrated (1697) that the text was not the work of an authentic philosopher‐king (whose reputation for cannibalism and burning his subjects alive tended to eclipse observations on his prose style in antiquity) but an obvious forgery.
In recent decades, however, an interest in pseudepigraphy as a phenomenon in its own right has led to renewed approaches to such texts that have survived the vicissitudes of transmission, as offering a different sort of value, which might give us insight into the original context in which they were composed. Contemporary scholars focus their attention on whether pseudepigraphy should be regarded as a literary tool rather than a mere act of forgery, and examine the justifications offered by ancient authors regarding the use or rejection of pseudepigrapha (Baum 2013, p. 11). Pseudepigraphical works could be also regarded as “creative supplements” that might inform our approach to canonical texts or fill literary gaps (Peirano 2012, pp. 10–16). Similarly, they might be understood as a rhetorical tool for the development of argumentation within a specific discipline, like theology (Wessel 2001, 2012, building off Gray’s [1988] “act of progress”).
25.3 Late Antique Pseudepigrapha
Pseudepigrapha began to proliferate increasingly in the third century and their dissemination picked up speed from the fourth century onwards, seemingly prompted by the religious controversies that arose after Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire. The rising prominence of forgeries and false ascriptions in the religious realm did not lessen their presence in virtually every genre, and in virtually every language, of the empire and beyond. To get a better sense of the breadth and variety of pseudepigrapha in late antiquity, it is worth enumerating some of the texts and common varieties encountered.
25.3.1 Medical, Technical, and Similar Texts
The authority held by some famous or great writers provides the obvious reason why certain corpora attract a great deal of spurious or pseudonymous texts with little resemblance to the authentic works they are attached to. Some of these texts seem designed to establish their own validity under the name of a recognized authority, while others seek to supplement the existing authority by treating subjects that might have been dealt with by a certain writer but were not; still others are mere accretion to a corpus with similar themes.
The Corpus Hippocraticum offers a useful example: From Hellenistic times it had already existed as a canonical collection, yet this did not prevent new and spurious material from being added in late antiquity well into the medieval period (van der Eijk 2016, p. 22). New pseudo‐Hippocratica appeared as well around the fourth century, including On the Generation of Man and the Seed, On the Formation of Man, and On the Pulse a
nd the Human Temperament (Jouanna 2008, 2012, p. 355). The obvious rationale for these pseudo‐Hippocratic texts was to validate the content of new texts by ascribing them to an established authority (Nutton 2004; Jouanna 2012, p. 359). Consequently, numerous medical texts, including On the Humors by Pseudo‐Galen, the anonymous On the Constitution of the Universe and of Man, and the Isagoge Saluberrima of Pseudo‐Soranus, appear to have been forged during the renaissance of Greek medicine in sixth‐century Alexandria (Jouanna 2012, p. 249).
All of these established medical authors, however, were ripe for pseudepigraphy seemingly at any time. To Galen were attributed a broad variety of medical works (Thorndike 1963); false attributions, likewise, were attached to comparable authors like Soranus, in the case of Quaestiones medicinales, or like Thessalus, in the case of De virtutibus Herbarum, a curious treatise on botanical astrology of uncertain date (Nutton 2004, 269; ní Mheallaigh 2014b). In the fourth century the author of a Herbarium invoked the authority of Apuleius. An anonymous neo‐Pythagorean treatise from the mid‐fourth century, meanwhile, the Theologumena arithmeticae, was attributed to Iamblichus, possibly through confusion with an actual treatise that he promised to write at the end of his On the Arithmetical Introduction of Nicomachus (125.15).
Spurious names appear recurrently in a range of other texts as well. Thus Gargilius Martialis (mid‐third century) is transmitted as an appendix to the Mulomedicina of Vegetius (Fischer 2000); Pseudo‐Thessalus has a treatise that claims Hermes Trismegistus as its author; and the fourth‐century Kyranides, with more magical than medical content, show how accretions of alchemical discussion were transmitted repeatedly under spurious names (ní Mheallaigh 2014a, p. 164). Indeed, alchemy and occult studies became a particular rich ground for the generation of pseudepigrapha, as texts were assigned and reassigned to famous and prestigious historical or mythical characters (Suárez 2014), even as these texts did little more than rehash existing material within larger and more comprehensive corpora (Johnson 2006, p. 191). Among alchemical writings – which we can follow from extant papyri regarding Greco‐Egyptian alchemy (ca. 300 CE) down into medieval manuscripts – the oldest texts include historical attributions, like Democritus and Cleopatra, and obviously mythical ones like Hermes and Isis. Texts were also attributed to similarly famous names in later periods, such as Synesius (fourth century), Olympiodorus (sixth century) and Stephanus of Alexandria (seventh century), as were various poems ascribed to Heliodorus, Theophrastus, Archelaus, and others (Mertens 2006, p. 208). Other examples are the fourth‐century treatise known as Lithica, detailing in hexameters the wondrous properties of certain stones, attributed to Orpheus (Gager 1992, p. 239), and Olympiodorus’s commentary on Zosimus’s On Activity, which clearly invokes the prestige enjoyed by the Neoplatonic philosopher (Wildberg 2008). There is further evidence of treatises attributed to Justinian and Heraclius, which are no longer extant (Mavroudi 2006, p. 73).
Aristotle represents the most noteworthy example of a famous name that generated extraordinary amounts of pseudepigrapha: by late antiquity, during the vogue for all sorts of alchemical, astrological, magical, and occult treaties, the ascription of such writings to Aristotle is relatively common (Thorndike 1922). A pseudo‐Aristotelian letter of uncertain date somehow became one of the most influential writings of the Middle Ages: Known as the Secretum Secretorum, the work purports to contain the esoteric knowledge of Aristotle. The text itself grows through accretion as it becomes transmitted; in the eighth century an Arabic translation further expanded and altered it (Williams 2003, pp. 28–30).
Many other texts related to Aristotle are dubiously attributed, like the three commentaries on him that are transmitted under the name of Elias (Wildberg 2016). The attributions of some texts have been questioned only in relatively recent times, like the commentary De Anima, formerly attributed to Simplicius, but probably a work by Priscian of Lydia (Blumenthal 2000).
25.3.2 Historical Texts, Itineraries, et alia
Historical pseudepigrapha purporting to treat events long before written history emerges as a genre. Thus the claim by two pseudepigraphical fictions of pseudo‐documentary character on the Trojan War that they were eyewitness histories was widely accepted throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Prosperi 2016). Dares of Phrygia is the name attached to the Latin De Excidio Troiae: The exact date of composition, and whether it was based on a Greek original, is unknown. The Ephemeris Belli Troiani by Dictys of Crete was based on an original Greek version of uncertain date (probably in the late first century); the extant Latin text, a translation by Lucius Septimius (“the Latin Dictys”), is probably from the fourth century (Merkle 1989, pp. 263–291; Gainsford 2012). On this same topic, there also exists an anonymous Excidium Troiae, datable between the fourth and sixth century.
The Itinerarium Alexandri is a fourth‐century work based on the history of Arrian but also on the Romance of Alexander by Pseudo‐Callisthenes, a work of no historical reliability from the third century and best described, perhaps, as fan‐fiction about Alexander the Great. Authorship of the Itinerarium is ascribed to Julius Valerius, whose name also appears as the Latin translator of Pseudo‐Callisthenes, suggesting a possible confusion by homonymy (Fox 1997). The Cosmography of Aethicus Ister, probably written in the early eighth century, is a highly problematic text that (despite the title) offers another sort of enigmatic itinerary and is presented as the work of St. Jerome (Herren 2011). The work bears obvious similarities to the anonymous Ravenna Cosmography from the late sixth century (Dillemann and Janvier 1997). The Blemyomachia offers history in the form of an epic poem (fourth or fifth century), of which only fragments are preserved; it was traditionally and wrongly attributed to Olympiodorus of Thebes (Kanavou 2015). The popular school reader Disticha Catonis (or Dicta Catonis), an anonymous hexametrical collection (late third century) is attributed to M. Porcius Cato, whose historical reputation as a moral authority presumably prompted the ascription.
Among historical pseudepigrapha, one of the most interesting and debated texts is the Historia Augusta, a modern name given to a work of unknown title and authorship, probably composed around 400 (Meckler 2016). The work relates extravagantly fictionalized biographies of Roman emperors from the years 117 to 284 and presents itself as a compilation of individual texts by six authors. But closer examination reveals these six historians to have impossible chronologies, allusive or joking names, and a uniformity of style that leads scholars currently to regard it as the work of a single writer.
25.3.3 Christian Texts
Pseudepigrapha take on a different character when the phenomenon of literary forgery is used to alter a canon of existing works and applied to theological or religious texts. In late antiquity, literary forgery arises to a much greater extent with religious texts than with any other kind: The phenomenon is clearly generated by internal debates within religious communities and because of the specific dynamics of textual production for religious texts. The authority that emanates from canonical texts or authors vested with prestige could be used to validate or legitimize spurious and forged texts in order to refute specific ideas or else claim them for orthodoxy. The phenomenon of pseudepigrapha in this context becomes enormously complex, as questions arise simultaneously regarding forgery and authenticity, where the moral and religious implications for the forger, as well as the theological problem of canonicity, elevate the subject of textual authentication above matters of mere pedantry (Baum 2013, p. 12; Ehrman 2014, pp. 149–153). Although Speyer (1971) hypothesized a category of “genuine religious pseudepigrapha” for works that emerged from authentic mythological or religious tradition and received a mythic ascription nontendentiously, the most recent studies adduce documentation to show that all ancient religious pseudepigrapha were in some way tendentious, and there was no such thing as innocent ancient pseudepigrapha (Baum 2001, 2013; Mülke 2008; Ehrman 2014, pp. 36, 149–153). Speyer (1971) offers an impressive and systematic investigation of motives for pseudepigrapha, while Ehrm
an (2014) provides a very detailed study of about 50 Christian forgeries from the first four centuries (149–548). Though most false attributions and forgeries appear to result from theological quarrels and controversies, where specific texts or ecclesiastical policies must be legitimized, forgery appears to result from a complex concatenation of different intentions. This presents a phenomenon vastly more complex than in the previous cases, where religion was not a factor.
It is noteworthy, however, that in this period we find direct testimony from forgers explaining their reasons for fabricating texts. Salvian of Marseille (ca. 440) writes an explanation letter to his bishop after been suspected for writing a pamphlet under the under the name of Timothy (Haefner 1934). At the Third Council of Constantinople in 680, Macarius of Antioch contrived to have forged letters of Vigilius inserted in the Acts of the Second Council of Constantinople (553); when confronted with the evidence by the Council, his uncanny answer was recorded (ACO Ser, II.2.2, 650). Anastasius Sinaites appears to us as both critic and forger; he describes how he produced successfully a florilegium against monophysites (Tomus ad Leonem, CPG 5938), although he acknowledges his own handling as “wicked” (πανοργον, PG 89: 180C).
