As I mentioned in a prior post, I am in the middle of a new 5-part series exploring what the phenomenon of miniature codices teaches us about the early Christian movement. This series is designed to draw out some practical implications (for a lay audience) from my new book with Oxford University Press, Miniature Codices in Early Christianity.
Having already done installment #1, we now turn to the second thing that miniature codices tell us about the early Christian movement. These tiny books demonstrate that early Christians may have engaged in private reading more often than we thought.
You Can’t Read!
In the 1979 film Rocky II, the newly famous Rocky Balboa, fresh off his split-decision loss to Apollo Creed, is hired to do a TV commercial. During the filming of the commercial, it quickly becomes clear that he can’t read the cue cards. The director, frustrated by how long the filming is taking, ruthlessly mocks Rocky: “You cost us thousands of dollars because you can’t read!”
Rocky is humiliated and embarrassed. Why? Because in our modern, western society most people can read. Reading is the norm. Illiteracy is the exception. It doesn’t matter how famous you are, or how talented you are. If you can’t read, you feel like an outcast.
But it was not so in the ancient world. Indeed, Rocky would have fit right in. If we look at the time period of the first and second centuries, most studies have concluded that literacy rates hovered around 10 to 15 percent (of course, “literacy” is a vague word and has a wide range of meanings that we cannot explore here). That means that nearly 90% of those in the ancient world couldn’t read.
The same was true for the earliest Christian communities. The vast majority of Christians couldn’t read, just like their secular counterparts. There was nothing scandalous about this because everyone was in the same situation.
However, there was one notable difference. As noted in my prior post, Christianity, as a religion, was very textually oriented. From the very beginning they engaged with the Old Testament Scriptures in remarkable depth. And very soon they began writing their own books, including those which would eventually be regarded as Scripture themselves.
So, that raises a fundamental question. How do we reconcile the fact that early Christianity was a textually-oriented religion with the reality that most Christians couldn’t read? Let me offer some considerations that might help us.
Public Reading
In our modern day, if someone wants to know the content of the Bible, they simply walk over to their bookshelf, pull out their personal copy of the Bible, and begin to read. Or, as is done more and more commonly, they pull up the Bible on their smartphone and begin to read. Either way, most people encounter the text of the Bible personally.
But, this was not the case in the early Christian movement. During that time, most people encountered the biblical text publicly. This typically happened in corporate worship services as Scripture was read aloud, often for very long periods of time.
This practice would have been built upon earlier practices, namely the Jewish reading of Scripture in the synagogue, and even Paul’s request to have his own letters read publicly (2 Cor 10:9; Col 4:16; 1 Thess 5:27; cf. Rev 1:3). We already see this happening in the time of Justin Martyr when both the Gospels and the Old Testament were read aloud (1 Apol. 67.3). In addition, the letter of 2 Clement references the public reading of Scripture (2 Clem. 19.1), as does the introduction to Melito’s homily On the Passover (Peri Pascha 1).
While most Christians would have engaged the text publicly, this fact has often led people to draw an incorrect conclusion, namely that Christians never engaged the text of Scripture privately.
But the existence of the miniature codex says otherwise.
Private Reading
While such private reading would have been the privilege of the educated (and wealthy) few, it is curious to note that Christian leaders often exhorted their congregations to read their Scriptures at home.
The frequency of such exhortations raises questions about whether the literacy rates among Christians were as low as we think. What sense does it make to encourage your congregation toward private reading when 90% of them could never do it?
Perhaps more than any patristic writer, John Chrysostom encouraged private/individual reading. He asks his audience “That each of you take in hand that section of the Gospels which is to be read among you on the first day of the week . . . that he sit down at home and read it through” (Hom. Jo. 11.1).
Here we see a plain contrast between the liturgical reading during a Sunday worship service, and private/individual reading at home. Other patristic sources make similar exhortations toward private reading (e.g., Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Origen).
There is widespread unity among scholars that the miniature codex would have been the ideal format for this sort of private reading. These little books would have been light, portable, and easy to read while sitting by oneself.
After all, the tiny size of such books would have made them an unlikely choice for lectors who would stand before a formal worship service and deliver lengthy public readings. For such a task, the larger codices would have obvious pragmatic advantages (easier on the eyes, pages would need to be turned less often, etc.).
Even so, that doesn’t mean that miniature codices were merely symbolic objects. They often contained a host of reader’s aids—accents, breathing marks, sense breaks, and more—that suggest they were actually designed to be read.
Private Singing
One thing that surprised me when I did the research for Miniature Codices in Early Christianity is the degree to which the miniature codex was used in liturgical contexts. Out of 62 miniature codices I cataloged, there were 17 that could be understood as liturgical–ritual books of some sort.
For example, we have four manuscripts that could be regarded as miniature worship books for ministers, perhaps designed to be held in a worship service as the minister performs communion, offers a prayer, or maybe even delivers a homily.
In addition, we have nine manuscripts of miniature hymnbooks—the second-highest genre represented behind Gospel texts. Such hymnbooks also could have been utilized by ministers during a public worship service, but they also could have been used by the laity. A number of the hymnbooks in our catalog do not seem to be professional productions, suggesting they may have been designed for private use.
That raises intriguing questions about how many worshipers in a typical service possessed such little hymnbooks. And did they bring their own, or were such books provided? Again, while most individuals could not read, apparently some could.
Moreover, hymnbooks would have required very capable readers. Such books could not have been read slowly, but would have had to be read at a pace where the reader/singer could keep up with the verse and section breaks.
People of the Book
Here’s the big point. Even though most Christians were largely illiterate that doesn’t mean that Christianity wasn’t a textually-oriented culture. While most people absorbed the text of Scripture through public reading, apparently there were also a notable number that engaged the text in private forms.
Given the manuscript evidence around the miniature codex, there are reasons to think that private reading might have been more abundant than we first thought.
While this may not necessarily change our view of the literacy rates among early Christians, it’s another example of how committed they were to their books. Whether they heard their books in public, or read their books in private, the earliest Christians were clearly “people of the book.”