Chris Keith, «'In My Own Hand': Grapho-Literacy and the Apostle Paul», Vol. 89 (2008) 39-58
Recent research in the school papyri of Egypt, especially Oxyrhychus, has illuminated our understanding of the pedagogical process in the Greco-Roman world. Particularly interesting in this respect is the acquisition and social function of grapho-literacy (i.e., the ability to compose writing). Since few were literate, and of those few, fewer could read than could write, understanding how one gained grapho-literacy, who gained grapho-literacy, and how that literacy was employed in day to day life shines new light on passages such as 1 Cor 16,21, Gal 6,11, Col 4,18, 2 Thess 3,17, and Phlm 19. In these passages, Paul draws attention
to the fact that he has personally written in the text. This paper will argue that these passages are not merely interesting asides, but rather significantly heighten the
rhetorical force of the text. They draw attention not only to Paul’s grapho-literacy, but also to his ability to avoid using it.
50 Chris Keith
The school exercises show that at the same time that students were
learning to juggle the letters of the alphabet, they had to apply their
new expertise by learning to write their personal names.
Thus, signature literacy — i.e., the ability to write one’s name —
was actually a nascent stage of grapho-literacy, but one with important
implications for the majority of students who would not proceed
further, to which I will shortly turn (52). Under the “copying method†of
literate education, after this stage students had to copy texts manually
that they were incapable of reading, as evidenced by their inability to
correct mistakes (53). Outside of the school papyri, Quintilian (54) and
Seneca (55) attest the copying method with remarks that allude to the
fact that writing instruction occurred after introduction to letters but
prior to the building of syllables and/or reading comprehension.
Writing in these instances, then, amounts to letter recognition and
formation, without the ability to understand those letters as constituent
parts of larger language units of syllables, words, or sentences (56). That
these students were forced to copy texts letter by letter earned the name
of “slow writers†(bradevw" gravfwn/gravfousa) for those who never
advanced beyond this limited literacy, which can be described as
“probably on the verge of illiteracy†(57). The early Christian author of
(52) CRIBIORE, Gymnastics, 167. On p. 168, Cribiore includes a photograph of
an ostracon where a schoolboy has written his name and then practiced the first
four letters of the alphabet. Cribiore’s study provides evidence for the speculation
of BAR-ILAN, “Illiteracyâ€, 56, n. 4, regarding signature literacy as an early stage in
education.
(53) CRIBIORE, Gymnastics, 169. See also her Writing, 151: “These students
were not able to readâ€.
(54) Quintilian, Inst. 1.1.27: “As soon as the child has begun to know the
shapes of the various letters, it will be no bad thing to have them cut as accurately
as possible upon a board, so that the pen may be guided along the groovesâ€
(BUTLER, LCL).
(55) Seneca, Ep. 94.15: “Their fingers are held and guided by others so that
they may follow the outlines of the letters†(GUMMERE, LCL).
(56) Eleven years prior to Cribiore’s initial study of the school papyri, J.L.
Crenshaw (“Education in Ancient Israelâ€, JBL 104 [1985] 607) noted that
“numerous errors in the [Egyptian] school copies survived, which suggests that
learning did not always accompany copying, inasmuch as students seem often not
to have understood the textâ€.
(57) CRIBIORE, Writing, 6. Harris (Ancient Literacy, 276) inappropriately refers
to “slow writers†as an “intermediate groupâ€. This group more plausibly reflects
those individuals whose education did not progress to the intermediate stage.
Harris may here be generally referring to these individuals as “intermediate†in the
sense of semi-literate. For further discussion of “slow writersâ€, see CRIBIORE,
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