NOTES
1
Green 1983:195. Referring to the Qumran manuscripts, Morton Smith (1960-61:347) nearly thirty years ago cautioned against drawing conclusions about a basically esoteric sect from its extant exoteric literature. We have no way of knowing, he argued, what proportion of their literature is represented by the cave manuscripts, or what the status of that literature was within the community. Unfortunately, Smith’s warning has for the most part gone unheeded.
2
Noted by Davies 1983:14-15.
3
Weinfeld 1986. A similar method is followed by Sanders 1977.
4
In the case of the early Christian movement, to harmonize the New Testament documents not only suppresses significant differences in those texts, but ignores the greater volume of non-canonical literature belonging to that movement.
5
The literature is extensive. For a helpful introduction and bibliography see the articles on voluntary associations by Sills (1968) and Banton (1968). See also Sills 1959; and Robertson 1966.
6
Michels 1959:32, quoted in Sills 1968:369.
7
See Carney’s distinction between isomorphic and homomorphic models in Carney 1975:9-11. The homomorphic model is an abstraction which, unlike the isomorphic model, reproduces only selected gross features from what is often, itself, an abstraction. The isomorphic model replicates to scale all features of the original. My model of Graeco-Roman collegia necessarily glosses over the sometimes substantial historical variations in the constitution, function, and official acceptance of private associations from pre-classical Greece to imperial Rome.
8
From the thirty-odd CIL volumes, Waltzing (1895-1900) has selected a good body of those dealing specifically with aspects of Graeco-Roman guilds and associations. For Greek inscriptions, see Dittenberger Syll3 (1915-24). For a selection of Greek inscriptions dealing specifically with voluntary associations, see Foucart 1873. Cenival 1972 contains relevant demotic texts.
9
Cited by Gaius, Dig. 47.22.4. In 64 BCE the Senate, recognizing the possible anti-social nature and potential political power of collegia, rescinded the right of association. From this time on, under changing emperors, the right of association was variously allowed and restricted, until in the early third century CE collegia lost their “private” status altogether and became institutions of the state.
10
At least until the third century CE (above, n. 9).
11
Many of these points are well illustrated by the lengthy inscription on marble columns of the Code of the Iobacchoi, from 178 CE (Syll3 1109) and the Code of the Labyads in Delphi from the third century BCE (RIG 995=Syll2 434).
12
In the period of the Late Republic the political recruitment of occupational collegia became commonplace and was attended, not infrequently, by political riots. In 55 BCE Consul Crassus outlawed sodalitates—those private associations overtly attempting to influence elections.
13
Note the Oath of Asaph the Physician: “You shall not speak of the herbs. You shall not hand them over to any man, and you shall not talk about any matter [connected] with this” (ll. 49-50); and the Hippocratic Oath: the science of healing can be taught only to those “who have taken an oath according to the medical law, and to no one else” (ll. 9-10). “Things… that are holy are revealed only to men who are holy. The profane may not learn them until they have been initiated into the mysteries of science” (cited from Weinfeld 1986:60-61).
14
As Aristotle observed, “All these associations then appear to be parts of the association of the state” (Nicomachean Ethics 1160a, 28).
15
Again, these are general contours of collegia, and historical cases obviously offer differences which must, for the purposes of the homomorphic model, be suppressed. A notable exception to the model are the hetaireiai, aristocratic groups of political activists in
-143-
Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information:
Book title: Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World.
Contributors: John S. Kloppenborg - Editor, Stephen G. Wilson - Editor.
Publisher: Routledge.
Place of publication: New York.
Publication year: 1996.
Page number: 143.
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