authorship and pseudepigraphy in early christian literature 29
one of the strongest pieces of evidence for this is his style in them. for
we find that the style in the first book and the book designated as the third
(this designation is wrong), is the same. I have said that designating this
book as the third is wrong because this book that we find designated as
the third should have been designated as the second, and this book that we
find designated as the second should be designated as the third. If this is
inescapable, then the book we find designated the sixth must be designated
the fourth.
as for the books we designated as the fourth and fifth, in my opinion,
those people did well who distinguished the authentic works of hippocrates
from the dubious works. they distinguished them very well, since they said
that these two books are not by hippocrates, nor are they collected from
individual notes he had written like the second and sixth books.
In my opinion, it would be best for these second and sixth books to
be designated as the “first and second [Books] of hippocrates’ [Medical]
notes.” If they are not called that, let them be called “disorderly or obscure
Writings,” or in some other way, but they are not part of the “epidemics.” for
the discussion does not concern the unusual general diseases that hippo-
crates calls “epidemics,” as we find the term (?) in the first and third books,
but not in the second and sixth except for a few irregular examples. But we
find in them useful general observations such as we find in the “aphorisms”
and in his other books that no one could call “epidemics.”
Galen, In hippocratis de natura hominis commentarium 1.44
according to galen, the forging of books on a grand scale began in hel-
lenistic times when the kings in alexandria and Pergamum started to col-
lect books for their libraries and to pay for them.34
But, seeing that Plato has written thus, let someone explain these things to
us: in which other book of hippocrates, besides the “on the nature of Man,”
does one find this same approach? or, if someone is not able to explain
this, let him seek no more trustworthy witness that this book is legitimate,
than Plato. Moreover, Plato was born quite close in time to the students of
hippocrates, and if this book were by one of them, he would have given the
author’s name.
for before the kings of alexandria and Pergamum became so ambitious
to possess ancient books, authorship was never falsely attributed. however,
after the ones who collected the writings of a given ancient author for these
kings first received a reward for this, they immediately collected many
works, which they falsely inscribed. But these kings lived after the death of
alexander, and Plato wrote this passage before alexander the great, when
34 trans. by W. J. lewis, online: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgajpd/medicina antiqua/tr_gnathom
.html.