authorship and pseudepigraphy in early christian literature 33
as he was speaking as a man of things that were god’s. the one who spoke
was someone else, insofar as it was the holy spirit that recounted things
that were a man’s.
Herodotus, historiae 2.117
already herodotus, in the fifth century bce, distinguished between
authentic and spurious books among the works that were attributed to
homer. he did so on the basis of their content.39
these verses and this passage prove most clearly that the Cyprian poems
are by the hand not of homer but of another. for the Cyprian poems relate
that alexandrus reached Ilion with helen in three days from sparta, having
a fair wind and a smooth sea; but according to the Iliad he wandered from
his course in bringing her.
Herodotus, historiae 7.6
according to herodotus, in the sixth century bce the athenian poet ono-
macritus, a compiler of oracles, was banished from the city after he had
been exposed as an interpolator.40
onomacritus had been banished from athens by Pisistratus’ son hipparchus,
having been caught by lasus of hermione in the act of interpolating in the
writings of Musaeus on oracle showing that the islands of lemnos should
disappear into the sea. for this cause hipparchus banished him, though
before that they had been close friends.
Iamblichus, de vita Pythagorica 29.157–158
In the first quarter of the fourth century ce, the neoplatonic philosopher
Iamblichus of Chalcis mentioned books that circulated under the name
of Pythagoras but had been composed by his disciples on the basis of his
lectures. Iamblichus does not classify these books as pseudepigraphical or
deceptive, obviously because he thought that their content actually came
from Pythagoras.41
on the subject of his wisdom, in a word, let the greatest proof be the commen-
taries written by the Pythagoreans, containing the truth about all things. they
are well-rounded in all other respects, and encrusted with an old-fashioned
39 trans. by a. d. godley, lCl 117:409.
40 trans. by godley, lCl 119:307.
41 trans. by J. dillon and J. hershbell, Iamblichus: On the Pythagorean Way of Life (sBl.
tt 29; grrs 11; atlanta: scholars, 1991), 173.