Aquinas explains why Socrates, Christ, and Pythagoras avoided 
the publication of their teachings.

*     Hajnal then notes (p. 76) an aspect of personal 
bookmaking that gives needed insight into a characteristic 
mode of manuscript culture. Not only did it foster minute 
textual attention, meditation in depth, and much 
memorization:

     The old traditional manuals, mostly stemming from late 
     antiquity, were always to hand for the professors, but 
     they could see little point in recopying them ad infinitum. 
     To learn and to teach every day, individual by individual, 
     adjusting the work to the preparation of each, they 
     proceeded to condense and to simplify the matter taught 
     in order to facilitate its study and to present it in a