. . . . stone-carved, scrolls, sheets of papyrus, parchment, folders, books.... the spread of saint pauls "underground" letters against the emp ire sent out from his hideout on the key "crossroads" at Ephesus 'twixt caravan routes from the east and sea routes thru the mediterranean to N. Europe, then their collation into folders, were, in fact, some of the first leaflets, then pamphlets, then, as they were gathered together, BOOKS !
The diaspora after the crucifixions of thousands of jews in 4 a.d. for resisting the looters and enslavers of a sad, corrupted "Rome" meant there was a network of people that could comprehend and explain the oblique "religious" references (babylon as rome, passover as the "free from slavery" exodus festival, "nero" written in the aramaic number style of sixes, etc) , so translating to others of different spirtualities, languages, etc to work alongside them for an end to the obscene abberation that the once admired ethics of the Roman city-states had turned into was made possible despite the repression that paul, as"saul", had once found himself a cog within the machinery of .
Later (!), the OMNIBUS collection, some might say, was a response to wanting to allow the readers to draw their own conclusions from what ended up as four basic versions ( - with some perhaps spurious inserts - ) of a set of teachings with some resonance, + somewhat differing accounts of the background events.
Even later, the translation into everybodies language back from the latin, commenced by the Venerated monk of Wearside, then continuing as printing press was used by Cax ton, saw progress, democratisation and "spiritualities"
making good, practical common cause again.
Lots of other spiritualities, official and less "organised", have - together or seperately - played the same sort of encouraging roles in the advancement of "books", writing, and progress . . . . this is a few excerpts from lesser heard stories of one of them .

p.s. . . . . one of my favourite stories of someone elses recognition of "this sort of thing" is of a bloke we call saint columba, interceding in the 575 A.D. Treaty of Druim Cett - to prevent any "banishment of poets" (bards, druids etc by different names - the pre-existing spiritual traditions of everybodies ancestors ) from the lands, to allow the adding, integration, overlapping and happy co-existence of spiritual traditions, old, new and renewing - to such effect that in 1539 - near 1000 years later, a local peace treaty of two clans near Sligo was to get enforced by the penalty upon anybody who broke it of both "excommunication from the church . . . . and . . . . satire from the poets." ! ! ! !

p.p.s. for anyone looking for info as background to the excellent "week of candlelit sunsets" up to march 18, the stories of books getting faked, then used against progress, is covered with good, checked research, in a book by a bloke that served through the entire of "WW2" with the British Army, then settled down as a history professor at Surrey, - I think its unbeaten in its coverage of the ones looked at by me .... does anybody else remember?
thanx 4 comments ! ! ! !