The Unfolding of Words: Commentary in the Age of Erasmus 9781442695962

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THE UNFOLDING OF WORDS: COMMENTARY IN THE AGE OF ERASMUS

Cicero’s Epistolae familiares accuratissime emendatae ... [with commentaries] (Milan: apud Johannes Angelus Scinzenzeler for Jo. Jacobus et fratres de Lignano, 25 February 1514), sig. D4r. In the margin, ‘VBER.’ identifies the commentator Hubertinus Clericus (1405–1500), who taught in Milan and Pavia. Herzog August Bibliothek: [Lh 4° 45]. Published with permission.

The Unfolding of Words Commentary in the Age of Erasmus

EDITED BY JUDITH RICE HENDERSON with the assistance of P.M. Swan Translations from French by Karen Mak and Nancy Senior

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto  Buffalo  London

©  University of Toronto Press 2012 Toronto  Buffalo  London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada isbn 978-1-4426-4337-6

Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication The unfolding of words : commentary in the age of Erasmus / edited by Judith Rice Henderson ; with the assistance of P.M. Swan ; translations from French by Karen Mak and Nancy Senior. (Erasmus studies) Includes bibliographic references and index. isbn 978-1-4426-4337-6 1. Erasmus, Desiderius, d. 1536 – Criticism and interpretation. 2. Bible – Commentaries – History and criticism.  3. Criticism, Medieval – History.  I. Henderson, Judith Rice, 1945–  II. Swan, Peter Michael, 1931–  III. Mak, Karen, 1987–  IV. Senior, Nancy, 1941– V. Series: Erasmus studies b785.e64u54 2012   199′.492   c2012-903001.5 This book has been published with the assistance of grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of Saskatchewan. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

Contents

Preface / ix Acknowledgments / xv Abbreviations / xix part one / genres of sixteenth-century commentary 1 Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance / 3 jean céard part two / the biblical scholarship of erasmus 2 Erasmus’s Paraphrases: A ‘New Kind of Commentary’? / 27 jean-françois cottier Editor’s Addendum: Translating an Erasmian Definition of Paraphrase / 46 judith rice henderson 3 The Actor in the Story: Horizons of Interpretation in Erasmus’s Annotations on Luke / 55 mark vessey 4 The Function of Ambrosiaster in Erasmus’s Annotations on the Epistle to the Galatians / 70 riemer faber

vi  Contents

5 Erasmus’s Biblical Scholarship in the Toronto Project / 86 robert d. sider part three / religious contexts of printed commentary 6 ‘Virtual Classroom’: Josse Bade’s Commentaries for the Pious Reader / 101 mark crane 7 Embedded Commentary in Luther’s Translation of Romans 3 / 118 gordon a. jensen 8 Commenting on Hatred of Commentaries: Les Censures des Théologiens Revised by Robert Estienne, 1552 / 140 hélène cazes part four / developments in humanist philology 9 Rabelais’s Lost Stratagemata (ca. 1539): A Commentary on Frontinus? / 167 claude la charité 10 Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius: Their Editing and Printing History / 188 Appendix 1: A Survey of Lipsius’s Editions of Tacitus (Text and/or Commentary) / 233 Appendix 2: The Praenomen of Tacitus: Why Lipsius Preferred Caius to Publius / 234 Appendix 3: The Annotations in Leiden UL, 762 B 4 as Source of the Curae secundae / 236 Appendix 4: Lipsius’s Evolving Commentaries: Two Examples in the 1585 Edition, Curae secundae, and 1588 Edition / 240 jeanine de landtsheer

Contents  vii

Works Cited / 243 Contributors / 263 Index / 267

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Preface

When Juan Luis Vives turns, in the last book of his treatise De ratione dicendi (Louvain: B Gravius, 1533), to the subject of overcoming ignorance by teaching the art of rhetoric, he describes this ‘ignorantia’ by the dichotomy ‘matter and words’ (res et verba) made familiar by Desiderius Erasmus’s Two Commentaries on the Twofold Abundance of Words and Matter (De duplici copia verborum ac rerum commentarii duo) and countless other productions of Renaissance humanism. After discussing the ‘kinds of speaking’ (orationes) that teach ‘by unfolding subject matter’ (explicandis rebus) – namely description; historical, allegorical, and fictional story-telling in a variety of literary forms; and the precepts of the arts – Vives then turns to those ‘orationes’ that teach ‘by the unfolding of words’ (explicatione verborum): paraphrase, epitome, detailed expositions and commentaries, and translation.1 Vives’s ‘explicatio verborum’ is the inspiration for the title of the collection of ten essays presented here, for although this volume began with an international conference on sixteenth-century commentary at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada, the variety of functions and formats of commentary on authoritative texts that can be found in Erasmus and other sixteenth-century scholars and reformers refuses to confine itself to Vives’s subcategory ‘detailed expositions and commentaries’ (enarrationes et commentarii). It expands in these studies to include, among other examples, Erasmus’s Paraphrases on the New Testament (in essays by Jean-François Cottier and Mark Vessey) and the ‘embedded commentary’ in the translation and typography of Luther’s German Bible (in an essay by Gordon A. Jensen). Moreover, Vives’s subcategory of commentary proper (in his

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chapter Enarrationes et commentarii) far exceeds the limits within which commentary is defined today.2 Beyond modest glossae and scholia, such as those of Erasmus’s printer and compatriot Josse Bade that Mark Crane examines in his essay here, its range encompasses religious controversy and contemporary memoirs. Commentary as a vehicle of religious controversy is described by Hélène Cazes, who studies Robert Estienne’s response in 1552, following his flight to Calvinist Geneva, to attacks on his biblical editions by the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris. In the Renaissance, the genre of commentary could also include memoirs on the model of Julius Caesar’s Commentaries. Claude La Charité speculates that François Rabelais in his lost Stratagemata (ca. 1539) used commentary on the Stratagems of Sextus Julius Frontinus (ca. 40–103 CE) to compile contemporary documents recording the military ruses of his patron Guillaume Du Bellay, seigneur de Langey. In other words, Rabelais may have combined two types of sixteenth-century commentary, annotation of a classical text and memoirs of recent events, to celebrate Langey’s contemporary achievements as illustrations of the ancient stratagems described by Frontinus. In his introductory essay entitled ‘Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance,’ Jean Céard surveys the extraordinary variety and complexity of sixteenth-century commentary, including (among other possibilities) debate and invective, memoir, and even dictionary and encyclopedia (that is, commentary on languages, physical objects, and bodies of knowledge). Thus, as the full title of Erasmus’s De copia shows, sixteenth-century works on almost any subject, in almost any format, are often entitled commentarii. The development of a more limited and methodical understanding of commentary can be seen in late sixteenth-century scholarship, represented here by the successive editions of the Roman historian Tacitus from 1574 to 1607 that Jeanine De Landtsheer traces in her study of Justus Lipsius. The painstaking search for and collation of manuscripts that Lipsius’s work exhibits was initiated by fifteenth-century humanists, especially Lorenzo Valla and Angelo Poliziano, two Italian scholars whose work Erasmus championed.3 Erasmus’s scholarship, especially his edition of the Greek New Testament in tandem with his preparation of a new Latin translation, is a stage in this development of modern commentary. However, as Vessey argues, the scholar attempting to understand Erasmus’s ‘Bible-work’ faces shifting ‘horizons of interpretation,’ in part because the annotations (often but not

Preface  xi

always on the Vulgate) that Erasmus published with his GreekLatin edition might be described as ‘commentary without a text.’ Rather than being remembered as a scholar who established the text of the New Testament as Lipsius would establish the text of Tacitus, or who restored the original Latin translation of Jerome, Erasmus might, writes Vessey, be remembered as ‘the man who made the text (or the Text) of the Latin Bible unprintable.’ Together the essays selected, revised, and in three cases translated from the papers presented at the Saskatoon conference depict the complexity of sixteenth-century conceptions of textual authority and scholarship, both biblical (especially in Parts 2 and 3) and classical (especially in Part 4). These conceptions reflect diverse political and social contexts as well as a wide range of religious opinion and practice, including Roman Catholic theology, late medieval lay piety, Lutheranism, and Calvinism. Although the period covered by the collection goes seven decades beyond Erasmus’s death in 1536, the sixteenth century may well be called the Age of Erasmus because of the pervasive influence of his works on the thought and history of the Renaissance and Reformation. The four essays in Part 2 are devoted to Erasmus’s biblical scholarship. Cottier examines his conception and practice of paraphrase, Vessey studies his Paraphrases and Annotations on Luke, and Riemer Faber analyses, especially in his Annotations on Galatians, his use of the commentary with old Latin text of the Pauline epistles attributed today to ‘Ambrosiaster.’ These essays offer a sample of recent scholarship from the international teams of scholars engaged in current megaprojects to publish Erasmus’s works: the Amsterdam edition of Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami (ASD) and the Toronto translation into English of the Collected Works of Erasmus (CWE). Robert D. Sider, general editor of the CWE’s New Testament Scholarship series, offers here an eyewitness account of the often difficult decision-making processes and collaboration required in such a publishing endeavour. His account echoes and often recalls the complexity and collaboration of Erasmus’s lifetime program of publication. Professor Emeritus of Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, Sider is now one of several Erasmus scholars affiliated with the University of Saskatchewan’s Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies (CMRS) program, which has produced The Unfolding of Words.4 Commentary suggested itself as a research theme not only to these Erasmians but also to the wider circle of CMRS scholars, whose studies from many disciplinary perspectives span more

xii  Preface

than two thousand years of European culture. The focus on the sixteenth century was urged by a historian of ancient Rome and modern commentator, P.M. Swan, as a period central to the development of classical philology.5 It is of central interest, also, to church historians and theologians on campus at St. Thomas More College and at seminaries in the Saskatoon Theological Union. The place of commentary in the history of the book, another theme prominent in humanities and digital research at the University of Saskatchewan, also recommended sixteenth-century commentary as a research theme. The Unfolding of Words has been designed to appeal to an equally wide scholarly audience, whether read cover to cover or sampled. The editors and contributors have made an effort to guide non-specialists by incorporating contextual information into the text of each essay. The entire collection is in English but records research conducted in several languages by Canadian and European scholars, most of it previously unpublished. Céard’s introductory essay on Renaissance varieties of commentary provides an overview of his seminal scholarship published through four decades. Throughout the book, primary sources translated into English in the text are cited in the notes in their original languages (principally Latin, French, and German). Specialists in many fields will find studies of interest to them. For historians of the book, some contributors trace printing processes and formats and discuss leading printers of the sixteenth century (most fully Josse Bade, Robert Estienne, and the house of Plantin-Raphelengius-Moretus). Photographs from Renaissance books illustrate studies by Faber, Jensen, Cazes, and De Landtsheer. For those interested in the history and theory of reading, the examinations of Erasmus by Vessey, of Luther by Jensen, and of Estienne by Cazes pay particular attention to reader response, anticipated or real. Everywhere the collection writes a history of scholarship, including classical philology and biblical editing, in the context of a century fraught with controversy. The woodcut that illustrates the cover and frontispiece of The Unfolding of Words – from a 1514 Milan edition of Cicero’s Letters to Friends (Epistulae ad familiares) with multiple commentaries – visualizes a collaborative and sometimes combative conception of writing that had emerged by the sixteenth century.6 As Céard’s introductory study argues, medieval deference to authority in commentary was giving way to dialogue with the author, often

Preface  xiii

on concerns of immediate interest to the commentator and readers. Central to European intellectual life for centuries, commentary as a genre reached its greatest complexity in the intellectual ferment of the Renaissance and Reformation. By the end of the century, religious schism in the Latin West and the political and  military conflicts it provoked were among the factors that increased contempt for piling commentaries upon commentaries.7 Educators would shift their focus either to restoring and explaining the texts they edited or to systematically epitomizing knowledge in multidisciplinary encyclopedias. But for Erasmus and his contemporaries, commentary was a favourite medium in which to describe and define the most vital issues of their age. JRH NOTES 1 Peter Mack, ‘Vives’s De ratione dicendi: Structure, Innovations, Problems,’ Rhetorica 23 (2005): 65–92, outlines and discusses Vives’s work, citing the bilingual Latin-Spanish edition Del arte de hablar, by J.M. Rodríguez Peregrina (Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, 2000), which is based on the first edition. Mack notes, pp. 65–6n1, some differences between the first edition and Joannis Ludovici Vivis Valentini Opera omnia, ed. Gregorio Mayáns y Siscár, vol. 2 (Valencia: Benedictus Monfort, 1782). However, the readily available reprint of De ratione dicendi from the 1782 Opera omnia, published with a German translation by Angelika Ott and introduced by Emilio Hidalgo-Serna (Marburg: Hitzeroth, 1993), is cited throughout the present volume. 2 Vives, De ratione dicendi 3:11, 230–2. 3 Anthony Grafton argues the claims of Poliziano (1454–1494) over the usual candidate, Valla (1407–1454), to be deemed the principal pioneer of humanist philology: Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, vol. 1: Textual Criticism and Exegesis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 9–44. There can be no question that Erasmus admired Poliziano’s work and frequently cited his Miscellaneorum centuria. However, Valla’s Collatio Novi Testamenti, edited by Erasmus as Laurentii Vallensis viri tam graecae quam latinae linguae peritissimi in latinam Novi Testamenti interpretationem ex collatione graecorum exemplarium adnotationes apprime utiles (Paris: Josse Bade, 1505), was foundational for Erasmus’s New Testament scholarship. For the influence of both quattrocento humanists on Erasmus, see their biographies in CEBR.

xiv  Preface 4 Among other CMRS scholars at the University of Saskatchewan who have contributed to ‘the Toronto Project’ (CWE and its companions CEBR and Erasmus Studies) are Peter G. Bietenholz, Professor Emeritus of History, and his former students now on the faculty of St. Thomas More College, Thomas B. Deutscher and Alan Reese. 5 Swan is editor of three volumes in the American Philological Association series An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History. 6 See the frontispiece for the full page on which this woodcut appears (Herzog August Bibliothek, Lh 4° 45, sig. D4r). The columns with larger type for the authorial text (Cicero’s Ep. fam.) and smaller for commentary, edged with marginalia, constitute a typical but not invariable format of printed sixteenth-century editions with commentary; cf. other figures in the present volume, especially those of a typical medieval manuscript page and of Estienne’s striking 1552 format (chap. 8). The title page of Lh 4° 45 advertises many varieties of commentary by Italian humanists: Hubertinus Clericus (1405–1500), Giovanni Battista Egnazio (1478–1553), Martino Filetico (1430–1490), Giorgio Merula (1430–1494), Poliziano, Filippo Beroaldo the Elder (1453–1505), Jacobus Crucius (perhaps Jacobus of Bologna [Giacomo dalla Croce, fifteenth century]), and Marino Becichemo (ca. 1468–1526). Also advertised is a brief manual on letter writing by Erasmus’s compatriot Bade (ca. 1461–1535). On this Compendium (here the late 1502 version), which critically weighs humanist imitation of Cicero and other ancient models against contemporary epistolary etiquette, see Judith Rice Henderson, ‘Tradition and Innovation in Erasmus’ Epistolary Theory: A Re-consideration,’ Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 29 (2009): 47–55. 7 See, for example, Georg Andreas Fabricius (1589–1645) in the preface to his systematic encyclopedia of the liberal arts summarized and illustrated in tables, Thesaurus philosophicus (Braunschweig: [Andreas Duncker], 1624) [HAB, 121 Quod. 2° (1)], sig. (a)3v: ‘Multi enim doctorum Philosophiam sic proponunt, ut ... prolixa commentatione praecepta obscurent potius, quam illustrent: aut ... commentarium commentario augeant.’ (For many of the doctors propound Philosophy in such a way that ... they obscure rather than illustrate the teachings with prolix commentary, or ... inflate commentary with commentary.) Fabricius dismisses commentary more firmly than did sixteenth-century critics of the genre: cf. Céard’s thoughtful discussion of Rabelais, Michel de Montaigne, and others, and Cazes’s description of the paradox of Robert Estienne’s ‘Hatred of Commentaries.’

Acknowledgments

From its inception, The Unfolding of Words has been a collaborative research project of faculty in Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies (CMRS) at the University of Saskatchewan. CMRS is an interdisciplinary teaching and research program jointly sponsored by the College of Arts and Science and St. Thomas More College and administered by the university’s Department of History. Faculty and students from other colleges and seminaries on the university’s Saskatoon campus and in the region also participate in the program. The annual Canadian Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, hosted in 2007 by the University of Saskatchewan, offered CMRS an opportunity to draw an international group of scholars to Saskatoon for a bilingual, pre-Congress conference held 24–25 May and entitled ‘SixteenthCentury Commentary/Le commentaire au seizième siècle.’ The conference organizing committee (Gordon A. Jensen, Alan Reese, and P. M. Swan), which I chaired, eagerly accepted the offer of our CMRS colleague Robert D. Sider to organize a seminar and editorial meeting of scholars working with him on the Collected Works of Erasmus (CWE) series Annotations on the New Testament; he enlisted James K. McConica to chair both events on behalf of the CWE editorial board. The Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies/Société canadienne d’études de la Renaissance (CSRS/ SCÉR), one of the many societies meeting at Congress 2007, sponsored at the CMRS conference a francophone seminar organized by Claude La Charité (Université du Québec à Rimouski). The program chair of the society’s own Congress meeting, Hélène Cazes (University of Victoria, British Columbia), assisted us in persuading Jean Céard (Université de Paris-Ouest Nanterre La

xvi  Acknowledgments

Défense) to deliver the keynote address. Supplemented by the responses to an international call for papers, the seminars and keynote address arranged by Sider, La Charité, and Cazes have shaped the collection assembled here. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) generously supported the conference and the publication of selected proceedings. The Province of Saskatchewan’s Student Employment Experience program matched SSHRC funding to hire a student translator. The departments of History and of English provided essential administrative and clerical support for both conference organization and editing of the resulting text, and the Department of English granted me some release from teaching. In addition to funding for manuscript preparation, I am grateful to the University of Saskatchewan for a sabbatical leave from July through December 2009. This leave made possible my verification of sources and other editorial work in the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, and the Herzog August Bibliothek (HAB) in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. HAB, the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp, the University of Leiden Library, the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, and the University of Saskatchewan Library’s Special Collections kindly permitted publication of illustrations within these pages, as indicated in the accompanying captions. Although it is impossible to thank every individual in these institutions who has offered me generous and genial assistance, I have greatly appreciated the efforts of all. I am especially grateful to those with whom I collaborated most closely. Acknowledgment on this volume’s title page of P.M. (Michael) Swan, Professor Emeritus of History, as assistant to the editor scarcely does justice to the many roles he played in both conference organization and editing. Alert to every need, he quietly assumed important tasks when I either was out of town for research or simply lacked the time. Above all, he offered his impressive skills as a classical philologist to interpret references to and in ancient texts and to work with me on translating Latin citations into English, especially in the three contributions submitted in French. Nancy Senior, Professor Emeritus of Languages and Linguistics, not only translated into French the conference website and other communications but also supervised Karen Mak, who proved remarkably able and dedicated as the student French-to-English translator. Professors Jensen and La Charité and Professors Emeriti Senior, Sider,

Acknowledgments  xvii

and Swan, in addition to the many other gifts of their time and expertise already mentioned, read submissions and advised the editor and contributors on revisions. The ten contributors have been, without exception, extraordinarily patient and cooperative in responding to the requests of this editorial team and of the dedicated readers enlisted by the University of Toronto Press. Ron Schoeffel, editor of the Erasmus Studies series at the University of Toronto Press, has encouraged the project from conception to publication. I also owe a special debt of thanks for the guidance of Anne Laughlin as managing editor and Terry Teskey as copyeditor of the book for the Press, to Ruth Pincoe for preparing the index, and to Bryde Kelly, SSHRC Programme Officer, and Nicole Benning, University of Saskatchewan Grants Specialist, for their unfailing support of the editorial, translation, and publication processes and understanding of the time required to do them well. Finally, my husband Toliver Y. Henderson has watched the whole process with patient bemusement while sustaining me through several years of labour with his outstanding cuisine, his sense of humour, and his never-failing emotional support. Judith Rice Henderson

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Abbreviations

Allen

ASD BBr CCP

CEBR

CSEL CWE DBF DBI

Erasmus, Desiderius, of Rotterdam. Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami. Ed. P.S. Allen, H.M. Allen, and H.W. Garrod. 11 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1906–47. Index vol. by Barbara Flower and Elisabeth Rosenbaum. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958. Erasmus, Desiderius, of Rotterdam. Opera Omnia Desderii Erasmi Roterodami. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1969–. Bibliotheca Belgica: Bibliographie générale des Pays-Bas. Ed. F. Van der Haeghen, re-ed. M.-Th. Lenger. Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1964–75. Plantin, Christophe. Correspondance de Christophe Plantin. Ed. Max Rooses and Jan Denucé. 9 vols. Antwerp: Buschmann, 1883–1918. Vol. 10: Supplément à la Correspondance de Christophe Plantin, ed. Maurice Van Durme. Antwerp: Nederlandsche Boekhandel, 1955. Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation. Ed. Peter G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deutscher. 3 vols. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985–87. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. Vienna: C. Geroldi Filius, 1866–. Collected Works of Erasmus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974–. Dictionnaire de biographie française. Ed. J. Balteau, A. Rastoul, M. Prévost, et al. Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1933–. Dizionario biografico degli italiani. Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1960–.

xx  Abbreviations

ILE

LB

LC

LW

MEM

PG PL PP

SA

Lipsius, Justus. Iusti Lipsi Epistolae. Ed. Aloïs Gerlo, Marcel A. Nauwelaerts, Hendrik D.L.Vervliet, et al. Brussels: Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van Belgie, 1978–. Erasmus, Desiderius, of Rotterdam. Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami opera omnia. Ed. Jean Le Clerc. 10 vols. Leiden: Petrus Vander Aa, 1703–06; facsimile edition, Hildesheim: Olms, 1961–62. Luther, Martin. ‘Large Catechism.’ In The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert. Trans. Charles Arand, Eric Gritsch, Robert Kolb, William Russell, James Schaaf, Jane Strohl, and Timothy J. Wengert. Pp. 337–480. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000. Luther, Martin. Luther’s Works, American edition. Ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann. 55 vols. Philadelphia: Fortress Press / St. Louis: Concordia, 1955–86. Du Bellay, Martin and Guillaume. Les Livres des mémoires de ... Martin Du Bellay ... contenant ... quelques fragments des Ogdoades de ... Guillaume Du Bellay. Edited by René Du Bellay. In Collection complète des mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France, 17–19. Paris: Foucault, 1821–27. Patrologia cursus completus ... series Graeca. Ed. JacquesPaul Migne. 167 vols. Paris, 1857–66. Registers. 2 vols. Paris, 1928–36. Patrologia cursus completus ... series Latina. Ed. JacquesPaul Migne. 221 vols. Paris, 1844–64. Supplementa. 5 vols. Paris, 1958–70. Voet, Léon, and Jenny Voet-Grisolle. The Plantin Press, 1555–1589: A Bibliography of the Works Printed and Published by Christopher Plantin at Antwerp and Leiden. 6 vols. Amsterdam: Van Hoeve, 1980–83. Luther, Martin.‘Smalcald Articles, 1537.’ In The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert. Trans. Charles Arand, Eric Gritsch, Robert Kolb, William Russell, James Schaaf, Jane Strohl, and Timothy J. Wengert. Pp. 297-328. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.

Abbreviations  xxi

Frontinus. Stratagems. Trans. Charles E. Bennett. London: William Heinemann, 1925. WA Luther, Martin. D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Schriften. Weimar: Verlages Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1883– . WADB Luther, Martin, trans. Deutsch Bibel. 12 vols. In WA. WATr Luther, Martin. Tischreden: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. 6 vols. In WA. STR

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part one G ENRE S O F S I X TEENT H - C ENT U R Y C O M M ENTAR Y

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one

Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance jean céard

‘It is a bigger job,’ writes Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), ‘to interpret the interpretations than to interpret the things, and there are more books about books than about any other subject: we do nothing but write glosses about each other. The world is swarming with commentaries; of authors there is a great scarcity.’1 A little earlier in the same chapter, entitled ‘On Experience,’ he writes: ‘Who would not say that glosses increase doubts and ignorance, since there is no book to be found, whether human or divine, with which the world busies itself, whose difficulties are cleared up by interpretation? The hundredth commentator hands it on to his successor thornier and rougher than the first one had found it.’2 Is Montaigne by these statements taking a stand with the humanists who, it is said, advocated a return to texts free of the glosses and commentaries that had accumulated over time to the point of suffocating the text? Is he recommending that commentaries be rejected, as did François Rabelais (died 1553) in praising the Roman law contained in the Pandects but deeming it sullied by the contributions of commentators? Referring in Pantagruel to the

Translated from the French by Karen Mak and Nancy Senior, University of Saskatchewan, assisted in the translation of Latin texts by Judith Rice Henderson and P.M. Swan. For brief introductions in English to the major authors treated in this essay, the reader is directed to CEBR (on Baïf, Budé, Dolet, Ficino, Perotti, Pio, Vives) and to Paul F. Grendler, ed., Encyclopedia of the Renaissance (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1999) (on Baïf, Bernardino of Siena, Budé, Calepino, Dolet, Du Bartas, the Estienne family, Ficino, Goulart, Monluc, Montaigne, Muret, Peucer, Rabelais, Ronsard, and Vives). A few sources more difficult to find are noted below, as are English translations used.

4  Jean Céard

disposition of ancient editions that placed the text in the middle of the page and surrounded it with glosses, Rabelais said that those law books ‘seemed to him like a gorgeous golden gown, triumphant, precious, wonderful, but trimmed with shit.’3 Critics perhaps ignored Renaissance commentary for so long because they considered such statements to be general condemnations of practices reputed to be medieval. Organizers of a colloquium at Tours in 1979 expressed surprise and unease at a proposal to treat a subject entitled ‘Les transformations du genre du commentaire à la Renaissance,’4 yet subsequently this subject has attracted the interest of various researchers, research groups, and colloquia. Of course previous researchers were aware of these commentaries. But either they analysed them to extract information considered still valid for their own editions, or, when considering the commentaries themselves, they often expressed discomfort with works in which they hardly recognized what they themselves call commentaries.5 The commentary is a genre, or rather, as we shall see, a group of genres, to which the Renaissance paid constant attention, as if to a kind of writing with which it could identify itself and feel at ease. To come back to the statements of Montaigne and Rabelais, neither amounts to a universal rejection of commentary. In Rabelais’s condemnation of ‘the commentary of Accursius, so filthy, so vile and stinking, that it’s simply worthless muck,’6 nothing indicates that he does not envision a better way to fill the margins of the Pandects: one cannot say for certain that Rabelais, who had so much respect for Guillaume Budé (1468–1540) and such a great friendship with André Tiraqueau (died 1558), is condemning all commentary on legal texts. To understand Montaigne’s thought properly, one might simply recall that, for example, he read St Augustine’s The City of God in an edition accompanied by commentaries of Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540), that he owes many statements to these commentaries, and that Vives is one of the few modern writers he cites by name.7 Vives wrote perhaps the most detailed and enlightening examination of commentary as a genre, although some analysis is needed to complete and specify the objects of commentary as well as the variety of terms used to designate the diverse activities that belong to it. In 1521–1522, Vives had the opportunity to reflect on the nature and the demands of commentary when he undertook, at the request of Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536), the task of com-

Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance  5

menting on The City of God. In Book III of De ratione dicendi (1533), after treating such genres as poems, fables, narratives, and histories, which he groups together by defining them as ‘discourses that teach by explaining matters’ (orationes, quæ explicandis rebus docent), he turns to discourses that teach ‘by explaining words’ (explicatione verborum). He divides these into four categories, according to the way in which they treat the text. Some expand (dilatant) the text; some condense (contrahunt) it; some explain the words in the same language; finally, some transfer the meaning from one language to another. The oratio or discourse that expands the text is paraphrase, which, by brief insertions, clarifies and helps one to understand it; the one that condenses the text is epitome, or summary; the one that explains the text in the same language is commentary, or rather commentaries, since Vives uses only the plural form; the one that transfers the meaning from one language to another is ‘versio sive interpretatio,’ that is to say, translation.8 When treating the third category, commentaries, he calls his discussion Interpretations or Commentaries (Enarrationes seu commentarii), though in the body of the analysis he uses only the second term. He begins by specifying the technical sense of two constituent terms of commentary: the gloss and the scholium: ‘The interpretation of individual words is “gloss” [glossa ... seu glossema], a noun derived from “tongue,” such as when a rather obscure expression is explained by a clearer one, as for example: “a man of iron and difficult to break [homo ferreus et præfractus], that is, hard and inflexible.”’ Scholium, a word drawn from school exercises, is a little more extensive and consists of a simple and modest discourse, completely free of ornaments.’9 After this, Vives addresses the commentary itself, of which he distinguishes two kinds: commentary simplex and commentary in aliud. (Vives analyses them in reverse order.) What Vives describes as simplex seems remote from our modern understanding of commentary. He says: ‘The second type of commentary, which we have designated as “simple,” is one in which a number of matters are noted briefly to prompt the memory,’ whether for oneself or to communicate to others, as Julius Caesar did.10 Yet Vives was not the only one to make this analysis: a few years later Étienne Dolet (1508–1546), who, it is true, studies Latin usage, also notes that the word ‘commentary’ refers to ‘a book that each of us uses for our own purposes and that preserves our memories,’ a diary, a journal of our actions, briefly

6  Jean Céard

related and not reported in detail. Of this type are Caesar’s commentaries, ‘in which his actions in Gaul and during the civil war are not widely or fully recounted, but briefly touched on.’11 Dolet, who is studying classical Latin, then indicates that commentaries of his time are works in which we explain (exponimus) a writer. Vives, who has in mind his own time, starts with the commentary in aliud, but does not forget the ancient sense of the word. As we shall see, this is not without importance. In analysing commentary in aliud, Vives distinguishes two types, which are called, in his words, short commentary and long commentary, though they differ more in their approach to the commented text than in their length. The first seeks out and explains the thought of an author; the second discusses the proposed topic. In the first, ‘one should look less at one’s own thought and more at that of the author whom one has undertaken to explain. If the passage be obscure, one should go back, as it were, to the fountain-head from which your author drew it ... Then one must ever so briefly touch on what others have thought about the passage or have said in treating the same subject. But if what you have set about citing requires a lengthy explanation, it is better, after indicating the original spring (as they say), to disclose where that source is to be found.’12 These, of course, remain the requirements for any commentary today. Vives allows for another type of commentary called diffusus. Commentaries are of this kind if ‘the material under consideration is the subject of debate and the commentator is trying to see what he can contribute’ (quid afferre queat commentator experitur). To this type belong, as a rule, commentaries on Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, and the Magister Sententiarum [Peter Lombard], in civil law too on the Twelve Tables [the earliest Roman code of law, ca. 450 BC] and on the edicts of all magistrates.’13 Vives makes recommendations about this type of commentary, the main one being to avoid straying from the subject as defined by the commented text. Here is an example to clarify Vives’s principle: if one is commenting on the decree of Caesar Augustus to all the world in Luke 2:1, this is neither the time nor place to digress from the subject to a description of the whole world, just as mentioning Augustus should not lead to a retelling of the civil war between Augustus and Mark Antony. In another example, the creation of light in Genesis 1:3 should not lead one to recollect all that philosophers and perspectivists have said about light

Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance  7

and darkness. Vives concludes that, however free a work of this kind may be, one must fully serve the text when writing on other people’s works, ‘or else it will no longer be commentary in aliud or ad aliud, but præter aliud;’ in other words, the commented text will no longer be the subject or the aim of the commentary, but rather its pretext.14 This passage from Vives is enlightening both on the typology of commentaries and on certain practices that it aims to regulate. Taking it as a guide, I will address the extent of the field of commentary and the validity of the typology proposed by Vives, as well as the interesting distinction between commentary simplex and commentary in aliud. Consider first the extent of the field of commentary. While Vives gives as examples the works of Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen, he also cites the Digest. It is well known that the Digest codifies Roman law.15 Compiled in the sixth century under the rule of the Emperor Justinian, it was intended to collect all legal material (it was also known as the Pandects, or book that is allcontaining), to distribute it (digerere), and to order it, like an organized body with all its members. The word corpus appears in the prefatory letter of Justinian to the Senate of Constantinople concerning the emended second edition (534) of the Codex Justinianus: ‘at the commencement of our imperial reign, we proposed to collect in one body [corpus] and to purge of every flaw the most sacred Constitutions, which had been dispersed among different volumes and were rendered unserviceable as much by their extreme similarity as by their extreme discrepancy.’16 This work of ordering and codification presupposes that Roman law has unity. In turn, the men of the Renaissance are more generally striving for ordered and hierarchical unity of knowledge. When Budé examines Roman law, it is with an aim that he calls encyclopedic.17 He writes that truly to understand law, one must grasp all knowledge because the science of law is a part of civil science, which in turn is a part of moral science, which is a part of philosophy.18 The idea of encyclopedia takes into account the totality of knowledge. Budé, in his work De l’Institution du prince, specifies the idea of ‘a perfection of liberal arts and political sciences called in Greek Encyclopaedia, which means, in essence, a sort of circular erudition, these sciences and disciplines having a mutual connection and coherence of doctrine and affinity of study, which should not and cannot be separated or destroyed by distinction of faculty or

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profession ... because all sciences are connected like the parts of a circle that has no beginning or end, and all tend by their natural inclination toward the centre of the circle, which centre we can imagine here to be knowledge of the sovereign good and the desire to attain it.’19 It is not surprising, then, that in studying the Greek language, Budé considers it as a kind of organised system reflecting a moment of unity of knowledge, and that he calls his work Commentaries on the Greek Language (Commentarii linguae graecae). Thus the genre of commentary can treat not only authors, or works already organised in a corpus, but also anything that displays unity of knowledge, such as a language. Dolet is strongly of this opinion in his Commentarii linguae latinae, where he organizes words by two criteria: proximity of meaning and analogy in form. Conscious of what we could call the system of language, he sees the explanation of a word as distinguishing it from others. He dismisses alphabetical order because he refuses to ‘explain individual things individually’ (singula singulatim explicare), as he would be forced to do if he followed an order that would constrain him to work ‘desultorie,’ like circus riders who, in mid-gallop, jump from one horse to another.20 If readers today are tempted to call Dolet’s work a dictionary, albeit of a new kind, the authors of dictionaries presented themselves as commentators. Robert Estienne (died 1559), presenting his Dictionarium of the Latin language in 1536, writes in his prefatory letter to readers on what he calls ‘this kind of commenting’ (hoc commentandi genus).21 The letter to the reader prefacing a 1578 edition of the famous Dictionarium of Ambrogio Calepino (ca. 1435–ca. 1510) is even more explicit: ‘this kind of commentaries, which we call “Dictionaries”’ (hoc commentariorum genus, quos Dictionarioi appellamus).22 The great ancestor of these Latin dictionaries is that of Niccolò Perotti (1429–1480), which is known as Cornucopiae, as well as Linguae latinae commentarii. Its method is particularly interesting since the author comments on Martial, and in doing so provides an ample series of lexicological notes, as if, by approaching the Latin language by one of its representatives, he could explain the whole system of the language.23 To have a dictionary in the modern sense, one could simply arrange these notes in alphabetical order; an index could remedy the difficulty of consulting the work. As mentioned above, Dolet rejects alphabetical order. Those who accept it, because of its evi-

Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance  9

dent convenience, do not apply it strictly: after the principal word of a family, they group together all those that belong to it. For example, in Estienne’s Dictionarium, the words dicax and dicacitas are studied after dico; references in their alphabetical positions direct the reader to them. Conversely, although diu is ordered alphabetically, it is first mentioned after dies. In this way, analysis of the language’s organization partly avoids the dispersion that alphabetical order requires. The commentator can address a more limited subject, such as the system of currency and measurements that Budé analyses in De asse (1515, second edition 1516), a vast commentary on a few words of a Roman law; the achievements of ancient navigation that Lazare de Baïf (died 1547) studies in De re navali commentarius (1536); or divination, as Caspar Peucer (1525–1602) does in his famous Commentarius de praecipuis divinationum generibus (1553). On the other hand, the commentator can also discuss all of ancient culture, as Caelius Rhodiginus (Lodovico Ricchieri of Rovigo, 1469–1525) does in his renowned Antiquae lectiones.24 The place of this work in the genre of commentary is sufficiently established by the precedent of Caesellius Vindex’s Antiquarum lectionum commentarii, no longer extant but mentioned by Aulus Gellius (VI. ii.1), whose Attic Nights are characterized, according to the author himself, by ‘accidental arrangement’ (ordo fortuitus) and the ‘dissimilarity of subjects’ (disparilitas rerum). A work of such breadth seems to be the opposite of commentaries that limit their subjects to navigation or currency and measurement; however, when we look closely, we see that for Budé, currency is an entrance way to the vast world of ancient culture and civilization. One could equally well enter it by another path, that of the diversity of subjects taken at random from readings, since in any case, according to Budé, these subjects are interrelated by ‘a natural connection and coherence of doctrine.’ The main point is to be receptive to the rich diversity of this knowledge, which is fundamentally united, since knowledge forms a whole that one can reach by any path, even by a very close analysis of a very specific reality, provided that one sees it as an entrance, rather than a kind of closed and isolated place. Seen in this way, reading becomes a kind of adventure. In other words, the encyclopedia would be denatured if it took the form of an account that, classifying, ordering, and subordinating, would offer a fixed panorama of knowledge, however good it might be. Rather than being an architect, the encyclopedist

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is a traveller, receptive to the unexpected. The most suitable form for this receptivity is obviously the commentary.25 Even though the results can be voluminous, these works belong to the commentary that Vives calls brevis, contractus, arctus. What about the commentary called diffusus? Quite simply, many Renaissance works that today are deemed to be the authors’ expressions of original thought are commentaries in form. The doctrine on love of Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), whose importance and influence are well known, was formulated in his Commentary on Plato’s Symposium (Commentarium in Convivium Platonis, written 1464, first published 1484). Ficino did a complete translation of Plato’s works; he accompanies each of its books with an ‘argument,’ which he does not call a commentary. On the other hand, when he sets about formulating his own thought, this Platonic philosopher does so in works with titles that include Plato’s name, but that generically he calls commentaries. Works of this nature made Vives say: ‘Authors of this kind should be known as not so much commentators of others’ work as authors of their own work.’26 One could conclude a study of Budé’s work and thought with this formula. On the surface, his Annotationes in Pandectas (1508) is only a series of philological notes. The author isolates various short passages whose correct reading and meaning seem problematic to him, and studies them in themselves; thus the book’s title, Annotationes, a genre that certainly belongs to commentary, but is not meant to include all of an author’s thought. At the same time, as occasion arises, Budé exposes his thought on the hierarchical unity of knowledge, on culture, on politics, and so forth. He seeks to understand Roman law better by placing it in the context of history, that is to say the concrete reality of the societies that saw its birth and in which it was in effect, as well as to bring out the legal and moral general principles by which this law contributes to philosophy. The long pages where he considers ius and iustitia demonstrate clearly this double objective.27 The path by which Budé works to attain it is the examination of words; but, as he shows, the meaning of words can be understood only if one reconstructs precisely the realities to which they refer.28 Budé calls the whole of this research ‘philology.’ In 1532, he would devote to it the work De philologia, which aptly demonstrates the breadth that he assigned to this fundamental concept of his thought, and which could suffice to summarize it.

Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance  11

In 1535, when Budé published his last great book, On the Transition from Hellenism to Christianity (De transitu hellenismi ad christianismum), he began once again with the philological ideal. He distinguishes philologia minor, which applies to ‘studia humanitatis,’ or secular culture, from philologia maior, whose objective is the interpretation of sacred texts and meditation on them, and whose goal is the search for what he calls wisdom, which is entirely contained in Holy Scripture. This project, as he insists, does not involve giving up the humanities, since Budé indicates that he has resolved to transfer to the study of wisdom all the mental resources and abilities that the humanities have made it possible for him to acquire and use. He does not intend, he says, to renounce his long-cultivated practice of philology.29 In a way, Budé reconciles the two types of commentary in aliud (that is, brevis and diffusus) distinguished by Vives. This type of reconciliation seemed regrettable to some of Budé’s contemporaries. Erasmus writes in the ironically laudatory letter that he addressed to Budé on 15 February 1517: your annotations on the Pandects, which brought you a great reputation, would have earned ... a somewhat higher one, had you cut out the good things from your very well-stocked larder which you pile on our plates rather than set before us, like some over-lavish Lucullus rather than an industrious chief butler, and had contributed to the common stock those things in particular which properly pertained to your chosen subject; to give an example, if, when expounding the nature of vindicta, you had not promptly heaped up together what is to be found anywhere in any kind of author about vindicare, vindicta and vindiciae, but only what properly belonged to the elucidation of that passage. As it is, no one feels that erudition is lacking.30

To provide ‘only what properly belonged to the elucidation of that passage’ is essentially the recommendation of Vives, who urges the commentator to stay within the limits defined by the commented text; recall his example of the census decree of Caesar Augustus and his invitation to refrain from taking the opportunity to give a lecture on world geography. Neverthless, one must observe that Budé’s excursus are not at all of this nature. The example given by Erasmus refers to two long pages from the Annotationes31 where Budé examines the cited terms and, to correct a mistake of

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Franciscus Accursius (1182?–1260?), compiler at Bologna of the Glossa ordinaria on the laws, establishes their specific meanings by citing passages from Titus Livius, Plutarch, Cicero and others and by examining accounts from historians who enable him to define precisely the juridical and judicial practices designated by these terms. It is therefore the meaning of the text that Budé is seeking, even if he needs this lengthy detour to grasp it. In other words, he leaves the text, only to return to it better informed. The digressions that Vives condemns are quite different: they do not help clarify the meaning of the text studied. To illustrate an example of what Vives means, one should turn not to Budé, but to a commentator such as Alfonso de Madrigal (called ‘el Tostado’ or, in Latin, Alphonsus Tostatus) bishop of Avila (died 1455), who produced a massive commentary on the Bible. When he comes to the account of the flight to Egypt, Tostado tries to determine ‘in quibus locis Aegyptis mansit Christus,’ having first described Egypt at length.32 This practice had gone out of date by the sixteenth century; when Jean Maldonat (Juan Maldonado, SJ, 1533–1583) comments on the Gospels (a task that takes him only one volume), the account of the flight to Egypt is for him an opportunity to warn the reader against the curiosity that would cause him to ask in what city in Egypt Christ resided and what he did there.33 To understand Budé’s digressions better, one should perhaps take into account the distinction that both Vives and Dolet make between commentarius simplex and commentarius in aliud. At first glance, these two types have nothing in common. However, the sixteenth century seems to have seen a relation between them, to judge by an observation of Étienne Pasquier (1529–1615) on the Commentaires of Blaise de Monluc (1499–1577). This great general, following the example of Julius Caesar, gave the title Commentaries to the account of his campaigns and battles. Monluc, writes Pasquier, ‘not without good reason called his work commentaries, which in our language Commynes and after him Martin Du Bellay chose to call memoirs: for to say it properly in our French vernacular, after having recounted each memorable feat that he had done, he followed it with a fine commentary.’34 Although Pasquier knows that Monluc aimed to imitate Caesar, he continues, ‘But I call “Commentaries” the fine military instructions that our Monluc gives after his narrative.’35 In summary, whether he likes it or not, the title chosen by Monluc is justified by the con-

Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance  13

temporary use of the term ‘commentary’; it is as though Monluc, putting himself at a distance from his own actions, examines them to draw instructions. This is more or less the relation that the sixteenth-century commentator establishes with the text on which he comments. The author of this text is for him an interlocutor with whom he opens a dialogue. While the author and the commentator remain distinct, first because the commentator is not in a hurry to appropriate the author and respects his otherness, the commentator also seeks to grasp the author’s thought in its coherence and to explain it by clarifying its references, finding its sources, and comparing it to other thoughts. To understand it better, he does not hesitate to call on his own experience. This type of action also serves the commented text. Consider some examples from Vives’s commentary on The City of God. I cited elsewhere the passage in which Saint Augustine, trying to prove the existence of giants in the earliest times, states that he saw an enormous human molar on the beach at Utica. Vives at this point recalls having seen in Valencia, his birthplace in Spain, ‘a maxillary tooth bigger than a fist’ that was said to belong to Saint Christopher, and he indicates that he was accompanied by a trustworthy young man.36 This is quite a detailed account. Others can be much more concise: when Saint Augustine notes that the idea that law favours the powerful (or, might makes right) ‘is often asserted by some people who think wrongly’ (quod a quibusdam non recte sentientibus dici solet),37 Vives recalls the Platonic character Thrasymachus and adds, ‘and without a doubt such is most of the law that we now use in our states’ (et haud dubie tale est maxima ex parte ius, quo nunc in civitatibus utimur).38 This brief reflection shows how Saint Augustine’s text remains current for Vives. Such references and remarks, which today seem out of place in a commentary, did not surprise Vives’s contemporaries at all. Montaigne cites one from Vives. Trying to show how our bodily organs rarely obey our wishes, Montaigne writes: ‘To vindicate the omnipotence of our will, Saint Augustine alleges that he knew a man who commanded his behind to produce as many farts as he wanted, and his commentator Vives goes him one better with another example of his own time, of farts arranged to suit the tone of verses pronounced to their accompaniment; but all this does not really argue any pure obedience in this organ; for is there any that is ordinarily more indiscreet or tumultuous?’39

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Such intrusions from the commentator in his commentary are frequent in the Renaissance. They occur in all sorts of commentaries. Budé in De asse, his aforementioned study of ancient currency and measurement, examines various terms, including quincunx. To explain it, he describes the use of the term in arboriculture, and after several ancient accounts, he mentions plantations in his property at Saint-Maur. At times, even though the subject does not require it, he may step into the spotlight and tell the reader about his love of letters, his ardour in the search for truth, his love for his country, and even his health. Caelius Rhodiginus, who might be expected to be immersed entirely in the ancient texts in his Lectionum antiquarum libri sexdecim (Venice: Aldine Press, 1516), recounts in detail at the beginning of his fifth book the war against the Venetians that was occurring while he was ‘commenting,’ that is, writing this book (‘quo tempore commentabamur ista’) and, in his twenty-fifth book, the birth of a monster that took place in the territory of Rovigo, his city, an event that he says he considers worthy of being included in his work. Alessandro Alessandri (1451–1523), in his renowned Geniales dies (Rome: in aedibus Iacobi Mazochii, 1522), an immense repertoire of institutions, habits, and customs of ancient people, relates in detail a ghost story that he learned from one of his respectable friends.40 Once again, contemporaries welcomed these digressions: the monster of Rovigo experienced lasting success in teratological literature, as did Alessandro’s ghost. These excursus so naturally played an integral part in the genre of commentary that the authors could boast of them. Vives said it point blank: ‘I took pleasure in entertaining and leading the reader through digressions (digressus), which are not too disagreeable or unpleasant.’41 Dolet, far from finding fault with digressions, includes at the end of his Commentarii linguae latinae a table of those that appear in the work. While certain digressions are of general interest, some are definitely personal. For those who might be tempted to see them as a type of exhibitionism, or at least untimely self-love, it must be pointed out that this practice is frequent and widespread, and that it is best seen as a sign of the particular relation between the commentator and the author or authors on whom he comments. The fine words of San Bernardino da Siena (1380–1444) come to mind: ‘Come now. Read the books they wrote. Read what you prefer. They will speak to you and you will speak to them; they will listen to you and you will listen to them.’42

Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance  15

To return to Montaigne’s harsh words on commentaries, one should note that the late Renaissance approach to commenting is less and less like that of the High Renaissance.43 Scholars and pedagogues, for different but converging reasons, display reserve and mistrust towards it. Scholars focus their work more and more on establishing texts and on simply clarifying their meaning. It was no accident that Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) chose the title Antiquarum lectionum commentarii for the title of a work that is a series of strictly philological notes. Others avoid even the mention of the word ‘commentary.’ Claude Garnier, asked to comment on the Discours des misères of Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585), consents only ‘as long as you are not looking for an entire commentary from me ... from which you would not learn anything more.’44 In the case of Simon Goulart (1543–1628), who very quickly sets about clarifying (I do not dare say ‘commenting’ on) Du Bartas’s Première Sepmaine, he provides many ‘annotations or indications,’ which he even arranges in alphabetical order, to the point of constituting little treatises on subjects such as the sky, eclipses, and stars. However, he frequently indicates that he is preparing to write a proper commentary, and that he is reserving for it the most detailed commentary on certain subjects. He never wrote this commentary; one could say that the commentary became an impossible task, even though the dream lived on.45 Pedagogues were wary about ventures that would turn students away from direct contact with texts and would make the commentator’s voice almost equal to that of the author. Jesuit schoolmasters did not hesitate to write commentaries, often voluminous ones such as those of Andreas Schott (1552–1629) on Cornelius Nepos (1609), Matthias Rader (1561–1634) on Martial (1611), Nicolas Abram (1589–1655) on Cicero (1631), and Juan Luis de La Cerda (1560–1643) on Virgil, the latter in three folio volumes (1608–1642).46 But these commentaries, which merit an overall study, have little resemblance to their predecessors. That of Abram on Cicero invariably presents before the text an argumentum, followed by an explanatio (where he explains the letter of the text, its ideas, and their articulation), as well as notae (which compare the text to other similar ones), and, in smaller characters and in brief terms, axiomata, which are short moral reflections. It is certainly a rich work, but it is entirely subject to the text and is offered to the reader as a buffet from which one can take food to one’s own liking, according to one’s capacities and needs or de-

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sires. This image of a buffet, which comes from the commentator himself,47 indicates an enterprise that is no longer the voyage or the adventure to which the earlier commentators aspired to introduce their readers. Just think of Budé, who sought to give his readers the means to judge the quality of his propositions not only by submitting to them, in all its detail, the document that he had constituted but also by describing (no doubt in a reconstructed order) the steps that he had taken to constitute it. He did not even omit the wrong paths that had taken him astray during his research. To conclude, it is true that Vives (speaking only of commentary brevis, such as the one that he had devoted to The City of God) emphasized that commenting was a modest task: ‘I am not unaware how much it takes away renown and admiration from excellent work when one writes on another: that is to say one builds on the foundation of another, and the subject of the writing has been so to speak provided by another.’48 Nevertheless, it was by continuing on this path and widening it, and by moulding this genre according to his needs that Guillaume Budé made his name. Furthermore, for the authors of works that, in the words of Vives, ‘explicandis rebus docent,’ the commentary constitutes a sort of consecration. The case of Ronsard is a good example.49 In 1550, he attracted attention by the publication of his Odes; in 1552, the publication of his Amours designated him as the incontestable leader of the new poetry. In 1553, the second edition appeared with the title Les Amours de P. de Ronsard Vandomois, nouvellement augmentées par lui, et commentées par Marc Antoine de Muret. The main novelty of this edition is specifically the commentary, whose importance is underlined in a ‘Preface de Marc Antoine de Muret sur ses commentaires,’ where he makes sure to point out that he has already shown and will show ‘more fully some day’ (plus amplement quelque jour) that he has earned ‘a place among men of letters’ (de quoi tenir quelque ranc entre les letrés).50 He takes care to emphasize that he sees no need to answer ‘those who might find it strange that I set about commenting on a French book, which was written by a man who is still living.’51 Marc-Antoine Muret (1526–1585) was at the time what we would call a famous young intellectual. And he is commenting on the work of a young man, one year after the publication of his book, whereas Homer and Virgil had to wait centuries for their works to be commented upon, one by Eustathius, the other by Servius.

Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance  17

Let us not forget that ancient authors were often published in the Renaissance along with the ancient commentaries on their works. To be published with a commentary during one’s lifetime is to enter in the ranks of the classics. Beyond the theory and practices of commentary in the Renaissance, this example shows clearly its symbolic value. NOTES   1 Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays of Montaigne, trans. Donald M. Frame (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958), 818; Montaigne, Les Essais, III, 13, ed. Jean Céard et al., La Pochothèque (Paris: Librairie générale française, 2001), 1663: ‘Il y a plus affaire à interpréter les interprétations, qu’à interpréter les choses: et plus de livres sur les livres, que sur autre sujet: Nous ne faisons que nous entregloser. Tout fourmille de commentaires: d’auteurs, il en est grand cherté.’   2 Montaigne, Complete Essays, 817; Montaigne, Les Essais, 1660–1: ‘Qui ne dirait que les gloses augmentent les doutes et l’ignorance, puisqu’il ne se voit aucun livre, soit humain, soit divin, sur qui le monde s’embesogne, duquel l’interprétation fasse tarir la difficulté? Le centième commentaire, le renvoie à son suivant, plus épineux, et plus scabreux, que le premier ne l’avait trouvé.’   3 François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, trans. Burton Raffel (New York: Norton, 1990), book 2, chap. 5, 147; Rabelais, Pantagruel, chap. 5, ed. M. Huchon (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), 231: ‘Une belle robbe d’or triumphante et precieuse à merveilles, qui feust brodée de merde.’   4 See Jean Céard, ‘Les transformations du genre du commentaire,’ in L’Automne de la Renaissance, 1580–1630, ed. Jean Lafond and André Stegman (Paris: J. Vrin, 1981), 101–15.   5 For examples, see Céard, ‘Les transformations du genre du commentaire.’   6 Rabelais, Pantagruel, trans. Raffel, 147; Rabelais, Pantagruel, chap. 5, ed. M. Huchon, 231: ‘La glose de Accurse, tant sale, tant infame, et punaise, que ce n’est que ordure et vilenie.’   7 Montaigne, Complete Essays, XXI (‘Of the power of the imagination’), 73.   8 Jean-Louis Vives, ‘De paraphrasibus,’ in De ratione dicendi lateinisch/ deutsch (Marburg: Hitzeroth, 1993), 3:9, 228: ‘Hactenus de iis ora-

18  Jean Céard

  9

10

11

12

13

tionibus quæ explicandis rebus docent, nunc de iis, quæ explicatione verborum, quarum aliæ orationem, quam susceperunt, dilatant, aliæ contrahunt, aliæ verba explanant eadem lingua, aliæ ex una in aliam transfundunt sensa; primum genus paraphrasis dicitur, alterum epitome, tertium commentarii, quartum versio sive interpretatio.’ The Latin is a reprint of the edition of Gregorio Mayáns y Siscár (Valencia, 1782), accompanied by a German translation by Angelika Ott and a preface by Emilio Hidalgo-Serna. Vives, ‘Enarrationes et commentarii,’ in De ratione dicendi, 3:11, 230–1: ‘Interpretatio singulorum verborum glossa est, seu glossema, nomen a lingua tractum, quasi lingua obscurior dilucidiore declaretur, ut homo ferreus et præfractus, hoc est durus et inflexibilis; aliquanto fusius est scholium, ab exercitatione scholarum deductum, quod constat oratione facili, et demissa, omni prorsum cultu atque apparatu nuda.’ De ratione dicendi, 3:11, 232: ‘... alterum commentariorum genus esse diximus simplex, in quibus breviter annotantur admonendæ memoriæ nonnulla … sunt nonnulli ad memoriam rerum gestarum conscripti magis aliis quàm nobis ipsis, ut … qui extant C. Cæsaris.’ Étienne Dolet, Commentariorum linguae latinae tomus primus (Lyons: Sebastianus Gryphius, 1536), col. 1702: ‘Liber est, quem sibi quisque nostrum privatim facere consuevit, quasi quoddam memoriae promptuarium eorum, quae egimus: Id est diarium, et ephemeris actionum nostrarum. Vel aliter sic exponi potest: Commentarius, vel Commentarium dicitur, quicquid ita conficimus, ut memoriae tantum gratia, non plenae narrationis facere videamur: in quo scilicet capita tantum, et summas rerum annotare solemus. Inde Commentarii Caesaris dicti, in quibus res eius in Gallia, et bello civili gestae non late, et plene enarrantur, sed breviter perstringuntur.’ Vives, ‘Enarrationes et commentarii,’ in De ratione dicendi, 3:11, 231: ‘... in arctioribus commentariis non perinde spectandum est, quid ipse sentias, ut quid is, quem explanandum suscepisti. Si locus sit obscurus, repetendus velut a fonte, unde est ab auctore tuo desumtus, ut in Plinio ab Aristotele, vel Theophrasto, aut aliis, quos ipse nominat, in Timæo Platonis ab opere Timæi Pythagorici, quod non parum lucis adfert; tum breviter, velut puncto, attingendum, quid alii de ipso loco senserint, aut si qui tractarunt idem argumentum; quod si non nisi multis verbis explanari possit quod citare instituisti, satius est fontem, quod ajunt, indicasse digito, et unde sit hauriendum patefacere.’ De ratione dicendi, 3:11, 231: ‘diffunduntur vero, si de proposita mate-

Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance  19 ria disputatur, et quid adferre queat commentator experitur, quales fere sunt in Aristotelem, in Hippocratem, in Galenum, in Magistrum sententiarum, in jure etiam civili ad 12. tabulas, et ad edicta magistratuum omnium; hujus notæ scriptores non tam alieni operis expo­ sitores dici debeant, quam auctores proprii, ideoque ad 12. tabulas et ad edictum prætoris, vel ædilitium commentarios suos inscribunt.’ 14 De ratione dicendi, 3:11, 231–2: ‘In commentariis diffusis cavendum ne alieno loco accurata fiat, et longa disputatio, neu permisceas disciplinas, velut si scribens in sacras litteras, ad anxias et verbosas de aliis disciplinis commentationes transeas, quemadmodum de vocibus, de memoria rerum gestarum, de dialectica, de cognitione naturæ, ut si enarrans illud Evangelii divi Lucæ: Exiit edictum a Cæsare Augusto, ut describeretur universus orbis, ex mentione Augusti velut occasionem nactus, totum illius cum Marco Antonio bellum civile recenseas: vel quia exponis, Fiat lux, infarcias de luce et umbris, quicquid a philosophis et perspectivis est collectum … jam vero quantumcumque fusos commentarios habeas in animo componere, memineris semper esse commentarios, nec adeo in eis licitum esse evagari, atque in libero tuo opere, dum enim in alium scribis, illi est ubique subserviendum, alioqui non in aliud, vel ad aliud erunt commentarii, sed præter aliud.’ 15 The Digest (Pandects) is part of the Corpus juris civilis compiled and codified under Justinian. Its contents include the Codex Justinianus, Digest, Institutiones, and Novellae. 16 ‘... in primordio nostri imperii sacratissimas constitutiones, quae in diversa volumina fuerant dispersae et quam plurima similitudine nec non diversitate vacillabant, in unum corpus colligere omnique vitio purgare proposuimus’: ‘De emendatione Codicis Iustiniani et secunda eius editione,’ in Codex Iustinianus, ed. Paul Krueger, vol. 2 of Corpus iuris civilis, 4 (Berolini: apud Weidmannos, 1963), 4. 17 See Jean Céard, ‘Encyclopédie et encyclopédisme à la Renaissance,’ in L’Encyclopédisme: Actes du Colloque de Caen, 12–16 janvier 1987, ed. Annie Becq (Paris: Éditions Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1991), 57–67; Céard, ‘De l’encyclopédie au commentaire, du commentaire à l’encyclopédie: Le temps de la Renaissance,’ in Tous les savoirs du monde (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France / Flammarion, 1996), 164–9; Céard, ‘Le commentaire, ou l’encyclopédisme non méthodique de la Renaissance,’ in L’entreprise encyclopédique (Actes du colloque de l’ Université de Paris X-Nanterre, 11–13 Jan. 1996), ed. Jean Bouffartigue and Françoise Mélonio (Nanterre: Centre des Sciences de la Littérature, Univ. Paris X, 1997), 79–95. 18 Guillaume Budé, Annotationes in quatuor & viginti Pandectarum libros

20  Jean Céard (Paris: Michel Vascosan, Robert I. Estienne, and Jean de Roigny, 1542), 281: ‘Iuris scientia, ut alibi diximus, pars est civilis scientiae, quae rursus ipsa pars est moralis scientiae. Porro moralis scientia, tertia pars est philosophiae, etiam cum philosophia angustissimis finibus circumscribitur.’ 19 Budé, De l’institution du Prince (L’Arrivour: Nicole Paris, 1547), 88: ‘Une perfection des arts liberaux et sciences politiques qu’on appelle en Grec Encyclopedia, qui vaut autant à dire (pour le declairer briefvement) comme erudition circulaire, ayans lesdictes sciences et disciplines connexité mutuelle et coherence de doctrine et affinité d’estude, qui ne se doibt ny peult bonnement separer ny destruire par distinction de faculté ou profession …, pource que toutes les sciences s’entretiennent comme font les parties d’un cercle qui n’a ny commencement ny fin, et toutes tendent de leur naturelle inclination vers le centre du cercle, lequel centre nous pouvons icy imaginer estre congnoissance du bien souverain et desir de parvenir à icelluy.’ 20 Etienne Dolet, Commentariorum linguae latinae tomus primus, col. 24; see also vol. 2 (1538), col. 763. 21 Dictionarium, seu Latinae linguae thesaurus, non singulas modo dictiones continens, sed integras quoque Latine, et loquendi, et scribendi formulas. For Estienne’s description of his dictionary as ‘hoc commentandi genus,’ see ‘Robertus Stephanus Lectoribus S. (Edit. Paris 1536.),’ vol. 1, p. 23 (sig. f2r), col. 1, ll. 41–2, in Roberti Stephani lexicographorum principis Thesaurus linguae latinae in IV. tomos divisus (Basel: Typis et impensis E. & J.R. Thurnisiorum fratr., 1740–3), rept. in facsimile (Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1964). For further examples and discussion of sixteenth-century dictionaries as commentaries, see Céard, ‘Les mots et les choses: Le commentaire à la Renaissance,’ in L’Europe de la Renaissance. Cultures et civilisations. Mélanges offerts à M.-Th. Jones-Davies, ed. Jean-Claude Margolin and Marie-Madeleine Martinet (Paris: Jean Touzot, 1988), 28–30. 22 Ambrosii Calepini Dictionarium (Paris: apud Joannem Macaeum, 1578), sig. †2r, digitized in Gallica from a copy in the Bibliothèque nationale de France: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k123463 (Screen 6/1383). First printed in 1502 in Lombardy, Calepinus, as this dictionary was commonly called, was frequently reprinted with emendations and multilingual additions by others. 23 The editio princeps of Perotti’s Cornu Copiae seu linguae Latinae commentarii, a vast reference work in the form of a commentary on Martial, was probably Venice: P. Paganini, 1489. A modern critical edition by Jean-Louis Charlet et al. has been published in eight

Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance  21 volumes (Sassoferrato, Italy: Istituto Internazionale di Studi Piceni, 1989–2001). 24 See Anna Giulia Cavagna and Thomas B. Deutscher, ‘Lodovico Ricchieri of Rovigo, 1469–1525,’ in CEBR 3 (1987): 155. Céard discusses Caelius Rhodiginus in ‘Les transformations du genre du commentaire,’ 104, 106, and ‘De l’encyclopédie au commentaire, du commentaire à l’encyclopédie,’ 167–8. See also Michela Marangoni, L’armonia del sapere: I ‘Lectionum antiquarum libri’ di Celio Rodigino (Venice: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 1997). 25 See Céard, ‘Le commentaire, ou l’encyclopédisme non méthodique de la Renaissance.’ 26 Vives, ‘Enarrationes et commentarii,’ 3:9, in De ratione dicendi, 231: ‘... hujus notæ scriptores non tam alieni operis expositores dici debeant, quàm auctores proprii.’ 27 Budé, Annotationes in Pandectas, 25–34. 28 The relation between words and things is particularly relevant to lexicographers. See Céard, ‘Les mots et les choses,’ 23–36. 29 ‘Ad hoc ipse alterum studium … transferre eundem animum concupiui, copias item ipsius omnes, facultatesque transcribere, quales illæ sunt cunque. Id demum receptum volui, cautumque diligenter, ne mihi necesse esset usum et consuetudinem philologiæ pristinæ, contractam perdiu et conformatam, sic ipsi renunciare, eam ut ipsam ultimum valere iuberem, semelque salutarem’: Budé, De transitu hellenismi ad christianismum, Préface, 1–2, in Latin edition with French translation by M.-M. de La Garanderie (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1993), 1. 30 Trans. R.A.B. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson, Ep. 531 (Erasmus to Guillaume Budé, 15 February 1517), lines 335–45, in CWE 4 (1977): 233; Allen, lines 302–12. 31 Budé, Annotationes in Pandectas, 42–3. 32 Alphonsus Tostatus, Episcopus Abulensis (Alfonso de Madrigal), Commentarii in 1am partem Matthaei (Venice, 1615), 222–9. 33 Jean Maldonat, Commentarii in IV Evangelistas (Paris: Denis Langlois, 1621), col. 58A. The Spanish Jesuit theologian Maldonat spent much of his career teaching in France. 34 ‘[N]on sans grande raison a intitulé son œuvre commentaires, ce qu’en nostre langue un Commines et après luy un Martin du Bellay voulurent appeller memoires: car, pour bien dire, sans nous eslon­gner de nostre vulgaire François, après avoir recité quelque memorable exploit par luy faict, il apporte tout d’une suite un beau Commentaire’: Étienne Pasquier, ‘Letter à Pelgé,’ in Les Œuvres

22  Jean Céard

35

36

37

38 39

40 41

42

43

d’Estienne Pasquier, contenant ses Recherches de la France; son Plaidoyé pour M. le duc de Lorraine; celuy de Me Versoris, pour les jesuites, contre L’Université de Paris (Amsterdam, 1723), vol. 2, col. 520. ‘De moy j’appelle Commentaires les belles instructions militaires que nostre Monluc baille à la suite de son narré’: Pasquier, Les Œuvres, vol. 2, col. 520. See Céard, ‘Les transformations du genre du commentaire,’ 104, quoting St Augustine, De la Cité de Dieu, illustrée des Commentaires de Jean Loys Vives … Le tout faict françois par Gentian Hervet …, 3rd ed. (Paris: M. Sonnius, 1585), p. 424. Augustine, XXII libri de civitate dei, in Omnium operum D. Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis episcopi quintus tomus, ed. Desiderius Erasmus (Basel: H. Frobenius and N. Episcopius, 1542), 19:21, sig Dd1r, col. 2. Augustine, XXII libri de civitate dei, Dd1v, cols. 1–2, note b. Montaigne, Complete Essays, XXI (‘Of the power of the imagination’), 73. Montaigne, Les Essais, I, 20, ed. Céard et al., 155: ‘Ce que pour autoriser la puissance de notre volonté, Saint Augustin allègue avoir vu quelqu’un, qui commandait à son derrière autant de pets qu’il en voulait: et que Vives enchérit d’un autre exemple de son temps, de pets organisés, suivant le ton des voix qu’on leur prononçait, ne suppose non plus pure l’obéissance de ce membre. Car en est-il ordinairement de plus indiscret et tumultuaire?’ On his life, see John F. D’Amico, ‘Alessandro d’Alessandro of Naples, 1461–October 1523,’ in CEBR 1 (1985): 32. ‘J’ay prins plaisir à me joüer et conduire le lecteur en des digressions (digressus), lesquelles ce pendant ne sont pas trop mal agreables et desplaisantes’: Vives’s preface to commentaries on St Augustine’s The City of God, trans. Hervet in the 3rd French ed., Paris 1585, as quoted in Céard, ‘Les transformations du genre du commentaire,’ 105. ‘... or va, leggi i loro libri [St Paul, St Augustine, St Gregory, St Jerome, St Ambrose and the other holy doctors], qual più ti piace, o di qual più fai istima, e parlerai con loro ed eglino parleranno teco; udiranno te e tu udirai loro ...’: San Bernardino da Siena, a sermon for Lent of 1425 reprinted by Eugenio Garin, Educazione umanistica in Italia, 6th ed. (Bari: Editori Laterza, 1967), 48, from C. Cannarozzi, Le prediche volgari di S. Bernardino da Siena (Florence, 1940), 3:297. For these and other examples, see further Céard, ‘Les transformations du genre du commentaire,’ as well as Céard, ‘Formes discursives,’ in Précis de littérature française du XVIe siècle: La Renaissance, edited under the direction of Robert Aulotte (Paris: Presses Univer­ sitaire de France, 1991), 177–92.

Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance  23 44 Ronsard, Œuvres (Paris: Nicolas Buon, 1623), 2:1332. ‘À condition toutesfois que l’on ne rechercheroit pas un entier Commentaire de moy …, ains que l’on auroit à gré d’en tirer sans plus un esclaircissement.’ The dates of Garnier’s birth and death are obscure. An early seventeenth-century French poet, he was executor of Ronsard’s will and published a continuation of Ronsard’s unfinished La Franciade. Garnier also wrote many works of his own from 1602 to 1633. See T. de Morembert, ‘Garnier (Claude),’ in DBF 15 (1982): 478. 45 Goulart was a contemporary of the famous Guillaume de Salluste, seigneur du Bartas (1544–1590). Leonard Chester Jones, Simon Goulart 1543–1628: Étude biographique et bibliographique (Geneva: Georg et Cie/Paris: Eduoard Champion, 1917), 533–650, is now available online (digitized from a copy in the Robarts Library, University of Toronto): http://www.archive.org/stream/ simongoulart154300joneuoft#page/n1/mode/2up. 46 Andrew Laird assigns a birth date of 1558 to this Spanish Jesuit: ‘Juan Luis de La Cerda and the Predicament of Commentary,’ in The Classical Commentary: History, Practices, Theory, ed. Roy K. Gibson and Christine Shuttleworth Kraus (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 174. The dates given here are those assigned in most library catalogues. 47 In his introduction to Commentarius in IIIm vol. Orationum M. T. Ciceronis (Paris: S. Cramoisy, 1631), Nicolas Abram, SJ, writes: ‘Nos magna ferculorum copia, litterarium istud convivium extruximus: capiet quisque quod stomacho magis arriserit, et fluentem ex aliorum ciborum conspectu nauseam coercebit.’ 48 Céard, ‘Les mots et les choses,’ 35n2, also quotes the following Latin original: ‘Primum non ignoro quantum famae admirationisque operi etiam optimo detrahatur, quum in aliud scribitur: id est, aedificatur in aliena superficie, et velut scribendi argumentum ab alio est suppeditatum.’ 49 See Jean Céard, ‘Muret, commentateur des Amours de Ronsard,’ in Sur des Vers de Ronsard, ed. Marcel Tetel (Paris: Aux Amateurs de Livres, 1990), 37–50; repr. in afterword in Ronsard, Les Amours, leurs Commentaires, ed. Christine de Buzon and Pierre Martin (Paris: Didier Erudition, 1999), 357–79. 50 Ronsard, Les Amours, leurs Commentaires, 10. 51 ‘Je pense qu’il ne m’est ja besoin de repondre à ceux, qui pourroient trouver étrange que je me suis mis à commenter un livre François, et composé par un homme, qui est encores en vie’: Ronsard, Les Amours, leurs Commentaires, 9.

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part TWO T H E B I B L I C A L S C H O L AR S H I P O F E RA S M U S

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TWO

Erasmus’s Paraphrases: A ‘New Kind of Commentary’? jean-françois cottier

Thanks to the parallel efforts of two large collections dedicated to the work of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) – the annotated critical edition of his texts (ASD) and their translation into English (CWE)1 – Erasmus’s Paraphrases on the New Testa­ ment have been the subject of renewed interest in the last few years. This is shown, for example, by the recent publication of two important essay collections dedicated completely or in part to the Paraphrases of Erasmus: Holy Scripture Speaks and Les paraphrases bibliques aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles.2 Preparation of the annotated ASD edition of the Paraphrases on Matthew and John has spurred my own reflection on Erasmus’s theory behind these works, espe­ cially in regard to the literary dimension of this question (history and theory of paraphrase, the question of language and rewrit­ ing),3 but also in regard to the pastoral and theological aspects of such an undertaking.4 A statement of Erasmus himself in his dedicatory letter to Charles V (13 January 1522) in the Paraphrase on Matthew invites further consideration here. Erasmus writes that ‘a paraphrase is a kind of commentary,’5 even though he had earlier emphasized to Erard de la Marck that his work is ‘a new departure in every way.’6 Is he calling paraphrase a new type of commentary? And if so, why, and in what way? This question is made more interesting by the prefaces and correspondence in which, when confronted with

Translated from French by Karen Mak and Nancy Senior, University of Saskat­ chewan; translations into English of Latin quotations are, if not otherwise noted, by Judith Rice Henderson and P.M. Swan, University of Saskatchewan.

28  Jean-François Cottier

critics who sometimes attacked his work violently, Erasmus justi­ fied his project of paraphrasing the New Testament. He based his argument on two premises: (1) on the antiquity of a practice made famous since the earliest times of Christianity by poets whose heir he considers himself to be, such as Juvencus (who wrote Evangeliorum libri IV, based on the Gospel of Matthew, ca. 330), or Arator (who published Historia apostolica, based on the Acts of the Apos­ tles, at Rome in 544), and (2) on the pastoral necessity of simpli­ fying the sacred text for less-educated Christians, as the Greek pagan philosopher and rhetorician Themistius had simplified Aristotle in numerous paraphrases written in the fourth-century Christian empire. The questions he asks those who attack him, then, are whether one has the right to comment on Holy Scripture, and if so, to what extent rewriting is considered commenting. Erasmus’s remarks suggest a literary dimension to what is clearly a scholarly product (in contrast, for example, to poetic paraphrases). Specialists in vernacular literatures seriously un­ derestimate this literary dimension when they consider Latin par­ aphrases to be pure commentaries, for it is no doubt the rhetorical dimension of the Paraphrases that distinguishes them from simple commentary.7 They were intended not only to instruct (docere) but equally to move and please (movere and placere). The argument that follows will first analyse the originality of the ancient models claimed by Erasmus, then explore the extent to which the para­ phrase is a type of commentary, and finally consider the nature of Erasmian poetic and its goals. ancient references: exegetical paraphrase and rhetorical paraphrase The products of ancient paraphrase reveal, despite apparently stable terminology, what Catherine Fuchs calls a ‘conceptual rup­ ture.’8 The same term ‘paraphrase’ designates simple reformula­ tion exercises of apprentice rhetors, adaptations or recreations of biblical poetry, exegetical commentaries, and even certain forms of translation.9 Erasmus was the only writer of his generation to have called his work not ‘commentary’ but ‘paraphrase,’10 a term that he clearly claims in the letter accompanying the first edition of Paraphrase on the Epistle to the Romans addressed to Tho­ mas More (1478–1535): ‘I send you my paraphrase, and truly it deserves the name.’11 He did not make a clear distinction between

Erasmus’s Paraphrases  29

the two terms until he became more involved in doing his para­ phrase, and his progressive awareness of the novelty of a practice clearly distinct from that of the scholarly gloss led him to reflect and theorize by referring to two ancient models. The first ancient authority, put forward by Erasmus to explain the nature of his work to the philosopher and theologian Luis Coronel (died 1531),12 is the explanatory paraphrase of Themis­ tius on Aristotle: ‘The scope allowed to the writer of a paraphrase can easily be seen by anyone who compares Themistius with Ar­ istotle.’13 This reference to Themistius, somewhat mysterious at first glance, is no doubt explained by the publication in 1481 of the Latin translation of Themistius’s Paraphrases of Aristotle’s De anima by Ermolao Barbaro (1453/4–1493).14 This publication marked the start of a new approach to Aristotelian studies in which Eras­ mus did not take part but which could interest his Spanish cor­ respondent. As M.J.C. Lowry observes, ‘Barbaro’s ... lectures and commentaries on the classical philosophers and scientists ... were based on a close adherence to the Greek texts and an accurate grasp of all the information needed to understand them.’15 Bar­ baro’s 1481 translation of Themistius also exerted a considerable influence over the revival of the practice of paraphrase, provok­ ing real debate regarding even the definition of the term. The Ital­ ian philosopher Agostino Nifo (ca. 1470–ca. 1538), in an attempt to include the paraphrase in the Scholastic tradition, identifies paraphrase with one of the three possible forms of commentary used by Averroès,16 while Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540) separates the desire to clarify and to abridge into two distinct exercises: the paraphrase17 and the epitome.18 In 1492 Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (ca. 1460–1536), after his first trip to Italy, where he met Barbaro in Rome and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494) and An­ gelo Poliziano (1454–1494) at the court of the Medici, began to paraphrase almost the whole of Aristotle’s work with the aim of making the text more comprehensible for his contemporaries. In 1519 Belisario Acquaviva d’Aragona (ca. 1464–1528) published a paraphrase of the Oeconomica attributed to Aristotle.19 The second classical model to which Erasmus refers is bibli­ cal epic of late antiquity. He at least knew that an Aldine imprint of the paraphrase of the Gospel of John by Nonnus of Panopolis existed, even if he states in 1525 that he has not seen an edition of it.20 However, he cites Juvencus,21 among others. This reference, written in response to the violent criticisms of Alberto Pio prince

30  Jean-François Cottier

of Carpi (1475–1531), who was opposed to all rewriting of the Gospels (‘... the Sacred Scriptures, which barely admit commen­ taries, do not endure paraphrase’),22 allows Erasmus to link his work to the great Christian biblical poems, which were respected by Jerome himself:23 What Erasmus dared to do, Juvencus dared to do before him in verse, and he did not fail to win his share of praise! His poem is, in fact, a paraphrase. After Juvencus, Arator dared to do the same thing to the Acts of the Apostles,24 and not so long ago Aegidius Delphus [Gilles of Delft], a theologian from the Sorbonne, did this to the Psalms and a number of other books of Sacred Scripture. Only a few months ago at Louvain the Franciscan Frans Titelmans, still a young man, did the same thing as I did with the Epistles of St. Paul, except that instead of a ‘paraphrase’ he calls it an ‘elucida­ tion’ (although the term paraphrase is somewhat more modest), and he does this to the applause of the theologians and the whole Franciscan order.25

The reason, then, that Erasmus privileges paraphrase is that he finds it the most adequate instrument to make known his own reading of the gospel26 and to make the Bible comprehensible to the wider public. Furthermore, this literary form of textual inter­ pretation gives him more freedom as a writer and allows him to move from philology to eloquence while answering to the clear expectations of his time: ‘Here I am in my element,’27 ‘I would rather construct a thousand paraphrases than one critical edi­ tion.’28 His references both to Themistius and to Juvencus and other ancient and modern Christian paraphrasers also aim to jus­ tify the explanatory method that has been adopted, as well as the freedom of rewriting, which claims in particular the possibility of doing better than the original, following the principle of aemulatio. paraphrase and commentary Erasmus’s understanding of the paraphrase is therefore a classical one, and its origin is found in the scholarly tradition of progymnasmata:29 Paraphrases follow the meaning of the New Testament in an ora­ torical stream of speech, so that those who are not yet laboring in

Erasmus’s Paraphrases  31 the inner sanctum of theologians may perceive through the clear­ est possible Latin discourse the whole of evangelical philosophy ... By paraphrases I have done nothing different than the grammar teacher does who, commenting on Virgil, first explains the subject of the poem in plain style and in plainer words.30

But beyond the apparent pedagogical simplicity that is sought, one may ask how Erasmus’s description of paraphrase differs from Vives’s fundamentally medieval distinction of commentary from glosses and scholia in the third book of De ratione dicendi: The interpretation [interpretatio] of individual words is ‘gloss’ [glossa ... seu glossema], a noun derived from ‘tongue,’ such as when a rather obscure expression is explained [declaretur] by a clearer one, as for example, ‘homo ferreus et praefractus’ [a man of iron and difficult to break], that is, hard and inflexible. Scholium, a word drawn from school exercises, is a little more extensive and consists of a simple and modest discourse, completely free of orna­ ments. Commentaries get their name from ‘to comment,’ that is to say ‘to discuss’ [commentarii a commentando nuncupatur, quod est disserere].31

Since paraphrase also discusses, it can be considered as a type of commentary, but a commentary whose pacte d’écriture makes possible the illusion that the text, homogenous and continuous, comes from the original writer and therefore takes on that writer’s authority. The paraphrase consists of a flow of ideas that makes no distinction between narrator and commentator, since the author himself seems to be explaining his text. For this reason Erasmus states on several occasions that it is not he but the writer of holy scripture who speaks;32 this claim allows him to avoid having to consider later differences of practice and theology.33 Erasmus writes to Coronel, ‘In a version, the sense is rendered literally; in a paraphrase, it is legitimate to add something of your own as well that may make the author’s meaning clearer.’34 After citing the model of Themistius’s paraphrase on Aristotle mentioned above, Erasmus then defines ‘paraphrase’ to Coronel as ‘not a translation but something looser, a kind of continuous commentary, non commutatis personis [without the intervention of an outsider].’35 Such freedom of exposition is certainly what attracted Eras­ mus, who often emphasized that the paraphrase is ‘a more free

32  Jean-François Cottier

and clear interpretation’36 and that to paraphrase is ‘to write at greater length and more clearly.’37 While in each gospel some par­ aphrases are no longer than the paraphrased text,38 others are ten to twenty times longer, particularly in the first chapters, in which Erasmus still has all his enthusiasm. Erasmus also considers that he has to make the evangelists speak with the eloquence expected of Romans, but without losing the simplicity of the evangelical style that is one reason for their success.39 Erasmus speaks too of ‘so managing one’s paraphrase that it does not become a paraphronesis, a caricature. One must say things differently without saying different things, especially on a subject which is not only difficult in many ways, but sacred, and very near the majesty of the Gos­ pel.’40 The essence of the paraphrase is to restore the thought, the sensus, of the text by reformulating it, but without changing the meaning.41 Erasmus compares it to a seasoning that adds to the savour of a dish without taking its place.42 The second distinction that can be made between paraphrase and commentary is a direct result of the pacte d’écriture analysed above. Since paraphrase is meant to give the illusion of having been composed by the author paraphrased, one cannot suggest several possible readings or leave a question unanswered: in a paraphrase, only one interpretation is possible, and indecision is forbidden.43 Thus the paraphraser, whose own hand reformu­ lates the text (translating with amplification or diminution) to clarify the meaning, can claim to be presenting a simple narrative in comparison to the scholarly commentaries and accumulative glosses of professional theologians. In this way, the humanist can more easily avoid criticism even while importing opinions into the paraphrase of the evangelical text. The favourable reception of Erasmus’s Paraphrases compared to the controversy that followed the publication of his translation and his Annotations on the New Testament shows how successful this approach was for him.44 Finally, the true literary quality of the paraphrases and the quality of the Latin used constitute a third difference between paraphrases and commentaries; the latter usually have simpler language and do not aim for stylistic elegance or emulation in the writing. Some of Erasmus`s critics – poorly educated detractors who, as Erasmus notes ironically, establish a direct link between Latinity and heresy – 45 reproach him for too much stylistic ele­ gance (elegantia sermonis). According to them, such elegance could divert the reader from the scriptural text itself.46 He hardly both­

Erasmus’s Paraphrases  33

ers to refute this slander, except to state that he has brought his style back to ‘Christian simplicity,’47 and if the critic he is answer­ ing, Noël Béda (ca. 1470–1537), does not recognize this achieve­ ment, other scholars, who know what they are talking about, do.48 This attention to style49 is also observed in his desire to give each paraphrase of the Gospels, after the one on Matthew, a particular character: the one on John is more theological, the one on Luke has a more refined style, and the one on Mark is more symbolic. Moreover his use of rhetoric, this ‘art that had become spontane­ ity for him,’50 allows him to enrich the idea, to make it livelier and more touching; it can please, as well as argue and move. While Erasmus’s Annotations on the New Testament were writ­ ten ‘not for the multitude, but for professors and students of the­ ology,’51 and while the Paraphrases might seem to be intended for priests and educated people who have a responsibility towards the people of God for whom the word is intended, the Paraphrases actually reached a much larger public, as Erasmus reminds Béda with pride: ‘All good people agree in declaring that there is no book from which they have taken more fruit than they have from my Paraphrases.’52 Erasmus takes pleasure in emphasizing in his dedicatory letter to Charles V that his Paraphrases are intelligible even to the unlettered,53 that is to say, the least educated readers. Erasmus always has this group in mind, and he wants to help them to understand the meaning of a text that often becomes clear only after long study,54 for which people who are limited by the practical necessities of life have no time. The paraphrase, by clear­ ing up difficulties, allows all readers to converse directly with the biblical author as if with a friend.55 poetics of paraphrase The rhetorical dimension of the Paraphrases is thus definitely a criterion for distinguishing between paraphrase and simple com­ mentary. Erasmus’s method of composition might be called po­ etic. The basic principle of this rewriting is synonymy, maintained by the frequent use of periphrasis (circumlocution). In fact, Eras­ mus rewrites the New Testament text almost completely before developing it further.56 Added to this principle is the technique of amplification, a standard oratorical tool, which Erasmus himself recalls with humour in Ecclesiastes: ‘Not the least important part of eloquence lies in expanding and contracting, especially for the

34  Jean-François Cottier

preacher, who must usually speak before the ignorant and yawn­ ing multitude.’57 Amplification enables him to include what usu­ ally belongs to commentary. Once the initial rewriting is complete, the paraphraser adds parts, sentences, and whole paragraphs that give historical details, and explanations that develop theological notions or more broadly contextualize the passage in the story of salvation. This amplification is, of course, the great originality of Erasmian paraphrase, and to those who criticize him for rework­ ing the sacred text excessively, Erasmus answers that if nothing were added to scripture, his work would not deserve the title paraphrase: ‘As it is, if I were to add nothing to what is found verbatim in Scripture, I would be neither a paraphraser nor an expositor. I am content if what I add does not disagree with the meaning of the Scriptures.’58 Amplification includes various techniques, of which the most common is restricting or qualifying. Other amplification techniques include the search for causes and information about circumstances, the use of qualifying epithets, and the employment of imagery and comparisons to arouse or intensify emotion. Thus in the Paraphrase on Matthew, 17:1,59 the fourteen words of the Gos­ pel, 1:2 (‘Abraham genuit Isaac. Isaac autem genuit Iacob. Iacob autem genuit Iudam et fratres eius’) are multiplied almost tenfold in the first rewriting of this passage (120 words), then finally al­ most twentyfold (262 words). Abraham is identified for example with the substantive patriarcha; David with regni florentis autorem; exilium Babylonicum with the explanation regni deliquium; and Christum with novae generationis evangelicae novique regni principem et clausulam, which amounts to a true profession of faith. While Erasmus asserts that whatever is part of the mystery of faith must remain hidden,60 paraphrase allows him to give his reader different types of clarifications – including biblical, histori­ cal, geographical, and etymological ones – by presenting certain information, which would no doubt be in a footnote today, in or­ der to help the reader to understand the text. Amplification of the text enables him to develop a more allegorical reading, as with the rewriting of the Christ’s royal genealogy at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew. Here he uses a typological reading, already developed by the church fathers, who see in Isaac – carrying the wood for his sacrifice on his shoulders (Gen. 22:6) – a figure of Christ carrying his cross: ‘Isaac, who himself served as a type of Christ because he carried the wood to the sacrifice for which he had been destined.’ Likewise he sees in Jacob – the younger son

Erasmus’s Paraphrases  35

receiving the inheritance promised to Esau (Gen. 27) – the church facing the synagogue, the elder daughter of the Covenant that was finally excluded from the divine inheritance: Isaac was father of Jacob, who, although the younger, nevertheless received the inheritance after his older brother had been excluded; even then he served as a type of the church, which was going to be gathered from the gentiles, and which, growing stronger every day since the exclusion of the Jews, gains possession by faith of the grace of the gospel, of which grace the Jews prove themselves unworthy by their faithlessness.61 In many other passages, Erasmus not only amplifies the evan­ gelical text with different types of comments but even adds pure­ ly narrative elements with the sole aim of making his narrative livelier. He explains this to Béda: I mix straightforward narration of an action with the example that has been set before us to imitate. Christ did not have emotions from which he had to free himself; nevertheless, he has taught us by his actions what we ought to do. For that reason, these words, ‘One who has been baptized has already thrown off carnal emotions,’ pertain not to Christ but to us. Moreover, in those words that fol­ low, ‘I have not remembered Bethlehem, I have not returned to Nazareth,’ I have pointed to an allegory from the action of Christ. I neither affirm that he never returned nor do I deduce that he was not allowed to return, but I point out what he has taught us by his withdrawal. I do the same in the following speech, in which like­ wise I mix narration with allegory.62

Finally, from the point of view of content, the real originality of Erasmus’s paraphrase comes from the preponderance of theo­ logical and spiritual commentary that it offers to guide the reader towards true Christian piety. This aspect best distinguishes Eras­ mus’s explanatory paraphrase from a translation or a simple com­ mentary, as he himself explains in his answer to Pio: ‘But there are two types of translation, one which transfers a book from one lan­ guage to another, a second which explains the meaning of Scrip­ ture under consideration.’63 In order to do the latter, Erasmus bases his commentary on the authority of the fathers who com­ mented on the texts before him, and on his own ideas concerning the questions of his time. The paraphrase of Christ’s human gene­ alogy amply demonstrates this perspective. Thus from the begin­

36  Jean-François Cottier

ning, Erasmus justifies Matthew’s decision to limit this genealogy of Christ’s Jewish ancestry to the two principal depositaries of the messianic promises, Abraham and David, and to the royal de­ scendants of the latter; and if he does not explain the evangelist’s chronological inversion, it is because he has already explained it elsewhere (Annotationes in Matt. 1:1).64 Erasmus continues to am­ plify up to the final version. He recalls the principles that justify the place given to Abraham and David and in the definitive ver­ sion completes for Abraham the explicatory work already done for David by underlining the universality of the messianic mes­ sage, a theme that is repeated and amplified throughout the Paraphrase on Matthew, as is seen in the example given. conclusion Erasmus’s paraphrase of the New Testament draws on years of philological work aimed at giving to Christianity a text not only better authenticated by return to the Greek original, but also justi­ fied by commentary and made more appealing in style: the Annotations (1519) explain the cases where he chooses not to use the Vulgate, for the sake of clearer or more accurate words or expres­ sions, and the Novum Instrumentum (1516), the revised and cor­ rected Latin translation, makes the text more esthetically pleasing. The Paraphrases, published mostly between 1517 and 1542, are the crowning achievement of this enterprise, offering in fine an explanatory reformulation of the sacred text, by which Erasmus tries to ensure that it is read the way he intends and by which he ‘closes’ his interpretation in the sense that Bakhtin spoke of the ‘closed’ or ‘monologic’ genre in regard to the epic and to scientific or historical discourse, which develop and impose their laws.65 In paraphrasing the Gospels, as in translating or annotating them, Erasmus has the same goal: to rid the text of its extraneous mate­ rial in order to find the synceritas that will guarantee that of the reader. Thus the paraphrastic rewriting, monological in essence, closes the reception of the authentic text by giving a second ‘trans­ lation’ that amplifies the source text by commenting on it, in order to secure the meaning. It is in this sense that Erasmus’s Paraphrases are a ‘new kind’ of commentary, not only because they mod­ ernize a long-forgotten kind, but also because they allow the act of rewriting to become the ideal instrument of Erasmian pastoral care of the reader.

Erasmus’s Paraphrases  37 NOTES   1 ASD = Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami (Amsterdam, 1969–); CWE = Collected Works of Erasmus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974–).   2 Hilmar M. Pabel and Mark Vessey, eds., Holy Scripture Speaks: The Production and Reception of Erasmus’ Paraphrases on the New Testament (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); Veronique Ferrer and Anne Mantero, eds., Les Paraphrases bibliques aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles (Geneva: Droz, 2006).   3 J.-F. Cottier, ‘La paraphrase latine, de Quintilien à Érasme,’ Revue des Études Latines 80 (2002): 237–52; Cottier, ‘Genèse d’une écriture: Érasme et la généalogie du Christ: A propos du fragment inédit de la Paraphrase sur Matthieu,’ in Images d’origines, origines d’une image: Hommages à Jacques Poucet, ed. Paul-Augustin Deproost and Alain Meurant (Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia-Bruylant: Presses universitaires de Louvain, 2004), 429–44; Cottier, ‘Les Paraphrases sur les Évangiles d’Érasme: Le latin comme instrument de vulgarisa­ tion des Écritures?’ in Tous vos gens a latin: Le latin, langue savante, langue mondaine (XIVe–XVIIe siècle), ed. E. Bury (Geneva: Droz, 2005), 331–45; Cottier, ‘La théorie du genre de la paraphrase selon Érasme,’ in Ferrer and Mantero, Les paraphrases bibliques, 47–58.   4 J.-F. Cottier, ‘Frangere nucem: Érasme exégète humaniste,’ Studi Umanistici Piceni 22 (2002): 147–57; Cottier, ‘Lucernam accendere in meridie ? Du bon usage de la paraphrase biblique selon Érasme,’ in Infant Milk or Hardy Nourishment? The Bible for Lay People and Theologians in the Modern Period, ed. W. François and A.A. den Hollander (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 65–86.   5 Trans. R.A.B. Mynors, CWE 9 (1979), Ep. 1255, line 41; Allen, lines 38–9: ‘nam et paraphrasis commentarii genus est.’   6 Trans. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson, CWE 6 (1982), Ep. 918 (19 Feb. 1519), line 5; Allen, line 3: ‘Opus modis omnibus nouum est.’   7 Christophe Bourgeois, ‘Les paraphrases littéraires: Imitation ou ex­ plication,’ in Ferrer and Mantero, Les paraphrases bibliques, 115–32, al­ though otherwise a rich and suggestive study, exemplifies this kind of reflection in which literary paraphrase and poetic paraphrase are often confused (op. cit., 115, nuanced 132) without taking into ac­ count the evolution of a practice and of the reflection of authors on the issue. See also Max Engammare, ‘La paraphrase biblique entre belles fidèles et laides infidèles: Étude exégétique et théorique d’un genre en vogue au XVIe siècle,’ 19–36, or J.-F. Cottier, ‘La théorie du

38  Jean-François Cottier genre de la paraphrase selon Érasme,’ 45–58, in Ferrer and Mantero, Les paraphrases bibliques.   8 Catherine Fuchs, ‘La paraphrase: Un exemple de stabilité termi­ nologique et de rupture conceptuelle,’ in Métalangage et terminologie linguistique, ed. B. Colombat and M. Savelli (Louvain: Peeters, 2001), 131–46. See also Fuchs, La Paraphrase (Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 1982) and Fuchs, Paraphrase et énonciation (Paris: Ophrys, 1994).   9 See for example P. Leblanc, Les Paraphrases françaises des Psaumes à la fin de la période baroque (1610–1660) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960). 10 See Sam Dresden, ‘“Paraphrase” et “Commentaire” d’après Érasme et Alberto Pio,’ in Società, politica e cultura a Carpi ai tempi di Alberto Pio (Padua: Antenore, 1981), 207–24; Kenneth Hagen, ‘What Did the Term Commentarius Mean to Sixteenth-Century Theologians?’ in Théorie et pratique de l’exégèse, ed. Irena Backus and Francis Higman (Geneva: Droz, 1990), 13–38; John J. Bateman, ‘From Soul to Soul: Persuasion in Erasmus’s Paraphrases on the New Testament,’ Erasmus in English 15 (1987–88): 12–13. 11 Trans. Mynors and Thomson, CWE 5 (1979), Ep. 726 (30 Nov. [1517]), lines 2–3; Allen, line 2: ‘Mitto ad te libellum Paraphraseos, kai; ajlhqw`ß Parafravsewß.’ Cf. Paraphrase on Romans, trans. John B. Payne, Albert Rabil, Jr, and Warren S. Smith, Jr, in CWE 42 (1984), ed. Robert D. Sider, 1–90. 12 Coronel wrote Tractatus syllogismorum (Paris: Jean Barbier, 1507/1508) and Physicae perscrutationes (Paris: Jean Barbier, 1511). Editor’s note: On his admiration for Erasmus see James K. Farge, ‘Luis Nuñez Coronel, of Segovia, d c March 1531,’ in CEBR 1:342–3. 13 Trans. Mynors, CWE 9 (1989), Ep. 1274 (21 April 1522), lines 40–1; Allen 5, lines 36–7: ‘Quid autem iuris sit paraphrastæ, facile perspici­ et qui Themistium cum Aristotele contulerit.’ 14 Erasmus certainly knew about this work, as he mentions it in the catalogue of his works that he sent to Johann von Botzheim, CWE 9 (1989), trans. Mynors, Ep. 1341a, lines 553–6: ‘As for Ermolao, great man that he was, did he not make a childish blunder at the outset of Themistius’ preface to his commentary on Aristotle’s De anima, meeting shipwreck (as they say) even before he had left harbour?’; Allen, Ep. I, 1:15, lines 31–3: ‘Hermolaus, vir tantus, nonne statim in præfatione Themistii in libros Aristotelis de anima pueriliter lapsus est, in ipso, quod aiunt, portu inpingens?’ See also Eckhard Kes­ sler, ‘Introducing Aristotle to the Sixteenth Century: The Lefèvre

Erasmus’s Paraphrases  39

15 16

17

18

19

Enterprise,’ in Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Conversations with Aristotle, ed. Constance Blackwell and Sachiko Kusukawa, 1–21 (Aldershot, UK / Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1999). M.J.C. Lowry, ‘Ermolao (1) Barbaro of Venice, 1453/4–c July 1493,’ in CEBR 1 (1985): 92. See Agostino Nifo, Super Prooemium Averrois Cordubensis, in Super octo Aristotelis libros de Physico auditu (Venice, 1569), cited by E. Kes­ sler, ‘Introducing Aristotle,’ 14. Nifo was an extraordinarily prolific Italian philosopher. Born ca. 1470 at Sessa Aurunca, he taught at Padua, Naples, Salerno, Rome, and Pisa, living until at least 1538. See James B. South, ‘Nifo, Agostino,’ in Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, ed. Paul F. Grendler (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, in association with The Renaissance Society of America, 1999), 4:320–1. Juan Luis Vives, De ratione dicendi lateinisch/deutsch, repr. from Opera omnia, ed. Gregorio Mayáns y Siscár (Valencia, 1782) with German translation by Angelika Ott and introduction by Emilio HidalgoSerna (Marburg: Hitzeroth, 1993), 228–9: ‘Paraphrasis est, quum ex una oratione alia dilatatur, breviter intertextis quæ lucem adferant, ac proinde adiuvent intelligentiam, est enim tamquam viam paullo latiorem ac planiorem reddere, eadem vero tenere semper in sensis; in qua expositione interdum auctoris persona servatur, alias para­ phrastes ipse inducit suam, ut tertia persona sit auctoris; quandoque variat, prout locus videtur poscere, nam sunt quæ commodius auc­ toris persona exponuntur, sunt quæ paraphrastæ, quod in iis ora­ tionibus potissimum contingit, quæ habent dramata, vel conciones, aut dialogismos, denique vim aliquam et motum, nam in descrip­ tionibus aut præceptis artium una est invariabilis totius sermonis facies, nihil opus est ea mutatione loquentium.’ De ratione dicendi, 229–30: ‘quasi recisio eorum, quæ ad præsentis rei vel intellectum, vel utilitatem sunt necessaria; præsentem voco, quam sibi statuit, qui rescindit, in quo sunt inspiciendi auditores, quod eorum ingenium, quæ eruditio circa eam ipsam rem ... porro epitome duplex, est, altera ex toto corpore uelut circumcisio et purgatio, quum fusa cohibentur, et amputantur quæ in præsens redun­ dant, in quo nova est oratio contrahentis.’ Praefatio Paraphrasis in Oeconomica Aristotelis (Naples: Giovanni Pasquet de Sallo, 1519). See the edition of this preface by Domenico Defilippis with Italian translation in Puglia Neo-Latini, ed. Francesco Tateo, Mauro de Nichilo, and Pietro Sisto (Bari: Cacucci Editore, 1994), 198–205. A brief biography can be found here and in DBI, 1 (1960): 188–90.

40  Jean-François Cottier 20 CWE 11 (1994), trans. Alexander Dalzell, Ep. 1635 (to Benedetto Gio­ vio), lines 40–1: ‘I have not seen a copy of Nonnus or of the German commentator anywhere’; Allen, line 33: ‘Neque Nonnum neque Ger­ manum illum scholiastem vsquam vidi.’ See Max Engammare, ‘La paraphrase biblique entre belles fidèles et laides infidèles,’ in Ferrer and Mantero, Les paraphrases bibliques, 19–36, and Bernard Rous­ sel, ‘Exegetical Fictions? Biblical Paraphrases of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,’ in Pabel and Vessey, Holy Scripture Speaks, 59–83. Editor’s note: Intended as the fourth volume of an edition of Christian poets (Poetæ Christiani veteres, 1501–), a project that got out of hand as new manuscripts, some of them in Greek, poured into the Aldine Press, the text of Nonnus’s paraphrase was not officially pub­ lished for lack of a complete Latin translation. However, the proofs circulated privately, and as Erasmus lived at that Press in 1508 and his later publisher at Basel, Johann Froben, obtained one of the rare copies of the printed sheets that were subsequently bought by the Amerbach family, his assertion is somewhat surprising. See Martin Lowry, The World of Aldus Manutius (Ithaca: Cornell University Press / Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979), 28, 149, 270. 21 Juvencus, Evangeliorum libri, ed. I. Huemer, in CSEL, 24 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1891); the work probably dates from the end of the reign of Constantine, during the years 329–30. About Christian epics, see Cottier, ‘La paraphrase latine, de Quintilien à Érasme’; Michael Roberts, Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity (Liv­ erpool: Cairns, 1985); and R.P.H. Green, Latin Epics of the New Testament: Juvencus, Sedulius, Arator (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 22 Alberti Pii Carporum Comitis illustrissimi et viri longe doctissimi … tres & viginti libri in locos lucubrationum variarum D. Erasmi Roterodami (Paris: Jodocus Badius Ascensius, 1531), fol. VIr : ‘Sacras Scripturas non pati paraphrasim, quæ vix commentaria admittant.’ 23 Jerome writes in his note in De uiris illustribus, chap. 84 (PL 23:691B) that Juvencus ‘has tranposed the four Gospels almost word for word into hexameters,’ the expression ‘pæne ad uerbum’ being used more for emphasizing his loyalty to the Gospels in this four-book synthe­ sis than for placing it in the category of purely grammatical para­ phrases, which is exactly what the poem is not! 24 Arator Subdiaconus, De actibus apostolorum (Historia apostolica), ed. A.P. McKinlay, in CSEL 72 (1951). See for example Bruno Bureau, Lettre et sens mystique dans l’‘Historia apostolica’ d’Arator. Exégèse et épopée (Paris: Institut d’études Augustiniennes, 1997), and Paul-

Erasmus’s Paraphrases  41 Augustin Deproost, L’Apôtre Pierre dans une épopée du VIe siècle. L’‘Historia Apostolica’ d’Arator (Paris: Institut d’études Augustini­ ennes, 1997). 25 Erasmus, Responsio ad epistolam paraeneticam Alberti Pii, trans. Daniel Sheerin, in CWE 84 (1974):78–9; LB 9:1115D–E : ‘Quod ausus est Erasmus, ante hunc Iuvencus ausus est carmine, nec frustratus est sua laude. Nam carmen illius vere paraphrasis est. Idem ausus est hoc recentior Arator in Actis Apostolicis; non ita pridem Ægidius Delphus, e Sorbona Theologus, in Psalmos & alios non paucos diuinæ Scripturæ Libros. Ante paucos menses Lovanii Franciscus Titelmannus Minorita, juvenis etiamnum, idem fecit in Epistolas Pauli quod ego, nisi quod pro Paraphrasi vocat Elucidationem, cum Paraphraseos vocabulum sit aliquanto modestius, idque facit applaudentibus Theologis, totoque Franciscanorum Ordine.’ 26 See Allen, Epp. 1255, lines 39–42; 1274, lines 37–9; 1333, line 397; 1342, lines 929–32; 1381, lines 420–2. 27 See Beatus Rhenanus’s preface to the posthumous Erasmian edition of the Origenis Opera omnia (1536), ed. Allen, 1:64, Ep. IV, lines 300–3: ‘repetiit Erasmus iterum æditurus Adagiorum Chiliadas et Para­ phrases Paulinas atque Euangelicas absoluturus; quas dubium est maiorene studiosorum applausu orbis exceperit an maiori alacritate ipse scripserit: “Hic sum,” inquit, “in meo campo.”’ 28 Trans. Mynors and Thomson, CWE 5 (1979), Ep. 755 (to [Johannes de Molendino], ca. Jan. 1518), lines 6–7; Allen, lines 6–7: ‘Malim sexcen­ tas scribere Paraphrases quam vnicam recognitionem.’ 29 His conception originates no doubt from that of Quintilian, Institutio oratoria X, 5, 4–11 and perhaps of Pliny, Epistulae VII, 9, 2–4, as John J. Bateman observes: see his ‘General Introduction,’ Paraphrasis D. Erasmi Roterodami in omneis epistolas apostolicas, Pars tertia, in ASD VII-6 (1997), 2. Paraphrase is an exercise created to expand vocabu­ lary and develop composition skills, an exercise for the novice or for established orators and writers. 30 Supputatio errorum in censuris Bedæ, LB 9:521A: ‘Paraphrasibus nihil aliud egi quam litterator qui Virgilium enarrans, prius argumentum carminis oratione soluta uerbisque planioribus explicat.’ 31 The English translation is based on the Latin text in Vives, De ratione dicendi lateinisch/deutsch, cited above, note 17, as in Céard, ‘Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance,’ chap. 1 in this vol­ ume, nn8, 9. See also Céard, ‘Les transformations du genre du com­ mentaire,’ in L’Automne de la Renaissance 1580–1630, ed. Jean Lafond and André Stegmann (Paris: J. Vrin, 1981), 102; Jean-Claude Mar­

42  Jean-François Cottier golin, ‘Commentaire,’ in Erasmus, Éloge de la folie, Adages, Colloques, Réflexions sur l’art, l’éducation, la religion, la guerre, la philosophie, Correspondance, ed. C. Blum et al. (Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, 1992), xcv–xcvii. 32 ‘I must also warn the less intelligent reader that nowhere in a para­ phrase does he hear me speaking.’ Trans. Mynors and Alexander Dalzell, CWE 10 (1992), Ep. 1381 (preface of Paraphrase on Luke to Henry VIII, 23 Aug. 1523), lines 447–8; Allen, lines 425–6: ‘Quin et illud mihi monendus est lector crassior, me nusquam in Paraphrasi loqui’; see also Jacques Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1981), 587. 33 See Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme, 662–5. 34 Trans. Mynors, CWE 9 (1989), Ep. 1274, lines 37–9; Allen, lines 34–6: ‘In metaphrasi sensus bona fide redditur, in paraphrasi licet etiam de tuo addere quod autoris sensum explanet.’ 35 Allen, lines 37–9: ‘Est enim paraphrasis non translatio, sed liberius quoddam commentarii perpetui genus, non commutatis personis.’ Mynors’ translation (CWE 9, Ep. 1274, lines 41–3) has been adopted for the first part of this quotation, but on the phrase ‘non commutatis personis,’ see the Editor’s Addendum, immediately following. 36 The phrase ‘liberior ac dilucidior interpretatio’ is in the full title of Erasmus’s In universas epistolas ab Ecclesia receptas (Basel: Froben, February 1522 and May 1522). Bateman finds it highly unlikely that it was added by a compositor; he attributes the words to Erasmus himself, who may have found the term interpretatio in Quintilian, Inst. or. X,9,3. See Bateman, App. 2: ‘Titles of the Louvain and Basel Editions,’ 305–6, and ‘General Introduction,” 3n18, in ASD VII-6. 37 ‘[F]usius et explanatius dicere’: cited by Bateman, ‘General Introduc­ tion,’ 3, from In epistolam Pauli Apostoli ad Hebraeos paraphrasis, pref­ ace, 40, line 20; Paraphrasis in treis epistolas canonicas Joannis, preface, 255, line 4, in ASD VII-6. 38 This is the case with all apocalyptic passages: Matt. 24:23–31; Mark 13:28–32; Luke 17:24–37. Erasmus’s early pedagogical works de­ scribe reformulation of thought in different words. I have argued that Erasmus would have recognized Isidore of Seville’s Synonyma as strongly confirming his Familiarium colloquiorum formulæ (ASD I-3), for instance: Cottier, ‘La théorie du genre de la paraphrase selon Érasme,’ in Ferrer and Mantero, Les paraphrases bibliques, 53–4. 39 See Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme, 1:589n9; Cottier, ‘Les Paraphrases sur les Evangiles d’Érasme’; and Erasmus’s preface to the Paraphrase on Luke, addressed to Henry VIII on 13 Aug. 1523,

Erasmus’s Paraphrases  43 trans. Mynors and Dalzell, CWE 10 (1992), Ep. 1381, lines 389–411: ‘The language of the gospel is simple and artless, and anyone who compares it with the histories of Thucydides or Livy will find much lacking and much to object to. The evangelists leave out so much and mention so much in few words, in how many passages the order does not fit, and in how many they seem to disagree among themselves! These faults might disgust a reader and make him un­ willing to believe what he read ... We have found the reason why the truth of the gospel spread in so few years through the whole earth in the hands of humble men, while the world reacted with cruelty of every kind’; Allen, lines 370–91: ‘Simplex et inconditus est Euangelii sermo; quem si quis expendat ad Thucydidis aut Titi Liuii historiam, multa desiderabit, multis offendetur. Quam multa praetermittunt Euangelistæ! quam multa tribus verbis attingunt! quam multis locis non conuenit ordo! quam multis locis inter se videntur pugnare! Haec poterant lectoris animum alienare ac fidem abrogare lectioni ... Habemus causam quur Euangelica veritas intra tam paucos annos per homines humiles, omni seuitiae genere rebellante mundo, sese sparserit per vniuersum orbem.’ 40 Trans. Mynors and Thomson, CWE 5 (1979), Ep. 710 (to Domenico Grimani, 13 Nov. 1517), lines 34–8; Allen, lines 29–32: ‘ita temperare paravfrasin ne fiat paravfrovhsi", hoc est sic aliter dicere vt tamen non dicas alia, praesertim in argumento non solum tot modis difficillimo verumetiam sacro ac maiestati Euangelicae proximo.’ 41 See the discussion between Erasmus and Pio about this subject in Responsio ad epistolam paraeneticam Alberti Pii, trans. Sheerin, CWE 84 (2005): 80–3; LB 9:1116A–1117B. John B. Payne, Albert Rabil, Jr, and Warren S. Smith, Jr, ‘The Paraphrases of Erasmus: Origin and Char­ acter,’ CWE 42:xv–xvi, summarize Erasmus’s conception of para­ phrase: ‘A paraphrase, then, seeks to clarify the text by rephrasing what an author says in the paraphraser’s own words.’ 42 Trans. Mynors and Dalzell, CWE 10 (1992), Ep. 1381, lines 444–7; Al­ len, lines 420–8. 43 CWE 9 (1989), trans. Mynors, Ep. 1255, lines 61–3; Allen, lines 57–9: ‘Hic in commentariis licet absque periculo referre sententias diuerso­ rum diuersas, licet ingenue fateri locum sibi non liquere. At idem ius non est paraphrastae.’ 44 See Albert Rabil, Jr, ‘Erasmus’s Paraphrases of the New Testament,’ in Essays on the Works of Erasmus, ed. Richard L. DeMolen (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 148, and Bateman, ‘General Introduc­ tion,’ 4, in ASD VII-6.

44  Jean-François Cottier 45 Consider for example the uncomfortable response of a Franciscan, suffragan of the Bishop of Tournai: ‘I meant to read the paraphrases, but the Latin was most lofty, so I am afraid he may be able to slip into some heresy, with all that lofty Latin’: trans. Mynors, CWE 8 (1988), Ep. 1144 (to Francesco Chierigati, 13 Sept. 1520), lines 50–3; Allen, lines 46–8: ‘Volui legere Paraphrases, sed Latinitas erat nimis alta. Timeo igitur ne possit labi in aliquam hæresim, propter altam Latinitatem.’ 46 Supputatio errorum in censuris Beddae, LB 9:659B: ‘Fortassis hoc metu­ unt, ne quidam capti sermonis illecebra, pro sacris Libris nostra legant’; ibid., 665C: ‘assumit quod totam vim sacrarum Litterarum ponam in elegantia sermonis.’ 47 Responsio ad notulas Beddaicas, LB 9:716E: ‘in Paraphrasibus non parum dejeci stylum meum ad simplicitatem Christianam.’ 48 Supputatio, LB 9:530B. 49 See Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme, 617 ff. 50 See Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme, 621. 51 LB 6:***1r: ‘Primum non ista scribuntur multitudini, sed eruditis, & præcipue Theologiæ candidatis.’ In LB the running title of this letter of Erasmus to the pious reader is ‘CONTRA MOROS. QUOSD. AC INDOCTOS.’ 52 Allen, Ep. 1906, lines 78–9: ‘Omnes boni vno ore profitentur se ex nullo libro plus coepisse fructus quam ex meis Paraphrasibus.’ 53 ‘Again, since the evangelists wrote down the gospel to be read by all, I do not see why all should not read it, and I have treated it in such a way that even illiterates can understand it.’ Trans. Mynors, CWE 9 (1989), Ep. 1255, lines 111–14; Allen, lines 101–3: ‘Iam quum Euangelistæ nulli non scripserint Euangelium, non uideo quo minus sit ab omnibus legendum. Et nos ita tractauimus vt et ab illiteratis possit intelligi.’ 54 Erasmus records his own effort to understand St Paul’s letter to the Romans when he writes to Mark Lauwerijns that his paraphrase on the letter is ‘not a large book to look at, but a colossal task’ now finished and at last in press: CWE 5 (1979), trans. Mynors and Thom­ son, Ep. 717, lines 4–5; Allen, lines 3–4: ‘opus haud magnum, sed immensi laboris.’ 55 See Bateman, ‘General Introduction,’ 1, in ASD VII-6:1, and Allen, Epp. 710, 916. 56 See Cottier, ‘Genèse d’une écriture,’ in Images d’origines. 57 Ecclesiastes, ed. Jacques Chomarat, in ASD V-5 (1994), 48–50: ‘Non minima pars eloquentiæ sita est in augendo ac diminuendo, præ­

Erasmus’s Paraphrases  45

58

59 60

61

62

sertim ecclesiastæ, cui fere dicendum est apud imperitam et oscit­ antem multitudinem.’ Erasmus, Responsio ad epistolam paraeneticam Alberti Pii, trans. Sheer­ in, CWE 84 (2005): 80; LB 9:1116B: ‘Jam si nihil adderem ei, quod in Sacris Litteris habetur expressum, non essem Paraphrastes, nec Explanator. Mihi satis est quod quæ adjicio non discrepent a Scrip­ turarum sensibus.’ See Cottier, ‘Genèse d’une écriture,’ in Images d’origines, 433–4: Paraphrase on Matt. 1:2, ‘Abraham autem genuit.’ ‘Dismiss frivolous little questions, or ones that arise from impious curiosity, should any by chance spring to mind. Say, “The things that are above us are nothing to us.” Do not debate how the body of Christ left the sealed tomb. It is enough for you that it left. Do not investigate how it is the body of Christ on the holy table when it was bread that was placed there. It is enough for you to believe that the body of the Lord is there. Do not explore how the Son is different from the Father, when he is one in nature with the Father. It is enough for you to believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons, but one God’: Erasmus, ‘To the Pious Reader’ (LB 7:**3r), trans. Dean Simpson in Paraphrase on Matthew, CWE 45 (2008): 15. See Erasmus, Exhortation à la lecture de l’evangile: Introduction, édition, traduction et notes, edited by G. Bedouelle, J.-F. Cottier, and A. Vanautgaerden (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 1:78–9: ‘Friuolas quæstiunculas aut impie curiosas dispelle, si fors oboriantur animo. Dic quæ supra nos, nihil ad nos. Quomodo Christi corpus exierit clauso sepulchro noli disceptare; tibi satis est quod exiit. Quomodo in sacra mensa sit corpus Christi, vbi ponebatur panis, noli disquir­ ere; tibi sufficit credere quod illic est corpus Domini. Quomodo Filius sit alius a Patre quum sit vna natura noli scrutari; tibi satis est credere Patrem, Filium.’ ‘Isaac, qui et ipse Christi typum gessit, ligna baiulans ad sacrificium cui erat ipse destinatus. Isaac genuit Iacob qui, quum esset natu mi­ nor, tamen excluso fratre maiore, consequutus est hæreditatem, iam tum typum gerens Ecclesiæ e gentibus congregandæ quæ Iudæis exclusis quotidie magis ac magis inualescens, occupat Euangelii gratiam per fidem qua Iudæi se per diffidentiam reddunt indignos’: Cottier, ‘Genèse d’une écriture,’ 433–4: Paraphrase on Matt. 1:2, ‘Abra­ ham autem genuit.’ Erasmus, Supputatio errorum in censuris Beddae, LB 9:461B: ‘Misceo narrationem facti, cum exemplo quod nobis imitandum proponitur. Christus non habebat affectus quos exsueret, tamen factis suis docuit

46  Jean-François Cottier quid nobis esset faciendum. Ideoque hæc verba, “Qui baptizatus est jam exsuit affectus carnales”, non ad Christum pertinent, sed ad nos. Cæterum in his quæ sequuntur, “non meminit Bethlehem, non repetit Nazareth,” ex facto Christi indicavi allegoriam. Nec affirmo quod nunquam redierit, nec intelligo non licuisse redire, sed indico quid ille secessus nos docuerit. Idem facio in sermone sequenti, in quo similiter misceo narrationem cum allegoria.’ 63 Responsio ad epistolam paraeneticam Alberti Pii, trans. Sheerin, in CWE 84 (1974): 75; LB 9:1114F: ‘Est autem duplex interpretandi genus, alterum quo transfunditur Liber a Lingua in Linguam: alterum quod adhibitum explanat Scripturæ sensum.’ 64 See Erasmus’ Annotations on the New Testament: The Gospels, Facsimile of the Final Latin Text with All Earlier Variants, ed. Anne Reeve, intro­ duction by M.A. Screech (London: Duckworth, 1986): ‘Contra Lucas, qui gentibus scripsit Éuangelium, ab Adam ad ipsum vsque Deum porrigit genealogia seriem, vt intelligerent Christi gratiam non ad Iudæos solum sed ad vniuersum quoque mortalium genus pertinere. indicauit hoc et Chrysostomus (Hom. in Mt. 1:3, PG 57, 17). Porro Dauid priorem nominat, non solum ob id quod commodius citraque repetitionem genealogiæ series texeretur, quam causam reddidit diuus Hieronymus, verumetiam quod huius esset apud Hebræos et recentior et celebrior memoria quod adsert Chrysostomus.’ 65 In contrast to the dialogical and open type such as the novel.

Editor’s Addendum Translating an Erasmian Definition of Paraphrase judith rice henderson In his monumental study of Erasmus’s grammatical and rhetori­ cal works, Jacques Chomarat justifies including a chapter on the Paraphrases on the New Testament by citing a definition of ‘para­ phrase’ in a letter written by Erasmus on 21 April 1522 to the phi­ losopher and theologian Luis Coronel: ‘Est enim paraphrasis non

Editor's Addendum  47

translatio, sed liberius quoddam commentarii perpetui genus, non commutatis personis’ (Allen, Ep. 1274, lines 38–9). Chomarat goes on to distinguish paraphrases from annotations as types of commentary practised by Erasmus. From Erasmus’s definition of ‘paraphrasis’ in this letter to Coronel, Chomarat then draws three conclusions: Annotations and Paraphrases of the New Testament are both textcommentaries; the characteristic of the paraphrase is that it ‘does not change the person’ [non commutatis personis]. In a translation we are supposed to hear the author himself. In the commentary stricto sensu there is a second, distinct voice, that of the exegete. Besides, faced with a difficult passage, the annotator may propose several hypotheses, justify his choice among them or even leave the problem unsolved. In the paraphrase only one interpretation is possible and abstention is out of the question. Lastly commentary is discontinuous; paraphrase continuous. All these features con­ tributed to the novelty of this genre as Erasmus was well aware.1

Chomarat’s placement of Erasmus’s Paraphrases in the context of his grammatical and rhetorical works, notably De copia, has been foundational for scholarship on both Erasmus and the genre of paraphrase as practised in sixteenth-century Europe.2 In his contribution to the present volume, Jean-François Cottier builds on Chomarat’s research and on his own editing for ASD of the paraphrases on Matthew and John to investigate the literary and rhetorical dimensions of paraphrase as Erasmus conceives the genre. The paraphrase, Cottier argues, pleases and moves read­ ers, rather than just instructing them as glosses and scholia do. Citing Chomarat, Cottier observes, ‘The paraphrase consists of a flow of ideas that makes no distinction between narrator and com­ mentator, since the author himself seems to be explaining his text. For this reason Erasmus states on several occasions that it is not he but the writer of holy scripture who speaks; this claim allows him to avoid having to consider later differences of practice and theology.’3 Cottier also discusses other important loci in examin­ ing Erasmus’s theory of paraphrase in the context of religious controversies with Alberto Pio prince of Carpi, Noël Béda, and others. He notes that Erasmus defended his paraphrases in these controversies by the precedent of ancient uses of paraphrase in the sense of explanations (Themistius’s paraphrase of Aristotle),

48  Judith Rice Henderson

epics telling biblical stories (Arator, Juvencus), and pedagogical exercises (progymnasmata). Among Erasmus’s comments on para­ phrase that Cottier cites is the sentence from Epistle 1274 with which Chomarat opens his chapter on Les Paraphrases. Cottier’s quotation of this sentence called the attention of the editorial team of The Unfolding of Words to the phrase ‘non com­ mutatis personis.’ In the present volume CWE translations of Erasmus’s Latin have regularly been adopted, but in this letter to Coronel, the CWE translation of the phrase ‘non commutatis per­ sonis’ by R.A.B. Mynors (1903–1989) appears to be inconsistent with Cottier’s understanding of Erasmus’s definition. Published in 1989, Mynors’ reading follows classical usage in transferring to a social role the ‘persona’ (mask) that defines an actor’s part: ‘For a paraphrase is not a translation but something looser, a kind of continuous commentary, in which the writer and his author re­ tain separate roles’ (CWE 9, Ep. 1274, lines 41–43). That reading of ‘non commutatis personis’ as playing separate roles would seem to be the direct opposite of Chomarat’s and Cottier’s understand­ ing of the phrase as referring to the single, uninterrupted voice of a paraphrast as distinct from the alternation of voices that one finds in author and annotator. Cottier argues, echoing Chomarat, that in Erasmus, ‘paraphrase is meant to give the illusion of hav­ ing been composed by the author paraphrased.’ The contradiction between the interpretations of Chomarat and Cottier on the one hand and of Mynors on the other led the editorial team to review recent translations and citations of Epis­ tle 1274. Before Chomarat, the French edition of Erasmus’s letters published in 1976 translated ‘non commutatis personis’ as ‘qui ne change pourtant rien aux sujets.’4 This translation of ‘persona’ as ‘sujet’ is perhaps appropriately ambiguous: French sujet can mean the grammatical subject of a sentence, or a person, or subject mat­ ter. In a letter written earlier in 1522, Erasmus defines paraphrase as a special kind of commentary in respect to its subject matter and voice (or voices).5 As recently as 2002, the international group of contributors to the 2002 Erasmus Studies collection Holy Scripture Speaks: The Production and Reception of Erasmus’ Paraphrases on the New Testament have followed Chomarat in their understanding of ‘non commutatis personis.’ In his introduction to the collection, Mark Vessey (University of British Columbia) observes that Chomarat ‘is fundamental to the work presented here.’6 The volume is not

Editor's Addendum  49

uncritical of Chomarat’s study: Irena Backus (University of Ge­ neva) re-examines his discussion of Erasmus’s depiction of Jesus in the Paraphrases.7 However, at least two contributors echo Cho­ marat’s understanding of Erasmus’s definition of paraphrase in Epistle 1274. Hilmar M. Pabel (Simon Fraser University, British Columbia) writes, ‘Chomarat has rightly asked how one can sepa­ rate the Annotations and the Paraphrases when they both serve as commentaries on the New Testament. In the one, a discontinuous commentary, the voice of the exegete speaks to us; in the other, a continuous exposition, the voice is that of the text being para­ phrased.’8 In the same collection, Guy Bedouelle (University of Fribourg, Switzerland), in ‘The Paraphrases of Erasmus in French,’ observes, ‘as Jacques Chomarat said ...: “A paraphrase does not change the person; as with a translation, one is supposed to hear the author himself.’”9 In editorial discussions of paraphase in the CWE New Testament Scholarship series, Erasmus’s definition in Epistle 1274 seems to have been cited rarely, but Jane E. Phillips notes in her transla­ tion and annotation of Erasmus’s Paraphrase on John: ‘as he states in Ep 1274, “maintenance of the authorial persona is one of the characteristics of paraphrase”’ (CWE 46 [1991]:13n1). Robert D. Sider, general editor of this series, shares the understanding of ‘personae’ as ‘voices’ with Pabel, Bedouelle, Phillips, and Cho­ marat himself. In the course of a fruitful email conversation about ‘non commutatis personis,’ he mentions one reference to Epistle 1274 in the CWE Controversies series. I think the solution lies in Erasmus’s contention that there are two fundamental differences between the work of commentators and his work as paraphrast: a paraphrast writes an interpretation that is ‘perpetua’ (seamless) and retains the ‘voices’ as found in the origi­ nal work. This contention of Erasmus brought him no end of dif­ ficulty, with the result that the expression as found in Epistle 1274 becomes elaborated in other work. Note his response to Alberto Pio as found in CWE 84:78–80 and note 393, where the editors have quite rightly referred the reader to our passage in Epistle 1274.10

Indeed, the editors of CWE 84 appropriately invite readers to com­ pare the definition of paraphrase in Epistle 1274 with a passage on paraphrase in Erasmus’s Responsio ad epistolam paraeneticam (Ba­ sel: Froben Press, March 1529) in his published controversy with

50  Judith Rice Henderson

Pio.11 These two discussions of paraphrase are complementary, at least in Erasmus’s original Latin, and they were published in the same year: Allen finds Epistle 1274 extant only in print, editing it from Erasmus’s Opus epistolarum (Basel: H. Froben, J. Herwagen, and N. Episcopius, 1529).12 Nevertheless, note 393 (CWE 84:79) introduces some confusion by quoting Mynors’ English translation of ‘non commutatis per­ sonis,’ especially by juxtaposing it with Pio’s accusation that Eras­ mus in paraphrasing does as he pleases with scripture.13 Note 393 begins by translating a passage from the long, published letter of Pio against which Erasmus’s Responsio ad epistolam paraeneticam is directed, then cites Erasmus’s definition of paraphrase in Epistle 1274: Pio Responsio paraenetica 11vI: ‘it makes indeed a very great differ­ ence whether one interprets the intact text according to one’s own understanding of it, as commentators do, or, assuming the persona of the author, one tempers the words of the Holy Spirit according to one’s pleasure, which is what happens in the case of paraphras­ es. Since, then, you have assumed in your paraphrases the persona of the evangelist, of Paul, or of the rest of the apostles who wrote anything ...’14 Erasmus defined paraphrase in Ep 1274:41–3: ‘For a paraphrase is not a translation but something looser, a kind of continuous commentary in which the writer and his author retain their separate roles.’

Here Mynors’ translation of Epistle 1274 seems to deny Pio’s ac­ cusation that Erasmus ‘assumed in your paraphrases the persona of the evangelist.’ Chomarat and others, however, agree that Eras­ mus claims to speak in the voices of the New Testament authors as he thinks paraphrase demands. Erasmus admits as much to Pio, albeit with some prudent qualifications, in the discussion of paraphrase in his Responsio ad epistolam paraeneticam on which the CWE editors’ note 393 comments. As Cottier observes, he there defends his practice in part as following a tradition established by others. Thus with all due respect for Mynors’ immense contribution to classical philology and in particular to CWE’s series The Correspondence of Erasmus, the editorial team omitted his translation of the phrase ‘non commutatis personis’ in preparing Cottier’s contribution for this volume. In the original French, Cottier’s es­

Editor's Addendum  51

say translates Erasmus’s sentence as follows: ‘La paraphrase en effet n’est pas une traduction, mais une forme plus libre de com­ mentaire continu, sans l’intervention d’un tiers.’ In the English translation, the quotation follows Mynors except at the end of the sentence, where Erasmus’s original Latin phrase ‘non commutatis personis’ is preserved, followed by an English translation that re­ spects Cottier’s argument: ‘not a translation but something looser, a kind of continuous commentary, non commutatis personis [with­ out the intervention of an outsider].’ As Cottier has developed Chomarat’s approach to Erasmus’s conception of paraphase, especially in literary and rhetorical directions, so examination of the problematic phrase might be extended further in directions ranging from grammatical to theo­ logical. If one interprets persona in Epistle 1274 grammatically, Er­ asmus seems to be defining paraphrase as a kind of commentary that explains the text without the formal alternation of first with second or third persons used, or at least implied, by the separate speakers or voices in the traditional text-commentary format. Chomarat compares Erasmus’s Paraphrases on the New Testament with De copia. Developing this comparison further, one might suggest that ‘non commutatis personis’ recalls a school exercise that in the sixteenth century was commonly used to teach Latin: the students would learn to write by changing a grammatical fea­ ture such as number, person, voice (active or passive), gender, or case, in a sentence that they were imitating (often one from an ancient source). In De copia, Book 1, Chapter 13 (ASD I-6:54–60, CWE 24:321–29), Erasmus bases some of his verbal variations on these exercises, and among other terms (e.g., enallage) he uses the noun commutatio and especially the verb commutare to describe them. His examples in the section of this chapter labelled Persona (ASD I-6:56–57, CWE 24:324–25) include changes of first, second, or third person, for instance, ‘“Clodius says ... Cicero denies,” that is, “you say ... I deny”’ (CWE 24:325, line 5), and also ‘the inter­ change of personal and impersonal forms, for example, ... it is im­ possible to say how much I love you, or, no one could easily say how much I love you’ (lines 19–24). In this section of the first book of De copia on abundance of words and again in the second book on abundance of mat­ ter, Erasmus also uses the word persona in describing figures of speech. In the passage of Book 1 just cited, one of his examples is the often sudden change to direct address called ‘apostrophe,

52  Judith Rice Henderson

when we address either a person, or a thing as if it were a person, as in these two examples from Virgil: “Scipio’s race, war-hard­ ened, and thee, / Caesar, greatest of all”; [and] “... O devilish love of gold, what power thou hast / For evil over human hearts!”’ (lines 9–13). In her contribution to Holy Scripture Speaks, Phillips cites Eras­ mus’s use of the word persona in Book 2 of De copia to describe figures.15 Erasmus discusses prosopopoeia (personification) and prosopographia (delineation of person) under the section in Book 2 on Personae descriptio (Description of Person) as a method of amplifi­ cation (ASD I-6:212, lines 398ff). He considers dialogue or speech an important means of characterization. Phillips examines how, in the Paraphrase on Luke, Erasmus creates a distinctive ‘Luke-voice’ for the evangelist who was a historian and physician, one that dif­ fers from the voices he gives other evangelists in his Paraphrases. Sider’s email message about Erasmus’s controversial concep­ tion of paraphrase goes on to describe an important theological dimension to the phrase ‘non commutatis personis’: Even more illuminating [than Erasmus’s reply to Pio] is his re­ sponse to the censures of the Paris Faculty of Theology (Declarationes ad censuras Lutetiae vulgatas, 1532), who challenged him on this issue, i.e. of claiming to keep the ‘persona’ (voice) of both the original scriptural author and also the voices within the narrative of the biblical author. (In all his hermeneutical work Erasmus made very much of ‘hearing the voice’ as it sounds in scripture; at one point he calls it the major key to understanding scripture.) In the Declarationes he says (LB 9:905–06) that a paraphrase is nothing other than a commentary, except that the paraphrast speaks under the ‘personae’ of the New Testament writers, and must accordingly maintain the historical framework of the early Christian period. (Therefore he cannot be accused of deliberately directing the para­ phrased words of scripture against the people and situations of the sixteenth century.) I think this helps us to understand the less lu­ cid statement in Epistle 1274. I suggest that Erasmus here is saying the same thing as elsewhere; if rather than translating ‘non com­ mutatis personis’ (the ‘persons’ not having been changed), I may paraphrase: ‘retaining all the while the voices of the original texts.’

This discussion of an Erasmian definition of paraphrase among those contributing to and preparing for publication The Unfold-

Editor's Addendum  53

ing of Words demonstrates clearly what scholars of Erasmus’s philological theology have long recognized, that ‘the unfolding of words’ is in his work inseparable from ‘the unfolding of matter.’ NOTES   1 Jacques Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme (Paris: ‘Les Belles Lettres,’ 1981), 587: ‘Comment en effet séparer Annotations et Paraphrases du Nouveau Testament; les unes et les autres sont des commentaires de textes; la particularité de la paraphrase est qu’elle “ne change pas la personne”: comme dans une traduction, on est censé y entendre l’auteur même, saint Paul par exemple, alors que dans le commentaire stricto sensu il y a une deuxième voix distincte, celle de l’exégète; en outre devant un passage difficile l’annotateur peut proposer plusieurs hypothèses, justifier son choix entre elles ou même laisser la question en suspens, tandis que dans la paraphrase une seule interprétation est possible et l’abstention interdite; enfin le commentaire – c’est le cas des Annotations – est discontinu, la paraphrase continue.’ The English translation is from the ‘slightly modified and abridged’ English version of the chapter published the same year: ‘Grammar and Rhetoric in the Paraphrases of the Gospels by Erasmus,’ Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 1 (1981): 30.   2 See Bruce Mansfield, Erasmus in the Twentieth Century: Interpretations c. 1920–2000, Erasmus Studies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 151–92.   3 Cottier, ‘Erasmus’s Paraphrases: A “New Kind of Commentary”?’ pages 27–46 in this volume.   4 La correspondance d’Érasme. Traduite et annoté d’après le texte latin de l’Opus epistolarum de P.S. Allen, H.M. Allen et H.W. Garrod, ed. Aloïs Gerlo and Paul Foriers, vol. 5, trans. Raymond Horback et al. (Brus­ sels: University Press, 1976), Ep. 1274, lines 50–51.   5 Defending paraphrase in Ep. 1255 to Charles V, the preface of Eras­ mus’s Paraphrase on Matthew; see Allen for details of this letter’s publication. Notes on Epistles 1274 and 1255 in La correspondance d’Érasme also refer the reader to his later comments on paraphrase in Epistles 1333, 1342, and 1381.   6 Vessey, in Holy Scripture Speaks, ed. Hilmar M. Pabel and Vessey (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 5.   7 Backus, ‘Jesus and His Family in Erasmus’ Paraphrases on Luke and John,’ in Pabel and Vessey, Holy Scripture Speaks, 151–74.

54  Judith Rice Henderson   8 Pabel, ‘Exegesis and Marriage in Erasmus’ Paraphrases on the New Testament,’ in Pabel and Vessey, Holy Scripture Speaks, 176.   9 Bedouelle, ‘The Paraphrases of Erasmus in French,’ in Pabel and Ves­ sey, Holy Scripture Speaks, 284. 10 Sider, email message to J.R. Henderson, 29 November 2009. The message also cites Phillips, ‘Sub evangelistae personae: The Speaking Voice of Erasmus’ Paraphrase on Luke,’ in Pabel and Vessey, Holy Scripture Speaks, 127–50. See discussion of Phillips’ essay below. 11 Daniel Sheerin translates this work under the title The Reply of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam to the Hortatory Letter of the Most Illustrious and Most Learned Alberto Pio, Prince of Carpi (Responsio ad epistolam paraeneticam clarissimi doctissimique viri Alberti Pii Carporum principis), in CWE 84 [Controversy with Alberto Pio], ed. Nelson H. Minnich, trans. Sheerin, annotated by Minnich and Sheerin (Toronto: Univer­ sity of Toronto Press, 2005), 1–103. 12 For Opus epistolarum, one of many and varied collections of his let­ ters published in his lifetime, Erasmus was encouraged by his print­ er Hieronymus Froben both to revise previously published letters and to add new ones (Allen, 1, Appendix VII, 596). Allen confirms the 1522 year-date on Epistle 1274 from its references to Erasmus’s Paraphrase on Matthew and to Charles’ approaching return to Spain; whether Erasmus revised the letter for publication is unclear. 13 CWE 84 publishes in full only Erasmus’s works in the controversy with Pio, but in the notes Sheerin translates from the original Latin key passages from Pio’s works. Although note 393 (CWE 84:79) may be an exception, the CWE translations of excerpts from Pio are usu­ ally as helpful as Sheerin anticipates they will be in his ‘Translator’s Note on the Texts: How to Read Them,’ in CWE 84:cxliii–cxlviii. 14 Annotators’ ellipsis. CWE uses Responsio paraenetica as short title for the long ‘letter’ of Pio that Erasmus’s Responsio ad epistolam paraeneticam of 1529 answers. The full title of Pio’s work is Alberti Pii Carporum comitis illustrissimi, ad Erasmi Roterodami expostulationem responsio accurata et paraenetica, Martini Lutheri et asseclarum eius haeresim vesanam magnis argumentis, et iustis rationibus confutans (Paris: Bade, 1529). On the controversy, which began privately but which Eras­ mus continued in print even after Pio’s death in 1531, see Minnich’s introduction, CWE 84:xv–cxli. 15 Phillips, ‘Sub evangelistae personae,’ in Pabel and Vessey, Holy Scripture Speaks, 127–50.

THREE

The Actor in the Story: Horizons of Interpretation in Erasmus’s Annotations on Luke mark vessey

Hermeneutical theory since Gadamer has familiarized us with the idea that every act of textual interpretation entails a ‘fusion of horizons,’ an adjustment between the reality projected by a text and that otherwise assumed by the text’s receiver or interpreter.1 The process in question can seem so transparent, there is often no need for specialized vocabulary to describe it. But some cases are more challenging, and the biblical production of Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) presents one of them. When we attempt to apply this classic hermeneutical model to his Annotations on the New Testament, potentially relevant horizons of interpretation proliferate so alarmingly, we may begin to wonder whether Gadamerian theory ever envisaged such a monstrosity. Unless the modern reader has a very stubborn grip on the editorial principle of first or final authorial intentions, he or she will quickly be resigned to knowing that the horizon of Erasmus’s interpretive text is forever shifting between editions, as a result of his relentless habit of self-revision. And that is less than half the problem. The horizon of Erasmus’s interpreted text is just as dizzyingly unstable: sometimes it is that of the textus receptus of the Vulgate, sometimes of the supposed Greek original, sometimes of the consensus of patristic readings at that point, very occasionally of Erasmus’s own proposed Latin version. Then there is the fact that Erasmus himself does not visualize the hermeneutic encounter in exclusively textual or ‘literary’ terms, often preferring to speak as if dealing with more or less individualized and embodied agents of transmission, from the apostles and evangelists to the nameless translator (interpres) whose work he critiques and intermittently revises from out of a cloud of other witnesses to the tradition.

56  Mark Vessey

Compound these multidimensional, multilayered realities of the (biblical) text as interpreted or proposed for interpretation with the equally diverse array of social and religious realities – of his own and earlier times – invoked by Erasmus in his scholia or ‘annotations,’ and the classic hermeneutical model threatens to give out exhausted. On what basis, then, is a modern interpreter of the Erasmian New Testament interpretation to proceed? One recourse available is to regard the hermeneutical-theoretical challenge of Erasmus’s Bible-work as constituting in itself the heart of the matter and to read the Annotations, accordingly, as a sustained commentary on the modalities of textual tradition, reception, and interpretation. This chapter explores that option as it is afforded by Erasmus’s treatment, in the Annotations, of the prologue to Luke’s gospel, by reading it in tandem with passages of narrative that occur towards the end of the corresponding Paraphrases. First, however, it attempts a more general framing of the problem of Erasmian horizons of interpretation. erasmus’s bible-work: commentary without a text or text without commentary? In the first of the lectures that he gave as Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard in 1975, Northrop Frye referred to a short story, ‘The Gospel according to Mark,’ by one of his predecessors in that role, J.L. Borges. There it was written that ‘generations of men, throughout recorded time, have always told and retold two stories – that of a lost ship which searches the Mediterranean seas for a dearly loved island, and that of a god who is crucified on Golgotha.’2 According to Frye, these two stories are the archetypes respectively of secular romance and biblical epic; some further narratological applications of his formula will be explored in the next section of this essay, with specific reference to Erasmus. Possibly the formula is too neat, as Frye’s formulas can be; with the publication of his notebooks, it has become clear that he often began with aphorisms and only later worked up arguments to exhibit them. Erasmus was an even greater hoarder of aphorisms, and his formulas can also at times be too polished. Yet there is little that is polished or even particularly well turned in his annotations on the New Testament. Their untidiness is their point. They are the understitching of what would be a surpass-

Interpretation in Erasmus’s Annotations on Luke  57

ingly beautiful tapestry, if ever it could be beheld. It cannot be beheld, because it would never exist, except as the ideal but radically untranscendent text of a plenary Latin scripture of which the Opera omnia Erasmi in all their genres, down to and including the unwritten commentary on the Pauline Epistles, were in some sense parerga or outworkings.3 Taking his cue from the church fathers, Erasmus defined theology as exegesis of the holy scriptures. His generic term for the art was enarratio, the classical Latin word for a linguistic and historical (i.e., ‘grammatical’) interpretation of a canonical text.4 It would not be wrong to say that Erasmus’s life’s work as a writer was a work of commentary on the Bible, specifically on the New Testament, the text through which, in his eyes, God in the person of the Son revealed himself more plainly to human beings than in any other medium, not excluding the flesh that he assumed as Christ. In speaking of Erasmus as a biblical commentator, however, one must at the same time acknowledge what an extraordinary kind of interpretation this Erasmian biblical enarratio was. For it was literally commentary in the absence of a text. When Erasmus published his annotations on the textus receptus of the Latin New Testament in 1516, he and his printer also provided a double edition of the biblical books, consisting of a Greek text with, en face, a revised Latin version that largely reflected the emendations now proposed by the commentator.5 Since Erasmus was commenting on the Vulgate text, the lemmata for his scholia (which were printed separately in the latter part of the volume) were naturally taken from the textus receptus, which was not itself printed in the Erasmian edition until 1527. Thus the Erasmian ‘commentary’ was not, except incidentally and indirectly, an exposition of the Greek text, since its primary aim at all points was to render a fully expressive Latin form of the biblical message. Neither was it ultimately an exposition of the Latin textus receptus, which it repeatedly called in question and meant to revise. And only in the most anomalous sense could it be construed as a commentary on the modified, Erasmian Latin version of scripture: its purpose was to justify that version as being in and of itself a more eloquent expression of the gospel truth, not to offer an interpretation of it. Thus if Erasmus’s biblical exegesis in the Novum instrumentum (as the 1516 New Testament edition was entitled) was not commentary without a text (be it the Greek or Latin textus receptus), then it was – or at least anticipated – a text without commentary

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(being an ideal Latin realization of the gospel of Christ). On either analysis, it was something highly singular, matched if at all only by the same writer’s New Testament Paraphrases, which, in order to be believed, had to obliterate the (Greek and/or Latin) text of which they were the voice. As Gutenberg will always be remembered in the annals of book history as the man who first printed the Latin Bible, so Erasmus should have a place there as the man who made the text (or the Text) of the Latin Bible unprintable. Consider, for the sake of contrast, his hardly less famous edition of the works of St Jerome, which also appeared in the annus mirabilis of 1516, a few months after the Novum instrumentum. In that case there was no mistaking the editor’s claim to have restored the pristine text of a fourth-century church father, purging it of corruptions and illuminating it with several kinds of exegesis. What would be more natural than to present the Opera Hieronymi as the pendant to an improved and annotated text of the biblical translation conventionally attributed to the same writer? Since he was toiling like Hercules to restore Jerome’s personal literary œuvre, would it not have made perfect sense to printer and public alike for Erasmus to announce a revision of the New Testament section of ‘Jerome’s Bible,’ as Christopher Marlowe’s Dr Faustus would still call it? All one can say now is that it evidently made no sense to Erasmus to do so. Far from seeking to claim a restored biblical text for Jerome, in the Annotations on the New Testament he barely even refers to him as a translator of the Greek, preferring instead to follow Lorenzo Valla in evoking an anonymous interpres. Possibly Erasmus had an intuition of the frightening difficulty of a full critical recension of the Vulgate. It seems likely, in any case, that he prized the absence of a demonstrably Hieronymian Bible text more highly than he relished the task of establishing such a thing so late in the day. Combining Valla’s supreme faith in the culturally transformative potential of a restored Latinity with his own monastic conviction of the power of lectio divina to shape human lives, Erasmus staked the whole of his Christian philology (or as he called it, his philosophia Christi) on the eloquence of the Latin scriptures, in perfect knowledge that no actual Latin biblical text – not even his own revision of the Vulgate, as printed in 1516 and improved upon in each of the four subsequent editions appearing during his lifetime – could bear the burden of such high expectations.

Interpretation in Erasmus’s Annotations on Luke  59

In practice, the Erasmian ‘commentary’ on the holy scriptures exceeds the biblical text in several directions at once. It is a reading and rewriting – in Latin and into Latin – of the Christian tradition, as mediated by texts both Greek and Latin, ancient and less ancient, further enabled by texts of pre-Christian date. Contrary to one modern myth of Renaissance humanism, it has recourse to the Greek without being a return to the Greek: the present return, for Erasmus, is always to the Latin – even if he also took for granted, and at times promoted, a multiplication of vernacular scriptures.6 Like virtually everything else Erasmus published, the Annotations on the New Testament were conceived by him as contributions to a double supply of perfectly expressive Latin words (verba) for perfectly evangelical things (res), resources for an imagined typographic book that would justify his magnificent theory of the biblical text as a supremely effective medium of the personal teaching of Christ. Mixing the technical vocabularies of grammar and rhetoric, one could define the genre of Erasmus’s Annotations as enarratio in the mode of elocutio, exegesis less for the sake of expounding a text than for the sake of creating one – that is, of recreating one that could be supposed (if only counterfactually) to have existed before, that had been ‘lost’ for centuries, and for which the appropriate idioms could now at last be recovered or supplied by a process of philology. To return to Frye’s quotation of Borges: the ultimate purpose of Erasmian enarratio in the Annotations (though not only there) is to make affectively intelligible for present and future generations the tale so many times told ‘of a god who [was] crucified on Golgotha’ and who rose again from the dead to instruct his followers in the arts of narrative and interpretation, among others. Although the story of Borges to which Frye referred is entitled ‘The Gospel according to Mark,’ for the present purpose – and for Erasmus’s – Luke turns out to be the better source. In Luke’s gospel, as others have already seen, Erasmus finds some of his best occasions for theorizing and dramatizing the process of scriptural narration as enarratio, and vice versa. from golgotha to emmaus: the birth of christian ( e ) n a r r at i o Before we come to the beginning of Luke’s gospel, it will be useful to dart a glance towards its end. In her commentary on the

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Paraphrase on Luke for the Collected Works of Erasmus and in two recent studies, Jane Phillips has drawn attention to Erasmus’s extraordinary dilation of Luke 24:27.7 The two disciples on the road to Emmaus have been telling a stranger about recent events in Jerusalem. Their interlocutor is the risen Jesus, appearing to them incognito (like Athena to Odysseus or Venus to Aeneas, a narrator in Borges might say) and chiding them for their failure to trust in the prophecies formerly spoken and long since recorded of himself. Then, as the King James version has it, ‘beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.’ The main verb is diermeneuein, ‘to explain or interpret,’ which the Vulgate renders with interpretari. Erasmus paraphrases: ‘enarravit illis scripturas omnes’ (he explained all the scriptures to them). In his own rendering, the explanation runs to sixteen folio columns in the Leiden edition.8 Old Testament prophecies and the events of an as-yet-unwritten New Testament narrative are serially collated, down to the present action of the conversation on the road to Emmaus, and beyond it into a future no less securely guaranteed by figurations from the past. Phillips notes that there is ‘nothing parallel to this declamation in the traditional exegesis of the Gospel of Luke, whether commentary or sermon series.’9 Almost as remarkable as the length of the paraphrase on this verse is the commentary that follows it in Erasmus’s paraphrase. Whereas Luke in his gospel saves any mention of the disciples’ reaction to the stranger’s words until after the latter has become known to them at supper that evening (when ‘They said one to another, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?”’ [24:32]), Erasmus-as-Luke zooms in immediately on their affective response: This discourse from the Lord Jesus, not only striking the disciples’ ears but also penetrating their hearts, so occupied them that they neither took notice of the difficulty of the road nor recognized the face of the speaker. Nor did it occur to them to think to themselves, ‘Who is this who has Holy Scripture at his beck and call, the whole teaching and life of Jesus, and who keeps us intent and deeply moved with such powerful words? We never saw him among the disciples, and yet nothing has escaped him.’ They loved him only as if in a dream [tanquam per somnium], and rejoiced to learn Jesus

Interpretation in Erasmus’s Annotations on Luke  61 from Jesus himself. For learning is never more fruitful than when he deigns to teach us about himself.10

Apart from the suggestion that the listeners were in a kind of dream state, there is nothing here to detract from the quality of their instruction or conviction. While they may not recognize Jesus’s face, they are nonetheless captivated by his speech and rightly rejoice in the experience. Erasmus, one feels, is equivocating in a way that Luke had no need to. For he is about to go on to say, in the person of Luke but without any direct biblical warrant, that the two men ‘saw’ Jesus better after he had vanished from their midst during supper than when he was physically present, breaking bread with them: ‘Sublato corpore Iesu, iam melius illum videbant, quam tum cum esset corpore praesens.’11 Not only is the bodily presence of Jesus not required for the instruction of his followers; according to Erasmus that instruction is more effective when mediated by the scriptures. Recall the famous statement from the close of the Paraclesis, the preface to Erasmus’s edition of the New Testament: ‘these writings,’ he says, ‘bring you the living image of his holy mind and the speaking, healing, dying, rising Christ himself, and thus they render him so fully present that you would see less if you gazed upon him with your very eyes.’12 For Erasmus, all Christian readers are ideally travellers on the road to Emmaus. Luke 24:27 provided him with a golden opportunity to underline what he took for a central hermeneutical truth. Christ himself (as paraphrased by Erasmus) would now demonstrate the efficacy of scripture as a medium of Christian instruction, both in and by his own absence. The two disciples would be used to model the proper response to biblical narration as enarratio (or vice versa), even if that meant giving them credit for a response that was initially dreamlike. After all, these were still very early days in the history of the church. That earliness is manifested narratologically in Erasmus’s paraphrase on this chapter of Luke. Coming (early) to the tomb and finding it empty, the women receive an angelic lesson in scriptural enarratio that is a miniature prelude to the one shortly to be delivered by Christ himself (Luke 24:6–7, considerably expanded by Erasmus). They report what they have seen and heard to the disciples, but the latter do not believe what the women tell them (‘quod illae narrabant’ [LB 7:466F], ‘quod narrabant mulieres’ [467A]). As Cleopas and his companion make their way towards

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Emmaus, ‘their whole talk [tota confabulatio] was of Jesus and all the things that they had seen and heard in the days past.’13 That is to say, their talk was storytelling; the choice of Latin vocabulary all but tells us as much. (As Phillips points out, here and in his annotation on Luke 24:15, Erasmus makes the most of the narratological possibilities suggested by his lemmata, by consistently favouring cognates of fabulari over alternative Latin idioms for the act of conversing.) When Christ appears incognito to them, he does so in the paraphrase ‘velut lupus in fabula,’ like the wolf in the proverbial story who appeared just as he was being spoken of. As he draws them on to relate recent history, they renarrate the events covered a few verses earlier, including the purely narratological events of report and reaction to report. So Erasmus’s reader hears again that the women’s narrative (harum narrationi [468C]) had not been believed. The device of embedded narrative is already used by Luke, but Erasmus expands its conceptual range. These, for him, are men and women taking their first faltering steps in scriptural thinking without Jesus there to guide them. Finding the tomb empty, they simultaneously find themselves in a space of hermeneutical conjecture. Their correct course, as the Jesus of the paraphrase will tell them far more insistently than his strictly Lukan original, is to construe recent, current, and coming events in the light of scriptural narratives and interpretations already available to them, and to interpret their own situation in the same light. For they are all actors in the fabula Christi, as well as observers and reporters, and the plot of the drama requires them to stay in character. When the Spirit comes, says Jesus in the paraphrase (though not in the gospel written by Luke), he will give them not only ‘an eloquence that none can contradict’ but also ‘the power to work miracles, so that [their] testimony about [Christ] will be persuasive.’14 Their future actions will speak for them too, and so – more importantly – of him. Having taken these bearings from Erasmus’s dénouement to Luke’s gospel in the paraphrase, consider next how he rewrites its opening lines in his annotations. founding myths: a virgilian gospel-prologue As is well known, Luke begins like no other canonical evangelist. Where the others start without apology or explanation at what

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they take to be or make the beginning – Mark and John with ‘In the beginning,’ Matthew with Abraham – Luke pauses as one conscious of beginning late. In the King James version: 1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, 2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word; 3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, 4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou has been instructed.

Luke draws attention to the fact that he is not only telling a tale already told many times, but writing it too. His narrative text declares itself as text at the outset. In Derridean terms, it ‘remarks’ itself. Knowing how conscious, indeed zealous, Erasmus was of scripture-as-text, one expects him to be sensitive to this opening, and so he is, both as annotator and as paraphrast. In their final form, his scholia on the preliminary verses fill 240 lines in the Amsterdam edition. Two lemmata from the Annotations as printed in the final authorial edition of 1535 will serve to complete the hermeneutical shortcut that was opened by Frye and Borges.15 [1:2] sicut tradiderunt ‘as they have handed on [i.e., those things to us]’ Nothing is text-critically at stake here. Erasmus is content with the verb as it appears in the Vulgate, namely tradere, ‘to deliver’ or ‘hand on,’ translating the Greek paradidomi. His commentary is entirely concerned with the nature of the transaction: Even this shows that the evangelist Luke is writing down what he has heard from others. A thing that is handed on is transferred by report [narratione] from one group of people to another [ab aliis in alios]. That is, unless we prefer to take ‘as they have handed on to us’ in an unrestricted sense, so that Luke himself would be among those who ‘have handed on’ and ‘to us’ would refer to all those who have learned of Christ from the preaching of the apostles. But that is a view which no-one has put forward and which I consider forced. And why go to any trouble here to prove the point, when

64  Mark Vessey St. Jerome in the Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers states unambiguously that Luke gave literary form to what he had received from others [ea stilo fuisse prosequutum quae ab aliis acceperat], they being persons of most certain assurance [fidei certissimae]? By this Jerome meant that Luke depended not just on anybody but on those who had been personally involved in all that they related [qui omnibus quae narrabant, interfuissent].

Two quotations from Jerome follow. Then Erasmus continues, promising further discussion: Thus Jerome. But we shall have somewhat more to say on this matter a little later, in connection with another passage. It could be debated whether this phrase, ‘as they had handed on to us’ [sicut tradiderant nobis] refers to things preceding [superiora], in which case the meaning would be that the certainty of conviction arose from the fact that those who had related these things had not only been present as witnesses and spectators of the acts in question but had also borne a part themselves in some of them [non solum ipsi interfuerant ceu testes ac spectatores rerum gestarum, verum ipsi quoque rerum aliquarum partem gessissent], or to things following [sequentia], in which case the meaning would be that Luke in his turn wished to weave together a life of Christ with the good assurance [bona fide] that he had perfectly and fully learned from the most reliable authorities.16

For clarification of what is at issue here apart from Luke’s syntax, one can turn to the promised further discussion à propos of a later passage. The promise is first made in the third edition (of 1522) and refers there to the next lemma: qui ab initio ipsi viderunt ‘[they] who themselves saw [those things] from the beginning’ [So the lemma: the Vulgate as subsequently quoted by Erasmus has ‘viderant.’]

Already in 1516 Erasmus proposed an alternative reading: ‘qui ab initio suis oculis viderant’ ([they] who had seen [those things] from the beginning with their own eyes), but the main emphasis of his annotation (as it appeared from 1522 onward) is on the doing that accompanies the seeing in the case of those who bear authoritative witness to Christ:

Interpretation in Erasmus’s Annotations on Luke  65 Where the translator has used the circumlocution ‘who had seen from the beginning,’ the Greek text has the single expression autoptai [eye-witnesses] from the pronoun autos, ‘self,’ and opto, ‘I see.’ The most reliable witness is an eyewitness, as they say. This is another sign from which we can infer that Luke had not seen what he writes about in this book, since he calls himself a writer and calls them autoptai, deriving the authority and assurance [fides] of his account not from his own person but from them. Those, however, who were some part of the acts related [qui pars aliqua fuerunt rerum gestarum] he calls hyperetai, that is, ‘undertakers’ [ministri]. For one who assists in the performance of a thing is acting in a subordinate capacity. They were autoptai when they saw someone cast out a demon, hyperetai when they freed Lazarus or themselves produced miracles at the Lord’s command or incurred dangers on his behalf. Greek grammarians suppose the word [hyperetes] to derive from hypo [beneath] and eressein [to row], that is, from ‘rowing beneath,’ since oarsmen are servants to the master of a ship. However, because it sounded odd to Latin ears to call someone the ‘undertaker’ [minister] of a task when that person did not just carry it out on behalf of another but bore and carried a part of his or her own, I have preferred to translate as follows: ‘ac pars aliqua fuerunt eorum quae narrabant’ [and were some part in the things that they related]. In the same way does Virgil’s Aeneas win assurance [fides] for himself: quaeque ipse miserrima vidi et quorum pars magna fui [those most pitiable things, which I myself have seen and of which I was a great part].17

If this explanation of the reading ‘ac pars aliqua fuerat eorum quae narrabat,’ which Erasmus adopted already in 1516 in place of the Vulgate’s ‘et ministri fuerunt sermonis,’ seems to belong more naturally with his earlier discussion of the epistemological basis of Luke’s ‘bona fides,’ under the lemma ‘sicut tradiderunt,’ that is because in 1516 the two sets of considerations did in fact appear together, albeit under a different lemma, namely ‘quae in nobis completae sunt rerum’ (the things which have been made full [of assurance] in us [1:1]).18 This is a fair example of the sometimes dauntingly complex syntax of the Annotations as they advance through successive editions, and of the problems of parsing that Erasmus creates for his

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reader and translator, through his determination to keep revising without giving anything up. Under such conditions, there is a strong temptation to attempt a genetic reading of the text that would allow one to follow individual strands of development more clearly. The attempt is usually futile, however, so thoroughgoing is the process of recombination. That said, in the case just cited, a return to the 1516 lemma ‘quae in nobis completae sunt rerum’ does yield one significant datum. Whereas in the 1522 and later editions the speaker of the two half-lines of Latin hexameter verse is identified merely as Vergilianus Aeneas, in 1516 and 1519 he is introduced as ‘Virgil’s Aeneas on the point of relating the story of the fall of Troy’ (Vergilianus Aeneas historiam excidii Troiani narraturus).19 The quoted lines, as many of Erasmus’s original readers could be expected to know without such a cue, are from the beginning of Book 2 of the Aeneid (2.5–6). Aeneas is about to answer Dido’s request for an account of how he and his men came to the shore of her kingdom. The story, insofar as it concerned the fall of Troy, was well enough known at Carthage by this time to be depicted in reliefs on the temple of Juno currently under construction, as observed by Aeneas himself and his friend Achatës when, thanks to another of Venus’s tricks, they visited the city in broad daylight without being seen (1.441–93). Having thus already found himself a secret spectator of scenes from an action narrated the world over, and wept at what he saw so vividly rendered by Dido’s artists, Aeneas would now speak openly as an actor in those same events, and bring the story sorrowfully down to the present. This form of insistence on participant-witness appears to be a Virgilian, rather than a Homeric, device of narrative immediacy. One may think of it as characteristic of ‘secondary’ or ‘literary’ epic, a measure of the poet’s sense of how far removed he and his audience already were from the heroic milieu described in the poem. Although the locution ‘pars esse alicuius’ (to be a part of [or bear a part in] something) is reasonably well attested in classical Latin, it would be hard to find another instance of it that is as rhetorically and narratologically loaded as the Virgilian example. By substituting ‘ac pars aliqua fuerat eorum quae narrabant’ for the Vulgate’s ‘et ministri fuerunt sermonis’ at Luke 1:2, Erasmus flagrantly Virgilianized the Latin gospel text. (It is the kind of thing that modern philologists love to find in Jerome’s Bible translation but rarely do.) Exceptional as it may be even by Erasmus’s stan-

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dards of faithful paraphrase, the stylistic imposition can nonetheless be seen as symptomatic of his general method of exegetical elocutio. The Virgilian intertext is called up to assist in the recreation of an ‘ideal’ Latin biblical text that could not come into existence until Erasmus provided the means for it. Luke in his gospel was no Aeneas-like narrator. He was not even a witness to the events of that story, let alone an actor in them. Still, he had heard and read the testimony of those who had been actors. These distinctions are worked out in fine and elaborate detail in Erasmus’s paraphrase on the same prefatory verses.20 It will be enough for the present argument to quote the passage directly corresponding to the lemma ‘sicut tradiderunt’ in the Annotations. The things that I relate, says the paraphrased Luke, I have on the assurance of those who ‘not only had seen with their own eyes, drunk in with their ears and felt with their hands most of the things which they related to us, but had also been some part of the things that they related as having taken place [aliqua pars fuerant eorum quae gesta narrabant], for they were such as did many things on the Lord’s command and for his sake endured many things, being indeed in all things inseparable companions of Jesus Christ.’21 While he might be no Aeneas, Erasmus’s Luke was at no risk of being mistaken for just another person with stories to tell about Christ. Christianity’s founding myth was at least as well assured as Rome’s. conclusion As the massive interpolation late in the Paraphrase on Luke underlines what little store Erasmus set by Christ’s physical presence for the inculcation of gospel truth, so these specimens from his annotations on the preamble to the same gospel point up how vitally important the narrative representation of the physical reality of gospel scenes and events was to the overall strategy of Erasmian biblical enarratio. The paraphrase plays upon the fragility of its characters’ sense of a new scriptural order of understanding, beginning with the absence of Christ as a person. The annotations emphasize the authority of a scriptural discourse grounded in the experience of persons who had participated directly in the action of Christ’s life. There is no paradox here. Erasmus’s scripturalism is a species of narrative and dramatic realism. His Biblework supports a highly affective, quasi-theatrical mythology of

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Christ. Cleopas and his companion had to learn from scripture that they were actors in a drama far bigger than any story of their own. They learned their lesson and played their parts, more consummately in Erasmus’s paraphrase than in the original gospel of Luke. For sixteenth-century readers of the New Testament to be moved to action in the way that these two disciples had been by an unknown speaker’s discourse on the way to Emmaus, the scenes and events of Christ’s life that served there as objects of enarratio had to become as compellingly real and affecting in the gospel at large, as narrative, as they had been to those who had originally shared with Christ in performing them. Such readers of a Latin Bible would then become like Aeneas and Achatës before Juno’s temple in Carthage, subjects of an action of which they were likewise spectators, only rejoicing now in the promises of the future instead of grieving for the losses of the recent past. That was the ‘fusion of horizons,’ or the ‘application,’ that ultimately mattered to Erasmus, and for which he strove as exegete and rhetorician. NOTES   1 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd ed. (New York: Crossroad 1989), 306–7: ‘Every encounter with a tradition that takes place within historical consciousness involves the experience of a tension between the text and the present. The hermeneutic task consists in not covering up this tension by attempting a naïve assimilation of the two but in consciously bringing it out. This is why it is part of the hermeneutic approach to project a historical horizon that is different from the horizon of the present … In the process of understanding, a real fusing of horizons occurs – which means that as the historical horizon is projected, it is simultaneously superseded. To bring about this fusion in a regulated way is the task of what we called historically effected consciousness. Although this task was obscured by aesthetic-historical positivism following on the heels of romantic hermeneutics, it is, in fact, the central problem of hermeneutics. It is the problem of application, which is to be found in all understanding.’   2 Northrop Frye, The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), 15.   3 See Mark Vessey, ‘Erasmus’ Lucubrations and the Renaissance Life

Interpretation in Erasmus’s Annotations on Luke  69

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8   9 10 11 12

13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21

of Texts,’ Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 24 (2004): 23–51, for a fuller statement of this view. Jacques Chomarat, Grammaire et rhétorique chez Érasme (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1981), 509–87 (‘La lecture et le commentaire des textes’), devoted principally to the Annotations; Chomarat, ‘Les Annotations de Valla, celles d’Érasme et la grammaire,’ in Histoire de l’exégèse au XVIe siècle, ed. Olivier Fatio and Pierre Fraenkel (Geneva: Droz, 1978), 202–28. Henk Jan de Jonge, ‘Novum Testamentum a nobis versum: The Essence of Erasmus’ Edition of the New Testament,’ Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 35 (1984): 394–413; Erika Rummel, Erasmus’ Annotations on the New Testament (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 3–33. Jonge, ‘Novum Testamentum,’ 412: ‘Erasmus attributed the functions which the New Testament was to perform in society exclusively to the Latin text.’ CWE 48:235n31; Jane E. Phillips, ‘On the Road to Emmaus: Erasmus’ Paraphrase of Luke 24:27,’ Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 22 (2002): 68–80; Phillips, ‘The Shaping of a Gospel: Further Reflections on the Paraphrase of Luke,’ in Erasmus and the Renaissance Republic of Letters, ed. Stephen Ryle (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming). LB 7:469A–484F. CWE 48:235n31. CWE 48:270; LB 7:484F. LB 7:485F. Christian Humanism and the Reformation: Selected Writings of Erasmus, 3rd ed., trans. John C. Olin (New York: Fordham University Press, 1987), 108. CWE 48:230 and n. 16. CWE 48:278 with n. 161 pointing to the echo of Mark 16:20. Latin text as edited by P.F. Hovingh in ASD VI-5. All references to the successive editions of Erasmus’s annotations depend upon Hovingh’s collation. Translations are from the present author’s draft for CWE 53. ASD VI-5:442, lines 72–97. ASD VI-5:442, line 98–443, line 2. ASD VI-5:441, note on lines 36–8. ASD VI-5:441, note on lines 36–8. See also Phillips, ‘The Shaping of a Gospel’ [n. 15f in typescript]. LB 7:281F.

FOUR

The Function of Ambrosiaster in Erasmus’s Annotations on the Epistle to the Galatians riemer faber

The late fourth-century commentary by the author now known as Ambrosiaster performs an important function in the biblical scholarship of Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536). In producing a new Latin translation of the New Testament, Erasmus often adopts the text of the Latin Bible as it is quoted in Ambrosiaster’s commentary. Erasmus also frequently cites or refers to Ambrosiaster’s commentary in his own Annotations on the Pauline Epistles, including the one to the Galatians that is the special focus of this chapter. Second only to Jerome in the number of times that he is mentioned explicitly in the Annotations, Ambrosiaster clearly contributed to the production of Erasmus’s biblical commentary. The nature of that contribution, however, has received little scholarly attention. The purpose of the following examination is to reveal Erasmus’s strategies in using Ambrosiaster in the service of his own innovative textual criticism, exegesis, and theology. It is clear that Erasmus employed this commentary for the first, 1516 edition of his Annotations, for he mentions ‘Ambrose’ (= Ambrosiaster) in company with Origen, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Jerome, and Hilary of Poitiers in the preface.1 After the 1519 edition Erasmus began to suspect that Ambrose did not author the commentaries circulating under his name,2 and in the 1527 edition Erasmus questions the attribution: ‘nescio quis, Ambrosii titulo, aut certe quae posuerat Ambrosius, contaminavit.’ It was not Erasmus who invented the name ‘Ambrosiaster.’3 That is a non-pejorative term coined in the late seventeenth century by the Benedictine scholars of St Maur, who use it to denote the author of the first complete commentary on the Pauline Epistles (Hebrews excepted), once ascribed to Ambrose bishop of Milan.4

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To this Ambrosiaster has been attributed also a series of inquiries entitled 107 Questions on the Old and New Testament (Liber Quaestionum Veteris et Novi Testamenti), which were transmitted under the name of Augustine, and cited by Erasmus as such.5 Fragments of other works survive, including a discussion of Matthew 13:33, a commentary on Matthew 24, and a treatment of the account of Peter’s denial of Jesus Christ.6 Erasmus probably employed the Opera omnia edition of Ambrose published by Johann Amerbach at Basel in 1492 (see fig. 1), and he included the commentaries in his own 1527 edition of this church father.7 While several conjectures were raised in the first decades of the twentieth century regarding the identity of Ambrosiaster, none has won acceptance. Despite the difficulty in identifying the author, internal evidence reveals important information about him, and much of it is relevant to understanding Erasmus’s reception. The Pauline commentary was composed at Rome during the pontificate of Damasus I, that is, between 366 and 384 AD.8 Ambrosiaster may have held clerical office; he was well connected to higher circles of Roman society, and he displays a special interest in legal matters.9 Heinrich Vogels has argued, with some success, that Ambrosiaster was in conflict with Jerome over the latter’s emendations of the Old Latin versions of scripture.10 The distinguishing features of Ambrosiaster’s commentaries on the Pauline Epistles may be summarized under five headings, as follows.11 1. Philo-Semitism: Unusually well informed on and sympathetic to Judaism, Ambrosiaster stands out from his contemporaries in providing specific information about the beliefs and customs of the Jews. Whereas his contemporaries tended to divorce Hebrew culture from Christianity, Ambrosiaster understands a continuum from the Old to New Testaments. 2. Theological concerns: Ambrosiaster’s emphasis on justification by faith alone distinguished his commentaries from others of the time, with the exception of John Chrysostom. He also stresses common grace, whereby fallen humanity does not deny God, but fails to acknowledge him. Ambrosiaster’s notion of inherited guilt is yet another theological conviction that figured prominently in the development of church dogma. His reading of the phrase ‘in whom all have sinned’ in Romans 5:12 (‘By one man sin entered into the world ...

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Figure 1.  Ambrosiaster’s commentary on Galatians is attributed to Ambrose in ‘Expositio in epistolas Pauli apostoli’ in the edition Erasmus probably used: Opera Sancti Ambrosii pars secunda (Basel: Johann Amerbach, 1492). Here in Galatians 2:4–11 (sig. m4v), which includes Paul’s much-discussed account of his confrontation with Peter, Erasmus adopts the word ‘reprehensus’ (Gal. 2:11, lower right column) in preference to the Vulgate’s ‘reprehensibilis.’ Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel: [D 277.2° Helmst.]. Published with permission.

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and so death passed to all, in whom all have sinned’) is cited (under the name of Hilary) by Augustine to support his belief in federative depravity.12 According to Ambrose’s reading of this text, the death that ‘passed to all’ is physical, not eternal, death. Pelagius, who also employed Ambrosiaster’s commentaries, was influenced by his emphasis on the freedom of the human will.13 Romans 9:16 (‘so it depends not on man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy’) is interpreted by Ambrosiaster in such a way as to safeguard a margin of autonomy for freedom in human action.14 Ambrosiaster’s view that humanity possesses certain innate powers must have appealed to the Dutch humanist, especially in the rebuttals to Luther in the debate over the freedom of the will. Other theological issues that permeate Ambrosiaster’s commentary are the doctrine of the Trinity, and Christology. Evidently trained in legal matters, and possessing a special interest in Judaism, Ambrosiaster pays particular attention to the function of the law, most notably in his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Seeing the Old Testament law as natural and temporal, Ambrosiaster, like Erasmus after him, understands it to refer especially to the Mosaic laws and ceremonies.15 3. Social and political matters: David Hunter has argued that Ambrosiaster’s work represents a fusing of traditional Roman and Christian attitudes regarding social matters.16 Ambrosiaster is often cited as the only patristic author who admits remarriage under certain conditions; in the sixteenth century his commentary on 1 Corinthians 7 was widely studied.17 4. Level of interpretation: While it may be true that, generally speaking, Ambrosiaster avoids allegorical interpretation, preferring instead to emphasize the historical and literal sense, he does not avoid figurative interpretations altogether, especially in the forty-seven Quaestiones dedicated to Old Testament topics.18 Regardless of the predilection for the literal and historical meaning, Ambrosiaster’s commentary enjoyed wide use during the Middle Ages; this may be due to the association of it with the name of Ambrose. 5. Style of commentary: Compared to other patristic commentaries, Ambrosiaster’s style may have possessed special appeal to Erasmus.19 Aiming to give a clear account of what Paul said, Ambrosiaster strives to record Pauline thought rather than to

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advance his own theological views. Paraphrastic in nature, his commentary seeks to explicate and amplify Paul’s statements, thus anticipating the practice of Erasmus in the Annotations. Unlike Erasmus’s practice, however, Ambrosiaster rarely comments on matters of a stylistic or rhetorical nature, as he focuses on content rather than on the manner of communication. The tone of the commentary is practical, conscientious, and nondevotional. In short, in the context of patristic exegesis, with Ambrosiaster, ‘the task of interpreting scripture shifts from the pastoral level to the level of individual scholarship, the private composition of the commentary seeming to replace homiletic delivery.’20 It should be noted that Erasmus acknowledges a debt to Ambrosiaster’s commentaries in various places, including the prefatory letter to the Paraphrases on 1 and 2 Corinthians. Citing these commentaries as source in the preface to the first, 1516 edition of the Annotations, Erasmus does not increase the number of references in succeeding editions.21 In the annotations on those Bible books for which no commentary by Ambrosiaster exists, Erasmus nevertheless consulted his writings. A scan through the Annotations on the Synoptic Gospels reveals that works now attributed to ‘Ambrosiaster’ are cited on five occasions. On Matthew 19:4 (Christ’s teaching on marriage), for example, Erasmus implicitly acknowledges Ambrosiaster’s expertise in Jewish marital law when he quotes from his commentary on 1 Corinthians 7:10. The other references are to the Quaestiones, which, it should be remembered, Erasmus deemed to be authored by Augustine. Yet Erasmus’s motivation in these quotations accords with his high estimation of Ambrosiaster’s literal-mindedness elsewhere: on Luke 2:35 (‘and a sword shall pierce your own soul also’), Erasmus records Ambrosiaster’s interpretation of ‘pertransire’ as passing by the vital organ, not killing it.22 It is in his New Testament textual scholarship and the supporting Annotations that Erasmus employs the fourth-century commentator most explicitly. This is remarkable, since Ambrosiaster’s commentary does not cite any Greek text. However, it frequently reproduces a form of an Old Latin translation of the Pauline Epistles (now lost), which is at least coeval with the oldest complete manuscripts of the Greek Bible, presupposing a Greek text that is older. For that reason, Ambrosiaster functioned as a thesaurus

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from which Erasmus could obtain alternative renderings.23 Perhaps it is from his reading of Jerome, who regarded that Latin text highly, that Erasmus developed his special appreciation for Ambrosiaster’s text. At any rate, Erasmus’s regard for the Old Latin text of the Bible was not affected by the suspicions he harboured about the authenticity of the commentaries on Romans, I and II Corinthians, and Galatians ascribed to Ambrose. Thus Erasmus adopted some expressions that occur in the Old Latin text as read by Ambrosiaster. In producing a new Latin translation, Erasmus evidently relied on the recent editorial work of Jacques LeFèvre d’Étaples (ca. 1460–1536) and Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457) for alternative renderings; Ambrosiaster, Jerome, and Augustine, however, provided special appeal as they belonged to the class of veteres that lent credibility and authority to Erasmus’s choices. In this regard, Ambrosiaster’s function for Erasmus underscores the close link between the composition of the New Testament and the Annotations: his influence is seen as much in the choice of diction, word order, and syntax in Erasmus’s edition as in the explanatory notes.24 An examination of Erasmus’s text of the Epistle to the Galatians in comparison with that of the Vulgate and the portions of the Old Latin text preserved by Ambrosiaster reveals approximately seventy-six instances in which the variants between the Vulgate and Ambrosiaster prompted Erasmus to produce a text different from that of the Vulgate. Of these, some forty alterations to the Vulgate consist of the reading contained in the lemmata in Ambrosiaster’s commentary. The importance of that number is qualified by the observation that some of these readings were adopted also by Valla or LeFèvre; the recurring citation of Ambrosiaster in the accompanying Annotations suggests, however, that Erasmus discovered these textual alternatives independent of the neoterici. Four of the forty instances of agreement between the text of Erasmus and Ambrosiaster contra the Vulgate are due to Erasmus’s preference for the Greek manuscript tradition on which Ambrosiaster’s reading rests.25 In five cases where the Vulgate has added a word in the Latin that does not correspond to the Greek original, Erasmus follows the more concise text of Ambrosiaster. These include ‘cui’ (Greek w/~)J for ‘cui est’ (1:5); ‘estis’ for ‘estis ut’ (3:3); the exclusion of ‘sicut scriptum est’ (3:5); ‘frustra’ (Greek eijkh/`) for ‘sine causa’ (4:11); ‘ne’ (Greek mhv pw") for ‘ne forte’ (4:11). Respect for the text of the Greek original appears to

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be the reason for Erasmus’s preference for Ambrosiaster’s reading. In eleven instances Erasmus alters the word order of the Vulgate text, so that it accords with that of Ambrosiaster. In many of these transpositions the resultant order reflects that of the Greek; thus, for example, ‘qui conturbant vos’ (those who trouble you, 1:7) for oiJ taravssonte" uJma`" is preferred to ‘qui vos conturbant.’ At Chapter 3:25 Erasmus follows Ambrosiaster’s ‘sub paedagogo sumus’ (we are under a custodian) for uJpo; paidagwgovn ejsmen (rather than ‘sumus sub paedagogo’); at 5:17 ‘nam caro’ (hJ ga;r sa;rx) is preferred over the Vulgate’s ‘caro enim.’ These nuanced transpositions implement Erasmus’s intent to produce a text that most closely conveys the original. In thirteen instances Erasmus rejects the vocabulary of the Vulgate in favour of the text cited by Ambrosiaster. It has been observed that Erasmus was keen to replace the Vulgate’s loan word ‘evangelizo’ with ‘praedico’;26 what has not been noted is that Erasmus obtained this rendering from the text of Ambrosiaster, as at Galatians 1:11 and 1:23. On other occasions he follows Ambrosiaster’s reading because it translates the Greek more strictly: at 4:18 ‘solum’ (rather than the Vulgate’s ‘tantum’) stands for the Greek movnon; at 4:20 ‘nunc’ (for a[rti) appears in place of the Vulgate’s ‘modo.’ At other times the meaning of the Greek is simply better translated in Ambrosiaster’s text than in the Vulgate: at Chapter 5:10 Ambrosiaster prefers ‘sentio’ to ‘sapio’ for the Greek fronei`n; ‘concupiscentia’ rather than ‘desideria’ for ejpiqumiva (5:16); ‘mansuetudo’ rather than ‘lenitas’ for prau?th" (6:1). On three occasions in the text of the Epistle to the Galatians, Erasmus alters the tense or mood of a verb in the Vulgate, in accordance with that in the text cited by Ambrosiaster. The Greek participle kategnwsmevno" (condemned, 2:11) is rendered by the Vulgate as ‘reprehensibilis,’ by Erasmus’s and Ambrosiaster’s text as ‘reprehensus’ (for Ambrosiaster, see fig. 1, the lemma in the lower right column, line 39). At 2:12 ‘venissent’ rather than the Vulgate ‘venirent’ better accords with the sequence of tenses (see Ambrosiaster’s ‘Cum autem venissent,’ in fig. 2, left column, line 3). Once again it is fidelity to the Greek text that determines Erasmus’s preference for Ambrosiaster’s reading. And in the remaining instances of deviation from the Vulgate, Erasmus was prompted by the vocabulary of Ambrosiaster, though preferring a different form of the noun (e.g., plural number, 1:21) or tense of the verb (e.g., pluperfect, 2:4).

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Figure 2.  Erasmus appreciated the literal quality of the Latin translation from Greek cited in the commentary on Paul’s Epistles by ‘Ambrosiaster,’ as seen here in the lemmata (Galatians 2:12–5:21, sig. m5r) of the 1492 Amerbach edition of Ambrose. Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel: [D 277.2° Helmst.]. Published with permission.

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One also finds explicit citations of Ambrosiaster in the Annotations proper. As noted above, one of Erasmus’s strategies in the Annotations is to quote or refer to the reading of Ambrosiaster in order to support his choice for a Latin rendering of the Greek that contradicts the Vulgate. In the Annotations on the Epistle to the Galatians Erasmus explicitly mentions this commentator, as Ambrose, sixty-six times (he mentions Jerome some 127 times). In forty of the sixty-six instances Erasmus introduces the reading of Ambrosiaster, often varying the introduction to the note, for instance: ‘Ambrosius legit’; ‘videtur legisse’; ‘secus legit’; ‘consentiens’; ‘consentiente … codici Ambrosio’; ‘apud Ambrosium.’ After the 1519 edition many of these entries are expanded to include Augustine, whose text is often the same as that of Ambrosiaster; hereby the patristic foundation on which Erasmus’s text rests is strengthened further. Frequently Erasmus cites Ambrosiaster’s reading because its literal Latin rendering of the Greek appeals to him. The Latin text of Ambrosiaster translates as ‘recte via incedunt’ the Greek at 2:14: ojrqopodou`sin (referring to those who were not straightforward about the gospel). Erasmus appreciated the literal quality of this Latin translation of 2:14 (see the lemma ‘Sed ... omnibus’ in fig. 2, left column, lines 21–3). Ambrosiaster’s translation leads Erasmus to the bold construction ‘recto pede incederent.’ Occasionally by adding an adverb such as ‘sane’ (soundly, 3:5), ‘melius’ (better, 5:10), ‘expressius’ (more meaningfully, 5:21), ‘latinius’ (in better Latin, 6:4), Erasmus passes judgment on Ambrosiaster’s reading, while at the same time strengthening his own case by association.27 His case gains even greater credence by means of the occasional rhetorical appeal to the reader, as at 1:6: ‘what I mean will be very clear to anyone who opens the commentaries of Ambrose.’28 Also in instances where Erasmus’s Latin text differs from that of Ambrosiaster, Erasmus cites the church father’s text in the Annotations to serve his own larger purpose. He expresses surprise at seeing the preservation of what seems a scribal error in the text cited by Ambrosiaster; on the apparently redundant ‘sic tam’ at Chapter 1:6 (for o{utw" tacevw") Erasmus states, ‘it is a wonder how an otherwise clearly discordant reading, and one that also is at variance with the Greek models, has gained such currency that it is to be found even in Ambrose ...’29 In a similar vein the apparently innocent clause, ‘if the codices are free of error’ (si modo

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codices mendo vacant), used when Erasmus reports the inclusion of a redundant ‘aliquid’ in the text read by Ambrosiaster (2:2), functions as the exception that proves the rule of Ambrosiaster’s textual authority.30 Erasmus’s strategy in using Ambrosiaster is particularly evident in the citations of the latter’s commentary. The words ‘sic interpretatur Ambrosius’ (as Ambrose explains it) occur especially in support of Erasmus’s literal interpretation of a passage. On 2:11 (‘I opposed him to his face’), Erasmus calls on Ambrosiaster’s commentary in support of his explanation of Paul’s actions as being open and face-to-face (‘palam et coram’). More ready to disagree with Ambrosiaster in matters of interpretation than of text, Erasmus nevertheless reports the discrepancy with a tone of civility. Regarding 5:11, where appear the words, ‘I wish those who unsettle you would mutilate themselves’ (utinam et abscindantur qui vos labefactant), Erasmus finds the interpretation of castration offensive. Rather than to follow Ambrosiaster in adopting the too literal interpretation of ajpokovyontai (‘cut themselves off’) as castration, Erasmus leans toward the figurative sense of being cut off from God’s grace and becoming anathema. For Erasmus, Ambrosiaster’s reading does not accord with the dignity of Paul’s apostolic office, a topic of some importance in this epistle. In punctuation of the Latin syntax Erasmus permits Ambrosiaster’s idiosyncrasies to stand unchallenged on two occasions. Ambrosiaster interprets the text of Galatians 1:5 as follows: ‘from him who has called you to the grace of Christ, to another gospel’ (thus leaving out, ‘which is no other’). So too elsewhere in Chapter 1:5, the clause ‘unless there are some’ is taken by Ambrosiaster to refer not to what precedes, but to what follows (‘I am astonished,’ 1:6). Only once in the Annotations on this Pauline epistle does Erasmus disagree with Ambrosiaster’s interpretation. Erasmus reports Ambrosiaster’s explanation of Galatians 2:5 (‘to them we did not yield submission even for a moment’), then criticises Ambrosiaster’s lack of conciseness by stating, ‘Ambrose argues over this text with many words’ (arguatur pluribus verbis super hoc loco Ambrosius), and finally submits his own explanation based on a grammatical point: ‘however I do not see how the text can be explained unless we grant that Paul’s writing is incomplete …’31 What emerges from this collocation of citations of Ambrosiaster’s commentary is evidence of a cautiously selective acknowledgment of sources by Erasmus to effect on patristic authority his

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own strategy of innovative biblical scholarship. Andrew Brown has observed that Erasmus is much more discreet when he borrows from the more recent Valla and the contemporary LeFèvre, even in instances where Erasmus’s translation is closer to the wording of LeFèvre than to that of Ambrosiaster.32 Thus in rendering sunupekrivqhsan (‘acted insincerely,’ Galatians 2:13), Erasmus follows LeFèvre in translating the Greek aorist in the imperfect tense (‘simulabant’), but avoids naming him: in the Annotations he mentions only Ambrosiaster, who in fact has the (more accurate) perfect tense ‘simulaverunt.’ Moreover, Erasmus reveals an acute awareness of Ambrosiaster’s peculiar interests as developed in the commentary. Regarding his expertise in law, Erasmus passes on to the reader Ambrosiaster’s interpretation of Paul’s words ‘I do not lie’ (non mentior, 1:20) as a formal oath. Similarly, at 3:1 Erasmus relates Ambrosiaster’s juridical interpretation of the term ‘praescriptus’ (publicly portrayed). Erasmus’s awareness of Ambrosiaster’s predilection for reporting Jewish customs and practices is revealed in his criticism of the decision by Ambrosiaster to include in his commentary on Chapter 2:2 a lengthy excursus on the Jewish law to abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, from unchastity, from blood, and from what is strangled: ‘in his commentary on this passage, Ambrose notes in passing what should have been noted in Acts.’33 Positively, on the difficult phrase, ‘elemental spirits of the universe’ (4:3), Erasmus’s interpretation was anticipated by that of Ambrosiaster, who in his commentary explains that the elements refer to the new moons and sabbaths observed by Jews and taught to them as children.34 Ambrosiaster’s interest in matters geographical was also known to Erasmus, who expresses surprise that Ambrosiaster offers no comment on Hagar’s interpretation in Galatians 4:25 of Mt. Sinai as corresponding to the present Jerusalem.35 Equally revealing are the unique interpretations of Ambrosiaster that are passed over in silence by Erasmus. It was noted earlier that this patristic commentary is unique for its emphasis on several biblical teachings that would be central to the controversies in which Erasmus became embroiled. Inherent to any commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians is the relationship between law and gospel, and Ambrosiaster does not disappoint the reader in this regard. It is striking, therefore, that Erasmus eschews references to Ambrosiaster’s theological views. There is no reference,

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in Erasmus’s Annotations, to Ambrosiaster’s understanding of the crucial text in Galatians 2:20, ‘the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.’ Instead, Erasmus merely notes that Ambrosiaster understands these curtly stated words to be addressed by Paul to the Galatians, and not to Peter. One could go on to point to Erasmus’s silence on Ambrosiaster’s interpretation that the guardianship of the law in Galatians 3:19–21 is purely temporal in force; the point is that Erasmus’s interest in Ambrosiaster’s commentary is restricted to its textual, philological, and grammatical authority; to its legal, social, and historical observations; and to its character as commentary.36 In conclusion it may be observed that there appear to be three levels of discourse in the many references to Ambrosiaster in Erasmus’s Annotations on the Epistle to the Galatians. One pertains to the Greek text of the New Testament, and serves to support Erasmus’s Latin translation by means of explicit quotation or reference to an early, authoritative text. The second level of discourse concerns Ambrosiaster’s commentary as theological treatise. Acknowledging Ambrosiaster’s expertise in legal matters, Judaeo-Christian relations, and geographical information, Erasmus eschews allusions to theological points peculiar to Ambrosiaster. On the third level of discourse Erasmus engages Ambrosiaster’s commentary as literary genre. Whereas Erasmus commends the value of the biblical text in Ambrosiaster’s œuvre, he is more critical of the commentary proper. In each instance signalling to the reader that his observations pertain to Ambrosiaster’s commentary as genre of literature, Erasmus criticizes him for the inappropriateness or inordinate length of his comment. This tripartite strategy for citing Ambrosiaster suggests that a comparison of Erasmus’s discourses with other patristic, medieval, and contemporary commentaries would reveal a complexity of textual, theological, and literary interactions. NOTES   1 Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Roterodamo recognitum et emendatum ... una cum Annotationibus, quae lectorem doceant, quid qua ratione mutatum sit (Basel: Johann Froben, 1516). Erasmus does not say much about his authorities in the Prefaces to the Paraphrases on the Pauline Epistles: he mentions Ambrose and Theophylact in the

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  2   3   4

  5

  6   7

  8

  9

preface to the Paraphrase on Corinthians (Ep. 916, lines 402–5). On the increase of citations of patristic sources see Albert Rabil, Erasmus and the New Testament: The Mind of a Christian Humanist (San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1972), 115–18. See Alexander Souter, The Earliest Latin Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927), 49, 61, 63–6, 84. On this and other references by Erasmus to Ambrosiaster, see Miekske L. van Poll-van de Lisdonk, ASD VI-8:21. Sancti Ambrosii Mediolanensis episcopi Opera, studio et labore Monachorum Ordinis S. Benedicti, e Congregatione S. Mauri, 2 vols. (Paris: 1686, 1690), vol. 2, Appendix, 24–6. The most recent surveys of the identity question are by Sophie Lunn-Rockliffe, Ambrosiaster’s Political Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 11–32; Andreas Merkt, ‘Wer war der Ambrosiaster?’ Wissenschaft und Weisheit 59 (1996): 19–33; and Joachim Stüben, ‘Erasmus von Rotterdam und der Ambrosiaster,’ Wissenschaft und Weisheit 60 (1997): 3–22. The exclusion of a commentary by Ambrosiaster on the Epistle to the Hebrews was used by Erasmus in his exegetical debate (on Psalm 8:6 as quoted in Hebrews 2:7) with Jacques LeFèvre d’Étaples as evidence for non-Pauline authorship of this book; see P.F. Hovingh, ed., Opera Omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami. VI-5: Annotationes in Novum Testamentum (pars Prima) (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2000), ASD VI-5:15. Alexander Souter, A Study of Ambrosiaster, Texts and Studies 7, no. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905), 161–4, first ascribed the Quaestiones to Ambrosiaster. They appear under the authorship of Augustine in CSEL 50: 1–480. The text of these fragments appears in A. Gamman, Patrologiae latinae supplementum (Paris: Éditions Garnier Frères, 1958), 1:655–70. For a survey of patristic editions published by Amerbach see Barbara C. Halporn, The Correspondence of Johann Amerbach: Early Printing in Its Social Context (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2000), esp. 308–15 on the opera omnia of Ambrose. A modern critical edition of Ambrosiaster’s Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul appears in volume 81 of the CSEL series. A new, English translation of the Commentary is being prepared by Theodore de Bruyn, Stephen Cooper, and David Hunter under the auspices of the Society for Biblical Literature. E.g., ‘cuius hodie rector est Damasus,’ In Epistulam ad Timotheum Primam 3:15. Allusions to contemporary events in the Quaestiones date them to 382–5. David G. Hunter, ‘On the Sin of Adam and Eve: A Little-Known

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10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Defense of Marriage and Childbearing by Ambrosiaster,’ Harvard Theological Review 82, no. 3 (1989): 285–6. For a recent survey of Ambrosiaster’s religious and secular background see Lunn-Rockliffe, Ambrosiaster’s Political Theology, 33–62. Heinrich Vogels, ‘Ambrosiaster und Hieronymus,’ Revue Bénédictine 66 (1956): 14–19. Erasmus reveals no awareness of the debate. Vogels notes (CSEL 81:xvi) that Jerome, who knew some of the Quaestiones (e.g., Letters 36, 73, 146), does not mention Ambrosiaster in De uiris illustribus. This section of the chapter is indebted to Gerald Bray, ‘Ambrosiaster,’ in Reading Romans Through the Centuries, ed. Jeffrey P. Greenman and Timothy Larsen (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 21–38. On the limited influence of Ambrosiaster upon Augustine regarding the doctrine of original sin, see Wilhelm Geerlings, ‘Der Ambrosiaster: Ein Pauluskommentator des vierten Jahrhunderts,’ in Der Kommentar in Antike und Mittelalter, ed. Wilhelm Geerlings and Christian Schulze (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 2:221–2. Thus Gillian R. Evans, ‘Neither a Pelagian nor a Manichee,’ Vigiliae Christianae 35 (1981): 236. See further Alfred J. Smith, ‘The Latin Sources of the Commentary of Pelagius on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans,’ Journal of Theological Studies 19 (1918): 162–230. Erasmus was aware that portions of the commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians were missing from the manuscripts of Ambrosiaster and that the lacunae were filled with relevant sections from Pelagius’s commentary. See van Poll-van de Lisdonk, ASD VI-8:23. CSEL 81.3, 318–23. Mario Simonetti, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to Patristic Exegesis, trans. John A. Hughes (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), 95, ascribes this interpretation to the influence of Pelagius. Ambrosiaster’s refined perception of limited human capability may have appealed to the Dutch humanist, especially in the rebuttals to Luther in the debate over the freedom of the will. See further David C. Steinmetz, ‘Calvin and the Patristic Exegesis of Paul,’ in The Bible in the Sixteenth Century, ed. David C. Steinmetz (Durham: Duke University Press, 1990), 103–7. For a complete discussion of the range of meanings and uses of ‘law’ in Ambrosiaster’s commentary see Wilhelm Geerlings, ‘Das Verständnis von Gesetz im Galaterbriefkommentar des Ambrosiaster,’ in Die Weltlichkeit des Glaubens in der alten Kirche, ed. Dietmar Wyrwa (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1997), 110–14. Hunter, ‘On the Sin of Adam and Eve,’ 287.

84  Riemer Faber 17 On 1 Corinthians 7, Ambrosiaster acknowledges the superiority of virginity without reference to the clerical state; he is cautious regarding the asceticism that others have drawn from the passage. Thus Hunter, ‘On the Sin of Adam and Eve,’ 295. 18 Thus Charles Kannengiesser, ‘Ambrosiaster,’ in Handbook of Patristic Exegesis, ed. Charles Kannengiesser (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 2:1084. 19 For a treatment of Ambrosiaster’s exegetical method see Wilhelm Geerlings, ‘Zur exegetischen Methode des Ambrosiaster,’ in Stimuli: Exegese und ihre Hermeneutik in Antike und Christentum, ed. Georg Schöllgen and Clemens Scholten (Münster: Aschendorff, 1996), 444–9. 20 Thus Kannengiesser, ‘Ambrosiaster,’ 2:1082. For a survey of Ambrosiaster’s exegetical method see Wilhelm Mundle, Die Exegese der paulinischen Briefe im Kommentar des Ambrosiaster, diss., University of Marburg (Marburg: Chr. Schaaf, 1919), 16–41. 21 Ep. 916, in CWE 6:250. 22 The references to the Quaestiones of Ambrosiaster in the Annotations on the Synoptic Gospels are Matthew 19:4, Mark 15:25, Luke 2:35, Luke 3:23 (bis). 23 Thus Andrew J. Brown in ASD VI-3:13. 24 Erasmus himself stressed the connection between the text and notes: ‘primum annotatiunculas scribimus, non commentarios; et eas duntaxat quae ad lectionis synceritatem pertinent’ (Allen, Ep. 373, lines 4–6 = ASD VI-5:53, lines 10–11). 25 Galatians 2:11 (Petrus; Vulgate: Cephae); 2:14 (idem); 4:6 (nostra; Vulgate: vestra); 5:16 (autem; Vulgate: autem in Christo). 26 Thus Andrew J. Brown, ASD VI-2:263, on Acts 5:42. 27 So too ‘subindicat, licet obscurius, Ambrosius’ (5:14). 28 ‘Quod dicimus perspicuum erit, si quis evolvat Ambrosianos Commentarios.’ 29 ‘Quam sane lectionem alioqui absurdam, et a Graecis exemplaribus dissonantem, mirum est adeo inolevisse, ut et apud Ambrosium ... reperiatur.’ 30 Similarly ‘si modo codex mendo vacat’ (5:16). 31 ‘Nec video quomodo locus possit explicari, nisi fateamur Pauli sermonem esse imperfectum ...’ 32 Andrew J. Brown, ‘Introduction’ to Erasmus’s edition of the Novum Testamentum, ASD VI-3:15. 33 ‘Ambrosius obiter indicat hoc loco, quod in Actis magis erat annotandum.’ 34 CSEL 81.3, 43, lines 4–10.

Erasmus’s Annotations on the Epistle to the Galatians  85 35 ‘Mirum est autem nec Hieronymum nec Ambrosium hunc de vicinia scrupulum attingere.’ 36 Stüben, ‘Erasmus von Rotterdam und der Ambrosiaster,’ 14, suggests that Erasmus’s appreciation of Ambrosiaster’s theological orthodoxy and avoidance of questionable teaching may have been especially attractive amid the controversies of the Reformation era.

FIVE

Erasmus’s Biblical Scholarship in the Toronto Project robert d. sider

Although the biblical scholarship of Desiderius Erasmus (1466– 1536) stretches over the vast terrain of his work, it comes to sharp focus particularly in his Annotations and Paraphrases, both of which find a legitimate place within the definition of ‘commentary.’1 Erasmus’s letters about the process of composition and publication of these commentaries in his lifetime form a fascinating record of the interplay of chance, opportunism, hard work, enthusiastic support, bitter hostility, and amazing success. The enterprise undertaken by the editorial board of the Collected Works of Erasmus and the University of Toronto Press to make Erasmus’s biblical scholarship speak English to a twenty-first century audience is in some respects a modern counterpart of the original Erasmian endeavour, with complexities perhaps as challenging as those faced by Erasmus and his publishers. I leave untold much of the romance: the labour, the interventions of chance, the generosity of individuals, of institutions, and of the University of Toronto Press. I wish rather to describe here how the fundamental principles were formed that shaped the CWE volumes of New Testament Scholarship (CWE 41–60) and explain the rationale for their distinctive character. The origin and early development of CWE as a whole have been recorded previously in an article by James K. McConica and Ronald M. Schoeffel and in an unpublished paper by Schoeffel read at the Smithsonian Institution in 2005.2 In 1968 Schoeffel, a young modern languages editor at the University of Toronto Press, was searching in the university’s library for the letters of Erasmus in a modern English translation. Surprised to find that no complete edition existed, he sent the next day to Francess Halpenny, man-

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aging editor of the press, a provocative (and now legendary) note: ‘In case you haven’t had enough hare-brained ideas today, what would you think about the University of Toronto Press publishing Erasmus in translation?’ That note was the seed from which has grown this enormous project. A flurry of consultation followed, in which McConica and Richard Schoeck played leading roles. Within a year an editorial board had been established, a handsome grant obtained from the Killam Fund, and work begun on the letters, the first volume of which was published in 1974. The original plan envisioned a ‘dependable scholarly edition and translation of the complete correspondence and of the most important parts of the rest of the Erasmus canon’3 in forty volumes.4 Two early decisions for the CWE as a whole were crucial for defining the range of the New Testament Scholarship series. First, the translation would be based on the fullest final text of each work as it appeared during Erasmus’s lifetime,5 while significant textual variations in earlier editions would be noted.6 Second, Erasmus’s own translations, of which there are many, would be excluded from CWE. Hence no attempt will be made to translate Erasmus’s Latin translation of the Greek New Testament, even though, like other components of Erasmus’s New Testament (his prefaces, his Greek text, and his annotations), it clearly is scholarship. What, then, was to be included in the CWE New Testament Scholarship series (volumes 41–60)? Obviously, the Annotations (CWE 51–60), whose impressive scholarship is not open to doubt. Likewise, the Paraphrases (CWE 42–50), for while the Paraphras­ es are essentially ‘devotional’ books, their piety is founded on Erasmus’s solid scholarship as textual critic and as editor of the writings of the church fathers. But what else? At one point the editorial board proposed to include Erasmus’s responses to Edward Lee (died 1544). But a firm tradition had been established, beginning with Erasmus himself, who wished the eighth volume of his corpus to be ‘occupied by the defenses,’ including those written against the attacks of Lee.7 Moreover, Erasmus has included in the various editions of his Annotations significant portions of the substantive arguments made in his ‘Defenses’; indeed sometimes an annotation will reflect verbatim the response to a critic, as is the case in his quarrel with Diego López Zúñiga (died 1531). Accordingly, the ‘Defenses,’ insofar as they reflect biblical scholarship, are well represented in the Annotations. Perhaps

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most important, the tone and manner of the responses constitute a quite different rhetoric from that found in the Annotations. Thus Erasmus’s responses to the critics specifically of his New Testament text and annotations, such as Lee, Zúñiga, Jacques LeFèvre d’Étaples (ca. 1460–1536), and Frans Titelmans (1502–1537), find their place justly in the CWE series of Controversies, not in the New Testament Scholarship. It may seem anomalous that the New Testament Scholarship series will contain a prolegomenous volume (CWE 41) to include the Paraclesis, the Ratio verae theologiae, and the Apologiae to the New Testament, since the last of these Erasmus placed among his ‘Defenses’ and the former two among his works of religious instruction.8 But these all appeared at one time or another as prefaces to his editions of the New Testament, and they explain the fundamental principles that motivated the scholarship of both his New Testament and his Paraphrases. They are thus most advantageously placed with his New Testament. Indeed, from the first edition of 1516 the prefaces constituted virtually a set of small guidebooks to Erasmus’s hermeneutic, and they are indispensable to understanding his biblical scholarship. Beginning in 1519 Erasmus added to his prefaces a summary response to his critics in 111 paragraphs, which he considerably expanded over the next three editions. Also in a set of indices he cited specific passages that exemplified the solecisms, errors, additions, omissions, and ambiguities in the Vulgate; the exemplification was intended succinctly to justify his own edition.9 Further, three editions of Erasmus’s Latin translations appeared between 1519 and 1522 without either the Greek text or his annotations; for these too he wrote brief prefaces.10 All this paratext will be found in the prolegomenous volume as an aid to understanding Erasmus’s work on the New Testament. By 1978 four volumes of the Correspondence and the first two volumes of Erasmus’s Literary and Educational Writings had been published in CWE. Late in the preceding autumn the editorial board took fresh steps to shape the publication of Erasmus’s New Testament Scholarship, for which ten volumes had originally been designated. The board had been offered a manuscript that proved to be foundational for the future work on this series in CWE. In the 1960s, well before the Toronto Project was known, John B. Payne, Albert Rabil Jr, and Warren J. Smith Jr had collaborated to produce an annotated translation of the Paraphrase on Ro­

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mans and the Annotations on Romans. In their manuscript they had endeavoured to match paraphrase and annotation verse by verse, so that the reader could see the continuities and discontinuities between the two. The design directed that paraphrase and annotation also be matched with a modern biblical translation. Thus each page was ‘layered’ to include biblical verse, paraphrase, annotation, and below paraphrase and annotation the translators’ notes on each. This ingenious model served a noble purpose, acknowledged by the editorial board in a preface to CWE 23, the first volume of the Literary and Educational Writings to be published. There Wallace K. Ferguson explained, ‘The editors of CWE have felt that a fuller understanding of the development of Erasmus’ thought would be facilitated by placing both [paraphrase and annotation] together with the biblical text in close proximity.’11 However, further consultation, which had been initiated at a meeting of McConica, Craig R. Thompson, and Robert D. Sider in Princeton in November 1977, highlighted significant problems: disparity in length between paraphrase and annotation on each biblical verse made matching the two difficult and sometimes deterred the reader from following coherently a paraphrase necessarily interrupted by several pages of a long annotation. Moreover, no modern biblical version could satisfactorily represent the biblical text from which Erasmus worked, a combination of a Vulgate text, his own Greek text, and his Latin translation.12 The model also invited the reader to assume a relationship between the Paraphrases and Annotations that could be misleading. Paraphrase and annotation do at numerous points indubitably reflect one another, and our understanding of each is enriched by our knowledge of the other. Erasmus explicitly says in the letter to Johann von Botzheim (died March 1535) that the new edition (1527) of his New Testament was in part motivated by the fact that in writing the Paraphrases he ‘had discovered many things that had previously escaped [him],’13 confirming an earlier claim he had made when defending himself against the criticisms of Lee.14 However, in Erasmus’s purpose to provide an access to the living word of scripture, the two are quite separate enterprises. In the catalogue of his works listed in the letter to Botzheim, Annotations and Paraphrases each is given its own volume. More revealing is the offer Erasmus made to the Aldine Press in September 1526 of some of his ‘religious works’: the De misericordia Dei, the Modus orandi Deum, his commentaries on the Psalms, and the Paraphrases

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on the New Testament.’15 The Annotations clarify scripture by the analysis of text, syntax, grammar, and etymology; the Paraphrases clarify by the highly rhetorical expansion of the biblical text, by elucidating assumptions, by revealing the subtext, by pointing suggestively to the universally applicable truths and lessons implied, and by imposing tone and colour to enhance the central themes of the biblical text. Thus the decision of the editorial board to revise the model and arrange the Paraphrases and Annotations in separate orders respected not only the convenience of the readers but principle as well. The revised Payne-Rabil-Smith manuscript eventually became the first two volumes in the New Testament Scholarship series to be published, both edited by Sider: the Paraphrases on Ro­ mans and Galatians, CWE 42 (1984: see note 1), was translated and annotated by Payne, Rabil, and Smith; the Annotations on Romans, CWE 56 (1994) by Payne, Rabil, Sider, and Smith. Although its interwoven design of text, paraphrase, and annotation was not adopted, the Payne-Rabil-Smith manuscript set the pattern for the scholarly notes that all subsequent New Testament volumes have followed and, indeed, refined. It could be expected that for the Annotations Erasmus’s citations of authors from any period would be identified. Considerably less might have been demanded of the translators of the Paraphrases. The Paraphrases are a seamless fabric woven from the biblical texts, the medieval tradition, possibly even unwritten but popular pulpit exegesis. Consequently, for the Paraphrases the identification of sources must always be guarded, but the CWE volumes have nevertheless undertaken, following the lead of the Payne-Rabil-Smith manuscript, to set the paraphrastic interpretation in the context of the exegetical tradition from antiquity to Erasmus’s own day. They have also adopted another feature of that manuscript in pointing, through the notes, particularly in the Paraphrases, but also in the Annotations, to the intertextuality of his writings. Erasmus repeats himself from book to book without embarrassment, and we endeavour to enable our readers to hear the voice of Erasmus as it echoes from one work to another. It is the sources, the exegetical tradition, intertextuality, and the historical context that our annotation attempts primarily to address. One will note an increasing tendency to offer also a modern bibliography in our scholarly annotation. But from the beginning exhaustive referencing of our contemporary scholarship has

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been discouraged. It was Jaroslav Pelikan who noted in an editorial board meeting that such references quickly become dated. The CWE is a work to last for a century and more, and scholarship that is in vogue today may well be of little interest or help to subsequent generations. The exposition of sources and the tradition, when done well, will never lose its value. The Payne-Rabil-Smith manuscript also forced a consideration of the order in which to arrange the volumes of the Paraphrases. These three scholars had chosen to translate Erasmus’s work on Romans presumably because of the importance of Romans not only in the exegetical tradition, but also in Erasmus’s own New Testament scholarship.16 A letter to Henry Bullock (ca. 1497–1526) implies that already by August 1516 Erasmus had given serious consideration to the publication of Paraphrases.17 He chose both to compose and to publish first, in 1517, the Paraphrase on Romans.18 As the translation of Payne-Rabil-Smith was also the first of the Paraphrases to be published in CWE, the parallel seemed to offer a pedagogical opportunity: to arrange the volumes of the Paraphras­ es in the order of publication of the first edition of each. This plan was not to be effected without some minor inconsistencies. Before the decision had been taken, the Paraphrase on Galatians had been paired with that on Romans to enhance the size of the volume, and work on it was already completed; originally, it was in fact the third Paraphrase to be published (May 1519), following the Paraphrases on the Two Corinthians (February 1519). The Paraphras­ es on the Pastoral Epistles were published shortly before those on the set from Ephesians to 2 Thessalonians (CWE 43), but they had been assigned to the translator of CWE 44 and were therefore included in that volume. No such problems existed for the ‘Gospels and Acts’ group, and their arrangement in CWE follows exactly the sequence of their first publication.19 The two volumes on Romans (CWE 42 and 56) had established a model of collegiality in many ways enviable. While Payne, Rabil, and Smith had parcelled out among themselves a certain division of labour, they were all fully engaged in every aspect of the work, and this continued when I joined them as editor and collaborator: no revision was made in translation or notes without the consent of all, if only by silence. Such collaboration has the advantage of multiple checking and revision of a manuscript before it is submitted to the Press. Early in the New Testament work, however, Thompson spoke a prophetic word: such close collaboration

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among humanist scholars is extremely difficult to arrange. In fact only one other volume in the series has been explicitly collaborative.20 On the other hand, CWE has been notably successful in finding forums in which our translators might discuss their work. Guidelines for the translation and annotation of both the Para­ phrases and Annotations were drawn up in 1982–83, with revised editions published in 1994 and 2008. They embody the reflection of the members of the New Testament committee, the editorial board, and the copy editors of the Press, Mary Baldwin in particular. Given the problems of translation in general, the Guide­ lines are remarkably spare in their recommendations, but they do enunciate a very important principle, that for the New Testament Scholarship series, a translation faithful to the original Latin is absolutely essential. When put into practice, however, the principle is not without ambiguities. Thus, when in the summer of 1979 the editor and translators of CWE 42 (Paraphrase on Romans) met in Washington with McConica and Pelikan, the hazards of translating Erasmus’s New Testament scholarship were carefully noted. In particular, the problem presented by any attempt to translate faithfully theological terms became uncomfortably apparent. How could one be confident of any English translation of Latin words that represented theological terms, some of which were already problematic in the Greek, and whose meaning and use are complicated by the theologically tumultuous times both of the early Reformation period and our own day? Pelikan noted that one cannot confidently translate Erasmus’s New Testament scholarship without a glossary of theological terms, but such a glossary cannot be produced before the work of translation has been completed. While the discussion in 1979 underlined the importance of a translation faithful to the Latin, it nevertheless left open the meaning of the phrase; in general, however, the expression has been understood to mean a translation as literal as good English, readily comprehensible, will allow; there can be no escape from the difficulties of the Latin by way of a paraphrase or omission, and every Latin expression should find an appropriate English equivalent. The Washington entretien had a further consequence: in the earliest New Testament volumes of CWE, one finds a special index of theological terms. The intent was to facilitate the compilation of a theological glossary of which Pelikan had spoken. Computerization quickly antiquated the special index, but the idea

Erasmus’s Biblical Scholarship  93

of establishing something like a glossary of theological terms in Erasmus’s New Testament scholarship has flourished in a feature of special import in the volumes devoted to the Paraphrases: the extensive annotation of the Latin terms represented in the English translation. The purpose of this type of note has been neither to explain to the reader, nor to apologize for, the translator’s choice of words or idioms, but rather to invite a dialogue about Erasmus’s theological vocabulary and its appropriate expression in English. It is for this reason that our translators of the Paraphrases are encouraged to introduce such notes with a lemma that distinguishes English and Latin by means of a colon, which is intended as a gesture proposing for consideration a semantic equivalence. In the Annotations Erasmus’s frequently detailed attention to the semantics of biblical language generally requires little additional comment from the annotator. CWE translators are aware that a readable literal translation cannot of itself guarantee faithfulness to the original in every respect. Few of us would claim to have read enough of Erasmus’s Latin or of the medieval and classical Latin that Erasmus read to be able to grasp the full range of connotations Erasmus implied in his choice of words, or the echoes he heard when he wrote his New Testament scholarship. Erasmus (regrettably) ‘is always just out of one’s reach.’21 There is further the point of style. In the Paraphrases Erasmus claims to have attempted something like a middle style. He denies the allegation of Alberto Pio prince of Carpi (1475–1531) that he has imported into the Paraphrases the high style of classical writers.22 Indeed, in a letter written to Damiào de Gois (1502–1574), a Spanish admirer, less than a year before his death, Erasmus observed that when authors bring the ‘perfume bottles of Ciceronian diction’ to religious works like the Paraphrases, they lose all their attraction for the lovers of piety, who are looking rather for the ‘powerful sublimity of the Spirit.’ ‘The heavenly philosophy possesses its own eloquence; mystical subjects demand their own style.’23 Though Erasmus does not always strive for ‘sublimity,’ few will deny the remarkable energy and vitality, the ardour, of his prose. While personality and background inevitably condition the style of any translator, it is the liveliness and vitality of Erasmus’s prose that we especially desire in our translations of his New Testament scholarship. The preparation of CWE 56, the first volume of the Annotations to be published, required extensive discussion. The Payne-Rabil-

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Smith manuscript had, on principle, omitted what the translators had regarded as the strictly philological annotations, those that seemed of little or no theological or historical interest, and often required a reasonable knowledge of Greek to understand. The omissions constituted about ten percent of all the annotations on Romans. Members of the New Testament committee met at Dickinson College, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1986 to recommend policy to the editorial board. The fundamental issue to be resolved was whether the CWE should attempt to publish the annotations in toto or as well-chosen selections. The committee arrived at a unanimous decision: to recommend that the annotations be translated and published without any omissions. Bruce Metzger made the case eloquently: even philologists competent in Greek and Latin would profit from a judiciously annotated translation of Erasmus’s philological observations, particularly if each volume contained an index of Greek and Latin words. Moreover, it was rash to guess either who the readers would be or what they would wish to find. There was, however, another, more decisive consideration: to omit Erasmus’s philological notes was to distort the fundamental character of his work, to upset the balance in his annotations between, on the one hand, matters of perennial historical interest, and, on the other, Erasmus’s persistent, if frequently tedious and sometimes erroneous, efforts to get the biblical text and its translation right. It was important for all readers to be able to see Erasmus accurately, in precise balance, in that finely nuanced, multifaceted array of passions that engendered his biblical work: the passion for language; the commitment to humanism; the love of scripture; the indignation directed towards ecclesiastical abuses, hostile critics, and stupid expositors; the irresistible pleasure in irony, expressed so accidentally sometimes in the most unlikely places. For this nothing but the full text would do. Editorial policy, as noted above, called for the translation of the latest lifetime edition of each work with significant earlier variants registered in endnotes. The policy offered a particular challenge for the Annotations, since the additions and changes from the earliest (1516) to the latest (1535) editions were numerous and complex. The appearance in 2000 of the first volume of the critical edition of the Annotations published by Elsevier of Amsterdam offered a new and effective way of constructing the text by inserting symbols for the various editions within the text itself. A

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review of the volume by Rabil challenged CWE to adopt the same format.24 Meetings of the editorial board in 2003 and 2004 considered the matter, studied several alternative formats, and sought the advice of the New Testament committee. A meeting in May 2007 of the translators-annotators of the Annotations, chaired by McConica at the conference in Saskatoon entitled ‘Sixteenth-Century Commentary,’ proved decisive. With the written opinions of the New Testament committee in hand, the group concluded that the notation system originally designed, and effected in CWE 56, best served the readers of CWE. Our volumes do not purport to construct the text; they are translations, not critical editions. Textual information should be available for the reader who desires it, but not every reader should be forced to read the text historically. A translation has its own dynamic, and its force should not be impeded, its flow interrupted, by signals that divert from the text. The integrity of the 1535 edition as Erasmus’s ‘last word’ was guaranteed. It remains to note the efforts that have been made to enrich the work of our individual translators and to foster a sense of teamwork by arranging meetings for scholarly consultation. These meetings, all supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, have not only served to identify the translators and annotators as a team working on a common project toward a common end, but have also resulted in significant publications. A conference in 1984 at Toronto, organized specifically for the translators and annotators of the New Testament Scholarship, produced papers published in Erasmus in English 15 (1987–88). Hilmar Pabel and Mark Vessey organized a 1999 meeting devoted to Erasmus’s New Testament, also held in Toronto, with an international representation of scholars. Papers from this conference were published in 2002 by the University of Toronto Press under the title Holy Scripture Speaks: The Publication and Re­ ception of Erasmus’ Paraphrases on the New Testament, a book edited by the two organizers.25 The conference ‘Sixteenth-Century Commentary,’ held in Saskatoon in 2007 and organized by Judith Rice Henderson, provided yet a further opportunity for a stimulating association of the New Testament team with a wider circle of Renaissance scholars. Papers read at this conference by the translators/annotators of the Annotations are included in the present volume. The rich assortment of papers read at these conferences has illuminated our work and contributed much to the percep-

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tion of our translators/annotators as ‘Erasmians’ and to the understanding of the place of the New Testament scholarship in the Toronto Project. NOTES   1 ‘Annotations’ have been identified as commentary by Jean Céard, ‘Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance,’ in chap. 1 of this volume. For the Paraphrases as commentary, see John B. Payne, Albert Rabil Jr, and Warren S. Smith Jr, ‘The Paraphrases of Erasmus: Origin and Character,’ in Paraphrases on Romans and Galatians, ed. Robert D. Sider, trans. and annot. Payne, Rabil, and Smith, CWE 42 (1984), xv–xvi. See also Jean-Francois Cottier, ‘La paraphrase latine, de Quintilien à Érasme,’ Revue des Études Latines 80 (2002): 247–52, and ‘Erasmus’s Paraphrases: A “New Kind of Commentary”?’ chap. 2 in the present volume. For the further definition of Erasmus’s biblical scholarship, see below.   2 J.K. McConica and R.M. Schoeffel, ‘The Collected Works of Erasmus,’ Scholarly Publishing 10 (1979): 313–24; R.M. Schoeffel, ‘Erasmus of Toronto: The Collected Works of Erasmus,’ unpublished paper read at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 2005.   3 McConica and Schoeffel, ‘Collected Works,’ 316.   4 Schoeffel, ‘Erasmus of Toronto,’ 5.   5 McConica and Schoeffel, ‘Collected Works,’ 319.   6 In CWE 44 (Paraphrases on 1 Timothy to Hebrews, 1993) and CWE 43 (Paraphrases on 1 Corinthians to 2 Thessalonians, 2009), variants from two posthumous editions (Froben 1538 and 1540) of the Para­ phrases on the Epistles have also been noted. For the significance of these variants see J.J. Bateman, ‘The Textual Travail of the Tomus secundus of the Paraphrases,’ in Holy Scripture Speaks, ed. Hilmar Pabel and Mark Vessey (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 247–55.   7 See Ep. 1341A, lines 1603–32. In the autumn of 1522 Johann von Botzheim, canon of the cathedral chapter of Constance, hosted Erasmus for several weeks, and in 1523 Erasmus replied in this letter to Botzheim’s request for a catalogue of his works, arranging them for publication in a series of volumes. For an edition of the Latin letter as subsequently revised and enlarged, see Allen 1:1–46. On the friendship of Erasmus and Botzheim, see Hans-Christoph Rublack’s biography of the latter in CEBR 1 (1985): 177–8. Henceforth refer-

Erasmus’s Biblical Scholarship  97

  8

  9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18

19

ences to the letters of Erasmus are indicated by the abbreviation Ep. when taken from CWE, by Allen Ep. when taken from the edition by Allen. See Ep. 1341A, line 1630, and for the term Apologiae to refer to the defensive writings ‘prefixed to the New Testament’ see the same letter, lines 1579–81. For all this material see the introductory pages of J. Leclerc in LB 6. For these prefaces see Ep. 1010 introduction. Wallace K. Ferguson, ‘The Works of Erasmus,’ in Antibarbari/Para­ bolae, ed. Craig R. Thompson, CWE 23 (1978), xvi. Precisely what Vulgate text or texts Erasmus used is not known, but the Vulgate that Erasmus quotes in the lemmata of his annotations is, with some exceptions, identical to the Vulgate printed in the 1527 edition of his New Testament. For its similarity to the Clementine Vulgate, see Jane Phillips, ‘Erasmus’ Biblical Text,’ in Apologia qua respondet invectis Lei/Responsio ad annotationes Lei, ed. Phillips, trans. Erika Rummel, annot. István Bejczy, Phillips, and Rummel, CWE 72 (2005), xxvii–xxix. Editor’s note: See also the discussion of Erasmus’s ‘text’ in Vessey, ‘The Actor in the Story,’ chap. 3 in the present volume. Ep. 1341A, lines 493–5. For the broader significance of this letter see note 7 above. Phillips, ‘Erasmus’ Biblical Text,’ CWE 72:79. Ep. 1746, lines 20–2. Erasmus cites as De modo orandi the second work listed here. See Ep. 710 introduction. See Ep. 456, lines 93–5. See Ep. 1342, lines 1031–3. The composition at this time was perhaps motivated in part by an indirect request from Froben’s press for text; see Epp. 575, lines 7–12 (24 April), and 581, lines 24–5 (10 May). For a critique of the arrangement see the review of CWE 42 by Irena Backus in Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 7 (1987): 118. When Erasmus published collected editions of his Paraphrases, he followed the canonical order of the New Testament books except for the books following the Pauline Epistles; even in the collected editions these latter continued to appear in the order of their first publication: the two Peters with Jude, then James, the three Johns, and, finally, Hebrews. Erasmus’s stern contemporary Noël Béda (ca. 1470–1537) thought the disregard for the canonical order a challenge to orthodoxy; see the Supputatio in LB 9:511C. To clarify the arrangement of the Paraphrases in CWE, a chart outlining the order of publication of

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20

21 22

23 24

25

the first edition of each Paraphrase is placed immediately after the translation and notes in each of the Paraphrase volumes. Paraphrases on the Epistles to the Corinthians, the Epistles to the Ephe­ sians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, ed. Robert D. Sider, trans. and annot. Mechtilde O’Mara and Edward A. Phillips Jr, CWE 43 (2009). Quoting Sir Roger Mynors in a personal letter to Sider, 16 January 1981. Responsio ad epistolam paraeneticam Alberti Pii/ Apologia adversus rhap­ sodias Alberti Pii/ Brevissima scholia, ed. Nelson H. Minnich, trans. Daniel Sheerin, annot. Minnich and Sheerin, CWE 84 (2005), 80–1. Allen Ep. 3043, lines 41, 47–9. Albert Rabil Jr, in Renaissance Quarterly 55 (2002): 1427–8, reviewing P.F. Hovingh, ed., Erasmi Opera omnia, VI-5: Annotationes in Novum Testamentum (pars Prima). See note 6.

part THREE R E L I G I O U S C O N T E X T S O F PR I N T E D C O M M E N TAR Y

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six

‘Virtual Classroom’: Josse Bade’s Commentaries for the Pious Reader mark crane

In the dedication of his 1492 schoolboy primer Sylvae morales to Jacques and Pierre de Semur (Sine Muro), Josse Bade (Jodocus Badius Ascensius, 1462–1535) outlined one of the main deficiencies of contemporary education: Nevertheless I fear that there will be a lack of those who can understand the written works of learned men because early instruction in letters is so unsuitable. For all the ill-fated schoolmasters [scholastici] take up their learning from the auctores (as they are accustomed to be called) and doubtless are led into the darkness of errors, especially from the commentaries, the purpose of which seems to be to discourage good learning.1

Bade’s criticism of the auctores octo, the collection of eight versified texts that became one of the standard elementary textbooks in France during the later Middle Ages, was consistent with the more general call of humanist scholars to return to classical sources as the basis for a liberal education.2 However, rather than decry the use of commentaries in favour of the original text – the commonplace of humanist criticism3 – he emphasizes the poor quality of the commentaries on those texts. His challenge is not to the use of commentaries, but rather to how those commentaries were written. Bade thus suggested that the challenge of contemporary pedagogy was not limited to presenting textually accurate examples of ‘good literature’ for students to read, as some humanists took for granted. The challenge also extended to developing a method of training students to read those texts.4 In the forty years between the above-noted preface and his death in 1535, Bade gave

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substance to his claim by publishing no fewer than seventy-two commentaries on classical, medieval, and contemporary authors, dispersed throughout more than one hundred editions printed by his press, the Praelum Ascensianum.5 Posterity has been less than kind to Bade’s commentaries. For example, the eighteenth-century Florentine literary historian Domenico Manni (1690–1788) opines that Bade’s commentaries were composed ‘so affectedly, foolishly, and unskillfully – so beyond the point or rather counterproductive to it – that even those with less than average learning cannot look upon them with approving eyes.’6 Manni made his assessment through the lens of an Enlightenment scholar who saw little in the commentaries that could add to the progress of philology as a positive science. Though twentieth-century scholars have not been as dismissive as Manni, nonetheless they have tended to emphasize the simplicity of Bade’s commentaries without fully explaining – from a historical perspective – why he composed them in that way. Paul Gerhard Schmidt argues that the commentaries were aimed at younger students, thus explaining their brevity and simplicity.7 Craig Kallendorf for the most part agrees with Schmidt and argues that while Bade’s commentary on Virgil owed much to the Florentine humanist Cristoforo Landino (1424–1498), he suppressed the elements of the commentary that reflected Landino’s neo-Platonism.8 In other words, his commentaries fall short of what modern scholars see as the most innovative elements of Renaissance commentary. Twentieth-century scholars, though less cutting than Manni, have tended to assess Bade’s commentaries as mere child’s play in relation to those produced by his contemporaries. Although his commentaries have little to offer the modern philologist for understanding the classical authors he comments upon, they do offer historians a tantalizing glimpse of how one early sixteenth-century teacher used the printing press to spread literacy during the infancy of printing. Their simplicity, long touted as the reason to dismiss them, provides the key to understanding Bade’s goal: to use printed texts as ‘virtual classrooms’ to aid in the shift from a curriculum based on the medieval tradition to one based on classical authors. Modern scholars often point to the famous pocket-book editions of classical authors printed by Aldus (Aldo Manuzio, died 1515) in Venice as a material example of the accomplishments of Renaissance learning. Bade’s commen-

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taries, though not nearly as prized as the Aldine editions, help us to understand the obvious but often overlooked point that many people found it impossible to read classical authors without notes on grammar, word order, and historical references. Certainly this was true of schoolboys just starting out in their education, as it was of the great number of teachers and monks who themselves had received their primary education in the medieval tradition and who were entering upon the study of classical literature as adults. Bade’s commentaries were designed to bridge the gap between the ‘ideal’ Latin idiom imagined by humanist scholars and the ‘real’ need for pedagogical tools and methods to attain that idiom. Seen in this light, they present a remarkable example of using the printing press to train people to participate in the res publica litterarum of the day.9 The significance of Bade’s efforts to initiate people into this realm of public exchange of ideas through his commentaries – to teach them the rules of public discourse – is heightened if we follow Jürgen Habermas in seeing the humanist ‘world of letters’ as the predecessor of the modern ‘public sphere.’10 Anyone who had the means to procure these books and applied diligence in studying them, in theory at any rate, could take part in public discussion. Bade’s overall goal as a commentator was to help his readers develop their literacy in order to enhance Christian devotion. Like many other humanists of his day (not to mention countless thinkers in various ages of Christian history), Bade firmly believed that linguistic understanding could lead to deeper religious understanding. The public sphere of Christian devotion into which Bade was initiating his readers with his commentaries was, of course, fluid and disputed. It was fluid in the sense that, at least until the break by Martin Luther (1483–1546) with the Roman Catholic Church, humanist, scholastic, and mystic currents in Paris overlapped, suggesting an overall unity to these three currents in the domain of letters.11 That unity was certainly put to the test in Paris during the debates over Johann Reuchlin (1454/5–1522) and the New Testament scholarship of Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) and Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (ca. 1460–1536) in the 1510s. The so-called ‘humanist-scholastic debate’ divided traditionalists and innovators over the proper Latin idiom for the exchange of ideas, particularly in the field of theology.12 Luther’s break with the Church strained that unity further as the demands of orthodoxy in Paris sharpened the distinction between Christian devotional

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writing and the formal study of theology. Nonetheless, even after the condemnation of Luther by the Paris theologians in 1521, Bade continued to promote humanist Latin literacy as a training ground for fuller participation in an orthodox public sphere of religious devotion. Not surprisingly, Bade’s ‘virtual classrooms’ reflect his own pedagogical experience. He received his early education in a school run by the Brethren of the Common Life in Ghent. There he was infused with a love not only for classical literature, but also for the mystical writings of the Devotio moderna movement, which tempered the quest for worldly knowledge. As his vita of Thomas à Kempis in Thomas’ Opera omnia reveals,13 he also learned there a reverence for monastic life, its institutions and traditions. Most important, he borrowed from the Brethren the tradition of orthodox religious devotion. His commentaries also reflect his experience travelling in Italy for three years, including a stay in Bologna where he learned at the feet of Filippo Beroaldo the Elder (1453–1505), whose shorter works he later annotated.14 These travels gave him first-hand experience of Italian humanist approaches to Latin grammar. Finally, his commentaries reflect the common reading experiences of many consumers of his works who had spent some time studying at the University of Paris or other northern universities. Because of his dependence on and commitment to late-medieval intellectual traditions and learning, Bade’s ‘virtual classroom’ was orthodox and deferential to existing institutional hierarchies. Taken as a whole, the main focus of Bade’s commentaries was on Christian devotional poetry, supported by a solid grounding in the writings of Roman authors.15 Slightly more than a third were devoted to pagan authors, including Cicero, Aulus Gellius, Horace, Juvenal, Livy, Ovid, Persius, Quintilian, Sallust, Terence, and Virgil. He also commented on the minor Latin poet Calpurnius Siculus, the early Christian poet Juvencus, and poems on the crucifixion ascribed in the Middle Ages to Lactantius but dating from a later period. Other notable commentaries included a commentary on the Archithrenius, a Latin poem in eight cantos written by John of Hauteville (fl. 1184), and a commentary on the Vita Jesu Christi of Ludolph of Saxony (died 1378), an ecclesiastical scholar at first of the Dominican and later of the Carthusian order, who compiled from approximately sixty writers a summa of the gospels with prayers for spiritual devotion.16

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The greatest part of Bade’s œuvre was devoted to commenting on the works of two contemporary devotional poets, Giovanni Battista Spagnuolo (1447–1516) and Pierre Bury (1427 or 1430– 1504).17 Bade wrote commentaries on almost all the works of the former, a Carmelite monk, better known as ‘the Mantuan’ (Baptista Mantuanus) and dubbed ‘Christian Virgil’ by Erasmus.18 Bade wrote commentaries on the five works he published by Bury, an imitator of Mantuan who became a canon of Amiens in 1477, after spending seven years studying in Italy. Bade called his particular style of commentaries familiaris explanatio. Since they owed their origins to the classroom, these commentaries offered a basic grammatical explication of the text that was far from definitive. Bade tended to publish his own commentary along with that of at least one other commentator, sometimes of two or more.19 In all cases, his commentaries are the most elementary of the collection. The title familiaris explanatio evokes, on the one hand, an intimate and detailed knowledge of language, and on the other, a friendly or gentle introduction to the text. It is as though readers are meant to feel comfortable embarking upon a complicated text with the commentary – a friend – to guide them in their reading. Bade’s commentaries on the ancients were not just passive containers of knowledge but rather offered an active method for learning classical Latin, word by word and idiom by idiom, directly from the classical authors. The commentaries consist of an ad litteram exposition of the text in question. In other words, they deal with the nuts and bolts of words and their meanings. They provide a grammatical guide to word order and sentence structure and provide a number of synonyms for words and expressions, using stock phrases such as id est, hoc est, scilicet. Bade also occasionally cites a classical author whose sentiment matches that of the author in question. In this way the commentary both helps the reader to understand and teaches commonplaces that any learned person would be expected to know. Bade’s 1510 edition of Facta et dicta memorabilia by the firstcentury AD Roman author Valerius Maximus is a representative example of his commentaries on classical authors. The edition contains the text, his commentary, and the more detailed commentary of the fifteenth-century Italian humanist Oliverius Arzignanensis.20 In the prefatory epistle to Germain de Ganay (died 1520), bishop of Cahors and one of the leading patrons of the

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‘new learning’ in Paris in the first decade of the sixteenth century, Bade explains his decision to include his own familiar explanation alongside the more detailed commentary: Since the complex historical miscellany of Valerius Maximus (which is, as promised on the title page, to be counted among those worthy of memory) has already been explained thoroughly, especially through citation of congruent sources, by Oliverius Arzignanensis, for this reason, most illustrious Germain, I have explained [this work] with a short and simple commentary because I understood this to be the desire of those who are engaged in higher studies who do not wish to read a long work and cannot understand a more difficult one (without a second reading). Likewise I have done this so that those in cloisters and rural areas, and little towns far from a gymnasium, might have the means to relieve, if not quench, their thirst. For all those men, whether equipped with crude or more refined literary skill, are allured by the knowledge of diverse things, or else they remain boys forever.21

To Bade’s mind his commentary is always a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Its purpose is not only to help the reader understand fully the text of Valerius, but also to build the foundation for reading the commentary of Oliverius. Likewise, to Bade’s way of thinking, Valerius’s text is itself the means to pass from boyhood to manhood by seeing relationships in diversity. The ability to understand the text fully on a grammatical level is a necessary antecedent to developing critical skill, though Bade’s commentary also contributes to the greater goal of wider knowledge. Thus Bade positions his commentary as a necessary first step in a multi-staged process that begins with grammatical understanding of the text and progresses to knowledge through another commentary and the text itself. The commentary is not itself meant to stand the test of time but rather to provide basic training. A reader who has developed the necessary fluency to read the more detailed commentary, or the text itself, can leave Bade’s commentary behind. As he did with his Sylvae morales, Bade chose a powerful and influential patron for this work. The patronage of Ganay, a long-time supporter of the work of Lefèvre d’Étaples and a correspondent with Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), connected a broad audience of marginally literate people with one of the leading figures in the promotion of humanist learning.22 It suggested that

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the highest echelons of learning welcomed the participation of everyone, even those with little exposure to classical literature. The nod of the patron offered an official invitation for those on the margins of the learned world to pursue learning and thus become fully fledged members in the res publica litterarum. Literacy, however, was not something to be promoted disinterestedly or simply for its own sake. Its main purpose, from Bade’s perspective, was to assist Christian devotion. Likely responding to the stock criticism that reading pagan authors was unsuitable for Christians, Bade insisted that reading Valerius Maximus could enhance Christian devotion: Indeed he has sewn together the words or deeds, both excellent and depraved, of almost all times and nations with a historical thread, the knowledge of which offers those who cultivate Christian piety, among other things, this positive feature, that when we see the minds of the pagans, to whom it was futile to rise up before the sun, so much inclined toward superstition or some thoroughly ungenuine religion, we blush to snore with mouth open when a sun that is so great has risen so high.23

In other words, if the pagans could go to such great lengths to worship a false religion, should Christians not put in even more effort for a true and genuine one? By following this line of argument Bade gives the text a particular frame of reference, reminding the reader of the ultimate purpose of literary study. Many of Bade’s contemporaries were sceptical about the potential of the printing press to replace the traditional classroom setting. Schoolmasters were convinced that it took more than books to teach grammar. It also took classroom discipline, both the corporal kind for which medieval education was notorious and the intellectual discipline of the individual student. Bade’s ‘virtual classroom,’ of course, relied on the sincere efforts of the reader, since there was nothing external that could compel full attention to the commentary. In order to keep the reader on track he made the commentary as basic as possible. As he acknowledged in a prefatory letter to the young Louis of Flanders (1488–1555) in a 1501 edition of Virgil’s works, some found that his commentaries were just too simple to be effective: For some have been speaking ill of me for a long time now because my commentaries are too ‘familiar.’ They argue namely that

108  Mark Crane I snatch away prematurely the real reward of learning, since those things that are learned with labour stick more tenaciously and are sweeter.24

Rather than aiding the cause of learning, his critics seemed to be saying, the commentaries promote laziness. His response to such criticism, however, reveals confidence in his do-it-yourself method: When I hear such things I usually respond that for those who have an instructor there is no shortage of naked texts to study painstakingly, should they disregard mine; that for those who do not have an instructor mine can be of the greatest advantage; and that the professors themselves are in no way deprived of the opportunity of gnawing at my fleshed-out texts (considering that we are a little envious these days), or of devising better ones, or of at least giving them a hearing.25

Bade’s commentaries thus reflect faith in the capacity of his readers to use them to their full potential without having a teacher looking over their shoulders. They also reflect faith that there would be ready consumers of the ‘virtual classroom’ who, strictly by their own desire, would be so compelled to learn that they would buy the volume. Critics did not limit themselves to questioning the value of Bade’s ‘familiar’ commentaries on classical authors. They also questioned the value of his commentaries on Christian devotional authors. Two years before his preface to the edition of Virgil cited above, Bade dedicated an edition of Mantuan’s Parthenice Mariana to Laurent Bureau (died 1504), a learned Carmelite who acted as confessor to Charles VIII and Louis XII.26 In that dedicatory epistle he conceded that although he may not have been up to the task of composing the most complete commentary on Mantuan, nonetheless his simple approach was responding to popular demand: For when they will contend that there are many far more learned than I, I shall in no way deny it, since it is entirely true. During the last eighteen years, however, I have kept hearing immature youths and still ignorant greybeards crying out, ‘Will some commentary on our Mantuan finally appear? Will no one elucidate for us a poet

Josse Bade’s Commentaries for the Pious Reader  109 so polished, so candid, so abundant, in a word, one decorated with all the graces? So shall we forever be reading pagans and not a single Christian? Shall we not be able to comprehend at least somewhat the “flower” [Parthenice] of the virgin who bore the Christ and interpret it to the young?’ When, I say, I kept hearing the likes of this, I confess that I took pity and applied my hands, which were overwhelmed by their piety, and with greater speed than I dare describe (as it now truly seems) I completed work, doing no harm to learned people.27

Clearly the demand for this commentary was not driven by fully developed scholars, but by younger students and older people who had not received a humanist education. His shortcomings as a scholar, he claimed, were outweighed by the need for a ‘virtual classroom’ to help these people develop their literacy skills. What tipped the scales in this matter was the piety of those demanding the simple commentary. Their piety guaranteed that their studies would remain within orthodox bounds. Bade was certainly not alone in believing that commentaries were a useful tool for spreading humanist Latin literacy for the cause of Christianity. In this he shared the goal of Christian humanists such as Erasmus of joining the eloquence of the ancients with a Christian message in order to live life more directly according to Christian principles. His ‘familiar’ method of commentary, however, was fundamentally different from Erasmus’s approach. The main difference is that Bade’s emphasis is primarily propaedeutic, not critical. Erasmus, on the other hand, uses his commentaries to come to definitive conclusions on textual and interpretative matters.28 In dedicating his edition of Jerome to William Warham (ca. 1456–1532), Archbishop of Canterbury (1 April 1516), he explains the method and goals of his commentaries: I have added a summary to each treatise or letter, opening the door, as it were, to those who wish to enter. And then, since not everyone is blessed with such wide linguistic and literary knowledge, I have thrown light on anything that might hold up a reader of modest attainments by adding notes, hoping to achieve a double purpose: first, to make an eminent author, who hitherto could not be read even by men of great learning, accessible to those whose learning is but small, and second, that it may not be so easy in the future for anyone to corrupt what other men have restored.29

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Thus for Erasmus the goal of the printed commentary was both to explain the text and to act as a repository of critical opinion on that text. In short, for Bade the commentary was a starting point and for Erasmus it was the terminus. There existed a particular conceit among Renaissance humanists (one that probably survives in some form to this day) that the higher ideals of scholarship are somehow incompatible with a profit motive. For example, in the first edition of his Ciceronianus (Basel: in officina Frobeniana, March 1528), relatively late in Bade’s career, Erasmus offered this assessment of Bade’s publications: On the whole, Bade’s endeavours have met with considerable success, though they would have met with more if domestic worries and his commitment to making money hadn’t interfered with the quiet detachment that accords with literary studies, which any candidate in this competition must be able to enjoy.30

Erasmus’s comments must surely be read with tongue in cheek, for we know from his correspondence that he was far from immune from financial troubles and made many complaints about not receiving payments that were due to him. What about all the controversies that Erasmus himself had engaged in? Was that what he meant by ‘quiet detachment’? His assessment of Bade, however, highlights the tensions that were developing, as the technology of printing could reproduce texts faster than ever before but it could not control the learning, or the scruples, of those who used these machines for profit. In conclusion, while Bade’s commentaries may warrant only a few footnotes in the history of philology and the transmission of classical texts, they warrant a much larger space in the history of education, in the history of literacy, and in the history of print culture. First, they provide a fascinating window on the transmission of humanist pedagogy in France. Not only do they reflect the influence of Italian learning but also the way that Bade adapted learning to the needs of the northern milieu. Second, the commentaries reflect an active desire to spread Latin literacy to those places where there were no teachers. Finally, Bade’s commentaries need to be seen as products of the printing age. The ‘virtual classroom’ was an experiment in genre that made sense only if books were mass produced.

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Bade’s commentaries also illuminate a dark corner in the socalled humanist-scholastic debate. They are a reminder that the polemic between humanists and scholastic theologians took place in a wider intellectual environment where humanist learning was already firmly entrenched, even in the traditional stronghold of scholasticism, the University of Paris. The ‘virtual classroom’ was an attempt to promote humanist Latin learning in an atmosphere that was reverent of institutional traditions and practices and that stopped short of using linguistic skills that could be seen to challenge conventional orthodoxy on matters of faith. Through his commentaries Bade aimed to produce learned people who used their learning for orthodox religious devotion. NOTES   1 ‘Defuturos tamen verear, qui a doctis viris scripta intelligere possint, tam ineptae sunt primae litterarum institutiones; omnes enim infelices scholastici ab auctoribus (ita enim appellitant) studia sua auspicantur, atque in errorum tenebros nimirum aguntur, praesertim a commentariis, quibus institutum videtur ut a bonis litteris dehortentur.’ Josse Bade, Silvae morales, cum interpretatione Ascensii (Lyons: Johann Trechsel, 14 November 1492), 3r; the Latin text is quoted by Philippe Renouard, Bibliographie des impressions et des œuvres de Josse Badius Ascensius, imprimeur et humaniste, 1462–1535 (Paris 1908; repr. New York: Burt Franklin, 1963) (hereafter Renouard, Badius), 2:68–70, esp. 69–70. Renouard identifies the correspondents as ‘occupant des fonctions ecclésiastiques importantes à Lyon’ (1:181). Bade’s letter makes clear that Pierre was the warden (primus custos) and his brother Jacques the head cantor of the archiepiscopal church of Lyons. A French translation of the epistle, with valuable notes, is included in Maurice Lebel, trans., Préfaces de Josse Bade (1462–1535): Humaniste, éditeur-imprimeur et préfacier (Louvain: Peeters, 1988), 210–16. The introduction provides an overview of Bade’s literary career and comments on his role as writer of prefaces. However, Lebel’s translation repeats what seems to be a mistake in Renouard’s transcription of the letter: both read actoribus. The emendation to auctoribus was suggested to me by D.F.S. Thomson. Unless otherwise noted, translations from Latin in this essay are my own.   2 The auctores octo are the following: Disticha Catonis, a fourth-century

112  Mark Crane collection of maxims attributed to Cato the Elder; Theoduli Ecologa, a ninth-century poem comparing classical mythology with the Old Testament; Facetus, a twelfth-century book of manners; Chartula contemptus mundi, a twelfth-century poem on the theme of contempt for the world; Tobias, a twelfth-century poem based on the Book of Tobias; Alani Parabolae, a collection of proverbs composed by Alan of Lille (1116–1202); Aesopi Fabellae, a versified Latin version of Aesop’s Fables composed by Walter the Englishman; Floretus, a twelfth-century compilation of Christian dogma. For a history of the texts, see Ronald E. Pepin, An English Translation of Auctores Octo: A Medieval Reader (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1990).   3 For example, Leonardo Bruni, ‘The Study of Literature,’ in Humanist Educational Treatises, ed. and trans. Craig W. Kallendorf (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 97: ‘The most important rule of study is to see to it that we study only those works that are written by the best and most approved authors, and avoid the crude and ignorant writings which only ruin and degrade our natural abilities. The reading of clumsy and corrupt writers imbues the reader with their own vices and infests his mind with similar corruption. Study is, so to speak, the pabulum of the mind by which the intellect is trained and nourished. For this reason, just as gastronomes are careful in the choice of what they put in their stomachs, so those who wish to preserve purity of taste will only allow certain readings to enter their minds.’   4 Instead of organizing his work by authors, Bade divided the texts under twelve categories, primarily moral issues, as follows: on fleeing vices (Virgil, Horace), the fragility of man (Horace), on living properly (Horace), on vows (Horace, Persius, Juvenal), on friendship (Ennius), on what can be asked of a friend (Horace), on the duties of parents (Juvenal), on the duties of children (Juvenal), on the vice of shame (Baptista Mantuanus), on table manners (Giovanni Sulpizio), the distichs of Cato, and Alain of Lille’s proverbs. Note that the last two are texts from the auctores tradition.   5 The most up-to-date bibliography of Bade’s printed editions is in Philippe Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle, ouvrage publié d’après les manuscrits de Philippe Renouard, vol. 2: BaaleauBanville (Paris: Service des travaux historiques de la Ville de Paris avec le concours de la Bibliothèque nationale, 1969). This work provides a chronological description of Bade’s more than 750 editions. It updates the alphabetical list of Bade’s works given in Renouard, Badius.

Josse Bade’s Commentaries for the Pious Reader  113   6 ‘Jodocus Badius Ascensius ... in Oratores, in Historicos, in Poetas longe clarissimos commentus est illam suam, ut vocant, familiarem explanationem, adeo putido, inepte, imperite, adeo interdum præter rem, imo et contra rem, ut vel non mediocriter eruditi æquis oculis aspicere non possint.’: Domenico Manni, Vita de Giodoco Badio appellato l’Ascensio umanista, e stampatore insigne (Milan: Antonio Agnelli, 1757), 8. This passage is quoted in Renouard, Badius, 1:141.   7 Paul Gerhard Schmidt, ‘Iodocus Badius Ascensius als Kommentator,’ in Der Kommentator in der Renaissance, ed. August Buck and Otto Herding (Boppard: Harald Boldt, 1975), 63–71.   8 Craig Kallendorf, ‘Ascensius, Landino, and Virgil: Continuity and Transformation in Renaissance Commentary,’ in Acta Conventus NeoLatini Bariensis: Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of NeoLatin Studies, 29 August to 3 September 1994, ed. Rhoda Schnur et al. (Tempe: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1998), 353–60.   9 For a valuable discussion of Bade’s role in shaping contemporary views on the ‘Republic of Letters’ see Isabelle Diu, ‘Medium Typographicum et Respublica Literaria: Le rôle de Josse Bade dans le monde de l’édition humaniste,’ in Le livre et l’historien: Études offertes en l’honneur du Professeur Henri-Jean Martin, ed. Frédéric Barbier et al. (Geneva: Droz, 1997), 111–24. 10 Here I am borrowing the term from Jürgen Habermas’s The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989). See especially chap. 3, ‘On the Genesis of the Bourgeois Public Sphere,’ 14–26. Habermas’s main focus in the book and in his subsequent theory of communicative action is on the circumstances that allow groups to come together as a single public to engage in rational-critical debate as the basis for political action. My focus here is on the pre-history of that public sphere in the res publica litterarum of the sixteenth century, where many of its later distinctive features, such as participation and rational debate, took shape. Neither Habermas nor others studying the public sphere have paid much attention to religion, or to the influence of late-medieval Christian devotion (the various claims and challenges to a res publica christiana) on its development. 11 Still the most complete study of this milieu is Augustin Renaudet, Préréforme et humanisme à Paris pendant les premières guerres d’Italie, 1494–1517, 2nd ed., rev. and corr. (Paris: Librairie d’Argences, 1953). 12 Most of the research on this question has been based on German universities on the eve of the Reformation. James H. Overfield

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13

14

15 16

17

argues that the tension between humanists and scholastics in German universities revolved around competition for students, and not particularly on methods of study. Erika Rummel takes a different approach by arguing that the humanist-scholastic debate unfolded in three phases, starting as a literary debate but culminating in the appropriation of humanist learning by supporters of the Reformation. In a later work she argues that humanism became ‘confessionalized’ in the early years of the Reformation and lost its vigour as it became a tool in the spread of reformed ideas. In the most recent of two articles Charles G. Nauert Jr takes a position somewhere between Overfield and Rummel, arguing essentially that both were right. See Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984); Rummel, The Humanist-Scholastic Debate in the Renaissance and Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), and The Confessionalization of Humanism in Reformation Germany (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Nauert, ‘The Clash of Humanists and Scholastics: An Approach to Pre-Reformation Controversies,’ Sixteenth Century Journal 4, no. 1 (April 1973): 1–18, and ‘Humanism as Method: Roots of Conflict with the Scholastics,’ Sixteenth Century Journal 29 (1998): 427–38. For an excellent example of Bade’s reverence for the Devotio moderna see his vita of Thomas à Kempis included in the preliminary material of his edition of Thomas’s Opera omnia (Paris: Josse Bade, 1523). Beroaldo the Elder was a professor of rhetoric and poetry at the University of Bologna, and an influential philologist. For his influence on humanists in Lyons at the turn of the sixteenth century, see James B. Wadsworth, ‘Filippo Beroaldo the Elder and the Early Renaissance in Lyon,’ Medievalia et Humanistica 11 (1957): 78–89. For a list of Bade’s commentaries see Renouard, Badius, 1:140–56. See Paul Lejay, ‘John of Hauteville,’ and Ambrose Mougel, ‘Ludolph of Saxony,’ in The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910), http://www.newadvent.org/cathen; and on the latter, Kelly Le Blanc, ‘Ludolph of Saxony, Vita Christi,’ University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections Department, Book of the Month, December 2009, http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/ month/dec2009.html. On Mantuan, whose work was extraordinarily popular in the sixteenth century, see Spagnuoli Mantuanus, Adulescentia: The Ecologues of Mantuan, ed. and trans. Lee Piepho (New York: Garland, 1989) and Piepho’s Holofernes’ Mantuan: Italian Humanism in Early Modern

Josse Bade’s Commentaries for the Pious Reader  115 England (New York: Peter Lang, 2001). Little has been written on Bury. For a short biography, see Renaudet, Préréforme et humanisme, 258n4. 18 Desiderius Erasmus, Ep. 49, lines 111–16, in CWE 1, trans. by R.A.B. Mynors and D.F.S. Thomson, annot. Wallace K. Ferguson (1974). 19 An extreme example is the edition of Virgil’s Opera published by Bade in 1512. It contains the work of seven commentators, along with Bade’s familiaris explanatio and his notes on the other commentaries. 20 Oliverius, who came from Arzignano in the province of Vicenza, had studied with Omnibonus Leonicenus. On the little that is known of this commentator, in spite of the frequent appearance of his work in editions of Valerius Maximus, see Mario Emilio Cosenza on ‘Oliverius Arcignanensis,’ Biographical and Bibliographical Dictionary of the Italian Humanists and of the World of Classical Scholarship in Italy, 1300–1800, 2nd ed., rev. and enl. (Boston: G.K. Hall, [ca. 1962–]1967), 3:2505–6; 5:329. 21 ‘Valerii Maximi multijugam et, ut in fronte pollicetur, cum primis memoratu dignorum collectaneam historiam, ab Oliverio Arzignanensi non oscitanter præsertim congruentium historiarum citatione declaratam, propterea succincta, facilique commentatione exposuimus, Germane splendidissime, quod talem intelleximus desyderatam ab iis qui altioribus studiis occupati neque prolixiorem legere velint, neque difficiliorem (saltem prima lectione) capere possint, simulque ut in claustris pagisque ac oppidulis ab literario gymnasio sejuncti habeant quo sitim suam sedent, si non expleant. Omnes enim tam rudi quam cultiore literatura praediti variarum rerum cognitione ne semper pueri maneant capiuntur.’ Valerius Maximus, Valerius Maximus cum duplici commentario historico videlicet ac litterato Arzignanensis & Familiari admodum ac succincto Iodoci Badii Ascensii (Paris: Josse Bade, Jean Petit, and Jean Coberger, 29 April–5 June 1510), 1v; repr. Renouard, Badius, 3:317. On the title page of the edition the word commentarius describes the double commentary published with the text of Valerius Maximus, but in the colophon the word commentatio is used: ‘cum duplici commentatione, altera historica fide opulentissima, altera familiaritate conspicua’; see Renouard, Badius, 3:317. 22 For a short biography of Germain de Ganay see The Prefatory Epistles of Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples and Related Texts, ed. Eugene Rice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 20–1. See also the article in DBF and Renaudet, Préréforme et humanisme, passim.

116  Mark Crane 23 ‘Siquidem omnium fere et temporum et nationum dicta aut facta tam probanda quam improbanda historico filo contexuit, quorum cognitio christianae pietatis cultoribus praeter caetera hoc affert boni, quod dum ethnicorum, quibus vanum erat ante lucem surgere, animos tam propensos aut in superstitionem aut in non usquequaque veram religionem videmus, erubescimus tanto et tam altum exorto sole, tam oscitanter stertere’: Valerius Maximus, ed. Bade; see Renouard, Badius, 3:317. 24 ‘Audio enim jampridem a quibusdam male quod nimis sim familiaris, causantibus videlicet fructum eruditionis praereptum, cum quae cum labore discantur et tenacius haereant, et dulciora sint’: Virgil, Aeneis Vergiliana, ed. Bade (vol. 2 of 3 vols. of works) (Paris: Thielmann Kerver for Jean Petit and Jean de Coblencz, 1501), 1r–v, reprinted in Renouard, Badius, 3:363. Louis of Flanders became lord of Praet by his marriage in 1517 and an important courtier and ambassador of Charles V; see his biography in CEBR 2 (1986): 41–2. 25 ‘Quibus dum talia audio, respondere soleo: habentibus praeceptorem non deesse nudos textus quos cum labore addiscant, si meos missos faciant, non habentibus vero, nostros quamplurimum prodesse, ipsisque professoribus, aut nostrorum carpendi (ut hodie sumus inviduli), aut meliorum excogitandi aut saltem audiendi   facultatem minime praereptam.’ Virgil, Aeneis Vergiliana, ed. Bade, in Renouard, Badius, 3:363. 26 For a brief biography of Laurent Bureau see the article in DBF and Thomas Sullivan, OSB, Paris Licenciates in Theology, A.D. 1373–1500: A Biographical Register (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2004), 1:106–10. Sullivan claims that he was considered ‘one of the most learned men of his time’ (108). 27 ‘Nam quod objicient esse complures longe quam ego sum doctiores, nihil cum verissimum sit, inficiabimur, verum cum jam octodecim annos imbecillem pubem atque minus literatos adhuc canos clamitare audirem: Ecquis prodibit tandem Mantuani nostri commentarius? Nemo tam tersum, tam candidum, tam copiosum, tam disertum, tam denique gratiis omnibus ornatum poetam nobis explanabit. Ergo semper ethnicos nec semel christianum legemus? Num poterimus christiparae virginis parthenicen vel mediocriter intelligere atque juventuti exponere? Cum ejusmodi, inquam, audirem, misertum esse fateor, victasque pietate manus apposui, et supra quam dicere ausim celeritate opus (ut nunc quidem videtur) excudi, nullam faciens doctoribus injuriam’: Baptista Mantuanus, Parthenice Mariana F. Bapistae Mantuani ab Iodoco Badio Ascensio Familiariter ex-

Josse Bade’s Commentaries for the Pious Reader  117 planata (Paris: Thielmann Kerver for Jean Petit and Jean de Coblencz, [1499]), Iv; reprinted Renouard, Badius, 2:102. Renouard’s excurri has been emended to excudi at the suggestion of P.M. Swan. 28 Clearly Erasmus favoured the dialogue over grammatical commentary as a pedagogical tool for teaching ‘an abundant style,’ as his famous Colloquies show. Erasmus favoured textual commentary for critical editions. 29 Erasmus, The Edition of St. Jerome, ed., trans., and annot. James F. Brady and John C. Olin, in CWE 61 (1992): 11. 30 Erasmus, Ciceronianus, trans. and annotated by Betty Radice, in CWE 28 (1986): 421. Editor’s note: The angry response of French scholars to the comparison of Bade and Guillaume Budé that frames this evaluation – Nosoponus places Bade above Budé in the ranks of Ciceronians – forced Erasmus to revise the passage in the second edition (March 1529). Among other changes, Erasmus there defines Bade’s ‘considerable success’ by interpolating the comment, ‘his style displays both fluency and scholarship,’ but he leaves unchanged the point about Bade’s financial distractions. See CWE 28:587n676 for a translation of the revised passage in full.

SEVEN

Embedded Commentary in Luther’s Translation of Romans 3 gordon a. jensen

Martin Luther’s translations of the scriptures, the New Testament released in September 1522 (commonly known as the September­ testament) and then the complete Bible in 1534, were not the earliest into German, but they were foundational documents of the German Reformation.1 Their impact also went far beyond the confines of the church. Friedrich Nietzsche declared that this masterpiece of prose by Luther (1483–1546) was the ‘best German book thus far.’2 The noted German philologist Adolf Bach claimed that Luther’s translations unified the German language.3 Yet as John L. Flood has recently noted, ‘For all its importance in the History of the Book, the real significance of Luther’s Bible lies in its success in propagating the Gospel, for which in large measure the quality of the translation was responsible.’4 Luther’s translation of the Bible is not normally viewed as a commentary, yet his translation, especially when read together with the marginal glosses and prefaces, functions in a remarkably similar way.5 His primary purpose is to guide the reader in the task of interpreting each of the passages in light of the overall theme of the Bible, which he identifies as the Gospel.6 Thus, while his translations attempt to interpret the text accurately – crucial for good translations – he was not averse to interpolating what would reinforce the Gospel meaning of the text. Heinz S. Bluhm states that Luther’s Bible was ‘the most personal and subjective of all renderings of the Scriptures produced in the West ... far more than its chief later rival among Protestant Bible translations, the Authorized Version of 1611. There is thus ample justification for the designation Lutherbibel, for the Luther Bible is sui generis.’7 Bluhm further states:

Embedded Commentary in Luther’s Translation of Romans 3  119 Taking the New Testament as a whole, there is never any doubt that Luther’s heart and mind are permeated with Pauline theology; and it is this that gives the Luther Bible what is perhaps its most characteristic aspect, its unity ... Other translations retain unchanged the diverse and sometimes unreconciled religious ideas of individual Biblical authors. Only Luther unified this book of several theologies into one integrated whole.8

The third chapter of Romans provides an obvious test case for the accuracy of the reformer’s linguistic skills and theological interpretation. Luther felt that Paul’s letter to the Romans is the ‘chief part of the New Testament and is truly the purest gospel.’9 He lectured on it only once, during 1515–16, and his commentary – at least his own notes and scholia – were presumed lost and thus not available to his contemporaries.10 However, beyond many passing comments in other treatises, commentaries, and sermons, Luther’s insights on Romans could be discovered in his translation of this letter of Paul’s, the appended marginal glosses, and the Preface. In the third chapter, Luther embeds his commentary and Gospel hermeneutic into the translated text in two ways. The first is to instruct his printer to highlight text by capitalizing every letter in the words SVNDE VERGJBT (forgives sin), as he does in Romans 3:25. The second is to add specific words to the translated text to make a theological point. In Romans 3:28, he adds allein (alone), so that it now reads ‘through faith alone’ (allein durch den glauben [italics mine]). Luther uses both these simple changes to propagate boldly his theological understanding of the Gospel. Both Luther’s contemporary opponents and some modern critics have questioned the quality of the translation, however.11 Hieronymus Emser (Jerome Ems, 1479–1527), his former teacher at the University of Erfurt and principal secretary and chaplain to Duke George of Saxony, accuses Luther of basing his work on heretical translations by the Bohemian Jan Hus (died 1415) or the Englishman John Wycliffe (died 1384), rather than on the ‘true’ source, the Vulgate.12 In referring to Luther’s addition of allein in Romans 3:28, Emser calls the translation ‘a contradictory lie.’13 One of Emser’s contemporary editors says bluntly that Luther ‘translates Paul’s words incorrectly.’14 Emser claims that Luther deliberately mistranslates the text in order to push his theological agenda: ‘Luther or those who (he says) helped him translate into

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German in a more delicate and sweet sounding way than the old translation. For that reason the common folk are more inclined to read it and to swallow the hook that is hidden beneath the sweet words before they are aware of it.’15 It would be better for the common people not to have access to such dangerous works, especially if it prevented them from doing good works and being model citizens of the empire. Such criticisms did not end with Emser. As recently as 1983, Michael Mullet declares: Luther manipulated the Bible. He found what he wanted to know in St. Paul’s medicinal prescription: ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Even this was not strong enough for Luther, and he stretched the phrase, built it up, interpreted and misinterpreted it by adding at the end the key word, ‘alone.’ ... Luther took novel ways with the Bible, [and] undermined his own claim to be simply its agent.16

Mullet is right at least about ‘novel ways’ of translating. Luther insists that ‘the literal Latin is a great hindrance to speaking good German.’17 Are these ‘novel ways’ of translating a deliberate mistranslation and ‘a contradictory lie,’ as Emser claimed? Does his translation corrupt the text and theology of the biblical writer beyond what can be justified linguistically and theologically? It is true that he does not attempt to be ‘objective’ or ‘neutral’ in his translation. He highlights and adds words to emphasize what he sees as the core of scripture, to proclaim the Gospel, as he discovered it in Paul’s letter to the Romans. However, he believes that he is simply helping Paul ‘speak good German.’ To his credit, he carefully justifies his translation not only on linguistic but also on theological grounds in his treatise On Translating: An Open Let­ ter (1530). Linguistically, Luther carefully consults the original languages, using the latest editions of Erasmus’s Greek New Testament. Theologically, his interpretation reflects the theology of St Augustine of Hippo and St Thomas Aquinas, but it blatantly dismisses his contemporaries’ theological understanding of salvation as effected by cooperation between humans and God and therefore calls into question the church’s system of penance. Luther insists that the centrality of the Gospel, rather than a system of penance, is crucial to the spiritual welfare of humankind. In the first years of the Reformation, Luther and other reformers were determined to place the scriptures in the hands of all people so that they could discover this Gospel for themselves. In

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his ‘Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans,’ written originally in 1522, Luther suggests that ‘it is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but also that he should occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. We can never read it or ponder over it too much; for the more we deal with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.’18 Likewise, in his 1520 treatise To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate, Luther declares, ‘Above all, the foremost reading for everybody, both in the universities and in the schools, should be Holy Scripture – and for the younger boys, the Gospels. And would to God that every town had a girls’ school as well, where the girls would be taught the gospel for an hour every day either in German or in Latin ... Is it not only right that every Christian man know the entire holy gospel by the age of nine or ten?’19 In the first decade of the Reformation, the rise of new Reformation groups and increasingly radical individualistic interpretations of the Bible forced Luther to rethink his vision of the scriptures in the hands of every Gretel and Hans in the land. The schwärmer (enthusiasts) such as Andreas von Karlstadt (ca. 1480–1541), Thomas Müntzer (ca. 1490–1525), and the Zwickau prophets had their own ‘spirit-filled’ interpretations quite different from Luther’s understanding. He came to realize that ‘the text of the canonical Bible presented material perplexing to the simple reader,’20 and concluded that, in the words of Richard Gawthrup and Gerald Strauss, ‘expert guidance was needed now, above all preaching by authoritative interpreters,’ to prevent all kinds of real or perceived heresies from arising in the land.21 The Bible also had to be read from the proper perspective. Thus his translation, glosses, and prefaces served as an important Gospel commentary upon the biblical passages.22 Luther felt justified in emphasizing the hermeneutic of the ‘forgiveness of sins’ as the heart of the Gospel (Romans 3:25) obtained through ‘justification by God’s grace alone through faith alone’ (Romans 3:28). He wanted this Gospel focus, embedded in his translation, to assist the pious readers who could afford the Bible23 to read it rightly and to guide the pastors24 in the proper handling of the scriptures. To further facilitate his Gospel emphasis, Luther developed various popular ‘doctrinal guidance’ materials such as the catechisms, which conveyed the core of scripture in less ambiguous ways. By the time of the publication of the 1546 edition of the Bible, most refer-

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ences to the reading of the scriptures by the ‘common people’ are dropped from the 1522 prefaces.25 He realized that people needed guidance to read the Bible, and he provides such guidance in his embedded commentaries in his translations of the scriptures into German. Luther’s translation of Romans 3:25 is based on consulting the Vulgate and two important works by Desiderius Erasmus (1466– 1536): his second edition of the Greek New Testament and his Latin translation of it, both prepared in 1519.26 However, controversy begins when Luther’s edition of the New Testament published in 1533 makes a significant theological point by capitalizing and double spacing every single letter of the phrase svnde vergjbt (forgives sin), thus drawing the reader’s eye to it (see fig. 1): welchen Gott hat furgestellet zu einem Gnadenstuel durch den glauben inn seinem blut damit er die gerechtigkeit die fur im gilt darbiete inndem das er S V N D E V E R G J B T welche bis an herbleiben war vnter Göttlicher gedult. (whom God has set forth to be a ‘stool of grace,’ through faith in his blood, so that he presents the righteousness that applies to him in that he forgives sin, which was pardoned under divine patience.)

This highlighting technique is carried over to the translation of the complete Bible, which comes out the following year. The highlighting technique of capitalizing entire words and spacing them out in order to make a theological point is not often used by Luther. Martin Schloemann notes that there are only eleven instances of this technique in Luther’s 1537 edition of the Bible.27 Thus, Luther’s highlighting of ‘svnde vergjbt’ is especially significant. After his death in 1546, the letters in these two words revert to lower case and all spaces between the letters are removed.28 With the development of boldface type, later editions of the Lu­ therbibel continue to draw attention to important themes, even when, as we shall see, the focus of the emphasized text shifts, as in the translation of Romans 3:22–8 found in the 1984 edition (fig. 2). One of the reasons for Luther’s emphasis on ‘forgives sin’ can be found in the marginal gloss of his Septembertestament and again in the 1534 Bible (with slight variations). He comments: Note this: when he [St Paul] says that (they are all sinners, etc.), it is the centerpiece and heart of this epistle and of the entire scrip-

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Figure 1.  S V N D E V E R G J B T in Romans 3:25 is capitalized in Biblia: das ist: die gantze heilige Schrifft Deudsch: Mart. Luth. (Wittenberg: Hans Lufft, 1534), fol. CVIIr, sig. T2r in a copy with bookplate of Elisabetha Sophia Maria dowager duchess of Braunschweig and Lüneburg (vol. 2, bound 1654). Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel [Bibel-S 4° 11]. Published with permission.

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Figure 2.  Romans 3, in Die Bibel nach der Übersetzung Martin Luthers, revidierter Text 1984, © 1985 Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart. Used by permission. Photograph by Gordon Jensen.

Embedded Commentary in Luther’s Translation of Romans 3  125 tures, namely that everything is sin which has not been redeemed through the blood of Christ and justified by faith. Therefore understand this text well, because here it underlies the merit and fame of all works, as he himself says here, and the only thing that remains is God’s grace and honour.29

In Luther’s view, all persons are sinners. Any attempt to escape a state of sin by human actions or even cooperation with God ends in failure; the only escape is through the action of God in Christ, through God’s justifying actions. In Luther’s thought, the forgiveness of sins is the foundational action of redemption and the basis of the good news, the Gospel. This creative and redeeming action of God by which a person is forgiven places the sinner in God’s gracious favour. The human condition of sin, as Luther notes in the marginal gloss, can find its solution or resolution only in the Christ, who forgives sins. Current editions of Luther’s Bible entitle the section of Romans 3:21–31 ‘Justification through Faith Alone’ (Die Rechtfertigung al­ lein durch Glauben). The emphasis on the forgiveness of sin (the negative aspect, or removing an impediment) is replaced with a focus on God’s action of making the person right with God (proclaiming a new, positive reality for the person). To reinforce this slight but significant shift on the positive aspect of the doctrine of justification, the editors set in boldface verses 23, 24, and 28, but verse 25 (particularly the phrase ‘forgives sin’) has lost its emphasis (see fig. 2).30 This change, first made shortly after Luther’s death, defuses any perceived potential conflict over the focal point of scripture. The doctrine of sin, which draws attention to the sinner (originally emphasized in verse 25, along with sin’s forgiveness) is now overshadowed by the doctrine of justification, which emphasizes God’s actions of making people righteous through God’s gift of faith alone (as emphasized in verse 28). Justification rather than sin becomes the focal point, 31 even though these two doctrines are really two sides of the same coin. Despite these later alterations, the fact remains that for Luther himself, the forgiveness of sins is central to his reading of the Bible. This emphasis is found throughout his writings, not just in his translation of Romans 3. As early as 21 December 1516, soon after his lectures on Romans when his Reformation theology was emerging in its seminal stage, he preaches, ‘The proper office of the Gospel is to proclaim the proper work of God, i.e. grace,

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through which the Father of all mercies freely gives to all people peace, righteousness and truth … [And] this happens whenever the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed.’32 In his 1520 treatise ‘The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,’ he states, ‘For what is the whole gospel but the good tidings of the forgiveness of sins?’33 His sermon of 2 October 1524, on Matthew 9:1–8, states that ‘forgiveness of sins is not more than two words, yet the entire realm of Christ is based upon them.’34 To hear the scripture as Gospel is to hear the declaration, ‘your sins are forgiven you.’ In his second series of Galatians lectures, written about the same time as the first edition of his translation of the whole Bible, Luther declares, ‘But here comes the Gospel, which preaches the forgiveness of sins to you through Christ.’35 This simple definition of the Gospel is emphasized succinctly by capitalizing every letter in the two words ‘forgives sin’ in Romans 3:25. Luther realizes, however, that such simple formulations may be misunderstood. Thus he clarifies in a commentary on Galatians what he means by the Gospel in relation to the law36 and to the person and work of Christ. The real heart of the Gospel and of scripture is technically not simply the forgiveness of sins, but rather the forgiveness of sins through ‘Christ alone,’ as Christ acts to make the sinner righteous. The focus is placed on the author of the action rather than on the action itself.37 When he wants to define the Gospel most simply for the common people, he says that God ‘forgives sins.’ These two little words make a world of difference. Precisely because he insists that only God forgives sins (Mark 2:7), the highlighting of Romans 3:25 posed a threat. The church, and the whole sacramental system for that matter, might now be perceived by some to be no longer needed. Understandably this threat would upset the institutional church. Yet Luther does not want to abolish the church. It is in the church that the Word of forgiveness is preached to people living in the community (Ge­ meinde) as simultaneously sinners and justified (simul iustus et peccator). Nor does he want to abolish the two sacraments of forgiveness (Baptism and Eucharist). In his 1528 Confession Concern­ ing Christ’s Supper, he argues that the core of the sacrament of the altar is the new covenant (promise), for it provides ‘the bestowal of grace and the forgiveness of sins, i.e., the true gospel.’38 Later he adds, ‘thus two sacraments remain, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, along with the gospel, in which the Holy Spirit richly of-

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fers, bestows and accomplishes the forgiveness of sins.’39 Apart from this Gospel message, argues Luther, the church does not exist. He notes in his Confession Concerning the Lord’s Supper (1528): In this Christian Church, wherever it exists, is to be found the forgiveness of sins, i.e. a kingdom of grace and of true pardon. For in it are found the gospel, baptism, and the sacrament of the altar, in which the forgiveness of sins is offered, obtained, and received. Moreover, Christ and his Spirit and God are there. Outside this Christian Church there is no salvation or forgiveness of sins, but everlasting death and damnation; even though there may be a magnificent appearance of holiness and many good works, it is all in vain.40

The church and the sacraments are needed precisely because it is in the church and through the sacraments that Christ, and Christ’s gracious forgiveness of sins, are given. Nevertheless, the message that God alone forgives sins threatened the profitable sale of the letters of indulgences by the institutional church because Luther argued that the forgiveness of sins, not the need for indulgences, was the basic message that people with troubled consciences needed to hear: this Gospel, that God forgives sins rather than pouring out wrath on sinners, comforted those afraid of death and condemnation coram Deo (in the presence of God, or standing before God’s face).41 The forgiveness of sin overcame the fear of condemnation and death. This Gospel proclamation did more than deliver one from the fear of death, however. More important for Luther, ‘where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is life and salvation.’42 In his Small Catechism, Luther’s ‘Bible for the laity,’43 which was first printed in 1529 and was probably more influential than even his German Bible translation in shaping a ‘Lutheran hermeneutic,’ Luther repeatedly emphasizes this point. Keeping the Commandments cannot give life; only God can. In the explanation to the Creed, he declares that God’s activities are ‘Gospel oriented.’ God proclaims good news, and life is created, nurtured, redeemed, and sanctified by God in Christ and through the Holy Spirit. This life created by God is possible, claims Luther, because God forgives sin: Therefore everything in this Christian community is so ordered that everyone may daily obtain full forgiveness of sins through the

128  Gordon A. Jensen Word and signs [the sacraments] appointed to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live on earth. Although we have sin, the Holy Spirit sees to it that it does not harm us because we are a part of this Christian community. Here there is full forgiveness of sins, both in that God forgives us and that we forgive, bear with, and aid one another.44

This emphasis is also found in his explanations about the sacraments. Here, he announces, God forgives sin. This is how God heals the brokenness of the world. Thus, the highlighting of the two words ‘forgives sin’ in his translation of Romans 3:25 is more than a stylistic change. It is a compact yet profound commentary, drawing attention to what he considers the very heart of his Reformation theology. His translation deeply embeds this message in the translated text so that all its readers might approach this passage of scripture from this same perspective. More controversial for critics of Luther than highlighting ‘forgives sin’ in Romans 3:25 is adding allein (alone) in Romans 3:28: So halten wir es nu das der mensch gerecht werde on des Gesetzes werck, allein durch den glauben. (So we now hold that a person is made right through faith alone and not by works of law.)

At first glance, the earlier noted criticisms of both Emser and Mullet appear just. Luther adds allein to the text when it is not present. There is no sola or even solum in the Vulgate. However, Bluhm feels that Luther understood that ‘alone’ or ‘only’ was clearly implied by Erasmus. In translating the Greek word cwriv" (‘separate,’ ‘alone,’ ‘by itself’),45 in his 1519 Latin New Testament, Erasmus replaces ‘sine operibus legis’ (without works of law) in the Vulgate with ‘absque operibus legis’ (apart from works of law) (italics mine). As Bluhm explains: ‘There can be little doubt why Erasmus replaced the Vulgate’s sine by absque – absque is stronger than sine ... It is interesting to note in this translation that the Revised Version of the King James Bible replaced the original edition’s “without” by “apart from.”’46 In his 1530 treatise On Translating: An Open Letter, Luther defended himself against Emser by arguing that he added this word allein by reason of vernacular usage as well as of theology. From a linguistic perspective, Luther insisted that the addition of the

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word ‘alone,’ or even better, ‘only,’ properly translates the text, even though it is not found in the Greek or Latin texts he consulted. Thus, in response to Emser and his critics, Luther puts his case clearly: Here, in Romans 3[:28], I knew very well that the word solum is not in the Greek or Latin text; the papists did not have to teach me that. It is a fact that these four letters s o l a are not there ... At the same time they do not see that it conveys the sense of the text; it belongs there if the translation is to be clear and vigorous. I wanted to speak German, not Latin or Greek, since it was German I had undertaken to speak in the translation. But it is the nature of our German language that in speaking of two things, one of which is affirmed and the other denied, we use the word solum (allein) along with the word nicht [not] or kein [no]. For example, we say, ‘The farmer brings allein grain and kein money;’ ‘No, really I have now nicht money, but allein grain;’ ‘I have allein eaten and nicht yet drunk;’ ‘Did you allein write it, and nicht read it over?’ There are innumerable cases of this kind in daily use.   In all these phrases, this is the German usage, even though it is not the Latin or Greek usage. It is the nature of the German language to add the word allein in order that the word nicht or kein may be clearer and more complete. To be sure, I can also say, ‘The farmer brings grain and kein money,’ but the words ‘kein money’ do not sound as full and clear as if I were to say, ‘The farmer brings al­ lein grain and kein money.’ Here the word allein helps the word kein so much that it becomes a complete, clear German expression.47

To support his argument from German usage, Luther then turns to his argument from theology. With this one-word addition, Luther clarifies his understanding of the meaning of Romans 3:28: that God makes a person righteous ‘through faith alone’ (al­ lein durch den glauben). By doing so, Luther deliberately juxtaposes the Romanist insistence on salvation by faith and works prevalent in late medieval scholastic theology with his own evangelical understanding of salvation by faith alone. He suggests that what is so problematic for Emser is that there is no place for human works or human cooperation in God’s work of salvation. His opponents felt that Luther was discarding the need for good works and that such an approach would lead to chaos in church and society. No one would feel compelled to do any good works, and princes and

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bishops would lose a powerful control over the people. On the contrary, Luther insists that good works are needful and even essential for life in community, but they cannot make a person justified before God. Only faith and trust in God’s promises can do that. Luther thus does not reject works by his use of allein in verse 28. What he does do, however, by this simple addition, is to clarify the place of faith and works in relationship to salvation, in the eyes of God. Only faith, this gift of God, makes one righteous before God. Works cannot be involved in salvation, or Christ’s death on the cross would be in vain. Later in the Preface, Luther makes this point clearly: Then [St Paul] begins to teach the right way by which men must be justified and saved. He says: They are all sinners making no boast of God; but they must be justified without merit [of their own] through faith in Christ, who has merited this for us by his blood, and has become for us a mercy-seat by God. God forgives all former sins to demonstrate that we are helped only by his righteousness, which he grants in faith, and which was revealed at that time through the gospel and was witnessed to beforehand by the law and the prophets.48

Luther also points to the early theologians of the church to justify his addition of ‘alone.’ In his On Translating: An Open Let­ ter, he declares, ‘I am not the only one, or even the first, to say that faith alone justifies. Ambrose said it before me, and Augustine and many others. And if a man is going to read St. Paul and understand him, he will have to say the same thing: he can say nothing else.’49 While it would have been helpful for Luther to name the ‘many others,’ recent scholarship reveals that one of these theologians is none other than Thomas Aquinas. Denis Janz argues that this sort of sola language was abundantly found in Thomas’s writings, especially in his commentaries on the Pauline Epistles. Thomas holds that one is predestined and freed from sin sola gratia (by grace alone), that grace alone suffices for salvation, and that a person is not only justified and reputed righteous sola fide (by faith alone) but is also adopted as a child of God in the same way.50 Critics in the Roman church reacting against Luther’s translation of Romans 3:28 failed to notice this emphasis in the revered doctor of the church.

Embedded Commentary in Luther’s Translation of Romans 3  131

The debate over the theological use of allein can be understood only in relationship to the word it describes: faith. In his ‘Preface to St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans’ in his 1522 Septembertestament and his 1534 Bible, Luther provides background crucial to his understanding of ‘faith’ in Romans: Faith is not the human notion and dream that some people call faith. When they see that no improvement of life and no good works follow – although they can hear and say much about faith – they fall into the error of saying, ‘Faith is not enough; one must do works in order to be righteous and be saved.’ This is due to the fact that when they hear the gospel, they get busy and by their own powers create an idea in their heart which says, ‘I believe’; they take this then to be a true faith. But, as it is a human figment and idea that never reaches the depths of the heart, nothing comes of it either, and no improvement follows.   Faith, however, is a divine work in us which changes us and makes us to be born anew of God, John 1[:12–13]. It kills the old Adam and makes us altogether different men, in heart and spirit and mind and powers; and it brings with it the Holy Spirit. O it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith.51

Luther’s critics claim that he manipulated the text in his translations of the Bible in order to convey theological agendas and ideas of his own that are contrary to the scripture translated. Luther, however, felt that he was only highlighting the Gospel message that was so obvious throughout scripture. In his translation of Romans 3:25, highlighting ‘forgives sins’ emphasizes the action of God and diminishes the human action of contrition. Moreover, while adding ‘alone’ in Romans 3:28 has no linguistic basis in the Vulgate, Luther ably defends his translation on the grounds of German idiom, Erasmus’s Greek New Testament and 1519 Latin translation of the New Testament, and traditional theological authority. Moreover, to charge Luther with manipulating this text theologically and reading into it more than what Paul wanted to convey requires one to make the same charge against other theologians of the church such as Augustine of Hippo and Thomas of Aquinas. For Luther the emphasis on ‘forgives sins’ in Romans 3:25 and the addition of ‘alone’ (sola) in Romans 3:28 both express his fundamental understanding of the way God acts to

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bring salvation to humanity. Salvation is not possible unless human sins are forgiven as God acts to justify by faith alone. Good works, obedience to the law, and living an upstanding life are not enough, nor are they what God requires in order to forgive sins. This emphasis on God’s actions is still found in modern editions of Luther’s Bible. However, the continued use of the phrase allein durch den glauben (through faith alone) has taken on a status not originally intended by Luther. Rather than Luther’s description of the Gospel at the core of all scripture, it has become a cultural symbol of Protestant protest against anything Roman Catholic. A description of life and salvation in Christ has been replaced by denominational identification. This changed emphasis does indeed manipulate the text, as Luther’s opponents have charged, but it is also a manipulation of what Luther intended. Luther’s opponents quickly realized the implications of his translations of Romans 3:25 and 28: in two little changes, Luther highlights and emphasizes the core of his reformation theology. These two alterations functioned as a concise commentary of the Gospel for the preachers who relied on his translations in preparing their sermons. They drew attention to what Luther deemed most important for the preacher and the pious believer. Embedded in the German text, Luther’s views were propagated throughout the land. Emser tried to stem its popularity by issuing his own corrected version of Luther’s New Testament, but it did not achieve the success of Luther’s edition. As a result, people read the Bible through Luther’s eyes. Emser’s concern was that the ‘manipulation’ was not only of the text translated; it was also a ‘manipulation’ of all those coming into contact with the Lutherbi­ bel. Whether or not his judgment of Luther as translator was just, he saw clearly the effects of Luther’s translations, with their embedded commentary. They were creating a veritable Copernican revolution in doctrine that challenged the institutional church, especially its whole penitential system. NOTES   1 John L. Flood documents the fourteen High German and four Low German printings of the Bible prior to Luther in ‘Martin Luther’s Bible Translation in Its German and European Context,’ in The Bible in the Renaissance: Essays in Biblical Commentary and Translation in the

Embedded Commentary in Luther’s Translation of Romans 3  133

  2

  3   4   5

  6

Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century, ed. Richard Griffiths (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 46–7. ‘Das Meisterstück der deutschen Prosa ist … billigerweise das Meisterstück ihres größtne Predigers: die Bibel war bisher das beste deutsche Buch’: Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Jenseits von Gut und Böse,’ in Werke in drei Bänden, ed. Karl Schlechta, 7th ed. (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1973), §247, p. 715. Adolf Bach, Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, 7th ed. (Heidelberg: Quelle und Meyer, 1961), 207. Flood, ‘Martin Luther’s Bible Translation,’ 63. Not many books discuss Luther’s method and goals of translation and exegesis, which are clearly theological treatises and not merely literally accurate translations. His commentaries, while extensive, are homiletical, to aid preachers. On Luther’s role as a translator and biblical commentator, see Heinz S. Bluhm, Martin Luther: Creative Translator (St. Louis: Concordia, 1965); Fred W. Meuser, Luther the Preacher (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1983); Jaroslav Pelikan, Luther the Expositor: Introduction to the Reformer’s Exegetical Writ­ ings, Companion Volume, American Edition of Luther’s Works (St. Louis: Concordia, 1959); Heinz S. Bluhm, ‘Luther’s German Bible,’ in Seven-Headed Luther: Essays in Commemoration of a Quincentenary 1483–1983, ed. Peter Newman Brooks (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 177–94; Eduard Lohse, ‘Übersetzer und Ausleger der Bibel,’ in Luther Kontrovers, ed. H.J. Schultz (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1983), 110–20; Birgit Stolt, ‘Luthers Übersetzungstheorie und Übersetzungspraxis,’ and Siegfried Raeder, ‘Luther als Ausleger und Übersetzer der Heiligen Schrift,’ in Leben und Werk Martin Luthers von 1526 bis 1546, ed. Helmar Junghans (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), 240–52 and 253–78 respectively; Michael Trinklein, ‘Luther’s Insights into the Translator’s Task,’ Bible Translator 21, no. 2 (April 1970), 80–8. While an increasing number of books and articles deal with Luther’s biblical commentaries, most focus on his commentaries on Genesis, Psalms, and Galatians. With all the emphasis on the pivotal role Romans plays in the ‘Reformation breakthrough,’ the scarcity of works exploring Luther’s translations of Romans is surprising. In Luther’s corpus, he often distinguishes between gospel, which was the good news, applied generically, and the Gospel, which referred to the specific action of God, primarily revealed when God forgives sins and ‘makes right’ the sinner by grace through faith. The capitalization of ‘Gospel’ when referring specifically to ‘forgiveness of sins’ is used in this chapter.

134  Gordon A. Jensen   7 Bluhm, ‘Luther’s German Bible,’ 184.   8 Bluhm, ‘Luther’s German Bible,’ 186. Bluhm notes here the claim of Joseph Lortz, a pre-eminent Roman Catholic Luther scholar, that Luther was not a ‘Vollhörer des Wortes, a complete hearer of the word,’ but rather, a ‘partial’ hearer, one who hears everything through Paul’s perspective and agenda (unnamed source).   9 ‘Djse Epistel ist das rechte hewbtstuckt des newen testaments, vnd das aller lauterst Euangelion’: ‘Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans’ (1546), in LW 35:365; WADB 7.3.3–4. 10 The definitive edition of Luther’s ‘Commentary on Romans’ did not appear until 1938. See Hilton C. Oswald, ed., LW 25:xii–xiii. 11 Duke George of Saxony, who was especially critical of Luther’s translation of the Septembertestament, commissioned his secretary and chaplain Hieronymus Emser to examine critically this ‘heretical’ translation and prepare an acceptable Roman Catholic version. Emser found over fourteen hundred ‘errors,’ including the addition of allein in Romans 3:28; yet his own acceptable Roman Catholic translation was basically Luther’s translation, with a few changes: Flood, ‘Martin Luther’s Bible Translation,’ 55. Other critiques of Luther’s translation can be found in Otto Reichert, ‘D. M. Luthers SeptemberTestament in seinen und seiner Zeitgnossen Zeugissen,’ Luther: Mit­ teilungen der Luther-Gesellschaft 4 (1922): 49–64. 12 Hieronymus Emser, Auss was gründ und ursache Luthers dolmatschung oder das new testament dem gemeinen mann billich vorbotten worden, Leipzig, 1525, fol. 17v. 13 Emser, Auss was gründ und ursache Luthers dolmatschung, fol. 67v. 14 This comment is found in the text of the annotation added by an anonymous editor to Emser’s glosses in the 1529 Strasbourg edition of Emser’s text. See Jane O. Newman, ‘The Word Made Print: Luther’s 1522 New Testament in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction,’ Rep­ resentations 11 (Summer 1985): 133n77. 15 Emser, Auss was gründ und ursache Luthers dolmatschung, fol. 157v, trans. Newman, ‘The Word Made Print,’ 112. 16 Michael Mullet, ‘Luther: Conservative or Revolutionary?’ History Today 33, no. 12 (December 1983): 41. 17 Martin Luther, On Translating: An Open Letter (1530), in LW 35:190. 18 LW 35:365. 19 LW 44:205–6; WA 6:461.11–15. 20 Ruth B. Bottigheimer, ‘Bible Reading, “Bibles” and the Bible for Children in Early Modern Germany,’ Past and Present 139 (May 1993): 72. See also Hermann Gelhaus, Der Streit um Luthers Bibelverdeutschung im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1989).

Embedded Commentary in Luther’s Translation of Romans 3  135 21 Richard Gawthrup and Gerald Strauss, ‘Protestantism and Literacy in Early Modern Germany,’ Past and Present 104 (August 1984): 34n14, 35. As they note, ‘Confronting an increasingly pluralistic and unstable religious scene, Lutheran authorities were too frightened of heterodoxy to encourage people to meet the Bible on their own terms’ (p. 42). 22 Robert Kolb argues that the commentaries of students of Luther and Melanchthon also reflected ‘not their authors’ situation at the university but their imagined readers’ situations in the parish’: ‘Teaching the Text: The Commonplace Method in Sixteenth Century Lutheran Biblical Commentary,’ Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renais­ sance 41 (1987): 573. 23 The affordability of a New Testament or Bible for the ‘common folk’ is debatable: Flood, ‘Martin Luther’s Bible Translation,’ 51, and Gawthrop and Strauss, ‘Protestantism and Literacy,’ 40 n41, calculate that they were too expensive; Lorna Jane Abray, The People’s Reformation: Magistrates, Clergy and Commons in Strasbourg 1500–1598 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), 23, argues that they were easily affordable. 24 According to Gawthrop and Strauss, ‘Bibles printed in Germany in the sixteenth century were bought by governments, by parish churches with revenues set aside for this purpose, and by ministerial candidates who were required by seminary regulations to own them’ (‘Protestantism and Literacy,’ 40). They note, ‘This assertion rests on a reading of two kinds of sources: firstly, church constitutions (Kirchenordnungen) which mandated Bibles in churches and in the private libraries of pastors, published in Die evangelischen Kirche­ nordnungen des XVI. Jahrhunderts, ed. Emil Sehling, 5 vols. (Leipzig, 1902–11)’; and ‘secondly, the protocols of Lutheran visitations throughout the sixteenth century, which, among other concerns, investigated the contents of pastors’ libraries’ (p. 40n43). Thus, these translations, with prefaces, glosses, and the occasional embedded commentary, were primarily for use by the pastors in the pulpits, and not by the laity. 25 Luther’s colleague Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560) also became more cautious about placing the scriptures in the hands of the common folk without proper ‘guidance’ as a result of the way enthusiasts and political opportunists used the Bible for their own gain. At first he encouraged everyone to read the Bible as the only true source of Christianity: ‘There is nothing I should desire more, if possible, than that all Christians be occupied in greatest freedom with the divine Scriptures alone and be thoroughly transformed into their

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26

27

28

29

30

nature … Anyone is mistaken who seeks to ascertain the nature of Christianity from any source except canonical Scripture’: ‘Dedicatory Letter,’ Loci communes theologici, 1521, trans. Lowell J. Satre, in Melanchthon and Bucer, ed. Wilhelm Pauck (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), 19. Three decades later he emphasized that ‘rightly oriented teachers are needed ... to clarify and preserve the proper meaning of the words of the prophets and apostles ... This should be the purpose of a catechism’: ‘Dedication by Philip Melanchthon to Anna, Wife of Joachim Camerarius, September 21, 1553 (Matthew the Apostle),’ Loci communes theologici, 1555, trans. and ed. Clyde L. Manschreck (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), xliii. See Heinz S. Bluhm, ‘Bedeutung und Eigenart von Luthers Septembertestament: Eine Analysis von Römer 3:19–31,’ Lutherjahrbuch 39 (1972): 68–70. Not considered are the capital letters in HERR (Lord) or initial letters and initial words, according to Hartmut Hövelmann, Kernstellen der Lutherbibel: Eine Anleitung zum Schriftverständnis (Bielefeld: LutherVerlag, 1989), and Hövelmann, Die Markierung von Kernstellen in der Lutherbibel, EPD Dokumentation, no. 34a/88 (Frankfurt a. M., 15 August 1988), as cited by Martin Schloemann, ‘Die Zwei Wörter: Luthers Notabene zur “Mitte der Schrift,”’ Luther 65 (1994): 116 n10. As noted by Schloemann, ‘Die Zwei Wörter,’ 116. This is a modified and amended version of the article ‘Die Mitte der Schrift – Luthers Notabene,’ in Theologie und Aufklärung. Festschrift für Gottfried Hornig zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Wolfgang Erich Müller and Hartmut H.R. Schulz (Wurzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1992), 29–40. ‘Merck dis, da er sagt, Sie find alle sunder, etc., ist das heubstück vnd der mittel platz dißer Epistel und der ganzen schrifft. Nemlich, das alles sun dist, was nicht durch daß blut Christi erlofet, ym glauben gerechtfertiget wirt, Drumb fasse disen text wol. Denn hie ligt darnuber aller wreck verdeinst vnd rhum, wie er selb hie sagt, vnd bleybt allein lautter gottis gnad vnd ehre’: WADB 7:38. One suggestion is that today this emphasis on sin would widely cause embarrassment in a world that sees itself growing beyond such guilt-inducing concepts. As Schloemann notes, ‘Nothing seems to apply less to today’s church than what Luther wrote in his explanation to article 3 of the Creed in the Large Catechism: “Therefore everything in this Christian community is so ordered that everyone may daily obtain full forgiveness of sins through the Word and signs [sacraments] appointed to comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live on earth” [LC II.3.55]’ (‘Die Zwei Wörter,’ 120).

Embedded Commentary in Luther’s Translation of Romans 3  137 31 This emphasis in verse 28 raises another problem for Lutherans in that it does not conform to the traditional Lutheran formula of justification by grace through faith. There is an emphasis on being made ‘right’ with God through faith, but grace has faded into the background. 32 LW 51:20; WA 1:113.6–11: Sermon on St Thomas’s Day, Psalm 19:1, 21 December 1516. In a sermon on St Matthias’s Day, preached on Matthew 11:25–30 on 5 February 1525, Luther declared, ‘The gospel is a good, joyful message which teaches me how to know God, through which knowledge I obtain the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.’ LW 51:126; WA 17I.41.13–14, 32–3. Likewise, in a sermon of 2 April 1540, he states, ‘[Peter] preaches to them the gospel, which declares that Christ has purchased the forgiveness of sins with his precious blood …’ LW 51:326; WA 49:132.32–5: Sermon on Matt. 3:13–17 at the Baptism of Bernhard von Anhalt, Preached in Dessau. 33 ‘Quid est enim universum Euangelium quam bonum nuntium remissionis peccatorum?’: ‘The Babylonian Captivity of the Church’ (1520), in LW 36:56; WA 6:525.36–7. 34 ‘Vergebung der sunden sind nicht mehr denn zwey wort, daryn das gantz reich Christi steth’: D. Martin Luthers Werke Kritische Gesammt­ ausgabe: Schriften (Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1883–), 15:703.24 (hereafter WA). Obviously, vergebung der sunden is three words, not two. However, it is most likely that Luther was referring to the Latin Vulgate text, in which ‘forgiveness of sins’ appears as two words: remissio peccatorum. Schloemann, ‘Die Zwei Wörter,’ 117n12, observes that in Rörer’s postscript it says, ‘Remissio peccatorum sunt duo verba “Vergeben” und “sund”’ (Z.3) und: ‘Totum regnum est in his 2 verbis: vergebung der sunde (Z.14).’ 35 ‘But here comes the Gospel, which preaches the forgiveness of sins to you through Christ, who has abrogated the Law and has destroyed sin and death. Believe in Him, and you will be free of the curse of the Law. You will be righteous and will have eternal life’: ‘Galatians Commentary’ (1531–1535), Gal. 2:18, in LW 26:152; WA 40I.II: 262b.20–3. 36 Luther states, ‘The Gospel is a light that illumines hearts and makes them alive. It discloses what grace and the mercy of God are; what the forgiveness of sins, blessing, righteousness, life, and eternal salvation are; and how we are to attain to these. When we distinguish the Law from the Gospel this way, we attribute to each its proper use and function. You will not find anything about this distinction between the Law and the Gospel in the books of the monks, the

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37

38 39 40 41

42 43

canonists, and the recent and ancient theologians. Augustine taught and expressed it to some extent. Jerome and others like him knew nothing at all about it. In other words, for many centuries there has been a remarkable silence about this in all the schools and churches. This situation has produced a very dangerous condition for consciences; for unless the Gospel is clearly distinguished from the Law, Christian doctrine cannot be kept sound. But when this distinction is recognized, the true meaning of justification is recognized. Then it is easy to distinguish faith from works, and Christ from Moses, as well as from the magistrate and all civil laws. For everything apart from Christ is a ministry of death for the punishment of the wicked’: ‘Galatians Commentary’ (1532–1535), Gal 3:[19]20, in LW 26:313; WA 40I.II:486b.17–487b.13. This reveals Luther’s hermeneutical Christo-centric focus. As he noted, ‘In this way the Lord shows us the proper method of interpreting Moses and all the prophets. He teaches us that Moses points and refers to Christ in all his stories and illustrations. His purpose is to show that Christ is the point at the center of a circle, with all eyes inside the circle focused on Him. Whoever turns his eyes on Him finds his proper place in the circle of which Christ is the center. All the stories of Holy Writ, if viewed aright, point to Christ’: ‘Sermon Twenty-Eight, on John 3:14, 153,’ in LW 22:339; WA 47:66.18–24. ‘Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper’ (1528), in LW 36:325; WA 26:468b.32–4. ‘Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper,’ in LW 36:370; WA 26:508b.27–9. ‘Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper,’ in LW 37:367–8; WA 26:507b.7–13. Thus, for example, in his lectures on Psalm 2:4, given in the spring of 1532, he declares, ‘… the Gospel does nothing else than liberate consciences from the fear of death so that we believe in the forgiveness of sins and hold fast the hope of eternal life’: LW 12:19; WA 40II.II:214a.14–17. Likewise, in the 1531–1535 Galatians lectures, he states, ‘To put on Christ according to the Gospel, therefore, is to put on, not the Law or works but an inestimable gift, namely, the forgiveness of sins, righteousness, peace, comfort, joy in the Holy Spirit, salvation, life, and Christ himself.’ LW 26:353; WA 40I. II:541b.17–20; Galatians 3:28, ‘Galatians Commentary’ (1531–1535). Martin Luther, SC VI.5-6. ‘Die catechismus ist der leien biblia, darin der ganze inhalt christlicher lehre, so einem iden christen zur seligkeit zu wissen notig, begrieffen’: WATr 5:581, 30–2, no. 6288.

Embedded Commentary in Luther’s Translation of Romans 3  139 44 LC, Creed, III, 55. 45 Definition of cwriv" found in William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2nd ed. rev. and augm. by Gingrich and Frederick W. Danker (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979). 46 Bluhm, Martin Luther: Creative Translator, 126. 47 On Translating: An Open Letter (1530), in LW 35:189. 48 ‘Preface to St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans,’ in LW 35:373. 49 On Translating: An Open Letter (1530), in LW 35:197. 50 On this topic see Denis Janz, Luther and Late Medieval Thomism: A Study in Theological Anthropology (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1983), 58n120 for a list of references to Thomas’s uses of sola. Also helpful here is his work Luther on Thomas Aquinas: The Angelic Doctor in the Thought of the Reformer (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1989). 51 ‘Preface to St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans,’ in LW 35:370.

EIGHT

Commenting on Hatred of Commentaries: Les Censures des Théologiens Revised by Robert Estienne, 1552 hélène cazes

Commentary is hard to define as a genre stricto sensu, for it may assume many forms, lengths, and modes.1 Perhaps its purpose and practice can be defined by its double authorship: it is a writing subsequent to a reading, in other words, the inscription within a text of a second text, which can be an amplification, an explanation, or even a judgment passed on the commented text. Thus, depending on a dual structure (commenting text and commented text), the form of the commentary creates by its very composition a series of binary oppositions, which in turn implies a series of hierarchies. This process is necessarily built upon a chronology: the original, commented text precedes the commenting one, and this priority in time often expresses precedence in authority. The status of a commented text is often demonstrated by its many, relatively short-lived commentaries. The definition of a ‘classic’ is not intrinsic but derives from its continuous reception, of which commentaries are the surest and most evident sign. Thus commentary’s freedom of form and genre traditionally contrasts with the rigidity of its place in a hierarchy: whereas the commented text is defined as ideally unique and fixed, the text commenting on it is inscribed within the flux of contemporary reception and readers as ephemeral, plural, and fragmented. In the glossed medieval manuscript, inequality of authorial status is represented emblematically by the format, in which the primary text, written in large and clear letters, occupies the centre of the page, while the commentaries, often anonymous, are inscribed between the lines, in the margins, or below, usually in smaller letters (see fig. 1). Whereas the first text is reconfigured and enlightened by its commentary, the second one has no de-

Commenting on Hatred of Commentaries  141

fined format or linearity other than the structure of the original and citation of that foundational text. Precedence in time traditionally confers on the first text a seniority that requires reverence; the second text often expresses deferential industry in examining the first text and humble dependence on it. Par excellence, the commentary is then the form preferred by faithful followers of the pristine source texts, among whom theologians and teachers figure prominently in the ranks of medieval scholars. These authors of secondary literature vow loyalty, if not obedience, to the canonical works they amplify. Humanism appears to challenge this strict hierarchy of textual status. When the commentary blossoms in theology, philology, and other disciplines, the parallel developments of textual criticism and of personal authorship throw into question the sacred status of the original, classic, commented texts. As early as the first editions of Cornucopia (Venice: Paganinus de Paganinis, 1489) by Niccolò Perotti (1429–1480) or De Asse (Paris: Josse Bade, 1514) by Guillaume Budé (1468–1540), the commentary is freed of the order and structure given by a pre-existing text. Moreover, the humanists of the printed book innovate by alternating fonts, italic and roman, to illustrate the alternation of voices. Commentaries then become dialogues in which commentators claim authorship under their own names. Robert Estienne (died 1559) goes even further in his Replies to the Theologians of Paris, written and published in Geneva in 1551 (the Latin version) and in 1552 (the French translation). This collection of adversaria is the most personal work of Estienne, royal printer to Francis I since 1539, in a career previously characterized by major achievements in philology and biblical editing.2 Well known as of his first edition of the Vulgate in 1527–28, Estienne continued in later editions to try to restore the Latin Bible to the translation of St Jerome on the basis of manuscript evidence, as humanists were restoring classical texts. More importantly, he devoted himself to the editing and spotless publication of the Greek text of the New Testament, establishing the foundations of what was to become the textus receptus, the consensual version. Estienne’s editions were famous for their care and also for the consistency in the division of chapters and verse, editing choices that were akin to interpretations in many cases. In some places, he also included aids for the inexperienced reader, in the form of lexical definitions or summarizing titles. These insertions were limited to

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Figure 1.  Commentaries by church fathers were added beside the Gospel of John 10 at various times during the century after this early twelfth-century manuscript leaf was written, probably in Switzerland. The distinction by size of an authoritative central text and its surrounding and interlinear commentaries is typical of medieval tradition. Special Collections, University of Saskatchewan Library [Ege collection, Mss.14.1v.]. Photograph by David Bindle published with permission of the library.

Commenting on Hatred of Commentaries  143

a small proportion of the final text and were much more discreet than those in many contemporary editions (for instance, the Complutensian Polyglot Bible of 1517 – in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin – or the so-called Lutheran Bible in German). Hebrew and Greek were central to the king’s cultural program implemented by his readers of the Collège Royal, later the Collège de France (hereafter Royal College), founded in 1530. Under this program the great philologists of France were to rival with those of the Collegium Trilingue of Louvain for mastery of ancient languages. After his appointment as the king’s printer in Hebrew and Latin in June 1539, Estienne began working on publication in Hebrew of the Old Testament. Subsequently, with a 1541 grant (and an explicit commission) from the crown, Estienne had the font of a new Garamond Greek type designed and cast. Called the ‘Grecs du Roi,’ it is now kept in the Imprimerie Nationale in Paris. With this prestigious new font, he began in 1543 to publish a series of Greek texts for the Royal Library. Classical texts and commentaries were quickly followed by revised editions of the New Testament. In his 1546 Greek Testament and its subsequent editions (1549 and a 1550 folio), he kept seeking to improve the text offered by the editio princeps (1516) of Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) through comparison with the rival Complutensian Bible and with manuscripts. In 1545 Estienne published a Latin Bible contrasting the Vulgate to an anonymous modern Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible. This version was, in fact, by Leo Jud (Leon de Juda, 1482–1542), a Protestant theologian from Alsace, and had been previously published in the Zurich Latin Bible of 1543. Estienne printed the Vulgate and this new Latin translation in facing parallel columns with previously unpublished notes attributed to François Vatable (died 1547), reader for Hebrew at the Royal College. This 1545 Bible, which provoked the ire and censure of the Faculty of Theology, was one of Estienne’s many endeavours towards an edition of the scriptures that would embody the dreams of Hebrew and Greek erudition on which the Royal College was founded. The attack on the 1545 edition can be seen as bringing to a head a long and mute opposition between biblical humanism and ecclesiastic tradition in France.3 In 1551, the Faculty of Theology of Paris issued a commentary censuring Estienne’s 1545 Latin Bible.4 As James K. Farge has observed, ‘the Faculty had long been seen as an arbiter of the faith

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and a guardian of doctrine. In the minds of many, from princes and magistrates to merchants and even the menu peuple, the theologians of Paris had assumed a role once held solely by councils and synods and, indeed, by the bishops themselves.’5 Estienne’s arch-enemy Pierre Lizet, as avocat du roi in 1525, had clearly stated as much.6 In his Replies to the Theologians of Paris, Estienne comments on the Faculty of Theology’s commentary on his biblical editions. Usually discreet in his prefaces, Estienne had shown himself a man of few words, stepping into the background when he was bringing out the classical or biblical texts. Here, however, his response joins devices of self-assertion to self-effacing manners. Presenting his Replies as a defence against an iniquitous and cowardly attack, Estienne borrows commentary format – he inserts replies in italic font after each article of the Censures – while repeatedly proclaiming his hatred of commentaries and cleverly transforming his apology into a virulent pamphlet. This literary device is indeed paradoxical: commentary becomes polemical even while it is vehemently rejected. During the 1530s and 1540s Erasmus, Jean Calvin (1509–1564), and others had made published responses to the Faculty of Theology of Paris a veritable subgenre of commentary.7 Their challenges to the edicts of this authority subverted traditional hierarchies of authorship and promoted a new definition of readership based on the equality of all men before God. Erasmus justifies this fundamental change in religious and intellectual practices at the end of the preface to his Declarationes: ‘Theology has no authority against the evident truth: they too [the censors] are men.’8 Moreover, if the right of reply is grounded in truth discovered by human reason engaged in philological method and study, rather than in institutions and ceremonies, then it follows that even when the text is scripture, the lay reader may participate in the discovery of truth. The humanist respect for individual reading, especially when linked with Reformationist claims for ‘sola scriptura,’ entails a new definition of readers and authors: antecedence does not give priority, nor does the religious institution confer any longer an indisputable authority. In this light, the conjunction of humanist and evangelical sensibilities in the person of Estienne, author of the Thesaurus linguae latinae, editor of the Bible, and Protestant exile in Geneva, is exemplified by the literary choices of his commentary to the Censures.

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The very word order of the title of this long treatise sets the stage for a humanist transformation of the commentary: Les censures des theologiens de Paris, par lesquelles ils avoyent faulsement condamne les Bibles imprimees par Robert Estienne, imprimeur du Roy: avec la response d’iceluy Robert Estienne (The Censures by the Theologians of Paris, by Which They Have Falsely Condemned the Bibles Printed by Robert Estienne, Royal Printer, with the Response of Robert Estienne Himself).9 It mentions the Censures before the Replies, seemingly giving precedence to the text issued by the Faculty of Theology of Paris. But the second part of the title twice introduces the name Robert Estienne as an author, primarily as the editor of the attacked Bibles and secondarily as the author of the present volume. Moreover, the anonymity of the theologians is contrasted with the repeated identification of the humanist. Now, the Censures is implicitly denounced as incomplete, as it depends on the Bibles: a commentary of the worst kind, which is ‘false,’ as the adverb faulsement reminds the reader, and which is published without its commented text. In contrast, the commentary on the Censures that Estienne is presenting to the readers emphasizes its intellectual honesty: it includes the commented text, the Censures. Last, the title recounts a commenting process in which the first act is a perverted reading by censors, who neither state their names nor produce in its entirety the text that they attack. Thus, the long title is already a narration: in the word order of the attacks and replies, it tells the idealized story of an editor unfairly persecuted and desirous of proving his integrity. At this first stage a new literary practice appears: the words ‘falsely’ (faulsement) and ‘condemned’ (condamné) transfer the commentary from the intellectual discipline of theology to the process of law. The editor, publisher, and author Robert Estienne is not only the defendant but also the defender of the pristine text, in this case, the restored text of the Bible. His authority as editor is confirmed by his institutional status, conferred by the king. Ultimately, the publication of the present volume will assert the authority of Estienne as the defender of scripture. The re-publication of the Censures then becomes ‘Exhibit A’ to dare the censuring theologians and discredit the authority of their commentaries. The transformation of commentary into courtroom continues when, on the verso of the title page – space usually reserved for the word of the editor – Estienne urges the reader to be a judge:

146  Hélène Cazes Look carefully, reader, and you will clearly see that the Theologians of Paris have no other goal than to turn the sheep of Jesus Christ away from Him who is their Pastor … You will see also which doctrine they use as weapons, every day, for sending faithful Christians to the stake.10

The lexical field jugement (judgment) pervades the text: ‘odious,’ ‘condemned,’ ‘charged,’ ‘infamy,’ ‘innocence,’ ‘defending,’ and ‘calumnies’ amplify the central word ‘judgment,’ which is used ninety-six times in the book. The words jugement and juger are indeed the keywords of the enterprise. By using them continuously throughout the volume, Estienne establishes the reading pact of his commentary:11 the text has no other authority than its truthfulness, which only an informed and individual judgment, by the public, can determine. The opening paragraphs of the author’s foreword present the apologetic enterprise of the Replies as a court hearing that was never granted by his prosecutors. First, the humanist refers to the accusation of desertion that rumour formulates against him for leaving the service of the king for a life in exile. He presents the book as a speech in absentia, a trial that was denied to him by the elusiveness of rumours and then by his flight to Geneva. The Replies thus claims to be clear and truthful writing that fights against unfair and anonymous accusations, laid against him without foundation or support: So far, I have been fully aware that my departure from the country of France has been odious to many upstanding persons; even before I left, I often considered that my doing so would be condemned by many persons everywhere, not only for abandoning my country and withdrawing to another place, but also for damaging the public good by retreating abroad and for failing to recognize the great liberality that the King had showed toward me … In the end, what I had feared indeed happened: rumour had spread about me; out of ten, scarcely one man would not judge very badly of me. Even so, I did not breathe a word, for I would prefer to be wrongly charged with infamy for a time than to stir up trouble by too carefully defending my innocence. And even today, I would not have been brought to writing if I had to respond only to those evil persons who, after they furiously persecuted me when I was present, are now tearing me into pieces with unbearable calum-

Commenting on Hatred of Commentaries  147 nies in my absence. No, I thought to address the good and faithful people, whom I easily forgive for having judged so badly of me, as long as they now are willing to accept in peace and without rancour my well-justified satisfaction.12

The justification of Estienne is thus presented as a mild defence, properly reactive, humble, moderate. On the contrary, the attitude of the censors is presented as a demented fury: the humanist accuses them of being ‘rabid dogs’ (twenty-two occurrences of rage and enragez), who ‘bark’ instead of speaking (three occurrences of abbayer). Humility is the virtue of the Christian, as it is of the editor: transforming the rhetorical topos of modesty into a theological argument, Estienne asserts that reason must prevail against blinding anger. So doing, according to a pattern frequently used in Protestant polemical literature, he turns the charge of breaking faith against his opponents: in spite of his refusal to acknowledge traditional authorities, he presents himself as a conciliatory party, whereas the arrogance of his enemies creates the schism. This humility claimed by the humanist is only superficially akin to the modesty of the traditional commentator. In spite of adopting the appearance of a commentary, in which the secondary author adds his contribution between the lines or the sentences of the commented text, Estienne’s replies to the censors substitute the model of debate for the obedient amplification of the text traditionally expected of commentary. Moreover, the humanist summons readers to act as a jury for his confrontation of texts. But the device can function only if the defendant/defender gives the integral text that he is opposing: this Estienne does, ostentatiously. This the censors do not do. First, they have initially denied the editor the right to know what their censures are and have made him wait six years after his 1545 edition of the Bible before issuing them in 1551; second, they have not, ever, published the text they condemn: on the contrary, they have forbidden reading of it. The flaw in the theologians’ argument, then, includes their failure to convoke the court of readers: they conjure away the texts of their opponents and substitute a fake commentary, the inconsistent reading of a missing original. The humanist Estienne challenges their wizardry by a clever paradox: in his very defence by adversarial commentary, he claims to reject any form of commentary. His first denial of com-

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mentary is the affectation of mere publication of the censors’ text: several times in the volume, Estienne records and responds to attacks on his own biblical scholarship by first quoting the full titles of the censures, which bear no other author’s name than the Faculty of Theology of Paris. These quotations begin with Le Catalogue de quelques erreurs jusqu’a present recueillis d’entre plusieurs autres, par l’ordre sacré de la Faculte de Paris, et chascun noté de sa Censure, qui ont este extraicts des Bibles imprimees en divers temps par Robert Estienne, en partie des appendices qui sont en la marge, et en partie des sommaires et indices, et en partie de quelques annotations sur les Bibles imprimees l’An MDXLV. Et ce par le vouloir et commandement du Roy treschrestien, a long heading in which the claims to the holiness (‘ordre sacré’) and authority of the Faculty seem to be respected.13 Later components of the volume include Le Catalogue des faultes et erreurs notables recueilli des sommaires et annotations ou commentaires, marges et textes des Nouveaux testamens imprimez en divers temps par Robert Estienne14 and Quelques annotations des tables des Bibles imprimees par Robert Estienne, L’an 1528. 1532. 1540. 1546.15 This consistent device emphasizes the integrity of Estienne, who does not fear to provide the reader with the complete text published by his own enemies, whereas the catalogues issued by the Faculty of Theology contain only excerpts and fragments.16 By presenting the titles of the attacks launched against him, by reiterating the support of the king for the Faculty of Theology (‘par le vouloir et commandement du Roi treschrestien’), by recognizing the theologians’ binding power over the diffusion of books, Estienne affects the humility of a subject and the professional service of a printer. By using the traditional format of commentaries to respond to an authoritative text, Estienne creates a complex set of mirrors, based on a critique of commentary. Each reply begins with the Bible, the commented ‘classic,’ followed by what are, in effect, three commentaries: Estienne’s annotation to the scriptural text, the censure of Estienne’s annotation by the theologians, and Estienne’s reply to this censure. Answering the Censures, the printer of the Bible is, in fact, answering a commentary to an annotation. Estienne does not recognize biblical annotations as commentary; rather, as discussed below, he presents them as neutral editorial additions, even though the censors in their second title quoted above – ‘annotations ou commentaires’ – refuse to make a clear distinction between these forms of response.17

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Figure 2.  Creating a typographical dialogue, Robert Estienne comments on the Censures of his Bible editions by the Paris theologians, which he first publishes in full. In roman type he sets, word for word, their title and the verses and annotations that they had singled out from his editions. In italic (also used for his apologetic preface), he provides references and dividers, and he appends his own response after each verse, annotation, and censure. The reply on Matthew 18:17 illustrated here (sigs. i8v–k1r, fols. 72v–73r) occupies more than a page: a torrent! Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel: [S. Alv EK 220]. Published with permission.

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Reverting to the alleged original and unique text of the scriptures, he is denouncing the status of the commenting text, the Censures. Paradoxically destroying a commentary (the Censures) by another commentary (his Replies), the humanist claims to restore the pristine truth of the sacred scriptures yet again, following his first restoration by return to its original languages, Hebrew and Greek. Thus, imitating the device adopted by the censors (the theologians) of quoting and condemning extracts of his printed Bible, Estienne claims to quote and refute every article of the Censures. Positioning himself on the field of human wanderings and disputes to address the censors, he asserts that truth is found only in the absolute model, predating all commentaries: the Bible. From this perspective, the Replies to the Theologians of Paris is a commentary that nevertheless attacks from within the very form and model of commentaries. Estienne’s adoption of page formats with alternating order and styles (italic font for the author and roman font for the censors) guides readers, enabling those accustomed to the genre of commentary to discover a new meaning in an old tradition. Moreover, this transformation of commentary into adversaria is part of the history of church reform. Official printer of Calvinist Geneva, Estienne, even though a layman, follows in the footsteps of Erasmus and Calvin, among others, in disputing with church authorities. In the preface Estienne has stated the essential failure of the censors’ commentary. After the preface, his commentary of the Censures, article by article, disparages the reading of the censors on further grounds. Why, then, publish a commentary of the Censures, themselves a disqualified commentary? Estienne’s choice of genre for his apology cannot be explained by the desire he has expressed to clear his name from calumny, especially as Estienne, while adopting the superficial form of commentary, repeatedly asserts his disdain for the genre. Rather, he is using commentary as a poetic device: as the humanist takes pains to edit and publish the text provided by the censors, he similarly and ironically adopts their favourite format. Yet he carefully distinguishes his brief, philological annotations from either the logical argument or fourfold interpretation of scripture practised in commentary by theologians. Repeatedly, Estienne claims to add nothing of his own; he merely explicates facts of grammar and usage. ‘I recite faithfully the words of Christ, for my interpretation contains nothing else than what scripture so often repeats.’18 Thus he avoids admitting that the Censures bear on his annotation and not on the

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text. The editor often rejects the argument of his opponents without addressing it directly and without acknowledging his own composition, or reconstitution, of the biblical text that includes his subtitles and annotations. More than once the lay author of the Replies expressly refers to commentary as the theologians’ literary form. Thus, answering censure of his annotation to Matthew 18:17, he uses this argument to deny usurping the role of a theologian: in spite of the obvious religious and institutional implications of translating ‘church’ by ‘assembly,’ in the context of the Reformation, Estienne points out that he has written only a brief annotation and not a proposition (see fig. 2): Matth. 18, c. 17. Artic. I That, if he does not listen to you, tell it at church. Annotation, Church, which means at the public assembly. Censure: This proposition is diminished and fallacious, it favours the errors of Waldensians and followers of Wyclif. It also dismisses the power of the Church prelates. Because a little note in the margin is not a wholly complete proposition, they are upset. But the main grace of an annotation lies in its brevity. Also, I am not professing there to write commentaries, which would have led to long speeches and broad deductions …19

Elsewhere, evading an accusation by the censors about the Lord’s Table, Estienne demands to be treated as a grammarian who examines the literal level of scripture and not as a theologian. Regarding the omission of the word ‘Eucharist’ in the annotation of the phrase ‘De la Cene du Seigneur’ (Lord’s Supper, 1 Corinthians 11:20), he thus denies any part in any form of theology, especially commentary: As if I had endeavored another project than to write brief annotations, on the letter of the text, as they say. I confess indeed that they could rightly expect something else from a theologian, who would have professed an ambition to compose full, exhaustive commentaries. But as for me, I only performed the office of a grammarian, trying to explicate the ways of speech that were obscure. I find it a pain to complain any longer of such gnawing pettiness.20

Estienne also claims in justifying his annotation to Matthew 26:28, ‘Remission des pechez’ (Remission of sins), that the editorial guides

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that he presents to Bible readers are not only brief but also merely grammatical. Distinguishing notes from commentaries proper, he opposes himself to the college of theologians: As to the real existence (as they say) of the blood of Christ, I have already replied somewhere that one should not blame me if, in the little notes I put in the margins, I pass over without comment what would belong to a proper commentary; and that it is to my credit if they contain nothing more than what is found in the text.21

Estienne’s article-by-article response to the Censures discredits their reading on further grounds. First, Estienne denies the Faculty of Theology the legitimacy of commenting on a text they have not understood. Denying that he would make a commentary of any sort, either in his ‘annotations’ to the biblical text or in his lengthy and elaborate replies to the censors, he uses grammatical details, typographical choices, and book making as masks for his interpretations and convictions: according to his claims, he intends merely to be a modest copy editor. The breadth of his invectives and theological explanations shows that this posture of ‘mere editor’ is a pretence and a strategy: Estienne is indeed a commentator. In the tradition of Erasmus’s Declarationes,22 Estienne uses philology to defend his own interpretations and formulations of the Bible, answering many a condemnation under the guise of a lesson in Latin or Greek. For example, the reading of a prophecy in which the Greek text is written in the aorist tense becomes the occasion for an exposition of the biblical values of past tenses. Claiming to supply a clear and neutral mediation between the divine word and the readers, in the last sentence the printer of the Bible ridicules the censors as schismatic and useless scholars: Es Actes 28. g, 27, Art 16. Because the heart of this people is fattened, and they have hardly heard with their ears. Annotation, We must translate this with a future tense, for it is a prophecy. As if he were saying: it will be covered in fat, their understanding will be spent, they will scarcely hear my prophecies and my laws. Censure, This annotation is rash and schismatic, as it seems to argue against the text found in the holy scripture, in the terms that it used, when it asserts that it should be translated differently.

Commenting on Hatred of Commentaries  153 And the reason alleged for this change, which is that it would be a prophecy, has no value: because, according to the holy doctors, the prophets would talk about the things to come in the past tense, so that they show the irrefutable certainty of the prophecy. Let the Greek translation stand as quoted by Saint Paul. I only point out the interpretation that should be given to these words which are cast in the past tense. I do not assert anything of my own: but I explicate the passage, as it reads in the prophet’s book. But these people, who are so prompt to split hairs into schisms, should be destined to split wood or stones.23

On the verse Luke 6:37, once more the editor alleges the ignorance of the censors in matters of Greek vocabulary and presents the annotation to the Bible as a neutral guide, not as an addition: Luke 6.e.37. Artic. 4. Do not judge and you will not be judged. Annotation, The Greek phrase means ‘to accuse’; so the meaning is, Do not accuse anyone, unless you want to be accused. And if you bring someone to court, do not have him condemned, unless you want to be condemned too. Censure. This proposition is false and mistaken, where it exhorts us neither to accuse nor to have anyone condemned and forbids people to have the wrongdoers punished. The point of my exposition is merely grammatical, not theological! There is nothing from me: let not what is straightforwardly and truthfully said be perverted by their calumnies …24

The adverbs droictement (straightforwardly) and veritablement (truthfully) refer to Estienne’s version of the Bible. On the other side of the spectrum, the verb depraver (to pervert [meaning]) denies any value to the censors’ commentary, presented as calumny. More competent than his adversaries, Estienne now dares to censure their Censures. This mere grammarian condemns the Faculty of Theology as schismatic by a lightning bolt forked with zeugma and pun: splitting up the church, the censors would be better sent off to split wood or stones. His philological answer thus concludes with mockery. Such a strategy of philological argumentation serves the selfeffacement of Estienne as an author, allowing him both to claim loudly that he does not interpret the text and to deny the censors

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the right to comment. The censors, who do not know any Greek, are, according to the literal sense of the adjective, ‘barbaric’ (nine occurrences of barbare). They are not only ignorant (fifteen occurrences of ignorance), but also stupid (fourteen occurrences of sot, sottise, sottement, and lourdeur). But Estienne provides a second explanation for his enemies’ incompetence (in the legal sense of the term). The censors address neither the textual problems nor even the editing of the scriptures; they engage in a malicious personal attack. Accusing the censors of iniquity (twenty-eight occurrences of malice, truandise, hypocrisie, and hypocrites), Estienne claims repeatedly that they had decided to ‘sacrifice’ (sig. b8r, fol.16r) an innocent: ‘Everyone knows with what fury and cruelty this college had conspired to ruin me ... For the cruelty and meanness that Lyset and his accomplices used against me are well known.’25 First, Estienne had not been given the opportunity to reply, not even being informed of the accusations. Reduced to conjectures about rumours, he had asked, in vain, for a confrontation. The long preface narrates, repeatedly, the willingness of Estienne to engage in a dialogue and the refusal of the Faculty, answering requests with silence. Estienne had had to wait for the Censures, and he has published them as soon as the Faculty has provided them. Thus, the actual volume of the Replies, years after the theologians’ initial attacks, appears as exercising the right of reply that Estienne had been denied. Even more, personal vengeance hides the arrogant disdain of an assembly of doctors against a printer. They advise the king’s confessor that Estienne should be condemned as a Lutheran heretic without a full investigation, for he is merely a ‘mechanical man.’ That is, lacking their scholarly credentials, he labours at a printing press: ‘What? Will it be said that a mechanical man has defeated the college of theologians?’26 The question echoes Calvin’s response to the Faculty of Theology of Paris, published anonymously in 1544 under the title Advertissement sur la censure qu’ont faicte les Bestes de Sorbonne, touchant les livres qu’ils appellent heretiques. There, Calvin alludes to a ‘mechanical man, a man whom they [the censors] judge with as much conscience as a dog,’27 that is, Robert Estienne, who subsequently takes up the phrase ‘un homme mechanique’ in his Replies.28 Estienne seems to write his defence as a continuation of Calvin’s pamphlet. The same pamphlet by Calvin also provides a lexicon of insults and offensive comparisons from which Estienne draws to

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ridicule the doctors in theology. The opening of Calvin’s treatise presents the Sorbonne as Noah’s Ark, under the pretext of finding the appropriate animal metaphor to describe them. Estienne likewise names the animals of the Faculty of Theology. Describing the theologians as leeches on the verso of the title page, in the text he calls them, at various times, fish, crows, swine, asses, wolves,29 and throughout the volume, beasts (eight occurrences of bestes), and he describes their characteristics: stinking (seven occurrences of puant and puer), screaming (eleven occurrences of cri and crier), and rabid (twenty-two occurrences of rage and enragé). This variety recalls the conclusion of Calvin’s attack: I still need to conclude what I said in the beginning: how to call such beasts? We see fat drunkards, who, like swines, overrun with their snouts the holy doctrine of Our Lord. We see huge hound dogs, who bark at God’s servants. We see beasts as stupid as cattle, as thick as oxes. We see furious bulls, who gore the divine word and its ministers. We see lions … We see wolves who seek only to attack flocks, strangle and wound the poor sheep. We see asses, who have their ears plugged. And thus we can know what they are.30

Moreover, Estienne’s translation into French of a pamphlet first written in Latin underlines the connection with Calvin’s Articles de la Faculté de Théologie, published first in Latin, then in French in 1544. The ignorance and malice of his censors are linked in Estienne’s thought: blinded by their arrogance (twenty-two occurrences of orgueil, honte, arrogance), the theologians cannot be virtuous, as they cannot perceive the truth of the scriptures. Thus, their iniquitous condemnation of Estienne’s Bible edition expresses their inability to hear the word of God, and their philological insufficiencies reflect their moral deficiencies. The double sense, in French, of the adjective faux, meaning both ‘false’ and ‘mistaken,’ is constantly invoked, from the title of the Replies, in which the censors ‘falsely’ condemn the Bible, to the last chapters (twentysix occurrences of faux, fausseté). Ironically, faux counted among the favourite words of the theologians themselves: Estienne censures the censors. Calling his readers ‘fideles’ and his enemies ‘infideles’ (seventyfour occurrences of fidèle, infidèle, fidèlement), Estienne confers on

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readers the right to judge that has been previously usurped by the censors. For Estienne, commentary, even when adversarial, cannot and should not take the form of an argument. Whereas the Censures appear to be a constant misreading of his editorial work on the Bible, even the apparent commentary of his Replies lacks the rigour of a scholastic debate, for it fails to address the questions asked by the censors. Rather, it is addressed to new judges: the readers, gathered into the assembly of the faithful ones. The use of repetition (of words or of ideas) better fits a pulpit than a theological commentary. Under pretence of answering article by article and of presenting supporting evidence to produce a fair trial, Estienne satirizes the censors without entering into dialogue with them. Rather than humbly justifying himself, the humanist tells of his struggle with the Faculty of Theology of Paris and his subsequent exile to Geneva, where he officially converts to Calvinism. As if he were presenting a case in a law court, he questions the legitimizing of authoritative readings proffered by colleges that proclaim themselves divinely inspired, a process that results in a multiplication of authors, and he offers a model for returning to the one and only text: the Bible. Reading should be centred on its ultimate source, not on the human but on the divine word. His new centring on ‘sola scriptura,’ theological indeed and Calvinist in its implications, is cleverly effected through a rhetorical strategy based on the practice of commentary. It follows the path of self-effacement of the author and of debasement of his censors, accusing them of sacrilege for their interference with the word of God, as if they were authors of the sacred scriptures. It takes the form of commentary both as a tool and as a target for its attack, in order to fight Catholic theology, ironically reversing a genre that was favoured by theologians. Estienne, then, is replying not only to the Censures, but also to the Catholic tradition of theological treatises. By insisting on the discretion of his editorial role, by denying any authorship of the scriptures, by rejecting the commentary proper, Estienne proclaims that scripture alone is sacred and that imposing any alternative text on it is unforgivable imposture. In this light, his pervasive opposition between his annotation and a proper commentary takes on a religious resonance: according to his defence, the publisher withdraws himself and presents the divine word, his hatred of commentary proceeding from his faith. All human disputes, then, belong to the meaningless tradition of

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mediations, institutions, and churches; and the commentary as a form exemplifies their vanity. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Research for this paper was made possible thanks to a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and a fellowship at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society of the University of Victoria. I also heartily thank Reinhard Bodenmann, William Kemp, and Thomas Conley for their patient guidance in the world of evangelical books, Arthur Wilson for his scrupulous proofreading, and Judith Rice Henderson for everything.

NOTES   1 Jean Céard in many contributions has demonstrated and illustrated the variety and freedom of commentary in this period, among which see ‘Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance,’ chap. 1 in the present volume.   2 Extensive lists of publications and editions are given in Elizabeth Armstrong, Robert Estienne, Royal Printer: An Historical Study of the Elder Stephanus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954; repr. 1983); Fred Schreiber, The Estiennes: An Annotated Catalogue of 300 Highlights of Their Various Presses (New York: E.K. Schreiber, 1982); and Antoine-Augustin Renouard, Annales de l’imprimerie des Estienne, 2nd ed. (Paris: Jules Renouard et Cie, 1843, repr. New York: Lenox Hill [Burt Franklin], 1972). The philological work of Robert Estienne has been thoroughly described by Martine Furno, ‘Le mariage de Calepin et du Thesaurus, sous l’olivier de Robert Estienne, à Genève, en 1553,’ Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 63 (2001): 511–32.   3 Armstrong, Robert Estienne, Royal Printer, 72–8, 117–38; Alice Philena Hubbard, ‘The Bible of Vatable,’ Journal of Biblical Literature 66, no. 2 (June 1947), 197–209. On the editions of the Bible by Robert Estienne, see further, among others, Jean-François Gilmont, ‘Le Sommaire des livres du vieil et nouveau testament de Robert Estienne,’ Revue de l’histoire des religions 212, no. 2 (1995): 175–218, and Basil Hall, ‘Biblical Scholarship: Editions and Commentaries,’ in The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 3: The West from the Reformation to the Present

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  4

  5   6

  7

Day, ed. S.L. Greenslade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 53–77. Articles de la Faculté de theologie de Paris, touchant et concernant nostre foy et religion chrestienne, confirmez par le Roy, suyvant son edict et ordonnance, sur le faict des heretiques: par lequel edict, il est enjoinct à tous curez et vicaires, les déclarer en leurs prosnes, par chascun dimenche (Paris: chez Jehan André, 22 Sept. 1551). See J.M. De Bujanda, ed., Les catalogues de livres interdits, vol. 1: Index de l’Université de Paris (Sherbrooke: Editions de l’Université de Sherbrooke, 1985). James Knox Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform in Early Reformation France: The Faculty of Theology of Paris, 1500–1543 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985), 1. Lizet is cited on the case of Bishop Guillaume Briçonnet of Meaux in Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform, 239–40. Pierre Lizet (Lyset, Liset, 1482– 1554) was later president of the Parlement of Paris, and he usually presided over its special court established in 1547 to try cases of heresy. Estienne narrowly escaped being summoned before this court, which had come to be known as the ‘Chambre Ardente’ for sending defendants to the stake. See Armstrong, Robert Estienne, Royal Printer, 187ff. Deprived of office in 1550 but then named abbot of St Victor, Lizet could no longer ‘burn heretics, as he had before been very instrumental in doing,’ but he now wrote against them in Adversus pseudo-evangelicum haeresim libri seu commentarii (Paris: apud Poncet le Preux, 1551): William Parr Greswell, A View of the Early Parisian Greek Press: including the lives of the Stephani ..., vol. 1, ed. E. Greswell (Oxford: S. Collingwood for D.A. Talboys, 1833), 352–3, digitized in Google Books: http://books.google.ca. Theodore Beza (Théodore de Bèze, 1519–1605) answered Lizet in the satirical Epistola Magistri Passavanti (Geneva, 1553), alluding to Estienne’s narrow escape: see Armstrong’s translation of this allusion in Robert Estienne, Royal Printer, 153–4. See, among other titles: Desiderii Erasmi Declarationes ad Censuras Lutetiæ vulgatas sub nomine Facultatis Theologiæ Parisiensis (Antwerp: Martinus Cæsares, 1532 [1531]); Jean Calvin, Advertissement sur la censure qu’ont faicte les bestes de la Sorbonne; Articles de la sacrée faculté de théologie de Paris concernant notre foi et religion chrétienne et forme de prêcher – avec le remède contre la poison (Geneva, 1544, first in Latin, then in French). Modern editions are cited below: Erasmus’s Declarationes in LB 9: cols. 814–954, and Calvin’s Advertissement in Francis M. Higman, Lire et découvrir: La circulation des idées au temps de la Réforme (Geneva: Droz, 1998), 143–54. For more information about these works, see Farge, Orthodoxy and Reform; Farge, ed., Le parti con-

Commenting on Hatred of Commentaries  159

  8   9

10

11

12

servateur au XVIe siècle: Université et Parlement de Paris à l’époque de la Renaissance et de la Réforme (Paris: Collège de France; diffusion, Les Belles Lettres, 1992); Francis M. Higman, Censorship and the Sorbonne: A Bibliographical Study of Books in French Censured by the Faculty of Theology of the University of Paris, 1520–1551 (Geneva: Droz, 1979). ‘Theologis nulla est auctoritas adversus evidentem veritatem: homines sunt & ipsi’: LB 9, col. 817. The phrase Traduictes de Latin en Francois (translated from Latin into French) follows this title ([Geneva]: L’Olivier de Robert Estienne, 13 July 1552). Hereafter Estienne’s response will be cited as his Replies, embedding in it his reprint of the theologians’ critical commentary on his biblical scholarship, their Censures. The author has consulted the copy of Estienne’s 1552 response in French in University of Virginia, Collection Douglas H. Gordon, Gordon 1552 E78, and the microfilm of the original in the British Library, French Books before 1601 (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 2004). Quotations have been supplied by the editor from the original in the Herzog August Bibliothek, Alvensleben EK 220. ‘Regarde bien Lecteur, & tu voiras manifestement les Theologiens de Paris ne tendre a autre fin qu’a destourner les brebis de Iesus Christ de lui qui en est le Pasteur … Tu voiras aussi de quelle doctrine estans armez, ils liurent iournellement les fideles Chrestiens au feu’ (sig. a1v). The ‘reading pact’ has been defined by Gérard Genette, Seuils (Paris: Seuil, 1987), 20–1, as the establishment between the narrator and the model-reader of expectations and recognitions: constructed by epitexts and peritexts (the elements accompanying the text itself) and asserted in the incipit of the text, the reading pact indicates the genre of the text to come and the appropriate reading attitudes (e.g., acceptance of marvelous events in fairy tales). Philippe Hamon, L’ironie littéraire: Essai sur les formes de l’écriture oblique (Paris: Hachette, 1996), 71, defines the implications of this reading stage: ‘L’identification du “genre” d’une œuvre et le détour par ce genre, donc par les signaux qui signalent ce genre, constitue … une étape indispensable à la compréhension de cette même œuvre. Le genre est … le “cadre” nécessaire permettant d’assurer un pacte de communication.’ (Identifying the ‘genre’ of a text and mediating its access with the notion of genre constitute a necessary stage for understanding this very text. The genre is the necessary ‘frame’ that allows the establishment of a pact for communicating.) ‘Jusques a ci je n’ay point ignore combien odieux a este a beaucoup

160  Hélène Cazes

13

14

15 16

de bons personnages mon departement du pais de France: mesmes avant que partir, il m’est bien souvent venu en pensee que mon faict seroit par tout de plusieurs condamne: non seulement pour avoir delaisse mon pais, & m’estre retire autrepart, mais aussi pour m’estre retire ailleurs au dommage du bien public, & pour n’avoir recogneu la grande liberalite dont le Roy avoit use envers moy … A la fin est advenu ce que je craindoye on a seme divers propos de moy: a grand peine seu trouvoit il de dix l’ung qui ne feist ung jugement de moy bien odieux. Ce pendant toutesfois je n’ay sonne mot: pource que j’aimoye mieulx estre chargé de faulse infamie pour ung temps, que d’esmouvoir troubles en defendant par trop soigneuse affection mon innocence. Et encores a present je n’eusse point este induict a escrire, si tant seulement j’eusse eu a faire avec les meschans, lesquels m’ayans furieusement persecute en presence, me deschirent maintenant en mon absence par calomnies insupportables: mais il me fault avoir esgard aux bons & fideles personnages, ausquels je pardonne aiseement d’avoir si sinistrement jugé de moy, pourveu que maintenant ils recoyvent ma juste satisfaction paisiblement & sans estrif’ (sig. a2r–v, fol. 2r–v). The folio numbers are unreliable (fols. 82–8 are misnumbered, so that fols. 89–154 are numbered 90–155), but they are recorded here to assist readers of the digital or microfilm reproductions. ‘The Catalogue of Certain Errors Collected up to the Present from among Many Others by the Holy Order of the Faculty of Paris, and Each Annotated with its Censure, Which Have Been Extracted from the Bibles Printed at Different Times by Robert Estienne, Partly from Marginalia, Partly from Summaries and Indices, and Partly from Some Annotations to the Bibles Printed in the Year 1545. And This by the Will and Commandment of the Very Christian King’ (sig. d3r, fol. 27r). ‘The Catalogue of Notable Faults and Errors Contained in the Summaries and Annotations or Commentaries, in the Margins and Texts of the New Testament Printed at Different Times by Robert Estienne’ (sig. i8v, fol. 72v). ‘Some Annotations of Tables of the Bibles Printed by Robert Estienne in 1528, 1532, 1540, 1546’ (sig. s1v, fol. 138v). The same argument was used by Erasmus against the same Faculty of Theology: ahead of his own preface, Erasmus quoted the preface of the dean of the Faculty, and he commented on it in the foreword to the Declarationes (see note 8), complaining that the censors quoted only fragments of his work.

Commenting on Hatred of Commentaries  161 17 As Céard has pointed out in chap. 1 of the present volume, Juan Luis Vives in De ratione dicendi (1533) clearly distinguishes between commentary proper and such varieties of annotation as gloss and ‘scholium.’ 18 ‘… je recite fidelement les parolles de Christ: attendu que mon interpretation ne contient autre chose que ce que l’Escripture repete tand de fois’ (sig. l1v, fol. 81v). 19 ‘Matth. 18, c. 17.    Artic. 1 Que fil ne les escoute, di le a l’Eglise. Annotation, L’Eglise, c’est a dire a l’assemblee publique. Censure, Ceste proposition est amoindrie, et fallacieuse, et favorise a l’erreur des Vauldois & des Wiclesistes: et aussi elle derogue a la puissance des prelates de l’Eglise. Pource qu’une petite note qui est mise a la marge, n’est point une proposition assez pleine, cela leur fait mal. Et toutesfois la principale grace d’une annotation, c’est briefuete. Aussi la je ne fay point profession d’escrire commentaires, qui eussent porte plus long propos, & ample deduction …’ (sigs. i8v–k[lz]1r, fols. 72v–73r). 20 ‘Comme si j’avoye la prins autre charge que d’escrire des annotations briefves, et sur la lettre, comme on dit. Je confesse bien qu’ils pourroyent a bon droict desirer quelque chose d’ung Theologien qui auroit faict profession de vouloir bailler des commentaires pleins & entiers. Car de moy, je n’ay faict sinon l’office d’ung Grammairien, ni estudiant a exposer les facons de parler qui estoyent obscures. Ce m’est chose fascheuse de me complaindre d’avantage de ces rongeries qui son si maigres’ (sigs. l8v–m1r, fols. 89v–90r). 21 ‘Quant a l’existence reale (comme ils disent) du sang de Christ, j’ay respondu autrepart, qu’on ne me doibt point blasmer, si en ces petites notes que je fay a la marge, je passé sans mot dire, ce qui est propre a ung commentaire: et que c’est a ma louange, si elles ne contiennent autre chose, que ce qui est trouve au texte’ (n1r, fol. 98r). 22 See note 7. 23 ‘Es Actes 28. g. 27     Art. 16. Car le cueur de ce peuple est engraisse, et ont ouy dur des oreilles, etc. Annotation, Il fault tourner ceci par le futur, d’autant que cest une Prophetie. Comme fil disoit, Il sera couvert de graisse, leur entendement sera esteinct, ils orront a bien grand regret mes Propheties et mes Loix. Censure, Ceste annotation est temeraire et schismatique, entant qu’elle semble arguer le texte de la saincte Escripture, comme il est couché, affermante qu’il doibt estre autrement translate. Et la

162  Hélène Cazes

24

25

26

27

raison qui est amenee pour cela, a scavoir que d’autant que c’est une Prophetie, est nulle: parce que selon les saincts Docteurs, les Prophetes parlent des choses advenir par le temps preterit, pour monstrer une certitude indubitable de la Prophetie. Que la translation Grecque demeure, comme elle est alleguee de S. Paul. Seulement j’adverti en quel sens doibuent estre resolues ces parolles qui sont mises au temps preterit. Je n’advance rien du mien: mais j’expose le passage comme il se list au Prophete. Mais il fauldroit destiner ces gens ci qui sont si promps ouvriers a faire schismes, a fendre du bois ou des pierres’ (sig. l1r–v, fol. 81r–v). ‘Luc. 6 c. 37    Artic. 4 Ne jugez point, et vous ne serez point jugez. Annotation, La diction Grecque signifie accusers a ce que le sens soit tel, N’accusez personne, si vous ne voulez estre accusez. Et si vous tirez quelcun en justice, ne le faictes point condemner, sinon que vous vouliez estre aussi condamnez. Censure, Ceste proposition est faulse et erronee, quant aux parties ou elle exhorte que n’accusions, et ne facions condemner personne. Et retire les gens, de faire punir malfaicteurs. Mais aussi l’exposition n’est point Theologienne, ains seulement grammairienne: et n’y a rien du mien: qu’ils ne depravent point calomnieusement ce qui est droictement et veritablement dict… (sig. k[lz]2v–3r, fols. 74v–75r). ‘Or chascun scavoit de quelle rage et cruaulte tout ce College avoit conspire ma ruyne ... Car on scait assez quelle cruaulté et bourrellerie Lyset et ses complices ont exercé’ (b8r–v, fol. 16r–v). ‘Comment? Qu’il soit dict qu’ung homme mechanique ait vaincu le College des Theologiens?’ (sig. c2r, fol. 18r). In Early Modern English also, a ‘mechanical’ man was a craftsman (skilled in one of the mechanical as opposed to the liberal arts), as is clear from William Shakespeare’s reference in A Midsummer Night’s Dream to the ‘rude mechanicals’ (III.ii.9), ‘Hard-handed men, that work in Athens here / which never labour’d in their minds till now’ (V.i.72–3). In the play within this play, a carpenter (Quince), a joiner (Snug), a weaver (Bottom), a bellows-mender (Flute), a tinker (Snout), and a tailor (Starveling) perform at the ducal court their unintentionally comic version of the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe. [Calvin], Advertissement sur la censure (see note 7), 147: ‘Je vous prie, que chacun juge maintenant en soy, comment ces bestes enragées abusent de la patience du povre monde, de faire un arrest, comme un oracle venant du ciel, sur tous livres traictant de la religion

Commenting on Hatred of Commentaries  163 Chrestienne, au rapport d’un homme mechanique, et d’un homme qu’eux mesmes jugent d’aussi bonne conscience qu’un chien.’ 28 ‘Comment? qu’il soit dict qu’ung homme mechanique ait vaincu le College des Theologiens?’ (sig. c2r, fol. 18r). 29 See: les sansues, sig. a1v, fol. 1v; poissons, sig. c4v, fol. 21v; Ces corbeaux, sig. n1r, fol. 98r; les porceaux, sig. m7r, fol. 96r; ung pourceau, sig. p4v, fol. 117v; ces asnes, sig. k[lz]5r, fol. 77r; si rudes asnes, sig. o4r, fol. 109r; tels asnes, sig. q2r, fol. 123r; ces loups, sig. a4r, fol. 4r; loups, sig. b6r, fol. 14r; les loups, sig. c7r, fol. 23r . 30 [Calvin], Advertissement sur la censure, 153: ‘Il reste de conclure ce que j’ay dict du commencement: c’est comment il faudra nommer telles bestes. On voit de gros yvrongnes, qui renversent comme pourceaux avec le groing toute la saincte doctrine de nostre Seigneur. On voit comme des chiens mastins, qui abbayent apres les serviteurs de Dieu. On voit des bestes aussi sottes que veaux, et aussi lourdes que beufz. On voit comme toreaux sauvages, qui heurtent furieusement des cornes, tant contre la parole de Dieu que les ministres d’icelle. On voit des lyons accoustumez à devorer ce qu’ilz rencontrent. On voit des loups qui ne demandent qu’à envahir les tropeux, estrangler et meurtrir les povres brebis. On voit des asnes qui ont seulement les oreilles cachées. Ainsi on peut savoir quelz ils sont.’

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part FOUR DEVELOPMENTS IN HUMANIST PHILOLOGY

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nine

Rabelais’s Lost Stratagemata (ca. 1539): A Commentary on Frontinus? claude la charité

Stratagemata, a neo-Latin text by François Rabelais (died 1553) probably published around 1539, is now lost, but this text in praise of Guillaume Du Bellay (1491–1543), seigneur de Langey, is part of the fantasy library of all Rabelais specialists, who, without exception, are firmly convinced that some day they will find a copy. They are not alone: the great Canadian author Robertson Davies based the plot of his novel The Rebel Angels (Toronto: Macmillan, 1981) on a missing manuscript by Rabelais that was supposedly in the collection of the late Francis Cornish, a great bibliophile. But in the minds of Rabelaisants, this belief is so implanted that the question is not whether they will some day discover the Stratage­ mata, but when. Their pleasure in imagining its contents will no doubt be equalled by their disappointment if the real text is ever found, for like the Sciomachie, an encomiastic text by Rabelais celebrating the birth in 1549 of Henri d’Orléans, second son of Henri II, Stratagemata was probably written for a specific occasion.1 Nevertheless, Stratagemata, if found, may prove interesting as an example of commentary as it was broadly defined in the first half of the sixteenth century. For the hypothesis is worth exploring that although it is probably unlike the pedagogical or philological notes we today call ‘commentary,’ it may be a hybrid of two kinds of commentary recognized by Renaissance humanists: (1) ‘commentaries,’ that is, a journal of contemporary events, like Julius Caesar’s description of his own actions in Gaul and dur-

Translated from French by Karen Mak and Nancy Senior, University of Saskatch­ ewan.

168  Claude La Charité

ing the civil wars (in Stratagemata the equivalent of that classical model is a chronological collection of diplomatic documents primarily written by Du Bellay), and (2) a commentary on a classical text, namely, on the Stratagems of Sextus Julius Frontinus (ca. 40–103 CE). In other words, Rabelais’s Stratagemata, whose Latin title was formed from the Greek Stratagematicon, may combine the Renaissance categories of commentary – commentarius simplex and commentarius in aliud – that Jean Céard has aptly described using the De ratione dicendi of Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540).2 One twentieth-century reader who saw a copy records that Rabelais’s Stratagemata contains diplomatic documents of Guillaume Du Bellay, but this witness says nothing of Frontinus. Du Bellay (also called by his title seigneur or Chevalier de Langey or simply Langey [Latin Langeius]) was a French diplomat and military officer under Francis I. He was governor of Turin (1537–1539) and of the province of Piedmont (1539–1542), and was active in uniting German Protestant princes against Charles V. He left in manuscript his Ogdoades, which his brother Martin Du Bellay (1495–1559), also a diplomat and military officer, completed and published in books 5–8 of his own Mémoires (1569). This surviving work may give some hint of the documentary records that Rabelais reportedly included in Stratagemata.3 The hypothesis to be argued here is that Rabelais’s lost work may be a hybrid between such commentarius simplex, that is, documents of Guillaume Du Bellay, and commentarius in aliud (on another), the other text being Frontinus’s Stratagems. The argument that follows, first, will review briefly what is known about Rabelais’s Stratagemata, whether in its original Latin version or in its French translation. Second, it will recall ancient thought on military stratagems and the special place of Frontinus’s treatise among them. Third, it will propose a reconstruction of Rabelais’s Stratagemata, based on a cross reading of Frontinus’s Stratagems and texts, particularly the Mémoires of the Du Bellay brothers, that concern events on which Rabelais’s Stratagemata comments.4 rabelais’s

s t r ata g e m ata ,

or the military ruses of guillaume du bellay

The existence of the original neo-Latin text of the Stratagemata is known thanks to the testimony of Charles Perrat, who explains the circumstances in which he had once held in his hands a copy of the only edition of this text:

Rabelais’s Lost Stratagemata  169 A few years before the war – it could have been in 1932 or 1933 – a bookseller on the quai Malaquais had for sale at his stand a little parchment-bound octavo book. Its modest appearance and the poor condition of the interior would deter a too-demanding bibliophile. The book was water damaged, torn in places, and even missing one or several pages. If my memory is correct, it too came from the presses of Sebastianus Gryphius, who printed it around 1539. The title page, where the name of the author did not appear, read only: Stratagemata … Domini de Langeio, militis, in principio tertii belli Caesarei. The preface which followed this title page was signed with the monogram F. R. M., obviously corresponding to F[ranciscus] R[abelesus] M]edicus]. But you had to think of it! ... The book remained on display for a while, then disappeared.5

The mediocrity of the binding, the poor preservation, and the rarity of the work seemed to indicate an occasional publication, similar to the Sciomachie as previously mentioned. Even though he did not buy it, Perrat nevertheless looked through the Paris bookseller’s copy sufficiently to describe the contents a posteriori from memory: It was a collection of diplomatic documents, presented in chronological order, connected by a continuous narrative with and designed to justify Langey’s politics in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. Rabelais, a confidant of the Du Bellays, was in a better position than anyone else to defend once again their point of view.6

If this text were known solely through Perrat’s account, there might be reason to question its very existence or, at least, its attribution to Rabelais. However, there is a sixteenth-century mention of a French translation of Rabelais’s Stratagemata. Antoine Du Verdier’s Bibliothèque (1584) provides valuable indications that corroborate and complete the previous information. The entry on ‘Claude Massuau’ reads: CLAUDE MASSUAU translated from the Latin of Master François Rabelais Stratagemes, that is to say feats, and military ruses of the valiant and greatly celebrated Chevalier de Langey, at the beginning of the third Caesarean war, printed in Lyons, octavo, by Sebast. Gryphius 1542.7

170  Claude La Charité

Unfortunately to this day, just as for the original Latin edition, there is no copy of this French translation to be found. These excerpts confirm the existence of a Latin version before 1542, attributed to Rabelais. They also specify the meaning that one should give to the term ‘stratagems’ (polysemous in Latin as it is in French of the Renaissance), thanks to the periphrasis ‘feats, and military ruses,’ an interpretation that will be considered below. Mention of ‘the beginning of the third Caesarean war’ makes it possible to determine the approximate time. This ‘third Caesarean war’ (also known as the ‘seventh Italian war,’ but the former name will be adopted throughout this chapter) was the third of four Franco-Spanish wars between Francis I and Charles V for the ‘universal monarchy’ over Europe. One of the most important sources about this third war is Guillaume Du Bellay’s Ogdoades published in his brother’s Mémoires (books 5–8). The timing of the third war between Francis I and Emperor Charles V, between 1535 and 1538, supports the date of publication of 1539 of Rabelais’s Stratagemata proposed by Perrat, even though it could have been 1539 before Easter, that is to say 1540 in our current calendar. This date is important, since Rabelais became Guillaume Du Bellay’s physician around 1540. Finally, the authenticity of the French translation and of the neo-Latin source is reinforced by the fact that, as Bernard de La Monnoye had already remarked in the eighteenth century,8 in chapter 27 of the Quart livre (1548) Rabelais and Massuau were portrayed as ‘friends, domestics and servants’9 of Guillaume Du Bellay and witnesses of his heroic death, which was heralded by a number of wonders and forewarnings recounted in detail. frontinus and ancien t thought on stratagems The first questions that may come to mind, in terms of the hypothesis that the Stratagemata is a commentary on Frontinus, are certainly why the Stratagemata would necessarily be based on a text of antiquity and, above all, why Frontinus and not another author of antiquity who dealt with the art of war, such as Vegetius, who compiled a good number of predecessors in De re militari. A response to the first question might be that by the language, Latin, and by the editor, Sebastianus Gryphius, the Stratagemata is clearly connected to the scholarly work of Rabelais, all of which was

Rabelais’s Lost Stratagemata  171

published by this editor in this language. Moreover, Rabelais’s extant scholarship is based on texts of antiquity or on works of humanists who sought to restore antiquity. Consider, for example, the editions, all published in 1532, of Hippocrates and Galen, of the Medical Letters (Epistolae medicinales) of Giovanni Manardo (1462–1536), or of the Will of Cuspidius (Lucii Cuspidii testamentum), the last an ancient apocryphal text that Rabelais nonetheless believed to be authentic. Or think of the edition, also published by Gryphius in 1534, of Topography of Ancient Rome (Topographia anti­ quae Romae) by Giovanni Bartolomeo Marliano (1488–1566). In order to argue why the Stratagemata might be a commentary on Frontinus, one must first of all describe the wealth and diversity of ancient sources on the art of war.10 In the fourth century BCE, the Greek Aeneas of Stymphalus, known as Aeneas Tacticus, wrote the treatise Commentarius Poliorceticus (on how to carry out and how to resist a siege). At the beginning of the first century CE, the Greek Asclepiodotus wrote a purely theoretical Tactics treatise. In the middle of the first century CE, the Greek Onosander published a Strategikos logos or ‘The General.’ Under the emperor Hadrian, the Greek historian Arrian wrote a treatise entitled Expedition Against the Alans. In 163, the Greek Polyaenus published Strategems of War. At the beginning of the fifth century CE, Vegetius published his De re militari, a summary of the art of war compiling earlier treatises, some of which are now lost. In the sixth century CE, the emperor Maurice wrote Strategikon, a strategy manual. Around 550, under Justinian, an anonymous Treatise on Strategy appeared. To the emperor Leo VI, who reigned from 886 to 911, is attributed Tactica. Finally, in the tenth century, the emperor Nicephorus II Phocas wrote De Velitatione. Frontinus’s Stratagems, written under the reign of Domitian probably between 84 and 96 CE, is clearly distinguished from the other ancient reflections on military strategy in that it is one of only two exclusively devoted to stratagems, the other being Polyaenus’s Stratagems of War, a Greek treatise that would no doubt have appealed to Rabelais as a Hellenist, but that remained unknown until Jean de Tournes published Isaac Casaubon’s edition in 1589.11 In Greek as in Latin, the noun stratagema can take on different meanings, whether it be the widely accepted and general ‘military manoeuvre’ or the more restricted ‘military ruse.’ (It derives from the verb stratego, which means ‘command an army,’ ‘be a general,’ ‘lead as a general,’ ‘employ a ruse,’ ‘use a stratagem,’ ‘trick with

172  Claude La Charité

a military ruse.’)12 However, it is evident that Rabelais uses the restricted sense of the term in the Stratagemata, as Massuau’s pe­ riphrasis in the French translation clearly indicates:13 ‘Stratagems, that is to say feats, and military ruses.’ Military ruses are certainly the subject of Frontinus’s treatise. In the preface, the author makes the distinction between strategy (strathghmatikav) and stratagems (strathghvmata): If there prove to be any persons who take an interest in these books, let them remember to discriminate between ‘strategy’ and ‘stratagems,’ which are by nature extremely similar. For everything achieved by a commander, be it characterized by foresight, advantage, enterprise, or resolution, will belong under the head of ‘strategy,’ while those things that fall under some special type of these will be ‘stratagems.’ The essential characteristic of the latter, resting, as it does, on skill and cleverness, is effective quite as much when the enemy is to be evaded as when he is to be crushed.14

While strategy calls upon the general’s permanent qualities, stratagem is the specific manifestation, defined in time and space, of a certain military ingenium. The French term stratageme or the variant stratagemate are used in this restricted sense of military ruse in Rabelais’s vernacular work. For instance, in chapter 24 of the 1532 Pantagruel, Epistemon proposes to confront the Dipsodes, using the ancient ruses: ‘Je (dist Epistemon) sçay tous les stratagemates et prouesses des vaillans capitaines et champions du temps passé, et toutes les ruses et finesses de discipline militaire.’15 The use of the term stratagemates with prouesses (feats or deeds), ruses, and finesses (subtleties) sufficiently indicates the meaning that Rabelais attributes to it. Furthermore, in chapter 36 of the 1534 Gargantua, Gymnast, out scouting with Picrochole’s troops, takes down an entire battalion thanks to a military ruse: ‘As soon as they got back, Gymnast reported on the enemy’s condition and the stratagem he had employed against a whole troop of them, single-handed, swearing that they were nothing more than thieves and robbers, completely ignorant of military discipline.’16 Once again, the context clearly gives a Frontinian sense to the term. Finally, in the Library of Saint-Victor catalogue, in chapter 7 of Pantagruel, there are two titles, one following the other, the ‘Stratagemata Francarchieri de Baignolet’ and ‘Franctopinus de re militari cum figuris Tevoti,’17 where Frontinus and Vegetius

Rabelais’s Lost Stratagemata  173

are reduced respectively to the rank of boastful soldier and common militiaman. Unlike Polyaenus, who would not be known until the very end of the sixteenth century, Frontinus was already widely distributed in printed editions and translations. The editio princeps was published in Rome in 1487 by Eucharius Silber’s press and later reprinted dozens of times.18 From the 1490s, Filippo Beroaldo the Elder (1453–1505) published an immensely popular compendium of ancient military thought including Vegetius, Frontinus, Aelian, and Modestus, which became extremely successful. As Rabelais was working on the Stratagemata, Frontinus’s Stratagems were known in at least two complete and two partial French translations.19 Around 1423, Jean de Rouvroy, dean of the Faculty of Theology of Paris, produced the first complete translation of the Stratagems, to which he added some of his own examples. An anonymous translator, again from the fifteenth century, translated a selection of Frontinus’s exempla, which he grouped into forty ‘soubtilités,’ abridging the treatise’s forty-eight chapters and eliminating its division into four books. Around the same time, another anonymous translation inserted contemporary exempla into excerpts of the treatise. Finally, Nicolas Volkir (died 1541) produced a new, complete translation (Paris: Wechel, 1536), without adding anything to the work, under the title Des stratagemes, especes et subtilitez de guerre.20 It is likely that Rabelais knew the Latin edition of Stratagems established by Guillaume Budé (1468– 1540) and published by Wechel in 1532. Even though the treatise’s title was Stratagematicon in many manuscripts and, among other imprints, the Beroaldo edition, Budé’s title was De Stratagematis libri,21 so that by the title alone, Rabelais’s Stratagemata recalled, to the reader of the time, Frontinus’s treatise of the same name. Moreover, Frontinus’s influence on sixteenth-century treatises on the art of war is considerable. It is often the only source on stratagems. This is the case with The Art of War published in 1521 by Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), in which, as Pierre Laederich remarks, ‘almost all the examples from antiquity that are given ... come directly from Frontinus ... in the same order and following the same progression as Frontinus ... whom he never cites by name.’22 Neal Wood even sees Frontinus’s Stratagems as the principal source of Machiavelli’s method in all his work.23 This influence is also clearly perceptible in Instructions sur le faict de guerre,24 published in 1548 and attributed to Raymond de Bacca-

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rie de Pavie, seigneur de Fourqueveaux. Though the Instructions has more to do with general military strategy than with stratagems, nevertheless it shows clear signs of Frontinus’s influence, including its dispositio into three books – before, during and after the battle – like the structure of Stratagems. Moreover, in the 1553 and 1592 editions,25 Frontinus is cited in the work’s title as one of the main sources, after Polybius: Instructions sur le faict de guerre extraictes des livres de Polybe, Frontin, Vegece, Cornazan, Machiavelle et plusieurs autres. While it is clear that the Instructions on the Art of War is not Rabelais’s lost Stratagemata as some have claimed,26 it does seem possible that the latter could have suggested a commercial opportunity that at least one sixteenth-century edition tries to exploit by a false attribution. Although the Instructions is most probably by Raymond de Baccarie de Pavie, its 1592 republication under a new title in Lyons by Benoist Rigaud clearly attributes it to Guillaume Du Bellay: Discipline militaire de messire Guillaume Du Bellay, seigneur de Langey. Frontinus had written not only the Stratagems but also an Art of War, which has not survived. If the Instructions had been Guillaume Du Bellay’s work, he might have seemed a modern Frontinus, the author or the inspiration of works both on stratagems (Rabelais’s Stratagemata) and on warfare in general (Discipline militaire). ancient stratagems, new arms, and military humanism On the premise that Rabelais’s Stratagemata, by its language, its title, and its humanist inspiration, no doubt had a close link with Frontinus’s treatise of the same name, a reconstruction of the probable contents of Rabelais’s work can now be attempted. The fortune of Frontinus’s treatise during the Renaissance is explained in part by its composition, which is not unlike a compendium of ancient military exempla. Arranged in logical order, the chapters, headed by titles that are so many general principles of stratagem, list exempla designed to illustrate the maxims mentioned in the titles: ‘On Concealing One’s Plans,’ ‘On Finding Out the Enemy’s Plan,’ ‘On Determining the Character of War,’ etc. The exempla themselves do not require explanatory or pedagogic commentary, as their meanings are transparent and their language easily accessible. Rather, as Frontinus himself does in

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the preface, they invite the reader to add to the list of illustrations: ‘For since this work, like my preceding ones, has been undertaken for the benefit of others, rather than for the sake of my own renown, I  shall feel that I  am being aided, rather than criticized, by those who will make additions to it’ (STR, 5). Rabelais’s Strat­ agemata most likely sought to profit from the open structure of Frontinus’s Stratagems, for one could expand without limit the list of exempla illustrating each stratagem, without compromising the work’s rigorous order. Charles Bailly, who translated Frontinus’s treatise in the nineteenth century, wrote in the introduction: ‘antiquity did not leave any monument more logical overall than the Stratagems ... To collect from history a prodigious number of deeds; to join them according to their similarities, and to separate them by their differences ...; in a word, to form a plan amidst this labyrinth, and remain faithful to this plan until all the material has been used: this proves a certain power of analysis, accuracy, and depth of ideas.’27 Indeed, the first French translators of Frontinus could not resist accepting the author’s invitation, augmenting the treatise with modern exempla. Thus for example, Jean de Rouvroy, after the fifth exemplum in book III, chapter 3, relating how Philip of Macedon laid siege to Samos thanks to a cart of rocks, adds the case of the seizure of Compiègne by his contemporary Raoul de Bosquieux: Messire Raoul, sire de Boqueaux [sic], by a similar subtlety took the city of Compiegne, for he and his companions were hidden, some in a vineyard and some in Saint-Ladre, very close to the city. Eight of his men disguised as carters and peasants carrying concealed arms, drove a cart of wood to the city. When they were on the drawbridge, the carter deliberately went on to pin one of the wheels of his cart to one of the chains of the bridge, until the cart could go no further, and the seven other men went immediately to seize the gatekeepers and overcame them. At the same time, Boqueaux and his companions leapt from their hiding place and charged into the city, as the gate was held open, and took it along with many good prisoners.28

An anonymous translator of the fifteenth century, in book I, chapter 5, could not resist establishing a parallel between Sulla, who tricked the enemy to escape unharmed, and the siege of Calais

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in 1346: ‘And indeed the same thing happened in Calais.’29 One even finds, in the seventeenth century, a vast compilation of the best military ruses of all time entitled Les stratagemes et les ruses de guerre tirez des historiens grecs, latins, et françois, tant anciens que modernes30 (1694) by a certain La Fé, whose starting point was clearly once again Frontinus’s treatise. That being said, despite the beauty of the treatise’s logical order, it is improbable that Rabelais’s Stratagemata followed the Frontinian model in dispositio, since according to Perrat’s account the stratagems in Rabelais’s work were ordered chronologically, reproducing documents that followed Guillaume Du Bellay’s diplomatic action in wartime. Presumably the references to and commentary on Frontinus’s Stratagems would have appeared in the narrative that linked the archival documents. The aim of referring to Frontinus’s Stratagems would have been twofold: first, to establish a parallel between Guillaume Du Bellay’s stratagems and those of the best strategists of antiquity in a rivalry between the moderns and the ancients; second, to demonstrate the timeless value of the principles that Frontinus made known, with the augmentation of the list of ancient exempla with modern ones, on the model of fifteenth-century translators. One might surmise that Du Bellay’s military authority and Frontinus’s authority as a theorist would reinforce and strengthen each other. The reference to Frontinus would serve to comment on Du Bellay’s military and diplomatic actions to reveal their underlying principles, while Du Bellay’s achievements would offer new proof that Frontinus’s stratagematic principles are sound. Although we do not know the contents of Rabelais’s Strata­ gemata, we can still seek to reconstitute its spirit by comparing the Stratagems of Frontinus to books 5–8 of the Mémoires of the brothers Martin and Guillaume Du Bellay. These books correspond chronologically to the third Caesarian war; the first three (5-7) and part of the fourth (8) were written by Guillaume Du Bellay himself. Thus, these Mémoires no doubt bear a strong resemblance in subject and treatment to the documents reproduced in chronological order some thirty years earlier in Rabelais’s Strata­ gemata. What is striking in the writing of the Mémoires is the almost complete absence of exempla, although humanist erudition was particularly fond of them. In Guillaume Du Bellay’s four books, one finds only a single case of ancient examples, used to underline

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the unprecedented nature of the treason of Francesco marquis of Saluzzo, who in 1536, while lieutenant-general of French troops in the province of Piedmont, betrayed Francis I and joined Charles V:31 I admit that Vitellius was abandoned by Caecinna, when he took the party opposite to the one that had honoured and promoted him; but this happened after Vitellius’s affairs were desperate and was done in order to put himself on the side of fortune, which by its assistance granted to one contender the thing that was sought by two. Stilico and Narses committed a similar fault; but it was for a great and just reason of indignation and to avenge an unmerited ingratitude. This man [the marquis de Saluzzo], without any reason of ingratitude, betrayed his natural prince while enjoying good fortune and increasing in wealth, honour and authority.32

Although the ancient examples here do not illustrate a military ruse, the fact that they constitute an isolated case of exemplum is interesting; perhaps it suggests why Rabelais might have juxtaposed documents by Guillaume Du Bellay with Frontinus’s Strat­ agems, which is, certainly, an inexhaustible source for exempla of antiquity. It would obviously have been unsuitable for Guillaume Du Bellay to boast of his own exploits by comparing them to those of the best generals of antiquity. This epideictic task belonged to a third party such as Rabelais, in the narrative that connected the evidence. Thus, Frontinus could be used to magnify the feats of Francis I’s officers in general and those of Guillaume Du Bellay in particular. The Mémoires are full of characteristic stratagems on which one might comment thanks to Frontinus, but which do not concern Guillaume Du Bellay. This chapter will discuss only two of them. Consider first the response of Charles de Tiercelin (1482–1567), duc de La Roche du Maine and in 1536 governor for Francis I of the besieged city of Fossano, to a proposal to exchange provisions for his surrender. The proposal included a reminder by one of the most important military officers of Charles V, Antonio de Leyva (1480–1536), that he had held La Roche du Maine prisoner following the French loss at Pavia in 1525. Although the siege of Fossano ended with the city’s capitulation in June 1536, the Du Bellay Mémoires find La Roche du Maine’s courageous rebuff of Leyva memorable:

178  Claude La Charité ... Antonio de Leyva sent a bugler to ask for a prisoner; and since he knew the sieur de La Roche du Maine because La Roche had been his prisoner after the battle of Pavia, he told the bugler to greet him on his behalf, and to ask La Roche if it bothered him to have gone for so long without drinking wine. The sieur de La Roche replied that it would truly bother him if he were in that state of need, but that he would nevertheless endure it for his honour and to serve his master; and to prove that he was not reduced to this point he gave the bugler two bottles of wine to present to the seigneur de Leyva.33

This act of bravado corresponds to the stratagem that Frontinus made into a maxim: ‘How to Produce the Impression of Abundance of What is Lacking’ (STR, III, 15), following the example of the Romans besieged by the Gauls in the Capitol, suffering from famine, who threw bread at the enemy’s post: ‘They thus produced the impression that they were well supplied with food, and so withstood the siege till Camillus came.’ (STR, 251). Another stratagem worthy of Frontinus concerns Anne de Montmorency (1493–1567) as governor of Languedoc for Francis I during the 1536 siege of Marseille by the troops of Charles V, a siege that would be lifted that autumn when the emperor was forced to retreat to Genoa. Montmorency stubbornly refused to start a battle that might have overcome the starving imperial troops, even when the Dauphin in person insisted on proving his valour in what would have been one of his first feats of arms: ‘Why would he have wasted the blood and the lives of his people, many of whom would have died in battle, and most of them the best people, even though he would have achieved the most triumphant victory in the world?’34 Montmorency’s response deserves to be placed in Frontinus’s book I, chapter 10: ‘How to Check an Unseasonable Demand for Battle’ (STR, 67). That being the case, one can easily imagine that like most treatises on the art of war in the Renaissance, the Stratagemata would have asked implicitly the question of whether ancient military thought was appropriate for the new technical realities of war in the sixteenth century, particularly in view of the emergence of artillery fired by gunpowder. Judging by the Mémoires of the Du Bellay brothers, ancient stratagems were still current throughout the Renaissance despite gunpowder and mercenaries. Machiavelli explains their continued use in the Art of War: ‘the invention of ar-

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tillery is no reason, in my opinion, why we should not imitate the ancients in their military discipline and institutions, as well as in their virtù.’35 In certain cases recorded in the Du Bellay Mémoires, Guillaume Du Bellay’s actions go beyond the cases that Frontinus envisioned, particularly those in which he distinguished himself. Thus the narrative of the Stratagemata may well have anticipated the conclusion of Francesco Ferretti, an Italian author who also wrote a treatise on the art of war, Della Osservanza militare, published in 1576: ‘One must remember that often new wars require a new way to fight, a new art, and new kinds of arms.’36 By far the most striking action of Guillaume Du Bellay in this third war is certainly the offensive he led to counter the devastating effects of Charles V’s propaganda during his mission in Germany and to unite German Protestant princes against the emperor. The emperor sought to blame Francis I for starting the third Caesarean war, claiming to the Protestants that he had been interrupted in his efforts to defend their interests by negotiations with the Holy See while at the same time leading the Catholics to believe that he had been ready to yield the duchy of Milan to the duc d’Orléans, when everything was compromised by the French military intervention in the duchy of Savoie. Guillaume Du Bellay, realizing the emperor’s duplicity, sought to refute him immediately by resorting to a new weapon unknown to the ancients, the printing press: ‘... Langey wrote the responses that he had given them [his German friends], and found a way to have them secretly published throughout Germany, in Latin and in German, and later in French, so that they would be read more widely, and the truth would be known.’37 In commenting on this exploit, Rabelais could have used Frontinus to show that, while it is not a new stratagem to divide and conquer as Frontinus describes in book I, chapter 8, ‘On Distracting the Attention of the Enemy’ (STR, 57) (as Coriolanus did when he set the Romans at odds with each other by destroying the lands of the plebeians and sparing those of the patricians), the weapon, that is the printing press, was entirely new. This ‘confutation de deffiance de guerre imprimée,’38 to borrow Guillaume Du Bellay’s saying, summarizes the opposition dear to humanism between the printing press, a divine invention, and gunpowder, a diabolical invention counterbalancing the benefits of the printing press, expressed in Gargantua’s letter to his son in Pantagruel: ‘wonderfully elegant and accurate printed books [were invented by divine

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inspiration in my times], just as, on the other hand, we have also learned (by diabolic suggestions) how to make cannon and other such fearful weapons.’39 Guillaume Du Bellay’s second great feat recounted in the Mé­ moires is found at the very end of book VIII, written by Martin Du Bellay, who recalls how his late brother, while he was lieutenant general at Piedmont and in charge of Turin, found a solution for the galloping inflation in the price of wheat after the crops were destroyed by the imperial troops. Obviously, this measure, taken after the truce of 1538, anticipated the imminent resumption of hostilities in 1542 (the fourth Caesarean war) between the king and the emperor and belongs to the art of siege warfare. Guillaume Du Bellay’s ingenious idea of bringing in wheat from Burgundy would be worthy of a place in book III, chapter 14, of Frontinus, ‘On Introducing Reinforcements and Supplying Provisions’ (STR, 249), even though Du Bellay’s stratagem is one of anticipation, and a very costly one since he had to go into debt in order to execute this manoeuvre, to the point that his brother had to continue to pay off the debt after him: The seigneur de Langey consider[ed] that it meant the ruin of the country, because the following year, if the enemy embarked on a campaign, breaking the truce, it would be necessary to surrender our fortresses on account of a lack of provisions ... There was plenty of grain in Burgundy, of which a sufficient amount was loaded for transport on the Saone River, and from there downstream to the Rhone, and then shipped by sea, all which he achieved so quickly that soon the grain was in Savona ... Then he distributed in all the country that was subject to the king, at three ecus per sack, what had cost previously ten ecus per sack, and in each village ... so much that all the land was sown. This provision was the salvation of this country, because shortly afterwards war was declared ... and the country would have suffered from famine; and the seigneur de Langey did it at his own expense, so that I, his brother, have paid, since his death, a hundred thousand livres ... but the expenses mattered little to him, for he was serving his Prince.40

In commenting on that feat Rabelais could have stressed the fact that, although such a stratagem is envisioned by Frontinus, for him this military ruse is solely executed in order to win a battle. In the case of Du Bellay, the objective is greater than war alone

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and concerns good governance of Piedmont in the service of the king. Here military humanism is combined with civic humanism, whose importance in the work of Rabelais has been shown by Diane Desrosiers-Bonin.41 This interest in civic humanism also no doubt explains why Rabelais, in his vernacular work as presumably in Strategemata, gives more importance to military ruses than to military strategy, in that he always sees war as a last resort that one must end as quickly and as efficiently as possible, at the least possible cost and, in particular, the least possible loss of human life. conclusion Based on this reconstruction of what Rabelais’s Stratagemata may have been as a commentary on Frontinus, a characterization of what type of commentary the Stratagemata was can now be attempted. It was certainly neither a philological nor a pedagogical commentary. It could have been a kind of hybrid combining the categories that, as Jean Céard has observed, Vives called commen­ tarius simplex and commentarius in aliud.42 Commentarius simplex, that is, a journal describing one’s actions (such as Caesar’s commentaries), probably corresponds to the documents reproduced in chronological order in the Stratagemata, many of which were written by Guillaume Du Bellay and can be assumed to resemble his Mémoires. Commentarius in aliud, as the term indicates, treats a text by someone else, in this case Frontinus’s Stratagems, which shed a particular light on the actions of Guillaume Du Bellay. The originality of Rabelais’s Stratagemata may have been combining these two kinds of commentaries that are usually separate, the memoir and the commentary on a text. Céard has quoted a passage by Étienne Pasquier (1529–1615) explaining the natural evolution of commentarius simplex, the type of commentary of the Mémoires, towards commentarius in aliud, the commentary on a text by another author. According to Pasquier, Blaise de Monluc (1499–1577) ‘called his work commentaries, which in our language Commynes and after him Martin Du Bellay chose to call memoirs: for to say it properly in our French vernacular, after having recounted each memorable feat that he had done, he followed it with a fine commentary,’ or, as Pasquier explains further, ‘the fine military instructions that our Monluc gives after his narrative.’43 In the case of Rabelais’s Stratagemata, we might thus reformulate:

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‘after Guillaume Du Bellay had recounted each memorable feat that he had done, Rabelais followed it with a fine commentary drawing on Frontinus’s Stratagems.’ NOTES   1 On Rabelais’s Sciomachie, see Richard Cooper, Rabelais et l’Italie (Geneva: Droz, 1991) and Claude La Charité, ‘La Sciomachie (1549) de Rabelais: La “juste quantité d’une epistre” ou l’alibi épistolaire de la propaganda épidictique,’ Tangence 72 (2003): 111–26.   2 See Jean Céard, ‘Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance,’ chap. 1 in this volume; Céard, ‘Les transformations du genre du commentaire,’ in L’Automne de la Renaissance, 1580–1630, ed. Jean Lafond and André Stegman (Paris: Vrin, 1981), 101–15; and Robert Aulotte et al., ‘Les formes du commentaire,’ in Précis de litté­ rature française du XVIe siècle, edited under the direction of Aulotte (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1991), 177–92.   3 Martin and Guillaume Du Bellay, Les Livres des mémoires de ... Mar­ tin Du Bellay ... contenant ... quelques fragments des Ogdoades de ... Guillaume Du Bellay. Edited by René Du Bellay. In Collection complète des mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France, 17–19. Paris: Foucault, 1821– 1827. Hereafter cited as MEM.   4 Hereafter, unless otherwise specified, I shall use Stratagemata to refer to Rabelais’s lost work and Stratagems for Frontinus’s treatise.   5 ‘Quelques années avant la guerre – ce pouvait être en 1932 ou en 1933 – un bouquiniste du quai Malaquais mettait en vente dans sa boîte un petit livre in-8o, relié en parchemin, dont l’aspect modeste et le mauvais état intérieur devaient rebuter le bibliophile trop exigeant. L’ouvrage était en effet mouillé, déchiré par endroits, incomplet même d’un ou de plusieurs feuillets. Si nos souvenirs sont exacts, il sortait lui aussi des presses de Sébastien Gryphe, qui l’avait imprimé vers 1539. Sur le titre, qui ne portait pas le nom d’auteur, on lisait seulement: Stratagemata … Domini de Langeio, militis, in principio tertii belli Caesarei. La préface qui faisait suite à ce titre était signée du monogramme F.R.M., correspondant évidemment à F[ranciscus] R[abelesus] M[edicus]. Mais il fallait y songer! … Le volume resta exposé durant quelque temps; puis disparut’: Charles Perrat, ‘Le Polydore Virgile de Rabelais,’ Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 11 (1949): 203–4. For the Stratagemata and its translation into French by Claude Massuau, see also the summary of Perrat’s

Rabelais’s Lost Stratagemata  183 testimony and Antoine Du Verdier’s notice in Stephen Rawles and Michael A. Screech et al., eds., A New Rabelais Bibliography (Geneva: Droz, 1987), 510–11.   6 ‘C’était un recueil de documents diplomatiques, présentés dans l’ordre chronologique, reliés entre eux par une narration suivie et destinés à justifier la politique de Langey en Italie, en Allemagne et en Suisse. Rabelais, confident des Du Bellay, était mieux placé que tout autre pour être, une fois de plus, le serviteur de leur pensée’: Perrat, ‘Le Polydore Virgile de Rabelais,’ 204.   7 ‘CLAUDE MASSUAU a traduit du latin de maistre François Rabelais Stratagemes, c’est a dire proësses, et ruses de guerre du preux et trescelebre chevalier Langey, on commencement de la tierce guerre Cesariane [impr. à Lyon 8. par Sebast. Gryphius 1542’: Antoine Du Verdier, La Bibliotheque d’Antoine Du Verdier seigneur de Vauprivas (Lyons: Barthelemy Honorat, 1585), 183, q2r.   8 François Grudé, sieur de La Croix Du Maine, and Antoine Du Verdier, Les Bibliothèques Françoises, ed. M. Rigoley de Juvigny (Paris: Saillant et Nyon and M. Lambert, 1772–1773), 3:351.   9 François Rabelais, Œuvres complètes, ed. Mireille Huchon, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1994), 602. 10 The following summary draws on Pierre Laederich’s introduction to Frontinus, Stratagèmes, trans. Laederich (Paris: Economica, 1999), 25–30. 11 Polyaenus, Stratagematum libri octo. Is. Casaubonus graece nunc primum edidit, emendavit et notis illustravit. Adjecta est etiam Justi Vulteii latina versio (Lyons: Jean de Tournes, 1589). 12 The meanings of stratagema and stratego are summarized following Laederich’s introduction to Frontinus, Stratagèmes, 18. 13 The periphrasis is necessary because the term stratagem is considered a loan word from Greek. Robert Bossuat, ‘Jean de Rovroy traducteur des Stratagèmes de Frontin,’ Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 22 (1960): 484, cites an anonymous fifteenth-century translator of Frontinus on the term: ‘Some subtle arts and deeds of arms and chivalry, which Valerius calls Stratagems in Greek, for in French there is no word for it.’ For this reason, stratagemata is translated in French of the Renaissance indifferently into ‘ruses’ (ruses), ‘subtilités’ (subtleties), or ‘cautèles de guerre’ (military finesse). 14 Frontinus, Stratagems, trans. Charles E. Bennett (London: William Heinemann, 1925), 7 (hereafter cited as STR). 15 Rabelais, Œuvres complètes, 302. Burton Raffel translates this passage: ‘“And I,” said Epistemon, “... understand all the stratagems and

184  Claude La Charité heroic deeds of all the great heroes and champions of history, and all the tricks and subtleties of the military art …”’: Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel (New York: W.W. Norton, 1990), 207. 16 Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, 85. 17 Rabelais, Œuvres complètes, 237. 18 Neal Wood, ‘Frontinus as a Possible Source for Machiavelli’s Method,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 28, no. 2 (1967): 244. 19 On the first four French translations of Frontinus, see Bossuat, ‘Jean de Rovroy,’ 273–86 and 469–89. 20 In fact, Volkir translated the entire compendium edited by Beroaldo, that is, not only Frontinus but also Vegetius, Aelian and Modestus: Flave Vegece René, … Du fait de guerre et fleur de chevalerie, quatre livres. Sexte Jule Frontin, … Des stratagemes, especes et subtilitez de guerre, quatre livres. Aelian, De l’ordre et instruction des batailles, ung livre. Modeste, Des vocables du fait de guerre, ung livre. Pareillement, CCXX histoires concernans le fait guerre, joinctes à Vegece. Traduicts fidellement de latin en francois et collationnez aux livres anciens, tant a ceulx de Budé que Beroalde et Bade (Paris: Ch. Wechel, 1536). 21 Fl. Vegetii Renati, … de Re militari libri quatuor. Sexti Julii Frontini, … de Stratagematis libri totidem. Aeliani de Instruendis aciebus liber unus. Mo­ desti de Vocabulis rei militaris liber item unus. Item picturae bellicae CXX passim Vegetio adjectae. Collata sunt omnia ad antiquos codices, maxime Budaei, quod testabitur Aelianus (Paris: apud C. Wechelum, 1532). 22 Laederich’s introduction to Frontinus, Stratagèmes, 41. 23 Wood, ‘Frontinus as a Possible Source.’ 24 Instructions sur le faict de guerre (Paris: Michel Vascosan et Galiot du Pré, 1548). 25 See section 1 of Philippe Richardot, ‘L’influence du De re militari de Végèce sur la pensée militaire du XVIe siècle,’ Institut de stratégie comparée, Commission française d’histoire militaire, Institut d’histoire des conflits contemporains, http://www.stratisc.org/ strat_060_Richardot.html (accessed 7 July 2009). 26 Charles Esmangart and Éloi Johanneau, in the first critical edition of Rabelais published in 1823, believed that Massuau’s translation and the Instructions sur le faict de guerre, republished as Discipline militaire, were the same text: Oeuvres de Rabelais, ed. Esmangart and Johanneau (Paris: Dalibon, 1823), 6:257. 27 ‘L’antiquité ne nous a laissé aucun monument plus logique dans son ensemble que les Stratagèmes … Recueillir dans l’histoire un nombre aussi prodigieux de faits; les réunir selon leurs analogies, et les séparer par leurs différences …; en un mot, se former un plan

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28

29 30

31

32

au milieu de ce dédale, et y rester fidèle jusqu’à entier épuisement des matériaux, voilà qui atteste une certaine puissance d’analyse, de la justesse et de la profondeur dans les conceptions’: Bailly, cited in Laederich’s introduction to Frontinus, Stratagèmes, 36. ‘Par semblable soustilleté prinst messire Raoul, sire de Boqueaux, la ville [de] Compiegne, car ilz estoient, lui et ses compaignons, embuschez partie en ung clos de vigne et partie a Saint Ladre, au plus pres de la ville. Et par VIII compaignons habillez en guise de charretiers, de paysans armez a couvert, envoya conduire une charrette de bois jusques a la ville; et quant les compaignons vindrent a entrer sur le pont levies, le charretier, en chariant, ala tout a escient a l’une des roes de sa charete acoler l’une des chaynes du pont, affin que la charete ne peust passer plus avant, et les autres VII compaignons aussi tost se alerent saisir des portiers et furent les plus forts. Et celle mesmes heure, Boqueaux et sa compaignie saillerent de leur embusche et se vindrent bouter lui et sa compaignie en la ville, tant comme la porte estoit empeschee, et la prindrent et de bons prisonniers avec’: cited by Bossuat, ‘Jean de Rovroy,’ 472. Bossuat, ‘Jean de Rovroy,’ 485. De La Fé, Les stratagèmes et les ruses de guerre tirez des historiens grecs, latins et françois, tant anciens que modernes (Paris: François Eschart et Etienne du Castin, 1694). This compilation follows in the line of Perrot d’Ablancourt’s successful new translation of Frontinus’s Strata­ gems, published in 1664 and continuously republished until 1770: Les stratagèmes de Frontin, de la traduction de Nicolas Perrot, sieur d’Ablan­ court, avec un petit traité de la bataille des Romains (Paris: Thomas Joly, 1664). Saluzzo was killed the year after in the siege of Carmagnola. In his Essays (I, 11), Michel de Montaigne expresses the view that Saluzzo’s betrayal was motivated by prognostications that announced the victory of the imperial troops. ‘Je vueil que Vitellius ait esté abandonné par Cecinna, prenant le party contraire de celuy qui l’avoit honoré et avancé; mais ce fut apres que les affaires du dit Vitellius furent du tout au desespoir, et pour se ranger à la fortune, qui à l’un des contendans adjugeoit par son assistence la chose par eux deux ambitieusement pretendue: Stilico, Narses, ayent commis pareille faute; mais ce fut pour grande et juste occasion d’indignation, et pour se venger de la non meritée ingratitude. Cestuy cy, sans cause d’ingratitude, a trahy son prince naturel en cours de fortune assez prospere, et de plus en plus grand advancement en biens, honneur et authorité’: MEM, 18:474.

186  Claude La Charité 33 ‘Antoine de Leve envoya un trompette demander un prisonnier; et pource qu’il avoit cognoissance au sieur de La Roche du Maine pour avoir esté le dit La Roche prisonnier autour de luy apres la bataille de Pavie, il donna charge au trompette de le saluer de sa part, et luy demander s’il luy ennuyoit point d’estre si long temps sans boire vin. Le sieur de La Roche lui respondit que veritablement luy ennuyroit il, au cas qu’il fust en ceste necessité; que toutesfois il la supporterait pour son honneur, et pour le service du maistre: et pour donner à cognoistre qu’il n’estoit là reduict, en bailla deux flascons au trompette pour presenter en son nom audit seigneur de Leve’: MEM 13:482. 34 ‘Pourquoy eust-il abusé du sang et de la vie de ses gens, dont il estoit force qu’en une bataille il en mourust, et communement des plus gens de bien, encores qu’il en raportast la plus heureuse victoire du monde?’: MEM 19:145. 35 Niccolò Machiavelli, Art of War, trans. Neal Wood (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2001), 99. 36 ‘Deve ancora ricordarsi che molte volte nelle nuove Guerre, richiede nuova ragione di combattere, eletionne di nuova sorte di arme [...] e studio di arte nuova.’: Francesco Ferretti, Della Osservanza militare (Venice: Camillo e Rutilio Borgominerii Fratelli, 1576), 53. Digitized 2 July 2009, from a copy in the Bavarian State Library, Google Books, http://books.google.ca. 37 ‘… Langey redigea les reponses qu’il leur [= à ses amis allemands] avoit faictes par escrit, et trouva moyen de les faire secrettement imprimer et publier par toute la Germanie, tant en latin qu’en alleman, et depuis en françois, afin qu’en plus de lieues elles fussent leuës, et la verité cogneuë’: MEM 18:440. 38 ‘Printed refutation of a declaration of war’: MEM 18:441. 39 Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel, 156: ‘How Pantagruel, at Paris, Received a Letter from his father, Gargantua, with a Copy of that Letter.’ La Charité quotes Rabelais, Œuvres complètes, 243–4: ‘Les impressions tant elegantes et correctes en usance, qui ont esté inventées de mon eage par inspiration divine, comme à contrefil l’artillerie par suggestions diabolicque.’ 40 ‘Le seigneur de Langey, considerant que c’estoit la perte du païs, car l’année subsequente, si l’ennemi se mettoit en campagne, rompant la trefve, on seroit contrainct luy livrer les places par faulte de vivres … Or y avoit il des bleds en Bourgongne en abondance, desquels il fit charger sur la riviere de la Saonne un nombre suffisant, et de là, en devalant, sur le Rosne, et puis l’embarquer sur la mer; en quoy

Rabelais’s Lost Stratagemata  187 il fit telle diligence, qu’en peu de temps les bleds furent à Savonne … [P]uis en departist par toute l’obeissance du Roy, à trois escus le sac, qui coutoit au precedent dix escus, et a chaque village … tellement que toutes terres furent semées; qui a esté la salvation du païs, car peu apres la guerre se declara … et eust esté ledit païs affamé; et le fit ledit seigneur de Langey à ses fraiz, de sorte que moy, qui suis son frere, en ay payé, depuis sa mort, cent mille livres … mais il ne luy challoit de la despence, moyennant qu’il fist service à son prince’: MEM, 19:303–4. 41 See Diane Desrosiers-Bonin, Rabelais et l’humanisme civil (Geneva: Droz, 1992). 42 See further the studies cited in note 2. 43 Cited by Céard, ‘Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance,’ chap. 1 in this volume.

TEN

Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius: Their Editing and Printing History jeanine de landtsheer

Justus Lipsius (1547–1606) built his reputation with his annotated editions of two cornerstones of Silver Latinity: Publius Cornelius Tacitus and Lucius Annaeus Seneca. His preference for these authors was undoubtedly encouraged by frequent contact with the French humanist Marc-Antoine Muret (1526–1575) during a twoyear sojourn in Rome at the beginning of Lipsius’s career: ‘he arrived in Rome a Ciceronian and departed an admirer of Tacitus and Seneca (though not yet an exclusive one),’ to quote Arnaldo Momigliano.1 Both Silver Age authors would remain his companions throughout his scholarly life, for he kept studying them, explaining parts of their works in his lectures, and quoting them in his treatises. Tacitus and Seneca also had a strong and undeniable influence on his increasing preference for a succinct, nervous style characterized by antithesis, although his correspondence shows that he waited apprehensively until 1577 before finally breaking with the more fashionable Ciceronian style of his age.2 Lipsius’s almost innate flair for Latin and his concern to establish a reliable text – a task that was particularly difficult to achieve in the case

Research for this paper, which forms part of the FWO-Vlaanderen project G.0340.08, Justus Lipsius (1547–1606): His Life, His Works, His Ideas, His Network, directed by Dirk Sacré (K.U. Leuven) and Jan Roegiers (K.U. Leuven – KVABWK), was greatly facilitated by a Brill Fellowship at Leiden University Library. For the proofreading of my English, I am greatly indebted to Judith Rice Henderson and Dustin Mengelkoch. I also sincerely thank Dr André Bouwman and Dr Anton vander Lem of Leiden University Library (Western Manuscripts and Rare Books respectively) and Dr Francine de Nave (Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus) for permission to publish the accompanying illustrations.

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of Tacitus – earned him quite rightly a reputation as a prodigious philologist in humanist circles throughout Europe, since many of his emendations have made their way into modern editions.3 Whereas Lipsius’s edition of Tacitus was in press as early as 1574 and was regularly revised and enlarged in the years to come,4 the scholarly world had to wait until 1605 before the long-awaited edition of Seneca’s philosophical works finally appeared. The strictly philological aspect of these successive editions of Tacitus, and of the Annales in particular – although Lipsius always published the Roman historiographer’s works as a whole5 – has been studied by José Ruysschaert, who successfully identified the manuscripts that the humanist consulted in Rome. His appendix adds a list of Lipsius’s emendations and indicates when they occurred for the first time.6 Yet until now little attention has been paid to the editions as a whole, that is, the Opera omnia with or without their commentaries, however brief or amplified, which were all published by the Plantin Press (Officina Plantiniana) either in Antwerp or in Leiden.7 Annotated copies or documents that respond to these editions, which are preserved either at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp or at Leiden University Library, shed some light on this matter.8 Lipsius’s correspondence too is an interesting source. The correspondence with Christophe Plantin (ca. 1520–1589) and, in particular, those letters exchanged in later years with Johannes Moretus (1543–1610) and his son and close collaborator Balthasar (1574–1641) provide information concerning the progress made in printing an edition. Most of this correspondence is preserved in Antwerp, although a smaller part of Moretus’s letters are in Leiden. The impressive letter collection at Leiden University also includes several pages sent by Lipsius’s colleagues, who collated his edition with manuscripts or earlier editions at their disposal, offering him variant readings or remarks attempting to explain obscure passages.9 In some cases his correspondents suggested further sources to complete his commentary.10 Finally, one also needs to see these editions within their context and examine what incited Lipsius to prepare yet another edition of his Tacitus. The present study will first describe the successive editions in their entirety and examine what might have compelled Lipsius to prepare each one of them. For this purpose the prefaces (praefationes) preceding the texts are useful sources.11 Since there is no need to repeat Ruysschaert’s excellent study of the philological

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aspects (i.e., which reading was emended when), the focus here will be on the annotations as a whole. I will examine how each new issue differed from the previous one. Second, using the 1607 edition, I will briefly analyse the contents of his commentary and its main sources. The 1607 edition is the most complete, and Lipsius revised it before his death and approved the first leaves of its proofs. the

editio princeps

(1574)12

Armed with letters of recommendation from Cornelius Valerius ab Auwater (1512–1578), his Latin professor at the famous Trilingual College (Collegium Trilingue) in Leuven, Lipsius set out for Rome in the fall of 1568 and stayed there until the spring of 1570.13 Initially he lived at his own expense, but from May 1569 he became a member of the household of Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1517–1586), for whom he worked as secretary of Latin correspondence. Lipsius roamed through the city and its neighbourhoods admiring the ruins of buildings dating from the Roman Empire and copying with painstaking care inscriptions that he found all over the city.14 Thanks to Valerius’s letters, he became acquainted with Muret, who in turn introduced him to a group of promising young scholars. The support of his two influential patrons in Rome, the cardinal and the French humanist, also assured him a warm welcome in the homes of prominent humanists, owners of magnificent libraries, treasure troves of manuscripts and early printed books. Lipsius passed his days reading eagerly, studying and collating, and patiently collecting a cornucopia of annotations to be incorporated in the strictly philological publications he put to press during the seventies. Above all, his research was a great help for his first edition of Tacitus. It is not known which published text he used for his collations in Rome, but according to the Ad lectorem monitio, which precedes the brief part of the annotations (pages 643–762 of a publication in octavo), Lipsius collated it with three Roman manuscripts and a Venetian edition published in 1494.15 As Ruysschaert proves, the manuscript belonging to the Farnese collection must have been the one on parchment that in our days is known as Neapolitanus IV C 21 (now in the Royal Library in Naples), whereas the manuscripts from the Vatican collection can be identified as ms. lat. 1864 from the Bibliotheca publica and ms.

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lat. 1863 from the Bibliotheca secreta (or ‘ex interiore et arcana bibliotheca,’ as Lipsius calls the library in his introduction).16 The latter manuscript is often referred to as ‘optimus Vaticanus.’ I could not identify the printed copy mentioned as ‘Veneta 1494’ in the Ad lectorem monitio; it probably was an earlier variant of Francesco Puzeolano’s second folio edition, published by Filippo Pinzi for Benedetto Fontana in Venice.17 After returning to his native country, Lipsius began to prepare his edition; he took his annotations with him on his journey to Vienna, via Dôle, at the end of 1571, and kept working on his Tacitus during his two years’ stay at Jena University, where he lectured on Tacitus’s Annales.18 By now he had acquired a new copy of his favourite author, perhaps more appropriate for travelling abroad, namely an octavo (Lyons: Sebastianus Gryphius, 1542) edited by the Italian humanist Aemylius Ferretus (1489–1552), who had carefully revised an earlier edition (Basel: H. Frobenius, 1533) by Beatus Rhenanus (1485–1547). The major part of Lipsius’s copy survives, interspersed with his eye-straining annotations in the margins (see fig. 1).19 Meanwhile, the news of his intentions had reached humanist circles, for already in March 1573 the famous Henri Estienne (1528–1598) suggested that Lipsius entrust his manuscript to him.20 Lipsius preferred to collaborate with Plantin, who informed him, in December 1573, after two previous letters were lost, that he was eager for the promised Tacitus and that the manuscript would go to press instantly to meet the deadline for the spring book fair at Frankfurt. Plantin promised to respect the author’s wishes about format and typeface: a new set of letters was in readiness for the manuscript.21 Lipsius reported on his editorial progress but had to keep Plantin waiting for a few months while he left Jena in mid-March 1574 and settled in Cologne. Soon after his arrival he sent the manuscript of his Tacitus to Antwerp.22 Plantin, according to the colophon, completed on 30 September 1574 this editio princeps, entitled C. Corn. Taciti Historiarum et Annalium libri qui exstant Iusti Lipsii studio emendati & illustrati. Ad Imp. Maximilianum II Aug. P. F., eiusdem Taciti liber de moribus Germanorum, Iulii Agricolae vita, incerti scriptoris Dialogus de oratoribus sui temporis. Ad C. V. Ioannem Sambucum (see fig. 2). A few months later an Index alphabeticus was available referring to the page and line numbers of the text. The colophon records its completion on 15 March.23

Figure 1  Lipsius’s annotated copy of Aemylius Ferretus’s edition of Tacitus (Lyons: S. Gryphius, 1542), Leiden, UL, 760 F 10. Photograph by Jeanine De Landtsheer published with permission of the library.

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Officially presented at Frankfurt’s fair,24 this 762-page octavo opens (pp. 1–8) with a dedicatory letter to Emperor Maximilian II (1527–1576), followed by a biographical essay, Caii Cornelii Taciti vita, res gestae et scripta (pp. 9–12)25 and a gathering of testimonials from ancient authors about their famous predecessor (pp. 13–14).26 The text of the Historiae and the Annales follow. After a blank page comes the dedicatory letter of the Opera minora to Johannes Sambucus (1531–1584), one of the Emperor’s physicians (p. 562).27 Next are Germania, Agricola, and Dialogus de oratoribus, the last of which Lipsius thought was wrongly ascribed to Tacitus.28 Lipsius’s Notae (slightly more than one hundred pages beginning on p. 643) match the order of the works and follow a three-part format: textual reference by page and line number, an italicized lemma, and an explanation in roman. Achieved at the beginning of Lipsius’s stay in Jena, these notes are, as the subtitle says, strictly philological, that is, variant readings and some comments upon them, attempted emendations, and remarks on issues of textual corruption not yet resolved.29 The annotator time and again calls upon ancient sources, literary or epigraphical, to endorse his point of view. In the aforementioned Ad lectorem monitio, which precedes this final part of the 1574 edition, Lipsius describes his editorial process and principles. He begins with an apology and a statement to the effect that he has dealt summarily with Tacitus without praising him. He has prepared a commentary and annotations, the former to explain obscure or dubious passages, the latter to discuss variant readings and to account for possible emendations. He had intended to publish both at once, but was thwarted by urgency and lack of time.30 Since Tacitus was already on the verge of appearing thanks to Plantin’s industriousness, Lipsius had to pay attention to the Notae first; the Commentarius was delayed, though not forgotten. After informing his reader about the manuscripts and printed codex he has used, Lipsius concludes by discussing the division, order, and titles of the works of Tacitus. He argues by reference to Tacitus himself and to Tertullian that their customary division into twenty-one books ought to be abandoned in favour of the division into what modern editions always call Historiae and Annales. Abandoning the usual, strictly chronological order of the works, Lipsius explains that he has decided to keep pace with the author, who as an elderly man began writing about the events of

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Figure 2.  Title page of the editio princeps of Lipsius’s edition of Tacitus’s Opera omnia (Antwerp: C. Plantin, 1574), Antwerp, MPM, A 1731. Photograph by Jeanine De Landtsheer published with permission of the museum.

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his own time, the reigns of Galba and Otho, and only afterwards turned to the previous age. In order to distinguish between the two works, for the more recent one Lipsius kept the title Historiae as it is found in testimonies of ancient authors, such as Flavius Vopiscus, Tertullian, Sidonius Apollinaris, and Pliny the Younger, and for the earlier one adopted a title sometimes used by Tacitus himself, Ab excessu Augusti Annales. the second edition (1581)31 In early January 1575, Lipsius returned to his native country. Although he preferred a calm and undisturbed life amid his books and flowers, the political and religious troubles in the Southern Netherlands soon forced him to leave Overijse for the much safer harbour of Leuven, where he obtained his degree of licentiate in law and volunteered to give some lectures on Livy and the Law of the Twelve Tables, the earliest Roman code of laws. Meanwhile, without shelving his Tacitus, he kept publishing collected works of textual criticism. Because the political situation seemed only to deteriorate, he decided to accept an invitation from his friend Janus Dousa (1545–1604) to a post at the recently founded University of Leiden in the Northern Low Countries, a place which prided itself on its religious tolerance.32 It would be his home for thirteen years, from March 1578 to March 1591. Soon after settling in, despite his responsibilities as rector of the university from February 1579 to February 1581, Lipsius resumed his work on Tacitus by thoroughly revising his text. In an undated letter to Plantin, inserted at the very beginning of the edition, he assured his friend that he had corrected a number of errors both in the text and in the punctuation, adding marginalia on variant readings or his own emendations, albeit briefly. Despite Lipsius’s many, often onerous occupations and poor health, he promised that a commentary with more information than these annotations would soon follow the text itself.33 Nevertheless, Plantin had to be patient again, for writing the commentary took more time than expected. Finally, and perhaps also to prod his friend, Plantin decided to go ahead with the text edition. Lipsius’s manuscript revisions to the text must have reached Plantin in the first half of 1579 at the latest, for the printer’s correspondence indicates that he was putting the Tacitus to press before the beginning of 1580.34 His imprint of the text was available near the end of January 1581.

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Beginning with this edition, Lipsius conformed to the commonly used order of Tacitus’s works, with the Annales preceding the Historiae.35 In format this second edition is an octavo of more than six hundred pages with an alphabetical index. Asterisks in the text indicate marginal notes to corrupt or suspect passages, which are often examined also in the commentary. To give only one example of Lipsius’s revision from the 1574 edition, in Annales I, 1, Lipsius had adopted an emendation by Vertranius Maurus (fl. mid-sixteenth century), ‘Veteris reip[ublicae],’ which is explained in the annotations (p. 692) as follows: ‘lin. 17 Veteris Pop[uli] R[omani] Recte Vertranius emendat, Veteris reip. ex transpositione notarum, r. p.’ In the 1581 edition this becomes,‘Sed veteris *reip. Prospera …’ in the text (p. 1), with marginal note, ‘Vertranio adsentior sic legenti. Vulgo tamen populi Romani confusis notis.’ In this case the Liber commentarius (p. 2) published eventually more or less repeats the explanation: ‘Veteris reip. prospera. Ita Vertranio placitum, traiectis notis, quae vulgo, p. r.’36 However, as we shall see, the finished commentary sometimes incorporates what might be described as essays. By the time that the text edition appeared, ‘the commentary was sweating on the press,’ as Plantin informed one of his correspondents without, however, mentioning that it would be a commentary to the Annales only.37 It opened with a dedication to the States of Holland, a courteous reminder of the warm welcome and the favours bestowed on Lipsius. In an address to the reader, Lipsius apologized for its delay: Behold, here is my Commentary, Reader, albeit probably later than you expected and than I promised. No wonder: by applying myself to that kind of task in earnest I learned that I had to hasten, but not to hurry. In many points the Annales are unusual, abstruse, and, because of the paucity of authors of that time, also obscure. Many other facts must be drawn from secret rites or the most ancient of laws. I had no one to guide me on this journey; I mean, I was the first to follow this path, which was only glanced at by Ferretus, Alciatus, and Vertranius Maurus, rather than trodden by them. In a word, I have written these commentaries myself, not copied them, and I had to make do with what I had, as the saying goes. Besides agreeing with earlier corrections, I also added my own, though without being overambitious in either case.38

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With two well-chosen metaphors he also warned his readers that he had not deemed it necessary to explain facts or other details that had already been elucidated at length by other authors, such as Cassius Dio and Suetonius. He had wanted only to hold a torch for others (‘praetuli facem’), not to light a lamp in the middle of the day (‘mero meridie accendere lucernam’). Moreover, he had consciously opted for brevity. Despite Lipsius’s promise of brevity, the Ad Annales Liber commentarius, also in-octavo, matches its text in length, counting nearly five hundred pages. The introductory paratext ends with four preliminary poems: an ode by Lernutius again, an elegy by Nicolaus Dalius from Utrecht († 9 January 1581), and two poems in hendecasyllables by Janus Grotius (1554–1640), the father of the famous lawyer and diplomat Hugo Grotius (1583–1645).39 At the end of the commentary were added three more poems, an ode in an Asclepian meter by Gaspar Schuermans († 15 August 1618) and two poems in elegiac couplets by Franciscus Modius (1556–1597) and Janus Gulielmus (1555–1584). An exhaustive genealogical tree of the Julian-Claudian house was added on a separate sheet, which Lipsius dedicated to his friend, the Bruges poet Janus Lernutius (1545–1619) (see fig. 3).40 Frequently, arguments appear in the margins of this commentary, summing up a somewhat longer note or referring the reader to ancient sources or remarks made by his predecessors. Book ii of Annales, for instance, opens with a reference to page 41 of the text and an annotation dealing with the hostages sent by the Parthian king Phraates to affirm his ties with Rome. This note is illustrated by a quotation from Strabon (in margin: ‘Liberi & nepotes Phraatis. Lib. xvi’), and Lipsius uses the occasion to correct Strabon (in margin: ‘Correctus Strabo’). Next follows an enumeration of eleven Parthian kings, from Orodes to Vologeses or Vologaesus (in margin: ‘Reges Parthorum, quatenus ad Rom. pertinent’) (see fig. 4). After affirming ‘Raro venatu, segni equorum cura’ (in margin: ‘Venationi addicti Parthi’) by quoting Xenophon, Cyropaedeia 8 (Paideivaõ th'õ polemikh'õ; tau'ta poiou'nteõ diatelou'sin), Lipsius adds a long note explaining the lemma ‘Utilissima utensilium anulo clausa’ (in margin: ‘Anulus signatorius’): he quotes Plautus, Pliny the Elder, Martial, Cicero, and Clemens Alexandrinus (the last authority quoted in Greek followed by a translation into

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Figure 3.  Genealogical tree of the Julian-Claudian house as published in the 1581 edition (Antwerp: C. Plantin), Antwerp, MPM, A 1719. Photograph by Jeanine De Landtsheer published with permission of the museum.

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Latin) and completes the discussion by a short digression about the combination of signet-rings and keys, examples of which he had seen unearthed in Holland. This note is also the only occasion where a drawing was added to the text (see fig. 5). Another, extremely long note, almost an essay, can be found at the end of Annales III (p. 90 of the text), explaining the lemma ‘De moderanda [lege] Papia Poppaea’ (Tac. Ann. III, 28, 4), where each new step in the thought is given in the margin, together with the references to a whole list of ancient authors and lawyers quoted, and numerous emendations to these sources. the third edition (1585)41 Encouraged by Lipsius, Plantin decided to follow his example and to leave the strife-torn South, which awaited the impending siege of Antwerp by the Spanish army commanded by Alexander Farnese. With his acumen for business, Plantin entrusted the Antwerp branch to Franciscus Raphelengius (1539–1597), a Protestant, and Johannes Moretus, a Catholic, two of his sons-in-law who had been collaborating with him for several years. In April 1583 he was welcomed by Lipsius, who smoothed his friend’s path to setting up a press in Leiden and used his influence to have Plantin appointed the university’s official printer.42 Living around the corner from each other stimulated not only the friendship, but also the business contacts, between author and publisher. As early as October the reissue of both text and comments was on their agenda. Meanwhile several humanist colleagues had either collated Lipsius’s edition with manuscripts in their libraries and sent their remarks and additions to him, or had provided him with corrections or supplementary information to be used in the commentary. Of course, Lipsius had been working steadily on his anticipated annotations to the Historiae and the Opera minora. Apparently as early as December 1583, the Officina Plantiniana in Leiden was beginning to prepare the edition. The reissue was finished in the course of August 1584, for although its title page bears the year 1585, Plantin succeeded in having it available at the September book fair in Frankfurt.43 As usual with Lipsius’s works published in Leiden,44 part of the issue was provided with the Antwerp address, to make acceptable the sale in the Catholic South of books printed in the Protestant, anti-Spanish North. The

Figure 4.  A genealogical tree of part of the Parthian kings in Annales Corn[elii] Taciti liber commentarius (Antwerp: C. Plantin, 1581), pp. 76–7 with autograph annotation in a view of the 1585 edition, Leiden, UL, 760 G 9. Photograph by Jeanine De Landtsheer published with permission of the library.

Figure 5. Woodcut of a combination of a signet-ring and key in Annales Corn[elii] Taciti liber commentarius (Antwerp: C. Plantin, 1581), Leiden, UL, 760 G 9, p. 79. Photograph by Jeanine De Landtsheer published with permission of the library.

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copies with the Antwerp imprint (‘Antverpiae, Apud Christophorum Plantinum’) maintain the well-known compass and its motto ‘Labore et Constantia.’ The copies with the Leiden address (‘Lugduni Batavorum. Ex officina Christophori Plantini,’ completed by ‘Apud Franciscum Raphelengium’ from 1586 onwards) have the printer’s mark that depicts the virgo Batava in the hortus conclusus, holding the weapons of Holland; William the Taciturn; and Leiden (both the city, with its two keys, and the university, which chose the Athena Batava as its emblem) (see fig. 6).45 This time an in-folio format was chosen. The introduction contains a new Ad lectorem, followed by the letter to Plantin from the 1581 text edition, the dedicatory letter to Emperor Maximilian II, life and works of Tacitus, the testimonials of ancient authors, and two poems, a long Elegia in Tacitum Iusti Lipsi by the aforementioned Janus Lernutius and three elegiac couplets by Johannes Posthius (1537–1597), the city physician of Würzburg. Tacitus’s works (pp. 1–251) are given in the usual sequence: Annales, Historiae, and Opera minora (in the order Germania, Vita Agricolae, and Dialogus de oratoribus). Each book of Annales and Historiae begins now with an italicized summary (Breviarium) of the most important events and the names of the consuls of the year(s) dealt with in each book. The text is in roman, the marginalia in italics. In the margin the years are marked according to the Roman chronology, with A. U. C., and occasionally a variant reading or emendation is given, indicated by an asterisk in the text.46 A new title page announces the Ad Annales Corn[elii] Taciti Liber Commentarius with its dedication, its Ad lectorem, the preliminary poems at the beginning of the 1581 edition, and the extended text (pp. 1–187) of the commentary. The third section, the new commentary to Historiae and Opera minora, is given its own title page as well: Ad libros Historiarum Notae. It is followed by a dedication to the Hungarian humanist Andreas Dudith (1533–1589)47 and its own Ad lectorem. The elegiac poems by Modius and Gulielmus at the end of Liber commentarius ad Annales in 1581 are transferred to the beginning of the newly added Ad libros Historiarum notae, which also include a few notes to the Opera minora. Lipsius would always maintain this distinction between Liber commentarius to Annales and Notae to the other works, probably because in the latter case this part consists mainly of textual criticism. It is much shorter than in Liber commentarius, only forty-eight pages of annotations without counting the foliated preliminary part. The whole concludes with two in-

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Figure 6.  Title page of the 1585 edition of the Opera omnia and its commentary with the Leiden imprint (Leiden: C. Plantin, 1585), Leiden, UL, 762 B 4. Photograph by Jeanine De Landtsheer published with permission of the library.

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dices: Index Alphabeticus in Cornelium Tacitum for the text edition and Index rerum ac verborum quae his commentariis continentur for the second and third parts.48 In the latter, roman numerals indicate references to Notae, arabic numerals to Liber commentarius. This 1585 issue has no fewer than four dedicatory letters and three introductions to the reader. Lipsius retained the Ad lectorem to the commentary part of the Annales (1581) about its composition, but he reworked into two parts the Ad lectorem from the 1574 edition, about the sources he used, the separation of Annales and Historiae, and the order of the books. The first part, about the sources, headed Tacitus’s text, whereas the second, placed before Notae ad Historiarum libros, explained the distinction between Annales and Historiae, and the order of the works (De divisione deque ordine Librorum Taciti), pointing out also that Lipsius had decided meanwhile to conform to the traditionally accepted chronological order. To the arguments of the 1574 edition for separating the main works, Lipsius added a new one. He rightly drew attention to the stylistic evolution in both works: whereas Historiae were written in a full, decorated style, the language of Annales was far more pithy and succinct.49 This Ad lectorem about the commentary ended with a brief description of the subject of Historiae (De materie olim horum librorum) warning the reader that Tacitus had in fact described the events from the beginning of Galba’s reign to the end of Domitian’s (69–96 AD). The Ad lectorem of the text edition is the more interesting: it opens with the statement that it will be the final revision (‘En tibi, Lector, tertiam editionem Taciti nostri, & ni fallor, postremam’). After enumerating the sources that he had consulted in Rome for the first edition, Lipsius continues that through the years, friends and colleagues had sent him variant readings and remarks. First, Andreas Schott (1562–1629), a friend from Lipsius’s student days in Leuven, had examined a manuscript owned by the Spanish lawyer Antonio de Covarruvias (1554–1602) in Toledo and had added some information to Lipsius’s commentary.50 This material would be referred to as ‘Hispanus’ or ‘Covarruviae,’ although it was seldom used because it had arrived rather late, when the new edition was already on its way, and also because it was less interesting than expected. More useful were the notes received from Franciscus Modius, who had discovered a copy of the Venetian edition of 1470, profusely annotated by a humanist of an earlier generation, Rodolphus Agricola (1444–1485).51 Most of this

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material consisted of variant readings. Lipsius often referred to them, although he usually contented himself with pointing out the emendations of ‘Rudolphus noster’ without following them too closely, ‘for,’ he explained, ‘many of them seem to me too daring and too free, and they are often dwelling too far from the manuscripts.’ In his eyes, they were the product of a subtle and ingenious mind rather than corrections leading to the original text.52 Finally, Modius had also collated a manuscript from Bamberg belonging to his patron, but this contained only Germania. the fourth edition (1588), the c u r a e s e c u n d a e (1588), and the fifth edition (1589) The next edition, the first published by Plantin’s successor in Leiden, his son-in-law Franciscus Raphelengius, was already available at the end of 1587, although the title page mentions 1588.53 Lipsius now returned to the in-octavo format, as this one was clearly intended as a handy (and cheaper) edition for students and young scholars of limited means. In the introductory paratext, the Ad lectorem was omitted, as well as the preliminary poems, presumably because the printer wanted to limit this part to exactly one quire.54 The summaries preceding each book that were first included in 1585 were retained, although the breviarium for the first book of the Annales was, strangely enough, overlooked. The extensive commentary section of the previous edition was not included, yet a great number of marginal annotations served as a substitute. They consisted of either variant readings, announced in the text by an asterisk that was taken over in the marginal annotation as well, or argumenta, summing up in two or three words the main topic of particular sections.55 These marginal stepping stones allowed the reader to browse quickly through the previous or following chapters and books, getting an idea of their contents. Whereas in the earlier editions Lipsius had always mentioned his sources with the variant readings in the commentary, these references were now omitted because of the confined space. The text and the marginalia giving variant readings were set in italics; the argumenta in the margin were in roman. Later in 1588, Raphelengius published Ad C[aium] Cornelium Tacitum Curae secundae, a sequel to the commentary that Lipsius dedicated to the humanist and stadholder of Schleswig-Holstein, Henricus Ranzovius (1526–1598), with whom he had been in

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touch for many years.56 In the dedicatory letter Lipsius explained that he had extended or corrected a number of the annotations in the previous editions and supplemented them with new ones. He had also explained, confirmed, or revoked some of his own annotations.57 A considerable part of the new material in the Curae secundae was gathered from a copy of the 1585 edition that is still preserved at Leiden University Library (shelf number 762 B 4). The innumerable annotations Lipsius scribbled in the margins of this fascinating document – full quotations or mere references to potential extra sources for his commentary – show that the humanist never tired of his quest for extra information.58 This new commentary was adorned by two commendatory poems, one in elegiac couplets by Lipsius’s friend Janus Dousa Sr, the other a Sapphic ode by his son, Janus Dousa Jr (1571–1596).59 A short notice at the end of the introduction warned the reader that numerals in front of lemmata referred to the pages of Plantin’s 1585 edition. Lemmata provided with an asterisk referred to the pages of the commentary part of that same edition, because it was the most correct and complete one.60 The lemma, in roman followed by a bracket, was explained in smaller letters in italics; quotations from ancient authors to endorse Lipsius’s suggestions were cited in roman. In the margin, argumenta in roman summarized in a few words the main point of the annotation. Oddly, this introductory section concludes with an Index rerum ac verborum. Doubtless this list of the main argumenta with their page numbers, which seems better suited to the end of the work, was placed here, in order to fill the eight pages of the first quire. Raphelengius, who had received Lipsius’s manuscript around April, put it to press in June, so that it was available at the autumn book fair at Frankfurt, although it is not mentioned in Willer’s catalogue. As soon as the manuscript of Curae secundae was in Raphelengius’s hands, Lipsius set out on a new edition, which was available at the Frankfurt spring book fair of 1589.61 In this fifth edition, only one commendatory poem was kept, Janus Guilelmus’s Elegia, at the beginning of Liber commentarius. The text of Tacitus’s works was mainly a repetition of the one published in 1588, with the same marginal annotations but now with summaries for every book. The main reason for this fifth edition was that Lipsius had incorporated the additional commentary from Curae secundae into the already existing Liber commentarius and Notae, each still with its own title page and pagination, albeit that this time the Notae

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were given roman numerals, as in the index. Lipsius nevertheless preferred to alert the reader by an asterisk whenever the information provided by the Curae secundae did not easily fit in with the already existing commentary, because he wanted to point out his doubts, to change, to affirm, or to refute what he had previously said.62 The two examples given in Appendix 4 will make this clear. In the first one, discussing ‘Remisit Caesar, adroganti moderatione’ (Ann. I, 8, 7), Lipsius had been inclined to read permittere instead of remittere, according to the 1585 edition. Afterwards, however, the French lawyer Jacobus Cuiacius (1522–1590), his friend and correspondent, had convinced him that remittere was occurring in the sense of permittere as well. In the second example, explaining the lemma ‘Nuptiis sororis illectum’ (Ann. I, 10, 2), Lipsius suggests two emendations to a quotation of Seneca the Elder and also observes that Seneca and Cassius Dio are contradicting each other on this occasion. Moreover, a lacuna in his text of Seneca the Elder, which in his edition was indicated by a series of dots, is complemented in the margin by a quotation in Greek sent to him by Andreas Schott. Finally, in the Curae secundae he returns to one of his emendations to Seneca the Elder, about the combination ‘Minerva Musa,’ acknowledging that Janus Grotius had solved the problem for him and that one should indeed keep the text as it was. Shortly afterwards, in March 1591, Lipsius left Leiden and after a temporary stay in the principality of Liège, he settled definitively in Leuven on 9 August 1592. From then on he always entrusted his new manuscripts or the reworked versions of previous publications to Johannes Moretus in Antwerp. The humanist, whose handwriting was notoriously bad, preferred to have his printer close at hand in order to be able to follow the printing process. The only exception is that six years later Franciscus Raphelengius had the 1589 edition with its commentary reprinted in-octavo without any changes to the contents or the layout, except for omitting Gulielmus’s poem.63 On the title page he even kept the formula ‘I[ustus] Lipsius quintum recensuit,’ but stated that the commentary part was printed separately (‘Seorsim excusi Commentarii’). After a thorough examination of numerous copies, Ruysschaert clearly proved the coexistence of two different ‘sets’ or ‘families’ of the text section, one depending on the other, both with copies having a typographical error in the dating formula. The commentary, on the other hand, was always the same.

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Hence he had to conclude, without being able to explain the reason why, that Raphelengius must have published two subsequent issues of the 1595 text edition.64 It can be assumed that Raphelengius consulted his brother-in-law­ – and through him, Lipsius too – about this reprint, although the matter is not discussed in the extant correspondence, for despite the political and religious rifts between North and South, both branches of the Officina Plantiniana worked well together and kept each other’s interests in mind. Perhaps Raphelengius was concerned that the supply of Tacitus copies was getting low. As Lipsius and consequently also Johannes Moretus were fully occupied with several new antiquarian works during the first years after his return to Leuven, and Moretus was making plans to reprint systematically all Lipsius’s earlier works from 1598 on, the Leiden printer probably offered to take care of the Tacitus pending a reworked edition by Lipsius. the sixth edition (1600)65 Near the end of 1599, when new versions of all Lipsius’s other works had been published, Moretus set out to reissue the edition of Tacitus with its extensive commentaries. It was to be combined with Lipsius’s annotated edition of Velleius Paterculus, which had appeared for the first time in Leiden in January 1591, shortly before he left the city. Moretus opted for a large quarto in two parts, the first with the text and the second with the annotations, basing this edition on that of 1589, but using most of the introductions in the 1585 edition. The title page of 1600 asserts that this is a corrected and extended edition, allegedly the last one that Lipsius intended to publish, for he wanted to devote himself entirely to philosophy, more particularly to the long-promised annotated edition of Seneca.66 In fact, the statement on the title page – ‘additi Commentarii meliores plenioresque, cum Curis secundis’ – was in the first place intended for the censors of both church and state, who had to give their approval, so that the privileges of Emperor Rudolph II and of King Philip II could be applied.67 Apart from some minor corrections or typographical errors (which were, of course, exchanged for new ones), the most important change was that Lipsius incorporated a number of textual annotations that had been published by Fulvio Orsini (1529–1600) as an appendix to the latter’s Fragmenta historicorum (Antwerp: Johannes Moretus, 1595), in which the Italian humanist and librarian had quoted

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numerous emendations by the Spanish scholar Antonio Agustín (1517–1586).68 Lipsius must have had his manuscript ready about 1 April 1599, for the approbatio by ecclesiastical book censor Guilielmus Fabricius Noviomagus is dated 25 April. Three letters from Balthasar Moretus to Lipsius,69 as well as material preserved at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, offer a detailed picture of the printing process. Thanks to Johannes Moretus’s meticulous administration (and the care of later generations who kept this material for more than two centuries), we can follow the composing and printing of the 1600 and 1607 editions almost quire by quire. In MPM, Arch. 786, which his son entitled Livre des compagnons de l’imprimerie tenu par feu mon père, the payment of an impressive number of compositors and printers is noted down week after week, usually indicating title and quires as well. This record shows that Arnold Fabri started this sixth edition by composing the commentary to Annales from September 1599 on.70 His work was put to press one week later by printers Joris Berger and Willem van Elst, who slowed down to one page in the course of December and received their final payment for the commentary on 15 January 1600.71 These data are confirmed by the correspondence, for on 14 January the final quires of the commentary were sent to Leuven, with the exception of the pages intended for the genealogical tree of the JulianClaudian dynasty and the index. Before these items could be composed, Balthasar and his collaborators first needed to adjust the references in the commentary to the page numbers of the new text edition, of which the first proofs were just then coming from the press. Balthasar apologized for the delay, which was caused by part eight of Cardinal Cesare Baronio’s Annales ecclesiastici, and he assured Lipsius that they still hoped to have the whole Tacitus ready for the spring book fair at Frankfurt. Indeed, from the middle of January onward, throughout February, four composers and five printers were joining forces to achieve the text section.72 By the end of January an unspecified number of quires was rushed to Leuven so that the humanist was able to browse quickly through them before their final printing. He was also told that he could expect a fat book of about ninety quires, which customers could bind with the annotated edition of Velleius Paterculus. In a third, undated letter concerning the 1600 edition, the printer’s son informed Lipsius that the introduction, always the last part to be printed, was neatly divided over one and a half quires. They

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had had to omit the Monitio ad lectorem, but had still a bit of space left for Janus Guilielmius’s elegy. They were rushing against time, and the main part was already on its way to Frankfurt, while the indices as well as the Velleius Paterculus were still ‘sweating on the press.’73 The Officina was represented at the fair by Johannes Moretus Jr, who, with his helpers, had to take a small number of copies of this part in saddlebags.74 The 1600 edition repeated the pattern of the 1589 folio, although Moretus cautiously omitted the dedicatory letters introducing the Commentarii on Annales (addressed to the States of Holland) and the Notae on Historiae and minor works (addressed to the Protestant Andreas Dudith) because they would not have been appreciated by the authorities of the Catholic South. As was the case with the 1589 edition, the main text is in roman, with quotations in italics. Each book begins with a summary (breviarium libri) in a somewhat smaller font and with the names of the consuls for the year(s) discussed in that book. The marginalia, printed in smaller letters and italics, are taken from the previous two editions, and thus are mostly argumenta to facilitate the understanding of the text, with sometimes an important variant reading or emendation, announced by an asterisk. Small numerals in superscript before a word in the text, starting from 1 again with each new book, draw attention to the commentary. The numerals are repeated before each annotation; as before, supplements from the Curae secundae are announced by an asterisk. Despite its size, the 1600 edition leaves one with a somewhat uncomfortable impression of too much text being crammed into a page. the seventh edition (1607)75 As we have seen, Lipsius was convinced that with his sixth edition he could shelve his Tacitus and focus entirely upon his longexpected edition of Seneca. Yet until then he had made use only of later manuscripts, without directly consulting the two ‘codices unici,’ as Brink calls them, in the Laurentiana.76 Other authors had been doing fine work, Lipsius assured his reader in the preface to the 1574 edition, and there was no need to repeat it: At first I have to warn you, Reader, that I will make only a small number of observations with regard to Books i to v, all of them the result of my own ingenuity, not of my reading. For the copies

Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius  211 I have been using in Italy had all of them suffered a common disaster by having lost these five books, like a head torn away from its body. Europe holds only one manuscript copy, concealed in the Bibliotheca Medicea, of which, in my opinion, Philippus Beroaldus has provided an accurate and reliable edition. Ferretus also asserts that he has seen it. I will rely upon their trustworthiness. For I did not have the opportunity to examine the manuscript nor, to be honest, the desire to do so after others had inspected it.77

In autumn 1600, however, the Italian humanist Curtius Pichena (1553–1626), secretary to Ferdinand I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, published his own collection of annotations on Tacitus based on the manuscripts in the Laurentiana.78 Pichena, who had been working on Tacitus for some time, based his collation on a reprint of Lipsius’s 1595 edition published in Paris in 1599 by the care of one of Lipsius’s students, William Barclay (ca. 1570– after 1633), who also appended a number of annotations made by Josias Mercier.79 In 1604, Pichena had a second edition of the Notae printed,80 followed by an edition in 1607. The Italian had not limited himself to checking the corrections suggested by his predecessor, but had studied the whole manuscript with painstaking care. This had allowed him to discover a number of errors, which had escaped Lipsius’s attention not only in Annales i–vi, which he had never consulted in its manuscript form, but also in the rest of Tacitus’s works. Pichena most courteously enhanced the merits of his Leuven colleague by continuously underlining the consensus between the Florentine manuscripts and the variant readings or the emendations indicated by Lipsius, especially in the many cases where he had merely suggested his corrections, without actually changing the text. Lipsius’s correspondence shows that he had examined Pichena’s Notae soon after the work became available: without doubt, Johannes Moretus Jr had brought him a copy from the autumn fair of Frankfurt. In a letter dated 14 November 1600, Lipsius gave his first impressions to Balthasar Moretus: I have seen Curtius’s remarks on Tacitus, some of them most interesting but, by Hercules, I had expected more of such an ancient copy. It gave me great pleasure, not to say pride, to find him approving in hundreds of places the emendations that I suggested by mere ingenuity and often timidly. He did not see our most

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Of course, the Italian’s Notae motivated Lipsius to revise his Tacitus a final time. As Ruysschaert points out, he incorporated almost half the variant readings that Pichena offered for books i–vi of the Annales, and one fifth only for the remaining part.82 In the preface Ad lectorem dated 18 August 1605, he stresses once more that this would definitely be the final edition for two reasons: his poor health and the fact that his interest was drawn elsewhere, namely to philosophy. The reader could nevertheless be assured to find an even better text and an extended commentary, both with regard to the variant readings and to the annotations. This final edition has an entirely new layout, following the example of the long-awaited edition of Seneca’s philosophical works, which had come from Moretus’s press in September 1605. Text and matching notes are now conveniently brought together on the same page, except for esthetic reasons, when on the first page of a new book some space is taken by summaries. The commentary usually takes up about one third of the page. The text, in roman, is in one block, whereas the annotations are divided into two columns. Small numerals in superscript before a word refer to the commentary. The lemma is quoted in small capital letters, followed by Lipsius’s explanations in italics and innumerable quotations in roman. Exceptionally an asterisk before a word of the annotation refers to more information or a critical remark explained in the margin. For the sake of the index, the pages are divided by the letters A, B, C, D, printed in the interior margins of the book, whereas the outer margins keep the argumenta and dates, added for the first time in the 1588 edition (see fig. 7). Because of the new layout, the somewhat longer, essay-like annotations are gathered in a separate section at the end of the edition, entitled Excursus, also divided into the corresponding books and indicated by letters matching ones in the commentary. In Annales ii, for instance, ‘excursus A’ surveys the Parthian kings, ‘excursus B’ dwells upon the combination of rings and keys,83 ‘excursus E’ gives a genealogical tree of the ‘gens Scribonia,’ and ‘excursus I’ discusses the use of byssinum (linen). A very long excursus of six pages (Annales iii, exc. C) informs the reader on the lex Papia and other marital laws of Rome. The edition of Tacitus concludes with two indices, one referring to lemmata (mostly names of per-

Figure 7.  The beginning of Tacitus, Annales, VI in the 1607 edition, Leiden, UL, 762 B 5. Photograph by Jeanine De Landtsheer published with permission of the library.

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sons and geographical names, also mentioned in the marginal annotations) in the text itself, the second an Index rerum ac verborum to the commentary section. Although Johannes Moretus set out immediately to print this final edition upon finishing the Seneca, the printing process was hampered by delays, so that Lipsius would never hold it in his hands.84 As was the case with the 1600 edition, the correspondence of Balthasar Moretus and Lipsius during the following months, and especially his father’s account book, MPM, Arch. 786, allow us to keep track of the progress.85 On 9 September Balthasar confirmed that they agreed with an in-folio format and that they had written to Paris to buy more paper, but would begin the edition with the available supply.86 Apparently, a first leaflet was sent to Lipsius to proofread at the end of the month,87 and indeed, according to Moretus’s accounts, printers Philip vander Hagen and Willem Bruyninckx were paid for printing quire A and part of B between 24 September and 15 October.88 The next delay was caused by Lipsius himself, for suddenly he urged Moretus to print a historical treatise on the city of Leuven and its university, which he intended to present as a wedding gift to Charles of Croÿ, Duke of Aarschot and Croÿ (1560–1612), one of his influential political friends.89 On 4 November Moretus informed him that the composer needed only two more weeks to finish this Lovanium and would instantly resume his work on the Tacitus. They still had a few quires to work on, but Lipsius should send them the rest of his manuscript, so that they would have the time to adjust the numerals of the text and the commentary.90 In the postscript of a letter dated 25 November, Balthasar assured Lipsius that they had taken up his Tacitus again, and just before the turn of the year he sent him the fifth quire, containing part of Annales II.91 On 3 and 9 February some more quires, probably I, K, L, and part of H and M, were dispatched to Leuven. Lipsius’s death on 23 March 1606, did not influence the rhythm of the printing: Moretus’s account book proves that one compositor, Arnold Fabri (see fig. 8), and two printers, mostly Peeter Vijfeijck and Peeter Marcauwen, kept working on the Tacitus throughout 1606 and the first weeks of 1607. Fabri was paid for composing the indices, the preface, and the ‘vijf signaturen’ (i.e., the approbatio, the privileges, and Lipsius’s authorization that Moretus could print the Tacitus) between 13 January and 10 February; printers Vijfeijck and Marcauwen were paid between 20 January and 17 February.92

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the main sources of lipsius’s commentary Lipsius’s commentaries demonstrate a remarkable knowledge, not only of the Latin language and of Tacitus’s text, but also of previous annotated editions and of a wide range of literary and other documentary sources of antiquity. Taking the 1607 edition – the most complete – as my base, I turn now to a more detailed discussion of the commentaries, first examining the sources that Lipsius used and distinguishing the various types of remarks he made, and then illustrating them with a few examples, a complex one taken from the first book of the Annales and a series of shorter ones selected at random from book thirteen. Obviously, Lipsius names his predecessors or contemporary sources mostly in philological annotations, when indicating mistakes and possible emendations, giving variant readings, but occasionally he does so when he interprets the meaning of obscure passages in the text. He seldom interfered directly with the text, but rather preferred to suggest the emendations he deemed necessary (his own or those of others) in the commentary, often trying to explain what had caused the textual corruption.93 These corrections were motivated by interpretation, style, or history. Furthermore, he offered the variant readings he considered feasible with their source­ – the manuscripts of the Vaticana and sometimes of the Laurentiana, the lists of annotations sent to him or published in the meantime by his contemporaries – often expressing and explaining his preferences or his doubts. Finally, he also warned the reader about cruces, with or without a possible solution being given. Especially in the case of emendations or variant readings, he endorsed his point of view with idioms found in a whole range of ancient authors or lexicographers. In the case of uncommon words, he sometimes offered a semantic or an etymological explanation; he also confirmed or corrected unusual names by quoting epigraphical documents. The ancient literary and documentary sources play, of course, a prominent role in the annotations intended to enhance the comprehension of the text in all its aspects. First, Lipsius attempts to identify the names of secondary characters by referring to the offices and posts they held or to their ascendancy. Sometimes a brief genealogical tree differentiates various members of the same family. Confirming this information by quoting historical or epigraphical sources allows Lipsius to point out errors in Tacitus

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Figure 8.  The payment of composer Arnold Fabri in 1606 in Johannes Moretus’s account book, Livre des compagnons de l’imprimerie tenu par feu mon père, Antwerp, MPM, Arch. 786, p. 177. Photograph by Jeanine De Landtsheer published with permission of the museum.

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himself. He also elucidates lesser-known geographical names or historical facts and frequently cross-references occurrences of the same individuals or events elsewhere in Tacitus’s writings. Another recurring type of annotation consists of explaining aspects of military practice, Roman law, religious or social customs. In some cases Lipsius deems it expedient to clarify the meaning of an obscurely formulated sentence. The authors most frequently quoted to confirm or refine information given by Tacitus, or to make it more explicit, are the historians Suetonius and Dio Cassius, the latter also in the Byzantine epitomes of Zonaras and Xiphilinus. Other favourite sources of Lipsius are, among the Latin authors, Seneca the Philosopher, Pliny the Elder and the Younger, Livy, Velleius Paterculus, Cicero, Quintilian, even Varro, Festus, Isidore of Seville, or, less important, Seneca the Rhetor, Caesar, Aulus Gellius, Florus, Valerius Maximus, Vegetius, the Scriptores Historiae Augustae, and even poets such as Ovid, Juvenal, Martial, Silius Italicus, Plautus, and others. Quite a number of Christian writers are present as well: Tertullian, Arnobius, Sidonius Apollinaris, Prosper of Aquitania, to name only a few. Among the Greek writers Lipsius regularly quotes Plutarch, Flavius Josephus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, but also Appian and Herodian. Especially Strabon, but also Ptolemy and Pausanias, are welcomed as sources with regard to geography. Occasionally he cites Aristotle, Plato, Xenophon, Clemens Alexandrinus, the Suidas. As already said, this list is far from exhaustive. Many times Lipsius uses the opportunity to suggest emendations or to point out cruces in the quotations he uses. In other cases he refers the reader to some of his own works, either the philological collections of his early scholarly years or some of his antiquarian treatises. Finally, Lipsius also proves his familiarity with juridical texts and with epigraphical material, but he hardly uses coins at all. A good example of how Lipsius composed his commentary is Tacitus, Annales I, note 94, found on p. 13, col. 2 D (lemma Aramque adoptionis = Ann. I, 14, 2) concerning the adoption of Livia into the gens Iulia. First he rejects the emendation ‘aeraque adoptionis’ suggested by an unnamed ‘vir doctus’ (from previous editions we know that this scholar was Vertranius Maurus), who was of the opinion that Tiberius had forbidden to attest adoption in bronze and make it public. Lipsius retorts that ‘ara’ makes sense by referring to a Roman custom of commemoration: an altar or a temple

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might be erected to the virtue or the event that one would like to see honoured. As evidence he cites Tacitus, Ann. III, 57, 1; III, 18, 2; IV, 74, 2; and XV, 23, 2, the last confirmed in turn by quoting Suetonius, Caligula 8. He proves by quoting an inscription in marble from Spain that his learned colleague is also mistaken in believing that the passage is about the adoption of Tiberius, for Tacitus is referring to the adoption of Livia in the gens Iulia. The inscription reads: Ivliae. avg. divi. F. matri Ti. Caesaris. Avg. Prin cipis. et. conservatoris et. Drvsi. Germanici M. Cornelivs. Procvlvs Pontifex. Caesarvm.

A reference to a bronze coin depicting a chariot drawn by two mules and the text ‘Nummo aereo, S.P.Q.R. Divæ. Iuliæ. Augusti. Fil[iæ]’ concludes this issue. By way of example I have selected also a series of briefer annotations from Annales XIII. In note 1, Lipsius, focusing on Junius Silanus, distinguishes among seven members of the gens Iunia from Tiberius’s reign onward. He gives information about a possible consulship and/or proconsulship, some family ties and, eventually, their fate. Three times the reader is referred to previous books of Annales or to Historiae; four times to Suetonius, twice to Cassius Dio, whose information about the husbands of Lepida, Empress Messalina’s mother, is corrected by way of Suetonius. Once Lipsius quotes Pliny the Elder to suggest an emendation. Note 2, with the lemma ‘C. Caesar pecudem auream,’ corrects information given by Tacitus: Caesar’s saying is not about Marcus Junius Silanus, but about his father-in-law. To prove this point, Lipsius quotes Cassius Dio (here without translation into Latin) and explicates by a quotation from Pliny the Elder. Yet the Greek historian made a mistake as well, for he interpreted Caesar’s words as a compliment, whereas it was in fact a sneer: a rich man, who was a coward and weak as a sheep. Note 3, about Lucius Silanus, rejects a variant reading (‘tamen libri scripti C. Silano’). The next note, about ‘Silanus, D. Augusti abnepos,’ corrects Pliny’s information, and Lipsius even adds a short genealogical tree to prove his point.

Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius  219

Note 5 warns the reader to correct ‘P. Celerius’ to ‘P. Celer,’ as he is called later (with quotation of the passage). In note 6 Lipsius wonders about the need to alter ‘pari in societate potentiae’ into ‘paris in societate potentiae,’ concluding, ‘but this is hardly necessary, although others tried to do so.’ Note 7 explains ‘signum more militiae’ as ‘tessera’ (the tablet containing the watchword), with two quotations from Livy to illustrate the use of the tablet in Roman camps, and a further reference to excursus A. Note 9, about Claudius, points out that, according to the Suidas (quoted in Greek, without translation), the emperor wrote a treatise De arte dicendi, but that Lipsius was inclined to consider this the work of Germanicus. In note 17 he tries to identify the names of the lemma ‘Agrippa et Iochus.’ By ‘Agrippa,’ Lipsius states, is meant Agrippa junior, who was king of Galilea, Trachonitis, and part of Judea, as becomes clear from Flavius Josephus.94 ‘Iochus,’ on the other hand, should be changed into ‘Bochus,’ or even more likely, ‘Antiochus,’ for Tacitus means Antiochus, king of Commagenes and part of Cilicia. This emendation is confirmed by quoting Josephus, book XIX, and a mere reference to Cassius Dio, book LX. Lipsius also refers to Tacitus, Ann. XIII, 37, 2, quoting the passage and mentioning ‘Lochium’ as variant reading in the ‘Vaticanus.’ In note 21 he urges the reader to change ‘apud Egas’ (also in the lemma) to ‘Aegeas’ as his ‘books’ give. This emendation is illustrated by a quotation from Strabon in both Greek and Latin. In note 23 he agrees with Mercier to read ‘ex commodo’ instead of ‘ex aequo modo,’ and in note 25 he follows Muret’s emendation ‘prior ea de causa,’ instead of ‘priore de causa.’ conclusion One cannot simply speak about ‘Lipsius’s commentary to Tacitus,’ but must see it as an intricate patchwork meticulously developed throughout successive editions, hence ‘Commentaries’ in my title. Whereas in its earliest form Lipsius had limited himself to mostly philological remarks, from the second edition onward he provided his reader with an awe-inspiring source of information on the reign of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, using a wide range of literary sources, both Latin and Greek, but also legal codes and inscriptions. In the case of Historiae and Opera minora, the commentary remained more strictly philological, hence the distinction between Commentarius ad Annalium libros and Notae ad Historiarum

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libros. Lipsius was well aware, quite rightly, of his own merits in constituting a correct text and in writing an exhaustive commentary, yet he avoided interfering too much with his working edition and preferred to suggest his numerous emendations in the commentary. Moreover, he generously gave credit to his sources: in an early stage of critical apparatus he meticulously listed expedient variant readings retrieved by himself or sent to him by his colleagues and also took into account emendations suggested by predecessors, often adding a word of acknowledgment. Tracing the growth of Lipsius’s knowledge, experience, and interest on his remarkable journey as editor and commentator of Tacitus becomes even more fascinating when we take into account the abundant information offered by his prolific correspondence, his annotations in successive editions, and the rich resources on their printing history in the Archive of the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp. NOTES   1 Arnaldo Momigliano, review of José Ruysschaert’s Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite (see note 6), Journal of Roman Studies 39 (1949): 191.   2 Lipsius remarks, ‘De quibus [namely Epistolicae quaestiones] quid iudicaturi sitis, timeo. Alia enim quaedam a prioribus meis haec scriptio: cui nitor ille abest et luxuria et Tulliani cincinni; pressa ubique, nec scio an quaesita nimis brevitas. Quae me tamen nunc capit’: ILE I: 1564–83, ed. Aloïs Gerlo, Marcel A. Nauwelaerts, and Hendrik D.L. Vervliet (Brussels, 1978), 77 06 13, 23–6 to Lernutius. See also his comment in a fragmentary draft of an undated letter to Hieronymus van Berchem, preserved in Leiden University Library (hereafter Leiden UL), ms. Lips. 16, p. 9: ‘Dissimilis mei sum in scribendo, inquiunt. Agnosco, nec animus semper idem est, nec oratio. Est cum aequalis, copiosa, fluens dictio fertur; est cum brevis, contorta, acuta. Est cum Ciceronem imitari videor; est cum Plautum, Plinium aut si forte, Senecam referre. Quid faciam? Ingenium molle natura sortitus sum et ut a cuiusquam lectione recens venio, ita similitudinem quandam eius et formam adumbro. Ille ipse dicendi deus, ad quem vocor, Cicero, an omnia eodem modo scripsit? Non dicent, neque solum alia ad Lentulum aut Curionem, alia ad Caelium et Atticum dictio est, sed illae ipsae Atticae epistolae, ut argumentis, sic formis scribendi dissident. Nec paulum Aetas ipsa quantum discriminis adfert? Et ut vitis novella copiosius vimina gignit, vetusta meracius, sic

Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius  221

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

ab adolescentia abundantior oratio manat, a viro limatior et contractior.’ In the margin Lipsius added by way of argumentum: ‘Defensio adversus eos qui me aliquantum calumniantur, et quatenus utenda verba vetusta.’ See Jeanine De Landtsheer, ‘Three Overlooked Letters of Lipsius (1547–1606) in ms. Lips. 5 of Leiden University Library,’ Lias 26 (1999): 143–55. This letter, overlooked by the editors of ILE I, will be published in ILE XIX, the final volume. The apparatus in Heinz Heubner’s edition of Tacitus’s Annales (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1983), has some nineteen citations of Lipsius in book 1, twenty-four in book 3, and twenty-nine in book 13. Momigliano opened his review of Ruysschaert’s Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite by asserting that ‘[Lipsius’s] combination of feeling for style with historical knowledge is still a challenge to any editor of an historical text’ (190). The ultimate, seventh edition was published posthumously in 1607. For a complete list of the editions, see Appendix 1. I did not take into account Raphelengius’s 1595 issue as a separate edition, since it is merely a reprint from the one published in 1589. This included the Dialogus de oratoribus, which was then still considered to be the work of an unknown author, referred to as ‘incerti scriptoris’ in the enumeration of the titles of the editio princeps (1574) and ‘ambigui scriptoris’ in later editions. On the dialogue’s own title page, however, as well as in the upper margins of the pages, the work is always ascribed to Quintilian (see note 28). José Ruysschaert, Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite: Une méthode de critique textuelle au xvie siècle, Humanistica Lovaniensia 8 (Louvain: Bibliothèque de l’Université, 1949). The appendix is on pp. 169–216. See, however, C.O. Brink’s review article of this publication, ‘Justus Lipsius and the Text of Tacitus,’ Journal of Roman Studies 41 (1951): 32–51 (on the list, esp. n. 3). The first editions, of 1574 and of 1581, were put to press with Christophe Plantin in Antwerp. The next edition, of 1585, was also printed by Plantin, but during his stay in Leiden. The editions from 1588 and 1589 (and 1595 as well) were published by Franciscus Raphelengius, who had become his father-in-law’s successor in Leiden. Finally, the 1600 and 1607 editions, appearing in Antwerp after Plantin’s death, were published by another son-in-law, Johannes Moretus, who had faithfully collaborated with Plantin from 1570 onwards. Lipsius’s manuscripts and annotated books were acquired by Petrus Burmannus for the University Library at an auction in The Hague in February 1722.

222  Jeanine De Landtsheer   9 One of the first contributors was Josias Mercier († 1626), who sent a first list of mainly textual remarks, dated 19 March 1581 (the original is still in Leiden UL, ms. BPL 1886 [M]); in 1599 part of these annotations were included in an appendix to a Tacitus edition based on Lipsius’s 1595 edition, published in Paris (see note 79). Mercier’s information arrived too late to be incorporated in the new edition, but Lipsius thanked him for sharing his material in ILE I, 82 03 15. A second list by Mercier, referred to in the commentary of the 1585 edition, is no longer extant. On 20 November 1587, the French humanist sent a new collection of remarks after a first attempt had failed: ILE II: 1584–1587, ed. Marcel A. Nauwelaerts, assisted by Sylvette Sué (Brussels, 1983), 87 11 10/20. This time the list reached its destination. The original was consulted for the Curae secundae of 1588 and still exists as Leiden UL, ms. Lips. 4, but without the pages with the annotations. Mercier also acted as an intermediary for Jerôme Groslot († 1621), a compatriot interested in Tacitus. On 4 December 1585, the latter used Janus Dousa as an intermediary to send Lipsius two sets of remarks, dated 29 March (on Annales and Historiae) and 5 May 1585 (on Opera minora) respectively. See Petrus Burmannus, Sylloges epistolarum a viris illustribus scriptarum tomi V (Leiden, 1724–1727), I, 348, with the Notae on pp. 348–55 and 356–8. Part of Groslot’s information too occurs in the Curae secundae (1588). Other humanists were eager to help as well, but unfortunately, most of these lists were separated from the accompanying letter and seem to be lost. It might be worthwhile to focus on such epistolary material more thoroughly, as well as on the highly interesting copy of the 1585 edition, carefully annotated by Lipsius (Leiden UL, 762 B 4), to examine who provided Lipsius with additional information, and to check whether it was taken into account or put aside, but this matter will be the subject of a future study. 10 For instance, Jacobus Campius (fl. 1570–1600), a lawyer and deacon of Bonn, sent him sketches of coins and representations on commemorative steles with a letter dated 30 May 1591 (forthcoming as ILE IV, 91 05 30, ed. Sylvette Sué and Jeanine De Landtsheer). 11 The ‘paratexts’ of the various editions will be published in the second part of Les humanistes des Pays-Bas, which is part of a project of European scale, L’Europe des humanistes, aiming to present all sixteenth- and seventeenth-century humanist editors of classical authors and their editions. See Jean-François Maillard, J. Kecskeméti, and M. Portalier, L’Europe des humanistes (XIVe–XVIIe siècles): Répertoire (Paris-Turnhout: Brepols, 1995).

Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius  223 12 PP 5, 2276 and BBr 5, 289–90, T-62. 13 See on this stay José Ruysschaert, ‘Le séjour de Juste Lipse à Rome (1568–1570) d’après ses Antiquae lectiones et sa correspondance,’ Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 24 (1947–8): 139–92. 14 Lipsius made use of his notebooks when he composed his commentary in later years; some of them are still preserved at Leiden University Library (ms. Lips. 22). 15 ‘Usus sum Romae tribus cod[icibus] m[anu]s[criptis]; Bibliothecae Farnesianae primus fuit, quem beneficio C[larissimi] V[iri] & humanissimi Fulvii Ursini // sum aptus; duo alii promti ex illo thesauro Musarum, Vaticano. Sed alteri ex interiore et arcana bibliotheca, admirabile dictu est, quas notas boni & sinceri codicis saepe praetu­ lerit … His tribus accessit editio Veneta vetus, anni M.CCCC.XCIIII. Quam adhibere vice libri scripti ideo non piguit, quod inter studiosos harum rerum constet, Taciti manuscripta exemplaria spisso et vix in Europa inveniri’: 1574 edition, pp. 643–4. 16 See Ruysschaert, Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite, 27–30. The manuscripts of the Bibliotheca publica, divided into a Latin and a Greek section, were of lesser quality and easily accessible to the scholars. These of the Bibliotheca secreta were more precious and could be consulted only with special permit, which Lipsius easily acquired thanks to his patrons Muret and Granvelle. See Ruysschaert, Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite, 26. On the manuscript transmission of Tacitus in general, see Richard J. Tarrant, ‘Tacitus,’ in Texts and Transmission, ed. L.D. Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 406–11. The discovery of Tacitus, the manuscript tradition, and the history of the printed text have been elaborately studied by Clarence W. Mendell, Tacitus: The Man and His Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 239–378. Ms. Neapolitanus IV C 21 is discussed on pp. 308–9, Vat. Lat. 1863–4 on pp. 314–15. 17 Ruysschaert, Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite, 24–6. 18 This is proven by the subtitle, ‘cum inciperet publice interpretari Cornelium Tacitum,’ of the second of Iusti Lipsi orationes octo, Ienae potissimum habitae (Frankfurt: J. Spiessius for J.-J. Porssius, 1608). 19 P[ublii] Cornelii Taciti, Eq[uitis] Ro[mani], Ab Excessu Augusti Annalium libri sedecim. Ex castigatione Aemylii Ferreti, Beati Rhenani, Alciati ac Beroaldi (Lyons: Sebastianus Gryphius, 1542), in-8º, Leiden UL, 760 F 10. See its description in Henri Louis Baudrier, Bibliographie lyonnaise, 8 (Lyons, 1910), 168. Lipsius’s copy is incomplete: part of the introduction, the transition between the Dialogus de oratoribus and the Vita Agricolae, and the final pages of the index are lacking. Plantin

224  Jeanine De Landtsheer

20 21

22 23 24

25

26

27

28 29 30

apparently followed the Gryphius edition of 1542 as his formal model: in both editions each book is announced by a title in capitals and an initial mostly with floral ornaments of roughly two square centimetres, corresponding to five lines of the text, which is set in italics. Whereas Ferretus occasionally added some argumenta in the margin (usually a noun proper), Lipsius indicated only the beginning of a new year (in Roman style, with Ab Urbe Condita). For convenience’s sake Plantin also added line numbers in the inner margins. ILE I, 73 03 23. ILE I, 73 12 [15]. The index is slightly smaller than the other quires; see the copy at Leiden UL, 760 F 11. In the copy of Antwerp, Museum Plantin-Moretus (hereafter MPM), A 1731, this index is lacking. See its covering letter, ILE I, 74 07 05. Index alphabeticus in Cornelium Tacitum. Prior numerus paginam, posterior lineam denotat. See PP 5:2277. Georg Willer, Die Messkataloge Georg Willers, in Die Messkataloge des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, ed. Bernhard Fabian (Hildesheim: Olms, 1972–), 2 (1574–1580), [79], spring 1575. By preferring the praenomen Caius, rather than Publius, Lipsius followed the example of Sidonius Apollinaris in his letters, as well as the heading of the Codex Farnesianus, as he explains in the first of the annotations, added to the title of the work. It is quoted in Appendix 2. Comparisons with other editions, as well as the correspondence, indicate that such preliminaria as testimonies and poems were often added or omitted in order to complete quires or avoid blank pages. The main reason that part of the Tacitus editions was dedicated to Sambucus is that, encouraged by Plantin, he had welcomed Lipsius upon his arrival in Vienna and had introduced him to the humanist circle at the imperial court. Afterwards, he would insist that Emperor Maximilian II acknowledge the dedication by granting Lipsius a small present, thirty florins (ILE I, 75 11 05). It is entitled Fabii Quinctiliani, ut videtur, dialogus; an sui saeculi oratores antiquis, et quare concedant: Cor[nelio] Tacito falso inscriptus. Quibus lectionum varietas et emendationum ratio explicatur. ‘In Cor[nelium] Tacitum scriptorem, de cuius laudibus silere quam pauca dicere iudico, paratos habebam & Commentarios & breves Notas. Illos, qui obscura vel ambigua explicarent: istas, quibus lectionum modo varietatem &, cum incidisset, castigationis meae rationes proferrem. Utrumque scriptum cum hoc tempore pararem emittere, decreto meo violenti Tribuni intercesserunt Festinatio et

Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius  225

31 32 33

34 35

36

37

38

Angustum tempus, a quibus ad populum provocatio non esset. Nam cum Tacitus industria Plantini nostri unius omnium quot sunt, quot erunt, accuratissimi Typographi, inibi iam esset ut lucem adspiceret, praevertendae necessario Notae fuerunt, Commentariis non abiectis, sed in diem prolatis.’ PP 5:2278 (text edition) and 3:1561 (commentary); see also BBr 5:290– 1, T-64 (text). Leiden University had opened its doors on 8 February 1575. ‘Tacitum, quem iterum vulgare paras, clarissime Typographorum, mitto ecce tibi. Relegi, recensui: & sine dolo dicam, multa in eo qua a scriptura, qua ab interpunctis, feci meliora. Addidi etiam ad oram Notas variantis lectionis, aut coniecturae meae: sed paucas brevesque. Nam cetera haurire e Commentariis meis lectorem ius est. Qui Tacitum ipsum sequentur, imo adsequentur. Ego, mi Plantine, etsi in variis molestisque occupationibus nunc meis, valetudine etiam non firma, tamen curae habui hanc curam’: 1581 edition, sig. *2r–v. See CCP 6, no. 851, a letter of 10 December to Johannes Buysserius: ‘Cornelius Tacitus rursus a Lipsius annotatus’ (listed on p. 115). Of course, this exchange between Historiae and Annales had some consequences for the opening annotations of both works. For convenience’s sake this aspect is referred to Appendix 2. The 1607 edition, p. 13, just mentions ‘*populi Romani’ in the margin and repeats in the commentary part (col. 1 D, no. 6) the annotation of the 1581 edition. See CCP 6, no. 906, a letter from Plantin to Alexander Graphaeus, dated 20 January 1581: ‘Cornelii Taciti nuper alteram editionem Lipsii nostri absolvi, huius commentaria in eundem auctorem sudant sub praelo.’ The colophon gives February 1581. The commentary is listed in the catalogue of the autumn book fair of that year in Frankfurt: Georg Willer, Die Messkataloge, 3 (1581–1587), [61]. ‘Habes Commentarium meum, Lector, opinione tua, & promisso meo fortasse tardius. Nec mirum: quia serio opus adgressus eiusmodi, comperi ut properandum in eo mihi fuerit, non festinandum. Multa in Annalium libris rara, recondita, & paucitate scriptorum eius aevi obscura: multa etiam ex non vulgatis ritibus & vetustissimo iure haurienda. Nec dux mihi alius ad hoc iter. Primi, inquam, hanc viam ingredimur, Ferreto, Alciato, Vertranio visam potius quam tritam. Denique scripsi hos Commentarios, non exscripsi: & meo remigio, ut ille ait, rem gessi. Correctiones aliquot veteres firmavi, novas addidi, neutrum ambitiose …’: Ad lectorem, 1581 commen-

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39

40

41

42

tary, sig. *5r–*6r. Unless otherwise indicated, the translations from Latin are my own. The opposition of properare–festinare is borrowed from Marcus Cato ap. Gell. 16, 14, 2. The Italian jurist Aemylius Ferretus (1489–1552) published three editions of Tacitus between 1542 and 1551 with S. Grypius in Lyons; his colleague Andreas Alciatus (1492–1550), author of the popular Emblemata, had published a series of annotations to Tacitus in 1517 with the Milanese printer Alessandro Minuziano. Vertranius Maurus (fl. 1550–1588), another legal scholar, first published his notes to Tacitus in 1569, also with Gryphius in Lyons. It was followed by a text edition in 1576. On the friendship between Janus Grotius and Lipsius, see Jeanine De Landtsheer and Henk Nellen, ‘Leiden Poets Society: A Forgotten Letter from Janus Grotius (1554–1640) to Justus Lipsius (1547–1606),’ Lias 29 (2002): 157–67. The letter is published as ILE VIII: 1595, ed. Jeanine De Landtsheer (Brussels, 2004) [80 end / early 81]. In the reissues this genealogical tree was reprinted with the page numbers carefully adapted to the new edition. By providing his readers with neatly arranged genealogical material (there are other examples as well, but this is the most extensive), Lipsius is endorsing a tradition that had become increasingly popular with the historiographers of the sixteenth century. Examples are trees in the works of David Chytraeus or Reinerius Reineckius. See Antony Grafton, ‘Method and Madness in the Ars Historica,’ chap. 3 in Grafton, What Was History?: The Art of History in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 147–63. For the text, see PP 5:2279A (with the Leiden imprint; 2279B has the Antwerp address); for the commentaries, see PP 3:1562A (Annales)– 1563A (Historiae) with the Leiden imprint (= 1562B–1563B with the Antwerp address); see also BBr 5:291–2, T-66. Plantin arrived in Leiden at the end of April 1583. He matriculated on 29 April: Leiden University, Album Studiosorum Academiae Lugduno-Batavae, 1575–1875, ed. G. du Rieu et al. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1875), 14. Lipsius did his utmost to have the official documents ready as soon as possible; nevertheless, it took until 12 May 1584 before the curators and burgomasters appointed Plantin the official printer of the university with retroactive effect to 1 May 1583. Plantin was to receive an annuity of 200 fl.: Philippus C. Molhuysen, Bronnen tot de geschiedenis der Leidsche Universiteit (1574–1610), 7 vols. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1913–1924), vol. 1 (1913 = Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën, 20): 40 and 119*.

Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius  227 43 Willer, Die Messkataloge, 3 (1581–1587), [301]. It was also included among the books Lipsius presented to the city council of Leiden on 2 January 1585. 44 That is, by Plantin in 1584–1585 and by his successor, his Protestant son-in-law Franciscus Raphelengius Sr, for the years 1586–1591. 45 On this matter see my ‘Les pages de titres dans l’œuvre de Juste Lipse (1547–1606),’ in La page de titre à l’époque humaniste, ed. JeanFrançois Gilmont and Alexandre Vanautgaerden (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), 61–74. 46 See, for instance, in Ann. I, 1: ‘Sed veteris * reip: Vertranio adsentior sic legenti. Vulgo tamen populi Romani confusis notis.’ 47 This is the only time this dedication occurs. 48 Both are printed in three columns; as to the second index, the Annales are referred to in arabic numerals, the Historiae in roman numerals. 49 ‘Moneo postremum stilum ipsum, argumentum & caussam esse posse utriusque operis separandi. Sane in istis Historiarum libris scribendi genus totum floridius, diffusius, & velut canali fluens pleniore. In illis Annalium siccius, contractius.’ 50 See, for instance, the second example of Appendix 4. 51 This annotated copy is now in Stuttgart, Würtembergische Landesbibliothek. 52 See Tacitus (1585) Ad lectorem, sig. *2r: ‘Multa enim agnosco audacius & licentius inventa, & longius a verbis aberrantia: quae videantur mihi a subtilis ingenii fonte.’ 53 On this edition, see PP 5:2280 and BBr 5:292, T-67–8. It is not mentioned in Willer, Die Messkataloge. One of the copies in Antwerp, MPM, A 1249, once belonged to Moretus’s eldest living son Melchior (1573–1634) and bears his name on the flyer: ‘Sum Melchioris Moreti.’ 54 It is somewhat astonishing, though, that the Ad lectorem was omitted, whereas the biographical essay and the testimonies on Tacitus given by authors from Pliny to Sidonius Apollinaris were preserved. 55 On the first page of Annales, for instance, the marginal variant ‘*populi Romani’ is added next to the words ‘Sed veteris *rep. prospera vel adversa.’ The other marginal notations on that same page are argumenta: ‘Rei Ro. Status. / Ad Augustum. / Qui primus Princeps dictus. /Materia huic scriptioni. / Artes & via Augusti ad imperium.’ 56 PP 3:1564. There is no mention in Willer, Die Messkataloge. As the Curae secundae were soon integrated in the existing Liber commentarius or Notae, this dedication would no longer be used.

228  Jeanine De Landtsheer 57 See the dedicatory letter, sig. *2: ‘Notae aliquot meliores, quas olim cum plenum illum meum Commentarium dedi, aut non vidi, aut paullo sequius vidi. Multa enim interea propria lectio & dies me docuit, nonnihil aliorum suggestio; quibus gratiam rettuli, cuique in suo loco. Sed & quaedam priora mea aut explicavi, aut firmavi, aut etiam (nec pudet) recantavi.’ For a few examples, selected at random, see Appendix 4. 58 Appendix 3 gives two examples of extra, handwritten information, which was included in the Curae secundae 1588, and consequently also in later editions. In the first Lipsius wonders whether Nero, one of Germanicus’s sons, was a pontifex or merely a flamen, and offers epigraphical material to examine this question. One inscription he noted down during his stay in Rome; the other was sent by his friend Carolus Clusius, who had copied it on one of his botanical tours through Spain. The second example, just a few words jotted down as a mnemonic aid, was indeed elaborated in the Curae secundae. 59 These poems too were omitted in later editions. 60 See the Curae secundae, sig. *8v: ‘Lector, Numeri qui verbis Textus ad oram appositi, referuntur ad editionem Plantini illam quae in folio Anni m.d.lxxxv. Numeri qui post hanc notam * inserti, spectant ad paginas Commentarii, qui eidem illi Editioni subtextus. Illam enim, quia correctior & auctior, secuti sumus & siquis non habet, facilè ad quamvis aliam aptabit, ex serie librorum.’ 61 PP 5:2281. See also BBr 5:292–3, T-69–70; Willer, Die Messkataloge, 4 (1588–1592), [143], spring 1589. 62 ‘Ceterum, universe Commentarium istum pleniorem melioremque aliis scito: cui inservimus e Curis Secundis, suis quaeque locis. Quod si quid in iis tale, quod cohaerere cum priori Nota parum apte posset (puta, siquid ambigerem, mutarem, firmarem, refellerem) haec sub ipsam Notam disiunctim paullum subtexi iussimus cum signo isto * quod moneat te illud adtextum esse e posterioribus Curis’: Monitio ad Lectorem, sig. [**4]r. 63 On this 1595 edition, see BBr 5:293–4, T-71. It is not mentioned in Willer, Die Messkataloge. 64 See José Ruysschaert, ‘Autour des études de Juste Lipse sur Tacite. Examen de quelques éditions du xvie siècle,’ De Gulden Passer 26 (1948): 31–4. 65 BBr 5:295–6, T-75. 66 Because of Lipsius’s failing health this edition, dedicated to Pope Paul V, did not come from the press until September 1605. It was

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67

68

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71 72

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preceded by a general and more systematic introduction about the philosophical system of the Stoa and its predecessors, the Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam and the Physiologia Stoicorum, both published in 1604. Emperor Rudolph II had granted on 1 August 1592, a general privilege for all of Lipsius’s works. With a letter dated 14 February 1597, King Philip II of Spain had followed his example. Both privileges were valid for thirty years within the borders of the Empire and its appendages or the whole realm of the Spanish king, respectively. An extension was allowed only in case considerable changes had been made. Lipsius of course owned a copy of Orsini’s work, which was published by Johannes Moretus (Antwerp, 1604) with the title Fragmenta historicorum collecta ab Antonio Augustino, emendata a Fulvio Ursino. Fulvi Ursini notae ad Sallustium, Caesarem, Livium, Velleium, Tacitum, Suetonium, Spartianum Stoicorum. See the catalogue of Lipsius’s library, composed immediately after his death, Leiden UL, ms. Lips. 59, fol. 10r, book 24: ‘Fulvii Ursini Fragmenta historica, 8, Plant[ini], 95.’ Namely ILE XIII: 1600, ed. Jan Papy (Brussels, 2000), 00 01 14, 00 01 21 and [00 03 00]1. On 18 September he was paid for composing quires a to f; for the next couple of months, he was combining two quires of the commentary with composing other publications. The payment for the final quire of the commentary, hh, is listed on 18 December. See MPM, Arch. 786, fol. 104, left and right. See MPM, Arch. 786, fol. 118, left. Between 22 January and 19 February Arnold Fabri composed fifteen quires of the text; he was assisted by François Belet (paid for eleven quires between 22 January and 26 February: ibid., fol. 109, left), by François Fickart (paid for thirteen quires between 22 January and 4 March, the payment on 4 March including the index: ibid., fol. 107, right), and by Willem Wierick (five quires between 22 January and 19 February: ibid., fol. 113, left and right). From about the same time, printers Berger and Van Elst (fifteen quires between 22 January and 26 February) collaborated with Andries Withagen and Peeter Eskens (fifteen quires between 22 January and 4 March, including the preface and the index: ibid., fol. 119, left) and Philip Vander Hagen (nine quires between 29 January and 26 February: ibid., fol. 120, left). Once Tacitus’s Opera omnia was completed, Velleius Paterculus was hurried through the press by the same association of composers and printers from the end of February throughout March 1600.

230  Jeanine De Landtsheer 74 Lipsius preferred to have the ode omitted; the haste of the publication explains why it has poems preceding only the second part of the book. See also Willer, Die Messkataloge, 5, [532], spring 1600: C[aii] Cornelii Taciti opera quae exstant Iustus Lipsius postremum recensuit. Accessit seorsim Velleius Paterculus curae eiusdem Lipsii auctioribus notis. The Iusti Lipsii ad libros Historiarum Notae are mentioned separately, probably an indication that this final part of the Tacitus, together with the index, did indeed arrive just in time, together with the introductory part of the whole. 75 BBr 5:297–8, T-77. 76 Brink, ‘Justus Lipsius and the Text of Tacitus’, 33. The Mediceus 68.1 (ninth century) is the only manuscript to have preserved the (mutilated) text of what is in modern editions Annales I–VI. The Mediceus 68.2 (eleventh century), which was never used as the main foundation of a printed text, contains the rest of the Annales and the Historiae. The fifteenth-century manuscripts are tributary either directly or indirectly to Mediceus 68.2. See a facsimile of both Medicei with introduction by H. Rostagno in Scato Gocko de Vries, Codices Graeci et Latini photographice depicti (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1902–1923), vol. 7, 1–2, and a description in, among others, Mendell, Tacitus: The Man and His Work, 294–7. 77 ‘Monendus mihi initio Lector es, in hos quinque priores libros observationes meas paucas futuras, & eas ipsas ab ingenio omnes, non a libris. Nam quibus usus sum in Italia exemplaribus, ea communi calamitate premebantur et avulsum a reliquo corpore hoc quinque librorum quasi caput amiserant. Unicum exemplar manuscriptum Europa habet, reconditum Bibliotheca Medicaea, quod accurate & cum fide, ut opinio mea fert, Philippus Beroaldus exprimi curavit. Ait et Ferretus vidisse. Quorum fide nitar. Nam mihi inspiciundi occasio non fuit, et, ut vere dicam, post alios ne cupiditas quidem’: introd., Notae Annalium, 1574 edition, p. 692. In fact, as Brink points out, ‘Ferretus may have turned the pages of the Mediceus [68.1] but the two readings which he reports in his Annotatiunculae ... are both incorrect’: ‘Iustus Lipsius and the Text of Tacitus’, 33n5. 78 Ad Cornelii Taciti Opera Notae, iuxta veterrimorum exemplarium collationem ([Frankfurt:] Heirs of Andreas Wechel, Claude de Marne and Jean Aubry, 1600). 79 C[aii] Cornelii Taciti opera quae exstant. Ad exemplar quod I[ustus] Lipsius quintum recensuit. Seorsim excusi Commentarii eiusdem Lipsii meliores plenioresque cum Curis secundis et auctariolo non ante adiecto. Guilielmus Barclayus praemitia quaedam ex vita Agricolae libavit. Adiecti sunt indices

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80

81

82

83 84

aliquanto ditiores (Paris: Jean Gesselin, 1599). This is followed by a new title page announcing Iosiae Merceri ad novam editionem Taciti aliquot notae (Paris: Marc Orry, 1599 / Ambroise Drouart 1590 [= 1599]). For both items there are also copies with the address of other Paris printers: BBr 5:294–5, T-73. The catalogue of Lipsius’s library mentions a copy of only the second edition: ‘Curtius Pichena, in Tacitum, 8, Hanoviae, 1604,’ Leiden UL, ms. Lips. 59, fol. 11v, book 28. The Italian humanist would publish his own annotated edition in 1607: C[aii] Cornelii Taciti opera quae extant. Iuxta veterrimos manuscriptos emendata, notisque auctioribus illustrata per Curtium Pichenam (Frankfurt: Heirs of Andreas Wechel, Claude de Marne and Jean Aubry, 1607). ‘Vidi Curtiana ad Tacitum et bona insunt, sed plura, hercules, a tam vetusto exemplari expectabam. Illud mihi delectationi, et paene dicam gloriae, vel centenis locis comprobari ab eo coniecturas nostras, quas solo ingenio duce et timide saepe ponebamus. Ultimam editionem nostram non vidit, atque in ea multa seria et nova repperisset’: ILE XIII, 00 11 14 M. Lipsius’s praise of Pichena’s work is also mentioned in ILE XVI, ed. Filip Vanhaecke (Brussels, forthcoming), 03 07 25 P; 03 09 14. In the Allocutio iterata et novissima of the 1607 edition, sig. *6v, this commendation becomes: ‘Pichena tamen super omnes, adiutus a Florentino bonae notae codice, qui in Medicaea bibliotheca asservatur, & qui centenis circiter locis coniecturas nostras (quod gaudeam) confirmavit.’ On the way Lipsius made use of the variant readings offered by Pichena; see Ruysschaert, Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite, 138–43. For books I–VI of the Annales, only 25 out of 57 variants were used, and for books XI–XVI Lipsius kept only 43 variants out of 221. Nevertheless, many of the ones he rejected made good sense. Cf. above, fig. 4 and accompanying text. One of the reasons for the delay was a stalemate conflict between Johannes Moretus and Cardinal Cesare Baronio on the publication of book XI of his Annales ecclesiastici, in which he had inserted a long digression about the Spanish kings’ basing their claims to the throne of Sicily on a thoroughly altered if not entirely apocryphal document. When contacted about this issue, archdukes Albert and Isabella made it clear by way of the Private Council that this argument was unacceptable to the Spanish king and that Moretus should print the book without this chapter. When the printer cautiously explained the problem and asked Baronio’s permission to omit the vexatious passage, the cardinal threatened to make business contacts

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87 88

89 90

91

with Rome impossible. He stubbornly refused to understand Moretus’s position, although the Officina Plantiniana had always given him preferential treatment with prompt publication of his books. The matter was solved only by the death of the cardinal († Rome, 30 June 1607), but meanwhile the interrupted printing of book xi had consumed much time, manpower, paper, and letter material, with a financial disaster looming. Cf. Léon Voet, The Golden Compasses: A History and Evaluation of the Printing and Publishing Activities of the Officina Plantiniana at Antwerp, vol. 1 (Amsterdam: Vangendt, 1969), 194–5; Henricus Moretus, SJ, ‘L’édition Plantinienne des Annales Ecclesiastici du Cardinal Baronius,’ in Sept études sur Christophe Plantin, ed. Maurits Sabbe (Brussels: Musée du Livre, 1920), 16–27. The still unedited correspondence referred to is preserved at Leiden UL, ms. Lips. 4 and will be edited by Jeanine De Landtsheer as ILE XVIII: 1605 and XIX: 1606. The process of printing and composing can be followed quire after quire thanks to a document entitled Livre des compagnons de l’imprimerie tenu par feu mon père, preserved at Antwerp, MPM, Arch. 786, in which Moretus had noted down the payment of his composers and printers. ‘De Tacito, omnino iam cum Ampl[itudine] V[estra] formam folii probamus et hodie Parisios pro charta scripsimus et nobis aliqua adhuc hic superest, in qua ordiamur’: ILE XVIII (forthcoming), 05 09 09 M. ‘De Tacito, ecce specimen, nec spero quidquam nos fugisse’: ILE XVIII (forthcoming), 05 09 30 M1. See Antwerp, MPM, Arch. 786, fol. 182, right. Despite going through this document repeatedly, I could not find any details about the composers before April 1606, when Arnold Fabri was paid for quires Q and part of R: fol. 177, right. Lovanium sive Opidi et Academiae eius descriptio Libri Tres (Antwerp: Johannes Moretus, 1605). ‘Lovanium intra duas abhinc septimanas compositor absolverit et tum Tacitum iterum ordietur. Supersunt adhuc aliquot terniones in quibus operetur. At si parata reliqua habeat, nuncio tuto committet, si A[mplitudini] T[uae] visum. Nam quo citius accipimus, nunc commoditas nobis datur numeros commentarii et textus adaptandi’: ILE XVIII (forthcoming), 05 11 04. See ILE XVIII (forthcoming), 05 11 25 and 05 12 30 M1 respectively. MPM, Arch. 786, fol. 176, left shows that Peeter van Standonck and Machiel De Wilder were paid for printing part of quire C on 26 November. They continued collaborating on Lipsius’s Tacitus until 18 February 1606.

Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius  233 92 Arch. 786, fol. 177, right and 194, left (Fabri) and fol. 172, right and 192, left (Vijfeijck and Marcauwen). 93 For a thorough analysis of the various ways followed by Lipsius for his emendations, see Ruysschaert, Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite, 53–91. 94 See Flavius Josephus, Jewish War, Book II.

Appendix 1 A Survey of Lipsius’s Editions of Tacitus (Text and/or Commentary) In the following list, only Lipsius’s authorized editions published by the Officina Plantiniana are included. 1574: C[aii] Corn[elii] Taciti Historiarum et Annalium libri qui exstant Iusti LipsI studio emendati & illustrati. Ad Imp. Maximilianum II Aug. P. F., eiusdem Taciti liber de moribus Germanorum, Iulii Agricolae vita, incerti scriptoris Dialogus de oratoribus sui temporis. Ad C. V. Ioannem Sambucum. Antverpiae: Ex officina Christophori Plantini, Architypographi Regii, m.d.lxxiv. 1581: C[aii] Corn[elii] Taciti Opera omnia quae exstant. Quorum index pagina sequenti. I[ustus] Lipsius denuo castigavit, et recensuit. Antverpiae: Ex officina Christophori Plantini, Architypographi Regii, m.d.lxxxi. 1581: Iusti LipsI ad Annales Corn[elii] Taciti liber commentarius, sive notae. Antverpiae: Ex officina Christophori Plantini, Architypographi Regii, m.d.lxxxi. 1585: C[aii] Cornelii Taciti Opera quae exstant ex Iusti LipsI editione ultima: et cum eiusdem ad ea omnia Commentariis aut Notis. Lugduni Batavorum: Ex officina Christophori Plantini, m.d.lxxxv. 1588: C[aii] Cornelii Taciti Opera quae exstant. I[ustus] Lipsius quartum recensuit. Idemque Notas ad oram addidit, rerum indices. Lugduni Batavorum: Ex officina Plantiniana apud Franciscum Raphelengium, m.d.lxxxviii = Antverpiae: Apud Christophorum Plantinum, m.d.lxxxviii. 1588: Iusti LipsI ad C[aium] Cornelium Tacitum Curae Secundae. Lugduni Batavorum: Ex officina Plantiniana apud Franciscum Raphelengium,

234  Jeanine De Landtsheer m.d.lxxxviii = Antverpiae: Apud Christophorum Plantinum, m.d.lxxxviii. 1589: C[aii] Cornelii Taciti Opera quae exstant. I[ustus] Lipsius quintum recensuit. Additi commentarii meliores plenioresque cum Curis secundis. Lugduni Batavorum: Ex officina Plantiniana apud Franciscum Raphelengium, m.d.lxxxix = Antverpiae: Apud Christophorum Plantinum, m.d.lxxxix. 1595: C[aii] Cornelii Taciti Opera quae exstant. I[ustus] Lipsius quintum recensuit. Seorsim excusi Commentarii meliores plenioresque cum Curis secundis. Lugduni Batavorum: Ex Officina Plantiniana: Apud Franciscum Raphelengium, m.d.vc. 1600: C[aii] Cornelii Taciti Opera quae exstant. Iustus Lipsius postremum recensuit. Additi Commentarii meliores plenioresque, cum Curis secundis. Accessit seorsim C[aius] Velleius Paterculus cum eiusdem Lipsi auctioribus Notis. Antverpiae: Ex officina Plantiniana, Apud Ioannem Moretum. m.dc. Cum Privilegiis Caesareo & Regio. 1607: C[aii] Corn[elii] Taciti Opera quae exstant. Iustus Lipsius postremum recensuit. Additi Commentarii aucti emendatique ab ultima manu. Accessit C[aius] Velleius Paterculus cum eiusdem LipsI auctioribus Notis. Antverpiae: Ex officina Plantiniana, Apud Ioannem Moretum. m.dc.vii. Cum Privilegiis Caesareo & duorum Regum.1

Appendix 2 The Praenomen of Tacitus: Why Lipsius Preferred Caius to Publius After the introduction, the commentary section of the 1574 edition opens on page 15 with Ad lib[rum] I. Histor[iarum] Notae. The first annotation reads:

1 The ‘second’ king on the 1607 title page is Henry IV of France, who had in his turn granted a privilege on 13 July 1605 to protect Lipsius’s works in his realm, but only for ten years, whereas the imperial privilege and that of the king of Spain lasted for thirty years

Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius  235 lin. 1. C. Cornelii Taciti. Tacito praenomen Caii sum ausus asserere: primum, quia auctorem habebam Sidonium lib[ro] IV Epist[olarum] ad Polemium, Caius Tacitus, e maioribus unus tuis, Ulpianorum temporum consularis in historia sua, etc. & ad Leonem, Nanque & antiquitus cum Caius Cornelius Tacitus Caio Plinio Secundo paria suasisset, ipse postremo quod iniunxit, arripuit. Deinde quia veteris Farnes[iani] cod[icis] ejpigrafh;; disertim habebat C[aii] Cornelii Taciti Romanas historias scribentis. Nam alii libri sine praenomine erant, ut minime dubitem quin illud Publii, sine idoneo capite a vulgo sit. Mihi autem in ipso aditu testari placet,    Odi profanum vulgus & arceo.1 From the 1581 edition onwards, this remark is moved to the Liber commentarius ad Annales. It begins on page 1 with an explanation of the title: C. Cornelii : Id verum huic scriptori praenomen [from 1585 onwards he adds adserui] Sidonius lib[ri] IV ad Polemium epistola: Caius Tacitus, e maioribus unus tuis, Ulpianorum temporum consularis. Et ad Leonem: Namque & antiquitus cum Caius Cornelius Tacitus Caio Plinio Secundo paria suasisset. Sed & epigraphe Farnesiani libri, C[aii] Cornelii Taciti Romanas historias scribentis ex his qui reperiuntur liber primus. Publium praenomen quod in libris tritis, a casu aut a vulgo est. Mihi autem in ipso aditu testari placet,     Odi profanum vulgo & arceo.2 This is followed by an excursus about the title Annalium liber: ‘Bene Rhenanus qui hanc inscriptionem adfert, etiam contra libros etc.’ In the 1607 edition the annotation, still indicated in the title of the Annales, has been moved to page 1, column 1 C-D.

1 Lipsius quotes Hor. C. iii, 1, 1. 2 In the annotated 1585 copy at Leiden University Library, 762 B 4, Lipsius corrected Id verum into Caium; after adserui he thought of adding spreto illo Publii, which he cancelled again, and he changed Sidonius into e Sidonio. But none of these alterations has been followed in the subsequent editions.

236  Jeanine De Landtsheer

Appendix 3 The Annotations in Leiden UL, 762 B 4 as Source of the Curae secundae Example 1: Tac. Ann. iii, 29, 3 (see fig. 9): Next to the text of the 1585 edition, p. 38, Lipsius annotated ‘Additur pontificatus’: In margin: At in lapide marmorea †....† quadrata Romae: Ossa Neronis. Caesaris. Germanici. Caesaris F. Divi Aug. Pron. Flamin. Augustalis. Quaestoris1 In alio in Hispania: Neroni. Caesari Germanici F. Ti. Augusti. N. Divi Aug. Pron. Flamini. Augustali Sodali. Augustali In the Curae secundae, as well as in the later editions, this becomes: 38. Additur pontificatus.] [In margin: Nero an pontifex?] De Nerone agit, Germanici f[ilio], quem tamen ego Pontificem in lapidibus, qui data opera honori eius & memoriae positi, non lego. Exstat urna a Caligula, ut e Suetonio colligas, dicata Romae:

1 Lipsius copied this inscription during his stay in Rome; see Leiden, UL, ms. Lips. 22, f. 32, lower-right-hand corner. He specified: ‘Romae lapides bini eadem forma uterque excavatus ita ut videatur quippiam immissum fuisse in Capitolio.’ The second stone referred to and copied in the left-hand corner of ms. Lips. 22 deals with the mortal remains of Agrippina Maior.

Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius  237

Figure 9. Lipsius’s marginal annotation of two inscriptions in Annales, p. 38 (Leiden: C. Plantin, 1585), Leiden, UL, 762 B 4. Photograph by Jeanine De Landtsheer published with permission of the library.

238  Jeanine De Landtsheer Ossa Neronis. Caesaris Germanici. Caesaris F. Divi Aug. Pron. Flamin. Augustalis. Quaestoris Et in Hispania marmor, quod amicus noster Carolus Clusius descripsit: Neroni. Caesari Germanici F. Ti. Augusti. N. Divi Aug. Pron. Flamini. Augustali Sodali. Augustali [In margin: An potius Augur?] Ubi cum Flamen utrobique insculpatur, non pontifex: subvereri in mentem venit, ne in cognato honore Tacitus si forte aberrarit. Example 2: Tac. Ann. xvi, 34, 3: The Liber commentarius (1585), p. 187 gives, after a previous reference to the text, p. 140: [In marg.: Arria uxor Caecinae, heroïna] Arriam tentantem mariti suprema, & exemplum Arriae matris sequi.] Arria mater, uxor fuit Caecinae Paeti, qui in partibus Scriboniani contra Claudium. Ideo ad mortem actus. Sed praeivit uxor, aeterno & inaudito exemplo, semet feriendo; extractumque pugionem marito porrigendo, cum voce, Paete non dolet. Plinium lege, lib. iii epistola ad Nepotem. Martialis de hac heroina, Casta suo gladium cum traderet Arria Paeto, quem de visceribus traxerat ipsa suis: siqua fides, vulnus quod feci, non dolet, inquit, sed quod tu facies, hoc mihi, Paete, dolet. [In margin: Dio et Zonaras leviter correcti] In Zonara & Dione eadem narratio. Sed corrupte verba Graeca pai`, oujk ajlgw` & in puerili mendo Xylander, Puer, non dolet. Scribe pai`te, oujk ajlgw`. In his copy Lipsius added a marginal note referring to a Persius manuscript owned by his colleague, Bonaventura Vulcanius: Haec cognata Persii, B[onaventurae] Vulc[anii] Persii 198.

Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius  239 On p. 92 the Curae secundae end with the following annotation: Arriam.] Quam ille idem (sive etiam alius: nec pugno) Scholiastes in vita Persii notat fuisse ei cognatam. Ipse Persius, inquit, decem fere annis summe dilectus apud Thraseam est, ita ut peregrinaretur quoque cum eo aliquando, cognatam eius Arriam uxorem habente. Quid est autem, Diligi apud Thraseam? Soloecus sermo. Manuscriptus Vulcanii, apetithrasea. Facile correctu, a Paeto Thrasea. Commentarii autem huius parum adhuc pervulgati auctoritate saepe nitor. Quis carpet? Doctus ille, probus; imo in pleraque parte & Probi. Utinam hodie sic commentemur! Debemus eum P[etro] Pythaeo, I[uris]c[onsulto], viro doctrinae, iudicii, vitae directae. In the 1589 edition this passage becomes: Arriamque tentantem mariti suprema, & exemplum Arriæ matris sequi.] [In margin: Arria uxor Caecinæ, heroïna.] Arria mater, uxor fuit Caecinae Paeti, qui in partibus Scriboniani contra Claudium. Ideo ad mortem actus. Sed præivit uxor, æterno & inaudito exemplo, semet feriendo; extractumque pugionem marito porigendo cum voce, Paete non dolet. Plinium lege, lib. iii, epistola ad Nepotem. Martialis de hac heroïna, Casta suo gladium cum traderet Arria Paeto, quem de visceribus traxerat ipsa suis: siqua fides, vulnus quod feci, non dolet, inquit, sed quod tu facies, hoc mihi, Paete, dolet. [In margin: Dio et Zonaras leviter correcti.] In Zonara & Dione eadem narratio. Sed corrupte verba Graeca pai`, oujk ajlgw` & in puerili mendo Xylander, Puer, non dolet. Scribe pai`te, oujk ajlgw`. Hanc Arriam Scholiastes in vita Persii notat fuisse ei cognatam. Ipse Persius, inquit, decem fere annis summe dilectus apud Thraseam est, ita ut peregrinaretur quoque cum eo aliquando, cognatam eius Arriam uxorem habente. [In margin: Persii vetus interpres correctus.] Quid est autem, Diligi apud Thraseam? Soloecus sermo. Manuscriptus Vulcanii, apetithrasea. Facile correctu, a Paeto Thrasea. Commentarii autem huius parum adhuc pervulgati auctoritate saepe nitor. Quis carpet? [In margin: Et iure laudatus.] Doctus ille, probus; imo in pleraque parte & Probi. Utinam hodie sic commentemur! Debemus eum P[etro] Pythaeo, I[uris]c[onsulto], viro doctrinae, iudicii, vitae directae.

240  Jeanine De Landtsheer

Appendix 4 Lipsius’s Evolving Commentaries: Two Examples in the 1585 Edition, Curae secundae, and 1588 Edition Example 1: Tac. Ann. i, 8, 7: Liber commentarius (1585), p. 7, gives, after referring to the text p. 3: Remisit Caesar, adroganti moderatione] [In margin: Remittere & permittere contraria] Quid? non ergo elatum corpus humeris Senatorum? Est vero. Suetonius: Senatorum humeris delatus in campum crematusque. Idem Dio. At Remittendi verbum eo valet, ut non sit factum. Lib. iiii. Remissa Aedilibus talis cura. Lib. xi. Hortantibus dehinc inediam & levem exitum, remittere beneficium Asiaticus ait. Scribo ergo, permisit Caesar. Sed eamipsam permissionem arrogantem esse vult Tacitus: quia per speciem modestiae & quasi pugnare cum Senatu nollet, habuit amplissimum ordinem inter vespillones. Simile illud libri vi. De Asinio Gallo: consultusque Caesar an sepeliri sineret, non erubuit permittere. Curae Secundae (1588), pp. 2–3, add.: Remisit Caesar] [In margin: Remitto pro permitto] Volebam permisit. At docuit me vir ille qui omnes, (Cuiacium dico, quem nemo satis unquam miratus est qui cepit) eamdem vim inesse verbo Remittendi. Exempla apud ipsum in postremis Observationibus. Et satis in Irenaeo etiam legi: Remittite mortuos sepelire mortuos suos. From the edition of 1589 onward this becomes (p. 7): Remisit Caesar, adroganti moderatione] [In marg.: Remittere & permittere contraria] Quid? non ergo elatum corpus humeris Senatorum? Est vero. Suetonius: Senatorum humeris delatus in campum crematusque. Idem Dio. At Remittendi verbum eo valet, ut non sit factum. Lib. iiii. Remissa Aedilibus talis cura. Lib. xi. Hortantibus dehinc inediam & levem exitum, remittere beneficium Asiaticus ait. Scribo ergo, permisit Caesar. Sed eamipsam permissionem arrogantem esse vult Tacitus: quia per speciem modestiae & quasi pugnare cum Senatu nollet, habuit amplissimum ordinem inter vespillones. Simile illud libri vi. De Asinio Gallo: consultusque Caesar an sepeliri sineret, non erubuit permittere. [In margin: Remitto pro permitto] De correctione nunc ambigo. Quia docuit me vir ille qui omnes, (Cuiacium dico, quem nemo satis unquam

Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius  241 miratus est qui cepit) eamdem vim inesse verbo Remittendi. Exempla apud ipsum in postremis Observationibus. Et satis in Irenaeo etiam legi: Remittite mortuos sepelire mortuos suos. Example 2: Tac. Ann. i, 10, 2: Liber commentarius (1585), pp. 7–8, gives, after referring to the text: Nuptiis sororis illectum] [In margin: Antonii cum Octavia nuptiae] Octaviae ex Ancharia. De quo instabili coniugio mire foedatus Senecae patris locus Suasoria prima: Cum Antonius vellet se Liberum patrem dici, & hoc nomen statuis subscribi occurrerunt venienti ei Athenienses cum coniugibus ac liberis, & Dionysium salutaverunt. Bene illis cesserat, si nasus Atticus ibi substitisset. Dixerunt despondere ipsos (malim, ipsi) in matrimonium Minervam Musam suam, & rogaverunt ut duceret. & Antonius ait ducturum, sed dotis nomine imperare se illis mille talenta. Tum ex Graeculis quidam ait ……… Huic quidem […] Hoc tu e vita restituas, tibi habe. Primum offendimus in Minerva Musa [In margin: Pater Seneca semel atque iterum correctus], quoniam neque Dio nominat in hac historia, Aqhna; j n dixisse contentus: nec cognomen nostrarum dearum scio alias adhaesisse Minervae. Itaque inducta ea voce scribo, Minervam suam, nata fuit ex confusa repetitione litterae vocisque sequentis. In summa discrepat idem Dio, qui eJkato;n muriavdaõ imperatas pro dote ait [In margin: Dionis a Seneca dissensio], Id est Romano ritu H.S. quadragies. Mille autem talenta Senecae, paullo minus faciunt ducenties quadragies: sexto tanto immaniore summa. Tamen non muto. Graeculi iocum, cui spatium vacuum, * doleo abesse. [In margin: * Monuit me per litteras And[reas] Schottus ex Ant[onii] Covarruviae libro suppleri posse: Kuvrie, oJ Zeu;õ th;n mhtevra sou Semevlhn a[proikon ei[con]. At Latinum commode restituo, Octavia res tuas tibi habe. […] Curae Secundae (1588), p. 3, add.: [In margin: Seneca pater restitutus]* In Senecae loco de Minerva Musa, Com. pag. 8 legi placebat Minervam suam: probabiliter, nec tamen probe. Nam mente & manu amplector sententiam Iani mei Grotii, amoenissimi & acutissimi viri reponentis Minervam Musicam. Inter nobiles Athenis statuas fuit Minerva hoc cognomento; sic dicta, quoniam dracones in Gorgone eius ad ictus citharae tinnitu resonant. Plinius lib. xxxiv, cap. viii. From the edition of 1589 onwards this becomes (p. 8): Nuptiis sororis illectum] [In margin: Antonii cum Octavia nuptiae] Octaviae ex Ancharia. De quo instabili coniugio mire foedatus Senecae patris

242  Jeanine De Landtsheer locus Suasoria prima: Cum Antonius vellet se Liberum patrem dici, & hoc nomen statuis subscribi occurrerunt venienti ei Athenienses cum coniugibus / ac liberis, & Dionysium salutaverunt. Bene illis cesserat, si nasus Atticus ibi substitisset. Dixerunt despondere ipsos (malim, ipsi) in matrimonium Minervam Musam suam, & rogaverunt ut duceret. & Antonius ait ducturum, sed dotis nomine imperare se illis mille talenta. Tum ex Graeculis quidam ait ……… Huic quidem […] Hoc tu evita restituas, tibi habe. Primum offendimus in Minerva Musa [In margin: Pater Seneca semel atque iterum correctus), quoniam neque Dio nominat in hac historia, jAqhna;n dixisse contentus: nec cognomen nostrarum dearum scio alias adhaesisse Minervae. Itaque inducta ea voce scribo, Minervam suam, nata fuit ex confusa repetitione litterae vocisque sequentis. In summa discrepat idem Dio, qui eJkato;n muriavdaõ imperatas pro dote ait [In margin: Dionis a Seneca dissensio], Id est Romano ritu H.S. quadragies. Mille autem talenta Senecae, paullo minus faciunt ducenties quadragies: sexto tanto immaniore summa. Tamen non muto. Graeculi iocum, cui spatium vacuum, * doleo abesse. [In margin: * Monuit me per litteras And[reas] Schottus ex Ant[onii] Covarruviae libro suppleri posse: Kuvrie, oJ Zeu;õ th;n mhtevra sou Semevlhn a[proikon ei[con]. At Latinum commode restituo, Octavia res tuas tibi habe. […] * [In margin: Minerva Musica] In Senecae loco de Minerva Musa, Com. pag. 8 legi placebat Minervam suam: probabiliter, nec tamen probe. Nam mente & manu amplector sententiam Iani mei Grotii, amoenissimi & acutissimi viri reponentis Minervam Musicam. Inter nobiles Athenis statuas fuit Minerva hoc cognomento; sic dicta, quoniam dracones in Gorgone eius ad ictus citharae tinnitu resonant. Plinius lib. xxxiv, cap. viii.

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258  Works Cited Rabelais, François. Gargantua and Pantagruel. Translated by Burton Raffel. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990. – Œuvres complètes. Edited by Mireille Huchon. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Paris: Gallimard, 1994. – Œuvres de Rabelais. Edited by Charles Esmangart and Éloi Johanneau. Paris: Dalibon, 1823–1834. – Pantagruel. Edited by M. Huchon. Paris: Gallimard, 1994. Rabil, Albert, Jr. Erasmus and the New Testament: The Mind of a Christian Humanist. San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1972. – ‘Erasmus’s Paraphrases of the New Testament.’ In Essays on the Works of Erasmus, edited by Richard L. DeMolen, 145–61. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978. – Review of P.F. Hovingh, ed., Erasmi Opera Omnia, VI.5: Annotationes in Novum Testamentum (pars Prima). Renaissance Quarterly 55 (2002): 1427–8. Raeder, Siegfried. ‘Luther als Ausleger und Übersetzer der Heiligen Schrift.’ In Junghans, Leben und Werk Martin Luthers, 253–78. Rawles, Stephen, and Michael A. Screech et al., eds. A New Rabelais Bibliography: Editions of Rabelais before 1626. Études rabelaisiennes 20. Geneva: Droz, 1987. Reichert, Otto. ‘D.M. Luthers September-Testament in seinen und seiner Zeitgnossen Zeugissen.’ Luther: Mitteilungen der Luther-Gesellschaft 4 (1922): 49–64. Renaudet, Augustin. Préréforme et humanisme à Paris pendant les premières guerres d’Italie, 1494–1517. 2nd ed., revised and corrected. Paris: Librairie d’Argences, 1953. Renouard, Antoine-Augustin. Annales de l’imprimerie des Estienne: ou, Histoire de la famille des Estienne et de ses éditions. 2nd ed. Paris: Jules Renouard et Cie, 1843. Reprint, New York: Lenox Hill (Burt Franklin), 1972. Renouard, Philippe. Bibliographie des impressions et des œuvres de Josse Badius Ascensius, imprimeur et humaniste, 1462–1535. 3 vols. Paris, 1908. Reprint, New York: Burt Franklin, 1963. – Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens du XVIe siècle, ouvrage publié d’après les manuscrits de Philippe Renouard, vol. 2: Baaleau-Banville. Paris: Service des travaux historiques de la Ville de Paris avec le concours de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 1969. Richardot, Philippe. ‘L’influence du De re militari de Végèce sur la pensée militaire du XVIe siècle.’ Institut de stratégie comparée, Commission française d’histoire militaire, Institut d’histoire des conflits contemporains. http://www.stratisc.org/strat_060_Richardot.html Roberts, Michael. Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity. ARCA, Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs 16. Liverpool: Cairns, 1985.

Works Cited  259 Rodríguez Peregrina, J.M. Del arte de hablar. Granada: Editorial Universidad de Granada, 2000. Ronsard, Pierre de. Les amours, leurs commentaires. Edited by Christine de Buzon and Pierre Martin. Paris: Didier Erudition, 1999. – Œuvres. Paris: Nicolas Buon, 1623. Roussel, Bernard. ‘Exegetical Fictions? Biblical Paraphrases of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.’ In Pabel and Vessey, Holy Scripture Speaks, 59–83. Rublack, Hans-Christoph. ‘Johann von Botzheim (d. March 1535).’ In CEBR 1 (1985): 177–8. Rummel, Erika. The Confessionalization of Humanism in Reformation Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. – Erasmus’ Annotations on the New Testament: From Philologist to Theologian. Erasmus Studies 8. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986. – The Humanist-Scholastic Debate in the Renaissance and Reformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Ruysschaert, José. ‘Autour des études de Juste Lipse sur Tacite. Examen de quelques éditions du XVIe siècle.’ De Gulden Passer 26 (1948): 29–40. – Juste Lipse et les Annales de Tacite: Une méthode de critique textuelle au xvie siècle. Recueil de Travaux d’histoire et de philologie de l’Université de Louvain, 3e série, fasc. 34. Humanistica Lovaniensia 8. Louvain: Bibliothèque de l’Université, 1949. – ‘Le séjour de Juste Lipse à Rome (1568–1570) d’après ses Antiquae lectiones et sa correspondance.’ Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 24 (1947–1948): 139–92. Schloemann, Martin. ‘Die Mitte der Schrift – Luthers Notabene.’ In Theologie und Auflklärung. Festschrift für Gottfried Hornig zum 65. Geburtstag, edited by Wolfgang Erich Müller and Hartmut H.R. Schulz, 29–40. Wurzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1992. – ‘Die Zwei Wörter: Luthers Notabene zur “Mitte der Schrift.”’ Luther 65 (1994): 116. Schmidt, Paul Gerhard. ‘Iodocus Badius Ascensius als Kommentator.’ In Der Kommentator in der Renaissance, edited by August Buck and Otto Herding, 63–71. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Kommission für Humanismumsforschung, Mitteilung 1. Boppard: Harald Boldt, 1975. Schoeffel, R.M. ‘Erasmus of Toronto: The Collected Works of Erasmus.’ Unpublished paper read at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 2005. Schreiber, Fred. The Estiennes: An Annotated Catalogue of 300 Highlights of Their Various Presses. Introduction by Nicolas Barker. New York: E.K. Schreiber, 1982. Sehling, Emil, ed. Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des XVI. Jahrhunderts. 5 vols. Leipzig, 1902–1911.

260  Works Cited Sheerin, Daniel. ‘Translator’s Note on the Texts: How to Read Them.’ In CWE 84:cxliii–cxlviii. Simonetti, Mario. Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to Patristic Exegesis. Translated by John A. Hughes. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994. Smith, Alfred J. ‘The Latin Sources of the Commentary of Pelagius on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans.’ Journal of Theological Studies 19 (1918): 162–230. Souter, Alexander. The Earliest Latin Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1927. – A Study of Ambrosiaster. Texts and Studies 7, no. 4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905. South, James B. ‘Nifo, Agostino.’ In Grendler, Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, 4:320–1. Spagnuoli Mantuanus, Baptista. Adulescentia: The Ecologues of Mantuan. Edited and translated by Lee Piepho. New York: Garland, 1989. – Parthenice Mariana F. Baptistae Mantuani ab Iodoco Badio Familiariter explanata. Paris: Thielmann Kerver for Jean Petit and Jean de Coblenz, 1499. Steinmetz, David C. ‘Calvin and the Patristic Exegesis of Paul.’ In The Bible in the Sixteenth Century, edited by David C. Steinmetz, 103–7. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990. Stolt, Birgit. ‘Luthers Übersetzungstheorie und Übersetzungspraxis.’ In Junghans, Leben und Werk Martin Luthers, 240–52. Stüben, Joachim. ‘Erasmus von Rotterdam und der Ambrosiaster: Zur Identifikationsgeschichte einer wichtigen Quelle Augustins.’ Wissenschaft und Weisheit: Franziskanische Studien zu Theologie, Philosophie und Geschichte 60 (1997): 3–22. Sullivan, Thomas, OSB. Paris Licenciates in Theology, A.D. 1373–1500: A Biographical Register, vol 1: The Religious Orders. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2004. Tacitus, Publius Cornelius. C[aii] Cornelii Taciti opera quae exstant. Ad exemplar quod I[ustus] Lipsius quintum recensuit. Seorsim excusi Commentarii eiusdem Lipsii meliores plenioresque cum Curis secundis et auctariolo non ante adiecto. Guilielmus Barclayus praemitia quaedam ex vita Agricolae libavit. Adiecti sunt indices aliquanto ditiores. Paris: Jean Gesselin, 1599. New title page: Iosiae Merceri ad novam editionem Taciti aliquot notae. Paris: Marc Orry, 1599 and Ambroise Drouart 1590 [= 1599]. – C[aii] Cornelii Taciti opera quae extant. Iuxta veterrimos manuscriptos emendata, notisque auctioribus illustrata per Curtium Pichenam. Frankfurt: Heirs of Andreas Wechel, Claude de Marne, and Jean Aubry, 1607. – P[ublii] Cornelii Taciti, Eq[uitis] Ro[mani], Ab Excessu Augusti Annalium libri sedecim. Ex castigatione Aemylii Ferreti, Beati Rhenani, Alciati ac Beroaldi. Lyons: Sebastianus Gryphius, 1542. In-8º. Leiden University Library 760 F 10.

Works Cited  261 Tarrant, Richard J. ‘Tacitus.’ In Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, edited by L.D. Reynolds, 406–11. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983. Tostatus, Alphonsus, Episcopus Abulensis. Commentarii in 1am partem Matthaei. Venice, 1615. Trinklein, Michael. ‘Luther’s Insights into the Translator’s Task.’ Bible Translator 21, no. 2 (April 1970): 80–8. Valerius Maximus. Valerius Maximus cum duplici commentario historico videlicet ac litterato Arzignanensis & Familiari admodum ac succincto Iodoci Badii Ascensii. Paris: Josse Bade, Jean Petit, and Jean Coberger, 29 April–5 June 1510. Valla, Lorenzo. Laurentii Vallensis viri tam graecae quam latinae linguae peritissimi in latinam Novi Testamenti interpretationem ex collatione graecorum exemplarium adnotationes apprime utiles. Edited by Desiderius Erasmus. Paris: Josse Bade, 1505. van Poll-van de Lisdonk, Miekske L., ed. ‘Einleitung.’ Annotationes in Novum Testamentum (Pars Quarta). In ASD VI-8:1–37. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2003. Vessey, Mark. ‘Erasmus’ Lucubrations and the Renaissance Life of Texts.’ Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook 24 (2004): 23–51. – ‘Introduction.’ In Pabel and Vessey, Holy Scripture Speaks, 3–25. Vives, Juan Luis. De ratione dicendi lateinisch/deutsch. German translation by Angelika Ott with an introduction by Emilio Hidalgo-Serna. Ars Rhetorica 5. Marburg: Hitzeroth, 1993. Voet, Léon. The Golden Compasses: A History and Evaluation of the Printing and Publishing Activities of the Officina Plantiniana at Antwerp. Amsterdam: Van Gendt / New York: Abner Schram, 1969. Vogels, Heinrich. ‘Ambrosiaster und Hieronymus.’ Revue Bénédictine 66 (1956): 14–19. Volkir, Nicolas, trans. Flave Vegece René, ... Du fait de guerre et fleur de chevalerie, quatre livres. Sexte Jule Frontin, ... Des stratagemes, especes et subtilitez de guerre, quatre livres. Aelian, De l’ordre et instruction des batailles, ung livre. Modeste, Des vocables du fait de guerre, ung livre. Pareillement, CCXX histoires concernans le fait guerre, joinctes à Vegece. Traduicts fidellement de latin en francois et collationnez aux livres anciens, tant a ceulx de Budé que Beroalde et Bade. Paris: Ch. Wechel, 1536. Vries, Scato Gocko de. Codices Graeci et Latini photographice depicti. 10 vols. Leiden: Sijthoff, 1902–23. Wadsworth, James B. ‘Filippo Beroaldo the Elder and the Early Renaissance in Lyon.” Medievalia et Humanistica 11 (1957): 78–89. Willer, Georg. Die Messkataloge Georg Willers. In Die Messkataloge des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, edited by Bernhard Fabian. Hildesheim: Olms, 1975–. Wood, Neal. ‘Frontinus as a Possible Source for Machiavelli’s Method.’ Journal of the History of Ideas 28, no. 2 (1967): 243–8.

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Contributors

Hélène Cazes is associate professor of medieval and renaissance French literature at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. Trained in France (ENS 1981, agrégation 1984, doctorate 1997), she was a contributor to Henri Estienne, éditeur et écrivain (Brepols, 2003) and has published numerous papers on humanist editions, adaptations, translations, commentaries, and abridgements of classical works. Her recent editorial work includes an essay collection, Bonaventura Vulcanius (1531–1615), Works and Networks (Brill, 2010), and special issues of the journals @nalyses (http:// www.revue-analyses.org/) and Renaissance and Reformation defining early modern bibliography. Beyond exploring learned culture and its networks, she is working on the idea of friendship in northern Europe during the late Renaissance. Jean Céard, professor emeritus at the Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre La Défense, is the author of La nature et les prodiges (2nd edition, 1996) and has edited or co-edited texts by Ronsard (Œuvres complètes), Rabelais (Tiers Livre), Montaigne, Boaistuau (Histoire prodigieuses), Pontus de Tyard (De recta nominum impositione, Le premier Curieux), Nider (La Fourmilière), Ambroise Paré, and Aldrovandi, among other authors. He directed the three-volume Classiques Garnier edition of Guillaume Du Bartas’ La Sepmaine (2012) and is preparing an edition of Lefèvre de la Boderie’s Hymnes ecclésiastiques. In numerous articles he pioneered studies of commentary in the European Renaissance. Jean-François Cottier is professor of classical language and literature at the Université Paris-7 Diderot and holds the position of professeur associé at the Université de Montréal. A specialist in

264  Contributors

medieval and modern Latin, he is ASD editor of Erasmus’s paraphrases on Matthew and John and has written numerous articles on the rhetoric of ancient and humanist paraphrase. Other interests include the De Alea of the Flemish doctor Justus Pascasius (1561) and the Latin writings of New France. Mark Crane wrote his doctoral dissertation (University of Toronto, 2005) on A Conservative Voice in the French Renaissance: Josse Bade (1462–1535). He has also published articles, editions, and translations of the Paris theologians Noël Béda and Jerome de Hangest and their controversies with humanists and reformers. Currently instructor in history at Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario, he is annotating two volumes of Erasmus’s controversies with Béda (CWE 80–1). Jeanine De Landtsheer (PhD in Latin and Greek) is research fellow at the Seminarium Philologiae Humanisticae of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. She has published numerous articles on aspects of Justus Lipsius’s life and works, in some comparing the correspondence and political ideas of Erasmus and Lipsius. She has edited several volumes of annotated correspondence in the series Iusti Lipsi Epistolae, is now preparing a Companion to Justus Lipsius, and is planning to digitize the whole body of his correspondence. Of Erasmus’s works, she has translated into Dutch the Institutio principis Christiani and a selection of the Colloquia and of the Adagia. Riemer A. Faber is associate professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Waterloo and director of the Waterloo Institute for Hellenistic Studies. In the field of sixteenthcentury studies he has published several articles on Erasmus and the history of biblical exegesis, including, most recently, the chapter on Erasmus in the Companion to Paul in the Reformation (Leiden: Brill, 2009). For the Collected Works of Erasmus series he is currently editing volume 58, which contains the annotations on Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians and to the Ephesians. Judith Rice Henderson, professor of English at the University of Saskatchewan, has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on Renaissance literature, humanism, rhetoric, and epistolography, with special emphasis on Erasmus. Her Margaret

Contributors  265

Mann Phillips Lecture on Erasmus’s epistolary theory appeared in the 2009 Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook. She founded the Canadian Society for the Study of Rhetoric and has served as president of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric (1995–97) and of the Canadian Society for Renaissance Studies (1998–2000). Gordon A. Jensen is William Hordern Professor of Theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary, Saskatoon, and adjunct professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan. He is a member of the International Luther Academy and is on the Council of Editorial Advisors for Lutheran Quarterly. Hs current research concerns the Wittenberg Concord of 1536, as well as Martin Luther’s use of highlighted text in the 1534 Luther Bible. Claude La Charité is professor in the Department of Literature and Humanities and holds the Canada Research Chair in Literary History at the Université du Québec à Rimouski. He is editor of the journal Tangence and author of La Rhétorique épistolaire de Rabelais (Nota Bene, 2003). His monograph on Rabelais as learned editor of Hippocrates in Greek is forthcoming (Classiques Garnier). Karen Mak received her BA, BEd, and BMusEd from the University of Saskatchewan, where she held the Canada Millennium Scholarship (2007), won numerous scholarships and awards in music and in education (2005–09), and received the Margaret M. Cameron Prize for the most distinguished graduate in French  (2011). During her subsequent pursuit of a degree in speech language pathology at the University of Alberta (MSc-SLP, 2012), she has contributed to research on communication of individuals with dementia during mealtimes under Dr Tammy Hopper and has worked simultaneously towards the University of Alberta Postgraduate Certificate in Francophone Practice for Speech-  Language Pathologists. Nancy Senior is professor emerita of languages and linguistics at the University of Saskatchewan. Her work has been mainly in the areas of eighteenth-century French literature (Voltaire, Rousseau, education) and of translation studies. She is the translator for The Codex Canadensis and the Writings of Louis Nicolas (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011).

266  Contributors

Robert D. Sider is professor emeritus of classical languages at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and adjunct professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan. He is general editor of Erasmus’s New Testament Scholarship for the Collected Works (CWE 41–60) and has contributed as editor and/or translator and annotator to the volumes containing the paraphrases on Romans and Galatians (CWE 42), paraphrase on Acts (CWE 50), annotations on Romans (CWE 56), paraphrase on Matthew (CWE 45), and paraphrases on Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians (CWE 43). As editor of the future CWE 41, to contain prolegomena to the New Testament scholarship, he is also translating and annotating the Ratio verae theologiae. P.M. Swan is professor emeritus of history at the University of Saskatchewan. His research focuses on the Roman Empire and especially the third-century Roman senator Cassius Dio, who during a long public career near the seat of power wrote, in Greek, an opinionated eighty-book Roman History that is a significant source for both Republic and Empire. Professor Swan is the author of The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History Books 55–56 (9 B.C.–A.D. 14) (Oxford University Press, 2004). He has also written articles on Dio and edited others’ commentaries on his History. Mark Vessey is professor of english, and principal of Green College, at the University of British Columbia, where he is also Canada Research Chair in Literature / Christianity and Culture. He is the editor (with Hilmar Pabel) of Holy Scripture Speaks: The Production and Reception of Erasmus’ Paraphrases on the New Testament (2002) and is currently working on the Annotations on Luke for CWE. He is a member of the editorial board of the Erasmus of Rotterdam Society Yearbook.

Index

An italic f following a page number indicates an illustration. Abram, Nicolas, 15 Accursius, Franciscus, 4, 12 Acquaviva d’Aragona, Belisario, 29 Aegidius Delphus (Gilles of Delft), 30 Aelian, 173, 184n20 Aeneas of Stymphalus (Aeneas Tacticus): Commentarius Polior­ ceticus, 171 Agricola, Rodolphus (Rudolphus), 204–5 Agustín, Antonio, 209 Alain of Lille, 112n4 Alciatus, Andreas, 226n38 Aldine Press, 29, 40n20, 89, 102–3 Aldus (Aldo Manuzio), 102 Alessandri, Alessandro: Geniales dies, 14 Alfonso de Madrigal (Alphonsus Tostatus, el Tostado), bishop of Avila, 12 alphabetical indexes, 191, 196 alphabetical order, 8–10 Ambrose, St, bishop of Milan, 70–1, 72f, 77f, 81n1, 130 Ambrosiaster, 70–81; and Eras-

mus, xi, 70, 78–80; identity, 70– 1; and Jerome, 70, 71, 78, 83n10; texts cited by, 74–5; theological views, 71, 73, 80–1, 85n36 – works attributed to, 70–1; commentaries, 71, 73–4; commentary on Corinthians, 83n13, 84n17; commentary on Galatians, 72f, 75–80, 77f; commentary on Hebrews, 82n4; 107 Questions (Liber Quaestionum), 71, 73, 74, 82n5, 83n10 amplification (in rhetoric), 33–5 aphorisms, 56 Appian, 217 Arator Subdiaconus, 30, 48; Histo­ ria apostolica, 28 argumenta, 15, 205–6 Aristotle, 6, 217; De anima (Themistius’s paraphrases on), 28, 29, 31, 47; Oeconomica (attrib.), 29 Arnobius, 217 Arrian: Expedition against the Al­ ans, 171 Ascelepiodotus: Tactics, 171 Augustine, St: and Ambrosiaster, 71, 73, 74, 75, 78; on giants, 13; and Luther’s theology, 120, 130, 131; Vives’s commentary on City of God, ix, 4–5, 13–14, 16

268  Index Averroès, 29 Baccarie de Pavie, Raymond de, Seigneur de Fourqueveaux: Instructions sur le facit de guerre, 173–4 Bach, Adolf, 118 Backus, Irena, 49 Bade, Josse (Jodocus Badius Ascensius): and Christian devotional poetry, 104–5; commentaries by, 101–11; compared with Budé, 117n30; Sylvae mo­ rales, 101, 106 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 36 Barbaro, Ermolao, 29, 38n14 Barclay, William, 211 Baronio, Cesare: Annales ecclesias­ tici, 209, 231n84 Bateman, John J., 41n19, 42n36 Béda, Noël, 33, 35, 47, 97n19 Bedouelle, Guy, 49 Belet, François, 229n72 Berchem, Hieronymus van, 220n2 Berger, Joris, 209, 229n72 Bernadino da Siena, St, 14 Beroaldo, Filippo, the Elder (Philippus Beroaldus), 104, 114n14, 173, 184n20, 211 Beza, Theodore: Epistola Magistri Passavanti, 158n6 Bible: availability to common people, 120–2, 135nn21–2, 135– 6n25; canonical order in, 97n19; centrality of Gospel, 120, 133n6; complexity of, 121–2; Gospel in relation to law, 126; Greek texts and manuscripts of, 74–5, 81, 90, 120, 122, 141, 143; Hebrew text of, 143, 150; Latin editions of, 143–4; Latin texts of, 70, 74–5, 89; meaning of Gospel, 118–19; as the one and only text, 156; readers’ aids in, 141; text highlighting

in, 119–20, 122, 123–4f; texts used by Erasmus, 55–6, 75–6, 89, 97n12; text used by Ambrosiaster, 70; theology as exegesis of, 56–7 – books of: Acts, 28; Galatians, 70–81; Matthew, 28; Romans, 28, 32, 44n54, 118–32 – translations and versions: Authorized Version (1611), 118; Complutensian Polyglot (1517), 143; Estienne’s Latin Bible (1545), 141, 143–57; Jerome’s translation of, 58, 75, 115, 141; King James Version, Revised, 128; Luther’s translations of, 118–19, 123f, 124f, 125, 143; Old Latin version, 70, 74–5, 89; Vulgate versions, 36, 75–6, 89, 97n12, 119, 122, 141; Zurich Latin Bible, 143 biblical epic, 29–30, 56 Bluhm, Heinz S., 118–19, 128, 134n8 Borges, J.L., 60, 63; ‘The Gospel according to Mark,’ 56, 59 Bosquieux, Raoul de, 175 Botzheim, Johann von, 38n14, 89, 96n7 Briçonnet, Guillaume, bishop of Meaux, 158n6 Brink, C.O., 210, 230n77 Brown, Andrew, 80 Bruni, Leonardo, 112n3 Bruyninckx, Willem, 214 Budé, Guillaume, 10–13; compared with Bade, 117n30; on currency, 9, 14; digressions of, 12, 16; and Erasmus, 11–12 – publications: Annotationes in Pandectas, 7, 10, 11; Commentar­ ies on the Greek Language, 4; De asse, 9, 14, 141; De l’institution du prince, 7; De philologia, 10–11; edition of Stratagems (Fronti-

Index  269 nus), 173; On the Transition from Hellenism to Christianity, 11 Bullock, Henry, 91 Bureau, Laurent, 108 Burmannus, Petrus, 221n8 Bury, Pierre, 105 Buysserius, Johannes, 225n34 Caelius Rhodiginus (Ludovico Ricchieri of Rovigo): Antiquae lectiones (Lectionum antiquarum libri sexdecim), 9, 14 Caesar, 217, 218 Caesar, Gaius Julius: Commentar­ ies, x, 5–6, 12, 167–8 Caesarian wars (Italian wars), 170, 176 Calepino, Ambrogio: Diction­ arium, 8, 20n22 Calpurnius Siculus, Titus, 104 Calvin, Jean, 144, 156; Advertisse­ ment sur la censure ..., 154–5 Campius, Jacobus, 222n10 Casaubon, Isaac, 171 Cassius Dio, 197, 207, 217, 218, 219 Cato, Marcus, 112n4, 226n38 Cato the Elder (attr.): Disticha Ca­ tonis, 111–12n2, 112n4 Cazes, Hélène, x, 140–57 Céard, Jean, x, xii–xiii, 3–17, 161n17, 168, 181 Charles of Croÿ, 214 Charles V, emperor, 27, 33, 168, 170, 177–9 Chomarat, Jacques, 46–9, 50, 51 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 12, 15, 104, 197, 217; Letters to Friends, iif, xii, xivn6 circumlocution (periphrasis), 33 civic humanism, 181 classical authors: Bade’s commentaries on, 104, 105, 112n4; pocketbook editions of, 102–3; works on art of war, 171. See also specific authors

Claudius, 219 Clemens Alexandrinus, 217 Clusius, Carolus, 228n58 Collège de France (Royal College), 143 Collegium Trilingue (Louvain), 143 commentaries: alphabetical order in, 8–9; amplification in, 34; authorship in, 13–14, 140, 141, 144; in Bibles, 118–19, 141, 143; categories of (Vives), ix, 4–7, 10, 11–12, 29, 168; compared to buffet, 15–16; compared to dialogues, 117n28; compared to paraphrases, 28–9, 30–3; concepts and definitions of, ix–xii, 140; as consecration, 16; as court of law, 145–6, 156; dialogue format for, 13, 149f; dictionaries and encyclopedias, 7–10; digressions in, 11–14; editorial approach to, 150–1; Erasmus on, 109–10; Estienne’s commentary format, 144–57; hierarchies in, 140–1, 144, 148, 149f; in high vs. late Renaissance, 15–16; humanist views on, 3–4, 141; as journal of events, 167–8; on languages, 8; on law, 3–4, 5–7, 9, 11–12, 73; length of, 60; limitations of, 11– 12; as means rather than end, 106; in medieval manuscripts, 140–1, 142f; memoirs as, 12; as a patchwork, 219–20; pedagogical role of, 15–16, 101–11; primary text in, 140–1, 142f, 148; scope of, 9; simplicity of language in, 32, 102–3, 107–8; text highlighting in, 119–20, 122, 123–4f; and textual criticism, 141; in translations, 5, 10, 119–20, 122; varieties of, 167–8; without a text, 57. See also paraphrases

270  Index commentarius in aliud, 5–6, 7, 11, 12, 168, 181 commentarius simplex, 5–6, 7, 12, 168, 181 Commynes, Philippe de, 12–13, 181 Coronel, Luis, 29, 31, 38n12, 46–8 Cottier, Jean-François, ix, xi, 27–36, 47–8, 50–1 Covarruvias, Antonio de, 204 Crane, Mark, x, 101–11 Cuiacius, Jacobus, 207 Cyril of Alexandria, 70 Dalius, Nicolaus, 197 Damasus I, pope, 71 Davies, Robertson: The Rebel Angels, 167 De Landtsheer, Jeanine, x, 188–244 Devotio moderna movement, 104 De Wilder, Machiel, 232n91 dictionaries, 8–9 Digest (Pandects) of Roman law, 3–4, 19n15; Budé’s Annotationes in Pandectas, 7, 10, 11 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 217 Dolet, Étienne, 5–6, 12, 14; Commentarii linguae latinae, 8–9, 14 Dousa, Janus: (father) 195, 206, 222n9; (son) 206 Du Bartas, Guillaume de Salluste, 23n45; Première Sepmaine, 15 Du Bellay, Guillaume, seigneur de Langey, 167, 168–70, 174; Ogdoades, 168 Du Bellay, Martin: Mémoires, 12, 168, 170, 176–81 Dudith, Andreas, 202, 210 Du Verdier, Antoine: Bibliothèque, 169 education: au[c]tores octo, 101, 111–12n2; Brethren of the Common Life, 104; humanist Latin literacy, 103–4, 109–10; literacy

and Christian devotion, 103–4, 107; role of books and printing, 102, 107, 110; role of commentaries and paraphrases, 15–16, 41n49, 48, 51, 101–11 Elst, Willem van, 209, 229n72 Emser, Hieronymus (Jerome Ems), 119–20, 128–9, 132, 134n11 enarratio, 57, 67 encyclopedias, 7–8, 9–10 Ennius, 112n4 epitome, ix, 5, 29 Erasmus, Desiderius: aphorisms of, 56; on Bade, 110; and Budé, 11–12; catalogue of works (in Ep. 1341A), 89; collected works (ASD), xi, 27, 94–5; collected works (CWE), xi, 48, 60, 86–96, 88; on commentaries, 109–10; edition of Ambrose, 71; edition of Jerome, 58, 109; edition of New Testament (see Erasmus, New Testament scholarship); intertextuality of writings, 90; on paraphrase, 46–53; and Poliziano, xiiin3; sources used by, 79–80; and Spagnuolo, 105; and Vives, 4; writing style, 93 – letters: to Charles V, 27; to Coronel, 29, 46–53; to More, 28–9; Opus epistolarum, 50, 54n12 – New Testament scholarship:   Annotations and Paraphrases compared, 32–3, 36, 67–8, 88–90; Annotations on Galatians, 75–81, 90–1; Annotations on Luke, 60–8; Annotations on Romans, 88–95; Apologia to New Testament edition, 88; editions of Greek and Latin texts, 36, 57–9, 70–81, 87–8, 120, 122, 128; order of Paraphrases, 97n19; Paraclesis, 61, 88; Paraphrases on 1 and 2 Corinthians, 91; Paraphrase on

Index  271 Galatians, 91; Paraphrase on Luke, 33, 52, 67; Paraphrase on Matthew, 27, 33, 34–5, 36; Paraphrase on Romans, 28, 88–95; Ratio verae theologiae, 88 – other works: Ciceronianus, 110, 117n30; Colloquies (Familiarium colloquiorum formulae), 42n38, 117n28; commentaries on Psalms, 89; Declarationes ad censuras Lutetiae vulgatas, 52, 144, 152, 160n16; De copia, ix, x, 47, 51–2; De misericordia Dei, 89; Modus orandi Deum, 89; Responsio ad epistolam paraeneticam Alberti Pii, 29–30, 35, 47, 49–50, 54nn13–14, 93 Eskens, Peeter, 229n72 Esmangart, Charles, 184n26 Estienne, Henri [II], 191 Estienne, Robert [I]: career, 141, 143; exile in Geneva, x, 146, 150, 156 – Latin Dictionarium, 8, 9 – Replies to the Theologians of Paris, 141, 144–57; anonymity and identification in, 145, 147; grammatical discussions in, 152–4; reading pact in, 146; as a rejection of commentary, 147–8, 150; as a typographical dialogue, 147–50, 149f, 151–2 Eucharist, 126–7, 151 Eustathius, 16 explanatio, 15; familiaris explanatio, 105–6, 115n19 explicatio verborum, ix, 5

Faculty of Theology, University of Paris: Calvin’s response to, 154– 5; censures against Erasmus, 52; censures against Estienne’s 1545 Bible, x, 143–57; and humanist-scholastic debate, 103–4, 111, 114n12 familiaris explanatio, 105–6, 115n19 Farge, James Knox, 143 Farnese, Alexander, 199 Ferguson, Wallace K., 89 Ferretti, Francesco: Della osservanza militare, 179 Ferretus, Aemylius, 191, 192f, 196, 211, 224n19, 226n38, 230n77 Festus, 217 Ficino, Marsilio, 106; Commentary on Plato’s Symposium, 10 Fickart, François, 229n72 Flavius Josephus, 195, 217, 219 Flood, John L., 118 Florus, 217 Fontana, Benedetto, 191 Fourqueveaux, Raymond de Baccarie de Pavie, Seigneur de: Instructions sur le faict de guerre, 173–4 Francis I, king of France, 141, 168, 170, 177–9 free will, 73, 83n14 Froben, Hieronymus, 54n12 Froben, Johann, 40n20, 97n18 Frontinus, Julius Sextus: Art of War, 174; Stratagems, x, 168, 170–81 Frye, Northrop, 56, 59, 63

Faber, Riemer, xi, 70–81 Fabri, Arnold, 209, 214, 216f, 229n72 Fabricius, Georg Andreas: Thesaurus philosophicus, xivn7 Fabricius Noviomagus, Guilielmus, 209

Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 55, 68n1 Galen, 6, 7, 171 Garnier, Claude, 23n44; Discours des misères of Pierre de Ronsard, 15 Gawthrup, Richard, 121, 135n21, 135n24

272  Index Gellius, Aulus, 104, 217; Attic Nights, 9 genealogy: genealogical trees in Lipsius’s Tacitus editions, 197, 198f, 200f, 209, 212, 215, 218, 226n40; royal lineage of Christ, 34, 35–6 Genette, Gérard, 159n11 George, Duke of Saxony, 119, 134n11 Germain de Ganay, bishop of Cahors, 105, 106 Germanicus, 219 Gilles of Delft (Aegidius Delphus), 30 glosses (glossae), x, 3–4, 5–6, 31, 47, 161n17 Gois, Damião de, 93 Goulart, Simon, 15, 23n45 Grafton, Anthony, xiiin3 Granvelle, Antoine Perrenot de, 190, 223n16 Graphaeus, Alexander, 225n37 Greek: Bible texts and manuscripts, 74–5, 81, 90, 120, 122, 141, 143; Budé’s Commentaries on the Greek Language, 4; Garamond Greek type (Grecs du Roi), 143; grammar discussions in Estienne’s Replies, 152–4 Groslot, Jerôme, 222n9 Grotius, Hugo, 197 Grotius, Janus, 197, 207 Gryphius, Sebastianus: edition of Stratagemata (Rabelais), 169, 170; edition of Tacitus (ed. Ferretus), 191, 192f, 224n19; edition of Topography of Ancient Rome (Marliano), 171 Gulielmus, Janus, 197, 202, 206, 207, 210

Hagen, Philip Vander, 214, 229n72 Halpenny, Francess, 86 Hamon, Philippe, 159n11 Hebrew Bible, 143, 150 Henderson, Judith Rice, 46–53 Henri d’Orléans, 167 Henry VIII, king of England, 42–3n39 heresy: and complexity of scripture, 121; link with Latin, 32, 44n45; trials at Parlement of Paris, 158n6 hermeneutical theory, 55–6, 68n1 Herodian, 217 Heubner, Heinz, 221n3 Hilary of Poitiers, 70, 73 Hippocrates, 6, 7, 171 Holy Scripture Speaks (ed. Pabel and Vessey), 27, 48, 52, 95 Homer, 16 Horace, 104, 112n4 Hubertinus Clericus Crescentius, iif, xivn6 humanists and humanism: civic humanism, 181; and development of glosses and commentary, 3–4, 32, 141; and French ecclesiastical tradition, 143–4; humanist Latin literacy, 103–4, 109–10; humanist-scholastic debate, 103–4, 111, 114n12; individual reading and sola scriptu­ ra, 144, 156; military humanism, 181. See also specific scholars and authors Hus, Jan, 119

Habermas, Jürgen, 103, 113n10 Hadrian, emperor, 171

Janz, Denis, 130 Jensen, Gordon A., ix, 118–32

Instructions sur le faict de guerre, 173–4, 184n26 Isidore of Sevile, 217; Synonyma, 42n38

Index  273 Jerome, St: and Ambrosiaster, 70, 71, 78, 83n10; Erasmus’s edition of, 58, 109; on Juvencus, 30, 40n23; Latin Bible, 58, 75, 115, 141; on Luke, 64 Johanneau, Éloi, 184n26 John Chrysostom, 70, 71 John of Hauteville: Archithrenius, 104 Jud, Leo (Leon de Juda), 143 Justinian, emperor: Codex Justinianus, 7 Juvenal, 104, 112n4, 217 Juvencus, 29–30, 40n23, 48, 104; Evangeliorum libri IV, 28 Kallendorf, Craig, 102 Karlstadt, Andreas von, 121 Kolb, Robert, 135n22 La Cerda, Juan Luis de, 15, 23n46 La Charité, Claude, x, 167–82 Lactantius, 104 La Fe: Les Stratagemes et les ruses de guerre ..., 176 Laird, Andrew, 23n46 La Monnoye, Bernard de, 170 Landino, Cristoforo, 102 Langey, Guillaume Du Bellay, seigneur de (Chevalier de), 167, 168–70, 174; Ogdoades, 168 Latin: commentaries used for teaching, 105–6; Estienne’s Latin Dictionarium, 8; humanist Latin literacy, 103–4, 109–10; link with heresy, 32, 44n45; Silver Age of, 188 Latin Bible: Estienne’s edition (1545), 141, 143–57; Jerome’s translation, 58, 75, 115, 141; Old Latin version, 58–9, 70, 74–5, 89; Zurich Bible, 143 Lauwerijns, Mark, 44n54 law: Ambrosiaster’s knowledge of, 73; commentaries on, 5–7,

9, 11–12, 73; Gospel in relation to, 126 Lazare de Baïf: De re navali com­ mentarius, 9 Lebel, Maurice, 111n1 Lee, Edward, 87–8, 89 Lefèvre d’Étaples, Jacques, 29, 75, 80, 82n4, 88, 103, 106 Leo VI, emperor: Tactica, 171 Lernutius, Janus, 197, 202, 220n2 Leyva, Antonio de, 177–8 Lipsius, Justus, xi, 188–220, 233– 42; death, 214; and Ferretus’s edition of Tacitus, 191f, 192f; as a philologist, 189; sources used by, 189, 217–19 – Antiquarum lectionum commen­ tarii, 15 – editions of Seneca, 189, 208, 210, 212, 214 – editions of Tacitus, 188–220, 233–42; annotations and commentaries in, 190, 195, 196–9, 202, 215–20, 236–42; drawing in, 199, 201f; genealogical trees in, 197, 198f, 200f, 209, 212, 215, 218, 226n40; indices in, 191, 196, 203–4, 209, 212, 214; specific editions: (princeps, 1574) 190–5, 194f, 196, 204, 210, 233; (2nd, 1581) 195–9, 198f, 200–1f, 233; (3rd, 1585) 199, 202–5, 203f, 206, 233, 240–2; (4th and Curae se­ cundae, 1588) 205–7, 210, 222n9, 222n58, 233, 236–42; (5th, 1589) 206–8, 234; (6th, 1600) 208–10, 234; (7th, 1607) 210–14, 213f, 234 literacy. See under education literary paraphrase, 37n7 Livia: adoption of, 217, 218 Livy (Titus Livius), 12, 104, 195, 217, 219 Lizet, Pierre, 144, 158n6 López Zúñiga, Diego, 87–8

274  Index Lortz, Joseph, 134n8 Louis of Flanders, 107, 116n24 Lowry, M.J.C., 29 Ludolph of Saxony: Vita Jesu Christi, 104 Luther, Martin, 118–32; on Bibles for common people, 120–2, 135nn21–2, 135–6n25; break with Roman Catholic Church, 103–4; centrality of Gospel, 126, 133n6, 137–8n36; Christocentric focus, 126, 138n37; debate with Erasmus over free will, 73, 83n14; on sacraments, 126–8; sermons by, 125–6; theological views on sin, justification, faith, and salvation, 122–32; use of Erasmus’s scriptural editions, 120 – publications: ‘The Babylonian Captivity of the Church,’ 126; Bible (complete, 1534), 118, 123f, 131; Bible (Septembertesta­ ment, 1522), 118, 131, 134n11; Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper, 126–7; On Translating, 120, 128, 130; Small Catechism, 127–8; To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation ..., 121 Machiavelli, Niccolò: The Art of War, 173, 178–9 Maldonat, Jean (Juan Maldonado), SJ, 12, 21n33 Manardo, Giovanni: Medical Let­ ters (Epistolae medicinales), 171 Manni, Domenico, 102 Mantuanas, Baptista (‘the Mantuan’), 105, 112n4; Parthenice Mariana, 108 Manuzio, Aldo, 102 Marcauwen, Peeter, 214 Marck, Erard de la, 27 Marliano, Giovanni Bartolomeo: Topography of Ancient Rome, 171

Martial, 8, 15, 20n23, 197, 217 Massuau, Claude, 169, 170, 172, 184n26 Maurice, emperor: Strategikon, 171 Maurus, Vertranius, 196, 217, 226n38 Maximilian II, emperor, 193, 202, 224n27 McConica, James K., xi, 86–7, 89, 92, 95 Melanchthon, Philip, 135n22, 135–6n25 memoirs, 12 Mercier, Josias, 211, 222n9 Metzger, Bruce, 94 military strategy, 170–81 Minuziano, Alessandro, 226n38 Modestus, 173 Modius, Franciscus, 197, 202, 204, 205 Momigliano, Arnaldo, 188, 221n3 Monluc, Blaise, seigneur de, 12–13, 181 Montaigne, Michel de, 3, 4, 13, 15, 185n31 Montmorency, Anne de, 178 More, Thomas, 28 Moretus, Balthasar, 189, 209, 211, 214 Moretus, Johannes: (father) 207, 214, 216f, 231–2n84; (son) 210, 211 Moretus, Melchior, 227n53 Mullet, Michael, 120, 128 Müntzer, Thomas, 121 Muret, Marc-Antoine, 16, 188, 190, 219, 223n16 Mynors, R.A.B., 42n35, 48, 50–1 Nauert, Charles G., Jr, 114n12 Nepos, Cornelius, 15 Nicephorus II Phocas, emperor: De Velitatione, 171 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 118

Index  275 Nifo, Agostino, 29, 39n16 Nonnus of Panopolis, 29, 40n20 notae, 15 Oliverius Arzignanensis, 105–6, 115n20 Onosander: Strategikos logos (‘The General’), 171 Origen, 70 Orsini, Fulvio: Fragmenta historico­ rum, 208–9, 229n68 Overfield, James H, 113–14n12 Ovid, 104, 217 Pabel, Hilmar M., 49, 95 paraphrases: amplification in, 33–5; author and narrator in, 47–53; compared to commentaries, 28–9, 30–3; compared to translation, 35, 36, 47; as elucidation, 30; Erasmus on, 27–36, 46–53; exegetical, 28; to expand text, 5, 29; freedom of expression in, 30, 31–2; length of, 32, 34, 44n54, 60; literary, 28, 32–3, 37n7; monological, 36; for pedagogical purposes, 41n29, 48, 51; poetic, 37n7; relation to original text, 31–2; in scholastic tradition, 29; to simplify scriptures, 28; single interpretation in, 32, 47. See also commentaries Paraphrases bibliques aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles, Les (ed. Ferrer and Mantero), 27 paraphronesis (caricature), 32 Paris theologians. See Faculty of Theology, University of Paris Parlement of Paris, 158n6 Pasquier, Étienne, 12–13, 181 Paul V, pope, 228n66 Pausanias, 217 Payne, John B., and Payne-RabilSmith manuscript, 88–9, 90–1, 93

pedagogical works and commentary. See under education Pelagius, 73, 83nn13–14 Pelikan, Jaroslav, 91, 92 periphrasis (circumlocution), 33, 172, 183n13 Perotti, Niccolò: Cornu Copiae seu linguae Latinae commentarii, 8, 20n23, 141 Perrat, Charles, 168–9, 170, 176 Persius, 104, 112n4, 238–9 Peter Lombard, 6 Peucer, Caspar: Commentarius de praecipius divinationum generi­ bus, 9 Philip II, king of Spain, 208, 229n67 Phillips, Jane E., 49, 52, 60, 62 philologia maior and minor, 11 philology, 10–11 Phraates, 197 Pichena, Curtius: Notae, 211–12 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 29 Pinzi, Filippo, 191 Pio, Alberto, prince of Carpi, 29– 30, 35, 47, 49–50, 54nn13–14, 93 Plantin, Christophe: correspondence of, 189; death, 221n7; move to Leiden, 199, 226n42; publication of Lipsius’s Tacitus editions: (1st) 191, 193; (2nd) 195, 196; (3rd) 199, 202; (4th) 205 Plantin Press (Officina Plan­ tiniana), 189; Antwerp imprint, 199–202, 207; Leiden imprint, 199, 202, 203f, 213f Plato, 10, 217 Plautus, 197, 217 Pliny the Elder, 197, 217, 218 Pliny the Younger, 195, 217; Epistulae, 41n29 Plutarch, 12, 217 poetic paraphrases, 37n7

276  Index Poliziano, Angelo, x, xiiin3, xivn6, 29 Polyaenus, 173; Strategems of War, 171 Polybius, 174 Posthius, Johannes, 202 Praelum Ascensianum (press), 102 printing and typography: Garamond Greek type, 143; impact on education and scholarship, 102, 107, 109–10; page layout for commentaries, 141, 144, 205, 212–14, 213f; printers as ‘mechanical men,’ 154, 162n26; typographical dialogue, 149f; use of asterisks, 202, 205, 206–7, 210; use of superscript numerals, 208, 210; woodcut in Cicero’s Letters to Friends, iif, xii, xivn6 progymnasmata, 48 Prosper of Aquitania, 217 Ptolemy, 217 Puzeolano, Francesco, 191 Quintilian, 42n36, 104, 217; Dialo­ gus de oratoribus (attrib.), 221n5; Institutio oratoria, 41n19 Rabelais, François: humanist scholarship, 171; Gargantua, 172; Pantagruel, 3–4, 172, 179; Sciomachie, 167 – Stratagemata, x, 167–82; evidence of, 168–70; reconstruction of, 174–81; sources of, 170–4 Rabil, Albert, Jr, 95; and PayneRabil-Smith manuscript, 88–9, 90–1, 93 Rader, Matthias, 15 Ranzovius, Henricus, 205 Raphelengius, Franciscus, Sr, 199, 205–8, 221n4, 221n7, 227n44, 233–4 reading pact, 146, 159n11

res publica litterarum, 103, 107, 113n10 Reuchlin, Johann, 103 Rhenanus, Beatus, 191 rhetoric, 33–6 Ricchieri of Rovigo, Ludovico. See Caelius Rhodiginus Rigaud, Benoist, 174 Ronsard, Pierre de, 15; Amours, 16; La Franciade, 23n44; Odes, 16 Rouvroy, Jean de, 173, 175 Rudolph II, emperor, 208, 229n67 Rummel, Erika, 114n12 Ruysschaert, José, 189, 211 sacraments, 126–8 Sallust, 104 Saluzzo, Francesco, marquis of, 177, 185n31 Sambucus, Johannes, 193, 224n27 Schloemann, Martin, 119–22 Schmidt, Paul Gerhard, 102–3 Schoeck, Richard, 87 Schoeffel, Ronald M., 86 scholasticism: in commentaries, 32–3; and humanist-scholastic debate, 103, 111, 114n12; paraphrase in, 29 scholia, 5, 31, 47, 56, 57, 63, 119, 161n17 Schott, Andreas, 15, 204, 207 Schuermans, Gaspar, 197 Scriptores Historiae Augustae, 217 secular romance, 56 Semur (Sine Muro), Jacques and Pierre de, 101 Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, the Elder (the Rhetor), 207, 217 Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, the Younger (the Philosopher), 217; Lipsius’s edition of, 188, 189, 208, 210, 212, 214 Servius, 16 Sheerin, Daniel, 54n13 Sider, Robert D., xi, 49, 52, 86–96

Index  277 Sidonius Apollinaris, 195, 217, 224n25 Silanus, Junius, 218 Silanus, Lucius, 218 Silanus, Marcus Junius, 218 Silber, Eucharius, 173 Silius Italicus, 217 ‘Sixteenth-Century Commentary’ (conference, 2007), 95 Smith, Warren S., Jr, and PayneRabil-Smith manuscript, 88–9, 90–1, 93 Spagnuolo, Giovanni Battista (Baptista Mantuanus, ‘the Mantuan’), 105, 112n4; Parthenice Mariana, 108 Standonck, Peeter van, 232n91 Strabon, 197, 217, 219 stratagem (stratagema), 170, 171–2, 183n13 Strauss, Gerald, 121, 135n21, 135n24 studia humanitatis, 11 Suetonius, 197, 217, 218 Suidas, the, 217 Sulla, 175 Sulpizio, Giovanni, 112n4 Swan, P.M., xii synonymy, 33

phasized in translations, 119; as exegesis of scripture, 56–7; of Luther, 122–32; theological terms, 93 Theophylact, 81n1 Thomas Aquinas, St, 120, 130, 131 Thompson, Craig R., 89, 91 Tiberius, 217–18 Tiercelin, Charles de, duc de La Roche du Maine, 177–8 Tiraqueau, André, 4 Titelmans, Frans, 30, 88 Tostatus, Alphonsus (el Tostado), 12 Tournes, Jean de, 171 translation(s): commentaries in, 5, 10, 119–20, 122; and commentary, 5, 10, 122; compared to paraphrase, 35, 36, 47; ‘non commutatis personis,’ 42n35, 47–53; of scripture (see under Bible); text highlighted in, 119–22, 123–4f; words added to, 119–20 Treatise on Strategy (anon., ca. 550), 171 typography. See printing and typography

Tacitus, Publius [Caius] Cornelius: Lipsius’s interest in and editions of, x, 188–220, 233–42; manuscripts relating to, 190–1, 205, 211, 215, 230n76; name format, 234–5; other editions of, 190, 204–5 Terence, 104 Tertullian, 193, 195, 217 Themistius: Paraphrases on Aristotle’s De anima, 28, 29, 30, 31, 38n14, 47 theology: of Ambrosiaster, 71, 73, 80–1, 85n36; vs. Christian devotional writing, 103–4; em-

Valerius ab Auwater, Cornelius, 190 Valerius Maximus, 115nn20–1, 183n13, 217; Facta et dictia mem­ orabilia, 105–7 Valla, Lorenzo, x, 58, 75, 80; Col­ latio Novi Testamenti, xiiin3 Varro, 217 Vegetius, 172, 173, 184n20, 217; De re militari, 170, 171 Velleius Paterculus, Gaius, 208, 209, 210, 217, 229n73 Vessey, Mark, ix, x–xi, 48, 55–68, 95 Vijfeijck, Peeter, 214

278  Index Vindex, Caesellius: Antiquarum lectionum commentarii, 9 Virgil: Aeneid, 65, 66–7; Bade’s commentary on, 102, 104, 108, 112n4; Bade’s edition of, 107, 115n19; Erasmus’s references to, 31, 52; La Cerda’s commentary on, 15; Servius’s commentary on, 16 Vives, Juan Luis: on categories of commentaries, ix, 4–7, 10, 29, 168; commentary on Augustine’s City of God, ix, 4–5, 13–14, 16; De ratione dicendi, ix, 5, 31, 168; on limitations of commentary, 11–12 Vogels, Heinrich, 71, 83n10

Volkir, Nicolas, 173 Vopiscus, Flavius, 195 Vulcanius, Bonaventura, 238 Warham, William, 109 Wierick, Willem, 229n72 Will of Cuspidius (Lucii Cuspidii testamentum), 171 Withagen, Andries, 229n72 Wood, Neal, 173 Wycliffe, John, 119 Xenophon, 197, 217 Xiphilinus, 217 Zonaras, 217, 238, 239