Upon this he made a formal abjuration of the opinions imputed to him, submitted himself to the judgement of the Archbishop, and declared his acceptance of the faith held by the Pope. He is described by Antonius Nebrissensis as the facile princeps of his age in every kind, of learning. 27. Another Spanish theologian of the fifteenth century is stated by Fabricius and Cave to have composed a Commentary on the Athanasian Creed. Jacobus Perez de Valentia, an Augustinian, was made in 1468 titular Bishop of Neapolis in Thrace 'sive Christopolitanus,' and suffragan to Roderic Borgia, who was then Cardinal and Bishop of Carthagena and Portus as well as Valentia, and was afterwards, in 1492, advanced to the Papal throne under the title of Alexander VI. The latter was a native of Valentia. Perez died in 1492. He wrote a very elaborate and copious Commentary on the Psalms and Canticles, and dedicated it to Borgia, whom he described in the dedicatory address as Ecclesiae Valentinae praesul, cuius vices ego, licet immeritus, gero.' This work passed through several editions, for it was first printed at Lyons in 1499, and in the sixteenth century was printed again and again at Paris and Lyons and Venice. Of these the Bodleian Library contains a copy of the Paris edition of 1509 by Johannes Petit and Badius Ascensius; and the British Museum has three copies, the first belonging to another edition by Petit and Ascensius dated 1518, the second to an edition published at Paris by Nicolaus de pratis in 1521, and the third to an edition printed by Francis Regnault at Paris in 1533. In all four copies I searched in vain for the Commentary on the Athanasian Creed, expecting to find it in the usual place subjoined to the Commentary on the Canticles, especially as Fabricius and Cave both mention it in that connexion1. As it seems highly improbable that these authorities would have asserted without good reason that Perez was the author of a Commentary on the Quicunque, I presume either that it is printed in other editions of his Psalter which I have not seen, or that it was composed by him as a separate work, distinct from his Commentary on the Psalms and Canticles. In concluding these notices of the Commentaries on the Athanasian Creed, it seems to me desirable to draw attention to some circumstances respecting them. Firstly, their number is considerable, and they range in date from the end of the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century down to the latter part of the fifteenth, embracing a wide field of study and inquiry which I feel that I have touched only upon the surface. Some of them it has been my lot to be the first to notice, but I am far from supposing that I have produced an exhaustive list which is incapable of being enlarged by future research. Secondly, between several of these Expositions or series of notes-for such many of them were, written in the margin of the text or between the lines-a connexion may be traced, the earlier, in particular that attributed to Venantius Fortunatus and the Oratorian and Stavelot Commentaries, being used as sources from which subsequent compilers in part at least drew their materials. This was the case more especially prior to the thirteenth century; but even in the fourteenth we find Richard Rolle of Hampole constructing his Commentary out of another of a much earlier date, which was nothing but a compilation from two other 1 Among the works of Perez, Fabricius in his Bibliotheca mentions 'Commentarius in Psalmos et Cantica ferialia in Bibliis contenta et in Cantica Evangelica, Te Deum, et in Symbolum S. Athanasii.' Cave, in his Historia Litteraria, also mentions Perezius's Commentary on the Athanasian Creed in connexion with his Commentary on the Psalms and Canticles. Expositions belonging to a yet higher antiquity. Another point calling for notice is our ignorance respecting the authorship of most of these documents. Previous to the thirteenth century there are but two Commentaries the authors or compilers of which are known for certain; that of Abelard, which was very brief, and that of Bruno, which does not seem to have been an original work, but merely a revision of an earlier Commentary supplemented by some passages from the Fortunatus Exposition. Hildegarde's work I pass over as not properly coming under the category of Commentary. CHAPTER V. VERSIONS. HITHERTO we have noticed none but Latin copies of the Athanasian Creed, which claim the first consideration by reason of their greater antiquity as compared with those in other languages in which it is found. But no account of the Creed would be complete which omitted to take notice of the latter as well as the former. 1. Of the versions or translations of the Quicunque-as we must assume them to be at present, reserving for later consideration the question in what language it was composed-those which demand the first notice for importance and interest are clearly the Greek. In Montfaucon's Diatribe de Symbolo Quicunque there are four different Greek versions of our Creed. (a) The first of these had been previously twice edited, by Felckman in his edition of St. Athanasius at the commencement of the seventeenth century 1, and by Eustratius Zialowski in a collection of similar documents subjoined to a brief account of the Greek Church, being copied no doubt by the latter from the former 2. Montfaucon says that it was edited by Felckman ad fidem Palatinorum codicum: but this is incorrect, as the latter expressly states in his S. Athanasii Opera ex Officina Commeliniana, 1601, tom. ii. p. 38. 2 Eustratii Iohannidis Zialowski Rutheni brevis delineatio Ecclesiae Orientalis Graecae... cum notis evulgata a Wulfgango Gundlingio. Noribergae, 1681. Appendix of various readings that it was from a MS. described by him as noster codex II anonymus, meaning apparently, as we judge from the preface, that this was the second of the MSS. used by him for his edition of Athanasius and that it belonged to an anonymous owner 1. Unfortunately he gives no further account of the MS. beyond mentioning that the Creed as contained in it is without title or name of author; but he adds the titleσύμβολον τοῦ ἁγίου ̓Αθανασίου—from a Palatine codex, and also several various readings of the text as compared with his own. This Palatine codex may be safely affirmed to be identical with the Greek Palatine codex 364 in the Vatican Library, in which the Quicunque appears with the title and readings noted by Felckman. Such I gather to be the case from collations of the MS. kindly supplied to me by Mr. Bliss of the Record Office. The Palatine collection in the Vatican, it must be recollected, was brought to Rome from Heidelberg (its original home) in 1623, being presented to Pope Gregory XV by Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria. From the catalogue of that collection recently compiled by Mr. Stevenson under Papal authority, it appears that the MS. to which we are referring was written partly in the fourteenth and partly in the fifteenth century, our document being comprised in the former part 2. It is described as formerly the property of Papa Nathaniel; and we learn from the Prolegomena that it must have been one of fifteen manuscripts sold in the year 1550 by this Nathaniel, a Greek Priest, to Fugger, who in token of gratitude to the Elector Frederick IV bequeathed 1 'Extat hoc symbolum in nostro codice II anonymo, sed absque titulo et nomine authoris; unde et sic editum'; u. s. Appendix, p. 83. 2 Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana codicibus manuscriptis recensita. Codices Palatini Graeci, p. 223. |