INTRODUCTION
In my Bibliographical Clue to Latin Literature (Cambr. 1875, pp. 163-6) I collected the titles of the principal editions of Tertullian, and of works or essays published in illustration of him and his writings. I now add:
To scholars whose reading is confined to the handful of writers, barely filling a single shelf, which are counted as Latin classics, I would venture to offer a few reasons for following Scaliger, Casaubon, Gataker, Bentley, Wasse, Haupt, Bernays, in widening their ken to the entire range of Latin authors, of whatever creed or profession, down to the contemporaries of Bede and Alcuin. Even such a self-taught giant as Madvig often shews pitiable weakness from the limits to which he restricted himself2.
When a Greek or Roman philosopher or rhetorician became a Christian (fiunt, non nascuntur Christiani), he did not at once forget all the learning of the past. A very large part of what |xiii we know of ancient religion, a very large number of perfectly classical words, have been preserved to us only by the fathers3. Look at the fragments of Seneca, collect the fragments of Varro, and you will see that it is not safe to say to Christian authors: non licet esse uos. I have found abundant evidence in patristic Greek and Latin for many words known to the lexicons only by citations in glossaries. Rönsch, Paucker, Georges, supply students of Romance languages with hundreds of words hitherto unregistered, the parents of a numerous Italian, Spanish, French progeny.
Again, many of the chief classics, as Pindar and Thucydides, are very difficult4, or (as tragic choruses) very corrupt. Many of the fathers write very simply, and might serve admirably for the neglected discipline of the ear; even as Cicero and the younger Pliny pursued their studies by the aid of readers. It is certain that an entire volume of either Chrysostom (Dio—to name a heathen—or John) could be read carefully in shorter time than is spent on the study of the few hundred lines of the Agamemnon. And the path through the former would be all luminous, through the latter dark with corruptions and conjectures and despairing interpretations. Many of the best scholars, as in England Pearson, John Davies, Wasse (much of whose work remains in manuscript), Routh, Kaye, F. Field, Chr. Wordsworth, Lightfoot, have devoted their best energies to the elucidation of the fathers. As a rule patristic and biblical texts are preserved in earlier manuscripts than those of heathen classics; so that palaeographers must necessarily sit at the feet of divines.
For the order of study, I would say: Leave to the infallible oracles of monthly magazines sweeping hypotheses, no whit less hazardous than those of Father Hardouin. First become thoroughly familiar with the ancients themselves, before you |xiv listen to guesses about them It is characteristic of the sobriety of Englishmen, that our scholars, as Lardner, Routh, Kaye, Clinton, Lightfoot, have followed in the modest steps of Tillemont, content to collect evidence for the reader's information, not without a guiding clue.
A once popular book, of solid but unobtrusive learning, now forgotten5, by an accomplished Cambridge scholar (Biography of the Early Church. By R. W. Evans. 2nd ed. London 1859. 2 vols. sm. 8vo), if read with the authorities cited in the notes, will form an excellent introduction to patristic study. Listen to this character of Tertullian's apology (i 336-8):
Its power is far superior to that of any former defence. Tertullian not only surpassed his predecessors in information and talent, but was peculiarly fitted by temper to treat such a subject. No one could express in such forcible language the indignant sense of injustice, or represent its detail in a more lively manner. None could press his arguments so closely, and few had so learned an acquaintance with heathenism, and could expose its follies with more bitter sarcasm (Apol. 42), or whip its wickedness with a heavier lash (Apol. 35). The subject too, while it gave free scope to the range of his argumentative powers, neither allured him, nor compelled him to sophistical subtilties. The free and elastic vigour of a mind that had still half its strength in reserve pervades the composition; and if we put the mere mechanism of style out of the question, and consider the copiousness, the variety, the interest of the matter, the skilfulness of selection of topics, and the powerful grasp with which they are handled, together with the greatness of the occasion, it will not be too much to say, that it is the noblest oration among all which antiquity has left us....In what a state of mind do we rise up from it! Its brilliant pictures are glowing before our eyes, its deep tone of declamation is sounding in our ears, its imploring, its condemning, its expostulating accents have touched our feelings to the quick.... Heaven and hell have been moved, and have entered into a mortal struggle, of which we are now enjoying the fruits, in a victory which has decided the fate of mankind for all eternity. What literary gew-gaws do the finest orations of Cicero and Demosthenes appear |xv after this! How do we put them away as childish things, and feel ashamed that we should set such value on the vituperative filth which is poured forth upon Aeschines and Antony, political rivals on the narrow stage of a corner of this little world.
I believe that of those who have really grappled with Tertullian's difficulties, few will challenge this verdict of a most competent judge.
I can conceive few more valuable aids to classical scholarship than a digest, not on the plan of the Dutch uariorum editors, nor yet on the scissors-and-paste plan of Dindorf, of all that is permanently valuable in commentaries and miscellaneous remarks on the Christian apologists, say to 500 A.D. The work should appear by itself, and would have a permanent value, whatever manuscripts might spring to light. Critics and commentators should be read in order of time and each allowed credit for his contributions—I would not ruthlessly clip away even the biographical confidences with which old scholars enlivened their learning—; no quotation should be repeated, but the entire composite note should be fused into unity, references being reduced to one uniform pattern. Each special subject, as the calumny about Thyestean feasts, should be exhausted in some one note, and cross references given. The editor would be in excellent company for some years, and would learn something of the meaning of catholic communion, as he forgathered with the Spanish Jesuit La Cerda, the French jurists Didier Herauld (Heraldus) and Nic. Rigault, with Le Nourry and Tillemont and Ceillier, Mosheim and Semler, Oehler and Ebert, Kaye and Blunt6 and Pusey7, Neander and Oehler (sic) and Böhringer and Nöldechen8. Perhaps no two men ever more thoroughly mastered every detail in the field of the early |xvi apologists than Le Nourry (whose Apparatus, Par. 1715, is reprinted in Migne and in Oehler) and Christian Kortholt (15 Jan. 1632/3—31 March 1694), whose 'Paganus obtrectator' (Kiel 1698 4to, 2nd ed. Lubeck 1703 4to), comment, on Iust. M., Athenag., Theophil., Tatian (ibid. 1675 fol. 'profundae eruditionis,' says Walch); 'de persecutionibus ecclesiae primaeuae' (Kiel 1689 4to) and other works (see the Bodleian catalogue and Joecher) are in my judgement still necessary to the student. If Mr Carstens, in a slight article in the Allg. deutsche Biographie xvi (Leipz. 1882) 726 says that K.'s books "have been long overtaken by the advance of science and have no longer any importance," I comfort myself by the remembrance that this Biography is weakest in the lives and works of scholars. I should like to cross-examine Mr Carstens on Kortholt. Of works on the other apologists that of Semisch on Justin and Keim's Celsus, are, so far as I know, the most helpful.
Beside printed sources, my ideal editor should inquire for manuscripts9. My mouth watered when I read Blunt's casual |xvii remark that Rigault's glossary is convenient for annotation. This book and Blunt's manuscript lectures on the early fathers should certainly be secured for the university which he adorned. The Germans are no doubt the most active workers in the patristic vineyard; but how few of them are scholars like Burton or Blunt, Kaye or Field!
LANGUAGE.
Of existing glossaries to Tertullian, those of Rigault, Semler (also in Migne) and (the best) Oehler, all are necessary.
[The language of Tertullian, so far as comprised in the two already published volumes of the Vienna edition, has been
completely recorded on slips for the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. A complete index to the Apologeticus has been made by Henen:
see the additions to the Bibliography. A. S.] General lexicons of independent value are Faber10 (best ed. by Leichius, Francof.
1749, fol.), a favorite with Dr Westcott; Rob. Stephens (ed.
Gesner, 4 vols. 1749; the ed. of Ant. Birr, Basil. 1740, fol. 4 vols., has inedited notes of Henry Stephens); Forcellini,
two editions of which are still incomplete, that by De Vit (lexicon and glossary and a large part of the valuable
'Onomasticon' have appeared), and that by Corradini (incorporating Klotz); Scheller (3rd ed. Leipz. 1804—5, 5 vols. 8vo; I have
Madvig's copy), translated, without the instructive and pathetic preface, by Riddle for the Oxford Press (fol.); Klotz; (Freund's
book, which has supplied the basis of ninety-nine hundredths of the lexicons sold in England for many years, is, after the
letter C, a most careless compilation from Forcellini); and, fullest of all in vocabulary, and necessary as a supplement
even to Forcellini, Georges. [This honour now belongs to Nouveau Dictionnaire Latin-Français...par E. Benoist et H.
Goelzer, Paris 1893, for the whole alphabet, to the 8th edition of Georges by his son H. Georges, Hannover and Leipzig,
1912—1916, for three quarters, and to the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae,
Leipzig, 1900 ff., for A—Dimico, F—Familia. A. S.] |xviii
Of the adaptations of Freund I have for many years employed two copies of Riddle-White, and (of late) two copies of Lewis-Short, as a basis for annotations; but young scholars, who use a lexicon not so much to add to or correct its statements, as to learn the usage of the language, ought to employ Gesner or Forcellini or Scheller habitually. For a portion of the alphabet (from D—K) by far the completest storehouse is the 'Thesaurus der klassischen Latinitat,' begun by Georges, and continued from D onwards by Gustav Mählmann (Leipz. 1854-68).
Any of the old Latin-English lexicons, from Cooper to the complete editions of Ainsworth, give far more racy, homespun English for the Latin words, than the books which now command the market. Lewis-Short has an improved orthography and some additions from Georges and various commentaries; also a few articles (e.g. cum conj. and prep., sui, suus) are carefully and independently executed; but in some points the changes from Riddle-White are for the worse.
In the 'Bibliographical Clue to Latin Literature' I recorded under each author the then aids (indexes cet.) to the study of his language; it is well to remember that the 'Delphin' classics (Valpy's reprint is very accurate, and adds many useful commentaries to the original quartos) and also Lemaire's supply complete indexes to many authors. Merguet is about half way through the Herculean task of a concordance to Cicero; he and others have brought out three rival lexicons to Caesar: Teubner's press is engaged on lexicons to Livy and Tacitus11. In Teubner's 'bibliotheca' some authors, chiefly technical, as Cassius Felix, Iulius Valerius cet., are furnished with indexes. The Berlin 'Monumenta Germaniae historica' and the Vienna library of the fathers have indeed indexes, but in many cases by no means exhaustive; e.g. not Reifferscheid, but Forcellini, informs us that the rare word bacula (dim. of baca) occurs thrice in Arnobius. Of late years the French have returned to the field in which they reigned supreme in the 16th and 17th |xix centuries. Thus: Henri Goelzer, 'Étude lexicographique et grammaticale de la Latinité de Saint Jerome' (Paris, Hachette, 1884), and (a perfect model in its way) Max Bonnet, 'Le Latin de Gregoire de Tours' (ibid. 1890). The Archiv fär lat. Lexikographie, published since 1884 by Teubner, has, thanks to the self-sacrifice of the publisher and the editor Ed. Wölfflin, done a great work in surveying the whole field of Latin letters, and training readers to gather in the whole mass of Latin words. There too may be seen reviews of all new books and articles bearing on the subject.
There is yet an opening for two lexicons, of moderate compass, but of great value to critics, lexicographers and grammarians.
(A) We possess two lexicons of terminations in Greek, but, to my knowledge, none in Latin. [The want was supplied in 1904 by O. Gradenwitz, Lateculi Vocum Latinarum: Voces Latinas et a fronte et a tergo ordinandas curauit (Leipzig). A. S.] I refer to: (I) 'Henrici Hoogeveen, opus postumum exhibens dictionarium analogicum linguae graecae' (Cambr. typis acad. 1800. 4to),, a book recommended by the late Dr Thompson; and (II) 'Etymologisches Worterbuch der griechischen Sprache zur Uebersicht der Wortbildung nach den Endsylben geordnet von Dr Wilhelm Pape' (Berl. 1836, 8vo).
(B) Faber and Gesner frequently record under one word other words with which it is liable to be confounded by scribes; they also cite lexicographical collections in commentaries and journals. Whoever has traced with attention the course of lexicography knows that almost every word well treated by any lexicon owes its good fortune to some exhaustive note of N. Heins, or J. F. Gronov, or Bentley cet. The indexes to such books as Drakenborch's Livy and Duker's Floras will shew how the thing should be done. To go down the whole course of classical learning, from such treasuries as Gruter's 'Fax Artium,' to the 'aduersaria' of Madvig and the 'lectiones' of Cobet, would be the making of any young scholar.
The most useful commentary, on the whole, is Oehler's. Herauld also and Rigault should be read, and Dr Pusey. La Cerda is copious in parallels. Pamelius takes a polemical |xx rather than a literary interest in his author, but his index of things is the completest of all; Rigault also and Oehler are good. Kaye, Ebert (literary history) and Bohringer will well repay the labour of perusal.
My notes are not exhaustive, but are intended chiefly as a supplement to earlier commentaries. May they prove that there is much in Tert. of interest to any student, though no more of a technical theologian than was Jakob Bernays.
[J.E.B. MAYOR]
1. p.xii 1 Has a large bibliography on pp. 336-356.
2. p.xii 2 At the Leyden tercentenary Madvig told me that he had read no Greek or Latin theological author but Josephus, and that only for information respecting ancient warfare. He was however a diligent student of the New Testament, as may be seen by his copy in the Cambridge Divinity Library.
3. p.xiii 1 In the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology ii (Cambr. 1855) 82 I shewed that hic esto (also hic sum) the correlative of the istic sum ('I am with you,' i.e. 'I am attending') of Cicero and Terence, is to be gleaned from Augustine.
4. p.xiii 2 This remark was once made to me by Mr Bywater. He said: "one could read a very large part of such a writer as Plutarch, in the time that is occupied on the small volume of Thucydides."
5. p.xiv 1 Dr Thompson once lamented to me the change of taste for the worse: "When you wanted to make a present to a young lady, that was the kind of book to give: but now they take no interest in such things."
6. p.xv 1 Right Use of the Early Fathers. Here p. 432 Lightfoot might have found, cited from Theoph. ad Autol. 11 f., a far more apt parallel to Philem. 11. than that which he cites from c. 12 of the same book.
7. p.xv 2 Notes (ascribed, by Kaye to Dodgson) on Dodgson's excellent translation in the Library of the Fathers. It is interesting to learn that the citations in these notes were verified by one who left us, J. B. Morris.
8. p.xv 3 On this latest monograph see Lädemann in Theol. Jahresber. hrsg. v. R. A. Lipsius, x, 1891, pp. 128-9. Lipsius, alas, is no more, but this annual, of unrivalled excellence, is continued by his Jena colleagues.
9. p.xvi 1 [May I again call attention to the fact that there is a tenth-century MS of chapters 38, 39 and part of 40 of the Apologeticus in the Kantons-Bibliothek at Zurich (Rheinau xcv), which is closely related to the lost Fulda MS (Journal of Theological Studies, viii (1906-1907), pp. 297-300)? This fact has been overlooked by Rauschen and others. Also, why has it been left to me to point out that the MS containing "Tertulliani Quaedam," alluded to by Oehler, vol. I, p. xxi, after Montfaucon Bibl. bibl. tom. I, p. 1134, as in the catalogue of the library of St Germain-des-Prés, and doubtless identical with the MS of the Apolegeticus at Petrograd, also alluded to by Oehler (p. xii), is still as a matter of fact at Petrograd (Q. v. 1, No. 40), having been brought there by Peter Dubrowsky? It is of the ninth century, is probably the oldest existing MS of the Apologeticus, and is mentioned in K. Gillert's catalogue, printed in the Neues Archiv, v (1880), 241-265, 597-617, vi (1881), 497-512, and described (with a photograph of one page) in A. Staerk, Les Manuscrits Latins du Ve au XlIIe Siècle conservés à la Bibliothèque Impériale de Saint-Pétersbourg (2 tomes, St Petersbourg, 1910), Tome I, p. 130, Tome II, planche 57. Further, Kroymann, the new Vienna editor of Tertullian, is entirely ignorant of the Luxemburg MS of Tertullian, no. 75 (saec. xv ex.), though it appears to have been used by Semler, and a catalogue of the Luxemburg collection was published in 1894, The MS contains carn. Chr., carn. resurr., cor. mil., mart., paenit., uirg. uel., hab. mul., cult. fem., ad ux. I and II, de fug. in pers., Scap., exh. cast., monog., pall., pat. Dei (sic), adu. Prax., adu. Val., adu. Marc., adn. Iud., adu. omn. haer., praescr. her., adu. Hermog. The contents thus bear a striking resemblance to those of certain Italian MSS, e.g. Vat. Urb. 64 (saee. xv), described by Kroymann in the first article mentioned on p. xi, pp. 4, 5. A. S.]
10. p.xvii 1 Of Faber, Gesner, Forcellini, Scheller, I said something in the Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology ii (Cambr. 1855), 277-290.
11. p.xviii 1 [Fägner's Lexicon Livianum advanced no farther than B, but Gerber and Greef's Lexicon Taciteum is complete. The Scriptores Historiae Augustae have been done by Lessing, and other authors by others. A. S.]
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