{"id":19348,"date":"2019-06-28T21:32:35","date_gmt":"2019-06-28T20:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=19348"},"modified":"2019-06-28T21:32:35","modified_gmt":"2019-06-28T20:32:35","slug":"primasius-and-his-commentary-on-revelation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2019\/06\/28\/primasius-and-his-commentary-on-revelation\/","title":{"rendered":"Primasius and his Commentary on Revelation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few will have heard of Primasius, bishop of Hadrumetum in Vandal Africa.\u00a0 What little we know about him comes from the obscure chronicle by Victor of Tunnuna (who is NOT Victor of Vita),[ref]The chronicle has been translated in John R. C. Martyn, Arians and Vandals of the 4th-6th centuries<\/em>, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.[\/ref] and from Isidore of Seville (De viris illustribus<\/em> 22).\u00a0 The Italian continuation of Quasten’s Patrology<\/em> published by Marietti (Patrologia<\/em> IV: I padri latini <\/em>(secoli <\/em>V-VIII)) tells us:<\/p>\n

\n

On Primasius we are informed by Victor of Tunnuna and Isidore (Vir. Ill. 22).\u00a0 Bishop of Hadrumetum, he was among the African bishops summoned to Constantinople in 551 because of the controversy over the Three Chapters.\u00a0 Initially he took a position against Justinian and did not participate in the council of 553.\u00a0 In consequence he was exiled to a monastery.\u00a0 But then, according to Victor, in order to obtain the position of primate of the late Roman province of Byzacena, roughly equivalent to modern Tunisia, he sided with the emperor and began to persecute the defenders of the Three Chapters.<\/p>\n

His Commentarius in Apocalypsin<\/em> in five books is also mentioned by Cassiodorus (Inst.<\/em> I, 9).\u00a0 This is presented in the prologue as a work of compilation, based upon Augustine – although Primasius notes that Augustine had never written a commentary on Revelation as such – and Tyconius.\u00a0 Tyconius had been a Donatist, so Primasius took care to declare this, and that he had selected the best bits, taken the gem out of the dung, etc.\u00a0 …<\/p>\n

Apparently Primasius also wrote three books on Heresies, to bring up to date the catalogue of Augustine.\u00a0 Cassiodorus knew the first book of this, but it has not reached us.\u00a0 The work under his name in PL 68 is the commentary of Pelagius on Paul, reworked by Cassiodorus, and supplemented by a work by Halberstadt.<\/p>\n

CPL 873-4; PL 68, 793-936; PLS 4, 1208-1221; A.W.Adams, Commentarius in Apocalypsin<\/em> CCL 92 (1985). …<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Which is useful stuff as far as it goes.<\/p>\n

The commentary only survived in seven manuscripts.\u00a0 Strangely it is easier to find one of these in Google than anything else.\u00a0 This, the oldest manuscript, is Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 140, which is late 7th century.\u00a0 A page of it, fol. 4r, following the preface and the capitula for book 1, is shown here<\/a> at the British Library website; the ms. is online here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I have not been able to find any trace of a translation into any language, which is most curious.\u00a0 However a reconstruction of Tyconius, by Roger Gryson, largely extracted from Primasius, has been translated into both English and French.\u00a0 I do not object; but it does seem odd that a hypothetical book should receive translation while a real book does not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Few will have heard of Primasius, bishop of Hadrumetum in Vandal Africa.\u00a0 What little we know about him comes from the obscure chronicle by Victor of Tunnuna (who is NOT Victor of Vita),[ref]The chronicle has been translated in John R. C. Martyn, Arians and Vandals of the 4th-6th centuries, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.[\/ref] and from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[292,458,1380,1431],"class_list":["post-19348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-bible","tag-commentary","tag-primasius","tag-revelation"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}