Monitum ad Lectorem (Homiliae viginti Clementis Romani nunc primum integrae)

THE TWENTY HOMILIES ATTRIBUTED TO CLEMENT OF ROME, NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COMPLETE.

Albert Rud. Max. Dressel, Doctor of Philosophy, established the text from the Ottobonian codex, corrected Cotelerius's version throughout and completed it, and appended select notes of learned men and his own.

(Göttingen, at the expense of the Dieterich bookshop, MDCCCLIII, octavo.)

TO THE READERS, GREETING.

Two men of outstanding learning, J. B. Cotelerius and J. Le Clerc, in editing the Homilies that circulate under the name of Clement of Rome, and several others in emending and interpreting the same, have laboured with such diligence and praise that in the judgement of many they seemed to have left either little or nothing for others to do. Yet in truth, those who have so judged err not a little. For whoever has examined their books more accurately will easily perceive how much is lacking to them for the perfection that we seek in this kind of work. From the new edition of Schwegler too, which was eagerly desired, it is plain that this is more than sufficiently proved. Thus far matters stood. And they indeed showed not without success what talent and critical art could accomplish with the equipment and authority of one codex alone. Therefore, since even after so many and such great labours and commentaries of learned men the condition of our writer was even then such that his text stood above all in need of a full restoration, if we wished to draw from a clearer and purer spring, it came to pass that an aid was found both stronger than that which Cotelerius used and superior to the keenness of any critical judgement. For while examining the Greek codices of the Vatican Library it happened to me that fifteen years ago I came upon a manuscript not only far more excellent than the Paris book to which we owe what of the Homilies had hitherto been known, but also more complete, inasmuch as it also furnished that part of them so long sought in vain. And there was indeed a time when I thought that leisure would propitiously be granted to me also to work up worthily what I had fortunately found, once the boundless critical labour undertaken by me in emending the writings of the Apostolic Fathers had granted a beginning of rest. That hope a grave misfortune disappointed. For having through the carelessness and ignorance of a certain physician of Munich been blinded in one eye and weakened in the other,

whatever health and strength remained I devoted to completing and finishing those things that were of greater moment to me. Having done this and returned to Clement of Rome, I recognized right at the threshold that, owing to the scarcity at Rome of more recent books that ought to have been called in to aid, I would not so satisfy the just desires of transalpine scholars as was my utmost wish to do and as could otherwise have been done. When I reflected on these and similar things, fearing lest something unworthy of this age should escape me, it almost came to the point that I desisted from publishing Clement of Rome. Nevertheless, as my friends again and again urged that my findings should not be buried anew in oblivion, I at length judged that I must yield. For I am now persuaded that the critical aids which I have brought to the Homilies both from the discovered codex and from the editio princeps, if one adds the part hitherto unpublished, can in the eyes of those with whom the judgement of this matter rests counterbalance whatever explanatory notes they may still seem to need. And having made mention of the editio princeps, I cannot sufficiently wonder how the extreme necessity of revising it most accurately escaped the diligence and sagacity of Schwegler, whereby a remedy might be brought to the wounds inflicted on its text in the three editions of J. Le Clerc of the years 1698, 1700, and 1724. There indeed — I pass over faults of lighter moment — many words were omitted, still more silently altered without any cause against the authority of the Paris manuscript, and very many wrongly corrupted. And these, with few exceptions, were not only repeated by the most recent editor, but increased by a new heap of errors. For he, supposing the recension of Le Clerc to be the genuine text of the editio princeps, a hundred times attributed to Cotelerius this or that reading, whether good or bad, of which the latter did not even dare to dream. I pass over the rest, which I prefer to be understood by others rather than spoken by me. In short: behold before you a recension of the Homilies more accurate than the earlier ones and, if you look to completeness, complete in all respects. Nor indeed do I boast of that completeness which is the ornament of this new edition: another too could have found what it fell to me to find, although everyone to a man had hitherto passed it by. Yet such is the condition of human life that it is oftentimes denied one to go in quest where one would most gladly wish, according to that Greek saying:

Not for every man is the voyage to Corinth.

Written at Rome on the Kalends of July, 1852.

MANUSCRIPT CODICES OF THE HOMILIES OF CLEMENT OF ROME.

1. In his Defence on behalf of the Canons of the Apostles and the Epistles of the Pontiffs, Francisco Torres cites from a certain manuscript Greek passages that are found in the Homilies of Clement of Rome. Some savour of Metaphrastes, others either come close to the reading of the Ottobonian codex or differ nothing from it. Nonetheless it is altogether different from ours and the Paris codex. That one passage adduced in the epistle of Torres to Cardinal Hosius, which you have here in Homily 17, 15, proves this sufficiently.

2. "Cotelerius transcribed his copy accurately, indeed scrupulously, with not even a single letter changed, from that codex of the Homilies which alone, so far as I know, has survived the ravages of time, the Paris Royal 1648 (now 1196, if I conjecture rightly from the Catalogue of Manuscript Codices of the Royal Library of Paris, 1740, vol. 2, with which the numbers of Cotelerius do not agree). As an aid he employed the Clementine Epitome, which itself also, transcribed from Royal codex 7, he was the first after Turnèbe to publish in his work. Furthermore he examined Royal codices 148 and 804, which contain the same Epitome, though somewhat enlarged from fragments of the Homilies (compare what we have noted at 11, 5 [below, col. 33] and 333, 18 [col. 295]). Cotelerius made such use of these aids that he was able to emend not a few faults of his codex in the margin of his edition." Thus Schwegler in his Preface. I for my part doubt whether Cotelerius in transcribing the Paris codex everywhere exercised that fidelity and scrupulousness which is needed in this kind of work: a fact that appears clearer than daylight from many passages accurately collated with our manuscript of the same family. Although the Paris codex displays at the front: "A book containing various homilies from the voice of Saint Peter the Apostle, written down by Saint Clement, that which is called Clementia, that is to say, the writings of Clement. And the same book contains the following: three prologues, twenty homilies," yet being mutilated it breaks off at Homily 19, 14.

3. The manuscript codex which opened to me a most abundant critical store for preparing a new edition of the Homilies, and alone bestows their hitherto desired ending, belongs to that part of the Vatican Library which is called the Ottobonian. It is of paper, in quarto format, and is marked with the number 443. It appears to have been written at the beginning of the fourteenth century, in a neat Greek hand indeed, yet on account of the unusual ligatures which it uses, here and there ambiguous and somewhat obscure, and not everywhere easy to read. Twenty-seven lines fill each page, where no titles occur. On the first blank leaf of the codex is read affixed the number 443; on the following:

Clement of Rome on the Journeys of St. Peter, fol. 2.

Epitome of the Journeys of the same Clement, fol. 161.

Oration of Gregory of Nyssa on that saying of Paul: When all things shall be subjected unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself, etc., fol. 255.

On both sides of the following leaf, which bears the number I on its front, there is a fragment of the preface to the Clementines, which begins with Αὐτοὺς φρονιμώτερον ἐπιχειροῦσιν and ends with the words ἄλλῳ οἱῳδήποτε. I think this fragment was written in another hand, and that of the fifteenth century, and cut out from elsewhere. Next there is a second leaf, blank and without a number. On the leaf that follows, marked with the number 2, the Epistle of Peter addressed to James begins, with its inscription before it, and the rest of the Clementines are joined to it. The inscriptions that occur, and likewise the initial letters of the Homilies, as also of certain clauses, are painted in red minium. The number of each Homily is expressed in Greek numerals, except the third and the tenth, where it reads ὁμιλία τρίτη and ὁμιλία δεκάτη. (Compare the specimen of the script cut in wood in the plate annexed below.) In the margin of the codex very many glosses written by the first hand appear, of no importance indeed, if you except a few. I have noted those that could be of use. Of more account are the conjectures added in the margin by a more recent hand in a distinct script. You have also in the margin small red notes, from καν῀α' to καν῀ιγ', and these written by the first hand so indistinctly and so ineptly that they nowhere agree with the text. The first is found opposite the beginning of the Epistle of Clement to James, the last in the margin of Hom. I, 6, towards the end. There are no chapter divisions. The spelling is not seldom faulty: κρίττονα, κυβερνύτης, γυμνιτεύοντες, θεώτητι, γνομόνως, πείσθεσθαι, ἐπίστηται; ὑποργεῖν for ὑπουργεῖν, αἱρῶν for ἐρῶν, καιρόν for κενόν, ὑφέξιν for ὑφέξειν, λοιποῦν for λυποῦν, ηὐχαρίσθησα for ηὐχαρίστησα, φενορωθεὶς for φρενωθείς, ἄδει for ᾄδῃ. The many lacunae that are found in this codex too I have enclosed in critical brackets and filled by conjecture.

THE LETTERS EXPLAINED.

O, Ott. — Codex Ottobonianus 443.

C, Ci — Cotelier, of Cotelier (Ed. Paris, 1672.)

D — Davies.

Cl — Le Clerc (Ed. Amsterdam, 1724.)

S, Si — Schwegler, of Schwegler (Ed. Stuttgart, 1847.)