D. Prudentius Maranus, O.S.B., Praefatio in opera S. Justini, Pars I: De superioribus editionibus

Preface

in which the earlier editions, the teaching of St. Justin and of the other defenders of religion, and their deeds and writings are discussed.

Besides the labour spent on translating these writers, or on illustrating their text with various observations, a great deal remains that has been deliberately put off to this preface. For the plan of my undertaking requires that I say something about the earlier editions, and set out what I have attempted in this new one. There follows another matter of far greater moment, the teaching of these defenders of religion, and especially of St. Justin: where it is obscure and hemmed in by difficulties, I shall try to illustrate and explain it; where it has been wrongly attacked, to defend it. Nor in that field which is at once most delightful for the study of antiquity and most useful for the defence of the doctrines themselves did I think labour should be spared, that is, in weighing and judging the deeds and writings of Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras and Theophilus. This preface, then, will have three parts: in the first I shall discuss the earlier editions of these writers, and this newest of them all; in the second, certain opinions of Justin, and also of Tatian, Athenagoras and Theophilus; in the third, their deeds and writings.

Part One.

On the earlier editions of the works of St. Justin Martyr, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch and Hermias.

Chapter I.

On the Greek editions of the works of St. Justin and the various translators.

There had appeared at Paris in Greek and Latin, in the year 1539, from the workshop of Guillard, the Exhortation of St. Justin to the Greeks, but Robert Estienne first published all the works of the holy martyr in Greek in the year 1551, in the Royal types, after he had unearthed this hidden treasure from the Royal Library. The accurate diligence of that most celebrated man, which is renowned for so many works, deserved the same praise in this edition. Yet, since it cannot happen that human nature should guard against every blemish altogether, he printed some things, although very rarely, otherwise than they stood in the manuscript codex, partly inadvertently, partly on purpose in order to soften a sentiment which seemed to him rather harsh. Moreover, what must indeed be attributed to carelessness, he published a certain brief treatise against the Gentiles, or rather a compilation of observations, once after the Confutation of the Dogmas of Aristotle accurately enough, and a second time after the Questions to the Orthodox not without a lacuna and several faults.

The works of Justin were arranged by Robert Estienne without selection of subject matter, without distinction between genuine and spurious works, just as he had found them in the manuscript codex, in this manner: Epistle to Zenas and Serenus, Exhortation to the Greeks, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Apology for the Christians to the Senate, Apology to Antoninus, On the Monarchy of God, Confutation of Certain Dogmas of Aristotle, Questions of the Christians to the Greeks, Questions and Responses to the Orthodox, Questions

of the Greeks to the Christians. The most learned Fabricius testifies that both Apologies had long ago been published in Greek at Rome by Zannerus in octavo, together with some works of Gregory Thaumaturgus, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Chrysostom, under the care of Jerome Bunellus, S.J.

Since the usefulness of Justin's works was closed to those ignorant of Greek, some learned men undertook to illustrate him in Latin letters. In this arena the first to shine forth was a man trained in Greek and Latin letters, Joachim Perionius, monk of the monastery of Cormery, of the Order of St. Benedict, and doctor of theology. His work appeared in the year 1554 in folio at the press of Jacques Dupuis. There is prefixed to the Latin translation a brief Life of Justin collected from his own works. After the individual treatises, notes are appended to illustrate the text. Deceived by the first words of the Exposition of the Faith, in which Pseudo-Justin testifies that he had discoursed at sufficient length against the Jews and the Gentiles, Perionius thought that there should be placed before this Exposition of the Faith the Dialogue, the two Apologies, the Exhortation, and the Little Book on the Monarchy; next, after the Exposition of the Faith, or of the right confession, he granted a place to the Epistle to Zenas and Serenus, the various Questions, and finally the Confutation of the Dogmas of Aristotle. Yet Perionius knew, and he himself observes this in the first note on the Exposition of the Faith, that Justin had sharpened his pen against the Gentiles before he did so against the Jews. Nevertheless, he thought that the order should be followed which he supposed to have been indicated by the holy martyr.

The translation of Perionius is more elegant than accurate, as some learned men have noted not without barbs against the translator. Yet indulgence ought to be used towards him who, having no one whom he might follow, led the way for others in this perilous hazard.

Perionius had at first resolved, just as he himself relates in his Admonition to the Reader, not to publish all the books of Justin at the same time, but some at one time and others at another in brief pages, according to the order which he judged should be assigned to them. But he changed his plan, and comprised all the works of Justin in one and the same volume, yet in such a way as not to defraud the illustrious men to whose name he had promised that he would dedicate certain books of the holy martyr. Hence the Dialogue is dedicated to Cardinal Odet de Châtillon, in which indeed he praises the study of theology in the highest degree of dignity; inasmuch as, after he had reaped wonderful fruits from the studies of humanity employing the most learned and most eloquent preceptor Nicolas Bérault, he had deemed the knowledge of this science not only pleasant and useful for himself, but even necessary through the whole time of his life. Perionius describes aptly enough what the state of literature then was, when the zeal for both discovering ancient books and publishing them into the public light was fervent, especially since Francis I, who laboured in a wonderful manner so that from Greece and Judaea, as Perionius says, a great multitude of Greek and Hebrew books might be brought together, had incited many, not only Frenchmen, but also Italians and Spaniards and Germans, by his most noble example.

Both Apologies were dedicated to Jean Bohier, abbot of the monastery of Olivet among the Bituriges, whom, having long since received into friendship, Perionius did not cease to incite both to retain and perpetuate his course of studies and to discharge the office of his prefecture in accordance with his dignity and for the benefit of his people.

The Exhortation to the Greeks and the Book on the Monarchy appear under the name of François Bohier, bishop of Saint-Malo, to whom and to whose maternal uncle Denis Briçonnet, abbot of Cormery and bishop of Saint-Malo, Perionius owed very much. For when those who had supplied everything to him while he was devoting his efforts to letters at Paris wished to close their bounty towards Perionius, when Briçonnet learned of this, he supported him with his own resources, and when dying commended him to François Bohier, whose beneficence was no less generous.

Since Perionius considered the Exposition of the Faith to be a genuine offspring of Justin, and had not noticed the stains of the Nestorian taint with which this work is branded, he did not think that he could send any book which contained greater and more excellent matters to Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, and he adjoined the Epistle to Zenas and Serenus, and five Questions of the Christians to the Greeks. The remaining Questions are inscribed to Cardinal François de Tournon. There remained the Confutation of Aristotle: this he published in the name of Philibert Babou, bishop of Angoulême, and candidly enough confesses his fear lest by the reading of this book others be deterred from reading Aristotle rather than Plato.

A little before he had said: Our ancestors, having altogether rejected the Platonic discipline, both themselves approved the Aristotelian in this chief academy of all, and wished it to be approved and retained by their own. Accordingly, he is not so carried away by love and zeal for Justin as to think Aristotle vanquished by him. Nay more, I can truly say this, he says, that the Aristotelians, if they wish (since Justin in this place refutes him only by his own reasons and principles, for men foreign to our religion cannot be pressed by the testimonies of the divine Scriptures), can easily reply to those things which, with our religion set aside, he wishes to prevail against him: especially since there is no discipline so weak and ill-established whose men cannot defend the decrees of their leader.

In the following year, that is 1555, there appeared at Basel, and was printed again at Paris in the year 1575, another translation, prepared by Sigismund Gelenius; and since he died in the very course of the work and left it interrupted, a certain man skilled in Greek and Latin undertook to complete it, who, as Bishop Nicolaus testifies in his Admonition to the Reader, not only made the last books Latin, but also supplied many passages in the earlier ones where verses from authors had been adduced, which Gelenius had leaped over lest he delay the course of his translation... exhibiting the sense, however, rather than verse, even though he is an eminent poet... excelling also in many other gifts of God, and most of all in restoring the corruptions of writers of both tongues: concerning which I shall speak all the more sparingly, the better known it is to very many.

The final books, which were left to the learned man to translate, appear to be the Confutation of the Dogmas of Aristotle, the Questions to the Orthodox, and the other Questions of the Christians to the Greeks and of the Greeks to the Christians. For these were rendered more accurately than Gelenius is accustomed to do. The name of the learned man was worthy to be handed down to posterity: but perhaps it was omitted by the publisher in order to spare his modesty. In this edition the order of the works which Robert Estienne had observed is retained. In the Paris edition, which appeared in the year 1575, there was added the Oration of St. Hippolytus on the Consummation of the World and on Antichrist, and on the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, from the translation of Giovanni Pico.

Johannes Lang of Silesia brought forth a third translation into the light in the year 1565 at Basel, with commentaries added. He had completed the work before the labours of Perionius and Gelenius came into his hands; but, having read them through, he testifies not only that he did not repent of his own labour, but even that courage was added to him, so that he committed it more gladly to the judgements of men. His hope did not deceive him; for his translation is preferred to the others; nevertheless, although he does not translate as freely as Gelenius, nor slip as often as Perionius, yet he is not free from his own errors, some of which he would have escaped if he had diligently compared the translations of Perionius and Gelenius with his own; not to mention that by imitating both, it could often have become clearer and more elegant. To the translation of Lang

honour was paid in the editions which appeared afterwards, except however the Cologne Bibliotheca Patrum of the year 1618, into which the translation of Perionius was received.

As I considered the work of Lang, it occurred to me to wonder at the man's opinion concerning the controversies which were then raging with great heat. In his dedicatory epistle to Maximilian, king of Bohemia, he laments the dissensions that had arisen for forty years, more or less, in Germany and other places. Yet by that consensus which previously flourished concerning these matters and has not ceased to flourish among Catholics, he is not moved in the least. He seems to value the holy Fathers very highly, and contends that their authority, as lamps of the Church, ought to be great in her, not only privately among individuals, but also publicly in sacred assemblies and councils among all mortals, to whom nothing is prior and more ancient than the name and glory of Christ and their own salvation.

Yet how poorly does that praiser of the holy Fathers himself stand by his own principles and obey his own precepts! For while he comments on the notable passage of Justin in Apology 1, num. 65, where the holy martyr asserts as eloquently and constantly that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ as that the Word Himself was made man, what does Lang oppose to this testimony? One man is for him in place of all the Fathers, Valentin Crautwald, presbyter of Breslau, whom he had had as preceptor in Greek letters. Relying on this guide and master, under the pretext of explaining and expounding, he does not hesitate to invert the words of Christ, This is My body, this is My blood, in this manner: My body is this, namely the spiritual and living bread and food which came down from heaven; My blood is this, namely the spiritual, life-giving, and heavenly drink.

Putative righteousness he assails thus: Faith of this sort, he says, is conceived mostly by οἰήσει and δοκήσει, that is, by supposition and opinion, lacking substance, and rests and subsists on putative righteousness, destined also to have (as is to be feared) a putative reward conformable to itself and an imaginary retribution. And men ruined by idleness, who call into doubt whether good works are needed by a Christian for salvation, what else do they do than manifestly show that they draw into ambiguous disputation the dominical and apostolic oracles (the prophetic I omit), clearer than light, and doubt concerning their truth? These things are read in the same epistle.

Memorable is the history related by Lang of a sedition that arose on account of the controversy over justification. There sprang up in recent years, he says, p. 12, in a certain dominion of Germany a scholastic contention concerning the justification of man, which thereafter turned into open secession in such a way that almost the entire clergy there revolted from the prince. Nor could he satisfy his people by any other means than by setting forth a public edict to ordain what was originally decreed from the very laying of the foundations of the holy Church, that justification should be taught according to the mind of the apostle Paul. But to that constitution

he added: and according to the doctrine of certain Neoteric doctors, who, named by him, departed not so long ago. For he could not, as I suppose, satisfy them otherwise, just as I have said. Nor do I doubt that that prince, endowed as he is with prudence, of his own counsel, if it had been permitted despite the importunity of seditious men, would have restored the ancient Fathers, Greek and Latin, in place of novel writers.

In arranging the works of St. Justin he followed the subject matter, and divided Justin into three volumes, in the first of which are contained the Exhortation, the Book on the Monarchy, and the two Apologies; to which is adjoined the Plea of Athenagoras, and finally the Confutation of the Dogmas of Aristotle with the Appendix, as in Robert Estienne, and the Questions of the Christians to the Greeks. The Dialogue with Trypho fills the second volume, and the third the Exposition of the Faith, the Epistle to Zenas and Serenus, and the Questions and Responses to the Orthodox with the Questions of the Greeks to the Christians.

Before these translators Giovanni Pico della Mirandola had rendered the Exhortation to the Greeks into Latin; which translation was published among his works at Strasbourg in the year 1507, and at Basel in 1528, in folio, in Johannes Sichardus's Antidote against Heresies, and in the Micropresbyticum in 1550, and the Orthodoxographa in 1551 and 1569, and again among the works of Gianfrancesco Pico at Basel in 1601, in folio; Guillaume Postel translated the Refutation of the Dogmas of Aristotle into Latin, at Paris in the year 1552, in octavo.

Justin also had those who illustrated him in the French tongue. Jean de Maumont rendered all the works published by Robert Estienne into French in the year 1554, and dedicated this labour, undertaken at the urging of Monluc, bishop of Valence, and printed in the types of Michel de Vascosan, to the Cardinal of Lorraine. This translation was printed again in the year 1559 at the press of the same man. In the same tongue Martin Dupin rendered the Exhortation to the Greeks in the year 1580 at Paris; Chanut the greater Apology in the year 1670; and Father Le Gras, priest of the Oratory, the Epistle to Diognetus at Paris in the year 1725. Whereas Chanut had lain hidden under the name of Pierre Fondet, this translation was printed again in the year 1686 under the true name of the translator. In German Caspar Hedio illustrated the Exhortation to the Greeks in the year 1530, together with the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, Socrates, etc., at Strasbourg in folio; the Apologies of Justin, Tertullian, and Minucius Felix for the Christian religion, and the Commonitory of Vincent of Lérins, Dr. Reeves recently translated into English and illustrated with prolegomena and notes, at London in 1710, octavo, 2 volumes.

Chapter II.

On the Graeco-Latin editions of the works of St. Justin.

Friedrich Sylburg published the works of Justin in Greek and Latin, with the translation of Johannes Lang, in the year 1593, at Heidelberg at the press of Commelin, having added two works published in the year 1592 by Henri Estienne, the Address to the Greeks and the Epistle to Diognetus.

To this edition Sylburg added ornament and value both by copious indices and by various observations, which he appended either in his own name, or as received from Johannes Arcerius, David Hoeschel, and Hieronymus Wolf, or as drawn from Billy's Sacred Observations. This edition was reprinted once and again at Paris in the years 1615 and 1636, comprising in the same volume Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Tatian, and Hermias, and also subjoining to the works of Justin the dissertation of the Jesuit Lansselius against Casaubon's Animadversions on Baronius. The Cologne, or rather Wittenberg, edition of the year 1686, besides those things which are contained in the Paris editions, has the Commentaries of Christian Kortholt on Baronius, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Tatian.

The learned Englishmen did not allow themselves to appear to have contributed no labour and zeal towards illustrating Justin. Very recently, says Fabricius, vol. V, p. 61, the learned man Thomas Creech, to whom Lucretius owes much, set his hand to a new edition of Justin at Oxford. But soon the wretched man, himself the author of his own deplorable fate, wished even those things which he had nearly completed to be destroyed.

Johannes Ernst Grabe published at Oxford in the year 1700 the greater Apology in octavo, with the Latin version of Johannes Lang corrected in very many places, subjoining the emendations and notes of various scholars and adding several new ones, annexing moreover at the end the annotations of Lang and Kortholt, and prefixing Lang's preface, in which he set forth the summary of this Apology. In the same city and in the same manner there appeared in the year 1703 both Addresses against the Greeks, with the Book on the Monarchy and the lesser Apology, with the notes of Robert and Henri Estienne, Grabe, and others. At the end are subjoined the annotations of Lang and Kortholt. The praise for this labour is due to H. Hutchin. Since the Dialogue remained, in illustrating it Samuel Jebb proceeded by the same way and method as Grabe and Hutchin in the aforesaid works, except that he appended very few notes, and those almost always taken from Sylburg. The work appeared likewise in octavo at London in the year 1719.

There appeared at London in Greek and Latin in the year 1722 the Two Apologies and the Dialogue with Trypho the Jew of Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, with the notes and emendations of Styan Thirlby. The observations of the learned man are occupied with explaining antiquity, emending the text, and also comparing passages of Scripture with editions of the Bibles and with the Fathers. At the notable passage concerning the angels, of which we shall treat in the second part of the preface, he gives notice that he has resolved not to touch upon theological controversies in this work. Nowhere does he seem to depart from this plan.

I have no doubt that a man excellently trained in Greek and Latin letters would have deserved praise and approbation if he had prepared a new translation; but why he shrank from this labour, he declares that he used these reasons. So far was I, he says, from thinking that a new version ought to be made by me, that nothing came closer to happening than that I should publish none at all: inasmuch as both towards all versions from the Greek tongue into the Latin,

and from either into the vernaculars, to which, unless I am mistaken, we chiefly owe both this incredible scarcity of learned men and the multitude of the half-learned and smatterers, I am a mortal enemy, and have always considered this ridiculous custom of adjoining Latin translations to Greek books to have been the ruin and destruction of Greek letters. I had regard for the profit of the bookseller, to whom I even granted this, that I should not at least relegate the version to the end of the book.

How he proceeded in emending the version of Lang, it is worthwhile to learn from himself. In emending the version of Lang, he says, I had no regard for Latinity, inasmuch as nothing but a single erasure could emend it; nor did I examine the sense itself by my own weights, which itself would have been a work of no less labour, I know not whether even of greater, than to make a new version, but by a certain popular balance, lightly and remissly, as one unwilling and scarcely stomaching the humble task.

At the end are appended some annotations of Pearson unearthed from the Royal Library at Cambridge, which the learned editor does not value highly. There follow the notes of Davies on Apology 1, which, very kindly sent by this most learned man, the illustrious Thirlby presented to the public light, that they might be a monument both of his grateful mind and of the erudition of Davies. The indices of matters and words are owed to Sylburg. In the dedicatory epistle, which, inscribed to the most noble man William, Lord Craven, obtains the place and manner of a preface, the learned editor undertakes the defence of the reading of the holy Fathers, and discourses on the usefulness and difficulty of criticism, then interposes his own judgement concerning Justin, and finally explains the method of his own work.

With no gentle arm he plucks at those to whom the ancient Fathers are contemptible. Now there is, he says, another class of men who, although I am not accustomed to dispute with the unlearned, must nevertheless be refuted in a few words. If these men do not know theology, they know nothing, and they seem to themselves to apply themselves diligently to that study: yet whether out of arrogance, or because they really think what they say, they account the ancient Fathers unworthy of their reading. Forsooth, they contend that it belongs to a good theologian to rely on Scripture alone, and that it contains both whatever it concerns us to know and whatever is needed for the understanding of itself: that those who think otherwise offer a horrible insult to God its writer, and that therefore there can be no use for the Fathers, nor any authority of antiquity, nor are the most ancient interpreters of Scripture to be preferred to the most recent. What they say concerning the perspicuity of Scripture is, in the first place, utterly ridiculous and absurd; and in the second place, the very crime of which they foolishly accuse their adversaries, it is even impious. It is absurd to try to prove that what all men perceive not to be perspicuous is perspicuous to all. It is impious to affirm either that God has done what it is manifest has not been done, or that He has not sufficiently provided for human affairs. This judgement concerning men absurd beyond measure will not fail to please anyone who loves the truth.

How arduous and difficult a thing criticism is, he demonstrates by this reason among others. For what else, he says,

can be the cause why, in so great a multitude of emendators, not only among us and the rest of the northern peoples, upon whom the unfriendly sun, that true Phoebus by whose stirring wits grow warm, does not look except askance from afar, but even among those lively and ingenious Frenchmen, and the fellow-countrymen or neighbours of all the Muses, men of divine skill, the Italians, scarcely some three or four in each age have conducted the matter successfully, unless a certain incredible magnitude and difficulty of the subject? These things are not related by me with the intention either of applauding what he has stated not timidly concerning his own countrymen, or of parading what he has stated honourably concerning the French, but so that from these things also everyone may perceive how candid and sincere is the learned man's freedom both of thinking and of speaking what he thinks.

Chapter III.

On the various editions of Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Hermias.

The first of all editions of Tatian's Address is owed to Johannes Frisius, who, having received a manuscript copy of this Address, interspersed with various readings from another codex, at Venice from Arnoldus Arlenius Peraxylus, relying on this aid published the Address of Tatian in Greek at Zurich in folio in the year 1546, at the press of Froschauer, together with the Melissa of Antonius and the Maxims of Maximus, and Theophilus to Autolycus. In the margin of this edition are read both those various readings of which I have spoken and also some brief notes of Conrad Gesner, with whom Frisius had shared his codex. In the same year and in the same city Conrad Gesner published in folio a Latin translation of Tatian with lengthy notes, which was afterwards reprinted rather often in the Bibliothecae Patrum, at Paris in the years 1575, 1589, 1610, at Cologne in 1618, and at Lyons in 1677.

In Greek and Latin Tatian appeared at Basel among the Orthodoxographa in the year 1555, and at Paris in the Auctuarium of the Bibliotheca Patrum in the year 1624, with the notes of Fronton du Duc, and after the works of Justin Martyr in the Paris editions of the years 1615 and 1636, and in the Cologne or rather Wittenberg edition in the year 1686, to which last edition the notes of Kortholt were added.

But the Oxford edition in octavo of the year 1700 surpasses all these editions in the praise of diligence and erudition; we owe it to William Worth, archdeacon of Worcester. He emended the translation of Conrad Gesner in some places, divided the work into certain chapters, adjoined his own notes to those of others, and arranged in order between the text and the notes the various readings excerpted from three codices.

At the end are appended the observations of George Bull on the divinity of Christ, the notes of Kortholt, and the dissertation of Dom Nicolas Le Nourry, Benedictine monk. There follows the little work of Hermias, which Worth thought should be joined with Tatian; next the indices, and finally the learned dissertation of the most celebrated Abbé de Longuerue, which Worth had received from Pierre Allix after the completion of the work on the term and condition that the learned author of the dissertation should be concealed.

In the dedicatory epistle, which bears at its head the name of William, bishop of Worcester and royal almoner, the learned editor declares that this occasion and cause of undertaking this labour arose for him because, when controversies concerning the highest heads of the faith were raging not so long ago in England, and he saw all the engines of atheism turned towards this end, that under the guise of cultivating natural religion a way might be paved for paganism, he had hoped that the Address of Tatian would be useful for repressing the advances of impiety, inasmuch as he demonstrates most lucidly that all this natural religion, as we call it, is a wretched thing, and avails very little for cultivating the mind and forming morals, unless in addition the light of the Christian law be added.

Athenagoras's Book on the Resurrection of the Dead appeared before the Plea or Apology. For Giorgio Valla rendered this into Latin, whose translation was printed at Venice in folio with other works of various authors in the year 1498. Marsilio Ficino also translated many things from this book, which are read in the second volume of his works. Petrus Nannius illustrated the same work in Latin letters, and first published it in Greek with his own translation at Paris and Louvain in the year 1541 in quarto. This Graeco-Latin edition was repeated at Basel in folio in the year 1550 in the Micropresbyticum, and among the Orthodoxographa in the year 1555 in folio. In Latin only, the same work from the translation of Nannius is included after the works of Philo Judaeus rendered into Latin by Gelenius at Basel in 1552 in octavo.

Upon the Plea or Apology three translators laboured: Conrad Gesner, who published this work in Greek and Latin with notes in octavo at Zurich in the year 1557 and at Basel in the year 1558; Johannes Lang, who among the works of Justin published by him in Latin in folio at Basel in the year 1565 inserted the Apology of Athenagoras on account of the similarity of subject matter; and finally, third, Suffridus Petri, who published the same work rendered into Latin with fuller notes at Cologne in octavo in the year 1567. The translation of Lang was preserved in the Basel edition; honour was paid to Suffridus in the Leipzig editions in the years 1684 and 1685. The rest which we shall enumerate hereafter retained the translation of Gesner.

Both works, the Plea and the Book on the Resurrection of the Dead, were published in Latin in the Bibliothecae Patrum, at Paris in the years 1575, 1589, 1609; at Cologne in 1618; at Lyons in 1677 in Greek and Latin with notes; at Paris in octavo, in the year 1657, by Henri Estienne, whom the author of the General History of Sacred and Ecclesiastical Writers undeservedly supposed to have prepared a new translation: likewise at Zurich in 1559 and 1560 in folio among the writings of some ancient orthodox Greek theologians; in the Auctuarium of the Bibliotheca Patrum, at Paris in 1624, likewise after the works of Justin in 1615, 1636, 1686; at Oxford in duodecimo, with brief notes of Fell, bishop of Oxford, in 1682; at Leipzig in octavo in 1684, 1685, with the notes of Rechenberg, who retained the translation of Suffridus.

Another edition appeared at Oxford in the year 1706 in octavo,

more excellent than the others, through the labour of Edward Dechair, who, having obtained various readings from one codex of the Royal Library of Paris and some English ones, used this aid for emending the text, emended the translations of Gesner and Nannius in several places, adjoined learned notes, and appended at the end the observations of Suffridus, Lang, Kortholt, and Rechenberg, and some excerpts from Baronius, Halloix, Dodwell, and Bull.

There were not lacking those who illustrated Athenagoras in vernacular letters. Girolamo Faleti translated the Book on the Resurrection into Italian at Venice at the press of Aldus in quarto, in the year 1557, if we believe Fabricius; 1556, if the author of the General History of Sacred and Ecclesiastical Writers. The learned editor Edward Dechair assigns the year 1546. In English the same work appeared translated by Richard Porder, at London in the year 1573. Guy Gaussart published the Apology in French in octavo, at Paris in 1574. David Humphreys published both works in English in octavo, at London in 1714. The most learned Fabricius testifies that there exists a French translation of both works, which is owed to Arnoul Le Ferron.

We have already said that St. Theophilus first appeared in Greek, together with Tatian, at Zurich in folio in the year 1546, through the labour of Johannes Frisius. In the same city and in the same year he appeared in Latin from the translation of Conrad Clauser, which translation is indeed found in the Bibliothecae Patrum, at Paris in 1575, 1589, 1609, 1644; at Cologne in 1618; at Lyons in 1677. In Greek and Latin, moreover, this work is extant among the Orthodoxographa in the year 1555; at Basel in folio; in the Auctuarium of the Bibliotheca Patrum, at Paris in 1624, with the notes of Fronton du Duc; and after the works of St. Justin at Paris in 1615, 1636, and at Cologne or rather Wittenberg in 1686.

In the year 1684 there appeared at Oxford in duodecimo a new edition of the books to Autolycus, through the labour of John Fell, bishop of Oxford, who had a manuscript codex from the Bodleian Library, and emended the translation of Clauser in some places, and adjoined brief notes.

All these editions yield to the Hamburg edition, which appeared in the year 1724 in octavo through the labour of Johann Christoph Wolf, pastor at St. Catherine's in Hamburg and scholarch. He collated the text with the Bodleian codex and the Royal Paris codex, illustrated it with his own notes and those of others, and emended the translation in several places.

Hermias, says Fabricius, first saw the light from the codex of Johann Jakob Fugger with the version of Raphael Seiler of Augsburg, at Basel in 1553 in octavo, added to the Oration of Demetrius Cydonius on Despising Death: and among some ancient Greek theologians, printed at Zurich in the year 1560 in folio, in Greek and Latin under the care of Gesner. Next, to omit the Latin editions repeated in the Bibliothecae Patrum, in Greek and Latin again with the corrections of Fronton du Duc in the Auctuarium Ducaeanum at Paris in 1624 in folio, vol. I, and at the end of Justin Martyr at Paris in 1615, 1636, and at Cologne or rather Wittenberg in 1686 in folio. Finally, collated with the codex of Th. Gale,

with the notes of the same Gale, who considers Hermias to be younger than Theodoret, and of William Worth added at the end of Tatian, at Oxford in 1700, octavo.

Chapter IV.

It is briefly set forth what has been attempted in this new edition.

I shall not detain the readers with a long discourse in order to set forth to them the method of my labour, which indeed, committed to the judgement of the learned, is not so much to be praised and extolled by me, as pardon of excuse is to be entreated for the errors and blemishes against which in an arduous and difficult work I have too little guarded.

Many and great difficulties indeed occurred in these ancient monuments. Copyists have inflicted great wounds, whether by omitting some things, or by altering them, or even, what I have observed in the whole chapter of the Second Apology of St. Justin, by transferring them into a place not their own. To this is added a style neither neat in the choice of words nor accurate in construction, especially in the Dialogue of St. Justin, who, while he glows with zeal for defending the truth, not only casts aside the ornaments of speech, but even takes little thought for the perspicuity of his discourse. The witticisms and elegant pictures of Tatian often cause no less trouble than an uncouth and unadorned discourse, so much so that he has seemed to translators and critics to transfix Crescens the Cynic with his barbs while he describes the mimes in their native colours. The explanation of profane matters in these writers is sometimes laborious; yet I know not whether it has been more laborious, I do not say to perceive what they think concerning the divinity of Christ (for wonderful is their ardour of mind in defending this dogma and open are their testimonies in proclaiming it), but to explain and trace out in all their footsteps certain arguments which they use in this kind.

Of assistance for clearing up these matters were manuscript codices, change of punctuation, the insertion of a parenthesis where there was need, and finally attentive consideration of difficult passages and comparison with others of the same or of a different writer. Now these things could not be accomplished without several notes, and those sometimes lengthy; nevertheless, care was taken for brevity. I should certainly have produced weariness for myself and for the readers, and the burden of the volume would have been heavier than is just, if I had appended the commentaries of Lang, Perionius, Kortholt, and others, if it had pleased me to illustrate ecclesiastical and profane matters by commonplaces, and to collect whatever others have either translated less aptly or opined less learnedly, and whatever difference the testimonies cited by Justin and Theophilus have from our Bibles. In all these things I considered that there was need of selection: I am accustomed to confine the work of annotations within the understanding of the text and of the writer's meaning; the observations of learned men who have laboured usefully before me, where they are less approved by me, I refute in a few words; where they seem worthy of adoption, I gladly admit them, yet in such a way that for the most part they are compressed into briefer compass, and no one is defrauded of his due praise.

A new translation was chiefly required by

both Apologies of Justin, the Book on the Monarchy, and the Dialogue, Athenagoras's Book on the Resurrection, and the three books of Theophilus. In Justin's Address to the Greeks, the Epistle to Diognetus, and the little work of Hermias, it was sufficient to emend the translation in several places. Now in this labour my care was that as a faithful translator I should render word for word, and not take licence for myself without necessary cause. For it would be equally a matter of scruple either to detract anything from the truth through negligence, or to exaggerate it by craft, as though it were weak and infirm. Accordingly, it will perhaps be troublesome to some not to find in this translation of mine testimonies most splendid for the defence of dogmas, but which rested on the sole authority of translators: such as that from Justin's Dialogue, n. 88: The human race had fallen through Adam into death and the fraud and seduction of the serpent; to pass over in silence meanwhile the individual fault of each of those acting wickedly for himself. There was also cited that passage of Theophilus from Book II: Now what man had brought upon himself through injury and disobedience, this God now bestows upon him, through His kindness and mercy making men obedient to Himself. The text was the cause why my translation lacked these testimonies. Yet this loss, if indeed it ought to seem a loss, many other things will compensate, which, led by sure reasons, I have rendered in such a way that the writer's meaning is placed in the clearest light, and the whole dispute is settled.

The order of the works, which in earlier editions had been established at pleasure, I thought should be directed by the marks of time. Nevertheless, the Apologies of St. Justin have not been separated. The books falsely attributed to Justin have been rejected into the Appendix, among which the Epistle to Zenas and Serenus stands out for the piety of its precepts: yet as certain and manifest as it is that it is not Justin's, so obscure and uncertain is it at what time in particular it was written. There follow two works, unworthy indeed of the name of the holy martyr on account of the poison of their errors, yet suitable enough to stir up zeal for reading and learning: the Exposition of the Right Confession, in which the Nestorian heresy breathes; and the Questions and Responses to the Orthodox, which are marked by Pelagian stains. The other Questions and the Confutation of the Dogmas of Aristotle, by a wonderful similarity of style, point to the same parent as the Questions and Responses to the Orthodox. The second part of the Appendix has been assigned to

the Acts of the Martyrdom of St. Justin, which I have published in Greek and Latin after Papebroch, and to the fragments of the lost works of Justin, Tatian, and Theophilus.

Of use were two recent manuscript codices, in which all the works of Justin, both genuine and spurious, are contained, the one from the Royal Library, formerly 2270, now 450, the other from the Clermont Library. Besides these, for the Exhortation there were employed very ancient royal codices, now 451 and 174, formerly 2271 and 2919; and the Colbertine, which is now Royal 19. For the Epistle to Zenas and Serenus, the royal codices 451 and 174, and besides these two Clermont codices, which however are such twins that either both were copied from the same codex or the one from the other. The same Clermont codices, together with the royal codices 938 and 1268, and two Coislinian codices, the first of which is believed to be of the tenth century, were of service for emending the Exposition of the Faith. The Confutation of the Dogmas of Aristotle was collated with Royal 2153. The Plea of Athenagoras was collated with two royal codices, 451 and 174, three Roman codices, two of which are from the Ottobonian and the other from the Vatican Library, the Clermont codex, and another from the library of the Institution of the Oratory of Paris. The Book on the Resurrection of the same author was collated with the same royal codices 451, 174, 450, and the two Clermont codices, to which were added various readings formerly collected from a manuscript codex by the most learned Bigot, which are preserved in the library of Saint-Germain. Book III of Theophilus was collated with Royal 887; Hermias with two Roman codices, the one Vatican and the other Ottobonian. The various readings of the Roman codices I owe to two learned procurators of our congregation in the Roman Curia, Dom Estiennot and Dom Pierre Maloet, the first of whom collated the Plea of Athenagoras with the two Ottobonian codices. The duty of a grateful mind demands that I also commemorate the extraordinary kindness in assisting me of the most learned keepers of the Royal Library, M. Boivin and M. de Targny, and of those who succeeded them. Generous and beneficent good will towards me was also shown by the Reverend Father Hardouin, whom everyone knows to have been long the prefect of the library of the Paris College of the Society of Jesus. For the testimonies of Justin which are reported by Eusebius, I employed various readings excerpted from manuscript codices, which were shared with me by one of our members preparing a new edition of the History of Eusebius.