Appendix ad Arnobium: praefatio editoris

APPENDIX

TO THE SEVEN BOOKS OF THE DISPUTATIONS AGAINST THE GENTILES OF ARNOBIUS THE AFRICAN,

BY J. CONRAD ORELLI.

Of the work of Arnobius, this new edition of which, kind reader, I offer to you, the following eulogy is read in the fullest edition of it hitherto, that of Leyden: "This storehouse of recondite wisdom, whereby the foolish religion of the Gentiles is exploded and the true confirmed, is above all praise. For who, when he ponders the sinews of its eloquence, the weight of its arguments, and its choice sentiments, is not carried away into love and longing for so great an author? Everywhere his most flourishing diction triumphs, and the very Gentiles themselves are slain by their own sword. That pen at one stroke has pierced through and dispatched all the silent gods of the Gentiles. The gods themselves, if they were such gods, would blush when they heard here their own crimes and the foolish fables invented about themselves. In the second book indeed our author follows the opinion of the Gnostics concerning the immortality of souls, and in other places departs somewhat from Christian truth. Yet this must be pardoned to one who had recently come forth out of the darkness of paganism to Christian truth. The same thing befell this author as is wont to befall those who, brought forth out of a dark prison into the light, still have uncertain eyesight. In other respects he is subtle, fluent, powerful in genius and eloquence, a most valiant vanquisher of paganism."

Which praise, if perchance you should think it excessive and transgressing the bounds of truth, and proceeding from an editor as it were raving with love of his author, do you yourself, I pray, come and see: read through the whole work, at once most learned and most eloquent, and you will admire that Varro of the Latin Church, by which most true name Arnobius is honoured by learned men; or read only its clearer parts—for example, what he discourses in Book I concerning Jesus Christ, His character, morals, and miraculous works—and you will understand that among the ancients no one at all, and among the moderns very few, have spoken truer and better things concerning the divine Saviour, so that you would seem to yourself to have read, not a writer of the ancient Church still wavering and vacillating between truth and superstition, but some wisest one among modern theologians. Or survey what he utters most eloquently in Book II concerning the weakness of the human mind, or in Book III concerning the evils of Mars and Venus, that is, of wars and pleasure, or what in the same and the following books he brings forward in mockery of the gods and goddesses of the Gentiles, worthy of the wit of Lucian, or what he discourses excellently concerning the empty magnificence of temples or idols and the pomp of sacrifices full of vanity: and you will confess that in genius and eloquence also—if perchance you except Origen alone in his books Against Celsus—scarcely any ecclesiastical writer snatches the palm from him, and that his disciple Lactantius, the Cicero of the Fathers, as they call him, by so much as he excels his teacher in the elegance of pure and polished Latin speech, is by so much surpassed by him in genius, learning, and true eloquence, not borrowed from elsewhere, but flowing from his very breast. And—what is not his least praise—he is a wise and sober writer: here are no subtle quibbles, no idle sports of wit, no dreams of a luxuriant imagination, no insipid and far-fetched metaphors and allegories, wherein other Fathers of the Church, even the most celebrated, wonderfully please themselves, such as Tertullian, Jerome, Ambrose, and Origen in his Exegetical works,

nor did the divine John himself, flowing with golden mouth, keep himself altogether pure and immune from them. And as to his having in the second book certain things contrary to the truth, and drawn from the teaching of the Gnostics to which he had been devoted—for example, concerning brute animals drawing their origin from elsewhere than from the Supreme Maker of things, and concerning the soul of man itself, on account of its weakness and perversity not created by God Best and Greatest, but only sanctified and adorned with the gift of immortality—that, I hope, you will easily pardon to a man recently emerged out of the darkness of paganism into Christian light, mindful indeed that in the doctrine of the best world most philosophers even of the greatest name before Leibniz were blind.

Having therefore eight years ago (at which time I had first approached the reading of him) conceived an incredible love for this most excellent writer, the thought occurred to me to try upon him whatever strength I had, and to prepare a new edition of him, which, containing both a selection of what former interpreters had accomplished in emending and explaining him, and an illustration of what they had left untouched, might render the way to understanding a writer truly difficult and of recondite learning more ready for cultivators of sacred as well as of humane letters; especially since, with the single exception of Oberthür's edition (which however is destitute of all the aids of interpretation that are most necessary in this writer), I had found most of the other editions of him to be very rare and costing a great price; nor indeed (to say what the fact is) did any of them seem to me to satisfy the just desires of readers: for some (like that of Leyden) I found labouring under an excessive bulk of commentaries explaining many things indeed well and learnedly, yet leaving not fewer things, which seemed most of all to need illustration, altogether untouched, and on the other hand touching upon other rather slight matters known even to beginners, or altogether irrelevant and pertaining to anything else rather than to Arnobius; others, like the earlier ones, I found labouring under the deficiency of the same; nor, if you except Heraldus alone, of all who have bestowed labour in emending and explaining him, does any at all seem to have discharged in every respect the duty of an interpreter: for Gelenius, who, after the Roman editio princeps stained with the foulest errors, first revised the text of Arnobius, abusing an excessive confidence in his own wit, corrupted rather than emended his author in most places, and gave us an Arnobius most unlike himself. Theodorus Canterus accomplished more, a man of exact judgement and accurate diligence, who both acutely corrected and learnedly illustrated not a few places, but passed over far more, and those the most difficult; and it were to have been wished that the most learned man had stood by his promises of preparing another and richer edition of Arnobius. Fulvius Ursinus also emended several things excellently. Meursius in his Criticus emended Arnobius by his own unaided effort and with youthful boldness, and, as he himself confesses, not seldom ran out beyond the proposed bounds; nevertheless to some places he brought healing, and recalled from the manuscript codex several most true readings neglected by the first editor, Faustus Sabaeus, and—what is his chief merit—the older Latinity,

which, like Apuleius and other African writers, Arnobius also affected, he learnedly illustrated from Plautus, Lucretius, and others. Godescalcus Stewechius has indeed not a few learned and good things, yet he sets sail beyond measure for archaism, and carried away by an excessive itch for speaking after the manner of the ancients, as often as he seemed to himself to have found some ancient and obsolete word or phrase sprung up in the infancy of the Latin tongue in the fragments of Ennius or Pacuvius, or in inscriptions or ancient glossaries, he endeavours, will he nill he, to thrust it upon his Arnobius. Although Elmenhorstius in his notes confesses that he studied brevity, it is nevertheless agreed that in his commentaries many things are found altogether superfluous and useless, whereby things most clear and well known are often expounded and confirmed without any necessity, and many things also beyond the mark and the author's purpose. Most of all, however, that man seems to have pleased himself in explaining obscene and base matters, wherewith, if Arnobius touches upon anything of that kind—for example, in Book II, ch. 42, upon the words prepared for pollution of the mouth—he often fills several pages. Of all the interpreters of Arnobius, however, Desiderius Heraldus must easily be called the chief and his true preserver, which most learned man acutely corrected many things, learnedly explained more, and first opened up the true sense of most of the most difficult places. Nor is Nicolas Le Nourry to be despised either, a man of distinguished learning and most skilled in antiquities, who most learnedly expounded very many things pertaining to mythological and antiquarian matters, and first brought light to not a few places which former interpreters had left untouched. Yet it is most greatly to be lamented that the commentary of Salmasius, wherewith that man of immense learning had wished to illustrate Arnobius, was scarcely begun, much less finished, and that nothing remains to us from so great a man upon this writer except certain emendations of priceless value, which Thysius received into his fullest edition printed at Leyden in the year 1651.

From the commentaries of these interpreters, therefore, I carefully excerpted all things of good fruit for Arnobius that seemed to be in them. And at first indeed my design was to give all the annotations of Heraldus entire, inasmuch as they were most learned and excellently both emended and illustrated many passages of other writers. Yet I changed my design, fearing lest in this way the bulk and price of the book should be too much increased, especially since I had understood that almost all or most of the things in his notes that touch upon other writers—Lucian most of all, Artemidorus, and Titus Livius—had already been put to use by the editors of those authors, Reitz, Drakenborch, and Reiff; wherefore I gave them partly entire, partly contracted into briefer form, and others, though few, I omitted altogether where other interpreters had given better things. Yet with all these things which it had been permitted to cull from the former interpreters of Arnobius, scarcely half of the labour was finished: for there remained very many things either to be emended or to be illustrated, which they had passed over in the deepest silence. From elsewhere, therefore, light had to be sought for Arnobius. Very many others also had to be read, who in passing and while treating of other matters brought some light to him. The treasures of Salmasius's learning upon Solinus, Tertullian De Pallio, and the writers of the Historia Augusta had to be searched through, wherein several knots in Arnobius are excellently untied; the editions of ancient writers by Heinsius, Burmann, Gronovius, Davies, and Oudendorp had to be surveyed, and other philological books, for example, Burmann's collection of Epistles, the Works of Justus Lipsius, the Adversaria of Barth and Heinsius, the Observations of Gronovius upon writers both sacred and profane, etc., etc., wherein are not a few things, and those by no means to be despised, upon Arnobius. Yet even so there remained very many places either obscure or corrupt, to which by my own unaided effort either light had to be shed or healing applied. I had to range over almost the whole field of learning, as far as it extends, and the manifold arts and disciplines upon which the most learned writer touches in his work—philosophy, both the ancient philosophy of

almost all schools and sects, and the Gnostic philosophy of the first Christians, mathematics, arithmetic, astronomy, history moreover, geography, mythology, archaeology, jurisprudence, medicine, physics, natural history, agriculture and botany, the theatrical art, nay sometimes the culinary art itself, all had to be called in to aid; the authors both of that ancient and obsolete Latinity, of whom, like Apuleius also, Arnobius is an imitator, and of the more recent and ecclesiastical Latinity, whose faults he now and then contracted, had to be run through; to speak briefly, hundreds of books of every kind had to be turned over, until an edition should come forth which I could hope would in some way at least be approved by learned men.

At length after two whole years, namely in the summer of the year 1808, the work, finished and wrought by lamplight through not a few nights, immediately began to be buffeted by adverse storms of tempests, and for more than seven years experienced so hostile a star. For the manuscript copy, making a journey through almost all the provinces of Germany and seeking for itself as a haven some bookshop wherein it might go forth into the light printed in type, cast back again and again as it were upon the shore, its purpose unaccomplished, returned to the native hearth of its editor. For the tumults of war raging for so many years in Germany and the times hostile to the book-trade hindered it from finding a publisher who would undertake the care of printing it. What of the fact that a most false opinion also seems to have harmed my Arnobius not a little—namely, that this writer is by no means to be reckoned among classical authors, but rather among the ecclesiastical Fathers, and since the study of the latter has long since cooled down in Germany, he would therefore find very few readers. Which delay of time, however tedious it seemed to the editor, was nevertheless profitable not a little to Arnobius himself, inasmuch as, as often as the manuscript copy returned to me, more than six times it had given me the opportunity of revising my author, of emending very many things either badly conjectured or noted beside the mark, and of enlarging him with many aids of interpretation which it was permitted me to obtain in the meantime—above all, with the most learned annotations of Le Nourry, whose Apparatus, after I had sought it in vain in almost all the libraries of Switzerland, I at length received on loan through the kindness of two most courteous men, Januarius Frey, Abbot of the monastery of Rheinau in the canton of Zurich, a man most highly to be venerated, and Blasius Hautinger, the most reverend librarian of the same monastery. At length, when I had now altogether cast away all hope of seeing my Arnobius printed in type, and had begun to console myself with the distinguished fruit which I myself had reaped from the study of him, with my own knowledge, such as it is, of ancient letters increased not a little through him, and with the sweetest remembrance of the labours bestowed upon a most excellent writer, behold, through the kindness of G. H. Schaefer, a most illustrious man—the proofs of whose humanity and truest friendship manifested towards me I can feel, but cannot express in words or extol with worthy praises—there was found one to undertake the care of printing it, Friedrich Christian Wilhelm Vogel, a most honourable man, who by the several classical authors both most accurately edited and neatly printed in his publishing house has deserved right well of humane letters.

Now hear in a few words what has been accomplished in this edition. I have given the text chiefly of Oberthür's edition (whose division of chapters I have also followed), yet in several places rendered more correct chiefly from the corrections of Salmasius exhibited in the Leyden edition and those of other learned men, where the matter seemed to demand it. Of the annotations, as I have said, consulting the expense of readers, I wished to exhibit only a selection, and not the entire apparatus of Arnobius (such as I learned from a certain friend, only after my edition was finally finished, is at some time expected from the most learned man Willem Te Water, Professor at Utrecht), whereby this edition, consisting of two fairly thick volumes, would easily have grown to the number of six or seven volumes of the same size. I have prefixed both a very full literary notice of Arnobius

from Schoenemann's Bibliotheca of the Latin Fathers, then the conspectus of the work and the summary of the several chapters from Galland's Collection of the Ecclesiastical Fathers printed at Venice, 1765 and following. Finally I have added three very full indexes, of the authors cited by Arnobius, of matters, and of words; or rather I have enlarged with many terms the indexes appended to the Leiden edition. Further, a most welcome supplement comes to this edition in the learned and acute annotations on the first book of Arnobius, which my fellow citizen Jacob Ochsner, professor of catechetics and of sacred history in the gymnasium of Zurich, most kindly shared with me: a most learned man, to be compared with few in his exact knowledge of the Latin tongue, and already very well deserving of my Nicolaus of Damascus. To him, and to another most friendly fellow citizen, Leonhard Keller, professor of mathematics in the school of arts at Zurich, who while staying at Göttingen most kindly excerpted for my use Hérault's observations on Salmasius's Attic and Roman Law, containing his second thoughts on Arnobius, Behotius's Apophoreta, and other rarer books not to be found in our kindly homeland, may I be permitted on this occasion to bear witness to the sentiments of a most grateful mind.

But I do not wish to detain you with a longer preface, kind reader. Whatever good things, then, and things pertinent to the matter you may perhaps find in this new edition of Arnobius, these, I beg, take in good part; but where error has been made (and I very greatly fear these may be very many), these, I hope, you will pardon, mindful indeed how easy it is to slip in writers much easier, let alone in such a one, who is among the most difficult and in very many places has been very badly handled by the copyists, and of whom in the whole world, so far as I know, there survives a single manuscript codex, of the royal library of Paris, from which all the editions of all editors have flowed. Learned men above all, who in the literary journals will take the trouble to review my Arnobius, I would beg to pass a fair and just judgement upon it, and (what I should most greatly desire) candidly to make known their opinion on two most difficult passages, about whose true reading and interpretation I still stick in doubt: book III, chapter 40: "These the Etruscans call and name the Consentes and Complices, because they rise together and set together, six males and as many females, with unknown names and most sparing of pity"; and book VI, chapter 23: "And opening things locked up, by the obscurity of remedies, Canacheni." If this new specimen of my labour in this kind of letters does not displease them, some day, if God, Best and Greatest, grants me life and strength, the remaining

Latin defenders of the Christian faith also, Minucius Felix, Julius Firmicus, Cyprian, Tertullian's Apology and his two books Against the Nations, and perhaps also the chief of the Greeks, Clement of Alexandria, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Athenagoras, Hermias, revised and illustrated with the same care, I mean to bring to light.

I wrote this in the month of November, MDCCCXV, at Zurich of the Helvetians.

Orelli.

I do not remember finding translations of Arnobius mentioned anywhere except the Dutch one, by the translator Joachim Oudaen, Harlingen, 1677, in octavo, in Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina, book IV, chapter 3, p. 291, Venice edition.

Only a single codex has so far been found, from which Arnobius first flowed and from which he has again and again been emended; it now survives in the royal library of Paris. It would indeed be desirable that some learned man who has access to this royal codex should describe it accurately, should prove by sound reasons in what century it appears to have been written, and above all whether it is written in characters so ugly, or with such abbreviations of writing, that it could be worked over so many times by men of outstanding learning, whom we name in their place, and never without a new harvest of variant readings. For although we by no means despise Gelenius's judgement on the editors of the first Roman edition, yet these are not to be thought to have wished to deceive us; rather, let what they testified generally about this manuscript book be true: "Arnobius formerly teemed with as many faults as there are letters in him. Countless ones we have removed; some we have passed over on purpose, which either could in no way be understood or were wholly lacking: for it would be the mark of an arrogant mind to wish to restore what one does not know at all."

Concerning the codex of Flacius Illyricus, afterwards Petraeus's, which Franciscus Modius collated for Stewechius's use, I do not know whether I have read it written somewhere or have myself been the first to notice that it was nothing else than a copy of the Royal codex. Certainly I am now fully persuaded of it, after we compared more carefully the readings of this codex, which Stewechius expressly displayed in the margin of his edition, with the readings of the Paris codex excerpted by Scaliger at the end of Meursius's Criticus Arnobianus; whereby we discovered a remarkable agreement between the two; although at the same time it became apparent that Modius and Meursius chose and excerpted not exactly the same passages, but different ones according to their different judgement, and the former indeed far more sparingly.