Appendix de duobus locis codicis manuscripti libri de Mortibus persecutorum, quorum immutatae sunt quaedam voces

APPENDIX

ON TWO PASSAGES OF THE MANUSCRIPT OF THE BOOK ON THE DEATHS OF THE PERSECUTORS, IN WHICH CERTAIN WORDS HAVE BEEN ALTERED IN THE TEXT OF DOM LE NOURRY'S EDITION.

1. The first passage is found at n. 2, col. 196, where in the text of Dom le Nourry's edition one reads thus of Nero: "He, first of all, persecuted the servants of God; he fastened Peter to a cross and put Paul to death; yet he did not go unpunished, for God looked upon the affliction of His people. Cast down therefore from the summit of empire, and tumbled from the height, the unbridled tyrant suddenly appeared nowhere, so that not even a place of burial in the earth was to be seen for so evil a beast. Hence certain madmen believe that he was carried away and kept alive. The Sibyl saying that the matricide, a fugitive, would come from the ends [of the earth], so that, since he was the first to persecute, he should also be the last to persecute and precede the coming of Antichrist."

Dom le Nourry noted that in the manuscript deleri is read; and since this word does not cohere with the rest, nor is it understood what it means there, he judged that the word deliri should be put in the published text. But that emendation ought not to be admitted; for it is wholly contrary to the author's mind. Lactantius does not indeed say that this opinion of certain people about Nero, who think that he was carried away and kept alive, is his own: but he sets it out in such a way that it is plain that it is by no means rejected by him; since he brings forward probable reasons for that opinion of certain people. For first he relates that it arose from this, that Nero suddenly appeared nowhere, so that no place of burial might be found for so evil a beast. Next he teaches that this opinion is supported

by the authority of the Sibyl, which carried very great weight at that time, whose words he quotes. He also gives the reason why he was thought to have been reserved: namely, that he might become the forerunner of Antichrist, and that he who had been the first to persecute should also be the last to persecute. Finally he reviews the examples of the two prophets who were translated alive.

It was not, therefore, the intention of this author to call those who thought so deluded. And this is all the less likely because this author said that Nero was neither slain nor dead; and this same opinion, that Nero had been reserved, had in that age pervaded the minds of very many Christians, both learned and holy. Severus Sulpitius attests this in book 2 of the Sacred History, no. 40, treating of Nero: "He who, I will not say of kings, but of all men and even of savage beasts the most vile, proved worthy to be the first to begin persecution against the Christians; I do not know whether he will also be the last to complete it: since indeed it is accepted in the opinion of many that he himself is to come as Antichrist"; and no. 42: "Meanwhile indeed he is removed from human affairs; certainly his body [was] slain: whence it is believed that, his wound having been healed, he was preserved, according to that which has been written of him: And the stroke of his death was healed, to be sent at the end of the age, that he may practise the mystery of iniquity."

The same Severus Sulpitius, in Dialogue 2 on the Virtues of Blessed Martin, has this on the matter: "But when we asked him," namely Blessed Martin, "about the end of the age, he told us that Nero and Antichrist would come first; that Nero would rule in the western region, having subdued ten kings, and that Nero himself would at last be slain by Antichrist."

Saint Augustine, book 20 of the City of God, ch. 19, writes this about the various opinions concerning Nero: "Some suspect that he himself will rise again and will be the future Antichrist; others, however, think that he was not even slain, but rather withdrawn, so that he might be thought slain, and that he is hidden alive until he is restored to the kingdom. But the great presumption of those who hold these opinions is very astonishing to me."

But how false all these rumours about Nero were is clear from Suetonius, book 6 on the Caesars, where he narrates the manner of Nero's death, the arrangement and expenses of his funeral, and the place and structure of his tomb. "He drove the sword into his throat," he says, "with Epaphroditus, his secretary for petitions, helping him. He had demanded of his companions nothing sooner or more earnestly than that no one should be given power over his head, but that he should by some means or other be burned whole. Icellus, Galba's freedman, permitted this. His nurses Ecloge and Alexandra, together with his concubine Acte, laid his remains in the family monument of the Domitii, which is seen from the Campus Martius," etc.

Although I think the word deliri should be removed from the text of the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, yet what the word deleri means in that place I simply do not know; nor do I wish to seem alone to know what I am ignorant of together with others.

II. The other passage, in which certain words of the manuscript codex of the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors have been altered in the text of Dom le Nourry's edition, is found at no. 52, p. 99, where one reads in the text of the aforesaid edition

(but on our page 250): 'All of which, according to the good faith of those who know, I speak, I have thought should be committed to writing just as they were done.' Dom le Nourry notes that the manuscript has: 'all of which, according to the end, for I speak to one who knows, I have thought should be committed to writing just as they were done.' I maintain that those words, 'for to one who knows', ought not to have been changed. For they have a plain and clear sense, which certainly agrees with the author's intention. There Lactantius addresses Donatus, to whom he had dedicated the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, when he says, 'for I speak to one who knows'. In truth that word, 'finem', whose sense is not immediately apparent, gave occasion for suspecting that something in this phrase ought to be changed. But if that word 'finem' had to be changed because it seemed rather obscure, the two following words, whose sense is perfectly clear, did not for that reason have to be changed. Let us suppose that the word 'finem' had to be emended, as it was emended in the printed text; nothing besides ought to have been changed; for [the reading] presents a phrase which wholly savours of the style of Tully, in this manner: 'All of which, according to good faith, for I speak to one who knows, I have thought should be committed to writing just as they were done.' Just as if he had said: 'All of which, according to the truth of the matter, as you certainly know, Donatus, I have thought should be committed to writing just as they were done.' According to Cicero, in the fourth letter of the third book to his brother Quintus, to speak 'secundum fidem' is to say, to speak as things stand. Here are Cicero's words: 'This is pleasing to me, that when I had given my testimony with the utmost weight according to good faith and conscience, the defendant said', etc. There is no one who does not see that to give testimony 'secundum fidem' is the same as according to the truth of the matter.

But now it must be weighed whether the word 'finem' is to be changed in that place. It should certainly be retained if some suitable sense can shine forth from it. And, if it is retained, it can have this sense: 'secundum finem', that is, near the end of the world; so that the sense is: 'All of which, the end of the world being imminent, as you yourself know, Donatus, I have thought should be committed to writing, how they were done.'

That the word 'finis' is sometimes taken by ecclesiastical writers for the end of the world is evident from Tertullian, chapter 39 of the Apology, where he says: 'We pray for the emperors, for their ministers and authorities, for the state of the age, for the quiet of affairs, for the delay of the end.' To pray for the delay of the end, in that passage of Tertullian, is to pray that the end of the world may be postponed. What he calls 'the end' in that place he had named 'the close of the age' in chapter 32 of the same Apology, in these words: 'There is also another, greater necessity for us to pray for the emperors, and also for the whole state of the Empire and for Roman affairs, because we know that the mightiest violence impending over the whole world, and the very close of the age threatening horrible bitternesses, is held back by the continuance (that is, the long duration) of the Roman Empire. Therefore we do not wish to experience it, and while we pray that it be deferred, we favour the long duration of Rome.'

The ancient author of the Commentaries on the Epistles of Saint Paul, published at the end of the works of Saint Ambrose, on these words of chapter 14 of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, verse 24, 'Then the end, when He shall have delivered the kingdom to God and the Father', has as follows: 'Then the end; he says this because, the kingdom having been delivered, there will be the end of the world.'

It is well known that many Christians in the first centuries of the Church held the opinion that the end of the world was drawing near. That this was the opinion of Lactantius himself is plain from book 7, chapter 16 of the Institutes, where he teaches that the Roman name will shortly be taken away from the earth; and in the Epitome, chapter 10, he teaches that the destruction of the world must necessarily take place when six thousand years have been completed. "Which," he says, "is near at hand, so far as can be gathered from the number of the years and from the signs which were foretold by the Prophets"; and in chapter 25 of book 7 of the Institutes cited above he says: "Yet the whole expectation seems to be of not more than two hundred years, although histories vary concerning the number of years from the beginning of the world."

The very same thing had been affirmed no less clearly before him by Saint Cyprian, writing to the people of Thibaris. "For you ought to know," he says, "and to hold, that the day of affliction has begun to be over our head, and that the end of the age and Antichrist's

time has drawn near; and in the book to Demetrianus he relates that the whole world itself is already in decline and at its end.

Blessed Martin too had been so persuaded of this that, as Sulpicius Severus testifies in Dialogue 2 on the Virtues of Blessed Martin, no. 16, Blessed Martin, discoursing on the end of the age, said that there was no doubt that the Antichrist was already placed in the years of boyhood, and would assume rule at the lawful age. And Sulpicius Severus adds: Now it is the eighth year since we heard these things from him. But do you judge on what a precipice the things that are to come stand.

Nor ought it to seem strange if Lactantius, turning his address to Donatus in the epilogue of the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, threw in some mention of the end of the age, which neither Lactantius nor that most noble confessor Donatus doubted to be imminent.