Johannis Scotti Annotationes in Marcianum

274 Pages·1939·11.595 MB·English

by  Lutz, Cora E., Johannes Scotus Erigena, Jean Scot Érigène

THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
PUBLICATION No. 34
IOHANNIS SCOTTI
ANNOTATIONES IN MARCIANUM

IOHANNIS SCOTTI
ANNOTATIONES
IN
MARCIANUM
EDITED BY
CORA E. LUTZ
Wilson College
THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
1939
The publication of this book was made possible by grants
of funds to the Academy from the Carnegie Corporation of
New Tork and the American Council of Learned Societies.
COPYRIGHT
BY
THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
'939
Printed in U. S. A.
PUNTED BY THE WAVISLY FKES3, INC.
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
PREFACE
M
EDIAEVALISTS have long felt the need for an edition of the
only work of John the Scot which has hitherto remained un-
published, his commentary on the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii of
Martianus Capella. I first became interested in this problem while a
student at the Yale Graduate School. There, under the guidance of
Professor E. T. Silk, I made a study of the ninth-century commentaries
on the seven liberal arts with especial reference to John the Scot, and
presented it, together with a critical edition of four books of his commen-
tary, as a dissertation for the doctor's degree. Since then, I have com-
pleted the text, and have incorporated, with some revision, the pertinent
conclusions of the earlier study into the introduction to the present edi-
tion. I have taken the opportunity to suggest a few of the interesting
problems which a consideration of the commentary has brought to my
attention, although my main purpose has always been simply to make
available this important treatise.
Constantly, during the course of my work, I have taken advantage of
the knowledge and interest of Professor Silk. Professor Rand has been
very kind in encouraging the project. The Bibliotheque Nationale gave
generous permission to have the manuscript of the commentary photo-
graphed. The librarians of Yale University, Trini ty College, and Wilson
College have been gracious in cooperating with me in my research.
The publication of the edition has been most generously undertaken
by the Mediaeval Academy of America with the assistance of the Carnegie
Corporation of New York and the American Council of Learned Societies.
CORA E. LUTZ
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
20 September /pj8

CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION
1. History and Authorship ix
2. Content xiv
3. Sources xx
4. Style xxv
5. Description of the Manuscript xxviii
6. The Present Edition xxx
ANNOTATIONES IN MARCIANUM 3
APPENDICES
I. Note on Two Dates in the Annotationes 225
II. The IKTTXOS of Theophrastus 227
HI. Dunchad 229
INDEX NOMINUM ET LOCORUM 237
Vll

INTRODUCTION
i. HISTORY AND AUTHORSHIP
P
REEMINENT among the Irish scholars who made important
contributions to the intellectual life of Europe in the ninth century
stands John the Scot. A long series of studies, from the early edition
of the De divisione naturae made by Thomas Gale1 down to the recent
exhaustive treatment of Cappuyns,2 have been successful in solving a
great many of the problems connected with the life and writings of this
great thinker. Yet until comparatively recently one of his works,
a commentary on the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii of Martianus
Capella, was almost unknown.8 It is this commentary, entitled Annota-
tiones in Marcianum in the unique manuscript, which I have undertaken
to edit.*
1 Oxford, 1681.
•M. Cappuyns, Jean Scot £riglne, sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensie (Louvain, 1933). This book
contains a very complete bibliography of John the Scot.
1 Some others of his philological works have suffered similar neglect. The commentaries on the
Opuscula sacra of Boethius were first brought to light by Rand in 1906 ('Johannes Scottus,' Quellen
und Untersuchungen zur lateinhchen Philologie des Mittelalters, 1). Since then, Cappuyns ('Le plus
ancien commentaire des Opuscula Sacra et son origine,' Recherches de Thiologie ancienne et tnldilvale,
111 [1931], 237-272) has made an impressive case for the identification of the work as that of Remigius,
but Rand maintains his original position ('The Supposed Commentary of John the Scot on the
Opuscula Sacra of Boethius,' RSvue Nioscolastique, xxxvi [1934], 67-77). The question of the
authorship of the Excerpta Macrobii de differentia et societatibus Graeci Latinique verbi is still being
debated. Cf. P. G. Thery, 'Scot £rigene, Traducteur de Denys, 'Bulletin Du Cange, vi (1931),
217-218; J. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship (3rd ed., Cambridge, 1921), 1, 495; H. Keil,
Grammatici Latini (Leipzig, 1878), v, 595; L. Traube, 'O Roma Nobilis,' Abhandlungen der koniglich
bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-philologische und historische Klasse, xix
(1892), 355; M. R. James, Cambridge Medieval History, m, Ch. 20, p. 525; F. Vernet, Dictionnaire de
Thfologie catholique (Paris, 1913), v, 409. M. Melandre ('Iepa ou Scot Erigene,' Archives a"His-
toire doctrinale et littiraire du moyen age, vi [1931], 277-286) would make John the Scot the author
of some glosses on the Jsagogae of Porphyrius which are ascribed to the unidentified Iepa. Recently
E. T. Silk has presented very convincing evidence to support the thesis that an important anony-
mous commentary on the Consolatio Philosophiae of Boethius is the work of John the Scot. Cf.
Saeculi noni auctoris in Boetii Consolationem Philosophiae commentarius, Papers and Monographs
of the American Academy in Rome, ix (1935), xxvii-1.
4 There is no mention of John the Scot's commentary on Martianus Capella in any of the sources.
The little information that has been preserved relevant to the subject serves only to indicate that
it is not improbable that the Irish scholar should have written glosses on the De nuptiis. For
instance, one sentence in a letter by an unknown student who calls himself A to his master E, written
sometime between the years 862 and 875, vouches for John the Scot's pursuit of grammar. He says:
'Imitatote etiam ... qualiter cantetur apud vestrates in responsorio "Domine pater," et "animo"
(vel "animae") "inreverenti et infrunito" (aut "infronito" sive "infrodito") antepenultimo acuto
secundum doctrinam Iohannis Scotti' (E. Dummler, 'Epistulae variorum inde a saeculo nono medio
ix
x Introduction
The history of our knowledge of the commentary is very brief. It
began in 1849, when Cardinal Pitra happened upon a manuscript of Mar-
tianus Capella with scholia. He was led to the conclusion that the
glosses originated with John the Scot. H. Floss, editor of the monu-
mental edition of 1853 of the works of John the Scot, expressed his
opinion that an anonymous commentary in a Paris manuscript, Bibli-
otheque Nationale, jonds lat., MS 12960 (which will hereafter be called C
for Corbeiensis),1 would bear investigation, since he suspected that the
work could be identified as that of the Irish philosopher.2 Quite unaware
of Floss' acquaintance with the manuscript, but defiant of the judgment
of earlier scholars that no commentary of John the Scot existed,* Haureau
made a thorough investigation of the subject. At last, in the Bibli-
otheque Nationale, in the same ninth-century manuscript, C, which
had been referred to by Floss, he came upon the anonymous commentary
on Martianus Capella, and immediately set out to prove it the work of
John the Scot.4 At that time a superficial study had been made of some
three or four copies of a Martianus commentary written by a young
contemporary of the Irishman, Remigius of Auxerre. From these
glosses, which seem to be little more than an amplified copy of the older
commentary, Haureau derived three proofs for the identity of John
the Scot's commentary. On folio 27' of B.N.lat. 8674 °ftne Remigius
commentary he found the gloss:5 'HEUS vocantis adverbium est. Joannes
Scotus HEUS UBI ES resolvebat.' On folio 697 of the anonymous commen-
usque ad mortem Karoli II imperatoris collectae,' Monumenta Germaniae Hislorica, Epistulae, vi,
184). In a record of the bishops of Auxerre, given in Gallia Christiana, one finds the following
entry in the account of Wibaudus, bishop in the year 879: 'Nobilissimus parentibus Leutfrido atque
Doda in civitate Cameracensi satus Wibaudus, adhuc juvenis Johanni Scoto, per Gallias magistro
quam famosissimo, traditus est erudiendus, sub quo divinis aeque ac humanis disciplinis apprime
fuit informatus' (D. de Sainte-Marthe, Gallia Christiana, XII, 277, 278). Of far greater significance,
however, is a charge made against John the Scot by Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, in the course of
his great denunciation of the treatise De praedestinatione. Instead of following the Scriptures and
the Fathers, the Irishman, Prudentius maintains, made himself adept in the wiles of the rhetoricians
and at last became inextricably enmeshed in the labyrinth of error through Martianus Capella:
'Nam ille tuus Capella, exceptis aliis, vel maxime te in hunc labyrinthum induxisse creditur, cujus
meditatione magis quam veritati evangelicae animum appulisti. Quin etiam cum legeres beati
Augustini libros, quos De Civitate Dei adversus paganorum fallacissimas falsissimasque opiniones
mirabili affluentia digessit, invenisti eum posuisse ac destruxisse quaedam ex libris Varronis, quibus,
quoniam Capellae tuo consona videbantur, potius assentiri quam veridici Augustini allegationibus
fidem adhibere delegisti' (J. Migne, Patrologia Latina, cxv, 1294).
1 The history of this ninth-century manuscript, originally from Corbie, is given below.
* Cf. Migne, P. L., cxxn, xviii, xix.
• E.g., J. Fabricius, Bibliotheca Latina mediae et infimae aetatis, iv, 407: 'Omitto tanquam incerta
vel alii tribuenda Joanni—Commentaries in Martianum Capellam.'
* B. Haurlau, 'Commentaire de Jean Scot £rig£ne sur Martianus Capella,' Notices et Extraits
des manuscrits de la Bibliothique Imphiale, xx, 2 (1862), 1-39.
• Martianus Capella, ed. A. Dick (Leipzig, 1925), 58, 21.