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Ambrosii Verba Retro Versa e Translatione Graeca (Libri Carolini II, 15)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Luitpold Wallach
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801

Extract

The Libri Carolini, the official Frankish protest against the worship of images decreed by the Seventh Ecumenical Council of II Nicaea in 787, accuses the synodal assembly of having falsified a statement by Ambrose of Milan in such a manner that it favored their own error of image-worship, “ut illorum errori faveret.” On the surface, the author of the Libri Carolini (LC) offers in II, 15 a nearly perfect specimen of textual criticism by comparing the original Ambrose text with the allegedly falsified version to be found in the First Latin translation of the Greek acta of II Nicaea. He cites the genuine Ambrose passage in LC II,15 (p. 75.2–4):

A.

a. “Numquid, cum et divinitatem eius adoramus et carnem, Christum dividimus?

b. Numquid, cum in eo imaginem Dei crucemque veneramur, dividimus eum ?”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1972

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References

1 Ed. Bastgen, Hubert, MGH, Concilia 2, Supplementum (Hannover-Leipzig, 1924), 74.18–19, Bk. II, c. 15Google Scholar.

2 A similar criticism appears in LC I.23 (p.52.7): “… et sensu et verbis cohaereant ut unum sine alio vix intelligi possit.”

3 Ambrose, De fide, ed. Otto Faller (CSEL 78; Vienna, 1962) is quoted in LC I.4 (p.17), I.7 (p.22), II.16 (p.76); De spiritu sancto, ed. Faller (CSEL 79; 1964), in LC II.5 (p. 67).

4 See Wallach, The Greek and Latin Versions of II Nicaea and the Synodica of Hadrian I (JE 2448): A Diplomatic Study, Traditio 22 (1966), 103–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Ed. Werminghoff, Albert, MGH, Concilia 2.2 (Karolini Aevi I.2; Hannover and Leipzig, 1908), 513Google Scholar.

6 John of Damascus' Greek version of the Ambrose text is found also in the florilegium in Paris, B.N. gr. 1115, according to Schermann, Theodor, Die Geschichte der dogmatischen Florilegien (TU, N.F. 13.1; Leipzig, 1905), 75Google Scholar.

7 See the references listed by Bastgen, LC, p.74 n.3 ; and Mercati, Opere Minori, I (Studi e Testi 76; 1937), 148. Mercati, Stephani Bostrani nova de sacris imaginibus fragmenta e libro deperdito Κατ 'Iονδαων, Opere Minori, I, 202–06, publishes a fragment from Stephen's lost apologetic work after the Ambrosianus A 84, s.xii–xiii, without realizing that this fragment is nothing but a stray transmission of the Greek version of the Latin Stephen of Bostra quotation in JE 2448 (cf. above n.4) ; see Mansi, XII.1069A6–1072B1 and XII.1067D5–1070D12. H. Savon, Quelques remarques sur la chronologie des oeuvres de Saint Ambrose, Studio Patristica, X, ed. F. L. Cross (TU, 107; Berlin, 1970), 156–60, does not deal with the dogmatic treatises dedicated to Emperor Gratian.

8 Entstehungsgeschichte der Libri Carolini, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 21 (1929–30), 28, 50Google Scholar.

9 Cf. The Libri Carolini and Patristics, Latin and Greek: Prolegomena to a critical Edition, in Wallach, , The Classical Tradition (Ithaca, N.Y. 1966)Google Scholar, especially 483 nn. 73–74.

10 On the interrelationship of the three writings involved see Wallach, in Didascaliae: Studies in honor of Anselm M. Albareda, ed. Prete, Sesto (New York, 1961), 474fGoogle Scholar.

11 Entstehungsgeschichte (above, n. 8), 62.

12 Le antiche traduzioni greche delle opere di S. Ambrogio, Aevum 18 (1944), 184–207; cf. M. Adriaen in Corpus Christianorum, ser. lat. XIV.4(1957), viiif.

13 PG 83.297A; Schwartz, Eduard, Publizistische Sammlungen zum Acacianischen Schisma (Abh. Bayer. Akademie der Wiss., NF. 10; Munich, 1934), 104 to paragraph 55Google Scholar.

14 Now conveniently listed by Otto Faller, S. Ambrosii opera, IX (CSEL 79; Vienna, 1964), 299.

15 Cf. also Ambrose, De fide 1.11.68 (p.29.3 Faller): “aut testimoniis aut argumentis collige veritatem”; 1.11.70 (p. 30.18): “Superest, ut et argumentis veritas colligatur … Argumentare tamen, heretice, ut voles.”

16 ManliusSimonetti has now shown that the author was an anonymous writer of the fifth century living in Africa; see Altaner, Berthold, Kleine patristische Schriften (Berlin, 1967), 84Google Scholar.

17 Further Studies in the Libri Carolini, Speculum 40 (1965), 235Google Scholar; on Miss Freeman's article see my forthcoming study, Theodulf of Orléans' alleged authorship of the Libri Carolini: Fictions and Facts, to appear in the near future.

18 In the Latin version by Anastasius Bibliothecarius of the Greek Acta of II Nicaea, 787. On Leontius see Paul van denVen in Byzantion 25–27 (1955–57), 353 no. 46, to whose list of fragments of Leontius' homily should be added the fragments of the now lost Latin translation of the Greek acta of II Nicaea of ca. 788, preserved in the Libellus Synodalis of the Paris Synod of 825, ed. by Werminghoff, A., MGH, Concilia 2.2 (Hannover-Leipzig, 1908), 513.30–514.38Google Scholar.

19 Jerome, Commentariorum in Danielem, ed. F. Glorie, CCL 75A (1964).

20 See the synopsis by von den Steinen, Entstehungsgeschichte (above, n.8), 48, and Bastgen's notes to the chapter-headings.

21 See n. 18, above.

22 Mansi, XIII.44D10–E2, above.

23 Antifonario Visigótico Mozárabe de la Catedral de León, ed. Louis Brou and José Vives (Barcelona-Madrid, 1959), 91, fol. 70v16. Isidore's version is identical with that of the antiphonary. On the exegesis of the testimonia in LC I.10 (p.29f.) see, e.g., L. W. Barnard, The Testimonium concerning the Stone in the New Testament and in the Epistle of Barnabas, Studia Patristica, III, ed. F. L. Cross (TU, 88; Berlin, 1964), 306–13, to which may be added Wallach, The Origin of Testimonia Biblica in Early Christian Literature, Review of Religion 8 (1943), 130–36Google Scholar.

24 To LC I.11 (p.7131–33), on Onias and his Temple in Egypt, see also Jerome, Comm. in Dan. III.14b, ed. F. Glorie (CCL 75A; 1964), 908f., which seems to be the actual source of the passage.