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Pythagorean Symhola in Erasmus’ Adagia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

S. K. Heninger Jr.
S. K. Heninger Jr.*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Extract

Few books have been more successful than Erasmus’ Adagia, judged either by the author's intention or the readers’ satisfaction. In the preface to the modest first edition—Veterum maximeque insignium paroemiarum id est adagiorum collectanea (Paris, 1500)—Erasmus stressed the utility of the volume, saying that it provided a model for style and a storehouse of knowledge and morality. This was Erasmus’ first book-length publication; and generation after generation demanded fresh versions, so that he continued to enhance it throughout his life. There were four more editions of the Collectanea before Erasmus revised and greatly augmented the work for the Aldine press, printed under the title Adagiorum chiliades tres (Venice, 1508). After that, there were at least thirty reprints of the Collectanea by mid-century, and at least forty editions of the Adagiorum chiliades by the end of the century, not to mention great numbers of epitomes and extracts and translations. The Collectanea was a handsome start for a new sort of career: public education through print.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , Summer 1968 , pp. 162 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1968

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References

1 The bibliography of the Adagia is well documented. See Bibliotheca Erasmiana ed. F. Van der Haeghen (3 vols.; Gand, 1893), 1.1-8; T. C. Appelt, Studies in the Contents and Sources of Erasmus’ ‘Adagia’ (University of Chicago Libraries, 1942), pp. 6-7, 147-152; and Margaret Mann Phillips, The ‘Adages’ of Erasmus (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1964), pp. x-xiii.

2 E.g., cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, v.v.

3 At about the same time in Italy, Philippus Beroaldus had selected eight symbola for thorough explication in a treatise entitled Symbola Pythagorae moraliter explicata (Bologna, ca. 1500). This proved to be one of the most popular textbooks of the first quarter of the sixteenth century and was oft reprinted, sometimes separately, more often in the Opuscula varia of Beroaldus.

4 Curiously enough, Appelt does not discuss the source or the contents of this section.

5 Nemini dubium est quin pleraque Pythagorae dicta in proverbia abierunt. Cuius apud veteres tanta erat admiratio: ut eius dogmata per omnem Italiae regionem earn quae olim magna graecia dicebatur aereis incisa tabulis servarentur. E quibus Hieronymus nonnulla contra Rufinum commemorat (b3).

6 In Jerome, Epistolae et libri contra haereticos (3 parts; Paris, 1602), II.371-372.

7 Iratum videlicet & tumidum animum verbis maledicis ne lacessas (Do not provoke with harsh words some one who is angry and distressed).

8 One of the most commonly cited: Super Chenice non sedendum (Do not sit upon a measuring-basket). Erasmus’ explication of this symbolum—Id est non laborandum de victu crastino. Est enim Chenix escae diurnae mensura (That is, do not worry about tomorrow's food, for the chenix is the measure of today's ration)—seems to derive from Suidas, ¶ 233.

9 Sed quandoquidem in Pythagorae mentionem incidimus, non gravabor & reliqua illius symbola, priscis illis oraculorum instar celebrata adscribere.

10 Adagiorum chiliades tres (Venice, 1508), a5-b2.

11 Adagiorum opus (Basle, 1526), b4: Superis impari numero, inferis pari sacrificandum (To the gods above sacrifice an odd number of things, and to the infernal powers an even number). It is difficult to pinpoint Erasmus’ source for this symbolum—perhaps Plutarch's Numae vita (¶ 14)—but ultimately it goes back to Aristotle, Metaphysica, A986a-b.

12 Brassicanus’ tract had been printed separately: Proverbiorum symmicta. Quibus adiecta sunt Pythagorae Symbola. XVIII (Vienna, 1529); and again in Paris, 1532. Brassicanus drew his list of Pythagorean symbola from Iamblichus’ Protrepticae orationes ad philosophiam (chap. xxi).

13 E.g., numbers 30, 31, 34, 38, and 45 in Appelt, pp. 150-151.

14 Cf. ibid., numbers 43, 46-51.

15 The Carmina aurea had also received a great deal of attention from Platonists and humanists. Hierocles’ lengthy commentary on it had been translated by Joannes Aurispa, printed in Padua, 1474; Rome, 1475; and Rome, 1493. Aldus Manutius had printed a Greek text of the Carmina aurea with a Latin trot as a school exercise appended to Constantinus Lascaris’ Erotemata (Venice, 1494-95; and numerous subsequent editions), and he included the Greek text in his enormous Greek reader which began with Theocritus’ Eclogae triginta (Venice, 1495). Ficino's Latin version of the Carmina aurea, as well as of the Symbola from Iamblichus, was first printed in his translation of Iamblichus’ De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, Chaldaeorum, Assyriorum, et al. (Venice, 1497), X2v-X3.

16 Panem ne frangito. Admonet non esse dirimendam amicitiam: propterea quod antiquitus amicitia pane conciliabatur. Unde & Christus princeps noster distributo pane, perpetuam inter suos amicitiam consecrabat. Proinde non convenire frangi id, per quod amici conglutinarentur.