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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
In 1953 there was issued from the Brepols press of Turnhout (Belgium) a modest paper-bound fascicle of a hundred pages that had a double importance for students of patristics. Not only did it supply, among other things, critical texts (one of them never before printed) of two of the writings of Tertullian; it gave tangible proof that a new edition of all the earlier Latin Christian writings, announced as a project five years earlier, had gone beyond the planning stage and, in this small yet solid specimen, was actually in being — the Series latina of a Corpus Christianorum (CCL) directed by the Benedictines of the Abbey of St. Pierre, Steenbrugge (Belgium). Since then, that initial fascicle has made a new appearance as the opening part of a full, 750-page volume that presents half of Tertullian's works and forms the first of the series. To it Volume II has added its own total of 900 pages to bring Tertullian (and Ps.-Tertullian) to completion. At other points in a carefully pre-established sequence, yet other volumes have come to hand: the Tractatus of St. Augustine on the Gospel of St. John (36) and the sermons of Caesarius of Arles (103, 104). It is this two-year yield of five volumes, seen in relation to the total design for the Series latina of the new Corpus, that is the subject of the present, brief survey.
1 Dated in 1953: the initial fascicle of Tertullian = CCL 1 (infra) i-xxv, 1-75; Sancti Caesarii Arelatensis Sermones … recogniti … studio et diligentia D. Germani Morin, Editio altera (2 vols., CCL 103, 104; Turnhout: Brepols). — Dated in 1954: Sancti Aurelii Augustini In Iohannis evangelium tractatus CXXIV (CCL 36; ibid.); … Tertulliani Opera (2 vols., CCL 1 and 2; ibid.) — In addition, a publishers’ brochure (1955) announces as already published: (1) a 2-vol. reprint of the Dombart-Kalb edition of Augustine's De civitate Dei (CCL 47 and 48); (2) one vol. (CCL 122) of Bede, comprising the Opera homiletica (edited by D. Hurst) and the Opera rhythmica (edited by Fraipont, J.).Google Scholar
2 ‘A proposed new edition of early Christian texts,’ Sacris erudiri 1 (1948) 405–414.Google Scholar
3 Two slim volumes have recently appeared that help to facilitate the use of PL. The first, while it should be followed with caution, has use in discovering the authorship of works falsely assigned in PL — Glorieux, P., Pour revaloriser Migne: Tables rectificatives (Mélanges de science religieuse 9 [1952] Cahier supplémentaire). A systematic guide to some of the mysteries in PL 218-221 (Indices) is contained in Elucidatio in 235 tabulas Patrologiae latinae auctore Cartusiensi (Series ‘Vox Romana’; Rotterdam: De Forel 1952).Google Scholar
4 See infra, n. 6.Google Scholar
5 The figure 180 is that given in the most recent announcements. The first announcement spoke of 160 volumes, the brochure of 1952 (cited infra), of 175.Google Scholar
6 Published as Sacris erudiri 3 (1951). The preparation of a new edition, now nearly ready, interrupted at Steenbrugge the work on a Clavis patrum graecorum. Google Scholar
7 It remains to be seen what effect on this scheme, which is based on 175 volumes, will be had by the increase of the total number of volumes to 180 (supra, n. 5).Google Scholar
8 The actual production at Turnhout may well be more favorable than can be judged from the number of volumes received as of any time by subscribers in this country. Cf. supra, n. 1.Google Scholar
9 See supra, n. 1.Google Scholar
10 Where ultimately in CCL to print these important additions by Dom’ Lambot may well represent a problem for the editors. The two volume-numbers allotted to Caesarius in the announced scheme of publication (see supra at n. 7) have already been utilized for the Sermones, and such parts of Dom Morin's original Vol. II (Opera varia; Maredsous 1942) as it appears to be proposed to print together (see Clavis 1009ff.), even with the Lambot additamenta, would hardly make up a complete volume.Google Scholar
11 Here, on p. xlii, the marginal indication wanted at the third paragraph-opening (‘Codex Mediolanensis …’) is ‘C8.' Google Scholar
12 See supra, n. 1.Google Scholar
13 At pp. ix and xi correct ‘(Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat.) 11.638’ to ‘11.635.’ Google Scholar
14 Cf. p. xi. The reader is not well served by the editor's handling of Cassian's excerpts (in the Contra Nestorium 7.27: ed. Petschenig, CSEL 17.385). At p. xi n. 2, we are told that Petschenig (loc. cit.) gives Cassian's variants from the received text of Augustine, but at Tract. 2.15, the stated source of the excerpts, we not only do not find any report of these variants but no indication at all that they exist. Similarly, for Leo, we have a single variant recorded ad loc. (Tract. 78.2.25) but nothing there to show the extent of Leo's borrowing. The Eugippius excerpts, on the other hand, are properly handled (pp. 106, 108).Google Scholar
15 At p. xiii n. 3 Dom Willems, speaking of two derivatives of the Maurist edition (μ) — that (G) published by the Fratres Gaume (Paris 1837) and that (PL) found in PL 35. 1375-1976 (first printed Paris 1845) — affirms that G was reprinted (‘repetita’) in PL. This statement, while possibly accurate for Augustine's text itself, is inexact for the edition of the Tractatus as a whole. A comparison of the notes in the three editions suffices to prove this. In μ the expository and critical notes appear either ad loc., at the foot of the page, or in a supplementary series found in connection with the ‘Syllabus Codicum’ near the end of the volume (981f.). In G, all this is rearranged: expository notes are retained at the foot of the page but most of those that mainly report or evaluate variant readings are assembled in one single series, in a separate section of ‘Lectiones variantes’ which closes the volume (cols, lxix-lxxxiv for the Tractatus). In PL, finally, everything is concentrated at the foot of the page, the critical notes — these in one series, as in G — designated by numerals, the expository notes, by letters of the alphabet. Thus, then, in this mere matter of arrangement, PL, while it draws on G in uniting the two series of critical notes found in μ, is seen to hark back to μ in putting both expository and critical notes at the foot of the page.Google Scholar
When we examine the language of the notes, we find confirmatory evidence that PL is not simply copying G but using μ as well. An original note in G is quite regularly rephrased in PL. Two examples (the basic reference is to the new edition, by Tract., sect., and line): Tract. 5.4.5 (no note, μ [321G]; col. lxxi ad 1724D, G; 1416 n. 1, PL); ibid. 12.28f. (no note, μ [325F]; 1729-30 n. b, G; 1420 n. 1, PL) — in the second case a reference is made to one of G's favorites, J.-B. Morel's Élémens de critique (Paris 1766), adopted (but in different words) by PL (references in G to Morel, however, are not always taken up by PL: e.g. Tract. 33.8.2f. [col. lxxviii ad 2035C, G; no note in PL]). Such examples as these show that PL is far from simply ‘repeating’ G. That, moreover, PL has a source other than G, viz. μ, is proved by instances in which PL reflects or reproduces a note in μ while G ignores it. Again, two examples: Tract. 36.4.34 (545E, μ) — both G (col. lxxviii ad 2054A) and PL (1664 n. 1) report a variant in editions of Lyons, Venice, and Louvain, but PL alone reports a marginal note in μ, 545E (cf. Willems, , ad loc., who gives the marginal addition in μ as ‘voluit,’ while ‘addidit’ actually stands there and is so reported by PL);Google Scholar
Tract. 22.10.2 — PL (1579 n. a) quotes verbatim a rather long expository note in μ (469-70 n. a), which is completely passed over by G. Instances could be multiplied to show that Migne's staff worked with both the Maurist original and the Gaume reprint. A striking incidental fact is that Greek is printed from Greek type in μ and G but is transliterated in PL.Google Scholar
16 A test of the set of entries for the single book of Genesis revealed some seven or eight errors of various kinds, one of them an omission: ‘29, 10. 15 xxviii, 3, 19.’ Google Scholar
17 Omitted there is Stewart, H. F. (ed.), Thirteen homilies of St Augustine on St John XIV: In Ioh. Ευ. Tractatus LXVII-LXXIX with translation and notes (Cambridge 1900).Google Scholar
18 See supra, n. 1.Google Scholar
19 The basic group of thirty works is increased to thirty-five by the addition of the following: the fragments of the De fato (Clavis 31), the dubious Adversus Iudaeos (Clavis 33) and three spuria (Clavis 34-36); of these the Adv. Iud. and the first of the spuria alone had appeared in the CSEL. The Passio SS. Perpetuae et Felicitatis (Clavis 32) is apparently being kept for publication elsewhere in CCL.Google Scholar
20 Were additional stemmata codicum intended? The one supplied relates to the ‘Collectio Cluniacensis’ alone, and at p. vi we read: ‘Restat ut summis digitis textus traditionem adumbremus, quo melius intelligantur codicum stemmata.’ Google Scholar
21 If I have correctly interpreted this table, there are two errors in the final column, which details the extent of the CSEL coverage of Tertullian's writings. The cross that would show that the Ps.-Tertullian (= Novatian), De Trinitate is printed in CSEL (when it is not) should be applied rather to the De praescriptione in the line below. Similarly, the cross set against the De pallio belongs three lines below against the Apologeticum. Google Scholar