On Eusebius of Vercelli

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On Eusebius of Vercelli 592 THE JOURNAL OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES startling; if it bad been brought over from the Old Latin, it might conceivably represent the true reading of the LXX, and therefore possibly a real various reading in the Hebrew, which would seriously affect the position which I have defended above. Fortunately Jerome tells us that he himself introduced the word Babylon into the text He writes (ed. Vallarsi, iv 214): ' Pro eo autem quod nos vertimus: Babylon dilecta mea in Hebraeo legitur NESEPH ESCI ['Ef n *||W]; et est Downloaded from ipsum verbum qnod in principio Babylonii Oneris posuimus, super montem caliginosum \JtoB) *X?] ; pro caliginoso enim seu tenebroso scriprum est Nueph. Proprieque haec urbs sic vocatur, propter altitudinem, et erectum usque ad caelum superbiae verticem.' Jerome's argument is not convincing. http://jts.oxfordjournals.org/ Note a. For the difficult rrng of ver. 8, Theodotion (Eusebius Caes. in loco ; Q11* cited by Swete) reads 'ApujX : cf. chap, xrix 1,7. It would strengthen a little the case presented in this paper, if we might use this interpretation or various reading, so as to render, ' And he cried, O Ariel, upon the Lord's watch-tower I stand' (reading also n?*?— with (ire), but the evidence for ' Ariel' seems to me much too slight W. EMERY BARNES. at University of California, Santa Barbara on July 13, 2015 ON EUSEBIUS OF VERCELLI. IN the first number of the JOURNAL or THEOLOGICAL STUDIES Mr. C. H. Turner published a note on Eusebius of VerceUi, in which he raised two questions, (i) Was this Eusebius the author of the Seven Books on the Trinity, which have been handed down to us under the name of Vigilius of Thapsus ? (ii) Could he have been the author of the Quiatmque uulti In the following note I will try to carry the discussion a stage further, and to prove (i) that Eusebius of Vercelli was most probably the author of this work of pseudo-Vigilius; (ii) that there are strong reasons against the supposition that the author of these Books on the Trinity could also have written the Creed. At the same time I am willing to admit that the theory of Eusebian authorship throws new light on the history of the theological terms used in the Creed. L In a MS of Canons in the Vatican Library (Cod. Vatic. 1319) Mr. Turner found some portions (Books I, II, VT, VII) of the work of pseudo-Vigilius de Trinitate. The name Sancti Eusebii is found between Books II and VI, and is given at the beginning of the volume as the name of the author. This most interesting fact had also been noted by Dom G. Morin, NOTES 593 O.S.B., who has published a full description of the MS1. Neither Mr. Turner nor Dom Morin sees any difficulty in accepting this theory of the authorship of the Seven Books, which are without doubt a com- plete whole, and are distinguished by many features of style from the true writings of Vigilius of Thapsus. Criticism has not yet finished its work of sifting the many MSS of Vigilius. An excellent beginning, however, has been made by Lie. Downloaded from Dr. Gerhard Ficker *, who has called attention to two other MSS, which quote these Seven Books as the work of St. Athanasius ' On the Unity of the Godhead.' They are Cod. Ambros. O. 210 sup. of the seventh century, which is unfortunately defective, and Cod. Bcrotin. 1671 (plim Phillipps 78) of the ninth century, in which Book XII follows as another work of St Athanasius ' On the Trinity.' http://jts.oxfordjournals.org/ The internal evidence of Books I-VTI reveals marked characteristics of style and the use of special phrases which are lacking in the other books, such as—vmter, rogo (at beginning of a sentence), cu per hoc, ttihtm (htim'nis, scriptural), plenitude I cannot pause to discuss them. But it remains to point out that there are traces of a longer recension which included Book VIII, with which Books IX and XII are usually grouped, whereas Books X, XI are grouped with the short recension. Book IX is a formulary of faith, at University of California, Santa Barbara on July 13, 2015 commonly called the ' Faith of the Romans,' which has been traced to the pen of Phoebadius of Agen. Book X is largely made up of quota- tions from Niceta of Remesiana and Leporius of Treves. Book XI has quotations from Pope Leo's Letter to Flavian. Book XII is probably a genuine work of St Athanasius extant only in this Latin version. Dr. Ficker does not think that the short recension can claim to be considered the original form, since Book VI is found by itself and has had an independent history'. The only writings of Eusebius of VerceUi, which have come down to us, are three letters, two of which are very short, and the third historical rather than dogmatic. They agree with the Books on the Trinity in calling the Arians ariomanitat, and in reprobation of the conduct of Hosius. But these thoughts were commonplaces in the fourth century, and by themselves prove nothing. From a careful study of the internal evidence Dom Morin concludes 1 Rmu Bnudictittt, Jan. 1898. 1 Studim MM VigiHuavo* Thafms, Leipzig, 1897. 1 Ficker, p. 67, shows that it is quoted as an independent work in Cod. Vtron. lix 57, of the eighth [rather of the seventh, if not even of the sixth] century. To this I can add Cod. Lot, iiottacauia 5508 tote, ix, in which it follows the Ctmtmtmi- torium tent by Bishops Lupus and Euphronius to Bishop Talasius, with the title IncipU tpistola ausdtm: Fidta Niani Conala. I owe this information to the kindness of Dr. von Laubmann. VOL. L Q q 594 THE JOURNAL OF THEOLOGICAL STUDIES that the Books on the Trinity must have been written in the north of Italy during the second half of the fourth century. There is a reference to the Council of Rimini which was held in 359. There are many references to the erroneous doctrine of the Manicheaps, but none to the heresy of Priscillian, which spread widely from Spain after 380. The quotations from the Gospels show that the author used one of the so-called ' European' texts, which were current in the fourth Downloaded from century, and of which Codex Verctllensis is a specimen. This celebrated MS of the Latin Gospels, magnificently bound in silver, is treasured in the Cathedral Library at Vercelli, and contains the reputed autograph of Eusebius. In Books III and IX two otherwise unknown heretics are quoted as Mascellio Montensis and Potentinus Urbicus. The term Montensis was http://jts.oxfordjournals.org/ employed to designate members of the Donatist community in Rome, and the term Urbicus was often synonymous with Romanus in fourth- century writings. The author was therefore intimately acquainted with the course of ecclesiastical affairs at Rome. And with this fact it is most interesting to connect a passage in a book of Questions on the Old and New Testaments, which was written by a Roman contemporary of Pope Damasus (A.D. 366-384) \ In Question cxxv the author refutes a certain Eusebius, an excellent writer, who had been dead some years. at University of California, Santa Barbara on July 13, 2015 He represents Eusebius as teaching that the Holy Spirit did not know the mystery of the Nativity of our Lord, though he taught that He is consubstantial with the Father and the Son. The latter part of the statement exactly corresponds to the teaching of the Books on the Trinity. And the reference appears to me to clinch the argument for the Eusebian authorship recorded by the Vatican MS. There is yet another proof that a Eusebius of this period possessed a wide reputation. Vigilius of Thapsus, in his genuine work against Eutyches (ii 10), mentions among writers on the Incarnation whom he praises as Apostolic men, Hilary, Eusebius, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome. It is obvious that this notice fits in with the known facts about Eusebius of Vercelli, who as the probable author of the Books on the Trinity becomes an important personage in Church History. [Since this Note was written Dom Morin has published an article in the Revue d'histoirt et de littiraturt religieuses (No. 2, 1900), in which he suggests that the author of the de Trinitate was not Eusebius after all, but Gregory of Elvira. In the new Tractatus Origenis, recently published by MgT. P. Batiffol, he found the phrase Hieremias receptissi- ' In an article in the Ranu cThistoin tt dt Ulttraturt nlig., 1899, iv No. 2, Dom Morin has shown that the author of these Qnestions, and of the celebrated commen- tary on St. Paul's Epistles known as 'the Ambrosiaster,' was probably one Isaac, a converted Jew. (JOURNAL OF THIOL. STUDIES, i p. 154; Expositor, November, 1899.) NOTES 595 mus prophetarum, which is used in the de Trinitate, and in the treatise de Fide published among the works of St Ambrose'. Further study revealed a series of other phrases which are common to the three works. It is quite certain that the de Fide was attributed to a Bishop Gregory as early as the fifth century*. St Jerome informs us that Gregory, Bishop of Elvira, ' writing even to extreme old age, composed Downloaded from various treatises in mediocre language, and an eloquent work On Faith'.' This description suits the de Fide and the sermons attributed to Origen. We may congratulate Dom Morin on another literary discovery, which seems likely to justify itself better than the suggestion made by Dr.
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