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The Contribution to the Study of the Fathers made by the Thirteenth-Century Oxford Schools1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Daniel A. Callus O.P.
Daniel A. Callus O.P.
Affiliation:
Blackfriars, Oxford
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Extract

In the medieval schools the Bible and the Fathers of the Church together constituted the fundamental argument in theological speculation. They were the two auctoritates, though different in order and degree, upon which the whole structure of the Sacra Doctrina was built. ‘The foundation stones of the edifice, of which the masters in theology are the architects’, as bishop Grosseteste in a famous letter addressed to the regent-masters in theology at Oxford put it, ‘are the books of the Old and the New Testaments’. The authoritative interpreters of Holy Writ are the Fathers of the Church. It was, therefore, imperative that the Masters in Sacra Pagina should be familiar with both the biblical and patristic teaching. That they were deeply versed in Holy Scripture cannot be doubted. Their writings bear witness to their thorough knowledge of the Sacred Books. The Bible was the text-book of the faculty of theology, the beginning and the end of the whole theological course. And since it was their main duty to expound the Scriptures, the masters in Divinity were rightly styled Magistri in Sacra Pagina, or in Sacra Scriptura.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , October 1954 , pp. 139 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1954

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References

page 139 note 2 Roberti Grosseteste Epistolae, ed. Luard, H. P. (Rolls Series), London 1861, 346–7Google Scholar.

page 139 note 3 Cf. Chenu, M. D., ‘Authentica et Magistralia. Deux lieux théologiques aux XIIXIII siècles’, Divus Thomas (Plac), xxviii (1925), 257–85Google Scholar.

page 139 note 4 On the meaning of Sacra Pagina cf. de Ghellinck, J., ‘Pagina et Sacra Pagina. Histoire d'un mot et transformation de l'objet primitivement désigné’, Mélanges Auguste Pelzer, Louvain 1947, 23–59Google Scholar.

page 140 note 1 Cf. Grabmann, M., Die Geschichte der scholastischen Methode, Freiburg-im-Breisgau 1911, ii. 141 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 140 note 2 Migne, P.L., clvii. 726.

page 140 note 3 On the Gloss see Smalley, Beryl, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, Oxford 1952, 46–66Google Scholar.

page 141 note 1 Cf. on all these subjects, Grabmann, op. cit.; de Ghellinck, J., Le Mouvement Théologique du XIIe siècle, Bruges 1948Google Scholar; and Patristique et Moyen Age, Gembloux 1947Google Scholar; Paré, G., Brunet, A., Tremblay, P., La Renaissance du XIIe siècle, Paris-Ottawa 1933Google Scholar.

page 141 note 2 Cf. James, M. R., ‘Robert Grosseteste on the Psalms’, J.T.S., xxiii (1922), 181–5Google Scholar.

page 141 note 3 See on this manuscript Hunt, R. W. in the Bodleian Library Record, ii (1948), 226–7Google Scholar.

page 142 note 1 Cf. L. Baur, Die philosophischen Werke des Robert Grosseteste Bischofs von Lincoln (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophic des Mittelalters, IX). Prolegomena Münster i. W., 1912; Franceschini, E., Roberto Grossatesta e le sue traduzioni latine, Venezia 1933Google Scholar; Thomson, S. Harrison, The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, Cambridge 1940Google Scholar; and the forthcoming volume, Robert Grosseteste Scholar and Bishop, ed. by Callus, D. A., Oxford 1954Google Scholar.

page 142 note 2 J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers, II. i. 76–86. For the text of the Latin version see ibid., iii. 13–72.

page 142 note 3 Cf. R. L. Szigeti, Translatio latina Ioannis Damasceni (De Orthodoxa Fide, 1. III, c. 1–8) saeculo XII in Hungaria confecta, Budapest 1940Google Scholar; J. de Ghellinck, Le mouvement théologique, 385–404; Buytaert, E. M., ‘The earliest Latin translation of Damascene's De Orthodoxa Fide, III, 1–8’, Franciscan Studies, xi (1951), 49–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 143 note 1 Cf. James, M. R., A descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge, Cambridge 1905, p. 17Google Scholar.

page 143 note 2 Cf. Warner, G. F. and Gilson, J. P., Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections, London 1921, i. 107Google Scholar.

page 143 note 3 Dr. R. W. Hunt has kindly called my attention to this manuscript. See now his paper, ‘Manuscripts containing the Indexing Symbols of Robert Grosseteste’, The Bodleian Library Record, iv (1953), 247–8, 251–2Google Scholar.

page 144 note 1 Grosseteste returns to the distinction between σμις and ρετ several times, at least twice in the commentary on the De Angelica Hierarchia, twice on the De Divinis Nominibus, and again in his notulae on the Nicomachean Ethics. Cf. Franceshini, op. cit., 109.

page 144 note 2 Non is the reading of MSS. Pembroke College 20, fol. 3ra and Univ. Library, Cambridge, Kk. iii. 19, fol. 201rb; MS. Ashmole has autem, which is manifestly faulty.

page 144 note 3 Merton College, Oxford, MS. 86, fol. 2ra.

page 144 note 4 Cf. Hocedez, E., ‘Les trois premières traductions du De Orthodoxa Fide’, Le Musée Beige, xvii (1913), 109–23Google Scholar. Although Hocedez's examination was exclusively restricted to Bk. iii, chs. 1–8, his pertinent remarks may be extended to the whole version.

page 144 note 5 Cf. Hocedez, E., ‘La diffusion de la Translatio Lincolniensis du De Fide Orthodoxa’, Bulletin d'andenne littérature et d'archéologie chrétiennes, iii (1913), 189–98. I have been unable to see this paperGoogle Scholar.

page 145 note 1 S. H. Thomson, The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, 45–50.

page 145 note 2 Cf. Callus, D. A., ‘The Date of Grosseteste's Translations and Commentaries on Pseudo-Dionysius and the Nicomachean Ethics’, Recherches de Théologie ancienne et mÉdiévale, xiv (1947), 186–210Google Scholar.

page 145 note 3 See Franceschini, E., ‘Grosseteste's Translation of the ΠΡΟΛΟΓΟΣ and ΣΧΟΛΙΑ of Maximus to the Writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita’, J.T.S., xxxiv (1933), 355–63Google Scholar.

page 145 note 4 Nicholai Triveti Annales, ed. Hog, T., London 1845, 243Google Scholar.

page 145 note 5 Fratris Thomae vulgo dicti de Eccleston Tractatus de Adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam, denuo edidit A. G. Little, Manchester 1951, 52.

page 146 note 1 I owe this information to the kindness of Dr. Hunt. Since these pages were written the text quoted above appeared in his paper, ‘Manuscripts containing the Indexing Symbols’, 245.

page 147 note 1 N. Trivet, Annales, 278.

page 147 note 2 N. Trivet, Expositio in libros de Civitate Dei, MSS. Oxford, Merton College 140, fol. 175, and Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat. 2075, fol. 113va.

page 147 note 3 See Callus, D. A., ‘The “Tabulae super Originalia Patrum” of Robert Kilwardby, O.P.’, Studia Mediaevalia in honorem … R. J. Martin, Bruges 1948, 85–112Google Scholar; and ‘New Manuscripts of Kilwardby's Tabulae super Originalia Patrum’, Dominican Studies, ii (1949), 38–45Google Scholar. Since the publication of these papers several other manuscripts have come to my notice, e.g. British Museum Royal 5 G. iii, and 7 E. x; etc.

page 147 note 4 Cf. R. W. Hunt, ‘The Introductions to the “Artes” in the Twelfth Century’, Studia Mediaevalia in honorum … R. J. Martin, 85–112.

page 147 note 5 Père J. de Ghellinck complains that ‘la vogue grandissante des Tabulae originalium accuse la diminution des lectures patristiques. Oh recourt au desséchant et mesquin procédé des “pages choisies” et des “extraits” ’. ‘Patristique et argument de tradition au bas moyen âge’, Aus der Geisteswelt des Mittelalters. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Phil. u. Theol. des Mittelalters, Suppl. III, 1, 423. If this was the result of the Tabulae it is to be regretted, but surely it was not meant to be so. There are even now, as there were then, students who are satisfied to glance at the index and do not bother to read the text through.

page 148 note 1 Cf. G. Théry, ‘Thomas Gallus et les Concordances bibliques’, Aus der Geisteswelt des M.A., 427–46.

page 148 note 2 Tabula magistri Roberti Lincolniensis episcopi cum additione fratris Adae de Marisco. Cf. Thomson, S. H., The Writings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, Cambridge 1940, 122–4Google Scholar.

page 148 note 3 Several manuscripts of the Concordance have come to light after the publication of my papers mentioned p. 147, n. 3.