Schulze to the Reader

and congratulate myself greatly. But I humbly beseech God, the Best and Greatest, that He may command you, men most reverend and illustrious, to survive for a very long time as a salvation for your Church, a protection for every sacred matter, and a notable ornament, and that He may look most clemently upon your most wholesome efforts for the Church in the future as well.

So prays, and asks God, the most humble and devoted cultivator of your exalted names, most Serene Prince and most reverend Bishop, men most reverend, illustrious, renowned, and noble.

JOAN. LUDOV. SCHULZE. Given at Halle, in the Frederic University, September 26, 1768.

PREFACE TO THE READER

[XIII] Another year now passes since we communicated to the learned our plan for preparing a new edition of the Works of Theodoret; and since this was approved by all good men, we undertook this labor with eager spirit, fearing neither its duration nor its magnitude in any great degree. May God therefore command it to be auspicious and happy! The first volume of our edition is now brought to light; those who understand how much labor and time was required for the collation of four manuscript codices and for obtaining other resources for enriching this volume will not think that it has caused long delays. What has been achieved by us, we shall now recount in a few words, yet in such a way as to leave the judgment to fair and expert readers, whom we earnestly ask to contribute their advice for the sake of letters and the public utility, should anything appear that ought to be amended or disposed more correctly.

[XIV] We have maintained the same order of books as that which Jaques Sirmond formerly followed, whose edition we desire ours to resemble as closely as possible. Therefore, this volume includes Theodoret’s Commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament—namely, on the Octateuch, on the four books of Kings and Chronicles—as well as a most abundant Interpretation of the Psalms. It was not feasible to progress further, lest the book suffer from its own bulk if it were to exceed proper limits. Hence it came about that the Commentaries on the Song of Songs had to be deferred to the next volume, and that we judged it necessary to refrain from our earlier intention of prefixing to this volume some of Garnerius’s Dissertations, together with the necessary critical judgment. Indeed, the admonition of Oudin (De Script. eccles. vol. I, p. 1134) was highly pleasing, namely, that the first, second, and third Dissertations from the Auctarium of Garnerius should be prefixed to a new edition of the Works of Theodoret, if one were ever to be prepared; indeed, it seemed to be in our interest to defend our writer against the cavils of Garnerius at the very threshold, so to speak, of the Work. However, since this first volume of our edition could contain no more, and since it seemed appropriate to certain learned men, whose authority must be high, to include those Dissertations in the final volume of the new edition, we changed our plan. But lest any stain remain upon the good cause of Theodoret, which Garnerius managed so poorly after the times of Sirmond, a Dissertation had to be prefixed which would explain the life and writings of a man so deserving of the Church, so that it might be clear to the readers how great is the dignity of our author, and what an unjust judge Garnerius was. And this labor indeed seemed all the more necessary because the Life of Theodoret, which Sirmond once prefixed to his own edition, labored under such brevity that it was thought it might excite thirst, but not satisfy it.

In decorating this new edition, we have devoted ourselves primarily to presenting the Greek text in a more amended form, and as enriched as could possibly be achieved. Sirmond indeed employed great diligence so that the Greek portions—which he was the first to add from codices, many of Theodoret’s writings having previously been edited only in Latin—would appear as corrected as possible, yet he left us not a few things to be either supplemented or corrected. For since he received into his edition the Latin translations of Pici, Carafa, Hervetus, and others, and added the Greek text to these older versions, it happened that the latter did not everywhere correspond to the former. For now more, now fewer, and now very different things were expressed in the text than in the translation; indeed, a lacuna of four lines was obvious in the Commentary on Ps. xviii, 6, 7 (Vol. I, p. 467 of the Sirmondian edition). As things stood this way, we easily realized that a new edition of this writer would be of little use unless the text were recalled again to the faith of manuscript codices, and the Latin version were so amended that it would correspond to the Greek text as exactly as possible. As we were meditating on these things, and examining the aids that might be sufficiently apt to attain this goal, we experienced the providential care of the Supreme Being, whom I am pleased to celebrate with a pious and grateful heart. For it came about in a short time that, assisted by the help of the greatest men who favored our studies, we obtained more resources than could ever have been hoped for. Nor did those venerable men—by whose signal zeal for deserving well of the public good it came about that the Orphanotropheus bookstore did not think these studies of ours alien to itself even in this time, when a plan for submitting an ecclesiastical writer to the presses again might have seemed less than opportune to many—think that they should spare expenses on a book so primely useful for promoting the sacred matter among us.

PREFACE TO THE READER

Besides these four Augsburg codices, for which we instituted a most exact comparison with the Sirmondian text, other resources could also be used for this volume. For its first part, or for the commentaries on the Octateuch, the purely Greek edition, which was published at Paris in 1558 in quarto by the efforts of Johannes Picus, could and should have been utilized. Since, however, in this edition of Picus, just as in the Augsburg codex mentioned earlier, some Questions on the book of Judges and commentaries on the book of Ruth were missing, we thought this defect could in some way be supplied from those things which David Hoeschel took care to have inserted into his Notes on Photius, page 53 sqq., from a certain Bavarian codex. For the books of Chronicles, after page 600, various readings were added, collected from the most excellent Coislin codex VIII. That we were permitted to enjoy these, we owe to the illustrious Schlæger, who, as he has earned the friendship of many learned men in Gaul and Italy by the fame of his erudition, so also greatly assisted our efforts with the help of these, nay, even on this account alone he has deserved highly of us, that he provided us with a copy of the excerpts from that Coislin codex, which was adorned with worthy praises by Montfaucon in *Bibl. Coisl.* p. 50, through a learned friend whom he has in Strasbourg. Furthermore, some things for the ornamenting of this volume have also been added from the most ample treasure of the Laurentian Medici Library, with the help of the renowned Bandini, prefect of the library. These have been mostly taken from that most excellent codex of the tenth or eleventh century, which the learned Bandini has described in the *Catalog of Manuscript Codices* of the already mentioned library, page 87 sqq. For all those things which we have related regarding Psalms V–XXXV in our edition pertain to that one. Those things which we took care to insert regarding Psalm LXXVII, page 1148, schol. 6, were described from cod. XIV, the description of which exists *l. c.*, page 34 sqq., to which also pertain the things which were brought forward on page 1409 of our edition regarding Psalm CXII, 9.

Thus far we have spoken of the Augsburg, Coislin, and Florentine codices. Other things could also be mentioned in this place, which [XVIII] have been collected and most liberally granted to our keeping for the enrichment of subsequent volumes, whether from the same or from other most famous libraries. But so that we might not be too long, or seem to boast too ambitiously about ourselves, we shall hold fast to only those things which pertain to this volume; for there will be a more opportune place at another time to speak of those things which pertain to the rest. In a few words, therefore, we still mention that those things are inserted in their place, either in the scholia, or, where the Sirmondian text had the same, indicated very briefly, which Garnerius in his *Auctarium*, pages 7–20, from codex Vat. 247, for the enrichment of the commentary on the Psalms…

^A brought. From the Catena or Exposition of the Greek Fathers on the Psalms, which Balthazar Corderius, S.J., published at Antwerp, 1643–1646, many things could have been brought into the text, which we nevertheless deliberately omitted, both because the reliability of Catenas is generally doubtful, and because anyone can access that book more easily than the codices. We therefore deemed it sufficient if mention were made, in even three words, of the passages that Corderius attributed to another author.

These were the aids, armed with which we approached the Greek text, to be restored and enriched where there was need. In carrying out this business, the Augustan codices provided us with excellent utility, by whose help we supplied what was missing in the Sirmondian text. There will no longer be a need for many testimonies, which could easily be gathered from our Scholia: yet, to give credence to what has been said, it will be worth the effort to adduce one or two. Thus, on Ps. LVI, 1, page 977 of our edition, from codex Aug. I, these words had to be inserted: «ὁ μέγας Δαβίδ», in order that the Greek text might correspond to the Latin version of Carafa, who reads the same; as has been observed, we supplied from the same codex «ὁ καλλίνικος», which Carafa had indeed read in his codex, but Sirmond had not. Often, too, things had to be supplied in the Latin version which were wanting not only in the Sirmondian text but also in our own codices. Let it suffice to have brought forward a single example of this emendation out of many, which exists on Ps. CXVIII, 152, page 1476, where in Carafa’s interpretation these words were missing: *Descendens, inquit, contestare eos per cælum et terram*. ^B But enough of these. We are more pleased by the help that those excellent codices brought to us, so that that lacuna, of which we have already spoken, could be happily filled: Ps. XVIII, 6, 7. Many passages, and sometimes quite long ones, were also added to the Commentary on the Psalms [XIX] from these codices, which it seemed best to distinguish from the Sirmondian text with that sign (»). But not all these additions could or should be received into the text; rather, we have relegated the greater part of them to the margin, if either the nexus with what preceded was less apt, or if we saw the same expressed under the name of other authors in Montfaucon’s *Collectio nova Patrum*, in Corderius, or even in the writings of Chrysostom and others, or finally if other reasons for doubt existed. We hope also that fair judges of these matters will approve this decision of ours. For we preferred to appear somewhat timid rather than too bold in a matter of some gravity, and to be immune from that fault which they incurred for themselves who, so that they might be thought to have enriched some writer exceedingly, snatched up everything obvious with too little caution.

Now, the reasons must be given in a few words why it seemed fit to touch here and there, in the Scholia added to the text—albeit with a sparing hand—both on the received reading of the LXX Interpreters, and on the fragments of the remaining Greek interpreters, and finally on the discrepancy of the Greek version itself from the Hebrew truth. As regards the first point, we think it of great profit for the restoring of the readings of the Greek version if those readings in the writings of the Greek Fathers are not neglected which depart from the received reading of the LXX Interpreters. For thus we not rarely discover an authentic and primitive reading of these Interpreters, in which all or most Greek commentators concur. Thus, 2 Kings XX, 18, the received reading of the Greek version is «ἔθνη»; Theodoret, however, as we have observed at that place, reads «ἔδεσαν». Now, since this latter reading is obvious in almost all Greek commentaries, the conjecture is not without appearance that it is the authentic and primitive one, from which the received reading may be corrected. Other examples of this kind exist in the same book, ch. XXI