NOTITIA.
(Oudin, *De Script. eccles.*, t. II, p. 518.)
Oecumenius, a Greek writer of very uncertain date [a], regarding whom there is deep silence among the ancients, is not unreasonably placed at the year 990, until it is possible to ascertain his certain age. Furthermore, as is prefixed to the front of his *Commentaries*, the names of the authors from whom he wove together his *Explanation* of the New Testament are these: Papias, Clement, Methodius, Dionysius, Irenaeus, Origen, Hippolytus, Athanasius, Eusebius, Basil, Gregory, Nyssenus, Acacius, Isidore, Photius, Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, Severianus, Gennadius, Aretas, Andrew of Caesarea, Cyril, Theodoret. Since, therefore, of the cited authors, Andrew of Caesarea, who is inscribed in manuscript codices, wrote about the year 842, and Photius flourished about the year 880, as is established, and Aretas existed about the year 920, it seems that Cave, whom we follow, rightly placed this writer, in my calculation, at the year 990. His *Enarrations* on the Acts of the Apostles, on all the Epistles of St. Paul, and on all the Catholic Epistles remain, followed by the *Commentary* of Aretas on the Apocalypse. The *Commentaries* of Oecumenius and Aretas were first published in Greek with a truly distinguished typeface at Verona in folio in the year 1532 by Donatus Veronensis, dedicated to Pope Clement VII, and were reprinted there in 1562. Joannes Hentenius, a Belgian from Mechelen, a Hieronymite monk, undertook their translation into the Latin language at Louvain in the year 1545, which appeared at Paris in the year 1547 in folio. Finally, in Greek and Latin at Paris in 1631, in 2 volumes in folio.
TO OUR MOST HOLY AND BLESSED FATHER POPE CLEMENT VII DONATUS VERONENSIS.
(Ed. Veron. 1532.)That which your son, the most beloved and most observant of you, Gibertus, first held in his heart regarding Chrysostom, most blessed Father, and which he afterwards took care to have dedicated to Your Holiness, concerning Euthymius, and finally concerning Damascenus, which was recently printed—the same he now has in these commentaries, that he may dedicate them to no other of mortals, but to you alone as to a singular, personal deity. Receive, therefore, these works proceeding from the same spirit, with the same serenity of countenance with which you received the former ones; and place them alongside those in that most ample and, to all in the whole world, most celebrated Roman library, so that they too, when they perceive this seat chosen for themselves, may live more joyfully forever, both because of the company and sight of their most beloved brethren, as it were, and because of the presence of your divinity; and that whoever approaches them, desirous of this doctrine, may depart from that place, so ample and illustrious, as though fully replete, having been sated not only with the most wholesome but also most delightful precepts, as if with some banquet. For since the whole sequence of divine books which they call canonical, and in which all sacred doctrine is contained, has been divided into two parts—one of which, what they call the Old Testament, the other the New, has embraced—there have not been wanting, from the beginning of our religion, men in both languages endowed with famous sanctity and pre-eminent doctrine, who might explain to us the entire body of that heavenly wisdom, having published most ample and erudite commentaries. But when each one of them explained everything well enough, yet, as a man, did not explain everything perfectly; and when students could not easily choose the best from all of them, nor from individuals, and were hampered by the very multitude of the writers and books, and not undeservedly, as if at a doubtful banquet set before them, doubted what they should take above all: there arose other holy and learned men who might remove this difficulty for students; who, clearly, did not put forward new interpretations invented by themselves, but chose and excerpted the best from each one of those whom we have mentioned for the illustration of the sacred books: and to all things which they had thus excerpted from here and there, they appended the names of their authors. Those who write dialogues seem to do something similar to this; for by these, they signify that they have contributed nothing of their own to the readers of these words, but have taken upon themselves the labor and care of choosing and writing alone: so that in this way, both the students, whoever they might be, who would be future users of this work, might have the proper names as a kind of surest surety and voucher for the individual expositions; and that he who had gathered them for the benefit of all might be free from every charge, not only of ambition, but also of fraud and envy. And so far are those who have delighted in a study of this kind from appearing to have sought any praise for themselves from it, that scarcely could one or another of them...