Saint Gregentius, Bishop of Taphar

ANNO DOMINI DXL. SAINT GREGENTIUS BISHOP OF TAPHAR. NOTICE.

(GALLAND. Vet. Patrum Biblioth. tom. XI, p. XXII, 599.)

^A I. Gregentius, born of his father Agapius and his mother Theodota, Milanese by birth, is recorded in the Menologion of the Greeks on the nineteenth day of December; and indeed, one must admit, says the illustrious Le Quien, that the name Gregentius is Latin rather than Greek. Proceeding thereafter to Egypt, he seems to have stayed for some time in Alexandria, where, having already embraced an anchoritic life, he is said to have been sent at last to govern the Church of the Homerites. For not far from the end of the latter dialogue it is reported that Herban the Jew had noticed Palladius, the scholasticus of the archbishop, whom he had brought from Alexandria, etc., *for he saw Palladius the scholasticus of the archbishop, whom he had led from Alexandria,* etc. In Assemani one reads an excerpt from the History of John, Bishop of Asia, which Dionysius, patriarch of the Jacobites, wove into his Chronicle, where he also testifies that the aforementioned John lived and wrote under Justinian: so that, for this reason, credit ought to be given to his narrative. Accordingly, in that excerpt there is discourse both concerning the tyranny of the Homerite Jews being suppressed by the King of Ethiopia, and concerning the Christian religion restored in the Homerite land, and at the same time concerning Bishop Gregentius sent there from Alexandria. This excerpt indeed the learned man illustrates with many points. As to this Ethiopian expedition against the Homerites, Procopius, Theophanes, and Nicephorus treat of it primarily: from whom it would be easy to borrow some things pertaining to this matter. Moreover, Palladius, who took down his disputation in writing, summarizes the famous deeds of the blessed prelate. And so, having completed thirty years in the episcopate, Saint Gregentius departed from the living, according to the opinion of Pagi, in the year ^B 552, on the nineteenth day of December, as his Acts testify.

II. We understand that this blessed prelate of the Homerites handed down two monuments of literature in writing, from books both published and in manuscript. And the first, indeed, is the Legislation compiled under the name of Abramius, King of the Homerites, which still exists unpublished in the Imperial Library, as Lambecius reports: *The Legislation of the holy Gregentius as if from the person of the most pious King Abramius.* Le Quien testifies that this legislation, or these laws, described by our prelate, is found in the Coislinian codex 255, which Montfaucon mentions, and that it is placed before his Disputation: and mention of these laws occurs toward the end of the aforementioned Disputation. Wherefore, in my own judgment, there is no reason why we should believe with Fabricius that the Disputation of Gregentius is mutilated at the beginning; since it is immediately subject to the aforementioned laws, as we have just learned from Le Quien, and therefore it does not appear that the beginning is abrupt.

III. Furthermore, the other ^C little work of Gregentius is the frequently mentioned Disputation which the holy prelate held with Herban the Jew. Which Disputation indeed had lain for a long time overgrown with neglect, until Aegidius Noallius, ambassador of the most Christian King, brought it from the East into the Gauls; which Nicholas Gulonius, royal professor of Greek literature, afterward rendered into Latin and published at Paris in the year 1586, dedicating it to the same Noallius. We have used this first edition, printed with the neat type of Morellus, for our comparison, having passed over the remaining three which followed it in succession. Besides the notes of the editor pertaining only to the correction of the text, we have added a few more from the opinion of men who are, above all, learned, so that the same text might appear even more emended. To which, likewise, it is our pleasure to add one or two here, discovered for us later in Lambecius. Namely, from the Imperial codex in which the Disputation of Saint Gregentius with Herban the Jew exists, he corrects *Tephron* in the inscription of the work of the Gulonian edition (below page 599) to *Taphron*, or rather *Taphron*. For Saint Gregentius was Bishop ^D Tapharensis, not Tephrensis, whose see was the city of Taphara, a very famous city of Arabia Felix, called Empap by Ptolemy.

the most celebrated in Arabia Felix, called by Ptolemy *Saphar* (16). Lambecius proceeds, and for *τῆς δοκιμασίας γεγονυίας* (infra, p. 599), that is, according to the interpretation of Gulonius, *probatione facta*, he corrects it to *τῆς ἑτοιμασίας γεγ.*, that is, *apparatu facto*. Finally, for *θολωτῷ* (ibid.) he contends that one should read *θρελλέτῳ*, which word seems to have been unknown to lexicographers; although they do acknowledge the other word, *θόλος*, from which the Vienna librarian thinks it is derived. But we leave to others to judge the opinion of Pagi (17), who is also followed by Assemanus (18), who thinks this Disputation of Saint Gregentius to be a forgery. If anyone wishes to know the summary chapters of this Disputation, let him consult Imbonatus (19), who, however, is found to have erred in this, while he thinks the deeds which are narrated in it occurred in the fifth century. ^B

ANOTHER NOTICE

Caspar Barthius, elsewhere and in book V of his *Adversaria*, chap. 3 (where he illustrates many passages of it), calls Palladius the Alexandrian the author of the account of the disputation which, for five days before Abramius, the Christian king (20) of the Homerites, and the bishops, and many Jews, and the whole city in the metropolis of the Homerites, Taphar or Saphar, in Arabia Felix about the year of Christ 540, with Herbanus the Jew, whom certain codices call *νομοδιδάσκαλον*, Gregentius, the Archbishop of Taphar [or Tapharensis, or Tapharenus], instituted, who departed this life in the year of Christ 552 (26th of Justinian), 19 December, after Abramius, having died in the same year 552 (30th of his reign), when already the king of the Homerites was Serdidus (21), the son of Abramius (22). There is no doubt that the foundation of Barthius’ opinion was what is read on p. 184 of the Gulonian edition (p. 264 of the Ducaean) in that disputation: *Ταῦτα τὰ ῥήματα καὶ ἑτέροις δηλωθήσονται· Εώρα γὰρ Παλλάδιον τὸν σχολαστικὸν τοῦ ἀρχιεπισκόπου, ὃν ἀπὸ ᾿Αλεξανδρείας ἤγαγε, τὰ ῥήματα ἑκατέρων σημειούμενον* — "These words will be made known to others also; for he saw Palladius, the scholasticus of the archbishop, whom he had brought from Alexandria, noting down the words of each." Concerning this passage, the interpreter Gulonius noted in the margin: "From this one may conjecture that Palladius is the author or writer of this Disputation." I do not deny that this is certainly more plausible than that, as seems to Lambecius (book V, p. 131 [p. 277 ed. Kollar. of cod. CCLXVII]), the author is Nonnosus, the ambassador of the Emperor Justinian to the Homerites, to whom he also attributes (VIII, p. 387 [p. 823 ed. Kollar. of cod. XL]) the martyrdom of Arethas and his companions. I have spoken about that Nonnosus in volume VI of this *Bibliotheca*, p. 239 [s. our ed. vol. VII, p. 543 sq.]. Moreover, this disputation, brought from the East by Aegidius Noallius, ambassador of the most Christian king, was translated into Latin by Nic. Gulonius, royal professor of Greek letters, and published in both languages at Paris (1586, 8vo), whence it was reprinted in Greek and Latin in the *Auctarium Graeco-Latinum* of the Ducaean *Bibliotheca Patrum*, Paris (1624, tom. I), and in the *Bibliotheca Patrum*, Paris (1654, tom. XI, p. 194), not to mention the Latin editions frequently repeated in the Bibliothecae Patrum. [There is also a Greek and Latin version in Galland’s *Bibl. PP.*, vol. XI, pp. 599-661, where in the preface, p. XXIII, Gregentius is briefly discussed. B.] In all these editions, just as also in the Caesarean codex, of which Lambecius speaks (book V, p. 131 [p. 270 sqq. Kollar]), and the Seguierian, of which Montfaucon speaks in the *Bibl. Coisliniana* (p. 304), some things are missing from the beginning, as is evident to anyone from the abrupt opening. Not equally known, however, is the fact that there exists in the Royal Library of Berlin a Slavonic manuscript code four hundred years old, with many more leaves from the beginning, whose first words, translated into Latin, were communicated to me by the very learned prefect of that library, M. V. La Crose.

"The nineteenth of the month of December, the Life and conversation of our blessed Father Gregorius (thus always called instead of Gregentius, as he is called in the *Menaea* of the Greeks, *Γριγεντίνος*), Bishop of the city of Taphron of the Homerites, and the narration of the miracles performed by him, written by the bishop of the city of Negran. (From this it is evident that neither Palladius nor Nonnosus is the author, but the bishop of Negran in the region of the Homerites, which in the acts of the passion of St. Arethas and his three hundred and forty companions, who are recorded as having suffered under Dunam, the Hebrew tyrant of the Homerites, A.D. 522, 24 October, is called the city of the Martyrs), *Benedic, pater*. There is a certain town of no great name on the borders of Avaria and Asia, named Lopliane. In it dwelt the parents of the admirable Gregorius, Agapius and Theotecna, joined in matrimony by the command of Christ, etc."

The Caesarean codex begins thus: *Ἀρχὴ τῆς διαλέξεως τῶν Ἰουδαίων μετὰ τοῦ ἁγίου Γρηγεντίου. Τούτων οὕτως γεγονότων καὶ οὕτω παρακολουθησάντων, καὶ τοῦ βασιλέως ἐπὶ τούτοις αἰνοῦντος τὸν*