Preface by Angelo Mai

ANGELS MAI PREFACE.

At the beginning of the work which is edited by us in this volume, Procopius relates that a double commentary on the Octateuch had been prepared by him; first, a very extensive one, culled from the ancient Fathers and other writers, and arranged in the manner of a catena, as we call it; with the very words of the authors themselves strictly retained, whether their opinions agreed with one another or otherwise. Afterwards, however, because a work of this kind seemed likely to grow to an immense size, he took the decision to collect it into a more suitable abridgment: and thus, largely omitting the names of the authors and speaking in his own voice, he preferred to state the matter once, where the authors surely agreed among themselves; but where they disagreed with one another, he nevertheless discussed the matter with elegant brevity; so that, clearly, the work might become more concise, and produced as if by a single author. That larger lucubration of Procopius appears to exist in manuscript libraries; but it has certainly not seen the light in Greek: the shorter one, however, equally unpublished, presented itself to me in two codices of the Pontifical library, and it had also been observed in one codex of the library of the Albani by its most learned prefect, who also granted me the use of the codex, that I might collate it with the Vatican ones. Yet the origin of the three codices was one: for they gape with the very same lacunae, and are closed at the same end; and at least two, namely the first Vatican and the Alban, conspire even in the smallest errors; for I would scarcely mention the other Vatican, which was compiled by an unskilled hand. And I judge that the former, the primary one, was written in the fifteenth century, but the Alban and the other Vatican in the following century; nevertheless, the first Vatican was transcribed from some very ancient exemplar, already worn and sometimes torn, which had been compared with the autograph of Procopius itself, as the notable inscription added at the end of the codex to the name of Procopius testifies: *Εξισώθη κατὰ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ πρωτότυπον*.

Now it is permitted to doubt whether Procopius finished this work which we have in our hands, or whether, overcome by weariness or labor, he broke it off: for in the Roman codices it proceeds no further than the eighteenth chapter of Genesis. Wherefore it remains for the prefects of other libraries to inspect their own codices and remove this doubt from us. Meanwhile, however, I very willingly present to the public benefit the classic, brilliant, rich, and long-desired commentary on Genesis of the Christian rhetor and interpreter, famous in the sixth century of Christ—the author of whom I have already published more than a hundred letters in the fourth volume: whose praises it matters little to proclaim, since they are manifest to perceptive readers, but are of no avail to the ignorant and unrefined. Certainly the subject matter and treatment of the work are of great importance, namely, concerning the nature of the world, the origin of man and his free choice, the primal fault, the first homicide, the deluge and the ark, and the increase and diffusion of the human race. Added to this are the various readings of the ancient interpreters and editions, taken long ago by Procopius from the Hexapla of Origen, which will now return postliminiously to the same Hexapla (which Montfaucon restored according to his strength). Since, however, the whole work is gathered from the writings of the ancient Fathers, we truly possess a solid type of hermeneutics and authentic doctrine, which I indeed would prefer to follow over many of the modern subtleties of grammarians and the commentaries of philologists.

A far different case is the imperfect commentary on the Song of Solomon, which we have unearthed from another codex under the name of the same Procopius, though it is barely doubtful: for it was written only to declare the piety of the writer, and it bears before it no historical erudition, nor does it rise at all to the excellence of the former work.