ADMONITION CONCERNING THE EPISTLES OF SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOM TO OLYMPIAS AND TO MANY OTHERS
We have not yet been able to attain to the true order of the epistles of Saint John Chrysostom; for the order which the Morellian editions present does not exhibit the correct sequence, either of the times or of the persons to whom the epistles are sent. In the very best and most ancient Coislinian manuscript, the order of the epistles does not agree with the published versions, and it itself exhibits a disturbed sequence, such as we have given in the *Bibliotheca Coisliniana*, p. 565. Moreover, other royal or Vatican manuscripts do not agree with this one, nor with the published editions. Savile arranged all the epistles in alphabetical order, so that their sequence is drawn from the names of the persons to whom the epistles are directed; which order, even if it carries with it some usefulness, is not, however, to be adopted. If we could have established a certain and indubitable chronological order for the epistles, this would certainly have been the true and most useful method of arrangement; but that can be accomplished by no art: for, just as there are certain epistles which seem altogether to have preceded others, so in the greatest part of the others you would search in vain to discover which was sent earlier and which later. For which reason, it seemed best to keep the order established by Jacques Billi and Fronton du Duc: from which this advantage accrues, that the numbers of the epistles, cited six hundred times by the writers of the past and present century, are found to be the same, and it is easy to approach the epistles located in their accustomed place. Jacques Billi Prunæus, Abbot of Saint-Michel-en-l'Erm, was the first to provide 173 of John Chrysostom’s epistles, having prefixed this short preface.
TO THE CANDID READER, GREETINGS
That you now have Saint John Chrysostom in this book of epistles for the first time in an expanded form, most excellent reader, you owe to the most learned man Jacques Cujas, who, out of his great courtesy and devotion to the republic of letters, kindly lent me a Greek manuscript. Although in these epistles there are many of the same subject matter, which perhaps for that reason might be able to cause some weariness to a fastidious reader, the utility of the others, and especially of those which were written to Olympias, will, as I hope, easily compensate for whatever trouble this may be. I would wish that you take our little work in good part, and pour out prayers to God for my salvation. Farewell.
To these 173 epistles, Fronton du Duc added sixty-eight from a manuscript codex of the Jesuit College in Antwerp, and he appended the seventy-ninth from a transcript of Joannes Sambucus, in which it followed the 178th. Although there are not a few things in these epistles where almost the same things are repeated, it must nevertheless be acknowledged that this body of epistles is to be counted among the most noble of ecclesiastical monuments: from this we extract the most accurate information concerning that great schism of the Eastern Church and the exile of Chrysostom, where the holy man suffered every dire thing, dragged about, and afflicted with such great evils that his adversaries, who did not dare to bring death upon him with the sword, inflicted it by means of the burdens and torments they imposed. The order of the epistles, as we have said, is so disturbed that it can scarcely, or hardly at all, be restored: but for the convenience of the reader, it has been sufficient for us to annotate, at the beginning of each epistle, the time as much as was permitted, and often only by conjecture. The seventeen epistles to Olympias, which are placed before the rest, are the longest and most elegant of all,