Montague Rhodes James

“ In the preface to Hilary is a passage which sums up the position of Erasmus towards the ancient and the scholastic learning far better than we could do it for ourselves. "We have no right to despise the discoveries or improvements which have originated in the minds of our contemporaries; yet it is an unscrupulous intellect that does not pay to antiquity its due reverence, and an ungrateful one that rejects those to whose industry the Christian world owes so much. What would sacred learning be without the labours of Origen, Tertullian, Chrysostom, Jerome, Hilary, and Augustine? ”

“ A glance at the Catalogue of the Greek manuscripts at Paris is yet more instructive in this respect. Vergecius, Darmarius, Valeriano of Forli, and a score of others were gaining great names as copyists in the service of princes, secular and ecclesiastical. Every noble and every prelate was in honour bound to be the owner of as brilliant a collection as he could. In these libraries the Greek classics were doubtless more prominent and more valued than the Greek Fathers ”

“ The points at issue between the Greek and Latin Churches were productive of a long series of controversial writings on both sides; There was, in fact, no good reason why the knowledge of the Greek Bible and of the great Greek Fathers should not have continued to exist at the papal Court, and have been diffused from thence over the West. Yet we do not find that such knowledge existed in any appreciable degree. The thought of applying the knowledge of Greek to the study of the Bible seems hardly to have occurred to the Italian scholars of the fourteenth century. ”

“ The principal impulse to study seems to have been given by Englishmen, it is true; but work was also being done outre mer. Before the middle of the thirteenth century the Dominicans of Paris had attempted the task of systematically correcting the text of the Latin Bible. The results, however, were not happy, in the opinion of the man best qualified to judge of them. Bacon is, indeed, unsparing in his strictures. The work had been undertaken without adequate knowledge of the original tongues, and carried on without reference being made to the oldest and best manuscripts of the Vulgate. ”

“ Great libraries had been formed, and translators had been at work, and to such good purpose that a very representative collection of Greek theology was readily accessible to any studious Western.
The next development that we look for is the rise of the critical instinct. The fifteenth century produced one critic who died before its close, Lorenzo Valla. He, though uninspired by any interest in the Christian religion, did a considerable service to the cause of truth by pointing out the falsity of certain documents which had long taken high rank among the archives of the Church. ”

“ In 1455, then, the library of Nicholas V consisted of 824 Latin and 352 Greek manuscripts. We must not expect to find in the Latin library any sign that the learning of the schools is losing its interest. The theology and the Canon Law of the later centuries are as fully represented here as in any Abbey library of them all. What we have to note as significant is the presence-partly in old copies newly brought to light, partly in new versions or in manuscripts written to order-of a number of writings whose existence or whose importance was but just beginning to be realised. ”

“ It was a hurried production; and the task of forming a really good Greek text of a set of documents, with so long and complex a history as the books which compose the New Testament, was a task beyond the powers of any individual. Many generations of textual critics were destined to collect materials and to elaborate theories before the principles on which the work must be done were formulated; and even in our own day perfection has not been attained.
Erasmus was far more at home, and far more successful, in dealing with patristic texts. His hero among Christian scholars was St Jerome. ”

“ Coming nearer to the period with which we are chiefly concerned, we notice that Grosseteste has left his mark on the Canterbury Library: copies of most of the texts which he restored to the Latins are to be found in the catalogue. Of Roger Bacon, however, and of his work there is no sign. Not a single Greek or Hebrew book is discoverable. All trace of the learning of Theodore has disappeared. The theologian par excellence is, as always, Augustine: and the other three Latin Doctors are present in great force. ”

“ Florence was enriched, not only with the beginnings of the Medicean collection, but with the earlier and hardly less precious library of Niccolo Niccoli (d. 1437) , which passed to the Convent of San Marco. In the list of the one hundred and eighty Greek manuscripts which that community owned in the last years of the century we note a few names, and only a few, that we did not meet at Rome, particularly that of Justin Martyr. From this Florence copy Pico della Mirandola must in all probability have made his translation of the Cohortatio ad Gentes. ”

“ The Bibliotheca Sancta of Sixtus of Siena (1586) is rather an encyclopaedia of literature connected with the Bible. All three books are interesting and remarkable achievements. That of Trithemius is a guide—not always a safe one—to the literary possessions of dying medievalism. He knows less accurately than Gesner what books actually exist and are accessible; but he is invaluable as marking a stage in the period of rediscovery and revival. It is most interesting to compare his list of authors with that derivable from the more scientific Gesner. ”

“ The best that one can hope for is an unintelligent imitation of the Greek uncial characters, upon which conjecture more or less scientific may be founded. Too often the copyist's courage deserts him, and a blank is left. The earlier editions of Jerome were no better than the manuscripts. Erasmus is never tired of saying that before his time Jerome could not be read. Johann Amerbach the printer had set on foot the enterprise of a new issue of Jerome's writings, and had engaged the services of Reuchlin and others to emend the text. ”

“ We have seen reason to place the first symptoms of a revival of Christian learning as far back as the thirteenth century, and to connect the beginnings of the movement with England. In the fourteenth century the scene of activity is shifted to Italy, where the impulse given to classical studies reacts upon theology. Not until late in the fifteenth century are the effects of this awakening visible to much purpose in France or in Germany, in the Low Countries or in Switzerland ”

“ Irenaeus, Origen, Athanasius, Basil, Chrysostom among the Greeks, Cyprian, Hilary, Augustine, and Arnobius On the Psalms, among the Latins, all benefited by his critical care. He is the first, perhaps, who had a glimpse of the true greatness of Origen. One page of Origen, he says, is preferable to ten of Augustine: and yet such all-important books as the Commentary upon John and the tract On Prayer were unknown to him. Nothing is more conspicuous in him than the acuteness of his critical sense. ”

“ Bacon's estimate of the needs of his time remains the true one. It is amply confirmed by contemporary literature, and perhaps the readiest and most convincing demonstration of it is furnished by the catalogues of the great libraries which come from this period. The value of these documents for purposes of literary history is self-evident. They provide us in the directest way imaginable with a view of the resources of the learned communities of the time. ”

“ It is our task to deal chiefly with beginnings: but it is impossible to pass entirely unnoticed the Roman edition of the Septuagint Version which appeared in 1587. Its text was based mainly on the great Vatican manuscript, and the committee of scholars who superintended its production included the Cardinals Sirleto and CarafFa, as well as Latino Latini, and Pierre Morin. This was not an editio princepa, but to Biblical scholars it was of enormous importance. ”

“ It is an amazing thing, this negligence of the Church: for, from the time of Pope Damasus there hath not been any Pope, nor any of less rank, who hath busied himself for the advantaging of the Church by translations, except the aforesaid glorious Bishop. ”

“ The Latin Fathers demand a briefer treatment than those of the Greek Church. A good deal has been said already as to the reappearance of those authors who had been forgotten, and as to the labours of scholars upon the text of some who had always been studied. We may, therefore, in this place confine ourselves to a select few of the earlier Latin writers. The Apology of Tertullian was printed in 1483 ”

“ The scholars whose work we see in this were essentially men of the sixteenth century. As to the commentators, it is even more hopeless to attempt to enter into detail. Lefevre d'Utaples, Colet, Sadoleto, Erasmus, were all of them men who advanced the cause of sacred learning by trying to ascertain the actual meaning of the words of Scripture, instead of presenting their readers with a r&chauffe of the Glossa Ordinaria or fashioning every sentence into a weapon of controversy. But besides these there were innumerable writers who contributed to the elucidation of both Testaments. ”

“ It gives a really amazing conspectus of the literary history of medieval England.
The progress of the formation of libraries, which we traced roughly during the period preceding the invention of printing, demands our attention again in the earlier part of the sixteenth century. There is no need to dwell at length upon the obvious fact, that the possession of a library of reasonable extent was now within the power of nearly all students. In the fourteenth century a man might be proud of owning thirty manuscripts ”

“ Such is the list of Grosseteste's gifts to the Latin Church. If not very large in extent, it is assuredly very remarkable in quality. With the exception of the work of John Damascene, it consists entirely of writings for which a pre-Christian or an apostolic date was claimed. In other words, we see in Grosseteste the beginnings of that interest in the origins of Christianity which is usually regarded as characteristic of a later age. He is a collector of what claims to be ancient and primitive. ”

“ The difficulty of discovering any symptom of consciousness that the field of theological study needed widening is of more weight than are the isolated examples of a wider learning which have been cited.
Before the fifteenth century has fairly opened we find nothing that can be called a decided current setting in the direction of wider learning or true sacred scholarship. ”

“ It is not necessary to spend words here upon describing his activity as a collector or his munificence as a patron of letters. We shall run less risk of exaggeration if we draw from so unemotional a document as the inventory of his books, made at his decease. A short survey of the collection, if dry, will at least afford some basis of solid fact. ”

“ That Grosseteste and Bacon had their precursors we must expect to find. Indeed, it is pretty certain that there was never a time when the knowledge of either Hebrew or Greek was altogether dead in the Latin Church. In almost every generation we can point to some document which bears witness to the possession of such knowledge by scholars scattered here and there. ”

“ Chrysostom heads the list with forty volumes, and Gregory Nazianzen, Basil, Athanasius, and Simeon the Metaphrast, are largely represented. There is but one volume of Origen: there are two of Philo, and two copies of what may be the Clementine Homilies. The Bible is represented by some scattered portions of the Old Testament, a fair number of Gospel-books (Evangelistaria) and a few copies of the Acts and Epistles. No such thing as a complete Greek Bible occurs, though we know that at this date the famous Vatican Codex (B) was already in the Pope's possession. ”

“ Instead of Hales and Holcot, the pages of Cyprian, Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome are studied by our divines in their due season."
Only the briefest allusion has so far been made to the development of one great department of Christian learning-ecclesiastical history. The men of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had in their hands not a few of the authorities which we account as of capital importance. ”

“ This had been the property, if not the work, of Grosseteste. Little positive proof beyond the common rumour of his contemporaries can be added to this fact; but even if it stands by itself, it is well worthy of note. It is clear that the Bishop's chief interest centred in his Greek studies: more than a respectable working knowledge of the other sacred tongue is not claimed for him here. ”

“ This is a commonplace: and when it has been set down, the difficulty of deciding how much detail should be added to the bare statement is very great. His personality cannot be adequately set forth within the limits of a single chapter. His career has been shortly traced elsewhere in this volume. The most that can be done here is to summarise the work done by him in reopening the long-closed pages of the Church's early literature.
We have spoken already of what is usually accounted his greatest service in that department, the publication of the Greek text of the New Testament. ”