ERASMUS, CYRIL, AND THE ANNOTATIONES ON JOHN

Author(s): Jane E. Phillips

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Bibliothque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, T. 50, No. 2 (1988), pp. 381-384
Published by: Librairie Droz
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Bibliotheque

d'Humanisme

et Renaissance

ERASMUS,

Tome

1988

- n*

2, pp.

381-384

CYRIL,

AND THE ANNOTA TIONES ON JOHN

the Greek fathers on whose works Erasmus
relied in his
Among
contribution to the sixteenth century's redirection of the course of
Christian scholarship was Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 until his
death in 444. In the preface to the first edition of his Annotationes on the
New Testament
includes Cyril in a list of those early
(1516), Erasmus
writers who can assist in establishing the readings of disputed places in the
text of the New Testament
(EE, 373, 31-34) and praises him for his
observations on the theological significance of the Greek article in such
, ?the light , that is, ?the true
expressions as o X6y0, z6 cp, ?the word
on the
and only word
, ?the true light '. It was Cyril's Commentarium
Gospel of John which, after similar works or sermon series covering the
whole of John by Chrysostom, Augustine, and Theophylact the Bulgarian,
a running guide for Erasmus'
of his own
provided
preparation
on this gospel.
Annotationes
By and large, the pattern of Erasmus' use of Cyril on John is similar to
his use of other Church Fathers and more recent authorities: it increases
over the editions of the Annotationes
(except for the 1522 edition, which
shows relatively few differences in any respect from the 1519 edition)2.
on
Cyril is cited on fifteen passages of John in the 1516 Annotationes,
twenty-five passages in the 1519 and 1522 Annotationes, on thirtypassages
in the 1527 Annotationes,
in the 1535
and on thirty-six passages
Annotationes. All but one of the citations are to Cyril's Commentarium

1
on John, 1,1, ?erat verbum ? and 1,8, ?non erat ille
EE,
373, 125-129; cf. Annoi,
lux?. (EE = P.S. Allen et al., Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami,
12 vol., Oxford,
Clarendon
in
Erasmus'
references here are to Cyril, Commentarium
Press,
1906-1958.)
and 1,
graeca, 73 (Paris, Migne,
1, 4, Patrologia
evang?lium Johannis,
1864), col. 69D-73A,
returns to the point about the article several
7, Patrologia
graeca, 73, col. 109C-D. Erasmus
times in the Annot. on John, e.g. 1, 3-4, ?et sine ipso factum est nihil?, 1, 18, ?Deum nemo
vidit unquam?,
2,10, ?tu es magister in Israel?, 6, 32, ?non dedit vobis panem?. The notes to
et al., trans, and annot., La correspondance
Letter 373 inMarcel A. Nauwelaerts
d'Erasme,
vol. II: 1514-1517 (Brussels, University Press, 1974), p. 259, note 16, and in R.A.B. Mynors
and D.F.S.
trans., James K. McConica,
annot., The Correspondence
Thomson,
of Erasmus:

Letters298 to 445, 1514 to 1517 (Toronto,Universityof Toronto Press, 1976), [CWE 3],
is speaking here
p. 202 note, misidentify Erasmus'
Cyril as Cyril of Jerusalem. But Erasmus
of the Greek article ? and Cyril of Alexandria's
arguments against various heretics from it, as
on John, 1 above, not of the Greek
in the citations to the Annot.
letter -o- involved in the
/
,with which Cyril of Jerusalem is associated.
controversy over
2
For a general description,
see Erika Rummel, Erasmus'
on the New
Annotations
to Theologian,
Testament:
From Philologist
Erasmus
Studies 8 (Toronto, University
of
Toronto Press, 1986), pp. 52-74, and for Cyril specifically p. 68. The figures for the number
of passages on which Cyril is cited are my own.

382

NOTES ET DOCUMENTS

on the gospel'. What

is curious, however, is that the 1527 Annotationes
(and the 1535
actually remove references to Cyril on six passages
Annotationes make the excision of the reference on one of these passages
more complete). The six passages are all from chapters 8, 9, and 12 of
John; once they are gone, there is no mention of Cyril whatsoever from the
to his next
citation of him on John, 6, 23, ?gratias agentes deo
on
can
note
4.
How
in
the
this gap be
?filioli
appearance
John, 13, 33,
explained? Or rather, since for a time in the history of theAnnotationes
there was no such gap, how can Erasmus'
creation of it be explained?
is to be sought in consideration of the condition of Cyril's
Explanation
as it was available
to Erasmus.
Commentarium
he knew
Perhaps
manuscripts of this work, though he does not mention them; but whether
or where he knew them probably cannot be discovered. None of his
comments can be understood tomean that he knew Cyril inGreek. At least
one (on 13, 33, ?filioli ) implies that he was only deducing theGreek text,
. And there are
for he says, ?Cyrillus legisse videtur txv(x diminutive
several references to Cyril's translator (into Latin): on 1, 14, ?plenum
, 18, 12,
gratiae et veritatis , 15, 26, ?et vos testimonium perhibebitis
.Cyril is
?cohors autem et tribunus , and 21, 22, ?sic eum volo manere
one of the authors excerpted by Thomas Aquinas
in the Catena aurea, but
there are hardly any references to him in the catena on John, and none to
his Commentarium. There were, however, printed editions available. The
on John was the Latin
first printed edition of the Commentarium
translation made by George Trapezuntius before 1486, published by Josse
in 1508. But
at Paris
Clichtove
and printed by Wolfgang
Hopyl
known
first
of the
had
the
and
last
thirds
only
Trapezuntius
Books 5-8, covering John, 7, 25-12, 48, were lost and
Commentarium;
hence not represented in his translation. Clichtove reports in his preface
that these books are missing not only in the manuscript he used for his
in the Vatican
edition but also in three Latin and two Greek manuscripts
library5. In a reissue of the 1508 edition made in 1513-1514, Clichtove and

3
but his form of annotation
Erasmus does not name the Commentarium,
is such that
when he names an author without an accompanying
title the reader is expected to understand
that the work alluded to has the gospel under consideration
for its topic. In the one instance in
to refer to a different work by Cyril, the Thesaurus,
theAnnoi, on John when he has occasion
in the 1535 note on John, 14, 28, ?quia pater maior me est?, he is careful to give the name.
4
The passages
from whose
annotations
Cyril has been excised are these: 8, 3,
autem scribae et pharisaei mulierem?,
est et pater eius?, 8,
?adducunt
8, 42, ?quia mendax
traham? (with further
59, ?et exivit de templo?, 9, 8, ?quia mendicus
erat?, 12, 32, ?omnia
excision in 1535), and 12, 35, ?adhuc modicum
lumen?. The citation at 8, 3 was part of the
in 1519. In the recent facsimile edition of the 1535
1516 Annoi.;
all the others were additions
on theNew
with earlier variants edited by Anne Reeve, Erasmus* Annotations
Annotationes
Testament:
The Gospels
1986), p. 254, the Cyril citation on John, 12,
(London, Duckworth,
lumen? is wrongly marked as present only in the 1519 edition. It also
35, ?adhuc modicum
to 12, 32, ?Cyrillus
note on the annotation
in the 1522 edition. The 1519 marginal
appears
was dropped
in 1522, though in the 1527 edition, ?Cyrillus contaminatus?
contaminatus?,
with a reference to this passage appears
in the index.
5
G.C. Harless,
graeca, vol. IX (Hamburg,
ed., Ioannis Alberti Fabricii Bibliotheca
graeca, 68 (Paris, Migne,
Bohn,
1864), col. 39
1804), pp. 446-454, reprinted in Patrologia

NOTES ET DOCUMENTS

383

Hopyl inserted between the end of Cyril's Book 4 and the beginning of his
Book 9 Clichtove's own supplement of the missing books, numbered 5-8
and composed largely from theHomilies on John by Chrysostom and the
Tractates on John by Augustine. The supplement had its own preface
describing what Clichtove had done and itsown pagination, but in all other
identical to that of 1508. It was the 1514
respects the edition was
was
revised and reprinted in 1520, this time with
that
edition
supplemented
new title page, colophon, and pagination6. Erasmus knew these editions,
as it
for in the long and bitter note on John, 21, 22, ?sic eum volo manere
mentions
he
and
1535
in
the
1527
Annotationes,
specifically
appeared
?Cyrillus a Trapezontio versus... et liber est excusus Lutetiae ex autoritate
.
theologorum, sicut indicat praefatio
The first step in the explanation of the problem then seems to be at
hand: For the 1516 Annotationes Erasmus would have used Clichtove's
1508 Cyril, containing Books 1-4 and 9-12 of the Commentarium on John.
The one Cyril entry from the gap that was present in 1516, on 8, 3 but
actually on the whole story of the woman taken in adultery, notes that
?Cyrillus hic magnam evangelii partem reliquit intactam, unde quid is
legerit, certum sciri non potest , a somewhat excessive statement if taken
to refer only to the disputed story. In preparing the 1519 Annotationes
on
Erasmus could make use of a printed edition of the Commentarium
John that covered the entire gospel. That he did so is indicated by the fact
five of the ten new Cyril citations are in
that in the 1519-1522 Annotationes
the section where the Cyril gap was to appear in 1527. For the Cyril gap
so generously reconstructed
and the lost books of Cyril's Commentarium
by Clichtove cover the same section of the gospel. Itmust be the case, then,
that Erasmus made the mistake of assuming that Clichtove's
supplement
was in fact genuine Cyril, without noticing Clichtove's explanation in the
separate preface: an easy, ifnot forgivable, mistake for a scholar tomake
who is busy comparing parallel passages among a number of authors
instead of reading one author through, a mistake to which the printer
title page for the volume, and a mistake by
contributed by a misleading
which many others later were similarly misled .
on John is on col. 46-48, 52-54, and see also
90. The printing history of the Commentarium
and Related Texts
Eugene F. Rice, Jr., The Prefatory Epistles of Jacques Lef?vre d'Etaples
1972), p. 182-184. The first Greek edition of the
University Press,
(New York, Columbia
text of Books 5 and 6, was that of
which included also the newly discovered
Commentarium,
in 1638; cf. Patrologia
Joannes Aubertus,
graeca, 68, col. 48 and 53. Books 7 and 8
published
aus der
remain known only in fragmentary form: Joseph Reuss, Johannes-Kommentare
zur Geschichte
der altchristlichen Literatur,
griechischen Kirche, Texte und Untersuchungen
89 (Berlin, Akademie-Verlag,
1966), pp. xxv-xxvi.
6
Rice (above, note 5), pp. 182, 330-332. Rice notes (p. 182) that the 1514 edition has
It had not been identified by Fabricius or Harless
(above,
only recently been distinguished.
saw and thought was the 1508 edition, since he
note 5) but must have been the one Fabricius
it as containing Clichtove's
describes
graeca, 68, col. 47.
supplement, Patrologia
7
For others who also fell victim to Clichtove's
(above, note 5)
supplement, see Harless
in Patrologia
graeca 68, col. 52 and note c. The title page of all three editions reads Opus
a Georgio
Ioannis:
in evang?lium
Alexandrini
insigne beati patris Cyrilli patriarche
traductum, according to Rice (above, note 5), p. 182. Perhaps Erasmus and the
Trapezuntio
others read only the title of Clichtove's
preface to Books 5-8 and not the preface itself. The
libri intermedii: commentariis Cyrilli patriarche
title as given by Rice, p. 330, reads ?Quattuor

NOTES ET DOCUMENTS

384

The second step towards the explanation of the problem is to conclude

that Erasmus realized his mistake between the 1522 and 1527 Annotationes
and corrected it. In fact even the nature of the entries destined for excision
Erasmus was using at
suggests that there was something in the ?Cyril
these points thatwas less than satisfactorily informative. The entry on 8, 42
notes the agreement of Chrysostom and Cyril on the referent of a pro
noun. The entry on 8, 59 points out that Chrysostom, Cyril, and Augustine
alike make no mention of a variant reading to be found in some Greek
in a reading is
manuscripts. At 9, 8 Cyril's concurrence with Augustine
noted. But at 12, 32 Erasmus says in some exasperation that Cyril and
show such a similarity of views on the point in question ?ut
Augustine
dubium non sit quin alteruter ab altero sitmutuatus, aut certe a studioso
.After quoting both Cyril and Augustine so
quopiam aliquid sit assutum
the reader can make an independent comparison, Erasmus adds, ?Arbitror
.
non posse videri casum quod in tam multis pene ad verbum consentiunt

In 1527 this long display of scholarly bafflement lost the quotation from
Cyril and themention of the unaccidental verbal similarity, though the sug
to the reader to consult
gestion of a patching job and a recommendation
the two fathers remained; in 1535 all reference to Cyril was gone from the
annotation. The Cyril citation at 12, 35 continues the tone of the previous
one: ?Ac rursus suo more Augustini commentum sequitur Cyrillus.
Since
the ?Cyril Erasmus had been reading was cobbled together by Clichtove
out of Chrysostom and Augustine,
these similarities of silence and sub
stance are hardly surprising.
The course of events, then would have run something like this: while
preparing the first edition of his Annotationes, Erasmus used Cyril's Com
mentarium on John in the 1508 edition of Clichtove, which lacked the lost
Books 5-8, so that Erasmus noted at the first annotation on John 8 that
Cyril did not discuss a large part of the gospel at that point. For the first
in 1519 Erasmus added a good deal
major expansion of theAnnotationes
1514 edition, itself considerably expan
from Cyril, but from Clichtove's
ded, and in a way that aroused some disquiet in Erasmus as he compared
thematerial with what he found inChrysostom and Augustine. After 1522
but before 1527, whether because someone pointed itout to him or because
he discovered thewhole truth himself, Erasmus realized what Books 5-8 of
the Commentarium
really were, and removed all the references to the
from his own Anno
but only those references
meretricious material
tationes. He did, however, retain, in the 1527 edition only, the suggestion
of scholarly meddling with the text of Cyril that he had originally made in
the note on 12, 32 just quoted; and he added, in the note on 21, 22, a very
specific reference to the edition of Cyril he used, with an irritated and
perhaps sarcastic invocation of its claim to scholarly respectability (p. 383
(1527 Annot. on 12, 32).
above). ?Qui volet, faciat locorum collationem
Lexington, Kentucky.

Jane E. PHILLIPS.

Alexandrinum
[sic] Ioannis, nuper adiecti per Iudocum Clichtoveum Neoportuen
evang?lium
or a new discovery?
does this suggest a new composition
sem, doctorem
theologum?: