biblicalia

My next treat on the translation front is the earliest preserved full commentary on the Apocalypse, written in Latin by Victorinus, bishop of Poetovio (now the charmingly named Ptui in Slovenia; also known as Pettau or Pettavium), who was martyred in the Great Persecution of Diocletian in 304. The commentary was composed not long after the Valerian Persecution, so about 260. St Jerome actually found his writings to be of great value, not just for the reason that he produced the earliest Biblical exegetical writings in Latin, but that he considered Victorinus a fine exegete in the tradition of Hippolytus and Origen.

This is a complicated work. Victorinus was of a chiliastic/millennialistic bent, a position which was later decided to be mistaken by the Church at large. Because this chiliasm/millennialism appears especially prominently in the latter chapters of the commentary, Jerome took it upon himself to edit those chapters, including a more orthodox interpretation and introducing some other changes throughout the commentary. So, essentially there are two different versions of the complete work, which are only widely divergent in the material covering chapters 20 and 21 of the Apocalypse, and a short prologue by Jerome. I’ll provide here a full translation of Victorinus’ original, then of Jerome’s chapters 20-21, and then Jerome’s prologue. Jerome’s full version is given a rather old (and not very good, I think) English translation in the widely available Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers collection. So far as I know, this will be the first English translation of Victorinus’ original.

The text I’m using is that of Martine Dulaey, Sources Chrétiennes no. 423 (Les Éditions du Cerf, 1997). I had originally started out (in 1999!) on a translation of In Apocalypsin, not knowing of the textual difficulties, using the Patrologia Latina text, which provides Jerome’s version. Once I learned of those textual difficulties, I started to correct my earlier translation from the Haussleiter edition of Victorinus’ original, but only managed to create a hopeless mess of red ink and scribbles on formerly legible pages. So, I’m starting from scratch. Citations and allusions as indicated by Dulaey in the Latin by bolding will be italic in my translation. Please note that these Biblical quotations are somewhat loose on the part of Victorinus, and also represent a Latin translation similar to the Vetus Latina, a pre-Vulgate version, of the Apocalypse, but not identical. At this stage, I’m not providing the references of the citations, or doing any pretty formatting and whatnot. I’ll do that later.

Here we go!

A brother came to see Abba Macarius the Egyptian, and said to him, ‘Abba, give me a word, that I may be saved.’ So the old man said, ‘Go to the cemetery and abuse the dead.’ The brother went there, abused them and threw stones at them; then he returned and told the old man about it. The latter said to him, ‘Didn’t they say anything to you?’ He replied, ‘No.’ The old man said, ‘Go back tomorrow and praise them.’ So the brother went away and praised them, calling them, ‘Apostles, saints and righteous men.’ He returned to the old man and said to him, ‘I have complimented them.’ And the old man said to him, ‘You know how you insulted them and they did not reply, and how you praised them and they did not speak; so you too if you wish to be saved must do the same and become a dead man. Like the dead, take no account of either the scorn of men or their praises, and you can be saved.’

Abba Macarius the Great, saying 23, p. 132, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

That was a real pleasure. I’ve posted a page with the complete text of my translation of 1 Clement here. For now, the text is identical to the serial installments I’ve posted here on the blog. Eventually I’ll break it down into paragraphs, changing the numbering to something less obtrusive, and insert the references and maybe a very few notes. I’ll also write a short introduction at some point. Right now I want to keep the translation momentum going.

For those who are too busy to read that very long letter, here’s the scoop. The Roman church was requested to intervene by some people in the Corinthian church. It took some time for the Roman church to respond, because there was an intervening period of persecution. This letter is the response. The situation in Corinth appears to be that some innovating younger men who were probably good talkers managed to convince the church that they should be running things at Corinth instead of the elders who succeeded those appointed by the apostles. These young men apparently had very high opinions of themselves. In this letter, constant reference is made to “humble-mindedness” (ταπεινοφροσυνη), the character trait that the author particularly wants these young men to attain. Even so, however, the author suggests the solution is for the young men to leave the Corinthian church for other churches, where they would (supposedly) be welcome, and, it is inferred, without the support base that made them such a problem in the first place, Corinth being apparently prone to factionalism, as was historically known from even the Paul/Kephas/Apollos factions mentioned in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, referenced even by the author here. One of the most striking things about this reference is that when the author tells the Corinthians to “take up Paul’s letter,” he is referring, of course, to the original letter itself, not to one of the copies. Wow. This letter, 1 Clement, was apparently successful, as we don’t hear any more about factionalism in the Corinthian church. It seems they’d learned their lesson.

The timing of the letter is an interesting subject. Although I’d always remained an agnostic on whether the letter was written sometime before 70 AD or around 96 AD, I am no longer. Throughout the letter, there is a logical consistency in the usage of verb tenses, quite modern, probably in keeping with a Roman familiarity with the usage of tenses in classical Latin (comparing, say, Caesar or Cicero with Tertullian or Jerome and you’ll see the difference; the latter were affected by the somewhat looser particularity of tenses represented in Greek as opposed to Latin, which English usage follows to a large degree, as well). This aspect plays a role in understanding the timing of the letter when, in 41.2, sacrifices at the Jerusalem Temple are described in the present tense. This is really the clincher, rather than being equivocal, as the references to “elders” in both Corinth and Rome are, and the reference late in the letter, at 63.3, describing some who’d been believer “from youth to old age” — “old age” being relative, the period covered by such aging could be a mere twenty to thirty years. Very importantly, while we do know about a very intense persecution of Christians in Rome during Nero’s reign, we’re finding that there isn’t much evidence at all for persecution of Christians in Rome or abroad during the reign of Domitian. It is a general persecution of Christians in Rome during the reign of Domitian which has been the lynchpin for a late date for First Clement. Anyhow, I seem to be in quite good company in preferring the earlier date. As Mike Aquilina noted, the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, [dead link] (see particularly note 27), as was John A. T. Robinson.

Why is the letter associated with Clement, who is mentioned in Paul’s letter to the Philippians (4.3), written sometime during Paul’s first imprisonment in Rome in 60-62 (see here on the dates)? The answer is, as a Jewish man famously sang, “Tradition!”

(59.1) But if anyone disobeys those things spoken by Him through us, let them know that they involve themselves in falling away, and not a little danger.

(59.2) But we will be innocent of this sin, and ask in earnest request, and make supplication, so that He, the Creator of all, might protect unbroken the counted number of His chosen ones in all of the world, through His beloved Son Jesus Christ, through whom He called us from darkness into light, from ignorance into knowledge of the glory of His Name.

Continue reading “1 Clement 59-65”