THE TEXT AND EDITIONS OF THE EPISTULA SEVERI 174

The Epistula Severi was first published by Cardinal Baronius in Annales Ecclesiastici in 1594. Baronius informs us that he had found in the Vatican collection a copy of Severus' letter whole and undamaged in any way, and that his text derives from that manuscript. ¹⁷⁵ Two manuscripts currently in the Vatican Library contain the Epistula Severi: Codex Palatinus-Latinus 856 and Codex Latinus 1188. Since the Palatine manuscript was not acquired by the Vatican until 1623, Baronius' edition was apparently copied from Codex Latinus 1188. In the manuscript tradition, the Epistula Severi generally appears with a group of works describing the discovery and translation of Stephen's relics. They were first published in Louvain at the end of the sixteenth century as an appendix to an edition of the collected works of

Augustine. In 1648 the Maurist Fathers in Paris published their great edition of Augustine's works, in which they included, as an appendix to the City of God, the various

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173Amengual i Batle, Els origens del cristianisme, i. 214 suspects that Consentius' tract Adversus Iudaeos is the commonitorium attached by Severus to the Ep. Sev. (8. 1-2), but note that the commonitorium was composed before (qualia praeparaverimus arma) the conversion of February 418, whereas the tract Adversus Iudaeos was clearly composed after the conversion (Ep. 12^*. 13. 7). On the other hand, the tract Adversus Iudaeos could be the 'twelve chapters against the Jews' mentioned at 12^*. 15. 2.

174On the history of the text and its editions, see Segui Vidal, La carta-enciclica, 1529;

Amengual i Batle, Els origens del cristianisme, i. 63-4.

175Annales Ecclesiastici, v ( Rome, 1594), 419: Datum est . . . nobis eiusdem

protomartyris gratia ut inter scribendas Vaticanae Bibliothecae antiquitates eamdem reperiremus Severi epistolam integram in nullo detrimentum passam.

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works concerning Stephen's relics, including the Epistula Severi. They reprinted Baronius' editio princeps, but introduced variant readings without clarifying whether they had consulted new manuscripts or

were simply emending the text as they had found it in Baronius. In 1787, a Minorcan priest, Father Roig, published a text based on that of Baronius with emendations based on a comparison of Codex Latinus 1188 and Codex Palatinus-Latinus 856. ¹⁷⁶

From the point of view of modern scholars, the most important publication of Severus' letter was obviously that of Migne, who

included the work in two different volumes of the Patrologia Latina. In 1841-2, Migne re-published the Maurist edition of Augustine in a twelve-volume collection, which was later inserted into the Patrologia series as volumes 32 to 47. He reproduced the Maurist text of the Epistula Severi, which, it will be recalled, was Baronius' text with some emendations of indeterminate origin, and that version appeared in PL 41. 82132. In PL 20, published in 1845, he reproduced Baronius' text exactly as he found it in the Annales Ecclesiastici, published in 1594.

Thus, all editions of the Epistula Severi published before 1937 derived from the editio princeps of Baronius, which was itself based on the transcription of a single manuscript in the Vatican Library.

In a thesis published in 1937, G. Segui Vidal attempted the first critical edition of the Epistula Severi. ¹⁷⁷ Segui Vidal discovered, on comparing Codex Latinus 1188 with Baronius' text and its descendants, that there were numerous discrepancies, too numerous, he reasoned, to be the result of careless copying. He concluded that Baronius' text must have derived from some other manuscript whose existence had escaped his notice. A long and fruitless search in the Vatican's catalogues led him, however, to the conclusion that there was no 'lost' manuscript. The discrepancies between Baronius' text and Codex Latinus 1188 had to be attributed, in his view, to Baronius' copyist, who had transcribed the text so carelessly that all published editions of the Epistula Severi were riddled

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176Mn. Antoni Roig i Rexart, De Sacris apud minorem Balearem antistibus, Severo pottssimum deque istius Epistola exercitatio et in eamdem Epistolam animadversiones (Palma, 1787), 101-36.

177Segui Vidal, La carta-encĺclica.

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with errors, since all published editions derived from Baronius. Since the publication of Seguí Vidal's monograph, scholars in Spain have continued to show an interest in the text of Epistula Severi. ¹⁷⁸ We should note in particular the work of J. Amengual i Batle, who has

published (in Catalan) a critical edition of the Epistula Severi with facing translation as well as several articles on related topics and a history of Christianity in the Balearic Islands in which the Epistula figures prominently. Amengual i Batle first published his critical edition in an appendix to Els Orígens del cristianisme a les Balears i el seu desenvolupament fins a l'època musulmana in 1985. ¹⁷⁹ He discovered two manuscripts unknown to Seguí Vidal and produced a new text with many improvements on previous editions, followed by a translation into Catalan. The text and translation were reprinted in

Correspondència amb Sant Agustí, Vol. I, which included editions and translations of the letters of Consentius and Severus' epistle. ¹⁸⁰ The Epistula Severi is preserved in nine manuscripts, of which only seven are useful in the compilation of the text, since two versions are demonstrably copies of other extant manuscripts: P Palatinus-Latinus 856. Tenth-century codex copied at Lorsch and acquired by the

Vatican Library from the Biblioteca del Conte Palatino in 1623; twenty-four folios. The manuscript contains only the Epistula Severi (1^v-15^v) and part of the De Miraculis Sancti Stephani: book 1 entire (16^r-23^v) and book 2, chapter 3 (23^v-24^r). Script in a single column by one hand from the second half of the tenth century, with the exception of folio 1r, the title page, where we find Severus episcopus de revelatione quadam sibi facta in altare in a different hand.

W Wolfenbüttel 2738 (= Guelferbytanus 76.14 Aug. fol.)

Twelfthcentury codex in double columns containing hagiographical works, including the De Miraculis Sancti Stephani and the Epistula Severi (29^v-31^v).

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178E. Lafuente Hernandez, Epistola Severi episcopi. Edición paleográfica y transcripción latina seguidas de las versiones castellana y catalan de su texto ( Minorca, 1981). This publication consists of a photographic reproduction of Codex Vaticanus Latinus 1188 with a facing Latin transcription followed by translations into Spanish and Catalan.

179The text is printed in vol. 2, pp. 12 - 65 . In addition to many other improvements to the text, Amengual provided it with its first serviceable system of chapter and section numbers, which I have adopted in the interest of uniformity.

180J. Amengual i Batle (ed.), Correspondència amb Sant Agustí, i ( Barcelona, 1987), 38-84.

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V Vaticanus Latinus 1188. Fifteenth-century codex in double columns containing fifty-three works, mostly saints' lives and passions; five works concern St Stephen: the Epistula Aviti (82^v), the Epistula

Luciant (82^v-84^v), the translation of Stephen body to Constantinople (84^v-86^r), the Epistula Severi (86r-91^v), and the De Miraculis Sancti Stephani (91^v-100^v).

S Saint Sipulcre 846. Eleventh-century codex copied at the monastery of Saint Sépulcre near Cambrai and currently owned by the

Bibliothèque Municipale de Cambrai (number 846); 144 folios in a single column containing lives of saints and churchmen as well as martyr accounts and a group of works on St Stephen, including the De Miraculis Sancti Stephani (75^r-99^v), the Epistula Severi (99^v-111^r), and an account of Stephen's translation to Constantinople (111^r-114^v).

A Saint Aubert 856. Thirteenth-century codex copied at the monastery of Saint Aubert near Cambrai and now, like Saint Sipulcre 846, kept in the Bibliothèque Municipale de Cambrai (number 856). It contains many martyr accounts and a group of works on St Stephen: the Epistula Luciani (27^v-31^r), an account of his translation to

Constantinople (33^v-36^v), the De Miraculis Sancti Stephani (36^v-54^r), and the Epistula Severi (54^v-62^v).

G Saint Ghislain 3286. Eleventh-century codex deriving from the

monastery of Saint Ghislain and now owned by the Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique (no. II, 973, formally Phillips 364); 130 folios in an

eleventh-century hand. On folio 1, we find Liber Sancti Gilleni, on folio 122^v Liber Sancti Gysleni. Seventeen of twenty-nine texts in the

manuscript concern the relics of St Stephen.

C Charleville 117. Twelfth-century codex copied at Signy and now owned by the Bibliothèque Municipale de Charleville (number 117);

164 folios containing mostly works on the life and miracles of St Martin and two works concern Stephen: the Epistula Luciani (140^r-146^v) and the Epistula Severi (147^r-163^v).

Two other manuscripts contain the Epistula Severi, but are

demonstrably copies of Codex Latinus 1188. The first is a sixteenth-century manuscript in the Biblioteca Valliceliana in Rome ( Codex C.

16), containing a miscellany of works, including the Epistula Severi (124^v-135^r). A note on folio 124 refers to a manuscript in the Vatican collection: Habetur in Biblioteca Vaticana a sinistri's num. 234. Liber inscribitur: Passiones sanctorum pagina 86. The note alludes to Codex Latinus 1188, the only

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manuscript containing the Epistula Severi in the Vatican in the

sixteenth century. ¹⁸¹ Finally, a seventeenth-century manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (Parisienis Latinus 12327) contains the Epistula Severi (19^r-32^r), but a note indicates that the text was copied from the manuscript in the Biblioteca Valliceliana: Ms. Bibliothecae Vallicelii c. 16, f. 124.¹⁸²

Thus, seven of the nine surviving manuscripts of the Epistula Severi are of use in establishing the text and can be divided into three families with the following affiliation:

Severus

The extant manuscripts bear witness to three separate traditions deriving from Severus' original text. The first is represented by P and W, the second by the sole witness of V, and the third by the group of four manuscripts S, A, G, and C. I have attached particular weight to the readings of P and W, especially P, which is both the oldest and the most reliable of the extant manuscripts. P and W frequently preserve correct readings which have been corrupted in all other manuscripts.

The second tradition is represented by V, which, although a late manuscript, is an important witness and a useful control on the readings of P and W. The third family is represented by four

manuscripts (SAGC), whose common archetype I have called z. When three members of this third family concur in their

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181A. Poncelet, Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum Latinorum Bibliothecarum

Romanarum praeter quam Vaticanae (Subsidia Hagiographica 9; Brussels, 1909), 385, Codex C. 16. Poncelet notes: Exscripta ex codice Vaticano 'plut. sinistr. 4, num. 234, pag. 86', id est ex hodierno codice Vaticano lat. 1188, fol. 86-91v.

182Seguí Vidal, La carta-encíclica, 23-4 claims that his inspection of these manuscripts confirms that they are copies of Cod. Lat. 1188.

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reading and the fourth member's variant is easily explained, I have reported the majority reading as z. S and A, however, clearly derive from a common intermediary source, since they frequently err

together in reporting a variant not found in G and C or in any other manuscript. In some cases I have considered the agreement of G and C as, in effect, a majority reading, and have reported it as the reading of the archetype z. My goal has been to report accurately and

thoroughly the readings of all three manuscript traditions, noting those

variants that can be of use in the reconstruction of Severus' text. In instances when corrections are found in the manuscripts, the original and corrected reading are reported with superscript numbers, e.g. P¹ and P². In the interest of economy, I have preferred conventional classical spelling and have chosen not to report the manuscripts' numerous orthographical variations, except in the few cases where those variations are essential for establishing the text. Similarly, I have not reported the frequent variations in word order. In most

instances, two of the three families of manuscripts have agreed on this point and I have usually preferred the majority reading.

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