Literary Note on the Earliest Scholastic Commentarii in Psalmos

LITERARY NOTE ON THE EARLIEST SCHOLASTIC COMMENTARII IN PSALMOS While preparing a study on the works of Peter Lombard, I happened to meet in his Gloss on the Psalter the now famous expression regio dissimilitudinis. It is to be found at the very beginning of the interpretation of psalm I, ? : Beatus vir qui non abiit. Knowing how closely twelfth century writings of this kind depend on one another, I made an inquiry into all the available commentaries on the psalms of the time. Aswas to be expected, several of them use the same expression at the same place. Because a number of them go under false names and have not been checked thoroughly, I shall list them here alphabetically according to the names of the authors to whom they are usually ascribed: Anselm of Laon, Glossa (interlinearis) in psalmos:1 Beatus vir qui non abut "in regionem dissimilitudinis" cogitatione quamvis impii hoc molirentur: quod et laudabilius. Bruno bishop of Würzburg, Expositio psalmorum:2 Beatus igitur qui non abiit cogitatione a Deo in regionem longinquam dissimilitudinis , id est cogitatione non peccavit, quamvis esset positus in concilio impiorum, id est quamvis impii hoc molirentur . . . Gilbertus Universalis, Glossula in psalterium:3 Et unde apparet quod sit vir ? Ex eo scilicet quia non abiit, id est, non se seiunxit a Deo, eundo in regionem dissimilitudinis, sicuti primus Adam qui, similis Deo secundum innocentiam, récessif ab eo in quo sibi bene erat, qui erat requies et patria sua. Peter Lombard, Commentarius in psalmos:4, Beatus . . . vir . . . qui non abiit a Deo in regionem dissimilitudinis, id est cogitatione non peccavit, quamvis esset positus in consilio impiorum, id est, quamvis impii hoc molirentur: quod est laudabilius. 1 The printed text of the Glossa ordin. in psalmos (in Biblia sacra, ed. Venice 1588, III, 87) has: in regionum dissimilitudine. This is evidently incorrect. All manuscripts of the Glossa that I consulted (Vat. lat. 85 f. 1 r, 86 f. 5r, 87 f. gr, 88 i. 3r) have: in regionem dissimilitudinis. 2 PL 142, 49 B. 3 Ms Laon 17, f. 2 a. 4 PL 191, 61 B. 1 Franciscan Studiest 21 122D. VAN DEN EYNDE Pseudo-Bede, In psalmorum librum Exegesis:6 Praecessit olim in humano genere quidam miser et infelix, nulli imitandus, tradux scilicet peccati Adam, qui abiit in regionem dissimilitudinis a suo creatore, in peccatis pluribus delectando. The occurrence of the same expression — abire a Deo in regionem dissimilitudinis — at exactly the same place, in five different commentaries on the psalms, is not a fortuitous coincidence. It can only be explained by a direct or indirect dependence upon one of them or upon a source common to them aU. This is the more evident since the parallel places of two other Glosses of the time, those of GUbert de la Porrée and the Pseudo-Haymo of Halberstadt, are so akin to the ones quoted that they also must have known the same interpretation of psalm I, i. Indeed Gübert de la Porrée writes:' Vir est beatus. Quis ? Qui non abiit, id est non recessit a Deo in regionem deserti, in quo Ovis perdita erravit; non abiit, inquam, cogitatione, id est non peccavit volúntate per se, quod est laudabile; non, inquam, quamvis positus in consilio et multorum impiorum, id est, quamvis hoc multi suggérèrent: quod est laudabilius. The Pseudo-Haymo likewise comes very near to the expression regio dissimilitudinis where he says:7 Ita Adam in beatitudine positus, abiit non localiter ab eo qui ubique praesens est . . . sed recessit a Deo per dissimilitudinem, ad quern acceditur per similitudinem. AU these examples, then, raise a rather intricate problem concerning the literary connexions and the chronological succession of the works in which they occur. To solve that problem is the purpose of this article. It wiU be noted that among the seven commentaries mentioned so far, only one or possibly two are supposed to belong to the eleventh century, namely that of Bruno, bishop of Würzburg from 1034 tiU 1045, and that of the Pseudo-Bede, at least if the presumed identification of that author with Manegold of Lautenbach (f c. 1103) is correct.8 In fact, as will be...