The Manuscript Evidence for the De octo quaestionibus Ascribed to Bede

THE MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE FOR THE DE OCTO QUAESTIONIBUS ASCRIRED TO REDE By ERIC KNIBBS For nearly a century, scholars have ascribed a short treatise known as the De octo quaestionibus to the Venerable Bede. In this work they have found unusual and important information about Bede and Anglo-Saxon England. It may preserve an exegetical teaching of Theodore of Canterbury, the seventh -century archbishop who figures so largely in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica . It includes a description of an illustration in an early manuscript of Paul's epistles. Yet another passage has interested historians of liturgy. All of this is in addition to the information that the treatise is considered to provide about Bede's thought and exegetical methods. As scholars have discovered and digested this material, the De octo quaestionibus has become a work of growing importance for the study of Bede.1 The treatise known as the De octo quaestionibus is a series of eight "quaestiones ," which together amount to about 3500 words. Each of these is a short, self-contained discussion of some scriptural passage. Four address Paul's epistles, while the rest concern passages from Matthew, the Psalms, and 2 Kings. In 1563, Johann Herwagen printed these eight texts with another seven "questions" which everyone agrees that Bede did not write.2 1 For a full survey of scholarship surrounding the De octo quaestionibus, see Michael Gorman , "Bede's VIlI Quaestiones and Carolingian Biblical Scholarship," Revue Bénédictine 109 (1999): 32-74 (in particular 54-59). On the reference to Theodore of Canterbury, see Michael Lapidge and Bernhard Bischoff, eds., Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian (Cambridge, 1994), 41-42 and 160 n. 116. On the description of a manuscript illumination, see Dorothy Whitelock, After Bede, .!arrow Lecture (Newcastle and Jarrow, 1960), 5-6; and George Henderson, Bede and the Visual Arts, Jarrow Lecture (Jarrow, 1980), 7. On the liturgical importance of a passage from the De octo quaestionibus, see Hieronymus Frank, "Die Bezeugung eines Karsamstagsresponsoriums durch Beda Venerabilis." Archiv für Liturgiewissenschaft 16 (1974): 150-53. On the De octo quaestionibus and Bede's exegetical method, see C. W. Jones, "Some Introductory Remarks on Bede's Commentary on Genesis," Sacris Erudiri 19 (1969-70): 147-51. 1 am indebted to Robert G. Babeock, Walter A. Goffart, Anders Winroth, and the anonymous reviewer, all of whom responded to drafts of this paper with generous advice and criticism. I am also grateful for a stipend from the Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg, which supported me at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg during the latter phases of work on this project. 2 Johann Herwagen, Opera Bedae Venerabilis (Basel, 1563). The Aliquot quaestionum liber is reprinted in PL 93:455-78. For the last seven questions and their manuscript source(s), see below. 130TRADITIO He called this work the Aliquot quaestionum liber, and he attributed all of it to Bede. The authenticity of the collection was attacked by Casimir Oudin in his eighteenth-century Commentarius de scriploribus,3 and Giles excluded it from his 1843-44 edition of Bede's Opera omnia.4 The treatise attracted no further attention until 1919, when Paul Lehmann argued that some of the "questions" printed in Herwagen's edition were authentic.3 He showed that several ninth-century authors, such as Hrabanus Maurus and Claudius of Turin, used a few of the eight "questions" in their works, and that at least some of them thought the work was Bede's. He argued that there were formal and thematic similarities between the treatise and some genuine Bedan works, and he highlighted several passages that suggest an insular author. In 1933 Bernhard Bischoff found the manuscript source of Herwagen's seven inauthentic questions.6 Heinrich Weisweiler identified the sources for these seven texts and published a fuller study of the manuscript that Bischoff had found.7 In 1943, M. L. W. Laistner and H. H. King printed a list of the nine manuscripts known or thought to contain the De octo quaestionibus* Subsequently the treatise has found mention in studies of Bede and his writing, and Bede's authorship is now widely accepted. In 1999, Michael Gorman published an extensive...