Add MS 43460

THEOLOGICAL WORKS OF ST AUGUSTINE AND ST JEROME, WITH COMMODIANUS, 'CARMEN APOLOGETICUM', in Latin. As follows:-

(1) St Augustine, 'de vera Religione' (Migne, Patr. Lat., xxxiv, 121- 172), with prologue (ff. 1-5) taken from the 'Retractationes', beg. 'Tunc etiam de uera religione librum' (Migne, Patr. Lat., xxxii, 602-605). ff. 1-63.

(2) St Augustine, 'de utilitate credendi' (Patr. Lat., xlii, 65-92); edited, from this, the leading, MS. by J. Zycha, Corpus Script. Eccl. Lat., xxv, §6, part i, 1891, pp. iv-xi and I-48: with prologue (ff. 63b-65b) taken from the 'Retractationes', beg. 'Iam uero apud Vpponem regium' (Patr. Lat., xxxii, 605-608). ff. 63b-95.

(3) Three letters to Boniface attributed to St Augustine, beg. (a) 'Domino sublimi semperque magnifico', f. 95; (b) 'Domino merito honorabili', f. 95b; (c) 'Ego quos diligo', f. 95b. Printed as spurious in Patr. Lat., xxxiii, 1095, nos. 1-3. ff. 95-95b.

(4) St Augustine, 'Soliloquia' (Patr. Lat., xxxii, 869-904), in two books, with prologue (ff. 96-96b) taken from the 'Retractationes', beg. 'Inter hec scribsi etiam duo uolumina' (Patr. Lat., xxxii, 589-590). ff. 96-135b.

(5) St Augustine, 'De divinatione demonum' (Patr. Lat., xl, 581-592). ff. 135b-147b.

(6) 'Incipit Eusebi Hyeronimi de Resurrectione Carnis', beg. 'De reliquis que ad fidem pertinent sermo nobis est', ends 'blasphemantibus deum clementem porrigimus manum'; i.e. part of St Jerome, 'Liber contra Joannem Hierosolymitanum', as printed in Patr. Lat., xxiii, 367-389, with the following note (col. 367), referring to the present MS.: 'Ex his incipit antiquissimus S. Crucis in Jerusalem de Urbe ms. [Santa Croce in Gerusalemme at Rome, see below] litteris fere papyraceis, sive ut in Aegyptia papyro occurrunt, exaratus, sub hac Epigraphe: Incipit Eusebii Hieronymi de Resurrectione Carnis. Tale fragmentum studiosus non nemo sibi ex integro opere exscripserat.' ff. 147b-170.

(7) St Jerome, Ep. ad Evangelum Presbyterum de Melchisedech (Patr. Lat., xxii, cols. 676-681, Ep. lxxiii; I. Hilberg, Corpus Script. Eccl. Lat., lv, 1912, Pp. 13-23). ff. 170b-175b.

(8) St Augustine, Ep. ad Alypium episcopum Tagastensium (Patr. Lat., XXXiii, Cols. 114-120, Ep. xxix). ff. 175b-182.

(9) Commodianus, 'Carmen Apologeticum', edited, from this, the unique, MS. by B. Dombart, Corpus Script. Eccl. Lat., xv, 1887. ff. 182b- 197b. Vellum;ff.v + 197.275 mm. x 180 mm. Late viii cent. Sec.fol.'etplurimi'. Gatherings of 8 leaves (collation, as established by Millar, The Library of A. Chester Beatty, i, Text, p. 18, is: 18-xii8 [5 cancelled], xiii8-xix8, xx10 [4, 6 cancelled], xxi'o [4, 6 cancelled], xxii'o [6, 7 cancelled], xxiii'o [3, 7 cancelled], xxiv'o [4, 6 cancelled], xxv6) with contemporary numbering, in Roman numerals, at the foot of the last leaf of quires i-xviii and xx. Written in Italy, in North Italian pre-Caroline minuscule, with a few decorated initials in colour. Titles, etc., added on ff. I, 63, 95, etc., in the 9th cent. are stated by E. A. Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores, ii, no. 180, to be written in 'an unmistakable Nonantola hand'. ff. I-III are palimpsest, the earlier text (now almost totally illegible) being written in uncials of the late 7th cent. on 55 10 B M

leaves (each folded to make two leaves of the later MS.) and containing the Latin translation by Mutianus Scholasticus of the homilies of St John Chrysostom on the Epistle to the Hebrews (the text of Mutianus is printed in Migne, Patr. Gr., lxiii, cols. 237-456); cf. E. A. Lowe,'An uncial (palimpsest) Manuscript of Mutianus in the Collection of A. Chester Beatty', John. Theol. Stud., xxix, 1927-1928, pp. 29-33. Facsimiles of both uncial and minuscule script, etc., are given by E. G. Millar, op. cit., i, Plates v-viii (except the 'Nonantola' hand) and by E. A. Lowe, Cod. Lat. Antiq., ii, nos. 180, 181. At f. 1 is an 18th cent. table of contents made when the MS. was in the Biblioteca Sessoriana at the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome (see E. G. Millar, op. cit., Text, p. 20), with notes by Dr M. J. Routh, President of Magdalen College, Oxford, and Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., by whom it was lent to Routh in 1850. At f. ii is a MS. transcript by Phillipps Of f. 197 b with (ff. iv-v) two proof copies printed on his private press and corrected by him, the earlier with the date 'Aug. 1852'. The MS. apparently belonged, by the 9th cent. at latest, to the Benedictine Abbey of St Silvester at Nonantola (see above), and may have been written there. It is no. 31 in the Nonantola inventory of A.D. 1331 (cf. G. Gullotta, Gli antichi cataloghi e i codici della Abbazia di Nonantola, Studi e Testi, 182, 1955, pp. 105-108; J. Ruysschaert, Les manuscrits de 1'Abbaye de Nonantola, Studi e Testi, I82 bis, p. 29) and is also in Nonantola inventories Of 1464 and [1464-1490]. One of 54 MSS. taken from Nonantola for the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme at Rome by Abbot Hilarion Rancati between 1660 and 1663, it disappeared, with 34 other MSS., from the church of Santa Croce between 1798 and 1818 (perhaps before 1812). On these migrations cf. Ruysschaert, op. cit., pp. 9-10 and references there given. Acquired from Messrs. Payne, booksellers, of London, by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart., in 1848 (Phillipps MS. 12261), who entered in his printed catalogue (12260, etc.) that it came from the Abbey of San Stefano, Fossa Nova, which is certainly incorrect (cf. Ruysschaert, op. cit., p. 8). Acquired privately from the Phillipps library, in 1924, by A. Chester Beatty (Western MS. 3); cf. A. N. L. Munby, Phillipps Studies, v, 1960, p. 73. Sotheby's sale-cat., 9 May 1933 (Chester Beatty sale), lot 35, but withdrawn and sold privately to Wilfred Merton, Esq., from whom it was acquired by the Museum (cf. Brit. Mus. Quart., viii, 1933-1934, pp. 17-18). Modern binding of white pigskin by W. H. Smith and Son.