The Justus Witness

Notes

This contains a short part of the closing text of the Great Stemma. No codicological metadata about this extract's page size or material remain, other than the fact that the extract was written in a Visigothic hand and was to be seen in the Justus Gospels, a codex kept at the cathedral in Oviedo, Spain for centuries.

The codex, which was lost about 400 years ago, was penned by Justus, a northern Spanish notary just before 772. The brief extract he made from the Great Stemma reads in its entirety (the conventional handwritten abbreviations for M on N are here represented by tildes):

Sicut Lucas eua~gelista per Nathan marie origine~ ducit: ita et Matheus eua~gelista per Salomone~ Joseph origine~ demo~strauit idest, ex tribu Juda: vt appareat eos de vna tribu exire, et sic ad xp~m secu~du~ carne~ peruenire, vt co~pleatur quod scriptu~ est: vicit Leo de tribu Juda radix Dauid. Leo ex Salomone: radix ex Nathan.

What exactly Justus saw can no longer be determined: either his Vorlage contained a complete Great Stemma, or a fragment of its final page. Something confused him into thinking that the text above properly belonged with the Gospel of Matthew, not with the diagram.

The fragment is important as evidence that the Great Stemma was in circulation before 772.

Th.e Codex

The Justus Gospels no longer exist. However the essence of that codex's content survives in the form of notes made about it in 1561 by Hernando del Castillo, a Dominican priest at the court of King Philip II of Spain. He entered these notes in the margins and blank leaves of a printed bible: Spain, Madrid, El Real Monasterio de San Lorencio (Escorial Library), 54. V. 35 (not online). Since del Castillo recorded every extra sign and lacuna that was greater than or less than with the comparable Vulgate text, it would be feasible to virtually restore the content (but not the form) of the Justus Gospels in its entirety.

The transcribed fragment of the Great Stemma is presumably to be found on or near the opening page of Matthew in the incunable. This bible was printed without page numeration in Venice in 1478 (number 4233 in the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (Fischer)) and then illuminated for many customers by hand.

The printed bible belonged to the bishop of Plasencia, Pedro Ponce de Le�n, until his death (15.01.1573). It was acquired in the same year by the Escorial royal library with many of the bishop’s other books (as recorded by Ambrosio de Morales [*]Memoriade los libros que se deben tomar para El Real Monasterio de San Lorencio, delos que teni� el obpo. de Plasencia Don Pero Ponce de Le�n. Ms. Escur. &-11-15, fol. 239v (quoted by Fischer from Revilla 394 and 4).). The entry in the incunable relating to the Great Stemma is written by hand by del Castillo.

The rest of the incunable contains a standard (Clementine?) Vulgate bible, plus del Castillo’s handwritten marginal notes (now denominated Beuron number 94) marking the divergences between that printed text and two old, now-lost Spanish biblical codices: (1) the Justus Gospels, and (2) the vanished Vulgate Bible of the Abbey of Valvanera which contained valuable marginal glosses on how the Vulgate text differed from the Vetus Latina in key places.

Del Castillo's Latin introduction to his notes, as published by Fischer, reads as follows:

/fol. 1r/ Ad lectorem Fr. Ferdinandus de Castillo Dominicanus. Bibliam hanc, amice lector, ad multorum exemplarium fidem correximus. Quorum bona pars manu scripta erat, literisqu� Gothicis ade� peruetustis vt in ordinem caracterum coacti simus multoties descendere. � quibus tamen, exemplar vnum quatuor tantum Euangelia continebat: ante .700. annos scripta: quod nobis alma Ouetensis ecclesia commodauit: aliud ver�, veteris et novi testamenti historiam continens: idqu� etiam venerandae vetustatis: apud patres d. Mariae de Valuanera Cistertiensis (.S. Benedicti. korr. am Rand) ordinis reseruatur. Sicubi ergo aeditio haec ab antiquis illis exemplaribus variat, illud tibi in margine annotamus, subiecta virgula hac — praefixisqu� cuique annotationi literis .O. vel. V: vt altera, Ouetense tibi exemplar: altera, Valuanense significaremus. Porr� voces aliquas, quae in hac nostra Biblia non habebantur, ab illis exemplaribus petiuimus, et sub hoc signo [A symbol that resembles two letters H arranged vertically with respect to one another] in margine interclussimus. Quae vero in illis codicibus non habentur, virgula hac [A symbol resembling a long dash with a small circle below it] ex minio signauimus. Annotatiunculas item aliquot quas in marginibus exemplarium illorum reperimus, in nostris etiam transcripsimus: quod dignae nobis visae sunt,: quae ab omnibus legantur. Vale et fruere.

/fol. 1v/ Quoniam autem, multa ex his quae ad correctionem euangeliorum attinent: mutuati sumus ex illo Ouetensi Codice: visum est nobis operepretium hic inserere: quoddam donationis instrumentum, quod in calce eiusdem codicis scriptum reperimus; literis similiter Goticis, atque prae vetustate corrosis. Vt lector intelligat, quantam illi exemplari, sit adhibiturus fidem. Habet ergo in haec verba.

In nomine patris et filii et Spiritus sancti, hunc librum euangeliorum, multis sacramentis et argumentis imbutum, coadunaui et collegi in vnum, ego seruus Christi, inutilis et multis peccatis mole depressus Iustus nomine: non merito dignus; nimis elucidatum et vald� per omnia emendatum. Vt erg�, per intercessionem sanctorum, tandem reconciliari merear domino: et � cunctorum meorum nexibus absolui peccaminum: ide� deuotioni meae extitit, vt eundem supra memoratum codicem, offerrem altario sacro, vbi corpusculum meum extiterit tumulatum: vel vbi, � domino fuerit ordinatum, sicut et offero, et deuotionem meam quam spopondi, implere procuro. Omnes quoque sacerdotes, quos tempus inuenerit, tota intentione

/fol.2r/ rogent postulo, atque per mundi Saluatorem obtestor, vt ad cuius manus peruenerit, sacrificium pro me Deo, assidu� offerat, et pro animae meae salute, orare non pigeat. Nam ita scripturn est. Qui pro alijs orat, seipsum Deo commendat. Si quis autem nefaria voluntate, de ecclesia, vbi ex deuotione mea concessus fuerit: eum per tumorem cordis, violenter diripuerit; aut mean deuotionem, conuelere voluerit: in perpetua poena, cum diabolo et angelis eius, condemnatus permaneat. Insuper autem, mecum ante tribunal domini nostri Iesu Christi: tempore iudicij sui, facie ad faciem, ipso iudicante intendat. Obijt famulus Dei iustus notarius die .12. kalendas Ianuarij era .810.

Illud praeterea aduertendum, quia in praefato codice, nulla distinctio capitum habetur: sed perpetuo tenore fluit oratio, quemadmodum et in codicibus Graecis antiquis [A C-shaped symbol with a vertical line through it] Sunt etiam et ibi, aliquae praefationes; quas, quia in his quae circumferuntur biblijs non habentur: nos hic transcripsimus: praefixa (quod iam diximus) litera .O. vt ex illo exemplari, cognoscas fuisse desumptas. (In the handwriting of Ambrosio de Morales:) Hae praefationes transcriptae hic non sunt. Nisi forte praefationes appellat, breuia (corrected from breue) compendia singulis Euangeliorum libris apposita, vbi numerus signorum notatur.

Animaduertendum est, nihil in hujus codicis marginibus reperiri, quod non ex Valuanensi fuerit desumptum, quanuis .V. non sit prepositum. Quaecunque igitur initio habent .LXX. seu Gr. seu .T. seu quiduis aliud, interpraetationes itidem, omnia sunt ex Valuanensi desumpta.

Idem Valuanense exemplar in psalterio nihil habuit annotatum, neque in quibusdam alijs libris. Vt hic nihil desse existimes, quin (corrected from quod) inde non fuerit petitum.

/fol. 2v/ Ego fr. Ferdinandus de Castillo instituti .D. Dominici sacrae thaeologiae professor, Philippi .ij. Hispaniarum Regis � sacris concionibus, Omnibus hunc sacrorum Bibliorum Codicem inspecturis fidem facio, varias lectiones c�m annotatiunculis quae noui testamenti marginibus adscriptae sunt, fuisse per me ante annos Sexdecim ex duorum vetustissimorum exemplarium Gothicis litteris exaratorum (altero apud patres conuentus .D. nostrae de Valuanera, altero apud Ecclesiam Ouetensem) collatione diligenter exceptas utpote ad Germanae lectionis latinae vsum commodatissimas. Jn cuius rei testimonium de mandato suae Catholicae Maiestatis presentibus subscripsi. Datum in Regio .D. Laurentij monasterio in cuius Regia Bibliotheca hic Codex repositus est. Calendis Julij .1577. Fr. Ferdinandus de Castillo

A partial translation of this is available in my 2012 blog post, A Lost Spanish Gospel Book.

Bibliography:

Ayuso Marazuela, Te�filo. “Los Elementos Extrab�blicos de la Vulgata.” Estudios B�blicos, 2 (1943): 133–87.

Fischer, Bonifatius, ed. Genesis. Vetus Latina: Die Reste der Altlateinischen Bibel, 2. Freiburg-im-Breisgau [Germany]: Herder, 1951.

Piggin, Jean-Baptiste. A Lost Spanish Gospel Book, blog post, 2011-12-04

Revilla, Mariano. “El C�dice Ovetense de los Evangelios y la Biblia de Valvanera.” Ciudad de Dios 117 (1919): 393–399; 118 (1919) 23–28 (principal quote at 25); 120 (1920) 48–55 y 190–210.

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