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Berengaudus on the Apocalypse

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The End of the World in Medieval Thought and Spirituality

Part of the book series: The New Middle Ages ((TNMA))

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Abstract

The Apocalypse commentary known as the Expositio super septem visiones libri Apocalypsi has inspired interest for its unusual approach and its enigmatic author, known only as Berengaudus. In two letters, Lupus of Ferrières recommended a young Bernegaudus to the monastery of Saint-Germain in Auxerre, and so bibliographers have included Bernegaudus among ninth-century exegetes. Yet the Expositio was read widely only after 1100, often in lavish illuminated manuscripts, and no copies antedate the eleventh century. For many art historians especially, therefore, the Expositio remains a high medieval text. Closer analysis confirms the close relationship between the Expositio and other Carolingian-era commentaries, particularly the oeuvre of Haimo of Auxerre. At the same time, Berengaudus uses sources more loosely than was usual for most ninth-century authors, and in the course of his commentary ultimately rejects many Haimonian interpretations. Furthermore, tropological meditations drive Berengaudus to address contemporary abuses in a few highly informative asides. These contain evidence showing that Berengaudus wrote in the early medieval period, but well after the Carolingian era had drawn to a close.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    PL 17:763–71; Frederick Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1950–1980), no. 1711.

  2. 2.

    On fraternal correction: Berengaudus, Expositio 1, PL 17:777, prompted by Apoc. 2:2, “I know your works.” On Old Testament history from Noah through Moses: Expositio 3, PL 17:813–31, prompted by Apoc. 6:3 and the author’s conviction that “the opening of the second seal relates to the construction of the ark and to the just who lived before the law.” On mendacity, Expositio 6, PL 17:940–45, after Apoc. 21:8, “…all liars…will have their portion in the pool burning with fire and brimstone.”

  3. 3.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 1, PL 17:766–67: “Et si diligenter advertas, totus hic liber in septem visiones distinctus est. Prima est, quae septem epistolas ad septem ecclesias destinatas continet… Secunda est, in qua sedem in figura ecclesiae in coelo positam vidit, et supra sedem Christum sedentem…. In tertia agnus librum et sigilla eius aperuit… in quarta septem angeli sunt visi tubis canentes…in quinta septem iterum angeli visi sunt phialas habentes…in sexta resurrectio describitur…in septima gloria sanctorum in figura civitatis Hierusalem de coelo descendentis demonstratur.” While Bede and Haimo propose that the Apocalypse be divided into seven parts, their schemes differ substantially from the Expositio . See E. Ann Matter, “The Apocalypse in Early Medieval Exegesis,” in The Apocalypse in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 38–50, at 47 and 49 (with the comparative table at 42) for perspective on early medieval tendencies in this regard.

  4. 4.

    Burton Van Name Edwards lists fifty-eight manuscripts of the Expositio in his provisional “Manuscript Transmission of Carolingian Biblical Commentaries,” online at: http://www.tcnj.edu/~chazelle/carindex.htm. Unknown to Edwards because it was in private hands when he compiled this list is New Haven, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 1083, an eleventh-century codex that may be the earliest extant manuscript. For a full digital reproduction, see http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3793606. Compare Derk Visser, Apocalypse as Utopian Expectation (800–1500): The Apocalypse Commentary of Berengaudus of Ferrières and the Relationship between Exegesis, Liturgy and Iconography (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 16; Achim Dittrich, “Der rätselhafte Berengaudus,” in his Mater Ecclesiae: Geschichte und Bedeutung eines umstrittenen Marientitels (Würzburg: Echter, 2009), 90–129, at 92. Both hold that Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 68 (s. XII inc.) is the oldest copy.

  5. 5.

    Cuthbert Tunstall, ed., Expositio Beati Ambrosii Episcopi super Apocalypsin: Nunc primum in lucem edita (Paris: Michel de Vascosan, 1554); Denis-Nicolas Le Nourry and Jacques du Frische, eds., Sancti Ambrosii Mediolanensis Opera, 2 vols. (Paris: Jean-Baptiste Coignard, 1686–90), 2:499–590, preface at 498 (repr. PL 17:763–64). Though all scholarly indices and authors agree that the editio princeps appeared in 1548, no libraries that I know of report copies from that year. The 1554 printing seems to be the first, and the earlier date an error originating with the prefatory discussion of le Nourry and du Frische. A telling moment occurs at Expositio 4, PL 17:883, where the author interprets the heads of the beast described in Apoc. 13 as heresies, and proceeds from there to list those fathers whose orthodox doctrine displaced heretical beliefs: “Sed omnipotens Deus defensores ecclesiae orthodoxos patres ex filiis ipsius ecclesiae elegit, quos flumine sapientiae suae replens, per eorum doctrinam omnes haereses ab ecclesia sua exstirpavit, ut fuerunt Ambrosius, Hilarius, Hieronymus, Augustinus, Gregorius, et multi alii, qui etiam maximam copiam librorum ediderunt, quibus omnes haereses, quae fuerunt, et quae esse poterant, destructae sunt….” In a footnote le Nourry and du Frische remark that Tunstall printed the entire passage with the names omitted, concluding the clause at “exstirpavit” and beginning a new sentence with “Qui etiam” (italicized above).

  6. 6.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 7, PL 17:969–70: “Quisquis nomen auctoris scire desideras, litteras expositionum in capitibus septem visionum primas attende. Numerus quatuor vocalium quae desunt, si Graecas posueris, est LXXXI. Ecce, quanta potui brevitate, hunc librum consripsi. Obsecro autem te, cui dedit Deus scientiam litterarum, et in cuius manibus hic liber ad legendum devenerit, ut non propter foetidam ac rusticissimam elocutionem sermones huius libri abicias; sed imitare potius illum, qui gemmam in sterquilinio repertam tamdiu aqua nitida abluit, usque dum ad splendorem pristinum perveniret; ita et tu aqua sapientiae tuae ablue imperitiae meae sordes, tuisue pulchris et compositis verbis sermones huius libri necessarios adorna, quatenus non iam a superbis lectoribus utilitas libri causa rusticitatis abiiciatur. Scio enim quod haec mea impolita dictatio a multis scientia literrarum tumidis despuetur atque subsannabitur. Indignabuntur etiam contra me, cur ego idiota, et nihil sciens, praesumpserim super tantae obsuritatis librum volumen expositionis cudere. Quibus respondeo quia sicut terrae sterili amplius proficit aspersio stercoris, quam alicuius metalli pretiosi, ita et indoctis hominibus plus proficit divina scriptura mediocriter prolata, quam si philosophico aut poetico sermone proferatur; sciantque Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum sacramenta doctrinae suae non primo philosophis, sed piscatoribus tradidisse, ut per piscatores veniret ad philosophos. Etenim ille qui dedit asinae sensatos sermones ad corrigendam prophetae insipientiam, ipse mihi indigno et omnium hominum vilissimo intelligentiam libri huius ex parte donare dignatus est. Ego autem tractans apud me illud Salomonis: ‘Sapientia abscondita, et thesaurus invisus, quae utilitas in utrisque?’ simulque considerans grave mihi periculum imminere, si parvissimum thesaurum, quem mihi omnipotens Deus largiri dignatus est, tacendo absconderem—considerans etiam non me esse idoneum ad docenda ea quae intelligebam, eo quod nullus inveniretur, qui more discipuli dignaretur verba insipientiae meae audire—definivi apud me, ut hanc parvam scientiam, quam mihi divina misericordia contulit, qualicumque stylo prosequerer, ne talentum Domini mei abscondens, cum illo servo damnarer, qui ‘abiens fodit in terrum, et abscondit pecuniam domini sui.’ Et quia idoneus non sum ad duplicandam pecuniam Domini mei, trado eam nummulariis, ut ipse veniens recipiat quod suum est cum usura. Te autem, cui loqui coepi, nummularium voco, quia sicut nummularius pecuniam incompositam suis superscriptionibus adornat, ut apta sit ad lucra peragenda: ita et tu hanc pecuniam Domini, quam tibi committo, potens es tua sapientia tuisque compositis verbis adornare, ut apta fiat ad lucra Domini nostri Iesu Christi perficienda; scitoque te mercedem optimam ab ipso esse recepturum, si hic liber, ut puto, ecclesiae Dei necessarius, per industriam tuam atque doctrinam sordes dictionum amiserit, tuisque verbis decentibus exornatus, utilior ad aedificationem legentium sive audentium fuerit effectus. Hoc tamen non permitto, ut sensus huius libri in alios sensus permutentur, nisi forte (quod absit) aliquid in eo quod contrarium sit veritati inveniatur, quod funditus esse delendum decerno, vel certe in melius commutandum.”

  7. 7.

    The author introduces each of his “visions” with a brief preface rather than a bare lemma, and is therefore able to plant the necessary letters. The name Berengaudus (or Bernegaudus: both forms are attested and equally possible in light of the cryptogram) was uncommon but not unknown in the early medieval period. For the polyptych evidence, Maria-Therèse Morlet, Les noms de personne sur le territoire de l’ancienne Gaule du VIe au Xe siècle, 3 vols. (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1968–1985), 1:53.

  8. 8.

    On the metaphor of the numularii, see the brief discussion of Markus Mülke, Der Autor und sein Text: Die Verfälschung des Originals im Urteil antiker Autoren (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 91–92 with n. 276 (for Mülke, Berengaudus is “Ps.-Ambrose”). On Berengaudus the exegete, Achim Dittrich, “Der rätselhafte Berengaudus,” passim; and also more briefly but entirely along the same lines, Dittrich, “Berengaudus,” in The Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon 31 (Nordhausen: Traugott Bautz, 2010), 91–92. The major monograph on Berengaudus is Visser, Apocalypse as Utopian Expectation: regarded by Dittrich and others as the authoritative statement. Beyond Dittrich and Visser, Berengaudus is familiar to art historians for the illuminations his commentary received in the high-medieval world. See, in this connection, the extended discussion in Barbara Nolan, The Gothic Visionary Perspective (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), particularly her second chapter.

  9. 9.

    On Amalar, most recently Eric Knibbs, trans. Amalar: On the Liturgy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 2 vols. Also, more specifically on the problem of Amalar’s divine inspiration, Celia Chazelle, “Amalarius’s Liber Officialis: Spirit and Vision in Carolingian Liturgical Thought,” in Seeing the Invisible in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Giselle de Nie, Frederick Morrison, and Marco Mostert (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 327–57. Amalar’s originality ended with a conviction for heresy, on which see especially Klaus Zechiel-Eckes, Florus von Lyon als Kirchenpolitiker und Publizist (Stuttgart: Thorbecke, 1999), 21–71.

  10. 10.

    Matter, “Apocalypse in Early Medieval Exegesis,” 39.

  11. 11.

    For the details of this story, see Matter, “Apocalypse in Early Medieval Exegesis,” 39–47. For perspective on early literary, cultural and political contexts, see Mary Rose D’Angelo, “The Sobered Sibyl: Gender, Apocalypse and Hair in Dio Chrysostom’s Discourse 1 and the Shepherd of Hermas ,” and Ross S. Kraemer, “The End of the World as They Knew It? Jews, Christians, Samaritans and Endtime Speculation in the Fifth-Century,” both in this volume. For the markedly different approach that Joachim of Fiore adopted in the later twelfth century, namely a “spiritual millenariansim,” see Bernard McGinn, “Apocalypticism and Mysticism in Joachim of Fiore’s Expositio in Apocalypsim ,” also in this collection. Victorinus of Pettau survives only in sparse late medieval manuscript tradition, edited with Jerome’s revision on the facing page by Johann Haussleiter, Victorini Episcopi Petavionensis Opera, CSEL 49 (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1916). Tyconius likewise hardly survived the Middle Ages, though unlike Victorinus he acted directly and in unfiltered fashion upon the early medieval commentary tradition. For a reconstruction of his text, primarily from the eighth-century commentary of Beatus of Liébana (who made extensive use of Tyconius; Roger Gryson, ed., Beati Liebanensis: Tractatus de Apocalipsin, CCSL 107B–C [Turnhout: Brepols, 2012]), see Gryson, ed., Tyconii Afri: Expositio Apcalypseos, CCSL 107A (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011). Primasius was widely read in the Middle Ages and can be securely edited: A. W. Adams, ed., Primasius Episcopus Hadrumetinus: Commentarius in Apocalypsin, CCSL 92 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1985). Bede’s effort is also ed. Gryson, Bedae Presbyteri: Expositio Apocalypseos, CCSL 121A (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001). Finally, for Ambrosius Autpertus, see Robert Weber, ed., Ambrosii Autperti: Expositio in Apocalypsin, CCCM 27–27A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1975).

  12. 12.

    Matter, “Apocalypse in the Middle Ages,” 45.

  13. 13.

    Wilhelm Kamlah, Apokalypse und Geschichtstheologie: Die mittelalterliche Auslegung der Apokalypse vor Joachim von Fiore (Berlin: Emil Emering, 1935), 15; Dittrich, “Der rätselhafte Berengaudus,” 113.

  14. 14.

    See, among many possible examples, Berengaudus, Expositio 6, PL 17:944, where the author complains about conversi (monks who entered the monastery as adults) who take advantage of the naivité of the nutriti (monks who have been in the community since childhood) by telling tall tales of their status and position in the world.

  15. 15.

    Berengaudus was known to the compilers of the Glossa Ordinaria, who cite his commentary under the name of Ambrose. See Dittrich, “Der rätselhafte Berengaudus,” 94. The foremost proponents of Berengaudus as a ninth-century author are Dittrich and Visser, Apocalypse as Utopian Expectation. None of Visser’s claims about Berengaudus’s date or context are clearly supported by his analysis or the evidence he adduces, while Dittrich for the most part uncritically accepts Visser’s conclusions. The foremost proponent of a later, high-medieval Berengaudus is Guy Lobrichon, “L’Ordre de ce temps et les désordres de la fin: Apocalypse et société du IXe à la fin du XIe siècle,” in The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. Werner Verbeke, Daniel Verhelst, and Andries Welkenhuysen (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988), 221–41, at 228; also Lobrichon, La Bible au Moyen Âge (Paris: Picard, 2003), 132 with n. 16—in both cases gesturing to unspecified congruencies with the thought of Rupert of Deutz. On this quiet controversy see epecially the overview in Dittrich, “Der rätselhafte Berengaudus,” 97–99.

  16. 16.

    Lupus of Ferrières, ep. 116, ed. Ernst Perels, MGH Epp. 6 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1925): 100: “…ausi sumus fratrem Berengaudum, rudem adhuc monachum, roganti vestrae paternitati dirigere, vestrae voluntati obsecuturum et in suo proposito perfectiorum exemplies atque doctrina studiosius confirmandum.” These remarks had followed an earlier letter from Lupus to Archbishop Wenilo of Sens, from 859, in which Lupus seems to be negotiating for Bernegaudus’s reception at Auxerre. See Lupus, ep. 124, MGH Epp. 6:104: “Tunc etiam referre potero, quid super fratre Bernegaudo sancti Germani monachi annuerint….” As noted above (note 7), Berengaudus is not an unattested name in the early medieval period, which is good reason to avoid collapsing the various Berengaudi of our historical sources into one and the same biography. Philippe Lauer, “Le Psautier carolingien du Président Bouhier (Montpellier, Univ. H 409),” in Mélanges d’histoire du moyen âge offerts à Ferdinand Lot (Paris: E. Champion, 1925), 359–83, at 381–82, discusses a brief historical note from the second half of the ninth century that reports the death of a Berengaudus at the hands of Vikings, and wonders whether it is our author. Visser, Apocalypse as Utopian Expectation, 89–90, seems to suggest that the Berengaudus of our Expositio might have been abbot of Echternach in the earlier tenth century, on the strength of Echternach abbatial catalogs that are ed. Georg Waitz, MGH SS XXIII (Hannover: Hahn, 1874), 32, 33. Obviously these must be two distinct Berengaudi. See the bibliographical overview at Dittrich, “Der rätselhafte Berengaudus,” 97–99. The great French bibliographers were the first to identify the author of our Expositio with “Bernegaudus of Ferrières.” See Paul Duport, Histoire littéraire de la France: V, 2nd ed. (Paris: Victor Palmé, 1866), 653–54; Remi Ceillier et al., Histoire générale des auteurs sacrés et ecclésiastiques, 2nd ed., 14 vols. (Paris: Louis Vivès, 1862), 12:702–3. This view has been received with rather more caution in the twentieth century. Compare, therefore, Heinz Löwe, ed., Wattenbach-Levison, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter V (Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1973), 565.

  17. 17.

    On Haimo and the Auxerre school more broadly, see the essays in L’École carolingienne d’Auxerre: De Murethach à Remi, 830–908, ed. Dominique Iogna-Prat, Colette Jeudy, and Guy Lobrichon (Paris: Beauchesne, 1991). For centuries, Haimo of Auxerre’s commentaries were ascribed instead to Haimo of Halberstadt; it was not until Eduard Riggenbach, Die ältesten lateinischen Kommentare zum Hebräerbrief (Leipzig: Deichert, 1907) that the bibliographical error was corrected and major steps toward understanding Haimo’s work were undertaken. Most recently key insights on Haimo and his biography have come from John J. Contreni; see, in particular, “Haimo of Auxerre, Abbot of Sasceium (Cessy-les-Bois), and a New Sermon on 1 John V, 4–10,” Revue bénédictine 85 (1975): 303–20.

  18. 18.

    Visser, Apocalypse as Utopian Expectation, 51 and 63.

  19. 19.

    Dittrich, “Der rätselhafte Berengaudus,” esp. 98–105—all conclusions condensed from Visser.

  20. 20.

    See Johannes Heil, “Theodulf, Haimo, and Jewish Traditions of Biblical Learning: Exploring Carolingian Culture’s Lost Spanish Heritage,” in Discovery and Distinction in the Early Middle Ages: Studies in Honor of John J. Contreni, ed. Cullen J. Chandler and Steven A. Stofferahn (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2013), 88–115, at 92–93, on what he sees as two Frankish schools of biblical scholarship in conflict with one another, an intriguing view that would pit Haimo and his methods against his more conservative contemporaries.

  21. 21.

    So Riggenbach, Die ältesten lateinischen Kommentare, 83: Autpertus is “Haimos Hauptquelle. … Neben ihm ist…auch der Apokalypsenkommentar Bedas benützt.” E. Ann Matter, “Apocalypse in Early Medieval Exegesis,” 48–49, arrives at the same conclusions independently.

  22. 22.

    Multiple patristic authorities are adduced twice, at Berengaudus, Expositio 4, PL 17:883 (“…omnipotens Deus defensores ecclesiae orthodoxos patres…elegit…ut fuerunt Ambrosius, Hilarius, Hieronymus, Augustinus, Gregorius, et multi alii qui etiam maximam copiam librorum ediderunt…”) and 956 (“Chrysoprasus lapis viridis aureique coloris esse perhibetur…possumus per eum quosdam doctores ecclesiae intelligere, qui et verbis…multos docuerunt, et multo plures suis scriptis erudierunt et erudiunt quotidie, ut fuerunt Hieronymus, Augustinus, Gregorius et multi alii. …”). Otherwise, Gregory is Berengaudus’s most frequently cited authority, and someone whom Berengaudus has clearly read; see Expositio 4, PL 17:856 and 868; and Expositio 7, PL 17:955 and 964. Jerome, meanwhile, earns only one citation (Expositio 5, PL 17:914). Curiously, and despite the clearly “Augustinian” nature of the Expositio (above, p. 143 with note 13), Berengaudus invokes Augustine only as a personality.

  23. 23.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 3, PL 17:838–39, sees the opening of the fifth, sixth and seventh seals (from Apoc. 6:9) as an allegory for “the opening of the New Testament.” He continues that “quamvis Novum Testamentum apertio sit Veteris Testamenti, tamen multa in eo obscure ponuntur, quae necesse est ut exponantur. Igitur sigillum quintum, sextum et septimum salvator aperuit, quando ea quae per parabolas ipse locutus est et figuraliter gessit, doctoribus ecclesiae patefecit. Sed de expositione Novi Testamenti [here Berengaudus seems to understand the “New Testament” as the Gospels in particular] non est nobis necesse quidquam dicere, eo quod a sanctis patribus mirabiliter et multipliciter sit expositum.”

  24. 24.

    Haimo, Expositio in Apocalypsin 1, PL 117:951–53: “Ephesus interpretatur ‘voluntas’ sive ‘consilium meum.’ Quo nomine generaliter omnis ecclesia comprehenditur, in qua est Dei voluntas per fidem, spem et charitatem, caeteraque bona opera. … Quae etiam bene ‘consilium meum’ dicitur, quia videlicet non suum, sed Dei sui sequitur consilium, audiens illud Salomonis: ‘Audi consilium, et suscipe disciplinam, ut sis sapiens in novissimis tuis…’ Smyrna dicitur ‘canticum eorum’—quorum canticum nisi electorum? … Pergamus interpretatur ‘divisio cornuum.’ Cornua significant regna, ut habes in libro Danielis et in Zacharia; cornua ergo Christi intelliguntur sancti ad regnum illius venturi. Sed sicut Christi cornua eius membra sunt, quibus regnum daturus est perpetuum, ita sunt cornua diaboli eius membra, quae cum eo damnabuntur. Inter haec itaque cornua, id est inter iustos et reprobos, et inter regnum Christi et diaboli, sancta ecclesia facit divisionem, quia segregat bonos a malis, superbos ab humilibus. … De his cornibus et Psalmista dicit: ‘Omnia cornua peccatorum confringam, et exaltabuntur cornua iusti.’… Thyatira dicitur ‘illuminata,’ quo nomine generaliter ecclesia designatur, quae illuminata est ab eo, qui illuminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum…. Sardis sonat in lingua Latina principi pulchritudinis, apta subauditur et ornata…. Philadelphia dicitur ‘salvans haereditatem Dei.’ Ipsa est ager Dei, ipsa et vinea, quae per praedicatores suos ita salvare satagit semetipsam, ut fide et opere Deo placeat, et ab illius voluntate nunquam recedat.… Laodicia vertitur in nostra lingua ‘tribus amabilis Domino’.… A tribus scilicet ordinibus, qui forsitan erant in populo Iudaeorum sicut fuerunt apud Romanos, in senatoribus scilicet, militibus, et agricolis, ita et ecclesia eisdem tribus modis partitur, in sacerdotibus, militibus, et agricultoribus, quae ‘tribus amabilis’ dicitur….” This passage has attracted attention for supposedly attesting to the theory of the three orders, the alleged high-medieval belief that society was divided among those who work, those who pray, and those who fight. See Georges Duby, The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982); Edmond Ortigues, “Haymon d’Auxerre, théoricien des trois ordres,” in L’École carolingienne d’Auxerre, 181–227.

  25. 25.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 1, PL 17:769: “Ephesus namque ‘voluntas’ sive ‘consilium’ interpretatur; Smyrna ‘canticum eorum’; Pergamus ‘divisio cornuum’; Thyatira ‘illuminata’; Sardis ‘principium pulchritudinis’; Philadelphia ‘salvans haereditatem Dei’; Laodicea ‘tribus amabilis Domino.’”

  26. 26.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 1, PL 17:769–70: “Ephesus igitur, quae prima ponitur, initium conversionis uniuscuiusque demonstrat; interpretatur namque ‘voluntas’ sive ‘consilium.’ Quod enim melius consilium, quam voluntas bona, quae homini suadet abrenuntiare diabolo, et sequi Christum, relinquere vitia, et apprehendere virtutes? Et quia qui ad Deum converti volunt, necesse est ut Domini misericordiam implorent, ut perficere possint quod desiderant, Smyrna huic supponitur, quae ‘canticum eorum’ interpretatur. Ille enim bene cantat, qui misericordiam conditoris sui corde contrito et humiliato spiritu deprecatur: de quo cantu Apostolus loquitur dicens: ‘Cantantes et psallentes in cordibus vestris Domino.’ Et quia qui a Deo exaudiri vult, necesse est ut vitia derelinquat et ad bona opera agenda, in quantum virtus suppetit semetipsum convertat, Pergamus in ordine sequitur, quae ‘divisio cornuum’ interpretatur. Duo cornua in hoc loco malum et bonum significant. Cornua dividimus, quando inter bonum et malum discernentes malum a nobis repellimus, et bonum amplectimur. Et quia, quamdiu in peccatis iacemus, in tenebris sumus, cum autem mala a nobis reiicimus et bona operari incipimus, quasi a tenebris ad lucem progredimur, non inconvenienter post Pergamum Thyatira sequitur, quae ‘illuminata’ interpretatur. Et quia ex operatione mandatorum Dei pulchritudo animae accrescit, et quanto quis in operatione mandatorum Dei plus crescit, tanto ampliorem pulchritudinem animae suae confert, non incongrue post Thyatiram Sardis sequitur, quae ‘principium pulchritudinis’ interpretatur. ‘Principium pulchritudinis’ ideo dicitur, quia sanctorum pulchritudo in hac vita inchoatur, et in aeterna beatitudine perficitur. Sequitur Philadelphia, quae ‘salvans haereditatem Dei’ dicitur. Quid est autem ‘haereditas Dei,’ nisi omnis multitudo electorum, sicut dicit Dominus ad prophetam: ‘Haereditas autem mea Israel’? Et in quo salus electorum consistit, nisi in operatione mandatorum Dei? Nam ille, qui venit quaerere et salvare quod perierat, illis salutem animarum largitur, qui mandata eius singuli secundum propriam virtutem custodiunt. Laodicea septima ponitur, quia ‘tribus amabilis Domino’ interpretatur. Tribus autem amabilis Domino est omnis multitudo electorum, quae est ecclesia, quae per abrenuntiationem vitiorum et per virtutum operationem ad hoc pervenit, ut tribus amabilis Domino vocetur.”

  27. 27.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 1, PL 17:766: “Per septem ecclesias una ecclesia catholica designatur,” and again at PL 17:769: “Per has septem ecclesias una ecclesia catholica, sicut interpretatio nominum docet, designatur.”

  28. 28.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 5, PL 17:929: “Alligationem diaboli tribus modis possimus intelligere. Possumus namque hoc simpliciter intelligere, ut virtute Dei omnipotentis in abysso religatus teneatur usque ad tempus praefinitum. Possumus etiam per abyssum corda impiorum intelligere, ut a cordibus electorum exclusus, intra angustias cordium reproborum constrictus et alligatus teneatur. Possumus et hoc tertio modo intelligere: Diabolus nihil aliud desiderat quam deceptionem hominum, et dum per custodiam Dei omnipotentis, qui electos suos custodire et defendere non desistit, ab eorum deceptione arcetur, quasi quibusdam vinculis eius impiissima voluntas religata tenetur….”

  29. 29.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 5, PL 17:931–32: “Sed interim quaestio oritur: Superius quippe quorumdam opinionem sequens dixi per abyssum corda impiorum posse designari, in quibus diabolus, a cordibus fidelium expulsus, religatus teneatur…. Si ergo per abyssum corda reproborum designantur, quomodo de abysso, id est de cordibus reproborum, exire dicitur, quos numquam derelinquet? Numquid reprobos derelicturus est et invasurus electos? Nullo modo. Alligationem ergo diaboli secundum litteram intellegendam puto, ut in aliquo abyssi loco virtute divina religatus teneatur, vel certe in inferno usque ad diem absolutionis suae.”

  30. 30.

    On this line of speculation, Matter, “Apocalypse in Early Medieval Exegesis,” 40 and 43–44.

  31. 31.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 4, PL 17:887–88: “De hoc numero multi multa dixerunt, pluraque nomina repererunt, in quorum litteris hic numerus invenitur. Tamen si aliquod ex iis nominibus Antichristus possideat, praevidere non potuerunt: sed de re tam incerta nihil audeo definire. Quis enim scit, si nomen quod ei a parentibus imponetur, hunc numerum contineat?” Berengaudus’s final objection seems to be that commentators cannot know whether the number of the beast will subsist in the Antichrist’s name, or in some other aspect of his person.

  32. 32.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 6, PL 17:941–42: “Sunt etiam multi divinis litteris eruditi, qui Judaeis ultra quam oportet credentes quasdam eorum fabulas vanissimas suscipiunt, et suis traditionibus interserunt.”

  33. 33.

    On this point, Heil, “Theodulf, Haimo, and Jewish Traditions.”

  34. 34.

    On Haimo’s intellectual and stylistic tendencies, Riggenbach, Die ältesten lateinischen Kommentare, 45–82, esp. 45–49 and 58. Also, more briefly, Contreni, “Haimo of Auxerre’s Commentary on Ezechiel,” in L’école carolingienne d’Auxerre, 229–42, at 231.

  35. 35.

    For instances of Aliter: Berengaudus, Expositio 1, PL 17:768 (twice), 769, 771, 775, 783, 790; Expositio 2, cols. 794, 804; Expositio 3, cols. 831, 834; Expositio 4, col. 867; and Expositio 6, col. 936. Constructions with subaudire: Expositio 1, cols. 776, 780, 789; Expositio 3, cols. 842, 862. With et est sensus: Expositio 1, cols. 778, 784; Expositio 7, col. 963. With ac si diceret: Expositio 1, col. 784; Expositio 2, col. 794; Expositio 3, cols. 813, 832.

  36. 36.

    For Haimo’s dates, Contreni, “Abbot of Sasceium,” 316–17.

  37. 37.

    Riggenbach, Die ältesten lateinischen Kommetare, 70–74, for the idealized and generally untextured picture Haimo provides of Christian life and ecclesiastical institutions.

  38. 38.

    Against Riggenbach, Die ältesten lateinischen Kommetare, 78–80, therefore Heinz Löwe, “Von Theodorich dem Großen zu Karl dem Großen: Das Werden des Abendlandes im Geschichtsbild des frühen Mittelalters,” Deutsches Archiv 9 (1952): 353–401, at 385 n. 126; also Löwe, Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter V, 564–65.

  39. 39.

    Ambrosius Autpertus, Expositio in Apocalypsin 7, p. 659; Haimo, Expositio 6, PL 117:1147. Both draw on Bede, Expositio Apocalypseos 3, p. 471. Compare Primasius, Commentarius in Apocalypsin 4, pp. 244–45, who sees in the beast a metaphor for the present world, though he does introduce some eschatalogical aspects, including the Daniel reference, in his discussion of Apoc. 17:3 (Commentarius 4, p. 238).

  40. 40.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 5, PL 17:914: “Partem namque Asiae per se primitus abstulerunt, postea vero Saraceni totam subegerunt. Vandali Africam sibi vindicaverunt, Gothi Hispaniam, Longobardi Italiam, Burgundiones Galliam, Franci Germaniam, Hunni Pannoniam, Alani autem et Suevi multa loca depopulati sunt, quae eorum subiacebant ditioni. Haec ergo regna eo tempore, quo visio ista Ioanni demonstrata est, potestatem nondum acceperant, sed una hora tamquam reges potestatem acceperunt, quia singularum istarum gentium potestas pauco tempore permansit. Post bestiam regnum acceperunt, quia destructo regno diaboli per Christum, hae gentes impiam potestatem acceperunt.”

  41. 41.

    Comments repr. at PL 17:763–64, where du Frische and le Nourry aim merely to exclude Ambrose’s authorship, not to date the Expositio .

  42. 42.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 5, PL 17:919: “Et quamvis multi ex episcopis ab hoc scelere videantur immunes, ministri tamen eorum in hoc saepe polluuntur. Ad magistros respicit, quidquid a discipulis delinquitur. Est et aliud scelus valde pessimum, quod ab iis, qui archidiaconi appellantur, committitur. Nam ab adulteris presbyteris pretium accipiunt, et tacendo in malum consentiunt, quod per auctoritatem, quam ab episcopis acceperunt, emendare possent. Sunt etiam alii ex huiusmodi presbyteris, qui timentes se damnari pro sceleribus suis in servitiis archidiaconorum plus sunt assidui quam caeteri, contra quos si quis aliquod verbum contrarium proferre voluerit, defenduntur ab eis; et fingunt se nescire quod sciunt, condemnanturque illa prophetica sententia, quae dicit: ‘Vae, qui dicitis malum bonum et bonum malum, ponentes tenebras lucem et lucem tenebras.’ Ad te ergo loquor, qui talis es. Ecce: Animam sacerdotis diabolo vendidisti. Quis enim suasit presbytero ut fornicaretur, nisi diabolus? Qui ergo suasit ut fornicaretur, ipse suasit ut pretium tibi daret, quatenus hoc scelus sine timore perpetrare posset. Per manum ergo presbyteri pretium perditionis animae ipsius tibi diabolus dedit. Ecce: Pretium accepisti, et animam fratris Christi sanguine redemptam eidem diabolo, a quo redempta est, tradidisti. In lege scriptum est quod si quis hominem qui frater eius esset, vendidisset, morte moreretur. Si igitur reus est ille, qui hominem homini vendit, quanto magis tu reus existis, qui hominem Christi sanguine redemptum non homini, sed quod perniciosius est, diabolo vendidisti? Tales ergo negotiatores flebunt et lugebunt in inferno, quoniam mercedes eorum nemo emet amplius; amittent enim, quod tenere videbantur, et incident in malum, quod praevidere neglexerunt.”

  43. 43.

    Berengaudus, Expositio 1, PL 17:777; and 6, col. 944.

  44. 44.

    On the early medieval archidiaconate and its development see, in particular, A. Amanieu, art. “Archidiacre,” in Dictionnaire de droit canonique (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1935–1958), 1:948–1004; Alfred Schröder, Entwicklung des Archidiakonats bis zum elften Jahrhundert (Augsburg: Kranzfelder, 1890). More recent studies are lacking, beyond Kevin Michael O’Conner, The Archidiaconate in the Ninth-Century Diocese of Auxerre: Carolingian Exigency in the Education of the Secular Clergy as Key to the Growth of a Medieval Church Office. Ph.D. Dissertation, St. Louis University, 2000.

  45. 45.

    Chalon-sur-Saône 813, c. 15, ed. Albert Werminghoff, MGH Conc. 2.1 (Hannover: Hahn, 1906), 277: “Dictum est etiam, quod in plerisque locis archidiaconi super presbyteros parroechianos quandam exercent dominationem et ab eis censum exigunt, quod magis ad tirannidum quam ad rectitudinis ordinem pertinet. Si enim episcopi iuxta apostoli sententiam non debent esse dominantes in clero, sed forma facti gregis ex animo, multo minus isti hoc facere debent, sed contenti sint regularibus disciplinis et teneant propriam mensuram et, quod eis ab episcopis iniungitur, hoc per parroechiam suam exercere studeant, nihil per cupiditatem et avaritiam praesumentes.”

  46. 46.

    Thus the Relatio episcoporum from 829, c. 7, ed. Alfred Boretius, MGH Cap. 2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1883), 33: “Comperimus quorundam episcoporum ministros, id est chorepiscopos, archipresbiteros et archidiaconos, non solum in presbiteris sed etiam in plebibus parrochiae suae avaritiam potius exercere, quam utilitati ecclesiasticae dignitatis inservire populique saluti consulere; quam neglegentiam, immo execrabile ac dampnabile cupiditatis vitium, omnes in commune deinceps vitandum statuimus.… Nam et in communi consensu statuimus, ut unusquisque episcoporum super archidiaconum suum deinceps vigilantiorem curam adhibeat, quia propter eorum avaritiam et morum inprobitatem multi scandalizantur et ministerium sacerdotale vituperatur et in ecclesiis a sacerdotibus multa propter eos negleguntur.” Also the related statement issued at the 829 Council of Paris, c. 25, ed. Werminghoff, MGH Conc. 2.2 (Hannover: Hahn, 1908), 628: “Nam et in communi consensu statuimus, ut unusquisque episcoporum super archidiaconis suis deinceps vigilantiorem curam adhibeat, quoniam propter eorum avaritiam et morum inprobitatem multi sandalizantur et ministerium sacerdotale vituperatur et in ecclesiis a sacerdotibus multa propter eos negleguntur.”

  47. 47.

    Walter of Orléans, c. 2, ed. Peter Brommer, MGH Capit. episc. 1 (Hannover: Hahn, 1984), 188: “Ut per archidiachonos vita, intellectus et doctrina cardinalium presbiterorum investigetur. Vita scilicet modestiae et sobrietatis ac studium religiose conversationis in cunctis eorum actibus.” Carl Gerold Fürst, Cardinalis: Prolegomena zu einer Rechstgeschichte des römischen Kardinalskollegiums (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1967), 80–81, explains that cardinal priests were those priests stationed at significant proprietary churches near the episcopal see—highly visible clergy, in other words, with especially close ties to the bishop. On episcopal capitularies more broadly, see Rudolf Pokorny with Veronika Lukas, MGH Capit. episc. 4 (Hannover: Hahn, 2005), 1–67.

  48. 48.

    Theodulf, second capitulary, 2.1, ed. MGH Capit. episc. 1:153: “Presbiter, si in domum suam adulterum vel adulteram retinuerit et, quod nefas est, consenserit adulterium in domo sua fieri, sciat se sui gradus honore privandum. Si vero hoc in plebe sibi commissa reppererit et statim, si vires suppetunt, non emendaverit, sed siluerit et consenserit adulteris aut propter potentiam aut propter illorum beneficium, sciat se, cum depalatum fuerit, excommunicandum. Si vero ille, quantum potuit, et increpavit et ammonuit et excommunicavit, et non potuit illud malum vitare, animam suam liberavit. Verumtamen cum omni studio debet archidiacono suo et archidiaconus episcopo nuntiare.” On the date and authorship of this problematic text, Pokorny, MGH Capit. episc. 4:98–99.

  49. 49.

    Matter, “Apocalypse in Early Medieval Exegesis,” 38.

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    Erica Gelser

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Knibbs, E. (2019). Berengaudus on the Apocalypse. In: Knibbs, E., Boon, J., Gelser, E. (eds) The End of the World in Medieval Thought and Spirituality. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14965-9_6

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