¹ Hellmann, S., Sedulius Scottus (Quellen und Untersuchungen zur lateinischen Philologie des Mittelalters 1; Munich 1906) 121–35; edition reprinted in PLS 4.1262–1269.Google Scholar

² This manuscript, which was once numbered 14 and later 37, was one of a group copied at the monastery of SS. Eucherius–Matthias, Trier (Manitius, K., ‘Eine Gruppe von Handschriften des 12. Jahrhunderts aus dem Trierer Kloster St. Eucherius–Matthias,’ Forschungen und Fortschritte 29 [1955] 317–19). On its contents see Marx, J., Verzeichnis der Handschriften-Sammlung des Hospitals zu Cues (Trier 1905) 47–51, and Williams, S., Codices Pseudo-Isidoriani (New York 1971) 9–10.Google Scholar

³ On Sedulius Scottus see Kenney, J., The Sources for the Early History of Ireland, I: Ecclesiastical (New York 1929, revised 1966) 561–69.Google Scholar

⁴ A full critical edition of the miscellaneous Collectaneum of Sedulius Scottus is in preparation by the present writer, and will be published in the Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis. The contents of this notebook have been inadequately described by Klein, J., Über eine Handschrift des Nikolaus von Cues, nebst ungedruckten Fragmenten ciceronischer Reden (Berlin 1866) and by Hellmann, , 96–99.Google Scholar

⁵ MS Karlsruhe Augiensis xviii, s. ix, in book 25.Google Scholar

⁶ Edited by Dümmler, E. in MGH Epistolae 4.501–505.Google Scholar

⁷ Edited by Hellmann, 19–91. See his concordance to the Proverbia Grecorum and the De rectoribus Christianis, 132–33.Google Scholar

⁸ Hellmann, 135.Google Scholar

⁹ These parallels have been found in a typescript of the ‘B’ text of the Hibernensis which Maurice Sheehy of University College, Dublin, whose critical edition is in progress, has generously let me read. It should be noted that the Karlsruhe manuscript contains the ‘A’ text with some ‘B’ additions.Google Scholar

¹⁰ At chapter 20 of book 40 of the ‘B’ text, fol. 81^v of the Hatton manuscript, are found Proverbia Grecorum 1 and 2 of the Kues list; at chapter 4 of book 42, fol. 85^v of the Hatton manuscript, is found Proverbium 65; and at chapter 10 of book 44, fol. 90^r of the Hatton manuscript, is found Proverbium 69. The two statements attributed to the Proverbia Grecorum but which are not found in the Kues list concern the five periods of kingship (27.6, fol. 42^r) and the six ways man's spiritual nature is made in the image of God (39.47, fol. 79^r).Google Scholar

¹¹ Attempts to understand the relation of the two recensions have been hampered by the edition of Wasserschleben, H., Die irische Kannonensammlung (Berlin 1885 ²). Purportedly reproducing the ‘A’ text, Wasserschleben based his edition on the inferior St. Gall manuscript. Scholars such as Hellmann (op. cit. 142–43), who have compared the readings of the ‘B’ manuscripts with Wasserschleben's edition, have been misled into thinking that the ‘B’ recension is the older since it seemed its readings were closer to the excerpted originals. This conclusion is not upheld by the other ‘A’ manuscripts.Google Scholar

¹² The ‘A’ recension can be dated to the early eighth century by the colophon of MS Paris, B.N. lat 12021, which names a Rubin of Iona as one of the scribes. It is known that Rubin died in 725.Google Scholar

¹³ Proverbia Grecorum 24 and 25 are found in subsection xxxi, entitled De opere, entries 13 and 14; the first half of Proverbium 64 is found in subsection xxxvii, entitled De regibus, entry 12. To Proverbium 3 should be compared the statement in subsection 1, De contrauersiis, entry 9: ‘Claues questionum est sapientis interrogatio.’ To Proverbium 35 should be compared entry 64 in the same subsection: ‘Aures nostras testes habemus: instabile eloquium indicium mendatii.’Google Scholar

¹⁴ Of the sentences which can be related to insular scholarship, the most striking is the statement, found in subsection XX, De penitentia, entry 13 (fol. 251^v of the Kues manuscript), which is paralleled in the Old Irish Alphabet of Piety, section 8 (ed. Hull, V.; Celtica 8 [1968] 60–61). It reads: ‘Quatuor uirtutibus homo sanatur: penitentia, timore, spe, amore. Penitentia de preteritis peccatis, timor de futuris, spes premiorum, amor celestis regni.’ Parallels to statements in the Collectio canonum Hibernensis are found in eleven of its forty subsections.Google Scholar

¹⁵ On fol. 264^v of the Kues manuscript. The text reads: ‘Homo noster interior .vi. modis ad similitudinem Dei factus est: citus, mobilis, subtilis, incorporeus, inuisibilis, aeternus.’Google Scholar

¹⁶ Origen, , Homilia in Genesi 1.13 (PG 12.155d). The text reads: ‘Is autem qui ad imaginem Dei factus est et ad similitudinem, interior homo noster est, inuisibilis et incorporalis, et incorruptus atque immortalis.’Google Scholar

¹⁷ Bischoff, B., Anecdota novissima (Stuttgart 1984) 98–100.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Lindsay, W. M., ‘The Irish Glosses in Ambr. F 60 sup.,’ Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 7 (1910) 266–67. The excerpts glossed with Old Irish are printed and translated in Stokes, W. and Strachan, J., edd., Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus 2 (Cambridge 1901–1903) 234. They are also printed in the Commentary below.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Lowe, E. A., Codices Latini Antiquiores 3.336–40.Google Scholar

²⁰ It should be added that there was a collection of Proverbia Grecorum at Lincoln in the twelfth century, as the Lincoln Cathedral Catalogue of Books indicates: ‘Librum Prouerbium Graecorum inutilem’ (Dimock, J. F., ed., Giraldi Cambrensis Opera 7 [London 1877] 166).Google Scholar

²¹ Hellmann, 121.Google Scholar

²² Bischoff, 99.Google Scholar

²³ Especially remarkable in his letter are the reference to Apollo (Paean), and the frequent and graphic use of simile and metaphor. It also contains one medievalism which may prove significant: the writing of defendunt for diffundunt in the phrase: ‘Sicut enim herbarum holera et lilia agri uiam defendunt’ (line 12). The use of defendunt for ‘overgrow’ is also found in the eighth-century Latin/Anglo-Saxon Corpus glossary (D 207): defenditur: dispargitur (see note 32 below).Google Scholar

²⁴ Bischoff 99. He in turn makes reference to Gougaud, L., Christianity in Celtic Lands (London 1932) 245f., and Ryan, J., Irish Monasticism, Origins and Early Development (Dublin 1931) 88f.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ancient Laws of Ireland 3 (Dublin 1873) 53, 547, and 542.Google Scholar

²⁶ This statement is one of a number which bear comparison with classical Greek and Roman themes, and which therefore hold forth the possibility that the Proverbia Grecorum have an ancient origin or inspiration. Until and unless concrete evidence is found to confirm this, it seems most reasonable to consider such parallels coincidental.Google Scholar

²⁷ Ancient Laws of Ireland 4 (Dublin 1879) 372. I am indebted to Professors Francis John Byrne and Maurice Sheehy and Dr. Proínseás Ní Chatháin of University College, Dublin, for noting these parallels.Google Scholar

²⁸ Some peculiarities of the latinity of the Proverbia Grecorum are cited in notes 32 to 34 below.Google Scholar

²⁹ McNally, R., Der irische Liber de Numeris: Eine Quellenanalyse des pseudo-isidorischen Liber de Numeris (Munich 1957) 25; see also Dekkers–Gaar, , Clavis Patrum Latinorum no. 1130, and PLS 4.1262.Google Scholar

³⁰ MSS Paris, Bibl. de l'Arsenal 8407 (Sedulius' Psalter) and Basel, Universitätsbibl. A.vii.3 attest Irish knowledge of the Greek Psalter.Google Scholar

³¹ Parallels to the Vulgate are noted in the Commentary below.Google Scholar

³² Lindsay, W. M., ed., The Corpus Glossary (Oxford 1921). Words which are found in the Proverbia Grecorum and the Corpus glossary are: brittanica (Proverbium 21, Corpus B 193) glossed: ‘Floris quae in siluis nascitur’; bacidones (Proverbium 23, Corpus B 3) glossed with the Anglo–Saxon: raedinne, ‘cluster of grapes’ (similarly in the Épinal–Erfurt glossary); and foratorium (Proverbium 25, Corpus, Intr. 137) glossed with the Anglo-Saxon buirus (= byrus): ‘chisel.’Google Scholar

³³ The Abstrusa glossary, Lindsay, W. M. and Thomson, H. J., edd., Glossaria Latina 3 (Paris 1926), cites the word brittanica with the same explanation as the Corpus glossary. It also contains the entries: subdolus: subtilis, which may explain the unusual use of the word subdoloso in Proverbium 50, yielding the statement: ‘It is an unsafe city which is surrounded by a fragile wall’; and conluuium: commixtio, which may explain the unusual use of the word commixtiones in Proverbium 15, yielding the statement: ‘The intrigues of fools are the black pollutions of malice.’Google Scholar

³⁴ Words found in the Proverbia Grecorum which are not explained by reference to a glossary or literary source are: betuletum (Proverbium 22) ‘birchgrove’; fuscinius (Proverbium 32) ‘three-pronged’?; bacheriosi (Proverbium 40) ‘ferocious’; infrustratus (Proverbium 59) ‘polluted’ (see p. 4); bachum (Proverbium 63) unidentified (see Commentary); and intacalta (Proverbium 66) unidentified. Words given unusual meanings are found in Proverbia 15: commixtiones ‘pollutions’; 37: deductio ‘protection’; 48: lenis (first occurrence) ‘kind’; 50: subdolosus ‘fragile’; 52: temperari (first occurrence) ‘to measure’; 61: fiducialis ‘confident’; and 62: superstitiones ‘make-up’?Google Scholar

³⁵ MGH Epistolae 4.503 line 14.Google Scholar