Lucifer of Cagliari

In view of a new critical edition with commentary of De non parcendo in Deum delinquentibus of Lucifer, Bishop of Cagliari (4th c.) we are confronted with the printed editions in which it is maintained that this pamphlet was written against the Emperor Constantius, beginning with the editio princeps (Du Tillet in the year 1568) until the last edition by Diercks in the Corpus Christianorum (1978). This paper is preparatory work, so that later one can see detailed relations within the manuscript tradition, textual criticism, and the dependencies of editions. We will have to refer to the work of scholars such as Latino Latini, Pontius, Cotelier, De Bruyne and Nolte, who wrote about the constitutio textus, even if their efforts have not amounted to further editions. This contribution assesses the knowledge of the manuscript tradition by editors who followed the first edition and whether or not they did have recourse to both manuscript witnesses surviving today. It also highlightes the methodological flaw present in the 1677 edition in the Maxima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum, that derived from the original collection of Marguerin de la Bigne, an error consisting in the adaptation of biblical quotations – very large in the work of Lucifer – from Jerome’s Vulgate.

Lucifer of Cagliari, antiarian polemicist among the most aggressive of the 4th century and bitter enemy of Emperor Constantius II, against whom he addressed his five pamphlets, is usually counted among the greatest detractors of classical culture and pagan heritage. If this is certainly true, nevertheless there are cases in which, perhaps unconsciously, he re-elaborates in some passages of his works, stylistic features, expressions and movements that echo from the authors of the ancient world. Here the case of Lucif. Non parc. XXV 22-25 Diercks is isolated for the first time, a piece entirely focused on obfuscation caused by heresy, in whose description remarkable echoes and classical suggestions emerge.

The quotations by Lucifer of Cagliari (ca. 360 CE) are the most important pre-Vulgate Latin witness for the text of Samuel-Kings. While a thoroughgoing text-critical analysis of these quotations is still a desideratum, the surveys done so far clearly demonstrate that Lucifer is neither a witness for the kaige text, nor for the Lucianic text. Lucifer’s quotations provide an uncontinuous text in Latin. Is it, nevertheless, possible to determine into which textual group or family of Greek manuscripts they are closest to? What special issues have to be taken into account when using this kind of indirect and uncontinuous evidence in establishing its putative Greek Vorlage and, ultimately, the oldest attainable Greek text?

The Vetus Latina Bible includes a variety of vocabulary according to various translators’ and revisers’ milieus and intents as they worked from Greek originals. This study aims to analyze the use of cultic verbs in the Vetus Latina Book of Daniel in all its pluriformity, and in Jerome’s translations of the Greek additions to this book.

In order to do so, I focus on key patristic witnesses to trace verbs denoting or connoting divine worship, from the time of Tertullian of Carthage, over Cyprian of Carthage and Lucifer of Caralis, to Jerome of Stridon. The expressions treated, each corresponding to a Greek verb, are: seruio, colo, famulor, appareo, exomologesin facio, hymnum cano, sacrifico, timeo, benedico, adoro, laudo, confiteor, and primitiae. They are analyzed in relation to their Greek Vorlagen and to the Latin context consisting in similar renderings by the same Fathers. The biblical book’s fragmentary VL manuscript evidence and the wider patristic and liturgical tradition are also taken into account. This approach allows for a diachronic view marked sometimes by continuity, sometimes by change, for the Latin rendering of a Greek verb.