LIBER SECVNDVS — BOOK TWO
OF F. SIXTUS OF SIENA, OF THE ORDER OF PREACHERS: THE SECOND BOOK OF THE HOLY LIBRARY — of the books, writers, and writings of which mention is made in the holy volumes
PREFACE
IN THE FIRST volume of this work we reviewed the number, order, partition, authority, authors, and arguments of all the books of the divine scripture: now, in this second book, we are going to collect the volumes, books, writers, and writings — all of them, extant and not extant, as well undoubted as doubtful and uncertain — which are commemorated here and there by the authors in the sacrosanct Bibles. Now these are distinguished from one another by a threefold discrimination: by collection, by understanding, and by authority. And first, according to the division which arises from collection — that is, from the various modes of collecting — all the scriptures which we have gathered together here are divided into the Transcribed, the Abridged, and the Alleged [in Transcriptas, Abbreuiatas, & Allegatas].
THE TRANSCRIBED are those which have been faithfully copied out of other more ancient writings; and, just as they had once been put forth by their own authors, have been inserted word for word into the sacred letters: such as are the many epistles of the kings and princes of the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Jews, and other nations, which have been mingled into the divine volumes for the completion of the sacrosanct history.
THOSE SCRIPTURES ARE CALLED ABRIDGED which — since they had earlier been written by their own authors with a profuse abundance of speech, and extended into many volumes — were afterward contracted into a compendium by the divine writers, and fitted in among the holy books. Such, it is established, are the 5000 books of the Canticles of Salomon; the 3000 books of his Parables; and also his immense work of Natural disputations; the 3000 Psalms of David, which the divine Athanasius affirms to be cited in the books of Paralipomenon; the four-and-two-hundred [204] books of Esdras; the commentaries of Nehemias; the Volumes of the histories of Samuel, and of Nathan and Gad the prophets; the Divinations of Ahias the Silonite; the Vaticinations of Iddo the prophet; the discourses of Chozai, and of Semeias, and of Jehu [Hieu] the prophets; the Books of the days of the kings of Juda and of Israel; the Descriptions of Jeremias; the Com[mentaries] of Judas Maccabaeus [Com. Iudae Maccabaei, so abbreviated]; the Ephemeri-[-des] the Ephemeri-des of the priesthood of Joannes [Hyrcanus]; the 5 books of the histories of Jason of Cyrene; and many other volumes of this kind — out of whose fountains chiefly the greatest part of those things which are now had in the sacrosanct letters is believed to have been drawn.
THOSE SCRIPTURES ARE CALLED ALLEGED [Allegatae] of which, in the divine books, either the authors’ names alone, or only the titles of the books, are commemorated; or only the arguments of the works are touched upon most briefly; or at least some testimonies out of them are cited and alleged: such as are the Book of Henoch, the Book of the wars of the lord, the Book of the Just, the Book of the words of the ancients, the Annals of the kings of the Persians & Medes, the Commentaries of Assuerus, the Commentaries of Cyrus, the sacred Books of the Spartans, the Phaenomena of Aratus, the poems of Callimachus, the [work] of Epimenides on oracles, the comedies of Menander, and very many other most ancient monuments of antiquity like to these: all of which, together with countless others of the writings of various nations, partly the injury of time consumed, partly the incursions of barbarians and the madness of tyrants destroyed, in the overthrows of kingdoms — and above all in the very destruction of the holy city, in which so many thousand volumes of that sacrosanct Library of Hierosolyma were burnt up, first by the Assyrians, then by the Greeks, and last of all by the Romans.
MOREOVER, the second division of the scriptures, taken from their understanding and sense, contains two varieties of scriptures: namely, the Historical, and the Mystical or Symbolic.
THOSE ARE NAMED HISTORICAL which signify only the order of things done or written; or in which, beyond the historical knowledge, nothing of a more secret or symbolic sense needs to be searched out for the understanding of them. Of this number are very many epistles of the princes and kings of the Chaldaeans, Egyptians, Jews, and Romans, inserted into the sacred books: in which only the outer sense of the letter is to be regarded.
MYSTICAL AND SYMBOLIC are those which, under visible or imaginary symbolic images and showings of books, volumes, codices, and scriptures of every kind, represent hidden and sublime mysteries: such as the Sealed Book, the Rolled-up Book, the Flying Book, the Book of life, the Book of the life of the Lamb, the book of the seven seals, the Volume of the book written within and without, the Devoured Book, the Book of the memorial, the Book of the divine repudiation [bill of divorce], the Book of death, the Scripture of the two woods, the Killing Letter, the Handwriting of the decree [chirographum decreti], the Adamantine Scripture, the Epistle of Christ, the Scripture of the house of Israel, and many other writings of this kind: into which, unless thou look through to the mystical and latent senses, thou shalt understand nothing at all.
THE THIRD DIVISION of the scriptures is distributed into the Undoubted, the Apocryphal, and the Pseudepigraphal writings.
UNDOUBTED [Indubitata] are those which it is most certainly established to be of those by whose names and titles they are entitled: as the Scripture of king Ezechias [Hezekiah, Isa. 38], the prophecy of Agur [Prov. 30], the Institutes of Samuel [1 Kings 10:25], the Epistle of the apostolic Council [Acts 15], and very many such, which — with the names of their authors prefixed — have been mingled into the sacred volumes.
APOCRYPHAL, that is, obscure and ambiguous, are those concerning whose authors and authority there is doubt, or concerning whom it is disputed whether they ought to be attributed to the writers who are mentioned in the sacred letters: as the Gospel of the Hebrews, the gospel of Bartholomaeus, the Mass of Jacobus the apostle, the three books of Hermas — that is, the Pastor, the Church, the Similitudes; the epistle of Barnabas, the vaticinations of Heldad and Medad, the epistles of Clement, the prayer of Joseph, the Canons of the Apostles, the Testament of the 12 patriarchs, the preaching of Peter, the altercation of Jason and Papiscus, and very many other volumes of this kind — inscribed with [the names of] men celebrated as illustrious in the divine scripture; which are also called Ecclesiastical, for this reason, namely, that in the beginning of the nascent church they were read publicly in the temples and in the common assemblies of Christians for the edification of the people, and were taken up in the writings of the ancient Doctors for the instruction of morals, and sometimes also for the confirmation of the faith.
PSEUDEPIGRAPHAL, that is, falsely entitled, are those which divers heretics — under the name of men as much illustrious as obscure, whom the divine letters name here and there — maliciously feigned, that out of their counterfeit titles they might win credit and authority for their errors: of which sort are the Books of Seth the son of Noe [so printed; Seth was son of Adam — apparently a misprint for filii Adae], the Scripture of Cham the son of Noe, the revelation of Abraham, the ascension of Moses, the volume of Jamnes and Mambres, the Apocalypse of Elias, the ascension of Esaias, the incantations of Salomon, the books of Jesus Christ concerning hidden wisdom, to Peter and Paul, the rapture of Paul, the acts of Pilate, the gospel of Judas Iscariot, and the rest of the execrable inventions of impiety of this kind.
ALL THESE KINDS, therefore, of writers and of writings I have determined to fit together in the present volume under the alphabetical order of the letters (since no more convenient plan of arranging the work presented itself): and to indicate the authors, arguments, occasions, and times of the writings of every single kind whatsoever; and to explain very many places in them that are obscure, clearly and briefly, as far as it can be done.
[Α΄ καὶ → — the catchword is a Greek mark opening the alphabetical catalog; the letter-A section begins on the next leaf.]