F
Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, to whom blessed Pope Leo wrote many epistles, a man indeed learned, and a strenuous champion of catholic truth, who excommunicated Eutyches — a presbyter and archimandrite, holding impiously concerning the humanity of Christ — and suffered many injuries from the heretics; he wrote in the Greek tongue commentaries on the Gospel of John, whose authority is cited by Theodore, a Greek monk, in the book whose title is, That the Father always begets, and the Son indeed is always begotten. He wrote also, on various passages of the Gospels, very many homilies, some of which are cited by Theodoret in the Polymorphus [the Multiform]. He flourished under Marcian Augustus, in the year of the Lord 454.
Felix (or, as others write, Felix), a Tuscan by nation, of Prato by fatherland [Felix Pratensis], of the Order of Preachers, notable for his study and solid erudition of the three tongues, translated the Psalter from the Hebrew truth into Latin in the year of the Lord 1520. Matthew Aurogallus mentions this translation in his book On Hebrew Names.
Fortunatianus, an African by nation, bishop of Aquileia, whom Jerome reckons in the catalogue of illustrious men, in the reign of Constantine [read Constantius] wrote — with the titles arranged — brief commentaries on the Gospels, in a rustic style; and in this he is held detestable, that he was the first to solicit Liberius, bishop of the city of Rome, as he was going into exile for the faith, and broke him, and compelled him to the subscription of heresy, in the year of the Lord 330.
Francis Bonade [Bonadus], a presbyter of Angély [Angeria], of Saintes, an Aquitanian, expounded the Psalter in an elegiac paraphrase. Pursuing also the epistles of Paul with a like zeal, he thus began: Paul, by the love of Christ, the holy Apostle of the fostering world.
[Later-edition addition — not in Sixtus’s 1566/1586 text: Francis Feuardent’s commentary on Ruth appeared in 1582, after Sixtus’s death (1569).] Francis Feuardent [Feuardentius], of the Order of Minors, a Parisian Theologian, wrote a Commentary on the book of Ruth.
Francis Foreiro [Forerius], of the Order of Preachers, a Portuguese by nation, of Lisbon by fatherland, a Theologian and philosopher, notable for the highest erudition, preacher to the king of Portugal, most skilled in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues, and plainly worthy — whom, on account of his manifold knowledge of all things, the sacrosanct Council of Trent, together with very many most learned men, chose for the review of the whole Christian library. He translated again, word for word, out of the Hebrew truth the books of Job, of David, of Solomon, and of all the prophets, with this aim: that he might confirm the authority of the Vulgate edition, and show that its author had most aptly expressed sense from sense. Then indeed he explained the same books with most lucid commentaries: in which, opening the true and genuine sense of the letter, he unfolds with the highest zeal and most exact diligence the several particles, words, and vowel-points of the Hebrew scripture, and so elucidated the peculiar idioms of the holy tongue, and so illustrated the most obscure passages of the prophets, that no work in this kind of writing has ever come to light which could more justly be called a Cornucopia [Horn of Plenty]. He still lives, up to the year of human salvation 1566, celebrated for doctrine and integrity of morals, and perseveres day and night in the holy explanation of the divine volumes.
Francis Giorgio [Georgius], a Venetian, of the Order of Minors of the regular observance, whose notable work On the Harmony of the World is extant — a man devoted to Platonic philosophy, most zealous of the sacred letters, and imbued with the various reading of many Authors — published, on certain more select Places of the whole divine Scripture, eight books of Problems, learned indeed, but, on account of certain Platonic and Talmudic opinions with which they are here and there besprinkled, worthy of grave and diligent censure. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1510.
Francis Gothus [the Goth], of the Order of Minors, professor of Theology, compiled a Biblical compendium, touching each chapter of the divine books with four iambic dimeters apiece, the measure of feet and syllables being nevertheless neglected: which thus begins —
GENESIS, CHAPTER 1.
Before aught is made, light is brought forth; Dividing the waters, He gathers them; Adornment is added by [His] deeds; Adam brought forth, He subjects [all to him].
[Later-edition addition — not in Sixtus’s 1566/1586 text: Francis Lucas of Bruges published his Notationes in sacra Biblia in 1580, after Sixtus’s death.] Francis Lucas of Bruges [Lucas Brugensis], Licentiate of Sacred Theology, wrote annotations on the sacred Bible.
Francis Maronis [of Meyronnes], a Minorite, a disciple of John Duns Scotus, most excellent in scholastic erudition, and in the divine scriptures most illustrious in his time, among the other works of his doctrine published Postils of annotations on the whole sacred Scripture, worthy of memory. He flourished under Louis IV the Bavarian, Emperor, in the year of the Lord 1320.
Francis of Osuna [ab Obsunna], a Baetican [Andalusian], of the Order of Minors, wrote upon Missus est [the Annunciation, Luke 1:26] one book, and sermons on the gospels of the whole year. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1530.
Francis Ortiz [Ortizius], of the Order of Minors, a Spaniard, wrote a most praised exposition of the fiftieth Psalm, in the year of the Lord 1540.
Francis Petrarch [Petrarcha], a Tuscan by nation, a man most learned on every side, the first restorer of the Latin tongue (already for many ages extinct),1 the father of Tuscan poetry, and without any controversy its chief; among the Latins too
…among the Latin poets too a not ignoble one, and, for the excellence of his Latin verse, on the Roman Capitol he obtained the laurel crown by the public favor of all Italy: among many other monuments of his most noble genius, he left on the seven penitential Psalms very brief paraphrases, most aptly composed after the manner of prayers, whose beginning is, Lord God, Father of mercies. He dies under Charles IV, Emperor, in the year of the Lord 1374.
Francis Puteanus [del Pozzo], the thirty-third Prior of the Charterhouse, a most excellent doctor of both laws, and exercised in the sacred Scriptures, composed — in imitation of St. Thomas Aquinas — a Golden Chain [Aurea Catena] upon the psalms: in which he gathered, with the greatest diligence and marvelous art, the explanations of the fathers of the Latin church on the Psalter, with their names also added. The beginning of the work is, Lyra. This psalm is composed. He flourished under Charles V Augustus, in the year of the Lord 1534.
Francis Miletanus, professor of Theology, wrote a commentary on Psalm 18, beginning Of this psalm, in the year of the Lord 1500.
Francis Ruiz [Ruizius], a Spaniard, from Valladolid [Vallis Oletana], of the Benedictine order, Abbot of San Facundo [Sahagún], gathered 334 rules — which contribute very much to the understanding of the whole divine scripture — out of all the fathers, both Greek and Latin, the sentences and words of those fathers being nothing changed; and he illustrated them with brief explanations, culled here and there out of the same fathers, in the year of the Lord 1546.
Francis Titelmans of Hasselt [Hassellensis], the illustrious moderator of the Academy of the philosophers at Louvain, having left the world, betook himself to the institute of St. Francis: in which, assiduously attending to the divine Scriptures, he elaborated very many most pious and most learned treatises on the divine scriptures — of which there are extant, in paraphrastic form, elucidations on Job, on the Psalter, on the Canticles, on Matthew, on John, on all the epistles of Paul, and on all the Catholic epistles, together with Annotations on the more difficult passages of those books annexed. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1530. He died a Capuchin.
[Later-edition addition — not in Sixtus’s 1566 text: this entry describes works and events after Sixtus’s death (1569) — Toledo’s John commentary (1588), his more than twenty years as papal preacher (to c. 1590), and Pius V named “of good memory” (Pius V died 1572).] Francis Toledo [Toletus] of Cordoba, of the Society of Jesus, a most noble Theologian; after he had, for many years and with great praise, taught Philosophy and Theology in the Roman College of the same Society, being chosen by Pius V of good memory, Supreme Pontiff, for the office of preacher in the pontifical palace, he bore this burden for more than twenty years with great fruit to his hearers: he published most excellent commentaries on the Gospel of John, and, as we hope, will shortly publish many other things. At Rome I gave him my attention for some years in Scholastic Theology.
Francis Visdomini [Visdominus] of Ferrara, of the Order of Minors, moderator of the most celebrated Academy of Bologna among the Franciscans, a man of most upright life, of sublime genius, of the highest erudition and eloquence, a declaimer of sacred sermons famous throughout all Italy, and, like a second Demosthenes, made a most excellent orator against and quite in spite of nature. For, since his tongue and voice were so interrupted by a certain natural and perpetual impediment, and stopped him as he spoke, that in private conversations he was compelled, gasping, to repeat over and over the first syllables of words — yet nevertheless he tames and overcomes the malignity of his reluctant nature by the strongest vigor of his lungs and by the most powerful effort of all his spirits, so that it is a miracle how a man (stammering in tongue, and in familiar meeting scarcely uttering words in a lowered voice) could, in public declamations, speak with a most ready voice and a most fluent tongue, most exactly and most gracefully; and — what is more marvelous — run on, in a most rapid course of speech, from the exordium to the end of the sermon with an unfaltering tongue, always with the same impetus of action and ardor of spirit, and always with the same greatness and strength of voice, snatching and rolling along with him the minds of his hearers, like a most rapid torrent swollen with the winter snows.
This man, therefore, was the first among the Italians to recall to light that ancient manner of preaching, once used in the Church of God by Basil the Great, Gregory the Great, and Chrysostom, and the rest of the most eloquent fathers, and afterward for many ages extinct: having published, in the Latin and Tuscan tongue, on almost all the books of divine scripture, sermons most learned and most eloquent, according to the literal and tropological understanding. He flourished under Charles V Augustus, in the Council of Trent, illustrious for many disputations against the heretics: and he still lives at Rome, up to the present year 1566, daily declaiming, reading, and writing, with the greatest fruit and admiration of the Roman people, being fifty-six years old.
Francis Ximénez, of Cisneros [Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros], a Spaniard by nation, of the Order of Minors, cardinal-presbyter of the Holy Roman Church of the title of St. Balbina, Archbishop of Toledo, Arch-chancellor of the Spains, published — dedicated to Pope Leo X — the whole Old and New Testament in manifold tongues, that is, Hebrew, Chaldaic, Greek, and Latin, printed at immense cost, labor, and vigils, with the greatest diligence, by the University of Alcalá [Complutum] in Spain — men most learned in the knowledge of the tongues having been summoned to this work from every part of the world, and the most corrected and most ancient copies procured (taken from the Vatican and Medicean libraries, or transmitted by the senate of the Venetians, or sought out from elsewhere), no reckoning being had of costs or labors. The arrangement of this so great work is as follows:
The Pentateuch has a threefold edition, namely the Hebrew, the Chaldaic, and the Greek of the LXX interpreters. To which are joined three Latin editions, namely: the Latin of Jerome, answering to the Hebrew truth; another Latin answers to the Chaldaic, word for word, elaborated by men most skilled in that tongue; and to the Greek of the LXX interpreters corresponds an interlinear Latin translation. The Hagiographa and the prophetic books were printed in a double tongue, Hebrew and Greek, with two other Latin translations corresponding to them. But the Chaldaic was rightly omitted, because in the other books — except in the Pentateuch — it is corrupted in some places, and [full] of mere fables and Thal[mudic matter]
…the trifles of the Talmudists, and altogether unworthy to be inserted among the sacred codices. But the books which are outside the canon of the Hebrews, which the church reads for edification, have only the Greek text, but with a double translation — namely, that of Jerome, and another, interlinear, word for word.
But the New Testament has the Greek text with Jerome’s version, written only in bare letters, without any marks of tones [accents] or breathings, in imitation of the most ancient Greeks:2 whom the most ancient poems of Callimachus and the Sibylline verses, and the most ancient fragments of marbles [inscriptions], show to have written without these accents and apices of the letters. For, since the whole New Testament was written in Greek, the author wished to retain in it the ancient antiquity and majesty of that tongue untouched, and to publish it after the image of the ancient scriptures: lest to the authority of so holy a thing, and to its venerable majesty, any detriment should seem to be brought by added and novel matters. But, lest any doubt should be able to occur to anyone — namely, on which syllable the accent ought to be placed — he added only a simple apex in the polysyllabic words; and this indeed not as a Greek accent, but as a little note and sign, by which the reader might be guided, lest he should sometimes slip in the pronunciation or modulation of the words.
He added, in the last place, at the end of the whole work, a most copious dictionary of Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Greek words: in which not only are contained the simple interpretations of words, both primitive and derivative; but — what was the most laborious thing of all — there is continuously subjoined, with very many concordances added, in how many places in the Old Testament each Hebrew word, on account of the fecundity of that tongue, multiplies its significations.
These most noble copies, which are commonly called the Complutensian, were completed under Leo X, Supreme Pontiff, and published throughout the whole Christian world with the highest praise: and from their authority many codices afterward — both Hebrew and Greek and Latin — were restored to soundness. He [Cisneros] flourished under Maximilian the Emperor, in the year of our salvation 1510.
Francis of Zamora, a Spaniard, Minister General of the whole Order of Minors, wrote on each verse of Psalm 50 one apiece of most beautiful homilies, 25 in number.
Francis Zichem [Zichenius], a Franciscan, Guardian of the monastery at Mechelen, wrote on the seven words which Christ uttered from the cross a brief and pious explanation, delivered as a sermon. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1556.
Friedrich Nausea [Blancicampianus], bishop of Vienna in Austria, an excellent doctor of sacred Theology and of both laws, preacher and counselor of Ferdinand, king of the Romans, wrote on the 20th chapter of Exodus, concerning the Decalogue, one book; also on Tobit two books of commentaries — brief, elegant, and exceedingly useful for the instruction of morals — the first of which begins, Who [dwells] not in houses in one part. Likewise he composed a paraphrase on Matthew and John, and homilies on the Gospels of the whole year. He flourished under Charles V, in the year of the Lord 1540.
Friedrich the Venetian [Fridericus Venetus] gave commentaries on the Apocalypse, written in the Italian tongue, in the year of the Lord 1500.
Fulgentius of Ruspe, a bishop in Africa, of Carthage by fatherland, an emulator of the erudition and style of Augustine, wrote on various Places of divine Scripture a notable volume of sermons, of which two are found in the Homiliary of Albinus [Alcuin]. He dies on the island of Circina [Kerkennah], worn out with many cares, in the year of the Lord 500, in the times of the Emperor Anastasius — having previously endured exile, and many other most grievous hardships, from the Vandals, who upheld the heresy of the Arians.