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Nepos, bishop of an uncertain city in Egypt, a man plainly good and learned, but deceived by the error of the Chiliasts [millenarians], wrote an interpretation of all the promises which are contained in the Apocalypse of John, and taught that they were to be understood corporally, and confirmed from those same testimonies of John that the saints would reign with Christ for a thousand years in bodily delights on this earth. Concerning whom Dionysius of Alexandria, in the second volume of his explanation on the Apocalypse, speaks thus: “They bring forward certain Commentaries of Nepos, on which they lean very much, and through which they think it is shown in what manner the kingdom of Christ shall be upon earth. But in many other respects I too embrace and love Nepos, both for his faith and for his erudition in the Scriptures, and especially for his exercise in psalmody; since indeed many of the brethren gladly chose his fellowship for this [reason]. And so there is in me too, toward him, much reverence — and the more so because he has already gone before to God. But in truth, more than all things, truth is to be loved and preferred. We must praise, and without envy embrace, whatever has been rightly said by him; but reject, if anything has been less soundly written by him — as in these books, in which he teaches [us] to think nothing lofty, nothing magnificent, concerning the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, nor concerning the glory of the resurrection and the promises of our gathering unto him and of being made like him; but he persuades [us] to hope, in the kingdom of God, [for] certain small and ever-mortal things, and no other than those which we now see.” Thus far Dionysius. He flourished under the Emperor Gallienus, in the year of the Lord 270.
Nicetas [Niceas], Bishop of the city of Remesiana [Romaciana], a man studious in the divine Scriptures, among his many other little works wrote, under Theodosius Augustus, in the year of the Lord 420, one book On the Victim of the Paschal Lamb, on the twelfth chapter of Exodus.
Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos, of whom there are extant eighteen books of Ecclesiastical History, published a Synopsis — that is, A Survey of the whole divine Scripture, arranged in iambic trimeters — in which he briefly comprised the themes of all the sacred volumes. The work begins thus: Ὃς πατὴρ υἱός ἐστιν, ἄναρχος φύσις [He who is Father [and] Son — a nature without beginning]. [The Greek incipit is set in the difficult 16th-century type and is given as best readable.] He flourished under the Emperor Manuel, in the year of the Lord 1100.
Nicholas of Alsentia, a Carmelite, wrote commentaries on Exodus and on the Apocalypse. He lived in the year of the Lord 1425.
Nicholas Hanapus [de Hanapes], of the Order of Preachers, Patriarch of Jerusalem, moved by zeal of charity, plucked from the sacred volumes an Enchiridion [Handbook]: in which, for the benefit of preachers, he collected with the utmost brevity all the examples both of virtues and of vices scattered through the books of both Testaments, arranged under the titles of various subjects according to the order of the letters. The beginning of the work is such: So great an excellence prevails. He flourished under the Emperor Sigismund, in the year of the Lord 430 [so printed; the date is corrupt — Nicholas de Hanapes was Patriarch of Jerusalem in the later thirteenth century (†1291), which fits neither “430” nor the Emperor Sigismund].
Nicholas [of Cusa], Bishop of Brixen and Cardinal of the title of St. Peter ad Vincula, from Kues [Cusa], a town of Germany — a man admirable in every kind of letters, a mathematician, philosopher, and Theologian, learned beyond what could be credible to anyone, to whom a certain learned obscurity, both in words and in sentences, was a friend — published on the beginning of Genesis a brief dialogue of such obscurity that it can scarcely be understood by the most learned men; its beginning is Often more delightful. Likewise, on that [text] of the first [chapter] of James, Every best gift, [dedicated] to Gerard, Bishop of Solothurn, one book On the gift of the Father of lights; [beginning] Even though before. Likewise, encyclical sermons through the circle of the year and Lent; wearied of their length, he himself gathered out of these — as out of most abundant fields — the more elegant flowers, and arranged them, marked in the tenth book of Spiritual Exercises; the beginning of these is Who are you? He flourished under the Emperor Frederick III, in the year of the Lord 1460.
Nicholas Cabasilas, Bishop of Thessalonica, wrote, in the year of the Lord 1300, one book of observation on the vision of the four living creatures of Ezekiel, which is kept in Greek in the Vatican.
Nicholas Kenton [Chenton], a Carmelite, an Englishman, wrote on the history of the prophet Elisha, and a Postil on the Song of Songs, in the year of the Lord 1468.
Nicholas Cleynaerts [Clenardus] of Mechelen, most skilled in the three languages, for many years publicly professed good letters at Mechelen; and, that he might benefit all, published some things Latin, some Greek, and also Hebrew — among which are the Grammatical Meditations on the Lamentations, for the sake of those who lack the living voice of a Hebrew teacher. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1530.
Nicholas of Dinkelsbühl [Dunkelpulus], a German, rector of the University of Vienna, wrote, according to the custom of the school, on that [text] of Isaiah, And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, [the spirit], &c., one book On the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, in the year of the Lord 1420.
Nicholas the Gaul [Gallus], of the Order of Preachers, confessor to the king of the French, left a scholastic Postil on all the epistles of St. Paul, which begins, I have given you for a light to the Gentiles [Isaiah chapter 49].
Nicholas of Gorran [Gorranus], of the Order of Preachers, provincial of France, acute in treating scholastic questions, and most exercised in the reading of the saints [Fathers], in the year of our salvation 1390 published, in a scholastic and plain style, brief commentaries on the whole Bible, very profitable to the studious of the sacred volumes; of which, at Venice in the library of SS. John and Paul, I saw the following (each with its incipit):
- On the Pentateuch — 5 books. — In the beginning, &c.
- On the Psalter — 1 book. — My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord.
- On Ecclesiastes — 1 book. — He looked upon the earth.
- On Ecclesiasticus — 1 book. — Wisdom hath built.
- On the Lamentations — 1 book. — To this lamentation.
- On the Song of Songs — 1 book. — Sing to the Lord a new song.
- On Matthew — 1 book. — The book of the generation, &c., like the river of paradise.
- On Mark — 1 book. — Daughter of Sion, rejoice, &c.
- On Luke — 1 book. — The discipline of a physician.
- On John — 1 book. — Behold, my servant shall understand.
- On all the epistles of Paul — 14 books. — I have given you for a light to the Gentiles.
Nicholas Grandis [le Grand], of the Order of Minorites, a Theologian of the most sacred faculty, wrote — [dedicated] to Francis, king of the French — elegant commentaries on the epistles of Paul to the Romans and to the Hebrews, adorned with innumerable sentences of the Fathers; in which, where a passage offers itself, he strives rather, with gentleness of mind and Christian modesty, to raise up the fallen, than to exasperate them with censorious and reproachful speech, or to gnaw around them with a rabid tooth — anxiously investigating not a victory over those who contradict, but truth against falsehood. The work begins, I should be charged with the height of ingratitude. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1546.
Nicholas Herborn [Herbron], of the Order of Minorites, Cismontane Commissary General of the Regular Observance, wrote in Latin eloquence narrations of the Lenten Gospels — which had been declaimed at Cologne in the German tongue — likewise on Psalm 78 a lamentatory narration, beginning Who will give [water] to my head, &c., in the year of the Lord 1530.
Nicholas of Lyra [Lyranus], an Englishman by nation, or — as some write — from Lyra, a town of Brabant; a Jew by race, and imbued with Hebrew letters from earliest childhood, but after his conversion devoted to the Franciscan religion; a professor of scholastic Theology and a not-ignoble expositor of its sentences; and endowed with so true, pure, and genuine an understanding of the divine Scriptures that in expounding them he had no equal among the most learned Theologians of his time. He published, on the individual volumes of both the Old and New Testament, 85 books of scholastic postils — not only useful, but exceedingly necessary, to the studious of the holy Scriptures, and especially to beginners hastening on to greater things. In the former fifty of these books he expounded the whole body of the holy Scripture — without the allurement of oratory and the wrappings of words — in a brief, bare, and plain style, opening up and elucidating with the utmost diligence in each [passage] the sense of the letter, as more excellent than the other senses of divine Scripture, so also more difficult; bringing to this [task] not only the expositions of the ancient fathers of the Church, but also the sentences of the Rabbis, whose authority is chief among the Jews. This work being finished, with labor again repeated, in the thirty-five later books he illustrated both Testaments with a moral exposition. The beginnings of his books you have in Trithemius. He flourished under the Emperor Louis, in the year of the Lord 1320. Annotations and Censures on all his works were written by
…[Annotations and Censures on all his (Lyra’s) works were written by] Paul, Bishop of Burgos, Diego de Deza, and Matthew Döring: of whom the first attacked the expositions of Lyra as contrary to Hebrew and Christian authors; the second published defenses against certain passages in which Lyra opposes St. Thomas [Aquinas]; the third contends for Lyra against the Bishop of Burgos.
Nicholas Zegers [Tacitus Zigenus], a Minorite, from Diest, a town of Brabant, published — [dedicated] to Julius III, Supreme Pontiff — corrections on the New Testament, in which the corrupted [readings] are restored, the added [ones] cut away, and the removed [ones] rejected; to which he gave the title Epanorthotes, or The Restorer of corrupted or altered passages. The work begins, So great [a corruption] is everywhere. The same [author] collected scholia on all the books of the New Testament, in which the difficult, or even ambiguous, passages are most learnedly and exquisitely explained according to the original phrase of Scripture and the citation of the most ancient Theologians. A pleasant work, exceedingly useful to all who wish rightly to divide the divine scripture. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1540.
Nicholas Trivet, an Englishman, of the Order of Preachers, wrote in scholastic fashion — [dedicated] to Aymeric, Master of the Order — a Postil on Leviticus, beginning To the venerable father Brother Aymeric; likewise, on the Psalter, [dedicated] to Brother John, provincial of England, a Postil, beginning To the reverend father Brother John. He flourished in the year of the Lord 400 [so printed; read ~1300 — Trivet is a fourteenth-century figure, and Aymeric of Piacenza was Master of the Dominicans about 1304–1311].
Ninian [Ninianus], Bishop of the Picts, born of the royal blood of the Britons; when as a youth he had come to Rome, and there had learned Christian wisdom with the utmost zeal, returning into the Northern regions he led the nation of the Picts from the impiety of idols to the worship of Christ; and when he had assiduously taught the divine oracles among them, he wrote certain commentaries on the sacred Letters of great piety and erudition — of which the most celebrated are the Meditations on the Davidic hymns. He lived, as is gathered from Bede’s history, in the year of our salvation 440.
Nilus, of Constantinople by fatherland, passing from the prefecture of that same city to the monastic life, a Father of many monks in the East, famous for sanctity and erudition, whose writings the Sixth Synod venerates, wrote commentaries on Job.
Nonius Marcellus Saia of Roccagloriosa [à Rocca gloriosa] published on the penitential psalms deprecatory Paraphrases, in the year of the Lord 1550.
Nonnus of Panopolis [Panapolitanus], the chief among the Greek Christian poets, whose 48 books of Dionysiaca, written in heroic verse, are reported [extant], composed a Paraphrase, in Greek hexameter verses, on the Gospel of John — which we have read printed in the type of Aldus; its beginning is: ἄχρονος ἦν ἀκίχητος ἐν ἀρρήτῳ λόγος ἀρχῇ [Timeless was the untraceable Word, in an unspeakable beginning]. [The Greek is set in the difficult 16th-century type and is given as best readable.]