Mind of the Church

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Library / The Catholic Expositors of the Divine Volumes

Folio 302–308

Letter T

T

Tatian [Tatianus], numbered by St. Jerome in his catalog of Ecclesiastical writers, was a Syrian by nation, and a disciple of Justin the philosopher and martyr. He, since he flourished with all abundance of the disciplines and great power of the oratorical art, left an infinite number of books of his own genius, but among the rest a notable volume of Propositions and Questions: in which, as Eusebius writes in the 4th [book] of the Ecclesiastical History, chapter 27, he unlocked all the things that are obscure and difficult in the divine Scriptures. The same man compacted into one [work] the history of the four Gospels, to which he gave the title DIATESSARON, that is, One out of four, or On the harmony of the four Gospels: to which Victor, Bishop of Capua, a most excellent astronomer, who flourished about the year of the Lord 480, diligently affixed the numbers of the Evangelical Canons from Eusebius of Caesarea, throughout the fitting places, a preface being prefixed which begins thus, When by chance it fell into my hands. Abbot Trithemius made Victor the author of this work, though Victor’s own preface contradicts him, which testifies that it is the work of Tatian. This man, as long as his teacher lived, flourished greatly in the Catholic Church: but after his [teacher’s] death, he founded a new heresy, called that of the Encratites. He flourished under the Emperor Marcus Antoninus Verus and L. Aurelius Commodus, in the year of the Lord five hundred and seventieth [so printed, “570”; but Tatian belongs to the 2nd century, c. AD 170 — the reign named].

Tertullian [Tertullianus] Florens, whose praenomen was Quintus Septimius, a presbyter by dignity, an African by nation, of Carthage by homeland, his father a proconsular Centurion — a man indeed of sharp and vehement genius, imbued no less with human than with divine disciplines, the most excellent Rhetor also of his own times and the public [teacher] of that Art in the city of Carthage, a master, wrote many things elegantly in the Latin tongue, but in a style too elaborate and hard, and, on account of the unusual novelty of his words, obscure. Whence Jerome also, writing to Paulinus, ascribes these two [faults] chiefly to him: namely, that he is crowded in his sentences, and difficult in his speech.1 And Lactantius, in the fifth book of the Divine Institutions, describing the same man’s phrasing, says: Septimius Tertullian was skilled in every kind of letters, but in speaking little easy, and less polished, and much obscure. The blessed Cyprian esteemed his writings so highly that he would let no day pass without reading them, often urging upon Paul of Concordia, his notary [secretary], Give [me] the master — meaning, of course, Tertullian.

This man, therefore, among the other monuments of his genius, left [these]:

On Genesis chapter 2, On Paradise, one book, of which the author himself made mention at the end of his book On the Soul.

Likewise on Genesis chapter 7, one treatise, inquiring therein: why God, who made all things very good, brought the unclean animals together with the clean into the ark. Jerome mentions this little work in the preface of his Questions to Damasus.

Likewise on the conflagration of Sodom, on the 18th chapter of Genesis, one book, elegantly composed in heroic verse: which begins,

Now God Almighty, with the avenging flood, had abolished all the crimes of the first age with the waves. Those which heaven scattered, the water of the Tyrian sea drove out.

Likewise On the vestments of Aaron, on Exodus 28, one book: of which Jerome, in his epistle On the garb of priests to Fabiola, thus says: There is reported in the Index of Septimius Tertullian a book on the vestments of Aaron, which meanwhile up to this day has not been found by me: if it be found by you, on account of the fame of the city, I pray, do not compare my little drop to that river; for I am to be judged not by the genius of great men, but by my own powers.

He wrote also on the Lord’s Prayer, from Matthew chapter 6, one book entitled On Prayer: which Hilary recalls in his commentary on Matthew. He flourished under the Emperor Severus, in the year of the Lord 200.

Theodolus [Theodulus], a presbyter in Coelesyria, and afterwards a Bishop, an Italian by nation, wrote a book On the Concord of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, against the ancient heretics: who, on account of the difference of precepts or of ceremonies, said that the God of the Old Testament was one, and the God of the New another. In it he showed that it was [a matter] of the dispensation of one and the same God, the author of both scriptures — that some things were given as law through Moses to the ancients in the ceremonies of sacrifices and in the executions of judgments, other things in these times through the presence of Christ in the sacred mysteries and in the future promises; and that they ought not to be believed diverse, nor dictated by more than one spirit and one author: since those things which, if only they were observed according to the letter, would kill, the very same, according to the [spiritual] understanding, give life. The same man also published a volume of Eclogues in verse: in which he most felicitously sang all the miracles of the Old Testament, and the fables of the poets composed in imitation of these. Its beginning is, The lands of the Ethiopians, etc. He is also said to have collected, on the Epistle to the Romans, a succinct and easy exposition, woven together in the manner of a catena, from the opinions of the Greek Fathers, whose names, cited by him, are these: Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, John Chrysostom, Photius, Isidore, Severianus, Gennadius, and Oecumenius. But since Photius and Oecumenius flourished two hundred years after Theodolus, it appears that the inscription of the work is false. The beginning of the work is, Paul, etc. This epistle contains the instruction of the Gospel. He died under the Emperor Zeno, in the year of the Lord 480.

Theodore [Theodorus], a presbyter of the church of Antioch, a learned man and eloquent in Greek fluency, whose [work] against the Eunomians and Apollina-

…[whose work] against the Eunomians and Apollina-[rists] is extant, a most elegant volume, wrote also on the Psalms magnificent commentaries, of which many and frequent fragments are read in the Greek Catena of explanations of the Psalter, arranged by Epiphanius Scholasticus. He flourished under Honorius Augustus, in the year of the Lord 420.

Theodore [Theodorus], Bishop of Heraclea of Thrace — which was once called Perinthus — a man of elegant and open speech, illustrious in the times of Constantine II, published (according to the literal understanding, which he everywhere followed in the exposition of the divine Letters) Commentaries on the Psalter, on Matthew, on the Gospel of John, and on the epistles of Paul. He flourished in the year of the Lord 340.

Theodoret [Theodoretus], or Theodoritus (for the Greek copies bear both readings), a Syrian by nation, of the city of Cyrrhus — which Stephanus calls Κυρούπολις (that is, Cyropolis), [and] the Persians call Cyrecbata — Bishop and pastor of eight hundred churches2 (for that city then had so many parishes, [a city] once founded by Cyrus, king of the Persians, in the farthest bounds of Persia); a man renowned for Attic eloquence, and most illustrious in the explanation of the holy volumes, and also a most keen assailant of the heretics — by whom he even endured stones for the defense of the catholic faith. After many labors of life, in extreme old age he was branded with anathema by Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria, and most unjustly deposed from his bishopric, because he had agreed with Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople, in the condemnation of the Eutychian heresy. He, therefore, having obtained an admirable facility in teaching, left many commentaries on the divine Scriptures, abridged for the most part from the richest [works] of St. John Chrysostom — whom he took to himself as it were the primary model to imitate. Of these I have read the following:

A volume of Mystical Instructions, an Isagoge [Introduction] into the whole holy Scripture, expounding the mystical and spiritual understandings of all the names and words that are contained in the divine Letters; which work, written in Greek on ancient parchments, is preserved at Vienna in Austria, in the library of Alexander Brassicanus.

Εἰς τὰ ἄπορα τῆς θείας γραφῆς κατ᾽ ἐκλογήν, that is, On selected ambiguous questions of divine Scripture, from the beginning of Genesis up to the last book of Kings — a notable work: in which he briefly and lucidly explains, through question and answer, only the obscure passages. Its beginning is, Μετρεῖν εἴωθε [so printed, 16th-c. Greek type hard], that is, He was accustomed to measure.

On the whole Psalter, commentaries chiefly according to the letter, in which with wonderful skill he joined together the little verses of the psalms which seemed to agree among themselves in no order. These noble commentaries are extant at Genoa, in the Sauli library: whose beginning is, Ἐμοὶ μὲν πρὸ τῶν ἄλλων θείων λογίων κατὰ θυμὸν ἦν τοῦ μεγάλου Δαβὶδ ἑρμηνεῦσαι τὴν προφητείαν, that is, It is indeed my mind, before the other divine discourses, to interpret the prophecy of the great David.

There is annexed to this work a Catena of explanations on the ferial Canticles, collected by an uncertain author from Eusebius, Didymus, Basil, Chrysostom, Severus of Antioch, Hesychius, Cyril, Theodoret, Eudoxius the philosopher, and Nicolaus the presbyter.

On the Song of Songs, graceful commentaries [addressed] to John the Bishop, beginning, The exposition of the divine scriptures. Into which some recent collector, I know not who, mixed fragments of the explanations of Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus, Nilus, and Psellus, upon various places of this book.

He composed [lucubrated] also, on all the Prophets, very many volumes of commentaries: whose openings, gathered partly from Greek, partly from Latin codices, are these:

(The Greek incipits above are set in a very difficult 16th-c. type and are rendered as best they can be read.)

Besides these, there are reported to be printed in type Commentaries on all the epistles of Paul: in which, as far as can be done, the meanings of Paul are explained succinctly, elegantly, in order, and piously, and the opinions which in Paul seem most difficult are joined together with [other] opinions with wonderful skill. St. Thomas cites from these commentaries, in his little work Against the errors of the Greeks, a testimony of the Armenians for the fire of purgatory, from the third chapter of the epistle to the Corinthians, upon that [text], If any man’s work shall burn — in these words:

The Apostle says, He shall be saved, thus, as it were, through a smelting-furnace — a fire purging whatever has crept in through incaution in the past life, from the dust at least of the feet of the earthly sense, in which [state] he remains so long as any bulk and earthly affection has clung to him, until he be purged: for whom Mother Church devoutly offers victims and peaceful gifts.

Which words, indeed, I could nowhere find, neither in the Latin nor in the Greek commentaries. I suspect that they were either withdrawn by certain Greeklings hostile to purgatory, or drawn by St. Thomas from some other work where Theodoret expounded this passage thus. The beginning of the work is, Scio quidem ferè [I know indeed almost], as, while [the epistles] of the divine Paul… This holy man flourished in the time

…[he flourished] in the time of the Council of Ephesus, contemporary with St. Cyril, with whom he also had disputes concerning the acts of that same synod; and he reached even to the times of Pope Leo the First, to whom he wrote an entreating epistle for his own restoration to the bishopric. He died about the year of the Lord 450.

Theodore, or Theodoric [Theodoricus], Abbot of St. Trond [St.-Trudo] in the diocese of Liège, a Benedictine by profession, German by nation, of great erudition and holiness, whose excellence in prose and in verse was equal, composed a book comprising the histories of the Old and New Testament in heroic verse. He flourished under the Emperor Henry IV, in the year of the Lord 1100.

Theodoric Herxen [Theodoricus Herxenius; Dirk van Herxen], German by nation, visitor of the order of clerics living in common [the Brethren of the Common Life], renowned for holiness of life and the powers of his genius, wrote — in scholastic order, but in a more devout style — one book on the Psalter. He flourished under the Emperor Frederick III, in the year of the Lord 1476.

Theodotion, as Epiphanius reports, a Pontic by nation, or, as Euthymius holds, an Ephesian — while he was a Christian, a follower of the heresiarchs Tatian, Marcion, and Ebion; when he had deserted from the Christians to the Jews, he was circumcised, and among them well instructed in the Hebrew tongue, and under the Emperor Severus Augustus he put out the fourth Greek translation of the Old Instrument, in the year of the Lord 200.

Theodotus, Bishop of Ancyra in Galatia, wrote very many homilies: of which Epiphanius the deacon, in the sixth session of the Second Nicene Synod, cites four —

He was illustrious in the Council of Ephesus against Nestorius, writing in a dialectical manner and very obscurely, in the year of the Lord 430.

Theognostus, an ancient author, whom Athanasius calls an eloquent, studious, and admirable man, wrote a Treatise on that [text] of Matthew 12, Whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man: which Athanasius cites in the book he composed upon that same saying of the Gospel.

Theophilus, the sixth bishop of the church of Antioch after the Apostle Peter, who under the Emperor Marcus Antoninus Verus, in the year 173, was taken up to the bishopric, is said to have written commentaries on the Proverbs of Solomon: which, however, Jerome asserts do not agree, in phrasing and elegance, with the other volumes of that author. The same man compacted the sayings of the four Evangelists into the body of a single history, and illustrated it with Greek commentaries. Jerome testifies that these are unequal, in elegance of diction, to his other volumes which he wrote against the heretics, exhibiting a modest taste of his phrasing in the exposition of the parable of the Unjust Steward — which he himself translated from Theophilus’s commentaries, when, being asked by Algasia about the question of that parable, he answered her.

Theophylact [Theophylactus], Archbishop of Bulgaria — long and much versed and worn in the reading of St. Chrysostom — reduced into a brief and open compendium, according to the historical understanding, whatever that admirable father had poured out from his golden mouth, as from a most abundant fountain, in expounding the holy Scriptures; omitting the commonplaces, in which Chrysostom was wont to run out under the full sails of eloquence. And since he found the Allegories either none or rare in Chrysostom, he supplied them from the commentaries of others, and most aptly fitted them to his places. There are reported, among the rest, [these works] collected by him on both Testaments:

He flourished in the year of the Lord 900, under Michael and Theodora [so printed; Theophylact of Bulgaria in fact belongs rather to the late 11th century].

Thomas the Englishman [Thomas Anglicus], of Wales [Galensis] by homeland, of the Order of Preachers, professor of scholastic Theology, wrote on the sacred Books very many commentaries of scholastic method: of which there are, in the library of Sts. John and Paul at Venice, a Lecture on Genesis, beginning, Let it not depart, etc., and a Postil on the first twenty-five Psalms, which begins, Blessed is the man who keeps. There are believed to be, of this author, commentaries on Genesis, on Isaiah, on Jeremiah, on the Canonical Epistles, on the Apocalypse, and on Boethius On the Consolation of Philosophy — [works] ascribed to St. Thomas [Aquinas].3 For, since for honor’s sake the surname of Angelic had been given to Aquinas, and there was great similarity of sound between Anglicus [English] and Angelicus [Angelic], it gradually came about that, through carelessness and error, the writings of Thomas the Englishman were marked with the title of Thomas the Angelic. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1400.

Thomas Aquinas, of the Order of Preachers, sprung from the illustrious family of the Counts of Aquino, born of most splendid parents on the borders of Campania — himself the greater disciple of Albert, Archbishop of Regensburg [Ratisbon], surnamed the Great, a doctor;4 a man of the greatest and loftiest genius, to whom, for the full and complete glory of all erudition, both divine and human, there was lacking only the use of the [ancient] tongues and of eloquence — which the learned of that age, being intent on loftier studies, neglected. He was, without any controversy, the prince of theologians, and of all the Philosophers whom the Academy of the Scholastics has produced up to this day:5 inasmuch as he, the first of all the Latin philosophers, illustrated the whole philosophy of Aristotle with most lucid commentaries, by a daring no less incredible than felicitous. But in sacred [studies], he came so near, in the studies of a purer theology, to the most wise Augustine, that thus [he brought] his [Augustine’s] mind, and all

…he looked into and drained his [Augustine’s] hidden meanings, so that — according to Pythagoras’s μετεμψύχωσις [metempsychosis, the transmigration of souls], as tossed about in the common adage of all the most learned — Augustine’s soul migrated into Thomas. In the scholastic disputations of mystical Theology also he so surpassed the other leaders of the Academies, that it has been received by the universal consent of all the schools that Thomas, the restorer of Scholastic Theology, joined together in an indissoluble bond of peace four things implacably warring among themselves — namely, Copiousness, Brevity, Facility, and Security — which it befell no professor of letters ever, either before or after him, to be able to connect together at once. And first, so copious a richness of all things is in him, that hardly anything from the whole compass of Theology and Philosophy could be desired that he himself has not embraced with most copious variety in his richest writings. Then Brevity — which is the inseparable companion of obscurity, its mother — he so joined to Facility, all difficulty being shut out, that by the disposition of order, by the perspicuity of the sentences, and by the splendid clarity of words, he left all writers far behind him; and, what is much more admirable, whereas in the ecclesiastical Writings of many Fathers of great name one must proceed cautiously and with wary foot, lest one imprudently strike upon certain opinions little safe, to this one truly divine man there fell, by a divine [gift], so great a security of assertions and opinions, that in reading him the reader, free from all suspicion of error, may range at large safe and secure with unimpeded step, without any offense — as it were along a royal road, worn by the common tread of the ecclesiastical fathers, far from those byways of the particular sects, [their] paths and detours, which often lead the incautious away into inextricable mazes and irretraceable errors.

With these, then, most rare conditions of teaching, this incomparable doctor wrote almost innumerable volumes of the scholastic kind: of which those that pertain most to the understanding of Sacred Scripture are distinguished by a triple division — into Expositions, Questions, and Opuscula [Minor Works]. In the Expositions (which he also called Lectures) he expounded those books of holy Scripture — which we shall indicate in their place — in a continuous order of explanation, briefly and to the letter, most lucidly. In the Opuscula, or Treatises, he treated some particular passages of the scriptures more fully and copiously. But in the Questions, upon various propositions of divine Scripture, applying contrary argumentations on both sides, he constructed most beautiful disputations: among which are greatly praised the Questions On the work of the seven days — which, when he had first published them (as Aegidius Romanus [Giles of Rome] testifies) in a separate volume, he afterwards placed, in a most fitting order, into the first part of his Summa.

He is also said to have written on Genesis a certain scholastic Postil, which is circulated inscribed under his name; but Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, denies that it is his, affirming that it was published by another Thomas of the same order — a man indeed learned and pious, but in no way to be compared to Thomas Aquinas in facility of style and gravity of sense.

He composed also most lucid and most learned commentaries on the whole book of Job according to the letter: which are preferred to the other commentaries published by him on the Old Testament, for erudition and for a genuine and sincere explanation of the history. Their beginning is, As in things [Sicut in rebus].

He published likewise, on the first fifty of the Psalms — that is, on fifty-one Psalms — pious and learned commentaries according to the literal and anagogical understanding, in the same kind of interpretation which he had used in the commentaries on Job; but the exposition on the remaining Psalms, being prevented by death, he could not finish. The opening of the book is, In all his work, etc.

He wrote also a Postil on the Song of Songs, which begins, Let thy voice sound.

There is reported, besides, a Postil on Isaiah, whose beginning is, Write the vision, and explain, etc.: which very many, on account of its poverty of erudition, judge not to be his. Lyranus [Nicholas of Lyra] asserts that it was put together from his sayings by some studious person.

There is extant also a Postil on Jeremiah and Threni [Lamentations], whose beginning is, This is a lover of the brethren and of the people: which, on account of the barrenness of its doctrine, is not believed to be his.

He collected besides — by command of Pope Urban IV — from the patchwork [centos] of the Latin fathers, and from the rhapsodies of the Greek authors (which he had caused to be translated into Latin), a most noble work of explanation on the four Gospels: which he entitled A Continuous [commentary] on the Four Evangelists, but which more recent [writers] call the Golden Chain [Catena aurea]. Its beginning is, To the most holy and most blessed, etc.

Besides these, Trithemius asserts that he wrote scholastic Lectures on the four Gospels, of which I have seen only the Lecture on Matthew, which begins, Matthew from Judaea, etc., and the Lecture on John, which begins, I saw the Lord.

To these he added a Lecture on all the Epistles of Paul, filled with the highest erudition: in which he left the other scholastic expositors far behind him. Its beginning is, A vessel of election.

On all the catholic epistles, 7 books. [incipit:] James, etc.

On the Apocalypse, a huge volume, which begins, The voice of the Lord, preparing the harts.

The same, when in the Cistercian monastery of Fossanova — near the Amaseno, a river of Campania — he lay sick, his bodily strength broken by continuous studies, being asked by the monks who sat by his bedside that he would explain the Song of Solomon in imitation of the sense and spirit of St. Bernard, but far more briefly, refused, saying: Give me the spirit of Bernard, and I will expound to you…

…[Give me the spirit of Bernard, and I will expound to you] an exposition breathing the spirit of Bernard. But when they still more earnestly begged him that he would at least bring forth some brief explanation of the Song from his own understanding, having summoned to himself certain monks to take down his words as he dictated, he began a second exposition on the Song, differing in style and erudition from the former exposition on the same book — as that time, and the prayers of the monks, and the occasion of his sickness demanded — writing not what art, but what sincere piety and a soul now hastening to the coming immortality, poured forth. In this explanation, therefore, when in expounding he had reached the sixth chapter of the book, and was uttering — with a vehement ardor of spirit and the highest alacrity of voice, his eyes lifted to heaven — those words of that same chapter which were his last, Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the garden, suddenly his most holy soul, going forth from the mortal body into the garden of eternal felicity, to its beloved (longed for all the days of its life and summoned by the last words of its life), happily departed, in the 48th year of his age, from the nativity of Christ 1274. But the rest of the exposition, to the end of the book, some studious person added. The opening of the work is, Solomon inspired by the divine spirit.

Demetrius Cydonius wrote his life in the Greek tongue; he also translated into Greek the first and second parts of the Summa Theologica, and the four books Against the Gentiles, which are now preserved at Venice in the Marciana library.

Thomas, a Cistercian monk, aspiring to the eloquence of St. Bernard and to his diligence in gathering the flowers of the divine scripture, wrote to Pontius, Bishop of Clermont, eight books of commentaries on the Song of Solomon, not to be despised: whose method he himself set forth in the preface of the whole work in this manner:

I, together with Ruth the Moabitess, after Origen and the other aforesaid reapers — Gregory, Bede, and Bernard — busy myself to gather the ears [of grain], that is, the sentences [meanings], wrapped in the chaff of the letter: but I loose each little verse from its covering of chaff by a brief and compendious exposition; then, disposing the unfolded meaning by a manifold distinction, afterwards, like an argumentative bee, running through the little flowers of the Scriptures which have been expounded and distinguished, I strengthen them with attestation.

The beginning of the work is, I am vehemently astonished, and beyond what can be said I do not cease to marvel. Ascensius [Josse Bade] printed it at Paris in the year 1521.

Thomas Hasselbach [Hasselbachius], a German, most skilled in the divine scriptures and in secular philosophy, rare in acuteness of genius, scholastic in speech, but too diffuse and prolix, and on that account liable to the censure of some (for, when he was the ordinary lecturer of sacred Theology in the University of Vienna, publicly expounding the prophet Isaiah for twenty-one years, he did not reach the end of the first chapter) — is reported to have written, of his so prolix exposition on the first chapter of the prophet Isaiah, twenty-four books, in the year of the Lord 1410.

Thomas Sperman, an Englishman, of the Order of Preachers, scholastically expounded the epistle to the Hebrews and the epistle of James, in the year of the Lord 1290.

Thomas Walden [Netter of Walden], a Carmelite, an Englishman, who first put out learned and strong volumes against the Hussites and Wycliffites, wrote a scholastic Postil on the Pentateuch.

Thomas de Vio [Cajetan], Cardinal with the title of St. Sixtus, of the Order of Preachers, an Italian by nation, of Gaeta [Caietanus] by homeland, and bishop of that same city, a man as illustrious for holiness of life as for excellence of genius6 — a most subtle dialectician, an admirable philosopher, an incomparable theologian, and among the most erudite the most learned of his age by far — in the thirtieth year of his age, on account of his singular excellence of manners and of doctrine, was elected the thirty-eighth Master General of his order at Rome; and after some years was taken up into the College of Cardinals by Pope Leo X. Soon he was sent into Germany with the office of legate, to quell the profane rumors which Martin Luther of Wittenberg, a new heresiarch, had stirred up among the Germans. Thence, having returned, he was again sent as legate by Pope Adrian [VI] into Pannonia [Hungary], with a great sum of money, to raise forces against Suleiman, Emperor of the Turks, who was striving to invade Pannonia with hostile arms. Then, recalled by Clement VII, the Supreme Pontiff, he returned to Rome: where, when the city was captured and burned by the Imperial army, he was made the prey of most abandoned robbers, and redeemed himself from their hands for the price of five thousand gold pieces. Not long after, when Clement, the Supreme Pontiff, had fallen into a most grave illness, given up by the physicians, he himself also began to be most gravely sick — as if he wished to snatch himself away from the imminent burden of the pontificate, to which he was being called by the common expectation and prayers of all — and by his own death he anticipated the death of the Pontiff, happily rendering his soul to God on the fourth day before the Ides of August [10 August], in the 66th year of his age, from the nativity of Christ 1534; and he was buried at Rome, in the vestibule of the temple of Minerva [Santa Maria sopra Minerva], before the doors, in a sepulchre dug into the ground, which while living he had himself prepared. His life Flavius Aquilanus, his intimate secretary, most eloquently wrote in prose and verse.

This man, therefore, in his extreme old age, after innumerable lucubrations published on the philosophy of Aristotle and on the whole theology of St. Thomas, expounded the entire mass of the Old and New Testament — the most difficult of all — according to the sense of the letter, from the Hebrew and Greek truth, in a bare and brief discourse; except for the Song of Songs and the Prophets, which, having begun them as he was dying, he left [unfinished], and the Apocalypse, which he deliberately left untouched, saying that in expounding it there was need not of genius, but of divination. But on the other books of divine Scripture he left commentaries complete and entire: of which I have read only those set down below:

- On the books of Kings [Regum], 4 books. [incipit:] And there was a man, etc. — the title likewise of this book.

Ambrosius Catharinus [Ambrogio Catarino Politi], Archbishop of Conza [Compsanus], of the Order of Preachers, wrote — both against the aforesaid commentaries on the Scriptures, and against the other little works of this man — six books of Annotations, or Invectives, very sharp: concerning which I leave to each his own free judgment. Likewise Antonius Lusitanus à Fonseca [Antonio de Fonseca], of the Order of Preachers, added to the same Cardinal’s commentaries on the Pentateuch some elucidatory Annotations, not altogether to be regretted.

Tyconius [Tichonius], an African by nation — whose expositions Augustine, in the second book of the Retractations, preferred to the expositions of St. Cyprian on some [passages] — a man learned in divine and human letters, wrote most keenly against the Donatists, although he himself was a Donatist in some doctrines. He composed an Isagogic volume entitled Of Rules [Regulae]: in which he brought forward seven mystical rules, as it were seven keys, for opening, investigating, and finding the hidden understanding of the Scriptures7 — [rules] very useful. Of these:

These rules — much praised — St. Augustine (in the 3rd book On Christian Doctrine), Cassiodorus (in the preface to his commentary on the Psalms), and Isidore (book 1 On the highest good) review and examine in many words. The book’s beginning is, I have deemed it necessary before all things.

The same [Tyconius], as Gennadius reports, expounded the Apocalypse of John entirely, understanding nothing in it carnally, but the whole spiritually. In which exposition he said that the body is [as] an angelic station. He also removed the suspicion of a thousand years of the reign of the just on earth to come after the resurrection; nor [did he hold] that there would be two resurrections in the flesh of the dead — one of the just, the other of the unjust — but one, and once for all, in which even the abortives [stillborn] shall rise. But he showed the distinction of the two resurrections thus: that the first, which he called the revelation of the just, we should believe to be carried on now in the increase of the Church, where those justified by faith are raised from the death-corpses of their sins, through baptism, unto the reward of eternal life; but the second [is] generally [the resurrection] of the flesh of all men. These commentaries Primasius, Bishop of Utica, for the greater part transfused into the explanations on the Apocalypse published by himself; which [in turn] Bede the Venerable, the presbyter, compressed into three books: in whose preface he thus writes concerning Tyconius:

Tyconius both vividly and truthfully understood the Apocalypse of St. John, and expounded it sufficiently in the Catholic [manner] — except only in those passages in which, striving to defend the schism of his own party (that is, of the Donatists), he laments the persecutions which they endured (namely, as heretics) from that most religious prince Valentinian: their churches, and their peoples and men, and their possessions handed over into the hands of the Catholics, and their priests thrust into exile; and, calling these [things] martyrdoms, he boasts that they were foretold in the same Apocalypse.

He flourished when Theodosius and his sons were reigning, in the year of the Lord 390.

Tilmann of Aachen [Tilmannus Aquensis], a German, a Carmelite, who had an excellent genius, refined in divine and human letters, lecturer of the University of Cologne, wrote on the Gospel of Matthew, in scholastic diction, one book, in the year of the Lord 1550.

Titus, Bishop of the church of Bostra in Arabia, wrote Greek commentaries on the Gospels, which Trithemius mentions in his Catalogue. He flourished under the Emperor Julian: by whose edict, driven from his bishopric, while he lived in exile, he wrote strong books against the Manichaeans, in the year of the Lord 340.

Tryphon [Triphon], a disciple of Origen, learned in ecclesiastical as well as heathen doctrines, wrote on the 15th chapter of Genesis, περὶ τῶν διχοτομουμένων, that is, On the halved parts of the heifer, the ram, and the she-goat, which Abraham offered to God in sacrifice together with the dove and the turtledove — one book; likewise, On the quality of the sacrifices which are contained in the whole book of Leviticus, 1 book. He flourished in the year of the Lord 230.

Triphyllius, Bishop of Ledra (or Leutheon) in Cyprus, when he had long given his effort at Berytus [Beirut] to the [liberal] arts, to law, and to eloquence, became the most eloquent of all of his age — but he did not lack affectation. Whence, when once, at the exhortation of many Bishops, he was making a discourse to the people, and was expounding that saying of our Savior to the paralytic, Take up thy bed and walk, being offended by the rudeness of the diction, instead of γραββάτῳ (that is, grabatum, a pallet) he said κλινίδιον, that is, lectulum (a little couch) — which Spyridon, taking it ill,

…[which Spyridon,] Bishop of Trimythous in Cyprus, taking ill, said: Art thou then not better than he who said “grabatum”? What shame, then, is this, that you are unwilling, sir, to use his words with [their] decorum? And with these words, rising from his episcopal seat in the sight of all, he rebuked the pride and haughtiness of those who set themselves off with affected speech. This man [Triphyllius], therefore, among other things which he commented on the sacred Letters, also published most graceful commentaries on the Song of Songs. He flourished under Constantius Augustus, in the year of the Lord 350 (Nicephorus, book 8, chapter 42).

Tullio Crispoldi [Tullius Crispoldus] of Rieti, a very pious and learned man, a pupil of Matthew, Bishop of Verona (a man distinguished for holiness), published in the Italian tongue a treatise On the Passion of the Lord from the four Gospels, admirable in its meanings and style, which John — grandson of John, King of Portugal, and Duke of Aveiro — inflamed by reading it, gave to Latinity, happily attaining the style and mind of the author. He also wrote, in Italian discourse, Commentaries on Matthew, worthy of the highest praise and veneration: which Egidio Foscarari [Aegidius Foscararius], of the Order of Preachers, Bishop of Modena — of all the bishops of this time the most learned and most holy — showed to me at the Council of Trent. He flourished in the year of the Lord 1540.

Footnotes

  1. Tertullian is crowded in his sentences, and difficult in his speech. ↩

  2. Theodoret was the pastor of 800 churches. ↩

  3. Some commentaries on sacred Scripture which are commonly attributed to St. Thomas are thought to be [the work] of Thomas the Englishman. ↩

  4. St. Thomas Aquinas was a disciple of Albert the Great. ↩

  5. The exceeding praises of St. Thomas. ↩

  6. The praises of Cardinal Cajetan. ↩

  7. Seven rules useful for understanding the scriptures. ↩

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To cite this page

Sixtus of Siena, O.P., “Letter T,” in The Catholic Expositors of the Divine Volumes, English translation, Mind of the Church, https://mindofthechurch.com/works/bibliotheca-sancta-iv/017-letter-t/.

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