THERE is a Comment upon the Proverbs, supposed by mistake to be St. Jerom’s. It is likewise printed under the Name of Bede, to whom rather than St. Jerom it belongs. We find it in the 5th Tome of the new Edition. F. le Long believes it to be Pelagius’s, and not Bede’s. There are three Books upon the Proverbs which are certainly Bede’s, printed in the 4th Tome of his Works; and some Fragments, in the 7th.
Salonius, Son to Eucherius the elder, who afterwards was Bishop of Lyons, was bred up in the Monastery of Lerin, with his Brother Verranus. Both, in process of time, were advanced to the Dignity of Bishops. What the Church was, which Salonius governed, is uncertain; whether that of Vienne, or some other in Gaul. Verranus was Bishop of Vienne. We have a moral Explanation of the Proverbs, in the way of Dialogue, between the two Brothers, Salonius and Verranus. They lived in the 5th Century; and their Dialogue is in tom. 8. p. 401. of the Bibliotheca Patrum. It is written in a very simple, but clear and intelligible Style. Salvian, speaking to their Father Saint Eucherius, says of them, Menti tuæ, ac pietati pares.
Bede has also written on the Proverbs, as we have observed already; and so has Rabanus Maurus, and Honorius Prebendary of Autun. But these are moral Works. The last, Honorius flourished in 1120. His Comment was printed at Cologn, in 1540, in 8vo. 1544, in fol. afterwards in the new Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. 20. p. 1141. See upon Genesis.
Among the Moderns we have Cajetan, Arboreus, Agellius, Theodore Peltanus a Jesuit, who died in 1584. and wrote, Paraphrasin & Scholia in Proverbia Salomonis.
Arboreus’s Comment was printed at Paris, 1549, in fol. It deserves some esteem, and may be read with advantage; tho it be diffuse, as are his other Performances in the same kind. He explains the literal Sense in it.
Agellius’s is in the Opuscula of Lewis Novarini; printed at Verona, in 1649, in fol. See upon the Psalms.
Peltanus not only published a Paraphrase and Scholia upon the Proverbs, but likewise a Catena of the Greek Fathers, by him translated into Latin; all at Antwerp, 1607, in 4to. and 1614, in 8vo. by the Procurement and Care of Andrew Schott. Peltanus was of Liege, and died at Augsburg in 1584. which induced Possevin to believe that he was a German. In his Epitaph we read what St. Ambrose said of another, Vixit Ecclesiæ.
Cornelius Jansenius, Bishop of Ypres, wrote a good Comment on the Books of Proverbs, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus; or rather, Analecta. See upon the Pentateuch. We may say of them with Fabricius; Nec brevitas claritatis, nec extemporalitas limæ gratiam amisit.
Cornelius, Bishop of Ghent, has written likewise on these Books. His Comment was printed at Lyons, in 1578, in 4to. the third Edition; and with Notes at Brussels, 1692, in fol.
Rodolphus Baynus, an English Roman- Catholick, and Professor of the Hebrew Tongue in the University of Paris, died in 1560. He published a Latin Translation of the Book of Proverbs; to which he added a learned Comment of his own composing. It was printed at Paris, in 1555, in fol. and in the 3d Tome of the Great Criticks, p. 4006. He explains the literal Sense with great Clearness, endeavouring to make himself understood by every one; in which Design he has succeeded.
John Lorin, John Maldonat, Cornelius à Lapide, Jerom Osorius the elder, and Ferdinand Salazar, have all written on the Proverbs.
Constantius de la Fuente in Latin. Fontius wrote upon the Proverbs, but his Comment was not printed.
Sixtus of Siena, and Cardinal Bellarmin, have Citations from the Comments of William of Paris, upon the Psalms, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, which are not in the Collection of his Works printed at Paris, in two Volumes fol. 1674.
M. Bossuet wrote Notes upon the Libri Sapientales, beginning with Proverbs, and upon Ecclesiasticus, in one Volume; printed at Paris. They are like those published by him upon the Psalms, short and clear. He having no other design but to encourage the Attempts of those who were beginning to read the Scriptures, and to assist them in penetrating of themselves into the Sense of the most obscure Passages, he was not to overload them with a long Comment; wherefore he has enlarged only upon particular Places, which have been explained by some modern Interpreters in such a manner, as seems to weaken the most certain Truths of Religion. For this reason he has insisted on the 17th Verse of the 12th Chapter of Ecclesiastes, in order to erase the dangerous Impressions which Grotius seems to give concerning the Nature of the Soul, when he compares the following Words of Solomon, Spiritus redeat ad Deum, to those of Euripides, Spiritus cœlo redit; as if both had the same meaning, and signified nothing more than that the Soul, at death, is dissipated in the Air, as the Body is reduced to Ashes in the Earth.
What M. de Meaux has added at the end of his Volume upon the Psalms, is likewise against Grotius, who, in order to weaken the Predictions of the Old Testament, but only translated into Latin the Hebrew Comments of Rasi, Aben Ezra, and Levi Gerson. He has added various Readings with his Explanations, at Milan, 1620, in 4to.