Franciscan Studies

COMPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE EARLY SCHOLASTIC COMMENTARII IN PSALMOS In a previous article, published in the Franciscan Studies,1 1 undertook the tedious task of disentangling the intricate connexions between the early Commentaries on the Psalter in the XIIth century. Since then, some facts have come to my knowledge, which prompted me to reconsider the matter. The aforesaid article took for granted that the Expositio in psalmos, published in Migne PL 152, was really written by St. Bruno the Carthusian , and also that the Expositio psalmorum, printed in Migne PL 131 among the works of Remi d'Auxerre, is older than the XIth century.2 It overlooked furthermore the important fact that those two Expositiones are closely related, not only to each other, but also to two, unfortunately unedited, Glosses on the Psalter, viz. the so called Remigius in Psalterium, preserved in codex Admont çç, and the Glosula Gilberti Universalis, transmitted in codex Laon 17. AU four commentaries contain , indeed, apropos of Ps. 21, a very similar and partly identical discussion on the Eucharist. In trying to disclose the undeniable parentage involved, I arrived, concerning the genealogy of the Commentaries on the Psalter, at surprising results, which I consider important enough to be exposed here at some length. To simplify matters, we shall designate the pseudo-remigian Gloss of Admont as Remi A, the Exposition of the Pseudo-Remi in Migne as Remi M, the one ascribed to St. Bruno the Carthusian as Bruno and the Gloss of Laon as Glosula. Whatever relations may connect Remi M, Bruno and Glosula, all three Commentaries rely directly upon Remi A. This fundamental statement has to be proven carefully for each of them, not the least for Remi M, which presents special difficulties. 1 D. Van den Eynde, Literary Note on the earliest Scholastic Commentant in Psalmos, in Franciscan Stud., 14 (1954) 121—-154. 2 Ibid., p. 137, p. 139, p. 142, p. 143, p. 149. 149 150D. VAN DEN EYNDE i) Remi A, source of Remi M. More than twenty years ago, J. Geiselmann3 drew attention to the fact that Remi A and Remi M both contain two sections, which, apart from a few variants, run parallel: a short one, limited to Ps. 21, 12b—30,4 where we find the question on the Eucharist, and a long one, covering Ps. 143, 10 sq.—Ps. 15o.5 On the same occasion, he pointed out that the conditions under which the shorter section appears in one Commentary differ greatly from those of the other. In Remi A , the common explanation of Ps. 21, 12b—30, is to be found at its proper place within the psalm, that is, between v. 12 a and vv. 31—32; in Remi M, on the contrary, it is relegated to the position of a second optional exegesis at the end of the psalm. Moreover, the same Remi M, while shortening the explanation of some verses, omits some others altogether. This is especially true for vv. 17—25, which Remi A understands as referring to the humility of Christ. Notwithstanding this omission, Remi M refers, exactly as Remi A does, to vv. 17—25 with the words "propter praedictam humilitatem."6 From this false reference, as well a as from its optional nature and peculiar position, Geiselmann concludes rightly that the second explanation of Ps. 21 in RemiM isa true, though slightly abridged, copy of Remi A. The obvious conclusion from this would be, it seems, that the longer section also originates from the same source. Yet, Geiselmann thinks otherwise. Nowhere, he says, do we ever see in Remi M that some verses, detached from the middle of a psalm, have been commented upon separately at the end of the regular commentary;7 hence the second explanation of Ps. 21 in Remi M betrays itself as a later interpolation. In other words, to him, Remi A is the source only of the second and "interpolated" explanation of Ps. 21 in Remi M; for the rest, including the long section of Ps. 143, 10 sq.—Ps. 150, it is posterior to Remi M and dependent on it.8 3 J. Geiselmann, Zur frühmittelalterlichen Lehre vom Sakrament der Eucharistie, in...