Notes on Some Antiheretical Writings of the Thirteenth Century

Abstract

NOTES ON SOME ANTIHERETICAL WRITINGS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY In 1899, Frederic C. Conybeare published from a manuscript of Florence the text of a treatise against medieval heretics1 who in one passage are called "Manichaeans".2 In a brief introduction, he contented himself with noting that the tenets of the heretics seemed to prove their descent from Manichaeans of St. Augustine's day as well as to anticipate doctrines, especially in respect to baptism, later current among Lollards, Quakers, and Anabaptists, but he did no more to identify the author of the text or its provenience than to state that it came from the twelfth century.3 More surprising than Conybeare's failure to pursue his examination of this and similar treatises4 is the oblivion into which his article fell, for, as far as I can discover, it is not noticed in the numerous studies 1 "A Hitherto Unpublished Treatise against the Italian Manichaeans," American Journal of Theology, III (1899), 704—-28 (hereafter cited as Conybeare ). The incipit is missing, due to the loss of fol. 69 ("excised by some bigoted monk," in Conybeare's opinion) and he omitted from the published text certain passages of Catholic reply to heretical arguments. The manuscript is Bibl. Aedilium, Cod. 37, fols. 7or—-75V of the Laurentian Library, described in A. M. Bandinius, Bibliotheca Leopoldina Laurentiana seu Catalogus manuscriptorum qui iussu Petri Leopoldi . . . in Laurentianam translati sunt . . . I (Florence, 1791), 51—-5; see esp. col. 53. 2 Contra manichaeum qui matrimonium detestatur: Conybeare, p. 712. On that epithet for the Cathars, see Arno Borst, Die Katharer (Stuttgart, 1953 : "Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae histórica," XII), p. 252, nn. 3—-4; also Christine Thouzellier, Une Somme anti-cathare: le Liber contra Manicheos de Durand de Huesca (Louvain, 1964: "Spicilegium sacrum Lovaniense. Etudes et documents," 32), pp. 147, 174, 217, 237. 3 He writes : "The reference to a possible visit of the emperor to Lombardy can only refer to Frederick II (sic) and indicates that the document was written about 1180 A.D." The context of the passage, however, shows that no specific emperor or journey to Lombardy was in question. 4 He annonced his intention to publish a Summa contra Patarenos from the same manuscript, but failed to do so, perhaps because he learned that it was not unedited, being, in fact, the Disputatio inter catholicum et paterinum hereticum, printed in Martène and Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, V (Lyon, 1717), 1705—-54 (on it, see pp. 297—99, below). Conybeare's scholarly work had been largely in Armenian documents and textual criticism of the Bible. Perhaps his interests turned to western heresy as a result of publishing The Key of Truth: a Manual of the Paulician Church of Armenia (Oxford, 1898), in which he expressed (pp. LV—-LVI) the view that the Paulicians were the direct ancestors of the Cathars, and with which he included (pp. 160—70) a translation of the Catharist ritual in Provençal from the edition by Leon Clédat, Le Nouveau Testament traduit au XIIIe siècle en langue provençale, suivi d'un rituel cathare (Paris, 1897), pp. 470—82 286WALTER L. WAKEFIELD of medieval heresy5 or of the polemics against heresy published since 1900,6 although it does find a line in Kulcsár's bibliography appearing in 1964. 7 The loss to the learned world, however, was not great, for the tract published by Conybeare has no independent value as a description of Catharist belief, being to a considerable extent the result of pillaging the first two books of the Summa quadripartita against heretics, Jews, and infidels written by Alain de Lille.8 (French translation of the ritual, pp. vi—xxvi). In later years, Conybeare wrote the article "Cathars" for the Encyclopedia Britannica, nth ed., V (New York, 1910), 515—7; and with F. P. Badham, "Fragments of an Ancient ( ? Egyptian) Gospel Used by the Cathars of Albi," The Hibbert Journal, XI (1913), 805—-18. There is a bibliography of his works in Revue des études Arméniennes, VI (1926), 200—-330. 5 Borst, Die Katharer, pp. 44—58, canvasses scholarly studies in the twentieth century to 1950. Other recent publications useful for bibliography are...

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