Critical Notes on Pseudo-Sisbert’s Exhortatio Poenitendi

Abstract

This paper discusses textual problems in an anonymous Late Latin poem entitled Exhortatio poenitendi. In his classic edition (Berlin 1914), Karl Strecker used nine witnesses. In my critical edition from 2021, I studied, collated, and classified twenty manuscripts of this poem and established a new stemma codicum; a manuscript not known to me at the time has been used in this paper. In this article I propose new conjectures absent from my edition, reject other proposals made by previous editors, and discuss lines in which either the stemma cannot be used to guide the editor in the choice of readings, the diffusion of variants is irregular, or I have made a choice different from that of previous editors. Many of the disputed passages can now be clarified in the light of two other works attributed to the same anonymous author (the Lamentum poenitentiae and the Oratio pro correptione uitae), which were published together with the Exhortatio poenitendi for the first time in my 2021 edition.

Keywords:

• textual criticism
• Late Latin
• Late Latin rhythmical poetry
• Pseudo-Sisbertus Toletanus

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous referees for their helpful comments and Prof. Monika Asztalos and Prof. Egil Kraggerud for their stimulating suggestions and criticism on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 On this set of works (CPL 1227, 1533 and 1228), see Cancela Cilleruelo (2021). Metre will be invoked when analysing many of the lines; for its detailed description see Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 31–33). Even though the three works were traditionally considered to be seventh-century Hispanic works, they were written in France or Northern Italy during the middle of the eighth century: see Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 54–62).

2 Du Breul (1601, 334–335); on the lost manuscript see Cancela Cilleruelo (2016).

3 Spitzel (1685, 262–268); Arévalo (1803, 346–350). Arévalo’s edition was reissued by Migne (1850, 1251–1256).

4 The poem is copied as prose in every manuscript except two witnesses: the best manuscript (A = Douai, BM, 290), which may preserve an old verse mise en page for the whole poem; and a very secondary witness (n = Wien, Theresianische Akademie, 4° 15), whose scribe, having copied lines 1–119 as prose, suddenly realised that the text was poetic and tried to arrange the rest of the work (120–176) into lines. Copying rhythmical poetry as prose is a common feature in medieval manuscripts. In this case, however, it seems that, except for A and n (which had no influence in the later tradition), the poem was always considered a prose composition; this explains the lack of medieval corrections of obvious mistakes in the rhythmical pattern. The poetic character of the Exhortatio was first rediscovered by a learned eighteenth-century librarian, Pedro Manuel Hernández, whose unpublished notes were used by Arévalo in his 1803 Rome edition (see Cancela Cilleruelo 2021, 291 n. 14). But it was only in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that this kind of metre was fully understood thanks to the work by Hanssen (1881), followed by Meyer (1886, 282–283, 431), Strecker (1923, 760–761), Norberg (1958, 102–105), and Ortega Ortiz (1968).

5 Pitra (1858, 132–137); Meyer (1886, 434–440).

6 Strecker (1923, 760–768).

7 Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 351–462). The Lamentum had been edited on several occasions; its latest critical edition was the one published by Strecker (1923, 769–783). The Oratio had not been critically edited before; the standard text was still that of Migne (1850, 1261–1274), which is only a reprint of Arévalo (1803, 358–373); Arévalo’s text is no more than a reproduction of Du Breul (1601, 341–351), with minor corrections ope ingenii. On the previous editions of Ps.-Sisbert’s works, see Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 287–295).

8 Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 142–174). The prominence of A was previously detected by Strecker (1923, 762). The internal stemma issuing from Σ is complex; see Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 142–158). However, it does not affect the reconstruction of ω, since the reading of Σ can be inferred from the agreement of B with some of its main descendants (E μ Γ ξ φ).

9 Contini (1970, 343–347); Chiarini (1982, 45–66).

10 The Latin texts are taken from my edition, except for slight changes of punctuation. The apparatuses are selective and adapted from those found in my edition. All translations are mine.

11 “Refuse absolutely and shun such sinful actions (quae = 14 cuncta peccatoria) at least now that you are beaten.”

12 The text of R O Breul can be safely rejected on stemmatic grounds, insofar as these witnesses are all secondary descendants derived from Σ.

13 Pitra quotes rennue as the reading of B, Du Breul’s edition, and an indirect descendant of B (Paris lat. 18072, which he did not identify as a descriptus). Apart from these three witnesses, he only collated A. Consequently, his apparatus should imply that A reads respue, but it does not: it also transmits renue, with a single n. In my edition I prefer rennue because it is the only form attested in the earliest ninth-century manuscripts of these works; see Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 301).

14 Meyer (1886, 433); Strecker (1923, 761).

15 The variant found in A was independently conjectured by two different α-type witnesses: n^a.c. and φ (the ancestor of R and the lost manuscript used by Du Breul).

16 No further instance can be quoted in the contemporary Latin Literature. The oldest parallel is penatum in the tenth-century B-version of the Vita Corbiniani episcopi Baiuuariorum, edited by Krusch (1913, 605, l. 16; see variants poenatum and pęnatum). But in this passage penatum means poena affectum (as glossed by Krusch ad loc.), rather than “repentant”, “regretful”. A few occurrences can be found in late medieval literature. All of these instances however seem to be unrelated to each other. I owe these parallels to one of the anonymous reviewers of this paper.

17 On poenare, see See ThLL, vol. 10/1, col. 2514, l. 19–23.

18 Krusch (1902, 273, l. 11–12).

19 Waitz (1841, 553).

20 Schwartz and Hofmeister (1934, 1046, l. 37).

21 See ThLL, vol. 10/1, col. 66, l. 62–71. On the oe/ae variation (paenitentia/poenitentia), see also Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 302).

22 From a rhythmical point of view both the adverb (pénitus) and the participle (penítus = poenítus) fit the rhythm alike: both the second and the third syllable of the verse (see 24 et ágnita poénitens vs. 47 sed admíssa poénitens) can be stressed.

23 “With your criminal offenses you have irritated the Lord, turning him against you. / By accusing you with the scourge, He corrects you, restrains you, mortifies you; / With whips He instructs you to recognise your mistakes / and to correct them, to avoid them, to amend them, regretting what you have admitted to.” As for my preference for the spelling poenit- instead of Classical paenit-, see Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 302): in light of a false etymology, the poet constantly links this root to poena, poenalis, etc. The use of impendio is worth noting, because this ablative is extremely uncommon in Latin poetry and it is used with a remarkable meaning. The structure impendio + genitive is well known (ThLL, vol. 7,1, col. 544, l. 6–14), but it means “with loss of something” (e.g., impendio sanguinis, “losing blood”). Maintaining this syntax, the expression impendio + genitive here seems to have been interpreted as “by means of” or “by the use of”, perhaps under the influence of the verb impendo -ĕre (“to apply”, “to use”), which is used by the author (Lament.164, Orat. 16); flagelli impendio monet seems parallel to Exhort. 22 flagris arguens (“by reproving with the whip”), Exhort. 25–26 uerbere plagae / pulsat (“He assails you with blows”), Lament. 209 per flagella modo purga (“purge me now with the whip”), Orat. 102 per flagella temporalia ad requiem deduxit aeternam (“thanks to a temporary use of the whip, He brought him [Lazarus] to eternal rest”), etc. This meaning could also arise from the fact that Christian authors employ impendium as opera, and the ablative impendio is used as magis, multo, magnopere (see ThLL, vol. 7,1, col. 544, 14–20 and 32–64), which could intensify this meaning (“by a constant use of the whip”). The semantic influence of impendeo (“by threatening with the whip”) cannot be fully discarded, given that this verb means instare or minari and is linked to terms such as aerumna, periculum, damnum, etc. (see ThLL, vol. 7,1, col. 542, 8–52), but note that the author of this corpus never uses this verb. Note also that there is hiatus between flagelli and impendio, in order to stress the fifth syllable in the line, but this is a regular feature in Ps.-Sisbert's poems (Cancela Cilleruelo 2021, 33–34, 202). As for distringere meaning “to restrain”, “to repress”, see ThLL, vol. 5,1, col. 1551, 12–64 (“detinere [scil. aliquam rem], hic illic etiam ad impediendi notionem proxime accedens”).

24 The proposals attributed to Rönsch first appeared in an anonymous review of Hanssen (1881), published in Philologischer Anzeiger 12 (1882, 304–311). In his edition, Meyer attributed this review to a certain “Rönsch” and quotes him as the author of some of the emendations defended in this anonymous review; the same information was repeated by Strecker (1923, 763, ad Exhort. 22). Given these circumstances, this scholar can probably be identified as the German biblical and patristic scholar Hermann Rönsch (1821–1888), the learned author of Itala und Vulgata (see Rönsch 1869 and 1891).

25 ThLL, vol. 8, col. 1406, l. 73–75; col. 1538, l. 63–65.

26 As Monika Asztalos suggests to me, the use of a simple verb in the Exhortatio could be due to rhythmical constraints.

27 The use of fugire instead of fugere is widely spread in Late Latin and Early Medieval texts, and continued by Romance Languages (Italian fugire, Old Occitan and Catalan fugir, French fuir, Spanish huir, Romanian fugí); see Stotz (1998, 188–189); ThLL, vol. 6/1, col. 1475, l. 32–48; MLW, vol. 4, col. 528, l. 6.

28 “This is what you should realise: by threatening you with blows, / He beats you so that you live desiring to do good, away from evil, / and so that you avoid what is harmful and seek what is harmless to you.”

29 Rönsch (1882, 310).

30 Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 32).

31 As in many other medieval works, existere is here just a synonym for esse; see Stotz (1998, 412). Here existas is used as a necessary trisyllabic word meaning sis, which, being monosyllabic, is avoided at the end of lines.

32 It can be seen also in the last quotation from the Oratio: uelle bonum et facere vs. uitare malum et refutare (“to love good and do it” vs. “to avoid evil and reject it”). See also Exhort. 144 (Sic et Iudas olim, subito malignus effectus, / omne bonum perdidit, quod dudum beate peregit, “Thus in the past Judas too suddenly became an evil person and lost all the good that he had happily done before”); Orat. 144–145 (plangere quia malum quod non debuit fecit, sed etiam quia bonum non gessit quod debuit, scil. homo, “Man must cry, not only because he did the evil that he should not have done, but also because he did not do the good that he should have done”); Orat. 170–171 (Nam non sufficit a malo discedere, nisi subsequatur bonum etiam operare, “Because it is not enough to depart from evil, if that is not followed by doing good as well”); Orat. 450–452 (aetas … ad malum prona, ad bonum pigerrima (“That age is prone to evil and extremely reluctant to do good”); Lament. 322 (Yacere post malum bonum ut permittas, obsecro, “Please allow me to do good after having done evil”). In the last example, Yacere is a spelling for Facere. It is an alphabetic poem, and Yacere starts the stanza corresponding to Y. Interestingly enough, there are five or six early medieval poems where the letter Y is used to represent the [f] sound, e.g. Yit, Yecit, Yacere, etc., for fit, fecit, facere, etc. I discuss this phenomenon in Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 35–37); Juan Gil has suggested to me that it may be a Hellenism: since in Greek, υ/Υ in contexts such as αὐτός was pronounced [f] (aftós), the Y could be used to represent this sound.

33 “Therefore, if you are upset that you have fallen apart by living unworthily, / hasten to rise with dignity, acting in a better way.”

34 The vulgar stress of exprímit, dispícit, elígunt (< prémit, spécit, légunt) does not imply restoring exprémit*, dispecit*, elégunt*. See Stotz (1996, 129); Norberg (1985, 8).

35 See above n. 4.

36 This parallelism, which can hardly be a coincidence, discards further possibilities such as Strecker’s 〈ex〉surge (unlikely: exsurgere does not appear in Ps.-Sisbert’s works) or better 〈con〉surge (which would at least be supported by Orat. 39 consurgens ad te, “rising to you”).

37 On this trait and its development, see Hofmann and Szantyr (1965, 344–345); Tarriño Ruiz (2021, 568 and n. 39); Pinkster (2021, 383–386). Meyer’s percurre can be discarded, since it is used with the accusative (Exhort. 4). Strecker’s praecura is unparalleled in these compositions and his own alternative procura is unlikely (it is never linked to an infinitive, see Orat. 54, 152).

38 “You are frightened by the terrible fires of hell, something that amounts to a second death: / but if you pay penance for what you have done, punish your sin and you will live.”

39 Meyer (1886, 282); Strecker (1923, 762); Ortega Ortiz (1968, 40).

40 In a slightly different variant of this structure (second person / imperative), the first line is used to address the sinner with negative orders: 5–6 Non ablatas resculas mundi fascesque suspires / nec casus honoris, sed ruinas animae plora (“Do not pine for the little worldly things and the power you have lost; do not cry over your fall from esteem but rather over your spiritual ruin”); 7–8 non haec defunctoria doleas exitia carnis, / sed perseuerantia Tartari tormenta formida (“Do not suffer by the present misfortunes of the flesh, which are finite; worry rather about the endless torments of Tartarus”); 9–10 nec aerumnas carceris ambigas, quas fine carebis, / sed iuges Auerni miserias prospectans euita (“and do not fear the miseries of prison, from which in the end you will be free; rather, be foresighted and avoid the infinite miseries of Hell”); 19–20 Non humana manu talia te perpeti putes, / sed haec prouenisse diuino iudicio crede (“Do not think that you endure such sufferings because of man; be rather convinced that they are established by divine foresight and order”).

41 The entire α-tradition (including Σ) reads pauescis except for X a. Both manuscripts are issued from a Σ-type common ancestor ξ, which probably transmitted the mistake pauescit (due to the influence of est mors); while X preserved this mistake, a adapted it to the second person in light of puni and uiues. As shown by X, the agreement of A with a is consequently a coincidence, although a thus restored the original reading.

42 “Because he who departs from sin, who joins justice, / and who obediently fulfils the commands of the Spirit of Life, / such a person has decided to stop serving death by repudiating his sins.”

43 This kind of intervention is consistent with other conjectures by Meyer himself, tending to classicise the style and language; see infra Exhort. 70 hoc modo to avoid the Late modal genitive huiusmodi, or Exhort. 80 captare to elude the vulgar accent capére, instead of cápere.

44 See Norberg (1958 and particularly 102–105).

45 “You should make penance paying attention no longer to commit actions you will regret / nor to transform – on this score being called a derider and a mocker (scil. of penance and God’s pardon) – / your penance into a dooming punishment.” On the use of sic … ne instead of sic … ut non in Late and Medieval Latin, see Stotz (1998, 413).

46 On the link between punio and peccatum see for example Exhort. 47 sed admissa poenitens puni peccatum et uiues; Orat. 111–125 passim. In line 64, I add a comma missing in my edition before ob (l. 64).

47 This passage is certainly corrupt, but these words could represent the original. Most probably the archetype omitted either the previous or the next sentence. See Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 269).

48 ThLL, vol. 10/1, col. 1463, l. 49–71; Nouum Glossarium, fasc. Per-perlysus col. 524, l. 38–51, s. v. periculum.

49 See ThLL, vol. 10/2, col. 2659, l. 21.

50 The recidivist penitent is a central topic in these works, in which it is expressed in terms taken from or inspired by Isidore of Seville’s doctrines; see Exhortatio 66–70, 89–90; Oratio 127–132. These lines (in particular, l. 64) versify a passage found in Isidore’s Sententiae (2.16.1, edited by Cazier [1998, 128]): Inrisor est, non paenitens, qui adhuc agit quod paenitet, nec uidetur Deum poscere subditus, sed subsannare superbus (“A person who continues doing what he regrets is not a penitent, but a scoffer; he does not seem to be pleading with God like a subject, but mocking him like a proud man”).

51 “To mourn sins without also ceasing to sin / is a fruitless work and the vainest hope of all. / It is to act like someone who destroys what he has built, and then tries to remodel what is already ruined, / and soils and dirties again what he washes today.”

52 As for his textual observations, see Hanssen (1881).

53 Sum, es and sunt are also unstressed in these poems (see Lament. 240, 319 or 179). In fact, these words were already enclitic in Classical Latin; see Norberg (1958, 21 and 1985, 38–53, especially 39); Sihler (1995, 540).

54 Strecker (1923, 765).

55 I suspect that he acted on rhythmical grounds: the fifth foot requires a prosody dirúta, but Classical Latin diru˘ta would imply díruta. However, stress in composed verbs often matches the simple verb (rúta), as shown in the discussion of lines 42 displícet and 51 obséquens.

56 “For in this way he cannot be considered clean, but always filthy. / Likewise, he does not receive forgiveness, but provokes anger, / as he does not wash away his criminal actions, but rather increases them.”

57 Strecker (1923, 765).

58 Stotz (1998, 372).

59 See ThLL, vol. 6/3, col. 2743–2744, l. 63–65, s. v. hic; also Norberg (1944, 40–41); Norberg (1968, 131); Norberg (1979, 18).

60 “It is better to obtain the glory of the kingdom by means of a shining behaviour.”

61 Strecker (1923, 765); Wright (2002, 119); Elfassi (2011, 58–59). See also Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 46–47).

62 “Bend the knees of your heart, prostrating your body on the earth, / begging constantly, pray shedding abundant tears, / in order to humbly placate God, whom you angered because of your pride.” On the first line and its Vergilian echo, see Cancela Cilleruelo (2019).

63 See for example Vita Desid. Vienn. 5 (Krusch 1906, 639): ymbre lacrimarum ora perfusus, ad refectorium properat (“His face was drenched in a rain of tears and he hurried to the refectory”); Beda, Vita metr. Cuthberti 29.612–614 (Jaager 1935, 105): ora / perfusus lacrimis suspiria fundere crebra / ingeminat (“His face was drenched in tears and he kept sighing a lot”).

64 “God’s forgiveness is not obtained by those who deride it, nor do the defiant obtain it by entreaty. / Indeed, repent of every mistake you have made (or “what you have done wrong should make you repent”), / so that you hate and dread all the things you improperly used to love.”

65 On these patterns, see ThLL, vol. 10/1, cols. 63–66.

66 Impersonal poenitet with accusative (sinner) and perfect infinitive (= behaviour): Exhort. 169 Non erit in crimine quem poenitet ante fuisse (“Whoever regrets having been a criminal in the past will no longer be one”); Orat. 282–283 Poenitet enim, Domine, poenitet me errasse, et doleo nunc stulte dudum perpetrasse nequissima (“I repent, Lord, I repent that I was wrong, and I am suffering now for the horrible crimes that I stupidly perpetrated in the past.”); Orat. 497–498 Numquid non in ea (scil. poenitentia) saluabis me sicut et ceteros quos deliquisse poenitet? (“Will you not save me thanks to it [penance], just as you did with all the others who did penance for having sinned?”).

67 Impersonal poenitet with accusative (= sinner), omitting the infinitive: Orat. 123–124 nihil aliud agunt quos ueraciter poenitet (“Those who sincerely do penance do nothing else”). The source is Isid. Orig. 6.19.71–73; see Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 21–22 and 418 ad loc.).

68 Impersonal poenitet with accusative and genitive: Orat. 361 Poeniteat me mali (taken from Ier 26.3: “I hope I regret my sin”).

69 Absolute use of personal poeniteo: Exhort. 63 tantum sic poeniteas (“You should make penance paying attention [etc., see Exhort. 63–65]”); Lament. 173 et deflentes penitent (“and they do penance while crying”).

70 Personal poeniteo with accusative (= behaviour): Exhort. 59 qui poenituisse mala perpetrata probantur (“Those who have repented of the crimes they have committed are approved”, scil. by God); Orat. 507–508 peccatum … quod tua prouidentia disponente execrans et abhorrescens poeniteo (“the sin … I repent of, execrating and hating it thanks to your providence”).

71 Personal poeniteo with perfect infinitive (= behaviour): Exhort. 74 peccasse poenite (“repent of having sinned”).

72 Personal and reflexive poeniteo with accusative (= the sinner, reflexive pronoun) and infinitive (= behaviour): Orat. 28 ipse (scil. contumax peccator) se postea poenitebit egere (scil. uenia¯ Dei, “the stubborn sinner will later regret depending on God’s forgiveness”). Note that the use of a present infinitive, instead of the perfect form, is linked to the future perspective of the action (when the unrepentant sinner will be condemned). See ThLL, vol. 10/1, col. 62, l. 72–78.

73 ThLL, vol. 10/1, col. 62, l. 42–44; OLD 2 “to affect (a person) with regret (for an action, etc., for which he is responsible)”.

74 Ed. Rousseau (1960, 129). As it is printed, Fulcoius’s line seems to mean “those who have committed bad things should make penance, and good things should be made” (i.e., by repentant sinners in the future). But the end of this line is unconvincing. Boni provides a better sense (bona would be corrupt under the influence of mala), but it is contra metrum.

75 “Ask God for forgiveness and never doubt your faith.”

76 Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 32–33).

77 ThLL, vol. 10/1, col. 1976, l. 49–61, s. v. peto; see Löfstedt (1942, 204); Norberg (1943, 148–149); Stotz (1998, 256–257).

78 Of course, this passage alludes to Mt 7.7: Petite, et dabitur uobis: quaerite, et inuenietis: pulsate, et aperietur uobis (“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you”).

79 “Peter, having slipped in his promise, stands up again by repenting / and Ahab likewise escaped the heavenly wrath that hung / over him, on whom God had said that he would take revenge without delay.” Of course, ulciscere is an active infinitive corresponding to Classical Latin ulcisci; it appears in other late Latin authors (see, for example, Greg. Tur. Franc. 7.21; 8.5; 8.31; etc., eds. Krusch and Levison [1951]). As for ulciscere de aliquo (here Ahab) instead of the Classical transitive construction ulcisci aliquem, the use of de with ablative is attested by the Vulgate (see III Reg 14.24 ulciscar de inimicis meis, “I [Saul] will avenge myself on my enemies”; Idc 16.28 ulciscar me de hostibus meis, “I [Samson] will avenge myself on my enemies”; Idt 13.27 ulciscatur de inimicis suis, “He [God] avenges himself on his enemies”, eds. Weber and Gryson [2007]) and Late Latin authors (see for example Ambr. Tob. 15.51: sine gladio se de hoste ulciscitur qui fuerit usurarius exactor inimici, ed. Schenkl [1897, 548, l. 5–6]: “He who collects taxes from the enemy applying interest avenges himself on his adversary without using a sword”); other prepositions, such as in, are in use as well (see Mi 7.2 ulciscens Dominus in hostes suos, “the Lord, who avenges himself on his enemies”; I Mcc 15.4 ulciscar in eos, “I [Antiochus VII Sidetes, c. 164/160–129 BC] will avenge myself on them [Diodotus Tryphon, dead in 138 BC, and his supporters]”). The oldest example of ulcisci with a preposition seems to be found in Frontinus’s Strategemata 3.16.4 (Hannibal simili consilio se a transfugis ultus est, “By a similar plan Hannibal avenged himself on certain deserters”); see OLD 2b. A minor variant is 132 rursum α (praeter Breul), rursus A Breul, where rursum is probably preferable. The ending of rursus seems to have been influenced by Petrus and lapsus and is cacophonic. In the whole corpus rursum is used nine times and there is no certain use of rursus: except here and in Orat. 176 (lapsa rursum erigitur anima, “the soul, after having sunk, rises again”), in all other occurrences of the word the archetype solely reads rursum.

80 ThLL, vol. 3, col. 1895, l. 66–73; MLW, vol. 2, cols. 965–966, l. 72–76.

81 As Prof. Asztalos points out to me per litteras, this text puts the emphasis not on God’s wrath but on the efficiency of repentance in order to avoid punishment, which is consistent with the overall purpose of the poem.

82 “And there are many more old examples of people who, as the Scriptures testify, / earned heaven thanks to penance after having committed crimes.”

83 On caelitus pendentem in this verse, see Exhort. 125 de caelo datam.

84 On the image of the repentant sinner admitted into Heaven, see Exhort. 55 neque eum (scil. poenitentem) Tartarum (nominative singular!) excipiet in morte, sed caelum (“Heaven, and not Tartarus, will host him at his death”, referring to the repentant).

85 The hypothesis that α, β and/or Σ were provided with uariae lectiones is of relevance to other passages in these works; see Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 169–170, 172, 196, 198, 202, 266–267).

86 Caelites > caelibes can be an independent mistake; see for example Strecker (1923, 767).

87 Biblical quotations are taken from Weber and Gryson (2007), with my punctuation.

88 “And, if you are willing to believe me, God loves even more precisely those who / abandon their evils and strive to be more upright.”

89 I owe this observation and the parallels to one of the anonymous reviewers of this article.

90 Shackleton Bailey (2008, 279).

91 Dörrie (1971, 238).

92 Shackleton Bailey (1982, 330).

93 See Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 31–32).

94 “Likewise, every master appreciates a slave / who, after having caused some damage, brings more notable benefits, / more than any other slave who has never made mistakes, but has also never done anything useful.”

95 It cannot be taken separately as quis nam: quis is never used as an adjective by Ps.-Sisbert and nam (like namque) never appears in third position.

96 “In the same way, the farmer also appreciates the land / which, after having produced thorns, brings him abundant fruit, / more than the land which has never grown weeds or thorns.”

97 Reeve (2002).

98 Arévalo reads: 160 Sic agricola illam terram plus amat, quae uberes illi / post spinas affert fruges, quam quae spinas numquam nutriuit. Arévalo was the first editor to print the Exhortatio as a versified composition (both Du Breul and Spitzel thought that it was prose). However, his colometry is frequently wrong due to the corruptions of Du Breul’s text, the absence of any manuscripts, and the lack of knowledge about this kind of verse. Versification was subsequently corrected by Pitra, Meyer and Strecker.

99 Cancela Cilleruelo (2021, 31–33).

100 Étaix (1999, 303, l. 93). Even though Arévalo did not indicate the source, I would not disregard that the absence of uel tribulos in Gregory the Great could have inspired his proposal. Arévalo was a prominent Latin patristic scholar; see Astorgano (2022).

101 See also Idc 8, 7 or 8, 16; Iob 31, 40 and Mt 7, 16.

102 On this style of writing, see Elfassi (2006).

Additional information

Funding

This paper is part of the Research Project PID2020-114287GB-I00, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.