Far more important in its bearings on Christian literature was the Latin version of that text of the Epistles of St Ignatius which is now accepted as presenting them in their most genuine form. This version, too, is reckoned as due to Grosseteste: but it seems to have been the one which attracted least attention of any. Not more than one ancient copy of it is known to exist, and the only medieval writers who show any knowledge of it are Oxford Franciscans, members of the House to which the Bishop bequeathed his library. Not until the seventeenth century were its merits and importance suspected, by Archbishop Ussher.
Of Dionysius the Areopagite, Latin versions were known and widely disseminated long before Grosseteste’s day. It was presumably the unsatisfactory character of these that led him to undertake a new one; and it is improbable that he ever brought it to a conclusion. Versions of the treatise On the Divine Names, and of the Letters, are very definitely ascribed to him; and it is also likely that the detached Letter to Timothy on the Martyrdoms of St Peter and Paul was rendered into Latin by him or by his assistants. Yet, however much of the work he may have succeeded in finishing, it is certain that in the fifteenth century the need for a fresh translation of the whole was felt in Italy, and that the need was supplied by the indefatigable Camaldulite, Ambrogio Traversari.
The versions of works by John Damascene, of which Bacon speaks, seem upon examination to resolve themselves into a commentary upon the defective Latin version of the treatise De Fide orthodoxa, made a century before by Burgundio of Pisa.
Such is the list of Grosseteste’s gifts to the Latin Church. If not very large in extent, it is assuredly very remarkable in quality. With the exception of the work of John Damascene, it consists entirely of writings for which a pre-Christian or an apostolic date was claimed. In other words, we see in Grosseteste the beginnings of that interest in the origins of Christianity which is usually regarded as characteristic of a later age. He is a collector of what claims to be ancient and primitive. Others will follow to whom Chrysostom and Basil will seem better worth translating: and their day will be a long one.
We have ample evidence of Grosseteste’s knowledge of Greek. Less is known of his attainments in Hebrew: and yet evidence can be produced to show that they were not contemptible. A Franciscan writer of the next century-Henry of Costessey (circa 1336), to whom reference will be made hereafter-had before him, when writing an exposition of the Psalter, a copy of the text of that book in Hebrew with an interlinear translation into Latin. This had been the property, if not the work, of Grosseteste. Little positive proof beyond the common rumour of his contemporaries can be added to this fact; but even if it stands by itself, it is well worthy of note. It is clear that the Bishop’s chief interest centred in his Greek studies: more than a respectable working knowledge of the other sacred tongue is not claimed for him here.
Thus much it has seemed right to say of the work of the earlier of the two men who have been commemorated at the outset of this chapter. Of the other, Roger Bacon to wit, we may speak in shorter compass.
Page after page in his works attests his clear perception of the needs of scientific theology, of the crucial importance of a knowledge of the “original tongues “-Greek, Hebrew, and “Chaldean,”—of the need for a revision of the Latin Bible by the help of the oldest manuscripts, and, as we have seen, of the necessity of re-introducing to the West the works of the great Greek Fathers. And perhaps his greatest service to the Church of his age may have lain in the statement of these needs. Something, it is true, he himself achieved towards supplying them. He wrote grammars of the Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic languages. The first two of these it appears that we possess, and a single copy of a Greek dictionary also survives, which there seems good reason to attribute to him. The third is not known to exist. We have, moreover, part of a series of letters which may with some confidence be regarded as Bacon’s. In these he deals at length with points of Hebrew grammar for the benefit of a friend, himself evidently an accomplished Hebraist, who had sought his advice. It must be confessed that the fruit of these labours was not great: yet we shall see that it continued to be produced, if in scanty measure, up to the day of the fuller harvest.
That Grosseteste and Bacon had their precursors we must expect to find. Indeed, it is pretty certain that there was never a time when the knowledge of either Hebrew or Greek was altogether dead in the Latin Church. In almost every generation we can point to some document which bears witness to the possession of such knowledge by scholars scattered here and there. In the middle of the twelfth century, for example, Johannes Burgundio of Pisa executed-badly enough it seems -a whole series of versions from the Greek. Among these were the Homilies of Chrysostom on Matthew, the tract of Nemesius-then believed to be by Gregory of Nyssa-On the Nature of Man, and, above all, the treatise of John of Damascus On the Orthodox Faith, of which mention has been made already. Again, in the second half of the same century, an English Odo-his personality remains obscure-dedicates to Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, an Introduction to Theology in which long passages from the Old Testament are quoted in the original Hebrew. There were also in the latter half of this same century the makings of a Greek school at the Abbey of St Denis. The reason of this is not far to seek. The patron saint of that great House was a Greek, and, as all men believed, the author of a famous group of writings. As early as the eleventh century (in 1022) a copy of the Gospels in Greek had been written for the Abbey. In the twelfth century Odo de Deuil, who succeeded Suger as Abbot, sent one of his monks, William of Gap, to the East on a literary mission, as it seems. William brought Greek books back with him from Constantinople; and made a Latin version of a life of the philosopher Secundus, which was extensively copied. To him also we may assign a Latin version of a set of Greek Arguments to the Pauline Epistles. This last piece of work he did when Abbot of St Denis, between 1172 and 1186, at the request of Herbert de Bosham, the friend and biographer of St Thomas of Canterbury. A fellow-monk of William’s, Johannes Saracenus, a correspondent of John of Salisbury’s, and in after years Abbot at Vercelli, translated into Latin the greater part of the Pseudo-Dionysian writings. A second William, monk of St Denis, did the same for a Greek panegyric on their reputed author. Down to a late date part of the office on St Denis’ Day was said in Greek at the Abbey; and the Bibliotheque Nationale possesses a couple of twelfth century Greek manuscripts which belonged to the same House, and may well have been among the spoils brought back by William of Gap.
Yet after all these were isolated phenomena. Bacon’s estimate of the needs of his time remains the true one. It is amply confirmed by contemporary literature, and perhaps the readiest and most convincing demonstration of it is furnished by the catalogues of the great libraries which come from this period. The value of these documents for purposes of literary history is self-evident. They provide us in the directest way imaginable with a view of the resources of the learned communities of the time. It will be worth while, therefore, to discuss, in a summary fashion, one typical example.
The passage of Bacon which stands at the head of this chapter was written in or about the year 1271. The author survived the year 1292; and we possess a detailed catalogue of one of the largest libraries in England, which was drawn up within a very few years after the latter date. We may, then, fairly use it as illustrative of the condition of theological learning and of the range of theological literature at the close of Bacon’s life. The library in question is that of Christ Church Priory at Canterbury. In extent it rivalled any of its time for it contained close upon two thousand volumes; and, without entering into details as to the method of its formation, we may assert generally that it is possible to a large extent to discriminate the earlier from the later acquisitions, and to arrange these latter in chronological order.
In that portion of the library which dates back to the days of Lanfranc and Anselm fragmentary survivals are traceable of a learning which had no attraction for the mass of clerics in Bacon’s day. The best example of these is a copy of the treatise of Irenaeus Against Heresies-in all likelihood the only copy then in England. There are indications also of the influence of John of Salisbury in the list of the books bequeathed by St Thomas to his Cathedral; but, as we should expect, this influence is more clearly seen in the presence of certain classical Latin authors