Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/666

 GLOSSES

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GLOSSES

necessary for the understanding of Scriptural passages by ordinary readers. He complains at times that tliir- iiig his own life copyists, instead of faithfully tran- scribing his translation, embodied in the text notes found in the margin. And after his death manu- scripts of the Vulgate, especially those of the Spanish type, were supposedly enriched with all kinds of addi- tional readings, which, together with other textual variations embodied in early printed copies of the Vulgate, led ultimately to the official editions of St. Jerome's work by Popes Sixtus V and Clement VIII. But however numerous and important all such glosses may actually be, they have never materially impaired the substantial integrity either of the Greek New Testament or of the Latin Vulgate.

IV. Glosses as Scriptural Lexicons. — With re- gard to the Hebrew te.xt of the Old Testament, most rabbinical commentaries are little more than collec- tions of glosses, or "glossaries", as they are usually called, inasmuch as their chief object is to supply ex- planations of Hebrew words. A part of the Masorah may also be considered as a kind of glossary to the Hebrew Bible; and the same thing may be said in ref- erence to the collections of Oriental and Western readings given in the sixth volume of the London Poly- glot. As regards the Greek Bible texts, there are no separate collections of glosses; yet these texts are taken into account, together with the rest of the Greek literature, in a certain number of glossaries which afford explanations of difficult words in the Greek language. The following are the principal glossaries of that description: (1) the lexicon of Hesy- chius, a Greek grammarian of the fourth century of our era ; (2) the "A4^eav (rui'a7«7^"(collection of glosses) of the celebrated patriarch Photius (d. 891); (3) the lexicon of Suidas, apparently an author of the tenth century; (4) the "Etymologium Magnum" by an un- known writer of the twelfth or the thirteenth century; (.5) the " Xvmyoiyri \^ieoiv" of the Byzantine monk Zonaras; (6) the " Dictionarium" of the Benedictine Varius Phavorinus, published early in the sixteenth century. Most of the glosses illustrating the language of Scripture which are found in the works of Hesy- chius, Suidas, Phavorinus, and in the "Etymologium Magnum", were collected and published by J. C. Ernesti (Leipzig, 1785-86). The best separate gloss on the Latin Vulgate, as a collection of explanations chiefly of its words, is that of St. Isidore of Seville, which he completed in 632, and which bears the title of "Originum sive Etymologiarum libri XX". It is found in Migne, P. L., LXXXII.

V. Glosses as Commentaries. — As Scriptural com- mentaries there are two celebrated glosses on the Vul- gate. The former is the "Glossa Ordinaria", thus called from its common use during the Middle Ages. Its author, the German Walafrid Strabo (d. 849), had some knowledge of Greek and made extracts chiefly from the Latin Fathers and from the writings of his master, Rabanus Maurus, for the purpose of illustrat- ing the various senses — principally the literal sense — of ali the books of Holy Writ. This gloss is quoted as a high authority by St. Thomas Aquinas, and it was known as "the tongue of Scripture". Until the seventeenth century it remained the favourite com- mentary on the Bible ; and it was only gradually super- seded bj' more independent works of exegesis. The "Glossa Ordinaria" is found in vols. CXIII and CXIV of Migne, P. L. The second gloss, the "Glossa Inter- lincaris", derived its name from the fact that it was written over the words in the text of the Vulgate. It was the work of Anselm of Laon (d. 1117), who had some acciuiiiiitaiioc with Hebrew and Greek. After the twclff li century copies of the Vulgate were usually sup- plied with both these glosses, the "Glossa Ordinaria" being inserle(l in I lie margin, at the top and at the sides, and the "Glossa Interlinearis" being placed be- tween the lines of the Vulgate text; while later, from

the fourteenth century onw.ard, the "Postilla" of Nicholas of Lyra and the "Additions" of Paulus Brugensis were added at the foot of each page. Some early printed editions of the Vulgate exhibit all this exegetical apparatus; and the latest and best among them is the one by Leander a S. Martino, O. S. B. (six vols, fob, Antwerp, 1634).

Fabricius, Bibliotheca GrcEca (Hamburg, 1705-28); J. A. Ernesti, De veto usu et indole glossariorum grfEcorum (Leipzig, 1742); .1. C. Ernesti, Hesychii Atexandrini glossae sacrcB (Leip- zig, 17S6); Albbrti, Glossarium sacrum in sacros Novi Faderis libros (Leyden, 1735); Martin, De Vorigine du Pentaleuque (Paris, 1887), I; Cornelt, Jntrodudio in utriusgue Test, libros sacros (Paris, 1885), I; Abbott, Essays chiefly on the Original Texts of the Old and New Testaments (London, 1891); Sweete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (Cambridge, 1900).

Francis E. Giqot.

Glosses, Glossaries, Glossarists (in Oanon Law). • — A gloss (Gk. y\u>acra, Lat. glof:sa, tongue, speech) is an inter|)ietation or ex])hinat ion of isolated words. To gloss is to interpret or explain a text by taking up its words one after another. A glossary is therefore a collection of words about which observations and notes have been gathered, and a glossarist is one who thus explains or illustrates given texts. In canon law, glosses are short elucidations attached to the import- ant words in the juridical texts which make up the collections of the "Corpus Juris Canonici" (q.v.). But the term gloss is also given to the ensemble of such notes in any entire collection, e.g. the Gloss of the "Decretum"of Gratian, of the " Liber Sextus", etc. The Glossarists are those canonists who lived during the classic period of canon law, from the twelfth to the fifteenth century, though many left works other than glosses. The canonists of Bologna in particular, fa- voured the method of the glossarists, and affixed to text and words the meaning which they should bear. In the beginning the masters noted down on their own copies of the "Decretum" of Gratian a few words by way of resume, and as a help in their lectures ; in course of time such notes passed into the copies of their pupils. These brief notes, at first inserted be- tween the lines, soon overflowed the margins, and became copious enough to form a framework within which the real text was enshrined, as may be seen by an examination of ancient manuscripts and certain editions of the "Corpus Juris Canonici". Moreover, later glosses were of such ample proportions as to become at times small commentaries containing dis- cussions on the opinions of previous canonists. As each master added his own gloss the notes began to swell in volume ; but care was alwaj's taken to indicate the particular author by placing a significant abbre- viation after his gloss, thus: Hug. or H. Huguccio); Jo. Fa. or F. f Joannes Faventinus), etc. Gradually this mass of glosses took on in the schools a permanent form, a necessary condition to its usefulness in teach- ing; and became a kind of seconilary canonical text, less authoritative, of course, than the original, but supplying material for oral commentary. Thus arose "ordinary gloss" (glossa ordinarid), endowed with a certain avithority, not indeed official (as though it were actually the law on the point), but none the less real, since it represented the opinion and authority of the canonists who wrote it down, but chiefly because it expressed the teaching at the time. Hence it comes to pass that a medieval canonical gloss is often quoted even in our day; the quotation is made quite as the quotations from the canons or chapters of the "Cor- pus Juris Canonici", except that the word on which the gloss bears is always indicated, e.g. " Gl (ossa) " in c. Licet, V, De Crimine falsi, v" (verbo) "Falsitatis" (the gloss on the word " falsitatis", in ch. Licet, fifth book of the Decretals).

It is not easy to illustrate in a few words the legal learning that lies hidden in the glosses of canon law collections. The principal heads of information are as follows: (a) resume of the case; (b) deter-