Petrus Comestor, Methodius, and the Saracens

Abstract

PETRUS COMESTOR, in his famous Historia Scholastica, frequently mentions among his sources for his account of early Hebrew traditions a book by a certain Methodius. In his first mention of him he has this to say:' 'Sed Methodius martyr oravit, dum esset in carcere, et revelatum est ei a spiritu de principio et fine mundi; quod et oravit et scriptum licet simpliciter reliquit dicens quod virgines egressi sunt de paradiso.' Obviously, therefore, Comestor was using a book apocalyptic in character, which he thought had been written by the Methodius who was bishop of Patara in Lydia and was martyred about 311. Since we have no evidence that this Methodius wrote such a book, it is probable that what Comestor was using was a Latin version of a later production ascribed to Methodius in order to enhance the value of its contents. And there is such a Latin book, one of the most popular books indeed of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance, although not much attention has been paid to it in the various handbooks on Latin literature.2 This book is preserved in four MSS of the eighth century and in a large number of later date, and a text, based on the four earliest manuscripts, was published, with a comprehensive introduction, by Ernst Sackur in 1898.3 The author of this Latin version gives us his name, otherwise unknown, in a preface which is contained in but one of the four manuscripts, Cod. Par. Lat. no. 13348: 'Incipit praefaciuncula Petri monachi,' and he then, after emphasizing the need of reading the works of the Fathers, continues: 'Doctrina beati igitur Methodii martyris dicta de Graeco in Latino transferre sermone curavi et quoniam nostris sunt aptius prophetata temporibus, in quos finis saeculorum, sicut Apostulus inquit, pervenerunt, ut iam per ipsa quae nostris cernimus oculis vera essent credamus ea quae praedicta sunt a patribus nostris. Propter quod magis arbitratus sum hunc libellum de Graeco in Latinum vertere laboravi.' Then follows the caption (Sackur, p. 60): 'Incipit Sancti Methodii Episcopi Paterensis Sermo de Regnum Gentium et in Novissimis Temporibus Certa Demonstratio.' The Greek text, frQm which the author says he made his translation, is preserved for us only in manuscripts of the fifteenth century, and on the basis of these manuscripts was edited, along with Old Slavic and Russian texts, by V. Istrin in 1897.4 According to Sackur, pp. 7, 52, the Greek text represents an