Antiochene Theology for Protestants
THEODORET.
Διαλογοι τρεις κατα τινων αιρεσεων … Lib. 3. contra haereses … Leipzig, [(colophon:) Ernst Vögelin], 1568.
[bound with:]
—; Victorinus STRIGEL, translator. Dialogi tres lectu dignissimi, et ad diiudicandas horum temporum controversias utilissimi … Leipzig, [Ernst Vögelin, 1567].Two parts in one vol., 8vo, Greek: pp. [vi], 351, [1, device], [2, blank], Latin: pp. [xxii], 342, [2, blank]; woodcut device to both title-pages and colophon of part I; occasional very light marginal dampstaining, otherwise a very good copy; bound in contemporary blind-stamped pigskin over bevelled wooden boards by Jörg Bernutz of Wittenberg (EBDB w002855), panel-stamped centrepieces with a roll-tooled border, the front board with a scene of the Last Judgement and an allegory on the rear board (see below), front board lettered ‘G O B’ and ‘1575’ in blind, brass clasps to fore-edge, edges stained blue; late eighteenth-century inscription ‘P Bondam’ to title, nineteenth-century inscription ‘Hageveld’ to front free endpaper verso, with bookplate ‘Bibliotheca Hageveldensis’ to front pastedown and ink stamp to front free endpaper.
First edition of Strigel’s Latin translation of Theodoret’s dialogues against heresies, bound with the accompanying second edition of the original Greek (first Rome 1547), in a contemporary binding with signed panels by Jörg Bernutz of Wittenberg.
Theodoret of Antioch (c. 393–466) was an active participant in the theological disputes on the nature of Christ which led to the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD. He received a good education in Antioch, a centre of both pagan and religious scholarship, and his numerous writings – including letters, histories, and hagiographies – display his learning. As Bishop of Cyrus (or Cyrrhus), a small town in rural Syria, he claimed to have eradicated heresy from his diocese, countering pagans and Jews as well as Christian heretics. His reluctance to condemn Nestorius and his teachings caused him to be banned from preaching outside his diocese, but he was able to attend the Council of Chalcedon in person to state his position.
The present work, usually called Ερανιστης (The Beggar), contains three dialogues about the Christological controversies of the later 440s. The interlocutors are the Beggar, who picks up ideas from heretical sources, and Orthodoxus, who corrects him.
‘This work beautifully illustrates the clarity and conciseness of Theodoret’s style. It is a refreshing change from so much patristic literature. It also illustrates … the brilliant way in which Theodoret could take over conventional forms and material from other sources, and yet produce a work which is no mere slavish copying, but a genuinely original creation within the constraints of the tradition’ (Young & Teal, p. 333).
The translator, Victorinus Strigel (1524–1569), had studied with Melanchthon at Wittenberg and later became a professor of theology at the University of Leipzig, though he had to leave in 1567 for confessional reasons.
The name of the binder, Jörg Bernutz of Wittenberg, appears in the caption to each panel stamp. The allegorical image on the lower cover, of an angel playing a double trumpet standing above two people and various books and instruments (both musical and scientific), is accompanied by a quote from Ovid, Metamorphoses I: ‘He gave an exalted mouth to man and ordered him to look at the sky and raise his face to the stars’ (trans.).
Provenance:
1. Dr Pieter Bondam (1727–1800), law professor at Hardewijk and Utrecht; his sale, Bartholomeus Wild, Johannes Altheer, and Cornelis van der Aa, 1 October 1800, lot 447.
2. Hageveld was the minor seminary of the diocese of Haarlem, founded in 1817, whose library was sold in 1979.
We have traced only two copies of both parts in the UK (CUL, St John’s Cambridge) and only two in the US (Emory, Wisconsin). We find three copies of the Greek text only (Bodley, Georgetown, NYPL) and four copies of the Latin (NLW, Michigan, Oberlin, Yale).
USTC 696692 & 696659; VD16 T 768 & T 776; Adams T 494 & T 495. See Young & Teal, From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature (2010).