Gennadius of Marseilles

Gennadius of Marseille († around 496), also known as Gennadius Scholasticus or Gennadius of Massilia , was a Christian priest and historian .

His best-known work is De Viris Illustribus ( On Famous Men ), biographies of more than ninety important contemporary Christians, with which he continues a work of the same name by Jerome .

Life

Gennadius was a priest in Marseille (then Massilia ) and a contemporary of Pope Gelasius I. Nothing is known about his life apart from what he himself wrote in the last of his biographies:

“I, Gennadius, presbyter of Massilia, wrote eight books against all heresies , five books against Nestorius , ten books against Eutyches , three books against Pelagius , a treatise on the thousand years of the Apocalypse of John , this work and a letter on my faith I sent to the blessed Gelasius, the bishop of Rome. "

Gelasius ruled from 492 to 496, so Gennadius must have lived at the end of the 5th century .

Fonts

Gennadius knew Greek and was equally well versed in Eastern and Western , Orthodox and heretical Christian literature . He was a diligent translator and a competent critic.

De Viris Illustribus

De Viris Illustribus in its most widespread form was probably published around 495 and contains short biographies of churchmen from 392 to 495. It is a very important source, and in some cases the only one, for the more than ninety authors presented here.

It is a continuation of Hieronymus' "De Viris Illustribus", in which he compiles for the first time a series of 135 short biographies of famous Christians, including a list of their most important works. It was the first patrology and the first reference work on Christian biographies. So useful was this book that it suggested many sequels along the same lines, including that of Paterius , a disciple of Jerome, and a Greek translation by Sophronius .

Gennadius' sequel, however, became the most popular and widely accepted as the second part of Jerome's work. It was always copied or printed together with him. Gennadius' part contains around a hundred life reports, which are based on Jerome's model. Different editions and reprints number them, albeit inconsistently; Bernoulli chose i to xcvii with some marked as xciib etc., where cxxxvi to ccxxxii is in the original.

The series is arranged more or less chronologically, although there are frequent exceptions. In the biography xc, 92, he says (in one version) that Theodore of Coelesyria (Theodulus) "died three years ago, in the reign of Zeno ", from which Czapla concludes that Gennadius wrote between 491 and 494.

The present form of the work suggests repeated revisions. Other authors have changed it or added text (without a note, as was the custom in the Middle Ages ). Some researchers, including Richardson and Czapla, assume that chapters xxx ( John of Jerusalem ), lxxxvii ( Victorinus ), xciii ( Caerealis of Africa ) and the ending (xvc - ci) are not authentic. There are doubts about other parts.

Other writings

Gennadius lists a number of other works, most of which have not survived:

• Adversus omnes hæreses libri viii , "Against all heresies" in 8 books
• Five books against Nestorius
• Ten books against Eutyches
• Three books against Pelagius
• Tractatus de millenio et de apocalypsi beati Johannis , "Treatise on the thousand years of the Apocalypse of John"
• Epistola de fide , a "letter of faith" to Pope Gelasius.
• Works by Evagrius Ponticus and Timotheus Aelurus , translated and restored to their original form - and lost too.

De Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus

The treatise De Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus ("On Church Dogmas") was previously ascribed to Augustine of Hippo , but today it is ascribed to Gennadius.

Some researchers (Caspari, Bardenhewer, Czapla) suspect that it is a fragment from Gennadius' eight books "against all heresies", obviously the last part in which, after the refutation of all heretics, he creates a positive system.

expenditure

De Viris Illustribus was edited by J. Andreas (Rome, 1468), Johann Albert Fabricius in Bibliotheca ecclesiastica (Hamburg, 1718), and by EC Richardson in TU , xiv. (Leipzig, 1896). It is also included in many editions of the Works of Jerome.

The Liber de Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus was published as an appendix to the Benedictine edition of the writings of St. Augustine.

Mind and views

There is much evidence in De Viris Illustribus that the author was a semi-Pelagian . Semipelagians are praised ( Fastidiosus , lvi, p. 80; Johannes Cassianus , lxi, 81; Faustus von Riez , lxxxv, 89), whereas Pelagians ( Pelagius himself, xlii, 77; Julian von Eclanum , xlv, 77) are heretics; Catholics are treated disparagingly (Augustine of Hippo, xxxviii, 75; Prosper of Aquitaine , lxxxiv, 89), and even popes are called heretics ( Julius I in i, 61).

The same tendency can be seen in the treatise De Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus , which is full of semipelagianism, overt or covert ( carefully avoiding original sin , insisting on free will and denying predestination , seeing grace as an adjutorium in the mildest form, etc. .).

Gennadius contemplates (as did later writers, for example Thomas Aquinas ) that all human beings, even those who will live at the Last Judgment , must die - a belief that, although derived from a widespread patristic tradition, he admits, both from rejected by the Catholics as well as by the Church Fathers.

Of the theories concerning the human soul, which are later called the creationist and tradutianist approaches, he chooses the creationist. He does not want to admit the existence of the spirit as a third element in the human being next to the body and the soul, rather regards it as another name for the soul.

In De Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus he gives his views on the following points:

• A heretical baptism need not be repeated unless it was performed by heretics who refuse the invocation of the Trinity .
• He generally recommends the weekly reception of the Eucharist , except under the burden of a mortal sin for which he demands public penance .
• However, he does not deny that private penance can also be sufficient; but it is precisely here that he considers visible signs, such as changing clothes, to be desirable.
• He neither asked nor refused to receive communion on a daily basis .
• Evil is an invention of Satan .
• Although celibacy is valued more highly than marital status, the condemnation of marriage is to be regarded as Manichaeism .
• A Christian who has been married twice should not be ordained.
• Churches should be named after martyrs and the relics of martyrs honored.
• Only the baptized have eternal life; Catechumens, on the other hand, do not, unless they are martyred.
• Thorough repentance benefits Christians even with their last breath.
• The Creator alone knows our secret thoughts. Satan can only experience it through our expressions of life.
• In God's name, miracles can also be performed by bad people. On the other hand, people can also become holy without such signs.
• Man's free will is steadfastly asserted, but the beginning of all virtue is assigned to divine grace.

The language of Gennadius here is not Augustinian; however, it is not Pelagian either.

literature

• Bruno Czapla: Gennadius as literary historian. A source-critical examination of the writing of Gennadius of Marseille "De viris illustribus" . Schöningh, Münster 1898 (also dissertation, University of Münster 1898).
• Adolf Jülicher : Gennadios 2 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VII, 1, Stuttgart 1910, Col. 1171-1173.