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An Etymology of ἄγιοϛ in a Work of Caesarius of Arles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Richard M. Frank
Richard M. Frank*
Affiliation:
The Catholic University of America
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Extract

In the opening piece of Dom Morin's edition of the sermons of St, Caesarius of Arles, his Admonitio … vel suggestio humilis, addressed at large to his fellow-bishops, we find a passage in which the author's intention seems not to have been clarified by the editor's emendation. Caesarius, having exhorted his readers to the fulfilment of their pastoral duties and against the desire for the wealth of the world, at length reminds them of their calling to be saints — a name, sanctus, suited indeed to the whole Christian people, but especially appropriate to bishops — and continues his argument in the following words (those particularly in question here italicized):

… quia nobis hoc nomen aptatur, quid proprietas nominis istius indicare videatur debemus inquirere. Interpretatio nominis istius nisi per linguam graecam non potest inveniri. Sanctus graece deus AIUS interpretatur, non terrenus. Si ergo plus de caelestibus quam de terrenis solliciti simus, non incongrue nobis hoc nomen imponitur.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 8 , 1952 , pp. 387 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Morin, G. (ed.), Sancti Caesarii Arelatensis sermones (Maredsous 1937) 3–19. Cf. Malnory, A., Saint Césaire, évêque d'Arles (Paris 1894) 141 (text on pp. 294–307); G. de Plinval, art. ‘Césaire d'Arles,’ in A. Baudrillart (ed.), Dict. d'hist. et de géogr. ecclés. 12.195.Google Scholar

2 Caesarius, , Sermo 1.19 (p. 17.11–16 Morin); cf. ibid. (p. 17.21): ‘ut simus sancti, id est, non terreni.’ For sanctus as especially applicable to bishops, ibid. (p. 17.8 f.); cf. Beck, H. G. J., The Pastoral Care of Souls in South-East France during the Sixth Century (Analecta Gregoriana 51; Rome 1950) 3 with n. 2, and Arnold, C. F., Caesarius von Arelate… (Leipzig 1894) 383 with n. 1229.Google Scholar

3 Paris, B. N. lat. 12116, fol. 143–148 (Ruinart's transcript of a lost 9th-cent. original); cf. Malnory p. xviii, Morin p. lxxx.Google Scholar

4 For aius so used, see ThLL 6.3.2513, s.v. (h)agios; also Weyman, C., Beiträge zur Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Poesie (Munich 1926) 166 f. (with addition, p. 294).Google Scholar

5 Cf. the unqualified (and not altogether convincing) conclusion of Courcelle, P., Les lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe à Cassiodore (Paris 1948) 249: ‘Césaire d'Arles… ignore le grec.’ Google Scholar

6 Graec. affect. curatio 3.91 (ed. Raeder, , Leipzig p. 94). For calling my attention to the citation of this passage in Suicerus, J. G., Thesaurus ecclesiasticus e patribus Graecis … (Amsterdam 1728) I 59, s.v. ἃγιος, I am indebted to Mr. Frank E. O'Connell, formerly of the faculty of the Catholic University of America. Suicerus indicates that he has borrowed the citation (with remark thereon: ‘elegans allusio’) from the Thesaurus of Stephanus.Google Scholar

7 Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 81, a. 8 (Leonine edit. 9.185a Ottawa, 1836a): ‘Respondeo dicendum quod nomen sanctitatis duo videtur importare. Uno quidem modo, munditiam: et huic significationi competit nomen graecum, dicitur enim agios quasi sine terra.’ Cf. A. Michel, art. ‘Sainteté. Notion,’ DThC 14.1 (1939) 845: Mortier, Nicolaus Du, Etymologiae sacrae graeco-latinae (Rome 1703) 275. — The current English rendering, that of the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, ‘for ἃγιος means unsoiled,’ seems singularly to miss the point of the etymology: one may contrast the quite careful handling of Thomas Pègues, O.P., Commentaire français littéral de la Somme Théologique …. XII (Paris 1926) 39.Google Scholar

8 Hom. in Levit. 11.1 (GCS, Origenes 6 [Leipzig 1920] 448; PG 12.530D).Google Scholar

9 Besides Baehrens’ remarks, GCS, Origenes 6 p. xxv f., derived largely from Morin in Revue Bénédictine 23 (1906) 37, we now have Morin's fuller statement, in the index (p. 989) of his edition of the sermons of Caesarius (cit. supra, n. 1): ‘Origenes: ex eius homiliis de vetere testamento multa Caesarius in suas transtulit catecheses,’ whereupon follow references to some twenty passages in the sermons showing such borrowings. The 16th homily In Levit. is drawn on heavily for Sermo 105 of Caesarius. Further, cf. Malnory 173 f.Google Scholar

10 Deus is indeed an awkward element, which it is difficult to believe originated with Caesarius. On the other hand, one may well suppose that a copyist inserted it, in fleeting reminiscence, perhaps, of the Greco-Latin Trisagion (as used in the modern Roman rite on Good Friday, but then more frequently; cf. Weyman, , loc. cit.) or of such a collocation of words as the ‘Agie sancte deus’ quoted by Weyman (ibid.) from Ps.-Hilarius Pictav. De evang. 81 (CSEL 23.273).Google Scholar