These are the edition's working notes, published as they were written. They record, work by work, where Migne's plate is defective or the reading uncertain: the printed form, what the English does with it, and why. They are not a groomed apparatus. Where a note argues with itself, withdraws an earlier decision, or leaves a question open, that is the record of how the reading was actually reached, and it is left standing — a conjecture that is visible can be checked, and one that has been tidied away cannot.
The English never silently repairs the page. A construable but wrong reading is rendered literally and the conjecture is recorded here, never applied to the text. How the English is produced and checked →
Lacunae printed by Migne
- col 0393A — Convenit legi et gratiae, quia . . . . . . . illa districtius imposuit, ut pretiosius ista laxaret. Migne prints a dot-lacuna. Rendered with the gap left open ("for . . . . . . . the one imposed the more strictly").
- col 0397A — Si ad saecularem sapientiam. . . . . . . ecce lacrymas dignas rege mundano. Second dot-lacuna; the apodosis is lost. Rendered open.
Unmatched parenthesis (structural — check against the plate)
- cols 0395D–0396A — Migne opens a parenthesis mid-quotation, nunc ( praeparare in occursum Dei tui Israel, and does not close it until qui melius, occurrit) at col 0396A. The parenthesis therefore swallows the scripture lemma and the whole digression on occursus. Reproduced exactly as printed, opening paren and all. A human should confirm against the plate whether the open paren belongs before praeparare or before Dicit quidem Paulus; the sense favors the latter.
Grammatical corruptions rendered per the intended sense
- col 0393B — printed Si enim non subjaceat spiritus carnis. Genitive carnis for the dative carni required by subjaceat; the following clause (cedat potius menti caro) confirms the direction of subjection. Rendered "if the spirit be not made subject to the flesh."
- col 0393C — printed incipit impedita lege mentis perire, et superexaltare lege corporis. Ablatives where nominative subjects are expected (lex mentis … lex corporis), and superexaltare active for deponent/reflexive. Rendered "the law of the mind, being hindered, begins to perish, and the law of the body to exalt itself."
- col 0394A — printed manifestatus in carne, non deseruit permanens in nativitate. nativitate is almost certainly a misprint for divinitate: the antithesis is manifestation in the flesh vs. abiding in the divinity, and "remaining in his nativity" is not sense. Rendered literally ("remaining as he did in his birth") per the render-as-printed rule — flagged for emendation.
- col 0395A — printed Animadvertendum est tamen quod illius se miscuit corporis portionem extremi auriculae quae videtur superesse liberaverit. Badly tangled: portionem accusative with no clean governing verb before liberaverit, and se miscuit stranded. Rendered on the assumption that portionem … extremi auriculae is the object of liberaverit. Worth a plate check.
- col 0395A — printed primam istius auris partem leo devorat, novissimam pastor solvat. Indicative devorat against subjunctive solvat; read as solvit. Rendered as parallel indicatives.
- col 0395B — printed Quae multipliciter lectio ipsa per totum a Domino revolvente, quae et qualia passi necdum resipiscamus. No main verb; ablative absolute a Domino revolvente with a + ablative. Rendered "and the reading itself unfolds these things in manifold ways throughout, as the Lord recounts…"
- col 0395C — printed Jam tibi non nocet quidquid esset Adam. esset for an expected gessit ("whatever Adam did"), which the three following relative clauses (quod concupivit … praesumpsit … desideravit) require. Rendered literally ("whatever Adam was").
- col 0398C — printed Maxima peritia est hic impendi fletum … quam illic servari. Comparative quam with no comparative term (expected melius or potius … quam). Rendered "rather than that it be kept."
Scripture as printed
- col 0395C — Ezek. XVIII, 3 printed si erit ultra proverbium illud — the Hebraism si = emphatic negation, retained as "shall be no more."
- col 0393C — Migne's note reads
[n: (I Petr. I, 8)]for what is 1 Pet. 5:8. Note reproduced verbatim per the marker rule; the misattribution is Migne's. - col 0396B — In omnibus plateis et viis sit planctus (Amos V, 16) carries its citation as bare parenthetical text inside the italics rather than as an
[n:]marker. Reproduced as printed; this is why noteCount is 15, not 16.
<!-- corpus-polarity-sweep 2026-07-28 --> ## Corpus polarity sweep — 2026-07-28
Blind Opus read of the Latin/English pair for sense-reversing defects (one word or one letter asserting the opposite of what the context requires). 1 site(s). Migne's defects are recorded here and rendered literally in the English; our own errors were fixed in place. Full context: data/sweeps/corpus-polarity/REPORT.md.
0395A — sense-reversing-letter (migne, medium confidence)
Printed: Auris ergo nostra est obedientia nostra: nam cum precamur et resipiscimus, primam istius auris partem leo devorat, novissimam pastor solvat.
Conjecture: cum peccamus et resipiscimus ("when we sin and repent") — peccamus corrupted to precamur
The allegory assigns the devoured first part to sin and the rescued last part to repentance, so praying cannot be what makes the lion devour. The very next sentences say so: 'Prima pars auriculae est Non concupiscas. Ista jam deglutita est, quia cogitatio concupivit' — the first part is swallowed because the thought coveted (a sin, not a prayer) — and the rescue of the last part is answered 'Quomodo? Utique per poenitentiam et correctionem.' The printed 'precamur' makes prayer the cause of the lion's bite, the opposite of the sentence's own gloss; and 'resipiscimus' ('come to ourselves again', i.e. repent) presupposes a preceding lapse, not a preceding prayer.