MIGNE.APP

Patrologia Latina · Vol. 114 ·

EPISTOLA III B. JOANNIS

One book of the Glossa ordinaria — the whole gloss, book by book.

PL 114, coll. 705–706  ·  Latin from the Migne printing  ·  New English translation  ·  column numbers follow the original plates, not the Garnier reprint

Anselm of Laon and his school

Anselmus Laudunensis et schola

twelfth century

The masters of the cathedral school of Laon, gathered around Anselm (c. 1050–1117), to whom the making of the Glossa ordinaria on the Bible is traditionally credited. The gloss is a school's work rather than one man's: it draws its comment from the Fathers — Rabanus, Isidore, Bede, Jerome, Gregory — and names them as it goes, and it grew by accretion over generations. Migne prints it under the name of Walafrid Strabo, an ascription now known to be mistaken.

ARGUMENTUM.

Gaium pietatis causa extollit, atque ut in ipsa pietate maneat exhortatur: Diotrephen impietatis et superbiae causa objurgat. Demetrio autem bonum testimonium perhibet cum fratribus universis.

THE ARGUMENT.

He extols Gaius on account of his piety, and exhorts him to remain in that same piety: he rebukes Diotrephes on account of his impiety and pride. But to Demetrius he bears good testimony, together with all the brethren.

CAPUT UNICUM

VERS. 2.-- De omnibus orationem, etc. Sicut nunc intentio recta abundat tibi, et perseverat bona voluntas 705Clargiendi indigentibus, et facultas opum; ita semper virtutibus plenam, Domino adjuvante, vitam ducere possis.

VERS. 4.-- Majorem horum. Ideo gavisus sum, quia horum fratrum venientium non habeo majorem gratiam, id est: quando fratres veniunt ad me, in nullo facto vel verbo eorum magis gaudeo quam quando annuntiant filios meos (quos praedicando vel baptizando genui) veritatem rectae fidei et operationis observare.

VERS. 5.-- Charissime, fideliter, etc. Ideo non debes deficere ab hospitalitate et eleemosynis. Quidquid enim operaris in fratres fideliter, id est sicut fidelis, id est sicut decet fidelem facis, non pro vana gloria, sed fidem tuam operibus ostendis.

705DVERS. 7.-- Pro nomine enim ejus, etc. Quasi: Vere sunt honorandi, non enim pro suis sceleribus expulsi sunt a patria, sed sponte profecti sunt pro nomine Christi ampliando, et pro nomine ejus patiendo.

VERS. 9.-- Scripsissem forsitan, etc. Perseverare 706Bdebes in eleemosyna, quia utilitatem tantam in ea intelligo, quod non solum tibi, sed etiam toti Ecclesiae scripsissem de commendatione eleemosynae, sed hac necessitate dimisi, quia Diotrephes non curat nostram auctoritatem. Diotrephes haeresiarcha illius temporis nova docendo principatum sibi usurpabat. Diotrephes interpretatur speciose insulsus, sive decor insaniens, ut perfidiam cordis etiam nomine signet. 706CEcclesiae. Illi Ecclesiae, quae forsitan, id est dubitative est Ecclesia, et ut per observationem eleemosynae mereretur perfecta fieri Ecclesia, scripsissem.

VERS. 10.-- Commonebo. Id est, in omnium notitiam manifestius arguendo producam; quorum exemplar nusquam habet; sed facit ea, et nova invenit, garriens, falsis rationibus utens in nos confutandos et sic ad vos a fide retrahendos. Sicut linguas detrahentium nostro vitio non debemus excitare, ne ipsi pereant, ita per suam malitiam excitatas debemus aequanimiter tolerare, ut meritum nobis crescat, aliquando compescere, ne dum de nobis disseminant, eorum qui audire bona poterant, corda corrumpant.

VERS. 12.-- Demetrio testimonium. Quod illum velit imitari bonum, aperit ut imitetur Demetrium, 706Dut simili laude omnium possit et ipse dignus existere.

VERS. 14.-- Pax tibi. Amicis gratiam pacis et salutis mandat, ut veritatis inimicos a salute monstret extraneos esse.

THE ONLY CHAPTER

VERS. 2.-- Concerning all things I make prayer, etc. As right intention now abounds in thee, and the good will 705Cof bestowing upon the needy perseveres, and the means of wealth; so mayest thou be able always, with the Lord helping, to lead a life full of virtues.

VERS. 4.-- I have no greater grace than these. Therefore I rejoiced, because I have no greater grace than these brethren who come, that is: when the brethren come to me, in no deed or word of theirs do I rejoice more than when they announce that my sons (whom I begot by preaching or by baptizing) keep the truth of right faith and of working.

VERS. 5.-- Dearly beloved, faithfully, etc. Therefore thou oughtest not to fail from hospitality and from alms. For whatsoever thou workest toward the brethren faithfully, that is, as a faithful man, that is, thou doest as befits a faithful man, not for vainglory, but thou showest thy faith by works.

705DVERS. 7.-- For on account of his name, etc. As if [to say]: They are truly to be honoured, for they were not driven out from their country for their own crimes, but they set out of their own accord for the enlarging of the name of Christ, and for suffering for his name.

VERS. 9.-- I would perhaps have written, etc. Thou oughtest to persevere 706Bin almsgiving, because I perceive so great a usefulness in it, that not only to thee, but even to the whole Church I would have written concerning the commendation of almsgiving, but by this necessity I let it go, because Diotrephes does not care for our authority. Diotrephes, a heresiarch of that time, by teaching new things was usurping the primacy to himself. Diotrephes is interpreted speciously foolish, or comeliness gone mad, so that he may betoken the perfidy of his heart by his name also. 706CTo the Church. To that Church, which perhaps, that is, it is doubtfully a Church, and that through the keeping of almsgiving she might deserve to be made a perfect Church, I would have written.

VERS. 10.-- I will admonish. That is, I will bring them forth into the knowledge of all by reproving more openly; of which things he nowhere has a model; but he doeth them, and invents new things, prating, using false reasonings against us to confute us and so to draw you back from the faith. Just as we ought not by our own fault to stir up the tongues of detractors, lest they themselves perish, so those stirred up through their own malice we ought to bear with an even mind, that merit may grow for us, sometimes to check them, lest, while they spread abroad things concerning us, they corrupt the hearts of those who were able to hear good things.

VERS. 12.-- Testimony is borne to Demetrius. That he would have him imitate the good, he discloses, namely that he should imitate Demetrius, 706Dthat by the like praise of all he too may be able to stand forth worthy.

VERS. 14.-- Peace be to thee. To his friends he sends the grace of peace and of salvation, that he may show the enemies of the truth to be strangers to salvation.

On this text

Cruces for this work — where the plate is defective or the reading uncertain →

The Glossa ordinaria is the standard medieval commentary on the Bible — the gloss a reader of Scripture met in the margins of the page, drawn from the Fathers and built up in the schools of the twelfth century. What Migne prints, and what is translated here, is an abridged nineteenth-century recension of it: the marginal glosses only, without the interlinear layer, and 58 of the roughly 73 books — Ezekiel, Daniel, the minor prophets and the Maccabees are absent from it altogether. Migne places the whole under the name of Walafrid Strabo, an ascription scholarship has long since given up; the attributions inside the text — (RAB.) for Rabanus, (ISID.) for Isidore, (CHRYS.) for Chrysostom — are his source's and are not always reliable either. They are printed as he printed them. The third letter of John turns on three names — Gaius, who is commended, Diotrephes, who loves the first place, and Demetrius, who has good testimony from all — and the gloss keeps its eye on hospitality shown and hospitality refused. An English of the Rusch text does exist for these letters — Sarah van der Pas and John Litteral, The Glossa Ordinaria: Epistles of St. John 1–3 (Consolamini, 2015), made from Adolph Rusch's 1480/81 editio princeps. That is a different recension from this one, and the two do not print the same gloss; what is here is Migne's abridgement, englished independently. The gilt column marks carry Migne's own numbering: migne.app/pl/114/705b resolves to the opening.