Texts

Commentarius in Matheum (Frigulus)

Incoming data

The catalogue entry for this text has not been published as yet. Until then, a selection of data is made available below.

An early medieval, perhaps 8th-century Latin commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, attributed to an exegete who in modern scholarship is usually identified by the name Frigulus.

Manuscript witnesses

Text

Halle, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, MS Quedlinburg 127

Incomplete. The front flyleaf carries the inscription, of unknown date, FRIBOLI IN MATHEUM.

ff. 1ra–69vb

Text

Oslo and London, Schøyen Collection, MS 110

f. 2b

Text

Tokyo, International Christian University, Palaeography Collection MS 1

f. 2a

Sources

Primary sources Text editions and/or modern translations – in whole or in part – along with publications containing additions and corrections, if known. Diplomatic editions, facsimiles and digital image reproductions of the manuscripts are not always listed here but may be found in entries for the relevant manuscripts. For historical purposes, early editions, transcriptions and translations are not excluded, even if their reliability does not meet modern standards.

[ed.] Forte, Anthony J., Friguli commentarius in evangelium secundum Matthaeum, Rarissima Mediaevalia: Opera Latina, 6, Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2018.

abstract:

Quedlinburg 127, a Carolingian manuscript now conserved in the University Library at Halle an der Saale, preserves a copy of a commentary on the Gospel of Matthew that, according to the flyleaf, was written by a certain “Fribolus.” It is unclear who this Fribolus or Frigolus was. If the name “Friboli” is indeed that of a real person, might he be identical with the “Figulus” mentioned together with Jerome, Augustine, Gregory and Bede, by the ninth-century author Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel in his Collectiones epistolarum et euangeliorum? In addition to these patristic authorities, other writers such as Isidore and Fortunatianus, Bishop of Aquileia, were also used by our author. The scope of Frigulus’ commentary was to provide more than a collection of excerpts. What seems to be original is the way in which Frigulus arranged the material he appropriated from so many different authors. Not only did he transmit a well-known exegesis of the text from the patristic sources available to him, but immediately following these often literal interpretations he also provided glosses in order to give a coherent structure to his allegorical commentary. By doing this, he sought to include a short reflection on almost every element in the biblical narrative.

Edition based on the Halle MS.

[ed.] Löfstedt, Bengt, “Fragmente eines Matthäus-Kommentars”, Sacris Erudiri 37 (1997): 141–161.

Edition of the two bifolia in the Schøyen Collection.

Secondary sources (select)

Contreni, John J., “ [Review of: Forte, Anthony J., Friguli commentarius in evangelium secundum Matthaeum, Rarissima Mediaevalia: Opera Latina, 6, Münster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2018.]”, The Medieval Review (21 November, 2019). URL: <https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/tmr/article/view/28938/33702>.

Dorfbauer, Lukas J., “Fortunatian von Aquileia und der Matthäus-Kommentar des „Frigulus“ (CPL 1121e)”, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 50 (2015): 59–90.

Getz, Robert, “More on the sources of Blickling homily III”, Notes and Queries 57 (2010): 281–290.

Gorman, Michael M., “Frigulus: Hiberno-Latin author or Pseudo-Irish phantom? Comments on the edition of the Liber questionum in Euangeliis (CCSL 108F)”, Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique 100:2 (2005): 425–456.

abstract:

This critique of the edition of the anonymous early medieval commentary on Matthew published in CCSL 108F in 2003 explains that there is no evidence for an Irish origin of the work. Furthermore, the apparatus fontium in the edition is largely deceptive.

Forte, Anthony J., “Bengt Löfstedt’s Fragmente eines Matthäus-Kommentars: reflections and addenda”, Sacris Erudiri 42 (2003): 327–367.

abstract:

Bengt Löfstedt's Fragmente eines Matthäus-Kommentars, an editio princeps of two bifolia housed in Tokyo and in London, has allowed the author to compare the fragments edited by Löfstedt with parallels from Frigulus' Matthew commentary, Qu. Cod. 127, and with another Matthew commentary, Orl. (65) 62. The author has attempted not only to improve upon Löfstedt's edition by resolving some of the lacunae in the fragments, and to add various patristic and biblical sources and/or parallels to Löfstedt's apparatus, but more importantly has suggested by his study that the two bifolia edited by B. Löfstedt form part of a series of recensiones of a major commentary on Matthew's Gospel.

Rittmueller, Jean, “Appendix 2: The Commentarivs in Mathevm by Frigulus and the Liber questionvm in Euangeliis”, in: Thomas OʼLoughlin (ed.), The Scriptures and early medieval Ireland: proceedings of the 1993 Conference of the Society for Hiberno-Latin Studies on Early Irish Exegesis and Homilectics, 31, Steenbrugge, Turnhout: In Abbatia S. Petri, Brepols, 1999. 327–330.

Kelly, Joseph F., “A catalogue of early medieval Hiberno-Latin biblical commentaries [part II]”, Traditio 45 (1989): 393–434.

408–409 [id. 76.]

Lapidge, Michael, and Richard Sharpe, A bibliography of Celtic-Latin literature, 400-1200, Royal Irish Academy Dictionary of Medieval Latin from Celtic Sources, Ancillary Publications, 1, Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1985.

[id. 645.]

Kelly, Joseph F., “Frigulus: an Hiberno-Latin commentator on Matthew”, Revue Bénédictine 91:3–4 (1981): 363–373.

Bischoff, Bernhard, “Wendepunkte in der Geschichte der lateinischen Exegese im Frühmittelalter”, Sacris Erudiri 6 (1954): 189–279.