VI. The Editions of Salvian’s Works

Schoenemann distinguished three ages in the editions of Salvian;⁵⁶⁵⁶   Bibliotheca historico-literaria Patrum, II (Leipzig 1794), 826. the first, from 1528 to 1580, is that in which the two major works were published. The treatise Against Avarice was issued by Sichardus at Fol near Basle in 1528: two years later Brassicanus published in the same city his editio princeps of the books On the Government of God, based apparently on the extant Vienna manuscript of the fifteenth century (MS Vindobonensis 826). The next period, from 1580 to 1663, was dominated by the editions of Pierre Pithou, the first of which, published at Paris in 1580, was so much in demand that it soon came, as Baluze said, to have almost the rarity of a manuscript. This was the more unfortunate, as the several reprints were inferior.⁵⁷⁵⁷   Yet such is the infrequency of the present demand for editions of Salvian, that Pithou’s original edition could be had recently at a lower price than obscure editions with better bindings. In 1611 Conrad Rittershausen published an edition at Altdorf, with far more copious notes than those of previous editors. He seems to have been the first to find much space for commentary on other points than the establishment of the text, and included literary and juristic references of considerable interest and value. His edition, however, was little used outside of Germany.

In the third period, as Schoenemann says, solus regnat Baluzius. Stephen Baluze published his first edition of Salvian’s works together with the Commonitorium of Vincent of Lérins in 1663, and this rapidly superseded the earlier editions. Using the tenth century manuscript of Corbie (Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS Lat. 13385), by 32far the best of existing manuscripts, he was able to construct a text superior to any previously published. The commentary of Baluze has formed the basis, often unacknowledged, of many notes on Salvian since, a source of information which one could not afford to overlook. His work is chiefly cited now in the fourth edition, published in 1742 at Stadtamhof.

Here end Schoenemann’s three ages; but as far as the text is concerned, Baluze has been dethroned in our present age, first by Halm in 1877 and then by Pauly in 1883.⁵⁸⁵⁸   C. Halm, Salviani presbyteri Massiliensis libri qui supersunt, MGH, Auctores Antiquissimi, I, 1, Berlin, 1877: Fr. Pauly, Salviani presbyteri Massiliensis opera quae supersunt, CSEL, VIII, Vienna 1883. I have used Pauly’s text throughout, except for occasional emendations proposed by H. K. Messenger, De temporum et modorum apud Salvianum usu. Since notes in these modern editions are limited to the apparatus criticus, Baluze still reigns in the field of commentary. Meanwhile, from the sixteenth century to the early nineteenth, there have been numerous lesser editions, frequently pirated from those more famous.⁵⁹⁵⁹   For additions to the editions cited above, see G. Bruni, Un apologista della Provvidenza (Rome, 1925), 68-79, or Schoenemann, op. cit., pp. 825-833, reprinted in Migne, PL, LIII, cols. 13-24. For translations see also Ceillier, Histoire générale des auteurs sacrés, XV (Paris, 1748), p. 81, and Gregoire et Collombet, Introd. pp. lxiii-lxvii. The most useful of the translations are: S. Carlo Borromeo, Libro di Salviano Vescovo di Marsiglia contra gli Spettacoli ed altre Vanità del Mondo, Milan, 1579; Père Bonnet, Nouvelle Traduction des Oeuvres de Salvien, et du Traité de Vincent de Lérins contre les Hérésies, Paris, 1700; P. P. Grégoire et F. Z. Collombet, Oeuvres de Salvien, Paris, 1833; A. Helf, Des Salvianus acht Bücher über die göttliche Regierung, Kempten, 1877. In English, a part of the sixth book appeared in 1580 as “a second blast of retrait from places and theaters”; a translation of the whole work which I have been unable to consult, was published at London in 1700.