Codex Montepessulanus H. 54 
(M)

Location : Bibliothèque de mèdècine, University of Montpellier
Date: 11th century (beginning) 2
Corpus: Cluniacense.

Beautifully written in two columns by a single hand, with 29 lines per page. Size 36cm high x29cm wide with 256 folios. Contains many lacunae when compared with the Paterniacensis 2

At the top of f1v there is a table of contents, in the same hand as the body of the manuscript: 

ISTI LIBRI IN HOC CODICE CONTINENTVR: DE PACIENTIA LIB I DE CARNE XPI LIB I DE CARNIS RESVRRECTIONE LIB I ADVERSVS PRAXEAM LIB I ADVERSVS VALENTINIANOS LIB I ADVERSVS MARCIONE LIB. V. 

Note the absence of the Apologeticum from this listAfter this, in a more recent hand has been added: Post sex superiores adpositus est elegantissimus liber Apologeticus de ignorantia dei in Christo iesu qui perhibetur.

The text of the Apologeticum is written in a different hand to the rest of the codex.  It is copied in the same mis-en-page as the rest of the manuscript.  It seems that the last folio of the final ternion of the original manuscript (ff. 241-256) was almost empty.  It was used to start the copy of the Apologeticum, and then three more quaternions were added (ff. 257-279; the last folio is lost).  The quality of the parchment of these quaternions is also different.3

It has been suggested (by Kroymann) that this codex is the first volume of a two-volume work, of which the second volume has disappeared. The latter is sometimes referred to as M'.  The manuscript may be that listed in the 11th century catalogue of Cluny. The manuscript is also known as the Pithoeanus.3 

Folios Works
  De patientia
  De carne Christi
  De resurrectione mortuorum
  Adversus Praxean
  Adversus Valentinianos
102v-256 Adversus Marcionem (in 5 books)1
256-279 3 Apologeticum (in a much later hand)

REFERENCES

1. René BRAUN, Tertullien : Contre Marcion, Sources Chretiennes 365 (1990), p20ff. French critical edition, introduction, translation. Checked.

2. Emil KROYMANN, CSEL 47, (1906), pxiiii. Checked.

3. Pierre PETITMENGIN, Tertullien entre la fin du XIIe et le début du XVIe siècle, in M. CORTESI (ed), Padri Greci e Latini a confronto: Atti del Convegno di studi della Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino.  Firenze: SISMEL (2004).  pp. 63-88.  Checked.  

This page has been online since 11th December 1999.


Return to the Tertullian Project / About these pages