Concerning the title of the collection, Relectiones Theologicae XII, Ompteda1 and Morhofius2 erroneously call them Prcelectiones instead of Relectiones, while Simon in his edition (Cologne and Frankfort, 1696) gives the title as Relectiones Morales. Simon also gives the number as thirteen and in this is undoubtedly following the Ingolstadt edition of 1580. 3 There is also some discrepancy among authorities as to the exact relectiones con- tained in this work. Antonio,4 whom Hurter5 apparently followed, includes an otherwise unknown work, De silentii obligatione, in the Relectiones Theo¬ logicae XII, but it does not appear in the copies of this work that have been accessible to me. The Nouvelle Bibliographie Generale includes not only the above-mentioned De silentii obligatione, but also an altogether separate work, the Summa Sacramentorum Ecclesiae.6 The first edition of the Relectiones was published at Lyons in 1557, in two volumes, under the title I have given above. The individual relectiones 1D. H. L. Ompteda, Litteratur des gesammten sowohl naturlichen ais positiven Volkerrechts (Regensberg, 2D. G. Morhofius, Polyhistor literarius, philosophicus et practicus (Ed. 3, Lubeck, 1732), vol. 11, 3See the title page of Simon’s edition in the Photographic Reproduction in this volume.
4Nicolaus Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana nova, vol. 1 (Madrid, 1783), p. 497.
6Hugo Hurter, Nomenclator literarius theologiae Catholicae, vol. ii3 (Innsbruck, 1906), p. 1370.
* Summa Sacramentorum Ecclesiae, ex doctrina fratris Francisci a Victoria,...Per Reverendum patrem Praesentatum, Fratrem Thomam a Chaues, illus discipulum,...ex secunda Authoris recogni¬ tione...aucta, locupletata, atque illustrata est (Romae, Apud Iulium Accoltum in platea Peregrini, MDLXVII).
Prefatory Remarks.
were arranged in the two volumes, precisely as indicated in the Table of Contents of that edition, as follows: Tomus Privius: De potestate Ecclesiae, prior et posterior, De potestate civili.
De potestate Papae et concilii.
De Indis prior.
De Indis posterior, sive de iure belli.
De matrimonio.
Tomus Secundus: De augmento charitatis.
De temperantia.
De homicidio.
De simonia.
De magia.
De eo ad quod tenetur veniens ad usum rationis.
These are substantially the same as those given in subsequent editions. Yet the second edition gives the number as eleven, counting the De Indis and the De iure belli as one relectio. The fourth edition (Lyons, 1586) puts the number at thirteen, counting the two relectiones on the power of the Church as two, and in this is followed apparently by Holland,1 and avowedly by Walker.2 Hallam,3 who saw only the Venetian edition (1626), makes the same mistake and accuses Antonio of perhaps never having seen the work because he gives the number as twelve. Yet the two pairs of relec¬ tiones which cause this difference ought not to be considered in the same light. The first pair is clearly on the same subject and ought to be treated simply as two parts of a single relectio, although they were delivered at different times; the second deals with two distinctly different subjects, as the very title itself indicates, although the second is suggested by the first. Therefore they ought to be considered as two relectiones, as in the first edition.
MANUSCRIPTS.
Of this work, it is probable that there are no manuscript copies extant. At least, to the editor of the third printed edition (Ingolstadt, 1580), none was available, for he fails to mention any, and, moreover, States that he had corrected the first edition (Lyons, 1557) by the second edition (Sala- manca, 1565), except where this was manifestly wrong, in which case he took counsel with eminent theologians and philosophers. If a manuscript copy of the Relectiones had been extant, it would probably have been in some Spanish or French library and accessible to Spanish and French biographers of Victoria. But Antonio,4 a Spaniard, in his life of Victoria, makes no mention of any, nor is a manuscript copy mentioned by Victoria’s XT. E. Holland, Studies in international law (Oxford, 1898), p. 51.
2T. A. Walker, A history of the law of nations, vol. 1, (Cambridge, 1899), p. 214.
3Henry Hallam, Introduction to the literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries (London, n. d.), p. 314, column 2, note 1.
4Nicolaus Antonio, op. cit., pp. 496-497.
Prefatory Reinarks.
French biographers, Dupin,1 Touron,2 and Quetif-Echard.3 Surely, a man- uscript would have been mentioned by one of his later biographers, Hino- josa,4 Barthelemy,6 and Hurter,6 if any had been discovered in the intervening years. #.
Yet even if there be extant somewhere in obscurity a manuscript of Victoria’s Relectiones, it would not materially affect the text as transmitted in the first or second editions, as will appear from the rest of these remarks. To secure a complete understanding of this assertion, it is necessary, first to define the word relectio. At Salamanca it meant a kind of theological exercise not very unlike those disputations which were in use in the most celebrated universities of the Middle Ages under the name of quaestiones quodlibeticae. Those quaestiones, which seemed to be the more difficult and more useful of ali that had been discussed in the daily prelections of an entire year, were reconsidered in relectiones in the public assembly of leamed men by the same doctor, in order that they might be much more accurately decided than theretofore and receive as it were the finishing touches.
The manuscripts, from which the first and second editions of the Relectiones Theologicae XII were edited, were not written by Victoria, because he never intended publishing the lectures and may have^ used only notes or outlines in delivering them, but were written by Victoria s students from dictation, probably when the lectures were first delivered, because it is not likely, though certainly possible, that they would have been dictated again in the public assembly at the end of the year. At any rate, there would be as many manuscripts of the Relectiones as there were auditors, and, since none of these manuscripts belonged to the author, the authority of the individual manuscript would be considerably lessened, for it is the consensus of the manuscripts that would give what the author probably dictated. This consensus is represented by the first and second editions and would not in all probability be disturbed by a single manuscript. Moreover, a single manuscript would be subject to all the errors attribut- able to writing from dictation. These reasons will become clearer from the criticisms of the first and second editions, whose editors saw and used manuscript copies of the text.
FIRST EDITION.
FIRST EDITION.
A little over ten years after Victoria’s death, “par grace & priuilege du Roy est permis a Iacques Boyer libraire de Salamanca, imprimer ou faire imprimer vne fois ou plusieurs ce present liure intitule, Reuerediss. Patris Fratris Francisci de Victoria, ordinis Praedicatorum, sacrae Theo- 1Ellies Dupin, Nouvelle bibliotkeque des auteurs ecclesiastiques, vol. xiv (Paris, I7°3)> PP* 2Antoine Touron, Histoire des homines illustres de VOrdre de Saint Dominique, vol. iv (Pans, 74^3JaPcques Quetif and Jacques Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, vol. 11 (Paris, 1721), PP «Eduardo de Hinojosa, Estudios sobre la historia dei derecho espahol (Madrid, 1903), pp. 179-248. ®Joseph Barthelemy, Franfois de Vitoria. In Les fondateurs du droit international (Paris, 1904), «Hugo Hurter, op. cit., pp. I3°7-137°- \ Prefatory Remarks.
logiae in Salmanticensi Academia quondam primarij Professoris Relectioes duodecim Theologicae.”1 This, the first edition of the Relectiones, bears the imprint of Lyons, 1557, and was prepared for the following reasons, as Boyer relates in his dedicatory letter to the Inquisitor, Ferdinand Valdez.
After mentioning the fact that the works of the early Fathers had been “truncati, confusi, obscuri, perplexi, ac denique alienis inventis conspur- cati,” Boyer says that this same fate befell Victoria’s writings.
“For one person had mutilated them by making an unhappy transcript, another had read them incorrectly, a third by supressing Victoria’s name had usurped a good and large portion of the work, and many had placed the comments of their foolish mind in the midst of his scrupulous doctrine and singular erudition not otherwise than a counterfeit jewel might be set in gold; and the glory that is due the author certain scoundrels had claimed for themselves with impunity.”
In these words he gives the reasons for the necessity of printing for the first time a work, which its own author had never deemed it necessary to print. Of course, we would not consider it cause for blame for the student to adapt the doctrine of his master to suit himself, provided he does not attribute the adaptation to his master, but it is a pity that Boyer did not give more definite information and mention the names of the culprits guilty of the crimes he charged. This would have been extremely interesting and useful in showing the great influence of Victoria and would have made possible a more detailed critique of Boyer’s methods.
The value to be attached to Boyer’s edition may be deduced from the following facts. Boyer was a contemporary of Victoria and was personally acquainted with him. We would have supposed this, even if he had not said it himself,2 from the fact that he was librarian at Salamanca. Conse- quently, he had first-hand knowledge of Victoria’s doctrine. His text was carefully prepared from the manuscript copies of Victoria’s auditors, men who wrote down Victoria’s lectures as he dictated them. In fact, he feels so sure of the accuracy of his edition that he believes those who have heard Victoria’s lectures will vouch for it and he even invites comparison of his edition with the manuscripts. For the convenience of the reader, Boyer prefixes a summary to each relectio and adds marginal references to some of the passages of Holy Scripture quoted by Victoria.3 On the other hand, the text of Boyer is not altogether free from mistakes and has so many misprints that it altogether merits the condem- nation heaped upon it by Munoz and every writer since. These errors are numerous and of many kinds. I shall not give here examples of misprints, because they are so numerous and can easily be noticed by the casual reader. I have grouped a few examples, chosen at random, of other errors under several headings.
Substitutions. — B4 has etiam si for et sic, p. 221, n. 11; Ieroboam for Ierusalem, p. 255, n. 1; exportantes for importantes, p. 258, n. 14; duabus for 1Extrait du Privilege dtl Roy, first edition of the Relectiones, p. 3.
2,1 Cuius ego memoria maxime recreor,” says Boyer, Epist. ad Valdesium, prefixed to his edition.
3Loc. cit.
Prefatory Remarks.!95 Omissions. — B has omitted the words in brackets in the following: barbari non [ habebant dominium, quia semper\ erant in peccato mortali, p. 244, n. 13; omnes rescinduntur a fisco [et bona capiuntur ab eodem fisco], p. 228, n. 1; ad vindicandum [iniuriam], p. 279* n- 6; [non] maiorem auctori¬ tatem habet princeps, p. 279, n. 7.
There is some evidence that the copy was read to the compositor and that the proof-reading was faulty. For example, B has magnoperepretium ( = magnum operae pretium), p. 222, n. 4; inciviliter ( = vincibiliter), p. 281, n. 10; victores ( = lictores ), p. 282, n. 5» iusticia, p. 285; iuvetur ( = iubetur ), SECOND EDITION.
It is no wonder, then, that, although Boyer had a ten-year Copyright,1 a second edition was published by Alonso Munoz, O. P., and printed by Juan de Canova at Salamanca in 1565. He also secured a ten-year Copy¬ right, as is ciear from the letter in the vernacular which is prefixed to his edition. This letter is followed by a dedicatory letter of Munoz to the “Serenissimo atque Augustissimo Hispaniarum Principe Carolo Philippo regis earundem filio,” which is very complimentary to Victoria.
In his letter to the reader, Munoz explains how he came to publish a second edition of Victoria’s Relectiones. He was at Salamanca helping Domingo Soto with the correction of proof of the fourth book of the Sentences, then in press, when “there appeared a little book with a most imposing title, but contaimng countless horrible misprints, absurdities which were disgraceful and lnsultmg to the author as well as the whole theological school. It made one aghast to behold in the tiny body of so small a book so unbelievable an offscouring of close-packed blunders, and ashamed and sorrowful that rascals should seem to have such license towards the masterpieces of most distinguished men, and with impumty, too. I his was the title of the book: ‘The Relectiones of the Reverend Father, Brother Franciscus de Victoria, of the Order of Preachers, late Pnmary Professor of Sacred Iheology in the University of Salamanca.’ You observe how fair and full of^promise the inscription is; and indeed in Pliny’s words, its bail could be forfeited.
Having found numerous and serious mistakes, Munoz brought the matter to the attention of Domingo Soto and Melchior Cano, two of Vic¬ toria^ former students, who prompted him to correct the printed book 1 Extrait du Privilege du Roy, first edition of the Relectiones, p. 3.
2See page 106.
Prefatory Remarks.
“according to the most exact copies.”1 Later on the administer of the Holy Inquisition in the matter of examining books joined Domingo Soto in urging Munoz to undertake the work.
“Although I was aware,” says Mufioz, “how unpleasant a business it was, how hard and wearisome the affair, how inglorious the labor of correcting and restoring the monuments of others, especially those so ulcerous, so altogether deranged, so piteously (I had almost said) and hostilely regarded, as these were, yet, moved by the authority of my preceptors as well as induced by love of a very fine work and of its author, Victoria, who was also my dearest of teachers, I put my shoulders under a burden which I have loved.”2 In preparing his text, Munoz pursued the following plan.3 He per- suaded a fellow-religious, one Petrus ab Anaya, to read aloud the text of Boyer, while he himself ran over in his mind simultaneously the manuscript copies. When any discrepancy occurred, they halted and supplied what was wanting or corrected what was wrong. Doubtful matters were settled by Consulting many manuscripts, for there was an abundance of them, and when these failed, by having recourse to the sources used by the author. Ali of this was done a second time and a third time, so that the editor finally gives the work to the reader with great confidence.
But the criticism which Munoz so vigorously directs against Boyer’s edition can very justly be applied to his own. While Munoz has corrected many mistakes of the first edition, he has not corrected all of them, and, moreover, falis into errors of his own.
The copy which Munoz sent to the printer, as he himself States, was Boyer’s edition corrected from the manuscripts by reading aloud. One would suppose that this method of preparing copy would cause errors, and it may be due to this that certain mistakes in B have remained uncorrected in M.4 At any rate, there are errors in M which seem to indicate that the copy was read to the compositor.5 For instance, M has erant for errant, p. 231, n. 13; aversetur for adversetur, p. 259, n. 7; deincipes for principes, p. 263, n. 11; diligendo for dirigendo, p. 263, n. 15; cedes for ccedes, p. 279, 1. 25; pcenes for penes, p. 281, n. 2; pcena for pcena, p. 296, 1. 25.
Another source of error was the correction of B according to the authors quoted or cited by Victoria. For example, in a quotation from Sylvester, M has changed pugnat, which is found in B, to pugnavit (p. 294, n. 9) — a change which seems to have been made to conform to Sylvester’s words. But first of all, the principle underlying this procedure is false, because it is by no means evident that Victoria quoted authorities ad litteram. In fact, he often adapts a quotation, using only some of the exact words. For example, in a quotation from the Institutes of Justinian, Victoria deliber- ately substitutes gentes for homines (p. 257, n. 4). Similar adaptations, perhaps more striking to the casual observer, are to be found in quotations xAd serissima exemplaria. sSee page 106.
^The Information that follows is found in the same letter of Munoz, but this part is not quoted in Simon’8 edition.
Prefatory Rentarks. 1 97 from Gerson (p. 246, n. 7), from the Vulgate (p. 260, n. 6), and elsewhere. Moreover, in cases in which he should, Munoz does not always act accord- ing to the principle which he enunciates. For example, he omits mortalium (p. 277, n. 5), which is found in B as well as in the passage quoted from St. Augustine.
In spite of Munoz’s boasted carefulness in correcting the errors of B, many of these errors remain uncorrected or have been miscorrected. To this class belong the following: magnum operepetium ( = magnum operae pretium ), p. 222, n. 4; viri ( — veri ), p. 222, n. 5; quum ( = quoniam), p. 246, n. 8; artes ( = arces), p. 260, n. 10; erant ( = errant), p. 267, n. 8; ipse ( = ipsae), p. 267, n. 9; hac disputatione ( = hanc disputationem), p. 271, n. 9; sciri: iure videtur ( = sciri de iure, videtur), p. 284* n. 35 non dum, p. 286; indiferenter, p. 289; dificultas, p. 291. Of course, many of these uncorrected errors are purely printer’s errors, and might easily have passed unnoticed when read aloud, but I mention them here to show what value is to be attached to Munoz’s vaunted triple comparison. Besides, M has also not a few mis- prints which are its own, yet it is unnecessary to give them in detail here.
One of the most striking differences between B and M, however, is to be found in the substitutions, omissions, and additions made by Munoz. These may have been made for several reasons.
First, Munoz may have seen some manuscripts which Boyer did not see; but, since it is more likely that Boyer saw some which Munoz did not see, seeing that he published his edition nearly ten years nearer the time at which the Relectiones were delivered, we can not argue with any certamty from this reason..
Secondly, Munoz, in order to avoid a fancied ambiguity, may have deliberately made additions at the suggestion of the administer of the Holy Inquisition, who had suggested the work to Munoz and had probably had some share in directing it. For example, M adds in re dubia, p. 284» n* 13 > mor aliter loquendo, p. 286, n. 1. Additions of this kind could have been made with a good conscience, seeing that Munoz and his assistant were familiar with Victoria’s opinions and realized the possibility of omissions of unimportant words on the part of students writing from dictation.
Thirdly, it is not at all unlikely that Munoz and his collaborator, being members of the same Order as the author, desired nothing to be published under his name that in their opinion seemed illogical, incomplete or inelegant or likely in any other way to cast reflection upon the author. They knew that Victoria never intended his lectures for publication and that, lf he had, he would have polished up his language before publication. They also knew that one can speak more quickly than one can write, and consequently, that Victoria’s auditors were not apt to be able to write down every word dictated by their lecturer. A principle of this character might account for such changes as the following: Christiano digna (B has simply Christiana), p. 219, n. 6; rex et dominus (B has rex vivus), p. 245, n. 5; super hoc (B has simply hoc), p. 265, n. 14; non esset respublica perfecta (B has non videtur ■ habere Rempublicam perfectam, p. 277, n. 13; ita gladio uti (B has xra gladn Prefatory Remarks.
Prefatory Remarks.
uti), p'279, n. 10; prceciperet (B has prceceperit ), p. 279, n. Ii; parandam. (B has pariendam), p. 280, n. 5; profligatis (B has projugatis), p. 281, n. 7; oriuntur (B has supersunt), p. 281, n. 9; per accidens (B has Christianis), p. 287, n. 2. There is no doubt that the readings adopted by M in some of these passages are much more logical and much more Ciceronian than those of B.
Fourthly, certain changes which M made, perhaps following some of the manuscripts, may have been caused by the method, used by Victoria, of dictating his lectures. Every professor, lecturing to a class, often stops to render the same thought in otber words, not intending the repetition to be a part of his formal lecture, but merely explaining something in other words while his auditors are writing down what he has said first. It may well have happened that some of Victoria’s students wrote down repetitions of this sort, not thinking that they might not have been part of the dicta- tion, while others wrote down parts of repeated expressions, and stili others, the slow ones, missed a word here and there, perhaps even a sentence. Such may have been the case with the following: p. 223, n. 13; p. 224, n. 9; p. 224, n. 15; p. 229, n. 1; p. 265, n. 13; p. 267, n. 16; p. 271, n. 5; p. 277, n. 13; p. 285, n. 5; p. 289, n. 1; p. 295, n. 3. It would require too much space to give each of these examples in detail here.
Lastly, it must be remembered that, from their very nature,1 Victoria’s Relectiones were delivered twice: first, during the ordinary course of the year, and secondly, at the end of the year in public. Consequently, where differ- ence in verbiage exists between the reading of B and the reading of M, it may be attributable to this source.
THIRD EDITION.
Fifteen years after the appearance of the Salamanca edition there appeared at Ingolstadt2 another edition (1580) which Hurter terms good3 and which ali the later editions follow. Nothing is known of the editor of this edition other than that he was “one of the Doctors of Sacred Theology in Ingolstadt.” In his letter “to the Christian reader,” he telis us that there are three points which he wishes to emphasize: (1) the amount of labor and toil expended by him in preparing the edition, (2) the character and greatness of the author of the Relectiones, and (3) the advantage and profit which the perusal of them will bring “even to Germans, who seem to be somewhat strange to the gymnastic and scholastic form of discussion therein employed.”
In connection with the first point, the editor quotes parts of the letter, which Munoz had prefixed to his edition, and then continues: 1See above, p. 193.
2I have not seen a copy of this edition. The information I have given concerning it has been drawn from a letter which Simon prefixes to his edition and which purports to be a copy of the one prefixed to the Ingolstadt edition.
3Hugo Hurter, Nomenclator literarius theologiae Catholicae, vol. ii3 (Innsbruck, 1906), p. 1369.
Prefatory Remarks. l99 “But I do not know by what ill-chance it has happened that into this Sala- manca edition, so clean, so ciear, so gilded, have crept blunders and faults neither few nor trivial. It labors at times under the same faults as the Lyons edition; sometimes under faults of its own, which needs must be corrected either by reter- ence to the Lyons edition or in some other way.”1 It has already been shown that this criticism of M was justified. It remains now to give a brief descriptiori of his own method.
The text of the Ingolstadt edition was prepared in the following man- ner. The editor and his associate made a careful comparison (probably, by reading aloud) of B and M, making corrections in a copy of B, which was to be sent to the printer, from a copy of M, wherever this was not evidently at fault. When a trivial mistake was found in M, the editor relied on his own judgment, but whenever a serious error was found in M, he consulted skilled theologians and philosophers, in order that by weighmg ali the words and opinions of the author found in both editions he might understand the mind of the author from the common judgment of many. Sometimes, even after following this plan, he could discover no method of restoring a corrupt passage.2 From the above, it is ciear that the editor of the Ingolstadt edition had at his command the same materials as I have used, namely, B and M, and it is true that he has made some good emendations (for example, gerit vices et auctoritatem, p. 277, n. 6, where B has both nouns m the plural and M has both in the singular; sciri de iure, videtur, p. 284, n. 3, where B and M have sciri: iure videtur). Nevertheless, his text contains the self-same kinds of errors with which he chides the editors of B and M, as the footnotes to the revised text and the long list of Errata will amply show, lf we may believe that Simon’s edition (Cologne, 1696)3 is a faithful copy of the Ingol¬ stadt edition. It is natural to expect that S will have errors pecuhar to itself. For instance, pellum ( = bellum ) and Amprosio seem to indicate that the copy was read to the compositor by a German reader. Yet, on the whole, it is not likely that Simon would intentionally reject readings he found in the Ingolstadt edition for something incorrect.
OTHER EDITIONS.
OTHER EDITIONS.
The other editions of the Relectiones that followed the Ingolstadt edition are professedly based upon it and therefore need not enter into this discussion. In this number are included the editions of Lyons (1586 and 1587), Antwerp (1604), Venice (1626), Salamanca (1680), Cologne and Frankfort (1696), and Madrid (1765).
PRESENT EDITION.
It has been shown that B was edited from unknown manuscripts (written by Victoria’s auditors), some of which were seen by the editor of M and some of which may not have been seen by the editor of M; that M was edited from B and from unknown manuscripts, some of which may Prefatory Remarks.
not have been seen by the editor of B; that I was edited from B and M without manuscripts; and that ali subsequent editions were edited from I. Consequently, since no manuscripts were available in the preparation of the present text, it was necessary to have recourse to the first and second editions, whose editors had used manuscripts in establishing their texts.