I have always thought within myself, most friendly and most learned Bandini, that the offices of a grateful mind so befit a well-born and honourable man, that if anyone should knowingly neglect them, or shrink from them, he would be little short of one to be reckoned among the beasts of burden. For human society is nourished above all by mutual aids, pursuits, and goodwill; and if these be taken away, humanity itself, it seems to me, is taken away — how proper this is to man, the very name declares. Let him then keep to himself, whoever will, the tenets of the opposite opinion, upon which rests a wholly new and savage philosophy, unworthy of a civilized man.
Doubtless you understand, best of friends, that these things are said by me for this reason: that you, who have heaped many benefits and tokens of love upon me, may recognize me again and again as grateful for your deserts toward me and your generosities, and moreover may judge me to be for ever mindful of all of them. Wherefore, since it now falls to me to commit to print this sermon On Preserving Widowhood — which I reckon as received chiefly from you — to whom more fittingly could these things which it now behoves me to set forth by way of preface be inscribed than to you, so that hence there might exist at least some slight return of my zeal toward you? I see it to be but a slight thing, and unequal to your benefit and your deserts; yet, since it proceeds from a mind well-disposed and desiring to give greater things, may it be worthy that you receive it with fairness and good grace.
After the author of the benefit has become known to our readers — the source whence these things have flowed to us — it is fair that the rest also be made plain, namely those things which more closely regard the document that now first comes forth; and which, that they may be recounted to you, who know them very well, you must now suffer. The codex therefore of the Medicean-Laurentian library, over which you deservedly preside, has this sermon, which you judge to have been penned in the eleventh century, and which you have already yourself described in volume I of the Catalogue of the Latin codices of the Laurentian library, which we hope will shortly appear. The said codex contains various homilies of Saint...
...Caesarius of Arles' homilies, and among them this one also is found, which nevertheless is attributed to Augustine, the most holy Father of the Church, since at its end these words, though inelegantly, are subjoined: 'Here ends St. Augustine On the Consolation of the Dead.' Moreover it is more clearly inscribed to Augustine in another codex of the ninth century, mutilated at the end, of the library of St. Mark at Florence, which the Friars Preachers possess, where, after several homilies of the same Caesarius of Arles which it contains, there follow three sermons, of which the first is by St. Augustine the bishop and begins: 'Blessed is the man on whom God shall have mercy,' etc.; the second is likewise prefixed with his name and is On Preserving Widowhood; and the third, finally, is of St...
...Ambrose, and is On Doing Penance. This codex is described by a man most renowned among his own people, Francesco Antonio Zaccaria, in his Journey through Italy, and he reviews its several chapters one by one. The second sermon, On Preserving Widowhood, transcribed from this codex, was communicated to us with the utmost kindness by that most distinguished man Filippo Angelico Becchetti, a son of the Dominican Family and a most excellent continuator of the Ecclesiastical History of Orsi; even as by his care I also obtained the apograph excerpted from the Laurentian codex, which you, in friendly and courteous fashion, bestowed.
But the text which I present is from the Laurentian codex, to which nevertheless at the bottom margin I have subjoined the variant readings that the codex of St. Mark has, which is older by two more centuries. The greater antiquity of the latter seemed indeed to demand that in place of the text its apograph should be set forth;
but since, about the middle of the sermon, I detected foisted into it — perhaps through the drowsiness of the copyist — a certain fragment of another sermon On Penance, which indeed has nothing in common with Widowhood, lest, in the text itself (as the fidelity to the codex would require), anyone should grievously observe something foisted in, discordant with the primary subject, I took this counsel: that the Laurentian exemplar, though more recent, should now serve as the text, to which, among the other variant readings of the older codex, this very fragment also should be appended. And that indeed could by no means, it seemed, be passed over, that nowhere — for all the searches undertaken by me among the sermons of Augustine, Ambrose, and Caesarius — have I found it among the published works.
Zaccaria, in the place cited, intimates that after the sermon On Preserving Widowhood there follows another sermon of St. Ambrose On Doing Penance, or, as he himself says, homily 44, which the printed books assign to Augustine. I therefore inspected, from his own indication, the aforesaid number 44, which is ascribed to this homily, in the Works of Augustine and of Ambrose, in editions both old and recent (for Zaccaria does not well set forth which of the two Fathers he wishes there to be designated); and I found the homilies or sermons which bear this number — whether among the genuine works of the same authors, or among the spurious and suspect ones — to be altogether different, and to touch nothing concerning Penance.
There are indeed found in Augustine two sermons On the Usefulness of Doing Penance, and several others on the same subject occur, rejected into the appendix by the most learned monks of St. Maur at Paris; but in none of them did I find anything that agrees with the aforesaid fragment — which you may reckon said also of the Ambrosian and Caesarian sermons, which I consulted on purpose. But now I must come to this, that I may set forth my opinion concerning the author of this sermon, which I wished also to be communicated to the illustrious Agostino Antonio Giorgi, procurator general of the Augustinian Hermits, a man most loving toward me, adorned with every kind of learning, and moreover a most vigorous and outstanding defender of Augustinian doctrine.
The style indeed, if it be compared with the sincere, wholly golden and divine works of the most holy Father, will seem not to correspond at all to that in which our sermon is composed, but rather to differ exceedingly. To this is added that the most holy Father, in adducing the testimonies of the Scriptures, adheres to the Greek text — which too was observed by the Maurist monks. Namely, the very passage of Paul the Apostle to Timothy, which occurs first in this our sermon On Preserving Widowhood, is adduced by Augustine in his little work On the Good of Widowhood, which in the Palatine-Vatican codex of the sixth or seventh century, marked no. 210, is inscribed: 'The Book or Epistle of St...'
'...Augustine to Juliana, On Preserving Widowhood'; and it corresponds altogether to the Greek text, and not to the Vulgate version. For thus it runs: 'But she that is a widow indeed and desolate hath hoped in the Lord, and continueth in prayers night and day. But she that liveth in pleasures is dead while living.' Have now the Greek text, that you may without any trouble compare it with either version: but in our sermon this passage is adduced according to the fidelity of the Vulgate edition — though not altogether accurately — otherwise than it had been done by Augustine; which indeed you may understand as said of the other passages of the New Testament here cited.
But in the little work On the Christian Life, to which the Maurist monks gave place in the appendix of volume VI, this very passage of Paul is seen adduced according to the Vulgate. But this little work the same monks disallow to Augustine, and rather attribute it to a certain Fastidius, a bishop and a fellow-countryman of Pelagius. Wherefore I judge thus, that this sermon is rather to be attributed to St. Caesarius of Arles, since it is found in the codices of his homilies, and since several other sermons of the same, previously attributed to Augustine, have been rejected by the most learned monks of St. Maur into the appendix to volume V of the Augustinian Works. These, most learned Bandini, are the things which it now pleased me to treat with you, with whom it seemed to me all but to hold a learned discourse.
You, who abound in such great erudition, and who daily attempt greater things for the advantage and increase of the literary commonwealth, do not despise these little learned addresses of mine, nor these tiny little works; for they are at least suited to your genius, and endeavour to approach the model of your works. Moreover, do not measure the standard of my grateful and respectful mind from this trifling office alone — you who may expect even greater things from me from day to day, if they be available, or whatever else there may be. Farewell meanwhile, most learned Bandini, and live for your country and the Muses in tranquil leisure. Given at Rome, on the Nones of January, in the year 1773 from the birth of Christ.