920J, Theodor Anton Peltanus (Pelt) 1511-1584). and Petrus Cratepoil (Cratepoil).

Decem et septem excellentissimorum theologorum declamationes; ante mille quidem ducentos annos, in praecipuis Christi Servatoris festis publicè habitae; nunc verò opere & studio Theodori Peltani, Societatis Jesu theologi, latinitate donatae, unoque simul volumine in lucem editae. Accessit his, praeter rerum, illustriorumque locorum observationes, praefatio ad lectorem, in qua praeclarè illos de universa Ecclesia mereri ostenditur, qui priscorum theologorum monumenta antea nondum vulgata, aut vetustate jam olim inobscurata, in lucem proferunt. Orationum seriem, & argumenta, auctorumque nomina, versa indicat pagina..

        Bound with 

Electorum ecclesiasticorum, id est, Coloniensium, Moguntinensium ac trevirensium … praesident, catalogus.

1  Ingolstadii excudebat David Sartorius.1579.

2 Köln, G. v. Kempen, 1580                

                                                              Price $2,800

Octavo Signatures: a-c8, A-V8, X4 (Errata on c8v & X4r).  Blind-tooled pigskin binding on wooden boards with embossed monogram “LW”; somewhat browned and stained, spine with painted 19th-century title mark, small tear in the covering of the back cover, 1 (of 2) clasps.

These are “declamations” (Latin: declamationes) by “seventeen most excellent theologians” (decem et septem excellentissimorum theologorum).  The preface states they were “publicly held in the principal festivals of Christ the Savior” (in praecipuis Christi servatoris festis publice habitae) “about one thousand two hundred years ago” (ante mille quidem ducentos annos). His whole program in this volume is “plura scriptorum Graecorum opera… latine vertit” This “Collection of then mostly unpublished Greek church-writings in Latin translation. This is the only edition.  Peltanus offers Latin translations of seventeen patristic declamations drawn almost entirely from the Greek East: four homilies by Basil of Seleucia, three by John Chrysostom, sermons by Sophronius of Jerusalem, Cyril of Jerusalem, Amphilochius of Iconium, Timotheus presbyter of Jerusalem, Nectarius of Constantinople, two by Epiphanius of Salamis, one by Gregory of Nyssa, and a final piece attributed to Ephrem the Syrian (via the Greek tradition), together with an anonymous homily on the Archangels and Angels—all originally composed in Greek (Ephrem’s from a Syriac original). To me the most striking features of Peltanus’s volume is its range of Greek patristic sources, including not only Chrysostom, Basil of Seleucia, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Gregory of Nyssa, but also Amphilochius of Iconium — a Cappadocian Father whose homilies survive largely through Byzantine anthologies and are rarely printed in the West. Peltanus’s use of such authors demonstrates both his access to a substantial Greek patristic library at Ingolstadt and his role in the Jesuit project of reintroducing the Greek Fathers into the Catholic intellectual world of the late sixteenth century.

1) De Backer-Sommervogel -vol. VI, col.463, nº 27.;  VD 16, P 1267; Stalla 1406 ¶ Lukács, L.: Jesuit Colleges and Patristic Studies at Ingolstadt, in Archivum Historicorum Societatis Jesu 52 (1983), pp. 129–176  mentions Peltanus as translator of Chrysostom sermons. ¶Possevino, Antonio, Apparatus Sacer (1603), s.v. “Theodorus Peltanus,” praising him for “erudition in Greek Fathers.”

    2). VD 16, C 5692; Adams C 2899. – First edition. –