and was so much trusted by the king, Louis the Pious, that when the latter succeeded to the empire of his father Charles, he raised Claudius, about the year 818,[1] to the see of Turin. His reputation was that of an interpreter of the Bible.[2] He wrote commentaries on most of the historical books of the Old Testament, on the Gospel according to saint Matthew, and apparently on all the Pauline Epistles. Of these however but one, on the Galatians, has been printed entire. The others are known only by prefaces and extracts; and some are not edited at all.[3] It is not likely that we lose very much by our defective information about his works. He had not the faculty of lucid or graceful, or always even of grammatical, expression; and he repeatedly laments a defect which gave an irresistible opening to the ridicule of his literary enemies.[4] Far less did he bring the light of speculation or of original genius to bear upon the books he expounded. He compiled from the fathers – Augustin was his chosen
- ↑ Possibly a little earlier: Neander gives the date as 814, General History of the Christian Religion and Church 6. 216, transl. by J. Torrey, Edinburgh 1850
- ↑ 'Claudium ... cui in explanandis sanctorum evangeliorum lectionibus quantulacunque notitia inesse videbatur, ut Italicae plebis (quae magna ex parte a sanctorum evangelistarum sensibus procul aberat) sanctae doctrinae consultum ferret, Taurinensi subrogari fecit ecclesiae,' says his enemy, bishop Jonas, praef. in libros de cultu imaginum, 167 C, D; cf. 168 G.
- ↑ Few writers have their works scattered through such a variety of collections. The Enarratio in epist. ad Galat. is printed in the Max. Biblioth. Patrum, ubi supra; for the rest we have only specimens published in the Vetera Analecta of Mabillon, the Bibliotheca mediae et infimae Latinitatis of J. A. Fabricius, and in two collections of cardinal Mai Some additional extracts are mentioned by Schmidt, who gives a detailed list of Claudius's known works and attempts a chronological arrangement, p. 44 n. 8 and in his article in Herzog and Plitt's Real-Encyklopädie: see too Mabillon p. 92, ed. 1723. All these pieces, I think, are collected in the hundred-and-fourth volume of Migne. How much besides lies hidden in the Vatican we cannot tell. Cardinal Mai's edition of the preface to Claudius's commentary on the Pauline Epistles is avowedly a specimen which he intended to follow by the whole work, Nova Collect. vet. Scriptor. 7. 274 n. 1, Rome 1833. He mentions also two codices at Rome of the Catena upon saint Matthew, Spicil. Roman. 4. 301, Rome 1840
- ↑ See for instance his preface to the Lib. informationum litterae et spiritus super Leviticum, Mabillon, p. 90, and that to his commentary on the Ephesians, ib. p. 92, where he alludes to his 'rustic speech.'
