Work dossier · summary and historical context
The Origeniani Lexici Aliud Exemplar is an anonymous Latin work surviving in a single 12th-century manuscript (Vatican Latin 123). It is a lexicon of Hebrew and Aramaic proper names with Latin etymological glosses, arranged alphabetically. Internal references to the Council of Chalcedon (451) provide a terminus post quem, suggesting composition in the 5th or 6th century. The work is cited in the 9th-century Decretum Gelasianum as of uncertain orthodoxy, which limited its medieval circulation. The manuscript includes marginal corrections possibly reflecting doctrinal emendation. No critical edition exists; the present text is a diplomatic transcription.
The work is a rare witness to the Onomastica Sacra tradition in Latin, showing how patristic etymologies were compiled and transmitted. Its uncertain orthodoxy, noted in the Decretum Gelasianum, highlights medieval concerns about doctrinal reliability. The unusual gloss 'Alleluia' as 'Deus adest, laudate' (God is present, praise) and moralizing etymologies like 'Agyptus, terra tenebrosa, persecutio' (Egypt, dark land, persecution) reflect patristic typology and exegesis. It relates to Jerome's Liber Interpretationis Hebraicorum Nominum and other Onomastica Sacra works.
The work was likely composed in the 5th or 6th century, after the Council of Chalcedon (451), in a Latin-speaking Christian community, possibly in the Western Roman Empire or its successor states. It survives only in a 12th-century manuscript (Vatican Latin 123), with no earlier witnesses. The Decretum Gelasianum (9th century) lists it as a work of uncertain orthodoxy, which may have restricted its copying and circulation. The genre is Onomastica Sacra, a tradition of biblical name interpretation exemplified by Jerome's Liber Interpretationis Hebraicorum Nominum. The attribution to Origen is a medieval ascription, common in such works, but the lexicon likely derives from later compilations, not directly from Origen's Hexapla. The sole manuscript's marginal corrections, possibly doctrinal, suggest later readers engaged with its content.
Apparatus · what the pipeline recorded
| Coptic | Rendering | Count | First |
|---|---|---|---|
| no glossary terms recorded | |||