Quotiescumque : Greek Origin of a Latin Confessor’s Guide

Abstract

The guidebook for confessors that is called after its first name ‘Quotiescumque’ was a widespread text in the Middle Ages. One part of it, a priest’s preparatory prayer for hearing one or more confessions, even still appears in a Ritual published at Würzburg in 1836. The present study shows that this confessor’s guide is the Latin translation of a Greek model, with the exception of two interpolations by a Latin author. This thesis is based on the fact that there is also a Greek text of the priest’s prayer and Quotiescumque includes a rule on fasting that can only have been written by a Greek author ... The purpose of my study is, first, to prove that the confessor’s guide Quotiescumque is the Latin translation of a Greek text. Quotiescumque is called after its first word ‘Quotiescunque (christianis qui ad paenitentiam accedunt ieiunia damus)’. The other aims of my book are: to present the texts of the various sections of Quotiescumque, to explain these texts by analyzing them and by adducing other texts that shed light upon those of the confessor’s guide and, finally, to show the influence of the writing over an area including France, Germany and Italy, and over a period of about 10 centuries.