Quaestiones in Genesim

Quaestiones in Genesim is a commentary on the biblical Book of Genesis by the Anglo-Saxon scholar Alcuin, addressed to his protege Sigewulf, comprising 281 questions and corresponding answers about Genesis.[1] It has been dated by Michael Fox to around 796.[2]

Surviving in at least 52 manuscripts, the text seems to have been among the most popular biblical commentaries of the Early Middle Ages, and was cited by Claudius of Turin, Hrabanus Maurus, Angelomus of Luxeuil, Haimo of Auxerre, and Remigius of Auxerre.[3] Around two centuries after its original composition, it was translated into Old English by Ælfric of Eynsham as Interrogationes Sigewulfi.[4][5]

  1. ^ Edited in Patrologia Latina, volume 100, columns 515–66.
  2. ^ Michael Fox, "Alcuin the Exegete: The Evidence of the Quaestiones in Genesim", in The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, ed. by Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards, Medieval Church Studies, 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), pp. 39-60 (p. 40 fn. 6), doi:10.1484/M.MCS-EB.3.3555.
  3. ^ Michael Fox, "Alcuin the Exegete: The Evidence of the Quaestiones in Genesim", in The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, ed. by Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards, Medieval Church Studies, 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), pp. 39-60 (pp. 42-43, 51), doi:10.1484/M.MCS-EB.3.3555.
  4. ^ George E. MacLean, Ælfric's A-S Version of Alcuini Interrogationes Sigewulfi in Genesim (Halle 1883), also published in Anglia, 6 (1883), 425-73; 7 (1884), 1-59.
  5. ^ Alfred Tessmann, Ælfrics ae Bearbeitung der Interrogationes Sigewulfi Presbyteri in Genesim des Alcuin (Berlin 1891).