The Commentary on the Apocalypse (Commentaria in Apocalypsin) is a Latin commentary on the biblical Book of Revelation written around 776 by the Spanish monk and theologian Beatus of Liébana (c. 730–after 785).Williams (2017), 22 The surviving texts differ somewhat, and the work is mainly famous for the spectacular illustrations in a group of illustrated manuscripts, mostly produced on the Iberian Peninsula over the following five centuries. There are 29 surviving illustrated manuscripts (many incomplete or fragments) dating from the 9th to the 13th centuries,Williams (2017), 26 as well as other unillustrated and later manuscripts. Significant copies include the Morgan, Saint-Sever, Gerona, Osma, Madrid (Vitr 14-1), and Tábara Beatus codices.
Most unusually for a theological work, the imagery seems to have been included from the start, and is considered to be the work of Beatus himself, although the earliest surviving manuscripts date from about a century after he wrote the book. After about another century, around 950, the size and number of illustrations was expanded. Manuscripts of the work are typically referred to just as a Beatus. They included a Beatus map, a version of the medieval type of world map called the T and O map with added details; this is supposed to have been created by Beatus. It has only survived in some copies.Williams (2017), 23
Considered together, the Beatus codices are among the most important Spanish manuscripts and have been the subject of extensive scholarly and antiquarian enquiry. The illuminated versions now represent the best known works of Mozarabic art, and had some influence on the medieval art of the rest of Europe. Among modern painters, Pablo Picasso's painting Guernica was inspired by the Saint-Sever Beatus. The Morgan Beatus (in New York City's Morgan Library) inspired the artist Fernand Léger.,
The text was not printed until 1770,In Apocalypsin. Ed. Florez, Madrid, 1770. The first known printed edition of the commentary. Latin. and later translated into Spanish for a side-by-side edition,Beato de Liebana: Obras Completas y Complementarias, Vol. I. BAC, 2004. The commentary translated by Alberto del Campo Hernandez and Joaquin Gonzalez Echegaray. Side by side Spanish and Latin. but despite modern Latin critical editions,Commentarius in Apocalypsin, (2 Vols.) Ed. E. Romero-Pose. Rome, 1985. The second critical edition of the commentary. Latin; Tractatus in Apocalypsin. Ed. Gryson. (Vols. 107B and 107C, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina.) Brepols, 2012. The third critical edition of the commentary. Latin, with French introductory material. Also available in a French translation by Gryson, as part of the Sources Chretiennes series, but I've never seen it myself. it has had little influence on biblical studies after the Middle Ages.
The text We know very little about Beatus' life. The leading expert John Williams writes:Williams, vol. 1, p. 13 "We even lack proof of his responsibility for the Commentary on the Apocalypse. Nowhere does it carry his name..." The work as it has come down to us in the Beatus manuscripts consists of several prologues (which differ among the manuscripts) and one long summary section (the "Summa Dicendum") before the first book, an introduction to the second book, and 12 books of commentary, some long and some very short. Beatus states in its dedication to his friend Bishop Etherius that states the work is meant to educate his brother monks. This dedication is the best evidence of Beatus as the author.
Beatus divided the biblical text into 68 sections or storiae, of around a dozen verses. The Vulgate text was written out, then followed by an illustration, after which came his commentary on the section. It is now generally agreed that the illustrations were included from Beatus's original version(s) onwards, although only later manuscripts have survived. This includes the map, though it is an exception, as it illustrates no biblical passage.Williams (2017), 22-26
The text was evidently read aloud in monastic refectories during meal times; it was usual for various texts to be treated in this way.
The commentaries are built around selections from previous Apocalypse commentaries and references by Ticonius (now mostly lost), St. Primasius of Hadrumetum, St. Caesarius of Arles, St. Apringius of Beja, and many others. There are also long extracts from the texts of the Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church, especially Augustine of Hippo, Ambrose of Milan, Irenaeus of Lyons, Pope Gregory I, Saint Jerome of Stridon, and Isidore of Seville. From the later 10th century onwards, one "line" of manuscripts adds Jerome's Commentary on the Book of Daniel, and a large genealogy of Christ, both illustrated (see below), and sometimes also a commentary on the books of Ezekiel, but these are not strictly part of the Beatus.
The creative character of the commentary comes from Beatus' writing of a wide-ranging catena of verses from nearly every book of the Bible, quotes of patristic commentary from many little known sources, and interstitial original comments by Beatus. His attitude is one of realism about church politics and human pettiness, hope and love towards everyday life even when it is difficult, and many homely similes from his own time and place. (For example, he compares evangelization to lighting fires for survival when caught far from home by a sudden mountain blizzard, and the Church to a Visigothic army with both generals and muleskinners.) His work is also a fruitful source for Spanish linguistics, as Beatus often alters words in his African Latin sources to the preferred synonyms in Hispanic Latin.
Illustrations Illustrations are believed to have been included in the earliest manuscripts of the work, now lost. Williams cautions against talking of a consistent style in the manuscripts; though the subjects and often compositions remain much the same, the artistic style tends to follow wider developments across southern Europe, with a clear Romanesque style in later manuscripts. This is especially the case with the depiction of figures.
The features most associated with Beatus manuscripts are whole page and double spread illustrations with backgrounds in broad strips of bright, flat, primary colours. These are not found in earlier manuscripts, where illustrations often occupy less than the width of a page, and figures have a blank background within a simple border.Williams (2017), 31-34 The San Millán Beatus was illustrated in two phases, over a century apart, and shows this stylistic progression within a single manuscript.
It is thought that a significant development in the illustrations took place in the mid-10th century at the San Salvador de Tábara Monastery, whose remains are now the church of Santa Maria, in Tábara, Zamora, Spain, probably led by the monk-painter Magius. An effusive tribute to Magius by his pupil Emeterius is written in the fragmentary Tábara Beatus (only 8 miniatures surviving), which Magius left unfinished at his death in 968, and Emeterius completed.Williams (2017), 28-30 The Morgan Beatus (c. 945) is thought to be all by Magius, and the Gerona Beatus by Emeterius and the nun Ende, who signed it; this was finished in 975. Apart from these three surviving MS made by the Tábara team, there are thought, on the basis of textual analysis, to have been three others, now lost.Williams (2017), 29
The innovations at Tábara included new subjects, and a move to miniatures that occupied a full page, or spread across two pages, this last being something not known from any earlier books. The "polychromatic striped backgrounds that characterize the so-called Mozarabic style of illumination" now appear; the Morgan Beatus is nearly complete, with 68 full-page miniatures, and 48 smaller, and so the best exemplar of this phase.Williams (2017), 34; Morgan Library catalogue entry Magius was probably influenced by his contemporary Florentius of Valeránica, who worked about 150 miles away to the east, borrowing both some images and some of his prefactory text from the León Bible of 960, illustrated by Florentius and an assistant.Williams (2017), 34
Images new to Beatus manuscripts found in the Beatus and clearly taken from the León Bible of 960 (or a very similar MS) include a set of Evangelist portraits of a distinctive type, the text and decorative illumination of an extensive genealogy of Christ (over fourteen pages with about 600 names), and a set of images illustrating Jerome's Commentary on the Book of Daniel, the text of which was also included.The Morgan Adoration of the Lamb also takes distinctive features of the León Christ in Majesty.
By the time of later manuscripts such as the Saint-Sever Beatus, probably from around 1150, the decorated initials and similar elements of ornament were in a clearly Romanesque style, and figures were rather better drawn, but the old compositions and features such as the large coloured bands persisted. In the Portuguese Apocalypse of Lorvão, dated 1189, many illustrations are once again less than a full page.
Context
The Kingdom of Toledo fell in 711, leaving most of the Iberian Peninsula in the hands of Muslim conquerors. Christians under Pelayo managed to establish the Kingdom of Asturias on the northern coast, protected by the Cantabrian Mountains, initially the only Christian state on the peninsula. Beautus lived in the Cantabrian valley of Liébana. With the recent conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the Apocalypse and the symbolism in it took on a different meaning. The beast, which had previously been believed to represent the Roman Empire, for Iberian believers now became the Caliphate, and Babylon was no longer Rome, but Córdoba.
Revelation is a book about the Church's problems throughout all ages, not about history per se. In the middle of Book 4 of 12, Beatus does state his guess about the end-date of the world as 801 AD, from the number of the Holy Spirit plus Alpha, as well as a few other calculations, although he warns people that it is folly to try to guess a date that even Jesus in the Bible claimed not to know.Forbes, Andrew; Henley, David (2012). Apocalypse: The Illustrated Book of Revelation. No exegesis, but extensive full colour images from five different versions of the Beatus and the Bamberg Apocalypse. Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books. ASIN: B008WAK9SS. This expected date, or 800 AD, was shared by many Christians at the time, although the papacy and church authorities discouraged such speculations.
Probably dying in the last years of the century, but after 785, Beatus did not quite live to see his guess disproved, but in the next century the approach of the year 1000 raised widespread concern across Europe that this would see the start of the events prophesied in Revelation; there is a particular concentration of Beatus manuscripts dated to about 950 to 975. After the millennium failed to produce, some 11th-century forecasters switched to 1033, as being 1000 years after the death and Resurrection of Jesus.Boyett, 31-32; Strandberg, 35-36