In my research, I keep asking myself related questions: "Are there any better options than a digital facsimile?" "Is this text edited anywhere?" "Why does everyone cite a 1690 edition of this key work?"
Some prophetic works have been edited. I know because I keep stumbling over the editions. In some cases we have the best the nineteenth century could do, and in others we have exemplary modern editions. I listed several editions in my Oxford bibliography, but I couldn't list even all the editions I knew of then, and the focus wasn't on editions in any case. To make the process of discovery less haphazard, I'm creating this list and updating it as I come across new works.
To the extent possible, I am excluding astrology and focusing on works in the form that circulated widely rather than on "authentic" or original versions. I will include short prophecies, but generally exclude partial editions of longer works. Any comments will be brief.
Next time: Add the various short prophecies edited in the nineteenth century and later, and the Oracula cyrili.
Birgitta of Sweden
Montag, Ulrich. Das Werk der heiligen Birgitta von Schweden in oberdeutscher Überlieferung: Texte und Untersuchungen. Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters 18. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1968.
- Latin and German editions of the Onus mundi compiled by Johannes Tortsch.
Hildegard of Bingen
Gebeno, José Carlos Santos Paz, and Hildegard. La obra de Gebenón de Eberbach. La tradizione profetica 2. Tavarnuzze (Firenze): SISMEL : Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2004.
- While excellent editions of Hildegard's work exist, this is the only complete edition of the widely copied Pentacron.
Johannes de Rupescissa
Vademecum
Johannes de Rupescissa. Vade mecum in tribulatione. Edited by Elena Tealdi, Robert E Lerner, and Gian Luca Potestà. Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2015.
Kaup, Matthias. John of Rupescissa’s Vade Mecum in Tribulacione (1356): A Late Medieval Apocalypse Manual for the Forthcoming Fifteen Years of Horror and Hardship. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.
Other works
Rupescissa, Johannes de. Liber secretorum eventuum: Edition critique, traduction et introduction historique. Edited by Robert E. Lerner and Christine Morerod-Fattebert. Fribourg: Editions Universitaires Fribourg Suisse, 1994.
Paracelsus
Paracelsus. Theophrast von Hohenheim gen. Paracelsus: Sämtliche Werke. Edited by Karl Sudhoff. 14 vols. Munich and Berlin: R. Oldenbourg, 1929.
- Where among these 14 volumes are the prophetic works located? I'll have to take another look at this later. Available by open access. Vol. 1 is here.
- The problem with pseudo-Methodius editions is that most are focused on the early stages of the text in Syriac, Greek and Latin from the seventh to ninth centuries A.D., while I'm interested in what the text was doing in Europe nearly a thousand years later.
Sackur, Ernst. Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen: Pseudomethodius, Adso und die Tiburtinische Sibylle. Halle (Saale), 1898. 1-96.
Pseudo-Methodius. Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius: An Alexandrian World Chronicle. Translated by Benjamin Garstad. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library, DOML 14. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2012.
Grifoni, Cinzia, and Clemens Ganter. “The Third Latin Recension of the Revelationes of Pseudo-Methodius – Introduction and Edition.” In Cultures of Eschatology, edited by Veronika Wieser, Vincent Eltschinger, and Johann Heiss, 1:194–253. Cultural History of Apocalyptic Thought. Berlin ; Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2020.
Sibylline prophecies
- This will probably get split into separate categories at some point.
Neske, Ingeborg. Die spätmittelalterliche deutsche Sibyllenweissagung: Untersuchung und Edition. Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1985.
- Perhaps the first vernacular printed work.
Sackur, Ernst. Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen: Pseudomethodius, Adso und die Tiburtinische Sibylle. Halle (Saale), 1898. 114-187.
- Tiburtine sibyl
Ve mundo
Kaup, Matthias, and Robert E. Lerner. “Gentile of Foligno Interprets the Prophecy ‘Woe to the World,’ with an Edition and English Translation.” Traditio 56 (2001): 149–211.
