BERENGAUDO. – Author of an important Latin commentary on the Apocalypse: Expositio super septem visiones libri Apocalypsis (PL 17, 765–970).
Its first editor, Cuthbert Tunstall, bishop of Durham (England), attributed it to St. Ambrose, among whose works he included it (Paris 1548). Yet the Expositio not only cites St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Gregory the Great, and St. Ambrose himself, but also reveals the author’s name at the beginning of the epilogue (omitted, like the names of the Fathers, in Tunstall’s edition): « Quisquis nomen auctoris scire desideras, litteras expositionum in capitibus septem Visionum primas attende [=BRNGVDS]. Numerus quatuor vocalium quae desunt, si graecas posueris, est LXXXI [2220] ». Hence Bérengando. Cod. lat. 2467 (12th century) of the National Library of Paris bears the original annotation of the copyist: « Auctor huius libri Bérengandus appellatur ».
The Maurists, and subsequently R. Ceillier, identified B. with the Benedictine B. of the Abbey of Ferrières whom his abbot Lupo sent in 859 to study at St-Germain d’Auxerre (PL 119, 592 and 597). B. does in fact know and cite the Benedictine Rule, handles Latin well, like his teachers Lupo of Ferrières and Heiric d’Auxerre, mentions the disappearance of the Lombard kingdom (PL 17, 914), and stigmatizes the avarice of archdeacons (ibid. 17, 919), as did the councils of the 9th century. A few scholars (E. Dupin, P. Rangeard) identified him with B., deacon of Angers (ca. 1040).
B. divides the whole Apocalypse, like St. Bede and A. Autperto, into seven visions; he is original and precise in expounding its theological sense (he does not dwell on the literal meaning of the symbols), combined with the spiritual-parenetic sense. Dionysius the Carthusian and Bossuet, in the preface to his Apocalypse, praise him highly; Bossuet follows him in explaining Apoc. 17:7–18. Like St. Bede, B. sees in it the condition of the Church in its various periods, not predictions of individual events; in the seven churches (chaps. 1–3), « una Ecclesia catholica designatur » (PL 17, 771 ff., 796). Babylon, which at a given historical moment represents « Romam specialiter », is « civitas diaboli, i. e. omnis multitudo reproborum » (PL 17, 916, 918). He places the « recapitulatio » among the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven bowls: they represent the periods of the world, from Adam to the Catholic Church. The « woman » of 12:1 is the Church, « Caput Ecclesiae Christus est, 12 vero stellae 12 sunt apostoli » (PL 17, 881); the « heads » of the Beast are all the reprobate, and the Antichrist will be the seventh and will appear in the seventh period (PL 17, 887–94). The ascetic-mystical commentary is rich in striking insights: the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (ibid. 799–804), prayer and holiness (ibid. 807 ff.), the « 7 vitia principalia » (ibid. 887 ff.), the number 24 (ibid. 806), and the twelve gems (ibid. 952–56).