BERENGAUDUS. - Author of an important Latin commentary on the Apoc.: Expositio super septem visiones libri Apocalypsis (PL 17, 765-970).
His 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 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 Berengaudus. The Latin codex 2467 (12th cent.) of the National Library of Paris bears the copyist's original annotation: « Auctor huius libri Bérengandus appellatur ».
The Maurist fathers, then R. Ceillier, identified B. with the Benedictine B. of the abbey of Ferrières whom his abbot Lupus sent in 859 to study at St-Germain d'Auxerre (PL 119, 592 and 597). B. indeed knows and cites the Benedictine rule, handles Latin well like his masters Lupus of Ferrières and Heiric of Auxerre, mentions the disappearance of the Lombard kingdom (PL 17, 914), and stigmatizes the avarice of archdeacons (ibid. 17, 919) as do the councils of the 9th century. A few (E. Dupin, P. Rangeard) identified him with B. deacon of Angers (ca. 1040).
B. divides the whole Apoc., like St. Bede and A. Autpertus, into 7 visions; he is original and accurate in expounding the theological sense (he does not dwell on the literal sense of the symbols) mingled with the spiritual-parentic. Denis the Carthusian, and Bossuet in the preface to his Apocalypse, praise him greatly; Bossuet follows him in explaining Apoc. 17:7-18. Like St. Bede, B. discerns the situation of the Church in the various epochs, not predictions of individual events; in the 7 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 7 seals, the 7 trumpets and the 7 bowls: they represent the epochs 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, the Antichrist will be the 7th and will appear at the 7th epoch (PL 17, 887-94). The ascetic-mystical commentary is rich in fine insights: the 7 gifts of the Holy Spirit (ibid. 799-804), prayer and holiness (ibid. 807 f.), the « 7 vitia principalia » (ibid. 887 f.), the number 24 (ibid. 806), the 12 gems (ibid. 952-56).