SMARAGDUS. - Benedictine writer, active in the first decades of the 9th century, perhaps of Irish origin, a monk at Castellio on the Meuse; as abbot, in 819 he transferred the abbey to St. Michael on the Meuse (diocese of Verdun).

As a monk he compiled a Liber in partibus Donati in 15 books, a grammatical commentary. He also wrote a commentary (liber comitis) on the Epistles and Gospelsof the year, for which he relied above all on Augustine, Jerome, Gregory and Bede. He compiled, probably for Charlemagne, a Via regia as an ascetic mirror for princes, basing himself especially on Proverbs and Wisdom. A Diadema monachorum is dedicated to the monks of St. Michael; on the occasion of the reform of the monasteries undertaken by St. Benedict of Aniane and by Louis the Pious (817) he composed a commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict. Other small writings are attributed to him, and it is difficult to sift out what instead belongs to Benedict of Aniane. On a short work on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, cf. Hefele-Leclercq, III, p. 1131. The year and day of his death are unknown.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: works in PL. 102; Manitius, I, pp. 464-68; A. M. Albareda, Bibliografia de la Regle benedictino, Montserrat 1933, p. 327.

Pio Paschini

@incollection{ec11_smaragdo, author = {Paschini, Pio}, title = {Smaragdo}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {819--820}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/smaragdo} }

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Smaragdus

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