ABSTRACT
There are twenty-seven known textual witnesses of the Vade mecum’s plenary versions. We can fi nd them today in libraries across Central, Southern, Northern and Western Europe, but strangely enough there are no known copies in Eastern Europe. 112 There are eight manuscripts in German libraries, 113 one in Austria 114 and one in Switzerland. 115 Besides that we know of one in Sweden, 116 four in Italy, 117 two in France 118 and one in Belgium. 119 Nine textual witnesses are located on the British Isles. The editio princeps 120 was printed in 1690 in England based on an English manuscript dating from the beginning of the 17th
111 Cf., e.g., the fi rst words in the Breviloquium de oneribus orbis B XIII.58 (M: fol. 76 r , T: fol. 18 v ): Ad illuminacionem simplicium electorum (. . .). The Liber Secretorum Eventuum should even serve all the chosen ones to the end of time; cf. ibid., § 160 (218): (. . .) ad utilitatem omnium electorum tam presentium quam futurorum usque ad fi nem seculorum . Interpreting passages of the Liber de Flore (cf. Liber Ostensor XI.139, 650), Rupescissa in some of his works understands the electi , the chosen ones, undoubtedly as the saving remnant of the Franciscans; cf. Reeves, Infl uence of Prophecy , 226-227. In other works, this term seems to aim not only at Franciscans but at all the Christians worthy to be saved: in the XIVth intencio of the Vade mecum , in which he goes into the impending eschatological fate of the Franciscan order, Rupescissa refers to the brothers, who to be sure do interest him, as felices or as equal to the stelle celi , but never calls them electi or simplices : VM §§ 75, 77. Central to understanding the broader concept of electi is Mt. 22:14 (= Mt. 20:16; cf. IV Esr. 8:3): (. . .) multi sunt enim vocati, pauci autem electi . Among the ones who have been called, the chosen ones are those who are worthy to survive the coming terrors. Cf. on this also IV Esr. 16:75: Audite, electi mei, dicit Dominus, ecce, adsunt dies tribulationis, et de his liberabo vos. Rupescissa wants to aid the electi by alerting them to the imminent terrors and giving them rules of behavior for coping with them; see on this above, 1-2. In this sense Rupescissa uses the electus , e.g., in the Vade mecum as well in his alchemical texts, cf. Liber Lucis , 121: (. . .) ad solvendam gravem inopiam et paupertatem futuram populi sancti et electi Dei (. . .). The adjective simplex , which as in the above example from the Liber Secretorum Eventuum can be left out, serves as an intensifying epitheton ornans in the sense of ‘honest, upright, straight,’ as it is used several times in the Vulgate, for example in the Book of Proverbs, cf., e.g., Prv. 11:5: Iustitia simplicis diriget viam eius . Cf. also Iob 1:1.
