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In this passage taken from the apocryphal correspondence between Seneca and Saint Paul (Letter XII):

Grassator iste, quisquis est, cui voluptas carnificina est et mendacium velamentum, tempori suo destinatus est. Ut optimus quisque unum pro multis donatum est caput, ita et hic devotus pro omnibus igni cremabitur.

there is a phrase that is not clear to me:

Ut optimus quisque unum pro multis donatum est caput.

At the beginning, there is a nominative, optimus quisque, but subsequently another one is found, caput, which agrees in gender and number with the perfect passive, donatum est.

In my opinion, this is a syntactic inconsistency, an anacoluthon, to be attributed on the one hand to the epistolary style, and on the other hand to the period in which the forgery was probably composed by an anonymous writer (late Latin period). Is this correct?

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    I see that "datum" has been changed with "donatum". However, in my edition (by the Italian publisher Rusconi), in the passage in question, it reads "datum," not "donatum." I do not know if there are other philologically more accurate variants, based on which the correction "donatum" has been suggested.
    – Ferdinand Bardamu
    Commented Feb 13 at 17:58
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    Here's a critical edition from 1938 that opts for the datum reading, though it lists the variant readings!
    – brianpck
    Commented Feb 13 at 18:11
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    In the original quote you had donatum but said datum in your explanation. I just changed one for consistency's sake, but both could be datum without affecting the meaning. Barlow (and the Italian editor of yours) might have preferred datum since Vergil has dabitur, but, from the principle of lectio difficilior, that could easily work against it as well.
    – cmw ♦
    Commented Feb 13 at 18:20
  • As the reference to Virgil was evidently in the forger's mind, I believe it would be more appropriate to change it to 'datum.' ('Donatum' was my mistake: I copied and pasted the passage from the internet to save time instead of transcribing it from my print copy. I apologize for my inaccuracy).
    – Ferdinand Bardamu
    Commented Feb 13 at 19:07

1 Answer 1

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(My apologies, I read too carelessly at first. So here I try again.)

I think you are correct that it's a mistake, but one that might be due less to being a forgery or a letter and more because it's quoting the Aeneid:

unum pro multis dabitur caput. (5.815)

The forger probably started out attempting one clause (optimus quisque unum caput donavit), remembered the passive dabitur in the Aeneid, and accidentally made the object the subject.

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  • But how do you get the active "has sacrificed" from donatum est?
    – TKR
    Commented Feb 13 at 17:19
  • @TKR I read the question too quickly. Mea culpa. Rereading and rewriting this answer anon.
    – cmw ♦
    Commented Feb 13 at 17:31

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