PATRISTIC COMMENTARIES
de ecclesia nuper egressum,* et Alexandrum vete- rem hereticum, Eusebium quoque Emisenum, et Theodorum Heracleoten, qui et ipsi nonnullos super hac re commentariolos [v./. commentarios] reliquerunt . . . legi hec omnia.’ Again, in Zp. exil. ad Augustinum [A.D. 404; i. 734], § 6: ‘Primus Origenes in decimo Stromateon libro, ubi epistolam Pauli ad Galatas interpretatur, et ceteri deinceps interpretes . . . quid dicam de Toanne, qui dudum in pened gradu Constanti- nopolitanam rexit ecclesiam, et proprie super hoc capitulo latissimum exaravit librum, in quo Ori- genis et veterum sententiam est secutus ?’
(3) Ephesians.—Jerome, Pref. ad Comm. in Eph. [same date as Comm. im Gal. ; Vallarsi, vii. 543] : ‘Sciatis Origenem tria volumina in hance epistolam conscripsisse, quem et nos ex parte secuti sumus, Apollinarium etiam et Didymum quosdam com- mentariolos edidisse, e quibus... pauca decerp- simus.’
(4) 1 Thessalonians.—Jerome, Hp. cxix. (ut sap.) 8-10, discussing 1 Th 41’, gives quotations from two commentators, Origen and Diodore, and alludes to two others, Theodore [of Heraclea] and Apol- linaris.
The simple fact that of twenty or more Greek treatises on one or other of these four epistles which Jerome had (or had had) in his hands only one has survived to our day other than in Catena fragments, shows more eloquently than any argu- ment could do the wealth and variety of the lost exegetical literature of the 3rd and 4th centuries. And if we further reflect that some of these twenty treatises would not, but for their casual mention by Jerome, have even been known by us to have existed at all, we shall realize what an imperfect picture the catalogue which we now proceed to draw up must give us of the labour which the ‘age of the Fathers’ devoted to the study of Holy Scripture.
ii. CATEN AND COMPILERS OF THE LATER PERIOD. — Before proceeding to speak of the Patristic commentaries separately, it will be con- venient to say something of those more general and miscellaneous collections of later date which are often the only source from which we can now recover any fragments of the older writers. The subject of Catene was till quite lately an almost unexplored one ; and no great advance can be made in the study of them until more of the material that exists abundantly in MSS has made its way into print. With regard to the Pauline epistles in particular, we need to know with more precision than is now attainable what material exists an- terior to the two great compilers of the end of the 11th cent., Theophylact of Bulgaria and Euthymius Zigabenus. The scope of the brief sketch which now follows is limited to an enumeration of the matter in this department that has been either published or at least described in print : but some- thing more will be said later on (see pp. 521-524) about the manuscript material. :
4. The first Catena printed on the epistles is that known by the name of Oecumenius, pub- lished at Verona in 1532 under the following title : "Henyhoes madaal car Nav wperr.oe Bpaxvudoylay Te Kut caphverav TOD Aoyou Exovear Oavuarrny Ex Staddpwy Tar dylov marépwr brouynudrwv bm’ Olxoupevtov Kat’ Apéda ovAdexGetrat els Tas THs veas OLabHKNS mpaywarelas Tao Oe Tod pev Olkovpevlov els Tas IIpdters rv ’ArroaTo\wy, els ras érTa Kafoduxds Aeyoudvas émuoroNds, els Tas ILavdou mdoas: Tod 6é "ApéOa els Thy "Iwdvvou *Aroxdhuyu. The edition appeared under the same auspices as the slightly earlier (1529) edition of Chrysostom on the Epistles (see below, p. 505%) ; the patron, who bore the expenses of both editor and printers,
* He means, of course, Apollinaris of Laodicea.
PATRISTIC COMMENTARIES 485
was the illustrious Gian Matteo Giberti, bishop of Verona ; the scholar entrusted with the work was Bernardino Donato; the type (and finer Greek type has never been produced) was set up ‘apud Stephanum et fratres Sabios.’ The whole con- tents of the volume were drawn from a single MS, presented to the bishop by John Lascaris, ‘miro librarii artificio sumptuque descriptum ap- primeque vetustum’ ;* for the Epistles this MS gave in the text a continuous exposition as though by a single author, in the margin the names of the authors from whom the text was drawn: but use was also made of other MSS of a different class, which gave the quotations separately in the text, each under the name of its author. The work was attributed (quite rightly) to Oecumenius, on the ground that his name appears in the margin attached to the final comment on the Colossian epistle: é« Tod dvrivypdpov ph etpov KadGs Tas Tapa- ypapas rod paxaplov "Iwdvvov ris mpos Kodoooaels emtoTo\ fs, cuvéypawa avras Orws jndvvdunys éay obv ebpeOy te ev avrais 7) Koddov i) émdyyywov, torw 6 - dvaywhoKwv émov elvar Td TowovToy mratoua.t The editor concluded, on the strength of the one MS which was known to him, that the main and anony- mous portion of the work is taken from Chrysostom, not indeed word for word,—for when that is done the name ‘John’ or ‘ Chrysostom’ appears like any other in the margin,—but with much abbreviation and omission; that where Oecumenius takes an individual line he puts his own name in the margin, so that the reader may not be deceived as to the authority claimed for it; that the rest depends on various ancient authors, whose names are likewise given in the margin, and of whom Photius is far and away the most frequently cited. Theodoret—for the sign Ocodwp. refers to him and not to Theodore of Mopsuestia—comes next, and after him Severian, Cyril of Alexandria, and Gen- nadius. But the important point to bear in mind is that the sum-total of the rest of the quota- tions bears only an infinitesimal proportion to the bulk of the matter supplied by Chrysostom, Photius, and Oecumenius himself; in the nine epistles from Ephesians to Philemon there are only thirteen marginal references outside these three writers. This disproportion would, no doubt, be modified, though it is impossible to say how seri- ously, if we could estimate to what extent either Oecumenius in his original compilation, or the scribes who copied him down to the exemplar of John Lasearis, fell short of exactitude in inserting or reproducing the marginal ascriptions of author- ship; for all such information as has accrued to us about Oecumenian MSS (see below, p. 488) points to the conclusion that the ‘anonymous’ portion of the printed text ought to suffer at least some reduction in favour of the rest.