(iv.) Galatians.
The list mentions a commentary in 15 books and 7 homilies: Jerome, in the preface to his commentary on the epistle (see above, p. 484>), enumerates 5 ‘volumes’ (of commentary), several ‘tractatus’ (= homilies), and_ ‘excerpts’ (te. scholia or notes); and tells us also that the tenth book of Origen’s Stromateis was devoted to a brief explanation of this epistle. ;
With regard to the Stromateis, one passage on the Galatians is extant: Jerome in Gal. lib. iii. (Vallarsi, vii. 494-496) gives us a literal version of the explanation of Gal 5%”: ‘hune locum, quia valde obscurus est, de decimo Stromatum libro transferri placuit ad verbum’; and further on (Vii. 505): ‘in eo loco ubi supra de decimo Origenis Stromate verbum transtulimus ad verbum.’ As
* The interpretation alluded to is preserved, though in a corrupt and perhaps incomplete form, in the Catena, Cr. 7 9-17: e.g. oxebowpey ov &xd TOU “teizocrsiobos? . . . aveelnvacs dea) chy Sexaanolay’? thy eorIAoy Hoch CoLLoLoy. :
+ Yet it is just possible that the catenist was drawing on more than one work of Origen on the epistle, for on several occasions he seems to quote two different comments of Origen
on the same passage.
eleven verses are covered in two columns and a half of Jerome’s Latin, the exposition may justly be called, in comparison with the ordinary standard of Origen’s work, ‘ brief.’
For the commentary the Athos MS has happily preserved the starting-point of each tome—tom. a’ =11; tom. 8’=2°; tom. y’=3°; tom. 6’ =4°; tom. e =5°—thus establishing the number given in Jerome’s commentary against that of the list: beyond these numbers it has preserved nothing to our purpose. But two quotations, perhaps three, are embedded in Rufinus’ version of Pamphilus’ Apologia pro Origene (de la Rue, iv., Appendix, p. 35): (i.) ‘Responsio ad tertiam criminationem : Quod non purus homo sed divine nature sit Christus. De primo libro epistole ad Galatas [on Gal 14]. . . (ii) Heec in initio epistole dicens, in sequentibus libri ipsius similia adiecit [on Gal 14-2], . . (iii.) Responsio ad quartam crimina- tionem: Adversum eos qui dicunt eum per alle- gorias adimere omnia que a Salvatore scripta sunt corporaliter facta. Ex eodem lib. in epist. ad Galatas’: but these last words are only in the margin, and if they do not rest on MS authority, no conclusive ground remains for connecting this lengthy and important passage with the Galatian commentary in particular among all the works of Origen. Conversely, the comment on Gal 3! in the ‘ Responsio ad quintam criminationem,’ which in the editions is entitled ‘in tertio libro epistolee ad Colossenses,’ ought perhaps to read, ‘in tertio libro epistolee ad Galatas.’
Cramer’s Catena on the Galatian epistle, taken from Paris coislin 204, contains no quotations ascribed by name to Origen; but as the quotations are nearly all anonymous, it is at least possible. that Origen is among the writers of whom use is made, and it might be worth while to compare the Catena with the commentary of Jerome, in order to see if there is matter common to the two. For it is certain, both from Jerome’s own words in the preface to his commentary and from the parallel case of the Epistle to the Ephesians—where the recovery of a good deal of Origen’s Greek has made comparison possible between the two writers —that a very large proportion of the exhaustive commentary of Jerome is drawn directly from Origen.
(v.) Ephesians.
Both the list and Jerome (Pref. ad Comm. in Eph.) mention a commentary in 3 books (and nothing else) on this epistle. Although it has not come down to us in any continuous form, either in the original or in a translation,* yet enough survives in the Greek of Cramer’s Catena and the Latin of Jerome’s commentary to render feasible at least a partial reconstruction.
a. Cramer’s Catena (Oxford, 1842), taken from Paris coislin 204, sxc. x., contains some 40 quota- tions from Origen, many of them of considerable length, but disfigured by the appalling blunders which, here as elsewhere, have to be set in the balance against the gratitude due to the only scholar who, during the whole 19th cent., effected any substantial addition to the printed texts of New Testament Catenz. In this instance, how- ever, a beginning has at last been made of a re- vision of the Cramer texts. In the Journal of Theological Studies for the year 1902 (iii, 233-244, 398-420, 554-576), the Rev. J. A. F. Gregg, of Christ’s College, Cambridge, published from a fresh collation of the MS a continuous text of all the Origen fragments, equipped with full apparatus both of the Scripture references and of the parallels
* Pyeuschen in Harnack, Altehr. Litteratwr, i. 875, goes beyond the facts in stating that Jerome actually translated the book. All the passages he adduces refer to the use Jerome made of Origen in his own commentary.
494 PATRISTIC COMMENTARIES
in Jerome. With the text re-collated, the punctua- tion revised, and the more obvious corruptions re- moved by the help of emendations from various English scholars, we can now for the first time read a substantial portion of a work by Origen on St. Paul in its original language and in an in- telligible form. No doubt, the ecatenist has at many points contented himself with selections, and has abbreviated the superabundant material of the commentary ; but the only considerable passages which are wholly unrepresented are Eph 271 341. 1b_42 48-10 52-83 (with the exception of two short notes on vv.2" and 31) 648,