PATRISTIC COMMENTARIES 495
To sum up: both the Paris Catena and the commentary of Jerome contain an amount of Origenian matter which must form no inconsider- able proportion of the whole of Origen’s commen- tary on this epistle. Both, however, habitually abbreviate, so that, except in such rare cases as Jerome’s obiter dictum in c. Ruf. i. 28, where, as was noted just above, he repeats from his com- mentary a passage of twenty-five lines (on Eph 578 *9) as a literal rendering from Origen, we can only then be sure of possessing the whole fulness of the original when our two authorities exactly agree. With regard to Jerome, there is of course the further question, how much of his matter to which parallels in the Catena are wanting can be ascribed to Origen. All the evidence we have tends to the conclusion that his own contributions and his requisitions on others of his predecessors put together do not equal his debt to Origen. The data of the controversy with Rufinus enable us happily to identify as taken from Origen a eroup of passages which, as they express with more than usual distinctness speculations after- wards accounted heretical, were of all the least likely to be preserved ina Catena.* Yet great as are Jerome’s services in this matter of faithful representation, no one can compare the Greek and Latin where they run parallel without realizing how the very virtues of Jerome’s writings—the limpid flow of words, the easy sequence, the direct straightforwardness of meaning—cause him to be, as perhaps every Latin translator must be, an inadequate interpreter of the more technical lan- guage of the great Greek theologian, of his more subtle thought, of his tentative and hesitating style, of his half-seen glimpses into mysteries that lie behind and beyond the letter.
(vi.) Philippians.
The list mentions a commentary in one book. Cramer’s Catena on this epistle, as on the Gala- tians, is for the most part anonymous; but any extended use of Origen appears to be excluded by the colophon which names John (Chrysostom), Severian, and Theodore as its sources.. The Athos MS contains two interesting marginalia: at the end of ch. 3 it notes éws Gde 7) eéjynow—t.e. Origen’s commentary did not extend to the 4th chapter, which is personal rather than doctrinal ; at 3" eds Td BpaBetov Tis avw KkAjoews TOD Oeod it records that ‘in expounding these words he adds that some copies read. dvey«Anolas rod Oeod’ ; and, as in another part of the same note it mis-writes this variant as avevéyKat Ovolas Tod Oeod, it would appear that here (as in the Ephesians) a note has been taken over from the ‘ancient copy,’ whose faded uncial writing has again given rise to error.
(vii.) Colossians.
The list mentions a commentary in 2 books; but we ought to read ‘ili’ for ‘ii,’ since the Athos MS marks not only rémos B’ at 2", but réuos y' at 36, The same MS notes at 4” that the third tome ended there, the last words expounded being Wa oradjre rédecor: so that in this, as in the
revious epistle, the purely personal matter was eft without comment by Origen. Of the contents of the exposition we only learn from the MS, that, in dealing with the words in 4! of dvres éx sept- rouns, ‘he’ (avrés, ‘the master’) ‘developed wond- rously the theme of the different senses of circum- cision in the Scripture.’ The only other extant ‘latissimam Origenis expositionem, et eosdem sensus per diversa verba volventem, brevi sermone constrinximus, nihil exemplis et assertionibus illius auferentes.’
* Of all the passages alleged by Rufinus and catalogued above, only one, and that perhaps the shortest and least im- portant, is’ preserved in full in the Catena (Jerome, 573 B= Cramer, p. 137). In one other case, the note on érizvwous (563 C =Cramer, p. 130), part of the passage occurs in the Catena, but
without the definite allusion to the pre-existence of souls. (The pages of Cramer are marked in Mr. Gregg’s edition in JTASt).
496 PATRISTIC COMMENTARIES
reference to this commentary is in Rufinus’ trans- lation of Pamphilus’ Apologia pro Origene (de la Rue, iv., App. p. 37), under the head ‘ Responsio ad quintam criminationem. Quod unus est Chris- tus filius Dei: In tertio libro epistole ad Colos- senses.’ But the passage which follows under this title is an explanation of Gal 3% diarayels 6v ayyéhwv ev xerpl peoirov ; and it is impossible not to suspect that we should rather read ‘in the third book of the epistle to the Galatians.’ Cramer’s Catena offers no help; its sources are again Chry- sostom, Severian, and Theodore of Mopsuestia.
(vili.) 7 Thessalonians.
The list gives a commentary in 3 books and 2 homilies. Both Origen himself and Jerome refer to the commentary. Origen, contra Celsum [A.D. 249], ii. 65, after quoting 1 Th 4%, adds: rip 6é gavetcav jnutv eis Tos Tomous Siyynow efeHeueba év ols imnyopevoapev eknyntikots THs mpds OecoaNovikels mpo- tépas emoroAyns (de la Rue, i, 437); Jerome, Hp. exix. ad Minerviwm et Alewandrum, 9 [A.D. 406: Vallarsi, i. 803], introduces a long comment of Origen’s on 1 Th 4°", extending over nearly two columns, with the words ‘ Origenes in tertio volu- mine éénynrixév epistolee Pauli ad Thessalonicenses primze, post multa quse vario prudentique sermone disseruit, hae intulit.? This is the only known quotation ; the Athos MS has preserved no Origen marginalia on the epistle ; but Cramer’s Catena, as on the Galatians, is mostly anonymous, and may conceal Origen matter.