MS decelviii. (Add. 14532), ssec. viii. : on 2 Cor., foll. 376, 486.
MS. deecclix. (Add. 14533), saec. viil.-ix. : on 1 Cor., fol. 1036; on 2 Cor., foll. 53a, 590. MS decelxiii. (Add. 14538), seec. x. : on 1 Cor.,
fol. 23a.
MS dcceliii. (Add. 12144), A.D. 1081; on Rom., 1 Cor., 2 Cor.
No external data appear to exist which would enable us to date the commentaries on the three epistles. According to Bardenhewer (Patrologie?, p. 321), the commentary on St. John is later than the outbreak of the Nestorian struggle, but earlier than the other NT commentaries. His ground for the latter statement appears to be that these commentaries represent a progressive advance in the direction of emphasis on the literal sense, which contrasts strongly with the book, for in- stance, on Worship in Spirit and Truth, where the Pentateuch is allegorically explained. It is, no doubt, true that we do find a mixture and com- bination of elements in the exegesis of the Epistles: for instance, in explaining Ro 8% rots card mpdbeow kAgrots, Cyril explains that one would not err in saying that some are called xara mpd0ecw rip re Tod kekAnxéros Kat thy éavrdv. But it would seem pre- mature to draw from these features any definite conclusion as to date; and there are not wanting, in the history of the Catenze (see below, p. 522°), indications which suggest that the commentaries of Cyril passed into circulation at no inconsiderable interval before those of Theodoret.
18. Theodoret of Cyrrhus (commentaries on all the Epistles).—
Theodoret, the younger contemporary of Cyril and typical representative of the orthodox Anti- ochene theology as Cyril of the orthodox Alex- andrine, was born at Antioch in the latter part of the 4th cent., and became bishop of Cyrrhus in eastern Syria about A.D. 423: he died not many years after the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Like Cyril too, although his fame rests primarily on the share he took in the dogmatic controversies of his day, his own literary activity (to judge at least by those works of his which have been pre- served) was more largely exegetical than either doctrinal or ecclesiastical or historical or apolo- getic, though his Dialogues, his Letters, his Church History, and his Cure for Pagan Affections, sur- vive to show us what a many-sided theologian he was. Of the four volumes of Sirmond’s edition (Paris, 1642), vols. i. and ii. are taken up with OT exegesis, and the first half of vol. iii. with the commentary on the Pauline epistles: * of the ten volumes (5 tomes, each in two parts) of J. L. Schulze’s edition (Halle, 1769-1774), the first four are OT, the fifth (tom. iii, part 1) is our Pauline
* Though this was the editio princeps of the original Greek of
Theodoret on St. Paul, a Latin version by Gentianus Hervetus had been published as far back as 1552,
commentary (the editing of which was in fact done for Schulze by J. A. Noesselt), while the last two contain little more than dissertations and indexes.
The editions of Sirmond, to which Garnier added a supplementary volume in 1684, and of Schulze- Noesselt, which incorporates the material of both Sirmond and Garnier, have remained—with the exception of Migne, Patr. Gr,, vols. 80-84 (Pauline epistles in vol. 82, cc. 35-878)—the only collected editions of the works of Theodoret. But for his commentary on St. Paul the Oxford Library of the Fathers made a real advance towards a critical edition, though the standard reached may not have been so high as in Field’s sister edition of Chry- sostom (p. 506», above). Mr. Charles Marriott of Oriel College, to whom the task was entrusted, was, of all the Oxford Tractarians, perhaps the most deeply versed in Patristic scholarship. At the moment of the too early breakdown of his health, the first volume, containing Romans, land 2 Corinthians, and Galatians, had already been issued (1852)*; the second and concluding volume was nearly complete,!but the usual delays that attend posthumous publication prevented its appearing till 1870. A ‘brief account of the editions of the text, and of the MSS used in them, is prefixed to the first volume. Sirmond appears to have used only one MS, but gives no details by which it can be identified. Noesselt used two: an ‘Augustanus’ which he called A—this is no other than the fami- liar Munich Catena on Ro 77-16—and a ‘ Bavaricus,’ B, no doubt identical with Munich er. 18, see. xvi.t Marriott took over Noesselt’s material and his symbols A and B, but his main reliance was on two Paris MSS, coislin 82, sec. xi. (C), and gr. 217, seec. x. (D). By the help of the latter MS, brought from Constantinople to the Royal Library after Sirmond’s day, a /acuna in the commentary on Galatians (2°!4, pp. 336. 14-339. 20) was for the first time filled up. Marriott made use also of the printed Oecumenius, and of such of Cramer’s Catenze as contained material from Theodoret. Unfortunately, he restricted within very narrow limits the improvements he allowed himself to make upon Noesselt’s text ; nor was it easy to build up definitive results out of MSS so few in number as those he employed.
Unlike Chrysostom, and apparently unlike Theo- dore, Theodoret expounded the whole of the four- teen epistles on one scale and in a single work, to which is prefixed a common preface (pofewpia) and a common title ([rod paxaplov] Oeodwpjrov émrickémou Kipov épunvela trav 15’ émictroAGv Tod dylov darocré\ov IfavAov). To this difference in method and system between Theodoret and his predecessors corre- sponds a difference in the bulk of their respective expositions; for whereas Chrysostom’s Homilies on St. Paul fill seven fairly thick octavo volumes, Theodoret’s are all comprised within two quite thin ones. When Theodoret wrote, the reaction was probably already in full swing against what must have seemed the long-windedness of the older commentators—Origen, Chrysostom, even Theo- dore. There was a real gap to fill with an expo- sition of the literal sense, that should be less discursive and homiletic than Chrysostom’s, less ambitiously conceived than Theodore’s; and it could hardly have been filled better than by the commentary of Theodoret. In two succinct phrases he has sketched his plan and its limits: ras dgopuds é€x Tay pakaplwy ov\d\éEw marépwv' cuvtomlas 6& bre Madore ppovTid.