(6) In several directions the fragments betray the Antiochene temper of Gennadius’ commen- taries. He uses, if not so frequently as Theodore and Theodoret, the title 6 decrorns Xpiores (Cramer, 63. 35; 410. 21; 478. 34). He speaks of the cout katrdoracis (438. 15), and dwells with special em- phasis on (w7, ddavacia, drddea (e.g. 50. 33; 56. 29; 60.2; 117.11; 118. 32; 146.25). In commenting on Ro 8? his Christology expresses itself in language which contrasts strongly with the more guarded and accurate phraseology of Diodore (Cramer, 124. 3-11) on the same passage: 123. 13, rov yap vidv méuwas Tov éavrod, cdpxa Ti adriy july ExovTa madnrnvy Te Kal dmapreiy eémidexouévnvy OMOIWMA yup CAPKOC AMAPTIAC THY EvOEXoMernY Apmaprjgac chpka gdnolv, ws Kal TO EN OMOIWMATI ANOPWTTOY TENOMENOC Gv7l Tov Tevdmevos dvOpwiros. Soin the treatment of the problems raised in the Pelagian controversy : on Ro 5% 颒 @ mdvres iuaprov, mayres is equivalent, he writes (43. 1-11), to of oNdol, since, though it is true that all have died, it is not true that all have sinned ; infants, for instance, oi ore mpdtews otre Staxpirixjs mpoatpécews dvTes EévTos, TOs dy elev UrevOuvor TWANMMENT| MATL $
As we should therefore expect, Gennadius shows himself to be no allegorizer, and devotes himself to the literal meaning. pee mention may be made of his notes on the ‘idioms’ of Scripture: Ro 7! (93. 28=176. 7), on personifications card 76 Tijs Gelas 00s ypadfjs of abstractions such as Sin or Right- eousness: Ro 7!4 wempayévos (100. 13=186. 1), on the use of metaphors, according to the idwua ypadixdv, without the introductory @s: Ro 8”. 4 xrlows (139. 8-19), on personifications of inanimate creatures: Ro 15°56 6 -6é @eds . . . Tov Oedv (499. 18-25), on repetition of the name of the subject (ror Gedy instead of atréy) as an ldlwua rhs ypapijs. In- teresting specimens of an exegesis which is rather clear than deep may be found on the following
assages ; Ro 9! (159. 4-162. 16), a summary of the
ewish position and of St. Paul’s attitude towards it: Ro 13! (458. 3-22), how the overflow of new life and power in the spiritual charismata of the primitive Church created a danger which called out the Apostle’s exhortation to civil obedience and orderliness: Ro 14% 17 (482. 12-25), on the simplicity and effectiveness of every detail in the style of these verses. :
With Isidore and Cyril, Theodoret and Genna- dius, we have reached the close of the golden age of Greek exegesis. Of the three names that still
remain for cursory notice, the first two, Theodore the Monk and John of Damascus, appear to have * So Cramer; Dr. Sanday suggests picews.
PATRISTIC COMMENTARIES
confined themselves exclusively to the task of ‘compilation from previous commentators, while the third, the patriarch Photius, stands at the very limit of the Patristic period ; and all three might perhaps have found a more appropriate place at an earlier point in this article (p. 485).
20. Theodore the Monk (commentary on Ro- mans ?).—
In Cramer’s Munich Catena on Ro 7’-16 nearly forty citations are given under the name of an otherwise unknown exegete, Ocoddépov Movaxod: and mention was made above (p. 510°) of Fritzsche’s analysis of these passages, from which it appeared that many of them are found elsewhere ascribed to Diodore, Theodore, or Theodoret. So large a proportion, indeed, recur as Theodore’s (16 out of 39), that the doubt inevitably rises whether the OcodHpov Movaxod of the Munich catenist may not, after all, have been a misunderstanding of Ocodwpou Mo(Woveorias) ; but, tempting at first sight as this explanation is, it breaks down when confronted with the facts. It does not account for the Diodore passages ;* of the fourteen citations from Theodore the Monk in that part of the epistle (Ro 77-91) which is covered also by the Bodleian Catena, four, indeed, reappear in the latter under the authorship of Theodore of Mopsuestia, but two, and parts of two more, under the authorship of Diodore.| And it is inconsistent with the intro- ductory phrases under which Theodore the Monk ushers in his borrowed matter, for these betray at once the compiler’s hand : thus Cramer, 175.7, twés 6é act (what follows is from Theod. Mops.): 248. 4 érepos 5¢ dwepivaro (from the same writer): 328. 25 and 379. 6, épy ris: 417. 25, pn 5é res wep TovTwy Kal otrws. Less stress can be laid on the use of 7, 7 Taxa, 7 Kal ofrws, since nearly all commentators from time to time give alternative interpretations ; but their relative frequency in Theodore the Monk serves to bear out the conclusion that the Munich catenist has stumbled somehow upon an unknown compiler, the staple of whose material was derived from writers of the Antiochene school, and prin- cipally, it would seem, from Diodore and Theodore. The anonymous form of his quotations, ris, ruwés, érepos, may be accidental, or it may conceal the desire to recommend the subject-matter of the two great expositors, who had fallen under the odium of Nestorian heresy, in quarters where suspicion might be awakened by the express mention of their names. There is nothing to show when the Monk lived; but the data on the whole point to the 6th century.
21. John of Damascus (commentary on all the Epistles).—
St. John Damascene belongs to the time—he was born about 685 and died about 760 A.D.—when Greek theology, though it had still to produce Theodore of Studium, was approaching the close of its creative era; and it was his unique work to sum up the results of previous thinkers in that domain and to combine them in a great con- structive system. But theology cannot be divorced from New Testament exegesis, and systematic theology moved therefore on parallel lines with Catena compilations: in the West the author of the Swmma was the author also of the Catena Aurea; and in the case of John of Damascus, side by side with the systematic treatise On the Faith may be set the commentary on the Pauline epistles which will be found in le Quien’s edition of his