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ER 2050

Anonymous author of the "Incomplete Commentary on Matthew" commenting on the Sermon on the Mountain speaks about the relation between the believers and their priest as teacher and preacher. The mid-5th c., the Danubian provinces or Constantinople.

Homilia 9

"Videns autem Iesus turbas multas, ascendit in montem" [Matt 5:1] Omnis artifex secundum professionem suam opportunitatem operis uidens, gaudet. Carpentarius, si uiderit arborem bonam, concupiscit eam praescindere ad opus artificii sui agricola, si uiderit terram pinguem, desiderat eam arare. Et quid dico de rationalibus hominibus. ipse irrationalis equus de stabulo exiliens, si uiderit campos patentes, rapit frenum, et excitatur ad cursum: sic et dominus uidens magnam congregationem populi, excitatus est ad docendum. Sic et omnis sacerdos, cum uiderit ecclesiam plenam, gaudet animus eius, et delectatur ut doceat, si autem uiderit ecclesiam uacuam, confunditur, et nihil dicere potest. "Ascendit in montem." [Matt 5:1] [...] Ascendit ergo in montem, ut ostendat nobis quoniam in altitudine spiritualium uirtutum consistere debet, qui docet iustitiam dei, pariter et qui audit. Qui docet, uerborum suorum sit ipse exemplum, ut magis opere doceat quam sermone. Sicut ait Apostolus ad Timotheum: Exemplo esto omnium fidelium. Qui autem ambulat per conuallia uitae terrenae, obscuras semitas calcat, et loquitur altos sermones. non alterum instruit, sed seipsum castigat. Nemo enim potest in ualle stare, et de monte loqui, sed aut ubi stas, inde loquere, aut unde loqueris, ibi sta. Si in terra est animus tuus, ut quid de coelo loqueris. Si ergo in terra tu stas, de terra loquere: si autem de coelo loqueris, in coelo consiste, ut dicas cum Apostolo: "Nostra autem conuersatio in coelis est." [Phil 3:20] Ille autem populus, qui audit iustitiam dei, ideo debet in altitudine bonorum operum consistere, quia discipulus imitator debet esse magistri. Si autem in peccatis uiuas, et audias iustitiae uerba docentem, iudicium tibi, non salutem acquiris. Audis enim, ut ne ignorantiae excusationem habeas ante deum. Ecce homo, si quamcunque artem ex toto corde uoluerit discere, puta pingere aut aedificare, cum frequenter magistrum suum audierit aut uiderit, tollit se in secreto et accipit ferramentum, et ipse se tentat, si potest iam facere, quod frequenter audiuit uel uidit. Sic et tu, si facere iustitiam non uis, ut quid praedicatorem iustitiae audis. ut quid doctorem illum appellas, cuis non uis esse discipulus. Intellige ergo, dico tibi rem naturalem, secundum loci istius scripturam. Si tu es super montem, et praedicator in ualle, tu sursum constitutus audis uocem illius, quia uox melius sursum ascendit, si autem tu steteris in ualle, et doctor tuus super montem loquitur, non multum tibi proficit loquela ipsius. Ergo in primo loco populus se debet consyderare qualis fit, in secundo loco qualem habeat sacerdotem: quia doctor malus bono populo non multum nocet, bonus autem doctor malo populo non multum prodest. Nunc autem populus seipsum non uidet, quem primum uidere debet, sed semper sedens iudicat de moribus sacerdotum. Ideo ergo praesens scriptura nos docet, ut tam doctor, quam populus super montem sanctitatis ascendat, qui uult audire pietatis doctrinam.

(ed. Desiderius Erasmus 1530: 530-31: cf. PG 56, col. 679-80, ed. B. Montefaucon)

Homily 9

"Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain" [Matt 5:1] Whenever a craftsman sees an opportunity to do his profession, he rejoices. If a carpenter sees a good tree, he desires to cut it down to make it a work of his craft; if a farmer sees fertile soil, he desires to plow it. And what am I to say about rational people? If an irrational horse, leaping from the stable, sees a wide-open field, it grabs hold of the bridle and is roused to run; so also the Lord, seeing a great gathering of people, was roused to teach. So also when a priest sees a full church, his soul rejoices and he delights to teach; but if he sees an empty church, he is confounded and cannot do anything. "He went up on the mountain" [Matt 5:1] [...] Therefore he went up on the mountain to show us that he who teaches the righteousness to God ought to dwell in the height of spiritual virtues, and likewise he who hears. Let him who teaches be an example of his own words as he may teach more by his action than by his speech, as the apostle said to Timothy, "set the believers an example." [1 Tim 4:12] But whoever walks in the deep valleys of earthly life treads shadowy paths and speaks lofty discourses - such a one does not instruct another but rebukes himself. Nobody can stand in a valley and speak about a mountain, but either speak where you stand or stand where you speak if your mind is on the earth, why do you speak about heaven? Therefore, if you stand on the earth, speak about the earth, but if you speak about heaven, then take your place in heaven, so that you can say with the apostle, "Our commonwealth is in heaven." [Phil 3:20] Moreover, the people who hear the righteousness of God ought to take their stand on the heights of good works, because a disciple ought to be an imitator of his teacher. But if you should happen to live in sins and hear someone teaching words of righteousness, you acquire for yourself judgement, not salvation. Indeed, you hear, so that you do not have the excuse of ignorance before God. Behold, if a person wants to learn any art wholeheartedly, such as to construct or paint as he frequently saw his teacher did, he secretly goes and takes a tool and tries himself - if he already can do it - to do what he has often heard or seen. So also, if you do not wish to do righteousness, why do you listen to the preacher of righteousness? Why do you call him "teacher" when you do not wish to be his student? Therefore, understand: I am speaking to you a natural fact according to the Scripture of that passage. If you are on top of the mountain and yet there is a preacher in the valley, you listen from on high to that person's voice because the voice has risen better; but if you stand in the valley and your teacher speaks on top of the mountain, his discourse does not benefit you very much. Therefore the people first ought to consider what sort of people they are and then what sort of priest they have, because a bad teacher does not harm good people very much, but a good teacher cannot help bad people very much. Nowadays, however, the people do not look at themselves, which they ought to do first, but they always sit down and judge the character of the priests. Therefore the present passage teaches us that the people who want to hear the teaching of godliness should go up on the mountain of holiness as much as the teacher.

(trans. Kellerman 2010: 83-84, slightly altered)

Place of event:

Region

Danubian provinces and Illyricum
East

City

Constantinople

About the source:

Author: Ps.-John Chrysostom
Title: Incomplete Commentary on Matthew, Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum
Origin: Danubian provinces and IllyricumConstantinople (East),
Denomination: Arian

"Incomplete Commentary on Matthew" (Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum) is the name given to a Latin exegetical commentary on the Gospel of Matthew which has been handed down under the attribution to John Chrystostomus. The name of the Opus imperfectum also served to distinguish it from another commentary, John Chrystostomus' Homilies on Matthew (CPG 4424), which is complete. The Opus imperfectum does not contain a commentary on Matthew 8:10 to 10:15, Matthew 13:14 to 18:35, and Matthew 25:37 to the end of the Gospel. Therefore, the commentary can be divided into three parts: commentaries (called "homilies" in the mss.) 1-22 (up to Matthew 8:10), commentaries 24-31 (Matthew 10:13-13:13) and commentaries 32-54 (Matthew 19-25). In order to facilitate the description of the manuscript families and the transmission, Van Banning has proposed to divide the third section into two parts, so that he speaks of four parts in all:

- part A (hom. 1-22)

- part B (hom. 24-31)

- part C (hom. 32-46)

- part D (hom. 46-54)

Commentary (homily) 23, included in early modern editions (and printed in PG 56, 754-756), has been identified as one of the homilies to Matthew by Chromatius of Aquileia. New fragments of the commentary were identified by Étaix in 1974.

The editio princeps was published by Johannes Koelhof in Cologne in 1487. The next one, of much better quality, appeared in Venice in 1503. At that time, the work was still considered to be written by Chrysostom, but translated by an unknown person. The first doubts about its authorship were expressed by Andreas Cartander in the preface to the 1525 edition. The next editor, Erasmus of Rotterdam, made only minor changes to the text of the previous edition, but was the first to firmly reject the authorship of John Chrysostom on the basis of the text fragments he described as "Arian". He was also convinced that the commentary was not the translation from Greek, but was originally written in Latin, albeit possibly by a person who knew Greek.

To this day, the questions of authorship, date and the region in which the commentary was written remain unresolved, and many different hypotheses have been put forward in scholarship. Stiglmayr (1909, 1910) and Nautin (1972) argued that the Opus was a translation from Greek and suggested Timothy, the deacon of Constantinople mentioned in Socrates, as a possible author; Morin (1942) suggested that the author of the Opus could be identified with the translator of Origen's Homilies on Matthew into Latin; Meslin (1967: 174-180) attributed it to Bishop Maximinus, who translated it from the so-called Arian scholia in ms. Parisinus Latinus 8907; Schlatter (1988) suggested the attribution to Ananius of Celeda. The various passages reveal the author's hostility to Nicene theology, which maintains that the Father and the Son are consubstantial. He thus seems to have belonged to a non-Nicene theology that modern scholarship calls "Homoian" (referring to the creeds of Rimini 359 and Constantinople 360). Schlatter, on the other hand, focused on the passages he considered "Pelagian" and wanted to place the author in the context of the controversies about grace. Further research is needed to clarify the doctrinal position and theological context of the work, but one promising avenue is to search Homoian circles in fifth-century Constantinople or in the Danubian provinces.

The author has made an extensive use of the commentary on Matthew by Origen (Mali 1991) but he was also using a very wide range of sources both in Latin and Greek (see for example Dulaey 2004).

The author of the commentary mentions the Emperor Theodosius I as already deceased (PG 56, column 907). Furthermore, he refers to teaching held at the Capitol in Constantinople, and we know that the "university" there was founded in 425 (Codex Theodosianus 16.9.3). It is therefore likely that the enactment took place in the second half of the reign of Theodosius II (408-450).

However, the uniformity of the work is also not certain, and it has not yet been proven beyond doubt that parts A-D were written by the same person at the same time. Piemonte (1996) even claims that parts of the commentary were written in the 8th century by Johannes Scotus Eriugena.

The great obstacle in clarifying many questions about the nature of the text is the lack of a contemporary critical edition. Joop van Banning published an excellent introduction to the planned edition in 1988, in which he explains the intricacies of the manuscript tradition. The complexity of the tradition and the large number of manuscripts (about 200) contributed to the immense scope of the edition project, which is still not completed today (autumn 2023). The research group in Fribourg (Switzerland) is currently working on the edition of Part A, which will hopefully be completed in the next few years. Until then, the text can be read in early modern editions (1525, 1530) and in Patrologia Graeca 56, which reproduces the text of Bernard de Montefaucon's 17th century edition.

Edition:

Tertius tomus operum divi Ioannis Chrysostomi archiepiscopi Constantinopolitani in quo homiliae in Matthaeum et Ioannem praeterea commentarii digni lectu in Matthaeum incerto autore, ed. Desiderius Erasmus, Basilea 1530, 474-752

Patrologia Graeca 56, col. 611-946

Translation:

Incomplete Commentary to Matthew, ed. T.C. Oden, trans. J.A. Kellerman, 2 vols., Downers Grove 2010

Bibliography:

J. van Banning, Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum: its provenance, theology and influence (D.Phil diss., University of Oxford, 1983)

J. van Banning, Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum. Praefatio, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 87B, Turnhout 1988

M. Dulaey, "Les sources latines de l’Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum dans le commentaire de la parabole des dix vierges (Mt 25, 1–13)”, Vetera Christianorum 41 (2004), 295–311.

R. Étaix, "Fragments inédits de l’Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum”, Revue Bénédictine 84 (1974), 271–300.

F. Mali, Das "Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum" und sein Verhältnis zu den Matthäuskommentaren von Origenes und Hieronymus, Innsbruck Wien 1991.

M. Meslin, Les Ariens d’Occident: 335–430, Paris 1967

G. Morin, "Les homélies latines sur S. Matthieu attribuées à Origène”, Revue Bénédictine 54 (1942), 3–11.

P. Nautin, "M. Meslin. Les Ariens d’Occident (335-430) [compte rendu]," Revue de l’histoire des religions 177 (1970), 74-80.

P. Nautin, "L’Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum et les Ariens de Constantinople”, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 67 (1972), 380–408; 745–766.

G.A. Piemonte, "Recherches sur les „Tractatus in Matheum” attribués à Jean Scot”, [in :] Iohannes Scottus Eriugena. The Bible and Hermeneutics, 1996, 321–350.

F.W. Schlatter, “The Author of the Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum,” Vigiliae Christianae 42 (1988), 365-375

F. W. Schlatter, “The Pelagianism of the ‘Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum”’, Vigiliae Christianae 41 (1987), 267-284

J. Stiglmayr, "Ist das Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum ursprünglich lateinisch abgefaßt?”, Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 33 (1909), 594–597

J. Stiglmayr, "Das Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum: Zur Frage über Grandsprache, Entstehungszeit, Heimat und Verfasser des Berkes”, Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 34 (1910), 1–38

Categories:

Described by a title - Sacerdos/ἱερεύς

Equal prerogatives of presbyters and bishops

Pastoral activity - Preaching

Pastoral activity - Teaching

Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER2050, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=2050