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ER 2079

Anonymous author of the "Incomplete Commentary on Matthew" compares the heretical priests to the priests and scribes in whose hands, according to the Gospel, Christ was delivered. The mid-5th c., the Danubian provinces or Constantinople.

Homilia 35

Quando enim uides scripturas prophetarum, et Euangelii, et apostolorum traditas esse in manus falsorum sacerdotum et scribarum, num intelligis quia uerbum ueritatis traditum est principibus iniquis et scribis? Et sicut tunc sacerdotes, uel propter uanam gloriam, uel propter auaritiam condemnauerunt Christum morte, cogitantes quoniam si tenuerint Christum, ipsi sacerdotes esse non poterunt secundum legem, nec solennia illa lucra percipere: ita nunc impii sacerdotes et scribae uerbum ueritatis dignum iudicant interire, cogitantes quia si uerbum ueritatis tenuerint, ipsi sacerdotes esse non possunt, nec sacerdotalia lucra percipere. Propterea tradunt eum gentibus, id est populis ineruditis, et indisciplinatis, et barbaris, qui nec quaerunt, nec audiunt eum cum iudicio, qui nomen habent Christianorum, mores autem Gentilium. Tradunt autem ueritatis uerbum peruersis expositionibus suis ad deludendum et crucifigendum. Deludunt enim uerbum ueritatis, quando simulant se sequi Christum, et disputant de eo sine dei timore: non proposito inueniendae ueritatis, sed studio subuertendae. Hoc autem modo deludunt uerbum ueritatis, non colunt. Crucifigunt autem eum, et interficiunt, quando falsa confessione mendacii, uerbum ueritatis suffocant, et occidunt in se. Et sicut tunc sacerdotes illi nullam culpam idoneam inuenientes in Christo, falsam accusationem detulerunt aduersus eum: sic modo nullam rationem idoneam habentes dicere contra uerbum ueritatis, falsa interpretantur de illo, et falsa proferunt testimonia prophetarum aduersum uerbum ueritatis. Sicut enim tunc falsos testes subornauerunt aduersus Christum, Et sicut tunc sacerdotes quidem et scribae cognoscentes eum, quia uere Christus est, quasi hominem illum maleficum gentibus tradiderunt, gentes autem non cognoscentes eum esse Christum, deluserunt, et crucifixerunt eum, quasi hominem maleficum: sic et modo sacerdotes, et scribae haereticorum cognoscentes, quia uerbum est ueritatis secundum scripturas quas legunt, tradunt eum, sicut diximus, populis et gentibus ad deludendum, et crucifigendum. Populi autem per ignorantiam uerbum ueritatis deludunt, et crucifigunt, quasi mendacium.

(ed. Desiderius Erasmus 1530: 651; cf. PG 56, col. 824, ed. B. Montefaucon)

Homily 35

For whenever you see the scriptures of the prophets and of the gospel and of the apostles delivered into the hands of false priests and scribes, you understand that the word of truth has been delivered over to the wicked chief priests and scribes, don’t you? And just as then the priests condemned Christ to death because of either their vainglory or their greed, since they thought that if they have Christ, they could no longer be priests according to the Law or receive those profits from the sacred rites, so now the ungodly priests and scribes deem the word of truth to be worthy to perish, since they think that if they obtain the word of truth, they cannot be priests or receive the priestly pay. For this reason they hand him over to the Gentiles, that is, to the uneducated, undisciplined and barbarous people, who neither hear nor see him rightly, who have the name of Christians but the character of Gentiles. But they hand the word of truth to their perverse explanations in order to mock and crucify it. For they mock the word of truth when they pretend to follow Christ and yet argue about him without the fear of God—not with the intention of finding the truth but with a zeal for subverting it. But in this way they mock the word of truth and do not cultivate it. But they crucify and kill him when they choke out the word of truth with the false confession of a lie and kill it in themselves.

And just as then, when the priests found no suitable fault in Christ, they brought in a false accusation against him, so now, when they have no suitable reason to speak contrary to the word of truth, they interpret false things about it and offer false witnesses of prophets against the word of truth. For just as then they suborned false witnesses against Christ and just as then the priests knew that he was truly the Christ but handed him over to the Gentiles as if he were an evildoer, but the Gentiles did not recognize that he was Christ and mocked and crucified him as an evildoer, so also now the priests and the scribes of the heretics, knowing that the word of truth is in the Scriptures that they read, hand him over, as we said, to the people and Gentiles to mock and crucify.

(trans. Kellerman 2010: 281-282)

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), 1–38erfectum in Matthaeum”’, Vigiliae Christianae 41 (1987), 267-284

Categories:

Religious grouping (other than Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian) - Arian

Described by a title - Sacerdos/ἱερεύς

Impediments or requisits for the office - Heresy/Schism

Theoretical considerations - On priesthood

Religious grouping (other than Catholic/Nicene/Chalcedonian) - Unspecified 'heretic'

Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL: M. Szada, Presbyters in the Late Antique West, ER2079, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=2079