The Presbyters Project

Print:

ER 2080

Anonymous author of the "Incomplete Commentary on Matthew" claims that the spiritual well-being of Christian congregations depends on whether their priesthood is morally sound. The mid-5th c., the Danubian provinces or Constantinople.

Homilia 38

"Et intrauit iesus in templum dei." [Matt 25:12] Hoc erat proprium boni filii, ut et ueniens ad domum curreret patris, et illi honorem redderet, qui genuit eum, ut tu imitator Christi factus, cum in aliquam ingressus fueris ciuitatem, primum ante omnem actum ad ecclesiam curras. Hoc erat boni medici ut ingressus ad infirmam ciuitatem saluandam, primum ad originem passionis intenderet. Nam sicut de templo omne bonum egreditur, sic et de templo omne malum procedit. Quemadmodum medicus quando primo ingreditur ad infirmum, statim de stomacho eius interrogat, et eum componere primum festinat: quia si stomachus sanus fuerit, totum corpus ualidum est: si autem dissipatus fuerit, totum corpus infirmum est. Ita si sacerdotium integrum fuerit, tota ecclesia floret: si autem corruptum fuerit, omnium fides marcida est. Cor autem et stomachus sacerdotes intelliguntur, quia in rebus spiritualibus per eos totus populus gubernatur. Et sicut cor sapientiae locus est, ita sacerdotes sunt receptacula sapientiae spiritualis, Esaia dicente: de regibus quidem, "Omne caput in dolore": de sacerdotio autem, "Omne cor in tristitia" [Is 1:5). Sicut enim stomachus accipiens cibum, coquit eum in seipso, et per totum corpus dispergit, sic et sacerdotes accipiunt scientiam sermonis per scripturas ex deo, et excoquentes eam in se: id est, tractantes et meditantes apud se, uniuerso populo subministrant. Et sicut stomacho subministrante, unumquodque membrum suscipit nutrimentum, et conuertit ipsum in se, secundum suam naturam, utputa quod suscipit iecur, totum fit sanguis: quod autem suscipit fel, bilis efficitur totum: quod uero ascendit in pulmonem, phlegmata fiunt: quod autem in mamillas, totum efficitur lac. Sic sacerdotibus in ecclesia loquentibus, uerbum omnes suscipiunt, unusquisque autem conuertit illud secundum proprium cor, ita ut unum idipsum uerbum in cordibus quidem rectis procedat ad uitam: in cordibus autem peruersis suscitet iracundiam, quasi bilis: in aliis autem operatur dilectionem dulcissimam, quasi lac: in aliis autem odia quasi phlegma nociuum et expuendum. Videte ergo sacerdotes quomodo uos componatis in uerbo et opere. Quoniam sicut in corpore, si aliquod infirmatum fuerit membrum, non omnino languet et stomachus: si autem stomachus languerit, omnia membra inueniuntur infirma. Sic si aliquis Christianorum peccauerit, non omnino peccant et sacerdotes: si autem et sacerdotes fuerint in peccatis, totus populus conuertitur ad peccandum. Ideo unusquisque Christianorum pro suo peccato reddet rationem: sacerdotes autem non solum pro suis, sed et pro omnium peccatis reddituri sunt rationem [Hebr. 13:17]. Vidit arborem pallentibus foliis marcidam, et intellexit studiosus agricola, quia laesuram in radicibus haberet. Nam uere quemadmodum cum uideris arborem pallentibus foliis, marcidam intelligis, quia aliquam culpam habet circa radicem: ita cum uideris populum indisciplinatum et irreligiosum, sine dubio cognosce, quia sacerdotium eius non est sanum.

(ed. Desiderius Erasmus 1530: 663-664; cf. PG 56, col. 839, ed. B. Montefaucon)

Homily 38

"And Jesus entered the temple of God" [Matt 25:12] This was the mark of a good son: to run to the house of the father when he comes and to honor him who begat him, so that you who have become an imitator of Christ first run to the church before any other act once you have entered some city. This was the mark of a good doctor: to enter a city sick and in need of healing and first look for the origin of the disease. For just as every good came from the temple, so also every evil came from the temple. Just

as when a doctor first approaches a patient, he asks immediately about his stomach and hastens to calm it, because if the stomach is healthy, the whole body is strong, but if it has become unsettled, then the whole body is sick, so if the priesthood is sound, the whole church flourishes, but if it is corrupt, the faith of all is withered.

But the priests are understood to be the heart and stomach because in spiritual matters the entire people are governed through them. And just as the heart is the place of wisdom, so the priests are receptacles of spiritual wisdom, as Isaiah says about the kings, "the whole head is sick," but about the priests, "the whole heart [is] faint." For just as the stomach takes food and cooks it inside of itself and disperses it through the whole body, so also priests take the knowledge of the Word through the Scriptures from God and cook it thoroughly inside of themselves, that is, mulling it over and meditating on it inside of themselves, they serve it to the whole people. And just as each and every member of the body takes its nourishment when the stomach serves it, and each member turns the food into itself according to its nature (for example, what the liver receives becomes all blood, what the gallbladder receives is turned into bile; what ascends into the lung turns into phlegm; what goes to the breasts becomes all milk), so when the priests speak in the church, they all receive the Word, but each and every person changes it according to his own heart

so chat one and the same word results in life in upright hearts, but it arouses anger like bile in perverse hearts; in others it works the sweetest love like milk, but in others hatred, like a harmful phlegm that must be spit out.

Therefore priests, see how you construct in word and deed. Because just as in the body, if some limb is sick, the stomach is not altogether weary, but if the stomach is weary, all the limbs are found to be weak, so if some Christian sins, the priests do not also sin by any means, but if the priests are in sin, the whole people turn to sin. So each Christian will give an account for his own sin, but the priests will give an account not only for their own but also for the sins of all people. A diligent farmer sees a tree drooping with pale leaves and understands chat it has an injury in its roots. For truly just as when you see the tree with pale leaves you understand that it is withering because it has some trouble in its root, so when you see an undisciplined and irreligious people, know without a doubt that its priesthood is not healthy.

(trans. Kellerman 2010: 299-300)

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

Impediments or requisits for the office - Improper/Immoral behaviour

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, ER2080, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=2080