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ER 2110

Anonymous author of the "Incomplete Commentary on Matthew" presents priests as teachers of good doctrine and those who administer penance. He criticizes people who turn to priests for repentance only in face of death. The mid-5th c., the Danubian provinces or Constantinople.

Homilia 52

"Ite potius ad uendentes, et emite uobis." [Matt 25:9] Venditores operum bonorum uel doctrinae, sacerdotes sunt, qui praecepta iustitiae in populo dant quasi precium aliquod accipientes fidem ipsorum, qui peccatores per poenitentiam soluunt, precio confessionis eorum placati. Aut certe hoc pretium doctrinae accipiunt, quando sic docentes eos audierit populus. Populus quidem per obedientiam suam mercatus est sibi salutem, sacerdotes autem qui docuerunt et laborauerunt circa eos, recipient a deo doctrinae suae labores. Bonum ergo est consilium sanctorum ad peccatores, ut eant ad sacerdotes, et fideliter audiant eos: et cum audierint, faciant, et habebit uirtutem olei fides eorum, si tamen habuerint tempus. "Abeuntibus autem eis, ecce uenit sponsus, et quae paratae erant intrauerunt cum eo, et clausa est ianua." [Matt 25:10] Ostenditur nobis per haec uerba, quod illo in tempore inter angustias diuersorum terrorum uidentes se peccatores, anxiabuntur, et current huc et illuc ad sacerdotes, doctrinam et poenitentiam sibi quaerentes, alii autem interrogantes quid eos oporteat facere. Sed festinante iudicio, et necessitatibus aliis super alias uenientibus, cum non sit docendi licentia, nec tempus faciendae iustitiae, aut agendae poenitentiae, festinatio eorum uacua erit. Hoc enim et in quotidiano usu uidemus fieri. Quotidie enim sacerdotes clamant in ecclesia: Qui peccauit, poenitentiam agat: qui non peccauit, permaneat in deo: neque seducant uos honores, et diuitiae temporales: quia tempus uestrum prope est, etsi consummatio uestra tardauerit, mors uestra non tardat, et nemo credit, nemo obaudit: cum autem uenerit super illos mors, festinant et anxiantur, uocant sacerdotes, poenitentiam uolunt agere, quando iam poenitentiae locus non est. Itaque dum exponunt peccata sua, dum accipiunt poenitentiae tempus, et praecepta iustitiae, capitur anima eorum, et uadunt uacui, magis autem ligati iusto iudicio dei: quia non propter odium peccatorum displicentes sibi uolebant poenitentiam agere, sed propter mortis timorem.

(ed. Desiderius Erasmus 1530: 742; cf. PG 56, col. 933, ed. B. Montefaucon)

Homily 52

"Go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves." [Matt 25:9] The sellers of good works or doctrine are the priests who give commandments of righteousness among the people, welcoming their faith as some payment, and who release sinners by repentance, having been satisfied with the price of their confession. Or certainly they receive this payment of teaching whenever the people hear them teaching. The people purchase salvation for themselves by their obedience, but the priests who caught and labored for them will receive from God the labors of their teaching. Thus the counsel of saints to sinners is good, namely, that they go to the priests and faithfully hear them, and when they hear them, do it; their faith will have the power of the oil, if they still have time. "And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast and the door was shut.” [Matt 25:10] By these words we are shown that at that time, amid the distresses of various terrors, sinners will see themselves and grow anxious and run here and there to the priests in order to seek teaching and repentance for themselves. But some will ask what they need to do, but as the judgment hastens on and one urgency piles up on another for them, their haste will be in vain, because there is no leeway to teach or time to do righteousness or to repent. For we see this happens in daily life. Daily the priests cry in the church, "Let whoever has sinned repent; let whoever has not sinned remain in God. Do not let worldly honors and riches seduce you, because your time is near. And if your end tarries, your death does not." And nobody believes them, and nobody obeys them. But when death comes on them, they hurry and worry; they call the priests and want to repent when there is no longer room for repentance. And so while they tell their sins and accept a time of repentance and the commandments of righteousness, their soul is taken, and they go away empty-handed but are bound all the more by the just judgment of God because they did not want to repent because of their hatred of their sins but because of their fear of death. Furthermore, if they could have lived, they would not have been displeased with themselves.

(trans. Kellerman 2010: 412-413)

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. Piedmonte (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:

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

Described by a title - Sacerdos/ἱερεύς

Ritual activity - Reconciliation/Administering penance

Theoretical considerations - On priesthood

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, ER2110, http://www.presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/index.php?id=6&SourceID=2110