Aquinas - Catena Aurea: Volume 1-4

Catena Aurea

Commentary

on the

Four Gospels,

collected out of the

Works Of TheFathers

by

S. ThomasAquinas

vol 1-4

Oxford,

johnhenry parker;

j. g. f.and j. rivington, london.

mdcccxli

The following Compilation not being admissible into theLibrary of the Fathers from the date of some few of the authors introduced intoit, the Editors of the latter work have been led to publish it in a separateform, being assured that those who have subscribed to their translations of theentire Treatises of the ancient Catholic divines, will not feel less interest,or find less benefit, in the use of so very judicious and beautiful a selectionfrom them. The Editors refer to the Preface which follows for some account ofthe nature and characteristic excellences of the work, which will be found asuseful in the private study of the Gospels, as it is well adapted for familyreading, and full of thought for those who are engaged in religiousinstruction.

Oxford,May 6, 1841.

By a CatenaPatrum is meant a string or series of passages selected from thewritings of various Fathers, and arranged for the elucidation of some portionof Scripture, as the Psalms or the Gospels. Catenas seem to have originated inthe short scholia or glosses which it was customary in MSS. of the Scripturesto introduce between the lines or on the margin, perhaps in imitation of thescholiasts on the profane authors. These, as time went on, were graduallyexpanded, and passages from the Homilies or Sermons of the Fathers upon thesame Scriptures added to them.

The earliest commentaries on Scripturehad been of this discursive nature, being addresses by word of mouth to thepeople, which were taken down by secretaries, and so preserved. While thetraditionary teaching of the Church still preserved the vigour and vividness ofits Apostolical origin, and spoke with an exactness and cogency which impressedan adequate image of it upon the mind of the Christian Expositor, he was ableto allow himself free range in handling the sacred text, and to admit into thecomment his own particular character of mind, and his spontaneous andindividual ideas, in the full security, that, however he might follow theleadings of his own thoughts in unfolding the words of Scripture, his own deeplyfixed views of Catholic truth would bring him safe home, without oversteppingthe limits of truth and sobriety. Accordingly, while the early Fathers manifesta most remarkable agreement in the principles and the substance of theirinterpretation, they have at the same time a distinctive spirit and manner, bywhich each may be known from the rest. About the vith or viith century thisoriginality disappears; the oral or traditionary teaching, which allowed scopeto the individual teacher, became hardened into a written tradition, andhenceforward there is a uniform invariable character as well as substance ofScripture interpretation. Perhaps we should not err in putting Gregory theGreat as the last of the original Commentators; for though very numerous commentarieson every book of Scripture continued to be written by the most eminent doctorsin their own names, probably not one interpretation of any importance would befound in them which could not be traced to some older source. So that all latercomments are in fact Catenas or selections from the earlier Fathers, whetherthey present themselves expressly in the form of citations from their volumes,or are lections upon the Lesson or Gospel for the day, extempore indeed inform, but as to their materials drawn from the previous studies and stores ofthe expositor. The latter would be better adapted for the general reader, theformer for the purposes of the theologian.

Commentaries of both classes are verynumerous. Fabricius speaks of several hundred MS. Catenas in the Royal Libraryof France. According to Wolf and Cramerb the earliest compiler of aGreek Catena was cumenius, in the ixth or xth century; for the claims ofOlympiodorus in the vith to be the author of the Catena on Job, have beendisproved by Patricius Junius, in his edition. (Lond. 1637.) But though thismay be the first regular Catena, the practice of compiling commentaries hadbeen in use much earlier. In the East, Eustathius of Antioch in the ivth, andProcopius of Gaza in the beginning of the vith, collected the interpretationsof the ancients; and in the West, the Commentaries on the Gospels which gounder the name of Bede, (A.D. 700,) are but a summary of the authorizedinterpretations chiefly drawn from S. Augustine, S. Leo, &c., and even S.Jerome describes his Commentary on Galatians as a compendium of former writers,chiefly Origen.

It may be added, that the same changetook place in dogmatic teaching, as in the exposition of Scripture. This indeedwas still more to be expected, for the issue of controversies and the decreesof Councils had given to the doctrinal statements of the Fathers an authority,or rather prerogative, which was never claimed for their commentaries.Accordingly, S. John Damascenes work on the Orthodox Faith in the viiithcentury is scarcely more than a careful selection and combination of sentencesand phrases from the great theologians who preceded him, principally S. GregoryNazianzen. A comment or scholia by the same author upon S. Pauls Epistles havecome down to us, which are mainly taken from S. Chrysostom, but with some useof other expositors.

All such commentaries have more or lessmerit and usefulness, but they are very inferior to the Catena Aurea, whichis now presented to the English reader; being all of them partial andcapricious, dilating on one passage, and passing unnoticed another of equal orgreater difficulty; arbitrary in their selection from the Fathers, and ascompilations crude and indigested. But it is impossible to read the Catena of S.Thomas, without being struck with the masterly and architectonic skill withwhich it is put together. A learning of the highest kind,not a mere literarybook-knowledge, which might have supplied the place of indexes and tables inages destitute of those helps, and when every thing was to be read inunarranged and fragmentary MSS.but a thorough acquaintance with the wholerange of ecclesiastical antiquity, so as to be able to bring the substance ofall that had been written on any point to bear upon the text which involvedita familiarity with the style of each writer, so as to compress into fewwords the pith of a whole page, and a power of clear and orderly arrangement inthis mass of knowledge, are qualities which make this Catena perhaps nearly perfectas a conspectus of Patristic interpretation. Other compilations exhibitresearch, industry, learning; but this, though a mere compilation, evinces amasterly command over the whole subject of Theology.

The Catena is so contrived that it readsas a running commentary, the several extracts being dovetailed together by thecompiler. And it consists wholly of extracts, the compiler introducing nothingof his own but the few connecting particles which link one extract to the next.There are also a few quotations headed Glossa, which none of the editors havebeen able to find in any author, and which from their character, being brieflyintroductory of a new chapter or a new subject, may be probably assigned to thecompiler; though even this is dispensed with whenever it is possible: when aFather will furnish the words for such transition or connection, they aredexterously introduced. In the Gospel of S. Matthew there are only a few otherpassages which seem to belong to S. Thomas. These are mostly short explanationsor notes upon something that seemed to need explanation in some passage quoted,and which in a modern book would have been thrown into the form of a foot note.An instance of this may be seen in p. 405. The only important passages of thiskind are some Glosses on chap. 26:26. which will be noticed in their place.