COMMENTARIES
159
COMMENTARIES
1 Narbonne. who was a celelirated grammarian, lexicog-
rapher, and commentator inclined to the literal sense.
He was followed by Xachmanides of Catalonia (d.
1270), a doctor of medicine who wrote commentaries
of a cabbalistic tendency; Immanuel of Rome (b.
1270); and the Karaites, Aaron ben Joseph (1294),
and Aaron ben E^lias (fourteenth centui-y).
(7) Modern. — Isaac Abarbanel (b. Lisbon, 1437 ;d. Venice, 150S) was a statesman and scholar. None of his predecessors came so near the modern ideal of a commentator as he did. He prefixed general intro- ductions to each book, and was the first Jew to make extensive use of Christian commentaries. Elias Lev-ita (d. 1549) and Azarias de Rossi (d. 1577) have also to be mentioned. Moses Mendelssohn of Berlin (d. 1786), a friend of Lessing, translated the Penta- teuch into German. His commentaries (in Hebrew) are close, learned, critical, and acute. He has had much influence in modernizing Jewish methods. Mendelssohn has been followed by Wessely, Jaroslaw, Homberg, Euchel, Friedlander, Hertz, Herxheimer, Philipiison, etc., called "Biurists", or expositors. The modern liberal school among the Jews is repre- sented by Munk, Luzzato, Zunz, Geiger, Fiirst, etc. In past agesthe Jews attributed both the Written and the Unwritten Torahs to Moses ; some modern Jews seem disposed to deny that he had anything to do with either. II. Patristic Commentahies. — The hi.story of Christian exegesis may be roughly divided into three periods: the Age of the Fathers, the Age of Catenae and Scholia (seventh to sixteenth century), and the Age of Modern Commentaries (sixteenth to twentieth century). Most of the patristic commentaries are in the form of liomilies, or discourses to the faithful, and range over the whole of .Scripture. There are two schools of interpretation, that of Alexandria and that of Antioch.
(1) Alexandrian School. — The chief writers of the Alexandrian School were Pantsenus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, Didy- mus the blind priest, OjtU of Alexandria, and Pierius. To these may be added St. Ambrose, who, in a moderate degree, adopted their system. Its chief characteristic was the allegorical method. This was, doubtless, founded on passages in the Gospels and the Epistles of St. Paul, but it received a strong impulse from the writings of Alexandrian Jews, especially of Philo. The great representative of this school was Origen (d. 254). From his very earliest years Origen manifested such extraordinary marks of piety and genius that he was held in the very highest reverence by his father, himself a saint and martjT. Origen became the master of many great saints and .scholars, one of the most celebrated being St. Gregory Thauma- turgus; he was known as the "Adamantine" on account of his incessant application to study, writing, lecturing, and works of piety. He frequently kept seven amanuenses actively employed: it was said he became the author of 6000 works (Epiphanius, Har., Ixiv, 6.3); according to St. Jerome, who reduced the number to 2000 (Contra. Rufin., ii, 22), he left more writings than any man could read in a lifetime (Ep. xxxiii, ad Paulam). Besides his great laboiu-s on the Hexapla he WTote scholia, homilies, and com- rnentaries on the Old and the New Testament. In his scholia he gave short explanations of difficult passages after the manner of his contemporaries, the annotators of the Greek classics. Most of the scholia, in which he chiefly sought the literal sense, are unfortunately lost, but it is supposed that their substance is embodied in the WTitings of St. John Chrysostom and other Fathers. In his other works Origen pushed the allegorical interpretation to the utmost extreme. In spite of this, however, his writings were of great value, and with the exception of St. Augustine, no WTiter of ancient times had such influence. It is lamentable that this great man fell
into .serious error on the origin of souls, the eternity
of hell, etc.
(2) Antiochene School. — The writers of the Anti- ochene School disliked the allegorical method, and sought almost exclusively the literal, primary, or historical sense of Holy Scripture. The principal WTiters of this school were St. Lucian, Eusebiiis of Nicomedia, Maris of Chalcedon, Eudoxius, Theognis of Nica-a, Asterius, Arius the heresiarch, Diodorus of Antioch (Bishop of Tarsus), and his three great pupils, Theodore of Hlopsuestia, Theodore's brother Poly- chromius, and St. John Chrysostom. With these may be counted St. Ephraem on account of his preference for the literal sense. The great represen- tatives of this school were Diodorus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and St. John Chrysostom. Diodorus, who died Bishop of Tarsus (394), followed the literal to the exclusion of the mystical or allegorical sense. Theodore was born at Antioch, in 347, became Bishop of Mopsuestia, and died in the communion of the Church, 429. He was a powerful thinker, but an obscure and prolix WTiter. He felt, intense dLslike for the mystical sense, and explained the Scriptures in an extremely literal and almost rationalistic manner. His pupil, Nestorius, became a founder of heresy; the Nestorians translated his books into Syriac and regarded Theodore as their great "Doctor". This made Catholics suspicious of his writings, which w'ere finally condemned after the famous controversy on The Three Chapters. Theodore's commentary on St. John's Gospel, in SjTiac, has recently been pub- lished, with a Latin translation, by a Catholic scholar. Dr. Chabot. St. John Chrysostom, priest of Antioch, became Patriarch of Constantinople in 398. As an interpreter of Holy Scripture he stands in the very first rank of the Fathers. He left homilies on most of the books of the Old and the New Testament. There is nothing in the whole of antiquity to equal his WTitings on St. Matthew's Gospel and St. Paul's Epistles. WTien St. Thomas Aquinas was asked by one of his brethren whether he would not like to be the owner of Paris, so that he could dispose of it to the King of France and with the proceeds promote the good works of his order, he answered that he would prefer to be the possessor of Chrysostom's "Sujier Matthjeum". This reply may be taken as the true expression of the high admiration in w'hich the writings of St. Chrysostom have ever been held in the Church. St. Isidore of Pelusium said of him that if the Apostle St. Paul could have used Attic speech he would have explained his own Epistles in the identical words of St. John Chrysostom.
(3) Intermediate School. — The other Fathers com- bined what was best in both these systems, some leaning more to the allegorical and some to the literal sense. The principal were Isidore of Pelusium, Theodoret, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Gregorj' of Nyssa, St. Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrosiaster, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, aijd Pelagius. St. Jerome, perhaps the greatest Biblical scholar of an- cient times, besides his famous translations of the Scripture, and other works, left many useful commen- taries, some of great merit. In others he departed too much from the literal meaning of the text. In the hurrj- of composition he did not always sufficiently indicate when he was quoting from different authors, and this, according to Richard Simon, accounts for his apparent discrepancies.
III. Medieval Co.mmentaries. — The medieval writers were content to draw from the rich treasures left them by their predecessors. Their commentaries consisted, for the most part, of pa.ssage« from the Fathers, which they connected together as in a chain, catena (q. v.). We cannot give more than the names of the principal writers, with the centurj- after each. Though they are not all known as catenists they may be regarded as such, for all practical purposes.
