Commentary composed entirely of excerpts from earlier commentaries
The biblical text surrounded by a catena, in Minuscule 556
A catena (from Latin catena, a chain) is a form of biblical commentary, verse by verse, made up entirely of excerpts from earlier Biblical commentators, each introduced with the name of the author, and with such minor adjustments of words to allow the whole to form a continuous commentary. John Henry Newman, in his preface to Thomas Aquinas' Catena Aurea, explains that a "Catena Patrum" is "a string or series of passages selected from the writings of various Fathers, and arranged for the elucidation of some portion of Scripture, as the Psalms or the Gospels".[1]
The texts are mainly compiled from popular authors, but they often contain fragments of certain patristic writings now otherwise lost.[2] It has been asserted by Faulhaber that half of all the commentaries on scripture composed by the church Fathers are now extant only in this form.[3]
History
The earliest Greek catena is ascribed to Procopius of Gaza, in the first part of the sixth century. Between the seventh and the tenth centuries, Andreas Presbyter and Johannes Drungarius were the compilers of catenas to various Books of Scripture. Towards the end of the eleventh century Nicetas of Heraclea produced a great number of catenae. Both before and after, however, the makers of catenae were numerous in the Greek Orient, mostly anonymous, and offering no other indication of their personality than the manuscripts of their excerpts. Similar compilations were also made in the Syriac and Coptic Churches.[4]
In the West, Primasius of Adrumentum in the former Roman province of Africa in the sixth century compiled the first catena from Latin commentators. He was imitated by Rhabanus Maurus (d. 865), Paschasius Radbertus, and Walafrid Strabo, later by Remigius of Auxerre (d. 900), and by Lanfranc of Canterbury (d. 1089). The Western catenae have had less importance attached to them. The most famous of the medieval Latin compilations of this kind is that of Thomas Aquinas, generally known as the Catena aurea (Golden chain) and containing commentary from over eighty Greek and Latin Church Fathers on the Gospels.[5] Thomas composed the parts of his Catena aurea treating the gospels of Mark, Luke, and John while directing the Roman studium of the Dominican Order at the convent of Santa Sabina, the forerunner of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.[6]
Similar collections of Greek patristic utterances were constructed for dogmatic purposes. They were used at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, at the Fifth General Council in 553, also apropos of Iconoclasm in the Seventh General Council in 787; and among the Greeks such compilations, like the exegetical catenae, did not cease until late in the Middle Ages. The oldest of these dogmatic compilations, attributed to the latter part of the seventh century, is the "Antiquorum Patrum doctrina de Verbi incarnatione".[7]
Finally, in response to homiletic and practical needs, there appeared, previous to the tenth century, a number of collections of moral sentences and paraenetic fragments, partly from Scripture and partly from the more famous ecclesiastical writers; sometimes one writer (e.g. Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the Great, especially John Chrysostom whom all the catenae-makers pillage freely) furnishes the material. Such collections are not so numerous as the Scriptural or even the dogmatic catenae. They seem all to depend on an ancient Christian "Florilegium" of the sixth century, that treated, in three books, of God, Man, the Virtues and Vices, and was known as τὰ ἱερά (Sacred Things). Before long its material was recast in strict alphabetical order; took the name of τὰ ἱερὰ παράλληλα, "Sacra Parallela" (because in the third book a virtue and a vice had been regularly opposed to one another); and was attributed widely to John Damascene,[8] whose authority was defended (against Loofs, Wendland, and Cohn) by K. Holl in the above-mentioned "Fragmente vornikänischer Kirchenväter" (Leipzig, 1899), though the Damascene probably based his work on the "Capita theologica" of Maximus Confessor. The text of these ancient compilations is often in a dubious state, and the authors of most of them are unknown; one of the principal difficulties in their use is the uncertainty concerning the correctness of the names to which the excerpts are attributed. The carelessness of copyists, the use of "sigla", contractions for proper names, and the frequency of transcription, led naturally to much confusion.
Printed editions
From the thirteenth century to the nineteenth, various catenas were published. Few modern editions exist, and there can be textual challenges in translating and editing them. That said, the Catena Aurea requested by Pope Urban IV and written by Saint Thomas Aquinas in 1263ff has been translated several times. Some versions are currently available online (see, e.g., archive.org). Arguably one of the best editions that is available and in English is the edition translated by Cardinal John Henry Newman and published in 1841; this edition was republished by the Baronius Press in 2013 and is still in print. The Aquinas Institute will be publishing a new translation (currently planned for 2028) as part of their Aquinas Opera Omnia project.
Among the editors of Greek catenae was the Jesuit Balthasar Cordier, who published (1628–47) collections of Greek patristic commentaries on St. John and St. Luke and, in conjunction with his confrère Possin, on St. Matthew; the latter scholar edited also (1673) similar collections of patristic excerpts on St. Mark and Job. The voluminous catenae known as Biblia Magna (Paris, 1643) and Biblia Maxima (Paris, 1660), edited by J. de la Haye, were followed by the nine volumes of Critici Sacri, sive clarissimorum virorum annotationes atque tractatus in biblia,[9] containing selections, not only from Catholic but also from Protestant commentators.
An important collection of the Greek catenae on the New Testament is that of J. A. Cramer (Oxford, 1838–44), online at archive.org. See also the twenty-eight volumes of the Migne commentary in his "Scripturae sacrae cursus completus" (Paris, 1840–45).
For the Byzantine collections of ethical sentences and proverbs of (Stobaeus Maximus Confessor, Antonius Melissa, Johannes Georgides, Macarius, Michael Apostolios) partly from Christian and partly from pagan sources, see Krumbacher, pp.600–4, also Elter, E. (1893), De Gnomologiorum Graecorum historia atque origine, Bonn{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link).
Online Catenas
Some websites host online versions of catenas, whether they be uploads of older books or original works. An example of a web original catena is CatenaBible.com, founded in 2015,[10] which provides commentary from both Church Fathers and more modern writers such as George Leo Haydock. Another example of an online version is the "e-Catena" of Peter Kirby on Early Christian Writings.[11]
↑ Shahan (1913). Cites: Edited by Cardinal Mai in Scriptor. Vet. nova collectio, Rome, 1833, VII, i, 1-73; cf. Loofs, Leontius von Byzanz, Leipzig, 1887.
Theophylact was a Byzantine Archbishop of Ohrid and commentator on the Bible. He is regarded as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, commemorated on December 31st.
Hesychius of Jerusalem, also spelt Hesychios and also known as Hesychius the Priest, was a Christian priest and exegete, active during the first half of the fifth century. Nothing certain is known as to the dates of his birth and death (450s?), or, indeed concerning the events of his life. Bearing as he does the title πρεσβύτερος "priest", he is not to be confused with Bishop Hesychius of Jerusalem, a contemporary of Gregory the Great.
Matthew 7:29 is the twenty-ninth verse in the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. It ends a two verse conclusion following the Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 12:2 is the second verse in the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.
Matthew 9:32 is a verse in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.
Matthew 12:19 is the nineteenth verse in the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.
Matthew 14:26 is a verse in the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.
A patristic anthology, commonly called a florilegium, is a systematic collections of excerpts from the works of the Church Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers of the early period, compiled with a view to serve dogmatic or ethical purposes. These encyclopedic compilations are a characteristic product of the later Byzantine theological school, and form a very considerable branch of the extensive literature of the Greek Catenæ. They frequently embody the only remains of some patristic writings.
Oecumenius is the name under which are transmitted several commentaries in Greek on the New Testament. It now appears that these were not all written by the same person nor in the same period.
Titus of Bostra was a Christian theologian and bishop. Sozomen names Titus among the great men of the time of Constantius.
Catholic dogmatic theology can be defined as "a special branch of theology, the object of which is to present a scientific and connected view of the accepted doctrines of the Christian faith."
Balthasar Cordier (Corderius) was a Belgian Jesuit exegete and editor of patristic works. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1612, and after teaching Greek, moral theology, and Sacred Scripture, devoted himself to translating and editing manuscripts of Greek catenae and other works of the Greek Fathers, for which he searched the libraries of Europe.
Minuscule 24 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), A18 (von Soden). It is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, written on vellum. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 10th-century. It has marginalia.
Minuscule 300 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), A141 (Soden), is a Greek minuscule manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 11th century. It has marginalia.
John 1:13 is the thirteenth verse in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.
John 1:41 is the 41st verse in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.
John 1:47 is the 47th verse in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.
In the Gospel of Luke only, Jesus follows the beatitudes with a set of woes, denouncing the opposite to the blessings as the source of condemnation and punishment. These woes are universal and differ from the woes of the Pharisees.
References
Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Shahan, Thomas J. (1913). "Catenæ". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites:
Ehrhardt (1897), Krumbacher (ed.), Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur (in German) (2nded.), Munich, pp.106–18{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) Bibliography and manuscript indications.
Ittig (1707), De Catenis et bibliothecis (in Latin), Leipzig
Bibliotheca Graeca (in Latin), vol.VIII, pp.639–700
A very full list of catenae is given in Harnack, Adolf (1893), Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur (in German), vol.Teil I Halfte 2, Leipzig, pp.835–42{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
For the catena manuscripts in the Vatican, see Analecta Sacra, vol.II, pp.350, 359, 405 and Faulhaber (1899), Die Propheten-Catenen nach den römischen Handschriften, vol.V, Washington, D. C.: Catholic University Bulletin, p.368 and Faulhaber (1900), Die Propheten-Catenen nach den römischen Handschriften, vol.VI, Washington, D. C.: Catholic University Bulletin, p.94.
External links
Pearse, Roger (31 March 2009), Greek Gospel Catenas, retrieved 2009-05-03 - a classification
Aquinas, Thomas (1953), Alarcón, Enrique (ed.), Catena Aurea (in Latin) From a machine transcription by Robert Busa SJ
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
