Via Religion News Service:
The earliest Latin commentary on the Gospels, lost for more than 1,500 years, has been rediscovered and made available in English for the first time. The extraordinary find, a work written by a bishop in northern Italy, Fortunatianus of Aquileia, dates back to the middle of the fourth century.
The biblical text of the manuscript is of particular significance, as it predates the standard Latin version known as the Vulgate and provides new evidence about the earliest form of the Gospels in Latin.
Despite references to this commentary in other ancient works, no copy was known to survive until Lukas Dorfbauer, a researcher from the University of Salzburg, identified Fortunatianus’ text in an anonymous manuscript copied around the year 800 and held in Cologne Cathedral Library. The manuscripts of Cologne Cathedral Library were made available online in 2002.
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5 comments:
Note: The English translation of Fortunatianus Aquileiensis's Gospel Commentary is available (for free) here.
What gospel does it cover, or does it cover all four of them?
Got as far pages 11-12 where Mary "full of grace" and "virgin" NOT "young woman" are discussed. This is a gold mine of apologetics for how people thought so close the time of Jesus.
"For Isaiah had said that God himself [320] would give a sign and, as if he had been questioned what that sign was, he replied: Behold, a virgin will conceive in her womb and she will bear a son and so on.81 After the seventy-two translators had translated the whole Law from Hebrew into Greek at the order of Ptolemy, working separately but as if with one voice and account, some corruptors and scriptural interpolators from among the Jews made this paragraph read not ‘virgin’ but ‘young woman’.82 For what sign would the Lord be said to give, [325] if a young woman was with child from a man?"
I read parts of this a few days ago. There was no commentary on Matthew 16 - Peter as the Rock. To me that's a reminder that they simply didn't have the same apologetic needs in the early Church that we do today.
vladimir998
In regard to what WWWW. stated, the same position is found in Eusebius of Caesarea Commentary on Isaiah (ACT series) and Jerome's Commentary on Isaiah (ACW series #68). I believe Irenaeus in Book Three of Adversus Haeresies (ACW #64) and Jerome in his Commentary on Matthew also addressed this (FOTC series #117) address the "Almah/Virgin/Young Woman" issue as well. When Heine completes his translation of Origen's Commentary on Matthew, we will see if there is anything there, but as both Eusebius and Jerome used Origen's lost commentary on Isaiah as their sources, it is likely he held the same position as Jerome and Eusebius.
I do not know what Cyril of Alexandria said in his Commentary on Isaiah, but as he used Jerome's work as one of his sources, I presume, he, too, held the same position as Jerome on this issue.
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