Houghton H.A.G. (ed.) Commentaries, Catenae and Biblical Tradition: Papers from the Ninth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, in association with the COMPAUL project

Piscataway, NJ, USA: Gorgias Press, 2016. — xxii + 350 p. — (Texts and Studies 13). — ISBN: 978-1-4632-0576-8, ISSN: 1935-6927.In 2011, the European Research Council awarded Dr Hugh Houghton a Starting Grant to lead a five-year project investigating the earliest commentaries on Paul as sources for the biblical text. This project, known by its acronym COMPAUL, was intended to build on Dr Houghton’s doctoral work analysing Augustine’s gospel citations. The aim was to instigate a better understanding of commentaries and their contribution to the transmission of the New Testament in anticipation of two major editing projects: the Vetus Latina edition of the four principal letters of Paul and the Novum Testamentum Graecum Editio Critica Maior of all Pauline Epistles being planned by the IGNTP (International Greek New Testament Project). Greek commentaries, often in the form of catena manuscripts (exegetical compilations accompanying a continuous biblical text), are one of the more complex and less examined aspects of New Testament tradition. As for individual commentators, one extreme is represented by the extremely abundant textual history of the writings of John Chrysostom, the principal fourth-century Greek commentator on the Bible, with a corresponding lack of modern editions. The opposite is embodied in the meagre Greek fragments remaining of Origen’s highly influential expositions of New Testament books. On the Latin side, the abundance of Pauline commentaries produced between the middle of the fourth century and the early fifth century not only inaugurate a distinctive Latin exegetical tradition but also constitute much of the evidence for the Old Latin versions of the Epistles, preceding the revision of their biblical text around the beginning of the fifth century which was later adopted as the Vulgate. Marius Victorinus, the anonymous author known as Ambrosiaster, Jerome, Augustine, Pelagius (and his revisors), the anonymous Budapest commentary, Rufinus’ translation of Origen’s Commentary on Romans and the anonymous Latin version of the Pauline commentary by Theodore of Mopsuestia are all of value in understanding the history and reception of the Pauline text as well as early translation practice. Among the planned outputs of the COMPAUL project was an international conference on biblical commentaries and the publication of a collaborative work constituting the state of the art in their study and textual analysis. This is represented by the present volume. This book offers an account of the state of the question regarding New Testament commentaries and catenae, combining broader surveys of different types of material with more detailed investigations of specific authors and works. Every chapter was originally delivered as a paper at the Ninth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament and revised, in the light of discussion at the conference and further research, for inclusion in the present collection. While each contribution stands by itself, the book is arranged thematically and internal cross-references have been added where particular papers treat related topics. Most of the contributions are based on fresh investigation of primary sources and, in several cases, constitute significant advances which make possible future research and further developments in knowledge.