AMBROSIASTER

The name coined by erasmus to designate the author of a commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul that had traditionally been ascribed to St. Ambrose, but that Erasmus was convinced could not be by him. Most scholars agreed that the commentaries were quite unlike the work of Ambrose, and in 1905 A. Souter proved to general satisfaction that a collection of 127 Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti, commonly attributed to Augustine, was in fact by the same author as the Pauline commentaries. In 1908 Souter produced a critical text of this work (Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum v. 50). It was planned that a similar edition of the Pauline commentaries should be produced by H. Brewer, but Brewer died before the work was far advanced. The Maurists' edition (reproduced in Patrologia Latina v. 17) was made from 13 MSS, all of French provenance. In recent years a survey of H. J. Vogels has shown that some 72 MSS exist and that they show that there were three versions of the commentary on Romans produced by the author himself: two versions of what he had to say on 1 and 2 Corinthians and a single version of the commentary on the other Epistles, except Hebrews, for which the commentary has been supplied by Alcuin. In the Quaestiones Souter indicated that the same procedure was followed. There was a first edition of 150 quaestiones by the author himself; then a definitive 127 quaestiones; and finally, though much later, a version in which only 115 are found. Souter considered that the author worked on Romans and on 1 and 2 Corinthians and finally made the first edition of his Quaestiones. He then turned to the rest of Paul and brought out the second edition of the Quaestiones, and all this between 370 and 384. The silence of St. jerome about such an important work on the Epistles is hard to explain and has been put down to jealousy. Augustine did cite the work (contra duas epp. Pelagii 4.4.7; Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum 60:528) but ascribed it to hilary of poitiers. The Irish knew it as Hilary's, for the Codex Ardmachanus has Incipit prologus Hilari in Apostolum as a heading, and the library at Bobbio had a copy of Hilarii in ep. ad Romanos. Guesses have been made as to the identity of the author, but without achieving any firm result. He was versed in Roman law, betrayed an interest in things Jewish (but was not of Jewish origin), had lived in Rome, disliked allegorical interpretations of Scripture, wrote astringently in Latin, and had read Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Victorinus of Pettau, and Eusebius of Vercelli.

Bibliography: a. souter, A Study of Ambrosiaster (Texts and Studies 7.4; Cambridge, Eng. 1905); The Earliest Latin Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul (Oxford 1927). g. bardy, Dictionnaire de la Bible, suppl. ed., l. pirot et. al., (Paris 1928) 1:225–241. h. j. vogels, "Die Überlieferung des Ambrosiasterkommentars zu den Paulinischen Briefen," Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen. Philologischhistorische Klasse 1.7 (1959) 107–142; "Ambrosiaster und Hieronymus," Revue Bénédictine 66 (1956) 13–19; ed., Das Corpus Paulinum des Ambrosiaster (Bonn 1957). d. g. hunter, "The Paradise of Patriarchy: Ambrosiaster on Woman as (not) God's Image [Response to Egalitarian Asceticism in Rome]," Journal of Theological Studies ns 43 (October 1992): 447–469; "On the Sin of Adam and Eve: A Little-Known Defense of Marriage and Childbearing by Ambrosiaster," Harvard Theological Review 82 (July 1989): 283–299. l. a. speller, "New Light on the Photinians: The Evidence of Ambrosiaster," Journal of Theological Studies ns 34 (April 1983): 99–113.

[j. h. crehan]