CENTURY V. YEAR 407.
INDEX OF WORKS CONTAINED IN THIS VOLUME LVIII.
Continuation of the Homilies on Matthew. col. 21 Fragment in which those fourteen generations which are numbered before the captivity are explained; as also the fourteen others which are recounted after the captivity. 793
NOTICE.
Perhaps you will wonder, benevolent Reader, why, while in all the preceding as well as succeeding volumes the Latin version of the holy Fathers of St. John Chrysostom accompanies the Greek text column by column, in this our edition of the same Doctor, the Latin page is placed merely alongside the Greek page. The cause was this, and this alone: before we had intended to weave together the complete tradition of the holy Fathers of the Greek Church, we had already, fifteen years ago, published the works of St. John Chrysostom in Latin only, and had committed them to permanent type. Since matters stood thus, and it was neither in our power to move the permanent type, nor was it in our intention to destroy the nine volumes of the purely Latin edition which had already been committed entirely to permanent type and had cost more than sixty thousand francs, we happily found this way—though not without labor and expense—of adapting these to this new edition, which thus emerges enriched by both the Greek and Latin languages.
Now, a few things must be noted concerning the edition of the homilies on Matthew itself. As we were preparing to commit to type Chrysostom’s golden homilies on Matthew, we received notice of a recent edition of this work, prepared at Cambridge by the most learned man Frederick Field. Having immediately procured this edition and examining and exploring it with the greatest diligence, we could not but easily prefer it to all others, assigning the most honorable place among critics to that most learned reviewer. For never has there existed such a sagacious and indefatigable investigator and judge of all the codices containing these homilies; no one has ever brought such light to obscure passages, such integrity to mutilated ones, such order to those that were disturbed, such purity to solecisms, and reliability to doubtful ones, bestowing health upon those that were, in whatever manner, ill-conditioned. We have, therefore, represented the Greek text just as that distinguished man had edited it, with a very few of the various readings and annotations—those which seemed of lesser importance—being omitted in passing due to, as they say, the necessities of typography. Furthermore, since the Latin translation of the Benedictines very often disagreed with our Greek text, we have corrected it in six hundred places, though sometimes leaving the dispute to the judgment of the reader. As for the notes which Montfaucon had inscribed in the margin, some we have kept intact, as they conformed to this new recension; others, where there was need and they might harmonize with our corrections, we have refined, at times remaining silent, at other times adding the subscription, EDIT., or EDIT. PATROL.
Since, however, the Latin text, preserved by us in stereotype, could not square with the Greek text because the interpretation of Anianus occupied the lower page, we have relegated this interpretation to the end of the work, and we have placed the tin plates, cut into pieces and joined together again, alongside the Greek text. And so that the numerical series of pages would not be disturbed, we have joined column 89, where Anianus ended, with the following column 175.
Paris. — From the Press of L. Migne.