those who desert philosophy. For a sense is wont to be stirred in sinners when others mourn and lament on their behalf. According to this meaning, it is possible that the Savior called those who weep blessed, since after the affliction of mourning they will be comforted by God. But when He says, "Lest, when I come again, I be humbled," He reveals that in his previous visit to them also he experienced the same thing, although he had strongly exhorted them to repentance. Consequently, he necessarily added: "Behold, this is the third time I am coming to you," so that you may be confirmed, having the third A coming in place of three witnesses. For if every word that brings condemnation stands—that is, is held to be sufficiently suitable and firm—on the mouth of two or three witnesses, so it was necessary that, through the two visits I have made, you should be rendered firm. But since you still need to be confirmed, I have decided to meet you a third time.
CAP. XIII, VER. 11. Finally, brethren, rejoice, be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you.
After every exhortation, he advises that, by fostering concord, they should strive toward the happy end, perfected by the acquisition of genuine virtue and faith. For if they are of this mind, they will attain stability, living in peace, because the charity of God will lodge among them. For the presence of peace will establish for them a constant state. So that each one, imitating the master, may say: "Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus?" and the rest.
QUÆSTIONES AC VINDICIÆ DIDYMIANÆ SIVE DIDYMI ALEXANDRINI ENARRATIO IN EPISTOLAS CATHOLICAS LATINA Græco exemplari magnam partem e Græcis scholiis restituta, EDIDIT GODOFR. CHR. FRIDERICUS LÜCKE THEOLOGIE DOCTOR ET PROFESSOR PUBLICUS ORDINARIUS. (Particulæ quatuor Gottingæ 1829-1832, in-4.) COMMENTATIO CRITICA PRÆVIA.
I. About three years ago, when I was examining the Epistles of S. [Paul], I happened upon—among other things, toward the end of my work in interpreting the Fathers to see if any of them had written commentaries on these Epistles—and when I had almost completed [my study of] that somewhat obscure work which is attributed to Didymus of Alexandria, the *Enarration on the Epistles*
A in the Latin edition, it is found in the *Bibliotheca Patrum* at Paris, second edition (Vol. IX), the Great Cologne edition (Vol. IV), the Maxima Lugdunensis (Vol. IV), and the Gallandiana (Vol. VI). The name of the author, formerly most celebrated in the Church, moved and as it were invited me to examine the booklet more carefully. If you ask what I gained from this commentary, take this as my answer: not much, yet truly not nothing. Didymus possesses some things which no one would deny are spoken truly and elegantly. And I have indeed noted those things which seemed to contribute to the interpretation of the Epistles of John in the appendix of my commentary, which, however, if omitted, no one would miss. To speak in a word, Didymus said nothing in that commentary in such a way that, were it a bit obscure or difficult, no one else could solve it with the help of the Epistles of the Catholic Church. But indeed, do not seek the worth of my labor in these scraps of good interpretation! B What I gained from my reading is from a different category entirely, though by no means to be despised. For while I was reading the *Enarration* of Didymus more attentively, I noticed, at first almost grudgingly, in several places a great similarity and wonderful agreement with the Greek scholia which are added at the end of the edition of the *Catholic Epistles* of Matthew; soon, however, having instituted a more accurate collation of each example, I was delighted to find almost the same things expressed in the Latin *Enarration* and in the Greek scholia. Why say more? I discovered that the Greek truth of the Latin *Enarration* of Didymus on the Catholic Epistles—hitherto, so far as I know, unknown to anyone and indeed believed by all to be lost—remains in great part still extant in those scholia. I spoke then, indeed, of this [Greek: ἐμπαλῷ] however briefly, and as it were in advance, in my commentary on the Epistles of St. John (1), intending to pursue the matter more accurately—for it requires it—as soon as opportunity and leisure for it have come to me. Behold, therefore, for you, dear reader, given this opportunity, are these *Didymian Questions and Reclamations*. I know indeed that the nature and significance of this discovery are not such that it pertains to all, or that it is the concern of all, yet I hope that at least among those who have become conspicuous and celebrated among us for the study and care of understanding and restoring ecclesiastical antiquity, I may merit some gratitude for gathering, restoring, and illustrating the remains of a man who was not the least among the theologians of the elder Church, and in his time a most celebrated interpreter. In this matter, lest I seem to assent unwillingly to those who grant aid—and who in our age, as it is prone to any extreme, exceed the just measure of things and ruin a good cause—I will speak frankly in a few words about my sentiment on the exegetical use of the Fathers. Indeed, I do not wish to be numbered among those who, while they seek for themselves an easy glory in interpreting, despise the labors and studies of the Fathers in this art, and I can never agree with those who have existed in these days, excessive praisers of the ancient interpreters, who—having nothing older than that they might play with the long-since overcome infancy of the exegetical art, or pour out their own ignorance and carelessness of the ancient Church upon sacred books, sewing together parts both inept and false, recooking them into their own commentaries, in which it is right to find new things better than ancient ones—cram them in rather than interpose them with right judgment; they strive to reject us, as it were, to the golden age of the catenae. Let there be to each thing its own honor and true estimation! The use of ancient commentaries in interpreting is for us absolutely none unless it be critical. In which, where you discover things pertaining to the matter, learnedly and elegantly exposed, and entirely present—things which you will be able to use and enjoy, especially from a theological kind of interpretation—you will owe it both to piety and to doctrine toward antiquity as if it were religious to repeat these things, to make them our own, to connect them to our own: but those things which you have understood to be less true, or indeed false, it will be better to omit, or, if they seem graver, to judge the admitted things and be content with truth and religion. And so much for these things. Let us now proceed to the Didymus *Enarration* itself on the Catholic Epistles, vindicating the Greek exemplar, as much as remains, C defending it.
II. Regarding the life of Didymus, since those who have dealt with these things by mandate—most weighty authors, among whom most recently after Mingarelli (2) Guericke (3) has excelled—have administered this province excellently, we shall set forth only a few things which seem necessary according to the reason of our undertaking. It is agreed among all that Didymus, whom antiquity itself named "the blind" (since from early childhood he was deprived of his eyes), was for almost sixty years, up to the eighty-fifth year of his age, the prefect of the illustrious school of Alexandria, the successor of Macarius, a man most praiseworthy and truly admirable for his doctrine and his utterly excellent erudition in both literatures, and who, with his nearly innate blindness impeding nothing, had acquired this by continuous vigils and assiduous and laborious listening (4). He flourished in his time with many names, but especially with such praise for his exegetical art that students flocked to Alexandria from everywhere to hear such a teacher, among whom one may name before others: Rufinus, who for many years, as he himself boasts (5), heard him; Jerome; and Isidore of Pelusium. And Didymus taught not only by word of mouth (6), but also increased his praises among posterity greatly by his exegetical writings. A witness is—above others—
the most learned Jerome, who in his Catalogue (7) narrates that he wrote many and noble works by the help of shorthand scribes, commentaries upon all the Psalms, commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew and of John, in Isaiah seventeen tomes; in Hosea indeed he wrote for me three books of commentaries, and at my request five books of commentaries on Zechariah, and commentaries on Job, and infinite other things, which it would be difficult to put into one's own index.» And the catalogue of commentaries on both Testaments edited by Didymus can be excellently augmented from the commentaries of that same Jerome, in which he here and there cites individually the treatises of Didymus which he himself had used in his own. And now, omitting Didymus’s commentaries on the books of the Old Testament, Jerome himself used his small commentaries on the Epistles of Paul to the Ephesians and Galatians in his own (8). Furthermore, that Didymus wrote a commentary on the Acts of the Apostles is testified to by the fragments of this commentary collected and illustrated by J. Christoph Wollius in his *Anecdota Graeca* (9). But that nothing besides notice and a few fragments in the catenae has been left to us of these commentaries which we have hitherto enumerated, is entirely a cause for our grief. Only one, as it seems, nearly complete, in Latin, remains to us: Didymus's Commentary on the Catholic Epistles, of which we must now speak more accurately.
III. Besides Cassiodorus, a writer of the sixth century, no one testifies that Didymus wrote a commentary on the Catholic Epistles. He, indeed, in his *Institution of Divine Letters* (10), narrates at length how he himself, already an old man, so that he might assist his monks in studying divine letters, prepared nine books of the entire Holy Scripture, diligently emended and furnished with exegetical annotations taken for the most part from the Greeks. The eighth book of this exegetical library contained the Epistles of the Apostles. Concerning which, when he narrates, “In the canonical (or Catholic) Epistles,” he says, “Clement of Alexandria, the presbyter, who is also called the Stromateus—that is, on the first Epistle of St. Peter, the first and second of St. John, and of James (11)—declared certain things in the Attic tongue, where he spoke much indeed with subtlety, but some things incautiously, which we have had translated into Latin in such a way that, with certain stumbling blocks excluded, his purified doctrine could be drawn more securely. St. Augustine also treated the Epistle of the apostle James with his customary care and diligence, which I have left behind for you written in a parchment codex. But when great thought regarding the remaining canonical Epistles was wearying us, suddenly by the Lord’s bounty, there was provided to us a codex of Didymus, written in the Greek style, on the exposition of the seven canonical Epistles, B which by the grace of God, who was moved by the man who was most learned, Epiphanius, was translated.
Such is the account of this testimony, so that regarding the matter which we are seeking, nothing more valid or certain can be conceived. You could, however, in this one thing, which is unique, take a cause for doubt. But truly, what will prevent and hinder you from doing so is the history of the Didymian name after his death, once it is known and weighed a little more accurately. For it is certain that Didymus, while he lived, flourished with the praise of orthodoxy, accepted indeed by almost everyone as unstained, nay even as a fierce defender; yet not long after his death, he was touched by the same iniquitous fate as Origen, whom he followed most of all in theology, so that among anxious patrons of ecclesiastical orthodoxy, because of some Origenian opinions which he had declared in his writings, he was ill-spoken of, having been called into the crime of heresy. Jerome himself, though once a listener and admirer of Didymus, and indeed even his friend and his interpreter among the Latins, yet when he saw his own reputation for orthodoxy in danger before Rufinus, preferred to expose the hitherto intact reputation of his master to peril—being more cautious for himself than for defending him; indeed, he was the first to begin to agitate against his Origenian opinions. But as for how much the authority of Jerome prevailed in assessing the doctors of the Church among the suspicious ears of that age, no one is ignorant. Nevertheless, for some time, the glory of Didymus resisted the repeatedly leveled accusations, C because of his piety he was almost considered holy. But after the Emperor Justinian, that most fierce champion of ecclesiastical—or rather, courtly—orthodoxy, with the Origenian disputes miserably renewed at that time, had leveled his weapons against the impious Origen and his followers in that famous epistle given to Mennas, Archbishop of Constantinople, our Didymus also, in the synod held by the order of the emperor in the year 544, to wit, after their perceived Origenist blasphemies were agitated rather than examined in the manner of zealots, was struck with public and ecclesiastical anathema along with other good men. Which rash condemnation of the Origenists, since it was subsequently repeated and made, as it were, perpetual by Pope Martin in the Lateran Synod of 649, the Quinisext Synod, and finally the second ecumenical Council of Nicaea, the result was that the glorious memory of Didymus of old came into oblivion among the Greeks, and his writings, especially those which seemed to smack of Origenism more than the others, were first despised, then, being despised, nearly all perished. Hence, do not wonder that Photius, who nevertheless sustained the effort to diligently examine even the writings of heretics, did not even D [have] of our Didymus...
A mention it ever in his Library. Yet our Enarratio on the Catholic Epistles seems in some way to signify that it was little known and little used in both Churches during the fifth and sixth centuries, except for the passage of Cassiodorus cited, which clearly declares it; this is because Cosmas Indicopleustes complains (12) that the Greek interpreters of the sacred books cared little or nothing for the Catholic Epistles. Nevertheless, this Enarratio has been rescued for us from the injury of oblivion, though I do not know if it is complete. And certainly, we owe this to Cassiodorus, who searched in vain for more famous expositors of the Catholic Epistles—a man whose judgment in sniffing out the filth of heretics was not very keen—and then, truly, to the Latin interpreter Epiphanius, whose skill in purging the writings of the ancients was, in this one matter, most fortunate for us.
IV. To remove entirely any scruple for anyone doubting the authenticity of our Enarratio, it would surely do much if, in even one place, the Greek scholia, which refer to the Latin interpretation of Didymus in express terms, bore the name of the author Didymus inscribed upon them. Yet his name nowhere appears in the scholia. But do not be offended by this. For the greatest part of the scholia show no names of authors. B Yet there exists one place in the Enarratio itself (13), from which it can be established by certain arguments that it was indeed written by Didymus. For these things are read in it almost exactly: "The true Son of God is Jesus Christ, existing as true God. And consider, just as the Son is consubstantial with the Father and not the same in number according to Sabellius.... Therefore, each of these matters has had an examination, as far as possible, in other works." By these words, therefore, the author clearly declared that he had expounded more fully the doctrine concerning the Trinity against heretics in other books. Now, Didymus wrote three books *De Trinitate*, which Mingarelli the Italian (14) first published almost entire from the codex and vindicated for our author with most rich commentaries. By these vindications, it was at the same time effected that you might easily understand the author of both works to be one and the same, and that he held one and the same mind regarding the Trinity against Sabellius. Moreover, it can be gathered from the same passage cited that Didymus composed our Enarratio on C the Catholic Epistles only after the books *De Trinitate* were written. Yet since nothing regarding the time in which those books *De Trinitate* were produced can be defined by accurate evidence, it is also impossible to state more accurately when our Enarratio was written.
However, this is so full of the traces of the Didymian genius that they appear everywhere even to one searching lightly, nor could one, by a more diligent comparison of the works of Didymus, doubt the authenticity of our Enarratio any longer. In which question, even D if Mingarelli—not without some other intention, namely that he might vindicate for Didymus the books *De Trinitate*, in which the name of the author and the beginning of the work were missing in the codex he was using—managed things most excellently, it is still for us, who have obtained such a teacher, to be brief. I shall therefore dispatch with a few words. And, to pursue first the things that pertain to dogmatic doctrine, you will find everything that is considered peculiar to Didymus—regarding God as one and three, the creation and plan of the world, good and evil angels, the devil and his nature, Christ and his natures and works, the nature of man and grace, and the remaining dogmas, a list of which Guerickius has recently provided (15)—treated in the Enarratio in the same manner as in the remaining works of Didymus, either expounded more fully or lightly sketched. Out of many things, of which Guerickii’s commentary is most full, let these few examples suffice. In his books, Didymus repeatedly teaches that God is devoid of all quantity, or rather ἄποσος, and therefore is *incomprehensible* and *inaccessible* to the eyes, or rather the minds, of mortals. He brings forth the same opinion in our Enarratio so very often that he denies that God can be comprehended by any created intelligence. See *In I Joannem*, col. 1609 and elsewhere. Didymus teaches that angels are incorporeal, and therefore invisible to the eyes of our body, but that they are indeed created and therefore visible to the mind (*De Trinit. III*). In the same place he teaches that angels are the guardians of holy men; he says the same in the fragment in *Ming. Comment.*, cap. 13, in these words: *The angels who lead the holy ones to light watch over them.* Concerning the devil, he has these things in his book *Contra Manichaeos*, col. 1105: *But not even the devil himself is evil by nature, but by a turning of his own free will.* Cf. ibid. col. 1101, where, having explained the names of the devil, he subjoins these things: *If, therefore, through all that it signifies, the author of evil and first apostate is such by choice, he cannot be evil in substance.* In the same way in *Enarrat. in I Joannem III*, col. 1645, "the devil," he says, "is not a mark (*σημεῖον*) of something substantial, but of voluntary operation." To which you may add those things which are read in *Enarrat. in Ep. Judae*, col. 1648: "Nor is the devil a terrestrial substance. For he once had divine glory and the holy knowledge of God, although having turned away [from it] he fell from such great magnitude." It is shown, therefore, from the common sense which we have concerning all rational beings, that since they are free in will, and the conversion (16) of the devil was brought about, he is not evil by nature.
So far as the doctrine concerning the devil is concerned, Didymus seems the same and consistent through everything. Yet in this doctrine there is one point in which he has seemed to some to disagree with himself, and he understood the books *contra Manichaeos* to be of better fruit. Wrongly. Our interpretation is persuaded, nay demanded, both by the context of the whole passage and by the use of the word *τροπῆς* regarding the fall, or mutation into something worse, which is most frequent in Didymus. See *contra Manich.*, col. 1099; *De Sp. S. III*, p. 528.
A And the author of the Enarration. For they make him argue against the Manichaeans as if to say that the devil was once destined to be consigned to eternal fire; but they want to claim that in the Enarration he taught the exact opposite of Origen, namely, that the fallen angels, and therefore the devil, could eventually return to a better state and become participants of the salvation restored by Christ to us and to the entire rational world. The passages which seem to bear on this are two that exist in the Enarration on the first Epistle of Peter.
The other passage, which is on I Pet. 1:10-12, as expressed and punctuated in the Library, is commonly read: “If anyone has supposed the salvation sought by the prophets to be at the end of the world, which is in all and in the highest degree an object of desire, since for its sake all other things are done, but for the sake of it, nothing is done.” It is not out of place to understand this to be said also about the holy angels and simply all blessed rational beings, since they all have the desire to look into the things which are to be done at the end of the age. But if they have seen some other blessed state (through those things which have been revealed by the Holy Spirit to those who have received the Gospel) beyond that which was stated; it must be said that the angels, who were found in a certain transgression, also desire to look into it. For although some of them are wicked, yet being held by punishment [resipiscentes (17)], whence they fell, which is also promised to diligent humans, they will have the desire to look into these things even through the windows.
You easily see that this whole passage is almost so corrupted, or rather desperate, that unless it had been amended earlier, it could not be understood in any way at all. As for the beginning, it is clear that the distinction of words is terrible, or rather insane. But a certain and effective cure for this evil has luckily been prepared for us in the Greek scholia, where the same things are read thus: Εἰ δέ τις ἐκλάβοι τὴν ζητουμένην ὑπὸ τῶν προφητῶν σωτηρίαν κατὰ τὸ τέλος εἶναι, ὃ ἐπὶ πᾶσι καὶ ἔσχατον ὀρεκτὸν τυγχάνει, οὐκ ἀπεμφαίνει περὶ τῶν ἁγίων ἀγγέλων καὶ ἁπλῶς πάντων μακαρίων λογικῶν τὸ προκείμενον ἐκλαβεῖν, πάντων ὄρεξιν ἐχόντων παρακύψαι εἰς τὰ κατὰ τὸ τέλος πράγματα. Therefore, once the full stop after the word *aguntur* is removed, so that a single and continuous statement is made from the two cola, the Latin speech would flow excellently, if it were not hindered besides by these more obscure words: “when for its sake indeed all things are done, but for the sake of it, nothing is done.” These things can, if I am not mistaken, be amended in such a way that you substitute “for the sake of none” (of the things that are done) for “for no one,” and then shut off the words “for whose sake” with a small punctuation mark. With these thus restored and explained, the things which are read subsequently and at the end will be understood by you thus: Since all who are endowed with reason are led by nature and the desire for blessedness, and long to look upon those things which will happen at the end of the age, that is, the perfect salvation and blessedness through the Gospel for all who enjoy some B rational status, provided they have not been totally depraved and completely deprived of their rational nature (which is a thing that cannot even be conceived, except by those who have been deceived by the errors of the Manichaeans), the salvation to be looked forward to at the end of the world can be understood as capable of being possessed and truly even to be attained. For although some of them are wicked, yet being detained by punishment (by which they are indeed tormented, but so that they can be amended, and not be extinguished), repenting whence they fell, they will have the desire to look into these things even through the windows; that is, the most ardent desire to look into them in any way whatsoever. By which words, if I see anything, nothing else is taught than this: that the evil angels, however wicked, still are not devoid of the conscience of the better state which they once enjoyed, nor entirely without the desire of once-repaired blessedness. I would not deny that it is possible to conclude from these things that Didymus, due to his doctrine slightly inclined toward Origen, had shown himself so favorable and merciful to the evil angels that he did not wish to take away from them the hope of repaired salvation; nevertheless, until a more just cause for the charge is brought forward, no one among fair judges of the matter will condemn our author for Origenian heresy on this opinion. For he could so excuse himself as to say that the conscience of lost blessedness and the desire for repaired salvation are an increase of punishments for the evil angels.
But that a just cause for the accusation is not lacking to his accusers, the passage which is read in the same Enarration on I Pet. 3:22 proves in express words. For there it is thus: “Jesus reconciled through the blood of His cross things which are in heaven and which are on the earth, destroying every war and tumult. For soon in His descent and birth from the Virgin it was said: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace! Concisely, however, it is said here too, because when He had risen from the dead and was sitting at the right hand in the highest, having journeyed into heaven, the angels, powers, and virtues were subjected to Him. For just as humans refraining from sins are subjected, so also the superior rational beings corrected from spontaneous faults, which (18) perhaps they had, were subjected to Him, a complete dispensation having been held for the salvation of all. It is possible, however, for some to say, while refraining from such spontaneous passions, that an entire change of the subjected heavenly animals is not signified.” Who is there who does not see that this disputation of Didymus is as far as possible from the condemned doctrine of Origen concerning the *ἀποκατάστασις πάντων*?
Let us now look into that passage in the book of Didymus *Against the Manichaeans*, which they say is clearly contrary to the charge of Origenian heresy. But the passage stands in the Basnagian edition of that book, p. 213 (cap. 13). There Didymus argues primarily against those who make God the author of sin. To dispel these, among other things
he uses an argument most accommodated to the vulgar understanding: that God, the legislator and judge, since by the authority of holy Scripture (Matt. xxv, 41) He has decreed that the unjust—above all Satan—are to be delivered to punishment at a certain time, cannot even be thought to be the author of sin. In explaining this argument more accurately, he expounds the passage of Scripture just cited: "Depart into the eternal A fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," in such a way that, whereas God is there said to have prepared the fire for the devil, he bluntly denies that the devil is evil by eternity and by nature (κατ’ οὐσίαν), or that he is alien to the good God. But in order to defend the passage itself against the cavils of adversaries, who ask why God did not decree that the devil be delivered to eternal fire immediately after his fall, but only after much damage and much destruction of men, he reasons roughly thus: "If these things," he says, "are to be thought of in this way, they will either attribute to God [then], regarding how He punished and hindered evil, either ignorance or inability. But neither of these things belongs to the good God. Therefore, he did not emerge as an enemy of God without beginning, but, having been created to be good, he kept the power of virtue incomplete, while he brought the aptitude for vice into act, on account of which he was both to be punished and justly subjected to retribution after a long time."
In this whole argumentation there is nothing at all that contributes to defining more accurately the opinion of Didymus concerning evil angels and their salvation, whether it be something to be hoped for one day or something to be despaired of. Indeed, nothing is taught therein regarding the devil and his punishment such that you could gather from it by certain reasons that Didymus rejected the Origenian heresy concerning the salvation of the devil being at no time to be despaired of. In which matter it is primarily to be observed that in more than one place in his discussion Didymus speaks simply of the fire, or the punishment, of the devil, in such a way that he clearly omits the word *aionios* [eternal] which is added in holy Scripture; which thing that otherwise religious follower of Origen is not to be thought to have done rashly. To which you may add that in his books *On the Trinity*, Didymus uses the word *aionios* so very often that nothing is contained therein beyond the notion of the divine (19). They are therefore mistaken, as far as I see, and strikingly so, who judge that this passage of the discussion against the Manichaeans regarding the punishment of the devil conflicts with that manifest confession of the Origenian heresy by Didymus.
And this is sufficient and more than sufficient regarding the dogmatic character of our *Enarration* from Didymus.
V. Let us now proceed to investigate the critical character of our work, specifically that which concerns the canon of holy Scripture, which was at that time here and there various. In which matter there is one thing in which the integrity and authenticity B of the later Epistle of Peter, to the defenders of the Didymian work, is offended, nay, is vexed, and they can be vexed greatly. The passage exists at the end of the commentary on the later Epistle of Peter, where these most troublesome words are read concerning the authenticity of the same Epistle: "It is not therefore to be ignored that the present Epistle is falsified, which, although it is published, is nevertheless not in the Canon."
And first of all, it is easily understood that the sense of this rather obscure passage is almost this: The second Epistle of Peter is falsified, *notheuetai*, that is, it is denied to be Peter's, and the same, although it is published in the churches (ἐν πλείσταις δεδημοσιευμένη Ἐκκλησίαις), is nevertheless alien to the Canon (οὐκ ἐνδιάθηκος). And it is agreed among all that this Epistle of Peter was numbered among the doubtful, or *antilegomena*, by Origen and Eusebius, and then later from about the fourth century onwards it was received into the common Canon of the Church, yet so that, according to Jerome, there were still many in this very century who denied it to be Peter's (20). That Didymus himself, in his *Enarration*, stood on the side of those who would adjudicate that Epistle away from the apostle Peter could be demonstrated entirely, apart from that closing clause of the commentary, primarily by the fact that during the commentary he never names the author of the Epistle the apostle Peter, but [names] the "conscriptor of the Epistle" as if he were known to no one, and doubtful—unless it had already been correctly observed by Mingarelli that Didymus uses the same formula in his *Enarration* of the former Epistle, which nevertheless he could not even have denied to be Peter's, e.g., col. 1595. In these points, thus far, we find no offense. But it is much more difficult to understand how those words, with which the commentary on the second Epistle of Peter ends, cohere in sense with the preceding [words], joined by the little word "therefore." Let us write out the whole passage, so that the readers themselves may judge it better. "It is a wonder to many, and from these words (II Pet. iii, 5-7) it is signified that there are mundane revolutions and mutations. For they hold as follows: For the heaven was of old and the earth from water and through water constituted by the word of God, by which the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire." And after other things (ibid. 13): "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth." For they who are held by this opinion say: "An age (*aion*) was of old, and an earth without heavens (21), and the earth which now is (Gen 1), and outside these, which now are, there will be new heavens and a new earth." It is manifest to all that three worlds consist by succession, since it is written: "The heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store: and the mutation again will be similar to them which perished under the flood." But the conscriptor of the Epistle recognized these things...C ... D ...
(19) Similarly Origen, whom Didymus follows in this doctrine, establishes that there is one doctrine about eternal punishments that is popular, and another that is philosophical. When he professes his own philosophical opinion on this matter, he does not say that eternal punishments for evils are eternal in the sense that there is no end to them at all, but rather that they are more severe and long-lasting, by which, as immense ages pass, sins are, as it were, burned out of the souls of creatures, not, however, that the creatures themselves are annihilated. Cf. Huet. Orig. 1, 11, § 20; Guericke, *De schola Alex.* II, p. 297. (20) See the commentary of Olshausen. On the integrity and authenticity of the later Epistle of Peter, p. 1. (21) That is, not without heavens.
A proof from the words of Jesus concerning the consummation of the age, as follows [prolatis (22)]. For as in the days of Noah, men were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, selling, buying, planting, building, until the day that Noah entered into the ark and the flood came and took them all (23)... so will it be in the presence of the Son of man. But he discourses further on these words, when he says: "By fire this creation which is now seen is to be dissolved." For he says that the day of judgment comes secretly as a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a great rush and without delay, the elements being melted by the fire brought upon them, after which, the heavens having been amputated at the root, new heavens and a new earth will follow, in which the righteous shall possess the justice and the promises of God in their own dwelling place. It is not, therefore, etc.
It is clear from these things that Didymus, because of his inclination toward the cosmological opinions of Clement and Origen (24), was offended in the highest degree that the author of the Epistle, not content with those things which Christ himself had said in general concerning the consummation of the age, dared to teach further things, namely, that the whole creation which is now seen is to be deleted and dissolved at the root by fire (25). And it seems that Didymus fostered the opinion of those who thought that while the form of the world would once be changed or rather amended by the conflagration of worldly fires, the substance of things or matter itself would remain immutable (26). Therefore, those things which in the Petrine Epistle seemed to be taught in almost explicit words contrary to his own opinion were displeasing to him. But lest he should seem too audaciously to oppose apostolic authority, he added that clause, by which he might warn C readers that that opinion, which might seem strange and full of offense to many, although it had been published in the Epistle, yet, because this same thing was held to be falsified, it rested on no canonical authority at all. If this interpretation of our passage is true, everything hangs together very well. But there were those who said that Didymus, by narrating Peter's opinion, had made it his own. Let them see for themselves how they defend the clause. Basnage, when he did not perceive the meaning of the passage, thought that the things which are read at the end of the commentary were badly stitched on by a foreign hand. And rightly so, indeed, provided it could be proven that Didymus had given his assent to the argument of the Epistle; although not even so do I understand by what reason or for what cause those things could have been stitched on D [to the] narration of Peter, you would say it was so mutilated that, among many other things, those things especially had perished, or were omitted by the Latin interpreter, by which the clause of the commentary would be consistent. But you will have the matter made easier in the way I mentioned above. It is indeed true that Didymus, if he himself wrote that clause, could seem to be inconsistent with himself herein, in that he attributed the Epistle which is called Petrine to the apostle Peter, [a fact] undoubted in other books (27). But indeed I am not so moved by these things as to assent rashly to Mingarelli (28), who suspects, if I see it correctly, that the whole narration of the other Epistle of Peter, being very brief indeed and imperfect, was either not Didymus's at all, or was interpolated by those whose interest it was either to obtrude a perverse doctrine or to cover the name of Didymus with infamy many years after his death, or [that] in the end, when he wrote his books *De Trinitate* in the last years of his life, he had cast off the opinion which he had embraced before, or indeed all hesitation. For that fertile abundance of various conjectures of Mingarelli, which I fear the fear of the priest may have made, seems to me indeed more religious than true—namely, lest the Petrine name, famous before many others, should be wanting to the Church in defending the authority of that Epistle. You will truly explain the knot of the matter, which is entirely present, and the scruple, more easily thus: by saying that Didymus disputed otherwise concerning that Epistle for another kind of teaching, economically. In which matter he followed Origen, so that in questions especially exegetical, according to the reason of his undertaking, he would open up the critical causes of the canon, but in dogmatic and homiletic matters, lest he should offend the common people, he kept more cautiously the common custom of the ecclesiastical Canon for himself, untouched.
VI. The method of our work is such that it everywhere reflects the method of Didymus, namely the Alexandrian, or rather the Origenian, yet so tempered that in the books of the N.T. at least it abstains from an excessive study of allegories. The grammatical and historical manner of interpreting, as in his commentaries, so also in our narration he has not indeed neglected; nay, he sometimes has things which are most useful to it. In which, however, take care not to apply the measure of our art to the estimation of the exegetical works of the older Church. For the ancient Greek theologians, when they [read] the books of the N. [Scripture... D].
while they still possessed the living language, understood them more easily than they interpreted them by philological art. They did not, indeed, despise grammatical principles—nay, where it seemed necessary to them, they sometimes explained them—but in interpreting, they principally aimed at probing the subject matter and the sentiments of the Holy Scriptures, and once probed, at accommodating them to life and the school. Yet they did this in such a way that it would be entirely wrong for us, according to our more advanced theological art, to follow them. Didymus, in his interpretation, followed Origen, who was the first to reduce the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures into the form of an art, in such a way that he collected the individual methods and causes of interpreting, and directed those collections toward that end which seemed to contain the entire theological interpretation; so that from the Holy Scriptures—which, in that age, were considered to breathe and conceal in every single word the Word and Spirit of God—the Christian doctrine could be more fully and fruitfully constructed, defended, and applied to the life of men. A Didymus, addicted to this type of interpretation by the custom of the Alexandrian school, placed the so-called theological causes as the chief elements in his interpretation; and he is entirely concerned with elucidating these, both in all his commentaries and especially in the Enarratio of the Catholic Epistles.
Hence I would by no means deny that our Enarratio, if we estimate it by the custom of that age, is a true commentary. In which matter I cannot help but contradict Guericke, who argued that it is a freer and somewhat select explanation, not of the individual words and sentiments, but only of those which it pleased Didymus to illustrate more copiously. If this opinion of Guericke were true, you could by the same right deny that Didymus wrote a commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. Although there is nothing left to us of that commentary besides exegetical selections, the manifest form of these selections is such that I agree with Wolf, who by suitable arguments proved that Didymus wrote a commentary on the Acts of the Apostles extending through the whole book (29). In this question, something most grave must not be passed over: that the Enarratio has not been left to us in its entirety, but is mutilated in many places, as it seems; concerning which matter we shall soon have to discourse more fully.
Moreover, our Enarratio has this peculiarity: that in interpreting, it everywhere touches upon and refutes the Manichaeans, especially their wicked errors, even in those places where there seems to be almost no cause or subject matter present for arguing against them. And see how in these things also the habit and character of Didymus’s Enarratio reveals itself to us. For he held the heresy of the Manichaeans in such abhorrence that, besides the individual book he wrote about it, he even in his exegetical treatises—e.g., in his commentary on the Acts of the Apostles—in accordance with the pugnacity of that time against heresies, B recurred repeatedly to refuting it (30). And Mingarelli, indeed, when he understood that Didymus in our Enarratio was almost excessive in noting and refuting the errors of the Manichaeans, conjectured that it was composed for that purpose, "to refute the pestilential heresy of Manes." You could by the same right conjecture that Didymus wrote his Enarratio against the Arians or the Sabellians, whom he repeatedly noted. But you will easily be able to dispense with this conjecture. For all those things which seem to tend this way will be explained much better by the polemical method of explaining—or rather, applying—Holy Scripture which men of that age were wont to use. And truly, there is nothing else contained in our book by which this conjecture of Mingarelli can be supported or defended.
These things having been set forth, if any doubt concerning the integrity of our Didyman work still resides in you, I would have you note—to pluck it entirely from your mind—the interpretations of certain places in the Catholic Epistles which are repeated in other books by Didymus with a certain distinctiveness and constancy; which, to spare time, we shall note below at the Enarratio itself.
VII. We hinted above that we greatly doubt the integrity of our work, as it is now held. But in order that you may not believe this to have been done by us rashly, come, let us inquire more accurately into what the reasons for this doubt might be.
And first, indeed, the more attentively I read our Enarratio, the more I seem to have missed the connection and continuity of a commentary in many places. Nor can I help but suspect that there are omissions or gaps present, whether larger or smaller. As far as the smaller gaps are concerned, the first person who published our work already observed well in general that some things were lacking in it, though only a few (51); yet he did not indicate the places which seemed poorly sane or full of gaps. Gallandius did this with the sagacity and diligence to which he was accustomed. But if such things are indeed missing, they pertain to the fault of the copyist, from whose manuscript book—which is the only one so far discovered, and which, while very ancient, is most negligently made—our Latin Enarratio was expressed. But lest we rashly exaggerate the fault of the copyist, the first editor himself seems not infrequently to have brought in a false appearance of gaps where there are none, in that he poorly transcribed the true reading of the manuscript book and, as it were, hid the integrity of the connected discourse with the worst possible punctuation of the words. We shall note examples of both kinds below.
C The question regarding the larger gaps or omissions which are detected in our commentary is more serious. For the inequality of the interpretation, now long to the point of nausea, now shorter—especially in the latter Epistle of Peter and also the Epistle of James—troubles me so badly, or rather offends me, that I can scarcely believe it was left to us in its entirety.
believe that the Enarratio has been left to us in its complete state, nor will I ever allow myself to be persuaded that Didymus was so little consistent with himself in the Greek commentary, and so little like himself, that if he were interpreting the seven Catholic Epistles in one continuous draft—a thing which you might not doubt—he would decorate some parts with overly prolix and indeed extraneous questions, rather than overburden them, while hardly or even barely touching upon others with his annotation. Additionally, comparing the fragments of the Greek commentary that have been left to us with the Latin Enarratio more accurately, we are almost forced to suspect that the Greek copy was much longer than the Latin. Clearer examples of this fact will be provided by the annotation to the Enarratio, which is hereafter to be placed before us. A Why say more? I will say what I feel. Epiphanius, who made our commentary Latin from the Greek, seems to me to have composed a summary catena from it, as was the custom at that time, in such a way that he omitted at will and as it were inverted those things which seemed to him to have something of an offense, or to be less necessary or more obscure. Which is wonderfully confirmed B by the suspicion that Cassiodorus himself admits, who was the author for Epiphanius of the interpretation or Latin version of Didymus, that he ordered the outlines of Clement of Alexandria to be translated in such a way that, as they seemed to contain many things that were not cautiously expressed, the offensive parts having been excluded, the doctrine might be more safely drawn from them. For do you think that for Didymus, who had long since incurred the charge of Origenian heresy among the common people, it happened as it did for the more fortunate Clement, that his Enarratio, under the auspices and hands of Epiphanius—with the task of cleaning it up almost commanded—was published among the Latins undiminished and intact? You might indeed, from the passage of Cassiodorus cited above, conjecture by your own right that the Greek codex of the Enarratio which was offered to Cassiodorus did not contain the whole of it, but had long before been reduced by the Greeks into a compendium of a catena. I would not object to that conjecture, provided that the form and composition of the Enarratio were such as the Greek catenae usually are—more accurate and more uniform. Wherefore, the mutilation or compendium of our work, if any such has been done, should more rightly be blamed upon Epiphanius.
DIDYMUS THE ALEXANDRIAN: LATIN ENARRATIO ON THE CATHOLIC EPISTLES
Nunc primum cum fragmentis Græci exemplaris suis locis interpositis edita.Having set forth those things which seemed necessary to be premised concerning the authority, authenticity, and method of the Didyman Enarratio, let us now proceed to prepare the justification itself of this Enarratio from the Greek scholia.
And I had initially intended to arrange only the Greek fragments collected from the scholia alongside the Latin ones, expressed side-by-side, so that from the mutual agreement of both texts the truth of my discovery might be easily apparent to everyone. But having weighed the matter more carefully, and realizing that by this path it would not be possible to sufficiently discern the mutual relationship of the Greek scholia to the Latin exemplar, nor could an informed judgment be brought by readers regarding the nature and character of the Enarratio itself, I changed my plan. And so, the better to adorn the province of defender which I have taken upon myself, I decided hereafter to publish the entire Enarratio, having been more accurately revised and augmented with the Greek fragments inserted in their proper places. In which task I considered it my primary duty to ensure that the Latin Enarratio should come forth more purified, as much as I could, from the errors with which it teemed, almost countless owing to the carelessness and negligence of those remarkable first editors. And so that I may explain a few things more accurately regarding the method of my critical task, it will be occupied partly with correcting the punctuation of the words, which the first editors handled very poorly, and partly with restoring readings for the insane ones, where possible, with better ones. In this business, Gallandius occupied no small part of the labor, and was the first to attempt to heal the passages he understood to be corrupt, either by changing the punctuation or the reading. He had, indeed, no codex as an authority in this, but used only his own ingenuity and conjectural art, sometimes with great success. In order, therefore, to save at least some portion of my labor, I have arranged for the text of the Enarratio to be rendered from Gallandius's more amended edition. But what he annotated is arranged in such a way that, if I were to omit it, I would seem to myself to be lacking in my own edition. And so, no one will wonder that the critical annotation of Gallandius has been repeated by me and interposed with my own. Nor did he indeed complete the whole thing; rather, he left much for others to restore, if it might be possible to do so better. If this...
if it has fallen to us to be more fortunate than Gallandi, it is in no small degree owed to the Greek scholia, which we have used quite often as remedies for the true Latin version, both in discovering and in correcting its readings and punctuation. But just as there is no small help and, as it were, a remedy found in the Greek scholia for amending the Latin version, so too there are not a few points in the Latin version that we were able to use to the best advantage in restoring the text of the Greek scholia, which is sometimes corrupt. These scholia, although published from sufficiently good and older manuscripts [(33)], yet at times contain individual corrupt words or a badly jumbled order of sentences, which leave one in doubt. Matthaei, the editor, indeed discerned well by the acuity of his own talent most of these corruptions and defects, and sometimes attempted with excellent conjecture to alleviate them; yet, since he was unaware that a Latin translation of the Didymian scholia survived, he left many things, which seem most certain to be repaired from it, either left entirely untouched or not healed by later care. Our critical notation will supply examples of this—what power the Latin version has in correcting the Greek scholia—repaying it, as it were, with grace for the salvation sought by it from these sources. And so much for these matters.
BRIEF ENARRATION OF DIDYMUS THE ALEXANDRIAN ON THE EPISTLE OF BLESSED JAMES THE APOSTLE
A CAP. 1, VERS. 1. ‹James, a servant of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in the dispersion, greeting.› Just as men who crave mortal glory place before others the honors they are thought to possess in their official records, so holy men in the Epistles which they write to the Churches primarily proclaim themselves to be servants B of our Lord Jesus Christ, judging this title to stand above the kingdoms of the whole world. For rightly does James, the apostle of the circumcision, write to those ‹who are of the circumcision,› just as Peter, since he is proven to be their apostle, writes to the Jews established in the dispersion. For these things which are written to them can also be adapted to those who are Jews secretly and spiritually; for even John, being an apostle along with James and their like, had a contemplation in the Apocalypse concerning the spiritual Israelites and their tribes.
VERS. 2, 3. ‹Count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience: but let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.› For the most perfect courage and endurance, exhorting C as he follows it, he calls them brethren, and not children, nor sons, to whom he writes. For how should they not be perfect, who not only without sadness, but even with joy for Christ’s sake bear temptations? For whoever bears various temptations with delight, the most approved work follows, from which also both perfect patience and principal fortitude are corrected. And so this patience is known to be the perfect work of one who struggles well: which work now comes to pass when it is brought to fulfillment, not for any other reason, but by divine charity. For what greater endeavor is there than that someone should be perfect, and have all virtues, by which he is consistently driven, so that to those who possess them no want should arise? Thus, similar to this is that saying: ‹Tribulation produces patience, and patience probation, and probation hope, and hope does not confound.› For it is proven that in these discourses of the apostles, there is a difference of words, not of meanings.
VERS. 12. ‹Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been tested, he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.› After he had sufficiently invited them, with joy, to endure temptations, as a bearable work, and to be held by perfect patience—which are done for their own sake, not on account of anything else—by another warning he strives to persuade them by the promises, so that the present things might be corrected: he says that he is blessed who endures temptation. It shall happen, he says, for whoever has bravely undertaken the contest, that he is a perfect man and exercised in all things; but he who...