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“Ambrosiaster”?* WHO COINED THE NAME “AMBROSIASTER”?* Jan Krans VU University Amsterdam 1. Status Quaestionis In New Testament and patristic scholarship, a commentator named “Am- brosiaster” is known as the author of the first commentary on the Pauline epistles, written about 380 ce.1 This Latin commentary, traditionally attrib- uted to Ambrose, but clearly not written by the famous bishop of Milan,2 is important for diverse reasons. According to Adolf Jülicher, “Seine Ausle- gung der Paulusbriefe ist nicht blos durch manche interessante Notiz zur Geschichte von Dogma, Sitte und Verfassung wichtig, sie ist die beste, die vor dem 16. Jhdt. überhaupt geschrieben ist.”3 The commentary is also im- portant text-critically, as it is independent from the Latin Vulgate; it is re- ferred to more than 400 times in the Nestle-Aland apparatus.4 The identity of its author will probably never be known,5 but that is not the theme of this contribution. The question asked here is simpler: why was this author called “Ambrosiaster,” and who was the first to do so? Traditionally, in the twentieth century at least, the coinage of the name “Ambrosiaster” has been attributed to Desiderius Erasmus, the first modern * This essay is dedicated to my Doktorvater Martin de Boer, in gratitude for the many ways in which he stimulated my scholarly work. 1 Ambrosiastri qui dicitur commentarius in epistulas Paulinas (ed. Heinrich J. Vogels; CSEL 81; 3vols.; Vienna: Hoelder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1966–1969). Another work, attributed to the same anonymous author, is Quaestiones veteris et novi testamenti (Pseudo-Augustini quaestiones veteris et novi testamenti [ed. Alexander Souter; CSEL 50; Vienna etc.: Tempsky etc., 1908]). 2 Current patristic scholarship distinguishes between authentic works by Ambrose of Milan, dubious works, and works falsely attributed to Ambrose; among the latter, the Ex- positio super Apocalypsin by Berengaudus, the Confessio fidei by Damasius, an epigram by Mallius Theodorus, De paenitentia by Victor Cartennensis, and works by “Ambrosiaster.” 3 Adolf Jülicher, article “Ambrosiaster,” in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie 1, 2 (1894), cols. 1811–12, 1812. 4 Data according to NA27. The abbreviation used is “Ambst.” Ambrosiaster could also be mentioned outside the Pauline epistles; Bruce M. Metzger (A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament [London: UBS, 21994]) does so at Acts 13:8 and Acts 28:16. 5 Current scholarship holds the anonymity to have been intentional. Who Coined the Name “Ambrosiaster”? 275 editor of Ambrose’s works.6 Sometimes even an obvious but still imprecise reference to Erasmus’ Ambrose edition can be found. In 1969, René Hoven remarked that nobody gives a precise source for this attribution, which is often a tell-tale sign for questionable scholarship. He started checking some sources, and as a result of his work, the former near consensus of scholarship could not be sustained.7 In my reconstruction, the idea that Er- asmus doubted the attribution of the commentary to Ambrose came first,8 and was then “completed” by the idea that Erasmus also coined the name. Both ideas are wrong, in fact, as was pointed out by Hoven. Even earlier, scholars such as Jülicher (around 1900) actually doubted the attribution of the coinage to Erasmus.9 In any case, Hoven’s article should have put an end to the latter attribution. 6 See below for Erasmus’ edition. The list of scholars ascribing the coinage to Erasmus is long. A few examples: Souter, The Earliest Latin Commentaries on the Epistles of St. Paul. A Study (Oxford: Clarendon, 1927), 39: “The name ‘Ambrosiaster’ was coined, apparently by Erasmus, …” (here Souter goes further than in his 1905 study); Vogels, Das Corpus Paulinum des Ambrosiaster (BBB 13; Bonn: Hanstein, 1957), 9: “Jener unbekannte Schriftsteller, … den Erasmus unverdientermaßen auf den Namen Ambrosiaster (Amst) taufte, …”; Henk Jan de Jonge, in Erasmus, Apologia respondens ad ea quae Iacobus Lopis Stunica taxaverat in prima duntaxat Novi Testamenti aeditione (ed. de Jonge; ASD 9.2; Amsterdam: North-Holland Pub- lishing Company, 1983), 144: “Er. was the first scholar in modern times to doubt the ascrip- tion to Ambrose of the Latin commentaries on the thirteen Epp. of Paul which the mss. and mediaeval authors had ascribed to Ambrose; and it was Er. who, in his ed. of Ambrose of 1527, first called the unknown author Ambrosiaster”; E. Ann Matter, “The Church Fathers and the glossa ordinaria,” in The reception of the Church Fathers in the West. From the Caro- lingians to the Maurists (ed. by Irena Dorota Backus, Leiden etc.: Brill, 1997), 83–111, 107: “… a still largely-unstudied anonymous fourth-century Roman author we (following Erasmus) know as Ambrosiaster”; Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek, Ordained Women in the Early Church. A Documentary History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2005), 16: “In the sixteenth cen- tury, Erasmus proved the ascription spurious; since then, the author has been known as Ambrosiaster”; Ian Christopher Levy, The Letter to the Galatians (The Bible in Medieval Tra- dition; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 23: “A patristic writer who did have a profound influ- ence on the later tradition was the commentator dubbed ‘Ambrosiaster’ (pseudo-Ambrose) by Erasmus in the sixteenth century, …”; Mark Edwards, “Augustine and His Christian Pre- decessors,” in A Companion to Augustine (ed. Mark Vessey; Oxford: Blackwell, 2012), 215–26, 225: “… Erasmus gave him the name Ambrosiaster because his works were wrongly bound with those of Ambrose.” 7 René Hoven, “Notes sur Érasme et les auteur anciens,” L’Antiquité classique 28 (1969): 169–74, esp. 172–74. 8 E.g. Souter, A Study of Ambrosiaster (Cambridge: University Press, 1905), 4, flatly states that “Erasmus, in the year 1527, was the first to suspect the accuracy of this ascription” (of the commentary to Ambrose). 9 Jülicher, article “Ambrosiaster,” col. 1811: “Ambrosiaster, seit etwa 1600 Bezeichnung eines irrtümlich unter die Werke des Ambrosius von Mailand geratenen Commentars zu den 13 paulinischen Briefen …”.
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