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Marius Victorinus' Commentary on Galatians OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES General Editors Gillian Clark Andrew Louth THE OXFORD EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES series includes scholarly volumes on the thought and history of the early Christian centuries. Covering a wide range of Greek, Latin, and Oriental sources, the books are of interest to theologians, ancient historians, and specialists in the classical and Jewish worlds. Titles in the series include: The Cult of Saint Thecla A Tradition of Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity Stephen T. Davis (2001) Eunomius of Cyzicus and the Nicene Revolution Richard Paul Vaggione, OHC (2001) Ambrose: De Officiis Edited with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary Ivor J. Davidson (2002) St John Damascene Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology Andrew Louth (2002) Augustine’s Commentary on Galatians Introduction, Translation (with facing Latin text), and Notes Eric Plumer (2002) The Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption Stephen J. Shoemaker (2002) The Early Development of Canon Law and the Council of Serdica Hamilton Hess (2002) The Commentaries of Origen and Jerome on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians Ronald E. Heine (2002) Grace and Christology in the Early Church Donald Fairbairn (2003) Evagrius of Pontus: The Greek Ascetic Corpus Translation, Introduction, and Commentary Robert E. Sinkewicz (2003) Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith Union, Knowledge, and the Divine Presence Martin Laird (2004) The Suffering of the Impassible God The Dialectics of Patristic Thought Paul L. Gavrilyuk (2004) Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy The Making of a Saint and of a Heretic Susan Wessel (2004) The Byzantine Christ Person, Nature, and Will in the Christology of St Maximus the Confessor Demetrios Bathrellos (2004) Marius Victorinus’ Commentary on Galatians Introduction, Translation, and Notes STEPHEN ANDREW COOPER 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan South Korea Poland Portugal Singapore Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ß Stephen A. Cooper 2005 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Cooper, Stephen Andrew, 1958- Marius Victorinus’ Commentary on Galatians : introduction, translation, and notes / Stephen Andrew Cooper. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and indexes. 1. Bible. N.T. Galatians—Commentaries—History and criticism. 2. Victorinus, Marius., In epistolam Pauli ad Galatas. 3. Bible. N.T. Galatians—Commentaries—Early works to 1800. I. Victorinus, Marius. In epistolam Pauli ad Galatas. English. II. Title. BS2685.53.C66 2005 227’.407–dc22 2004030378 ISBN 0–19–827027–5 (alk. paper) EAN 978–0–19–827027–0 13579108642 Typeset by Kolam Information Services Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk filiae carissimae et omnibus parvulis in spem mundi melioris dedicatum est hoc opus This page intentionally left blank PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ‘What could be so magnificent as when one’s mind is overwhelmed and one comes to accept the opposing mind-set, to accept what you had earlier been intent upon wiping out?’ Thus Marius Victorinus characterized Paul’s transformation from persecutor to propagator, but he could easily have been talking about himself. To be sure, one cannot know with certainty, for these remarks made in his commen- tary on Galatians are part of a literary artifice designed to bring the apostle Paul and his teachings to life. In his commentary on Paul’s epistles, Victorinus literarily becomes the apostle addressing his audience. Because the vivid presentation of characters was a hall- mark of good rhetorical style, we restrain our impulse to read the commentator’s remarks autobiographically. Yet the ambiguities in the voice of the text—Victorinus the narrator moving back and forth into the person of Paul—leave the question open, and the fascination intact. So the conclusion of Pierre Hadot, the scholar who has done the most to bring Marius Victorinus to light in modern times, remains profoundly true: that of all the works of this many-faceted late antique academic, his commentaries on Paul are ‘the most interesting for anyone who wants to penetrate the enigma which the psychology of the converted rhetor poses to the historian’. But we will be disappointed if we expect to find direct utterances of a personal or confessional nature in Victorinus’ exegetical works. The personal psychology of their author and his conversion remain of necessity obscure to us; but these first Latin commentaries on Paul do permit a glimpse into the kind of thinking which led to the conversion of the Roman aristocracy. These were people deeply identified with and by their literary learning: the truths of the New Testament had to find an appropriate literary and intellectual med- ium to reach those who were accustomed to thinking through texts. But Victorinus’ commentaries on Paul present primarily the work- ings of their author’s trained mind, a mind which became deeply involved in the pursuit of truth in an explicit community context as the result of a religious conversion. The meagre manuscript tradition of Victorinus’ exegetical œuvre shows how he was all but forgotten by the Middle Ages as a com- mentator on Paul. Yet his attention to the apostle’s epistles was followed by more familiar names of the next generation of Latin commentators—Jerome, Augustine, Pelagius—as well as a couple of viii Preface and Acknowledgements unknown authors. The Paul they read and wrote about, however, was no dead figure of the past, but an apostle who still lived and breathed among the Christian populace. Christian art of the mid- fourth century reveals that the apostle Paul was the focus of consid- erable piety. Thus, to help answer the question, Who was Paul for Roman Christians of the fourth century?, I have turned to the art of the early church as a useful complement to the textual data. The proliferation of commentaries on Paul and the development of a distinct Pauline iconography in the latter half of the fourth century point to a spiking of interest in this apostle during this period. It is evident that Christians in Rome especially celebrated Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles, particularly alongside Peter. Both had been martyred there; and the presence of their relics enhanced the pres- tige of the Roman church in no small measure. The veneration of the two ‘princes of the apostles’, symbolizing the unity of the entire church, went hand and hand with the use of the Pauline letters in theological controversies. This last factor, no doubt, created a de- mand for systematic, exegetical treatments of this significant portion of the New Testament. Victorinus, who had long held the official chair in rhetoric at Rome and had, among his numerous works, also commented on Cicero, was the kind of person to meet this demand. With this translation of Victorinus’ commentary on Galatians, I hope to open the door of a significant chapter in the history of biblical interpretation to students of early Christianity whose inter- ests outstrip their Latin. The accompanying introduction, annota- tions, and appendices are intended to address both issues of general interest concerning early Christian exegesis and the scholarly dis- cussion of Victorinus’ commentaries. The various aspects of my research are in part an attempt to come to terms with the first phase of what has been dubbed ‘the rediscovery of Paul in the Latin theology of the fourth century’. To chart fully this development in intellectual history is a more comprehensive undertaking in the history of exegesis, one that would require a separate treatment. I hope here to contribute to that larger task through situating Vic- torinus’ commentaries in their historical and exegetical context. For basic questions about his commentaries remain—their scope, pur- pose, and influence—and their unresolved status inhibits any under- standing of the first chapter of the ‘rediscovery of Paul’ in the Latin church. My starting-point is the uncontroversial assumption that Victor- inus’ Commentary on Galatians can best be understood as a com- bined response both to what the commentator found before him in Paul’s epistle and to a number of exigencies in the commentator’s world. Some of these latter factors will have been historical events about which we are more or less informed. Others will have been of a Preface and Acknowledgements ix more internal, personal nature: the feelings, the goals, and the hopes which led him to write commentaries on the Pauline letters in the first place. Thus, because almost nothing is known of Victorinus’ activity in the church of his times, and since we have no direct access to exigencies of an internal sort, the dilemma for understanding Victorinus’ intentions in writing exegetical works is sharp.
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