Catena (Biblical commentary)

A catena (from Latin catena, a chain) is a form of biblical commentary, verse by verse, made up entirely of excerpts from earlier Biblical commentators, each introduced with the name of the author, and with such minor adjustments of words to allow the whole to form a continuous commentary.

The texts are mainly compiled from mainstream authors, but they often contain fragments of certain patristic writings now otherwise lost. It has been asserted by Faulhaber that half of all the commentaries on scripture composed by the church Fathers are now extant only in this form.

The earliest Greek catena is ascribed to Procopius of Gaza, in the first part of the sixth century. Between the seventh and the tenth centuries Andreas Presbyter and Johannes Drungarius are the compilers of catenas to various Books of Scripture. Towards the end of the eleventh century Nicetas of Heraclea produces a great number of catenae. Both before and after, however, the makers of catenae were numerous in the Greek Orient, mostly anonymous, and offering no other indication of their personality than the manuscripts of their excerpts. Similar compilations were also made in the Syriac and Coptic Churches.

In the West, Primasius of Adrumentum in the former Roman province of Africa in the sixth century compiled the first catena from Latin commentators. He was imitated by Rhabanus Maurus (d. 865), Paschasius Radbertus, and Walafrid Strabo, later by Remigius of Auxerre (d. 900), and by Lanfranc of Canterbury (d. 1089). The Western catenae have had less importance attached to them. The most famous of the medieval Latin compilations of this kind is that of Thomas Aquinas, generally known as the Catena aurea (Golden chain) and containing excerpts from some eighty Greek and Latin commentators on the Gospels. Thomas composed the parts of his Catena aurea treating the gospels of Mark, Luke, and John while directing the Roman studium of the Dominican Order at the convent of Santa Sabina, the forerunner of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.

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