Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Books 6-10

Prefatory Note on the Printed Editions

PREFATORY NOTE ON THE PRINTED EDITIONS The Editio Princeps of Origen’s Commentary was printed by Simon de Lueres (Simone de Lovere) in Venice, 1506.1 The text had been discovered and restored by Theophilus Salodianus, a monk of an Italian order of mendicants devoted to St. Jerome. Salodianus wrongly attributed the Latin translation to Jerome rather than to Rufinus. In 1512 Jacques Merlin with Jean Petit and Josse Bade published in Paris a four volume complete Latin edition of Origen’s writings. For the text of the Commentary on Romans Merlin used the edition of Salodianus. Again Jerome was credited with executing the Latin translation.2 Erasmus of Rotterdam’s edition of Origen was printed posthumously in Basel (Froben, 1536). He reprinted the edition of Merlin with small changes. Erasmus was the first to identify Rufinus, rather than Jerome, as the translator of Origen’s Commentary. He describes the process that led to this detection in an addition to his Annotation to Romans 3.5 made in 1535.3 Erasmus’s edition was much improved upon in the edition undertaken by the Benedictine Gilbertus Genebrardus, published in Paris in 1574.4 Two learned Benedictines, Charles Delarue and his nephew Vincent Delarue, published a great edition of Origen’s works in Paris between 1733 and 1759. This edition was reprinted by J.-P. Migne and by Lommatzsch. Delarue’s edition xv 1. For detailed information about this edition, see Max Schär, Das Nachleben des Origenes im Zeitalter des Humanismus, Basler Beiträge zur Geschichtswissenschaft 140 (Basel & Stuttgart: Verlag Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1979), pp. 153–60. 2. Ibid., pp. 191–207. 3. CWE 56:94–96. 4. For the history of editions after Erasmus, see C. P. Hammond, “Notes on the Manuscripts and Editions of Origen’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans in the Latin Translation of Rufinus,” JThS, n.s., 16 (1965): 338–57. marks “the first real advance”5 from the edition of Salodianus. They consulted not only the earlier editions but some other manuscripts. The critical edition by C. P. Hammond Bammel, on which the present translation is based, represents the fruit of years of research of the manuscript tradition of Rufinus’s Latin translation.6 5. Ibid., p. 356. 6. C. P. Hammond Bammel, Der Römerbriefkommentar des Origenes: Kritische Ausgabe der Übersetzung Rufins (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1990–98). xvi PREFATORY NOTE ON THE PRINTED EDITIONS THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH ...