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<i>Anonymi in Iob Commentarius</i> (review)

2008; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 16; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/earl.0.0228

1086-3184

Daniel H. Williams,

Linguistics and language evolution

Reviewed by: Anonymi in Iob Commentarius Daniel H. Williams Anonymi in Iob Commentarius. Kenneth B. Steinhauser , editor. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 96. Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2006. Pp. 421. €65. Another volume of high quality has been added to the CSEL series. Kenneth Steinhauser has produced the first critical version (since Migne) of a neglected but important document that likely originated from late fourth century Latin Homoian Christianity. While it is debatable that the document is "one of the most important pieces of Latin Arian or Homoian literature to have survived" (9), it is true that the exegetical implications of In Job have yet to be integrated into a fuller and more accurate portrait of non-Nicene theology. The Commentary extends only from Job 1.1–3.19, but it is not a fragmented text: the final admonition at the end of chapter three, which summons the reader to imitate the "beatissime Iob," is followed by a doxology that speaks of "deus pater . . . cui gloria in saecula saeculorum, Amen." This ending may perhaps provide another indication of the work's Homoian origins. Following the lead of Zeiller and Meslin, Steinhauser argues that the commentary is indeed a product of Latin Homoian "Arianism" chiefly on the basis of two passages I.11, 6–14 and I.75, 1–7. In the first, God is described as "unius infecti dei patri," without mention of the Son or Spirit, implying the Father alone is infectus. The second is more compelling. It firmly rejects homoousian teaching as tritheism and therefore filling the world with the darkness of the devil (13): "Tria cornua fecit diabolus in typum atque figuram trionymae illius sectae triumque deorum haeresis, quae [End Page 602] universum orbem terrae in modum tenebrarum replevit, quae patrem et filium et spiritum sanctum aliquando tamquam tres colit . . . ." While this is indeed paltry evidence, Steinhauser argues that both of these characteristics fit the doc-trinal sketch of what is commonly called western Homoian theology. It is true that Homoian polemic condemned homoousios as too divisive, though it should be added to Steinhauser's sketch that the Homoians condemned at Ariminum (359) any ousia language, including homoiousios (similar in substance) and the Eunomians' anhomoousios (dissimulis). With the exception of a handful of studies, the Anonymous in Iob has been largely ignored in the 20th century, perhaps because it is not a polemical work. Nevertheless, its manuscript attestation is surprisingly strong, and while the docu-ment is only three chapters long, Steinhauser has had to deal with a substantial amount of text, numbering 316 pages in the CSEL format. Its size makes the Job commentary the second longest extant work produced by the Homoians, exceeded only by the massive Opus imperfectum Matthaeum. Curiously, there is no evidence that In Iob was utilized by later writers. The provenance of the commentary is problematic. Steinhauser rejects earlier scholarship that the Commentary originated in North Africa, proposing rather that it fits best with the Homoian texts that came from the area between Pannonia and Northern Italy (pp. 14, 31), which had been the "Arian stronghold" from roughly 351–75. It is also an area that might best account for the Latin translation of a Greek original. One thinks of the Greek background of both Auxentii (of Milan and Durostorum) who had been translated from Sirmium and Durostorum to a western see without any disastrous consequences that we know of. The reader may not be convinced by Steinhauser's pronouncement that the author's exegetical method was "Antiochene" because of his more literal approach to the text. Whether an "Antiochene method" existed or is applicable to "Arians" in North Italy or Pannonia is debatable, but surely the author's occasional use of typological and figural exegesis as discussed by Steinhauser (18–19) presents a greater complexity in interpretation even if the author never uses "allegoria." This may explain, if at all, why the In Iob was attributed to Origen in six of the seven extant manuscripts throughout the middle ages. The reader will be surprised and regret the lack of an index for names or special words, although there is one for scripture and another for patristic texts. But the above...