It is idle therefore to urge on the opposite side, as if there were anything in it, the anonymous commentator on St. Luke in Cramer's Cat. p. 88.
What follows is obtained (June 28, 1884) by favour of Sig. Veludo, the learned librarian of St. Mark's, from the Catena on St. Luke's Gospel at Venice (cod. 494 = our Evan. 466), which Cordier (in 1628) translated into Latin. The Latin of this particular passage is to be seen at p. 622 of his badly imagined and well-nigh useless work. The first part of it (συνέφαγε ... ἐναπογράψονται) is occasionally found as a scholium, e.g. in Cod. Marc. Venet. 27 (our Evan. 210), and is already known to scholars from Matthaei's N. T. (note on Luc. xxiv. 42). The rest of the passage (which now appears for the first time) I exhibit for the reader's convenience parallel with a passage of Gregory of Nyssa's Christian Homily on Canticles. If the author of what is found in the second column is not quoting what is found in the first, it is at least certain that both have resorted to, and are here quoting from the same lost original:—
Συνέφαγεν δὲ καὶ τῷ ὀπτῷ ἰχθύῳ (sic) τὸ κηρίον τοῦ μέλιτος; δηλῶν ὡς οἱ πυρωθέντες διὰ τῆς θείας ἐνανθρωπήσεως καὶ μετασχόντες αὐτοῦ τῆς θεότητος, ὡς μέλι μετ᾽ ἐπιθυμίας τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ παραδέξονται; κηρῷ ὤσπερ τοὺς νόμους ἐναπογράψαντες; ὅτι ὁ μὲν τοῦ πάσχα
[Transcriber's Note: The following two paragraphs were side-by-side columns in the original.]
ἄρτος ἐπὶ πικρίδων ἠσθίετο καὶ ὁ νόμος διεκελεύτο;
πρὸς γὰρ τὸ παρὸν ἡ πικρία;
ὁ δὲ μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἄρτος τῷ κηρίῳ τοῦ μέλιτος ἡδύνετο;
ὄψον γὰρ ἑαυτοῖς τὸ μέλι ποιησόμεθα, ὅταν ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ κηρῷ ὁ καρπὸς τῆς ἀρετῆς καταγλυκαίνει τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς αἰσθητήρια.
Anon. apud Corderium (fol. 58): see above.
... ἄρτος ... οὐκέτι ἐπὶ πικρίδων ἐσθιόμενος, ὡς ὁ νόμος διακελεύεται;
πρὸς γὰρ τὸ παρόν ἐστιν ἡ πικρίς;
(... ὁ μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν τοῦ κυρίου προσφανεὶς τοῖς μαθηταῖς ἄρτος ἐστί, τῷ κηρίῳ τοῦ μέλιτος ἡδυνόμενος.)
ἀλλ᾽ ὄψον ἑαυτῷ τὸ μέλι ποιούμενος, ὅταν ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ καιρῷ ὁ καρπὸς τῆς ἀρετῆς καταγλυκαίνῃ τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς αἰσθητήρια.
Greg. Nyss. in Cant. (Opp. i. a); the sentence in brackets being transposed.
Quite evident is it that, besides Gregory of Nyssa, Hesychius (or whoever else was the author of the first Homily on the Resurrection) had the same original before him when he wrote as follows:—ἀλλ᾽ ἐπειδὴ ὁ πρὸ τοῦ πάσχα σῖτος ὁ ἄζυμος, ὄψον τὴν πικρίδα ἔχει, ἴδωμεν τίνι ἡδόσματι ὁ μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἄρτος ἡδύνεται. ὁρᾶς τοῦ Πέτρου ἁλιεύοντος ἐν ταῖς χεροὶ τοῦ κυρίου ἄρτον καὶ κηρίον μέλιτος νόησον τί σοι ἡ πικρία τοῦ βίου κατασκευάζεται. οὐκοῦν ἀναστάντες καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐκ τῆς τῶν λόγων ἀλείας, ἤδη τῷ ἄρτῳ προσδράμωμεν, ὂν καταγλυκαίνει τὸ κηρίον τῆς ἀγαθῆς ἐλπίδος. (ap. Greg. Nyss. Opp. iii. 399 c d.)
Midway between the two places cited above, Irenaeus shews how the four Gospels may be severally identified with the four living creatures described in the Apocalypse. He sees the lion in St. John, who says: “In the beginning was the Word: and ... all things were made by him: and without him was not anything made:” the flying eagle in St. Mark, because he begins his gospel with an appeal to “the prophetic spirit which comes down upon men from on high; saying, ‘The beginning of the Gospel ... as it is written in the prophets.’ Hence the Evangelists' concise and elliptical manner, which is a characteristic of prophecy” (lib. iii. cap. xi. § 8, p. 470). Such quotations as these (18 words being omitted in one case, 5 in the other) do not help us. I derive the above notice from the scholium in Evan. 238 (Matthaei's e,—N. T. ii. 21); Curzon's “73. 8.”
The lost Greek of the passage in Irenaeus was first supplied by Grabe from a MS. of the Quaestiones of Anastasius Sinaita, in the Bodleian (Barocc. 206, fol. πβ). It is the solution of the 144th Quaestio. But it is to be found in many other places besides. In Evan. 238, by the way, twelve more of the lost words of Irenaeus are found: viz. Οὔτε πλείονα τὸν ἀριθμόν, οὔτε ἀλάττονα ἀνδέχεται εἶναι τὰ εὐαγγέλια; ἐπεὶ γὰρ ... Germanus also (a.d. 715, ap. Gall. xiii. 215) quoting the place, confirms the reading ἐν τοῖς προφήταις,—which must obviously have stood in the original.