Incomplete Commentary on Matthew ─ Opus Imperfectum

In the translator's introduction to this volume, James Kellerman relates the following story: As Thomas Aquinas was approaching Paris, a fellow traveler pointed out the lovely buildings gracing that city. Aquinas was impressed, to be sure, but he sighed and stated that he would rather have the complete Incomplete Commentary on Matthew than to be mayor of Paris itself.

Thomas's affection for the work attests its great popularity during the Middle Ages, despite its significant missing parts---everything beyond the end of Matthew 25, with further gaps of Matthew 8:11-10:15 and 13:14-18:35. Despite the gaps, what remains is quite lengthy, so much so that we offer the work in two volumes, comprising fifty-four homilies. While the early fifth-century author displays a few Arian propensities in a handful of passages, for the most part the commentary is moral in nature and therefore orthodox and generic. The unknown author, who for several centuries was thought to be John Chrysostom, follows the allegorizing method of the Alexandrians, but not by overlooking the literal meaning. His passion, above all, is to set forth the meaning of Matthew's Gospel for his readers.

Here for the first time this ancient work is made available in English, ably translated by James A. Kellerman and edited by Thomas C. Oden.

"The announcement of Inter Varsity's series Ancient Christian Texts, to complement the highly successful Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, is good news, in the richest sense of that term. The burst of renewed interest in the way the fathers of the church read, preached and prayed the Scriptures is a blessing for the church and for scholars. The projected volumes of Ancient Christian Texts represent an excellent selection of patristic exegetical works, some of which will be available for the first time in English. This undertaking will be a great service to all who love the Bible."Joseph T. Lienhard, S.J., Professor of Theology, Fordham University

Ancient Christion Texts is a series of new translations, most of which are here presented in English for the first time. The series provides contemporary readers with the resources they need to study for themselves the key writings of the early church. The texts represented in the series are full-length commentaries or sermon series based on biblical books or extended scriptural passages.

Ancient Christian Texts extends the ecumenical project begun with the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, promoting a vital link of communication between today's varied Christian traditions and their common ancient ancestors in the faith. On this shared ground, we gather to listen to the pastoral and theological insights of the church's leading theologians during its earliest centuries.

Many readers of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture have wished to read the full-length works from which excerpts were selected. Several of those texts have not been available in English before or have existed only in cumbersome English in isolated libraries. Thomas C. Oden and the Institute for Classical Christian Studies have thus sought to make more of these texts available to the general reading public.

The volumes, though not critical editions, provide notes, where necessary, to acquaint general readers with the background necessary to understand what the ancient authors are saying. Preachers, pastors, students and teachers of Scripture will be refreshed and enriched here by the ancient wisdom of the church.

James A. Kellerman (Ph.D., Loyola University---Chicago) serves as pastor of First Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Chicago, Illinois, and as adjunct assistant professor of Latin at Concordia University---Chicago.
Gerald L. Bray (Ph.D., University of Paris---Sorbonne) is director of research for The Latimer Trust, based in London, and a research professor at Samford University, teaching in the Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author of The Doctrine of God, Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present and Creeds, Councils and Christ. He is editor for Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volumes on Romans, 1-2 Corinthians and James---Jude as well as volume editor for We Believe in One God in the Ancient Christian Doctrine series. A priest of the Church of England, Bray has also edited the post-Reformation Anglican canons.
Thomas C. Oden, formerly the Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Theology at The Theological School, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, is the general editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. The author of numerous books, including a highly regarded three-volume systematic theology, he also serves as director of the Center for Early African Christianity.