Überlegungen zu Auswahlprozessen in der Überlieferung der spätantiken lateinischen Evangelienkommentare

Abstract

Lukas J. Dorfbauer: Thoughts on the Transmission and Selection of Latin Gospel Commentaries from Late Antiquity.

This paper offers a discussion of various aspects pertaining to the transmission and selection of Latin Gospel commentaries from Late Antiquity. Why were certain Gospel commentaries extremely popular in the Middle Ages and have come down to us in hundreds of manuscripts, while others found little attention and were rarely used and copied? It is argued that matters of language and style might have been more important to ensure the survival of a Gospel commentary than its contents, but that the most important factor was the authority of the author’s name attached to it. Even commentaries advocating ‹heretical› ideas could enjoy great popularity, if they were transmitted under a Church father’s name of unquestionable orthodoxy. The watershed in the transmission of Latin Gospel commentaries from Late Antiquity seems to have occurred rather early: The works lost to us seem to have been lost already by the outset of the Carolingian era.