Primary source · Latin
Fortunatianus, Commentary on the Gospels
Fortunatianus of Aquileia · c. AD 340–355
What this text is
Jerome asked to borrow it and later sniffed at its 'rustic speech'; then it vanished for a millennium and a half, surviving only as three snippets. RECOVERY: in 2012 Lukas Dorfbauer recognized the full text hiding in plain sight in Cologne Cathedral codex 17, an anonymous Carolingian copy — the oldest Latin exegesis of the Gospels, back from the dead.
Profile of Fortunatianus of Aquileia →
Public-domain translations
Working translation (from the Latin, CSEL 103)
[The commentary reads Matthew — and the fourfold gospel — in brisk allegorical chapters; its Old Latin citations preserve a pre-Vulgate text of high value.]
Manuscript witnesses
Cologne, Dombibliothek 17
early 9th c.Anonymous Carolingian copy recognized by Dorfbauer as the lost commentary; two further partial carriers surfaced after.
CSEL 103 (Dorfbauer)
2017First edition, with the identification dossier; an open-access English translation (Houghton) accompanied it.
Provenance
Aquileia; the earliest surviving Latin gospel commentary
Editions & scholarship
Critical editions and standard translations behind the text above.
- Fortunatianus Aquileiensis: Commentarii in evangelia (CSEL 103)Lukas J. Dorfbauer (ed.), 2017The critical edition of the recovery.
- Fortunatianus of Aquileia: Commentary on the Gospels (English translation)H. A. G. Houghton, 2017Open-access translation with introduction to the Old Latin gospel text.