AMBROSIASTER. A commentary on St Paul's epistles, "brief
in words but weighty in matter," and valuable for the
criticism of the Latin text of the New Testament, was long
attributed to St Ambrose. Erasmus in 1527 threw doubt on
the accuracy of this ascription, and the author is usually
spoken of as Ambrosiaster or pseudo-Ambrose. Owing to the
fact that Augustine cites part of the commentary on Romans
as by "Sanctus Hilarius" it has been ascribed by various
critics at different times to almost every known Hilary. Dom
G. Morin (
Rev. d'hist. et de litt. religiouses, tom. iv. 97
f.) broke new ground by suggesting in 1899 that the writer was
Isaac, a converted Jew, writer of a tract on the Trinity and
Incarnation, who was exiled to Spain in 378-380 and then
relapsed to Judaism, but he afterwards abandoned this theory
of the authorship in favour of Decimus Hilarianus Hilarius,
proconsul of Africa in 377. With this attribution Professor
Alex. Souter, in his
Study of Ambrosiaster (Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1905), agrees. There is scarcely anything
to be said for the possibility of Ambrose having written
the book before he became a bishop, and added to it in later
years, incorporating remarks of Hilary of Poitiers on Romans.
The best presentation of the case for Ambrose is by P. A.
Ballerini in his complete edition of that father's works.
In the book cited above Professor Souter also discusses the
authorship of the Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti, which
the MSS. ascribe to Augustine. He concludes, on very thorough
philological and other grounds, that this is with one possible
slight exception the work of the same "Ambrosiaster." The
same conclusion had been arrived at previously by Dom Morin.
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