ABSTRACT
In his seminal article on the ‘rediscovery of Paul in fourth-century Latin theology’, Bernhard Lohse presented the distinctly non-Alexandrine exegetical approach of the Latin Paul-commentators as prime evidence for Latin theologians having ‘attained an unmistakeable style which cannot simply be explained from the encounter with Greek literature’. The development of a characteristically Latin exegesis of Paul is an interesting exception to the general phenomenon in this period of an increasing Austausch with Greek Christian predecessors, ‘whereby as a whole the Latins were begreiflicherweise die Empfangenden’.1 This clearly does not hold in the case of the opening phase of Latin commentary on the Corpus Paulinum, as the commentaries of Victorinus and Ambrosiaster on the Pauline epistles would seem to have been composed independently of Greek exegetical works on Paul. With regard to Victorinus, the judgement of Alexander Souter,2 expressed in 1927, that the ‘chief source of the commentary is no doubt the intelligence of the author himself, trained in the study of language and philosophy’ has not been overturned. Such exegetical parallels as can be encountered between Victorinus’ works on Paul and those of Origen – or of the other early Greek commentators preserved in catenae – are insufficient in my judgement to establish literary dependency on previous commentaries.3
