During the 13th century the Latin church experienced a revival of interest in the Fathers, with many Eastern texts being translated from Greek to Latin for the first time, and thereby becoming available to a wider public. People longed for draughts of the lux orientalis, the Eastern light.
There was also an increasing hunger for access to the original message of Scripture as understood by early Christians, and to this, it was felt, the Church Fathers held the key.
It was Pope Urban IV who commissioned St. Thomas to compile the Catena (the Latin term for an anthology) in a bid to make readily available to the academic public an orthodox patristic commentary on the Gospels. A four-page dedication, addressed to this pope, prefaces the commentary on Matthew.
The Catena was printed in Rome (in Latin) as early as 1470, reprinted twenty times between 1501 and 1520, and a further forty times after that. Spanish and German translations were made in the fifteenth century, but it fell to the nineteenth century Oxford Movement to produce an English translation in 1841. Newman hoped that the Catena might be used for "private study ... and family reading", and thought it "full of thought for those engaged in religious instruction." "Nothing is more wanted in our Church than a standard Commentary on Scripture," Newman wrote during the planning of the Catena's English translation, and he was not alone in believing that this was of great importance to the Church.
The work certainly had an immense impact on the belief of the Church of England in its day. Many of the leading Anglican Bishops of the time were amongst the subscribers to the 1841 edition, as well as prominent public figures such as William Gladstone.
Anyone with a love of Scripture will find the Catena fascinating. Newman wanted the work to reach ordinary families and teachers, and it lends itself to being read alongside a daily extract from the Gospels.
The new Saint Austin Press edition contains a substantial introduction, researched and written by Fr. Aidan Nichols OP, which examines the context of the composition of the work, its translation into English, and its importance for the Church at the end of the 20th century.
Catena Aurea, by St. Thomas Aquinas.
2825 pages (4 volume set), clothbound. ISBN 1 901157 40 7.
We regret that this book is now out of print in the UK.