Matthew 1-13

The Gospel of Matthew stands out as a favorite biblical text among
patristic commentators. The patristic commentary tradition on Matthew
begins with Origen's pioneering twenty-five-volume commentary on the
First Gospel in the mid-third century. In the Latin-speaking West, where
commentaries did not appear until about a century later, the first
commentary on Matthew was written by Hilary of Poitiers in the
mid-fourth century.

From that point, the First Gospel became one
of the texts most frequently commented on in patristic exegesis.
Outstanding examples are Jerome's four-volume commentary and the
valuable but anonymous and incomplete Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum. Then there are the Greek catena
fragments derived from commentaries by Theodore of Heraclea,
Apollinaris of Laodicea, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Cyril of Alexandria.

The
ancient homilies also provide ample comment, including John
Chrysostom's ninety homilies and Chromatius of Aquileia's fifty-nine
homilies on the Gospel of Matthew. In addition, there are various Sunday
and feast-day homilies from towering figures such as Augustine and
Gregory the Great, as well as other fathers.

This rich abundance
of patristic comment, much of it presented here in English translation
for the first time by editor Manlio Simonetti, provides a bountiful and
varied feast of ancient interpretation of the First Gospel.