Sarah Corrigan: Anonymous Authority: Collating Versions and Compiling Sources in In Pentateuchum Commentarii and Its Manuscripts

This paper presents the initial results of an ongoing study investigating the structure and content of the seventh- to eighth-century commentary on the first five books of the Bible, In Pentateuchum commentarii(PL 91.189-394). With a core text based principally on the work of Origen and Isidore, the β recension of this work contains many passages introducing material that is the original work of the anonymous medieval author-compiler(s) and further material that is drawn from relatively unconventional sources. In response to the unclear origin and transmission of this text, this paper focuses in particular on the evidence for the use and adaptation of the commentary found in this recension’s three extant manuscripts. Among other features, these manuscripts, two of which were produced in the ninth century, one in the twelfth, reveal the collation of more than one version of the commentary. This research contributes to an understanding of the text, its compilers, and its readers, and indeed the cultural context in which it travelled. It also speaks to the current debates concerning the classification of Hiberno-Latin exegetical works.