Barbara Villani: The Challenge of Authenticating Catena Fragments of Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on the Psalms

An important portion of Eusebius’ Commentary on the Psalms is known only from extracts in catenae. The authentication of the single fragments assigned to a certain author by the redactor of the catena is difficult for various reasons: sometimes the abbreviation ascribing the fragment to Eusebius is not reliable; often the extracted passages from the commentary have been shortened or paraphrased; in other instances, extracts from two authors may have been combined. An edition of Eusebius’ commentary is planned within a project at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In this paper I will present the work of the editors and show, by means of some examples, how they face the afore mentioned problems.