''Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum'' is an early Christian commentary on the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells the story of who the author believes is Israel's messiah (Christ (title), Christ), Jesus, resurrection of Jesus, his res ...

, written sometime in the 5th century. Its name is derived from the fact that it is incomplete, omitting a number of passages from Matthew. Its authorship was for centuries wrongly attributed to

John Chrysostom John Chrysostom (; ; – 14 September 407) was an important Church Father who served as archbishop of Constantinople. He is known for his preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and p ...

, a misconception first refuted by

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...

in 1530. Some candidates for its authorship include an

Arian Arianism (, ) is a Christological doctrine which rejects the traditional notion of the Trinity and considers Jesus to be a creation of God, and therefore distinct from God. It is named after its major proponent, Arius (). It is considered he ...

priest in

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

named Timothy; Maximinus, an Arian bishop who accompanied the

Goths The Goths were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. They were first reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is ...

; and

Anianus of Celeda Anianus (sometimes Annianus) of Celeda was the deacon of a church at a place called Celeda in the early fifth century and a supporter of Pelagius. It is not known where Celeda was: candidates include Pannonia, Northern Italy, Campania, Syria, and ...

. It exhibits a mildly

Christology, and represents the sometimes confused theology that permeated Christianity in its formative centuries. It was well regarded into the Middle Ages in spite of its theological eccentricities, but fell out of widespread study after Erasmus' critique.

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

was said to have remarked that he would rather have the completed work than to be mayor of Paris. Gustavo Piemonte has attributed two group of homilies (C1 = 24-31, Migne: 756-798 and C2 = 46b-54, Migne: 897-946) to a lost work of

Johannes Scotus Eriugena John Scotus Eriugena, also known as Johannes Scotus Erigena, John the Scot or John the Irish-born ( – c. 877), was an Irish Neoplatonist philosopher, theologian and poet of the Early Middle Ages. Bertrand Russell dubbed him "the most ...

, the ''Tractatus in Matheum''."Recherches sur le Tractatus in Matheum attribués à Jean Scot" in
The Auxiliary Resources Page on the Electronic Manipulus florum Project website
provides a digital transcription of this text from Migne's PG 56, 611-946. The is useful in dating the

Revelation of the Magi The Revelation of the Magi is an early Christianity, early Christian writing in Syriac language, Syriac. It is part of the broader set of New Testament apocrypha, religious stories of early Christian figures that did not become canonized in the ...

, a Syrian Christian apocryphon of uncertain date. The Revelation only survives as a section in the 8th-century

Zuqnin Chronicle The ''Zuqnin Chronicle'' is a medieval chronicle written in Classical Syriac language, encompassing the events from Creation to CE. It was most probably produced in the Zuqnin Monastery near Amida (the modern Turkish city of Diyarbakır) on the ...

, but the describes and summarizes an unknown book of

Seth Seth, in the Abrahamic religions, was the third son of Adam and Eve. The Hebrew Bible names two of his siblings (although it also states that he had others): his brothers Cain and Abel. According to , Seth was born after Abel's murder by Cain, ...

(the third son of Adam and Eve) that seems to match the Revelation of the Magi well. This suggests that some form of the Revelation of the Magi existed by the 5th century at the latest, so that the could summarize it. The author of the , a popular medieval work, may have been familiar with the .

References

{{Authority control 5th-century Christian texts Texts in Latin