AMBROSIASTER  . A commentary on St

Paul's epistles, " brief in words but weighty in matter," and valuable for the criticism of the Latin text of the New Testament, was -long attributed to St Ambrose . Erasmus in 1527 threw doubt on the accuracy of this ascription, and the author is usually spoken of as Ambrosiaster or pseudo-Ambrose . Owing to the fact that Augustine cites part of the commentary on Romans as by " Sanctus Hilarius " it has been ascribed by various critics at different times to almost every known Hilary . Dom G . Morin (Rev.d'hist. et de lift. religieuses, torn. iv . 97 f.) broke new ground by suggesting in 1899 that the writer was Isaac, a converted Jew, writer of a tract on the Trinity and Incarnation, who was exiled to Spain in 378-380 and then relapsed to Judaism, but he after-wards abandoned this theory of the authorship in favour of Decimus Hilarianus Hilarius, proconsul of Africa in 377 . With this attribution Professor Alex . Souter, in his Study of Ambrosiaster (Cambridge Univ . Press, 1905), agrees . There is scarcely anything to be said for the possibility of Ambrose having written the book before he became a bishop, and added to it in later years, incorporating remarks of Hilary of Poitiers on Romans . The best presentation of the case for Ambrose is by P .

A . Ballerini in his

complete edition of that father's works . In the book cited above Professor Souter also discusses the authorship of the Owes-hones Veteris et Novi Testamenti, which the MSS. ascribe to Augustine . He concludes, on very thorough philological and other grounds,'that this is with one possible slight exception the work of the same " Ambrosiaster." The same conclusion had been arrived at previously by Dom Morin .