Word Finder - commentary

definition

A series of comments or annotations; especially, a book of explanations or expositions on the whole or a part of some other work

definition

(usually in the plural) a brief account of transactions or events written hastily, as if for a memorandum

example

Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War

definition

An oral relation of an event, especially broadcast by television or radio, as it occurs

example

We listened to the football commentary while watching the match.

The learned commentary of Marckius may be specially mentioned.

Here he published his commentary on Acts (1524) and married.

This was shortly followed by the translation of Plotinus into Latin, and by a voluminous commentary, the former finished in 1486, the latter in 1491, and both published at the cost of Lorenzo de' Medici just one month after his death.

It was a short commentary on all the books of Scripture, including some of the apocryphal works, such as the Epistle of Barnabas and the Revelation of Peter.

Rashi's commentary on the Bible has been translated into Latin by Breithaupt (1710-1714); and into German (Pentateuch) by Dukes (1833-38) and others.

The commentary gives also a careful translation of the texts.

A revised edition was made by `Abd-ullatif between 1024 and 1032 A.H., and the same author's commentary on the Mathnawi, Lata'if-ulma`nawi, and his glossary, Lata'if-allughat, have been lithographed in Cawnpore (1876) and Lucknow (1877) respectively, the latter under the title Farhang-i-mathnawi.

By the 12th century the manufacture of papyrus had entirely ceased, as appears from a note by Eustathius in his commentary on the Odyssey..

His chief works were a Commentary on the Book of Psalms (2 vols., 1864-1868) and a life of Bishop Thirlwall (1877-1878).

Aphraates cites two passages from 3 Corinthians as words of the apostle, and Ephraem expounded them in his commentary on the Pauline Epistles.

The identity of this work with the Acts of Paul is confirmed by a remark of Hippolytus in his commentary on Daniel iii.

Besides the separate works already named are Resolution des equations numeriques (1798, 2nd ed., 1808, 3rd ed., 1826), and Lecons sur le calcul des fonctions (1805, 2nd ed., 1806), designed as a commentary and supplement to the first part of the Theorie des fonctions.

Some general information as to the Platonic doctrines (chiefly in a Neoplatonic garb) was obtainable from the commentary with which Chalcidius (6th century) accompanied his translation, from the work of Apuleius (2nd century) De dogmate Platonis, and indirectly from the commentary of Macrobius (c. 400) on the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero, and from the writings of St Augustine.

Bernard of Chartres, at the beginning of the 12th century, endeavoured, according to John of Salisbury, to reconcile Plato and Aristotle; but his doctrine is almost wholly derived from the former through St Augustine and the commentary of Chalcidius.

The views which he expressed in his commentary on the pseudo-Boetian treatise, De Trinitate, are certainly much more important than the mediatizing systems already referred to.

Neckam also wrote Corrogationes Promethei, a scriptural commentary prefaced by a treatise on grammatical criticism; a translation of Aesop into Latin elegiacs (six fables from this version, as given in a Paris MS., are printed in Robert's Fables inedites); commentaries, still unprinted, on portions of Aristotle, Martianus Capella and Ovid's Metamorphoses, and other works.

The passages are collected in Kimhi's preface to his commentary on the Psalms, ed.

In the latter class Kimhi stands pre-eminent; to the editions of his commentary on the Psalms enumerated in the article Kimhi must now be added the admirable edition of Dr Schiller-Szinessy (Cambridge, 1883), containing, unfortunately, only the first book of his longer commentary.

In the literature as it survives many different branches of writing are represented - homilies in prose and verse, hymns, exposition and commentary, liturgy, apocryphal legends, historical romance, hagiography and martyrology, monastic history and biography, general history, dogmatics, philosophy and science, ecclesiastical law, &c. But the whole is dominated by the theological and ecclesiastical interest.

Among these may have been the commentary on St John of which the complete Syriac version was published by Chabot in 1897.

Jerabis on the Euphrates, and wrote a commentary on the Song of Songs, a number of hymns and a biography of Severus, the Monophysite patriarch of Antioch (512-519).

Our knowledge of the life of the celebrated Latin playwright, Publius Terentius Afer, is derived chiefly from a fragment of the lost work of Suetonius, De viris illustribus, preserved in the commentary of Donatus, who adds a few words of his own.

We have also a valuable commentary (newly edited by P. Wessner) on five of the plays, derived chiefly from Euanthius and Donatus (both of the 4th century), and another of less importance by one Eugraphius.

On the other hand, he spoke with respect of Hippocrates, and wrote a commentary on his Aphorisms. In this we see a spirit very different from the enthusiasm of the humanists for a purer and nobler philosophy than the scholastic and Arabian versions of Greek thought.

How he built a church and got into trouble in so doing at Ferney, how he put "Deo erexit Voltaire" on it (1760-61) and obtained a relic from the pope for his new building, how he entertained a grand-niece of Corneille, and for her benefit wrote his well-known "commentary" on that poet, are matters of interest, but to be passed over briefly.

Another work was a commentary on Euclid (referred to by the Arabs as" the book of the resolution of doubts in Euclid ") from which quotations have survived in an-Nairizi's commentary.

In his later years he published an address read before the members of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution (1868), one on Design in Nature, for the Christian Evidence Society, which reached a fifth edition, various charges and pastoral addresses, and he was one of the projectors of The Speaker's Commentary, for which he wrote the "Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels."

The translations and notes are, of course, to be considered in the light of an instructive, but not final, commentary.

Geffcken, Lex Salica (Leipzig, 1898), the text in 65 chapters, with commentary paragraph by paragraph, and appendix of additamenta; and the edition undertaken by Mario Krammer for the Mon.

His admiration for Plato led him to write a commentary on the Timaeus; in another way it is shown by important modifications which he made in psychological doctrine.

The first volume of his well-known commentary on Isaiah (Der Prophet Jesaja), with a translation, appeared in 1821; but the work was not completed until 1829.

The commentary on the gospel of Matthew by Hrabanus Maurus was finished about 821, which is therefore the superior limit of date for the composition of the Heliand.

Tha`alibi (q.v.) and Jurjani (q.v.) were almost contemporary, and a little later came Zamakhshari, whose philological works are almost as famous as his commentary on the Koran.

The Speculum Naturale is so constructed that the various subjects are dealt with according to the order of their creation; it is in fact a gigantic commentary on Genesis i.

So long as writing materials were allowed him he employed himself in making a commentary on the Psalms, in which he restated all his doctrines.

It was adapted for Christian use by St Nilus of Constantinople (5th century), and Simplicius (about 550) wrote a commentary on it which we still possess.

It is true, he wrote no actual commentary on the Bible, but his philological works exercised the greatest influence on Judaic exegesis.

Though ardent in his pastoral work, he found time for diligent study of Hebrew and other Oriental languages, undertaken chiefly with the view of qualifying himself for the great work of his life, his Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (8 vols., 1810-1826).

His commentary on Cicero's De Inventione (in Halm's Rhetores Latini Minores, 1863) is very diffuse, and is itself in need of commentary.

For a commentary on this see the opening of the Babylonian account referred to above, which refers to the period of chaos as one in which there were neither reeds nor trees, and where " the lands altogether were sea."

The tradition was continued in the 4th century by Nonius Marcellus and C. Marius Victorinus, both Africans; Aelius Donatus, the grammarian and commentator on Terence and Virgil, Flavius Sosipater Charisius and Diomedes, and Servius, the author of a valuable commentary on Virgil.

Two treatises are sometimes erroneously attributed to him, one on the Emotions, the other a commentary on Aristotle's Ethics (really by Constantine Palaeocappa in the 16th century, or by John Callistus of Thessalonica).

Amongst his published works were a commentary on the Book of Job (1850), a translation of the Song of Songs (1852), an exposition of Isaiah xl.-lxvi.

There is no more eloquent commentary upon the wholesome results of British self-government than is to be found in Parkman's book.

Some sixty years later Rufinus, a priest of Aquileia, wrote a commentary on the creed of his native city and compared it with the Roman Creed.

The writer of the Oratorian Commentary (Theodulf of Orleans?) addressing a synod which instructed him to provide an exposition of this work on the faith, writes of it, as " here and there recited in our churches, and continually made the subject of meditation by our priests."

The learned Cambridge Commentary by Swete (The Apocalypse of John, 2nd ed., 1907) makes use of several of the methods of interpretation enumerated above.

A small commentary (no date) by Anderson Scott follows in some measure the lines laid down in Bousset and Porter.

Weiss, supported by Bousset in the second edition of his commentary, that 7-12 is a fragment of a Jewish apocalypse, of which lob-11 is an addition of our author.

Lewis M'Intyre (London, 1903), containing life, commentary and bibliography.