Catena Aurea

Catena Aurea ("The Golden Chain") is a collection of comments from the church fathers on each verse of the four gospels. Pope Urban IV commissioned Thomas Aquinas to compile the commentaries of the church fathers and these books were the result. Although the first volume, on the book of Matthew, was started at the end of 1262 or beginning of 1263 and completed before the Pope's death in October of 1264, the other three books were written after his passing, between 1265 and 1268.

The books fit into the tradition of the catenas, which were efforts to compile the comments of the patriarchs of the faith. To this end, Aquinas brought together the writings of at least 57 Greek and 22 Roman church fathers within the Catena Aurea, introducing a number of yet unknown Greek patriarchs to the west.

Copies of the Text

• Printable PDF version used in the Bible study
• English translation of Gospel of Mark commentaries at CCEL
• Original Latin text of the Gospel of Mark commentaries

External Links

• Short introduction to the book
• Article from British Critic
• Longer introduction to the book with more history (German)