Caesarius of Arles, Plagiarist.

The medium-sized and decently well-regarded pastor-factory I occasionally teach at was recently beset by the odd instance (or three) of plagiarism. These cases are not particularly interesting in and of themselves, although the fact that the perpetrators were students well on their way into the pulpits of America made them perhaps additionally disturbing to some of my colleagues. One of them remarked: "What are they going to do when they have to preach every week? Copy sermons from the internet?!"

Righteous indignation aside, it struck me that, historically speaking, the fine young men making up the homiletic elite would have done precisely that. Take, for example, Caesarius of Arles -- a fine example of a late-5th/early-6th century preaching powerhouse. No fewer than three volumes of his sermons have been published in Catholic U. Press's fine series, The Fathers of Church, and while he's garnered less attention than the likes of, say, Augustine, the re-translation of his works remains a growth industry. [A few too many years in academia make the urge to footnote or hyper-link -- the blogosphere's equivalent -- almost irresistable. Curse you, foul academic fiend!]

Yet a reader of, e.g., Caesarius' Sermon 83 -- a fine piece of Trinitarian exposition of Genesis 18 -- might experience an odd sense of deja vu. Should aforementioned reader then pick up a copy of, say, Origen of Alexandria's Homily IV on Genesis, that sense of deja vu would certainly blossom in astonishing ways. To demonstrate, let's start with one of Caeasarius' more interesting and passages:

"[Abraham] also served a bullock; not a tough one, but a 'good, tender one.' Now what is so good and tender as He who humbled Himself for us even unto death? He Himself is that fatted calf which the father killed upon receiving his repentant son. For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son."

Compare now Origen's treatment -- roughly 300 years before Caesarius:

"A calf is served; behold, another mystery. The calf itself is not tough, but good and tender.' And what is so tender, what so good as that one who humbled himself for us to death and laid down his life for his friends? He is the 'fatted calf' which the father slaughtered to receive his repentant son. For he so loved this world, as to give his only son for the life of this world."

As far as things that make us go "hmm" are concerned, this passage -- and its many parallels and parallels of parallels throughout the two short homilies -- should be high on our lists. If we take into account that the passages were not only translated by different individuals, but that one was originally written in Greek -- albeit translated into Latin during the latter parts of the 4th century -- and the other in Latin, the correspondences become even more striking.

What goes by the name of "plagiarism" in contemporary academic circles and is rightly reviled and punished as such is treated as "literary dependency" in the study of Late Antiquity. That's not to say that plagiarism was either unheard of or thought of benignly in Caesarius' era -- Jerome, for one, had definite views on those who sought to feather their caps with literary gems not of their own making, as his Commentary on Didymus the Blind and preface to his translation of Origen's homilies on Luke suggest. But don't take my -- or Jerome's -- word for it: Rumor has it that forgery and literary use and abuse of all kinds will get an up-to-date treatment by a certain well-known NT scholar and former Daily Show guest in the coming months.

And there you have it. A suitably nerdy introduction :)