Alexandria and Antioch: Exegetical Cultures in Late Antiquity: Syllabus 2016.docx (original) (raw)
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Patristic Exegesis: The Myth of the Alexandrian-Antiochene Schools of Interpretation
Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry, 2019
The notion that there existed a distinction between so-called "Alexandrian" and "Antiochene" exegesis in the ancient church has become a common assumption among theologians. The typical belief is that Alexandria promoted an allegorical reading of Scripture, whereas Antioch endorsed a literal approach. However, church historians have long since recognized that this distinction is neither wholly accurate nor helpful to understanding ancient Christian hermeneutics. Indeed, neither school of interpretation sanctioned the practice of just one exegetical method. Rather, both Alexandrian and Antiochene theologians were expedient hermeneuts, meaning they utilized whichever exegetical practice (allegory, typology, literal, historical) that would supply them with their desired theology or interpretive conclusion. The difference between Alexandria and Antioch was not exegetical; it was theological. In other words, it was their respective theological paradigms that dictated their exegetical practices, allowing them to utilize whichever hermeneutical method was most expedient for their theological purposes. Ultimately, neither Alexandrian nor Antiochene exegetes possessed a greater respect for the biblical text over the other, nor did they adhere to modern-day historical-grammatical hermeneutics as theologians would like to believe.
Modern Theology, 2020
The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation (2019) should be viewed as a definitive new tool for understanding the contextual concerns, literary genres, and shifting ideological principles that generated Early Christian biblical exegesis. This review essay explains why the new Handbook is distinct among tools of its kind, and highlights some of its major benefits for encountering and engaging the ancient resources of Christian theologies on their own terms. This collection of essays may be fruitfully used to nuance and expand contemporary trends in hermeneutical and analytic theology (This research is made possible by Research Foundation-Flanders [F.W.O.]).
Patterns of Biblical Exegesis in the Cappadocian Fathers
: S.T. Kimborough. (ed) Orthodox and Wesleyan Spirituality Vol 2. (Biblical Theology – Papers of the Orthodox-Methodist International Theological Consultation. Crete. 2002). SVS Press. 2006. , 2006
In this lecture 1 I would like to consider some fundamental principles involved in the Early Church's use of the Scriptures, and to demonstrate their continuity in some of the classical Greek Fathers. I begin my remarks with a brief consideration of the Kerygmatic proclamation of the apostolic period, and then move on to consider some exegetical patterns among the Cappadocians. Much modern comment on the patristic approach to biblical interpretation has been obsessed with fixing them as Antiochenes or Alexandrians, a scholarly categorisation that derives from the fifties of the previous century. It is abundantly clear, however, even from a cursory reading of the great fourth century exegetes, that they do not follow these rules of being literalists or allegorists which we imposed on them 2. The strong 'Antiochene-Alexandrian' divide has meant that much patristic scholarship has begun its consideration of Greek exegesis from the starting point of hermeneutical method rather than that of exegetical principle, which was what most concerned the Fathers as theologians. An important case in point is the Cappadocian exegetes who are simultaneously, and unrepentantly, Alexandrians and Antiochenes, and who each advanced deep considerations on what it is that constitutes the authentic Christian use of the scriptures. The Scripture Principle of the Early Kerygma. In a recent essay on the role of scripture in the origins of the Church, Jacques Gillet argued: '[The New Testament writings] do not aspire to oppose the Christian experience to that of Israel, to erect in the face of the Hebrew Scriptures a new and concurrent corpus … The writings of the New Testament did not appear right alongside those of Israel but in their wake and at their end. They are at bottom a reading of, and commentary on, the Jewish scriptures.' 3 This seems to me to state the process of origins correctly but radically to miss the point (the 'at bottom' aspect) that peculiarly distinguishes the Christian scriptures and their fundamental charism. They are not commentary on the Scriptures of Israel 4 , however much they may derive their focus (even at 1 Given at the Orthodox Academy on Crete, August 2002, as part of the Orthodox-Methodist Dialogue on Biblical Interpretation. 2 For an excellent contemporary overview see TG Stylianopoulos. The New Testament. An Orthodox Perspective. Vol. 1. Scripture, Tradition, Hermeneutics. (Holy Cross Press. Brookline. Ma. 1997). (esp. ch. 4. pp. 101-122.) 3 J Guillet SJ. "The Role of the Bible in the Birth of the Church." in P M Blowers (ed). The Bible in Greek Christian Antiquity. (University of Notre Dame Press. Notre Dame, Indiana, 1997). p.35. 4 Unless we are so to redefine the meaning of commentary that it becomes neologistic. I take commentary to mean precisely a literature that 'follows after' (the plot, or the higher meaning) another authoritative corpus of literature. The Christian writings set out to convey the Jesus story, From: Biblical Interpretation in the Christian Church. SVS Press. New York. 2005 (?) Papers of The Methodist-Orthodox Colloquium. Crete. 2002 times their apparent genre) from that task. They are fundamentally and coherently commentaries on the significance of Jesus and are the confessions of the community's faith in the centrality of his person and, from that basis of Christo-centric confession, only then an explanation (Hermeneusis) how this surprising message finds its validation in key instances of the old story of Israel's covenant life with God. In other words, the Old Testament becomes the commentary on the New, since chronological priority has little significance in the eschatological priority of the Kairos of salvation. This principle of soteriological order (Taxis) is a distinctive mark of how the Apostolic and patristic writers approach exegesis. The Christian genre of Scriptural Commentary, as such, and it is an interesting thing to reflect on, is the invention of the Gnostics, making its first appearance with Heracleon, and being appropriated for the wider Church by the Alexandrian theologians. Many of the important Fathers, and some whom we will consider in this paper, resisted the very notion of a biblical commentary in the sense of following the narrative line of a determinative text. Their understanding of biblical exegesis remained that of the more ancient period, a more discontinuous, confessional, and event-centred typology of the Christ-event. 6 The context is their confused complaint about the obscurity of the parables. Mt. 13.10 f. 7 'It is an evil and faithless generation that asks for a sign. The only sign it will be given is the sign of Jonah. And leaving them standing there he walked away.' Mt. 16.4. 65 That is the doxology 'through the Son'. 66 On the Holy Spirit. 2. (4). Jackson: Basil. p. 3. 67 On the Holy Spirit. 9 (23). Jackson: Basil p. 15 (translation emended). 68 'Those that trample on worldly things and rise above them, are witnessed as being worthy of the gift of the Holy Spirit. The world cannot receive God. Only the saints can contemplate him through purity of heart.' On the Holy Spirit. 22 (53). Jackson: Basil. p. 34. 69 'This is, as it were, in a shadow and a type. The nature of the divine is very frequently represented by the rough and shadowy outlines (skiagraphia) of the types… The type is an imitative anticipation of the future.' On The Holy Spirit. 14 (31). Jackson: Basil. p. 19. 70 Commentary on Ps. 1. It was a text given prominence in Gregory and Basil's compilation of the Philokalia of Origen (ibid. chs. 2. 1-5) cf. G Lewis. (tr.
This study has been limited to the question of how suppositions about the nature of the text and about language affected interpretation in the ancient world. Other presuppositions and procedures, such as the criteria of «fittingness for God» and «usefulness», have been touched on only in passing.105 The question of ancient versus modern interpretation is not primarily one of differing rules and methods but of ancient presuppositions rendered untenable by advancing historical knowledge. In this sense the portrayal of the history of exegesis as a long struggle for the literal sense is mistaken. It is rather a question of increased appreciation of the very human and historical process through which the texts came into being. Contemporary difficulties in reading the Scriptures as they were read in the past are caused fundamentally not by a lack of faith, as is sometimes suggested, but by an enormous increase in historical knowledge and a greatly expanded historical perspective.