{"title":"Paul the Apostle","authors":"Judith L. Kovacs","doi":"10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780198718390.013.40","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780198718390.013.40","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses the interpretation of the letters of the Apostle Paul and his extensive legacy in the patristic period. The first two sections consider his importance during his lifetime, his focus on the ‘word of the cross’, the collection of his letters, the patristic corpus of thirteen or fourteen Pauline letters, and controversies surrounding his teaching, including debates about Christology and marriage. The rest of the chapter sketches out four different portraits of Paul, with attention to particular passages in his letters that inspired them. Paul is pictured as: guide on the road to perfection (Origen), champion of free will (Pelagius), herald of salvation by divine grace alone (Augustine), and embodiment of all virtue (John Chrysostom). Patristic exegetes engage not only with Paul’s theology but also with the person of the ‘divine Apostle’, and they understand exegesis of his letters as a process that involves the whole self of the interpreter.","PeriodicalId":279897,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124989826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Gospel of John","authors":"C. Hill","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.39","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.39","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter reviews the significant role played by the Gospel according to John in the early Church, and recent scholarship surrounding this issue. John’s importance in the Christological and Trinitarian debates of the fourth and fifth centuries is widely recognized, but controversy has surrounded the question of John’s use in the Church prior to Irenaeus. This chapter reviews that academic controversy, particularly the longstanding argument that John won its place in the ‘great Church’ only after a long battle with heresy (docetism; Gnosticism; Valentinianism) about its true nature and meaning. It then surveys some of the ways in which John’s influence was felt in the early period, in the areas of biblical interpretation, in mission, in Christology, and in artistic expression, all of which offer promise for future research.","PeriodicalId":279897,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation","volume":"2013 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127436524","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Modern Biblical Criticism and the Legacy of Pre-Modern Interpretation","authors":"M. Legaspi","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.46","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.46","url":null,"abstract":"Although biblical criticism in the early modern period is often identified with the rejection of tradition, a closer examination reveals a more complex effort to investigate the literal sense while retaining the authority of Christian culture and Antiquity. This chapter traces the development of early modern biblical criticism in relation to changing attitudes toward early Christian interpreters. Focusing on the Republic of Letters and figures such as Erasmus and Hugo Grotius, it also examines the pivotal contribution of French Oratorian Richard Simon. Simon is important not only for his critical histories of biblical literature but also for his articulation of the relation between criticism and traditional authority. Finally, this chapter considers the ways that Simon’s conception of criticism paved the way for academic interpreters in the eighteenth century, notably Johann Salomo Semler.","PeriodicalId":279897,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation","volume":"36 5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114753984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Liturgy as Performative Interpretation","authors":"L. E. Phillips","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.17","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.17","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter appeals to the observation by Basil of Caesarea (fourth century) that ‘not everyone knows why’ the Church performs various rituals, to argue that habitual practice often preceded the application of scriptural interpretation. Sociologist P. Bourdieu’s concept of ‘habitus’ provides theoretical explanation for how pre-reflective participation in ritual and other communal acts prepared converts to be schooled in rudimentary Christian belief. The use of Scripture as public reading in worship eventually led liturgical commentators to describe rituals as a mimesis of Scripture, even though liturgical practice was rarely the repetition of a biblical precedent as such. The evolving role of the institution narrative at the Eucharist is an example of how a practice gave rise to scriptural explanations, which in turn shaped performance in a dynamic process.","PeriodicalId":279897,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122106319","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Poetry and Hymnody","authors":"Jeffrey Wickes","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.16","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter traces the development of early Christian exegetical hymnody, and analyses this hymnody in terms of its relationship to Scripture. The chapter falls into two parts: part one argues that by the fourth century, in response to associations of hymnody with heresy, the scripturally allusive hymnic material of earliest Christianity gave way to a type of hymnody which interacted with Scripture in explicit and concrete ways. Part two traces the Syriac and Greek hymnic traditions that arose in the fourth and fifth centuries, and analyses their exegesis according to two primary categories—performance and rewriting. The chapter concludes by suggesting avenues for future research in the area of comparative Christian and Jewish exegetical hymnody.","PeriodicalId":279897,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation","volume":"82 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124107169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Law","authors":"B. L. Blackburn, Jr.","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.36","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.36","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the hermeneutical strategies taken by early Christian authors with respect to the law of Moses. It considers the two other laws most often discussed by patristic authors, the natural law and the law of Christ, only in relation to that law. This chapter shows how early mainstream Christian treatments of the Mosaic law were shaped decisively by ongoing polemics against Judaism and dualist instantiations of Christianity. It contends that though early Christian interpretation of the Mosaic law was certainly not uniform in regard to theological emphases and exegetical tactics, the pressure exerted by these two polemical contexts had a standardizing effect, insofar as virtually all patristic authors both relativized the value of the law vis-à-vis Judaism and affirmed its relative and absolute goodness over against dualist critiques.","PeriodicalId":279897,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation","volume":"105 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124731250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Catenae","authors":"R. Layton","doi":"10.1163/2214-8647_bnp_e229000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/2214-8647_bnp_e229000","url":null,"abstract":"The term catena (Latin for ‘chain’) refers to an edited collection of excerpts from traditional exegetical authorities. Such collections are evidenced in various fields and forms in Late Antiquity, but the production of biblical catenae was an enduring and distinctive practice of Byzantine exegesis from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries. Procopius of Gaza (c.460/70–c.530/538) occupies a significant, if disputed, place in the history of catenae, as his ‘epitomes’ provide the earliest chronologically secure point for the production, use, and transmission of collected excerpts. Outside of Procopius’ academy in Gaza, catenae proliferated in diverse centres in Syria-Palestine in the sixth to eighth centuries until the centre of production shifted to Constantinople in the aftermath of the Arab conquest. Catenae can be studied either as a genre of biblical commentary or as an exegetical technology that performed distinct functions within Byzantine schools, monasteries, and churches. This chapter focuses on the latter approach to identify practices and institutions that supported the use of these collections, calling attention to the role of catenae in reinforcing the limits of exegetical diversity in the Orthodox Church.","PeriodicalId":279897,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114218850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Commentaries","authors":"J. Lössl","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.9","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter offers an introduction to the origins, main characteristics, and some main representatives of the early Christian biblical commentary. It outlines the emergence of the biblical and Late Antique philosophical commentary from the context of the late Hellenistic and early post-Hellenistic study of grammar and rhetoric (e.g. in Homeric scholarship), and discusses the role of Origen of Alexandria as the main theorist and practitioner of the early Christian biblical commentary, including Origen’s treatment of commentary topics (topoi) and his conceptualization of his commentarial activity as a form of Christian philosophy, or science. It then continues with an overview of the history of the early Christian biblical commentary after Origen, touching upon the history of the Antiochene school of exegesis and upon the Latin commentary tradition culminating in Jerome of Stridon and Augustine of Hippo.","PeriodicalId":279897,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116139501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Covenants","authors":"E. Ferguson","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.34","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198718390.013.34","url":null,"abstract":"As a term in the Hebrew Bible, covenant was discussed in early Christian writings initially in the context of polemics with Jews. It served a useful purpose in arguments against heretics who rejected or disparaged the Old Testament as illustrating an unfolding purpose of God. The word continued in comments on biblical passages. The varied applications of the distinction of the covenants reflect the importance of the idea in the interpretation of Scripture.","PeriodicalId":279897,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124044529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sermon on the Mount","authors":"M. Elliot","doi":"10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780198718390.013.38","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780198718390.013.38","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter discusses the three main things the early Christian writers found in Matthew 5–7. Those were, first, the Beatitudes with promises of spiritual goods made to what was considered to be a small group of special people, but with the application in city preachers to lay people gaining the goods of peace and order and much more in the life to come. Second, prayer, particularly the Lord’s Prayer with its eschatological orientation still very strong in the interpretations, along with trust in divine providence. Third, the Christian virtues and the nature of the relationship between the Testaments, as illustrated by Jesus’ ‘antitheses’: ‘But I say unto you …’ where there is a marked dialectic between penitential realism and inspiring idealism. The range of interpretations is diverse without being conflicting.","PeriodicalId":279897,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122390794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}