The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation 019871839X, 9780198718390

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T H E OX F O R D H A N D B O O K O F

E A R LY C H R IST I A N BI BL IC A L I N T E R PR ETAT ION

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the oxford handbook of

EARLY CHRISTIAN BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION Edited by

PAUL M. BLOWERS and

PETER W. MARTENS

1

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1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Oxford University Press 2019 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2019 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2018963934 ISBN 978–0–19–871839–0 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, cr0 4yy Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

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Acknowledgements

We wish to express our profound appreciation to Tracy Russell at Saint Louis University for her extraordinarily good work as editorial assistant for this Handbook. Her copy editing and stylistic conformation of the essays, as well as her organizational work, were indispensable to the production of this volume. We also wish to thank Karen Raith of the Oxford University Press for her outstanding work with the editors in the whole process of preparing this book for publication, and Tom Perridge, also of the Press, for the invitation to include this work in the excellent series of Oxford Handbooks. Thanks as well to our copy editor, Edwin Pritchard, for his careful work on all the chapters herein and his assistance in conforming this volume to the series standards. Paul M. Blowers Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan College Peter W. Martens Saint Louis University

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Table of Contents

List of Figuresxiii Abbreviationsxv List of Contributorsxxi

Introduction1 Paul M. Blowers and Peter W. Martens

PA RT   I .   S C R I P T U R E 1. Scripture as Artefact

7

Lincoln H. Blumell

2. The Septuagint and Other Translations

33

Reinhart Ceulemans

3. Canons and Rules of Faith

55

Joseph T. Lienhard, SJ

4. Divine Discourse: Scripture in the Economy of Revelation

71

Frances Young

PA RT I I .   I N T E R P R E T E R S A N D I N T E R P R E TAT ION 5. Graeco-Roman Literary Criticism

93

Peter Struck

6. Early Christian Handbooks on Interpretation

109

Tarmo Toom

7. From Letter to Spirit: The Multiple Senses of Scripture John C. Cavadini

126

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viii   table of contents

8. Ideal Interpreters

149

Peter W. Martens

PA RT I I I .   SE T T I N G S A N D G E N R E S OF   S C R I P T U R A L I N T E R P R E TAT ION I.  Exegetical Genres 9. Commentaries

171

Josef Lössl

1 0. Scholia

187

Eric Scherbenske

11. Questions and Responses

198

Lorenzo Perrone

12. Paraphrase and Metaphrase

210

Andrew Faulkner

13. Catenae

221

Richard A. Layton

14. Sentences

230

Luke Dysinger, OSB

II.  Liturgical Interpretation 15. Catecheses and Homilies

243

Wendy Mayer

16. Poetry and Hymnody

255

Jeffrey Wickes

17. Liturgy as Performative Interpretation

271

L. Edward Phillips

III.  Narrative and Visual Interpretation 18. Christian Apocrypha

285

Stephen J. Shoemaker

19. Novels F. Stanley Jones

295

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table of contents   ix

2 0. Hagiography

303

Bronwen Neil

21. Early Christian Visual Art as Biblical Interpretation

315

Robin M. Jensen

PA RT I V.   C OM M U N I T I E S A N D C R I T E R IA 22. Christianity and Judaism

331

James Carleton Paget

23. Christians and Pagans

349

John Granger Cook

24. Marcion and his Critics

366

H. Clifton Ward

25. Gnostics and their Critics

383

David Brakke

26. Manichaean Biblical Interpretation

399

Jason BeDuhn

PA RT   V.   S C R I P T U R E I N T H E L I F E OF   T H E   C H U RC H 27. Scripture and Martyrdom

417

Johan Leemans and Anthony Dupont

28. Scripture in the Trinitarian Controversies

439

Lewis Ayres

29. Scripture in the Christological Controversies

455

Andrew Hofer, OP

30. Scripture and a Christian Empire

473

Michael Hollerich

31. Scripture and Asceticism Elizabeth A. Clark

492

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x   table of contents

PA RT V I .   S C R I P T U R A L F IG U R E S A N D M OT I F S 32. Creation

513

Paul M. Blowers

33. Adam and Eve

525

Peter C. Bouteneff

3 4. Covenants

535

Everett Ferguson

35. Exodus

547

Michael Graves

3 6. Law

561

B. Lee Blackburn, Jr

37. Psalms

572

Michael Cameron

38. Sermon on the Mount

588

Mark Elliott

39. The Gospel of John

602

C. E. Hill

40. Paul the Apostle

614

Judith L. Kovacs

41. The Cross

626

John Behr

42. Heaven and Hell

637

Jeffrey A. Trumbower

PA RT V I I .   R E T R I E VA L S A N D C R I T IC I SM S 43. Medieval Latin Reception

651

Franklin T. Harkins

4 4. Byzantine Reception Mary B. Cunningham

667

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table of contents   xi

45. Reception in the Renaissance and Reformation

686

Esther Chung-Kim

46. Modern Biblical Criticism and the Legacy of Pre-Modern Interpretation704 Michael C. Legaspi

47. Retrievals in Contemporary Christian Theology

723

Matthew Levering

Author Index General Subject Index

741 748

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List of Figures

Map 1.1  Roman Egypt. Cartographer: Darin Jenson.

12

1.1 Page from 𝔓46, end of Romans and start of Hebrews

15

Image digitally reproduced with the permission of the Papyrology Collection, University of Michigan Library.

1.2 P.Oxy. III 209 (Ms GR SM 2218), beginning of Rom. 1, high concentration of nomina sacra19 Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University.

1.3 Colophon by Pamphilus as preserved by Codex Sinaiticus (2 Esdras: Quire 36 fol. 5r col. 3)

23

1.4 P.Oxy. LXIII 4365

26

21.1 The sacrifice of Isaac and Jesus healing, early Christian sarcophagus, Rome, c.325–50. Now in the Museo Pio Cristiano (Vatican)

319

21.2 The sacrifice of Isaac, Via Latina Catacomb, Rome, mid-fourth century

320

21.3 Sacrifice of Isaac, ivory pyxis, late fourth or early fifth century. Now in the Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst, Berlin

320

21.4 Sacrifice of Isaac, terracotta tile relief, from Hajeb el Aiou Region (Tunisia), fifth century. Now in the Bardo Museum, Tunis

321

21.5 Early Christian sarcophagus with biblical scenes, Rome, c.320–5. Now in the Museo Pio Cristiano (Vatican)

322

Courtesy of Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig, Cod. gr. 1.

Courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society and the University of Oxford Imaging Papyri Project.

Photo credit: Vanni Archive/Art Resource, NY. Photo credit: Scala/Art Resource NY.

Photo credit: Art Resource, NY.

Photo credit: Gianni Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Creative Commons: (accessed 4 June 2015).

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xiv   list of figures 21.6 Two Brothers Sarcophagus, Rome, 320–5. Now in the Museo Pio Cristiano (Vatican)

Photo credit: Wikimedia Creative Commons: (accessed 4 June 2015).

323

21.7 Hospitality of Abraham and Abraham offering Isaac, lunette mosaic, Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, c.540–50323 Photo credit: Author.

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Abbreviations

NOTE: Abbreviations of Greek patristic writings in this volume are drawn from G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961–8). Abbreviations of Latin patristic writings are drawn from Albert Blaise, Dictionnaire latin-français des auteurs chrétiens (Turnhout: Brepols, 1954). Additional abbreviations are listed below. 2 Esd m. Sanh.

2 Esdras Mishnah Sanhedrin

Series/Reference Works Ancient Christian Writers ACW Ante Nicene Fathers ANF Abhandlungen der kaiserlichen preussischen Akademie der apaw Wissenschaften Bibliothèque Augustinienne BA Corpus Christianorum Series Apocryphorum cca Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca CCG Corpus Christianorum Series Latina CCL Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca CCSG Corpus Christianorum Series Latina CCsl Clavis Patrum Graecorum CPG Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum CSEL Classics of Western Spirituality CWS Fathers of the Church FC Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte GCS Gregorii Nysseni Opera GNO Journal of Theological Studies JTS Lampe G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1961–8) Loeb Classical Library LCL Leuven Database of Ancient Books LDAB A Greek-English Lexicon, ed. H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. Stuart LSJ Jones (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968) LXX Septuagint New English Translation of the Septuagint NETS Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers NPNF New Revised Standard Version of the Bible NRSV New Testament NT Oxford Early Christian Texts OECT

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xvi   abbreviations OT PG PL pts SBL SC ST TSt WSA

Old Testament Patrologia Graeca Patrologia Latina Patristische Texte und Studien Society of Biblical Literature Sources Chrétiennes Studi et Testi Texts and Studies Works of Saint Augustine

Gnostic Texts Ap. John Apoc. Adam Gos. Judas Gos. Thomas Gos. Truth hyp. Arch.

Apocryphon of John (Secret Book according to John) Revelation of Adam Gospel of Judas Gospel of Thomas Gospel of Truth Reality of the Rulers (Hypostasis of the Archons)

Manichaean Texts 2 Ps Psalm-book 1 Ke Kephalaion 1 2 Ke Kephalaion 2 Anonymous Texts act. Archel. Acta conc. oec. Ascens. Is. cast. didas. hypomn. met. Ps. narr. Odes op. imp.

Archelai episcopi liber disputationis aduersus Manichaeum Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Ascensio Isaiae De castitate Didascalia Hypomnesticon Metaphrasis Psalmorum Narrationes de exilio sancti papae Martini Odes of Solomon Opus Imperfectum

Albert the Great comm. in I sent.

Commentarium in I Sententiarum (dist. XXVI–XLVIII)

Alcinous didask.

Didaskalikos

Ambrosiaster comm. in 1 Cor. comm. in Gal. comm. in Rom.

Commentarius in xiii epistulas Paulinas: ad Corinthios Commentarius in xiii epistulas Paulinas: ad Galatos Commentarius in xiii epistulas Paulinas: ad Romanos

Aphrahat dem.

Demonstrationes

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abbreviations   xvii Apollinaris of Laodicea frag. Ps. Fragmenta in Psalmos Athanasius ep. ad virg.

Epistulae 1–2 ad virgines

Bonaventure of Bagnoregio comm. in I sent. Commentaria in I Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi Cicero opt. gen.

De optimo genere oratorum

Clement of Alexandria hyp. Hypotyposes Ephrem Azym. c.Jul. comm. in Ex. comm. in Gen. eccl. fid. haer. Nis. nat. par. ref. virg.

Hymns on the Unleavened Bread Contra Julianum Commentarius in Exodum Commentarius in Genesim Hymni de ecclesia Hymni de fide Hymns Against Heresies Carmina Nisibena Hymni de nativitate Hymni de paradiso Refutationes Hymni de virginitate

Eusebius of Caesarea chron. Chronicon Evagrius Ponticus antirrh. cap. pract. Gnost. keph. Gnost.

Antirrheticus Capita practica ad Anatolium (Praktikos) Fragmentum ex libro ‘Gnosticus’ inscripto Kephalaia Gnostica

Gregory of Nyssa M. Seb. Ib First Homily on the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (Ia and Ib) Gregory Palamas hom. Homiliae Heraclitus quaest. Hom.

Quaestiones Homericae

Horsiesius ep.

Epistulae

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xviii   abbreviations Hugh of St. Victor de script. De scripturis et scriptoribus sacris Did. Didascalicon de studio legendi Irenaeus dem.

Demonstratio

Jacob of Sarug hom. in hex. Iud.

Homilies on the Six Days of Creation: The First Day Homilia contra Iudaeos

Jerome praef. Orig. Ez. hom.

Praefatio ad Homilias in Ezechielem

John Duns Scotus rep. I–A Reportatio I–A Julian of Aeclanum tr. proph. Commentarius in prophetas minores Lucian of Samosata De mort. Peregr. De morte Peregrini Philops. Philopseudes Narsai hom. in creat.

Homiliae in creationem

Optatus c. Donat.

Contra Parmenianum Donatistam

Origen fr. hom. 39 in Jer. fr. in Jo.

Fragmenta ex homiliis in Jeremiam Fragmenta in Johannem

Peter Lombard sent.

Sententiae in IV libris distinctae

Philo Her. leg. all. Mig. Mos. opif. mundi

Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit Legum allegoriarum De Migratione Abrahami De vita Moisis De opificio mundi

Plutarch De aud. po.

De audiendis poetis

Possidius Indic.

Indiculus

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abbreviations   xix Procopius of Gaza Gen. Catena in Genesim Ps-Archelaeus Acta disputationis cum Manete

Acta disp. cum Manete Ps-Clement Clem. contest. Clem. Ep. Petr. ep. 1 virg. Hom. Clem. Rec.

Lampe as contestatio pro iis qui librum accipiunt Lampe as epistula Petri ad Jacobum Epistulae de virginitate homilae Clementinae Recognitio Clementis

Sextus sent.

Sententiae

Tertullian exh. cast.

De exhortatione castitatis

Theodore of Mopsuestia catech. Catecheses Theodoret of Cyrus qu. Oct. Quaestiones in Octateuchum Thomas Aquinas script. I sent. Scriptum super I Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi episcopi Parisiensis Tyconius Apoc. reg.

Commentarius in Apocalypsin Liber regularum

Victorinus Apoc.

Commentarii in Apocalypsim Ioannem

Vincent of Lérins comm. Commonitorium Zeno of Verona tract.

Tractatus

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List of Contributors

Lewis Ayres  is Professor of Catholic and Historical Theology at the University of Durham in the UK. He is also Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Australian Catholic University, in Melbourne. He is the author of a number of books, including Nicaea and its Legacy (OUP, 2006) and Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge University Press, 2010). He is currently working on a monograph on the development of scriptural exegesis in the second century ce. Jason BeDuhn (Ph.D., Indiana University) is Professor of the Comparative Study of Religions at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, and author of The Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) and the multivolume Augustine’s Manichaean Dilemma (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010–13). John Behr  is former Dean of St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York. He has published an edition and translation of the fragments of Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia and a monograph on Irenaeus (both from OUP), and a more poetic and meditative work entitled Becoming Human: Theological Anthropology in Word and Image (SVS Press, 2013). Most recently he has completed a new critical edition and translation of Origen’s On First Principles (OUP), and a monograph John the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology (OUP). B. Lee Blackburn Jr is Director of Humanities and Associate Professor of History and Humanities at Milligan College. He completed his master’s and doctoral work at the University of Notre Dame, where he wrote a dissertation examining the anti-Jewish elements of Cyril of Alexandria’s interpretation of the Mosaic law. He has published articles in Studia Patristica and the Stone–Campbell Journal, and has ongoing research interests in the intersection between patristic biblical exegesis and anti-Jewish polemics. Paul M. Blowers (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame) is the Dean E. Walker Professor of Church History at Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan College (Tennessee). A 2017–18 Henry Luce III Fellow and former President of the North American Patristics Society, he has extensive publications in the history of early Christian biblical interpretation, authoring Exegesis and Spiritual Pedagogy in Maximus the Confessor (University of Notre Dame Press, 1991) and editing The Bible in Greek Christian Antiquity (University of Notre Dame Press, 1997). His more recent monographs are Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety (OUP, 2012) and Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the Transfiguration of the World (OUP, 2016).

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xxii   list of contributors Lincoln H. Blumell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Calgary, University of Oxford, and University of Toronto. He specializes in Early Christianity and Greek and Coptic papyrology and epigraphy. In addition to publishing a number of articles in his field, he has published two books, Lettered Christians: Christians, Letters, and Late Antique Oxyrhynchus (Brill, 2012), Christian Oxyrhynchus: Texts, Documents, and Sources (Baylor University Press, 2015; with Thomas A. Wayment), and has a third book in press, Didymus the Blind’s Commentary on the Psalms 26:10–29:2 and 36:1–3 (Brepols). Peter C. Bouteneff  is Professor of Systematic Theology at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, where he has taught since 2000. His writing and research span patristic and modern theology, ecumenical relations, and the sacred arts, his most recent monograph being Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence (St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2015). He also authored Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives (Baker Academic, 2008). David Brakke  is Joe  R.  Engle Chair in the History of Christianity and Professor of History at the Ohio State University. His research interests include ‘Gnosticism’, early monasticism, and the formation of the New Testament and other scriptural practices. Among his books are The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity (Harvard University Press, 2010) and, with Andrew Crislip, Selected Discourses of Shenoute the Great: Community, Theology, and Social Conflict in Late Antique Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2016). From 2005 to 2015 he edited the Journal of Early Christian Studies. Michael Cameron is Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Portland in Oregon. He is author of Christ Meets Me Everywhere: Augustine’s Early Figurative Exegesis (OUP, 2012), and The Essential Expositions of the Psalms of Saint Augustine (New City Press, 2015). He serves on the editorial boards of the Augustinus-Lexikon, the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, and Augustinian Studies, and was the inaugural Thomas F. Martin Saint Augustine Fellow at Villanova University in 2010. James Carleton Paget  is Reader in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity at the University of Cambridge. He has published on a range of issues to do with ancient biblical interpretation, ancient Jewish–Christian relations, and the history of biblical interpretation. He has authored Jews, Christians and Jewish Christians in Antiquity (Mohr Siebeck, 2010) and, with Joachim Schapter, edited The New Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1: From the Beginnings to 600 (Cambridge University Press, 2014). John C. Cavadini  is Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, where he also serves as McGrath–Cavadini Director of the McGrath Institute for Church Life. He teaches, studies, and publishes in the area of patristic theology and in its early medieval reception. He has served a five-year term on the International Theological Commission (appointed by Pope Benedict XVI) and recently received the

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list of contributors   xxiii Monika K. Hellwig Award from the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities for Outstanding Contributions to Catholic Intellectual Life. Reinhart Ceulemans is assistant professor of Greek literature at KU Leuven. Earlier, he worked at the Septuaginta-Unternehmen of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2011–2014). His main research interests include the transmission of the Greek Bible and biblical exegesis in Byzantium. Esther Chung-Kim is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. Her research focuses on problems of authority, ancient tradition in early modern biblical interpretation, and poor relief reform. She has published Inventing Authority: Use of the Church Fathers in Reformation Debates over the Eucharist (Baylor University Press, 2011), Reformation Commentary on Scripture: Acts (IVP Academic, 2014), and several articles related to poverty, wealth, and social change, including most recently, ‘Aid for Refugees: Religion, Migration and Poor Relief in Sixteenth-Century Geneva’ (2018) in Reformation and Renaissance Review. She is a 2018–19 recipient of the Sabbatical Grant for Researchers at The Louisville Institute. Elizabeth A. Clark is the John Carlisle Kilgo Professor of Religion, Emerita, at Duke University. She specializes in the history of late ancient Christianity, with particular attention to issues of women and gender, the development of early Christian asceticism, biblical interpretation in early Christianity, heresy and orthodoxy, and historiographical issues. She has authored or edited thirteen books, the latest of which is The Fathers Refounded: Protestant Liberalism, Roman Catholic Modernism, and the Teaching of Ancient Christianity in Early Twentieth-Century America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). She is the founding editor of the Journal of Early Christian Studies and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has served as the President of the American Academy of Religion, the American Society of Church History, and the North American Patristics Society. John Granger Cook graduated from Davidson College (philosophy), Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, and Emory University. After six years in a Presbyterian parish in the Asheville, NC area, he did a three-year post-doctoral project in earliest Christianity at Emory University, and since 1994 has taught at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. He has published monographs on the Gospel of Mark, the interpretation of the Old Testament and the New Testament in Graeco-Roman paganism, the Roman response to the Christians from the reigns of Claudius to Hadrian, and one on crucifixion in Mediterranean antiquity. His latest book is entitled Empty Tomb, Resurrection, and Apotheosis. Mary B. Cunningham is Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham. Having retired from her teaching post there, she took up a Fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library in Washington, DC, during the academic year 2015–16. Cunningham has since moved to

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xxiv   list of contributors Oxfordshire where she continues to carry out research and writing. Publications that relate to her contribution in this volume include (with Pauline Allen), Preacher and Audience: Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics (Brill, 1998), Wider Than Heaven: Eighth-Century Homilies on the Mother of God (St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008), and ‘The Interpretation of the New Testament in Byzantine Preaching: Mediating an Encounter with the Word’, in D. Krueger and R. Nelson (eds), The New Testament in Byzantium (Dumbarton Oaks, 2016). Anthony Dupont  is Research Professor in Christian Antiquity and member of the Research Unit History of Church and Theology at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, the Catholic University of Leuven. He has published two monographs, including Gratia in Augustine’s Sermones ad Populum during the Pelagian Controversy (Brill, 2012), as well as several articles about the interrelated topics of divine grace and human freedom in the writings of Augustine of Hippo. He also co-edited Preaching in the Patristic Era (Brill, 2018). Luke Dysinger, OSB  is a Benedictine monk and priest of St Andrew’s Abbey, Valyermo, California. He received his MD from the University of Southern California Medical School in 1978 and his D.Phil. in patristics from Oxford University in 2000. He  serves as professor of church history and moral theology at St John’s Seminary in Camarillo, California. His publications include The Rule of St. Benedict, Latin and English (Source Books, 1997); Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus (OUP, 2005). Mark Elliott  is Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow Scotland, and Professorial Fellow at Wycliffe College, Toronto, having done his Ph.D. at Cambridge University in Patristics. Recent publications include Engaging Leviticus (Cascade, 2012) and Providence Perceived (De Gruyter, 2015). He is currently engaged in writing a constructive biblical theology of Providence and in co-editing the History of Scottish Theology (with David Fergusson) for OUP. Andrew Faulkner (D.Phil. Oxford) is Professor of Classics at the University of Waterloo in  Canada. He has worked on the tradition of Greek hymnography, especially the Homeric Hymns and their reception, Hellenistic poetry, and early Christian poetry. His publications include The Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite: Introduction, Text, and Commentary (OUP, 2008), three edited volumes, and numerous journal articles. Everett Ferguson (Ph.D., Harvard University) taught Bible, Greek, and Church History at Abilene Christian University from 1962 to 1998, and is a past president of the North American Patristics Society (1990–2). Ferguson has served as editor of the journal The Second Century (1981–92), co-editor of Journal of Early Christian Studies (1993–9), and general editor of the Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (2nd edition, 1997). His publications include Backgrounds of Early Christianity (Eerdmans, 3rd edn, 2003), Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Eerdmans, 2009), and The Rule of Faith: A Guide (Wipf & Stock, 2015).

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list of contributors   xxv Michael Graves  (Ph.D., Hebrew Union College) is Armerding Professor of Biblical Studies at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill. He is the author of The Inspiration and Interpretation of Scripture (Eerdmans, 2014), Jerome’s Hebrew Philology (Brill, 2007), and an annotated translation of Jerome’s Commentary on Jeremiah (IVP, 2012). His essays on early Christian and Jewish biblical interpretation have appeared in journals such as Vigiliae Christianae, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses, Tyndale Bulletin, and the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. Franklin T. Harkins is Associate Professor of the History of Christianity at Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, where he specializes in scholastic theology and exegesis. He is the author of Reading and the Work of Restoration: History and Scripture in the Theology of Hugh of St Victor (PIMS, 2009), and editor of four books, including A Companion to Job in the Middle Ages (Brill, 2017). He has also published numerous articles and essays on Augustine, the Victorines, Peter Lombard and the Sentences commentary tradition, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus. C. E. Hill is John R. Richardson Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at  Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando and is a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology. He is the author of Regnum Caelorum: Patterns of Millennial Thought in Early Christianity (2nd edn, Eerdmans, 2001), The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (Oxford University Press, 2004), and Who Chose the Gospels? Probing the Great ‘Gospel Conspiracy’ (OUP, 2010). He is also co-editor with M. J. Kruger of The Early Text of the New Testament (OUP, 2012). Andrew Hofer, OP (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame) serves as Director of the Doctoral Program and Associate Professor of Patristics and Ancient Languages at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. He is the author of Christ in the Life and Teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus (OUP, 2013) and of articles in journals such as Augustinianum, Vigiliae Christianae, The Thomist, Pro Ecclesia, Nova et Vetera, and the International Journal of Systematic Theology. Most recently he co-edited, and contributed to, Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers (Sapientia Press, 2019). Michael Hollerich is Professor of Theology at the University of St Thomas in St Paul, Minnesota, where he teaches the history of Christianity. He has research interests in early Christian biblical interpretation, modern German church history, political theology, and the writings of Eusebius of Caesarea. He published Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on Isaiah: Christian Exegesis in the Age of Constantine (OUP, 1999), and is currently working on a book on the reception of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and its shaping of Christian historiography, and is co-editor of the forthcoming new edition of the textbook The Christian Theological Tradition. Robin M. Jensen is the Patrick O’Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, and a former President of the North American Patristics Society. Jensen’s books include Understanding Early Christian Art (Routledge, 2000); Face to Face: Portraits of

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xxvi   list of contributors the Divine in Early Christianity (Fortress, 2005); The Substance of Things Seen: Art, Faith and the Christian Community (Eerdmans, 2004); Living Water: Images, Symbols, and Settings of Early Christian Baptism (Brill, 2011); and Baptismal Imagery in Early Christianity (Baker Academic, 2012). Most recently she co-authored Christianity in Roman Africa with her husband, J. Patout Burns, Jr (Eerdmans, 2014). F. Stanley Jones is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies and former Director of the Institute for the Study of Judaeo-Christian Origins at California State University, Long Beach. He holds academic degrees from Yale, Oxford, and Göttingen and specializes in  New Testament and ancient Christianity. Among his recent publications are Pseudoclementina Elchasaiticaque inter Judaeochristiana: Collected Studies (Peeters, 2012) and an English translation of The Syriac ‘Pseudo-Clementines’: An Early Version of the First Christian Novel (Brepols, 2014). Judith L. Kovacs, Associate Professor Emerita of the University of Virginia, works in both patristics and biblical studies. Her publications include The Church’s Bible: 1 Corinthians, a book on the reception history of the Revelation to John (co-authored with Christopher Rowland), and articles on patristic exegesis, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, the Gospel of John, 1 Corinthians, and Revelation. She is an editor of the Blackwell Bible Commentaries and the SBL Writings of the Greco-Roman World sub-series on John Chrysostom’s works on the New Testament. Richard A. Layton  (Ph.D., University of Virginia) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and is the author of Didymus the Blind and his Circle in Late Antique Alexandria (University of Illinois Press, 2004) and co-author with Walter Feinberg of For the Civic Good: The Liberal Case for Teaching Religion in the Public Schools (University of Michigan Press, 2014). Layton has also published a number of essays in patristic studies and patristic biblical exegesis. Johan Leemans is Professor in Late Antique Christianity and a member of the Research Unit History of Church and Theology at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of Leuven. His research mainly focuses on the Greek East of  the fourth and fifth centuries ce, with special attention to the phenomenon of martyrdom, patristic exegesis, and sermons. He has co-edited a number of studies, including More Than a Memory: The Discourse of Martyrdom and the Construction of Christian Identity (Peeters, 2006) and Christian Martyrdom in Late Antiquity (300–450 ad) (De Gruyter, 2017). Michael C. Legaspi  is Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Jewish Studies at the Pennsylvania State University (University Park). Trained in biblical studies (Ph.D.  in Hebrew Bible, Harvard University), Legaspi’s research interests include various topics within the historical and philosophical backgrounds of modern biblical criticism. He is the author of The Death of Scripture and the Rise of Biblical Studies (OUP, 2010) and Wisdom in Classical and Biblical Tradition (OUP, 2018).

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list of contributors   xxvii Matthew Levering  holds the James N. and Mary D. Perry Jr. Chair of Theology at Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. He has authored twenty-five books, including Participatory Biblical Exegesis: A Theology of Biblical Interpretation (University of Notre Dame Press, 2008) and Engaging the Doctrine of Revelation: The Mediation of the Gospel through Church and Scripture (Baker Academic, 2014). He co-edited the Oxford Handbook of the Trinity (OUP, 2011) and most recently the Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology (OUP, 2015). Joseph T. Lienhard, SJ (Dr theol. habil., University of Freiburg), is Professor of Theology at Fordham University, editor of the journal Traditio, and a former President of the North American Patristics Society. He is the author of monographs on Paulinus of Nola and on Marcellus of Ancyra, as well as a book on the biblical canon and another on St Joseph in Early Christianity. He translated Origen’s Homilies on Luke for the Fathers of the Church series (Catholic University of America Press, 1996). He is also the editor of a volume Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series (IVP). His translation St Augustine, Writings on the Old Testament, was published in 2016 (New City Press). Josef Lössl is Professor of Historical Theology and Intellectual History at the Cardiff University School of History, Archaeology and Religion. He is Director of the Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture and author of The Early Church: History and Memory (T & T Clark, 2010). Together with John  W.  Watt he co-edited Interpreting the  Bible and Aristotle in Late Antiquity: The Alexandrian Commentary Tradition from Rome to Baghdad (Ashgate, 2011). He is executive editor of Vigiliae Christianae: A Review of Early Christian Life and Language and is currently working on a commentary on Tatian’s Oratio ad Graecos. Peter W. Martens (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame) is Associate Professor of Early Christianity at Saint Louis University. He specializes in the exegetical cultures that emerged around the Christian Bible in Late Antiquity. In addition to numerous essays, he has published two monographs, Origen and Scripture: The Contours of the Exegetical Life (Oxford University Press, 2012) and Adrian’s Introduction to the Divine Scriptures: An Antiochene Handbook for Scriptural Interpretation (OUP, 2017). Wendy Mayer  is Professor and Associate Dean for Research at Australian Lutheran College, University of Divinity, and Research Fellow, Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies, University of South Africa. In addition to extensive publications on the patristic author and preacher John Chrysostom, she is recognized for her work on the setting and audience of early Christian preaching. Her publications include (with Pauline Allen) The Churches of Syrian Antioch (300–638 ce) (Peeters, 2012) and The Homilies of St John Chrysostom—Provenance. Reshaping the Foundations (Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 2005). Bronwen Neil is Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University, Sydney, and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of South Africa. She is also an elected Fellow and Council member of the Australian Academy of Humanities. Her current

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xxviii   list of contributors research project is Dreams, Prophecy and Violence from Early Christianity to Early Islam (ARC Future Fellowship). Neil has published widely on Maximus the Confessor, Pope Martin I, Anastasius Bibliothecarius, and Pope Leo I, as well as on poverty and welfare in Late Antiquity. She is co-editor of the Brill Companion to Pope Gregory the Great (Leiden, 2013) and the Oxford Handbook on Maximus the Confessor (OUP, 2017). Lorenzo Perrone, until 2015 Professor of Early Christian Literature in the Department of Classics and Italian Studies at the University of Bologna, founded in Pisa the Italian Research Group on Origen and the Alexandrian Tradition (1994) and created the journal Adamantius (1995). His research interests are the study of Origen, the history of the Holy Land in Late Antiquity, the history of ancient monasticism, and eastern Christianity. Recently he has directed the critical edition of the newly discovered Homilies on the Psalms by Origen in the series Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte (De Gruyter, 2015). L. Edward Phillips is Associate Professor of Worship and Liturgical Theology at Candler School of Theology and a faculty member of the Graduate Division of Religion, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. His publications include The Ritual Kiss in Early Christian Worship (Gorgias, 1996); The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary (Fortress Press, 2002), Studia Liturgica Diversa: Studies in Honor of Paul Bradshaw (Pastoral Press, 2004), and Courage to Bear Witness: Essays in Honor of Gene Davenport (Wipf & Stock, 2009). He is the former editor-in-chief of Liturgy, the journal of the Liturgical Conference (2008–16). Eric Scherbenske  is an independent scholar currently writing a monograph on the late-ancient archetype of the tenth-century New Testament manuscript 1739. His first monograph, Canonizing Paul: Ancient Editorial Practice and the Corpus Paulinum (OUP, 2013), received the North American Patristics Society Best First Book Award for 2014. Stephen J. Shoemaker is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Oregon. His main interests lie in the ancient and early medieval Christian traditions, and more specifically in early Byzantine and Near Eastern Christianity. He is a specialist on early devotion to the Virgin Mary, Christian apocryphal literature, and Islamic origins. Among his many publications are The Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption (OUP, 2002) and The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad’s Life and the Beginnings of Islam (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). Peter Struck is Professor and chair of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written Birth of the Symbol: Ancient Readers at the Limits of their Texts (Princeton University Press, 2004) and Divination and Human Nature: A Cognitive History of Divination in Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2016). He is editor of Mantikê (Brill, 2005), the Cambridge Companion to Allegory (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and general editor of a multi-volume series on the Cultural History of Ideas (forthcoming from Bloomsbury). Tarmo Toom is originally from Estonia, but he studied theology in Switzerland and the USA. He has taught patristics at the Catholic University of America and is

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list of contributors   xxix currently a Professorial Lecturer at Georgetown University. His research foci are patristic hermeneutics, Augustine, early Christian Trinitarian controversies, and the history of creeds. He is the author of Thought Clothed with Sound: Augustine’s Christological Hermeneutics in De doctrina christiana (Peter Lang, 2002), and the editor of Patristic Theories of Biblical Interpretation: The Latin Fathers (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Jeffrey A. Trumbower  is Professor of Religious Studies and Dean of the College at St Michael’s College, Colchester, Vermont. He is the author of Rescue for the Dead: The Posthumous Salvation of Non-Christians in Early Christianity (OUP, 2001) and Born from Above: The Anthropology of the Gospel of John (Mohr Siebeck, 1992). He has also published articles and book chapters on various aspects of the afterlife in early Christianity. H. Clifton Ward (Ph.D., University of Durham) is Instructor of Religion at Tusculum University in Greeneville, Tennessee. His most recent publications have examined the scriptural interpretation of Clement of Alexandria, including ‘ “Symbolic Interpretation is Most Useful”: Clement of Alexandria’s Scriptural Imagination’, Journal of Early Christian Studies (2017). His research focuses on the intersection of ancient literary criticism, the formation of Christian Scripture, and the reading practices of Christian exegetes in the first three centuries ce. Jeffrey Wickes  (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame) is Assistant Professor of Early Christianity at Saint Louis University. He works on the literature and theology of the Late Ancient Christian East, especially as manifest in the works of Ephrem the Syrian. He has published articles on Ephrem’s exegesis, his theology of divine names, as well as a translation of his Hymns on Faith (Fathers of the Church series, Catholic University of America Press, 2015). Frances Young taught Theology at the University of Birmingham from 1971. From 1986 to 2005 she held the Edward Cadbury Chair, serving as Head of Department, Head of School, Dean of the Faculty, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor. She was made OBE for services to Theology in 1998, and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2004. Now Emeritus Professor of Theology, she is still engaged in research and writing. New Testament and early Christian studies are her main fields of interest. Her academic publications include From Nicaea to Chalcedon: A Guide to the Literature and its Background (SCM press, 1983, 2nd edn 2010) and Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1997); she co-edited The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature and The Cambridge History of Christianity: Origins to Constantine. Her principal published papers are collected in Exegesis and Theology in Early Christianity (Ashgate, 2012).

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I n troduction Paul M. Blowers and Peter W. Martens

The study of early Christian biblical interpretation is crucial to the general study of ancient Christianity as a whole. Sacred writings left an indelible mark upon early Christian communities. These writings were energetically copied by scribes, translated into several languages, and widely disseminated throughout Christian networks. They were read and expounded upon in the setting of the liturgy, studied privately, and increasingly examined with a keen scholarly eye. Despite their fluid boundaries, these Scriptures were woven into the oral and written discourses of early Christianity. Early Christians committed parts of these writings to memory, and the surviving literature from this period abounds in allusions, paraphrases, quotations, retellings, and explicit interpretations of Scripture, such as we find in commentaries and homilies. This vigorous interest in the Scriptures flowed from an overarching conviction: that these writings were thought to express the Christian message of salvation and guide those who read and heard them well along the journey of salvation. The earnestness with which these writings permeated the Church’s mission of catechesis, moral exhortation, and advanced instruction, the zeal with which they were marshalled into the area of competing interpretations and religious debate, and the precision with which they were targeted by imperial persecution, all point to the divine or holy status Christians ascribed to these writings. Indeed, early Christians broadly assumed that God was continuously speaking anew through these sacred texts. In short, they were the lifeblood of virtually every aspect of Christian communities. There is at present a thriving scholarship on Scripture and its interpretation in early Christianity. Critical editions of patristic exegetical writings in various ancient languages have become abundant. Major series of translated early Christian writings have turned more and more attention to publishing patristic exegetical works (especially but not exclusively commentaries and homilies). Numerous monographs on the overall character of patristic exegesis have appeared in English and other languages, as well as monographs on individual early Christian exegetes and specific themes in early Christian biblical commentary. The overall history of biblical interpretation has itself now become the subject of a growing scholarship, with new dictionaries and encyclopedias

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2   paul m. blowers and peter w. martens of historic interpreters and trajectories of interpretation. Academic societies regularly host units on the history of interpretation. Journals soliciting articles on Christian antiquity are thriving and producing numerous studies in early Christian exegesis. Far more than before, biblical scholars are taking new interest in the history of i­ nterpretation, and especially interpretation in the early Church. We believe, then, that this is an opportune time for our handbook on early Christian biblical interpretation. It will serve as a guide to the many dimensions of this subject and aid students and scholars from a wide spectrum of academic fields, including classics, biblical studies, the general history of interpretation, the social and cultural history of late ancient and early medieval Christianity, historical theology, and systematic and contextual theology. Readers will find in this volume the principal issues of hermeneutical theory, exegetical method, and the like, but they will also be oriented to features beyond early Christian exegetical practice itself, including the cultural and ecclesial locations of interpreters, the communal dynamics of interpretation, the different contexts and trajectories of interpretation in and beyond the Church, and the non-literary media of interpretation, such as liturgical performance and visual art. As with other Oxford handbooks, this volume does more than survey the historical developments themselves. It also serves the reader as a guide to the scholarship and ­perspectives that shape the current study of early Christian interpretation of the Bible. The dominant scholarly modes of reading Scripture today do not, in fact, conform much to the contours of patristic exegesis. Nevertheless, there has been a profound renaissance of interest in the topic in recent years, and it is this renaissance that we will narrate in the last section of this volume. In so doing, we do not suggest that all, or even most, biblical scholars are sympathetic to this recovery. Nevertheless, such a recovery is under way in many different circles. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, for instance, the respect for patristic biblical exegesis never really wavered. In the Roman Catholic ­tradition, theologians of the nouvelle théologie movement like Henri de Lubac and Hans Urs von Balthasar responded in the mid-twentieth century to the sustained negative impacts of rationalism, scientism, and secularism, encouraging a more deliberate ­ressourcement, a return to the historic sources of the Catholic faith, including the rich ­traditions of patristic biblical interpretation. In most Protestant theology and biblical scholarship, so deeply impacted by the growth of biblical higher criticism, there was an enduring tendency throughout the twentieth century to ignore or even dismiss most patristic i­nterpretation as a relic of a ‘pre-modern’ and thus ‘pre-critical’ past (notwithstanding a certain abiding interest in the philological and text-critical significance of ancient exegesis). In more recent decades, however, the ‘postmodern turn’ in philosophical and ­theological hermeneutics has stimulated a rethinking of the ch