Berkeley’s Daniel Boyarin, well-known for his revision of the understanding of the interactions b... more Berkeley’s Daniel Boyarin, well-known for his revision of the understanding of the interactions between nascent Christianity and nascent Judaism in the years 100–500, looks to extend such work to the period of the New Testament in his 2012 book, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ.1 Here he seeks to challenge the popular understanding of the first-century Jesus movement, and thus the relationship between ancient Jews and Christians. As most, if not all, of recent New Testament scholarship has demonstrated, few would dispute the “Jewishness” of the human figure of Jesus. Many, however, would dispute Boyarin’s distinctive thesis in The Jewish Gospels that the divine Christ is Jewish too. According to Boyarin, Christology is itself a Jewish discourse. Behind this claim lies the most significant argument of his book: the “germs” of both the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the Incarnation were already present within the thought-world of Second Temple Judaism. I...
In the past decades, the Bible's reception, which tends to include both its interpretation and it... more In the past decades, the Bible's reception, which tends to include both its interpretation and its use, has drawn considerable scholarly attention, particularly, though not exclusively, in the English-speaking world. Indeed, most major presses in the fields of theology and religious studies now have at least one series or substantial handbook dedicated to the reception of the Bible, such as The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible, The New Cambridge History of the Bible volumes, Bloomsbury's Biblical Reception series, or the Blackwell Bible Commentary Series' significant focus on reception.¹ De Gruyter has itself been one of the field's leading publishers, issuing such monograph series as Studies of the Bible and its Reception or Handbooks of the Bible and Its Reception, the closely-related Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, and the journal Journal of the Bible and its Reception. All four attend to the various ways in which the books of the Bible have been used and interpreted in text, music, art, and other media throughout the centuries and in various cultural contexts. The scholarly shift toward the Bible's reception, rather than its historicity, is now so widespread and thoroughgoing, that an exhaustive account of the bibliography dedicated to the subject is nearly impossible. On the other hand, in the field of patristics or Christianity in Late Antiquity, as some would have it, one ancient author's reception of another has been and continues to be a methodological mainstay; scholars continue to seek to determine a given author's literary sources in good "history of ideas" fashion. Scholars of both fieldsto the extent that they can be considered to belong to two distinct fieldswould do well to glean from each other's results and reception historical observations.² In this special issue, we have sought to place examples of Christian reception of the biblical text alongside examples of the reception of patristic authors and texts, from Christianity's earliest centuries to the modern period. It is this combination in which the issue's uniqueness is found. In fact, eight of the eleven essays of the issue focus on the reception of patristic authors to one extent or another. This inclusion of case studies of the reception of patristic authors alongside the reception of biblical texts is a way of acknowledging that in many cases patristic authors became a source of authority in their own right in a way that either paralleled or, in some cases, competed with that of the biblical text.
In this article, I examine the biblical commentary prefaces of Theodoret of Cyrus (d. 458), parti... more In this article, I examine the biblical commentary prefaces of Theodoret of Cyrus (d. 458), particularly the exegete's presentation of his self-image in relation to his predecessors in the Greek exegetical tradition. I contend that in addition to its introductory function, the biblical commentary preface provided the context in which the exegete could rhetorically style himself vis-à-vis the prior tradition, articulating his own skills, credentials, and distinctive interpretive approach. Of Theodoret's nine biblical commentaries, I focus particularly on the prefaces of his Commentary on the Song of Songs, Commentary on Daniel, Commentary on the Twelve Prophets, Questions on the Octateuch, and Commentary on the Psalms, given that in these five, we find Theodoret remarking explicitly on the prior interpretive tradition. I demonstrate that at times Theodoret engages with the prior tradition with a critical tone, and at others, he shows respectful deference to his predecessors. In every case, however, his comments serve the rhetorical end of presenting himself as both an authoritative exegetical inheritor and curator of the prior interpretive tradition. The overarching argument of this article then is that Theodoret fashions his own identity as an exegete by making his relative late appearance on the exegetical scene work to his advantage, claiming that an authoritative interpreter of scripture is one who inherits and curates the exegetical legacy and traditions of the prior tradition. In other words, Theodoret overcomes the (rhetorical) problem that others have previously produced commentaries on the biblical book by claiming that the true authoritative interpreter is in fact one who knows both scripture and the prior tradition intimately, and that the exegete's role at this stage in the tradition is to faithfully transmit the most fitting comments of others.
What is patristics? Qu'est-ce que la patristique? If you are a scholar who does research in the a... more What is patristics? Qu'est-ce que la patristique? If you are a scholar who does research in the area of patristics, you have likely heard this question many times.
In this paper, I analyze one aspect of Origen of Alexandria’s angelology, namely, his presentatio... more In this paper, I analyze one aspect of Origen of Alexandria’s angelology, namely, his presentation of the ways in which angelic beings engage with Scripture. I demonstrate that for Origen, angels knew scripture intimately due to their participation in the production of that which became Scripture, and as evidenced by their thoroughly scriptural speech and song. I argue that this understanding of the angels lends no little rhetorical force to Origen’s claims that angels are engaged with his own exegetical-homiletical endeavours, and that he himself interprets Scripture “angelically.”
In this paper I engage with Schmemann’s Mariological thought as articulated primarily in his thir... more In this paper I engage with Schmemann’s Mariological thought as articulated primarily in his third volume of the Celebration of Faith trilogy, The Virgin Mary and in his For the Life of the World. In particular, I examine his treatment of the issue of women’s ordination within the context of his Mariology. I argue that his discussion of the ordination of women in this context is inconsistent with his own theological reflection on the place of the Theotokos within Orthodox theology and worship. It is these very reflections on which I draw to argue that, if taken to their logical conclusions, they require further reflection on the ministry of women in the Orthodox Church. For example, Schmemann claims that Mary is an icon of the Church, of all humanity, and even of Christ himself. However, this icon of Christ is also for Schmemann the embodiment of what he describes as the “feminine” qualities of humility, beauty, obedience, and total self-abandonment, the very qualities that he argues prevent women from serving as priests. By attending to this disjunction in the thought of Schmemann, I suggest, along with “the Western mother of Orthodoxy,” Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, that the question of the ordination of women in the Orthodox Church remains open.
CUA Press, Studies in Early Christianity volume: Psalms Homilies of Origen, 2019
In this paper, I examine Origen's identification of the person (i.e. speaker or referent) in a se... more In this paper, I examine Origen's identification of the person (i.e. speaker or referent) in a selection of psalms on which he comments in the recently discovered Greek Homilies on the Psalms. I argue that in this respect the new homilies confirm Marie-Josephe Rondeau's thesis that Origen flexibly identified the person of the psalms, except in the case of psalms that the New Testament associates with Christ. One such example to which I give particular attention here is his two homilies on Psalm 15. In these homilies, unlike others in the new text, Origen exerts much interpretive energy to interpret each verse of the psalm as being spoken by or about Christ, and in the final instance, by or about his body, the individual members of the church.
In this paper I examine the patristic treatment of the Good Shepherd of John 10 as a case study o... more In this paper I examine the patristic treatment of the Good Shepherd of John 10 as a case study of the Fathers’ New Testament exegesis. I do so in light of the recent challenge to the traditional scholarly distinction between the two exegetical schools of Alexandria and Antioch. Frances Young in particular has suggested that the traditional characterization of the allegorically-minded Alexandrians and the historically-focused Antiochenes was based on the anceint interpreters’ Old Testament exegesis, and that their New Testament exegesis has been overlooked. Further, the categories of literal, typological, and allegorical scarcely apply as analytical tools in this setting, she claims, and thus their NT exegesis requires more nuanced analysis. To this I contribute in my brief examination of the treatment of the Good Shepherd parable by Origen and Cyril of Alexandria, and John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia from Antioch. These interpreters considered the Good Shepherd parable to be an allegory, and thus each of them provided it with an ‘allegorical’ interpretation. That is, they each assigned referents to the characters of the parable, such as the gate, the shepherd and his sheep, the robbers etc. Despite this similarity, their treatments reflect significantly different concerns. As Chrysostom and Theodore approached the parable, they searched the immediate narrative context of John 10 and other biblical passages in order to find its meaning. By contrast, Origen and Cyril were much more interested in the passage’s application to the individual and communal Christian life in their own setting.
Miriam DeCock analyzes four important early Christian treatments of the Gospel of John, including... more Miriam DeCock analyzes four important early Christian treatments of the Gospel of John, including two commentaries by Origen and Cyril from the Alexandrian tradition as well as the homilies of John Chrysostom and the commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia, which represent Antiochian traditions. DeCock’s thorough analysis demonstrates that the Antiochenes find primarily moral examples and doctrinal teachings in John’s Gospel, whereas the Alexandrians find both these and teachings concerning the immediate situation within their own communities.
Berkeley’s Daniel Boyarin, well-known for his revision of the understanding of the interactions b... more Berkeley’s Daniel Boyarin, well-known for his revision of the understanding of the interactions between nascent Christianity and nascent Judaism in the years 100–500, looks to extend such work to the period of the New Testament in his 2012 book, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ.1 Here he seeks to challenge the popular understanding of the first-century Jesus movement, and thus the relationship between ancient Jews and Christians. As most, if not all, of recent New Testament scholarship has demonstrated, few would dispute the “Jewishness” of the human figure of Jesus. Many, however, would dispute Boyarin’s distinctive thesis in The Jewish Gospels that the divine Christ is Jewish too. According to Boyarin, Christology is itself a Jewish discourse. Behind this claim lies the most significant argument of his book: the “germs” of both the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the Incarnation were already present within the thought-world of Second Temple Judaism. I...
In the past decades, the Bible's reception, which tends to include both its interpretation and it... more In the past decades, the Bible's reception, which tends to include both its interpretation and its use, has drawn considerable scholarly attention, particularly, though not exclusively, in the English-speaking world. Indeed, most major presses in the fields of theology and religious studies now have at least one series or substantial handbook dedicated to the reception of the Bible, such as The Oxford Handbook of the Reception History of the Bible, The New Cambridge History of the Bible volumes, Bloomsbury's Biblical Reception series, or the Blackwell Bible Commentary Series' significant focus on reception.¹ De Gruyter has itself been one of the field's leading publishers, issuing such monograph series as Studies of the Bible and its Reception or Handbooks of the Bible and Its Reception, the closely-related Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception, and the journal Journal of the Bible and its Reception. All four attend to the various ways in which the books of the Bible have been used and interpreted in text, music, art, and other media throughout the centuries and in various cultural contexts. The scholarly shift toward the Bible's reception, rather than its historicity, is now so widespread and thoroughgoing, that an exhaustive account of the bibliography dedicated to the subject is nearly impossible. On the other hand, in the field of patristics or Christianity in Late Antiquity, as some would have it, one ancient author's reception of another has been and continues to be a methodological mainstay; scholars continue to seek to determine a given author's literary sources in good "history of ideas" fashion. Scholars of both fieldsto the extent that they can be considered to belong to two distinct fieldswould do well to glean from each other's results and reception historical observations.² In this special issue, we have sought to place examples of Christian reception of the biblical text alongside examples of the reception of patristic authors and texts, from Christianity's earliest centuries to the modern period. It is this combination in which the issue's uniqueness is found. In fact, eight of the eleven essays of the issue focus on the reception of patristic authors to one extent or another. This inclusion of case studies of the reception of patristic authors alongside the reception of biblical texts is a way of acknowledging that in many cases patristic authors became a source of authority in their own right in a way that either paralleled or, in some cases, competed with that of the biblical text.
In this article, I examine the biblical commentary prefaces of Theodoret of Cyrus (d. 458), parti... more In this article, I examine the biblical commentary prefaces of Theodoret of Cyrus (d. 458), particularly the exegete's presentation of his self-image in relation to his predecessors in the Greek exegetical tradition. I contend that in addition to its introductory function, the biblical commentary preface provided the context in which the exegete could rhetorically style himself vis-à-vis the prior tradition, articulating his own skills, credentials, and distinctive interpretive approach. Of Theodoret's nine biblical commentaries, I focus particularly on the prefaces of his Commentary on the Song of Songs, Commentary on Daniel, Commentary on the Twelve Prophets, Questions on the Octateuch, and Commentary on the Psalms, given that in these five, we find Theodoret remarking explicitly on the prior interpretive tradition. I demonstrate that at times Theodoret engages with the prior tradition with a critical tone, and at others, he shows respectful deference to his predecessors. In every case, however, his comments serve the rhetorical end of presenting himself as both an authoritative exegetical inheritor and curator of the prior interpretive tradition. The overarching argument of this article then is that Theodoret fashions his own identity as an exegete by making his relative late appearance on the exegetical scene work to his advantage, claiming that an authoritative interpreter of scripture is one who inherits and curates the exegetical legacy and traditions of the prior tradition. In other words, Theodoret overcomes the (rhetorical) problem that others have previously produced commentaries on the biblical book by claiming that the true authoritative interpreter is in fact one who knows both scripture and the prior tradition intimately, and that the exegete's role at this stage in the tradition is to faithfully transmit the most fitting comments of others.
What is patristics? Qu'est-ce que la patristique? If you are a scholar who does research in the a... more What is patristics? Qu'est-ce que la patristique? If you are a scholar who does research in the area of patristics, you have likely heard this question many times.
In this paper, I analyze one aspect of Origen of Alexandria’s angelology, namely, his presentatio... more In this paper, I analyze one aspect of Origen of Alexandria’s angelology, namely, his presentation of the ways in which angelic beings engage with Scripture. I demonstrate that for Origen, angels knew scripture intimately due to their participation in the production of that which became Scripture, and as evidenced by their thoroughly scriptural speech and song. I argue that this understanding of the angels lends no little rhetorical force to Origen’s claims that angels are engaged with his own exegetical-homiletical endeavours, and that he himself interprets Scripture “angelically.”
In this paper I engage with Schmemann’s Mariological thought as articulated primarily in his thir... more In this paper I engage with Schmemann’s Mariological thought as articulated primarily in his third volume of the Celebration of Faith trilogy, The Virgin Mary and in his For the Life of the World. In particular, I examine his treatment of the issue of women’s ordination within the context of his Mariology. I argue that his discussion of the ordination of women in this context is inconsistent with his own theological reflection on the place of the Theotokos within Orthodox theology and worship. It is these very reflections on which I draw to argue that, if taken to their logical conclusions, they require further reflection on the ministry of women in the Orthodox Church. For example, Schmemann claims that Mary is an icon of the Church, of all humanity, and even of Christ himself. However, this icon of Christ is also for Schmemann the embodiment of what he describes as the “feminine” qualities of humility, beauty, obedience, and total self-abandonment, the very qualities that he argues prevent women from serving as priests. By attending to this disjunction in the thought of Schmemann, I suggest, along with “the Western mother of Orthodoxy,” Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, that the question of the ordination of women in the Orthodox Church remains open.
CUA Press, Studies in Early Christianity volume: Psalms Homilies of Origen, 2019
In this paper, I examine Origen's identification of the person (i.e. speaker or referent) in a se... more In this paper, I examine Origen's identification of the person (i.e. speaker or referent) in a selection of psalms on which he comments in the recently discovered Greek Homilies on the Psalms. I argue that in this respect the new homilies confirm Marie-Josephe Rondeau's thesis that Origen flexibly identified the person of the psalms, except in the case of psalms that the New Testament associates with Christ. One such example to which I give particular attention here is his two homilies on Psalm 15. In these homilies, unlike others in the new text, Origen exerts much interpretive energy to interpret each verse of the psalm as being spoken by or about Christ, and in the final instance, by or about his body, the individual members of the church.
In this paper I examine the patristic treatment of the Good Shepherd of John 10 as a case study o... more In this paper I examine the patristic treatment of the Good Shepherd of John 10 as a case study of the Fathers’ New Testament exegesis. I do so in light of the recent challenge to the traditional scholarly distinction between the two exegetical schools of Alexandria and Antioch. Frances Young in particular has suggested that the traditional characterization of the allegorically-minded Alexandrians and the historically-focused Antiochenes was based on the anceint interpreters’ Old Testament exegesis, and that their New Testament exegesis has been overlooked. Further, the categories of literal, typological, and allegorical scarcely apply as analytical tools in this setting, she claims, and thus their NT exegesis requires more nuanced analysis. To this I contribute in my brief examination of the treatment of the Good Shepherd parable by Origen and Cyril of Alexandria, and John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia from Antioch. These interpreters considered the Good Shepherd parable to be an allegory, and thus each of them provided it with an ‘allegorical’ interpretation. That is, they each assigned referents to the characters of the parable, such as the gate, the shepherd and his sheep, the robbers etc. Despite this similarity, their treatments reflect significantly different concerns. As Chrysostom and Theodore approached the parable, they searched the immediate narrative context of John 10 and other biblical passages in order to find its meaning. By contrast, Origen and Cyril were much more interested in the passage’s application to the individual and communal Christian life in their own setting.
Miriam DeCock analyzes four important early Christian treatments of the Gospel of John, including... more Miriam DeCock analyzes four important early Christian treatments of the Gospel of John, including two commentaries by Origen and Cyril from the Alexandrian tradition as well as the homilies of John Chrysostom and the commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia, which represent Antiochian traditions. DeCock’s thorough analysis demonstrates that the Antiochenes find primarily moral examples and doctrinal teachings in John’s Gospel, whereas the Alexandrians find both these and teachings concerning the immediate situation within their own communities.
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