In this thesis I argue, against much recent scholarship on early Christian exegesis, that the traditional distinction between the two exegetical schools of Alexandria and Antioch, the allegorists and the literalists respectively, ought to be maintained. Despite much overlap in terms of the school members’ training in grammar and rhetoric (one of the major arguments put forward by those who wish to do away with the two schools), a critical distinction lies in the ways the exegetes of the two early Christian centres used Scripture for the spiritual development of their audiences. This I demonstrate through a close analysis of the exegetical treatments of five passages from the Gospel of John by four authors, two Alexandrians, Origen and Cyril, and two Antiochenes, John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia. I attend to my authors’ use of a shared exegetical principle that
Scripture is inherently “beneficial” or “useful,” and therefore it is the exegete’s duty to draw out Scripture’s benefits, whether from the literal narrative or by moving beyond the letter to the non-literal plane. Examination of this principle allows us to understand these authors’ rationale—namely, the spiritual development of their audiences—for providing either a literal or a non-literal reading, rather than simplistically designating Alexandrians as “allegorists” and Antiochenes as “literalists.” I demonstrate that other than one brief instance, the Antiochenes remain at the literal level of the text to draw out Scripture’s benefits, whereas in every case the Alexandrians draw out benefit from the literal and the non-literal levels of the text. Moreover, I argue that one of the distinctive features of
Alexandrian exegesis was that one of the most important benefits provided by the biblical text was its direct application to these authors’ contemporary church settings, situations, and even to the individual Christian souls. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In this thesis I seek to provide an answer to the question of whether there were two distinct schools of scriptural interpretation in the two major centres of Alexandria and Antioch in the church of late antiquity. Traditionally scholars have characterized the Alexandrian exegesis as allegorical or spiritual and Antiochene as historical or literal. In recent decades, scholars have sought to do away with the distinction, tending to focus on the school members’ shared training in rhetoric and grammar. I argue that the traditional distinction ought to be maintained, but I draw attention to a critical distinction between the two schools, namely, the ways in which the exegetes of the two centres apply
Scripture to their respective church settings. I demonstrate this by comparing the interpretations of five passages from the Gospel of John by two Alexandrian authors, Origen and Cyril, and two Antiochenes, John Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/24010 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | DeCock, Miriam |
| Contributors | Widdicombe, Peter, Religious Studies |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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