Conclusions

Early Christian biblical exegesis had first and foremost the function of clarifying obscure, difficult, or (at face value) contradictory passages of the text. Sometimes, exegetes also wished to demonstrate in what respect heresies or other dangerous inclinations were wrong. Finally, they wanted sometimes to square the certainties of their own experience or knowledge with the seemingly different certainties of the biblical text. In all instances, the exegetical results are closely connected with the individual author’s position in relation to doctrine and church politics. As a result, the wealth of factual, ideological, and psychological information hidden in these commentaries will continue to be a rich source of research. These texts have so far received less scholarly attention than they deserve.

If asked, therefore, what sense there was in looking at late antique biblical commentaries, one could reply first that they make us aware of the fluidity, ephemerality, and contextuality of all interpretive principles and results, including our own, and second that our own view of the text can be enriched and differentiated by them (Eugene TeSelle in Gorday 1983: xiii-xvii). So, exegesis can never come to an end, since every generation needs its own explanations. Nor can it be restricted to one genre. Literary forms and exegetical terminology and method can be restricted only by the rule of faith, the regula fidei - that is, exegetical conclusions must not contradict axioms of the Christian faith.

One can conclude, therefore, that early Christian exegetes had a clear understanding of the specific quality of the biblical text, which was not to be seen exclusively or primarily as a report of historical fact but as God’s word intended to communicate basic truths about human existence. In principle, therefore, a variety of literal and allegorical interpretations is permissible. Moreover, despite the later accorded authority of the so-called church Fathers (see Graumann, ch. 36), they themselves were very much aware of the transience and potential insufficiency of their attempts to explain Scripture. Later reception of their thought has sometimes overlooked this.

It is also striking that the rich variety of exegetical method is observable not only in the body of early Christian authors as a whole but also, at times, within the work of a single exegete, as the example of Augustine makes clear. But despite the variety of his exegetical writings on Genesis, Augustine’s final goal is always the same - namely, to disclose God as the unchanging creator of the changing universe (August. Retract. 1. 10. 1). The function of exegesis is not so much to produce new results or dogmatic truths as to explain, illuminate, and communicate those truths to various kinds of readers who find it difficult to come to terms with the biblical text on their own. Thus, exegesis can be creative within a dogmatic framework that is nevertheless considered fixed. The stress within any one interpretation can be apologetic, polemical, personal, edifying, didactic-instructional, or a mixture of all these; but a plurality of exegetical opinions is also possible. Since the number of both exegetes and readers is potentially infinite, there are potentially infinite ways of giving that communication effect.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

For surveys of the history of textual interpretation, see, for the pagan tradition Coulter 1976, Lamberton 1986, and Obbink 2003; for Jewish and early Christian exegesis, including the Syriac tradition, Sxbo 1996; and solely for the early Christian tradition the comprehensive overview in Kannengiesser 2004, subdivided into ‘‘General Considerations” and “Historical Survey.’’ For a list of commentaries on various biblical books written by ecclesiastical authors in Late Antiquity, see StegmiiJler 1950 and Sieben 1991. Useful also is Allenbach et al. 19952000, listing biblical quotations in patristic literature. Sieben 1983 and Schneemelcher 1959 (chapter on ‘‘Patrum exegesis Veteris et Novi Testamenti’’) list secondary literature on the patristic exegesis of specific biblical passages. The methods, principles, forms, and functions of commentaries on ancient religious, scientific, and philosophical texts are compared in Most 1999, and those of individual biblical commentators in Gorday 1983. The history of commenting on a specific biblical motif is exemplified in Casurella 1983 and Metzdorf 2003. For the reception of patristic interpretive principles in later times, see Preus 1969.