Notes from a paper read to the Hull & District Theological Society Day School (in association with the Hull University Dept of Theology) by the Revd Professor Frances Young, OBE on 21 April 2008
Reading Scripture with the Fathers
Modernity and the historico-critical method:
• The Renaissance and the re-discovery of Greek and Hebrew
• The Reformation drive to get back to the original
• The ‘romantic’ view of interpretation – thinking the author’s thoughts after him
• The rise of historical consciousness – past is foreign country
Agreement that the original meaning is the only valid meaning. Root of disputes between so-called ‘liberals’ and ‘conservatives’; both are the product of modernity.
Not traditional interpretation. Post-modern attitudes question this whole tradition: liberationist, feminist, black, bamboo interpretations ….
But what about traditional interpretation? What about an ecumenism across time, not just place?
Biblical exegesis in the Fathers:
The origins of the commentary – sorting out difficulties and problems
1. Problems in wording
2. Explanation of the background, context, reference, etc.
3. Summary and paraphrase
Very similar to modern commentaries, except they had different interests and saw different problems – not so much historical as ethical, doctrinal and spiritual.
So what were the interests of the early Church?
• To deduce right doctrine from scripture, especially in the face of heretics
• To spell out the right way of life for Christian believers – ethics, ascetic ideals, etc.
• To find maps for the spiritual journey of the soul
In other words they were less interested in the ‘material’, ‘earthly’, ‘historical or ‘factual’ meaning than the theological or spiritual meaning.
For the Fathers the Bible was the Word of God for the Church and its people NOW.
They believed that God had accommodated the transcendent divine self to our human level not only in the incarnation but also in the language of scripture. So how did they get to this deeper meaning?
• From linguistic analysis, metaphor, etc., and cross-referencing different scriptural passages that use the same wording
• From prophetic oracles and riddles, assumed to be in code which had to be unpacked
• From exemplary actions/models – Job was a ‘type’ of patience, for example
• From puzzles (aporiai) – for Origen the difference between John’s Gospel and the others was not a historical puzzle, but a theological opportunity
All of the Fathers were trying to discern the underlying eternal meaning intended by the Holy Spirit, rather than the historical factual meaning which has dominated modern interpretation. So what did they think the Bible was all about? What was the subject-matter behind the wording?
The subject-matter was CHRIST : ‘Christ’ here covers a range of things – obviously the incarnation, but also the ‘Body of Christ’, that is the Church, the sacraments, Christians, their moral life, their salvation and final destiny, and so on.
The main points:
• The Fathers insisted on the unity of scripture by contrast with modernist analysis and differentiation
• They were primarily interested in the spiritual/moral/Christological sense rather than having the historical interest of modern interpreters
• They had an ‘external’ test of how to read scripture aright, which we can roughly identify as the ‘creed’ in one form or another. [One post-modern approach known as canon-criticism, tries to interpret in the light of the Bible as a whole, as the Fathers did, but fails to see that the Bible is not self-explanatory unless there is some kind of a framework]
• They said a person had to have inspiration to read scripture – it was not just that the text was inspired, and for scripture to speak one had to see oneself in it, and learn from it; modern interpretation seeks to be objective rather than subjective
• They recognised the inadequacies of human language to express the divine, and so saw the language of scripture as symbolic of deeper meanings
• They understood that God in his infinite divine grace had accommodated the divine self to our level both in the incarnation and in the language of scripture
• They understood the narratives as not merely historical but exemplary and ‘typological’.
A Worked Example
Wrestling Jacob: see further, Frances Young, Brokenness and Blessing: towards a Biblical Spirituality (DLT 2007)
Contrast Luther/Charles Wesley with modern commentaries: reading Christ/‘self’ into the texts through ‘typology’.
Patristic readings:
1. ‘Theophanic’
2. Exemplary
3. Dispensational
4. Christological
5. Theological
Conclusion
I submit that we may not be able simply to take over what the Fathers said in our post-historico-critical age. But we can learn things from their exegetical methods and their theological perspectives which provide a release from the constrictions of the modern concern only with the original historical meaning, and enable us to find a ‘spiritual’ reading of scripture, or what Romam Catholics would call lectio divina.
