Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/781

 EXEGESIS

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EXEGESIS

tempted an explanation of the whole of Scripture; his method we learn from the remaining fragments of his writings, especially of his commentary on Daniel. It may be said in general that these earliest Christian writers admitted both the literal and the allegorical sense of Scripture. The latter sense appears to have been favoured by St. Clement of Rome, Barnabas, St. Justin, St. Irena-us. while the literal seems to pre- vail in the writings of St. Hippolytus, Tertulhan, the Clementine Recognitions, and among the Unostics.

(b) The Cireek Fathers. — The Encyclical " Provi- dentissimus Deus" refers mainlj' to the Greek Fathers when it says: " When there arose, in various sees, catechetical and theological schools, of which the most celebrated were those of Alexandria and of Antioch, there was little taught in those schools but what was contained in the readmg, the interpretation, and the defence of the Divine written word. From them came forth numbers of Fathers and writers whose laborious studies and admirable writings have justly merited for the three following centuries the appella- tion of the golden age of Biblical exegesis."

(a) The School of Alexandria. — Tradition loves to trace the origin of the Alexandrian School back to the Evangelist St. Mark. Be that as it may, towards the end of the second century we find St. Pantaenus presi- dent of the school; none of his WTitings are extant, but Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., V, x) and St. Jerome (De vir. ill., c. xxxvi) testify that he explained Sacred Scrip- ture. Clement of Alexandria ranks him among those who did not write any book (Strom., I. i) ; he died before 200. His successor was Clement of Alexandria, who had first been his disciple, and after 190 his col- league. Of his WTitLngs are extant "Cohortatio ad Gentiles", " Pa-dagogus", and "Stromata"; also the Latin translation of part of his eight exegetical books (Migne, P. G., IX, 729-740). Clemeit was followed by Origen (b. 185; d. 2.54), the principal glory of the whole school. Among liis works, the greater part of which is lost, his " Ilexapla " and his threefold expla- nation of Scripture, by way of schoUa, homilies, and commentaries, deserve special notice. It was Origen, too, who fully developed the hermeneutical principles which distinguish the Alexandrian School, though they are not applied in their entirety by any other Father. He applied Plato's distinction of body, soul, and spirit to the Scriptures, admitting in them a litera!, a moral, and a mystical or spiritual sense. Not that the whole of Scripture has this triple sense. In some parts tiie hteral sense may be neglected, in others the allegorical may be lacking, while in others again the three senses may be found. Origen believes that the apparent dis- crepancies of the Evangelists can be explained only by means of the spiritual sense, that the whole ceremonial and ritual law must be explained mystically, and that all the prophetic utterances about Judea, Jerusalem, Israel, etc., are to be referred to the Kingdom of Heaven and its citizens, to the good and bad angels, etc. Among the eminent writers of the Alexandrian School must be classed Julius .\fricanus (c. 215), St. Dionysius the Great (d. 265), St. Gregory Thaumatur- gus (d. 270), Eusebius of Ctesarea (d. 340), St. Athana- sius (d. 373), Didymus of Alexandria (d. 397), St. Epiphanias (d. 403), St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444), and finally also the celebrated Cappadocian Fathers, St. Basil the Great (d. 379), St. Gregory Nazianzen (d. 389), and St. Gregory of Nyssa (d. 394). The last three, however, have many points in common with the School of Antioch.

(^) The School of Antioch. — The Fathers of Antioch adhered to hermeneutical principles which insist more on the so-called grammatico-historical sense of the Sacred Books than on their moral and allegorical meaning. It is true that Theodore of Mopsuestia urged the literal sense to the detriment of the typical, believing that the New Testament applies some of the prophecies to the Messias only by way of accommoda-

tion, and that on account of their allegories the Canti- cle of Canticles, together with a few other books, should not be admitted intotheCanon. But generally speak- ing, the Fathers of Antioch and Eastern SjTia, the latter of whom formed the School of Xisibis or Edessa, steered a course midway between Origen and Theo- dore, avoiding the excesses of both, and thus laying the foundation of the hermeneutical principles which the Catholic exegete ought to follow. The principal representatives of the School of Antioch are St. John Chrysostom (d. 407) ; Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 429), condemned by the Fifth CEcumenical Sjmod on ac- count of his explanation of Job and the Canticle of Canticles, and in certain respects the forerunner of Xestorius; St. Isidore of Pelusium, in Egypt (d. 434), numbered among the Antiochene commentators on account of his Biblical explanations inserted in about two thousand of his letters; Theodoret, Bishop of CjTus in Syria (d. 458), known for his Questions on the Octateuch, the Books of Kings and Par., and for his Commentaries on the Psalms, the Cant., the Prophets, and the Epistles of St. Paul. The School of Edessa glories in the names of Aphraates who flourished in the first half of the fourth century, St. Ephraem (d. 373), Cyrillonas, Balaeus, Rabulas, Isaac the Great, etc.

(c) The Latin Fathers. — The Latin Fathers, too, admitted a twofold sense of Scripture, insisting vari- ously now on the one, now on the other. We can only enumerate their names: TertuUian (b. 160). St. Cyprian (d. 258), St. Victorinus (d. 297), St. Hilary (d. 367), Marius Victorinus (d. 370), St. Ambrose (d. 397), Rufinus (d. 410), St. Jerome (d. 420), St. Augustine (d. 430), Primasius (d. 550), Cassiodorus (d. 562), St. Gregory the Great (d. 604). St. Hilary, Marius Victorinus, and St. Ambrose depend, to a cer- tain extent, on Origen and the Alexandrian School; St. Jerome and St. Augustine are the two great lights of the Latin Church on whom depend most of the Latin WTiters of the Middle Ages; at the end of the works of St. .\mbrose is inserted a commentary on the Pauhne Epistles which is now ascribed to Ps.-Ambrose or Ambrosiaster.

(ii) Second Period of Exegesis, A. D. 604-1546. — We consider the following nine centuries as one period of exegesis, not on account of their uniform productive- ness or barrenness in the field of Biblical study, nor on account of their uniform tendency of developing any particular branch of exegesis, but rather on account of their characteristic dependence on the work of the Fathers. Whether they sj-nopsized or amplified, whether they analysed or derived new conclusions from old premises, they always started from the patris- tic results as their basis of operation. Though during this period the labours of the tireek writers can in no way compare with those of the Latin, still it will be found convenient to consider them apart.

(a) The Greek Writers. — The Greek \\Titers who lived between the sixth and the thirteentli centuries composed partly commentaries, partly compilations. The Bishops of Ctesarea, Andreas and Arethas, who are variously assigned to the fifth and sixth, or to the eighth and ninth centuries, explained the .\pocalj'pse; Procopius of Gaza (524) wrote on the Octateuch, Is., and Prov. ; Hesychius of Jerusalem wrote probably about the end of the sixth century on Lev., Pss., Is., the Minor Prophets, and the concordance of the Gos- pels; Anastasius Sinaita (d. 599) left twelve books of allegorical comments on the hexaeraeron; Olympio- dorus (d. 620) and St. Maximus (d. 662) left more sober explanations than Anastasius, though they are not free from allegorism; St. John Damascene (d. 760) has many Scriptural explanations in his dogmatic and polemical works, besides writing a commentary on the Pauline Epistles, in which he follows Theodoret and St. CjTil of Alexandria, but especially St. Chrysostom. Photius (d. 891), CEcumenius (tenth century), Theo- phylactus (d. 1107), and Euthymius (d. 1118) were