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‘The Spirit of God’: The Exegesis of I Cor. 2: 10–12 by Origen and Athanasius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Michael A. G. Haykin
Michael A. G. Haykin
Affiliation:
149 Markland Street, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8P 2K4
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Extract

Recent scholarly interest in the Fathers as exegetes of Scripture has tended to examine the reasons why a patristic author takes a particular exegetical position. Rowan Greer's fine study of the Greek patristic exegesis of Hebrews best exemplifies this current tendency. Greer refuses to judge the ‘correctness’ of the Fathers' exegesis, for they have as much right to their interpretations as sixteenth-century or modern exegetes. Rather, he attempts to see how their theological concerns determined the questions which they asked of the Scriptures. These questions, in turn, shaped the answers that were given. This dialectic does not necessarily mean that these Fathers consciously forced the Scriptures into pre-formed theological moulds. The Fathers were honest in their desire to remain faithful to the Scriptures. Nevertheless, the theological principles which they either inherited from traditional views of Scriptural texts or formed in response to what they considered heretical opinions definitely shaped the questions which they asked of the Scriptural text and consequently, the answers which they received from it. This is no less true today.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 35 , Issue 6 , December 1982 , pp. 513 - 528
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1982

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References

1 The Captain of our Salvation. A study in the Patristic Exegesis of Hebrews [Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1973]Google Scholar. For a statement of his methodology, see ibid., pp. 1–5. See also the summary of this methodology in Groh, D. E., ‘Changing Points of View in Patristic Scholarship’, The Anglican Theological Review, LX (1978), 460–461.Google Scholar

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3 For the date, see Nautin, Pierre, Origène. Sa vie et son oeuvre (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977), pp. 368–370Google Scholar. The dates for the other works of Origen which are mentioned in this paper are also those of Nautin.

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38 Fourth Letter to Serapion 4 (PG 26. 644A). Cf. Fourth Letter to Serapion 6 (PG 26. 645C–648A).

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