Susan B Griffith

Early Christian commentaries occasionally draw attention to what the biblical text does not say, and do so using a consistent rhetorical formula in Greek:  Οὐκ εἶπε A, ἀλλὰ B—‘It does not say A, but B.’ The purpose of this construction in context may be merely to clarify a point of vocabulary or grammar, but often it is more broadly theological, paraenetic, or even polemical. The pattern most likely entered usage from the first century BC onward in Greek commentaries on literature, philosophy, and medicine. Philo also deploys this antithesis in his Old Testament exegesis at nearly the same time, suggesting perhaps that this construction arose in a shared rhetorical tradition, possibly Alexandrian. Greek patristic commentaries develop the antithesis further into a relatively set formula, appearing with particular frequency in Origen and Chrysostom. Examples from a range of pagan, Jewish, and Christian commentaries are discussed, followed by a closer look at this pattern as found in patristic commentaries on Galatians. Usage of any similar formula in Latin patristic texts, however, appears to be comparatively rare.

Paul’s confrontation of Peter in Antioch, as related in Galatians 2:11-14, caused much consternation for the exegetes of the early church. Controversy over how these two foundational apostles could clash produced multiple divergent theories, and even provided fodder for pagan critics. Chrysostom’s interpretation of the passage is often incorrectly lumped with that of other fathers. This paper looks closely at Chrysostom’s elaborate explanation in his occasional homily on the pericope (In illud: In faciem ei restiti), and compares this to the exegesis found in his better-known sermon series on Galatians (In epistulam ad Galatas commentarius). Close analysis reveals the former as a highly-structured and Christianized encomium to the city of Antioch. Chrysostom’s interpretations are placed in the context of other patristic and pagan uses of the Pauline text, as well as the context of perceptions of authority in the early church.

[Paper given at the International Conference on Patristics, Oxford, August 2015. Handout uploaded below.]

Two views of Ambrose circulated during his time, and to a certain extent persist to this day. One depicts him as an effective and deeply spiritual preacher, as well as an astute leader in a time of political and religious conflict. The other derides him as a plagiariser, whose thought was derivative and inferior to his sources. This paper examines Ambrose's Commentary on the Gospel of Luke as a way of assessing his compositional methodology. Close readings of two extended passages are provided, comparing them to parallel texts in Origen's Homilies on Luke and Jerome's translation of that work, in the first instance, and in Origen's Lucan homilies and Hilary of Poitiers' Commentary on Matthew, in the second instance.

[Paper given at the Ninth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, 2-5 March 2015. Expanded article published as a chapter in: Commentaries, Catenae and Biblical Tradition (Texts and Studies 3.13). Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2016.]

In his discussions of figurative language, Augustine distinguishes between sign and signified.  In his preaching, he hints at a deeper connection between the two categories.  At various points in his sermons, he refers to symbolic language and figures as the ‘wrappings’ (involucra) within which divine truth lies waiting to be ‘shaken out,’ like gems from a bag.  Yet he has a higher regard for those wrappings than might be apparent at first glance.  In Sermo 160, for example, he equates the wrappings with the crucified Christ—the humble, humiliated Saviour, too easily rejected and tossed aside.  This type of involucrum thus represents the incarnational humility of God:  the accessible Son of Man.  The wrappings of figurative language thus connect with the means by which divine truth is mediated.  The Incarnation transforms this process.  This paper examines Augustine’s use of imagery of wrapping and unwrapping to describe his perception of the function and status of metaphor, particularly in his preaching.

The Pauline epistles evoked an exegetical response in the first few centuries after their composition, and numerous commentaries are extant. Moreover, some of these commentaries predate the earliest complete manuscripts of the epistles. While more Latin than Greek commentaries on the epistles have survived, Chrysostom’s In epistulam ad Galatas commentarius and Theodoret’s Interpretatio in xiv epistulas sancti Pauli and the more complicated catenae manuscripts provide rich resources for understanding both the interpretative and the Biblical text tradition of the reception of Galatians in the East.  This paper will seek to assess the extent to which Theodoret in the fifth century reuses earlier material from Chrysostom and others in the section of his Pauline commentary addressing the Epistle to the Galatians. Attention will be given to forms of citation of the biblical text, methodology of exegesis, and the shaping of the interpretation of that text.  Are there any indications of reliance upon or outright borrowing from earlier works? Does Theodoret provide any explicit or implicit indications of any dependency on his predecessors’ text or exegesis?

This paper will draw upon my analysis of Greek commentaries on Galatians as part of my work on COMPAUL: The Earliest Commentaries on Paul as Sources for the Biblical Text. This five-year project has been funded by the European Research Council and is based at the University of Birmingham. The project is part of larger research initiatives, specifically the International Greek New Testament Project, the Vetus Latina series, and the Editio Critica Maior of the New Testament.

A gigantic patient, sprawled across the entire earth as on a huge sickbed, appears repeatedly in the preaching of Augustine.  After giving a communication on medical imagery in the sermons of Augustine at one of the Oxford Patristics conferences, a member of the audience asked me what I made of this figure, so surprising, indeed nearly grotesque, and yet apparently deliberate.  My research took me from Hippo to the Babylonian Talmud, and in between a range of religious worlds of the first few centuries after Christ.  Where had this image come from? What possible influences were there?  The frequency with which it appears in Augustine’s sermons suggests that it was quite familiar to his audiences.  The clarity of this vivid image suggests that it was a regular inhabitant of the landscape of Augustine’s imagination.  This paper seeks to examine Augustine’s enormous patient, posit some possible sources for this image, and analyse its function in his preaching.

Ambrose’s Explanatio Psalmi 1 draws heavily from Basil’s homily on Psalm 1, but not indiscriminately. This paper will examine the intertextuality of this portion of Ambrose’s commentary on what Carol Harrison has called ‘the intertext’ of the early church: the book of Psalms.  Basil’s text serves as a framework onto which the Bishop of Milan adds further introductory remarks and observations about the first verse, before continuing on through the rest of the Psalm to finish off what Basil never apparently managed to complete.  Ambrose shifts the tone considerably in the process towards assertive paraenesis, rife with militaristic imagery.  For both exegetes much of the discussion focuses on the cathedra pestilentiae / καθέδρα λοιμῶν, as found in the LXX and translations based on it, but they arrive at distinctive applications.  Curiously, neither is intent on using the text as polemic against heretical church leaders, unlike Cyprian, Optatus, or Ambrosiaster.

In this presentation to the Patristics Seminar at Oxford, I outlined the parameters of the project, discussed its connection to related projects, notably the Editio Critica Maior, and demonstrated the process of collation of relevant texts, XML manuscript transcription, and the outputs already available for scholarly use. I also discussed the role of a range of digital humanities resources useful to the study of patristics and demonstrated key elements of functionality, particularly different kinds of searches, the n-gram intertextuality tool on the brand new platform for the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, and  the recognition of limits of the individual databases.

COMPAUL is an ERC-funded project analysing the text of several key Pauline epistles as cited in early Christian writings and is based in the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing at the University of Birmingham. Crucially, the project seeks to locate patristic citations as primary evidence of the textual tradition of the epistles, rather than merely as secondary support for main and variant readings found in New Testament manuscripts. The research uses a range of digital materials to gather the patristic citations. These texts are then entered into an online citations management database for collation. Closer analysis in a further database compares lemma texts with exegesis texts in early Biblical commentaries. Finally, in addition to traditional forms of printed publication of the research, the results of the project will be presented via an online--eventually searchable--database for other scholars to use. Key discoveries of the project will be incorporated into the Editio Critica Maior for the epistles.

This paper will focus on the methodology of the project. Most of the examples will be drawn from my experience using digital resources to collect citations of Galatians in the Greek fathers of the 2nd to 7th centuries. I will also explore the comparative usefulness of Biblindex and the two currently available versions of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae for Biblical and patristic studies.  I will also demonstrate the various online interfaces of the project accessible via the Workspace for Collaborative Editing. The paper will be useful to those with a range of research interests: textual criticism, New Testament exegesis, patristics, and digital humanities.

[Thanks to my colleagues, in particular Rosalind MacLachlan, who shared some of their Powerpoint slides with me for this presentation.]

Book review of Rebekka Schirner's research into Augustine's interaction with Biblical manuscripts and translations, and his work as a textual scholar.

Note: email address has changed since the pre-pub draft to: [email protected].

Augustine of Hippo makes frequent use of medical imagery in his preaching.  The curative analogy was a familiar theme in classical rhetoric, as well as in patristic authors.  In the sermons of Augustine, however, these familiar images become both more complex, nuanced, and theologically focused. 
This thesis examines Augustine’s use of medical metaphor in his public preaching, assessed quantitatively, descriptively and theologically.  The primary works under consideration are the Sermones ad populum, augmented by the more recently discovered sermons.  Illustrations from his other homiletic material—the Enarrationes in Psalmos and the Tractates in John—are also examined, and comparisons made to his broader corpus.
The first section of the thesis traces the inspirations and context for Augustine’s usage of medical imagery by examining these metaphors in classical writings, the Bible and patristic sources.  Special attention is paid to the interconnection between late antique medicine, philosophy and rhetoric.
In the second half of the dissertation, specific examples of medical metaphor are examined in some detail, organized around the themes of Christ as physician and medicine, the sin-sick patient, and the Church as hospital.  Augustine’s exegesis of the Parable of the Good Samaritan provides a template for interpreting these diverse metaphors as part of a larger, coherent medicinal theology.  After an overview of the individual topic and an analysis of its scope in the sermons, each chapter focuses on close readings of some of the identified texts, detailing significant patterns and motifs, and assessing theological implications.
The insights gleaned from examining Augustine’s use of medical imagery in his sermons bring some balance to more traditional approaches to his theology via his treatises.  This corrective can be seen in the area of his soteriology, which has long been focused on the juridical model to the neglect of the emphasis in Augustine, particularly in his preaching, on the constitutional problem and the Incarnation.  Similarly, the portrait of Christ as Physician provides insight into Augustine’s Christology, a neglected area of study.  The image of the Church as the Samaritan’s Inn had practical expression later in Augustine’s life, as he saw established both a shrine for St. Stephen and a hostel to receive its visitors.  The richness of Augustine’s medical metaphor finds expression in nearly every part of his theology, offering a vivid and unifying narrative of the Christian life.