Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture

Those who follow and admire the work of Frances Young will welcome this new work on patristic exegesis. This book, which unifies many ideas that she has introduced in scholarly journals over the past few years, offers a comprehensive analysis of the pervasive presence of the Bible in emerging Christian culture. Unlike most books dealing with patristic biblical interpretation, Young does not become fixed on detailing patristic exegetical method or upon clarifying the differences between allegory and typology. She recognizes that the Bible’s relationship to early Christian culture is much more complex—indeed much more interesting—than studies of this material often imply. This is easily the best book on the subject of patristic interpretation currently available, and it ranks among the best books on the subject ever written.

Again, one of the book’s strengths is that Young refuses to reduce patristic exegesis to a fight between Alexandria and Antioch or between allegory and typology. While these terms were problematic in antiquity and did figure prominently in the minds of many early Christian interpreters, they hardly constitute a preoccupation. Young argues, convincingly, that the prominence given to these distinctions in the scholarly literature reveals more about modern intellectual concerns than it does about the ancient exegetical situation. Contemporary scholars, attempting to salvage some form of “spiritual exegesis,” had a vested interest in recovering a “typological” exegesis that preserved the historical narrative. Unfortunately, ancient people had no such concern. Readers will welcome Young’s lucid discussion of these standard problems.

The book’s success, however, derives from the discussion of “non-standard” problems. Young has for some time seen the value of literary and hermeneutical theory for illuminating patristic exegesis. Young is interested in the way in which the Bible permeated and shaped the early Christian mind, and, in the process, created a new Christian culture. The success of this project can be at least partially attributed to the pre-critical nature of patristic attitudes toward the Bible. The meaning of the text was controlled not by history (in the modern sense), but by larger convictions about the overall thrust of the Christian message. Hence, Christian convictions that Christ was the fulfillment of the law and the prophets enabled the Church to appropriate for itself the Jewish scriptures. The creation of the codex, in a way, completes the process; not only are the books reread theologically, they are also reformed physically. Similarly, the Bible was used in a “take-over-bid” of classical culture. As Young remarks, “Christian culture mirrored classical culture, but its discourse was formed by reference to another set of texts and stories—a novel intertextuality” (47). Gradually the Bible so permeated the Christian imagination that its images and language began to remake rhetorically ancient society.

Ironically, the tools for Christian appropriation of classical culture were themselves the products of classical culture. Young argues that Christian exegetes applied to the Bible the exegetical techniques common in ancient rhetorical schools. These techniques were the common heritage of both Alexandrian and Antiochene exegetes. The debate between these “schools,” then, is not so much about method as it is about the appropriate way to tell the story of the Bible as a whole, complete narrative. Young argues that the standard approach to patristic exegesis cannot do justice to the complexity of the issues and she proposes a series of refined and nuanced distinctions. There is no “allegory” versus “typology” but several styles of allegory and several styles of typology. Although neither of these can be attributed clearly and consistently to one theologian or group, the Alexandrian exegesis tended toward the former and Antiochene toward the latter.

Young also reminds the reader that the formation of a life of faith was one of the key functions of ancient exegesis. All of the various exegetical genres were oriented toward encouraging a way of life. Hence, patristic exegetes never tired of underscoring the mimetic quality of the Bible though constant moral...