Genesis 12–50 recounts the history of the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. From their mentors Paul, Peter, Stephen, and the author of the letter to the Hebrews, the early fathers learned to draw out the spiritual significance of the patriarchal narrative for Christian believers. The Alexandrian school especially followed Paul's allegorical use of the story of Sarah and Hagar as they interpreted the Genesis accounts. The Antiochene school eschewed allegorical interpretation but still set about to find moral lessons in the ancient narrative. For all of them the events pointed...

The book of Job presents its readers with a profound drama concerning innocent suffering. Such honest, forthright wrestling with the problem of evil and the silence of God has intrigued a wide gamut of readers both religious and nonreligious. Surprisingly, the earliest church fathers showed little interest in the book of Job. Not until Origen in the early third century is there much evidence of any systematic treatment of the book, and most of Origen's treatment is known to us only from the catenae. More intense interest came at the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth....

The church fathers, as they did in earlier books dealing with Israel's history from the time of Joshua to the united monarchy, found ample material for typological and moral interpretation in 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther. It will be immediately clear to readers of this volume that they gave much more attention to 1-2 Kings than to others; whether this was due to a certain repetitiveness in the story line or other reasons is unclear. But the narratives of wise King Solomon, the construction of the temple, the prophets Elijah and Elisha, and the fates of various faithful...

Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, prophesied for four decades under the last five kings of Judah—from 627 to 587 B.C. His mission: a call to repentance. Among the apostolic fathers, Jeremiah was rarely cited, but several later authors give prominent attention to him, including Origen, Theodoret of Cyr, and Jerome, who wrote individual commentaries on Jeremiah, and Cyril of Alexandria and Ephrem the Syrian, who compiled catenae. Justin and Irenaeus made use of Jeremiah to define Christians over against Jews. Athanasius made use of him in trinitarian debates. Cyril of Jerusalem, Irenaeus, Basil...

Christianity Today Award of Merit winner Because the Catholic Epistles focus on orthodox faith and morals, the Fathers drew on them as a means of defense against the rising challenge of heretics. Many of the Fathers saw in these letters anticipatory attacks on Marcion and strong defenses against the Arians. They did so quite naturally because in their view truth was eternal and deviations from it had existed from the beginning. Above all, the Fathers found in the Catholic Epistles a manual for spiritual warfare, counsel for the faithful in the cosmic struggle between good and evil....

No book of the Old Testament is more frequently quoted in the New than Isaiah, and no portion of Isaiah is more frequently quoted in the New than the typologically fertile soil of Isaiah 40–66. Still, as interpreted by the fathers, Isaiah presents a message that is far more soteriological than christological, leading readers to a deeper understanding of God's judgment and salvation. Isaiah 40–66 provides us with the closest thing the Old Testament has to offer regarding a systematic theology. The excerpts included in this Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volume offer us a rich...

The rich tapestry of the creation narrative in the early chapters of Genesis proved irresistible to the thoughtful, reflective minds of the church fathers. Within them they found the beginning threads from which to weave a theology of creation, Fall, and redemption. Following their mentor the apostle Paul, they explored the profound significance of Adam as a type of Christ, the second Adam. The six days of creation proved especially attractive among the fathers as a subject for commentary, with Basil the Great and Ambrose producing well-known Hexaemerons. Similarly, Augustine devoted portions...

While the canonical status of the Greek and Latin Old Testament texts commented on within this volume has been understood differently within Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox traditions, their longstanding use within the Christian churches makes them worthy of careful study and reflection. As noted in the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, Jerome says that the church reads the Apocrypha "for example of life and instruction of manners." As a result their influence extends well beyond ecclesiastical use to literature, hymnody, music, and art. Their questioned authority has...

Distinctive in form, content, and style, the epistle to the Hebrews offers a profound high Christology and makes an awe-inspiring contribution to our understanding of Jesus as our High Priest. The earliest extant commentary on the letter comes to us in thirty-four homilies from John Chrysostom. These homilies serve to anchor the excerpts chosen by the editors of this volume because of their unique place in the history of interpretation. In addition to being the first comprehensive commentary on the letter, they deeply influenced subsequent interpretation in both the East and the West, and...

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." For the early church fathers the prophecy of Isaiah was not a compendium of Jewish history or theology but an announcement of the coming Messiah fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. As such, the prophet's words were a rich source of theological reflection concerning their Lord and a vital aid in their defense against the objections of the Jews that Jesus was the promised Messiah....