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Exegesis

Having placed our hope upon Christ himself, let us also apply ourselves to the labors that are beyond our ability, since he will be present with us and will in- dubitably guide believers with the torches of the Spirit to the finding of the truth. For our aim is to say that Jesus is Lord. And we will without doubt say this in the Holy Spirit. For thus Paul says, ‘No one can say that Jesus is Lord ex- cept in the Holy Spirit’ (1 Cor. 12:3).1

This chapter continues the theme of the previous one by looking further at Scripture from the side of humanity’s encounter with the revealed word. I intend now to fill out the ba- sic point that I argued in the previous chapter, namely, that Christ uses Scripture for the church’s spiritual health. Unlike the Eucharist, which also performs this role, Scripture has to be interpreted by the believer or the church in order to become spiritually beneficial. Hence, in this chapter I will consider Cyril’s theology of exegesis, that is, his understanding of the process whereby Scripture becomes a nourishing word for the church. Furthermore, whereas the previous chapter was almost exclusively taken up with Christological themes, in this chap- ter we will see Cyril’s Trinitarian vision come into play once more, bringing the discussion full circle to where I began in chapter two.

Like all patristic exegetes, Cyril’s approach to the biblical text is deeply indebted to the grammatical and rhetorical training of late antiquity. J. David Cassel has demonstrated this the- sis with respect to his Commentary on Isaiah, and Lois Farag has done the same for his Commentary

on the Gospel of John.2 _{Without doubt further investigation is needed to elucidate the manner in}

1 _{Cyril, thes., prol. (PG 75.12).}

which Cyril appropriates those techniques that were common to late antique paideia. However, in this chapter I intend to take a different approach. Without denying the importance of this background for Cyril’s exegesis, I suggest that equally important is the theological context within which he employs the standard set of late antique exegetical tools, since it is this explic- itly theological context that distinguishes Cyril’s scriptural exegesis from other examples of an- cient interpretation, such as Stoic and Neoplatonist commentaries on Homer or Philo’s com- mentaries on the Jewish Scriptures. In keeping with what I argued in chapter two with respect to Cyril’s theology of revelation, so here also I suggest that it is the Trinitarian structure and Christological focus of his overall theological vision that gives decisive shape to his under- standing of exegesis.

The question at hand is what kind of reader Scripture requires. I will argue that Cyril thinks the interpreter of the inspired word must have faith in Christ and must possess the in- dwelling Spirit, and that for such persons the practice of exegesis is a part of the growth in un- derstanding of the Christological and Trinitarian mystery that leads ultimately to the eschato- logical vision of the Father. The argument of this chapter proceeds in two major stages. In the first half I look at Cyril’s understanding of divine illumination, a theme that is central to his theology of exegesis, but which has received little attention in the secondary literature thus

patristic exegesis, see H. I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, trans. George Lamb (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982); Martin Irvine, The Making of Textual Culture: ‘Grammatica’ and Literary Theory, 350-1100 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994); T. J. Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Robert A. Kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind; ibid., The School of Libanius in Late An-

tique Antioch (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). The importance of this background for patristic exege-

sis is explored in Christoph Schäublin, Untersuchungen zu Methode und Herkunft der antiochenischen Exegese (Köln: P. Hanstein, 1974); Bernhard Neuschäfer, Origenes als Philologe (Basel: Friedrich Reinhardt Verlag, 1987); Frances M. Young, ‘The Rhetorical Schools and Their Influence on Patristic Exegesis’, in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chad-

wick, ed. Rowan Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); ibid., Biblical Exegesis, 76-116; Josef

Lössl and John W. Watt, eds., Interpreting the Bible and Aristotle in Late Antiquity: The Alexandrian Commentary Tradition Between

Rome and Baghdad (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011). For the most part Cyril does not engage in theoretical discus-

sions regarding the appropriate way to use the grammatical and rhetorical tools for interpretation, but instead models them through his own exegesis. Cassel argues that in this way he sought to provide a rudimentary instruc- tion in exegetical method for his clergy (p.125-6). Presumably Cyril does not attempt to offer any theoretical jus- tification for the usage of grammatical and rhetorical practices because there was no one who at that time was questioning the legitimacy of such an approach. In the absence of any such challenge he was able to proceed by taking for granted grammatical and rhetorical training as the proper tool set for exegesis. Cyril does, however, oc- casionally provide brief comments on select methodological issues. See, for example, the introduction to his Com-

mentary on the Twelve Prophets where he articulates the two levels (i.e., the historical and the spiritual) that must be un-

dertaken in proper exegesis (Os., praef. (Pusey, In xii prophetas, 1.2)). See also his discussion of what constitutes a proper ‘type’ at Jon., praef. (Pusey, In xii prophetas, 1.562-5), on which see Simonetti, ‘Note sul commento’, 307-8.

far.3 _{In this section I will argue that Cyril clearly distinguishes between two levels of illumina-}

tion, one that coincides with the creation of the human person, requiring no special operation of the Spirit, and the second that comes to pass redemptively, through the indwelling Spirit. The importance of this distinction lies in the fact that it creates a conceptual space within which Cyril can articulate a theological legitimation for his practice of Christological exegesis. Thus, in the second half of this chapter I proceed to the second stage of the argument to demonstrate that spiritual illumination, which has faith as its precondition, leads to a growth in understanding of the Christological and Trinitarian mystery through the contemplation of Scripture.