Origen and Scripture The Contours of the Exegetical Life

Scriptural interpretation was an important form of scholarship for Christians in late antiquity. For no one does this claim ring more true than Origen of Alexandria (185-254), one of the most prolific scholars of Scripture in early Christianity. This book examines his approach to the Bible through a biographical lens: the focus is on his account of the scriptural interpreter, the animating centre of the exegetical enterprise. In pursuing this largely neglected line of inquiry, PeterW. Martens discloses the contours of Origen's sweeping vision of scriptural exegesis as a way of life. For Origen, ideal interpreters were far more than philologists steeped in the skills conveyed by Greco-Roman education. Their profile also included a commitment to Christianity from which theygathered a spectrum of loyalties, guidelines, dispositions, relationships and doctrines that tangibly shaped how they practiced and thought about their biblical scholarship. The study explores the many ways in which Origen thought ideal scriptural interpreters (himself included) embarked upon a way of life, indeed a way of salvation, culminating in the everlasting contemplation of God. This new and integrative thesis takes seriously how the discipline of scriptural interpretation was envisionedby one of its pioneering and most influential practitioners.

Peter W. Martens is Assistant Professor for Theological Studies at Saint Louis University. Prior to arriving in St. Louis he taught at the University of Notre Dame and Yale Divinity School. He specializes in Origen and his legacy, and has wide-ranging interests in the history of biblical interpretation.

Preface
Introduction
I: The Philologist
1. Mandate: The Interpreter's Education
2. Specialization: The Elements of Philology
II: The Philologist and Christianity
3. Scholarship: Divine Provenance
4. Conversion: Sanctified Study
5. Boundaries (Part I): Interpretation Among the Heterodox
6. Boundaries (Part II): Interpretation in the New Israel
7. Conduct: Moral Inquiry
8. Message: Saving Knowledge
9. Horizons: The Beginning and End of the Drama of Salvation
Epilogue
Introduction
PART 1: THE PHILOLOGIST
1. Mandate: The Interpreter's Education
2. Specialization: The Elements of Philology
PART 2: THE PHILOLOGIST AND CHRISTIANITY
3. Scholarship: Divine Provenance
4. Conversion: Sanctified Study
5. Boundaries (Part I): Interpretation Among the Heterodox
6. Boundaries (Part II): Interpretation in the New Israel
7. Conduct: Moral Inquiry
8. Message: Saving Knowledge
9. Horizons: The Beginning and End of the Drama of Salvation
Epilogue