Autor: Crowe, Frederich E., S.J.

Buch: Theology of the Christian Word

Titel: Theology of the Christian Word

Stichwort: Interpretation: Wort Gottes, Bibel (NT, Mittelalter; Form-Kritik; Allegorie; Mittelalter (4-fache Bedeutung)

Kurzinhalt: ... the use Matthew and Luke make of Mark would be one important instance; the community adapted the message to their situation and needs; "Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia."

Textausschnitt: 87c Within New Testament times the practice continues in at least three ways. One is parallel to the Old Testament rewriting of the text; we do not expect to find much of this in a set of documents produced within the short span of two or three generations, but the use Matthew and Luke make of Mark would be one important instance. A second goes back to Mark and spans oral and written forms of the message; it is the editing of the tradition that is studied in redaction-criticism. The third goes back beyond Mark himself to the practices that are studied in form-criticism, and here the purpose of adaptation is particularly in evidence. The name "form-criticism" is derived from the objective, "to trace the provenance and assess the historicity of particular passages by a close analysis of their structural forms." But it is the assumption behind this work that interests me: "The vital factors which gave rise to and preserved these forms are to be found in the practical interests of the Christian community." That is, the community adapted the message to their situation and needs. For example, when Jesus said, "Behold my mother and my brothers," he had the immediate circle of listeners in mind; they were his mother and brothers. "But as the narrative stood it was of no practical use as an appeal in preaching. It was necessary to add a universal application which would bring in would-be converts. Hence a preacher added the words 'Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.' " (Fs) (notabene)

88a One could delay here, and discuss to what extent the ideas implicit in these practices became explicit in the minds of the early believers and bearers of the message. It could be a very profitable discussion, provided we remained aware of the slight distortion thereby introduced into the picture. To speak, as I did a moment ago, of the effort to make the scriptures relevant is to veer from the target. The scriptures for our ancestors are automatically relevant, simply because they are from God and contain an inexhaustible wealth of meaning. (Fs)

88b That was certainly the view that prevailed in the exegesis of post-scriptural times, which I propose to cover now in a rapid survey. A factor already of prime significance in the Hebrew dispersal was the invasion of allegory due to intermingling with the surrounding Greek populations: "Those who lived outside Palestine had a tendency to make the Bible say what their more enlightened neighbors said." To this end they borrowed the allegorical method the Greek philosophers had introduced to give an acceptable meaning to the myths of their tradition. The method was all the more acceptable because of the militant anti-Jewish attitude of men like Marcion. These attacked the Old Testament with vigor, and Christians responded with an allegorical interpretation of the offensive passages. (Fs)

89a But a counter-movement developed, maybe as a reaction to excessive allegorizing after the Marcionite danger had passed, and a sharp division developed between the schools of Alexandria and Antioch. Alexandria had been the city of Philo, and his influence is probably to be seen in Clement and Origen; at any rate this school set out to overcome the anthropomorphic passages of the Old Testament: They would spiritualize the scriptures. The school of Antioch, already literal in tendency and made more so by study of the biblical languages, reacted against this excess. Thus, the representative Theodore of Mopsuestia, insisting on literalism, declared that most of the Old Testament prophecies referred to future events within Jewish history rather than to Christ. Actually, Theodore's results were not so different from those of Alexandria: "One reason for this similarity is to be found in the fact that typology, which he frequently employs, is not entirely unlike allegorization. Again, he constantly stresses the metaphorical meaning of passages of scripture, while continuing to regard this meaning as literal." Both schools found a channel to the Western theology of the Middle Ages, one through Jerome who derived much of his method from Antioch, the other through Augustine, who needed allegory to be at home in traditional Christianity. (Fs)

89b The Middle Ages, however, had their own preoccupations, and applied their bent for system to the meaning of scripture too. From Origen, through John Cassian, they derived the view of a fourfold meaning. Two meanings are basic, the historical or literal, and the spiritual; but the spiritual has three subspecies: tropological or moral, allegorical, and anagogical. An old Latin couplet explains the four: "The letter tells what happened, allegory what you are to believe, the moral sense tells you what you are to do, and the anagogical where you are heading." Sober theologians used the three spiritual senses with circumspection. Thomas Aquinas, for example, expressly made the literal meaning basic and insisted that it alone can furnish an argument. Nicholas of Lyra, author of the first bible commentary ever printed, became a force for literal interpretation through his influence on Luther, as the latter confesses: "When I was a monk, I was an expert in allegories. I allegorized everything. [...] So I hated Lyra [...] because he so diligently pursued the literal meaning. But now [...] I place him ahead of almost all interpreters." (Fs) (notabene)

90a And yet, the divine dissatisfaction with a merely literal meaning remained. Blackman gives expression to it in his work on biblical interpretation. Barth and others talked of a "pneumatic" exegesis of the scriptures, and Roman Catholic exegetes and theologians went through a period of favor for the sensus plenior. This plenary meaning was one that the human author did not conceive but the divine author did; it was therefore a real meaning of scripture, for it was the one intended by the principal author. But, while it was never used as immoderately as allegory, it was just as little subject to control, for it was not specified by any empirical basis in the text. Finally, we may mention the sensus consequens, the meaning the church developed by way of conclusions from the scripture. This is easier to control, but it is not a real meaning of scripture in the way scientific exegesis has to understand the term. However, it can serve here as transitional to Newman's notion of development, with which it has a certain kinship. (Fs) (notabene)