A Christianity Today 1999 Book of the Year The early church valued the Gospel of Mark for its preservation of the apostolic voice and gospel narrative of Peter. Yet the early church fathers very rarely produced sustained commentary on Mark. This brisk-paced and robust little Gospel, so much enjoyed by modern readers, was overshadowed in the minds of the fathers by the magisterial Gospels of Matthew and John. But now with the assistance of computer searches, an abundance of comment has been discovered to be embedded and interleaved amidst the textual archives of patristic homilies, apologies, letters, commentaries, theological treatises and hymnic verses. In this Ancient Christian Commentary on Mark, the insights of Augustine of Hippo and Clement of Alexandria, Ephrem the Syrian and Cyril of Jerusalem join in a polyphony of interpretive voices of the Eastern and Western church from the second century to the seventh. St. Mark's Gospel displays the evocative power of its story, parables and passion as it ignites a brilliant exhibit of theological insight and pastoral wisdom. The Ancient Christian Commentary on Mark (now in its second edition) opens up a long-forgotten passage through the arid and precipitous slopes of post-Enlightenment critical interpretation and bears us along to a fertile valley basking in the sunshine of theological and spiritual interpretation. In these pages we enter the interpretive world that long nurtured the great premodern pastors, theologians and saints of the church.

For the church fathers the Gospels did not serve as resources for individual analysis and academic study. They were read and heard and interpreted within the worshiping community. They served as sources for pastoral counsel and admonition for those who were committed to the Way. Although Matthew and John were generally the preferred Gospels, Luke, because of his particular interests and unique contributions, took pride of place during the Christmas season as well as during Easter and other major feasts. During the early patristic period, the tradition of continuous reading ( lectio continua ) through the Gospels developed, such that over a course of time a complete Gospel was read in sections, and sermons were preached on the readings either at weekly or midweek worship and Communion liturgies or during morning and evening prayer services. Among such sermons that have survived, this commentary includes selections from Origen and Cyril of Alexandria. Aside from sermons, we find that the fathers addressed exegetical issues in theological treatises, pastoral letters and catechetical lectures. Among these, as in other ACCS volumes, readers will find materials ranging from East to West and from the first to the eighth centuries. Among well-known fathers cited are Ambrose, Athanasius, Augustine, the Cappadocians, John Chrysostom, John of Damascus and Bede the Venerable. Among lesser-known fathers are John Cassian, Philoxenus of Mabbug and Theophylact. This volume, edited by Arthur A. Just, opens up a treasure house of ancient wisdom that allows these faithful witnesses, some appearing here in English translation for the first time, to speak with eloquence and intellectual acumen to the church today.

Editor Francis Martin collects patristic comment on the text of Acts in this volume of the ACCS. The Acts of the Apostles—or more in keeping with the author's intent, the Acts of the Ascended Lord—is part two of Luke's story of "all that Jesus began to do and teach." In it he recounts the expansion of the church as its witness spread from Jerusalem to all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. While at least forty early church authors commented on Acts, the works of only three survive in their entirety—John Chrysostom's Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, Bede the Venerable's Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles and a long Latin epic poem by Arator. In this volume, substantial selections from the first two of these appear with occasional excerpts from Arator alongside many excerpts from the fragments preserved in J. A. Cramer's Catena in Acta SS. Apostolorum. Among the latter we find selections from Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, Ephrem the Syrian, Didymus the Blind, Athanasius, Jerome, John Cassian, Augustine, Ambrose, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Theodoret of Cyr, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyril of Alexandria, Cassiodorus and Hilary of Poitiers, some of which are here translated into English for the first time. As readers, we find these early authors transmit life to us because their faith brought them into living and experiential contact with the realities spoken of in the Sacred Text

Ancient Christian Commentary on Romans

"The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture does what very few of today's students of the Bible could do for themselves. With the aid of computer technology, the vast array of writings from the church fathers - including much that is available only in the ancient languages - have been combed for their comment on Scripture. From these results, scholars with a deep knowledge of the fathers and a heart for the church have hand-selected material for each volume, shaping, annotating and introducing it to today's readers. Each portion of commentary has been chosen for its salient insight, its rhetorical power and its faithful representation of the consensual exegesis of the early church."—BOOK JACKET.

Christianity Today Book of the Year For the early church fathers, certain passages in the shorter letters of St. Paul proved particularly important in doctrinal disputes and practical church matters. Pivotal in controversies with the Arians and the Gnostics, the most commented-on christological text in these letters was Colossians 1:15-20, where Jesus is declared "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." The fathers found ample support scattered throughout the Pastorals for the divinity of the Son and the Spirit and for the full union of humanity and divinity in the "one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). These commentators also looked to the Pastorals for important teaching on ethics and church life. Chief among the Eastern commentators and widely excerpted throughout this volume is John Chrysostom, praised for his pastoral insight. Other Greek commentators cited include Theodoret of Cyr, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Severian of Gabala, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa. Western commentators include Augustine, Ambrosiaster, Pelagius, Jerome, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Novatian, Cyprian of Carthage, Hilary of Poitiers, and Ambrose. Of particular interest for their ascetical and devotional insight are works from Syrian and Egyptian churches, including Aphrahat, Ephrem the Syrian, Isaac of Nineveh, and Philoxenus of Mabbug. This Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volume opens up a treasure house of ancient wisdom that allows these faithful witnesses, some appearing here in English translation for the first time, to speak with eloquence and intellectual acumen to the church today.

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 their rhetorical eloquence has long been acknowledged. As in other Ancient Christian Commentary volumes, the excerpts chosen range widely over geography and time from Justin Martyr and Clement of Rome in the late first and early second century to The Venerable Bede, Isaac of Nineveh, Photius and John of Damascus in the eighth and ninth centuries. The Alexandrian tradition is well represented in Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Didymus and Cyril of Alexandria, while the Antiochene tradition is represented in Ephrem the Syrian, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Severian of Gabala and Theodoret of Cyr. Italy and North Africa in the West are represented by Ambrose, Cassiodorus and Augustine, while Constantinople, Asia Minor and Jerusalem in the East are represented by the Great Cappadocians—Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa—Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem and Jerome. Edited by Erik M. Heen and Philip D. W. Krey, this volume offers a rich treasure of ancient wisdom from Hebrews for the enrichment of the church today.

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. In them was sound instruction in the ways of self-sacrifice, generosity, and humility, through which the cosmic forces could be defeated. Allusions to these letters go back as far as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, but the first commentary derives from Clement of Alexandria. Didymus the Blind was the next significant Greek-speaking commentator, though his commentary is fully extant only in Latin translation. Many of the comments from the early centuries have been passed on to us through Latin catenae, or chain commentaries, in which a later commentator collected comments from a variety of sources and chained them together in a fashion much like that of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture in English. Among Latin commentators on these letters, pride of place must be given to Bede the Venerable. This volume opens up a treasure house of ancient wisdom that allows these faithful witnesses, some appearing here in English translation for the first time, to speak with eloquence and intellectual acumen to the church today.

The Revelation to John―with its vivid images and portraits of conflict leading up to the formation of a new heaven and a new earth―was widely read, even as it was variously interpreted in the early church. Approaches to its interpretation ranged from the millenarian approach of Victorinus of Petovium to the more symbolic interpretation of Tyconius, who read Revelation in the sense of the universal and unitary time of the church. Tyconius' Book of Rules, deeply admired by Augustine, strongly influenced not only ongoing interpretation of Revelation but the whole of medieval exegesis. From early on the book of Revelation was more widely accepted in the West than in the East. Indeed the earliest extant commentaries on Revelation in Greek date from Oecumenius' commentary in the sixth century, which was soon accompanied by that of Andrew of Caesarea. Earlier Eastern fathers did, however, make reference to Revelation in noncommentary works. This Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volume draws heavily on the Greek commentaries from Oecumenius and Andrew of Caesarea to represent Eastern interpretation, while focusing on six other commentaries as primary witnesses to Western interpretation―those of Victorinus of Petovium, Tyconius, Primasius, Caesarius of Arles, Apringius of Beja, and Bede the Venerable. Every effort has been made to give adequate context so that the creative use of Scripture, the theological interest, and the pastoral intent can be discerned by readers today. Amid this treasure trove of early interpretation readers will find much that appears in English translation for the first time.