RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Exclusive Brethren Exegesis or Hermeneutics
Reformed Church; the lesser was retained as a measure of instructive discipline, generally in the hands of the pastor, although Luther and others held that Scripturally it ought to be administered by the whole Christian community; but it was felt that if the pastor admitted an unworthy person to the Lord's Supper, he became partaker of the sin, and so the power of exclusion was left in his hands. The method of procedure prescribed by the German Reformers was public only for public sins, and always based on Matt, xviii. 55 sqq. Since the abolition of private confession did away with the warning of priest to penitent, it was made before church-members summoned for the purpose, preferably the elders, and followed by a prohibition to approach the communion-table and sometimes a withdrawal of other rites as well, including betrothal; but this was not necessarily public, unless the offender was obstinate, when he might be cut off from the Church in the presence of the whole congregation. The consistories always took part in the proceedings at one stage or another; and after the middle of the sixteenth century, as they had inherited many of the other episcopal powers, came to monopolize this, leaving the pastor
only the duty of publishing the sentence. The greater excommunication practically died out in the seventeenth century, and the lesser fell very much into disuse with the growth of rationalism. It is, however, obvious that no religious community can hope to enforce its regulations which does not possess and if necessary use the power of excluding members who persistently refuse obedience to them. The modern Roman Catholic Church maintains the position taken in the canon law, in this as in other regards, though considerable modifications have taken place in practise, especially as a result of the constitution Apostolicce sedis of Pius IX. (1869), which removed a number of the cases of excommunication lata, sent entice, while enforcing discipline vigorously in some other respects. See Church Discipline. (E. Friedberg.)
Bibliography: Bingham, Origines, books xvi.-xvii.; E. Martene, De antiquis ecclesiw ritibus, 3 vols., Antwerp, 1736-37; N. Marshall, Penitential Discipline, London, 1714, Oxford, 1844; F. Kober, Der Kirchenbann, Tubingen, 1857; J. Fessler, Der Kirchenbann und seine Folgen, Vienna. 1860; P. Hinsohius, Kirchenrecht, §§ 243-297, Berlin, 1869; H. C. Lea, Studies in Church Hist., Philadelphia, 1883; DCA, i. 638-642 (able); S. Mandl, Der Bann, Briinn, 1898; EB, i. 468-469.
EXEGESIS OR HERMENEUTICS.
I. The Conception and Problem of Biblical Exegesis.
Exegesis a Necessary Science (§ 1).
Relations to Criticism and Philology (§2).
Exegesis and Dogmatics (§ 3).
Exegesis and Theological Science (§4). II. The Method.
Three Kinds of Exegesis (§ 1).
Philological Exegesis (§ 2).
Historical Exegesis (§ 3).
Employment of Analogy and Hypothesis (§ 4).
Stylistic Exegesis (§ 5).
III. Historical Review of Exegetical
Principles and Methods.
Transition from Dogmatic to Historical Principles (§ 1).
Origen (§ 2).
The Antiochian School (§ 3).
Later Patristic Methods (§ 4).
The Middle Ages (§ 5).
The Reformation (§ 6).
Post-Reformation Theories (§ 7).
Exegesis as Affected by History (§8).
IV. The Forms of Interpretation of
Scripture. Glosses and Scholia (§ 1).
Commentaries and Their Type
(§ 2). Translation and Paraphrase (§ 3). V. History of Exegesis.
Prepatristic Exegesis (§ 1). Patristic and Medieval Exegesis
(§ 2). Exegesis Since the Reformation
(§3). German Exegesis in the Nineteenth
Century (§ 4). Modern French Exegesis (§ 5). Exegesis in Holland (§ 6). English Exegesis (§ 7). Exegesis in the United States (§ 8).
Biblical exegesis or hermeneutics is the first of the four departments of theological science (interpretative, historical, dogmatic, practical); its function is the interpretation of Scripture.
I. The Conception and Problem of Biblical Exegesis: That the oral and written tradition coming from the past may continue to be a vital and spiritual possession necessitates both understanding and appropriation of the sense. Understanding is achieved either directly by simple apprehension, or mediately by a process. In the latter case, the object is approached methodically that it may be learned in its limits, essence, and causes. To understand whatever heritage the past produced under conditions which no longer exist, correct insight is needed into the disparity of past and present. And when such a heritage i. Exegesis has acquired a certain authority a Necessary either as a model (classical literature)
Science, or as a norm of right living (the Corpus juris) or as the source of Christian inspiration (the Bible), the necessity for assurance that a correct understanding is reached is the motive for constructing a theory of exposition. Out of this grew the technical term " hermeneutics," first used by Plata- as expressing the
art of rightly apprehending and setting forth the etymology and value of any given word. The term is derived from hermeneuein, " to interpret," " to make intelligible that which is obscure," hence often simply " to translate from a foreign tongue " (John i. 38, 41-42), and then it passed to the meaning " to explicate." In the last sense it was used by the Fathers, and their commentaries were named Hermeneiai. The term was used when a man explained either that which originated with another (as a deity) or the cogitations of his own spirit. Similarly " exegesis " is from exegeisthai, " to lead forth, interpret." So that as the theory of explanation exegesis or hermeneutics has to make intelligible whatever has survived because of its essential value. Its concern is not merely with rhetoric, as Schleiermacher would have it, making of it merely an art. It is both a science and an art; a science in that it formulates definite rules of procedure, an art in that it infuses new life into material by making it a new and present possession.
To bring a thing to the understanding is to make it serviceable in sense and significance. Appreciation of the significance leads to a decision as to worth, and is therefore akin to criticism; to estab-
Exegesis or Hermeneutics