THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
The best paraphrast clings to the sense while he develops pregnant meanings and elucidates the obscure.
V. History of Exegesis : The Old Testament was at first the subject of the exegetical art. In the synagogue two methods developed, the halacha or exposition of law, and the haggadah, which sought the deeper sense and applied it to I. Pre- practise. In this direction was develpatristic oped cabalistic interpretation, which Exegesis, saw the secrets of revelation enclosed in numerical values (see Cabala). The Christian Church appropriated the Old Testament, and indeed largely in the Septuagint version which often serves excellently as an interpretation. The methods of Jewish exegetical work on the Old Testament influenced the writers of the New Testament. The Apocalypse is cabalistic, Paul and Hebrews reproduce the Alexandrine methods. Generally, however, the use of the Old Testament in the New is original, while it is employed from a new religious standpoint. It starts from faith in Christ as the God-sent savior who came providentially in the fulness of time (Gal. iv. 4). On this basis it seeks in the Old Testament in word and in type evidence of fulfilment of promise; consequently the use of the Old Testament in the New can not be regarded as exact exegesis, it is rather instruction in regard to the inner relation of the words of Scripture to the facts which establish the Christian faith (cf. Luke xxiv. 25-27; I Cor. x. 11).
The exegesis of the New Testament alongside of the Old began with its acceptance as canonical, and was practised first among the 2. Patristic Gnostics. The type used by them and and by their opponents was allegorical, Medieval the latter attempting to avoid the Exegesis, wilfulness of the former. Origen was the first great exegete and developed what had been begun by the Alexandrian school (Clement), becoming the " lawgiver and oracle " for subsequent times, drawn upon by Hippolytus, Dionysius of Alexandria, Eusebius of Casarea, Rufinus, and Jerome. A turn toward the construction of an ecclesiastical exegetical tradition was taken in the works of Didymus (d. 329), Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444), Ambrosius (d. 395), and Augustine. The works of the Antiochian school were preserved only in part, and that in excerpts in the catena. Of the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia only his commentary on the Minor Prophets survives. Other great names are Chrysostom, Basil, the two Gregorys, Theodoret, Ephraem, Isidor of Pelusium, and Ambrosiaster. For the collections which soon began to be made the sources in the Eastern Church were Origen and Chrysostom, and in the Western Augustine and Jerome. For the allegoristic method Gregory I. (d. 604) is the principal model and source. In both East and West the makers of catena? were many; in the East were Procopius of Gaza and Olympiodorus and Photius, and in the West Isidore of Seville, Bede, Alcuin, Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, Abelard, and the mystics. In Spain Jewish exegesis was fruitful; besides there was
the work of Nicholas of Lyra. Humanism, using closely the text, produced the criticism of the Vulgate by Laurentius Valla, the text and commentaries of Erasmus, and the commentaries of Cajetan and Faber Stapulensis.
Of the Reformers, Luther did little strictly exegetical work apart from his preaching. Melanchthon's work is scholiastic. Other exegetes were Cruciger, J. Jonas, Brenz, M. Flacius, J. Camerarius Zwingli (in sympathy with humanism), (Ecolampadius, Butzer, and Capito. Calvin commented upon the whole New Testament except the Apocalypse, and also upon the Pentateuch, Psalms and the Prophets. Besides these Mus- 3. Exegesis cuius, Bullinger, and Beza (of special
Since the importance) are to be mentioned.
Reforma- The exegesis of the Counterrefortion. mation made no use of humanistic help, but took a polemic tone against the Evangelical theologians, as in the case of Vatablus and Clarius. Since the middle of the sixteenth century the Jesuits have occupied the field, their representatives being Maldonatus (d. 1583), Salmero (d. 1597), J. Mariana (d. 1624), Lucas of Bruges (d. 1629), Cornelius a Lapide (d. 1637), and the Italian Menochius (d. 1685). The results are summed up in J. de la Haye, Bihlia magna (5 vols., Paris, 1643), and Bihlia maxima (19 vols., Paris, 1660). The exegesis of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was bent to the affirmation or denial of " church doctrine," the Evangelienharmonie of Chemnitz striking the keynote. For the Lutherans such men as D. Chytrseus and Erasmus Schmidt, for the Reformed Church J. Piscator and J. A. Lampe, for the Socinians J. Exell, and for the Pietists Spener and Bengel were the leading exponents. To all parties, excepting to the leaders Luther and Calvin, the Apocalypse seemed a work of great importance and was the object of much attention. With the earnest dogmatic zeal of the Arminians new interest was awakened, and the works of Grotius appeared, and those of his follower Clericus. The new standpoint was partly philological, partly practical. Gleanings were made in the rabbinical field (Lightfoot), in the historical field (Spanheim), in archeology (Cunaeus), and in chronology (J. Scaliger). Fruits of these activities were the Critici sacri (9 vols., London, 1660), M. Poole's Synopsis critkorum (5 vols., London, 1669-76), and J. C. Wolf's Cura philological et critical in Novum Testamentum (0 vols., Hamburg, 1741). In the philologicaltheological school of Ernesti the ecclesiastical character of exegesis was no longer seen. The fundamental question at the beginning of the nineteenth century was the rationalism or the supernaturalism of Scripture. In the second third of that century the recovery of a confessional theology and a deep impression from Hegelian philosophy characterized the work done. Whether any school has made its impress upon the exegesis of the last third of the century, one standing in the midst of the conflict may not decide.
The German exegesis of the nineteenth century is characterized by division into schools which created each its own journal and organ. Thus