Description
An introduction to Greek patristic exegesis with special attention to the Alexandrian tradition. After an initial study of select exegetical commentaries by Origen, Evagrius, and Gregory of Nyssa, this course will focus on St Maximus the Confessor's Responses to the Questions of Thalassius, which is one of the most important patristic treatises on biblical hermeneutics, combining the interconnected traditions of monastic devotion to the Bible, the biblical exegesis of Origen and Evagrius, the sophisticated symbolic theology of Dionysius the Areopagite, and the rich spiritual anthropology of Greek Christian asceticism inspired by the Cappadocian Fathers.