Wisdom in patristic interpretation: Scriptural and cosmic unity in athanasius’s exegesis of proverbs 8:22

TY - CHAP

T1 - Wisdom in patristic interpretation

T2 - Scriptural and cosmic unity in athanasius’s exegesis of proverbs 8:22

AU - Ticciati, Susannah

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © Oxford University Press 2021. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2021/1/1

Y1 - 2021/1/1

N2 - This essay explores the way in which wisdom language is used in the patristic period to articulate two corresponding unities: scriptural and cosmic. It does so through a focus on Athanasius’s treatment of Prov 8:22 in the context of the “Arian” controversy, showing how his christological identification of Wisdom (quite alien to the modern exegete) arises naturally from the intertextual reading practice he shares with most other authors from the period. It makes sense of this practice (which is equally alien to the modern exegete) in terms of a wisdom hermeneutic according to which the unity of Scripture is akin less to a plot than to an interconnected set of proverbs. It shows how Athanasius’s hermeneutic, for which Scripture is a unity, corresponds to an understanding of the unity of the cosmos in Christ as the Wisdom through which it was both created and renewed.

AB - This essay explores the way in which wisdom language is used in the patristic period to articulate two corresponding unities: scriptural and cosmic. It does so through a focus on Athanasius’s treatment of Prov 8:22 in the context of the “Arian” controversy, showing how his christological identification of Wisdom (quite alien to the modern exegete) arises naturally from the intertextual reading practice he shares with most other authors from the period. It makes sense of this practice (which is equally alien to the modern exegete) in terms of a wisdom hermeneutic according to which the unity of Scripture is akin less to a plot than to an interconnected set of proverbs. It shows how Athanasius’s hermeneutic, for which Scripture is a unity, corresponds to an understanding of the unity of the cosmos in Christ as the Wisdom through which it was both created and renewed.

KW - Arian controversy

KW - Athanasius

KW - Christ

KW - Cosmos

KW - Hermeneutics

KW - Intertextual

KW - Proverbs 8:22

KW - Scripture

KW - Unity

KW - Wisdom

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85108044033&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190661267.013.12

DO - 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190661267.013.12

M3 - Chapter

AN - SCOPUS:85108044033

SP - 187

EP - 204

BT - The Oxford Handbook of Wisdom and the Bible

PB - Oxford University Press

ER -