The Word in the City: Biblical Scholarship and Reading Culture in Origen's Psalm Homilies from the Codex monacensis Graecus 314
Year: 2020
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Origen of Alexandria’s biblical exegesis has been the subject of substantial scholarly attention. However, it has been only recently that scholars have begun to pay attention to the broader intellectual and socio-cultural context in which he conducted his exegesis. In this dissertation, I explore Origen’s biblical exegesis in a recently discovered collection of homilies he preached on the Psalms to his Christian community in Caesarea Maritima. I am concerning less with questions of philology and grammar as such as I am with discerning certain reading practices revealed in the homilies, particularly against the backdrop of broader reading practices in Late Antique learning circles. I argue that in these homilies, Origen was attempting to cultivate learned reading practices in his Christian community by bringing his scholarly reading habits to his preaching activity. Largely following the exegetical procedure of a grammarian, Origen was doing more than explaining the meaning of the text for his audience. He was guiding his listeners through the exegetical exercise giving them the requisite skills to be informed readers of the Bible. To make my argument, I will first analyze how learned groups of men and women organized themselves around shared reading practices in Late Antiquity. I will then take a closer look at the reading practices of Origen’s school in Caesarea, and tracks of those reading practices in the Psalm Homilies. Then I will provide a detailed analysis of two select homilies from this collection to follow Origen through his exegetical process. In the final chapter, I will look at how Origen positioned Bible-reading against the allurements and daily tensions of life in a Roman City, articulating a theological vision of Christian reading rooted in purity of heart.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: John Solheid
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3143560972