Hermeneutics and the Church

James A. Andrews

Description

In Hermeneutics and the Church, James A. Andrews presents a close reading of De doctrina christiana as a whole and places Augustine's text into dialogue with contemporary theological hermeneutics. The dialogical nature of the exercise allows Augustine to remain a living voice in contemporary debates about the use of theology in biblical interpretation. In particular, Andrews puts Augustine's hermeneutical treatise into dialogue with the theologians Werner Jeanrond and Stephen Fowl.

Andrews argues on the basis of De doctrina christiana that the paradigm for theological interpretation is the sermon and that its end is to engender the double love of God and neighbor. With the sermon as the paradigm of interpretation, Hermeneutics and the Church offers practical conclusions for future work in historical theology and biblical interpretation. For Augustine scholars, Andrews offers a reading of De doctrina that takes seriously the entirety of the work and allows Augustine to speak consistently through words written at the beginning and end of his bishopric. For theologians, this book provides a model of how to engage theologically with the past, and, more than that, it offers the actual fruits of such an engagement: suggestions for the discipline of theological hermeneutics and the practice of scriptural interpretation.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christian Theology
• Biblical Studies
• Philosophie et théologie
• San Agustín (Florida)
• De doctrina christiana
• Exegesis
• General officer
• Hermeneutics
• Theology
• Christianity
• General
• History
• Saint Augustine

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268074753
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

H E R M E N E U T I C S A N D T H E C H U R C H

R E A D I N G T H E S C R I P T U R E S

Gary A. Anderson, Matthew Levering, and Robert Louis Wilken series editors

J A M E S A . A N D R E W S

H E R M E N E U T I C S  T H E C H U R C H and

I n d I a l o g u e w I t h a u g u s t I n e

University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana

Copyright © 2012 by the University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Andrews, James A.

 Hermeneutics and the church : in dialogue with Augustine / James A. Andrews.

 p. cm. — (Reading the Scriptures)

 Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.  ISBN 978-0-268-02041-5 (pbk.) — ISBN 978-0-268-07475-3 (e-book)  1. Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. De doctrina Christiana. 2. Bible—Criticism, interpretation, etc.—History—Early church, ca. 30 – 600. 3. Theology—History— Early church, ca. 30-600. I. Title.  BR65.A6552A53 2012  230'.14—dc23  2012024893

∞The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

T O C H R I S

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

1

2

3

Contents

Augustine’sDe doctrina christiana: History and Context

Augustine, Bishop(s) of Hippo, on Interpretation 14 De doctrina16and the Leningrad Codex De doctrina23: Hermeneutics and Rhetoric For Preachers (at Least at First) 39

De doctrina christiana: Eclecticism in Action

Summary 44 Outline ofDe doctrina 64 De doctrinaas a Voice from Outside 68

Theological Hermeneutics:A prioriora posteriori?

Categorizing Hermeneutical Theories: Spatial and Temporal Models 74 Werner Jeanrond: An Example ofa prioriHermeneutics 82 Augustine: An Example ofa posterioriHermeneutics 87 Melding General and Local Concerns 111

ix

xiii

1

13

43

71

4

5

Community, Hermeneutics, Rhetoric

The Prologue: Divine and Human in Harmony 119 The Canon: Reorganized by the Incarnation 130 Theregula fideiand theregula dilectionis 135 Delivering (from the Pulpit) What One Discovers in Scripture 143 The Church, Her Ministers, and the Sermon as Paradigm 152

De doctrina christianaand the Theological Interpretation of Scripture

Thesensus communis 162 In Dialogue: Stephen Fowl and Augustine 165 Community and Text in the Divine Dispensation 202

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index of Ancient Texts

Index of Names and Subjects

117

159

209

233

275

298

301

Acknowledgments

This book has taken some five years to finish, but the questions behind it have concerned me for much longer. In my first homiletics course, I could not figure out how to bridge the gap between the bib- lical exegesis I had learned and the sermon I had to preach on Acts 22:3–11. Only after writing two outlines and one disregarded draft did I discover Calvin’s commentary. This, I remember thinking, is how one interprets the Bible. I know many have similar experiences, and that, in and of itself, is reason enough for the hermeneutical investigation that follows. For various reasons, I graduated seminary feeling unprepared for ordained ministry and decided to pursue further academic study. Perhaps, I thought, I would fit better in the academy than in the church, and I was unprepared for what actually happened: through a detailed study of Augustine and his hermeneutics, I find myself on the other side of a Ph.D. pursuing the possibility of ordination once more. As with any academic book, attention to a small, theo- retical area can lead to much larger, practical conclusions, but these are not necessarily drawn in the text itself. This interaction between academic and practical concerns informs the entire project —even when it is not immediately obvious —and, for that reason, it seems appropriate to take a moment to acknowledge all those whose influ- ence can be felt in the pages that follow. The initial draft of this book was my doctoral thesis, finished at King’s College, University of Aberdeen, under the supervision of Francis Watson. I am grateful to him for many things, not the least of which is that he encouraged me to pursue a topic in which I

ix