EXEGETICAL CULTURES 2 | 185In Origen we see a confluence of Christianity, philosophy, and Judaism
with a spiritualizing, symbolic allegorization that seemed beguiling in his
relatively undogmatic age, but after Constantine—especially under Justin-
ian—fell under suspicion of undermining Jesus’s historical actuality. The
council of the whole Church which Constantine summoned to Nicaea in
325 marked a new determination to formulate obligatory dogma and ex-
clude dissenters. The fourth century saw growing awareness of “Hellenism,”
Judaism, and Christianity as distinct “religions,” thanks not least to intel-
lectuals like Eusebius and the Emperor Julian.^100 And with these better-
defined horizons and borders, and the clearer historicization that came with
them, there also emerged a less speculative, more philologically and histori-
cally contextualizing school of exegesis, prominently represented by John
Chrysostom (d. 404). The Antiochenes concentrated on a text’s narrative
logic rather than treating it as a code to crack, though once the story line had
been established a spiritual interpretation was licit, as for example of Abra-
ham’s sacrifice of Isaac prefiguring the Cross.^101 In other words, there was
not quite so sharp a contrast between Antioch and Alexandria as was once
supposed.^102
When the Greek Church condemned Origen as a heretic in 543 and 553,
most of his works perished, though Latin translations by Jerome (d. 419)
preserved him for the West.^103 Like Eusebius, Jerome had worked in Origen’s
library at Caesarea. His own commentaries either directly translated Origen’s
or were much influenced, deploying Hebrew and rabbinic scholarship not
only as regards canon and text, but even in matters of interpretation. (Some
also see in him the compiler of the Comparison of Mosaic and Roman laws.^104 )
Admittedly Jerome diluted allegory with literalism, and from the 390s went
with the flow and waxed ever more bilious about Origenism. Just as in the
philosophical world, though, commentaries provided the perfect context for
the maturation of an orthodoxy layer by layer, century by century, egregious
heresy excluded but useful earlier scholarship embraced albeit often (as in
Jerome’s use of Origen) unacknowledged.^105 It was Jerome who was the first
100 Boyarin, Border lines [6:69] 202–25.
101 Grillmeier, Jesus der Christus [4:72] 2/3.231–38 (T. Hainthaler). The Alexandrian and Antio-
chene schools are compared by Inglebert, Interpretatio Christiana [3:31] 240–46.
102 F. M young, Biblical exegesis and the formation of Christian culture (Cambridge 1997) 186–
212, 296–99.
103 On Jerome, Origen, Hebrew scholarship, and commentary: M. Hale Williams, The monk and
the Book (Chicago 2006) 73–131; F. Millar, “Jerome and Palestine,” Scripta classica israelica 29 (2010)
59–79.
104 S. Ratti, Antiquus error (Turnhout 2010) 149–54. This old idea does not attract Frakes, Com-
piling the Collatio [6:23].
105 Cf. especially Williams, The monk and the Book [6:103] 102–4, on Jerome’s commentary
technique.