OF TUE NEW TESTAMENT.
To the Jewish Scriptures were gradually added by the post-Apostolic Church the distinctive writ ings of the Apostolic Age, as of the same author itative inspiration as the older writings, and, consequently, open equally with them to the study and the practice of the Church. The first of these Christian writings to be studied were those which contained the life and teachings of Jesus, the earliest known example of such study perhaps being the reputed work of Papias (c.100), en titled An. Exegesis of t'he Sayings of Our Lord, and based upon at least the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Other efforts at Gospel exposition appear in the Exegetica of the Gnostic Basilides (died c.135) ; the Hypomnemata of the Valentinian Heracleon (e.150), and in the commentary on the Gospels held by some critics to have been written by Marcion (c.175). These works are preserved only in fragments, and from the little known of them they seem to have been written not only in a dogmatic spirit. which was doubtless due to the heretical position that most of the writers main tained toward the Church, but also after the alle gorical method, which was the controlling Fin ciple of all interpretation in that age.
Evidence of this tendency to study the Gospels is further furnished by such works as Tatian's Diatessaron (c.170), an attempt to weave out of the four Gospels a single story of the life and teaching of Christ, in which composite Gospel Ephraem Syrus wrote a commentary; and by Marcion's reconstruction of the Gospel of Luke as the sole basis for the Gospel narrative. In fact, the numerous apocryphal Gospels are them selves witness to the primary interest which the second century took in the Gospel traditions.
No genuine exegesis of the New Testament writings, however, was produced until the rise of the Alexandrian school in the latter part of the second century, the most illustrative represen tative of which was Origen (e185-254). His exegetical writings may be separated into three groups, which differ among themselves largely in the object they have in view. The first group (Scholia, Notes) consisted of brief exegetical re marks intended mainly for the elucidation of dif ficult passages: the second group (11omilitzi, Homilies)consisted of expository discourses deliv ered in connection with public worship, and hav ing as their purpose the instruction and edifica tion of the general congregation; the third group (rumai, Volumes) consisted of elaborate treat ments of entire books of Scripture, with it view to nmking them intelligilde to the more educated class, Of these groups only the last dealt in any comprehensive way with the New Testament. But in this group all the Gospels were treated, with the exception of Alark, and all the Epistles, excepting I. and II. Corinthians and 1. and 11. Timothy. No commentary is known on Acts, and it is uncertain whether he wrote on the Catholic Epistles and the Apocrypha. The spirit of this school's exegesis was, like that of the previous writers, dominantly dogmatic, while its method carried the use of allegory to a further extreme.
rore historical in both spirit and method was the North African school, represented by such men as Tertullian (c. 200) and Cyprian (died 258), though it has left us nothing in the way of specific expository or commentaria 1 work.
Antagonistic to the Alexandrian school stood the Syrian schools of Edessa and Antioch. The former of these had as its leader Ephraem Syrus (died 373), who produced both homilies and com mentaries, the latter extending over the whole Bible, the portion on the Epistles of Paul being preserved in an Armenian translation. The leader of the latter school was Theodore of 1\lop suestia (350-429), a scholar of commanding in fluence in his day, whose exegetical labors were extensive, though of his New Testament work only a Latin translation of his commentaries on Philippians, Colossians, and the Thessalonians, together with numerous Greek fragments from his treatment of other portions of the canon, have been preserved. The method of these schools, in distinction from the allegorical method of the Alexandrian school, was characteristically his torical, having as its aim the discovery of the literal sense of Scripture; at the same time their conception of the doctrinal purpose of Scripture study compelled them frequently to resort to the hidden sense of the passage when the literal sense did not suffice. The exegetical influence of these schools, especially of the Antiochian, was far reaching among the scholars of that day. The most illustrious example perhaps is found in Chrysostom (died 407), who, though developing his work most conspicuously in the form of the Origen homily, in which he covered almost the entire New Testament, wrought it out under the historical principles laid down by Theodore. Under this same influence, to a larger or less ex tent, stood also Athanasius (died 373), Basil (died 379), Gregory of Nazianzus (died c.390), Ambrose (died 397), Gregory of Nyssa (died e.395), Isidore of Pelusium (died 431), and The odoret (died c.457). Unfortunately, however, this influence, while to some extent it made itself felt with all scholars of the fifth century, did not re main dominant with them. Theodore's doctrinal opposition to Origen raised against him the cry of heresy that finally brought him and his exegesis into disfavor, allowing Origen's allegorical prin ciples to secure for themselves again a position of power, from which they were not dislodged until the Renaissance brought a new learning to the aid of a scientific method. This reviving in fluence of Origen is seen as early as Jerome (died c.420), whose exegetical labors, comprehending most of the New Testament, as well as of the Old, disclose a significant return to allegorizing; while it appears later in Augustine (died 430), who elaborated the threefold sense of Scripture suggested by Origen into a fourfold sense: and in Cyril of Alexandria (died 444), who became one of the most pronounced opponents of the Anti ochian school.