Paul's concept of "pedagogy," further developed here by Irenaeus, holds that the whole period of the Old Testament with all its characters, events, and institutions, was a preparation for and foreshadowing of the fullness of revelation that was to come in Jesus Christ and his...
Here John Chrysostom contrasts the Red Sea with baptism, Moses with Christ, showing us that while Old Testament realities point forward to the events of the New Covenant, they cannot begin to equal them. ...
Is the method of interpreting scripture used by the Fathers of the Church and the Medieval monks now obsolete because of the coming of scientific, historical-critical exegesis? Henri de Lubac, following the teaching of Pope Leo XIII through Pius XII and the Second Vatican...
This doctoral dissertation abstract on "Henri de Lubac and the Recovery of the Traditional Hermeneutic" was submitted to the theology department of the Catholic University of America by Marcellino D'Ambrosio for completion of the requirements of a Ph.D. in historical theology. The abstract was submitted...
Augustine on the duty of pastors to strengthen weak Christians. The weak are those who want to live a good life but are unable to endure the sufferings that inevitably threaten. Some are so ill that they are like the paralytic who needed to be...
St. Bruno on Psalm 84. "How lovely is your dwelling place" is taken to refer not so much to the Jerusalem temple as the heavenly dwelling of God in heaven according to the spiritual / anagogical sense of Scripture....
St. Theodore the Studite here acclaims the cross as a life-giving tree that is the antidote to that tree in paradise that was Adam's undoing. Following the early Christian method of interpreting the Old Testament spiritually, he traces the many ways the wood of...
Melito of Sardis, a 2nd century Father of the Church, shows how the Passover Lamb and many Old Testament realities, prefigure Christ and his suffering. This marvelous Holy Week reading is a great example of the spiritual sense of Scripture....
Origen sees the fall of Jericho in the book of Joshua as a figure of the End of the world, the trumpets of the Israelites as foreshadowing the last trumpet of the angels, Rahab & her scarlet cord the Church saved by the blood of...
This excerpt from St. Gregory of Agrigentum is an example of the Early Church Father's spiritual interpretation of Scripture whereby realities of the Old Covenant are seen as pointing beyond themselves to Jesus Christ and the realities of the new dispensation. In this case, the...