In Paul's letters to the Corinthian church, the pastoral issues of a first-century Christian community stand out in bold relief. And as the apostle responds to these challenges, the fathers lean over his shoulder, marveling and commenting on his pastoral wisdom.Best known among these patristic commentators is Chrysostom, whose seventy-seven homilies on the two Corinthian epistles are a treasury of exposition and application. The fragmentary works of Didymus the Blind and Severian of Gabala give us samples of Greek exegesis from the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools. The partial work of Theodore of Mopsuestia was long valued in the church, and the comments of Theodoret of Cyr are notable for their sensitivity to the intertextuality of Scripture. Then there are Origen and Pelagius, whose notable errors need not obscure their brilliant insights into Scripture. But pride of place in this volume goes to the unknown fourth-century commentator now dubbed Ambrosiaster. Hisexcellent commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians was previously unavailable in English translation.This Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volume opens a whole new way of reading these New Testament texts. The pastoral and theological interpretation of the fathers offers spiritual and intellectual sustenance to those who would read Paul again with open minds and hearts.
Gerald L. Bray (PhD, La Sorbonne) is a professor at Beeson Divinity School of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and director of research for the Latimer Trust. He has written and edited a number of books on different theological subjects,including Galatians, Ephesians in the Reformation Commentary on Scripture series, Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present, The Doctrine of God, and Romans in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series. A priestof the Church of England, Bray has also edited the post-Reformation Anglican canons.
Thomas C. Oden (1931–2016), was the general editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture and the Ancient Christian Doctrine series as well as the author of Classic Christianity, a revision of his three-volume systematic theology. His books also include The African Memory of Mark, Early Libyan Christianity, and How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind. He was the director of the Center for Early African Christianity at Eastern University in Pennsylvania and he also served as the Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Theology at the Graduate School and The Theological School of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.
