Aelfric - Reading Matthew with monks: liturgical interpretation in Anglo-Saxon England

With an impressive mastery of the primary sources, Dr. Olsen offers a detailed yet accessible account of the liturgical contexts that shaped the exegesis of one late tenth-century English monk, lfric of Eynsham. By close analysis of four Old English homilies on the gospel of Matthew, Olsen contributes to a growing body of scholarship that takes lfric seriously as an original theologian, not just a compiler of patristic authorities. Approaching lfrics writings from the vantage point of a New Testament scholar, moreover, Dr. Olsen is well placed to observe some broader tendencies in lfrics hermeneutics that previous scholars have missed.

Christopher A. Jones

Professor, Department of English

Ohio State University

Derek A. Olsen has broken new ground in the field of biblical studies. For years Christians serious about the foundations of their faith have pleaded for the kind of work Olsen has produced, but theologians and biblical scholars have typically responded either by merely nodding silently or, at most, by quoting a handful of patristic and medieval writers in their explorations and commentaries. Olsens thesis, carefully researched and elegantly and clearly written, is nothing less than the one and only substantial sequel to Jean Leclercqs The Love of Learning and the Desire for God. Monastic men and women reading the first two chapters will have an experience of self-discovery: So this is what monastic culture is all about.

Mark A. Scott, OCSO, SSL

Abbot

New Melleray Abbey

Reading Matthew with Monks invites contemporary students of the Bible to read Matthew in conversation with Benedictine monks of medieval England. The surprising result of this generative conversation is that, at the same time that contemporary readers learn much about the liturgically framed reading practices of the monks, we may actually learn more from them about how to expand and deepen our own reading practices.

Gail R. ODay

Dean and Professor of New Testament and Preaching

Wake Forest University School of Divinity

In Reading Matthew with Monks, Derek Olsen invites us into a conversation with the communion of saints, both living and dead. This communal reading across time and space is grounded in careful scholarshipmedieval and modernwhile bringing alive the faith experiences of those who, then and now, read and perform the Scriptures. In particular, Olsen demonstrates the central but much neglected role that liturgy played in early medieval monastic interpretive communities. In restoring that performative context for reading Scripture, he corrects the misguided modern notion that early medieval Europe lacked a commentary tradition but was merely derivative. Indeed, Olsen succeeds in taking one prolific Anglo-Saxon homiletic writer, lfric of Eynsham, and makes him the equal of modern biblical scholars brought into the dialogue on select passages of the Gospel of Matthew, including the paradigmatic Beatitudes from Jesus Sermon on the Mount. The exciting challenge of this book is the invitation to continue the conversation.

Karen Louise Jolly

Professor of History, University of Hawaii Mnoa

Author of The Community of St. Cuthbert in the Late Tenth Century

Derek Olsens study of biblical interpretation at the hands of the medieval monk lfric of Eynsham strikes just the right balance. He suggests that todays serious work with biblical texts is competent to answer certain questions and then shows how alternative approaches enrich how we engage those texts spiritually and theologically. He drills down into the interpretive sensibilities and practices of a single monk yet contextualizes that work so that we are challenged by them. Whether read as an expanded chapter in the history of biblical interpretation or as an exemplar on how theological interpreters might learn from premodern readings of Scripture, this is a welcome contribution.

Joel B. Green

Dean of the School of Theology

Fuller Theological Seminary

Reading Matthew with Monks introduces us modern readers into this distinct culture of medieval liturgy and teaches us to catch the voice and the thoughts of those monks who not only read but truly strove to live the Gospel.

Wim Verbaal

Latin Language and Literature

University of Ghent, Belgium

A Michael Glazier Book published by Liturgical Press

Cover design by Jodi Hendrickson. Illustration from the Historisches Archiv der Stadt Kln, HAStK 7010 147, f. 7v-8r. Photo by the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library. Used by permission.

2015 by Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, microfilm, microfiche, mechanical recording, photocopying, translation, or by any other means, known or yet unknown, for any purpose except brief quotations in reviews, without the previous written permission of Liturgical Press, Saint Johns Abbey, PO Box 7500, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321-7500. Printed in the United States of America.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Olson, Derek A.

Reading Matthew with monks : liturgical interpretation in Anglo-Saxon England / Derek A. Olson ; Foreword by Luke Timothy Johnson.

pages cm

A Michael Glazier book.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8146-8317-0 ISBN 978-0-8146-8342-2 (ebook)

1. Bible. MatthewSermons. 2. BibleCriticism, interpretation, etc.History. 3. Aelfric, Abbot of Eynsham. I. Johnson, Luke Timothy, writer of foreword. II. Title.

BS2575.54.O47 2015

226.2060942dc23

2014043815