Apocrypha

The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture is a unique twenty-nine-volume series encompassing all of Scripture and offering contemporary readers the opportunity to study for themselves the key writings of the early church fathers. Arranged by the books of the Bible, each portion of commentary allows the living voices of the church in its formative centuries to speaks as they engage the sacred page of Scripture, rendered throughout the series in English in the ecumenically accepted Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

While the Canonical Status of the Greek and Latin Old Testament texts commented upon within this volume has been understood differently within Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, their longstanding use within the Christian churches makes them worthy of careful study and reflection. As noted in the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, Jerome says that the church reads them "for example of life and instruction of manners." As a result their influence extends well beyond ecclesiastical use to literature, hymnody, music and art.

Their questioned authority has nevertheless affected the choice of books included here, not by a priori judgment but by the paucity of comment from which to choose. None of the early fathers dedicated commentaries to these texts as a whole. Despite the length of 1 and 2 Maccabees and the model they presented for Christian martyrdom, they were rarely cited or commented upon. The Wisdom books received the most comment and are those best represented here.

In particular, readers will find ample comment here on Tobit, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, the Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon (the latter three all found as additions to the Hebrew and Aramaic book of Daniel). Among commentators readers will find Origen, John Chrysostom, Theodoret of Cyr, Hippolytus, Jerome, Augustine, Julius Africanus, Athanasius, Palladius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Clement of Alexandria, Bede, Rabanus Maurus, Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Cassiodorus, Ambrose and others.

The proof of the commentary will no doubt be in the eating. Here is a worthy feast of patristic comment on these ancient and important texts, some of which is presented here in English translation for the first time.

The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture does what very few of today's students of the Bible could do for themselves. With the aid of computer technology, the vast array of writings from the church fathers---including much that is available only in the ancient languages---have been combed for their comment on Scripture. From these results, scholars with a deep knowledge of the fathers and a heart for the church have hand-selected material for each volume, shaping, annotating and introducing it to today's readers. Each portion of commentary has been chosen for its salient insight, its rhetorical power and its faithful representation of the consensual exegesis of the early church.

The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture is an ecumenical project, promoting a vital link of communication between today's varied Christian traditions and their common ancient ancestors in the faith. On this shared ground we listen as leading pastoral theologians of the church's first several centuries gather around the text of Scripture and offer their best theological, spiritual and pastoral insights.

Today the historical-critical method of interpretation has nearly exhausted its claim on the biblical text and on the church. In its wake there is a widespread yearning among Christian individuals and communities for the wholesome, the deep and the enduring. The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture seeks not to replace those excellent commentaries that have been produced in the twentieth century. It supplements them, framing them with interpretive voices that have long sustained the church and only recently have fallen silent. It invites us to listen with appreciative ears and sympathetic minds as our ancient ancestors in the faith describe and interpret the scriptural vistas as they see them.

The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture is a postcritical revival of the early commentary tradition known as the glossa ordinaria, a text artfully elaborated with ancient and authoritative reflections and insights. An uncommon companion for theological interpretation, spiritual reading, and wholesome teaching and preaching.

Sever J. Voicu is Scriptor Graecus at the Vatican Apostolic Library and guest professor at the Augustinian Patristic Institute in Rome. He has published mainly in the areas of Greek patristics and New Testament Apocrypha.
Thomas C. Oden, formerly the Henry Anson Buttz Professor of Theology at The Theological School, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, is the author of many theological works, including a three-volume systematic theology. He is also the general editor for the Ancient Christian Doctrine and Ancient Christian Texts series and serves as director of the Center for Early African Christianity.