PRINCIPLES OF ORTHODOX HERMENEUTICS

Vasile Mihoc

The exegete’s primary task is to interpret the Scripture. But one can-
not interpret the Scripture without hearing it, without understanding
it. To “hear” the Scripture is the first task not only of the interpreters,
but of any Christian. How have the Christians to “hear” the Scripture?
What are the means of its understanding? And what are the crite-
ria of discerning the right way and principles of such an understand-
ing? Some hints of how these problems are answered in the Orthodox
Church will be given in the present paper.
In this presentation much space will be given to the early Church
witnesses and understanding. Because for the Orthodox this refer-
ence to the apostolic and immediately post-apostolic Tradition is and
remains essential. This doesn’t mean that the Orthodox hermeneu-
tics does not rightly valuate the modern research and methods. The
reasons for its reluctance in accepting part of the western exegetical
methods are various. But it is not only because the Orthodox are afraid
that many times philosophical or theological presuppositions of the
western exegetes makes the results of applying these methods to the
biblical text discordant to the traditional Christian faith. It must be
said that a good part in that plays the historical situation in which
most of the Orthodox have lived during the last centuries and most
of all during a good part of the 20th century. If the Orthodox gener-
ally share some clear hermeneutical principles grounded in Church
Father’s writings and perspectives they are no less interested in the
scholarly research in the West. Maybe the most striking challenge for
us Orthodox nowadays is finding the right criteria for assimilating
what is of real value in the western exegetical methods and results.
In my presentation something will be said on the authority of Scrip-
ture and its nature, on the Scripture in Tradition, on the goal of exe-
gesis, on the contemplative approach (theoria), on the Christological
interpretation and on the interpretation through the Church.
294 vasile mihoc

I. The Authority of the Sacred Scripture

The Orthodox generally think that this question is in a way already

settled in the New Testament itself, by the way how the authority of
the Scripture (Old Testament) is recognized by Jesus himself and by
the apostolic Church.
The teaching of Jesus as recorded in the Gospel tradition, while very
similar both in form and sometimes in content with those of contem-
porary rabbis, was many times very different in its perspective, at least
with regard to the authority of Scripture. The contemporary Judaism,
grounded on the conviction of the (verbal) inspiration and unques-
tionable authenticity of the Bible, stressed the supreme authority of
every single word in the Bible writings.1 And although Jesus, clearly
states the integral validity of “Law and prophets” (Matt 5:17ff ), though
he did not hesitate to “criticize” the Bible and to interpret it in a very
different way, as one can see, for ex., in the six antitheses of the Ser-
mon on the Mount (Matt 5:20ff ). And if his messianic interpretation
of Scripture was not something totally new to the Jews, what is really
new is his revolutionary proclamation – and early Church’s assured
conviction – that he inaugurates the Kingdom of God and that the
Scripture as a whole has to be seen in the perspective of this absolute
novelty.
St Paul’s exegesis is surely much indebted to the rabbinic form and
methods of interpretation.2 It is very little influenced by the allegorical
interpretation, as practiced by Philo of Alexandria. In contradiction to
Philo, St Paul – as generally the New Testament authors – never denied
the reality of the Old Testament history. But in the letters of St Paul
and in all the New Testament writings there is something totally new
in comparison with the rabbinic Old Testament interpretation: this
novelty is their christocentric direction and character.3 Sure enough,
the early Church inherited from Judaism not only the canonical (Old
Testament) Scripture but also a very high consideration of its value

1
Cf. Sanhedrin 99a: “He who says ‘The Torah is not from God’ or even if he says
‘The whole Torah is from God with the exception of this or that verse which not God
but Moses spoke from his own mouth’ – shall be rooted up”.
2
See J. Bonsirven, Exégèse rabbinique et exégèse paulinienne (Paris, 1939); W.D.
Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (SPCK 5; London, 1970).
3
Cf. Petros Vassiliadis, “Scriptural Authority in Early Christian Hermeneutics”,
in: Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστημὶο Επιστημονικὴ Θεολογικὴς Σχολής – Μνὴμη Ιωάννου
Ευαγγ. Αναστασίου (Thessalonica, 1992), pp. 105–108 (106f ).