sa reception (Paris, 1988); eadem, "Lire en grec le recit de la creation: interpretation de la
General Introduction 1 7
The tradition of interpretation of the Hexaemeron
The biblical story of the origin of the world and of the human race raised fundamental questions of a theological, cosmological, and anthropological kind. No wonder, then, that the reception and interpretation of the story in Genesis had an extensive and wide-ranging history.19
Even within the Old Testament those fundamental testimonies to the origin of the world were subjected to several rereadings. The intertestamental Jewish tradition ofinterpretation of the creation story is documented both by the Septuagint translation20 and by the interpretation of the story in Philo of Alexandria.21 The earliest Christian commentaries of the second and third centuries have not survived. Eusebius of Caesarea mentions interpretations of the Hexaemeron by a Rhodo, a Candidus, and an Apion,22 but also by better known theologians Hippolytus and Origen.23 But even in their other writings such authors as Justin, Theophilus, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen raised problems of the interpretation of Genesis.24 ln ensuing centuries, too, renowned theologians such as Basil of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Ephrem the Syrian, Didymus of Alexandria, Lactantius, and Ambrose devoted works to the opening chapters of Genesis or to God's work in creation.25
The early Christian tradition of interpretation ofGenesis took two directions: polemical, on the one hand, and catechetical and pastoral, on the other. First of all, philosophical views of Platonic, Aristotelean, and Stoic origin required Christians to state their own positions. ln response to the idea of an eternal world or of a pre-existent matter which God shaped but did not create, theologians insisted that the world had a temporal beginning, that matter was created out of
19. See G. A. Robbins (ed.), Genesis 1-3 in the History of Exegesis: 1ntrigue in the Garden (Lewiston, 1988)1; A. S. Pease, "Caeli enarrant," Harvard Theological Review 34 (1941)
1 63-200; A. Hamman , "L'enseignement sur la creation dans I ' antiquiid chrettenne," Revue des sciences religieuses 42 (1968) 1-23, 97-122; J.-P. Bouhout, "Pentateuque chez les Peres," Dictionnaire de la Bible. Supplement 7 (Paris, 1966) 687-708, especially 702-708. 20. See M. Alexandre, Le commencement de livre Genese IV. La version grecque de la Septante et sa reception (Paris, 1988); eadem, "Lire en grec le recit de la creation: interpretation de la Genese dans la literature judeo-hellenistique," M'yn, Sources 2 (1981) 95-1 18. 21. R. Arnaldez, 1ntroduction ioPhilon d'Alexandrie, De opifwio mundi (Les oeuvres de Philon d'Alexandrie 1; Paris, 1961) 17-112. 22. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5, 13, 8; 5, 27 (ed. minor E. Schwartz; Leipzig, 1932, 196, 214f.). 23. 1bid., 6, 22; 6, 24, 2 (Schwartz, 243). 24. See P. Nautin, "Genese 1 , 1-2, de Justin 6 Origene," in In principio. Interpretations des premiers versets de la Genese (Paris: etudes Augustiniennes, 1973) 61-94; G. T. Armstrong,
Die Genesis in der Allen Kirche (Beitrage zur Geschichte der biblischen Hermeneutik 4; Tubingen, 1962). 25. See F. E. Robbins, The Hexaemeral Literature, A Study of the Greek and Latin Commentaries on Genesis (Chicago, 1912); Y. Congar, "Le theme de Dieu-Createur et les explications de l'Hexaemeron dans la tradition chr&ienne," in L'homme devant Dieu. Melanges De Lubac 1 (Theologie 56; Paris, 1963) 189-222.