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author: Daria Morozova


Urgency of the research. Antioch on the Orontes is precisely the city where the dramatic interaction between the Judeo-Christian messianic movement and the polytheistic milieu gave rise to the familiar "Gentile Christianity." The relationship between the Jews of Antioch, the Gentiles, and the Christians influenced the formation of the whole Church, defining the universal character of Christianity. But they also left an imprint on the Antioch school, a unique ethnically Semitic and Greek-speaking center of Christian theology.

Target setting. We still know very little about how the ethnic and cultural Semitic background of Antioch theologians, as well as their proximity to the developed Jewish community of the city, was reflected in their thinking.

Actual scientific researches and issues analysis. Although the Jewish diaspora in Antioch often attracts the attention of Judaic scholars, and the Antiochian School of Christian Theology gave rise to a fairly extensive patrological literature, these different areas of study do not intersect. Several reviews of the School of Antioch focus, among other, on the history of local Jewry, but even so there is little talk of an exchange of views between the two communities. Only a few case studies focus on the echoes between Jewish and Christian exegesis of Scripture in Antioch. Meanwhile, the importance of such a perspective is pointed out by leading historians of the doctrine such as Yaroslav Pelikan.

The research objective. The purpose of this essay is to outline the specifics of the Semitic center of Christian theological thought. This requires several tasks: assessing the role of the native Aramaic language in the works of Antiochian Christians who preached and wrote in Greek; tracing the place of the Jewish community of Antioch in the life and thinking of the local patristic school; summarizing the data of individual studies on the parallelism between Jewish and Christian.

The statement of basic materials. The Jewish community of Antioch was not monolithic. Communities of different currents tended to gather separately. Apparently, some of them, having received the news of the coming of the Messiah from the apostles, became the first centers of Christianity in Antioch, providing the basis for the future theological school. Such Semitic features of Antiochian patristics as literalism, historicism, and a kind of mystical materialism provoked criticism from other schools. On the other hand, Aramaic-speaking Christians could rightly call the Hebrew-Aramaic Bible "our Scriptures." As heirs to Old Testament prophets and legislators, Syrian apologists addressed the "Greeks" in a paternal tone. Theophilus of Antioch and Theodore of Mopsuestia even show a direct dependence on the rabbinic tradition of interpretation.

Conclusions. Behind the Greek language and classical rhetoric of the authors of the Antioch school are purely Semitic ways of comprehending reality and philosophical attitudes, strikingly different from all other currents of patristic. Ethnic and cultural kinship with the Jewish environment, along with some other factors, led to the literal, historical and typological exegesis, which is pertinent for the School of Antioch. Moving along parallel paths, the Jewish and Christian thinkers of Antioch periodically expressed similar intuitions. And some coincidences of interpretations appear to be direct borrowings.

Key words: School of Antioch, Jewish diaspora, exegesis, spiritual education, theology of education.

 

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