Eugen Pentiuc is widely regarded as the dean of scholarly reflection on the place and use of Scripture within the Orthodox Christian tradition. In his landmark The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition (Oxford, 2014), he outlined three modes of biblical interpretation: “discursive,” “aural,” and “visual.” The book under review takes up the second of these categories, reflecting upon the unique contribution that Byzantine hymnography makes to the larger Christian tradition of biblical reception and interpretation. The author is uniquely suited to the task: he brings to his analysis of the hymns the rare toolbox of a Semiticist and scholar of the Hebrew Bible who is equally at home in the fields of Septuagint studies and the patristic reception of the Bible. Moreover, he writes from within his own theological and spiritual tradition, and brings to the task a certain, most welcome, artistic creativity and sensitivity.
The book is divided into seven chapters, comprising two sections unequal in size and different in tone. The first one offers a thorough introduction to the origins, historical development, and structure of the Byzantine Holy Week, followed by a patient analysis of the theological themes for each day of the week and their respective hymnography: 1. Chastity: Joseph and the Midnight Bridegroom—Holy Monday; 2. Loyalty: Three Youths in a Fiery Furnace—Holy Tuesday; 3. Bravery: A Daring Woman and a Hiding Eve—Holy Wednesday; 4. Offering: Wisdom's Freely Shared Banquet—Holy Thursday; 5. Suffering: The Slaughtered Lamb and the Distraught Ewe—Good Friday; 6. Overcoming: Jonah and the Never-Setting Light—Holy Saturday. Here the skills of the consummate biblical scholar are put to excellent use in search for the textual and exegetical underpinnings of liturgical poetry. That such meticulous dissection of the hymns yields not a single tedious page is a credit to the author's decision to think with the texts and to highlight their depth and beauty.
The second part of the book—its seventh chapter—is a relatively brief, but very stimulating, discussion of the proprium of the biblical interpretation in Byzantine hymnography. This is neither a synthesis of the scholarly mainstream (research on this topic is still in its inception), nor does it claim to be “the last word” on the matter; it is rather the kind of proposal that shakes up the field, proposes new categories, and moves scholarship toward better understanding. Pentiuc argues for a distinction between the “discursive, linear, sequential” exposition of Scripture in patristic commentaries (which he finds analogous to the naturalism of Renaissance representational art) and the “allusiveness, circularity, and unpredictability” of the exegesis embedded in the hymns (analogous to the simultaneity and multi-angularity of cubist art). He notes that, in commentaries, the boundary between text and interpretation is clearly marked, whereas in the rich tapestry of the hymn, the various strands of biblical texts, paraphrases, or allusions are “indistinguishably interwoven, intermeshed, or interfused” (294) with the interpretative avenues suggested to the hearer. For this approach, in which “Scriptures are one with their interpretations” (293) within the space-time continuum of liturgical experience, Pentiuc coins the term “liturgized Bible” (293–295). The difference to the hermeneutical stance of patristic commentaries is marked very clearly; among other features, “interpretive simultaneity is a key feature of liturgical exegesis, which is absent in the discursive, linear mode of interpretation attested by patristic commentaries” (296).
This proposal is quite welcome as a heuristic tool in researching the way in which hymnography contributes to sacred texts “coming alive” in the course of religious ritual. My impression, however, is that the two categories leave out too much material that is relevant to the topic of patristic exegesis. On the one hand, the juxtaposition that Pentiuc sets forth accounts for the difference between, for example, Ephrem of Nisibis's Commentary on Genesis and his Hymns on Paradise. Nevertheless: the patristic engagement with Scripture is not confined to biblical commentaries, but is equally present in homilies, in polemical and doctrinal treatises, in conciliar statements, etc.—and in much of this literature, Pentiuc would surely concede that the engagement with Scripture is far richer than what he describes as the “discursive” mode of exegesis.
I should also like to register a little note of regret over what appears to be an insufficient theological appreciation of the “Christophanic exegesis” at play in Byzantine hymnography. Commenting on the identification of the heavenly agent at Daniel 3 with Christ (a commonplace in early Christian exegesis), Pentiuc offers the following: “It is the antitype, the Son of God before incarnation, who travels from the future to the past or, more precisely, from out of the time-space continuum into the ‘past’ of salvation history” (314). Similarly, the identification, in the famous Hymn of Kassia, of the Old Testament Lord seeking out Eve in Paradise with the Lord who encounters “the sinful woman” (Luke 7:36–50; Mat 26:6–16) is deemed “another example of antitype time traveling in the past” (314), since “it is the Word of God, the Logos, who, prior to its incarnation, was somehow mysteriously walking in the Garden of Eden” (368, n. 92). The less than felicitous metaphor of “time traveling” combined with the expression of puzzlement leaves readers with the impression that they have stumbled upon some theological bizarrerie—when, in fact, this kind of exegesis, widespread in both Byzantine aural and visual media, synthesizes a venerable and widespread patristic tradition.
These quibbles aside, I hasten to say that this book constitutes a major contribution to scholarship. Like The Bible in the Orthodox Tradition, it will become a standard reference work for scholars and students, teachers and preachers interested in Byzantine hymnography as a privilege entry-point into understanding how early Christians encountered the Scriptures. As Pentiuc points out, for the vast majority of believers, this happened “via the living tradition of the Church, especially the liturgical services, aurally (e.g., listening to the hymns, biblical readings, homilies, etc.) or visually (e.g., looking at Church iconography or liturgical acts loaded with scriptural symbolism)” (285). Since it is true that “the impact of Scripture on such a large audience regularly attending religious services has never been sufficiently emphasized” (286), we are certainly indebted to the author for this thorough and thoroughly enjoyable introduction to liturgical exegesis in its “aural” mode. One can only hope that the project of a similar introduction to liturgical exegesis in its visual mode—“Seeing the Scriptures,” if one may be so bold as to suggest a title—is already on Fr Pentiuc's agenda.
