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86-520: The earliest source considered as evidence for a connection between the eighth-century codex and Boniface is in a tenth-century vita of the saint written in Utrecht , which says that the saint held a gospel over his head as protection. The Ragyndrudis Codex is not a gospel, but rather a collection of texts on exegesis , apologia , and dogma , but this has not prevented the Codex from being regarded as

172-424: A pejorative reference to biographies and histories whose authors are perceived to be uncritical or excessively reverential toward their subject. Hagiography constituted an important literary genre in the early Christian church , providing some informational history along with the more inspirational stories and legends . A hagiographic account of an individual saint could consist of a biography ( vita ),

258-521: A book over his head to protect himself – this is what Boniface scholar Lutz von Padberg calls the Schutzhypothese , the "protection hypothesis", and it has become an enduring image of the saint. The first account to include this detail is the so-called Vita altera Bonifatii , which was written in Utrecht (the closest Frankish/Christian settlement to Friesland) and which is preserved in a revision ascribed to Utrecht's bishop, Radbod , who held

344-445: A commentary that focuses on textual criticism or historical criticism from a secular point of view. However, each volume will inevitably lean toward the personal emphasis bias of its author, and within any commentaries there may be great variety in the depth, accuracy, and critical or theological strength of each volume. In Christianity , biblical exegeses have relied on various doctrines. The doctrine of four senses of Scripture

430-730: A creative work, such as a film, novel, poetry or other artistic output by the PhD candidate. Together, the two elements form the candidate's research thesis. In the late 1930s, Leo Strauss called for the first time for a reconsideration of the "distinction between exoteric (or public) and esoteric (or secret) teaching." In 1952 he published Persecution and the Art of Writing , arguing that serious writers write esoterically, that is, with multiple or layered meanings, often disguised within irony or paradox, obscure references, even deliberate self-contradiction. Esoteric writing serves several purposes: protecting

516-578: A date that translates to the 12 April 547. It was long thought that a particular turn of phrase found also in Boniface's correspondence was evidence of his having used the manuscript, but Malcolm Parkes proved that the phrase was added to the Codex by an eighth-century scribe in Fulda after Boniface's death. Bonifatius Fischer believes that the glosses in the margin of the Epistle of James could well be by

602-556: A description of the saint's deeds or miracles, an account of the saint's martyrdom ( passio ), or be a combination of these. The genre of lives of the saints first came into being in the Roman Empire as legends about Christian martyrs were recorded. The dates of their deaths formed the basis of martyrologies . In the 4th century, there were three main types of catalogs of lives of the saints: The earliest lives of saints focused on desert fathers who lived as ascetics from

688-465: A foundation. The talmudical hermeneutics form asmachta is defined as finding hints for a given law. Midrash exegesis was largely in the nature of homiletics , expounding the Bible not primarily in order to understand the documents of the past (although in some instances it is indeed the case), but to find religious edification , moral instruction, and sustenance for the thoughts and feelings of

774-560: A largely illiterate audience. Hagiography provided priests and theologians with classical handbooks in a form that allowed them the rhetorical tools necessary to present their faith through the example of the saints' lives. Of all the English hagiographers no one was more prolific nor so aware of the importance of the genre as Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham . His work Lives of the Saints contains set of sermons on saints' days, formerly observed by

860-719: A nail having been driven through the book, which could have been the result of the book being nailed to a tree, in a Germanic, anti-Christian ritual. Michael Drout supposes that J. R. R. Tolkien 's Book of Mazarbul in The Fellowship of the Ring , especially its physical condition, owes something to the Ragyndrudis Codex. Hagiography A hagiography ( / ˌ h æ ɡ i ˈ ɒ ɡ r ə f i / ; from Ancient Greek ἅγιος , hagios  'holy' and -γραφία , -graphia  'writing')

946-625: A number of those (short) texts, but it also contains Ambrose 's De bono mortis and Isidore of Seville 's Synonyma . The Ragyndrudis Codex is one of many codices containing the Synonyma , a text connected with Anglo-Saxon monastic foundations on the continent. The text of the Decretum Gelasianum is the earliest complete manuscript copy. The legacy of the codex is based on the life and death of Saint Boniface who, in 753, had gone off to Friesland one more time to try and convert

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1032-742: A product of the social environment and human intelligence of their authors. Catholic centres of biblical exegesis include: For more than a century, German universities such as Tübingen have had reputations as centers of exegesis; in the US, the Divinity Schools of Chicago , Harvard and Yale became famous. Robert A. Traina's book Methodical Bible Study is an example of Protestant Christian exegesis. The Mimamsa school of Indian philosophy , also known as Pūrva Mīmāṃsā ("prior" inquiry, also Karma-Mīmāṃsā ), in contrast to Uttara Mīmāṃsā ("posterior" inquiry, also Brahma-Mīmāṃsā ),

1118-555: A set of books, each of which is devoted to the exposition of one or two books of the Bible . Long books or those that contain much material either for theological or historical-critical speculation, such as Genesis or Psalms , may be split over two or three volumes. Some, such as the Four Gospels , may be multiple- or single-volume, while short books such as the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel , Esther , and Jeremiah (i.e. Book of Susanna , Prayer of Azariah , Bel and

1204-432: Is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might consist of a biography or vita (from Latin vita , life, which begins the title of most medieval biographies), a description of the saint's deeds or miracles, an account of

1290-562: Is a concept used in biblical hermeneutics . In the 3rd century, the theologian Origen , a graduate of Catechetical School of Alexandria , formulated the principle of the three senses of Scripture (literal, moral and spiritual) from the Jewish method of interpretation ( midrash ) used by Paul of Tarsus in Epistle to the Galatians chapter 4. The historical-grammatical method is a Christian hermeneutical method that strives to discover

1376-448: Is called an exegete ( / ˌ ɛ k s ɪ ˈ dʒ iː t / ; from Greek ἐξηγητής ), the plural of exegesis is exegeses ( / ˌ ɛ k s ɪ ˈ dʒ iː s iː z / ), and adjectives are exegetic or exegetical (e.g., exegetical commentaries). In biblical exegesis, the opposite of exegesis (to draw out) is eisegesis (to draw in), in the sense of an eisegetic commentator "importing" or "drawing in" their own subjective interpretations into

1462-543: Is strongly concerned with textual exegesis, and consequently gave rise to the study of philology and the philosophy of language . Its notion of shabda "speech" as indivisible unity of sound and meaning ( signifier and signified ) is due to Bhartrhari (7th century). Tafsīr ( Arabic : تفسير , tafsīr , "interpretation") is the Arabic word for exegesis, commentary or explanation of the Qur'an . It explains those aspects of

1548-720: The Phaedrus , Strauss proposed that the classical and medieval art of esoteric writing is the proper medium for philosophic learning: rather than displaying philosophers' thoughts superficially, classical and medieval philosophical texts guide their readers in thinking and learning independently of imparted knowledge. Thus, Strauss agrees with the Socrates of the Phaedrus , where the Greek indicates that, insofar as writing does not respond when questioned, good writing provokes questions in

1634-535: The Babylonian Epic of Creation ), medical treatises, magical texts, ancient dictionaries, and law collections (the Code of Hammurabi ). Most of them, however, comment on divination treatises, in particular treatises that predict the future from the appearance and movement of celestial bodies on the one hand ( Enūma Anu Enlil ), and from the appearance of a sacrificed sheep's liver on the other ( Bārûtu ). As with

1720-762: The Church of Scientology is commonly described as a heavily fictionalized hagiography. Exegesis Exegesis ( / ˌ ɛ k s ɪ ˈ dʒ iː s ɪ s / EK -sih- JEE -sis ; from the Greek ἐξήγησις , from ἐξηγεῖσθαι , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Biblical works. In modern usage, exegesis can involve critical interpretations of virtually any text, including not just religious texts but also philosophy , literature , or virtually any other genre of writing. The phrase Biblical exegesis can be used to distinguish studies of

1806-604: The Cornish-language works Beunans Meriasek and Beunans Ke , about the lives of Saints Meriasek and Kea , respectively. Other examples of hagiographies from England include: Ireland is notable in its rich hagiographical tradition, and for the large amount of material which was produced during the Middle Ages. Irish hagiographers wrote primarily in Latin while some of the later saint's lives were written in

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1892-662: The Gathas and those on dādīg texts, such as the Vendīdād , the Hērbedestān and the Nērangestān . Since many 19th and 20th century works by Zoroastrians contain an element of exegesis, while on the other hand no exegetical literature in the strict sense of the word can be said to exist, the phenomenon of modern Zoroastrian exegesis as such will be discussed here, without detailed reference to individual texts. Several universities, including

1978-567: The Ge'ez language are known as gadl (Saint's Life). There are some 200 hagiographies about indigenous saints. They are among the most important Medieval Ethiopian written sources, and some have accurate historical information. They are written by the disciples of the saints. Some were written a long time after the death of a saint, but others were written not long after the saint's demise. Fragments from an Old Nubian hagiography of Saint Michael are extant. Jewish hagiographic writings are common in

2064-580: The Holy Spirit inspired the authors of the scriptural texts, and so the words of those texts convey a divine revelation . In this view of exegesis, the principle of sensus plenior applies—that because of its divine authorship, the Bible has a "fuller meaning" than its human authors intended or could have foreseen. Rational exegesis bases its operation on the idea that the authors have their own inspiration (in this sense, synonymous with artistic inspiration ), so their works are completely and utterly

2150-526: The Martyrology of Tallaght and the Félire Óengusso . Such hagiographical calendars were important in establishing lists of native Irish saints, in imitation of continental calendars. In the 10th century, a Byzantine monk Simeon Metaphrastes was the first one to change the genre of lives of the saints into something different, giving it a moralizing and panegyrical character. His catalog of lives of

2236-602: The Sasanian era. This lengthy period of oral transmission has clearly helped to give the Middle Persian Zand its characteristic shape and has, in a sense, limited its scope. Although the later tradition makes a formal distinction between "Gathic" (gāhānīg), "legal" (dādīg), and perhaps "ritual" (hādag-mānsrīg) Avestan texts, there appear to be no significant differences in approach between the Pahlavi commentary on

2322-603: The Sorbonne in Paris, Leiden University , and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Free University of Brussels), put exegesis in a secular context, next to exegesis in a religious tradition. Secular exegesis is an element of the study of religion . At Australian and British universities, the exegesis forms part of the required work for fine arts, including creative-writing doctorates . A scholarly text accompanies

2408-705: The Talmud , but continued during ancient times, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance ; it remains a subject of study today. Jews have centers for exegetic studies around the world, in each community: they consider exegesis an important tool for the understanding of scripture. Associated with the rabbinic text studies, such methodology is known to adopt a wide assortment of literary tools, in conjunction with meticulous, widespread engagement with classical exegetical literature. Zoroastrian exegesis consists basically of

2494-593: The midrash literature. Jewish exegetes have the title mefarshim ( מפרשים , "commentators"). The Midrash is a compilation of homiletic teachings or commentaries on the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), a biblical exegesis of the Pentateuch and its paragraphs related to the Law or Torah , which also forms an object of analysis. It comprises the legal and ritual Halakha , the collective body of Jewish laws, and exegesis of

2580-437: The 16th. Production remained dynamic and kept pace with scholarly developments in historical biographical writing until 1925, when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (d. 1938) placed an interdiction on Ṣūfī brotherhoods. As Turkey relaxed legal restrictions on Islamic practice in the 1950s and the 1980s, Ṣūfīs returned to publishing hagiography, a trend which continues in the 21st century. The pseudobiography of L. Ron Hubbard compiled by

2666-533: The 19th century, Western scholars commonly understood that philosophical writing is not at home in any polity, no matter how liberal. Insofar as it questions conventional wisdom at its roots, philosophy must guard itself especially against those readers who believe themselves authoritative, wise, and liberal defenders of the status quo. In questioning established opinions, or in investigating the principles of morality, philosophers of old found it necessary to convey their messages in an oblique manner. Their "art of writing"

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2752-459: The 4th century onwards. The life of Anthony of Egypt is usually considered the first example of this new genre of Christian biography. In Western Europe , hagiography was one of the more important vehicles for the study of inspirational history during the Middle Ages . The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine compiled a great deal of medieval hagiographic material, with a strong emphasis on miracle tales. Lives were often written to promote

2838-444: The Bible from other critical textual explanations. Textual criticism investigates the history and origins of the text, but exegesis may include the study of the historical and cultural backgrounds of the author, text, and original audience. Other analyses include classification of the type of literary genres presented in the text and analysis of grammatical and syntactical features in the text itself. One who practices exegesis

2924-593: The Biblical author's original intended meaning in the text. It is the primary method of interpretation for many conservative Protestant exegetes who reject the historical-critical method to various degrees (from the complete rejection of historical criticism of some fundamentalist Protestants to the moderated acceptance of it in the Catholic Church since Pope Pius XII ), in contrast to the overwhelming reliance on historical-critical interpretation, often to

3010-476: The Dragon , Additions to Esther , Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah ), or the pastoral or Johannine epistles are often condensed into one volume. The form of each book may be identical or allow for variations in methodology among the many authors who collaborate to write a full commentary. Each book's commentary generally consists of a background and introductory section, followed by detailed commentary of

3096-683: The English Church. The text comprises two prefaces, one in Latin and one in Old English , and 39 lives beginning on 25 December with the nativity of Christ and ending with three texts to which no saints' days are attached. The text spans the entire year and describes the lives of many saints, both English and continental, and harks back to some of the earliest saints of the early church. There are two known instances where saint's lives were adapted into vernacular plays in Britain. These are

3182-563: The Frisians. On the morning of June 5, 754, Boniface, camping in the Frisian countryside with 50 or so comrades, was getting ready to accept new converts, when the camp was overrun by pagan bandits who killed all the missionaries and destroyed their possessions. While the earliest hagiographical accounts of Boniface and his martyrdom had him order his comrades to lay down their arms and accept martyrdom willingly, later accounts added that he held

3268-627: The Qur'an; and so on and so forth. Such an author of tafsīr is a mufassir ( 'مُفسر , mufassir , plural: مفسرون , mufassirūn ). Imam Razi 's Tafsir Kabir in Arabic and Mufti Naeemi 's Tafsir Naeemi in Urdu are some of the significant works on tafsīr in Islam. Traditional Jewish forms of exegesis appear throughout rabbinic literature , which includes the Mishnah , the two Talmuds , and

3354-589: The Qur’an that cannot be known by reason and logic such as the context of the revelation or abrogation of a specific ayah (verse). They are explained using reliable sources: other verses of Qur'an itself as some explain the other; the hadiths of The Prophet as the Quran was revealed on him ; the narrations of the Prophet's companions as they were the main context and reason for the revelation of some specific verses of

3440-553: The Ragyndrudis Codex are on display in the cathedral's museum and in the Hessian State Library: three facsimiles of the Ragyndrudis Codex were made by Ludwig Ritterpusch on the occasion of Pope John Paul II 's visit to Fulda in 1980. First mention of the three as a set pertaining to the life of Boniface was made by the Jesuit Nicolaus Serarius (1555–1609), who described the three in a vita of

3526-475: The Sikh Janamsakhis ) concerning saints, gurus and other individuals believed to be imbued with sacred power. Hagiographic works, especially those of the Middle Ages , can incorporate a record of institutional and local history , and evidence of popular cults , customs, and traditions . However, when referring to modern, non-ecclesiastical works, the term hagiography is often used today as

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3612-466: The Targum, served to widen the knowledge of the scholars learned in the first division of the national science. The scribes found the material for their discourses, which formed a part of the synagogue service, in the second division of the several branches of the tradition. The Aggadah, the third of these branches, was the source material for the sermon. Jewish exegesis did not finish with the redaction of

3698-605: The actual deduction of a thesis from a passage as a means of proving a point, and the use of such a passage as a mere mnemonic device—a distinction that was also made in a different form later in the Babylonian schools. The Babylonian Amoraim were the first to use the expression " Peshaṭ " ("simple" or face value method) to designate the primary sense, contrasting it with the "Drash," the Midrashic exegesis. These two terms were later on destined to become important features in

3784-454: The book pericope -by-pericope or verse-by-verse. Before the 20th century, a commentary would be written by a sole author, but in the recent period, a publishing board will commission a team of scholars to write a commentary, with each volume being divided out among them. A single commentary will generally attempt to give a coherent and unified view on the Bible as a whole, for example, from a Catholic or Reformed ( Calvinist ) perspective, or

3870-741: The case of Talmudic and Kabbalistic writings and later in the Hasidic movement. Hagiography in Islam began in the Arabic language with biographical writing about the Prophet Muhammad in the 8th century CE, a tradition known as sīra . From about the 10th century CE, a genre generally known as manāqib also emerged, which comprised biographies of the imams ( madhāhib ) who founded different schools of Islamic thought ( madhhab ) about shariʿa , and of Ṣūfī saints . Over time, hagiography about Ṣūfīs and their miracles came to predominate in

3956-500: The continent and the British Isles worked side by side there: the handwriting shows both continental and insular characteristics. Additionally, there are eighth-century corrections and glosses in an Anglo-Saxon hand. The Codex contains 14 texts pertaining to exegesis , apologia , and dogma . While some sources report that the codex is "a collection of mainly anti-Arian texts", this is not entirely correct—the codex contains

4042-532: The cult of local or national states, and in particular to develop pilgrimages to visit relics . The bronze Gniezno Doors of Gniezno Cathedral in Poland are the only Romanesque doors in Europe to feature the life of a saint. The life of Saint Adalbert of Prague , who is buried in the cathedral, is shown in 18 scenes, probably based on a lost illuminated copy of one of his Lives. The Bollandist Society continues

4128-556: The cuneiform record. To give but one example, the pronunciation of the cryptically written name of Gilgamesh, the hero of the Epic of Gilgamesh , was discovered in a cuneiform commentary on a medical text. However, the significance of cuneiform commentaries extends beyond the light they shed on specific details of Mesopotamian civilization. They shed light on what the concerns of the Mesopotamian literate elite were when they read some of

4214-572: The cuts do not match the hypothesis; in addition, Boniface was an uncommonly tall man, which makes it even more unlikely that such cuts would have been made while he held the Codex over his head. According to von Padberg, the Codices Bonifatiani must have left Utrecht and been in Fulda in 825, or the Utrecht tradition would have more clearly identified them. Images of the saint holding up a book for protection are being produced in Fulda by

4300-455: The exclusion of all other hermeneutics, in liberal Christianity . Historical criticism, also known as the historical-critical method or higher criticism , is a branch of literary criticism that investigates the origins of ancient texts in order to understand "the world behind the text". This is done to discover the text's primitive or original meaning in its original historical context and its literal sense. Revealed exegesis considers that

4386-872: The fundamental part of the national science, was the subject of the primary instruction. It was also divided into the three historic groups of the books of the Hebrew Bible: the Pentateuch , the Prophets , and the Hagiographa , called in traditional Hebrew attribution the Torah (the Law or Teaching), the Nevi'im (the Prophets) and the Kethuvim (the Writings) respectively. The intelligent reading and comprehension of

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4472-522: The genre of manāqib . Likewise influenced by early Islamic research into hadiths and other biographical information about the Prophet, Persian scholars began writing Persian hagiography , again mainly of Sūfī saints, in the eleventh century CE. The Islamicisation of the Turkish regions led to the development of Turkish biographies of saints, beginning in the 13th century CE and gaining pace around

4558-512: The hagiographer's native vernacular Irish . Of particular note are the lives of St. Patrick , St. Columba (Latin)/Colum Cille (Irish) and St. Brigit/Brigid —Ireland's three patron saints. The earliest extant Life was written by Cogitosus . Additionally, several Irish calendars relating to the feastdays of Christian saints (sometimes called martyrologies or feastologies ) contained abbreviated synopses of saint's lives, which were compiled from many different sources. Notable examples include

4644-402: The hero-warrior figure, but with the distinction that the saint is of a spiritual sort. Imitation of the life of Christ was then the benchmark against which saints were measured, and imitation of the lives of saints was the benchmark against which the general population measured itself. In Anglo-Saxon and medieval England, hagiography became a literary genre par excellence for the teaching of

4730-472: The history of Hebrew Bible exegesis. In Babylonia was formulated the important principle that the Midrashic exegesis could not annul the primary sense. This principle subsequently became the watchword of commonsense Bible exegesis. How little it was known or recognized may be seen from the admission of Kahana , a Babylonian amora of the fourth century, that while at 18 years of age he had already learned

4816-484: The interpretation of the Avesta . However, the closest equivalent Iranian concept, zand, generally includes Pahlavi texts which were believed to derive from commentaries upon Avestan scripture, but whose extant form contains no Avestan passages. Zoroastrian exegesis differs from similar phenomena in many other religions in that it developed as part of a religious tradition which made little or no use of writing until well into

4902-736: The majority of the thousands of texts from the ancient Near East that have survived to the present day, Mesopotamian text commentaries are written on clay tablets in cuneiform script . Text commentaries are written in the East Semitic language of Akkadian , but due to the influence of lexical lists written in Sumerian language on cuneiform scholarship, they often contain Sumerian words or phrases as well. Cuneiform commentaries are important because they provide information about Mesopotamian languages and culture that are not available elsewhere in

4988-405: The most widely studied texts in the Mesopotamian intellectual tradition, a perspective that is important for "seeing things their way." Finally, cuneiform commentaries are also the earliest examples of textual interpretation. It has been repeatedly argued that they influenced rabbinical exegesis. The publication and interpretation of these texts began in the mid-19th century, with the discovery of

5074-431: The original life stories of their first saints, e.g. Boris and Gleb , Theodosius Pechersky etc. In the 16th century, Metropolitan Macarius expanded the list of the Russian saints and supervised the compiling process of their life stories. They would all be compiled in the so-called Velikiye chet'yi-minei catalog (Великие Четьи-Минеи, or Great Menaion Reader ), consisting of 12 volumes in accordance with each month of

5160-413: The philosopher from the retribution of the regime, and protecting the regime from the corrosion of philosophy; it attracts the right kind of reader and repels the wrong kind; and ferreting out the interior message is in itself an exercise of philosophic reasoning. Taking his bearings from his study of Maimonides and Al-Farabi , and pointing further back to Plato's discussion of writing as contained in

5246-405: The popular heroic poem, such as Beowulf , one finds that they share certain common features. In Beowulf , the titular character battles against Grendel and his mother , while the saint, such as Athanasius ' Anthony (one of the original sources for the hagiographic motif) or the character of Guthlac , battles against figures no less substantial in a spiritual sense. Both genres then focus on

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5332-497: The present. The contrast between explanation of the literal sense and the Midrash, that did not follow the words, was recognized by the Tannaim and the Amoraim , although their idea of the literal meaning of a passage may not be allowed by more modern standards. The above-mentioned tanna , Ishmael b. Elisha said, rejecting an exposition of Eliezer b. Hyrcanus : "Truly, you say to Scripture, 'Be silent while I am expounding! ' ". Tannaitic exegesis distinguishes principally between

5418-426: The reader—questions that orient the reader towards an understanding of problems the author thought about with utmost seriousness. Strauss thus, in Persecution and the Art of Writing , presents Maimonides "as a closet nonbeliever obfuscating his message for political reasons". Strauss's hermeneutical argument —rearticulated throughout his subsequent writings (most notably in The City and Man [1964])—is that, before

5504-432: The royal Assyrian libraries at Nineveh, from which ca. 454 text commentaries have been recovered. The study of cuneiform commentaries is, however, far from complete. It is the subject of on-going research by the small, international community of scholars who specialize in the field of Assyriology . Commentaries on Plato include a large corpus of literature, especially in the ancient and medieval world, to explain and clarify

5590-410: The saint (1604). The Victor Codex, Codex Bonifatianus I , also known as the Codex Fuldensis , was produced in the middle of the sixth century for Victor of Capua , and is known for its content, script , and history. It contains a Gospel harmony and is an important witness for a number of textual cruxes in the New Testament. Victor himself corrected and edited the manuscript, and signed off on it on

5676-476: The saint's martyrdom (called a passio ), or be a combination of these. Christian hagiographies focus on the lives, and notably the miracles , ascribed to men and women canonized by the Roman Catholic church , the Eastern Orthodox Church , the Oriental Orthodox churches , and the Church of the East . Other religious traditions such as Buddhism , Hinduism , Taoism , Islam , Sikhism and Jainism also create and maintain hagiographical texts (such as

5762-402: The saint's shield, an idea enforced by deep cuts through the (original) binding and pages. The Codex is held in the Domschatz , the treasury of the Fulda Cathedral ; a facsimile is on display in the cathedral's museum. The Ragyndrudis Codex is one of three "Bonifatian" books, a set of three manuscripts traditionally considered to have been in the possession of Saint Boniface . The others are

5848-435: The saint, since they are written in a southern English hand in the early eighth century. The binding was probably made in Northumbria . The Cadmug Gospel, Codex Bonifatianus III , is a small " pocket gospel book " from the second half of the eighth century. The name "Cadmug" (also read as "Vidrug" and "Cadmag") appears on 65r; on the verso , is noted—erroneously—that Boniface himself wrote the manuscript, an error dating from

5934-463: The saints became the standard for all of the Western and Eastern hagiographers, who would create relative biographies and images of the ideal saints by gradually departing from the real facts of their lives. Over the years, the genre of lives of the saints had absorbed a number of narrative plots and poetic images (often, of pre-Christian origin, such as dragon fighting etc.), mediaeval parables , short stories and anecdotes . The genre of lives of

6020-413: The saints was introduced in the Slavic world in the Bulgarian Empire in the late 9th and early 10th century, where the first original hagiographies were produced on Cyril and Methodius , Clement of Ohrid and Naum of Preslav . Eventually the Bulgarians brought this genre to Kievan Rus' together with writing and also in translations from the Greek language. In the 11th century, they began to compile

6106-424: The seat from 900–917. It is repeated in most other vitae that followed, of which Otloh of St. Emmeram 's (eleventh century) is the most important. This book, though it is called a "gospel" in the Utrecht and Otloh vitae , is usually identified with the Ragyndrudis Codex. Adding to the Schutzhypothese are five deep cuts which appear to strengthen the theory, but von Padberg argues that the position and character of

6192-665: The so-called Victor Codex ( Codex Bonifatianus I ) and the Cadmug Gospel ( Codex Bonifatianus III ). All Codices Bonifatiani are held in Fulda, though in different locations: I and III are held in the Hessian State Library in Fulda , and II is held in the Domschatz of Fulda Cathedral , on loan from the library of the Fulda seminary. All three Codices Bonifatiani have eighth-century bindings. Facsimiles of

6278-438: The study, academic assembly, appraisal and publication of materials relating to the lives of Christian saints (see Acta Sanctorum ). Many of the important hagiographical texts composed in medieval England were written in the vernacular dialect Anglo-Norman . With the introduction of Latin literature into England in the 7th and 8th centuries the genre of the life of the saint grew increasingly popular. When one contrasts it to

6364-463: The tacit heart of their writings—a heart or message irreducible to "the letter" or historical dimension of texts. Explicitly following Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 's lead, Strauss indicates that medieval political philosophers, no less than their ancient counterparts, carefully adapted their wording to the dominant moral views of their time, lest their writings be condemned as heretical or unjust, not by "the many" (who did not read), but by those "few" whom

6450-583: The text succumbed to the overwhelming authority of the Midrash. It was, therefore, providential that, just at the time when the Midrash was paramount, the close study of the text of the Hebrew Bible, at least in one direction, was pursued with rare energy and perseverance by the Masorites , who set themselves to preserving and transmitting the pronunciation and correct reading of the text. The Mikra ,

6536-471: The text, arrived at by a correct division of the sentences and words, formed the course of instruction in the Hebrew Bible. The scribes were also required to know the Targum, the Aramaic translation of the text. The Targum made possible an immediate comprehension of the text, but was continuously influenced by the exegesis taught in the schools. The reading of the biblical text, which was combined with that of

6622-439: The text, unsupported by the text itself. Eisegesis is often used as a derogatory term. One of the early examples of exegesis, and one of the larger corpora of text commentaries from the ancient world, comes from Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) in the first millennium BCE. Containing over 860 manuscripts, the majority of which date to 700–100 BCE, these commentaries explore numerous types of texts, including literary works (such as

6708-407: The time when it was loaned to Arnulf of Carinthia , at the end of the ninth century. The name "Ragyndrudis" is found on folio 2v, in a Latin phrase: in honore dni nostri ihu xpi ego ragyndrudis ordinaui librum istum ("in honour of our Lord Jesus Christ, I Ragyndrudis arranged this book"). No successful identification with a historical Ragyndrudis has been made, but a laywoman called Ragyndrugis who

6794-481: The whole Mishnah , he had only heard of that principle a great many years later ( Shab 63a). Kahana's admission is characteristic of the centuries following the final redaction of the Talmud. The primary meaning is no longer considered, but it becomes more and more the fashion to interpret the text according to the meaning given to it in traditional literature. The ability and even the desire for original investigation of

6880-523: The works of Plato. Many Platonist philosophers in the centuries following Plato sought to clarify and summarise his thoughts, but it was during the Roman era, that the Neoplatonists, in particular, wrote many commentaries on individual dialogues of Plato, many of which survive to the present day. A common published form of biblical exegesis is known as a Bible commentary and typically takes the form of

6966-425: The written Law; and the non-legalistic Aggadah , a compendium of Rabbinic homilies of the parts of the Pentateuch not connected with Law. In the halakhic as well as in the aggadic exegesis, the expounder endeavored not so much to seek the original meaning of the text as to find authority in a Hebrew Bible passage for established concepts and ideas, rules of conduct, and teachings, for which he wished to locate

7052-409: The year 970, when a series of sacramentaries are illustrated with images of Boniface's work as a missionary and his martyrdom. That Boniface would have carried a collection of books with him on his journeys is without doubt. Whether the Ragyndrudis Codex was one of those books is not – its contents appear unrelated to any missionary work, and it is certainly not a gospel. Still, it is possible that it

7138-511: The year. They were revised and expanded by St. Dimitry of Rostov in 1684–1705. The Life of Alexander Nevsky was a particularly notable hagiographic work of the era. Today, the works in the genre of lives of the saints represent a valuable historical source and reflection of different social ideas, world outlook and aesthetic concepts of the past. The Oriental Orthodox Churches also have their own hagiographic traditions. For instance, Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church hagiographies in

7224-565: Was linked (through marriage) to the Abbey of Saint Bertin in Saint-Omer , France, is a likely candidate according to Rosamond McKitterick . The manuscript is written in a Luxeuil -derived minuscule from the late seventh or early eighth century; McKitterick argues the origin may be Corbie Abbey in Picardy in northern France – the abbey was founded by monks from Luxeuil, and scribes from

7310-705: Was one of the books that were found afterward in Friesland and brought back to Utrecht, whence they traveled up the Rhine to Mainz and then Fulda. Marco Mostert considers it possible, even likely, that Radbod's recension of the vita made its way to Fulda, where the legend became attached to the damaged books that could have been Boniface's, and that by the tenth century the status of these books had been elevated to that of contact relics . A 2012 article in Der Spiegel reported that recent investigations found evidence of

7396-577: Was the art of esoteric communication. This was especially apparent in medieval times when heterodox political thinkers wrote under the threat of the Inquisition or comparably obtuse tribunals. Strauss's argument is not that the medieval writers he studies reserved one exoteric meaning for the many ( hoi polloi ) and an esoteric, hidden one for the few (hoi oligoi), but that, through rhetorical stratagems including self-contradiction and hyperboles, these writers succeeded in conveying their proper meaning at

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