One of the essential components of Christian life is exegesis, which is work with sacred texts. From the first centuries exegetes tried to solve the problem of an adequate, undistorted understanding of a sacred text developing their own hermeneutic methods. The purpose of the paper is to highlight the basic hermeneutical principles of exegesis formulated by the early 5th century and analyze the characteristic features of exegesis of Saint John Chrysostom. The author came to the conclusion that in Christianity by the 5th century the basic hermeneutical principles of the interpretation of sacred texts had been developed, which were used by a narrow community of exegetes, but not by the entire religious community. Saint John Chrysostom makes an attempt to involve the entire Church in the interpretation process through a “synergistic-spatial” shift in exegesis.

Prokhorov Evgeny Aleksandrovich, Master of Religious Studies, Senior Lecturer, Department of Theology, Department of Philosophy and Theology, Irkutsk State University, 1, K. Marx st., Irkutsk, 664003, Russian Federation, tel.: 8 (3952)243995, e-mail: irgtuprihod@inbox.ru

Prokhorov E.A. The Exegetical Tradition of Christianity in I–V Centuries and the “Synergy-Spatial” Shift in the Exegesis of Saint John Chrysostom. The Bulletin of Irkutsk State University. Series Political Science and Religion Studies, 2019, vol. 30, pp. 95-103. https://doi.org/10.26516/2073-3380.2019.30.95 (in Russian)

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