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J. ROBERT WRIGHT, EDITOR. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. Old Testament IX: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2005. Pp. xxix + 434. $40 (cloth).
In recent decades interest in writings from the early centuries of the Church has increased greatly. Such interest led to the initiation in 1993 of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (ACCS). The first volumes were published in 1998, and at present the series is well past the halfway mark towards its eventual completion in twenty-eight volumes (see http:// ivpress.gospelcom.net/accs/schedule.php). The team of scholars working on this project is international and ecumenical, representing Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, and various Protestant churches. Already translations are in progress in several languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Russian, and Spanish.
Thomas C. Oden, the general editor, makes clear in the general introduction that the series is aimed at "anyone who wants to reflect and meditate with the early Church about the plain sense, theological wisdom and moral meaning of particular Scripture texts."1 He bemoans the lack of regard for patristic insight among contemporary preachers, in contrast to preaching from an earlier period that, "focused primarily on the text of Scripture as understood by the earlier esteemed tradition of comment, largely converging on those writers that best reflected classic Christian consensual thinking."2 The ACCS is meant to foster a return to such preaching, in the belief that, "vital biblical preaching and spiritual formation need deeper grounding beyond the scope of the historical-critical orientations that have governed biblical studies in our day."3
Accordingly, volumes in the ACCS present patristic comments on biblical texts, drawing from both Eastern and Western sources. Originally the selections were limited to sources no later than 750 AD, but the current volume by Professor Wright, commendably, includes texts as late as the twelfth century. Selections from the commentaries of the church fathers are included, of course, but also, as in other volumes in ACCS, computer searches were used to locate relevant comments from other genres as well, such as homilies, treatises, letters, and hymns. The result is a catena that resembles earlier collections, such as Thomas Aquinas's Catena Aurea, a compilation of patristic comments on the Gospels.
The book begins with a general introduction by Oden,...