Abouna Robert Matheus: Iso'dad of Merv: Exegete for our time?Iso'dad of Merv, (+850), bishop of Hdatta, at the East bank of the Tigris, and prominent exegete of the Churchof the East, is a less known author of the Antiochean exegetical tradition. His commentary of the NewTestament is available in English1. I present here his commentary on the first verses of Genesis, to illustratehow he proceeds. Patristic exegesis has a bad reputation in our modern times because of its allegoricalcharacter, but this is due to our ignorance of the studies of the Antiochene School.The origin of Antiochene biblical exegesis, which tends towards literal interpretation by contrast to theAlexandrian allegorical method, goes back to Lucian of Antioch (third century). Its most outstandingrepresentatives are Diodorus of Tarsus (4th C.), John Chrysostom (4th C.), Theodore of Mopsuestia (4-5th C.)and Theodoret of Cyrus (5th C.). This method applies the literal meaning to the biblical texts following themodel of the classical poetical commentaries and the grammatical teachings.Still, between both schools of Alexandria and Antioch there are points of agreement. The Antiochenes did notcategorically reject the allegorical interpretation of certain Old Testament passages prefiguring facts relating tothe New Testament and to the Church, but they reject those hermeneutic procedures, typical of the school ofAlexandria (the etymology of Hebrew words, authentic forcings of the literal meaning, the symbolism ofanimals, plants, numbers, etc.). The Antiochenes give rather careful attention to the literal sense with manyobservations of historical, linguistic and grammatical nature and the stylistic characteristics of the author.In the beginning of his Commentary on Genesis, Iso'dad gives us some information about the early Greektranslations: Aquila was banned from the Church and became Jew. So he changed all passages testifying ofChrist. Symmachus was a Samaritan converted to Judaism. He wanted to contradi...