Reading Matthew with Monks: Laying the Foundations for Conversation between Modern Biblical Scholarship and Early Medieval Monastic Interpretation

In this study, I lay the foundations for a conversation between the modern academic study of the Bible and early medieval monastic reading strategies. From a cultural perspective, I examine the similarities and differences between the modern academic reading culture and the culture of early medieval monastics with a particular focus on the English 10th Century Benedictine Revival and its chief catechist, Ælfric of Eynsham. Three major points of contact—the use of mimetic processes of formation, the literary focus of the communities, and the awareness of participating within a critical conversation—are examined from primary and secondary sources to uncover both the methods and purposes of each culture‘s reading strategies. Assessing these points enables the reading process of the medieval monastics to be seen on their own terms rather than from a strictly modern perspective. Next, a discussion of the distinctive factor of early medieval monastic culture, the liturgical shape of communal life, provides a central context for understanding monastic homilies.;Once the backgrounds and strategies have been discussed in the abstract, I examine the particularities of the reading strategies in relation to four Matthean passages: Matt 4:1-11, 5:1-12, 8:1-13, and 25:1-13. I place the work of four major modern scholars, Ulrich Luz, W. D. Davies and Dale Allison, M. Eugene Boring, and Douglas Hare, in relation to homilies on these passages by Ælfric of Eynsham as considered in their liturgical settings.