Is the Study of Hebrew Useless for Orthodox Theologians? A Response to Some Recent Assertions Put Forward by Jean-Claude Larchet

Abstract

In one of his recent books, Jean-Claude Larchet argued that the study of Hebrew is useless for those doing research in the field of Orthodox theology, since the Church fathers used the Greek version of the Old Testament (Septuagint). There are at least two reasons that might be advanced in order to prove the invalidity of Larchet’s thesis. First, fostering an attitude of ignorance as regards the Hebrew Bible might nurture anti-Judaic beliefs among Orthodox students, considering that such attitudes could be noticed in Romania during the interwar period. Second, the Fathers of the Church had a favorable attitude towards Hebrew, despite the fact that few of them actually knew that language. They held the belief that Hebrew was the primordial language through which God spoke to mankind in the beginning and through which the Old Testament was revealed. Both the Hebrew language and the Hebrew alphabet played a significant role in their theoretical considerations on the canon of the Holy Scripture. Since Larchet published his work in Romanian, his theses and their implications are discussed from the perspective and in the context of Romanian Orthodox theology.

1. Introduction

The present study aims to discuss some statements put forward by Jean-Claude Larchet, an influential Orthodox theologian, in relation to the biblical exegesis of the Old Testament, as presented in his recent work entitled: Ce este Teologia? Noțiuni de metodologie în practica și în predarea Teologiei Ortodoxe [What is Theology? Notions of Methodology in the Practice and Teaching of Orthodox Theology] (Larchet 2021). Larchet advocates for a methodology specific to Orthodox theology, which must be freed from the influences of Western theology. Regarding the study of the Holy Scripture, Larchet insists on the uselessness, in the case of Orthodox theologians, of mastering and knowing the Hebrew language.

Given that Larchet’s considerations are methodological in nature and address both theological students and professors of theology, the implications of his statements are disquieting. If one acknowledges that Larchet is right, then the fact that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the importance of the Hebrew Bible become relative for the Orthodox exegete. Another consequence would be the fact that ignorance of the Hebrew Bible might easily foster anti-Judaic beliefs among young people in the Orthodox Churches in a difficult European political and social context where anti-Semitic ideas are frequently circulated. We aim to further discuss these implications and to counter Larchet’s claims with arguments about the importance of Hebrew in the study of the Old Testament. The analysis and criticism of Larchet’s position will be done mainly considering the context of Orthodox theology in Romania, since Larchet’s work is only accessible in Romanian.

The publication of this article in a special issue on “Research in Hebrew Bible” may seem inappropriate. Although analysis on the Bible is mostly applied research, this paper does not examine books or topics found in the Hebrew Bible. However, restating why we do biblical research is sometimes necessary. This article emphasizes the importance of research on the Hebrew Bible for Orthodox theology. In putting forward our arguments, we have drawn both from early Christian writers and from modern history. Therefore, this article focuses on the history of interpretation and modern use of the Hebrew Bible, which are directions in the biblical scholarship.

2. Who Is Jean-Claude Larchet?

The question above would certainly be superfluous for an Orthodox theologian. However, it might be useful to include here some brief biographical notes since some readers are less familiar with the world of Orthodox theology. Jean-Claude Larchet (b. 1949) is a renowned French Orthodox theologian, whose work addresses themes of patristics and Orthodox spirituality. Larchet earned a PhD in philosophy and a PhD in theology and has published over thirty books and numerous articles, most of which have been translated into no less than nineteen languages. He gained notoriety in the Orthodox world especially through his well-known books on the spiritual therapy of diseases. Thirty-three of the books written by Larchet have been translated into Romanian.1

Larchet stood out for his extremely balanced statements in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The measures adopted by the authorities to prevent the spread of COVID-19, such as the limitation of participation in religious services and special conditions for the administration of the Eucharist, have triggered discontent among many believers. While affirming that the faithful must receive the Holy Eucharist regardless of the method of administration, Larchet rejected the theories according to which, through the anti-COVID measures, obscure forces aim to destroy Christianity. He also claimed that the Church “has a duty to protect the health and life of its faithful, but also to protect those whom they might contaminate outside, as well as a duty not to complicate the work of the healthcare staff” (Panev 2020; Totorcea 2020).

3. The Book

Larchet’s book What is Theology? Notions of methodology in the practice and teaching of Orthodox Theology, to which we shall hereafter refer, comprises 184 pages and was published in Romanian by the Basilica publishing house, the printing press of the Romanian Patriarchate, in 2021.

The work is intended to be a short treatise on the methodology of teaching Orthodox theology. The author starts from the observation that, towards the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, modern Orthodox theology experienced methodological influences from Catholic and Protestant theology. In recent decades, Orthodox theological faculties have been integrated into universities, thus being forced to adapt to the methods of the human sciences and to promote scientific principles in the study of theology. Larchet believes that “mimetism”—that is, the adoption of scientific principles from the West in Orthodox higher education—has led to regrettable alterations in the identity and specificity of Orthodox theology, which students and future theologians will no longer be able to understand. The first impulses in favor of restoring the identity of Orthodox theology were presented programmatically by Father Georges Florovsky, whom Larchet frequently evokes as a hermeneutic landmark in the book.2 In Larchet’s opinion, Orthodox institutions of higher education should adopt from scientific methods

what is useful and even necessary to ensure in particular the veracity of the documents to which some theological subjects refer and to give more rigor and precision to the studies produced within these subjects. On the other hand, Orthodox faculties of theology should watch over the preservation of the Orthodox identity in respect of the Tradition, which ensures its perennial character.

(Larchet 2021, pp. 11–12)

In general, Larchet’s position towards the scientific methods applied in theology is a fair one: these methods are considered useful but limited, “the word limit not having a negative connotation, but expressing the point up to which these methods have value (specifying which) and beyond which they no longer have value (specifying why)” (Larchet 2021, p. 49). After an introduction to the history of theological studies in the Orthodox Churches, the author makes considerations about the traditional disciplines of university theological education: Dogmatic theology (pp. 59–67); Holy Scripture and its exegesis (pp. 67–89); patrolology (pp. 90–118); Church history (pp. 119–25); Moral theology and bioethics (pp. 126–34); hagiology (pp. 135–43); iconology (pp. 144–52); Canon law studies (pp. 153–56); and Pastoral theology and homiletics (pp. 157–81).

4. Why a First Issue of the Book in Romanian?

Quite unusual is the fact that the work has not yet been published in French or in another language of international circulation, as any search in bibliographic databases would indicate. Larchet’s book can only be read in Romanian. It seems that the author gave the manuscript exclusively to the Basilica publishing house of the Romanian Patriarchate. Consequently, the manuscript had to be translated from French into Romanian.3

Such a decision on the part of the author, i.e., to publish this important work in a language with limited circulation, definitely raises some questions. Was it a decision that the author himself had previously planned? Or could one assume that certain circumstances and possible constraints from the French-language publishing houses, where the author publishes currently, might have led him towards the above-mentioned decision? Could it be that the editors might have considered some of the author’s statements too radical and asked him to eliminate or rephrase them?

We are not able to give an answer to any of the questions above. However, what can be perceived in relation to the Romanian edition is a certain urgency of action on the part of the author to see his manuscript published. There is no foreword from the publisher, from which the reader could have learned whether the work he holds in his or her hands has been published previously or not. A chapter dedicated to the conclusions is missing, the last chapter being followed by the contents of the book. Moreover, the book does not include a final bibliography.

5. Larchet on Scientific Biblical Exegesis

Chapter 4 of the book discusses “The Holy Scripture and its Exegesis”. Larchet criticizes the historical-critical interpretation of the Bible, stating that identifying the different redactorial layers of a text “results in dissolving the unity of the texts, the identity of their author, and therefore their authority” (Larchet 2021, p. 71). According to the author, this way of approaching the Scripture completely relativizes its content, which has led to the secularization of Protestantism and Catholicism and to the agnosticism that affects even professors of theology belonging to these denominations (p. 72). Furthermore, Larchet reproaches to scientific exegesis its excessive historicism (pp. 74–79), the disconnection of the Old Testament from the New Testament (pp. 79–80), the disintegration of the Scripture and the loss of its credibility (pp. 82–84).

Some of Larchet’s critical considerations are fair. The methods of scientific exegesis have their limits of applicability. More recent studies by Orthodox scholars have identified negative aspects of historical-critical interpretation.4 However, these shortcomings must be seen as excesses to be avoided and not as defining features of the scientific interpretation of the Bible (Oancea 2017, pp. 21–22). On the other hand, the idea that a text has several authors, that it has seen various editions to its current form, does not represent a limitation of authority of the biblical text. Jews and Christians read the Scriptures with the belief that they are inspired by God. The authority and credibility of the texts are given by divine inspiration, and inspiration is a charisma of the community of faith (Israel, the Church), not a monopoly of a few chosen people, irrespective whether they are more or less educated (Oancea 2017, pp. 24–25). The biblical authors express the faith professed by their communities of faith. The Church recognizes in the Scriptures the words of God, transmitted through humans and for humans.

Last but not least, we can point out the fact that some of the arguments that Larchet invokes are not new. They were affirmed mainly by Romanian Orthodox authors from the first half of the 20th century. Thus, for the authors of the best-known textbook on the study of the Old Testament in Romanian Orthodox theology, the purpose of biblical study is to demonstrate the “authenticity, integrity and truth” of the text (Prelipcean et al. 2003, pp. 25–26).5 The three features mentioned are certified not only by the divine authority, but also by the human authority of the biblical books:

For the truth and authority of what is contained in the Pentateuch, the question of its authenticity is of decisive importance. Was the Pentateuch written by Moses or not?

(Prelipcean et al. 2003, p. 107)

In the opinion of the authors, contesting Moses as the authentic author of the Pentateuch is inadmissible, since “the criticism of the Pentateuch is the criticism of the Christian faith itself” (Prelipcean et al. 2003, p. 102). Prelipcean et al. call the Pentateuch source criticism “negative criticism” and fight the idea that the Pentateuch or the Book of Isaiah might have had several authors (pp. 117ff.; 198ff.).

However, it should be noted that Prelipcean et al. adopted the criticisms of historical-critical exegesis mostly from non-Orthodox writings. As indicated in the bibliography of the textbook, the works of some German Roman Catholic theologians (as well as some Protestant authors) from the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were used. Rebuking scientific exegesis as leading to the dissolution of the unity of the texts, of the identity of their author and therefore of their authority, Larchet uses theses that recall the discourse of Catholic theology from more than a century ago. Thus, paradoxically, Larchet himself resorts to the “mimetism” that he fundamentally criticized in the introduction to the book, for the fact that it alters the Orthodox identity.

6. Larchet on the Uselessness of the Hebrew Language for Orthodox Theology

One of the aspects of scientific exegesis criticized by Larchet is “Hebraism” (Larchet 2021, p. 80). Essentially, the author argues against the opinion of most biblical scholars who consider that the Hebrew text is the basis for translation and interpretation of the Old Testament:

For the Orthodox study of the Old Testament, the study of the Hebrew text and the Hebrew language is practically useless, because the reference text for the Greek Fathers and the Orthodox Church is the Greek text of the Septuagint … [T]he latter is situated in a ‘Hellenistic atmosphere’ very different from the ‘Hebrew atmosphere’…

(Larchet 2021, p. 81)

The preference for the Greek text of the Old Testament in the Romanian Orthodox space is not new. It has been supported with pathos, erudition and relevance in the last decades by Bartolomeu Anania (2001, pp. 9–10), Ioan I. Ică (2010, pp. 137–39) and Cristian Bădiliță (2011), to mention only some of the notable figures engaged in the recovery of the Septuagint for the discourse of Romanian theology.6

It is true that the Greek-speaking fathers of the Church interpreted the text of the Scripture according to the Septuagint. For them, the Old Testament was important because it spoke about Christ. Few of the Church fathers knew Hebrew or felt the need to learn it. Those who were Greek speakers obviously used the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Thus, Hebrew did not have relevance in the exegetical practice of the fathers primarily for these reasons.

It is also worth pointing out that Larchet limits the biblical exegesis in the Old Church to the writings of the Greek fathers. In my opinion, this is a form of reductionism because it ignores the writings of the Latin and Oriental fathers of the same period, who proved to be outstanding interpreters of the Scripture and who shared the same Christological understanding of the Old Testament. Ephrem the Syrian, for example, read and interpreted the Scripture in Syriac. Furthermore, the Syriac translation of the Old Testament was not made according to the Greek text of the Septuagint, but according to the Hebrew text. The conceptual and linguistic universe of Syriac language writers was closer to Jewish culture than to Greek culture.

7. The Anathematization of Judaism and Its Consequences

In the quotation above, Larchet asserts a radical difference between the Hellenistic “atmosphere” of the Septuagint and the Hebrew one but does not explain what this consists of. The reader is left with the idea that the Septuagint is the fruit of a non-Jewish culture, a fundamentally wrong idea. The Septuagint, the translation of the Old Testament into Greek, was born in Hellenistic Judaism, and the Jews of Egypt were conscious of their common identity with the Jews of the Holy Land, since they professed the same religion and observed the prescriptions of the Torah.

In arguing against the usefulness of Hebrew for the study of Orthodox theology, Larchet also reproduces some statements made by Father Georges Florovsky, an emblematic figure of Orthodoxy in the 20th century, who vehemently supported the need to return modern Orthodox theology to patristic sources.

According to Florovsky, the revival of Judaism is proof of an inability to read the Bible together with the Church … “The Old Testament no longer belongs to the Jews but to the Church”, which is “the only Israel of God”.

(Larchet 2021, p. 82)

What Florovsky asserts and Larchet reaffirms is a form of supersessionism, i.e., the theory according to which the role of Israel in the history of redemption ended with the coming of Jesus and Israel’s place as God’s people was taken by the Church (Vlach 2009, p. 62). Obviously, the denial of the right of Jews over the Old Testament, with which Larchet agrees, is a logical consequence of supersessionism. Currently, the replacement theology is considered problematic in Western theology because it was an argument in the anti-Semitic discourse of the 20th century. The potential role of the theory in smoothing the ground for the Holocaust has also been asserted by Orthodox theologians in the West (Louth 2010, p. 7).

Orthodox theologians in Romania, whom Larchet is addressing, should know that the anti-Semitic discourse of the interwar period frequently invoked the “different” character of the Jews as a people and as a religion. It asserted the contrast between Judaism and the Christian religion, between the Old Testament and the New Testament, between the people of Israel in the biblical period and the Jews of the time. The most radical attitude was supported by A.C. Cuza, a politician without theological studies, who in 1928 requested that the Old Testament be removed from the curriculum of religious education classes taught in schools (Bozdoghină 2012, p. 178). Some professors of theology at the time claimed that Israel ceased to be God’s people and was replaced by the Church, or that the Old Testament rightfully belongs only to the Church (Oancea 2020, p. 64; Biliuță 2016, p. 127). Being disseminated by theology professors, these ideas represented a form of anti-Semitic propaganda among students in interwar Romania (Biliuță 2016, p. 127). Mutatis mutandis, the current affirmation of the uselessness of Hebrew for the study of Orthodox theology, as well as of supersessionism, can easily lead to the cultivation of anti-Semitic feelings among theological students in Romania.

8. The Church Fathers on Hebrew as the Primordial Language

Because Larchet refers to the Greek fathers as an example when he argues against the usefulness of studying Hebrew, I shall also appeal to the Greek fathers in order to support the opposite thesis.

Although Hebrew was relatively rarely used in the 1st century in Palestine, compared to Aramaic and Greek, there was a conception among some rabbis that Hebrew was leshon haqodesh—“the holy language”7 (Gallagher 2012, pp. 106–23). Already from the 2nd century BC, it is observed that the Hebrew language and letters were associated with a degree of sacredness. The Book of Jubilees considers that Hebrew was the tongue of creation until the tower of Babel (Jubilees 12.25–26). It was the language spoken by Adam and Eve, and even by animals before the fall (Jubilees 3.28). According to Jubilees 2.23, the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, 22, is a sacred number, as God would have performed twenty-two works in the six days of creation.

There were two and twenty heads of mankind from Adam to Jacob, and two and twenty kinds of work were made until the seventh day; this is blessed and holy; and the former is blessed and holy.

(Charles 1902, pp. 17–18)

The passage implicitly refers to the Hebrew alphabet, as can be deduced from the speculations about the Hebrew letter Beth (b) that the text assumes. Bereshith (“In the beginning”) is the first word in the Bible, so b is the first letter, the primordial letter. Moreover, b is the first letter of the verb berakh (“to bless”). The author of Jubilees alludes here to the fact that God blessed the seventh day (Gen 2:3) and Jacob, as the ancestor and pars pro toto of the people of Israel (Gen 32:22).

The idea was maintained in the following centuries as well. Thus, in Genesis Rabbah 8.4 (between 300 and 600 CE) it is assumed that God speaks to the angels in Hebrew and uses quotations from the Hebrew Bible:

[W]hen He came to create Adam He took counsel with the ministering angels, saying to them: “Let us make man.” “What shall his character be?” they asked. “Righteous men shall spring from him,” He answered, as it is written, “For the Lord knoweth (yodea’) the way of the righteous,” (Ps 1:6) which means that the Lord made known (hodia’) the way of the righteous to the ministering angels.

(Freedman and Simon 1961, p. 57)

To what extent did the Hebrew writing enjoy the same consideration?8 Those manuscripts from Qumran, written in the new (“quadratic” or “Aramaic”) script, but in which the divine name is rendered with the letters of the old Hebrew script, could plead for this idea (Würthwein 1973, p. 6). We can assume that there were Jewish circles, perhaps a minority, for whom the old writing retained a degree of sacredness even hundreds of years after the adoption of the new writing. In the mystical speculations of rabbinic literature, we find the statement that God created the world with the help of the Torah, and the letters of the alphabet are the instruments that God used to bring the world into being (Bandt 2007, p. 73).

In general, the Greek fathers of the Church did not attribute to Hebrew the status of a holy language, as they did not to Greek, in which the books of the New Testament were written and in which they read the Old Testament. However, some of the Church fathers had reverence for Hebrew, through the prism of the conviction that it was the primordial language of mankind (Gallagher 2012, p. 131).

This conviction is best attested in Origen (ca. 185–254 CE), a prolific writer, a man with an encyclopedic culture, who had a deep influence on the Christian theology of the first millennium. A century after his death, Jerome knew 800 writings composed by Origen, and exclaimed rhetorically, “Who could ever read as much as he wrote?” (Epistle 33.5). Epiphanius, who did not like Origen at all, considering him responsible for many wrong teachings, approximated his corpus at 6000 works, but very likely overestimated Origen’s opus (McGuckin 2004, p. 26).

Origen seems to have known the tradition in the Book of Jubilees that mankind spoke a single “divine language” until the tower of Babel was built. In Contra Celsum 5.30–31, he interprets the episode in Genesis 11 in interaction with Deuteronomy 32:8:

All the people upon the earth are to be regarded as having used one divine language [theia dialektos, emphasis mine], and so long as they lived harmoniously together it was preserved in the use of this divine language.

(Origen 1885, p. 556)

Following the punishment of the people, God appointed a guiding angel to each nation (cf. Dt 32:8). They “imprinted on each his native language”. The only people who kept the primordial language was Israel. They “became the portion of the Lord, and His people who were called Jacob, and Israel the cord of His inheritance” (Origen 1885, p. 556). If Origen calls the first language of humans “divine”, we can conclude that, in his view, God spoke Hebrew to the first humans. By extrapolation, we can presume that Origen viewed Hebrew as the language used by God to create the world, and the language through which He first made Himself known to mankind.

Epiphanius of Salamis (ca. 315–403 AD) could also be mentioned as having a similar view. Epiphanius is especially known for his polemical writing Panarion, a treatise against all heresies known to him. In Panarion 26.1.4-5, Epiphanius refers to the erroneous belief of the Gnostics that Noah’s wife was called Noria, and she burned several times the ark the patriarch was building. Epiphanius believes that the Gnostics mistakenly believe that this woman’s name means “fire”:

For they say that this Noria is Noah’s wife … Now since “nura” means “fire” in Syriac, not ancient Hebrew [batheian glōssan, emphasis mine]—the ancient Hebrew for “fire” is “esh”—it follows that they are making an ignorant, naive use of this name.

(Williams 2009, p. 90)

Gallagher (2012, p. 128) prefers to render the Greek expression batheian glōssan by “deep language”, as this is the most frequent meaning of the adjective bathus9. Epiphanius knew both Hebrew and Syriac. The name “deep language” perhaps reflects the widespread belief at the time of Epiphanius, that Hebrew is the ancient language par excellence, or the primordial language, an opinion also affirmed by the Latin writers Augustine and Jerome (Gallagher 2012, pp. 130–34).

Finally, we shall mention two more ancient Christian writers who affirm that the Hebrew alphabet was the primordial writing of mankind: Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 1.23) and Eusebius of Caesarea (Praeparatio evangelica 9.26.1). Both mention that they took this information from the Jewish writer Eupolemos (Gallagher 2012, p. 134). According to this testimony, Moses was the first to teach the Jews letters (grammata). The Phoenicians received the alphabet from the Jews, and the Greeks received the alphabet from the Phoenicians (Gifford 1903, p. 541).10 Today we know that the Hebrew and Greek alphabets evolved from the Phoenician script, and it is possible that this was known in the early Christian centuries. In this case, Eupolemus, and following him, Clement and Eusebius, gave a theological priority to the Hebrew writing, starting from the conviction that God first revealed himself to Israel, so that through it he would reveal himself to all peoples.

We can conclude that the Greek fathers did not consider Hebrew as a “holy language” but recognized a special status for it. They perceived Hebrew as the primordial language, spoken by the first people and even by God to communicate with the first people, and through which the Old Testament was transmitted.

9. The Church Fathers on the Relationship between the Hebrew Alphabet and the Biblical Canon

The Greek fathers and writers of the Church referred in their writings to the Hebrew alphabet especially when they discussed the canon of the Old Testament, that is, the list of books that make up the first part of the Bible. About 11 such Christian lists are known, written in Greek, between the 2nd and 5th centuries, sometimes accompanied by comments and explanations by the authors (Gallagher and Meade 2017; McDonalds 2007).

A common feature of the lists is that they mostly follow the Hebrew canon of the Bible, so they do not include the books that exist exclusively in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament. From the writings of the fathers, as well as from the official decisions of the Church, it appears that those books that were believed to have been written in Hebrew from the very beginning were accepted into the canon (Gallagher 2012, p. 105). Some of the authors of these lists also make a connection between the Old Testament canon and the Hebrew alphabet.

We shall start with Origen (around 185–254 CE). The considerations regarding the canon of the Old Testament have been preserved for us, as in the case of many of the lost works of antiquity, in a fragment of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius of Caesarea. Thus, in Hist. Eccl. 6.25.1, we read:

But it should be known11 that there are twenty-two covenanted books, according to the Hebrew tradition; the same as the number of the letters of their alphabet.

(Gallagher and Meade 2017, pp. 85–86)

Origen notes that the Christians received the tradition about the number of the books of the Old Testament from the Jews. The number of 22 books corresponds to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Origen knows the Hebrew language—further, he transcribes the Hebrew names of the books in Greek characters—and explicitly states that both the Jewish origin of the canon and the criterion whereby the number of books was established should not be ignored by Christians.

Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria (ca. 296–373 CE) used to write annual festal letters, out of a desire to keep alive the connection with his believers. One of these letters, from the year 367, is the main source in which Athanasius addresses the issue of the books that are part of the Bible (Festal letter 39.17). Moreover, his point of view expressed here became “canonical” in Romanian Orthodox theology, being considered the most authoritative opinion on the issue of the biblical canon (Prelipcean et al. 2003, p. 46; Chirilă et al. 2018, pp. 72–73):

There are, then, belonging to the Old Testament in number a total of twenty-two, for, as I have heard, it has been handed down12 that this is the number of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet.

(Gallagher and Meade 2017, p. 122)

Athanasius states that the teaching of the Church about the Old Testament canon was transmitted by tradition (Gr. paradosis), but the source of this tradition is Judaism. Athanasius admits that he knows about the connection between the canon and the Hebrew alphabet from hearsay, from which we understand that he himself did not know the Hebrew language. However, he believes that this tradition must be passed on to his believers.

Gregory of Nazianzus (around 329–390 CE) was also called “Gregory the Theologian” for his discourses on Triadology and Christology. This teacher of the Church was also one of the most sensitive writers of the early Christian centuries, and he frequently expressed his teachings in the form of poetry. In Carmina theologica 1.1.12,28–29, he presents the list of books of the Old Testament and concludes:

I have set down the ancient two and twenty books,

Corresponding to the letters of the Hebrews.

(Gallagher and Meade 2017, p. 145)

Once again, we have the affirmation of the dependence of the biblical canon on the specifics of the Hebrew language and writing. Gregory the Theologian, whose Greek language rises to the level of poetic art, did not know the Hebrew language. Yet, he invoked its importance for the knowledge of the books that are part of the Old Testament.

The most relevant testimony to the importance of Hebrew for Orthodox theology is found in the work of the erudite bishop Epiphanius of Salamis. From Rufinus of Aquileia we know that Epiphanius spoke five languages: Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Latin and, of course, Greek. Living in Palestine and Egypt, then as a bishop in Cyprus, Epiphanius had the opportunity to know the world of Scripture very well. He affirms the connection between the alphabet and the canon in his writing on measures and weights (De mensuris et ponderibus, 4):

For they [the Jews] have twenty-two names of letters, but five of them are double. For the Chaph is double and the Mem and the Nun and the Phi and the Sade. Therefore, also the books are numbered twenty-two in this manner, but twenty-seven are found, because five of them are double. For Ruth is joined to the Judges and is numbered as one book by the Hebrews.13 The first of Paralipomenon is joined to the second and is counted as one book. The first of Kingdoms is joined to the second and is counted as one book. The third is joined to the fourth and is counted as one book. The first of Esdras is joined to the second and becomes one book.

(Gallagher and Meade 2017, p. 163)

Epiphanius speculates an additional feature of the Hebrew alphabet, which in reality has 27 signs, since 5 letters have an additional form when they are in the last position in a word. What ideas are derived from Epiphanius’ speech? First of all, the canon of the Old Testament is of Hebrew origin. The biblical canon is based on one principle, and this can only be comprehended if one understands the composition of the Hebrew alphabet. It must be said that the alphabetic principle only works with the Hebrew alphabet. The Greek one does not have the mentioned peculiarities. In Epiphanius’s view, the logic of the composition of the canon is not a matter that concerns strictly Judaism, but it must be known by Christians as well, since the Old Testament is part of the Scripture of the Church. Three hundred years later, John Damascene (ca. 676–749 CE) reproduces, almost verbatim, the canonical list of Epiphanius (Expositio fidei, 4.17). John Damascene made the first great synthesis of Christian teaching from the patristic period. He often drew on compilations of sources from previous centuries, as he did with Epiphanius’s list. What made this erudite father of the Church reaffirm, in the 7th century, the Hebrew principle of reference for the books of the Old Testament? Perhaps in the 4th century, at the time of Epiphanius, the articulation of the conception of the biblical canon was at the beginning, being susceptible to Jewish influences. But until the 7th century, enough time passed for Christian theology to acquire its independence from Jewish culture, and an eventual Hellenistic conception of the canon to assert itself. We can only conclude that, for John Damascene, the Jewish origin of the Old Testament Scriptures was in no way suspicious or undesirable, but the truth that the Church had confessed since its beginnings.

10. Conclusions

Larchet’s thesis about the uselessness of Hebrew for the study of the Old Testament is contradicted precisely by the attitude that the Fathers of the Church had towards Hebrew. From the presentation above, it can be seen that the Hebrew language and writing were important to the mentioned Greek fathers for several reasons: the writers we referred to had the conviction that Hebrew was the primordial language; it was the language of the people with which God made the Old Covenant; in this language, the revelation of the Old Testament was transmitted and the first prophecies about the coming of Christ were made.

On the other hand, few of the Church fathers and writers knew Hebrew or felt the need to learn it. They used the Greek translation of the Septuagint. Even if Hebrew had no relevance in the exegetical practice of the fathers, this language and its alphabet played a significant role in their theoretical considerations about the canon of Holy Scripture. If for these coryphaei of Christian theology in the first centuries the connection between the Hebrew script and the books of the Old Testament was important, why would it not be for Orthodox theologians today? If Origen and Epiphanius knew Hebrew, which they considered the primordial language, why would the study of this language be useless for Orthodox theologians today?

Last but not least, dismissing the Hebrew Bible can easily foster anti-Judaic beliefs among Orthodox students in a difficult European political and social context, where anti-Semitic ideas are frequently circulated.