Interpretation as Revelation: Logos and the Authorial Word in Kirill of Turov’s Palm Sunday Sermon (“Slovo na Verbnitsu”)

Abstract

This article examines the interpretive techniques of the twelfth-century homilist and theologian, Kirill of Turov, in the context of the medieval exegetic tradition. I trace the development of an important theme, the revelation and transmission of the divine Logos to humanity, largely neglected by previous scholarship, in several of Kirill’s texts and pinpoint the seminal connection between this underlying theme and the author’s peculiar “desymbolizing” style, characterized by consistent use of disclosed metaphors and motivated, I argue, by Kirill’s intention to create the mode of narration most adequate to the central theme of revelation. On the basis of close textual analysis of Kirill’s Palm Sunday Sermon (“Slovo na Verbnitsu”), I challenge the traditional assessment of the author’s work as non-exegetic in function.