The Interpretation of John 10:30 in the Third Century: Antimonarchian Polemics and the Rise of Grammatical Reading Techniques

Abstract

Abstract This study provides an exhaustive survey of the exegesis of John 10:30 in the third century, a verse whose meaning was contested between monarchians (such as Noetus of Smyrna and Callistus of Rome) and antimonarchians (such as Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Novatian). It argues that in the course of this debate Greco-Roman grammatical reading techniques came to function as the criteria for superior exegesis. Although monarchians were not ignorant of grammatical reading techniques, anti-monarchians employed a particular selection of these techniques with such skill that their exegesis of John 10:30 became standard by the middle of the third century, rendering the monarchian interpretation of the same verse obsolete. Mid-third-century authors such as Cyprian, Origen, and Dionysius of Rome adopted the antimonarchian interpretation without question, showing the success of the grammatical exegetical methods of their predecessors.