Job

The book of Job presents its readers with a profound drama concerning innocent suffering. Such honest, forthright wrestling with the problem of evil and the silence of God has intrigued a wide gamut of readers both religious and nonreligious.Surprisingly, the earliest church fathers showed little interest in the book of Job. Not until Origen in the early third century is there much evidence of any systematic treatment of the book, and most of Origen's treatment is known to us only from the catenae. More intense interest came at the end of the fourth century and the beginning of the fifth.The excerpts in this Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture volume focus on systematic treatment. Among Greek texts are those from Origen, Didymus the Blind, Julian the Arian, John Chrysostom, Hesychius of Jerusalem, and Olympiodorus. Among Latin sources we find Julian of Eclanum, Philip the Priest, and Gregory the Great. Among Syriac sources we find Ephrem the Syrian and Isho'dad of Merv, some of whose work is made available here for the first time in English.In store for readers of this volume is a great feast of wisdom from the ancient resources of the church with fresh relevance for today.

Thomas C. Oden (1931-2016) was a pioneering theologian and served as the architect and general editor for the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. He was also the general editor of the Ancient Christian Doctrine series and the Ancient Christian Devotional series, as well as a consulting editor for the Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity. A prolific writer and seasoned teacher, Oden also served as the director of the Center for Early African Christianity at Eastern University in Pennsylvania and was active in the Confessing Movement in America, particularly within the United Methodist Church. Marco Conti (PhD, University of Leeds) is professor of medieval and humanistic Latin literature at the Ateneo Salesiano and lecturer in classical mythology and religions of the Roman Empire at the Richmond University in Rome. Manlio Simonetti (1926-2017) was a widely acknowledged expert in patristic biblical interpretation who taught at the University of Rome and at the Augustinian Patristic Institute in Rome. He is the author of several books and Bible commentaries, including Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical Introduction to Patristic Exegesis.