The Transformation of the Idiom in Late Antique Biblical Hermeneutics

Abstract: This article explores the grammatical concept of the “idiom” (ἰδίωμα, idioma, proprietas, locutio) in late antique biblical hermeneutics. The concept is central to the development of a bilingual mode of reading the Bible that strongly foregrounds its status as a translation and exploits this feature to derive new interpretive insights (often without direct knowledge of the source language[s]). This is especially apparent in a series of works that devote specialized or systematic attention to the meaning of scriptural idioms: the lost prologue to Theodore of Mopsuestia’s Psalms Commentary , Adrian’s Introduction to the Divine Scriptures , Augustine’s Expressions in the Heptateuch , and Cassiodorus’s Explanation of the Psalms . The article further documents how the notion of “idiom” begins to shift in this period—from the notion of a contrastive linguistic feature towards that of a non-compositional phrase—and figures prominently in new anxieties about the limits of translation.