Excerpt from A Practical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew There is no History or Story in existence more charming than St. Matthew's Memorials or Memoirs of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. A confluence of elements contributes to this charm. The Personage portrayed is undoubtedly the principal source of the interest. He was the Ideal of a man. Even the idea of such an Ideal fascinates the imagination. But the realization of it is inexpressibly captivating. The realization took place in Jesus Christ. He was not only faultless: when viewed on the positive side of His being, as well as on the negative, He was a perfect human person. His perfection, too, was of the highest conceivable type. Not merely in regard to all those matter-of-fact details of duty which devolve on men universally, but also in regard to all the higher possibilities of moral life, that culminate in the noblest conceivable aims, and the grandest conceivable attainments and achievements, was He perfect. He was thus the most remarkable of men. In the intensest acceptation of the expression, He was the Son of man. As He grew up from childhood to maturity, He rose, as rapidly as the necessary limitations of human nature, in the process of development from less to greater, would admit, to the absolute climax and pinnacle of human perfectibility. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

In Reading Matthew with Monks, Derek Olsen seeks to evaluate whether early medieval monastic biblical interpreters can serve as effective conversation partners for modern readers who are committed to broadening their reading of Scripture. Olsen puts the interpretations of four modern Scripture commentaries in conversation with Ælfric of Eynsham’s medieval monastic interpretations of four texts from the Gospel of Matthew. In so doing, he clarifies early medieval interpretive contexts and assesses their usefulness in modern scholarship. As outsiders in modern critical debates, Ælfric and his sources may provide alternative approaches or perspectives that open interpretive possibilities where modern interpreters are locked in disagreement. Early medieval monastic interpreters can serve as excellent guides for understanding the potential for moral, spiritual, or formative meanings of a biblical text. They can help modern readers who are attempting to conform their lives to the biblical text.

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