Pismo Święte w pasterskiej posłudze Paulina z Noli

Abstract

The teaching of Pauline of Noia has become, especially in recent decades, the subject matter of many studies. Little attention, however, is paid to the essence and centre of his quest and his transmission, i.e. the interpretation of the Scriptures and their use in a concrete, pastoral case. He himself did not feel up to the task to become a commentator of the Holy Bible. Many times he turned to various persons whom he regarded as experts in the interpretation of the Scripture with a request to instruct him. To some of them he wrote letters and asked for concrete explanations, others he invited to penetrate the mysteries of the Bible and its exegesis together with him. Among his “masters” one can find: Heronymous, Augustine, Ruffin, and Ambrose. Thus one should not try to find in his writings any original exegetic conceptions, but rather echoes of those writers and their teaching. Their remarks helped him to use the Bible for the formation of Christian spirituality. Pauline is, according to many patrologists, a master of hermeneutics who had built a kind of bridge between the biblical world and ours. Thereby he made it possible to acquire a more profound understanding of biblical texts, and their up-to-date meaning. The present paper seeks to present his teaching about the unity of the Old Testament and the New Testament, hence about the necessity to use the knowledge of Revelation in both Testaments. We find it in his Christology, ecclesiology, and eschatology.