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"THE PROCESS OF THE TEXT" concerning the Last Supper cannot be interpreted in the literal sense, but only in a figurative way : "... but now, in our matter, the process of Scripture will not stand with the literal sense, as shall hereafter appear. And therefore necessity compelleth us to expound it figuratively, as doth St Austin and other holy doctors...”' If the literal sense is absurd, or, gross, the dynamic process of the text teaches us to take it figuratively: “... because the literal sense is impossible, and cannot be true; meaning that cannot stand with the process of scripture but that other texts do of necessity constrain me to construe it spiritually”’... I say that this gross imagination may not stand with the process of Scripture which is received, as it shall appear by certain texts...”” TYNDALE’S AND FRITH’S “PROCESS OF THE TEXT” IN A PATRISTIC, REFORMATION AND MODERN LITERARY CONTEXT Tyndale’s idea of the “process of the text” is analogous to the idea of the “scope” used by the Athanasius of Alexandria (296-373) and by the famous Reformation theologian Matthias Flacius Illyricus (1520-1575). Athanasius said: “Now the scope and character of Holy Scripture, as we have often said, is this, it contains a double account of the Saviour; that he was ever God, and is the Son, being the Father’s Word and radiance and wisdom; and that afterwards for us he took flesh of a Virgin, Mary Bearer of God, and was made man. And this scope is to be found throughout inspired Scripture, as the Lord himself has said, Search the Scriptures, for they are which testify of me.”” One of the hermeneutical rules of Matthias Flacius Illyricus’ monumental Clavis Scripturae is that the literal sense was to be disclosed “by the scope, purpose, or intention of the whole book”. “Scope” was meant to express how the part of a book interrelated, how they corresponded to the perspective of the total work. The Reformers’ use of “scope”, said Gerald T. Sheppard, is not an 19 WRIGHT, The Work of John Frith, 352. 20 WRIGHT, The Work of John Frith, 383. 2° WRIGHT, The Work of John Frith, 391. 22. Quoted by MrHoc, Vasil, Basic Principles of Orthodox Hermeneutics, in M. Mayordomo (ed.), Die prägende Kraft der Texte. Hermeneutik und Wirkunsgeschichte des Neuen Testaments, (Ein Symposium zu Ehren von Ulrich Luz), Suttgart, Verlag Katholishes Bibelwerk GmbH, 2005, 60. + 57 +
