Frances Young’s two-volume Doctrine and Scripture in Early Christianity is a kind of capstone of a life’s work spent on the early history of Christianity. The two volumes explore the relationship between holy scripture and the development of doctrine – most notably trinitarian and christological formulations – in the first centuries of the Christian church. Together they serve as a magisterial argument that ‘there was no perceived gap between doctrine and scripture in early Christianity’ (1.227). Drawing from primary sources, and demonstrating an astonishing intimacy with these patristic authors, Young shows that scripture and doctrine were ‘coinherent’ as ‘doctrine was derived from reading scripture according to the apostolic testimony, and scripture’s proper interpretation was ensured by doctrinal criteria’ (1.233). The second volume focuses more on showing how this was the case with trinitarian and christological doctrines that were hammered out in the period between Nicaea and Chalcedon.

The first volume begins with an appreciative foreword by David F. Ford and a short preface before Young outlines the challenges that the perceived gap between scripture and doctrine bring to the fore. In the past, Newman’s developmental model of doctrine has been used to bridge this gap, and so has Harnack’s theory on the hellenisation of Christianity. While both theories have some explanatory power, neither one is neutral, and Young aims to provide an account of the relationship between doctrine and scripture that is ‘more ecumenical and less anxious about the outcome’ (1.12).

The second chapter contextualises the way early Christians interacted with scripture. The overriding argument in this chapter is that, in part because of its Jewish roots, ‘Christianity began life looking less like a religion and more like a school’ (1.15). More concretely, early Christianity functioned like a philosophical school that staked out – in time – its own ethics and vision of the world. It remained unlike philosophical schools, however, ‘in that all comers were welcome—the poor, slaves, women, outcasts, orphans, and widows’ (1.41-42).

What we in hindsight see as orthodox Christians were not the only ones reading scripture, and in the third chapter, Young interacts with Marcion and Gnosticism to show that other ways of reading scripture led to different conclusions. These were live possibilities and demanded responses. One of these responses comes from Irenaeus’s Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, which Young notes ‘will enable us to see how the rule of faith (or canon of truth) constituted the hypothesis of scripture, and so only its deployment as a hermeneutical key could deliver proper understanding’ (1.75).

In chapter five, Young focuses on Origen and his contributions to the question of the relationship between scripture and doctrine. Like Irenaeus, he appeals to apostolic rules about the trinitarian names of God. Young lists these three names and details each, noting, for instance, that ‘God is one’ and ‘Christ Jesus, who came to earth… was begotten of the Father before every created thing and served the Father in creating everything’ before she also points out the Spirit who ‘inspired both the prophets and apostles’ (1.138-9).

In the sixth (and longest) chapter, Young draws out classic creedal formulations from the homilies of Cyril of Jerusalem to demonstrate their relationship to scripture. Aside from an excursus on original sin (Augustine, of course, appears here), Young’s conclusion is that ‘whether in creedal form [as in Cyril] or looser summaries like the rule of faith, doctrine provided the key to correct scriptural interpretation’ (1.225). Yet, she goes on to say that ‘that doctrine was itself distilled from scripture in a process of making sense of it, turning its narratives and prophecy, psalms and wisdom into propositions that articulated the truth revealed’ (1.225).

The final chapter pulls together many of the threads that Young has been weaving throughout the first volume. She modifies some of the conclusions she had drawn in her previous scholarship, noting that ‘in light of our investigations in this volume, I would like to modify somewhat the suggestion that the rule of faith was “partly external to the text,” and reinforce the point that it “encapsulates the essential meaning of the text”’ (1.233). Furthermore, as Young goes on to say, ‘The canon of scripture itself owes its very existence to the network of schools that used these books in their instruction (doctrina), which they believed enunciated the truth’ (1.233). These insights, together with a sustained reflection on Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana, lead Young to remind us of the importance of ‘acknowledging the interaction of author, text, and reader’ because ‘it is these moves beyond the historico-critical straightjacket that have allowed the now fashionable reclamation of theological reading of scripture’ which she thinks ‘could potentially permit a return to seeing doctrine and scripture as coinherent’ (1.242).

Young’s second volume, Scripture in Doctrinal Dispute, builds upon the first in significant ways. In a short preface, Young notes that, when it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity and the two natures of Christ, ‘the basis of these doctrines in scripture was and remains far from self evident: they emerged out of conflict and debate over the implications of the biblical material’ (2.xxv). She goes on to note, however, that ‘modern biblical scholarship has largely treated these doctrines as anachronistic models for interpreting the canonical texts’ (2.xxv). Young spends the lion’s share of volume two examining the way the biblical texts were treated in defining these trinitarian and christological doctrines.

The first chapter is the connection point between the previous volume and the chapters ahead. It summarises some of the key insights that Young established previously before launching into the tensions between the affirmations that ‘the Creator God of the scriptures was identical with the one supreme God, not with some lesser being’ (2.7) and that there were indeed three names of God.

The second chapter tracks with the Arian controversies in the works of Athanasius (especially his commentary on Prov. 8:22-31) and Basil. The crux of the issue, which Young also takes up in chapter three, is how the early Christians came to affirm the divinity of the Son and the Spirit. For Athanasius ‘it was necessary to enshrine conclusions about the overall sense in doctrinal concepts, which could then become a guide to scriptural interpretation, even at times overriding the obvious sense of the words’ (2.47-48). Here, Young shows again the coinherence of scripture and doctrine. She proceeds in the next chapter, by looking to Gregory of Nyssa and Ephrem the Syrian, to present the trinitarian settlement. This settlement came through ‘a process of argument and that argument was not least about the fundamental meaning of scripture’ (2.108).

In chapter four, Young closely examines the work of Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria on the one hand, and John Chrysostom on the other, to highlight two exegetical streams that sought to make sense of Christ’s human and divine nature. Both the ‘Alexandrian’ and ‘Antiochene’ streams were ‘anxious to make sense of the overarching biblical narrative’ with very little methodological difference between them (2.109). For both Cyril and John

In other words, Young shows that the theologians seeking to think well about Christ’s two natures engaged the text of scripture in a doctrinal framework that itself was drawn from scripture, which could only be understood by a doctrinal framework, etc., etc.

In the fifth chapter, Young looks at the Chalcedonian definition of Christ through the writings of Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret, focusing again particularly on their engagement with scripture.

In the final chapter, Young reaffirms her conclusions from the first volume, noting that while the postmodern turn allowed us to move beyond some historico-critical preconceptions, contemporary interpreters still struggle with the suspicions aroused by allegorical reading, proof-texting and christological interpretation of the Old Testament. Young then launches into a discussion of Augustine’s On the Trinity, before offering a bit of a glimpse into her own intellectual journey. Over the course of her vocation and studies, she came to believe ‘the articulation of doctrine in propositions was vital and valid, but only comes alive when embodied in the scriptural narratives and confessions that bring us into encounter with Christ’ (2.303). Young ends this chapter (and thus the book) with a doxological meditation that highlights the importance of this encounter with Christ.

There is very little in Young’s book that could be improved. She is a master of her field and her clear and direct writing, illumined with personal anecdotes, makes the dense exegetical work she is doing somewhat more accessible. This two-volume work is demanding, however. It is not for students but for specialists. It will require readers to have at least a decent grasp of the history of interpretation and probably at least some first-hand knowledge of the patristic authors with who she is interacting. Though this work is demanding, the reader who gives it the time and attention it requires will be richly rewarded.