After a first episode dedicated to archaeology, on Thursday, October 30, at 6 p.m., a biblical and patristic lecture was held at the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Jerusalem by Jean-Marie Auwers, professor emeritus at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain), on the theme “Divine words grow with those who read them. An approach to a saying of Gregory the Great.”
A specialist in ancient Christian literature, Old Testament exegesis, and patristics, Dr. Auwers is recognized for his rigorous work on the reception of the Scriptures, particularly the Song of Songs. His research, at the crossroads of theology and philology, aims to shed light on how the Church Fathers understood and transmitted the Word of God in a lively and dynamic perspective.
During the evening, the speaker traced the implications of a patristic formula according to which “Scripture grows with those who read it.” He showed how, beginning with Gregory the Great, reading the divine Word has been conceived as an act of transformation: the text is not merely read, it acts, it deepens, it changes those who meditate on it. Prof. Auwers thus explored the historical, literary, and spiritual dimensions of this adage, illustrating how the encounter between the sacred text and the reader becomes a place of mutual growth.
Combining scholarly precision and spiritual depth, this lecture offered the academic community remarkable insight into the living reading of Scripture in the ancient Christian tradition. We warmly thank Jean-Marie Auwers for this rich and inspiring evening, which highlighted one of the most fruitful aspects of biblical and patristic theology.
As part of the French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem, Jean-Marie Auwers participates in the interdisciplinary research program “The Bible in its Traditions,” particularly around the Song of Songs.