The Skeireins : a neglected text

Abstract

Fragmentary, palimpsest segments survive of a commentary on the Gospel of John written in the 4th or 5th centuries in the Gothic language by an unknown author, dubbed the Skeireins (Gothic ‘explanation’) by its first modern editor. Critical discussion has focused upon whether the text was an original Gothic composition, or a translation from Greek, perhaps from the writings of Theodore of Heracleia. This paper will briefly review this question, but in the main will examine the theology of the work itself, and what the terms and preoccupations of the Gothic text reveal about the situation in which it was written.