exegesis

A critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text.

Accordingly Athanasius complains loudly of their exegesis (Ep. Æg. 3–4, cf. Orat. i. 8, 52), and insists (id. i. 54, cf. already de Decr. 14) on the primary necessity of always conscientiously studying the circumstances of time and place, the person addressed, the subject matter, and purpose of the writer, in order not to miss the true sense.

As with Deism and Materialism, the German Rationalism invaded the department of Biblical exegesis.

An explanatory note; a gloss.