Like "text," the word "context" is a metaphor derived from the Latin texere, "to weave." In the fourth century C.E. the Latin noun contextio described the text surrounding a given passage. In the Middle Ages, contextio came to mean "literary composition," but an interest in what we call "context," especially in biblical exegesis, was expressed through the term circumstantiae. In the ninth century, Sedulius Scotus enunciated the rule of "seven circumstances"—person, fact, cause, time, place, mode, and topic.
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