In the previous discussion I mentioned how allegory is regularly used within all branches of Christendom. Some use it more than others. For those who do not wish to admit that they use allegory, they rename it typology. As I commented on my previous post, allegory has some rather good antecedents, since it was Jesus Christ himself who cited Jonah as an example of what He was going to do. It was also Jesus Christ who spoke of the destruction of the Temple and that it would be rebuilt in three days. It was Jesus Christ who said that just like the serpent was lifted up by Moses, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.
The New Testament writers also used allegory to point out how events in the Old Testament prefigured events in the New Testament. Thus the image I had in my last posting actually came from a Protestant website and showed how the Tabernacle prefigured Jesus Christ himself. The priest Melquisedec prefigured the priesthood of Jesus Christ. In chapter 3 of Romans, St. Paul argues that the fact that Abraham was reckoned as righteous before he was circumcised is a symbol that salvation would be by faith, and that he was the father of both the circumcised and the uncircumcised. “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.” Hmm, that is pure allegory from St. Paul.
You get the idea, typology/allegory is easily found in the New Testament. Again, the question is what the limits of allegory are. Well, the Antiochians had some strong opinions. Fr. Michel Najim, one of the professors in our Antiochian Archdiocese comments:
The School of Antioch had a tradition of scriptural exegesis distinct from that of the allegorical approach of Alexandria. Antiochians preferred what might be called a more literal and historical approach to Scripture. Behind this exegetical approach was an underlying philosophical premise: Antiochian thought tended to be more empirical, while Alexandrian thought was more mystical in its outlook. As a result of its more empirical approach, the Antiochian School avoided the allegorical flights of fancy characteristic of Alexandria.
In one sense, I have often argued that the Protestant Reformation and its influence on the interpretation of Scripture in both the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church is, in some ways, the vindication of the Antiochian school of theology, in the long run. Nevertheless, Protestants often do make one mistake. It is often insisted that one of the Protestant principles is the literal/contextual interpretation of Scripture. Well, the Antiochians do have a strong historical emphasis in that direction. But, we also recognize that allegory, provided it is firmly grounded in sound historical exegesis, is a method that is used by both Our Lord Jesus and the Apostles. In other words, allegorical interpretation, within proper boundaries, is a biblically taught method of interpretation.
In fact, we often use it as preachers, though we hate to admit it. Allegory is quite often how a preacher connects an Old Testament passage to make an application for today. Now, I know that there are preachers who try to simply draw a principle out of an Old Testament story and apply that principle today. But, if we are honest, it is even more common to use Old Testament stories as metaphors or similes of something that is happening today. And, when we do that we slip from a purely literal/contextual exegesis into allegory.
For instance, have you ever heard a sermon on David’s liaison with Bathsheeba? And, how often have your heard the introduction? “In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war . . . but David remained in Jerusalem” And, then, a sermon follows which makes a big point about how David should have been at war but was not thus opening the way for him to be tempted. “If David had been out in the battlefield, where the king was supposed to be, instead of hanging around the palace looking at naked women, this whole incident would have never happened. Some have suggested that David may have been battling depression, or having a ‘mid-life crisis.’ In either event, he wasn’t where he belonged — which, at least in my life, is often the first step of a downhill slide.” Did you catch the cross from David supposedly being where he did not belong to that being the first step in the in our downhill slide? That is no longer exegesis but it makes David’s behavior an allegory for how we fall. And, I do not see anything necessarily wrong with that provided the allegory reasonably connects to the actual story.
So allegory is not only a Biblical method of interpretation, it is also one that is currently and still in use, even among Protestants.
Yes, I am getting to the feasts.
===MORE TO COME===
Fr. Ernesto, I suspect you will get to these, but may I ask the questions now in anticipation of your having the chance to address it?
What do we make of Origen?
The Jewish sages teach that Scripture has many potential meanings, and they used the acronym “PARDES” (Hebrew for Orchard — the Jews, like the military, love a good acronym) to capture these multiple senses:
P for “pshat” – simple meaning (literal?)
R for “remez” – allusion or what is hinted at in the text itself
D for “drush” – the homiletic interpretation
S for “sod” – the mystical dimension
As I understand Jewish tradition (especially related to Kabbalah — not the Hollywoodized version, which is popular, but the chasidic version, which is devout and mystical and substantic), the Jews teach that Moses was given these four levels of understanding the word of the Lord when he ascended Sinai. They further teach, as I understand it, that some rabbis are endowed with the authority (smicha) to make new teaching.
So, we have examples of Jesus teaching with “authority”, as opposed to the other rabbis who just taught the plain sense. In the Sermon on the mount, how many times does our Lord say something like, “You have heard it said…” (pshat), “but I tell you…” (which is more akin to drush). Torah teachers could only teach what the text means based on pshat (again, as I understand it).
Any Chasidim lurking? Talmudic scholars? Any one?
I have heard it say that the shock of Jesus to the rabbis was precisely the fact, repeated in the Gospels, that he taught as one with authority. That is, he did not claim an interpretation with comparative debates of other theologies and citings of previous interpretations. Rather, he simply stated the interpretation, often with added comments that had not previously been part of the debate.
Forgot to ask the F/U question:
What is so problematic about Origen? Is he “too Alexandrian”? And if so, how does one draw the line at too mystical? For that matter, can a line be drawn across which someone is too literal. For instance, I imagine seeing Mormons across that line, who claim the Father has a body because Scriptures refer to the breath of His nostrils. (Nostrils? Oh, then He must have a body.)
I think the rule in Protestantism is:
Anyone more literal than I is “too literal”.
Anyone more figurative or allegorical than I is “too allegorical”.
Pardon the expression, but we move fairly quickly from “a Pope in Rome” to “a pope in every pew.”
It was the offsetting schools of Alexandria and Antioch that helped us to produce our doctrine of the Trinity. However, each school had its extremists that ended up being either thrown out of the Church or had their teachings denied later. In fact, the Antiochian school fell completely out of favor after the Arian controversy, which is why allegory was able to flower almost unfettered until the Reformation. However, note that the Eastern Church Father probably known by name to most Protestant pastors is an Antiochian, St. John Chrysostom, and he gave his name to the Divine Liturgy used most Sundays in Eastern Orthodoxy.
The Alexandrian school not only had the problem with seeing allegory in everything, it also had problems in seeing the humanity of Christ. Their emphasis was very much on the divinity of Christ. It is no surprise that it took a while for even Protestants to speak more firmly of the humanity of Christ–I mean in practical sermons, not in the theology of the Incarnation or the Atonement–after the many years of a more “Alexandrian” ethos.
Meantime, the Antiochian school was so literal that it had problem seeing the divine side of Jesus, or at least, how it hooked in with his human side. As someone pointed out, if you go too literal, the doctrine of God can also degenerate into things like God having a body because it talks about the breath of his nostrils. Some strong Arians came out of the Antiochians, which is what caused that type of thinking to be shunned after the Councils.
Origen simply had some weird ideas which, everyone agreed, contradicted Scripture. Among them were that the soul passes through successive stages of incarnation before reaching God–reincarnation anyone? He believed in the pre-existence of souls before their incarnation. He had a hierarchical view of the Trinity, etc., etc. So, his teaching were not eventually rejected for being too allegorical, but rather, for being so outside possible interpretations that they had to be rejected.
There have been some extreme examples of hyper-literalism (Dake) but, for the most part, nobody here believes the Father has a literal nose. But, of course, that denomination could be formed at any time.
Of course, this is what Protestantism, especially the American brand, is all about. I’m a priest. I’ll interpret the scriptures any way I feel led to. I’ll even put stuff in that I think I like (rapture anyone?). I don’t want nobody with a funny hat dictating to me what the meaning is.
Then you wind up with some really bizarre stuff. Churches with their core theology in “flux”.
I’m no literary scholar, but would the fact of David hanging around looking at nekkid wimmen instead of being with the troops be an allegory? Wouldn’t that be more of a conclusion (maybe faulty)?
Would an allegory be more like: David, hanging with the wimmen, is just like the church hanging back and not evangelizing the world….or something like that?
Yours might be a better example of allegory. But, allegory comes in mild and strong flavors. Remember that I commented that the word “typology” is used by those who are trying to say that they never use allegory. I tend toward saying allegory when I hear preachers using simile–this is like this–and definitely when I hear them using metaphor. But, I could be seeing allegory too easily.
Nevertheless, I think that many of us would admit, if we think about it, that just about all preachers use allegory. Fewer of us are willing to see allegory in the writings of most theologians as well.
That sermon is not allegory. It is morality.
The four senses of the Bible (called Quadriga Cassiani) are:
I – Literal – David was at home, Abraham did bow down to Melchisedec, Joseph was captive in Egypt and survived due to a vivid faith, disciples saw a bright light on Mount Tabor
II – Allegoric – Melchisedec prefigures the priesthood of Christ, captivity of Joseph his humiliations during Passion
III – Moral – let us avoid doing King David’s mistake, let us imitate Joseph’s confidence in providence
IV – Anagogic: Mount Tabor is a foretaste of the Eternal Glory
St Augustine insists that neither Literal nor Allegoric methods may be omitted. He agrees with Origen that the Arch of Noah prefigures the Church outside which there is no Salvation, he agrees with Antiochenes insofar as Flood was historically an event.