Allegorical Interpretation

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Allegorical Interpretation

By Rowland Croucher and others ⋅ January 5, 2003 ⋅ Post a comment
Subject: Allegorical Interpretation
Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 16:27:37 +0800
From: "Nigel Mitchell" <>
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian

This is the first in a series of three posts, which I will prepare and post over
the next few days, when I can snatch a moment from my other duties. 8-)#

The three posts will be 

I 

Allegorical Interpretation
II

The interpretation of the Parable of the Sower
III
Paul's Allegorical interpretation in Galatians 4:22ff.

I Allegorical Interpretation.

"Allegorical interpretation" is a method in which the literal meaning of the text
is superceded by an interpretation in which each element is understood to signify
another. An "Allegory" is a text which requires allegorical interpretation to
discern a true meaning.

There has been much written recently about allegorical interpretation on this
newsgroup recently. If I understand them correctly, Graeme has argued that
allegorical interpretation is not, and has never been a legitimate hermeneutical
tool, and Greg, on the other hand, has argued that Patristic allegorical
interpretations are still valid today. I hope I have not seriously misrepresented
Graeme's or Greg's views, and have no doubt that they will let me know if I have
done so.

It will not surprise many that I take a middle road. Allegorical interpretation
is part of our Christian heritage. It played an important part in the self-
understanding of the early Church, and the spread of the Gospel in the first few
centuries. But the hernemeutical tools of modern biblical scholarship - literary
criticism, textual criticism, etc., and the insights of post-modernism into the
nature of author/reader and language have rendeded allegorical interpretation
obsolete and dysfunctional as an hermeneutical tool in the modern era. To put it
bluntly, it may have been right back then, but it is useless now.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Allegory differs from
Parable "in its more systematic presentation of the different features of the
idea it illustrates as well as in its contents, which are concerned with the
exposition of theoretical truths rather than with practical exhortation".

Examples of Allegory in the Hebrew Scriptures include Isaiah 5:1-6 and Psalm
80:8-16.

Examples of Allegorical interpretation in the New Testament include the
Interpretation of the Parable of the Sower (Mark 14:13-20, // Matthew 13:18ff and
Luke 8:11ff), and Galatians 4:22 ff (where Paul actually uses the word Allegory
(allhgoroumena) in Galatians 4:24).

Allegorical interpretation was widely used in the early Church, and according to
Philo it was commonplace amongst the Palestinian Rabbinical schools of the 1st
century CE. Greek philosophers used allegorical interpretation to expound the
writings of Homer and Plato, and these methods met with some limited acceptance
amongst Jews and early Christians. Most of the Fathers (Irenaeus, Clement of
Rome, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, ... used Allegorical interpretation to
expound the Christian Gospel from the Hebrew scriptures, and to interpret the
Christian scriptures to the contemporary Church.

The Latin Fathers, especially Ambrose and Augustine, held an intermediate view,
allowing for both a literal and an allegorical interpretation of the Hebrew
texts. Cassian, building on the work of Clement of Alexandria, formulated the
division which was used almost universally throughout the Middle Ages to
interpret scripture, and still can be observed in Roman Catholic and some
conservative Protestant theological schools today. Cassian allowed four senses of
meaning in a text from the Hebrew Scriptures -

1. The literal
2. The allegorical sense, which always signifies Christ and/or the
Church.
3. The moral sense, in which virtue and goodness is to be inferred.
4. The sense in which the text signifies eschatalogical and heavenly
realities.

Although all of these senses can often be discerned below the surface in
protestant systematic theology, the dogma of Reformed theologians since Luther,
Melanchthon and Calvin has explicitly repudiated the imposition of any
allegorical interpretation on scripture, and maintained that only two senses of
meaning are admissible, namely:

1. The literal
2. The sense in which scripture interprets scripture.

Weaknesses in this position appear when the interpretation of scripture by
scripture is itself allegorical (eg Galatians 4:22ff), and when the literal
meaning of the text becomes difficult to maintain (eg the Creation stories, the
prophecies and promises regarding Israel, much of the Apocalypse (book of
revelation), and the words of Jesus at the last supper - some or all of which are
interpreted as Allegory by most protestants).

As I said above, there is a distinction between Parable and Allegory.
Unfortunately, many in the early Church seem to have been unaware of this
distinction, and re-interpreted the parables of Jesus accordingly. An unfortunate
consequence of this was that the empasis of the parables was shifted from
eschatology (the coming Kingdom of God) to Christology (the person and work of
Christ).

>From Philo we know that Allegorical interpretation of the scriptures was a
distinguishing feature of Hellenistic Judaism. It was Hellenistic Judaism,
particularly in the diaspora, that provided the most fertile ground for the
expansion of Christianity during the first few decades after the Ressurection.

Although this method if Biblical interpretation has largely been discredited, it
is certainly part of the heritage of Christianity, and played a part in the early
spread of the Gospel amongst both Hellenistic Jews and educated Greeks.

Unfortunately, the weakness of Allegorical Interpretation is that it limits the
text. Once an authoritative figure in the Church and/or scholarship has said "in
this text, X means Y and Z means Q..." other interpretations and possibilities
are excluded.

An example of this, which I will take up in the next post, is the interpretation
of the parable of the sower. Whether the interpretation was suypplied by Jesus
himself, or by the early Church, the effect of that interpretation is to make
this parable, alone amongst all the parables of Jesus, a didactic expression of
Christology, and one in which the eschatological element is completely pushed to
the background.

Allegorical interpretation might make for a simple life and a simple religion,
but it greatly magnifies the margin for error, misunderstanding, and the use of
the scriptures as tools of oppression. I will come back to this aspect in the
third post.

If anyone is interested in further reading on this topic, I can reccomend Manlio
Simonetti "Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church" (T&T Clark, Edinburgh,
1994) and Wayne A. Meeks (ed) "Early Biblical Interpretation" (Westminster press,
Philadelphia, 1986).

The commentaries on Mark 14:13-20, Matthew 13:18ff, Luke 8:11ff, and Galatians
4:22 ff will also have some information about the use of allegorical
interpretation in the early Church, but I will write more on that after I punch
my time clock.

cheers

-- 

N+

Nigel B. Mitchell