Biblical exegesis—the interpretation of the Bible—developed in different ways over the centuries as the Church came to terms with different problems, but ultimately it derives from the way the New Testament writers, particularly Paul, interpreted the Old Testament. Paul believed not only that the direct prophecies of the Messiah in the Old Testament were fulfilled in Christ, but that many of the events and persons and things of the Old Testament prefigure the life and teaching of Christ, even though this prefiguration was unknown to the characters of Old Testament history and the writers of the Old Testament books. Thus the Old Testament, though ostensibly a work of Jewish history and Jewish law, is really a Christian book, whose meaning is only revealed in the light of the events recorded in the New Testament. This idea is explained several times in Paul’s Epistles, perhaps the most important sources being I and II Corinthians. For Christians, because of the gift of the gospel, the word of God is no longer veiled, as it was when Moses gave the Tables of the Law to the Israelites (Ch. 12.1). In his mission to the gentiles Paul argued that Judaism was only a stepping-stone to Christianity, and that Jewish adherence to the letter of the law was blindness. The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life’ (II Cor. 3:6). ‘But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord the veil shall be taken away’ (II Cor. 3:15-16). The Epistle to the Hebrews (although not written by Paul) works out at length this relation between the two testaments.
This way of reading the Old Testament in terms of the New, which was developed by later Christian authors far beyond Paul’s own practice, is known as typology. The word derives from the Greek τύπoς (typos); the Latin equivalent is figura. Several English synonyms were in use in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: type, figure, sign, example (or ensample), shadow, foreshadowing, adumbration, similitude. (There is a problem for modern readers in that ‘shadow’ is sometimes used with a Platonic rather than a typological meaning.) A type is a person or event or thing in the Old Testament which prefigures a person or event or thing in the New Testament; the latter is the antitype. Type and antitype have a relationship in time: the antitype once and for all fulfils the type and reveals the meaning hidden in it. A type is not the same as a symbol (though in practice many Renaissance authors extended the term to include symbol—see Introduction 3); thus light may be a symbol of God, or sunrise and spring may be symbols of the resurrection, but they are not properly speaking types. These are simple examples of types and antitypes: Jonah escaped from the whale’s belly after three days; Christ rose from the dead on the third day (1). The Israelites were in the desert forty years; Christ fasted in the desert forty days. Moses struck the rock and water flowed; Christ’s side was pierced and blood and water flowed (3). (Literal and spiritual refreshment are contrasted here.) Moses lifted up a brass serpent on a pole; Christ was lifted on the cross (2). Adam brought death into the world; the second Adam, Christ, brought life (Ch. 8.6).
The early Christian Fathers worked out much more elaborate types and antitypes than are to be found in the New Testament. Just as Paul had spiritualised the Old Testament in his fight against Judaism, so the Fathers used the same method in their fight against rival religions: Judaism, paganism, Gnosticism, Manichaeism. They were partly concerned to counter any moral difficulties presented by aspects of the Old Testament story that might leave Christianity open to criticism. Augustine gives a detailed typological reading of Old Testament history in Books XV to XVII of The City of God. Sometimes well-established types are developed further; for example, the typology of Noah and the Flood which underlies the Epistles of Peter (Noah is a type of Christ, the Flood a type of baptism) is worked out in extraordinary detail by Augustine (City of God XV xxvi-vii): the ark is a type of the Church, and every aspect of its structure has typological significance. Sometimes new types are suggested; for example, Joshua, who was insignificant in earlier typology, becomes a type of Jesus in Origen’s Homily on Joshua, because of his name and because unlike Moses he succeeded in reaching the Promised Land (16). The crossing of the Red Sea had for a long time been a type of baptism; Origen in his Commentary on St John similarly interpreted the crossing of the Jordan.
Both type and antitype have a historical existence. Typology implies a view of history as progressive revelation; the meaning of God’s acts in the past becomes known through his acts in the present and future. However, this kind of historically based interpretation of the relation between the Old and New Testaments coexisted with another tradition, that of allegory (see Chapter 12): the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses) was allegorised by Philo, an Alexandrian Jew who lived at the time of Christ, in a series of works called The Exposition of the Law. Philo drew on the tradition of Greek allegory, developed from the fourth century BC particularly by the Stoics, through which Greek myth and literature could be defended against charges of immorality and made to reveal hidden meanings (see Chapter 2). Philo was not interested in history; he was interested in the timeless moral and philosophical meaning he could extract from a seemingly straightforward narrative. There is not much of this kind of allegorical interpretation in the New Testament, though there is a striking example in Galatians 4:21–31. Here Paul interprets the two sons of Abraham, Ishmael the son of the bondwoman Hagar, and Isaac the son of the freewoman Sarah, as allegories of law and gospel, Judaism and Christianity.
Philo’s methods were taken up in the third century by the Christian Platonists of Alexandria, Clement and Origen, who were interested in bringing Christianity closer to Greek philosophy, and who wished to penetrate the shell of the scriptural text in order to reveal its kernel of meaning. This was to give a different weight to Paul’s antithesis of letter and spirit. The emphasis was now not so much on the old and new covenants, on law and gospel (see Chapter 8), but on the literal (comparatively restricted and unimportant) meaning of the text, and the hidden spiritual meaning. The historical importance of the Old Testament was thus frequently undermined. Origen’s exegetical method was sometimes twofold—the literal and the spiritual, and sometimes threefold—the literal, the moral and the spiritual. The literal was the least important level of meaning. Origen’s Commentary on the Song of Songs (or Canticles), in which an erotic poem is allegorised as the yearning of the soul for God or of the Church for Christ, is an example of this kind of exegesis.
Although often criticised, this Alexandrian tradition of allegorical interpretation was extremely influential. In Christian Instruction Augustine provides general rules for allegorical interpretation (III x): ‘In general, that method is to understand as figurative anything in Holy Scripture which cannot in a literal sense be attributed either to an upright character or to a pure faith.’ Since ‘Scripture commands only charity, and censures only lust’, a passage of Scripture which does neither of these must be read allegorically (e.g. 4.5). Unlike Origen, Augustine did not undervalue the historical, literal meaning of Scripture, but he allowed that a passage could have several interpretations.
Thus typological and allegorical interpretation existed side by side. By the fifth century we find the beginnings of the fourfold exegetical method (6), which was systematised in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and which dominated interpretation of the Bible until the Reformation. The four senses in which the Bible could be understood were: (1) the literal sense (the historical narrative of events); (2) the allegorical sense (in which the whole Bible was interpreted as a book about Christ; this sense included typology); (3) the moral or tropological sense (concerned with the inner life of each Christian); (4) the anagogical sense (concerned with his hope of eternity). Through such a method of interpretation the Bible became a living book, existing in the past, present and future. Thus the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt to the Promised Land could be read as (1) a historical narrative; (2) a prefiguration of the life of Christ; (3) the daily struggle of each Christian to achieve salvation; (4) a promise of the end of time (8). In order to prevent interpretation from proliferating irresponsibly Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae (I i 10) emphasised that all the senses are founded on the literal (7) and that ‘nothing necessary for faith is contained under the spiritual sense which is not openly conveyed through the literal sense elsewhere’.
The Protestant reformers, because of their development of the Pauline theology of law and gospel and of the two covenants (see Chapter 8), and because of their historical, progressive interpretation of Christianity, rejected the Platonic Alexandrian method of allegory and the medieval tradition of fourfold interpretation. Calvinists and radical Puritans, through their interest in the establishment of godly Christian communities on earth, attached great importance to the historical meaning of Israel. But this does not mean that Protestants restricted Scripture to a simple literal meaning. On the contrary, Luther and especially Calvin particularly valued the typological interpretation of Scripture, but they denied that this involved them in a system of multiple meanings. For Luther, since the Old Testament is a book about Christ, the typological is the literal meaning (9, 10). It should be read with the clear eye of the gospel, not through the veil of the law. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion II Calvin provides just such a gospel interpretation of the Old Testament (11). In addition, the reformers were willing to allow some allegorisation of the literal sense as an aid in preaching.
For Protestants, therefore, typology took precedence over allegory. Typology was essential to their interpretation of Scripture and their understanding of history; allegory was, for some, a permissible aesthetic and moral device. In seventeenth-century England, Anglicans (13) were much more inclined to draw on the allegorical tradition than Puritans. In religious poetry a range of interpretation is evident, depending on the poet’s intentions and religious affiliations. Milton’s account of biblical exegesis in Christian Doctrine I xxx is strictly Protestant (12); he opposes multiple allegorical interpretation, and argues that the literal sense, which contains the typological, is perspicuous to the faithful reader. In Paradise Lost XI—XII Michael’s account of the process of human history is based on typology (16). Herbert’s biblical interpretation is more traditional than Milton’s and allows more levels of allusion and meaning; for him the Bible is not only the record of God’s acts in the past and the promise of his acts in the future, but also the journal of his own spiritual conflicts (15).
1 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgement with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
(Matthew 12:39–41 (see also Luke 11:29–32)
2 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
John 3:14–15
3 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;
And did all eat the same spiritual meat;
And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
……
Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.
……
Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
I Corinthians 10:1–4, 6, 11
4 Augustine comments on the following passage:
Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing: whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.
Song of Solomon 4:2
5 I find more delight in considering the saints when I regard them as the teeth of the Church. They bite off men from their heresies and carry them over to the body of the Church, when their hardness of heart has been softened as if by being bitten off and chewed. With very great delight I look upon them also as shorn sheep that have put aside worldly cares, as if they were fleece. Coming up from the washing, that is, the baptismal font, all bear twins, that is, the two precepts of love, and I see no one destitute of that holy fruit.
Augustine Christian Instruction II vi
6 Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria,
Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.
(The literal sense teaches you the narrative, the allegorical what to believe, the moral how to behave, and the anagogical where you are going.)
Augustine of Dacia (?)
7 That first meaning whereby the words signify things belongs to the sense first-mentioned, namely the historical or literal. That meaning, however, whereby the things signified by the words in their turn also signify other things is called the spiritual sense; it is based on and presupposes the literal sense. Now this spiritual sense is divided into three… The allegorical sense is brought into play when the things of the Old Law signify the things of the New Law; the moral sense when the things done in Christ and in those who prefigured him are signs of what we should carry out; and the anagogical sense when the things that lie ahead in eternal glory are signified.
Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae I i 10
8 One must realise that the meaning of this work [The Divine Comedy] is not simple, but is rather to be called polysemous, that is, having many meanings. The first meaning is the one obtained through the letter; the second is the one obtained through the things signified by the letter. The first is called literal, the second allegorical or moral or anagogical. In order that this manner of treatment may appear more clearly, it may be applied to the following verses: ‘When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language; Judah was his sanctuary, and Israel his dominion’ [Psalms 114:1–2]. For if we look to the letter alone, the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt in the time of Moses is indicated to us; if to the allegory, our redemption accomplished by Christ is indicated to us; if to the moral sense, the conversion of the soul from the woe and misery of sin to a state of grace is indicated to us; if to the anagogical sense, the departure of the consecrated soul from the slavery of this corruption to the liberty of eternal glory is indicated. And though these mystic senses may be called by various names, they can all generally be spoken of as allegorical, since they are diverse from the literal or historical.
Dante Letter to Can Grande della Scala
9 The Holy Spirit is the plainest writer and speaker in heaven and earth, and therefore his words cannot have more than one, and that the very simplest, sense, which we call the literal, ordinary, natural, sense. That the things indicated by the simple sense of his simple words should signify something further and different, and therefore one thing should always signify another, is more than a question of words or of language. For the same is true of all other things outside the Scriptures, since all of God’s works and creatures are living signs and words of God, as St Augustine and all the teachers declare. But we are not on that account to say that the Scriptures or the Word of God have more than one meaning.
Luther Answer to Goat Emser
10 If you would interpret well and confidently, set Christ before you, for he is the man to whom it [the Old Testament] all applies, every bit of it.
Luther Preface to the Old Testament
11 The same inheritance was appointed for them [the patriarchs] and for us, but they were not yet old enough to be able to enter upon it and manage it. The same church existed among them, but as yet in its childhood. Therefore, keeping them under this tutelage, the Lord gave, not spiritual promises unadorned and open, but ones foreshadowed, in a measure, by earthly promises. When, therefore, he adopted Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants into the hope of immortality, he promised them the Land of Canaan as an inheritance. It was not to be the final goal of their hopes, but was to exercise and confirm them, as they contemplated it, in hope of their true inheritance, an inheritance not yet manifested to them … He adds the promise of the land, solely as a symbol of his benevolence and as a type of the heavenly inheritance.
Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion II xi 2
12 Each passage of Scripture has only a single sense, though in the Old Testament this sense is often a combination of the historical and the typological… No inferences should be made from the text, unless they follow necessarily from what is written. This precaution is necessary, otherwise we may be forced to believe something which is not written instead of something which is, and to accept human reasoning, generally fallacious, instead of divine doctrine, thus mistaking the shadow for the substance.
Milton Christian Doctrine I xxx
13 My God, my God, thou art a direct God, may I not say a literal God, a God that wouldst be understood literally and according to the plain sense of all that thou sayest? but thou art also (Lord, I intend it to thy glory, and let no profane misinterpreter abuse it to thy diminution), thou art a figurative, a metaphorical God too; a God in whose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages, such peregrinations to fetch remote and precious metaphors, such extensions, such spreadings, such curtains of allegories, such third heavens of hyperboles, so harmonious elocutions, so retired and so reserved expressions, so commanding persuasions, so persuading commandments, such sinews even in thy milk, and such things in thy words, as all profane authors seem of the seed of the serpent that creeps, thou art the Dove that flies… Neither art thou thus a figurative, a metaphorical God in thy word only, but in thy works too. The style of thy works, the phrase of thine actions, is metaphorical. The institution of thy whole worship in the old law was a continual allegory; types and figures overspread all, and figures flowed into figures, and poured themselves out into farther figures; circumcision carried a figure of baptism, and baptism carries a figure of that purity which we shall have in perfection in the new Jemsalem. Neither didst thou speak and work in this language only in the time of thy prophets; but since thou spokest in thy Son it is so too. How often, how much more often, doth thy Son call himself a way, and a light, and a gate, and a vine, and bread, than the Son of God, or of man? How much oftener doth he exhibit a metaphorical Christ, than a real, a literal?
Donne Devotions Expostulation xix
14 Man, dream no more of curious mysteries,
As what was here before the world was made,
The first man’s life, the state of Paradise,
Where Heaven is, or Hell’s eternal shade,
For God’s works are like him, all infinite;
And curious search but crafty sin’s delight.
The flood that did, and dreadful fire that shall,
Drown, and burn up the malice of the earth,
The divers tongues, and Babylon’s downfall,
Are nothing to the man’s renewed birth;
First, let the Law plough up thy wicked heart,
That Christ may come, and all these types depart.
When thou hast swept the house that all is clear,
When thou the dust hast shaken from thy feet,
When God’s all might doth in thy flesh appear,
Then seas with streams above thy sky do meet;
For goodness only doth God comprehend,
Knows what was first, and what shall be the end.
Greville Caelica lxxxviii
15 Joy, I did lock thee up: but some bad man
Hath let thee out again:
And now, methinks, I am where I began
Seven years ago: one vogue and vein,
One air of thoughts usurps my brain.
I did toward Canaan draw; but now I am
Brought back to the Red Sea, the sea of shame.
For as the Jews of old by God’s command
Travelled and saw no town:
So now each Christian hath his journeys spanned:
Their story pens and sets us down.
A single deed is small renown.
God’s works are wide, and let in future times;
His ancient justice overflows our crimes.
Then have we too our guardian fires and clouds;
Our Scripture-dew drops fast:
We have our sands and serpents, tents and shrouds;
Alas! our murmurings come not last.
But where’s the cluster? where’s the taste
Of mine inheritance? Lord, if I must borrow,
Let me as well take up their joy, as sorrow.
But can he want the grape who hath the wine?
I have their fruit and more.
Blessed be God, who prospered Noah’s vine,
And made it bring forth grapes good store:
But much more him I must adore,
Who of the Law’s sour juice sweet wine did make,
Even God himself, being pressèd for my sake.
Herbert ‘The Bunch of Grapes’ (compare 3; see also ‘The Holy Scriptures’ and ‘Aaron’)
16 Michael prophesies to Adam:
God from the mount of Sinai, whose grey top
Shall tremble, he descending, will himself
In thunder lightning and loud trumpets’ sound
Ordain them laws; part such as appertain
To civil justice, part religious rites
Of sacrifice, informing them, by types
And shadows, of that destined seed to bruise
The serpent, by what means he shall achieve
Mankind’s deliverance. But the voice of God
To mortal ear is dreadful; they beseech
That Moses might report to them his will,
And terror cease; he grants what they besought
Instructed that to God is no access
Without mediator, whose high office now
Moses in figure bears, to introduce
One greater, of whose day he shall foretell,
And all the prophets in their age the times
Of great Messiah shall sing.
……
So law appears imperfect, and but given
With purpose to resign them in full time
Up to a better Covenant, disciplined
From shadowy types to truth, from flesh to spirit,
From imposition of strict laws, to free
Acceptance of large grace, from servile fear
To filial, works of law to works of faith.
And therefore shall not Moses, though of God
Highly beloved, being but the minister
Of law, his people into Canaan lead;
But Joshua whom the gentiles Jesus call,
His name and office bearing, who shall quell
The adversary serpent, and bring back
Through the world’ s wilderness long wandered man Safe to eternal paradise of rest.
Milton Paradise Lost XII ll. 227–44, 300–14