The Interpretation of the Scriptures. (2)

by Charles H. Welch

No.2. The History of Interpretation. 

Having seen that the only safe approach to Scripture is that of the literal, with due consideration being given to symbols, figures of speech and types, it may be helpful to give an outline of interpretation in the past, because this will show up wrong conceptions which have led to the misunderstanding of God’s Word, and so will help to guard us against similar errors. To trace past interpretation in detail from Ezra’s day right down to the present time would be an enormous task and not possible within the limits of The Berean Expositor. To those who wish to do so, we recommend Dean Farrar’s History of Interpretation, which, in spite of hisliberalism, is an outstanding work on this subject. Other volumes which may be consulted with profit are the Bible in the Church by R. M. Grant; Prophecy and Authority by K. Fullerton; The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages by B. Smalley. 

The Greek School of Allegorism.

Inasmuch as the Greek allegorical method was adopted both by Jew and Christian at the beginning, it is necessary to commence here. The Greeks had a religious heritage in Homer and Hesiod. To question or doubt them was considered an irreligious or atheistic act. Yet the stories of the gods were often fanciful, absurd, or immoral, which was an offence to the philosophical mind. How was this tension to be resolved? The answer is, by allegorizing. The stories were not to be taken literally, but a secret underlying meaning was to be sought. The important thing to notice is that this Greek allegorical method spread to Alexandria, where there was a large Jewish population and eventually a Christian population of considerable size. The Alexandrian Jew was bound to face up to Greek philosophical tradition which held sway there, especially that of Plato, and for him the problem was to reconcile this with his own national Scriptures (the Old Testament). His solution was identical with the Greek. Dean Farrar writes: 

“The Alexandrian Jews were not, however, driven to invent the allegorical method for themselves. They found it ready to their hands” (History of Interpretation, p. 134). 

 He continues on page 135:

“By a singular concurrence of circumstances, the Homeric studies of pagan philosophers suggested first to the Jews and then through them to the Christians, a method of interpretation before unheard of, which remained unshaken for more than fifteen hundred years.” 

Apparently the first writer in this Jewish allegorical way was Aristobulus (B.C.160). He asserted that Greek philosophy borrowed from the Old Testament and that, by using the allegorical method, the teachings of Greek philosophy could be found in Moses and the prophets. The outstanding Jewish allegorist was Philo (about B.C.20-54A.D.). He had strong leanings toward the philosophy of Plato and Pythagoras. By an elaborate system of allegorizing, he reconciled his loyalty to his Hebrew faith and his regard for Greek philosophy. Philo did not regard the literal meaning of Scripture to be useless, but rather an immature level of understanding. He likened the literal sense of Scripture to its “body”, and the allegorical to its “soul”, the literal being for the immature and the allegorical for the mature. He had around twenty rules which indicated that a passage of Scripture was to be treated allegorically. A few of these were sound, but most of them led to interpretation that was fantastic and erroneous. Philo’s conceptions are a good example of what happens when the grammatico-historical method of interpretation is abandoned. Spiritualizing becomes a slippery slope down which it is well nigh impossible to stop. 

The Allegorism of the Fathers.

This system, which sprang from the pagan Greeks and was copied by the Alexandrian Jews, was thenadopted by the professing church and largely dominated the interpretation of the Scriptures until the Reformation, with the exception of the school at Antioch and the Victorines of the Middle Ages. The apostolic Fathers had as their Bible the Septuagint, i.e. the Greek translation of the Old Testament. They saw that the Old Testament prefigured Christ in type and symbol, and that the New Testament was full of direct and indirect references to the Old Testament. In other words, they perceived that the Old Testament could never be fully understood apart from the New Testament. This they sought to emphasize by allegory and spiritualization. The motive was right, but the method wrong. What they apparently did not realize was that the New Testament is the commentary par excellence on the Old Testament and does not need any propping up by such methods, which only throw the door wide open to personal fancies and excesses. 

There was a lack of historical sense in their method of exposition; they usually ignored the setting and background of a passage of Scripture. They considered the Scriptures to be full of enigmas and riddles which could only be satisfactorily explained by allegorisation. They confused the allegorical with the typical and thus blurred the correct interpretation of the Old Testament. They professed to see Greek philosophy inthe Old Testament, and claimed that it was the allegorical method that discovered it. The pity of all this was that it obscured the true meaning of the Word of God. K. Fullerton writes: 

“When the historical sense of a passage is once abandoned there is wanting any sound regulative principle to govern exegesis . . . . . The mystical (allegorical) method of exegesis is an unscientific and arbitrary method, reduces the Bible to obscure enigmas, undermines the authority of allinterpretation, and therefore, when taken by itself, fails to meet the apologetic necessities of the time” (Prophecy and Authority). 

No wonder the Gnostics of the second century found this method so handy to propagate their falsedoctrine! 

Roman Catholic Allegorism. 

It is true to say that, for the most part, Scriptural interpretation of the Middle Ages was allegorical. The Roman Catholic Church has maintained the validity of the allegorical method, though there is evidence that later on, some of their scholars saw the excesses that resulted from this in Patristic theology, and were prepared to admit the importance of the literal meaning of Scripture. Roman Catholics accept the Latin Vulgate translation of Jerome as the authentic version for public lectures, disputations, sermons andexpositions. 

This church thus puts itself into the awkward position of basing its doctrines on a translation instead of the original languages of Hebrew, Chaldee and Greek. This is a great weakness, for no one translation, however good, can adequately set forth the truth of the original. Moreover the Roman Catholic expositor is forced to accept obediently whatever the church specifically decrees on the authorship of the books of the Bible, andsome twenty verses have been officially interpreted and may not be deviated from. Actually the number is more than this, because many of the official documents require definite interpretations of certain verses. Roman Catholic exegesis became summed up during the Middle Ages in three rules: 

(1) A passage may have an allegorical or mystical meaning. 

(2) It may have an anagogical or eschatological meaning, that is, it may prefigure or anticipate the church in glory. 

(3) It may have a tropological meaning, that is, teach a way of life, or in other words, convey the moral significance of the passage. 

With its often excessive usage of types, the Roman Catholic diverges from the Protestant. Thus the manna in the wilderness, the passover, the bread and wine of Melchizedek are made types of the Eucharist, thus ignoring the controlling guide of New Testament usage. Such exposition can never be accepted by the honest searcher for truth. It is reading into Scripture what is not there, and is the fruit of the allegorical method ofinterpretation, which is used to bolster up this sacramental and sacerdotal approach to the Bible. Further, the Roman Catholic believes that to his church alone has been entrusted the Deposit of Truth in a two-fold form, (1) the oral form (tradition) and (2) the written form (the Scriptures), and this written form, the Bible, is obscure and needs an official interpreter, which must be the Church of Rome, to whom alone, he believes, ithas been given by God. To him the oral tradition is of equal authority with the Word of God because he believes that both have come from God, and are complementary. Furthermore, no passage of Scripture can be interpreted to conflict with Roman Catholic doctrine. It is therefore obvious that the Protestant expositor is always at a disadvantage when disputing on doctrinal matters with a Roman Catholic. Whereas the former will take his stand solely on God’s Word, the latter can always retreat and bring in his oral tradition, which he believes to be as much God’s truth as the Bible. The more one studies the Roman Catholic position, the

more one is thankful for the great liberating effect of the Reformation. Believers today have largely forgotten what they owe to God for this great movement: freedom of conscience, and approach to Him through the Lord Jesus Christ alone, and not through any human sacerdotal system with its inevitable bondage. 

The Jewish Schools. 

When Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, they were separated from the Temple and its regulations, and could no longer practice their religion as outlined in the books of Moses. This state of things finally led to Judaism with its synagogues, rabbis and traditions. The vast system of Jewish interpretation that resulted is a separate study in itself, and it is practically impossible to sum it up adequately. Various schools emerged with opposing ideas. The Karaites were the literalists and the Kabbalists the allegorists. The Palestinian Jews of post-captivity days started off well with a literal approach to the Scriptures, but they often failed to put into practice the rules they laid down. In Kabbalism excessive literalism was allied to allegorism with grotesque results. They used gematria to endow words with numericalvalues which became the basis for interpretation that was absurd or pernicious. 

While we believe that certain numbers are used in Scripture with intent, such as 6, 7, 12, 13, 40 and so on, we need to take warning and keep this under control. We have seen some extraordinary interpretations of Scripture result from those with a mathematical inclination who have let their minds run riot along these lines.

The Syrian School of Antioch. 

It has been asserted that the first Protestant school of interpretation commenced at Antioch of Syria, and had it not been crushed by orthodoxy for its supposed heretical connection with the Nestorians, the course of church history might have been very different. It produced such prominent names as Lucian, Dorotheus, Diodorus, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Chrysostom. This school fought the allegorists and maintained theimportance of the literal and historical interpretation of the Word of God. They insisted on the reality of Old Testament events, and accused the allegorists of doing away with the historicity of much of the OldTestament, and leaving behind a shadowy world of symbols. Their approach to the Bible was Christological, and they rightly blended together the historic and Messianic elements of the Scriptures. The result was that they produced some of the finest expository literature of ancient times. R. W. Grant points out that this school had a great influence in the Middle Ages and became the pillar of the Reformation and their method the principal exegetical method of the Christian Church.

Another interesting school was that of the Victorines which came into being at the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris in the medieval period. They likewise stressed the historical and literal approach to the Scriptures. They insisted that the spiritual sense could not be properly known until the Scriptures had been literally interpreted.

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 43, page 97).

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