Allegorical Exegesis, Critical Exegesis
I’ve been thinking for awhile about writing a blog about the tangled and troubled relationship between historical-critical exegesis and allegorical or premodern or precritical exegesis. The issue is too large and complex to write about in one night, so I haven’t undertaken the venture, but I just want to register my frustration with the current state of affairs. Proponents of both tend to lob grenades at each other rather than to take each other seriously. As somebody who’s waded in both areas and appreciates major aspects of both, I’m interested in real dialogue going on. I want to distinguish but not separate; I want to respect the integrity of both without collapsing one into the other; and I want to see fewer straw men constructed by people on both sides. Personally, and maybe this reveals my bias, I tend to hear more dismissive and unfounded comments come from the historical-critical camp, but I’m willing to listen. And to further reveal my bias, it seems like premodern exegesis can easily assimilate most of the findings of historical-critical exegesis but that proponents of historical-critical exegesis often go out of their way to exclude, by definition, any sort of allegorical exegesis. Here are a few things that especially frustrate me.
1. Many biblical interpreters want to do away with all patristic and medieval exegesis (much of it allegorical) but still want to maintain the Christian doctrines as they have been historically expressed in the ecumenical Creeds (though maybe in a qualified sense). In other words, I am saying that I think it is very difficult to draw a line straight from Scripture to orthodox Christian dogma via historical-critical interpretive methods. The church fathers were in fact using much allegorical exegesis to develop and defend those doctrines (see, for instance, Proverbs 8, where the “wisdom of God” is identified as Christ).
2. I don’t find much purchase in the argument that even though Paul interpreted the Old Testament allegorically in various places, he had a “special dispensation” or some such to do so and that other, later attempts are misguided and wrong. The theologians who did a lot of allegorical interpretation saw themselves in continuity with the Apostles, not in contrast to them. I’m not arguing that if Paul did it, that gives us license to allegorize any and every Old Testament text at our whim, but I certainly think it odd that based on our current hermeneutical methods we should not follow in his footsteps. It seems that this implicitly suggests that directly after the New Testament period, God became deus absconditus, a notion for which we probably have Adolf Von Harnack to thank and that Paul Gavrilyuk, as I pointed out a few weeks ago, shows to be more than a little flawed.
3. Critics of allegory tend to forget that it is one aspect of a fourfold sense of Scripture. Most if not all theologians readily accept the literal meaning of Scripture, but many historical-critical scholars take it for the entire meaning. I came across a critic of allegory this week who seemed to think that patristic and medieval theologians were embarrassed by Song of Songs and therefore “explained away” the meaning of the book by means of allegory. No! They were taking the literal meaning for granted, not trying to find an alternative meaning! As a professor of mine at Regent often said, the fourfold sense of Scripture allows one to hear it stereophonically rather than in simple mono. This chap that I was reading on Song of Songs took his method and projected it onto the church fathers, thinking they only had room for one meaning, when theirs, in my opinion, was much richer.
Speak to me! Especially those of you who disagree with me (and I know who you are). Is there a way to conceptualize biblical interpretation that doesn’t necessarily rule out one or the other of these methods? Or do you think they are mutually exclusive? If so, why? Let’s discuss!
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You’ve framed the issue perfectly, Jeff. I’ve never had the opportunity to see it from the historical-critical point of view, and despite your acknowledged “bias,” you’ve made me more sympathetic to that side of the discussion. As a result, the contemporary scene comes nicely into focus.
The problem with allegorical, anagogical and any more-than-literal/historical exegetical method is that it claims to transcend rational analysis. If allegory can’t be checked by reason, we have to rediscover the pre-modern and non-rational limits and balances to allegorizing willy-nilly and on a whim.
The only checks that rise to the supra-rational level are spiritual and “intellectual”: the “intellectus agens,” according to the Scholastics, or the “intellectus possibilis” in Dante. In Saint Thomas, the agent intellect allows the human being to participate directly with the “light of God’s own intelligence.” Pre-modern hermeneutics acknowledged that allegorical and anagogical interpretations must be tethered to these faculties.
The flavor of Platonism and other Hellenistic influences (especially in the bit from Saint Thomas above) is distinct. Indeed, non-literal methods require mystical, spiritual and symbolic interpretations from the start: the “light of God’s face” in Psalm 4, for example, must be read as a divine emanation.
Modern, academic, post-enlightenment hermeneutics can’t be expected to tolerate, let alone integrate, an interpretive intellect as “a power of the soul.”
. . .
Two sources for the Aquinas and Dante stuff: J. A. Scott, “Dante’s Use of the Word Intelletto,” Italica, Vol. 40, No. 3, pp. 215-224, and Vivian Boland, Ideas in God According to Saint Thomas Aquinas (Brill, 1996), p.281.
Matt,
Interesting thoughts. You said, “we have to rediscover the pre-modern and non-rational limits and balances to allegorizing willy-nilly and on a whim.” This may not speak to exactly what you’re getting at, but I think the main thing that kept the Fathers’ allegorical exegesis in check (and it wasn’t always in check) was that, at it’s best, it was christological. They interpreted the Old Testament in light of the New, and Christ was the interpretive key to this hermeneutic. This is especially what gets historical-critical scholars riled up. The Fathers find Christ in every nook and cranny of the Old Testament. Of course, there’s a ton of allegorical exegesis that’s not christological, but Christ was central; he was (or is) the trunk of the tree that was allegorical exegesis, off of which there are many branches.
Hmm. So Christian Fathers acted like Christians. I can see how that would be a problem for Harnack. My problem with it is that it’s a little obvious.
If, instead, we set aside both pious, Christological allegory and reductionistic Modernism for a moment, there’s a third way that will inform both. I don’t think I’m changing the subject.
Christ may very well have been central to the Fathers’ allegorical interpretation, but anagogy preceded allegory in almost every case. You can’t have the second without the first. My favorite source is Maximus the Confessor in the Philokalia, but I’m sure it’s in Origen and all the usual allegorizing suspects.
Matt,
“anagogy preceded allegory in almost every case.”
Care to elaborate a little on this? I’m not sure I’m on board, but I’d like to hear more before I lay into you. (Just kidding)
Unfortunately, I just basically agree with you. So I’m useless.
Jeff,
1. I agree that many scholars from several camps (including theologians who want to uphold the ecumenical creeds and a quasi-historical understanding of biblical events and other matters such as, say, authorship of various biblical books) are trying to have their cake and eat it too.
2. I see the point that you want to make here and I want to agree with you in principle, but I’m not sure if I can due to my knowledge of Paul’s self-understanding. Paul certainly thought of himself as a significant, possibly even unique, figure in salvation history. He was not just another apostle or early Christian missionary. He very clearly saw himself as well within the prophetic tradition of the Hebrew prophets (Gal 1:13-17; cf. Jeremiah 1:5 as well as Gen 25:23 and Ps 71:6) and, and as some have argued (e.g., J. Munck, J. Christiaan Beker, and more recently M. Gignilliat), identified himself and his role to the nations with that of the Isaianic servants (Isa 44:2; 49:1-6). He was the apostle sent to the nations for the sake of Israel, that is, to provoke them to jealousy (Rom 10:19; 11:11-16). There is, therefore, good evidence to suggest that Paul may very well had a ’special dispensation’ as a unique, apostolic figure within God’s plan to fulfill his promises to Israel. Accordingly, Paul believed that God spoke directly through him, both through his preaching to the crowds around the Mediterranean basin and through his interpretation of the scriptures.
Now I say all this to address your disbelief in a special dispensation given to Paul. For if Paul was indeed a special, and even perhaps unique, figure within salvation history, then surely his knowledge of the mystery of gospel would be in some way reflective of his status as the apostle to the gentiles. (I think this point could be expanded to the other NT writers to a certain extent, but for now I’ll only address Paul since he was your sole example.) But does this imply a deus absconditus theology of inspiration or a cessationist understanding of biblical interpretation? As the apostle himself would undoubtedly reply, and I would agree, ‘by no means’!
At the same time I’m not sure if the absence of a special license for Paul’s use of scripture gives us, or Christians in any period for that matter, freedom to interpret scripture in any way we’d like. (To be sure, I recognize that you aren’t making this exact point.) Paul was not without a interpretive hermeneutic. On the contrary, his remarkable, and at times downright puzzling, exegesis of the Hebrew scriptures was fully motivated and guided by a particular hermeneutic. So the question might be, or, perhaps, one that ought to be raised more, is whether later scriptural exegesis—be it allegorical, figurative, or whatever—is harmonious with what Paul (and the early church) saw as the guiding principal for interpreting the Jewish scriptures: namely, God’s faithfulness (his righteousness) to his promises to Israel in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that has now birthed a new, eschatological and messianic community. That is how Paul interprets scripture. Not according to the historical-critical method, not speculative allegorical fashion even when it looks it, and not according to any other way. For Paul, the point is that the word of God is near to the eschatological community of God (Rom 10:8-13). The early church was the new people of God, the new Israel, and the scriptures were meant for them (Rom 15:4). So I think Richard Hays is right when he argues that Paul interpreted his scriptures not christologically, but rather ecclesiologically. (Richard Hays also addresses many questions related to the question of our ability to interpret scripture as Paul did in his The Echoes of Scripture in Paul’s Letters [esp. pp. 154-92]. I think he is more or less right.)
3. Sure. We can’t deny a multifaceted way of reading scripture. However, I do not think historical-critical scholars (mis?)take the literal meaning of the text as “the entire meaning” of it. Rather, for them it is axiomatic that the literal meaning of the text must not be compromised as part of a multifaceted reading. The problem is that many historical-critical scholars—due to their own inadequate understanding of historical theology and to the lack of constructive dialogue between the two sides—do not have a robust enough idea of how to synthesize various ways of reading the scriptures without seeing it as in somewhat compromising the literal meaning of the text. This, I think we can agree, is problematic. And while I am intrigued by the idea of hearing the text stereophonically, I’m not entirely sure what this means.
These are all thoughts spewed onto paper more than a rehearsed answer, so I’ll just put them out there for now and let you respond. I look for to your response!
drb
“anagogy preceded allegory in almost every case.”
Care to elaborate a little on this? I’m not sure I’m on board, but I’d like to hear more before I lay into you. (Just kidding)
Sure. I look forward to you putting me in my place. You’re certainly a better teacher than any of them dudes I had in school.
. . . .
First, let’s be clear. The four steps in the science of exegesis, in ascending importance, are literal, ethical, allegorical and anagogical or parabolic. By “anagogy preceded allegory,” of course I mean that anagogy enjoyed primacy.
These four steps, or levels, were codified as early as Origen, but elaborated on by the Scholastics (see, for example, Summa Theologica 1.1.10). It’s worth noting, too, that early Buddhist texts (see Anguttara-Nikaya, the Book of Gradual Sayings, 11.160) refer to the moral, literal, hermeneutic and anagogic as “the analytical factors of meaning (attha-atisambihida).” The levels of exegesis are closely connected in all these cases to attaining salvation (most evangelicals would, perhaps, prefer the less precise “sanctification”). For Buddhists, careful exegetical and analytical study leads to Arhatta (the end of craving).
The steps, or levels, of interpretation are graduated or hierarchical. Huston Smith describes the highest step, the anagogic or parabolic, by quoting Rienhold Niebuhr: “Myth is not history, it is truer than history.” The parabolic alludes to the transcendent, the spiritual meaning of a text. A parabolic reading seeks to understand the text by illumination, participating with the very mind of God—the intellectus agens. This is a goal the fathers, monks and theologians may not have achieved, but it was their highest purpose.
sources: St. Thomas and the Book of Gradual Sayings cited in Coomaraswamy: Volume 2: Metaphysics, edited by Roger Lipsey (Princeton University Press, 1977), note 93, p. 315; and Huston Smith, The Soul of Christianity (HarperSanfransisco, 2005), pp 17-19.
thats it, dude
I just recently found this piece.
First, I am uncertain if historical-critical is being equated with historical-grammatical. From my reading, these are distinct hermeneutics.
Second, were the four interpretation methods considered to be hierarchical or ascending? I will grant that the church fathers understood that anyone could pick up the Bible and get the literal meaning from the text. My question is: Were the other three considered as gradations to a higher level (a la Buddhism) or simply an acknowledgment that the other interpretations were impossible without the Holy Spirit’s enabling?