The first important school of exegesis was founded at Alexandria, and it flourished from 150 to 400 A.D. Its most distinguished repre sentatives were Clement, Origen, Athanasius, Basil and the two Gregories. Of these the peerless prince was Origen, the greatest scholar and saint the Christian Church has produced since apostolic times. A great in;ustice has been done both him and the Alexandrian school by associating their names almost exclusively with the allegorical interpretation of the Scrip tures, in which they sometimes indulged, as though this method were their only method or were peculiar to them alone. Neither of these things were true. The allegorical interpretation was much older than the Alexandrian school and has persisted in dragging out its pernicious existence to this day. It was prevalent and predominant in the Rabbinical schools of exe gesis before the Christian era began. The Tal mudists finally found a watch-word for their mystical exegesis in Pardes, or Paradise. The four letters of this word in the Hebrew, P R D S, were made to indicate the four words, Peshat or explanation, Remes or hint, Danish or homily, and Sod or mystery; and these in turn represented the fourfold interpretation of which every passage in Scripture was capable. Rabbi Ishmael declared that by means of these any Scripture could be expounded in 49 ways and the expositor could break every text into fragments even as a rock is broken by a hammer (Sanhedrin, 34). The apostle Paul carried at least one example of allegorical treat ment into our New Testament, probably sug gested by his Jewish training in the school of Gamaliel, Gal. iv, 22-31. This method was introduced into Alexandria by Aristobulus and pseudo-Aristeas, and it became authoritative as a method of exegesis under Philo, the fore most writer among the Alexandrian Jews con temporary with the Christ. Philo ound the method ready made to his hand, not only by the Jewish rabbis, but also by the Greek philoso phers who had allegorized Homer and Hesiod and the ancient Greek myths into conformity with their more advanced ethics and faith. The Alexandrian Church fathers thus found the al legorical interpretation in vogue among their heathen and Jewish neighbors and forbears. They believed it had a Scriptural sanction. They accepted it without question. Their genius and wide influence gave it a standing in the Chris tian Church for centuries; but the Alexandrian school never had a monopoly of its use. It is unfair, therefore, to hold them responsible, either for the origination or for the promulga tion of this method of Scriptural interpretation. Origen did teach that there was a threefold sense in Scripture, corresponding to the body, soul and spirit in man —a literal and a moral and a mystical sense. But Jerome also made it a rule that the Scripture should be interpreted in three ways, historically, tropologically and spiritually; and he related this threefold divi sion to the doctrine of the Trinity. And Au gustine formulated one principle of his exegesis in these words, °Whatever there is in the word of God that cannot, when taken literally, be referred either to purity of life or soundness of doctrine, you may set down as figurative° ((De Doctr. Christ. III, ch. 10, sect. 14). He wrote to Honoratus, "All that Scripture, there fore, which is called the Old Testament, is handed down fourfold to them who desire to know it, according to history, according to aetiology, according to .analogy, according to allegory* util. credendi,' 5). This four fold division was adopted by many of the church fathers and found its final formulation in the famous couplet of Nicholas of Lyra.
Utters gesta docet. quid credas Allegoria. Moralis quid agar. quo tendas Anagogia A good example of this fourfold sense was the Scriptural use of the word, Jerusalem. Lit erally it was a city; allegorically, the church; morally, the individual believer; anagogically, the heavenly state.
This much may be said for the Alexandrian school in connection with the allegorical inter pretation of the Scripture. (1) It did not originate this method. (2) It never exercised any monopoly in its use. (3) It found what seemed to be a sufficient sanction in the typology and allegory of the Apocalypse, the Pauline epistles, and the epistle to the Hebrews. (4) No other method of interpretation would have availed them, in their stage of Biblical knowl edge and in their environment, for the defense of many portions of the Old Testament. Their adequate apology for yielding to the fourth temptation mentioned above is to be found in the necessities of their case.. (5) Their use of this method grew out of their very piety and spirituality. These simply joined forces with their poetical imagination and philosophical in sight in the endeavor to save the Scripture from contemporary disrepute. (6) They never used
the allegorical method dogmatically and they avoided most of the excesses of the later day. °They are always intelligent and reasonable. They evaporated the letter; they did not stereo type the spirit° (Bigg, (Christian Platonists of Alexandria,' pp. 149-150). Making all allow ance for fault at this point, the fact remains that °Origen was the greatest Biblical critic and exegete of the ancient church* (Terry, Hermeneutics,' p. 639). His one object was to find and set forth the edifying truth in the Scripture. He said, "The that are true in their historical meaning are much more numerous than those which are interspersed with a purely spiritual signification." Having adduced many passages in which a literal mean ing seems impossible, he concludes, the exact reader must, in obedience to the Savior's injunction to search the Scriptures, carefully ascertain in how far the literal mean ing is true, and in how far impossible; and so far as he can, trace out, by means of similar statements, the meaning everywhere scattered through Scripture of that which cannot be un derstood in a literal signification° ((De Prin cipiis,' IV, 1; 19). This is seen at once to be, as Davidson said, °not so absurd or injurious as many represent° ((Sacred Hermeneutics,' p. 68). Bishop Lightfoot is justified in say ing of Origen, °A very considerable part of what is valuable in subsequent commentaries, whether ancient or modern, is due to him. A deep thinker, an accurate grammarian, a most laborious worker, and a most earnest Christian,• he not only laid the foundation, but to a very great extent built up the fabric of Biblical inter pretation' on Galatians,' p. 227). Farrar declares, °His knowledge of the Bible and his contributions to its interpretation were absolutely unrivaled' of Inter pretation,' p..188). Fairweather adds, °Properly speaking, Origen was the first exegete. Every thing done in this direction previously had been merely preparatory to a scientific interpretation of Scripture. . . One of the great merits of Origen is that he never shirks a difficulty. . . . Nothing could exceed his passion for verbal and grammatical accuracy, or his linguis tic and critical insight, while his knowledge of the ancient theology is unique" p. 120). Harnack calls Origen "the father of ec clesiastical science in the widest sense of the word," and says that he awas an exegete who believed in the Holy Scriptures and indeed, at bottom, he viewed all theology as a methodical exegesis of Holy Writ" ((History of Dogma,' II, pp. 332, 335). In Origen, therefore, we find the founder of scientific exegesis and the great master in this field. His faults were those of his age; his excellences have been an abiding blessing to the Church. Our age is coming to agree with Gregory Thaumaturgus in his Pan egyric, when he says of Origen as an exegete, "That greatest gift that man has received from God, and that noblest of all endowments, he has had bestowed upon him from heaven, that he should be an interpreter of the oracles of God to men, and that he might understand the words of God, even as if God spake them to him, and that he might recount them to men in such wise as thatthey may hear them with intelli gence. . . .e explained whatsoever was dark and enigmatical, . . . and set it in the light, as being himself a skilled and most dis cerning hearer of God. . . . He alone of all men with whom I have myself been ac quainted, or of whom I have heard by the re port of others, has so deeply studied the oracles of God, as to be able at once to receive their meaning into his own mind, and to convey, it to others. For that leader of all men, who in spires God's dear prophets, and suggests all their prophecies and their mystic and heavenly words, has honored this man as He would a friend, and has constituted him an expositor of these same oracles; the things of which He only gave a hint by others He made matters of full instruction by this man's instrumentality; and in things which He, who is worthy of all trust, either enjoined in regal fashion, or simply enunciated, He imparted to this man the gift of and unfolding and explaining them; so that, if there chanced to be anyone of obtuse and incredulous mind, or one again thirsting for instruction, he might learn from this man, and in some manner be constrained to understand" (Argument, XV). It is the pic ture of the perfect pattern of the union of scien tific investigation and spiritual insight which makes the model exegete. The transcendent genius of Origen lifted him above his age at many points, and the 20th century is be ginning tp see that his conception of revealed truth is far superior to that of most of his suc cessors in the history of the Church.