But while their labors were directed chiefly against the allegorical method, they were not wholly free from this method themselves. This was doubtless due to the fact that the doctrines of the Church remained with them, as with those before them, the object and aim of Scripture study; for, while they held theoretically that the historical sense of the passage was the only sense to be discovered, yet, when that sense did not avail for doctrinal purposes, they were obliged to discover a secondary spiritual sense. This was particularly true in the case of the Old Testament prophecies. Consequently, as dog matics grew in. the Church, and in their growth came more to depend upon Scripture for proof, the traditional rule of faith came to be the regu lative form of all interpretation, and so to neces sitate a continued resort to allegorical methods. Of these Syrian schools, the school of Antioch was of further-reaching and more lasting influ ence, making itself felt to a greater or less ex tent with such Fathers as Chrysostom, Athena sins, and Cyril. in the East, and Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, in the West. This was largely due to its leader, Theodore of Mopsnes tin, who has been termed the exegete of the ancient Chureh. Unfortunately, his opposition to Origen brought him under the ban of ortho doxy, which naturally served ultimately to rein state Origen's extreme conception and exagger ated use of allegory in the interpretative work of the Church, where it remained dominant until the Reformation.
(d) The Medireval Period, which may be di vided into the following sub-periods: (1) The post-Patristic, represented by Bede, d.e.735; Alcuin. d.804; Rabanus Maurus, d.856; and Rad bertus, d.865. (2) The Scholastic, represented by John Scotus Erigena, d.S91 (though in a certain sense he belongs to a much later age of thought),; AnseInt, d.1109; Abelard, (1.1142: Peter Lombard, d.e.1164: Aquinas, d.1274; and Occam, d.1347. (3) The pre-Reformation, represented by Nicolas Lyra, d.1340; Lorenzo Valle, d.c.]405; Reuchlin, d.1522; and Erasmus, d.1536.
The first of these sub-periods was the dark age of the Church, which may be safely said to have made no contribution to scriptural study. its work was nothing more than that of compilation from the Fathers, either in the way of excerpts from their writings or glosses on them, and, under the dominance of the Papal idea of the Church, came wholly into 'servitude to dogma, to support which in the interests of the Catholic faith was its one and only object.
The second sub-period differed from the first largely in its intellectual aggressiveness. The object of Scripture study was still the support of the Church's faith, but the work was no longer done by slavish citations of the Fathers, but by speculative reasoning. This change was brought about by the rise of free inquiry, over against which it became necessary to vindicate the faith. This method naturally resulted, when
applied to the interpretation of Scripture, in a renewed disearding of the literal sense and a fur ther extravagance of allegorizing.
But with the revival of learning in the third period, there came not only a new stimulus to the spirit of inquiry, but a new power to the work of interpretation—a power which showed itself especially in its opening up to the inter preter of the original languages of Scripture, particularly Hebrew, and thus bringing him face to face with the scholarly realities of its actual words. This naturally brought into prominence the literal sense, emphasizing its importance and increasing thus its influence upon other possible senses. The rule of faith was indeed still the object of Scripture study, but the service which this study rendered to it came now to be based more upon this primary meaning which the original language conveyed; and this in turn led to a weakening of the authority which the rule of faith exercised over interpretation itself. It. was, in fact, the beginning of a radical change in the underlying conception of the Church involved in the interpretative process.
(B) The Reformation Stage.
(1) The Protestant period, represented par ticularly by Luther, 1483-1546; Melanchthon, 1497.1560; and Calvin, 1509-64.
This change in the conception of the Church, begun in the previous period, attained its full issue as men of thought came more vitally to the consciousness that it was not the Church which was to decide what Scripture should teach, but Scripture which was to determine what should be taught in the Church. The growth of this consciousness was helped on the one side by the deepening conviction of the Chureh's intellectual and moral inability to handle Scripture, and on the other side by the increasing scholarly and religious respect for the Scriptures themselves. The characteristic of the Reformation interpreta tion was thus its fundamental principle of the sole authority of Scripture in the things of faith.
Along with this change in the conception of the Church went a change in the conception of the inspiration of the Scriptures. They were still held to be inspired, but not in any mechan ical or even verbal way. There was a unique qualification that Scripture writers were under stood to possess which separated them from all others, so that even the Apocrypha were no longer ou the sane level with the other books; but this qualification was not any magical power which rendered their words infallibly true. The Bible writers were simply illumined by the Spirit in their knowledge of spiritual things, being in the committing of that knowledge to writing. subject to the ordinary laws of the human mind. In fact, inspiration as a process was considered to be always present in the Church.