On Early Christian Exegesis

ON EARLY CHRISTIAN EXEGESIS
One of the liveliest issues in contemporary theological discussion has to

do with the exegesis of the earlier Fathers—more accurately, of the earlier
Christian writers. The bulk of significant contributions stems from French
and Belgian pens; the shock of the controversy is felt most keenly by Alex-
andrian exegetes, notably Clement and Origen; the field of discussion is the
doctrine of scriptural senses; and in practice the point of heaviest concentra-
tion is patristic theory and practice of the so-called spiritual sense of Scrip-
ture—the typology or allegorism of Christian antiquity.
However, the ultimate significance of this specific contribution will be
missed, unless one sets it in a broader frame of reference. The cataclysmic
events of a decade and more have served to sharpen in many minds the
fingering suspicion of a cleavage between Christian thought and Christian
life, between theology and spirituality. The realization has had its repercus-
sions in several fields of research, more obviously perhaps in the intensifica-
tion of the liturgical renascence, in the movement towards a more vital
contact with patristic thought, and in an effort to explore and exploit the
possibilities inherent in a more profound penetration of the bonds that link
the Old Testament with the New.
It is remarkable how intimately the problem of spiritual interpretation
is associated with much of the contemporary endeavor to endow liturgy,
patristics, and exegesis with actuality. The intimacy is readily illustrated.
On the one hand, the liturgy is a perpetual commentary on the mysteries
of Christ by Old Testament texts; on the other, since the Bible is little un-
derstood today in consequence of our having lost the sense of the spiritual
or liturgical interpretation, Louis Bouyer has undertaken to discover the
genuine meaning of spiritual exegesis and to distinguish it from its parasitic
forms.1 In the realm of hermeneutics it is his preoccupation with the Chris-
tian significance of history that occasions Richard Kehoe's suggestion that
the spiritual sense of Scripture is not to be equated with, restricted to, the
typical sense;2 that it is precisely in consequence of such equation that the
1
Louis Bouyer, "Liturgie et ex6gese spirituelle," La Maison-Dim, VII (1946), 27-50;
cf. pp. 30-31: "Spiritual exegesis, which is supposed by the whole liturgy, is an exegesis
dominated by two principles. The first principle is that the Bible is the Word of Go$, not
a dead word imprisoned in the past, but a living word addressed immediately to the
man of today taking part in the celebration of the liturgy. The second principle is that the
Old Testament is illuminated by the New, just as the New only discloses its profundity
once it is illumined by the Old. We must be still more specific: the bond between the two is
determined by allegory, in the precise sense given to that term by antiquity."
2
Richard Kehoe, "The Spiritual Sense of Scripture," Blackfriars, XXVII (1946),
78
EARLY CHRISTIAN EXEGESIS 79
spiritual sense has not been exploited to capacity. Finally, the problem that
is crucial in the contemporary concern with patristic exegesis is thus visual-
ized by Jean Danielou: "to recapture whatever fruitfulness the spiritual
hermeneutic of the Fathers had for giving the Old Testament the true
meaning which is its very own and which alone can make it a source of
nourishment for our souls, while transforming this interpretation by all
that the biblical science of the last century can bring to bear upon it." 3
With what justification these efforts are projected, or with what measure
of success, is not to our immediate purpose. The point made is that the cur-
rent search for the spiritual sense of Scripture—in its application to the
liturgy, in research on the Fathers, or as a problem in hermeneutics—is ap-
parently, even for its warmest protagonists, but one aspect, if ever so fun-
damental, of a wider, a total re-orientation of Christian life. It must be
situated within the framework of the Mystery of Christ. The skeletal body
has been constructed with rare felicity by Danielou in an illuminating article
on the symbolism of the baptismal rites:
The Christian faith has but one object: the mystery of Christ dead and risen.
But this one only mystery subsists under different modes. It is prefigured in the
Old Testament; it is realized historically in the life of Christ on earth; it is con-
tained by way of mystery in the sacraments; it is lived mystically in souls; it is
accomplished socially in the Church; it is consummated eschatologically in the
kingdom of heaven. Thus the Christian has at his disposal, for the expression of
that single reality, several registers, a symbolism of several dimensions. All Chris-
tian culture consists in grasping the bonds of union that exist between the Bible
and liturgy, between the Gospel and eschatology, between the mystical life and
the liturgy. The application of this method to Scripture is called spiritual exegesis.
Applied to the liturgy, it is called mystagogy; this latter consists in reading in the
rites the mystery of Christ and contemplating beneath the symbols the invisible
246-51; cf. p. 249: "If the Spiritual Sense is quite simply to be identified with the Typical
Sense, it is wholly comprised in certain brilliant moments of biblical history; it is limited to
these particular effects, however numerous they may be, of certain things standing out
from the surface of the Literal meaning like isolated monuments, or studding the pages of
Scripture like precious stones. Whereas it is rather as focal points in the history that they
should be seen, for they gather up, bring to a sort of liturgical expression, a meaning that is
at work in the whole movement of the Scriptures; and it is only in the strength of that
whole movement that they themselves are significant." I t is Fr. Kehoe's contention that
the realities in which the spiritual sense is contained are not to be sought exclusively in the
typical figures: " . . . the words of Scripture themselves go to form, or even alone provide
a Res Biblica" (p. 250).
8
Jean Danielou, "Revue des revues: autour de Pex6gese spirituelle," Dieu vivant, VIII
(1947), 124.
80 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES
reality. Its great masters have been a Cyril of Jerusalem or an Ambrose in an-
tiquity; nearer our own time, a Cabasilas or an Olier... .4
The present bulletin will deal with several of the more significant articles
(or sections of books) which have penetrated patristic exegesis within the
past few years.5 We shall (1) present substantially the content of these in-
vestigations, and (2) attempt a tentative evaluation.
i
This survey will find a convenient springboard in an article that is not
merely relevant but fundamental to the consideration of patristic exegesis,
i.e., Henri de Lubac's historical study of the word "allegory" in exegetical
usage.6 The investigation in question is launched with a quotation from
Danielou: "What is proper to the Alexandrians is not typology but allego-
rism."7 To Danielou, typology is specifically Christian, the common posses-
sion of all schools, sound and valid still for us; allegory is a legacy from
Philo, a cultural fact at best, today outdated. De Lubac finds the distinc-
tion, as understood by Danielou, clear and exact, and helpful in discrimi-
nating between the permanent and the perishable in the spiritual exegesis
4
Jean Danielou, "Le Symbolisme des rites baptismaux," Dieu vivant, I (1945), 17. The
article has been translated into German: "Die Symbolik des Taufritus," Liturgie und
Monchtum, Laacher Hefte, I I I (1949), 45-68. I t may be noted that the spiritual interpreta-
tion of Scripture is one of the means whereby Dieu vivant, through the collaboration of men
of different confessions, proposes to realize its aim—the reviviscence of religious thought,
the fathoming of Christ's doctrine, so as to permit us to struggle effectively in these apoca-
lyptic days against the Evil within us and without. Cf. "Liminaire," Dieu vivant, I (1945),
5-13; especially the plaint on p. 8: " . . . . does not contemporary criticism, even when it is
the work of Christian scholars, sometimes lose sight of the fact that, though there are
sacred writers, the principal author of Scripture is still the Holy Spirit? Cut off from the
totality of the symbolic and spiritual interpretation which a Bloy or a Claudel have re-
stored to honor by resurrecting the tradition of an Origen or an Augustine, the Bible ap-
pears most frequently as no more than a dogmatic or moral treatise, when it is something
far more living, far more elevated: the reflection of the invisible world and, as Bloy has
written, the 'very story of God.' "
5
Of definite import for this bulletin are several of the Introductions in the collection,
Sources chretiennes (Paris: Editions du Cerf; Lyon: Editions de l'Abeille, 1942 ff.): I (on
Gregory of Nyssa, by Jean Danielou), VII and XVI (on Origen, by Henri de Lubac), XIV
(on Hippolytus, by Gustave Bardy), and X I X (on Hilary, by Jean Paul Brisson). A con-
venient summary of their respective contents may be found in "Current Theology: Sources
chritiennes," THEOLOGICAL STUDIES, IX (1948), 252-55, 262-66, 278-82, 275-76, 287-89.
6
Henri de Lubac, " 'Typologie' et 'altegorisme,' " Recherches de science religieuse,
XXXIV (1947), 180-226.
7
Jean Danielou, "Travers6e de la mer rouge et bapteme aux premiers siecles," Recherches
de science religieuset XXXIII (1946), 416.
of the Fathers. But he believes it has the disadvantage of being formulated

from the very outset in a terminology neither scriptural nor truly tradi-
tional, with the consequent risk of confusing instead of clarifying the his-
torical problem in regard of this exegesis. Numerous errors or confusions
in this matter stem from the fact that words we now employ do not have for
us the same meaning they had for the ancients. This is true, he believes, of
the word "allegory."
The first exegetical use of the word "allegory" De Lubac discovers to be
probably not pagan, but almost simultaneously Jewish and Christian. It is
St. Paul who accredited the word in the vocabulary of Christian exegesis
(Gal. 4:24). He simply had to divert some word, whatever that word might
be, from its ordinary meaning, because he was confronted with a new idea,
profoundly original, which had no analogy either among the pagan Greeks
or even among the Jews. Small wonder, then, that the word won acceptance
in the language of Christian exegesis. "Type" or "figure" was equally
Pauline, but like most of its synonyms denoted little more than the first of
two correlative terms, the living link of which is allegory. Far from seeing
an habitual opposition between the two, we should rather say that allegorical
interpretation in its traditional conception consists in discerning the types
or figures which in Israel announced Christ—in all Israel, the whole Christ.
Allegory establishes the relation of the figure to the truth, of the letter to
the spirit, of the old to the new. De Lubac mentions other appellations,
"mystica interpretatio," "typica expositio," "tropologia," and many more.
He adds significantly:
But nowhere is there question of 'typology.' And the word which remains the
most frequent, the most constant, at least in the Latin tradition, is allegoria. There
it has the earmarks of a technical word. It serves to designate either (like the expres-
sions just mentioned) the ensemble of exegetical approaches which outstrip the
history or letter, or (more specifically) the properly typical sense in opposition
to the history on one hand, and on the other to those other aspects of the spiritual
sense which are in that case 'tropology' and 'anagogy.'8
In the Latin tradition—Fathers, medieval writers including St. Thomas
and St. Bonaventure, the Counter-Reformation, right down to the last
century—despite differing divisions and enumerations and arrangements of
scriptural senses, allegory is presented as the dogmatic sense par excellence,
the sense by which Scripture exposes, or the operation by which we dis-
cover in Scripture, "sacramenta Christi et Ecclesiae." Briefly, in the words
of St. Thomas, "secundum ergo quod ea quae sunt veteris legis significant
8
De Lubac, art. cit., p. 187.
B2 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES
ea quae sunt novae legis, est sensus allegoricus."9 The squeamishness in

regard of "allegory" is a thoroughly recent phenomenon.
For Origen, as for TertuUian, the Pauline filiation of "allegory" is certain
and direct. The allegory which he champions against the partisans of the
letter alone, Origen consciously borrows, "mot et chose,"10 from St. Paul.
What he owes to Philo is, together with the employment of certain tech-
niques and a tendency perhaps to extend the field of his exegesis, a certain
kind of "moral" or "tropological" explanation. His terminology, it is true,
is not unvarying. Thus, he speaks quite frequently of "mystical interpreta-
tion,"11 and even the word "allegory" assumes quite different acceptations.
In its principal meaning, however, which Origen receives from St. Paul
and by which he is inspired for the ensemble of his exegesis, allegory is es-
sentially what Danielou and others call (to oppose the two) typology.
Origen uses the term, as St. Thomas will, to designate either the spiritual
interpretation in its entirety or more precisely its first d-marche.
For all their merits, the Antiochenes have done much (in De Lubac's
mind) to obscure the question by an attack on Origen that sometimes wants
for objectivity. In reproaching Origen for his "allegory," they give us to
understand that it consists in denying the historical reality of biblical facts.
Nothing, De Lubac insists, could be farther from the truth.12 Diodore of
Tarsus and others prefer the word Oeoopia. De Lubac, however, sees no need
of opposing the two; it is because there is really in the Bible (as Paul and
Origen maintain) an allegorical sense that Diodore is authorized to discover
it therein by his theoria. Whatever may be true of genuine differences in
method and spirit between the two schools, "the two words which serve, so
to speak, as symbols for their two exegeses do not cover two totally antago-
nistic conceptions."13 They can, and often do, pass for synonyms. All the
definitions, as well as all the exegetical usages, of either one fit the other;
9 10
Sum. Theol, I, q. 1, a. 10. De Lubac, art. cit., p. 197.
11
De Lubac adds (ibid., p. 199) that "mystical" is here used by Origen, not as we are
accustomed to take it today, but in a perfectly objective and doctrinal sense; he notes
(ibid., n. 77) that this usage is not peculiar to Origen: "mystical" is the doublet either of
"allegorical," or of "spiritual" in its most general sense. It is the sense relative to the
"mystery," the sense therefore that contains the fulness of the doctrine. On this point it
would be profitable to consult Louis Bouyer, " 'Mystique.' Essai sur Phistoire d'un mot,"
Supplement de La Vie spirituelle, IX (15 mai 1949), 3-23. Cf. pp. 12-13: "Primarily mysti-
cal, for the Greek Fathers, is the whole divine reality which Christ brought us, which the
Gospel reveals to us, which gives to the whole of Scripture its deep and definitive sense."
12
A detailed, spirited defence of Origen in the matter of the literal sense of Scripture was
undertaken by De Lubac in his Introduction to Origene: Homilies sur la Gendse (Sources
chritiennes, VII), pp. 5-55.
13
moreover, their relation to TVTOS is identical. The difference arises primarily

from the fact that those who prefer theoria, systematically take allegoria in
a pejorative sense, to designate the interpretations or the system of interpre-
tation which they consider arbitrary on the other side of the fence. De Lu-
bac observes that the word favored by the Antiochenes is not the scriptural
word, but is borrowed from the Platonist tradition. It is familiar to Alexan-
dria as well as to Antioch; it is familiar to writers outside the pale of either.
The conclusion is obvious: we should no more quibble with the Antiochenes
for their verbal preferences than we should retain, from the historical angle,
the opposition which they invented. But we may well regret "that their ill-
willed and sometimes inexact critique of Alexandrian allegory compels such
frequent recognition from later ages, to the detriment of the most unques-
tionable facts."14
De Lubac is conscious of the disadvantages which clung to the word "al-
legory" right from the beginning, despite the authority of Paul. He recog-
nizes certain advantages in the word "typology," but notes the care we take
today to distinguish "typical sense" from "figurative or metaphorical
sense," the latter being classified as a literal sense, while the ordinary trans-
lation of TWOS is figura! Tropologia and theoria were no more specific than
allegoria. True, the Christian writers never succeeded in reserving allegoria
rigorously for its Pauline meaning. That is the first reason, De Lubac be-
lieves, why modern times felt the need of a new vocabulary. The ensemble
of tradition could have followed the doctrine and terminology of the Apostle.
Still, too many occasions offered for speaking of allegory not simply in facto
but also in verbis, not to result in some confusion. Some could not resist the
temptation to allegorize Scripture in the pagan sense, i.e., to deny the letter
so as to escape an embarrassing dogma. Then, too, allegory, in the sense of
symbol or enigma or parable, was sometimes a scriptural imperative. Thus
was introduced, under the one word, the confusion between typical sense
and figurative literal sense or metaphorical sense, which would be more or
less perpetuated till the time of St. Thomas. These imprecisions and confu-
sions came to be somewhat systematized in texts (Junilius, for example)
whose whole object was to define, distinguish, arrange, and clarify, so that
allegory gradually lost its proper Christian originality, its realistic and pro-
phetic character. Today allegory evokes an unreality contrary to faith,
joined to a scorn for scientific history that is shocking to us; its varied asso-
ciations, e.g., with the parable in the same genus, help to make still more
suspect an allegory in which we see hardly more than a technique applied
by force to the least details of Scripture.
14
Ibid., p. 208.
De Lubac does not ask a return to the primitive Christian usage of the
word, fixed though it was by theology's Golden Age. He can appreciate agi-
tation to discard it. But he believes it useful to draw attention to that usage,
if we are to dispel ambiguities and correct errors of interpretation which are
of almost daily occurrence.15
II
In the same number of Recherches, happily enough, Jacques Guillet, S.J.,
sets himself the task of discovering how much real opposition lay between the
Alexandrian and the Antiochene approaches to Scripture, between allegoria
and theoria.16 The exegetes of the two schools were themselves persuaded
of a deep-seated discord, a fundamental contradiction in their respective
approaches. At Antioch the object was to find in the text its most obvious
meaning; at Caesarea or Alexandria the search was for figures of Christ.
And so Antioch accused allegory of destroying the historical value of the
Bible, of travestying historical truth into mythological fable; Alexandria
dubbed "carnal" all who clung to the letter. To delimit the precise extent of
the conflict, however, it is the inner mind of the two exegeses that we must
recapture—not merely opposing formulae, but the deep-rooted tendencies,
the unconscious or unuttered presuppositions. But to fathom mentalities,
Guillet is aware, the polemical texts are less suggestive than the com-
mentaries.
In the first part of his study (pp. 260-71) Guillet observes the two exe-
getical methods in action. The representatives selected are Origen and
Theodore of Mopsuestia. They are faced with the same text, made to com-
ment on the same Psalm 3. In consequence of this confrontation Guillet is
able to establish the points of contact, the basic agreements (pp. 272-74).
Both schools see in the history of the Hebrew people a preparation for the
18
In his closing section (pp. 219-26) De Lubac notes that, if we adopt provisionally
the terminology proposed by Danielou, there are still two observations in order before
his explanations become perfectly acceptable. The first, briefly, is this: while Danielou is
primarily sensible of the contamination of typological exegesis in Origen by Philonian al-
legorism, De Lubac is primarily appreciative of the fact that Origen's allegorism is
predominantly typological, i.e., his specifically spiritual sense, related to the anima in
Ecclesia, interiorizes the Christian mystery according to the very law of that mystery.
De Lubac concedes that the influence of Philo on Origen's thought is considerable,
but denies that it affects the traditional structure of that thought. In his second observa-
tion De Lubac disagrees with Danielou on the reason why Origen often passes lightly over
the typology to focus his time and attention on allegory; the details of the disagreement
need not concern us here.
16
Jacques Guillet, "Les Exegeses d'Alexandrie et d'Antiqch. Conflit ou malentendu?",
Recherches de science religieuse, XXXIV (1947), 257-302.
Incarnation. The Old Testament, authentic memorial of that history, is no

longer merely the book of the Jewish religion, but reveals itself filled with
Him whose advent it announced. We cannot neglect either the historical
reality of the biblical data or the new import which they assume with the
Gospel. Even the Antiochene exegetes find in the Old Testament typical
figures of the Savior, but what they are looking for is a position halfway
between allegorism and Judaism; the passages where they find Christ are
the traditional texts. Between the two schools there is no absolute opposi-
tion; there is even very broad agreement on an entire traditional exegesis;
but there is special emphasis on different points of view. Of Old Testament
typism Antioch retains the prophetic aspect, Alexandria preserves the sym-
bolic aspect and the spiritual content. For Antioch the dominant fact of
bible history is prophetism; Alexandria finds in sheer prophetism insufficient
nourishment for Christian reflection and spiritual life. Symbolism and
prophetism are not mutually exclusive; but the points of view are different
enough to set the two exegeses on paths far apart, so much so that at times
they give the impression of being actually antagonistic. Guillet proceeds to
measure the distance that separates them.
First the Antiochene viewpoint—the prophetic aspect of typism (pp.
275-86). The fundamental principle is, "There is not always question of
Christ, but sometimes there is." Typism exists only where there is a marked
resemblance. Where the analogies are clear, Christ is designated. In the Old
Testament, therefore, Christ is designated only by way of exception. Never-
theless He is prepared for everywhere, thanks to the prophecies. Even when
they do not concern Him directly, and generally they do not, their object is
always to prepare His coming by strengthening the faith of the people.
For Antioch, almost all the Old Testament books are prophecies. From
her beginnings Israel heard prophets, saw their predictions fulfilled. It was
for her the irrefutable proof that God had His designs upon her and would
realize them. The idea, common to many Fathers and particularly precious
to Irenaeus, that Israel's history shows God working out man's salvation
from the world's earliest hours, is for Theodore less a providential mystery
than an unanswerable argument. This proof is not reduced to a rational
demonstration. Theodore rejects many prophecies (e.g., that of Micheas on
Bethlehem) traditionally recognized as directly messianic, not because he
refuses to read Christ therein, but because for him most of the messianic
prophecies are indirect. They were not perceived by the prophet himself as
envisioning the Messias, and for Theodore the first rule of exegesis is to
determine what the writer wanted and thought.17
17
As Guillet observes {ibid., p. 279), the School of Antioch accepted the typisms conse-
The privileged types, Antioch's real concern, are the indirect prophecies,
where the expressions of the prophet obviously outstrip the event he has
directly predicted. This concern to set in relief the "hyperbolical" expres-
sions in the Old Testament prophecies is one of the characteristics common
to Antiochene exegetes:
In this regard they put their best critical sense at the service of their faith. Re-
solved not to exceed the literal sense of the texts, particularly if they were pro-
phetic, for fear of dulling their edge, yet convinced that the whole of Scripture in
the last analysis designated the Lord, they made it their business to set in relief
the prophecies which Jewish history had but half realized, and these are the texts
that opened for them the way to spiritual interpretation.18
Guillet proceeds to expose the attempts of Antiochene exegetes, e.g.,
Julian of Eclanum, to explain the prophetic fact. He shows Theodore's dis-
satisfaction with the facile solution, which is limited to supposing in the
prophet what we can discover in his text after the Incarnation; thus he at-
tacked a position entrenched in Antioch. But Theodore's own solution,
Guillet must confess, is not radically different; it could scarcely be that.
Faithful to the Antiochene principle which refuses to read in Scripture what
the writer has not dreamt of putting there, and led by his logic to see a
prophecy in the type, he had to find in the prophet a certain consciousness
of the background which gives a typical value to his oracle, an import more
remote than the epoch he visualizes directly. Of this ulterior significance, of
this typical sense of his message, the prophet had only "a very obscure
knowledge," but saw it sufficiently to burst forth in hyperbolical language
and permit us to discover there an authentic announcement of the Messias.
In this way Theodore escapes the difficulties and contradictions charged to
the solution of a Julian, while he maintains the real continuity between
Jewish history and the Incarnation: the prophets, without leaving their
own world and religion, without having seen Jesus, have still had presenti-
ments of His coming.
There is a certain narrowness in this analysis of prophetism. Too attached to its
apologetical aspect, too exclusively concerned with psychology, it ignores to excess
its internal aspect, the prophet's contact with God. It did formulate, especially
crated by tradition. The classic definition of type formulated by Chrysostom, "a prophecy
expressed by facts," while it consecrated the importance of the type by classifying it with
prophecy, also explains Antioch's severity in regard of Origen's innumerable types: the
value of the type lies in its being a kind of prophecy, and so it should evidence the action
of God; it should be demonstrative.
w/fa*.,p. 280.
in Theodore of Mopsuestia, several essential principles of the exegesis of prophet-

ism and came to define a method, still imperfect yet carefully considered, for study-
ing and understanding this phenomenon, which remains a capital feature of
Scripture.19
The Alexandrian viewpoint (pp. 286-97, "The Symbolic Aspect of Typ-
ism") is vastly different. For Origen prophecy is primarily not so much a
vision of the future as it is a spiritual experience; the prophet is primarily
one who sees the glory of the Word, the mystery of God. Origen's fundamen-
tal thought is this:
The history of the world, and the exceptional destiny of Israel as representative
of all humanity, have for unique center the revelation of Christ. Some privileged
souls—the patriarchs, the prophets, and, greatest of them all, Moses—have been
lifted high enough to contemplate the glory of the Lord and from that point of view
to encompass the unfolding of history. For Theodore the greatest figure of the
Old Testament was David, who had lived in advance the whole history of his
people; for Origen it is Moses, the man who has seen the glory of God.20
For one who has seen the Savior's glory, the world and history have
henceforth but one meaning—that which they assume in relation to Christ.
Proportions change, important events appear superficial, obscure deeds
become decisive. In such perspective the role of the prophet is not sheerly
that of the seer who announces the future; he transmits to his brethren
God's viewpoint on the world.21 The glory that he sees, however, he can
convey to his people only in figures, in symbols; and for Origen it is not
merely certain episodes that are typical, but every detail of Scripture; each
line is filled with mystery, and it is the exegete's task to discover the reality
of the Savior beneath the vesture of the letter. Their exegesis is essentially
investigation of figures and correspondences.
This perpetual symbolism makes Alexandrian exegesis fatally suspect
in Guillet's eyes, while the commentaries of Antioch seem to presage the
scientific spirit of modern times. Much of Alexandrian exegesis, he maintains,
is arbitrary; the influence of Philo prevented a candid distinction between
two antagonistic methods of "allegorizing," that of Philo and that of St.
Paul. In fact, the very principle of symbolism is debatable. The relationship
19 20
Ibid., p. 286. Ibid., p. 288.
21
With respect to the great religious figures of Israel, Moses for example, Guillet re-
marks that Origen failed to perceive a fundamental distinction: to possess does not mean
to be conscious of. The best one can say of these just men of Israel is that, "without having
in advance a clear revelation of Christ, without being properly conscious of the truths of
the Gospel, they were already in accord with it" {ibid., p. 289).
of the Old Testament to the New is not always felicitously expressed by

the symbol; exterior analogies are too strongly accentuated without de-
manding historical continuity.
Here, however, as Guillet is at pains to point out, we have a cultural fact,
imposed as imperiously on Antioch as on Alexandria. The Antiochenes play
the same game; they are merely more severe on its rules. Victim of the same
illusion as Alexandria, that of identifying type and resemblance, Antioch
is merely in danger of falling more coarsely, more grossly.
Though Origen lacks a conclusive criterion for the symbols he discovers,
it is rare that his interpretations are not suggestive. He has perceived that
typism is not sheer resemblance, but primarily a transposition; with the In-
carnation the Old Testament has found its authentic meaning, has been
literally transfigured. Origen's interpretations "can be false in themselves;
it is rare that they falsify the sense of Scripture."22 With his poetic sensibility
he feels keenly the mysterious harmony of the Bible; in its total continuity
he finds not simply a suggestive theme, but the sign of a divine unity, the
seal of the Spirit.
We must admit, however, that Origen's method is vitiated by a basic confu-
sion: verbal continuity does not signify historical continuity; identity of expression
does not mean identity of situation. . . . If the Old Testament changes meaning
with the Incarnation, it is not by becoming the Gospel, but by revealing how long
is the road along which Israel journeyed to Jesus and how impassable the distance
that separates them. Of this distance Origen was quite convinced, but he measured
it by the Judaism of his experience rather than by an accurate view of Hebrew
history. . .. This lack of historical sense, which weighs so heavily on all exegesis
down to the nineteenth century and which partially perverts in Origen the very
intelligence of religion, so intimately linked to history, renders precarious most of
the correspondences he discovers in Scripture.23
Still, Guillet would not have us misprize the idea that inspired the
method, an idea common to all exegetes and schools; for the unity of Scrip-
tural inspiration is basic to Christian exegesis, and there is no other way
of finding a Christian nourishment in the Old Testament than by situating
it in the line of the Gospel.
Guillens conclusions (pp. 297-302) are launched with an answer to the
fundamental problem of the article: must we set the two schools over against
one another?
On no point are they in real contradiction. However, important differences
separate them—differences of emphasis, but stoutly sustained. Both want to re-
22 23
Ibid., p. 293. Ibid., pp. 295-96.
capture in the Old Testament the mystery of the Savior. Antioch clings to what
seems to it indisputable, Alexandria to what gives deeper access to the mystery.
Antioch is more attentive to the physiognomy of each biblical scene and personage,
Alexandria considers primarily the meaning of the episodes and actors in the total
drama. Antioch's faith is founded on the announcement of Christ, Alexandria's is
fed on the Lord's presence. Antioch traces the history of God's activity, Alexandria
is eager to search out its nature.24
Both viewpoints can produce historians; for one family of historians inter-
prets an epoch or an experience in itself, while the other refers it to a grander
totality. The point is that neither school can afford to ignore the other.
What explains their mutual recriminations, their concrete conflict, "is un-
questionably the absence of clear formulae."25 Neither school succeeded in
formulating some indisputable principle, susceptible at once of justifying
allegorical interpretation and forestalling its aberrations. Is it possible to
emerge from the conflict today? Guillet believes that we can extract from
this confrontation of the two exegeses some principles capable of clarifying
the discussion and orientating towards a solution. We summarize simply
what is more pertinent to the present bulletin.
1) On the very nature of Christian exegesis, Origen's boldest formulae do
no more than express the Christian tradition, including that of Antioch:
the Old Testament in its entirety has formed Jesus Christ, and in its en-
tirety is it transfigured by His coming. The restrictions of Antioch ("some-
times, but not always") concern what the Old Testament says to us, not
what it is. (2) If the whole of Bible history tends to Christ, this relation is
direct designation only exceptionally; to prepare for the Incarnation is not
the same as to signify it. Against Alexandrian symbolism, which would find
the Savior's features in each line of Scripture, Antioch is right. Christ is
present in all the Old Testament, but at very different levels. (3) The prophe-
cies are privileged signs of God's activity, and as such demand a rigid
critique. Here again the one valid method is the Antiochene, applied with
the rigor of modern techniques. (4) The role of the enormous non-prophetic
material with respect to the Incarnation, poorly solved by both schools,
created their conflict: what are the criteria of authentic typism? (5) The
traditional criterion, resemblance as such, is not specific enough, and is sub-
ject to excessively subjective evaluations. (6) Against Antiochene theoria, the
fact remains that the type does not suppose consciousness of the resem-
blance; on the contrary, being prophecy by facts, the type is normally an
unconscious, unperceived prophecy. (7) It may be, however, that the cri-
terion of consciousness has a meaning here. Where it is possible to recapture
24 25
Ibid., p. 297. Ibid., p. 298.
a continuity of consciousness between the two Testaments, the transfigura-

tion of an experience, there we have an authentic type; where this con-
tinuity is lacking, the resemblance is worthless. (8) This continuity of con-
sciousness is to be discovered by determining and following across Scripture
its principal themes, those which form its frame.
This is not a strictly new method. The authentic spiritual sense of the biblical
texts... is not determined in some other way than is their literal sense, but by
widening their context to the total dimensions of Scripture, down to the last lines
of the New Testament. It is the literal interpretation itself which, to b e . . . fully
'theological,' to give their plenary sense to the pages it deciphers, perceives that
it should situate them in the current that sweeps the whole of Scripture unto the
mystery of Christ, and in that way surpass itself to become spiritual.26
m
In connection with Guillet's thoughtful treatment of Theodore, it will be
well to call attention to Msgr. Devreesse's recent study of the bishop of
Mopsuestia,27 primarily because of the chapter on Theodore's method of
exegesis.28 Inasmuch as the work in its totality has been the object of a de-
tailed description and evaluation in recent pages of this periodical,29 we
intend simply to cull from the chapter in question several observations
which may complement Guillet's own exposition.
Dealing with the Commentary on the Psalms (pp. 55-78), Devreesse
argues that there is something lacking in Theodore's approach—a consum-
mation. Theodore is convinced that there is no "change of person" in the
Psalms, no other terms save David and men. Devreesse asks: "The rigor
of his method, his attachment to the literal sense, his care to ferret out from
beginning to end the fantasies and evasions of the allegorical school—would
they prohibit him from considering, against all Christian tradition, that
Christ was the last link of the prophecy?"30 Certain passages of the Com-
mentary evoke an affirmative answer. Theodore does recognize that Ps.
15:10 had its full realization only in Christ, but it is the only instance of
"tropology" that he has retained. The other texts found on the lips of Christ
28
Ibid., p. 302.
27
Robert Devreesse, Essai sur TModore de Mopsueste (Studi e Testi, CXLI; Citta del
Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1948).
28
Chapitre II: "La MSthode d'exSgese" (pp. 53-93). After a brief introduction, this
chapter reproduces, save for some modifications or additions, "La M6thode ex6g6tique
de Theodore de Mopsueste," Revue Mblique, LIII (1946), 207-41.
29
Cf. John L. McKenzie, "A New Study of Theodore of Mopsuestia," THEOLOGICAL
STUDIES, X (1949), 394-408.
80
Devreesse, op, cit., p. 72.
or in the writings of the Apostle he treats differently. "Reacting openly

against a current opinion that the insertion of an extract of a Psalm in the
New Testament was enough to give that Psalm a prophetic character, he
maintained from one end of the Commentary to the other that the histori-
cal horizon of David did not go beyond . . . the period of the Maccabees
. . ."31 The use of the Psalms in the New Testament is by way of accommo-
dation. There are four exceptions: Pss. 2, 8, 44, 109; these Theodore inter-
prets (in Devreesse's distinction) not as properly messianic, in the sense of
referring to the blessedness prepared for the chosen people, but as referring
to the Incarnation and the Church.
The method of exegesis applied in the Commentary on the Minor Proph-
ets (pp. 78-93) is no different. Faithful to his principle that there is no per-
tinent exegesis which does not start from a solidly established text and re-
main conformed to historical data, he preoccupies himself unceasingly with
the circumstances of the prophecy. But the horizon has grown. David's
vision was limited to three critical moments of sacred history: the exile of
the ten tribes, the captivity, the Maccabean insurrection. The gaze of the
prophets does not come to rest until His features are formed who is the term
of the prophecy—Christ. But Theodore does not see Christ announced in
all the passages where his contemporaries (as well as exegetes before and
after) recognize Him; not, for example, in Mai. 3:2-4 ("Ecce v e n i t . . . " ) .
He remains faithful to his principle that there is no change of person. Nei-
ther a Psalm nor a prophecy is divided into compartments, this reserved
for Zorobabel, that for Christ. There is the shadow and the figure, i.e., the
Old Testament; and there is the truth and the accomplishment, i.e., Christ.
When, however, we pass to the level of Christian redemption, from the
Law to grace, Theodore finds that new methods of instruction are needed;
the shadows are insufficient, and we have the type. His canons of typology
are (1) resemblance between type and antitype; (2) utility for the persons
to whom the type was known; (3) profound feeling (faith and hope) that
the antitype will surpass the type. In consequence the number of types is
quite reduced.
Investigation and primacy of the literal sense, preliminary subjection of the
exegesis to a relevant reading of Scripture and to its strict data, these two princi-
ples which had guided Theodore in the Commentary on the Psalms, we have found
once more from the beginning to the end of his interpretation of the Minor Proph-
ets. A history, or rather an epoch, of God's solicitude for the chosen people from
the origins of kingship to the Maccabees, such was the framework of the revelation
made to David, first of the seers. With those who prolong him, the twelve Minor
81
Ibid., p. 73.
Prophets, the horizon is considerably enlarged and recedes; the successive stages
of Jewish history marked or reached by the Law, by David's oracles and the
prophets themselves, are but precursor shadows, 'hyperboles' prefiguring from
quite some distance the realization of the truth, i.e., Christ's coming. Still more,
over and above these anticipated representations—or better, across them—God
has manifested the final term of His solicitude for all humanity, has shown and as
it werefixedthe pattern or 'type' of our condition to come—the immortality which
the Redeemer has won for us.32
IV
Turning to the School of Alexandria, we find that Jean Danielou's recent
attempt to reunite the different facets of Origen's thought in a single vol-
ume,33 in a single personality, devotes its second section (pp. 135-98) to
"Origen and the Bible." A preliminary chapter studies his contribution to
the scientific study of the Bible, to textual criticism, biblical philology, and
the canon of Scripture. This is followed by the chapter of capital impor-
tance, dealing with Origen's typological interpretation of Scripture.34 Daniel-
ou's purpose is to discriminate in Origen's exegesis the echo of tradition and
the influence from without. Too often, he believes, have typology and alle-
gory been identified in him. The present chapter, therefore, has to do with
Origen's typology, his conception of the relations between the two Testa-
ments; here, Danielou insists, Origen is simply the representative of a tradi-
tion already met in Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria. A concluding
chapter will bare the features which his hermeneutic method owes to the
culture of his time.
The role of spiritual exegesis in Christianity's infancy is best seen from
its direct relationship to the most significant problem posed for the nascent
Church, i.e., the meaning to be given to the Old Testament. The problem
is posited again in Origen's time. He distinguishes three categories of false
interpretation: (1) that of the Jews, still awaiting the literal fulfilment of
the prophecies; (2) that of the Gnostics, likewise clinging to the literal sense
alone and consequently scandalized by much of the Old Testament; and
(3) "simple" Christians within the Church, rejecting spiritual interpreta-
tion and therefore harboring an idea of God unworthy of God. It is in func-
tion of these errors that Origen defines his position with respect to the Old
Testament. The Law, which did have its raison d'etre (this the Gnostics fail
& Ibid., p. 93.
33
Jean Danielou, Origene (Paris: La Table Ronde, 1948).
34
Livre II, Chapitre II: '^'Interpretation typologique" (pp. 145-74). Save for certain
introductory remarks, this chapter is identical with "L'Unite* des deux Testaments dans
Poeuvre d'Origene," Revue des sciences religieuses, XXII (1948), 27-56.
to realize), is now outdated, superseded (this the Jews fail to recognize).

With reference to the Gospel, the Law has a twofold aspect, one of prepara-
tion, the other of prefiguration. The Law is not to be depreciated; it is good,
it is a gnosis, it has its own glory; but a more brilliant glory, a superior
gnosis, has appeared, and so it is imperative to leave the Law and grasp the
Gospel.
All this Origen sees sanctioned by history; thus, the temple in Jerusalem
was destroyed when the true Temple appeared. So, too, has the Law disap-
peared; to its destruction has succeeded the reality which fulfils the figure.
In a magnificent passage on Josue, figure of the Gospel, succeeding to Moses,
figure of the Old Testament, we see the succession and the continuity of the
twin economies, all the newness of the Gospel and the oldness of the Law,
the resemblance between the spiritual realities of the New Testament and
the carnal realities of the Old.
Here again it is the whole tradition of the Church that Origen sums up and sys-
tematizes. Here we have typology on its profoundly traditional level, with its con-
tent of dogmatic reality, under that aspect which makes of it an essential part of
the Church's deposit. We recall that, at the outset of the De principiis, expounding
the belief of the Church before broaching his personal interpretations, Origen ranks
the spiritual sense in the content of faith: 'Then there is the doctrine that the
Scriptures were composed through the Spirit of God and that they have not only
that meaning which is obvious, but also another which is hidden from the majority
of readers. For the contents of Scripture are the outward forms of certain mysteries
and the images of divine things. On this point the entire Church is unanimous, that
while the whole law is spiritual, the inspired meaning is not recognized by all, but
only by those who are gifted with the grace of the Holy Spirit in the word of wis-
dom and knowledge.'35
Here we touch the heart, remarks Danielou, of the Christian mystery of

history, a plan where each further step surpasses while it prolongs the pre-
ceding; here alone history ceases to be the realm of brute fact and becomes
intelligible. The great movement of history gives the impression (as Otto
has pointed out) of a divine presence; but the progress of history is not with-
out anguish, for the old order must disappear if the new is to appear. We see
this problem of suffering in the Old Testament as God begins to detach His
people from the first and carnal economy; and Judaism is reluctant. "Ori-
gen's Jew before the wailing wall is humanity unwilling to break with its
35
Danielou, op.tit.,p. 153; cf. Origen, De principiis, I, praef., 8; my translation of this
passage is taken from G. W. Butterworth, Origen on First Principles (London: S.P.C.K.,
1936), p. 5.
childhood to reach full growth."36 Danielou follows Origen's theology of

history on its different levels of penetration; he shows how indestructibly
linked it is to symbolism, how to Origen the denial of the spiritual sense of
Scripture is equivalent to a denial of history, to an anachronism.
The understanding of Scripture is for Origen a grace of Christ; only he
who has the Spirit of Jesus can understand Scripture spiritually. "Here
again Origen is the heir of all tradition."37 The idea is expressed most strik-
ingly when Origen claims that no one can understand the Gospel of John
"unless he has rested on the breast of Jesus and received from Jesus Mary
for Mother."38
There we have the subjective aspect of typological exegesis—the interior
principle which communicates the spiritual understanding of Scripture is
Christ. Christ, however, is equally the object of this spiritual intelligence,
because in Scripture there is question only of Him. This is what justifies for
a Christian his use of the Old Testament; Christ can be sought therein, be-
cause He is actually to be found therein.
It is this that Origen has established in showing by way of the history that the
Old Testament was a prefiguration of Christ in the institutions and events of the
Law. Thus the spiritual interpretation rests on the very movement of the history;
it is simply the expression of the Old Testament's ordination to the New. This or-
dination, a fundamental Christian affirmation, has no meaning unless there are
correspondences of the one to the other. The spiritual sense is but the quest for
these correspondences.39
With this Danielou reaches a final problem, that of the different spiritual
senses in Scripture. Radically, he observes, there are no more than two
senses of Scripture, the literal sense and the Christie; but this Christie sense
unfolds under as many aspects as Christ Himself presents:
As a matter of fact He can be considered either in His historical person and in
the events of the Gospel, or in His hidden life in the 'sacraments' of the Church
which is His body, or in His eschatological parousia and His glorious reign. More-
over, these three great adventus, to speak as St. Augustine does, themselves present
different aspects. The historical Christ can be considered in the external actions
of His earthly life or in the spiritual content of His mysteries; the mystical Christ
in His turn can be considered in His collective reality which is the whole Church
or in each of the members of that Church who ought to 'put on* Christ.40
These different traditional senses, Danielou insists, are all to be found in
the Church before Origen; they are already in St. Paul. Each author em-
36 n
Danielou, op. cit., p. 155. Ibid., p. 161.
88
Origen, Comm. in Jo., I, 4. * Danielou, op. cit., p. 163.
40
IIM., p. 164.
phasizes one or another according to his personal tendencies. From the very
beginning, before the schools of Alexandria and Antioch, we can discern
several exegetical currents: (1) A first tendency, with its remote origins in
Matthew, tries primarily to find analogies in the Old Testament with the
events of Our Lord's life; its principal representative is Hippolytus of Rome
and it will remain dear to Western exegesis. (2) In a line more Johannine,
Justin sees in the Old Testament primarily figures of the "sacraments" of
the Church; this is the origin of the mystagogical exegesis which will play a
prominent part in traditional catechesis. (3) Irenaeus, in dependence on the
Jewish tradition to which he is linked through Papias and the presbyters,
will insist above all on eschatological exegesis. (4) Clement of Alexandria
prefers to show in the Old Testament the figure of Christ in each of His
members; this is the sense most properly mystical which will remain beloved
of the Alexandrian tradition.
Danielou discovers these different traditional senses in Origen; still, Ori-
gen has his preferences. He seems hostile to the "Matthaean" interpreta-
tion, rarely uses it, and distinctly takes issue with it in a passage on the
exegesis of the paschal lamb; what he specifically disdains are the sheerly
external correspondences. His predilection is for the sense within, in line
with the prevalent character of his thought:
Just as in the realm of worship he emphasizes the spirit rather than the rites,
so here he lays greater stress on the inner meaning of thefiguresthan on their ec-
clesiastical sense.41 We have here the distinguishing mark of Alexandrian exegesis,
the feature that will later set it over against the exegesis of Antioch. Both are
equally typological; they are not opposed . . . as literal and allegorical; but in this
typological and no less Christological exegesis the Antiochenes accent the sacra-
mentary aspect of the catechetical tradition, the Alexandrians the mystical aspect
of the spiritual tradition. Both are equally traditional. And just as in the realm of
worship Origen's spiritual tendency implied no denial of the external rites but
merely some measure of depreciation, so here it involves no denial of sacramentary
typology. Origen simply will not stop there; he is always in too much of a hurry
to come to the spiritual meaning and the nourishment of the soul.42
Danielou proceeds to sum up the characteristics of Origenist typology.

(1) It is predominantly spiritual and interior. (As yet there is no question
of moral allegorism in the fashion of Philo, but of a traditional and legiti-
mate aspect of typology.) (2) Origen is the first to have gathered up the
different forms of typology and ordered them in methodical sequence; no
41
"Ecclesiastical sense," I admit, is vague and possibly misleading; but Danielou's
"sens ecctesial" is difficult to turn. I shall return briefly to the question of Dani61ou,s ter-
minology in myfinalsummary.
42
Danielou, op. cit., p. 166.
question of innovation here, only of systematization. Origen set up a doc-

trine of scriptural senses according to the principal aspects of the total
Christ: Christie, ecclesiastical, mystic, eschatological. (3) The New Testa-
ment, in its turn, is a figure of the kingdom to come; thus baptism is at the
same time the realization of the figures of the Old Testament and itself
the figure of the eschatological baptism of the resurrection. This is a new
dimension in the Origenist perspective of history; history is not merely the
relation of the Old Testament to the New, but also the relation of the New
Testament to the Eternal Gospel.
The concluding chapter in the biblical section of Danielou's Origtne
deals with the non-Christian exegetical traditions to be found in Origen's
work.43 The author has discovered traces not only of the catechetical tradi-
tion just described, but also of a Gnostic and a Jewish exegesis, which hark
back to three principal schools, rabbinical, Philonian, and Gnostic. From all
these Origen drew useful elements, but in this way too were introduced into
his work the perishable elements ascribable to contemporary culture and
generally known as his "allegorism." Once more Danielou insists that ty-
pology and allegory are two entirely different aspects of Origen's thought.
The influence of rabbinical exegesis on Origen was quite limited; not so
the influence of Philo. Danielou describes five points of contact. The first
principle borrowed from Philo is this: since Scripture is divine, its meaning
should always be worthy of God and useful for man; consequently, whenever
Scripture presents something impossible, absurd, or sinful, we must seek
another sense than the literal. Danielou reminds us, after Prat, (1) that the
principle is susceptible of a perfectly legitimate acceptation, i.e., the proper
sense must be abandoned if the result would be something impossible, ab-
surd, or false; and (2) that in Origen the literal sense is limited to the proper
sense. The principle is therefore applicable to all cases, and to those cases
alone, where the literal sense is figurative. In Origen's exegesis it is not the
principle but its application that is debatable. Actually, however, he does
use symbolic interpretation at times as an easy escape from embarrass-
ments occasioned by the proper literal sense, e.g., apparently impossible
prescriptions such as, "Greet no one on the way" (Luke 10:4). Finally, the
principle becomes completely contestable when there is question of suppress-
ing the scandal of certain Old Testament accounts, e.g., the incest of Lot,
or simply insignificant features, e.g., Christ's entry into Jerusalem seated
upon an ass, or commandments presumably unworthy of God. Nevertheless,
even in these instances Origen does not always deny their historical reality.
With respect to Origen's affirmation that in Scripture "all has a spiritual
^Livre II, Chapitre III: "Les Traditions ex6g6tiques non-chretiennes" (pp. 175-98).
meaning, but not everything has a literal meaning,"44 Danielou remarks

pertinently:
As a matter of fact, in his thought only those passages have a literal sense which
are to be taken in the proper sense. On the other hand, a spiritual sense, in his
vocabulary, is had in the first place by all the passages of Scripture whose literal
sense is figurative, all the parables, all the passages whose interpretation is alle-
gorical in the very intention of the author, e.g., the Canticle of Canticles or the
beginning of Genesis; and Origen extends this, by reason of the difficulties they
present, to many passages whose literal sense is obviously proper; and, at the same
time (and here we have his personal conception), he extends it to all the passages
which have both a proper literal sense (not literal in the modern sense of the word)
and a figurative sense... .45
This leads Danielou to the second principle of Philonian exegesis: all the
passages of Scripture have a figurative sense. This principle is foreign to the
primitive Christian conception, according to which the number of typical
passages is limited. But, for Origen too, all scriptural passages without ex-
ception have a spiritual sense, and only human weakness prevents its dis-
covery. "We have here the point of departure for all the exaggerations of
medieval allegorism."46
There is a third dependence on Philo in certain techniques of symbolism,
e.g., with respect to numbers. Here, too, an authentic symbolism clashes
with an interpolated, the latter a current of contemporary culture. All too
often, Danielou complains, we pass a single judgment on the whole symbol-
ism, instead of unravelling the tangled threads to distinguish the habitual
intention of an authentic typology from the perishable cultural contribution.
Fourthly, Origen borrowed from Philo the idea of seeking in Scripture an
allegory of man's moral life, e.g., all creation as an allegory of the soul, the
macrocosm-microcosm concept. Once more Danielou insists that we dis-
tinguish the permanent and the perishable:
The mystical sense of the Old Testament is a legitimate sense, a sense which falls
into typology. It is the genius of Origen to have been the first to develop it. But,
to do so, he made frequent use of Philo's moral allegory, so that the mystical sense
blended with artificial cultural elements. Origen was able to transform this moral
interpretation into something quite different. It helped him at times to fathom
the mystical sense. Separated from the latter, however, it is absolutely unaccept-
able.47
44 46
Origen, De principiis, IV, 3, 5. Dani&ou, op.tit.,p. 182.
46 47
Ibid., p. 184. Ibid., p. 186.
A fifth and final feature from Philo: the doctrine of the three senses of
Scripture (historical, mystical, moral), corresponding to the three parts of
man (body, soul, spirit) and the three degrees of perfection. The mystical
sense gives the collective and universal meaning of the mystery; the moral
sense gives its interior and individual meaning. Danielou grants that such
an interpretation may well be authentic, seeing that the moral sense in
question is not just any moralism whatsoever, but the mystery of Christ in
its inner aspect. Nevertheless, the classification itself is entirely determined
by spiritual conceptions inherited from Philo; these three senses do not con-
stitute an exegetically legitimate hierarchy. "If any hierarchy is legitimate
exegetically, it is that of the literal sense, the ecclesiastical sense (collective
or individual), and the eschatological sense."48 Here Origen distorts his own
systematization of scriptural senses; in fact, he himself finds it impossible
to be consistent in his use of the Philonian division. Danielou's conclusion
is that we must "reject as artificial the theoretical classification of the three
senses which will weigh so heavily on the future, and abide by the traditional
contrast of literal sense and typological sense, this latter comprising multiple
aspects, corresponding to the different aspects of the total Christ."49
With respect to the Gnostic influence, Danielou discovers in Origen a
method of exegesis extraordinarily similar to that of Heracleon: the tem-
poral events of the Gospel are sometimes seen as images of events accom-
plished in the spirit world. This exegesis holds a prominent place in the work
of Origen; it represents for him the most hidden sense of Scripture. Danielou
finds it the most disconcerting element of his exegesis, because it is by means
of this method that Origen discovers in Scripture his whole theological sys-
tem on its most questionable level. Thus, the events of Jewish history, in-
stead of being the prefiguration of a heavenly history to come, are the
image, the reflection, and the result of a heavenly history that is past. All
the more reason for renouncing any idea of unifying Origen's hermeneutic;
the thing to do is to distinguish between the authentic and the alien.
v
In another provocative piece of research Danielou broadens the field of
his investigation to trace the different senses of Scripture in the Christian
authors of the first three centuries.60 He insists that the patristic tradition
is unanimous in seeing no more than two scriptural senses strictly speaking,
the literal and the Christological. With respect to the Christological or
48 49
Ibid., p. 189. /ta*.,p. 190.
60
J. Danielou, "Les Divers sens de TEcriture dans la tradition chrStienne primitive,"
Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses, XXIV (1948), 119-26.
typological sense:
The great patristic affirmation is that this sense has Christ for its object. The
personages, the events, the institutions of the Old Testament have first of all a
proper historical reality which is their literal sense, and secondly they are a certain
prefiguration of that which Christ realized at the end of time. Thus across the
whole of the Old Testament one figure is fashioned little by little with a variety
of features, so much so that when Christ comes He will simply have to say, 'Ego
sum.' The difference between the Old Testament and the New is the difference be-
tween Christ represented and Christ present.51
But it is the whole Christ that is the object of the typological sense; in
this fact the diversity of scriptural senses is rooted. Christ is frankly riches
unfathomable, and it is the totality of His mystery that the Old Testament
prefigures. There will be as many senses of Scripture as there are aspects to
the mystery of Christ; the classifications will be artificial, but the criterion
remains certain.52 Danielou's aim is to disengage the senses which are actu-
ally found in the early Christian writers and which correspond to the differ-
ent aspects of the total Christ.
1) One method is to take the earthly life of Christ and show how the
circumstances of that life are already indicated in the Old Testament. St.
Matthew is the first to do it, and Danielou styles this exegesis "Matthaean."
He does not find it in Paul, but traces the subsequent tradition in Justin,
Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Gregory of Elvira. From these names he con-
cludes that the tradition in question is purely Occidental; it appears that
we are in the presence of a genuine school. In consequence Danielou fashions
a criterion for discerning the provenance of a text: if the exegesis is Mat-
thaean, it has probably come from the West. There is confirmation of this
in the fact that Origen (against Hippolytus, in all probability) takes a per-
sonal stand against this exegesis; for him, the historical realities are not
figures of other historical realities. Here different typological senses are in
process of formation which have no connection with the Alexandrian-Antio-
chene conflict.
2) Then there is Origen's "spiritual" exegesis, where the external circum-
stances of the Old Testament represent the spiritual (but historical in our
modern sense) realities of the New. Again Christ is represented, but not in
the outward aspects of His life on earth, rather in the mysteries He came
61
Ibid., p. 120.
52
Danielou notes {ibid., p. 121) that error in this connection has its origin in the desire
to begin with an aprioristic conception and in consequence to thrust that theory on the
facts. Such is Origen's mistake; yet he is the first to disregard such a classification in prac-
tice, and here his practice is of more value than his theory.
to accomplish. This exegesis, Danielou asserts, is by far the most basic and
secure, because we are confronted not by exterior analogies but by the fun-
damental realities of the Old Testament representing the essential realities
of the New. Then, too, this exegesis is the one most firmly grounded in the
Gospels. Here, Danielou believes, we are at typology's rock-bottom, where
it really and truly constitutes biblical theology, i.e., where it supplies us
with the categories according to which we ought to think the fact of Christ.
Here we find the significance of the Old Law for us. This type of exegesis is
found everywhere in the Fathers; it is impossible to indicate a particular
current. Tertullian or Irenaeus, Origen or Hippolytus, Hilary or Gregory of
Nazianzus—the mysteries of Christ are the essential object of their exegeti-
cal research.
3) The whole Christ is head and members. Under this aspect the Old
Testament primarily represents the Church in her sacramental life. This
"sacramentary" exegesis is essentially "Johannine." The episodes of Christ's
life reported by St. John are in great measure figures of the sacraments, of
the Eucharist and baptism. But these episodes in turn stand out conspicu-
ously on a background which is that of Exodus with its great "sacraments,"
the paschal lamb, the manna, and the living water. John's Gospel is a
paschal catechism where the paschal mystery is unfolded on three levels of
profundity: represented in the Old Testament, realized in the New, com-
municated by the sacraments. Danielou finds this typology one of the oldest
in the early Church, traditional, with different elements in different writers;
it is most in evidence in the sacramental catecheses of an Ambrose or a Cyril
of Jerusalem, and will be particularly dear to the School of Antioch.
4) Origen, hostile to historical typology, precious witness to sacramental
typology, insists still more on "spiritual exegesis in the proper sense of the
term." Here there is question of Christ in the individual soul, in each indi-
vidual member. The realities of the Old Testament become the figures of
the spiritual life of the Christian insofar as he realizes in himself the mys-
tery of Christ. This exegesis finds its authority in Paul and is present in all
the Fathers, but predilection for it is what fundamentally characterizes the
School of Alexandria. At once spiritual and Christological, it has been con-
taminated in Clement and Origen by Philo's exegesis, which sees in Old
Testament realities symbols of spiritual realities, but without any reference
of course to the mystery of Christ. In its substance, however, Danielou
believes this exegesis authentically typological; across its deformations it
represents an essential aspect of tradition.
5) Finally, "eschatological" exegesis: Christ considered in His glorious
manifestation at the end of time; a legitimate development, despite the
millenarian influence of Palestinian exegesis. It has its point of departure in

the Gospel, especially the eschatological discourse, and in the Apocalypse.
It appears in different themes of the Old Testament, e.g., the deluge, but
primarily in the symbolism of the Sabbath, representing the eternal ana-
pausis.
The development of the different forms of typology is therefore seen by
Danielou as spontaneous and natural; the classification is posterior and gives
the impression of artificiality. Origen seems to have been the first to think
of expounding the different senses successively. Unfortunately he tried to
fit them into a framework (body, soul, spirit) borrowed from Hellenistic
thought; the senses did not fit; and Origen was the first to get lost. It seems
to Danielou that "it would clear the ground to return to the simple distinc-
tion of two senses which was that of the Fathers, without concern for a
tripartism which only creates confusion."53
VI
At this point I should like to call attention briefly to an attempt made
several years ago by Claude Mondesert to classify the different scriptural
senses in Clement of Alexandria.54 A patient inquiry across all the works of
Clement suggested the following conclusions and a classification which would
at least put order into the sheer facts.
Clement's exegesis, Mondesert explains, supposes a fundamental division
of two senses, a first and a second; and Clement mentions the division ex-
pressly under one form or another.55 This division is based on the relation
which the sense bears to the letter. In the case of metaphorical, symbolic,
parabolic, or allegorical language (in the strictly literary sense of these
words) we of today would call the figurative sense (that precisely which the
human author intends) the first sense of Scripture; but Clement regards this
as symbolic interpretation, spiritual or second sense. On the other hand,
that which permits passage from first to second sense is the more or less
evident analogy between the image or idea of the text and the reality envis-
aged as second sense. The analogies can be of all orders, sensible, intellectual,
or even sentimental, of the natural realm or the religious. At times they are
63
Ibid., p. 126.
54
Claude Mondesert, CUment d'Alexandrie: Introduction d Vitude de sa pensSe religieuse
d partir de VEcriture (Thiologie, IV; Paris: Aubier, 1944); cf. Deuxieme partie: "Le Mys-
tere et la clef de l'Ecriture" (pp. 63-183); Chapitre VIII: "Les divers sens de l'Ecriture
chez Clement. Essai de classement" (pp. 153-62).
56
Th. Camelot has noted ("C16ment d'Alexandrie et PEcriture," Revue biblique, LIII
[1946], 246, n. 1) that the distinction of first and second sense is not found expressly formu-
lated in Clement, and that MondSsert's references could well be misleading on this point.
so obscure as to be sheerly fanciful; and here we have the abuse of the

method.
From the viewpoint of the interpreter of Scripture, interested in such and
such an object signified by it, in such and such a category of realities sug-
gested by the words, Mondesert classifies as follows the senses offered by
Clement's exegesis: historical, doctrinal, prophetic, philosophical, and mys-
tical. (1) The historical sense is that of the facts as such, be they social,
religious, political, or aught else; thus, the prophets do not relate merely
God's word, b u t sometimes the word of the people, as when they murmur
against God. (2) The doctrinal sense is moral, religious, theological. (3) The
prophetic sense may be either messianic or merely religious. I t is messianic
if the prophecy concerns Christ or the Messias, and then in either of two
ways: either in a text strictly prophetic and given as such, with consequently
only one sense possible, i.e., the first sense, the prophetic sense; or in a text
that already has a first sense, such as the historical, but admits of a figure,
a "type," a symbol of Christ to come. The prophetic sense is religious if the
prophecy of the Old Testament concerns simply the religion of the New
in some one of its aspects (Church, sacraments, etc.). (4) The philosophical
sense is either cosmic or psychological, according as the allegorical interpre-
tation understands the sacred text of a reality of the physical world or of
the psychological order. Here Clement is least personal, inspired by Philo
or the Greek allegorists. (5) The mystical sense deals with the soul's rela-
tions with God in its progressive advance towards Him. Here Clement some-
times follows Philo, sometimes is original. 56
It is immediately evident that certain of the preceding senses can only be first
senses; thus the historical sense. The doctrinal sense, if it serves as argument for
theology, should likewise be only a first sense; but Clement, in this case, also uses
at times a second sense, usually corroborated, it is true, by an analogous first
sense. The messianic sense is a first sense more than once, but often it is also a sec-
ond sense. The other senses, philosophical and mystical, are second senses. Some-
times the boundary between two of these senses is vague, e.g., between the psycho-
logical sense and the mystical.57
86
Camelot believes (ibid., p. 245) that the classification proposed by Mond6sert seems
"to recapture exactly the usage which Clement makes of Scripture, though Clement no-
where exposes it with this precision." Camelot makes two suggestions (p. 246): first, that
the classification might perhaps be simplified, "by reducing, e.g., the prophetic sense to
the doctrinal sense, or the mystic sense now to the prophetic sense and again to the psycho-
logical sense"; above all, "we would ask him to tell us more explicitly still that there is
question here of the interpretation of Scripture, as Clement sees it, but not of the sense of
the sacred text...."
67
Mondesert, op. cit., pp. 161-62. The author makes mention (p. 162) of Clement's
vn
An engaging article by Pere de Lubac takes up the medieval distich rela-
tive to the senses of Scripture:
"Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria,
Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia."58
This doctrine of "four senses" played a significant role in the history of the-
ology. It inspired the rules to be followed in preaching, then determined the
different disciplines into which sacred science should be divided. De Lubac
proposes "to look still more closely into the meaning of this doctrine and to
express, as far as possible, its deep design."59
Among the exegetes of the twelfth century, "some [to quote C. Spicq60],
in the wake of Origen and St. Jerome, retain the trichotomy: history, mor-
ality or tropology, mysticism or allegory; others exploit the fourfold distinc-
tion of Cassian and Augustine, taken up again by Bede and Rabanus
Maurus: history, allegory, tropology, anagogy...." But the prime interest
of the distinction, according to De Lubac, does not reside in the numerical
difference, but in the place given in the enumeration to the second and third
terms respectively. Sometimes "morality" precedes "allegory," sometimes
it follows, even in one and the same author. The difference in order indicates,
at least in the beginning, two very different ways of understanding the moral
sense and consequently two very different "balances" with respect to the
doctrine of four senses.
In Augustine and Gregory the Great the history is followed immediately
by the typical sense; only then do we have the moral meaning. In Cassian
the three branches of the spiritual understanding are ordered as follows:
tropology, allegory, anagogy. Sometimes he inverts the first two; and we
are not sure in his commentary if the essential object of tropology is the
human soul in general or the specifically Christian soul, i.e., if tropology is
supposed to develop a natural morality and psychology or to offer a doc-
trine of the spiritual life based on revelation.
The fact is, as De Lubac points out, that Cassian depends on a mixed
use of the so-called "accommodated sense"; he also consecrates a chapter (pp. 163-83)
to Clement's use of Philo: "in the main, he owes him quite little" (p. 183) with respect to
the interpretation of Scripture.
58
Henri de Lubac, "Sur un vieux distique: la doctrine du 'quadruple sens,' " Milanges
ojferts au R. P. Ferdinand Cavallera (Toulouse: Bibliotheque de l'Institut Catholique,
1948), pp. 347-66.
69
Ibid., p. 348.
60
C. Spicq, Esquisse d'une histoire de Vexegese latine au moyen dge (Paris: Librairie
philosophique J. Vrin, 1944), pp. 98-99.
tradition whose principal initiator is Origen. Sometimes Origen draws from

the sacred text different moral reflections which have nothing specifically
Christian (what we call "allegorism"), before reading therein some allusion
to the mystery of Christ; sometimes it is only after the statement of this
mystery, and in dependence thereon, that he expounds his spiritual consid-
erations. At times, therefore, we find a kind of anatomy and physiology of
the soul, at times an asceticism and a mysticism of Christological and sac-
ramentary mien. In the latter case, relative in its entirety to the anima ere-
dentis, to the anima ecclesiastica, his exegesis is (for De Lubac) entirely
Christian in content and form; in the former case, his formal principle is
itself arbitrary, because it does not rest on any plausible datum of the bibli-
cal text or of revelation. It sacrifices to the mentality of a time and a milieu,
pays tribute to Philo, and rests on the analogy of the tripartite constitution
of man: body, soul, spirit. He is guided, too, by a pedagogic outlook which
sees the bulk of the faithful more susceptible of moral instruction than imme-
diate introduction to the depths of doctrine.
Despite the ambiguity of this exegetical doctrine throughout the Middle
Ages, the order of Augustine and Gregory is by far the more frequent. This
is what we find in our distich. Even in Origen this was dominant in practice,
and he "did nothing more than systematize, and write an ingenious score
for, a more ancient traditibn."61
Now for our distich. De Lubac begins with a rapid description. (1) Littera
gesta docet. Scripture first gives us actual facts, the story of God's interven-
tions in the history of humanity. This is the first thing to be learned, the
foundation of all the rest. (2) Quid credas allegoria. Here we have the doc-
trine, the very object of faith, the "mystery," the ensemble of truths con-
cerning Christ and His Church, prefigured everywhere in the Old Testament,
presented in the New. It is the medieval idea: "materia sacrae Scripturae
totus Christus est, caput et membra." (3) Moralis quid agas. Not just any
moral instruction, but that which flows from the dogma, from the mystery.
The whole Bible is then a mirror, where man learns to know himself with
his misery and his sin, and the perfection to which God destines and calls
him; in the facts of Scripture we find the inward drama of the soul. (4) Quo
tendas anagogia. This is the eschatological sense, that of the last things, the
celestial realities which are no longer the symbol of something else. The
classic, all-inclusive example is Jerusalem, which is (a) the historical city of
the Jews, (b) the Church, (c) the Christian soul, and (d) the heavenly Jeru-
salem, the Church triumphant.
Of these four senses, De Lubac insists, neither the number nor the order
81
(especially this latter) is a matter of indifference. He ranges through the

various medieval ideas that apparently demanded four scriptural senses
(e.g., the four rivers of Paradise) or three spiritual senses (e.g., the Trinity).
He admits that these are post factum symbols, mental gymnastics; but he
insists that the number and order are indispensable if we are to grasp the
master intuition. It is simply a question of constructing the whole edifice of
Christian thought, of extracting from the Bible the fulness of its "theology."
We must begin by recalling the biblical facts, because on these facts the
dogma rests; the moral application in its turn is based on the dogma; and
the realization of our last end supposes this dogma lived in the morality.
But there is here not merely a necessary dependence of one sense on the
other; there is a dynamic continuity. One sense begets the other. They are
not just parts of a whole; it is always the selfsame reality seen under its suc-
cessive aspects. The mystery is not only announced, prefigured, or vouched
for by the facts; the facts themselves are already pregnant with the mystery.
We do wrong, therefore, to oppose allegory to history; to the medieval mind
the allegory is still the history, no longer merely recorded but "understood."
In the same way the morality is not simply based on the dogma; it is the
dogma, but lived. It sets forth the mystery of Christ and of the Church inso-
far as this mystery is really reproduced in the soul and life of the faithful;
for Christ is interior to the Christian. Thus there is no true tropology save
by way of allegory, or, as we would say, no authentic spirituality which is not
an actuation of dogma; there is no mystery to believe which has not its
translation in the soul. Tropology thus understood will be the spiritual
sense par excellence. Finally, the consummation is not mere recompense;
it is the reality of the dogma, no longer simply interiorized and lived, but full-
blown and triumphant. Such is the essential datum of the distich: the mys-
tery of Christ, prefigured or made present in the facts, interiorized in the
individual soul, consummated in glory. That is why St. Thomas could say
that the four senses are "de necessitate Stripturae." 62 "By the doctrine
which systematizes them something eternal has been aimed at and at-
tained."63
De Lubac recognizes that the above is a reconstitution; he does not pre-
tend that each author studied is bearer of the full tradition; he is sensible
of the havoc that could be played with his presentation by presenting all
the authors in detail. But his aim has been, for fear of utter incomprehen-
sion, to cut across all that and "recapture the animating idea which alone
explains so lengthy and so vigorous a flowering."64
But, he asks, what relationship can such an idea claim with exegesis? The
82 M w
QuodL, VII, q. 6, a. 15. De Lubac, art. tit., p. 358. Ibid., p. 359.
first problem is, how believe that to each detail of Scripture, once the literal
sense has been established, there corresponds the triple stage of the other
senses? His answer is, such is not the mind of the ancient tradition, despite
excess in practice or even in theory. Augustine's metaphor, taken up again
and again in the sweep of the centuries, represents the common conception:
Scripture is full of Christ, yes; but Scripture is a harp, and though every-
thing in the harp contributes to the sound, still not everything sounds.65
Even Gregory the Great had merely claimed: "Et fit plerumque u t . . .
in una eademque sententia cuncta simul tria valeant inveniri."66
In that case, one retorts, the affirmations of the distich hold for some
texts, not for all. Undoubtedly, replies De Lubac. But he confesses to a
qualm in replying to the objection posited that way. It supposes the view-
point of the historian, who studies one text after another. But the believer's
vision is synthetic; the Bible is one book, and of this one book he says
globally: "Littera gesta docet. . . ." To him the Bible relates one history,
that of salvation; this history has one sense, the spiritual or mystical sense,
by turns allegorical, moral, anagogic. The individual "allegories" may be
quite subjective, but the principle which they try to bring out, the tremen-
dous "allegory" of Scripture—that is objective. De Lubac tries to show how,
in this perspective, the reproaches ("imperfect," "inexact") hurled at our
formula lose much, if not all, of their validity. He concludes that, all things
considered, the formula does not seem so poorly fashioned. It evidences "a
profound logic, which put a unity of principle into sacred science... ."67
De Lubac, very sensibly, does not propose a return to this tradition as a
guide for contemporary exegesis and theology. He grants that it knew too
long a vogue; perspectives have changed, for one thing; and the more the
formula was systematized, the more it tended to the absurd.
The formula offers no help, he continues, to the present day task of the
exegete. It did, however, preserve the exegete's rights for the time when he
could take flight. It even showed in principle the necessity for such work,
by putting the examination of the "letter" at the root of all else. It was fatal
only in the measure that exegesis, after having been the whole of theology,
became a scientific specialty, and was imprisoned almost exclusively in the
realm of the letter. The importance of the spiritual sense in its threefold
tenor has not diminished in the Church, but—inevitable result of speciali-
zation—it is for others, and according to other methods, to restore its value.
65
Cf. Augustine, Contra Faustum, XXII, 94 {PL, XLII, 463).
66
Gregory the Great, Bom. in Ezeck, I, 7,10 {PL, LXXVI, 844). Actually the "cuncta
simul tria" to which Gregory refers in this passage are "historia," "typica intelligentia,"
and "intelligentia contemplativa.,,
87
Theology has likewise broken the swaddling bands of biblical commen-

tary. The framework of the fourfold sense proved inadequate for the de-
mands of a discipline destined for so prodigious a development, and was
quickly rejected in practice. Still, beneath discontinuance of techniques con-
tinuity of spirit was assured. For St. Thomas, scientia theologica remained
essentially scientia Scripturae; he did not intend Scripture to serve as a
point of departure for the theologian, but to make the theologian's work
subserve the intelligence, always unfinished, of Scripture.
The method in question, then, is rudimentary and outdated; it led to
many abuses; but the formula which of old summed up exegesis and theology
together, and whose spirit St. Thomas inherited, can help us, De Lubac
believes, to rediscover the truth, once symbolized by extinguishing the
candles after the Gospel at Mass, that "nemo doctorum transcendere potest
verba sancti Evangelii."68
VIII
Space forbids more than a quick glance at several articles in which

Danielou shows primitive typology in action and traces individual "types"
through the early Christian tradition. Thus he takes up the privileged type
of the exodus from Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea,69 especially
prominent in the explanation given of baptism to the newly baptized. "Here
we are face to face with the central mystery of the two alliances, the two
great parallel interventions of Jahweh: the first, to free His people from the
yoke of Egypt, the second, to free humanity from the yoke of sin."70 The
evidence leads him to conclude that the typology of baptism is not something
personal to a teacher or a school, but contained in the official catechetical
teaching given by the Church and by the magisterium.71 In this article, too,
Danielou arrives at this definition of allegorical, as distinguished from typo-
logical, exegesis: "it consists in a development of the typological exegesis
in the way of a particular thesis. Under its aspect of something particular,
it is personal to its author; by its underlying typology, it bears witness to
the tradition of the Church."72 Here, too, he endeavors to show that "what
is proper to the Alexandrians is not typology but allegorism."73 He demon-
strates the presence of typology, even its ardent defence, in writers of other
schools, such as Basil and Chrysostom; he elaborates on the fact that the
68
Cf. ibid., p. 366.
69
Jean Danielou, "Traversed de la mer rouge et bapteme aux premiers siecles, "Re-
cherches de science religieuse, XXXIII (1946), 402-30.
7 71
° Ibid., pp. 402-3. Cf. ibid., p. 405.
72
Ibid., p. 416. ™ LOG. tit.
greatest Greek and Latin doctors, when they wish to justify the figurative
sense, appeal to the passage of the Red Sea as to one of the most eminent
figures of Christian tradition.74
Again, Danielou reveals how "the most ancient tradition of the Church
has seen in the theology of the deluge a figure of Christ and the Church."75
Here we find an episode of profound meaning, where some great biblical
categories appear: a judgment which strikes the whole human race which is
under sin; a just man who finds grace before God and is spared by Him to
become the first-born of a new humanity; and an alliance concluded with
this just man. In the first place, primitive typology sees in the theme of Noe
the redeemer-aspect of Christ. Secondly, primitive catechesis reveals in
baptism the realization of that which the deluge prefigured. "Christ, head
of the new humanity, withdraws from chastisement, by the sacrament of
the water and the wood, those who turn towards Him, and introduces them
into the repose of the eighth day."76 Finally, the water of the deluge, which
prefigures the baptism of water that destroys iniquity, is likewise figure of
the baptism of fire which is to destroy this world and manifest the glory of
the saints.
The results of Danielou's study of the millenarian typology of the Week
in primitive Christianity can best be summarized in his own words:77
While the Eastern tradition interpreted the biblical septenary in symbolic

fashion as a figure of the total duration of the world, over against which is set
the eternal eighth day, the Western tradition, more realistic and historical, con-
tinued to search in the biblical Week for a key to the succession of history's epochs.
We have seen that this interpretation of the Week, as representing the seven
millenia that constitute world history, had its origin in the pharisaic milieu of the
apocalypses. It is through contacts with these milieus by some of Christ's first
disciples . . . that the millenarist way of thinking became part of the mentality of
oldest Christianity. It is thus that wefindit in a Papias. Consequently it was par-
ticularly dear to the most traditionalist Christians, who saw therein a legacy of
primitive Christianity. It is thus that we have met it in an Irenaeus, a Hippolytus,
a Tertullian. It is remarkable that from the beginning it is the old Western mas-
ters—an Irenaeus at Lyons, a Justin or a Hippolytus at Rome—who represented
74
On the typology of baptism in early Christianity, cf. the doctoral thesis of Per Lund-
berg, La Typologie baptismale dans Vancienne Eglise (Uppsala and Leipzig, 1942); th
point of departure in this study is the early baptismal liturgy.
75
Jean Danielou, "Deluge, bapteme, jugement," Dim vivant, VIII (1947), 97-112;
cf. p. 97.
16
Ibid., p. 107.
77
J. Danielou, "La Typologie mille'nariste de la semaine dans le christianisme primitif ,?2
Vigiliae christianac, II (1948), 1-16.
this tradition. We can therefore consider that it constitutes the Western interpre-
tation of the symbolism of the Week as a religious interpretation of history, at
least until St. Augustine. St. Augustine will accept this conception in the begin-
ning; then, by dint of reflection, he will surpass it. Here he will mark a major
turning-point of Western thought, where it frees itself from a paralyzing archaism
and sets its sights towards an autonomous construction. The Middle Ages are
beginning.78
Danielou has also treated the episode of Rahab,79 venerable in the history
of typology by its antiquity. In Jewish speculation at the time of Christ the
two essential features of the episode are: (1) Rahab presented as the figure
of the pagans who are incorporated in the ecclesia, in the people of God; (2)
Rahab spared in the catastrophe that strikes Jericho. And these are the two
essential features which Christian typology will retain. It will see in Rahab
(1) the figure of the essential reality of the New Testament, i.e., the entry
of the pagan peoples into the true ecclesia, and (2) the necessity of belonging
to this ecclesia to escape the judgment of God. Danielou traces this typology
through the Western tradition represented by Clement of Rome, Justin,
and Irenaeus; he finds it almost totally absent from the Alexandrian tradi-
tion, save for Origen (in whom we first find "outside the Church no salva-
tion"); after Origen it is again the Western tradition that attaches itself
with predilection to the theme and makes of it one of the great scriptural
loci (thus Cyprian, Hilary, and Gregory of Elvira).
Finally, we would simply refer the reader to Danielou's discussion of the
Eucharistic typology of the biblical repast in the Fathers, and of the mysti-
cal typology of the biblical repast in the Alexandrian tradition.80
rx
A modest critique is in order. In evaluating recent research on early
Christian exegesis it is well to distinguish two problems, the one patristic or
historical, the other biblical or theological. The patristic problem: in what
measure has this research reproduced the thought of the primitive Church?
The biblical problem: granted this thought faithfully recaptured, what is
its validity for hermeneutics or biblical theology?
With respect to the purely historical contribution, research grows apace
and the end is not yet. It is the part of prudence, therefore, simply to indi-
cate with a few bold strokes that certain entrenched positions have been
78
Ibid., p. 16.
79
Jean Dani61ou, "Rahab,figurede l'Eglise," Mnikon, XXII (1949), 26-45.
80
Jean Dani61ou, "Les Repas de la Bible et leur signification," La Maison-Dieu, XVTII
(1949), 7-33.
stormed with gratifying success, some precisions of note have been achieved,
and obscurities remain. In consequence of contemporary investigation—
primarily that of De Lubac, however we may react to the fervor of his
apology—it would be unpardonable henceforward to tax Origen with being
no more than a "mad allegorist." I submit that we cannot ignore the dec-
laration of De Lubac that, "when you come right down to it, he denies the
letter in cases far less numerous than he himself seems to say, and almost
always in trifling points and nothing more."81 That the same conclusion is
valid for other Alexandrians awaits more detailed research on the same
scale.82
Secondly, it would appear that Guillet is correct in concluding that there
is no point on which Alexandrian exegesis and Antiochene are in real con-
tradiction; there is even broad agreement on an entire traditional exegesis;
but there is vigorous emphasis on different viewpoints.83
Thirdly, in the light of historical research (such as that of De Lubac)
into the origins and usage of the word "allegory," it is unjustifiable to quar-
rel with the Alexandrians for their use of the word or to be deceived into
reading modern meanings of the term into ancient exegesis. The meaning of
the word in each author must be studied; we should realize that it has a
legitimate, authorized origin in St. Paul; we can support the thesis that,
despite a certain amount of inconsistency, Origen uses "allegory" essentially,
as the Latin tradition in general and St. Thomas in particular, to designate
either the ensemble of exegetical approaches which outstrip the letter, or the
typical sense as contradistinguished from the historical sense on the one
hand and from the other spiritual senses (tropology and anagogy) on the
other.84
81
Henri de Lubac, Sources chretiennes, VII, 44. The French Dominican biblical scholar,
A. M. Dubarle, obviously convinced by De Lubac's presentation of the case for Origen,
has asserted of the Fathers in general that "there is no question, save in certain determined
cases, of abandoning the literal sense" ("Le Sens spirituel de PEcriture," Revue des sci-
ences philosophiques et tkiologiques, X X X I [1947], 50).
82
MondSsert (op. tit., pp. 143-44) believes that Clement's symbolistic conception of
history involved little risk of eliminating the facts; "one hardly risks denying these by
ascribing to them a religious meaning or by finding correspondences to them in a later age;
on the contrary. And this surely is what the careful study of Christian exegesis, even
Alexandrian exegesis, shows: the typical or allegorical or symbolical s e n s e . . . has value
only if the historical fact or text on which it is based has itself a secure value." Camelot
(art. tit., pp. 244-45) finds Mondesert perhaps too optimistic on Clement's anxiety to safe-
guard always the historical reality of the biblical facts; I have found him also a little vague
(op. tit., pp. 135 ff.).
83
Cf. Guillet, art. tit., p. 297.
84
Cf. De Lubac, " 'Typologie' et 'all^gorisine,' " p. 200.
Fourthly, a distinction must be made and preserved between the tradi-

tional and the alien in Origen's exegesis; this is not to excuse the alien but
to clarify the traditional. Call one "typology" and the other "allegory," in
the wake of Danielou;85 it matters not, as long as you realize that such a
formulation of the distinction is neither scriptural nor truly traditional.86
The traditional aspect embraces Origen's general conception of the relations
between the two Testaments. The alien comprises the influences of rabbini-
cal and Gnostic exegesis, and particularly that of Philo. It is by reason of the
Philonian impact on his thought that Origen occasionally denies the reality
of the letter, in a manner indefensible; that he sees a spiritual sense in each
and every passage of Scripture; that several symbolistic techniques become
fantastic; that the mystical sense of traditional exegesis was contaminated
by moral allegory; and that the framework of a tripartite division of scrip-
tural senses in line with the Platonist composition of man (body, soul,
spirit) raised havoc with the legitimately Christian senses.87
Fifthly, early Christian exegesis was apparently content with two funda-
mental scriptural senses, the literal and the spiritual (typological, Christo-
logical).88 With reference to the literal sense, we must bear in mind that
"literal" was limited, in the vocabulary of an Origen, to what we prefer to
call the "proper literal" sense;89 with respect to the spiritual sense, we must
remember that this had multiple aspects, according to the aspects of the
total Christ.90
Finally, it is in the designation by Danielou of these multiple spiritual
senses that confusion is born. A patient, protracted effort by the present
writer to put unity and clarity into Danielou's terminology has resulted in
an admission of defeat. If we begin with the aspects of the total Christ;91 if
then we pass on to the "several exegetical currents" in earliest Christianity
(Matthaean, Johannine or sacramentary, eschatological, and mystical);92
if we consider next Origen's systematization of these scattered senses (Chris-
tic, ecclesiastical, mystic, and eschatological);93 if we turn to the article
which presents the five aspects of Christ or senses of Scripture in primitive
typology (Matthaean, spiritual, Johannine or sacramentary, spiritual in
the proper sense, and eschatological);94 if we recall the ambiguous use by
85
Cf. Danielou, Origene, p. 145.
86
Cf. De Lubac, " 'Typologie' et 'altegorisme,' " pp. 180-81.
87
Cf. Danielou, Origene, pp. 145 ff., 175 ff.
88
Cf. Danielou, "Les divers sens, etc., " p. 120.
89
Cf. De Lubac, Sources chritiennes, VII, 44; Danielou, Origene, p. 182.
90
Cf. Danielou, ibid., pp. 163-64.
91 93
Cf. ibid., p. 164. * Cf. ibid. Cf. ibid., pp. 167-68.
94
Cf. Danielou, "Les divers sens, etc.," pp. 121-26.
Danielou of the terms "Christie" and "Christological;"95 a regretful con-

clusion obtrudes itself: the presentation of primitive Christianity's spiritual
senses, for all its attractiveness, is dreadfully confusing. The confusion
doubtless has its roots in a certain amount of terminological anarchy within
the early writers themselves;96 at all events, it is to be hoped that Danielou's
promised book, Les Origines de I'eocigese typologique, will amend the current
lack of objective clarity in this regard.
By way of transition to the biblical phase of our evaluation, it would be
ungracious not to admit with Mondesert that the allegorical method in the
age of Clement and Origen "had the great advantage of opening a vast field
to nascent theology, and of allowing the fertile contact of Greek philosophy
and the Bible,"97 that neither theology nor scriptural exegesis would have
taken such magnificent initial strides without it. But the heart of the mat-
ter is this: what must be said of early Christian exegesis from the viewpoint
of hermeneutics? Here, of course, is ground where a patrologist will do well
to walk warily.98 Nevertheless, several conclusions impose themselves, and
for the rest it should be of some value to place in relief difficulties that have
occurred to competent scholars.
In the first place, there are three conclusions of Pere Guillet with which
it is difficult to disagree. (1) On the very nature of Christian exegesis Origen's
boldest formulae do no more than express the Christian tradition, including
that of Antioch: "there is no essential feature of the Hebrew world that has
not contributed to His [Christ's] coming and does not acquire in consequence
a new significance."99 (2) Against Alexandrian symbolism, which would
find the features of Christ in every line of Scripture, Antioch is right: to
95
Cf. Dani&ou, Origene, pp. 163, 168, 170, 171.
96
We may react more gently towards the terminological inconsistencies of the early
Christian writers if we read the presidential address delivered by Fr. Patrick Cummins at
the Eleventh General Meeting of the Catholic Biblical Association of America in August,
1948; he cites fifteen terms used "by the rank and file of our Scripture scholars," in refer-
ence to the senses of Scripture, without a uniform and fixed acceptation: obvious, prima-
facial, historical, prophetic, theological, consequent, figurative, typical, messianic, alle-
gorical, spiritual, mystic, liturgical, compenetrative, and plenior; cf. Patrick Cummins,
"Semantic Terminology,'' Catholic Biblical Quarterly, X I (1949), 9-13. This gentle chiding
of biblical scholars for lack of uniformity in practice, for ambiguity and vagueness, for
inexactness, caused even the habitually careful Verbum Domini to strike its breast in re-
flective repentance (ibid., XXVII [1949], 114).
97
Mondesert, op. cit., p. 147.
98
C. Spicq has recently complained ("Bulletin de thSologie biblique: Nouveau Testa-
ment," Revue des sciences philosophiques et tMologiques, XXXII [1948], 90, n. 26) of the peril
to scriptural disciplines from a number of incompetent authors or reviewers: "In how
many reviews, of a responsible character but yesterday ('hier sfrieuses'), do we not see a
patrologist expressing his opinions on a work of exegesis?"
99
Guillet, art. cit., p. 298. This is nothing more than Danielou's assertion that "the
prepare the Incarnation is not the same as to signify it. 100 (3) The problem
respecting the criteria of authentic typism was solved neither by Alexandria
nor by Antioch. 101
Secondly, I must confess to a fascination for the individual patristic
" t y p e s " traced by Danielou through primitive Christian tradition; I am
taken by his admirable effort to separate the traditional from the personal.
Nevertheless, I do not see—and Danielou has not made it clear—on what
grounds a traditional " t y p e " is to be considered the genuine spiritual sense
of a particular passage, the typical sense intended by God. Take this para-
graph on the typology of R a h a b :
Finally, how are we to judge this typology from the viewpoint of biblical the-
ology? Here the adventitious elements are reduced to a minimum; we find two
essential data. The first is the very content of the episode, which signifies literally
God's mercy in regard of non-Jews and which appears from then on as an antici-
pation of the Gospel, which likewise signifies God's mercy in regard of sinners. We
can therefore regard Rahab with certainty as a figure of the Church of the na-
tions and [a figure] of sinful humanity saved by the Blood of Christ, and think
that it is for this reason that the episode has been retained by Scripture. The second
[essential datum] is the sign of scarlet; here we find once more the question which
the brazen serpent and the other crrineia have already posited. Is it pure accident
that the gesta Dei in the Old Testament are linked to certain symbols: the water,
the wood, the blood? We return here to what we have said apropos of the crossing
of the Red Sea: T h e unity of God's plan is not expressed to us merely by the
unity of the redemptive action, but by the unity of a pedagogy which speaks an
intelligible language and uses the same symbols, so that sacred history is charac-
terized by a certain s t y l e . . . . The end of exegesis is to explain these correspond-
ences.'102 And here we are specially justified in considering this to be so, and in be-
lieving that the scarlet cord called atifieLOv like the mark of blood on the house
of the Hebrews is at once a memorial of the Pasch and a prophecy of the Pas-
sion.103
great patristic affirmation is that this [typological] sense has Christ for its object" ("Les
divers sens, etc.," p. 120). It is "the great allegoria of Scripture" which De Lubac finds so
"objective" (MSlanges Cavallera, p. 361).
100
Cf. Guillet, art. cit., p. 299. In this connection it is interesting to read the following
observation in a letter of the Biblical Commission to the archbishops and bishops of Italy,
dated Aug. 20,1941: "Ora se e proposizione di fede da tenersi per principio fondamentale,
che la Sacra Scrittura contiene, oltre al senso letterale, un senso spirituale o tipico, come
ci e insegnato dalla pratica di Nostro Signore e degli Apostoli, tuttavia non ogni sentenza
o racconto contiene un senso tipico, e fu un eccesso grave della scuola alessandrina di voler
trovare dappertutto un senso simbolico, anche a danno del senso letterale e storico" (AAS>
XXXIII [1941], 466).
101 102
Cf. Guillet, art. cit., p. 299. Danielou, "Travers&s de la mer rouge/? p. 429.
"• Danielou, "Rahab, etc.,'? pp. 44-45.
The passage will serve to give point to a fundamental question: on what

principle, by what right, is Rahab regarded "with certainty" as a figure of
the Church? Because such is the early Christian tradition, Danielou seems
to reply. But, does this mean that there is simply a tradition, however
solidly established, or does it mean that all the elements are present for a
morally unanimous consent of the Fathers? If the latter is lacking, is it
hermeneutically valid to conclude "with certainty" from tradition to the
existence of a type? We pose the question with no intention of depreciating
the depth and warmth of Danielou's penetration into tradition; we merely
submit that he will do justice neither to himself nor to his theme unless he
establishes and expresses the precise nature and extent of the tradition in-
volved in each instance. Only thus will he escape indictment for an unjusti-
fied invasion of a field not his own.
The omens of such an indictment are unmistakable. Thus C. Spicq, after
recalling the teaching of the Church with respect to the senses of Scripture,
e.g., that the primary aim of exegesis is the discovery of the literal sense,
goes on to say that a number of authors are now extolling spiritual exegesis
without sufficient consideration for the literal sense which is its foundation.
"Some, like Pere Jean Danielou, see in this exegetical method the continua-
tion of a millenary tradition and seem to have forgotten the different
currents of Christian exegesis, in particular the aims of the Antiochene
School."104 Spicq mentions some imprudent remarks of Danielou relative to
the senses of Scripture.105 He finds it "remarkable that the preoccupations
and the methods of [Origen] are analogous" to those of the authors, such as
Danielou, whom he has just censured.106 He grants that profit is to be had
from explaining the New Testament doctrine of baptism by the typology
of the Red Sea, but believes that "the spiritual fruit of these rapprochements
will be far from equalling that of a biblical theology of baptism from St. Paul
or St. John according to the literal sense."107 He declares that "hermeneutics
has made progress since the time of Origen and St. Augustine. If we must
preserve the religious flavor of patristic exegesis, we can and we ought to
enrich this heritage by a more perfect knowledge of the literal sense."108
And, in connection with the theory whereby historical facts have interest
solely in terms of the symbolism to which they lend themselves, he quotes
with obvious approval the remarks of Camelot: "The meaning of Scripture
as history is utterly lost from sight, and the riches—even the spiritual riches
—of the Bible as divine history has been lost for centuries. It can be said
104 106
Spicq, art. cit., p. 87. ™ Cf. ibid., p. 88, n. 18. Cf. ibid., pp. 88-89.
107 108
Cf. ibid., p. 90, n. 25. Ibid., p. 89.
without paradox that allegorism has caused us to lose sight of the true
spiritual sense." 109
Further, Danielou will have to deal with a thoughtful criticism of M .
Richard, apropos of Origene, pp. 143-74 (summarized above):
We do not deny the lawfulness of typological exegesis, or the prefigurative

character of the Old Testament with reference to the Gospel. But in the position
of Origen there is a negative aspect that offends us. His champions insist with
reason on the fact that he has not denied the reality of the events of the Old Testa-
ment. It still remains true that he has rejected the sacred history in its ensemble
as outdated on the same grounds as the Mosaic Law. As he had no intention of
discarding even the slightest portion of God's word, it seems to us that the prin-
ciples of his typological exegesis, as set forth by Pere Danielou in this Chapter II,
contain in germ the abuses denounced in Chapter III [dealing with rabbinical,
Philonian, and Gnostic influences; summarized above].110
Finally, A. M . Dubarle, after sketching the meaning of allegory in its

historical development, concludes with respect to patristic exegesis:
Without wishing to reject the whole of patristic exegesis en bloc, while actually
regarding it as a thing of great price, we must try to define what are those excesses
of allegorical interpretations whose existence Benedict XV did not dream of hid-
ing. . . . The great defect of allegory is that it does not respect the difference in the
way in which the literal sense and the spiritual sense are disengaged from the
t e x t . . . . Based on the detail of the words and not on the religious implication of
the reality which they signify, allegorical exegesis does not hesitate in certain
instances to move in a direction diametrically opposed to the literal sense. It is a
question of finding at all costs a positively edifying sense in all that Scripture
tells u s . . . .
One sees why it is impossible to consider patristic exegesis as a treasure from
which we have only to draw in all confidence, or even as an example to be followed.
The Fathers have penetrated deeply into the religious teaching of Scripture; they
are a wonderful help for us to do the same in our turn. But in their techniques
for cultivating the sacred text there have been too many divergences among them,
too much excess in some of them, for us to be able to think that they have given
a definitive solution to the difficult problem of the spiritual sense. They can doubt-
less awaken our attention, arouse our interest for an investigation which the mod-
ern scientific study of the Bible could make [us] slight and even regard as definitely
outdated. We will learn from their efforts and their discussions, but for a principle
of discrimination we shall have to look elsewhere.111
109
Ibid., p. 90; cf. Th. Camelot, Foi et Gnose. Introduction d Vetude de la connaissance
mystique chez CUment d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1945), p. 75.
110
M. Richard, "Bulletin de patrologie," Melanges de science religieuse, VT (1949), 120.
111
Dubarle, art. cit., pp. 52, 54, 55.
These criticisms have been reproduced, not necessarily because the pres-
ent writer echoes them, but primarily to give some indication of the issues
involved. A terminal observation is in order, and a warning. The observa-
tion is quite obvious: for all the ground gained, considerable research re-
mains; in hermeneutics, for example, to fathom the spiritual sense;112 in
patristics, to expose the exegetical tradition of early Christianity, theory
and practice, with the patient detail of a Danielou and a De Lubac, and
with still more luminous clarity. The warning is born of the "New Theol-
ogy" controversy in France and is not impertinent here: the work of God is
not significantly furthered by accusation and recrimination.
Woodstock College WALTER J. BURGHARDT, S.J.

m
The problem of scriptural senses apparently still demands investigation. Thus, from
a discussion of the customary senses of Scripture Gaston Courtade concludes: "The cus-
tomary classification of scriptural senses presents an hiatus. It does not give to the sense of
bible history the place that rightfully accrues to it. It is not a literal sense; and, on the
other hand, it cannot be identified with the spiritual sense, because we are agreed on
considering 'spiritual sense' as synonymous with 'figurative sense* (typical, anagogical,
or topological)" ("Le Sens de l'histoire dans l'Ecriture et la classification usuelle des
sens scripturaires," Recherches de science religieuse, XXXVI [1949], 141). He has tried to
show (cf. ibid., p. 140) that the spiritual senses do not alone do justice to the "marche
progressive" of history, the constant obedience of the course of events to a directive Idea.
Finally, of no small interest for the problem of the spiritual sense of Scripture is the ficti-
tious "Entretien de Pascal et du Pere Richard Simon sur le sens de l'Ecriture" by J.
Steinmann, La Vie intellectuelle, March 1949, pp. 239-53, together with the replies of Paul
Claudel, Louis Massignon, and Jean Danielou, under the general title "Sur TexSgese
biblique," Dieu vivant, XIV (1949), 73-94.

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ON EARLY CHRISTIAN EXEGESIS

One of the liveliest issues in contemporary theological discussion has to

of the Fathers. But he believes it has the disadvantage of being formulated

ea quae sunt novae legis, est sensus allegoricus."9 The squeamishness in

moreover, their relation to TVTOS is identical. The difference arises primarily

Incarnation. The Old Testament, authentic memorial of that history, is no

in Theodore of Mopsuestia, several essential principles of the exegesis of prophet-

of the Old Testament to the New is not always felicitously expressed by

a continuity of consciousness between the two Testaments, the transfigura-

or in the writings of the Apostle he treats differently. "Reacting openly

to realize), is now outdated, superseded (this the Jews fail to recognize).

Here we touch the heart, remarks Danielou, of the Christian mystery of

childhood to reach full growth."36 Danielou follows Origen's theology of

Danielou proceeds to sum up the characteristics of Origenist typology.

question of innovation here, only of systematization. Origen set up a doc-

meaning, but not everything has a literal meaning,"44 Danielou remarks

millenarian influence of Palestinian exegesis. It has its point of departure in

so obscure as to be sheerly fanciful; and here we have the abuse of the

tradition whose principal initiator is Origen. Sometimes Origen draws from

(especially this latter) is a matter of indifference. He ranges through the

Theology has likewise broken the swaddling bands of biblical commen-

Space forbids more than a quick glance at several articles in which

While the Eastern tradition interpreted the biblical septenary in symbolic

Fourthly, a distinction must be made and preserved between the tradi-

Danielou of the terms "Christie" and "Christological;"95 a regretful con-

The passage will serve to give point to a fundamental question: on what

We do not deny the lawfulness of typological exegesis, or the prefigurative

Finally, A. M . Dubarle, after sketching the meaning of allegory in its

Woodstock College WALTER J. BURGHARDT, S.J.

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