The Two Kinds of Exposition of the Sacred Writings

On the Two Kinds of Exposition of the Sacred Writings

For the explication of these senses, then, two kinds of exposition have been devised, namely the Historical and the Mystical. Now the Historical exposition is that which elucidates the historical, or literal, sense; ¹ which indeed our Lord Jesus Christ very often used in expounding the holy Scriptures. From these we may take, for example, His exposition of the law of Moses concerning the giving of the bill of divorce, which is written in Deuteronomy in these words: ² If a man take a wife, and have her, and she find no favor in his eyes because of some uncleanness, he shall write a bill of divorce, and give it into her hand, and send her away out of his house. Since the Pharisees understood this law wrongly ³ — thinking that Moses had commanded husbands to dismiss, for any cause whatever, wives who had become hateful to them, and to take another — Christ declared it according to the true meaning of the Mosaic letter in this manner, saying: ⁴ Moses, for the hardness of your heart, permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her that is put away committeth adultery. Our Savior would have wished to say: You Jews are a race of men fiercer and wilder than the beasts, without the fear of God, without love and without mercy; and therefore Moses indeed permitted you ⁵ — but did not command you — to put away wives held in hatred: not as though it were anything lawful, but as a remedy provided against the avoidance of a greater evil, lest, driven by hatred and by despair of an inseparable marriage, you should turn to the murder of your spouse. For it has always been an evil to put away a wife for any cause whatever, and to take another — indeed [it is] against the very nature of matrimony, established from the beginning of the human race, whose law is: ⁶ For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh. This, therefore, is the first exposition — the historical, pertaining to the first sense of divine Scripture.

The other kind of Exposition — which is called Mystical, ⁷ that is, hidden, secluded, and spiritual, and is necessary for the elucidation of the mystical senses that are enclosed in the holy Scripture — comprises three particular species, or parts, of explanation: namely the Allegorical, the Tropological, and the Anagogical; distinguished according to the threefold difference of past, present, and future time. The Allegorical ⁸ makes manifest the foretokens and presages of the shadows and figures of things past under the old law. The Tropological turns whatever things were done and said in the holy Scriptures to the moral instruction of the present life. The Anagogical raises the mind to the loftier mysteries of future blessedness and of heavenly glory. ⁹ So then, according to the threefold division of the times, there are [these] species of Mystical explanation.

The first invention of this [mystical exposition] Porphyry — an enemy of the Christian name — supposed to have proceeded from Origen Adamantius; ¹⁰ concerning whom, as Eusebius reports, he himself wrote these words in the third volume against the Christians: “The Christians cling to the discourses of the Jewish Scriptures, and affirm that those things which Moses wrote in a rustic and simple style are divinely sanctioned, and set beneath figures and riddles; and they expound them as though filled with immense mysteries. This kind of exposition had its beginning from a man whom I myself, when I was still quite a boy, ¹¹ saw holding the ark of all erudition. This is Origen, whose immense glory is held among their teachers.” But Philo the Jew, in the book to which he gave the title On the Contemplative Life, reports that this kind of spiritual interpretation was long before most usual among the Essenes ¹² — men foremost among the Hebrews in religion and holiness — who from the rising of the dawn until evening were accustomed to spend whole days in the reading of the divine Scriptures, which they also strove with the utmost zeal to render into spiritual and allegorical senses. But we Christians believe, much more rightly and truly, that Christ Jesus — in whom are all the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God — was the first author of this hidden exposition, ¹³ and first of all showed to us, both through Himself and through His disciples, each and every species of Mystical elucidation.

He taught the Allegorical explanation when, speaking to the Jews about John the Baptist, He said: ¹⁴ Elias indeed shall come, and shall restore all things: but I say unto you, that Elias is already come, and they knew him not, but did unto him whatsoever they would — signifying by these words that the life of Elijah in the Old Testament was a type and shadow of the life of John, ¹⁵ who at the outset of the New Testament came in the spirit and power of Elijah. Paul likewise, in the epistle to the Galatians, explaining allegorically the history of Abraham’s two sons, ¹⁶ says: It is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondwoman, and the other by a free woman: but he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh; he of the free woman, by promise: which things are said by an allegory; for these are the two testaments, etc. ¹⁷

Our Redeemer used the Tropological exposition ¹⁸ when He turned the history of the repentance of the Ninevites, and of the coming of the queen of the South to Solomon, to the reproach of the most abandoned morals and the most obstinate unbelief of the Jews, saying: ¹⁹ The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they did penance at the preaching of Jonas; and behold a greater than Jonas here. The queen of the South shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold a greater than Solomon here. And Paul, in the epistle to the Corinthians, accommodating to morals the history of the Hebrews who perished in the desert, ²⁰ says: ²¹ Our fathers all [passed through] the sea…

[continuing from p151] …[our fathers all] passed through the sea; but with the greater part of them God was not well pleased. Now these things were done in a figure of us, that we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted; neither become idolaters, as some of them, as it is written: The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Now all these things happened to them in figure; and they were written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the ages are come.

Paul used the Anagogical exposition ²² in the epistle to the Hebrews, when he adapts that land of the Palestinians, promised to the fathers, to the promise of future glory, saying that that land — so greatly desired by the Patriarchs, and sought out through so many wanderings — is not the present, visible, earthly region of the Canaanites, but a future, invisible, and heavenly fatherland, having better foundations, whose builder is God; ²³ and [that it is] the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, thronged with many thousands of angels. So many, then, are the species of the sacred expositions.

But it must be known that not only can all things which are found in the sacred letters be plainly explained by one or another of these expositions, but also that it very often happens that one and the same passage and words of divine Scripture admit all these expositions at once. ²⁴ Of this the most apt example is furnished by St. Eucherius in his book of Spiritual Formulas, illustrating by a fourfold exposition the word “Waters,” which is most frequent in the holy Scriptures, in these words: There are four kinds of divine Expositions: the Historical, the Tropological, the Allegorical, and the Anagogical.

The Historical exposition is that which impresses upon us the truth of the deeds and the faith of the revelation.

The Tropological, or moral, exposition is that which refers the mystical understandings to the amendment of life.

The Allegorical exposition is that which shows the narration of the deeds to have prefigured the shadow of things to come.

The Anagogical exposition is that which brings forth the more sacred secrets of the heavenly figures; and these very [secrets] are made plainer by the examples set beneath them.

Water, according to history, signifies the elemental water which washes and flows through the earth, as in the beginning of Genesis: ²⁵ Let the waters be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.

Tropologically, Water signifies tribulations. The Psalm: ²⁶ We have passed through water and fire, and thou hast brought us out into refreshment; and in Isaiah: ²⁷ When thou shalt pass through the waters, I will be with thee, and the rivers shall not cover thee. Likewise it signifies wisdom, as Solomon says: ²⁸ The words from the mouth of a man are deep water, and an overflowing torrent the fount of wisdom. Likewise heresies, the same Solomon writing: ²⁹ Stolen waters are sweeter. Likewise the prosperities of the world, in John, who says: ³⁰ Whosoever shall drink of this water shall thirst again.

Allegorically, Water signifies baptism: concerning which it is read in the volume of Ezekiel: ³¹ I will pour upon you clean water, and you shall be cleansed from all your defilements. Likewise, in the Apocalypse, Peoples: ³² Many waters, many peoples. And in Isaiah: ³³ Blessed are you that sow upon all waters. Likewise grace — [that] of the Holy Spirit — in John: ³⁴ If any man thirst, let him come and drink; and out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Anagogically, Water is expounded of eternal beatitude, as in Jeremiah: ³⁵ They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water. Likewise it is sung of the Angels in the psalm: ³⁶ Let the waters that are above the heavens praise the name of the Lord. Thus Eucherius.

But I think it by no means to be passed over that Augustine, in the book On the Usefulness of Believing, to Honoratus, chapter 3, seems to divide these kinds of exposition far otherwise than we and Eucherius have distinguished them, ³⁷ speaking in this manner: Four modes of expounding the law are handed down by certain treaters of the Scriptures: according to History, according to Allegory, according to Analogy, according to Aetiology.

According to history, then, it is delivered when it is taught what was written, or what was done — [or] what was not done but only written as though it had been done. According to Aetiology, when it is shown for what cause a thing was either done or said. According to Analogy, when it is demonstrated that the two testaments, namely the old and the new, are not adverse to one another. According to Allegory, when it is taught that certain things which are written are not to be taken to the letter, but understood figuratively. In all these modes our Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostles made use. For [something] is taken from history, when it was objected that on the Sabbath day His disciples had plucked the ears of grain: ³⁸ Have you not read, He says, what David did, and they that were with him? how he entered into the house of God, and ate the loaves of proposition, which it was not lawful for him to eat, nor for them that were with him, but for the priests alone.

To Aetiology pertains that [passage] which — when Christ had forbidden a wife to be put away, except for the cause of fornication, and it had been cited to Him by those questioning [Him] that Moses had permitted the license of putting away by giving a bill of divorce — He says: ³⁹ This Moses did for the hardness of your heart. For here the cause is rendered why that was rightly permitted by Moses for the time, so that what Christ was enjoining might show that other times had now come.

To Analogy pertains that [passage] which — when Matthew had narrated the slaughter of the infants perpetrated by Herod — he straightway added the agreement of this deed with the sayings of the old testament, saying: ⁴⁰ Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying: A voice in Rama was heard, weeping and much wailing, Rachel bewailing her sons: and she would not be comforted, because they are not.

To Allegory pertains that which Paul says to the Galatians: ⁴¹ It is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondwoman, the other by a free woman: which things are said by an allegory. Thus Augustine.

But Jerome seems to distinguish these kinds of exposition somewhat more diversely, ⁴² thus writing in the twelfth question to Hedibia: There is a threefold description and rule of the Scriptures in our heart: the first, that we understand them according to History; the second, according to Tropology; the third, according to spiritual understanding.

In History, the order of the things which are written is preserved.

In Tropology, we rise up from the letter to greater things; and whatever was carnally done in the former people, we interpret according to a moral sense, and turn to the profit of our soul. [continues p153: In…]

[continuing from p152] In the spiritual θεωρία (contemplation), we pass over to loftier things, we let go of earthly things, we discourse of the blessedness of things to come and of heavenly things, so that the meditation of the present life may be a shadow of the blessedness to come. Thus far Jerome.

But that all the diversity which seems to be among these Fathers may be recalled to concord, one must know that they do not disagree at all as to the number of the four Expositions, but differ only in the manner of dividing. ⁴³ For that partition of the expositions which Eucherius distributed into four members, Jerome [reduced] to three, and Augustine (whom we have followed) reduced to two members — in the manner which appears in the figure set below.

Eucherius’s Fourfold Division. The exposition of the sacred letters is fourfold, namely:

• Historical — [either] Proper [or] Metaphorical
• Tropological
• Allegorical
• Anagogical

Jerome’s Threefold Division. The exposition of the sacred letters is threefold, namely:

• Historical
• Tropological
• Spiritual — which is twofold, namely: Allegorical [and] Anagogical

Augustine’s Twofold Division. The exposition of the sacred letters is twofold, namely:

• Historical — [subdivided into] Analogical [and] Aetiological
• Allegorical — which in the book On True Religion, chapter fifty, is assigned as threefold; of which:
• the First accommodates the figures of past things to things present: this retained for itself the name of Allegorical;
• the Second pertains to morals and the affections of the soul: this is called Tropological;
• the Third exalts [the mind] to unchangeable eternity: this is called Anagogical.

Let these things be said concerning the two kinds of sacred exposition; to which a few little points concerning their necessary use and usefulness seem worth adding.