Much of the wisdom of Scripture is conveyed through prophetic typologies. St. Luke shows us with his Resurrection narrative that all Old Testament Scripture is all about Christ, and Matthew illustrates some examples, however, the majority are to be found by obvious implication.
To better understand this, we should talk about how the early Church read the Bible. There were two rival schools: firstly, the Alexandrian focused on the typological-prophetic and Christological-allegoric interpretation of the Old Testament. Secondly, the Antiochene, which focused on a literal-historical, yet still Christological, interpretation of the Old Testament.
Additionally, there was the Rabinnical and the Karaite school of interpretation, the former becoming increasingly esoteric due to the influence of the Zohar and Kabbalah, and the latter, extremely literal, to the point where they deny that the serpent in the Garden of Eden is the devil, instead believing it to be “a particularly clever snake.” In fact they reject belief in the devil altogether, which if one lacks the New Testament, is an easy mistake to make, easier I would say than the Sadducees denying the Resurrection.*
Now, most church Fathers did not subscribe only to the Antiochene or Alexandrian schools, but rather used both approaches, varying the amount to which a book was read literally or prophetically, typologically and metaphorically, depending on the book. For example, The Song of Solomon is a book that yields itself primarily to the Alexandrian school, whereas I would cite Nehemiah as a work yielding itself primarily to the Antiochene school.
Using both methods concurrently, which was the approach of the likes of St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Isidore of Seville, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Ephrem the Syrian, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria and St. John Cassian, has the advantage of revealing the ubiquitous Christological content, which frequently becomes clear only in the context of the New Testament, being by nature metaphorical or typological, while at the same time recognizing the historicity and literal truth of the Old Testament and identifying also those historical events and explicit prophecies concerning our Lord.
However, by themselves, these two approaches are inadequate, which is why the most important Church Fathers used a synthesis of the two; it is worth noting that Clement of Alexandria, and later Origen Adimantius, whose approach was almost purely Alexandrian, and Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, whose approach was almost purely Antiochene, are not venerated as saints in the Chalcedonian churches, and indeed Theodore of Mopsuestia and Origen were anathematized by the Fifth Ecumenical Council.
There is of late an unfortunate trend in Protestantism, which as a Congregationalist presbyter I am struggling against, wherein something like a hybrid of the Karaite and Antiochene schools, in which only the most explicit Christological content in the Old Testament is acknowledged, and everything else is read in an extremely literal and historical way. This has given rise to what I regard as stumbling blocks for prospective converts, such as Creationism (in my CF blog I have argued that the fact that of all the creation stories of every religion, the fact that only that in Genesis can be understood as a metaphorical explanation of the Big Bang and Evolution, which people in antiquity could understand, is a holy miracle).
However, this is not the biggest problem with this emerging hyper-literalist exegesis. Many adherents of Premillenial Dispensationalism, contrary to the Gospel of Luke, do not read the Old Testament as being entirely about Christ, but rather tend to regard it as being more about Israel and the Jewish people into which Christ was born, and their future eschatological status. For example, the Christological interpretation of Ezekiel, in which the Temple he dreamt of symbolizes the Church and also the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Christians is instead read as a prophecy of a Third Jewish Temple. Indeed some even speculate that during the Millenium, animal sacrifices will be resumed (which makes little sense to me, considering that the Beta Israel, the Jews of Ethiopia, have never stopped performing animal sacrifices).
Concurrently, the dense network of Christological prophecies associations by type and metaphor becomes ignored. It was immediately apparent to the Early Church Fathers that the Ark of the Covenant was both a real object in which the crushed tablets, on which the Holy Spirit had written the word of God, was also by virtue of its existence a prophecy that the Blessed Virgin Mary would carry in her womb the Only Begotten Son and Incarnate Word of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for she had been selected, and had consented, to be the Mother of God, from which God the Son, the Word, would take on our human nature and restore and glorify it through his Incarnation, Baptism, Way of Life, Ministry (healing the sick, resurrecting the dead, exorcising the demons, and teaching the Gospel), Transfiguration, Passion, Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven.
There are many more such Christological references. Indeed, since the Old Testament is entirely about Christ, every book contains references, and anyone who acquaints themselves with Alexandrian exegesis will look for these when reading Scripture, while at the same time applying Antiochene historical-literal interpretation, which also seeks out Christological meanings and prophecies, albeit in the form of historical events and explicit prophecy, as opposed to typological and metaphorical comparison.
However, lest it be argued that Alexandrian exegesis amounts to reading between the lines, it should be stressed that the Gospel According to St. Luke states that the entirety of Scripture is about Christ, and this only became obvious to His disciples when He opened the books and showed them how the Scriptures were actually about Him, the Gospel According to St. Matthew illustrates both forms of Christological prophecy: the explicit, and the implicit. For example, an Antiochene example is Matthew 1:20-23, and an Alexandrian example is Matthew 2:17-18. The former is a clear Messianic prophecy which can be interpreted without foreknowledge of the New Testament, whereas in the latter case, had Matthew not pointed it out, someone reading the Bible like any book, from Genesis to Revelation, who has just started in the New Testament, would likely not make the connection.
However, someone familiar with Alexandrian exegesis would. So the simplest way to look at it is that Alexandrian exegesis compares persons, themes, events, objects and concepts in both Testaments in search of Christological connections, whereas Antiochene exegesis is a literal, historical reading that seeks out prophecies of Christ and more broadly, God’s plan to save us, which the Church Fathers call “The Economy of Salvation.” And both approaches are necessary and should be used concurrently, with some books being read in a more Antiochene manner, and others in a more Alexandrian manner, and others being read equally using both.**
What is unprofitable, however, is the hyperliteralist approach which has become popular in the past 400 years. It was unknown to the early Reformers, and indeed has never been predominant in any traditional Protestant denomination, but among some Fundamentalists, Evangelicals and Pentecostals***, particularly those who subscribe to some form of Dispensationalism (although not all Dispensationalists use this method), it has become entirely too common.
*I suspect the Sadducees had a narrower canon than the 22 book Rabinnical canon most Protestants use, or the 31-35 books in the Septuagint, used by Hellenic Jews, the Anglicans, Lutherans, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, or the still wider canon of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church (and the Eritrean cnurch). Likely the Sadducees had something in between the Samaritan canon, which just had the Torah, and the Rabinnical canon, possibly including some books previously thought to exist only in Greek or the ancient Ethiopic language of Ge’ez, until fragments turned up among the dead sea scrolls.
A variation pf this sort would not be unheard of; while St. Athanasius of Alexandria was responsible for making the final cut as it were on the New Testament, establishing the universally loved 27 book canon, he also introduced an Old Testament canon that was ultimately replaced by the 33 book Septuagint Greek Orthodox canon in both the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria. This canon included Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah as protocanon, but excluded Esther (a book Martin Luther wanted to exclude, but in Luther’s case, he believed the Masoretic version of Esther was more ancient, an assumption challenged by the Dead Sea Scrolls; the Septuagint version of Esther, which is longer, stresses prayer and divine intervention and is much more spiritual, whereas Masoretic Esther is, read from an esoteric Antiochene perspective at least, of greater relevance to the Jews and their festival of Purim.
** It should not be said that Alexandrian exegesis looks for an esoteric meaning while Antiochene exegesis looks for an exoteric meaning, because the connections of the Alexandrian mode are there, in plain sight. All one needs to do is keep in mind the New Testament while parsing the old.
*** To a certain extent, Alexandrian and Antiochene exegesis are applicable to the New Testament, except here, because the Eschaton has not happened, the process of looking for direct connections between the New Testament and the Old Testament does not work. In general, the New Testament is best read using an Antiochene approach, but a partial Alexandrian approach wherein we analyze prophecies, for example, by comparing prophetic texts in both Testaments using an Alexandrian typological and metaphorical method in both of them has proven insightful.
Indeed, a failure to use this approach is the excessively literal reading of Mark 16:9-20 is the error of the Snake Handling Pentecostals of the Appalachians, an error which has resulted in much physical harm. It should be stressed, of course, that this hyper-literal reading also fails to meet the Christological, rational criteria of Antiochene exegesis, and is indeed not exegesis at all, but eisegesis, and is problematic even in the context of eisegesis, in that it seemingly ignores the rationale for the Apostles being able to handle serpents and tread on scorpions.
To better understand this, we should talk about how the early Church read the Bible. There were two rival schools: firstly, the Alexandrian focused on the typological-prophetic and Christological-allegoric interpretation of the Old Testament. Secondly, the Antiochene, which focused on a literal-historical, yet still Christological, interpretation of the Old Testament.
Additionally, there was the Rabinnical and the Karaite school of interpretation, the former becoming increasingly esoteric due to the influence of the Zohar and Kabbalah, and the latter, extremely literal, to the point where they deny that the serpent in the Garden of Eden is the devil, instead believing it to be “a particularly clever snake.” In fact they reject belief in the devil altogether, which if one lacks the New Testament, is an easy mistake to make, easier I would say than the Sadducees denying the Resurrection.*
Now, most church Fathers did not subscribe only to the Antiochene or Alexandrian schools, but rather used both approaches, varying the amount to which a book was read literally or prophetically, typologically and metaphorically, depending on the book. For example, The Song of Solomon is a book that yields itself primarily to the Alexandrian school, whereas I would cite Nehemiah as a work yielding itself primarily to the Antiochene school.
Using both methods concurrently, which was the approach of the likes of St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Isidore of Seville, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Hilary of Poitiers, St. Ephrem the Syrian, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria and St. John Cassian, has the advantage of revealing the ubiquitous Christological content, which frequently becomes clear only in the context of the New Testament, being by nature metaphorical or typological, while at the same time recognizing the historicity and literal truth of the Old Testament and identifying also those historical events and explicit prophecies concerning our Lord.
However, by themselves, these two approaches are inadequate, which is why the most important Church Fathers used a synthesis of the two; it is worth noting that Clement of Alexandria, and later Origen Adimantius, whose approach was almost purely Alexandrian, and Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, whose approach was almost purely Antiochene, are not venerated as saints in the Chalcedonian churches, and indeed Theodore of Mopsuestia and Origen were anathematized by the Fifth Ecumenical Council.
There is of late an unfortunate trend in Protestantism, which as a Congregationalist presbyter I am struggling against, wherein something like a hybrid of the Karaite and Antiochene schools, in which only the most explicit Christological content in the Old Testament is acknowledged, and everything else is read in an extremely literal and historical way. This has given rise to what I regard as stumbling blocks for prospective converts, such as Creationism (in my CF blog I have argued that the fact that of all the creation stories of every religion, the fact that only that in Genesis can be understood as a metaphorical explanation of the Big Bang and Evolution, which people in antiquity could understand, is a holy miracle).
However, this is not the biggest problem with this emerging hyper-literalist exegesis. Many adherents of Premillenial Dispensationalism, contrary to the Gospel of Luke, do not read the Old Testament as being entirely about Christ, but rather tend to regard it as being more about Israel and the Jewish people into which Christ was born, and their future eschatological status. For example, the Christological interpretation of Ezekiel, in which the Temple he dreamt of symbolizes the Church and also the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in Christians is instead read as a prophecy of a Third Jewish Temple. Indeed some even speculate that during the Millenium, animal sacrifices will be resumed (which makes little sense to me, considering that the Beta Israel, the Jews of Ethiopia, have never stopped performing animal sacrifices).
Concurrently, the dense network of Christological prophecies associations by type and metaphor becomes ignored. It was immediately apparent to the Early Church Fathers that the Ark of the Covenant was both a real object in which the crushed tablets, on which the Holy Spirit had written the word of God, was also by virtue of its existence a prophecy that the Blessed Virgin Mary would carry in her womb the Only Begotten Son and Incarnate Word of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for she had been selected, and had consented, to be the Mother of God, from which God the Son, the Word, would take on our human nature and restore and glorify it through his Incarnation, Baptism, Way of Life, Ministry (healing the sick, resurrecting the dead, exorcising the demons, and teaching the Gospel), Transfiguration, Passion, Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven.
There are many more such Christological references. Indeed, since the Old Testament is entirely about Christ, every book contains references, and anyone who acquaints themselves with Alexandrian exegesis will look for these when reading Scripture, while at the same time applying Antiochene historical-literal interpretation, which also seeks out Christological meanings and prophecies, albeit in the form of historical events and explicit prophecy, as opposed to typological and metaphorical comparison.
However, lest it be argued that Alexandrian exegesis amounts to reading between the lines, it should be stressed that the Gospel According to St. Luke states that the entirety of Scripture is about Christ, and this only became obvious to His disciples when He opened the books and showed them how the Scriptures were actually about Him, the Gospel According to St. Matthew illustrates both forms of Christological prophecy: the explicit, and the implicit. For example, an Antiochene example is Matthew 1:20-23, and an Alexandrian example is Matthew 2:17-18. The former is a clear Messianic prophecy which can be interpreted without foreknowledge of the New Testament, whereas in the latter case, had Matthew not pointed it out, someone reading the Bible like any book, from Genesis to Revelation, who has just started in the New Testament, would likely not make the connection.
However, someone familiar with Alexandrian exegesis would. So the simplest way to look at it is that Alexandrian exegesis compares persons, themes, events, objects and concepts in both Testaments in search of Christological connections, whereas Antiochene exegesis is a literal, historical reading that seeks out prophecies of Christ and more broadly, God’s plan to save us, which the Church Fathers call “The Economy of Salvation.” And both approaches are necessary and should be used concurrently, with some books being read in a more Antiochene manner, and others in a more Alexandrian manner, and others being read equally using both.**
What is unprofitable, however, is the hyperliteralist approach which has become popular in the past 400 years. It was unknown to the early Reformers, and indeed has never been predominant in any traditional Protestant denomination, but among some Fundamentalists, Evangelicals and Pentecostals***, particularly those who subscribe to some form of Dispensationalism (although not all Dispensationalists use this method), it has become entirely too common.
*I suspect the Sadducees had a narrower canon than the 22 book Rabinnical canon most Protestants use, or the 31-35 books in the Septuagint, used by Hellenic Jews, the Anglicans, Lutherans, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, or the still wider canon of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church (and the Eritrean cnurch). Likely the Sadducees had something in between the Samaritan canon, which just had the Torah, and the Rabinnical canon, possibly including some books previously thought to exist only in Greek or the ancient Ethiopic language of Ge’ez, until fragments turned up among the dead sea scrolls.
A variation pf this sort would not be unheard of; while St. Athanasius of Alexandria was responsible for making the final cut as it were on the New Testament, establishing the universally loved 27 book canon, he also introduced an Old Testament canon that was ultimately replaced by the 33 book Septuagint Greek Orthodox canon in both the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Church of Alexandria. This canon included Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah as protocanon, but excluded Esther (a book Martin Luther wanted to exclude, but in Luther’s case, he believed the Masoretic version of Esther was more ancient, an assumption challenged by the Dead Sea Scrolls; the Septuagint version of Esther, which is longer, stresses prayer and divine intervention and is much more spiritual, whereas Masoretic Esther is, read from an esoteric Antiochene perspective at least, of greater relevance to the Jews and their festival of Purim.
** It should not be said that Alexandrian exegesis looks for an esoteric meaning while Antiochene exegesis looks for an exoteric meaning, because the connections of the Alexandrian mode are there, in plain sight. All one needs to do is keep in mind the New Testament while parsing the old.
*** To a certain extent, Alexandrian and Antiochene exegesis are applicable to the New Testament, except here, because the Eschaton has not happened, the process of looking for direct connections between the New Testament and the Old Testament does not work. In general, the New Testament is best read using an Antiochene approach, but a partial Alexandrian approach wherein we analyze prophecies, for example, by comparing prophetic texts in both Testaments using an Alexandrian typological and metaphorical method in both of them has proven insightful.
Indeed, a failure to use this approach is the excessively literal reading of Mark 16:9-20 is the error of the Snake Handling Pentecostals of the Appalachians, an error which has resulted in much physical harm. It should be stressed, of course, that this hyper-literal reading also fails to meet the Christological, rational criteria of Antiochene exegesis, and is indeed not exegesis at all, but eisegesis, and is problematic even in the context of eisegesis, in that it seemingly ignores the rationale for the Apostles being able to handle serpents and tread on scorpions.
