The allegorical interpretation of the sacred Scriptures cannot be historically proved to have prevailed among the Jews from the time of the captivity, or to have been common with the Jews of Palestine at the time of Christ and his apostles.
Although the Sanhedrin and the hearers of Jesus often appealed to the Old Testament, yet they give no indication of the allegorical interpretation; even Josephus has nothing of it. The Platonic Jews of Egypt began in the first century, in imitation of the heathen Greeks, to interpret the old Testament allegorically. Philo of Alexandria was distinguished among those Jews who practiced this method; and he defends it as something new and before unheard of, and for that reason opposed by the other Jews. Jesus was not, therefore, in a situation in which he was compelled to comply with a prevailing custom of allegorical interpretation; for this method did not prevail at the time among the Jews, certainly not in Palestine, where Jesus taught.