Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary

Alexandria versus Antioch

Submitted to Dr. Ken Cleaver, in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the completion of the course

CHHI 942-397

Patristic Exegesis

by

Floyd Schneider

September 1, 2014
 Contents

Introduction................................................................................................1

The Exegesis of Jesus and Paul.................................................................1

The Exegesis of Philo and the Early Church Fathers.............................2

The Alexandrian School............................................................................6

The Antiochene School..............................................................................9

Conclusion................................................................................................16

Bibliography.............................................................................................17

ii
 Introduction

The arrogance of theologians in any age increases directly proportionally to their

lack of knowledge about other systems of hermeneutics. The historical study of different

hermeneutical systems forces the Bible teacher to reexamine his own approach to

Scripture. The hermeneutical principles never developed in a vacuum, and an

understanding of the reasons for accepting or rejecting any such principles can help the

theologian make wiser decisions as to which principles are most useful for interpreting

the most important book in all of creation.

The Exegesis of Jesus and Paul

Jesus considered the Old Testament scriptures to be authentic and inspired.1 The

apostle Paul viewed the scriptures in the same way, but through the direction of the Holy

Spirit2 Paul saw the allegory behind the Sarah and Hagar story in Genesis. His

understanding of this allegory, however, did not reject the literal history of Genesis 16.

He saw the historical figures as examples of the scripture’s Christocentric foundation.

Rabbinic exegesis focused mostly on the verbalism of individual words “at the expense

of contexts”3 in the Old Testament, whereas Paul’s basis for his exegesis required

conversion and the Holy Spirit in order to fully understand the spiritual aspects of the Old

Testament.4

1
“It is written . . .” Matt. 4:4; Mark 11:17; Luke 4:4.
2

2 Pet. 1:21.
3

Robert M. Grant and David Tracy, A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible (New York:
Fortress Press and Macmillan Publishing Co., 1973), 26.
4

2 Cor. 3:14ff, 4:3ff.

1
 Allegorism did not appear in a vacuum. Aristobulus (160 B.C.) preceded Philo

with use of this hermeneutic. “Aristobulus asserted (i) that Greek philosophy borrowed

from the Old Testament, especially from the Law of Moses; and (ii) that by employing

the allegorical method the teachings of Greek philosophy could be found in Moses and

the prophets.”5

The Exegesis of Philo and the Early Church Fathers

Philo (c. 25 BCE – c. 50 CE), a contemporary of Josephus, seems to be the most

famous early scholar after the resurrection to allegorize the Old Testament for the

purpose of evangelizing the Greeks. Wolfson, a leading scholar of Philo, wrote that Philo

probably quoted from Aristobulus, thus placing him before Philo.6 “Philo bases his

doctrines on the Old Testament, which he considers as the source and standard not only

of religious truth but in general of all truth. Its pronouncements are for him divine

pronouncements . . . Philo regards the Bible as the source not only of religious revelation,

but also of philosophic truth; for, according to him, the Greek philosophers also have

borrowed from the Bible.”7 Philo’s twofold meaning was a forerunner of Origen’s ideas.

Philo’s two interpretations were not to be equally valued.

The literal sense is adapted to human needs; but the allegorical sense is the real
one, which only the initiated comprehend. Hence Philo addresses himself to the
5
Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1970), 26-
27.

6
Harry Austryn Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam, Volume 1: Structure and Growth of Philosophical Systems from Plato to Spinoza, 4th Revised
edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), 115.

7
Philo Judaeus, "Philo Judaeus: His Methods of Exegesis," Jewish Encyclopedia,
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12116-philo-judaeus#anchor8
(accessed Sept. 1, 2014).

2
 μύςται ("initiated") among his audience, by whom he expects to be really
comprehended. A special method is requisite for determining the real meaning of
the words of Scripture, the correct application of this method determines the
correct allegory, and is therefore called "the wise architect." As a result of some
of these rules of interpretation the literal sense of certain passages of the Bible
must be excluded altogether; e.g., passages in which according to a literal
interpretation something unworthy is said of God; or in which statements are
made that are unworthy of the Bible, senseless, contradictory, or inadmissible; or
in which allegorical expressions are used for the avowed purpose of drawing the
reader's attention to the fact that the literal sense is to be disregarded.8

Philo’s apparent love for the scriptures and his desire to reach his countrymen led him to

do what the Greeks did for their gods: allegorize away the parts that gave their gods a bad

name.

However, Kannengiesser, in his Handbook of Patristic Exegesis quotes Arnaldez:

“In the chain of generations, stretching from the first man to Moses, allegory and history

remain inseparable, and the more one progresses, the more the human types under

investigation are embodied by people who really lived, so that finally, Moses is without a

doubt for Philo a historical character more than an allegorical figure.”9 Philo stayed

firmly grounded on the literal reading of Scripture, which continued “to inspire Philo

throughout his allegoristic commentary.”10 His

unconditional submission to the written text of Scripture as read in the LXX was
essential and unshakable as his dedication to the Law. He never expresses the slightest
remark devaluing the letter of the sacred writings. Before any commentary of a
speculative nature, he always starts by recognizing the value of the literal content that is
relevant to his interpretation.11
8
Philo Judaeus, Jewish Encyclopedia,
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12116-philo-judaeus#anchor8
(accessed Sept. 1, 2014). See also: The Works of Philo Judaeus, (The contemporary of Josephus, translated
from the Greek), by Charles Duke Yonge, London, H. G. Bohn, 1854-1890,
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/yonge/ (accessed Sept. 1, 2014).
9

Charles Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity

(Leiden: Brill, 2004), 177.
10

Ibid., 177.
11

Ibid., 180.

3
 Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, did not share Philo’s concern. Ignatius quoted very

little from the Old Testament, but he believed that “the Old Testament prophets lived

‘according to Christ Jesus.”12 In the epistle of Barnabas the Old Testament begins to take

a backseat to the New Testament, because “the Old Testament has meaning only when it

is understood in terms of the Gospel.”13 History is no longer important, only the message

that God’s covenant is for the Church.14 Typology reigns supreme.

Irenaeus weighed in on the problem of interpreting the scripture as he engaged the

Valentinians and Marcionites who consigned the Old Testament to a God who was

inferior to the God of the New Testament. Irenaeus set out to prove from the New

Testament that the same God existed and revealed Himself in both Testaments, i.e., that

the same God revealed Himself in a new way in the New Testament. Irenaeus placed

more emphasis on the historicity of both Testaments than Philo or Ignatius or Barnabas.

Irenaeus said that the Old Testament was full of types that contained the hidden treasure

of Matt. 13:44.

For every prophecy, before it comes about, is an enigma and a contradiction to

men; but when the time comes, and what was prophesy takes place, it receives a
most certain exegesis. And therefore when the Law is read by Jews at the present
time, it is like a myth; for they do not have the explanation of everything, which is
the coming of the Son of God as man. But when it is read by Christians, it is a
treasure, hidden in the field but revealed by the cross of Christ.15

12
Robert M. Grant and David Tracy, A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible (New York:
Fortress Press and Macmillan Publishing Co., 1973), 40.
13

Ibid., 41.
14

Barnabas 4:6f, http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/barnabas-lightfoot.html.

15
Irenaeus, “Against Heresies, Book 4.26.1” http://m.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.vi.xxvii.html
(accessed Sept. 1, 2014).

4
Irenaeus pointed out that the Lord taught this exegesis after the resurrection (Luke 24:27),

and it is the method the Church should use for reading the Bible outloud. Irenaeus stated

that the method used by the Valentinians is “compared to the destructiveness of a man

who takes the mosaic portrait of a king and converts it into a picture of a dog or fox.”16

Irenaeus claims that his opponent overlook the context of the passages, making isolated

words fit into their speculative theories. They even do this with the Homer in the Iliad

and Odessey.17 They also “interpret the clear and obvious by the dark and obscure.”18

Irenaeus’ viewed all correct interpretation as based on the rule of faith as promoted

through the apostolic succession. “Irenaeus is really the father of authoritative exegesis in

the church. In his opinion truth is to be found only within the church.”19 He rejected

philosophical learning that asked questions that the scriptures has no answers for, i.e.,

that such questions should be left with God.20

The believer can no longer simply appeal to the scriptures for their interpretations,

nor to what is considered to be rational (as the school of Alexandria did). Along with the

internal authority of the Word, Irenaeus’ hermeneutics moved toward an external

authority of the church. The scriptures brought the church into existence, but the

scriptures belong to the church, and the church has been entrusted to keep the gospel pure

16
Irenaeus, “Against Heresies, Book 1.8.1,” http://m.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.ii.ix.html
(accessed Sept. 1, 2014).
17

Irenaeus, “Against Heresies, Book 1.9.4,” http://m.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.ii.x.html

(accessed Sept. 1, 2014).
18

Robert M. Grant and David Tracy, A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible (New York:
Fortress Press and Macmillan Publishing Co., 1973), 49.

19
Ibid., 50.
20

Irenaeus, “Against Heresies, Book 2.28.2,” http://m.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iii.xxix.html

(accessed Sept. 1, 2014). See also “Book 4.33.8.” http://m.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.vi.xxxiv.html
(accessed Sept. 1, 2014).

5
of error. Irenaeus agreed with the Alexandrian school that “scripture contains a great

mystery. It speaks in a language of symbols. Their emphasis on the allegorical

interpretation supplements Irenaeus’ work. It did not supplant it.”21

The Alexandrian School

The beginning of the “school” of Alexandria is unclear. Research has produced a

vague glimpse of Pantaenus, the founder of the Christian catechetical school. Origen and

his writing brings this school into the open. All of the Alexandrians worked and lived in

the same city, surrounded by wealth. They all submitted to the religious traditions with

the Church, but many seemed to be somewhat unorthodox. Philo had divided

allegorization into two types, physical (God and nature) and ethical (humanity). Philo,

among others, believed that the seven-branched candlestick stood for the seven planets

(physical), and that Abraham and Sarah stood for Mind and Virtue (ethical).22 Philo could

not accept the Garden of Eden as literal, thus he felt he needed to allegorize the trees,

etc., since we have no such trees on earth today (Tree of Life, etc.). He therefore

developed principles that guide the interpreter. First, the literal sense had to be rejected if

a passage contained anything unworthy of God or that was difficult to understand

(historically improbable or appeared to contain inconsistencies).23 Second, “if something

is stated which seems perfectly obvious, there must be a deeper meaning hidden within

21
Robert M. Grant and David Tracy, A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible (New
York: Fortress Press and Macmillan Publishing Co., 1973), 51.
22

W. Bousset, Jüdisch-Christlicher Schulbetrieb in Alexandria und Rom (Göttingen, 1915), 8. This

source was found in Robert M. Grant and David Tracy, A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible
(New York: Fortress Press and Macmillan Publishing Co., 1973), 191.
23

Robert M. Grant and David Tracy, A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible (New York:
Fortress Press and Macmillan Publishing Co., 1973), 53.

6
the statement.”24 Philo’s intention was to win the Greeks to the God of the Bible by

connecting the Bible with Greek philosophy and avoiding the apparent narrowness of

Israel’s exclusiveness in favor of an international philosopher’s God.

Clement of Alexandria entered the scene with his attempt to justify and

demonstrate the allegorical method of interpretation. He did not attempt to build a

systematic theology based on his interpretation of the scriptures. He simply wanted to use

scripture to support his theology. He was very well education, but he had apparently

accepted the gospel with no question. As he studied the Bible, he came to believe that all

scripture were symbolic. He compared the writings of the philosophers with the writings

of Moses and the prophets and the Apostles and came to believe that veiling the truth in

the scriptures was intentional because God cannot be embraced in words or by the mind.

Abstraction from material things is necessary in order to receive any true knowledge of

God.25 Clement mimicked Plato’s hermeneutical method of allegorization. The literal

word is a symbol of the true meaning of that word. A word could take one of five forms:

the historical sense, the doctrinal, moral and theological sense, the prophetic sense

including types, the philosophical sense in line with Philo and the Stoics including the

cosmic and psychological meanings26, the mystical sense.27 Clement would apply two or

three of these senses at the same time. Clement’s guiding principle for choosing which

24
Ibid., 53.

25
Clement of Alexander, “Reasons for Veiling the Truth in Symbols,”
http://m.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf02.toc.html (accessed Sept. 1, 2014). See also the same website and
chapters 4-11.
26

The Law symbolized the universe; Sarah and Hagar symbolized true wisdom and pagan
philosophy.
27

Grant and Tracy, 56.

7
sense(s) to use for any given text was faith in Jesus. Clement was extremely

Christocentric, and he believed that chose the sense(s) that pointed to Jesus.

Origen, the most prominent member of the Alexandrian school, developed the

allegorical method in his work De Principiis. In book four he treats inspiration and

interpretation.28 He made the claim that the superhuman nature of the growth of

Christianity, as predicted by Jesus, and the fulfillment of prophecy prove the inspiration

of the Bible. He believed that scripture reveals intellectual truths rather than history,

which actually concealed the truth. His examples of this principle included the “days” of

creation without the physical sun, the literal tree of good and evil, God walking in the

garden, the Devil taking Jesus up onto a high mountain, and such items throughout both

Testaments. “The careful reader will detect thousands of other passages in the gospels

like this, which will convince him that events which did not take place at all are woven

into the records of what literally did happen.”29 On the other hand, Origen also admitted

that “the passages which are historically true far outnumber those [historically untrue]

which are composed with purely spiritual meanings.”30 He also warned against

attempting to interpret ambiguous passages. His advice was to obey the Lord’s command

to “Search the scriptures” (John 5:39) by finding out how far the literal meaning was

possible and how far it was impossible by looking at “the use of similar expressions the

meaning scattered everywhere throughout the scriptures of that which when taken

28
Origen, De Principiis, Book 4, “That the Scriptures are Divinely Inspired” and “On the
Inspiration of Holy Scripture, and How the Same is to be Read and Understood, and What is the Reason of
the Uncertainty in it; and of the Impossibility or Irrationality of Certain Things in it, Taken According to
the Letter,” http://m.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf04.vi.v.v.i.html (accessed Sept. 1, 2014.
29

Origen, De Principiis, Book 4.3.1.

30
Origen, Book 4.3.4.

8
literally is impossible.”31 Ultimately, Origen stressed the mysteries of scripture

encapsuled in a language of symbols, which can be understood in a number of senses at

the same time, and to properly interpret those mysteries require divine grace.

Origen’s view of a literal text differs from the present-day view. He understood

the literal view to be that of simple believers who had no ability to understand metaphors,

parables, or allegories, and who demand that every detail of a text be literally true. A

literary analysis of figurative language was beyond their worldview. Origen understood

the differences between poetry and prose. He realized that every figure of speech

represented a literal meaning behind the figure,32 but he turned it around and assumed that

every literal meaning was hiding a spiritual (moral, etc.) meaning behind it.

Origen’s allegorical method could and did lead to excesses, but Origen never

stated that he was completely certain that his interpretations were always correct. He also

believed that the believer has to work diligently in his study and needs to pray for

guidance from the Lord.

The Antiochene School

In spite of the fact that Origen and the allegorical method was severely attacked

by the church and important theologians, like Augustine and Jerome, Origen and many

believers considered the attacks from the pagan world against Christianity as far worse.

“Celsus had already attacked the immorality and triviality of the scriptures, and Porphyry

was soon to do so.”33 Origen and these believers were desperate to be considered

31
Origen, Book 4.3.5.

32
“Put your foot in your mouth” does not mean a literal foot, but a person has to understand what
a foot and mouth are in order to understand the literal meaning behind the figure of speech.
33
Grant and Tracy, 61.

9
intellectually respectable by the pagan world for the purpose of leading them to Christ.

Since most philosophical schools used the allegorical method, Origen’s teachings

resonated with the intellectual pagans. Eusebius wrote that Origen instructed everyone in

philosophy “saying that these would be no small help to them in the study and

understanding of the divine scriptures. On this account he considered it especially

necessary for himself to be skilled in secular and philosophic learning.”34 Origen’s

approach answered the pagan charge that Christians trust in blind faith. “It is of much

more importance to give assent to doctrines upon grounds of reason and wisdom than on

that of simple faith.”35 The Alexander School believed that they were demonstrating the

rationality of the Christian faith. “We are not indebted so much to the method itself as to

the spirit of those who employed it.”36

The Antiochene School looked back to Ezra as the “first of the Jewish interpreters

and the ultimate founder of the Jewish, Palestinian, hyperliteralist of school.”37 He

paraphrased the text in ways that explained the literal meaning of the text. The Jews in

captivity could no longer practice their religion properly (no temple, no land, etc.),

therefore, they focused on the Scriptures. Ramm notes that “there is no simple manner by

which Jewish exegesis can be adequately sums up . . . various schools emerged . . . the

Karaites where the literalists and the Cabbalists were the allegories.” 38 Various individual

rabbis presented lists of hermeneutical rules. “Hillel formulated seven rules, Ismael

34
Grant and Tracy, 61, quoting Eusebius, History Ecclesiastical 6.18.2, McGiffert.
35

Grant and Tracy, 62, quoting Eusebius, History Ecclesiastical 1.13, McGiffert.
36

Grant and Tracy, 62.

37

Ramm, 45.
38
Ramm, 46.

10
thirteen, and Eliezar thirty-two.”39 Although they often deviated from their own rules,

their hermeneutical principles included understanding words in a given context,

comparing a third Scripture verse with two apparent contradicting verses, giving a clear

passage precedence over an unclear one, carefully noting the various aspects and types of

grammar, using logic in order to apply the text, and strongly believing that God used

human language to communicate His message to humanity.40 Ramm notes that their

major weakness in the literal method was “the development of a hyperliteralism or a

letterism.”41

Jerome was originally in agreement with the allegorical method, but eventually

shifted to the opponents’ side for the literal interpretation. The Jewish Christian

community strongly favored the literal method. Theophilus of Antioch42 and his

interpretation of Genesis appears to be the earliest exegete of the literal method.

Dorotheus,43 head of the school in Antioch, did not allegorize the scriptures. Diodorus of

Tarsus wrote a book entitled What is the Difference Between Theory and Allegory44that

defined “theory” as the true literal meaning of the text. Theodore of Mopsuestia, who

39
Ramm, 46.

40
Ramm, 46-47.
41

Ramm, 47.
42

Charles Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity

(Leiden: Brill, 2004), 472.
43

Grant and Tracy, 63.

44

Charles Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity

(Leiden: Brill, 2004), 780-81.

11
wrote Concerning Allegory and History Against Origen45, was one of them most vigorous

proponents of the literal method.

When the Alexandrians offered Paul’s interpretation of Galatians as proof of their

allegorical method, the Antiochians countered that Paul did not do what they were doing.

Paul believed in the historical reality of Genesis, and he accepted the literal historical

meaning of the text as true and Truth. Paul did not reject the historicity of the text, and he

did not read a hidden meaning into the text. The Antiochians believed that Adam was

Adam, not a symbol of some hidden reality. Theodore asked that if Adam had not really

existed, “how did death enter the world, and what meaning does our salvation have?”46

Theodore then quoted as historical reality Paul’s reference to Adam’s disobedience in

Romans 5:18f and the serpent’s deception with Eve in 2 Corinthians 11:3.

Isho’dad’s Introduction to the Psalms based its exegesis on Theodore’s works.

People ask what the difference is between allegorical exegesis historical exegesis.
We replied that it is great and not small; just as the first leads to impiety,
blasphemy and falsehood, so the other is conformed to truth and faith. It was the
impious Origen of Alexandria who invented this art of allegory. Just as poets and
geometricians, when they wish to raise their disciples from material and visible
things to things hidden and invisible, erring in regard to the eternity of incorporeal
matter and to indivisible atoms, say: “Just as it is not these visible signs which are
signs for reading, but their hidden meanings, so from created natures one must
rise by the image of thought to their internal nature”; just so, Origen taught . . ..
The psalms and the prophets who spoke of the captivity of the return of the
people, he explained as teaching the captivity of the soul far from truth and it’s
return to the faith . . .. They do not interpret paradise as it is, or Adam, or Eve, or
any existing thing.47

45
Charles Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity
(Leiden: Brill, 2004), 799-824.

46
Grant and Tracy, 64.

47
Grant and Tracy, 64-5, quoting J. M. Vosté, “L’oeuvre exégétique de Théodore de Mopsueste
au ii concile de Constantinople,” Revue biblique 38 (1929): 554 ff.

12
Ischo’dad then calls the Alexandrians “stupid people” as he refutes their exegesis by

showing how the apostles used the Old Testament in different ways, i.e., of fulfillment,

for exhortation and correction, or to confirm the true teaching, “even though according to

the historical circumstances these words were set forth for other purposes.”48

Antioch demanded the acceptance of the historical reality, as opposed to symbols,

of the text. The Alexandrians favored Plato, whereas the Antiochians went with Aristotle.

The Alexandrians defined “theory” as allegorization, whereas the Antiochians as

meaning deeper than the literal or historical one without abandoning the literal meaning.

For the Antiochians there was no gnostic hidden meaning behind the literal text, which

only the initiated could know. John Chrysostom wrote that “everywhere in scripture there

is this law, that when it allegorizes, it also gives the explanation of the allegory.” 49

There existed a variety of degree among the Antiochians exegetes. Both

Chrysostom and Theodore had been taught the literal method by Diodorus of Tarsus, but

Theodore was the more rigid literalist, whereas Chrysostom did not exclude allegory, but

limiting it to typology. Jerome favored allegory early in life, and his first commentary as

a pure allegorization. When he moved to Antioch he was heavily influenced by

Apollinaris of Laodicea who taught the literal method. After that shift he even rejected

Gregory of Nazianzus’ (the great Origenist) allegorical writings. Once he began to study

the actual Hebrew text of the Old Testament, he moved decisively in the direction of the

literal method. The spiritual meaning of any text has to be based on the literal

interpretation of the words in context.

48
Ibid., 65.
49

Charles Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity

(Leiden: Brill, 2004), 783-787, and John Chrysostom, Isa. 5, Migne PG 56, 60.

13
 The Antiochian method fell into disrepute when the works of Theodore were

ordered to be burned by the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, but the school of

Antioch did not die out. Adrian produced an Introduction to the Divine Scriptures around

425, in which he promoted this method by stating that the exegete must base his

interpretation on the literal meaning, but move on to the deeper meaning of the text. 50

And Junilius Africanus’ Regulative Institutes of the Divine Law, composed around 550,

indicating that the “Nestorian school of Edessa in Syria had preserved the teaching of

Theodore.”51 Thus the Antiochian school returned to the West from the East, strongly

influenced the Carolingian renaissance, later Jewish exegesis, Thomas Aquinas, and the

Reformation, and eventually became the main exegetical method of the Protestant world.

Hieromonk Patapios revisited this topic of comparing and contrasting these two

schools of hermeneutics. He quotes Jacques Guillet as believing that both schools

“concur in seeing the history of the Hebrew people as a preparation for the Incarnation.”52

Although the Alexandrian school embellishes the text with allegory, both find types of

Jesus in the Old Testament. Joseph is a type of Christ, the stones on the breastplate of the

High Priest represent the Apostles, and “the Law contains the shadow of all the realities

of the Gospel.”53 The major difference, as summed up by Guillet, is that “Antioch retains

50
Grant and Tracy, 69-70, quoting F. Goessling, Adrians ΕΙΣΑΓΩΤΗ ΕΙΣ ΤΑΣ ΘΕΙΑΣΓΡΑΦΑΣ
(Berlin, 1887), 13.
51

Grant and Tracy, 70, and Charles Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in
Ancient Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 1326.
52

Hieromonk Patapios, “The Alexandrian and the Antiochene Methods of Exegesis: Towards a
Reconsideration.” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review vol. 44, Nos. 1-4 (1999): 187.
53

Ibid., 188.

14
the prophetic aspect of the typology of the Old Testament, while Alexandria retains its

symbolic aspect and spiritual content.”54

Patapios then uses to represent the radicalism of the Antiochene School, but states

that Theodoret “adopts a middle course, avoiding the radicalism of Theodore of

Mopsuestia and his excessive literalness and allowing an allegorical and typological

explanation, whenever this appears preferable.”55 In a footnote, Patapios notes that

Theodoret accepts the Song of Songs as canonical, whereas Theodore did not, and gives

an allergorical explanation of the book. He rejects Theodore’s letterism that the book is

no more than Solomon’s answer to those who opposed his marriage to the Egyptian

princess, and that the story is not even worthy of being repeated by crazy women.56

Patapios sees Cyril as being influenced by the Alexandrian school, but not agreeing with

Origen’s insistence on forcing every detail of the Old Testament to produce a spiritual

point. Patapios views the typology in the book of Jonah through the lens of these three

scholars (Theodore, Theodoret and Cyril) to “determine whether the gulf that is

commonly held to exist between the Antiochene and Alexandrian approaches is quite as

wide as some would have us believe.” He states that a different text than Jonah would not

have provided as much similarities, and he could not have demonstrated the same valid

use of typology by all three authors. He shows that Cyril and Theodore “do not define

typology in quite the same terms, but they both expect there to be some appropriate

degree of resemblance between the type and the antitype.”57 Theodore does emphasize
54
Ibid., 188 quoting “Les Exégèses d’ Alexandria et d’ Antioche: Conflit ou Malentendu?”
Recherches de Science Religieuse 34 (1947), PP. 272-274.

55
Patrology, vol. III (Westminister, MD: Christian Classics, 1992), 539.
56

Patapios, footnote 197.

57

Ibid., 195.

15
the external aspect of the events, while Cyril the attributes inherent in the comparisons.

Theodoret, in the middle, says little about any presuppositions in typology, but stresses

the need for similarity between the antitype and type. Patapios states that Cyril “is more

faithful to the historical sense of the texts than we would expect, given his Alexandrian

background.”58

Conclusion

Patapios concludes his study with a quote, “there is evidence of a drawing

together other two schools in the matter of exegesis in the fifth century.”59 Alexander

Kerrigan believes that the schools’ approach is closer to one another than most believe.

“In St. Cyril’s instance the convergence of both currents is still more marked. Living in a

period in which the methods peculiar to these seats of learning were still being perfected

and evolved, St. Cyril himself adds his contribution to the final phases of development of

the Alexandrian current. His outlook is characterized by leanings with that of Antioch.”60

This author concludes that the schools were not distinct from each other, and a spectrum

existed from one extreme to another. The extreme interpreters reacted to the extremes of

the other. Over the years, theologians seem to have focused more on the extreme

differences than on the spectrum.

Bibliography

58
Ibid., 196.
59

Ibid., 196, quoting Theodoret of Cyrrhus as Exegete of the Old Testament (Grahamstown, S.A.:
Rhodes University, 1972), p. 55.
60

Alexander Kerrigan, St. Cyril of Alexander: Interpreter of the Old Testament (Analecta Biblica 2.
Rome: Pontifico Istituto Biblico, 1952), 371.

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Bousset, W. Jüdisch-Christlicher Schulbetrieb in Alexandria Und Rom. Göttingen,

1915.

Grant, Robert, and David Tracy. A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible.
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Kerrigan, Alexander. St. Cyril of Alexander: Interpreter of the Old Testament.

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“PHILO JUDÆUS - JewishEncyclopedia.com.” Accessed October 7, 2014.

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Ramm, Bernard. Protestant Biblical Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Baker Book

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Theodoret of Cyrrhus as Exegete of the Old Testament. Grahamstown, S.A.:

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