At 07:51 01.02.99 -0600, you wrote:
>If I recall my patristics correctly, the "four truths" mentioned --
>literal, allegorical, tropological & anagogical -- were first developed
>by Origen (early 3rd century) as the different approaches to biblical
>exegesis.

As John Scott and Christopher Crockett, among others, already pointed out,
we should really not speak of "truths" in this context but rather of
"senses of scripture". Origen's system was threefold, distinguishing a
literal, moral-tropological and allegorical sense of scripture. This
threefold system was adopted by Latin fathers such as Hilarius of Poitiers,
Ambrose, Augustine (esp. in his exegesis of the Psalms) and Gregory and
remained fairly influential throughout the middle ages, coexisting with the
somewhat younger fourfold system which distinguished a literal,
allegorical, moral-tropological and anagogical sense. The first or one of
the first to distinguish these four senses by their later conventional
names was Johannes Cassianus in his _Collationes_ (published after 420),
II, xiv, 8 (PL 49,962s., I have broken down the passage into paragraphs):

   Itaque, sicut superius diximus, practice erga multas 
   professiones ac studia derivatur. Theoretice vero in duas 
   dividitur partes, id est, in historicam interpretationem, 
   et intelligentiam spiritalem. Unde etiam Salomon cum Ecclesiae 
   multiformem gratiam enumerasset, adjecit: _Omnes enim qui 
   apud eam sunt, vestiti sunt dupliciter_ (Prov. XXXI). Spiritalis 
   autem scientiae genera sunt, tropologia, allegoria, anagoge; 
   de quibus in Proverbiis ita dicitur, _Tu autem describe tibi 
   ea tripliciter, super latitudinem cordis tui_ (Prov. XXII). 
      Itaque historia praeteritarum ac visibilium agnitionem 
   complectitur rerum quae ita ab Apostolo replicatur: _Scriptum 
   est_ enim, _quia Abraham duos filios habuit, unum de ancilla, 
   et alium de libera; sed qui de ancilla, secundum carnem natus 
   est; qui autem de libera, per repromissionem_ (Galat. IV). 
      Ad allegoriam autem pertinent quae sequuntur, quia ea quae
   in veritate gesta sunt, alterius sacramenti formam praefigurasse
   dicuntur: _Haec enim_, inquit, _sunt duo testamenta: unum quidem 
   de monte Sina, in servitutem generans, quod [...] est Agar: 
   Sina enim mons est in Arabia, qui comparatur huic, quae nunc 
   est Jerusalem, et servit cum filiis suis_. 
      Anagoge vero de spiritalibus mysteriis ad sublimiora quaedam 
   et sacratiora coelorum secreta conscendens, ab Apostolo ita 
   subjicitur: _Quae autem sursum est Jerusalem, libera est, quae 
   est mater nostra. Scriptum est enim: Laetare sterilis, quae non 
   paris; erumpe et clama, quae non parturis; quia multi filii 
   desertae magis quam ejus quae habet virum (Ibid.). 
      Tropologia est moralis explanatio, ad emendationem vitae et 
   instructionem pertinens actualem, velut si haec eadem duo 
   Testamenta intelligamus practicen et theoreticen disciplinam; 
   vel certe si Jerusalem aut Sion animam hominis velimus accipere, 
   secundum illud, _Lauda, Jerusalem, Dominum; lauda Deum tuum, 
   Sion_ (Psalm. CXLVII). 
       Igitur praedictae quatuor figurae in unum ita si volumus 
   confluunt, ut una atque eadem Jerusalem quadrifariam possit 
   intelligi: secundum historiam civitas Judaeorum, secundum 
   allegoriam Ecclesia Christi, secundum anagogen civitas Dei 
   illa coelestis quae est mater omnium nostrum; secundum 
   tropologiam anima hominis, quae frequenter hoc nomine aut 
   increpatur, aut laudatur a Domino.

A somewhat earlier passage, written in 390, can be found in Augustine's _De
vera religione_, cap. L, no. 99, where Augustine raises the two questions
"Vtrum a uisibilibus antiquioribus ad uisibilia recentiora eam [sc.
allegoriam] perducere sufficiat an usque ad animae affectiones atque
naturam, an usque ad incommutabilem aeternitatem, an aliae significent
gesta uisibilia, aliae motus animorum, aliae legem aeternitatis, an aliquae
inueniantur, in quibus haec omnia uestiganda sint" (CCM 32, p.51). This
passage does not yet give names to the four senses, but it is obvious that
the same distinction as in Cassianus is already at work: 

 - the allegorical sense 'strictu sensu' (which I prefer to call
'typological') relates the "visibilia antiquiora" (as accounted on the
level of the literal sense) to "visibilia recentiora" in the history of the
Church, usually by relating prefigurations in the OT to their fulfillment
in the NT;

 - the moral-tropological sense relates these "visibilia" to the "animae
affectiones et natura", the "motus animae" of the individual soul in this
world (a focus typical for Alexandrinian exegesis, whereas medieval
tradition used to be less concerned with the internal processes but tended
to give a more practical understanding to this sense, by interpreting
sinful/rightful action as a figur of the present reader's sinful/rightful
action)

 - and the anagogic sense relates these "visibilia" of this temporal world
to the "incommutabilis aeternitas", "lex aeternitatis" of heavenly things.

Of greater influence for medieval tradition was another passage in
Augustine, in _De genesi ad litteram_ (from 401/15), I, 1, where he
distinguishes the contents of scriptural exegesis in general (without
assigning them more specifically to the two levels of literal and spiritual
exegesis): "in libris autem omnibus sanctis intueri oportet, quae ibi
aeterna intimentur [= anagogical sense], quae facta narrentur [= literal
sense], quae futura praenuntientur [= allegorical-typological sense], quae
agenda praecipiantur uel admoneantur [= moral-tropological sense]" (CSEL
28, p.3).

Christopher has already pointed us to the relevant studies by Lubac (now
available also in English translation) and Smalley. Lubac discusses thethe
early origins at some lengths, but strangely overlooks the passage in _De
vera religione_.

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