Dear Otfried,
Thank you for an intriguing note! It raises a number of questions on which I
would very much appreciate your views.
You wrote:
> I would say that reading contemporary history as being prefigured in biblical
> history (or in biblical word prophecies) is basically a form of biblical
> exegesis, i.e. of
> the typological variant of it (which medievals termed 'allegorical' strictu
> sensu). The more common variant consisted in reading events and word
> prophecies of the Old Testament as being prefigurations of what is
> fulfilled in the New Testament, putting the focus on Christ's own life, but
> including also the history of the Church. There was no precise temporal
> 'terminus usque ad quem', no rule saying "events earlier than this or that
> date can still be prefigured in the Bible, whereas later events can not",
> although exegetic praxis tended generally to be conservative rather than
> inventive, and although there were certain risks or a potential of
> political and other conflict involved in claiming biblical prefigurations
> for contemporary persons and events.
Isn't typology, in its strict sense, confined to the words, events, and persons
of Holy Scripture? This seems to me to be distinct from allegory, which Henri de
Lubac (Exegese Medievale, Paris: Aubier, 1959) reminds us, is but the spiritual
sense--Jer., In Amos (PL 25:1025D): "Juxta allegoriam, id est, intellegentiam
spiritalem." After all, Plutarch and others read Homer allegorically (but not
typologically). Although one might read an historical event allegorically, I
don't think one could read it typologically. Thus I would disagree that allegory,
strictu sensu, is a variant of typology (although I would agree on the reverse).
And yet, the first allowance I might make in pedantically confining typology to
the bounds of Scripture concerns Acts 17:28, which seems to allow Pagan-Christian
typology--although Bede, in his reading of the verse, seems to suggest this is
merely a rhetorical device. The second allowance regards the extension of OT
typology to the Church (e.g., the Ark as a type of Church), as you mention, which
is nevertheless arguably conferred upon Peter within the confines of Scripture.
History is certainly capable of allegorical interpretation. Isidore of Seville
notes that Scriptural history ought to be considered both "in relatione
praeteritorum gestorum et in manifestis divinisque praeceptis" (Lib. de var.
quaes., IX, n.4.). Robert of Melun distinguishes between what is seen and its
allegorical sense: "historin, id est video ... Rerum vero significatio mystic, id
est occulta appelatur" (in Lubac, Pt. 1, vol2, p. 426). And Bede, in
characteristic brevity: "Historicam simul et allegoricam scientiam." But the
allegorical interpretation of history may need to be distinguished here from
observing a fulfillment of prophecy.
Perhaps in part because of Dante's explicit linking of his own use of allegory to
Scriptural exegesis (the first poet to do so as far as I know), the distinctions
between typology and allegoy, allegory and figure, figure and symbol lack the
precision they did in the earlier middle ages. Or perhaps that precision is a
critical myth! What are your thoughts?
Steve
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