be contained in Scripture, provided the Scripture contains the truth. This philosophical, or, as it is also called, rational interpretation, which was already practised in the schools of the Socinians and Cartesians,* has been often termed, since the middle of the last century, the liberal interpretation; because in homage to the philosophy of the time, it has relaxed so much from the strictness of the biblical doctrines, as the spirit of the age demanded. This so-called philosophical exegesis has made its appearance in the greatest variety of shapes and modifications, according to the change of systems and of the spirit of the age. Its most striking form was that of moral interpretation. This was recommended by Kant, in the passages quoted at the beginning of this essay, and in various other parts of his "Religion within the bounds of Reason." His fundamental idea was the following: So long as mankind shall not be ripe enough to receive the precepts of a purely moral religion, which Kant deduced from the mere postulates of practical reason; so long as they cannot do without the authority of a supposed divine revelation, and of a church regarded as holy by the multitude; so long must the doctrines of the Scriptures and of the church, and the facts of sacred history, not be contested as untrue and unfounded, not even so far as they are so in reality; but they must be so explained away, without reference to the real meaning of the sacred writers, or of the ancient teachers of the church, as to have the sense of them coincide, in the greatest possible degree, with the religion of pure reason. In this manner interpreters deduced from the Scriptures, not the sense of the sacred writers, but the ideas of Kant; which, indeed, they first had to put into, or, to speak more correctly, to connect in some way or other with the biblical text-to imply and to apply. And so it is with every so-called philosophical interpretation. They all extract from the Scriptures, or rather they imply in the words of Scripture, those opinions or ideas which the interpreter already brings with him to the work. Cartesians, the followers of Spinoza, Kant, Schelling, Fichte, Hegel, or whatever they are called, or whatever they may be,-all found and find in the Scriptures the sense of their masters, but not the sense of

* See J. F. Buddeus, Isagoge ad Theologiam universam, 1727. p. 1794 sqq. J. Jac. Rambach, Erläuterungen üb. s. eigenen Institutt. herm. 1738. p. 323 ff. See also the author's Commentatio hist. theol. de Rationalismi vera indole, p. 47 seqq. 56 seqq.

Christ and his apostles. Such interpretation can therefore not properly be called explication.

Kindred to these modes of interpretation, and often not at all distinguished from them in its form, as well as in its results, is the allegorical interpretation. As this mode of exegesis has been again revived in our day, and employed by some very learned and intelligent men, I may be permitted to make here some remarks on the nature and origin of it, and assign some reasons why it ought not to be adopted in practice.*

Those

(1) As to its nature. The allegorical interpretation adopts, as its fundamental principle, the idea, that certain words, besides their natural (grammatico-historical) sense, have also another meaning, ἄλλα ἀγορεύειν=ἕτερα, ὧν λέγουσι, σημαίνειν. interpreters who have applied this method to the Holy Scriptures, have either assumed, that every passage besides the literal (grammatico-historical) sense, contains also a hidden (spiritual, higher, deeper) sense, or even several senses; or they assumed, -which however is not essentially different," that the Scriptures have indeed no other sense besides the simple literal meaning, but they have another deeper sense under the literal one; i. e. an obvious and literal sense of the words, and a deeper significancy of this literal sense, vnóvoa," according to Ölshausen. Both these classes of allegorical interpreters, who may be again subdivided into very many under-classes according to the various modifications of their opinions, accord in the belief that the Holy Spirit, which filled the sacred writers, so guided their words or representations, as that these should have two or even more senses.†

* For the literature of this subject, see the author's Lehrbuch des christl. Glaubens, p. 148 ff.

In this respect, the allegorical class of interpreters are distinguished essentially from the philosophical or rationalist class; since the latter do not inquire after the meaning of the sacred writers, but only after what their own system recognizes as valid; and thus with little or no regard for the grammatico-historical sense, they only seek to attach their own opinions to the words of Scripture. These two methods, however, have often been confounded. And it is true, that allegorical interpreters among the Greeks and Romans, as also among the orientals, with the excep tion of the ancient Jewish and Christian expositors, (who deduced the double sense from inspiration,) were nothing else than philo

(2) As to its origin, the allegorical interpretation is the offspring of a mental departure from the faith of one's ancestors, and of the community to which one belongs; arising sometimes from a really higher cultivation of mind, as in the case of Plato and other Greek philosophers, and sometimes from wrong education and prejudice; but occasioning a difference, which one wishes either to conceal, or to excuse and render venerated. This is obvious in regard to the allegorical interpreters, both among the heathen and the Jews. The Greek philosophers explained their mythological and other fables, in which the people believed, but to which they themselves could at least no longer attach entire credit, allegorically or spiritually; in order that while they thus retained their own really or supposed better views and opinions, they might avoid offending too harshly and publicly the popular belief. Just so the Jewish philosophers, theosophists, and Pharisees, who had an interest in finding and pointing out in the Scriptures their own opinions, imaginations, and ordinances, which according to the grammatico-historical interpretation were not to be found there. In others, of whom we know that they had the most implicit faith in the simple contents of the Bible, there is not a trace of allegorical nor spiritual interpretation to be found.

With some, moreover, the want of proper insight into the nature and connexion of divine revelation, compelled them to take refuge in this method of explanation, especially in disputes with the adversaries of revelation; inasmuch as this method renders it easy, particularly for adroit, sagacious, and fanciful minds, under the appearance of truth and right, to remove from the Scriptures every thing offensive, as well as to understand in them all that one pleases. So especially the Alexandrine Jew Philo.* The very same thing we find again in the Christian church. Catholics, theosophists, and mystics in general, the scholastic orthodox, secret rationalists,-in one word all those follow by preference the allegorical method, who wish to find and

sophical interpreters. Hence also Kant, in justification of his so called moral interpretation, appeals to them as precedents. See his work above quoted, p. 158. See also above, p. 119, "It will also be found," etc.

* Compare H. Planck, °Commentatio de principiis et causis interpretationis Philonianae allegoricae. Goett. 1806.

point out in the Bible their own extra-biblical or contra-biblical opinions. Besides, among Christian interpreters of this species, there is also another and nobler motive for seeking allegories in the Old Testament at least, viz. the opinion that the New Testament is already contained in the Old, but under a veil. And although this idea is repelled by the Old Testament (e. g. Jer. 31: 31 ff.) as well as by the New; yet because so much is true, that the former announced and prepared the way for the latter, these interpreters do not scruple to employ the allegorical interpretation, by means of which they are able to find their own preconceived notions in the writings of the ancient covenant.*

(3) That the allegorical is not an admissible method of interpretation may be gathered from the preceding remarks. It is, however, also to be rejected on other grounds.

This too favourable view of the Old Testament is doubtless the motive, which has reconciled the writer's learned and respect. ed friend Olshausen with the allegorical interpretation.-Many, however, go still farther than he, and suppose that the doctrines, which are usually regarded as peculiar to Christianity, e. g. the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity, are to be found in the Old Testament (if we can only seize its spiritual sense) far more clearly and extensively, than even in the New. But this is essentially the same thing that was censured by Isidorus of Pelusium in many of his contemporaries; who, believing that they must find Christ every where in the Old Testament, rendered in this way the real prophecies concerning him suspicious to the heathen and to heretics; only, that they did not always do this by allegorical interpretation, but often by other arbitrary explanations. In his Epp. lib. II. cap. 195, he says: Oi nãoɑv τyv пalaiav diaðýenv εἰς τὸν Χριστὸν μεταφέρειν πειρώμενοι, οὐκ ἔξω αἰτιάσεως εἰσιν, ἐπείπερ καὶ ̔́Ελλησι καὶ τοῖς μὴ ἐγκρίνουσιν αὐτὴν Αἱρετικοῖς ἰσχὺν ἐν τῇ καθ ̓ ἡμῶν διδόασι μάχῃ. Τὰ γὰρ μὴ εἰς αὐτὸν εἰ ρημένα ἐκβιαζόμενοι καὶ τὰ ἀβιάστως εἰρημένα υποπτεύεσθαι παρασκευάζουσι. Δι' ὧν γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι αὐτοὺς ἀνατρέπουσι ὡς παραποιοῦντας, διὰ τούτων καὶ ἐν τοῖς διαρρήδην περὶ αὐτοῦ εἰρημένοις νικᾶν νομίζονται. “Those who attempt to refer the whole Old Testament to Christ, deserve censure; since they give to the Greeks and to the heretics, who do not admit it, an advantage in the contest against us. For by straining those things which are not said of him, they render suspected those things which really do refer to him. And thus the adversaries, having vanquished them as perverters of Scripture, suppose themselves victorious also in respect to what is clearly spoken of Christ.

(a) It is not recommended in the Scriptures themselves. In the Homologoumena of the New Testament, there is to be found only one instance of this method of interpretation, viz. Gal. 4: 22 ff. and here, according to the previous intimation of the apostle himself, it is a formal accommodation; in which shape it often is and may be applied in popular writing and discourse. In v. 19 f. he says : Τεκνία μου, ἤθελον δὲ παρεῖναι πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἄρτι καὶ ἀλλάξαι τὴν φωνήν μου· ὅτι ἀποροῦμαι ἐν ὑμῖν. Λέγετε μοι, οἱ ὑπὸ νόμον θέλοντες εἶναι, τὸν νόμον οὐκ ἀκούετε; Gladly were I now with you, my children, and would speak with each one of you in particular, according to his special wants, consequently, with each one differently, in order to convince each of you after his own opinions and prejudices, that this union of Judaism with Christianity is to be rejected, and to retain him in the confession of pure Christianity, which alone makes free; comp. 9: 19 ff. For I am hesitating in respect to you; i. e. doubtful how I shall rightly address you.-But ye now, who would gladly retain the yoke of Judaism, (and how the Judaizing teachers and their Rabbins allegorised is well known,) tell me, do ye not then understand the law? I will explain it then to you-alážas tηv pwvýv—in your own way; in order thus to convince you, that the emancipated Christian should no longer bear the yoke of the Mosaic law; yiyoaлтαı ɣáo—' and now follows a rabbinical interpretation in their own taste.— According to this mode of viewing the connexion of the passage, and after the express intimation of the apostle, that he was about to speak alles otherwise than he had been accustomed to do, and that he would gladly enter into their views and wants, in order to convince them at all events of the correctness of his. teaching, this passage can surely not be brought forward to exhibit or to justify the application of allegorical interpretation to the whole of the Scriptures, as being of apostolical authority.

In all the other passages, which the friends of allegorical interpretation have cited in favour of it, (leaving here the Antilegomena out of view, on the ground that they alone could not decide the question,) we find either simply metaphorical or symbolical applications of earlier biblical passages, doctrines, ordinances, and narratives; or disclosures and explanations in the New Testament of the revelations and events of the Old Testament, according to their true and proper sense, ground, essence, and object. E. g. 1 Cor. x. where we are taught, that the Jehovah, who according to the Old Testament led the people of