100 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. tile churches were to wage mighty battles with Gnos- tics, Manicheans, and all their kin, and with professed heathens too, upon the character of the Old Testament, its inspired truth or diabolic falsity, and its relation to Christianity. Much in the Old Testament could not but shock the Greek consciousness, whether Chris- tianized or still pagan. Yet its divine authority was not to be denied in the religion whose Founder pro- claimed Himself the final Messianic fulfilment of Scripture. Among all educated people, the habit of allegorical interpretation was so strong that the Old Testament, whatever its character, was certain to be read allegorically by Christians, who would not be slow to tread in Philo's steps. This system offered itself as the natural means to explain the harsh deeds and the anthropomorphic crudities in the conception of divine action recorded in the Sacred Writings. Thus allegorical interpretation found again in Chris- tianity its primary apologetic function ; and thereupon this great defence of the inspired truth of Hebrew Scripture was used as the sword of the Gospel against Jew as well as heathen. With many a subtle turn and flash of unexpected meaning it was made to prove that the life and death and resurrection of Christ were pre- dicted by prophecy and spiritually prefigured in the entire contents of the Old Testament. Thus, first applied to the Old Testament and then to the New, allegorical interpretation pervades Chris- tian literature, and becomes the authoritative system of interpretation. It begins openly with Paul's " And that rock was Christ," ^ and with the same apostle's 1 1 Cor. X. 4.
