Allegorical Interpretation Allegory in the Old Testament thp best cxamplrs lH?ing
TllE
JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
afforded by tlie often of Jonatlian Elbe-
liiirlily iiij;fiii<nis alU'siori/.iitions
scliiUz in liis homilies. "Yaaiiit Dcliasli " (Honeycopse). AVIun catmli.sni beniine incorponited in l.Iasidism, Allcirorical Interpretation received a new impulse, tlie etlects of whieliare still felt. The followinjr allejrorizatii)!! of the pa.s.sai;e coneeniiiifr the two wives (I)eut. xxi. I.")) is from a work enlilled "E/.or Eliyahu " Elijah's (Jirdlcl. imhlished at Warsaw, 18H."): "When man's two inclinations |D't,"J. "rulers," for D't'J. "wives"], the spiritual ami the (
material, the one which n man readily obeys and the one to which he is not so obedient, both produce actual deeds, then only the otfsprini; of the spiritual promptin,;; shall lie considered the one less belove(i
—
as the real It
was
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lirst-born.' the meritorious one." owiiii; to mystic inHuence that, '
toward
the end of the liftecnth century, philosophical allegorization. which had so lonir lain dormant as under a ban, once more raised its head in association with deitmli (e.l>osition of Scripture). Quite the ablest of these allciroriziuir preacheis was Is..c .Vi!.m.. who. basing hisattitude Isaac upon the above-mentioned deehiration Arama. of the Zohar. strenuously maintained not only the propriety, but the necessity of Allegorical Interpretation ("Ilazut Kashah," ..). without, however, detractini; in the least from the authorF.xactly in the words of ity of the literal word. Philo, but probably i|uite independent of him (com]iare Paul's allejrory of th<- same Biblical narrative), " Sarah, the mistress, is the Torah her handmaiden, Ila^ar. is I'hilosophy. The fruitfuluess of Sarah (the Torah] followed only when the Egyjitian handmaiden that is. heathen Philoso|iliy had for centuries usurped the position of mistress. It was then that the real mistress, the Torah. resumed her sway, and Philosoi)hy became her handmaid. But the latter sou.i;ht to tiee from her rule into the wilderness. where the angels found her at the well. Thus Philosophy es.sayed to separate herself from Revelation, and presumed to water the desert of mankind with mere human wisdom, water from her well; but the angels taught her that it were lietter for her to be a servant in Sarah's house [the Torah] than a mistress in the desert." Arama's deduction that pliilosophy is the handmaid of theology is thus exactly the opjxisite of the view of Maimonides and Ins successors. Xext to Arama, mention may be ina<le of Judah Moscato, the first darshan in Italy in the sixteenth century to make extensive u.se of alU'gorism. In the Biblical preseriiition for the Nazarite. he perceives the intimation that man must renounce the
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world and
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enjoyments, until his hair, typifying with the spiritual, has grown to such extent that he can enjoy the world without danger ("Xefuzot Yehudah," horn. 1.5). In connection with this mention may be made of Don Is..c Auk.waxei., whose allegorism closely resembles that of the darsliauim. He, too. takes his stand upon the Zohar's its
his connection
justification of allegorism
and
its
distinction of gar-
ment, body, and soul in the Torah. Being an admirer of both Jlaimonides an<l the Cabala it is not seldom that he gives to a Biblical (lassage two interpretations, one philosophical and one cal)alistie. Thus Adam is the type of Israel, the true man, into whom God breathed His spirit, the holy law. He placed him in Paradise, the Holy Land, where were the tree of life (the teachings of the Law and prophecy) and also the tree of knowledge (heathenism). And thereupon a philosophical interpretation follows, based principally ipon Maimonides and Gersonides ("Commentary on Gen." iii. 22, ed. Amsterdam, 34A).
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Of the New Testament writings, the Pauline and Deutcro-Pauline are especially full of Allegorical Interpretation, in which the two cleof Palestinian and Hellenic Juare both conspicuous. Paul's allegorism is tyiiological and betrays its Pharisaic origin. Thus it can not be sjud to be due to Alexandrian, still less to Philonic. iiitluence, when Paul, in I Cor. ix. 9. lit. .says. "Doth (bid take care for oxen'/" (Deut. xxv. 4), "or altogether for our siikes." This is simply a moditication of the old Ilalakah ([uoted above, which ujiplies this law to explain that a woman may not be forced into an inisuitable levirate marria,i.'e, because she lierself is entitle<l to the ordinary )>ronusc of happiness in return for her share in the bond of wi-dloek. So, too, his well-known allegorization of Sandi and Ha.^ar (Gal. iv. 21-;il) is fundamentally only a typological presentation of the Palestiinan teaching, " Thou wilt
In the New incuts Testament. daism
no freeman but him w ho is occupied in learning Tonih " (Ab. vi. 2). Paul is not even original in his find
types, for the oldest Haggadah represents the conflict between Ishmael, the son of the maid, and Isaac, the sou of the mistress, as a s])iritial one (Sifre. Deut. xxxi.). Alexandrian intluence is first discernible in the Epistle to the Hebrews, whereas Epistle to Palestinian allegorism is suggested in the the interpretation of the ark of Noah Hebrews, as representing the rite of baptism, in I Peter, iii. 20; compare (Jen. H. xxxi. 9. Alexandrian intluence is shown in Hebrews by the general tendency throughout rather than by individual instances. Paul neverdetracts from the historical reality of the narratives he allegorizes, but the Hebrews became the model for Alexandrian in.ijenuity by which Israel's history an<l legal enactments were construed as being in reality intimations of the mysteries of faith, concealing the spirit in the letter, and reducing the essentials of the Old Testament to mere shadows. This tendency is clearest in the Gospel of John, the author of which makes most use of Old Testament illustrations; the serpent ujion a pole in the wililcrness (Num. xxi. 8) becomes Jesus upon the cross (John, iii. 14). Je.sus is the manna in the desert, the bread of life {ibid. vi. 31. 49). This pushing of the allegorization of the ( )ld Testament to such an extreme that it would deprive it of all its indcijcndent life and character, or The makeof ita va.irueand feeble prophecy Apostolic of the future, found favor among the Fathers. Apostolic Fathers. Prominent among these for his allegoiization was Barnabas (about the year 100). who. aciiuainted as he was with rabbinical and even halakic doctrine, aspired to show that the .Jews did not themselves understand the Old Testament. The Biblical enactment of the .scapegoat is typically applied to Jesus, who carried the .sins of his crucifiers: the goat's flesh was devoured rawand with vinegar an old Palestinian tra<lition becaiise Jesus' tlesli was also moistened with gall and vini'gar. The boys who sprinkle the water of purification are the apostles; they are three in number, in commemoration of Abraham, Isjuic, and Jacob. These and otherallu.sions make it sufficiently clear that Barnabas depended upon Palestinian sources rather than upon Philonic. as Siegfried would
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(" Philo von Alexandrien," p. I'Hl). While Barnabas exhibits a not insignificant Hellenic bias, his methods were applied by Gnostics to the New Testament writings. Although they disclaimed any depreciation of the historical value of the Old Testament, they became the chief exponents in their time of that Alexandrian allegorism which made of the Biblical narrative nothing else than an
maintain
