themselves, consequentlr, the task of discovering
the actual historical meaning of Scripture.
But while their labors were directed cliieHy
a-rainst the allegorical method, they were not
wholly free from this method themselves, this
was doubtless due to the fact that the doctrines
of the Church remained with them, as w^th those
before them, the object and aim of !^"ipture
study; for, while they held theoretically that
the historical sense of the passage yas the only
sense to be discoyered, yet, when that sense did
not avail for doctrinal purposes, they were
obliged to discover a secondary spiritual sense
This was particularly true m the case of the Old
Testament prophecies. Consequently,^ as dog-
matics grew in. the Church, and in their growth
came more to depend upon Scripture for proof,
the traditional rule of faith came to be the regu-
lative form of all interpretation, and so to neces-
sitate a continued resort to allegorical methods.
Of these Syrian schools, the school of Antioch
was of further-reaching and more lasting influ-
ence, making itself felt to a greater or less ex-
tent with such Fathers as Chrysostom, Athana-
sius, and Cyril, in the East and Ambrose,
Jerome, and Augustine, in the West. This was
largely due to its leader, Theodore of Mopsues-
tia" who has been termed the exegete of the
ancient Church. Unfortunately, his opposition
to Oricren brought him under the ban of ortho-
doxy which naturally served ultimately to rein-
state Origen's extreme conception and exagger-
ated use of allegory in the interpretative work of
ii,„ r'l „i, where it remained dominant until
the Church,
the Reformation.
(d) The Medieval Period, ^vhlch may be di- vided into the following sub-periods: (D The post-Patristic, represented by Bede, d.c.,35; lcuin, d.80-1; Rabamis Maurus, d.856: and R.id- bertus, d.865. (2) The Scholastic, represented l.y John Seotus Erigena, d.891 (though ma certain sense he belongs to a much later age of thought) ; selm.d.ll09: Abelard, d.ll42; Peter Lombard. dc.n04; Aquinas, d.l274; and Occam, d.l347. (3) The in-e-Keforniation, represented by Micolas Lyra, d.l340: Lorenzo Valla, d.c.l465; Reuchlm, d."l522; and Erasmus, d. 1536.
The first of these sub-periods was the dark age of the Church, which may be safely said to have made no contribution to scriptural study. Its work was nothing more than that of compilation from the Fathers, either in the way of excerpts from their writings or glosses on them, and, under the dominance of the Papal idea of the Church, came wholly intoservitude to dogma, to support which in the interests of the Catholic faith was its one and only object.
The second sub-period differed from the hrst laroely in its intellectual aggressiveness. The obiect of Scripture study was still the support of the Church's faith, but the work was no longer done by slavish citations of the Fathers, but bv speculative reasoning. This change was brought about by the rise of free inquiry, over against which it became necessary to vindicate the faith This method naturally resulted, when applied to the intcrprctati..n of Scripture, in a renewed discarding nf the literal sense and a fur- ther extravagance of allegorizing.
But with the revival of learning in the third period, there came not only a new stimulus to the spirit of inquiry, but a new power to the work of interpretation— a power which showed itself especially in its opening up to the inter- preter of the original languages of Scripture, particularly Hebrew, and thus bringing him face to face with the scholarly realities of its actual words. This naturally brought into prominence the literal sense, emphasizing its importance and increasing thus its influence upon other possible senses. The rule of faith was indeed still the object of Scripture study, but the service which this study rendered to it came now to be based more upon this primary meaning which the original language conveyed: and this in turn led to a weakening of the authority which the rule of faith exercised over interpretation itself. It was, in fact, the beginning of a radical change in the underlying conception of the Church involved in the interpretative process.
(JS) The Reformation Htage.
(1) The Protestant period, represented particularly by Luther, 1483-1546; Melanphthon, 1497-1560; and Calvin, 1509-64.
This change in the conception of the Church, begun in the previous period, attained its full issue as men of thought came more vitally to the consciousness that it was not the Church which was to decide what Scripture should teach, but Scripture which was to determine what should be taught in the Church. The growth of this consciousness was iielped on the one side by the deepening conviction of the Church's intellectual and moral inability to handle Scripture, and on the other side by the increasing scholarly and religious respect for the Scriptures themselves. The characteristic of the Reformation interpreta- tion was thus its fundamental principle of the sole authority of Scripture in the things of faith.
Along with this change in the conception of the Church went a change in the conception of the inspiration of the Scriptures. They were still held to be inspired, but not in any mechanical or even verbal way. There was a unique qualification that Scripture writers were understood to possess which separated them from all others, so that even the Apocrypha were no longer on the same level with the other books; but this qualification was not any magical power which rendered their words infallibly true. ^ The Bible writers were simply illumined by the Spirit in their knowledge of spiritual things, being iu the committing of that knowledge to writ;ing- subject to the ordinary laws of the human mind. In fact, inspiration as a process was considered to be always present in the Church.
With such radical alteration of the funda- mental judgments regarding Scripture and the Church underlying interpretation there resulted naturally a complete change in the interpretative method. Not only was the literal sense held to be the primary sense to be considered, but the study of it was held to be perfectly possible with tlie aid furnished by Scripture itself. In other words. Scripture was held to be its own inter- preter, sulhcicnt and conqilcte in all matters ]icr- taining to salvation. .s a consequence, the de- termination of Scripture meaning devolved upon the individual student of Scripture, so that pri- vate judgment for the first time in history came to be not only a fact of criticism, but a riglit of religion. At the same time, under the continued infiu- cnce of scholarshi)), the study of the original lan- guages and other helps was carried on, serving
