(“The literal [or historical] sense teaches us about what things were done; the allegorical
sense tells us what we should believe; the moral [or tropological] sense tells us what to
do; and the anagogical sense tells us about our heavenly ends.”)
A common medieval example of a word glossed according to the four senses is taken
from John Cassian. “Jerusalem” in the literal sense is the city in the Holy Land; in the
allegorical sense, it is the Church Militant on earth; tropologically, it stands for the
faithful believer; anagogically, it is the heavenly city of Jerusalem. In a sense, the three
“spiritual” definitions are arbitrary; they are not the only expositions of “Jerusalem”
according to these senses that one might find in medieval exegesis. Indeed, there were
books of “distinctions” (distinctiones) that gave lists of words, arranged alphabetically,
defined according to various senses of Scripture; different definitions may be given for
any one word in any one sense.
Furthermore, this neat division cannot be taken to be a description of the reality of
exegesis. First, it is not the case that exegetes go through each pericope (short section of
text), interpreting it according to one sense after the other. The closest one can get to that
are the commentaries of Stephen Langton, which proceed according to a general “literal”
sense and then to a blanket “allegorical” or “moral” one. Langton’s method enabled his
commentaries to circulate in various forms, some with both senses of Scripture present,
others with only the literal or only the allegorical. But Langton is an exception.
Generally, commentators jump from one sense to another, depending on the passage in
question and their aim in making the exegesis: a commentator beginning a scholarly
consideration of a text may begin with a lexicographical survey (included in the literal
sense); but a commentator whose purpose is exhortation will use the allegorical or
tropological senses.
Second, not all pericopes, as Hugh of Saint-Victor noted, are suitable for interpretation
according to every sense of Scripture. Some appear to have no historical sense, as they
are simply untrue or so obscure as to be incomprehensible. Others are only fruitful in an
anagogical understanding.
Medieval exegesis cannot be easily characterized and divided into periods when literal
or spiritual senses prevailed. In the best cases, interpreters were fluid in their use of
Scripture and were always conscious of the task of strengthening the faithful in their
beliefs. They write with the needs of their audience in mind and so will shift between
senses or through metaphors in order to make a point, or to wrestle a Christian meaning
from a pericope.
Third, the meaning of the senses—what each of them included by definition—varied
over time. For instance, before the middle of the 13th century the literal sense came to
encompass not only a lexical exposition of the text, as well as “what happened” in the
historical or narrative sense, but also whatever meaning the author intended, even when
that intention was a metaphor or allegory. This shift in definition was possibly to
counteract criticism that interpreters could prove anything by recourse to the spiritual
senses; it led to fears for orthodoxy. Right doctrine must have its roots in the literal sense
of Scripture. The literal sense provided the foundations for the house of interpretation. In
order to allow christological (a passage that foreshadows the coming of Christ) and
typological (an Old Testament passage acting as an extended metaphor for a New
Testament scene or theme) interpretation of the Old Testament, which no Christian
medieval exegete would have considered anything but foundational, commentators had to
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