LECTURE VI.

ZECHARIAH Xiv. 6, 7.

It shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:

But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.

HITHERTO we have seen the allegorical method of interpretation gaining an early ascendancy in the schools of theology, modified according to the philosophical or religious prejudices of its votaries, and operating, in conjunction with other causes, to the almost total exclusion or extinction of that literal and historical research, without which no one, most assuredly, however piously and spiritually disposed, can hope to be regarded as a correct or judicious expositor of the sacred text. But under no circumstances, and in no quarter of the Christian church, (in none

I should rather say, of which we have at present any accurate or sufficient cognisance a,) have we seen its paramount value and authority questioned, or the grounds on which its pretensions rested exposed to doubt or discussion. Circumstances however, arising partly out of the progress of inquiry, partly out of the controversy with the Jews, one of the most important perhaps in which the church engaged during the middle ages, at length operated, if not to cast any immediate doubt or shade

a If (as some learned persons have supposed) the Syrian churches preserved the works of Theodorus Mopsuestenus and his followers, it is not impossible that a further research into the earlier literature of that church might afford us some more certain documents as to the methods of scriptural interpretation followed by the early Nestorians, and the extent to which they rejected the allegorical methods of the orthodox. Assemanni mentions two works, possibly of an exegetical nature, by Theodorus, as still preserved in the Syriac. (Quæstiones in S. S. et Interrogat. et Respons. Div.) Cat. Bibl. Vatic. vol. iii. pp. 281-406. Much information as to this school, and many other points connected with our inquiry, will be found in Ernesti's Dissertation De Interpret. Proph. Messian. (Opusc. Theol. p. 447.) Bishop Munter (De Schola Antioch. p. 14.) states further, that N. C. Kallius had discovered, and was about to give to the public, the Commentary of Theodorus on the lesser Prophets.

upon the allegorical, to recall at least the attention of theologians to the value and importance of the primary sense of Scripture. In this controversy, the Jewish doctors appealed, as might be expected, to the Hebrew original of the Old Testament; and the reasonableness of their appeal was, so far at least, acknowledged by their adversaries, that we find the study of that language not only countenanced, but in more than one instance provided for by the ecclesiastical authorities of the day. Thus the literal interpretation of the Old Testament became of necessity more attended to and better understood. But the language of that divine record having long since become obsolete, its students were obliged to join to the study of the text that of the glosses and other expository works of the rabbinical schools. In many of these, in such especially as were of later origin, the historical and literal sense were almost exclusively insisted upon, with a view both to the instruction of their unlearned countrymen, and probably in opposition also to the spiritual and typical

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application of the law and the prophets to him whom they rejected b. Hence those theologians who directed their labours to the confutation and conversion of the Jews, though far from acquiescing in the restrictions for which their adversaries contended, and for which indeed they who acknowledged the authority of their own mystical and cabbalistical doctors could not contend without evident inconsistency, were yet of necessity compelled to pay more attention to that literal and historical sense, which, however neglected, had never in these later times been actually questioned by any.

The first writer of eminence who is stated to have derived this advantage from the knowledge and study of the Hebrew records, is Nicolaus de Lyra, (so termed from his birthplace, Lire in Normandy,) who flourished towards the beginning of the fourteenth century. In his glossarial

b Among these, the most eminent were Aben Ezra and Solomon Jarchi, (both said to have been attached to the sect of the Karaites,) and Kimchi; the latter known as the favourite expositor of Grotius. See Buddeus, Isagog. p. 1433 &c. and Rosenmuller, H. I. vol. v. pp. 200 &c. or Simon, Crit. V. T. lib. iii. cc. 6, 7.

annotations on the whole body of Scripture, entitled Postillæ Perpetuæ, De Lyra professedly gave his first attention to the attainment (so far as his means enabled him) of a correct text, and the discovery of its primary, grammatical, and historical import. He was far indeed from denying or doubting either the existence of a secondary and more spiritual sense; or the divisions of that sense into tropological, allegorical, and anagogical, which had so long possessed the uniform sanction of the church. On the contrary, he admits it as the intention of Him by whose spirit those Scriptures were given; and illustrates it by an example frequently adduced to that purpose by more recent authors: the fourfold meaning, namely, of the word Jerusalem, which, literally understood, betokens the city so named; tropologically or morally, the soul of the true believer; alle

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"Habet ille liber" (S. S.) " hoc speciale quod una "litera continet plures sensus. Cujus ratio est quia principalis hujus libri auctor est ipse Deus, in cujus "potestate est non tantum uti vocibus ad aliquid signifi"candum, sed etiam rebus significatis per voces uti ad significandum alias res.”