The Four Senses of Scripture

But let us go back to explaining the knowledge from which our discussion began. As we said above, practical knowledge is spread over many subjects and pursuits, but contemplative knowledge is divided into two parts: the historical interpretation and the spiritual sense. That is why Solomon, when he had summed up the many-sided grace of the Church, added: “For all who are with her are clothed with double garments.” Of spiritual knowledge there are three kinds: tropological, allegorical and anagogical. Of these we read in Proverbs: “But you, write these things down for yourself in three ways, according to the largeness of your heart.” So history takes in the knowledge of things past and visible, as the apostle repeats it in this way: “For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman. But the son of the slave woman was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.” What follows belongs to allegory, for what actually happened is said to have prefigured the form of some mystery: “For these,” he says, “are the two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; this is Hagar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.” But the anagogical sense rises from spiritual mysteries to still higher and more sacred secrets of heaven, and the apostle adds it in these words: “But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written: Rejoice, you barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry out, you who are not in labor; for the children of the desolate one are many more than those of her who has a husband.” The tropological sense is the moral explanation, which has to do with the improvement of life and with practical teaching. It is as if we were to understand these two covenants as practical and contemplative instruction, or as if we wanted to take Jerusalem or Zion as the human soul, according to this: “Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion.” And so these four figures we have mentioned come together, if we wish, in one subject, so that one and the same Jerusalem can be taken in four senses. Historically, it is the city of the Jews. Allegorically, it is the Church of Christ. Anagogically, it is the heavenly city of God, “which is the mother of us all.” Tropologically, it is the human soul, which under this title is often praised or blamed by the Lord. Of these four kinds of interpretation the blessed apostle speaks as follows: “But now, brothers, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you, unless I speak to you either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophecy, or by teaching?” “Revelation” belongs to allegory, by which what is hidden under the historical narrative is revealed in its spiritual sense and interpretation. An example would be if we tried to explain how “all our fathers were under the cloud, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,” and how they “all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink from the rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ.” This explanation, where there is a comparison with the figure of the body and blood of Christ which we receive daily, contains the allegorical sense. But the “knowledge” the apostle mentions in the same way is tropological. By it, through careful study, we can see whether all the things that have to do with practical discernment are useful and good, as in this case, when we are told to judge for ourselves “whether it is fitting for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered.” And this method, as has been said, contains the moral meaning. So “prophecy,” which the apostle puts in the third place, points to the anagogical sense, by which the words are applied to things future and invisible, as here: “But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For if we believe that Christ died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of God: that we who are alive at the coming of the Lord will not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep in Christ. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ will rise first.” In this kind of exhortation the anagogical figure is brought forward. But “teaching” unfolds the simple course of historical explanation, under which no more hidden sense is contained than what the very words declare, as in this passage: “For I delivered to you first of all what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day, and that he was seen by Cephas.” And: “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law.” Or this: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord God is one Lord.” [a]