few centuries. The book of Revelation shows best the marriage between letter and story that
predominated the Bible interpretation of the early church during latter part of the first century:
end-times story (apocalyptic) enclosed within specific messages for the seven churches.
That the Christians in the early and middle ages were also people of the story is readily seen in
the dominant use of allegory. As the early Christian church became increasingly Gentile it is not
surprising that one of the leading pagan literary and philosophical forms--allegory--should
become so popular. Philo had first popularized allegory among his Jewish compatriots in
Alexandria during the time of Jesus; his influence extended to many of the early church fathers.
And while there were many other hermeneutical methods that were used during this time period,
allegory became the queen of them all. Allegory today has become much-maligned since the
onslaught of historical criticism. This is unfortunate, for allegory, then and now, not only
entertains, it educates. One of the best ways to demonstrate this is to look at the example of
Origen, the early church father (185-253/4)--the most influential Bible interpreter in the first
three centuries--and his allegorical interpretation of the parable of the good Samaritan (cf. Stein
1981:45):
A quick perusal of Origins allegorical interpretation shows that it contains much Gospel truth
and good theology. The fact that this particular allegory of Origins is found in the context of one
of his sermons underscores the didactic qualities that allegory had for the masses. The mostly
non-reading
allegory became the Bibles most powerful educational tool. The Catholic hierarchy capitalized
on this with its extensive three-level, and later four-level, approaches to allegorization that
eventually became the dominant approaches for Bible interpretation by the educated Catholic
clergy for hundreds of years. The fact that allegory was later abused by the Catholic hierarchy,