allegory

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allegory A method of interpretation or exposition where the words contain a secondary meaning, other than the straightforward one. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory. In the OT, Isa. (5: 1—6) has an allegory of the vine. In Gal. 4: 24 Paul uses the account in Gen. 16 and 17 of Abraham's two sons in support of the opinion (which he already held) that Isaac, the son of a free woman, Sarah, represented the spiritual descendants of Abraham, whereas Ishmael, the son of a bond woman, Hagar, stands for those whose relation to Abraham is the inferior relationship of natural descent.

He means that the Genesis text bears a meaning over and above the literal, historical, meaning: Isaac stands for Christians, who came into a relationship with God as free sons. They have a faith like Abraham's: Isaac was born ‘through promise’. Hagar bore children with the status of slaves—meaning Jews in bondage to the Law. The two women of Genesis are identified by Paul with two different covenants—the old and the new—and with two different Jerusalems —one present and another above, heavenly. Paul quotes Isaiah 54: 1 in Gal. 4: 27 about Jerusalem as it was before and after the Exile in Babylon: Sarah, who suffered the ordeal of being barren, will have more reason to rejoice than she who had a husband (Hagar). New Jerusalem, through the Church, offers so much more than the old: freedom, instead of slavery, the gospel instead of the Law.

At Alexandria Philo used the allegorical method in order to diminish references and notions in the OT which would be offensive to pagans, and Origen in Alexandria (c.200 CE) continued the method in the interests of Christianity. Beneath uncongenial details of ritual and history, Origen found timeless truths. By suggesting that the OT had layers of meaning beyond the literal, he made it acceptable and affirmed the unity of both OT and NT, against such as Marcion.

Within the gospels, some of the parables are already given an allegorical interpretation in which the details of the parable are said to contain a deeper meaning, as with the Sower (Mark 4: 3–8, explained by 4: 14–20). For those who incline to a rigorous view that Jesus' parables had invariably only a single meaning, such allegorizing is evidence of a development within the community after the time of Jesus. This is not necessarily illegitimate: it is open to readers of different cultures and generations to give their own interpretations of the texts. The original author does not enjoy a kind of copyright of interpretation. He does but send it on its way, and it then acquires new meanings, though not fanciful or arbitrary ones. However, many scholars today accept that Jesus himself probably used some allegory in his parables.

Taking Paul's distinction (2 Cor. 3: 6) between ‘the letter and the spirit’, Christians interpreted in an allegorical way those provisions in the Law which they no longer observed, such as the whole system of ritual purity; by this means they both respected the authorship of their received scriptures (the OT) and also made them relevant to their own faith and practice. Christian Fathers after Origen were fond of the allegorical method and applied it to the NT: Augustine regarded all the details in the parable of the Good Samaritan as having ‘deeper’ meanings; thus, the inn (Luke 10: 34) which provided succour designates the Church.

allegory in literature, symbolic story that serves as a disguised representation for meanings other than those indicated on the surface. The characters in an allegory often have no individual personality, but are embodiments of moral qualities and other abstractions. The allegory is closely related to the parable, fable, and metaphor, differing from them largely in intricacy and length. A great variety of literary forms have been used for allegories. The medieval morality play Everyman, personifying such abstractions as Fellowship and Good Deeds, recounts the death journey of Everyman. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a prose narrative, is an allegory of man's spiritual salvation. Spenser's poem The Faerie Queene, besides being a chivalric romance, is a commentary on morals and manners in 16th-century England as well as a national epic. Although allegory is still used by some authors, its popularity as a literary form has declined in favor of a more personal form of symbolic expression (see symbolists ).

Bibliography: See C. S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love (1936); P. de Man, Allegories of Reading (1979); M. Quilligan, The Language of Allegory (1979)

allegory. In Christian exegesis, one of the traditional ways of interpreting Scripture in distinction to the literal or historical sense. The Greek word comes from ancient literary theory and is defined as ‘speaking one thing and signifying something other than what is said’. From the first Christians applied allegory to the OT to make it yield a Christian meaning. St Paul used the term (Gal. 4: 24) to point to the relationship between the old Israel and the Church. Origen, who is regarded as the great exponent of allegory, distinguished a threefold literal, moral, and spiritual sense, but in practice usually worked with a two-fold distinction between letter and spirit, history and deeper allegorical meaning, as did most of the Fathers. Concern to safeguard the literal, historic meaning of the biblical text led to criticism of allegory in the patristic period by Antiochene theologians and later by the Reformers. In modern times there has been renewed appreciation of patristic allegory, often called ‘typology’. See also EXEGESIS.

Allegory A narrative expressing abstract ideas as concrete symbols; a description of a topic or subject under the guise of another which is suggestive of it, an extended comparative metaphor. There is often little distinction between an allegory, a parable, a simile, or a metaphor. In Judaism, the Song of Songs has been interpreted allegorically, as a description of the relationship between God and his people. Allegory is also to be found in Talmudic and kabbalistic literature. It was especially prominent in Philo, who regarded allegory as ‘the rules of a wise architect’. Yet he also insisted that the literal sense and practice must be maintained (see e.g. De Abrahamo, 89–93). In Christianity, allegorical exegesis is that which treats a text as if it were an allegory, and was thus important for Christians as a way of relating Jewish scripture (from their point of view, the Old Testament) to Christianity.

ALLEGORY. A story, such as George ORWELL'S Animal Farm (1945), that can be read on two levels: as a surface narrative that may or may not be realistic and at a deeper level that is often didactic and moralistic, and sometimes satirical. Characters and episodes are intended to represent some elements in human life: Orwell's farm is a nation state and his pigs are Marxist revolutionaries. Allegory may occur in any genre, does not constitute a literary form, and is in effect an extended METAPHOR. See ANALOGY.

allegory, a figurative narrative or description, conveying a veiled moral meaning; an extended metaphor. As C. S. Lewis argues in The Allegory of Love, the medieval mind tended to think naturally in allegorical terms. Allegorical works of great vitality continued to be produced, ranging from Spenser's Faerie Queene and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, both of which use personifications of abstract qualities, to Dryden's political allegory Absalom and Achitophel, which conceals real identities.

al·le·go·ry / ˈaləˌgôrē/ • n. (pl. -ries) a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one: Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory of the spiritual journey. ∎  the genre to which such works belong. ∎  a symbol. DERIVATIVES: al·le·go·rist / -ist/ n.

allegory XIV. — (O)F. allégorie — L. allēgoria — Gr. allēgoríā ‘speaking otherwise’, f. állos other + agor — in agoreúein speak; see -Y3.
So allegoric XIV. allegorical XVI; see -IC, -ICAL. allegorize XV. — F. allégoriser — late L. allēgorizāre.

allegory a story, poem, or picture which can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. The word comes (in late Middle English) via Old French and Latin from Greek allēgoria, from allos ‘other’ + -agoria ‘speaking’.

allegory Literary work in either prose or verse in which more than one level of meaning is expressed simultaneously. The fables of Aesop and La Fontaine are examples of simple allegory. Pilgrim's Progress (1684) by John Bunyan is a sophisticated religious allegory.

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