If reusing this resource please attribute as follows: Odes on several descriptive and allegoric subjects: By William Collins. ( ) by Collins, William, 1721-1759., licensed as Creative Commons BY-NC-SA (2.0 UK).
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Closely connecting with the Palestinian Midrash is Aristobulus, rightly to be termed the father of Alexandrian allegory. His purpose, to prove the essential identity of Scripture and Aristotelianism, is of course the Alexandrian one; but his explanations of the Biblical anthropomorphisms is thoroughly Palestinian, and reminds one of Targum and Septuagint. Similarly, The Wisdom of Solomon, another Apocryphal book of the same period, is not specifically Hellenic in its allegorical symbolism. The explanation of the heavenly ladder in Jacob's vision, as a symbol of Divine Providence and the super-sensual world, is just as little Hellenic as the Biblical narrative itself, the sense of which is very correctly given (Wisdom, x. 10). The influence of a Palestinian Midrash, preserved in the Mishnah (R. H. iii. 8), is evident in the explanation of the serpent (Num. xxi. 9), as a "symbol of salvation, while the salvation itself came from God" (Wisdom, xvi. 5). These and similar interpretations are so clearly of Palestinian origin that it would be wrong to assume any foreign influence for them. The literal reality of the Law and of the Biblical history is so strongly adhered to by the author of The Wisdom of Solomon, coming as it does from Pharisaic circles, that one can hardly speak of his treatment as an allegorization of the Bible.
It would not be just, in the absence of striking proof, to maintain that Josephus, who in his preface to the "Antiquitates" speaks of the literal sense and the allegorical, was influenced by Alexandrianism in general or by Philo in particular (Siegfried's "Philo," p. 270). His symbolical exposition of the Tabernacle with its utensils, and of the high priest's vestments ("Ant." iii. 7, 7), and his interpretation that the Holy of Holies means the heavens, the showbread means the twelve months, and the candlestick means the seven planets, resemble Philo, but are merely resemblances. Similar explanations are repeatedly given by the Midrash; and this kind of symbolism was always a favorite in Palestine.
Closely allied with this ancient form of Palestinian allegorism must have been that of the Essenes. The author of a book sometimes ascribed to Philo reports that among the Essenes, after the public reading from the Scripture, "another, who belongs to the most learned, stepsforward and expounds that which is not known, for in greatest part such men explain by means of symbols in the old-fashioned manner" ("Quod omnis probus liber," xii.). They certainly possessed many such allegorical interpretations of Scripture in writing (see Philo, "De Vita Contemplativa," iii.).
The early Haggadot of the Tannaim contain only few specimens of their Allegorical Interpretation. R. Johanan b. Zakkai is credited with five allegorical interpretations, four of which refer to Biblical passages (Ex. xx. 16, 25; xxxii. 16; Lev. iv. 22; see Tosef., B. ḳ. vii. 3), and it is remarked that he explained the Scriptures as a parabolic charm (ḥomer); that is, allegorically, in the style of the Symbolists, (Bacher, "Ag. Tan." i. 33). This applies also to R. Johanan's younger contemporary Gamaliel II. (Soṭah, 15a). But the allegorizer of this period is Eleazar of Modiim, an uncle, according to rabbinical tradition, of Bar Kokba. The Mekilta upon Ex. xvii. 8 contains a running allegorization. Thus: Amalek's onset was directed against those who were weak in faith, wherefore Moses sent men without sin to their protection. "The top of the hill," where Moses took his stand, signifies the pious deeds of the patriarchs and matriarchs, who are considered as the highest pinnacles of the human race. "Moses' hands became heavy" whenever Israel's sins prevented the effects of prayer. Aaron and Hur represented the merits of their progenitors Levi and Judah. Moses vanquished Amalek by his prayers, wherefore it is written in verse 13, , , literally, "by the mouth of the sword"; by the mouth, prayer replaces the sword. Many such allegorical interpretations by R. Eleazar are contained in the Midrashim (see Bacher, l.c. i. 211 et seq.).
Though Akiba is not quoted as the author of so many allegorisms as Eleazar, he is known as the first tanna to allegorize an entire book of the Bible, the Song of Solomon. This was undoubtedly an important factor in quelling the opposition to the canonization of this book (Mishnah Yad. iii. 5). From the scant remains of this allegory only so much is evident, that he perceived in the Song of Solomon a representation of the relations between God and Israel, portraying in its passages the most conspicuous events in the history of the nation, past and to come. Alongside of this typological interpretation of this book, the essential features of which have been crystallized in Targum and Midrash, there may have stood that mystical interpretation which, according to Origen ("Canticum Canticorum," hom. iv.), was held in such high esteem among the Palestinian Jews that its study was forbidden to those not of mature years. Akiba's assertion (Mishnah, l.c.) that the Song of Solomon is "of the holiest of the holy," sounds in itself somewhat mystical. Akiba's favorite pupil, R. Meir, added to his master's interpretation of the book in the same spirit; thus upon ch. i. verse 12, he explains, "while the King sitteth at his table, the spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof," as signifying that while the King of Kings was in heaven occupied in giving the Law to Moses, Israel fell into sin (Ex. xxxii.) with the golden calf, of which it is said, "These be thy gods, O Israel" (Cant. R., in loco). From the controversy that arose between Meir and Judah b. Ilai concerning this exposition, it is evident that there were other pupils of Akiba who accepted his typo-allegorical method of interpretation. Meir was in so far independent of contemporaries that he saw also the sinister events of Israel's history depicted in the book, while the general understanding was that, being a love-song between God and Israel, it could therefore contain nothing in the way of reproach. Meir allegorized the earliest Bible history as well; his explanation of "coats of skin" (Gen. iii. 21) as "coats of light" (Gen. R. xx. 12) is interesting; the same idea played quite a part in the earlier Gnostic and Christian literature.
Concerning R. Judah, the editor of the Mishnah, the important statement is made that he interpreted the Book of Job as an allegorical representation of the sin and punishment of the generation of the flood (Gen. R. xxvi. 7). Many allegorisms are quoted in the names of his disciples. Bar ḳappara interprets Jacob's dream (Gen. xxviii. 12) in the following manner: "A ladder set up on the earth," that is the Temple; "the top of it reaching to heaven," that is the pillar of smoke from the sacrifices; "the angels ascending and descending on it," these are the priests who mount and descend the steps leading to the altar; "and behold the Lord stood above it," that refers to Amos, ix. 1, "I saw the Lord standing upon the altar" (Gen. R. lxviii. 12). Rab and Samuel, the founders of the academies in Babylonia, are also named as the authors of allegorisms which, however, have nothing specifically Babylonian about them, but are quite in the spirit of Palestinian interpretation.
Allegory in the Targums is hardly different from that of the Midrash. Onkelos is almost entirely free from it, though he occasionally uses it, as on Gen. xlix.; the Palestinian Targums frequently make use of it. The Targum to the Prophets, especially that upon Isaiah, frequently employs allegory. The Targum to the Song of Solomon is an allegorical Midrash in itself, preserved in part in the Midrash Rabbah upon the book.
Even those two prominent defenders of literal interpretation (peshaṭ), Rashi and Ibn Ezra, also at times succumbed to the influence of allegorical exposition. This is especially true concerning the Song of Solomon, which is interpreted allegorically by both writers, although in varying fashion. Rashi, the head of the French school of exegesis, sees in the book, like Akiba, the history of Israel, or, more properly, the history of Israel's sufferings, while Ibn Ezra, like a philosopher, descries in it an allegory of the intimate union of the soul with the universal intelligence, and explains it accordingly.
It would seem that when the Arabian-Greek philosophy took root among the Jews, a philosophico-allegorical treatment of Scripture gradually developed. The Karaite Solomon b. Jeroham mentions Benjamin Nahawendi as the first Jewish allegorist (Pinsker, "Liḳḳute ḳadmoniot," ii. 109), but the illustration he gives is quoted literally from the Midrash Rabbah on Ecclesiastes, so that he can scarcely be said to prove his statement by it. Shaharastani (Haarbrücker, p. 256) indeed relates of Judgan of Hamadan, a contemporary of Benjamin (about 800), that he explains Scripture allegorically and in opposition to the custom of the Jews. However much the Jewish philosophers of the Middle Ages may have agreed with the Alexandrians that revelation and philosophy taught the same truth, they contrived generally to avoid the mistake of the latter in straining to prove this by means of the most artificial and far-fetched allegorization.
The masterpiece of Jewish allegorism, and next to Philo's writings the most interesting and most influential product of its kind, is the celebrated Zohar (Splendor), the gospel of the Jewish mysticism of the Middle Ages. It was this allegorical commentary upon the Pentateuch that coined the term PaRDeS ( Paradise) for the four species of Biblical interpretation, forming it from their initial letters, thus Peshat (literal meaning), Remez (allegorical), Derush (haggadic or halakic interpretation), and Sod (mystic meaning). As secondary forms of these four, the Zohar mentions in a passage (iii. 202a, ed. Amsterdam) the following seven: (1) literal meaning, (2) Midrash, (3) allegory, (4) philosophical allegory, (5) numerical value of the letters, (6) mystic allegory, and (7) higher inspiration. It may be remarked with regard to the last that Philo likewise claims "higher inspiration" for some of his interpretations ("De Cherubim," i. 9, 144; "De Somniis," i. 8, 627). Resting as it does upon rabbinical Judaism, the Zohar maintains the authority of the written word; but mysticism was already aware, at the time of the Zohar's origin, of its essential antagonism to the spirit of strict rabbinism, as appears from the following classical passage concerning the various methods of Scriptural interpretation: 2ff7e9595c
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