Spiritual Interpretation.
By spiritual interpretation is understood that which is arrived at without recourse to any law of language, but according to the fancy of the interpreter. It is the meaning which any expositor may guess to be hidden under language, the natural and obvious sense of which conveys no such significance. It is in opposition to this, and not to tropes and symbols, that the phrase “Literal Interpretation” is used. Says Mr. Brooks: “I wish it understood that when I speak of the literal sense of prophecy, or of a phrase, I mean that I understand the words in the primary significance thereof, and not in any mystical, enigmatical, or symbolic sense; excepting such ordinary, figurative, or typical use of them, as would not affect the obvious sense of them at the time they are spoken. “It seems to be a device of Satan, when he cannot hope to lead men altogether from the faith of Scripture, to become an angel of light, and in that character to lead them to some subtlety in the way of interpretation or application of Scripture which virtually renders it useless; and among these modes is that of setting the ingenuity to work to find out what is called a spiritual meaning.” (Elements of Prophecy, pp. 97, 98.) It is through this mode of interpretation that teachings of Scripture are falsified by erroneous doctrines, and the word of God brought into disrepute. It was first introduced by Origen, Jerome, and others. They were denominated Allegorizers by Nepos, and others who wrote against them. In opposition to their principles of interpretation, Martin Luther, in his Annotations on Deuteronomy, says: “That which I have so often insisted on elsewhere, I here once more repeat, viz.: That the Christian should direct his first efforts toward understanding the literal sense (as it is called) of the Scripture, which alone is the substance of the faith of Christian theology—which alone will sustain him in the hour of trouble and temptation—and which will triumph over sin, death, and the gates of hell, to the praise and glory of God. The allegorical sense is commonly uncertain, and by no means safe to build our faith upon, for it usually depends on human opinion and conjecture only, on which, if a man lean, he will find it no better than an Egyptian reed. Therefore, Origen, Jerome, and similar of the fathers, are to be avoided, with the whole of the Alexandrian school, which, according to Eusebius and Jerome, formerly abounded in this interpretation. For, later writers unhappily following their too much praised and prevailing example, it has come to pass that men make just what they please of the Scriptures until some accommodate the word of God to the most extravagant absurdities; and, as Jerome complains of his own times, they extract a sense from Scripture repugnant to its meaning; of which offense, however, Jerome himself was also guilty.” (Ann. in Deut., cap. 1., fo. 55.) “After the encomiums we have given to Origen, etc., it is not without deep concern we are obliged to add, that he also, by an unhappy method, opened a secure retreat for all sorts of errors, which a wild and irregular imagination could bring forth.” And after noticing that he abandoned the literal sense, and divided the hidden sense into moral and mystical, or spiritual, he adds: “A prodigious number of interpreters, both in this and the succeeding ages, followed the method of Origen, though with some variations; nor could the few who explained the sacred writings with judgment and a true spirit of criticism, oppose with any success the torrent of allegory that was overflowing the church.” (Ch. Hist., cent. 3, part 2, sec. 5, 6.) Milner, in his Church History, says in somewhat similar terms: “No man, not altogether unsound and hypercritical, ever injured the church of Christ more than Origen did. From the fanciful mode of allegory introduced by him, and uncontrolled, by scriptural rule and order, there arose a vitiated method of commenting on the sacred pages, which has been succeeded by the contrary extreme—viz., a contempt of types and figures altogether. And in a similar way his fanciful ideas of letter and spirit tended to remove from men's minds all just conceptions of genuine spirituality. A thick mist for ages pervaded the Christian world, supported and strengthened by his allegorical manner of interpretation. The learned alone were considered as guides implicitly to be followed; and the vulgar, when the literal sense was hissed off the stage, had nothing to do but to follow wherever their authority might lead them.” (Vol. 1, p. 469.) The same principles of interpretation still widely prevail, and are the prolific source of unnumbered errors in doctrine and in biblical exposition. It is therefore important that they be corrected by sounder principles of exegesis.—Ad. Chris. Times.