Origenist Principles for Allegorical Preaching in a Post-Critical Age (original) (raw)

The patristic practice of allegorical preaching has been controversial since the Origenist controversies of the late fourth century. This form of interpretation has ever since been associated with its greatest and most infamous practitioner. Reformation polemics firmly associated it with the most flagrant abuses in scholastic theology, and in the modern period it continues to be a byword for theological speculations that are related to biblical texts in only the vaguest of fashions. Would it not be more faithful to the text to limit one’s theological claims only to the intent of the author? But such a circumscription of ecclesial interpretation is born out of a refusal to read biblical texts as Scripture. In this short essay, I submit that a renewed practice of allegorical preaching can fruitfully guide contemporary hearers in the theological reading of Scripture, against the hidden ideologies of authorial intent.