Allegorical Interpretation of Scripture

Whether, then, Egypt and the land of Canaan are a symbol of the world and of deceit, or of passions and vices, from which one must abstain, and what things are to be practised as divine and not worldly, the oracle shows us.

So when the memorial of the heavenly and divine food was commanded to be consecrated in a golden jar, "the gomor," it says, "was the tenth of the three measures.

And one must, so to speak, mounting up above all the others, stand upon the mind — just as, indeed, in the world, having leaped over the nine portions, the first being that of the four elements set in one region because of their equal change, and then the seven wandering and the eighth unwandering — coming to the perfect number above the nine, the tenth portion, to arrive at the knowledge of God, …

For some, having lit upon the most customary form of prophetic speech — allegorical and figurative for the most part, yet not always — twist even the resurrection of the dead, manifestly announced, into an imaginary signification, asserting that even death itself is to be understood spiritually.

So far does an allegorical defence of the bodily resurrection lie at hand for us too.

So the form of prophetic speech is not always nor in all things allegorical, but sometimes and in certain things.