SQ9 COMPARE AND CONTRAST THE HERMENUETICS OF ALEXANDRIA AND ANTIOCH

The Hermenuetics of Alexandria and Antioch is different by in its interpretations. In the city in Alexandria it is important to them the set of learning process. Philo developed a set of rules, for interpreting Scripture can be interpreted either liberally or allegorically. Origin followed Philo in holding that nothing is to believe which is unworthy of God, and Scripture does not contradict the goodness of God. All Scripture has a spiritual meaning but not necessarily a literal meaning. While, the Origen’s influence at Antioch was offset by Jewish the teachers who emphasized a literal interpretation of the Bible. Allegory was rejected. The Alexandrian interpreters deprive the Bible of historical reality. The Antioch instead on the historical reality of the Biblical revelation, they saw a deeper meaning to the Scripture than the literal or historical meaning, but they based the deeper meaning of the literal and historical. Allegory was used by the Hellenistic Jews to develop a philosophy based on Moses’ writing which had a semblance to the Greek philosopher. Philo, was convinced with the spiritual superiority of Moses and the prophets over Plato and the philosophers. The extreme allegorical interpretation of Philo has cause Christians to recoil from using allegory and to deny that Paul employed a different and moderate from of allegory. The school of Antioch, which emphasized the literal meaning of Scripture based on its historical reality and an analysis of the grammar was identified with the errors of the Nestorians and was discredited by orthodox. The Antiochene interpret believed that the prophet himself foresaw both the immediate event which was to come in the history of the ancient Israel and the future coming of Christ. His prediction was both historical and Christocentric. The Antiochene school held that the Scriptures are the basis of knowledge and not the esoteric Gnosis on which the Alexandrines had placed so much importance.

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