In the fourth
century, two competing views on biblical interpretation emerged: Antiochian and Alexandrian. The Antiochian school of thought was centered in Antioch and countered
the allegorical approach of the Alexandrian School with a literal, historical, and
grammatical hermeneutic. A literal, historical-grammatical
hermeneutic is a set of “rules” for determining an author’s intended meaning
based on the normal sense of words and how the historical background and grammar
affect meaning. The Antiochian School did not shun figurative or allegorical
language but limited it to instances where such language was clearly the author’s
intent. The most famous
preacher from that School was John Chrysostom, known for his “golden tongue.” The
Alexandrian School remained dominant for another thousand years before the Antiochian
School became Western Christianity’s primary interpretive method. This interpretive
approach is exemplified in the New Testament. For example, Jesus said Scripture
was accurate to the smallest stroke (Matthew 5:18), and Paul built an entire argument on the singular form of “seed” (Galatians 3:16). Historical events were also treated as containing meaning, not as pointers to deeper ones (e.g., Hebrews
11). Modern biblical
studies benefit from the Antiochian School when they first strive to understand what an author meant and then, from that meaning, derive modern applications.
Modern Scripture
studies and preaching have benefited greatly from the Antiochian approach to reading Scripture. It was not that no one read the Bible literally before the fourth
century, but that the school showed its importance: to understand the author’s
intended meaning. Once the author’s meaning is discovered, we can derive its application. Their emphasis on the historical setting,
grammar, and intended sense of a passage helped establish principles that
remain important to sound interpretation today: interpretation is a matter of
discovering a text's meaning, translating it into universal truths, and
then applying those truths to current situations.
Paul exemplified this
process when teaching that pastors should be supported (1 Timothy 5:17–18; cf. 1
Corinthians 9:9–10). Using an Old Testament passage about not muzzling an ox (Deuteronomy
25:4), he understood the original meaning as the reality that oxen were made to produce grain, but they themselves needed food to continue working. Thus, the Old Testament law ensured the
ox could eat the grain he was producing. Paul recognized the underlying
principle that laborers are entitled to benefit materially from their labor and
applied it to elders who work at preaching and teaching. Thus, he
reasoned that the church was to support those who preached, so that their labors would sustain them.
As you read
Scripture, start with the assumption that the author meant one thing. He was
not writing to you, so the passage is not directly about you. But God preserved
it for your benefit, so your goal is to discover what the original author meant
and then ask how that truth applies to you.
Ultimately, the Antiochian
School was a push against reading imaginative or speculative meaning into a
text. Let us also strive to be faithful workers, rightly handling Scripture (2
Timothy 2:15)!
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