The Nature of Allegory and Prophecy

He keeps the law; for it has ceased. And regarding the weak elements, having said this, he did not accuse them of being evil, but of being unable to grow rich and pious.

Do not think, he says, that I have some other kind of grief toward you and because of this I am rebuking you (Gal 4:12); for the passion of pain constantly forces the form of the word to change, now to rebuke and now to exhort, and sometimes to accuse and sometimes to lament. Therefore, here he teaches as what is written, that he writes through fatherly affection—for 'I have not been wronged by you,' he says—but also for healing, because I was most worthy.

What then is the blessedness? Instead of 'no one' (Gal 4:15–18). Or thus: to keep the law or to live by faith? And since he said that those desire not you, but are zealous for you, so that they might have perfection for themselves by not keeping the law, but are zealous for you, he proceeded to say that I say these things not out of envy toward them; for it would have been better if they also had been perfected by using faith, and it would have been an unhindered thing for them to be zealous for and to imitate us. And you therefore do such things which make you become zealous ones, so that all may imitate you, and not when I come, being ashamed of you, you become such people, but even in my absence you correct yourselves.

Now he used the text by name, not by the power of allegory (Gal 4:23–24). For allegory does not consist in spoken words, but introduces something else appearing from the sequence of the meanings according to the substance, such as 'Love me from the mouth of loves' in the Song of Songs; for there neither love nor hair nor belly nor thighs nor anything else is literally, but others are introduced through others, and this is the principal kind of allegory. Here also the history is confessed, and it has been demonstrated that it is a type of what is to come. The prophecy through works is now called allegory. For of the prophecies, some are through words only, such as 'Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb,' others are through works only, such as Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness, and others are both through works and through words, such as that which was said toward Jeremiah, 'Take a new girdle and put it on; then bury it beside the Euphrates, and as it leaks and is worn out through time, take it,' he says, 'from there.' For until this point the prophecy is through works, but what follows is both through words; for in this way I also girded the sons of Israel and in this way I helped them, and in this way I lead them away to Babylon as captives, and having been made mad and destroyed there, I bring them back and restore them. Now then, the prophecy through...