Why Did Alexandrian Christianity Embrace Allegorism So Much?

[neilgodfrey]

I know what people will say - Philo used a lot of allegory. That's true to some extent. But there are some things we should keep in mind. Philo was writing to outsiders. Was Origen doing the same?

Here's what I mean.

There must have been a 'church' that Origen belonged to. There were mostly illiterate people who took religion literally. Jesus did X, Y or Z and that means 1, 2, 3 for me. It wasn't like Origen presided over an 'allegorist' Christian community.

If you expand your reading to embrace anthropologists ("scholars" -- some people despise them, I know) you will very soon learn that allegorical thinking is basic to many of the most "primitive" cultures. Allegory has been part of human thinking ever since human thinking has been around. It is not the exclusive preserve of "intellectuals". By no means.

[andrewcriddle]

I know what people will say - Philo used a lot of allegory. That's true to some extent. But there are some things we should keep in mind. Philo was writing to outsiders. Was Origen doing the same?

Here's what I mean.

There must have been a 'church' that Origen belonged to. There were mostly illiterate people who took religion literally. Jesus did X, Y or Z and that means 1, 2, 3 for me. It wasn't like Origen presided over an 'allegorist' Christian community.

If you expand your reading to embrace anthropologists ("scholars" -- some people despise them, I know) you will very soon learn that allegorical thinking is basic to many of the most "primitive" cultures. Allegory has been part of human thinking ever since human thinking has been around. It is not the exclusive preserve of "intellectuals". By no means.

I quite agree that 'primitive' cultures are not literalist. However what Origen and Philo were doing requires a more-or-less fixed text to be interpreted. (Not necessarily a written text but either written or carefully memorised.)

Andrew Criddle