Century A.D., biblical interpretation was influenced especially by the
III. History of Hermeneutical Principles
in the Christian Church
A. The Patristic Period
In the patristic period the development of Hermeneutical principles is connected with three different centers of Church life.
1. THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA. At the beginning of the third Century A.D., biblical interpretation was influenced especially by the catechetical school of Alexandria. This city was an important seat of learning, where Jewish religion and Greek philosophy met and influenced each other. The Platonic philosophy was still current there in the forms of Neo-Platonism and Gnosticism. And it is no wonder that the famous catechetical school of this city came under the spell of the popular philosophy and accommodated itself to it in its interpretation of the Bible. It found the natural method for harmonizing religion and philosophy at hand in the allegorical interpretation, for
(a) Pagan philosophers (Stoics) had already for a long time applied that method in the interpretation of Homer, and there-by pointed out the way; and
(b) Philo, who was also an Alexandrian, lent to this method the weight of his authority, reduced it to a system, and applied it even to the simplest narratives.
The chief representatives of this school were Clement of Alexandria and his disciple, Origen. They both regarded the Bible as the inspired Word of God, in the strictest sense, and shared the opinion of the day that special rules had to be applied in the interpretation of divine communications. And while they recognized the literal sense of the