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The Reformers’ Spectrum of Approaches to Allegory: Reading Galatians 4:21–31 in a Literal Age
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 January 2026
Abstract
This article comparatively examines commentaries by sixteenth-century European reformers on the apostle Paul’s “allegory” in Galatians 4:21–31. Older scholarship on the reformers’ relationship to allegorical exegesis tended to view the reformers as strict literalists, leading to charges that Protestantism created an anti-figurative culture. More recent work, however, has frequently argued that the reformers in fact continued to subtly interpret the Bible allegorically, even to the point that some regularly contradicted their theoretical opposition to allegory in their actual exegetical practice. I argue that a close reading of the reformers’ commentaries on Galatians 4:21–31 challenges both of these interpretations. Rather than seeing the reformers as solely concerned with whether scripture should be read allegorically, this article points to a more nuanced set of questions that the reformers debated concerning the nature, status, and purposes of allegorical exegesis. Understanding these sixteenth-century questions supports seeing a high degree of consistency between various reformers’ hermeneutical theory and their exegetical practice, while also offering a much richer set of considerations for what it means to speak of the reformers’ spectrum of approaches to allegory than has typically been given. The reformers offered no unified approach to allegory but instead gave a rich variety of approaches to this perennial literary and exegetical conundrum.
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- © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Society of Church History
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1 Abbreviations: CO=Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. Wilhelm Baum, Eduard Cunitz, and Eduard Reuss, 59 vols., Corpus Reformatorum 29–87 (Brunswick: A. Schwetschke & Sons, 1863–1900); CTS=Calvin’s Commentaries, 22 vols. (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1847–1855; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979); CWE = Collected Works of Erasmus, 89+ vols. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970–); HBTS=Heinrich Bullinger Werke. Dritte Abteilung: Theologische Schriften, 7 vols. (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1983–); Holborn = Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus: Ausgewählte Werke, ed. Annamarie Holborn and Hajo Holborn (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1933); LB = Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami opera omnia, 10 vols., ed. J. Leclerc (Leiden, 1703–06; repr. 1961–62); LW = Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, Helmut T. Lehmann, and Christopher Boyd Brown, 75 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955–); PG = Patrologiae cursus completus, series Graeca, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris: Garnier, 1857–99); and WA = D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimar: Hermann Bohlaus, 1883–1987). I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments, as well as express my gratitude to David Whitford for reading an earlier version of this essay.
2 Gerhard Ebeling, Evangelische Evangelienauslegung: Eine Untersuchung zu Luthers Hermeneutik, 3rd ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991); and Hans-Joachim Kraus, “Calvin’s Exegetical Principles,” Interpretation 31 (1977), 8–18.
3 See especially James Simpson, Burning to Read: English Fundamentalism and Its Reformation Opponents (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2007).
4 Richard A. Muller, “Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation: The View from the Middle Ages,” in Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation, ed. Richard A. Muller and John L. Thompson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 3–22; and John L. Thompson, “The Survival of Allegorical Argumentation in Peter Martyr Vermigli’s Old Testament Exegesis,” in Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation: Essays Presented to David C. Steinmetz in Honor of His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Richard A. Muller and John L. Thompson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 255–71. Examples of this with various reformers include Jordan J. Ballor, Covenant, Causality, and Law: A Study in the Theology of Wolfgang Musculus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012); Craig S. Farmer, The Gospel of John in the Sixteenth Century: The Johannine Exegesis of Wolfgang Musculus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); Jeff Fisher, A Christoscopic Reading of Scripture: Johannes Oecolampadius on Hebrews, Refo500 Academic Studies 29 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016); and Timothy H. Maschke, “The Understanding and Use of Allegory in the Lectures on the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Galatians by Doctor Martin Luther” (PhD diss., Marquette University, 1993).
5 Notable here is Thomas H. Luxon, Literal Figures: Puritan Allegory and the Reformation Crisis in Representation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). Cf. Brian Cummings, “Protestant Allegory,” in The Cambridge Companion to Allegory, ed. Rita Copeland and Peter T. Struck (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 177–90.
6 D.L. Puckett, John Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 107.
7 Puckett, Calvin’s Exegesis, 110. David Steinmetz, who here follows Puckett, goes on to claim even more boldly that “Calvin’s emphasis on the literal sense of Scripture, while abandoning the medieval quadriga in principle, retained it in fact.” (David C. Steinmetz, Calvin in Context [New York: Oxford University Press, 2010], 274). Note also his similar claim on the following page: “In short, Calvin ostentatiously pushed the quadriga out the front door of his study with harsh words of criticism for Origen only to readmit it quietly through the back.”
8 John L. Thompson, “Calvin as a Biblical Interpreter,” in The Cambridge Companion to John Calvin, ed. Donald K. McKim (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 58–73, here 64. On p. 70 of the same work he makes a similar statement: “Did Calvin’s [exegetical] practice conform to the expectations raised by his more theoretical statements? The answer must be a mixture of yes and no.” Similarly, see Thompson’s “Reformer of Exegesis? Calvin’s Unpaid Debt to Origen,” in Calvin—Saint or Sinner?, ed. Herman J. Selderhuis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 113–41. Gary Hansen has likewise claimed, “Calvin complained that allegory made interpretation a game but, perhaps despite himself, it was a game he himself played quite well at times.” Hansen, “John Calvin and the Non-Literal Interpretation of Scripture” (PhD diss., Princeton Theological Seminary, 1998), 262. A more measured approach is taken in T.H.L. Parker, Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 70–82; Parker, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 93–108.
9 See Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, trans. F.R. Larcher, O.P. (Albany, NY: Magi Book, 1966), ch. 4, Lecture 7; Edward Arthur Naumann, ed. and trans., Nicholas of Lyra, Literal Commentary on Galatians (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2016), 63. It was on this section of verses in Galatians that Lyra saw fit to include the by-then traditional rhyme, “Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria/Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.”
10 For example, Keith D. Stanglin invokes Gal. 4:21–31 to justify the scriptural interpretations of the Epistle to Barnabas and Origen (The Letter and Spirit of Biblical Interpretation: From the Early Church to Modern Practice [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018], 21, 52); Craig A. Carter uses Calvin’s comments on Gal. 4:21–31 to demonstrate what he sees as a legitimately Protestant use of allegory (Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition: Recovering the Genius of Premodern Exegesis [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018], 184–186); Hans Boersma, citing Gal. 4:24, explains Origen as “simply [stepping] into the exegetical precedent set by the apostle Paul himself” (Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017], 129), while Iain Provan gives an extended interpretation of Gal 4:21–31 to deny the validity of allegorical reading (The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture [Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017], 137–150).
11 When the reformers have been studied on this passage, it has usually only been Luther, Calvin, and Perkins, who are all easily accessible in modern editions and translations. Typical here is John Kenneth Riches, Galatians through the Centuries, Blackwell Bible Commentaries (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008).
12 This amounts to just under 30 commentaries, in which I include formal written commentaries, which come in a variety of styles and originated in a variety of contexts (expositiones, annotationes, and so on), as well as published sermons on Galatians. In my analysis, I have worked to be cognizant of the ways in which these differing genres might affect the interpretation of the biblical text, though my analysis of such a slippery issue is, of course, only an informed opinion with which others might find fault. In what follows, I have also occasionally noted various exegetical aids when I have found these to be highly influential on later interpreters (for example, Erasmus’s and Beza’s annotations on the New Testament). For the purposes of this essay, I have mainly omitted the few Galatians commentaries published by Roman Catholic authors in this period, as well as sixteenth-century reprints and translations of patristic and medieval commentaries on Galatians. For a defense of the concept of forerunners, see Heiko Oberman, Forerunners of the Reformation: The Shape of Late Medieval Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981).
13 Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 274.
14 Quintilian, Inst. Or. 8.6.5–6.
15 “Allegoria … aliud verbis, aliud sensu ostendit.” Quintilian, Inst. Or. 8.6.5–6, 14, 44–53 (here 8.6.44).
16 “Neque enim aliud est allegoria, quam Metaphora perpetua.” CWE 23:336, translation altered; LB 1:18F; Heinrich Bullinger, Studiorum ratio, ed. Peter Stotz, 2 vols., Heinrich Bullingers Werke (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1987), 1:80–82.
17 “Est autem Allegoria (teste Fabio) perpetua metaphora, in qua aliud verbis dicitur, & aliud sensu intelligitur.” Caspar Megander, In epistolam Pauli ad Galatas, Commentarius (Zürich: Froschauer, 1533), fol. 29r.
18 HBTS III/7:91–92. This classical influence, of course, crosses confessional lines. Thus, Quintillian’s definition of allegory is found verbatim, for example, in the commentary of Roman Catholic theologian and Ingolstadt professor Petrus Stevartius. See his Epistolae D. Pauli ad Galatas expositio (Ingolstadt, 1592), fol. 28r.
19 Chrysostom’s opinion was included in Erasmus’s annotations on this passage. “Chrysostom points out that Paul employed this word ‘allegory’ in the place of type and figure. For allegory is actually a continuous metaphor. But the Apostle is relating true history, which is the type of something else.” CWE 58:76, translation slightly altered; LB VI:820C.
20 Frances Young refers to this as the distinction between “symbolic” and “ikonic” mimēsis, with symbolic mimēsis corresponding to what is usually thought of as an allegorical interpretation (Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002], 161–85). For some examples of seeing a text as a literary allegory without thereby interpreting it allegorically or “symbolically,” see the analysis of various readings of Isa. 5:1–7 given in Erik Lundeen, The Reformation of the Literal: Prophecy and the Senses of Scripture in Early Modern Europe (London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2025), 61–68.
21 Young refers to this as a distinction between a “compositional allegory” versus “allegorical interpretation” (Biblical Exegesis, 177). For the medieval background, see Denys Turner’s illuminating study Eros and Allegory: Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1995). For the late medieval confusion between the literal and spiritual senses of scripture, see Karlfried Froehlich, “Johannes Trithemius on the Fourfold Sense of Scripture: The Tractatus de Inuestigatione Scripturae (1486),” in Biblical Interpretation in the Era of the Reformation: Essays Presented to David C. Steinmetz in Honor of His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Richard A. Muller and John L. Thompson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 23–60.
22 “Allegoria est (inquit Hieronymus) quae aliud praetendit in verbis/aliud significat in sensu. Quae traduntur in typo & figura: allegorica sunt. Quae non traduntur in figura: allegorica non sunt/neque alium sensum requirunt q[uam] exprimitur/ & quem author intendit/qui ut plurimum est spiritus sanctus. Qui & literalis sensus appellatur: quia sine typo & figura est. Sed & idem spiritualis est. Quomodo enim spiritualis sensus non esset: cuius author est Spiritus?” Jacobus Faber Stapulensis, S. Pauli epistolae XIV ex Vulgata. Adiecta intelligentia ex graeco cum commentariis (Paris: H. Estienne, 1515), fol. 152r.
23 J.B. Payne, “Toward the Hermeneutics of Erasmus,” in Scrinium Erasmianum, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1969), 13–49 (here 26–28, 35–40); and Manfred Hoffmann, Rhetoric and Theology: The Hermeneutic of Erasmus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 71–78, 95–133. Erasmus here followed Book 4 of Origen’s On First Principles, concerning which see André Godin, Érasme lecteur d’Origène (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1982), 276–80.
24 William Perkins, A Commentarie or Exposition, upon the Five First Chapters of the Epistle to the Galatians (Cambridge, MA: John Legat, 1604), 346. Recall that the category of “borrowed” speech stemmed from classical models like Quintilian.
25 Perkins recognized that criteria were necessary for distinguishing figurative from ‘strict’ or ‘proper’ speech: “It may be demanded, when doth the scripture speake properly, and when by figure? Ans. If the proper signification of the words be against common reason, or against the analogie of faith, or against good manners, they are not then to be taken properly, but by figure.” Perkins, Commentarie, 346.
26 LW 26:442; WA 40:665. Isaiah 54:1 reads, “Shout for joy, O barren one who has borne no children; burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate woman will be more than the children of the one who is married, says the Lord” (NRSV).
27 For Luther on metaphor, see Gerhard Kraus, Studien zu Luthers Auslegung der Kleinen Propheten (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1962), 181–205; and Siegfried Raeder, “The Exegetical and Hermeneutical Work of Martin Luther,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, Vol 2: From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, ed. Magne Saebø and Michael Fishbane (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), 363–406, here 374–75.
28 CO 50:237.
29 Puckett, for example, brings forth Calvin’s readings of Dan. 4:10–16, Isa. 30:25 (examined below), Jer. 31, and Amos 9:15 as examples where Calvin “approves of what he clearly regards as an allegorical understanding of the text” (John Calvin’s Exegesis, 110–13, here 110). In all these instances, however, Calvin is commenting on the nature of the text as a literary allegory, not on allegorical exegesis. T.H.L. Parker, in contrast, rightly notes the Daniel 4 passage as an example of literary allegory (Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries, 70).
30 Puckett, Calvin’s Exegesis, 110; Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 270.
31 CO 36:524–25. I have taken the translation of Isa. 30:25 from CTS 7:343.
32 For the close relationship between metaphor and simile (similitudo), see Quintilian, Inst. Or. 8.6.8–9. While Quintilian labels metaphors a shortened form of similes, many sixteenth-century commentators on Gal 4:21–31 use the terms interchangeably. Erasmus’s influential De Copia defined a simile as a metaphor that makes the comparison explicit, such as, “His whole face was suffused with rage just as iron glows in the fire” (CWE 24:337).
33 Puckett also brings forth Calvin’s comments on Amos 9:14–15 as an example of the reformer allegorizing (Calvin’s Exegesis, 111–12). There, Calvin comments on Amos’s promise that the returned exiles would “plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.” Calvin explains that this is not fulfilled in a literal or strict (that is, nonfigurative) manner but in Christ’s kingdom. He then writes, “If any one objects and says, that the Prophet does not speak here allegorically (allegorice loqui); the answer is ready at hand, even this – that it is a manner of speaking everywhere found in Scripture, that a happy state is painted as it were before our eyes, by setting before us the conveniences of the present life and earthly blessings: this may especially be observed in the Prophets, for they accommodated their style, as we have already stated, to the capacities of a rude and weak people.” CTS 14:413; CO 43:176. In explaining that the prophet is speaking allegorice, Calvin is saying that the wine and fruit are metaphors for spiritual blessings. Here “allegorically” is synonymous with “metaphorically” (a figure of speech Calvin views as part of the literal sense), and Calvin’s comments do not pertain to the question of allegorical exegesis. Note also Erasmus’s comment about how metaphorical speech (that is, allegories) was the customary mode of discourse for the Old Testament prophets (see n. 34). For a similar interpretation of Calvin, see G. Sujin Pak, “Calvin Beyond Literal and Allegorical Reading: Calvin and Old Testament Metaphors,” in Calvin and the Old Testament, ed. Yudha Thianto (Leiden: Brill, 2024), 10–32.
34 That the Old Testament prophets abound in metaphorical speech was a commonplace in the history of Christian exegesis. Erasmus’s Ratio, for example, stated, “Scripture generally speaks indirectly and under the cover of tropes and allegories (tropis et allegoriis), and of similes or parables (ac similibus seu parabolis), sometimes to the point of obscurity in a riddle. Perhaps Christ thought it fitting to reproduce the speech of the prophets to which Jewish ears had become accustomed.” CWE 41:632–33, translation altered; Holborn 259.
35 Puckett, John Calvin’s Exegesis, 110, emphasis added.
36 This was the classic terminology in the Christian tradition, as seen, for example, in Perkins’ quote cited in note 25. Other examples could be multiplied. Erasmus’s De Copia, for instance, taught that metaphor is when “a word is transferred away from its real (genuina) and proper (propria) signification to one which lies outside its proper sphere” (CWE 24:333). Similarly, Thomas Aquinas penned a classic statement of the matter in writing, “The parabolic sense is contained in the literal, for through words some things are signified properly (proprie), some figuratively (figurative). And the literal sense is not the figure itself, but rather that which is figured.” Summa Theologiae I, q. 1, a. 10, ad. 3 (my translation).
37 T.H.L. Parker helpfully recognizes this distinction when he says that Calvin can define allegory “in terms of literary criticism.” Parker, Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries, 70.
38 As far as I am aware, sixteenth-century reformers do not speak of “typological” interpretation as they have no exact equivalent term, but they do speak of reading the Bible “typically” (typice). See, for example, Rudolph Gwalther, In D. Pauli apostoli epistolam ad Galatas homiliae LXI (Zürich: Froschauer, 1576), fol. 101r.
39 Stapulensis, S. Pauli epistolae XIV, fol. 152r; HBTS III/7:93–94.
40 Erasmus Sarcerius, In epistolas D. Pauli, ad Galatas et Ephesios, piae atque eruditae Annotationes, pro Rhetorica dispositione, in usum Divini Verbi concionatorum conscriptae (Frankfurt am Main, 1542), fol. T3v–T7v.
41 Sebastian Meyer, Annotationes breves … in epistolam D. Pauli ad Galatas (Bern, 1546), fol. 61r–62r.
42 Johannes Brenz, Explicatio epistolae Pauli ad Galatas (Schwäbisch Hall, 1546), fol. kk3r.
43 Wolfgang Musculus, In Epistolas Apostoli Pauli, ad Galatas et Ephesios, Commentarii (Basel, 1561), 151–62.
44 Niels Hemmingsen, Commentarius in Epistolam Pauli ad Galatas (Wittenberg, 1564), fol. L3v–L8r.
45 Gwalther, Homiliae, fol. 99v, 101r, 102r, 102v, 106r.
46 Benedictus Aretius, Commentarii in epistolam D. Pauli ad Galatas, facili & perspicua methodo conscripti (Morges, 1583), 118–122.
47 CO 50:236–37. While Calvin’s attack on Origen and others who seek to go beyond the “shell of the letter” utilizes stock language, Calvin is perhaps here critically alluding to Erasmus’s Paraphrases which summarized Paul as saying that the Galatians “cling to the shell of the letter and do not penetrate to the marrow of the spirit” (haerentes in cortice litterae non penetratis ad medullam spiritus). CWE 42:119; LB VII:959.
48 “Sed meminerit tamen lector sacramentalem (quam vocant) significationem a mere typica dinstinguere. Nam in sacramentis symbolum repraesentat quod vere Deus offert, & fides accipit: in typis autem res futurae vel praeteritae duntaxat adumbrantur, & quasi in imagine depinguntur.” Theodore Beza, Iesu Christi D.N. Nouum testamentum, sive Nouum foedus … eiusdem Th. Bezae Annotationes, quas itidem hac secunda editione recognovit, & accessione non parva locupletavit, 2 vols. (Geneva: Henricus Stephanus, 1565), 2:368.
49 Beza, Nouum testamentum, 2:367–70.
50 Caspar Olevianus, In Epistolam D. Pauli Apost. ad Galatas Notae, ex Concionibus Gasparis Oleviani Excerptae, & a Theodoro Beza Editae (Geneva, 1578), 97–102.
51 John Prime, An Exposition, and Observations upon Saint Paul to the Galathians, Togither with Incident Quaestions Debated, and Motives Removed (Oxford: Joseph Barne, 1587), 189–239.
52 Johannes Piscator, Analysis logica sex epistolarum Pauli (Herborn, 1589), 45–58, here 52. These commentators and others frequently avoided the use of allegoria even in rendering Gal. 4:24. Instead of using the wording of the verse found in the Vulgate (Quae sunt per allegoriam dicta) or Erasmus (Quae per allegoriam dicuntur), they opted instead for the allegory-less rendering of Theodore Beza’s New Testament (Per quae aliud figuratur).
53 Perkins, Commentarie, 340–53.
54 Ibid., 346.
55 While it lies outside the scope of this article’s focus, the nature of the distinction between types and allegories, as well as the relation between metaphorical speech and the literal sense, became sites of confessional polemics between Protestant and Roman Catholic authors toward the end of the sixteenth century. For evidence of this as applied to the reading of Gal. 4:21–31, see William Whitaker, Disputatio de Sacra Scriptura, Contra Huius Temporis Papistas, Inprimis Robertum Bellarminum Iesuitam, Pontificium in Collegio Romano, & Thomam Stapletonum, Regium in Schola Duacena Controversiarum Professorem (Cambridge, MA: Thomas Thomasius, 1588), q. 5, ca. 2 (pp. 299ff.).
56 “Haec, inquit Apostolus, per Allegoriam sive typum sic accipi debent.” Andreas Hyperius, Commentarii D. Andreae Hyperii, doctissimi ac clarissimi theologi, in epistolas D. Pauli ad Galatas et Ephesios (Zürich: Froschauer, 1582), 63. Later on the same page he writes, “Sed quoniam probationes a typis et Allegoriis tractae non sunt firmae ac necessariae sed tantum probabiles, placuit Apostolo postremo loco constituere.”
57 “Quae per allegoriam dicuntur. Id est, ut recte Chrysostomus annotavit, per typum: Nam discrimen est inter Typum & Allegoriam: siquidem Allegoriae latius diffunduntur, nec non ad plures res, personas, tempora, etc. accommodantur, quam typi, qui in veteri potissimum testamento sumpti, atque in historiis semper positi certis negotiis in ecclesia gestis vel gerendis aptari debent. Ac typi interim frequentius ac tutius adhibentur, quam allegoriae. In allegoria omni aliud spectandum proponitur, quam verba sonant, & quadam similitudine res alia adumbratur. Ita Apostolus ipse hic statim interpretatur, quid per duos filios Abrahae, quorum alter eiectus est, alter constitutus haeres, intelligi conveniat. Proinde quando hic ait, per allegoriam se narrasse historiam de duobus filiis, iubet unumquemque venari & exquirere aliquid altius per historiam significatum. Et quia difficulter quis potest discernere, quid maxime per rem narratam intelligi conveniat, ideo non est cuiusvis explicare res per allegoriam, sed tantum magnorum artificium.” Hyperius, Commentarii, 64.
58 CWE 42:119; LB VII:959–60.
59 “Ita sub historia penitius quiddam ac sublimius tegatur, quod sit allegoricum, & mysticum ad eruditionem animi.” Konrad Pellikan, In omnes apostolicas epistolas … Commentarii (Zürich: Froschauer, 1539), 354.
60 “Hic applicat historiam iuxtam sensum allegoricum ad suum institutum.” Meyer, Annotationes breves, fol. 62v. For his cautions against undue allegorizing, see idem, fol. 60v.
61 “At quia hoc de monte Sina & Hierosolyma, quae multorum dierum itineribus a se invicem distant, proprie nequaquam dici potest, per Metaphoram exponi debet, ut Sina montem, quoad sensum typicum sive mysticum Hierosolymae respondere, aut hanc per illum referri sive praefigurari dicamus.” Gwalther, Homiliae, fol. 101v.
62 “Sunt qui temere omnes allegorias in scripturam improbant, verum errant illi, nam exemplo Pauli licet allegorizare, modo pie. Interim non negamus, allegorizare esse periculosum, teste Origine. Est autem vera ac pia allegorizandi forma allegorizare ex verbo, allegorias verbo et scriptura confirmare, illis fidem, gratuitam iustitiam, Evangelium, & ad alios scripturae communes locos confirmare etc. Falsa & impia est allegorizandi forma, allegorizare sine verbo Dei, sine scriptura, contra fidem, contra gratuitam iustitiam, sequi privatas speculationes & cogitationes. Allegoria descripta est species interpretandi scripturam. Interpretatio autem scripturae debet consentire cum analogia fidei, ad Ro.12. quare et allegoria cum analogia fidei consentire debet.” Sarcerius, Annotationes, fol. T3v–T4r.
63 LW 26:433, 438; WA 40:653, 661.
64 “Ideo non est cuiusvis explicare res per allegoriam, sed tantum magnorum artificium.” Hyperius, Commentarii, 64. For a similar sentiment, see Meyer, Annotationes breves, fol. 60v.
65 For allegory as a “game,” see Calvin’s similar comment (CO 50:236–37) as well as his preface to his Romans commentary (CO 13:5.33–34). Further examples of this label are provided in Hansen, “Calvin and Non-Literal Interpretation,” 193–94; and Parker, Calvin’s Old Testament Commentaries, 70–77.
66 LW 27:311; WA 2:550–51.
67 For Luther’s understanding of allegory as adornment, see Maschke, “The Understanding and Use of Allegory.”
68 “Paulus tractavit hactenus copiose eam causam, quam explicandam suscepit, ac docuit multis & firmis argumentis, q[uod] reputemur iusti coram deo non propter merita operum legis, sed tantum p[ro]pter Christum per fidem. Potuisset igitur nunc addere Epilogum disputationis suae, & epistolam concludere, sed priusque recitet epilogum, addit typum, quem allegoriam vocat, sumptum ex coniugio et liberis Abrahae, quo typo non probat quidem causam, quae ante satis probata & confirmata est, sed ornat & illustrat eam, quo diligentius memoriae inhaereat, & iucundius excipiatur.” Brenz, Explicatio, fol. kk3r.
69 Victorinus Strigel, Hypomnēmata in omnes libros Novi Testamenti quibus et genus sermonis explicatur, et series concionum monstratur, et nativa sententia testimoniis piae vetustatis confirmatur, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1566[?]), 2: fol. K2r; “Tertia pars est huius capitis in qua Apostolus docet & exornat Typica similitudine idem quod superius multis rationibus docuit” (Hemmingsen, Commentarius, fol. L4r). Lutheran theologian Georg Rauth, whose comments are quite brief, nevertheless likely agreed as he distinguished Paul’s “spiritual interpretation” here from his preceding arguments: “Der Apostel machte eine schöne Allegoria oder geistliche Deutung über alle vorige Argument.” George Rauth, Die vier Evangelisten wahrhaffte eigentliche und kurze Beschreibung … deszgleichen uber der Apostel Geschichte und die Episteln Pauli, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 1579), 2: fol. 115r.
70 Gwalther, Homiliae, fol. 99v; “Tametsi ab initio 3 cap. Usque ad finem, & ab huius capitis principio artificialibus probationibus satis comprobarit iusticiam nobis non per ulla legis opera evenire … nihilominus maioris confirmationis, imo amplificationis gratia, etiam inartificialem & coniecturalem probationem subiungit” (Megander, In epistolam Pauli, fol. 28v). For the distinction between artificial or rhetorical proofs (constituting a solid argument) and inartificial or conjectural proofs (a proof invented by the speaker), see Aristotle, Rhet., I.ii.2; and Quintilian, Inst. Or. 5.1.1. In contrast to Megander, Lutheran theologian Georg Major did believe Paul was offering a true argument here using a rhetorical proof, rather than simply illustrating his prior arguments. See Georg Major, Enarratio epistolae Pauli ad Galatas (Wittenberg, 1560), fol. 240v.
71 LW 27:310, 320; WA 2:550, 556. Luther’s Works misleadingly translates figura as “type.” Luther, however, is happy to use the term figura but uses the term typus extremely rarely. This stands in sharp contrast to Reformed interpreters of the sixteenth century, who use typus constantly. For some possible reasons behind Luther’s aversion to types, see Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther and the Old Testament, trans. Eric Gritsch and Ruth Gritsch (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1969), 250.
72 Various examples of these types can be found in HBTS III/7:93–94; Brenz, Explicatio, fol. kk4r; Sarcerius, Annotationes, fol. T3r, T6r, T7v; Meyer, Annotationes breves, fol. 61r, 62r, 64r; Major, Enarratio epistolae Pauli, fol. 243r; Hemmingsen, Commentarius, fol. L4r–L4v; Gwalther, Homiliae, fol. 101v–102v, 106r; Hyperius, Commentarii, 64; Prime, Exposition, 190–91; and Perkins, Commentarie, 345, 349–50, 359–60.
73 In addition to the charts of Beza and Piscator included here, Bernese reformer Benedictus Aretius likewise included a seven-point chart of Paul’s correspondences. See Aretius, Commentarii, 126.
74 CWE 10:77; LB VI:820D. The scholia of the Greeks refers to Pseudo-Oecumenius’s commentary on this verse (PG 118:1145B–C), while Theophylact’s comment can be found in PG 124:1005B–C. The Arabic word for “rock” (Ḥad̲j̲ar) sounds similar to “Hagar,” and some scholars still argue that Paul intended this wordplay in Gal. 4:25. See Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 244–45n65.
75 LW 27:315, 26:433 (WA 2:553, 40:653); Johannes Bugenhagen, Annotationes Io. Bugenhagii Pomerani in epistolas Pauli (Strasbourg, 1525), fol. 19r; Megander, In epistolam Pauli, fol. 29r; Sarcerius, Annotationes, fol. T5r; Brenz, Explicatio, fol. kk4v; Meyer, Annotationes breves, fol. 61r; Aretius, Commentarii, 122; and Thomas de Vio, Epistolae Pauli et aliorum apostolorum ad Graecam veritatem castigatae et per reverendissimum dominum Thomam de Vio Caietanum Cardinalem sancti Xisti iuxta sensum literalem enarratae (Venice, 1531), fol. 102r. Sarcerius attributed this linguistic detail to Ptolemy, though I have not attempted to track down his source.
76 LW 26:436; WA 40:658.
77 “Cum igit[ur] mons Sinai, in quo datus est decalogus, dicatur alío nomine Agar, tunc Ismael natus ex Agar, recte gerit typum eius populi, qui quaerit iustitiam suam in lege, quae in monte Agar data est.” Brenz, Explicatio, fol. kk4v.
78 LW 26:450; WA 40:675.
79 “Nec dubito quin Apostolus ex hoc Esaiae loco totam hanc allegoriam sit mutuatus.” Beza, Nouum testamentum, 2:370.
80 “Caeterum ne quis diceret, Paulum Allegoriam licentius fingere ex suo quae nullis Scripturae sacrae testimoniis niteretur, Isaiae Prophetae vaticinium subtexit.” Gwalther, Homiliae, fol. 103r.