CHAPTER XVII. ON THE TYPICAL INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE.
The writers of the primitive Church, taking the lead from the inspired writers, and probably preserving in many cases the traditional interpretations of the Apostles, were in the habit of seeing types in many things which to us appear to have none but a literal meaning. It is, however, certain that there was a great tendency amongst the Hellenistic Jews to make the whole of the Old Testament typical; and no doubt some Christians early followed them, as the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas (which were early writings, whether spurious or not) abundantly show: and this tendency continued to increase until the time of Origen, by whom it was pushed to such extremes, that, from that time, it became less popular.
Irenæus, however, is far from being a fanciful writer, and was more directly connected with the Apostles than most of the Fathers, and therefore the types which he recognises are worthy of much more attention than those of Origen.
With him, then, Abel was a type of Christ, as having suffered innocently(475); Joseph(476) was a type of Christ, though in what way we are not told, probably in the same sense as Abel; Moses was a type of him when he spread forth his hands, and by that sign conquered Amalek(477). That the brazen serpent was a type of healing man from the bite of the old serpent by faith, the words of Christ himself led him to see(478).
There were other points in which Moses was a type of Christ. “He took an Ethiopian woman to wife, whom he thereby made an Israelitess; foreshowing that the wild olive is grafted into the olive, and partakes of its fatness. For since that Christ, who was born according to the flesh, was to be sought out for destruction, and to be delivered in Egypt, that is, amongst the Gentiles, to sanctify the infants there, whence also he made a Church there; (for Egypt was from the beginning a gentile nation, as was also Æthiopia;) for this reason by the marriage of Moses was shown the marriage of the Word, and by the Æthiopian wife the Gentile Church is pointed out: and those who speak against it, and inveigh against and deride it, shall not be clean; for they shall be leprous and cast out of the camp(479).”
He declares that the re‐appearance of justification by faith, after it had been for some time cast out of sight by the Law of Moses, was typified by the circumstances of the birth of the sons of Thamar. For as Zarah put forth his hand first, and had the scarlet thread bound upon it, and then retiring gave way to his brother Pharez, and thus was born after him; by this the Scripture declared “that people which has the scarlet sign, viz. faith in uncircumcision, which was shown first in the patriarchs, and afterwards withdrawn when its brother was born; and that in consequence that which was first was born second, being known by the scarlet mark upon it, which is the suffering of the Just One, foreshown in Abel, written by the Prophets, and accomplished in the last times in the Son of God(480).”
Irenæus was of opinion that some of the apparent misdeeds of the old Patriarchs were not really sins, but circumstances brought upon them by divine Providence, with some mystical and typical end. Thus the cohabitation of Lot and his daughters is with him providential and typical, signifying that from one Father the Word, by means of the life‐ giving Spirit, the two sister synagogues, the Jewish and the Christian, have brought forth a spiritual seed(481).
St. Paul has taught us that Jacob and Esau were types of the elder and younger Churches; but Irenæus has much amplified the figure, and brought in other parallelisms. “And if any one would study the acts of Jacob, he will find them not empty, but full of providential arrangements(482): and first in his birth, as he caught hold of the heel of his brother, and was called Jacob, that is, the supplanter; holding and not holden; fettering but not fettered; struggling and conquering; holding in his hand the heel of his adversary, i. e. the victory: to this end was the Lord born, whose birth he typified, concerning whom John saith in the Revelation, _He went forth conquering, to conquer_. Moreover, in taking the birthright when his brother disdained it; as also the younger people accepted Christ the first‐born, when the elder people rejected him, saying, _We have no __ king but Cæsar_. And in Christ was the whole blessing; and for this reason the latter people stole from the Father the blessing of the former people, as Jacob took away the blessing from Esau. For which cause his brother suffered from the lying in wait and persecutions of a brother, as also the Church suffers from the Jews(483). The twelve tribes, the children of Israel, were born in a foreign country, as Christ began at a distance from his home to lay the twelve‐pillared foundation of the Church. The spotted sheep were the wages of Jacob; and Christ’s reward is the assemblage of men from differing nations into the one bond of the faith(484), as the Father promised him: ‘Ask of me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession.’ And as to Jacob, the Lord’s prophet, it consisted of a multitude of children, it was necessary that he should have children from two sisters; as also Christ from two laws of one and the same Father(485); and likewise of two maid‐servants, signifying that Christ should make sons of God out both of those who in the flesh were free and of slaves, granting to all alike the gift of the life‐giving Spirit(486). And he did all for the sake of the younger, Rachel, who typified the Church, for whose sake Christ endured(487).”
Rahab the harlot, again, who was a heathen and a great sinner, and received the three spies, and by reliance upon the scarlet thread, (which meant the same thing as the passover,) was saved, whilst the city in which she lived was destroyed, is a type of sinners in all future ages, who, revering the Trinity, and by faith in Christ our passover, are saved, whilst the world of those who rejected him are lost(488).
Joshua, again, he makes a type of Christ, bringing his people into their eternal inheritance, as Moses brought them out of captivity; and he further declares that as Moses, representing the law, rested, in prefiguration of the cessation of the law, so Joshua, as representing the Gospel, and a perfect type of the personal Word, discoursed to the people; and that as Moses gave the manna, so Joshua gave the new bread, the first‐ fruits of life, a figure of the body of Christ(489).
He finds a very humble parallel to our Lord in the ass of Balaam: for as all men rest from toil by mounting on a beast of burden, so Christ gives us repose from the toil of our souls by bearing the burden of our sins(490).
The last specimens of types which I shall bring forward are to be found in the history of Samson. The temple in which he found his death, filled with Philistines, St. Irenæus supposes to represent the world of the ungodly; Samson himself is God’s true people; the two pillars are the two covenants; and the lad who conducted Samson to the pillars is John the Baptist, leading God’s people to know the mystery of Christ(491).
These types will, of course, bring with them to the mind various degrees of probability. The Scripture itself teaches us the principle of typical application; and no person who considers the manner in which the various books of the New Testament were written, their occasional nature, so to speak, will suppose that the whole of the types are developed in it. We must therefore be left to ourselves, in some degree, to discover the other types; and yet it cannot be supposed that all the resemblances our mind can strike out were absolutely intended. But it must be _some_ recommendation of any typical application, to say the least, to find it struck out in that early age, when those who had conversed with apostolical men were living: and where we find a number of writers agreeing to adopt any one type, (as, for instance, Clement of Rome, Justin and Irenæus, make Rahab’s scarlet line typical,) it will, I suppose, appear to most minds to have a very high probability. And it is only by noticing the types in each early writer, that we can arrive at this species of authority for any one particular type.