Quadriga
Does anyone know of any good resources on the hermeneutical method called the Quadriga? Is there a workflow based around the concept of it?
I only learned of it recently and I’m intrigued to say the least. The mobile Ed course BI111 had some good information.
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Mattillo said:
Does anyone know of any good resources on the hermeneutical method called the Quadriga?
Quadriga is simply another name for the four senses of scripture characteristic of the Alexandrian school (as opposed to the Antiochian school). IIRC Leithart, Peter J. Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009. has a decent discussion of it. Both the Orthodox and Lutheran use of it come up in Reventlow, Henning Graf. History of Biblical Interpretation: From Late Antiquity to the End of the Middle Ages. Edited by Susan Ackerman and Tom Thatcher. Translated by James O. Duke. Vol. 2. Society of Biblical Literature Resources for Biblical Study. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009. Henri de Lubac has a volume on it that isn't in Logos so Levy, Ian Christopher. Introducing Medieval Biblical Interpretation: The Senses of Scripture in Premodern Exegesis. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2018. can be a stand in.
Mattillo said:Is there a workflow based around the concept of it?
I have a contemporary version that asks the questions as:
- what does it say (literal meaning)
- what am I to believe (allegorical/typological meaning)
- how am I to act (moral/tropological meaning)
- what am I to hope for (anagogic/eschatological meaning)
You will note that these questions are used in many Bible studies developed by authors who would vehemently deny the multiple senses of scripture model.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Thanks! I found a few articles online and copy/pasted some ideas into a note
Quadriga
Hermeneutics
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The first is simply the literal interpretation of the events of the story for historical purposes with no underlying meaning.
What does this passage mean in its historical and grammatical context?” (literal/historical sense)
What happened? What events or people or places or requirements does the text give us? Each text has a literal sense: It speaks of real people, real places, real events.
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The second is called typological: it connects the events of the Old Testament with the New Testament; in particular drawing allegorical connections between the events of Christ's life with the stories of the Old Testament.
“What does this passage mean in light of the unified theology of the whole canon which centers on Christ?” (the typological/allegorical sense)
What does it tell me about Jesus? The allegorical sense is about faith: Allegory teaches what we are to believe.
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The third is moral (or tropological), which is how one should act in the present, the "moral of the story".
“What is the moral of the story when read in light of history and Christ?” (the moral/tropological sense)
What does this text tell me about myself in Christ? What does it tell me about the church that is the body of Christ? How does this text instruct the church to live? How should I then live? Tropology is about love: It teaches what we are to do.
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The fourth type of interpretation is anagogical, dealing with the future events of Christian history, heaven, hell, the last judgment; it deals with prophecies.
“What does this passage mean in light of what God is doing to make all things new in Christ by the Spirit?” (the eschatological/anagogical sense)
Anagogy asks the question, What does this text teach me to expect about the growth, struggles, and trials of Christ’s kingdom and His future coming? The anagogical sense teaches what we are to hopefor.
Christ in His first Advent (allegory) but also speaks of Christ in His final Advent (anagogy)
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Thus the four types of interpretation (or meaning) deal with past events (literal), the connection of past events with the present (typology), present events (moral), and the future (anagogical).
In a church where the literal sense of Scripture is laughed off as myth, the Quadriga demands serious attention to real history, and to the grammatical, syntactical, and semantic features of the text where that history is recorded. Yet in a church where many are unjustifiably satisfied with the literal sense, the Quadriga shows that the literal sense is an entree into the complex pattern of Scripture, which is the tapestry of history itself. In a church where the church’s role is sometimes minimized, the Quadriga teaches us that the church’s story is the story of the Bible, because the church is Christ’s and, with Christ, is Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12). In a church plagued by antinomianism, the Quadriga calls us to attend to the commandments of Scripture. In a church equally plagued by moralism, the Quadriga forces us to see that the indicative of being in Christ by the Spirit is always prior to and the only foundation of obedience. Where eschatologies are underrealized, the Quadriga insists that Christ is already the realization of Israel’s hope; where eschatologies are overrealized, the Quadriga points constantly to glories yet to come.
https://holyjoys.org/preach-fourfold-method/
https://theopolisinstitute.com/rehabilitating-the-quadriga/
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