Understanding Biblical Typology
Jonah and the Whale as pictured by Pieter Lastman (1621)
Typology: Tool for Spiritual Discernment of the Mysteries of the Word of God
“The whole Bible does no more than ‘narrate the love of God” said Fr. Cantalamessa in a recent Lenten homily. He also notes:
When this eternal love is spread in time, we have the history of salvation. According to rabbinic theology, endorsed by the Holy Father in his recent book on Jesus, ‘The cosmos was created, not that there might be manifold things in heaven and earth, but that there might be a space for the ‘covenant,’ for the loving ‘yes’ between God and his human respondent’. Creation is ordained to the dialogue of the love of God for his creatures.[1]
This relates directly to our topic which is typology, the study of persons, places or events in the Bible that foreshadow greater realities, especially concerning Christ, His Church and the Sacraments. Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me” (John 5: 39-40) These words assume a “typological” interpretation of the Scriptures. Christ used typology himself when he spoke of the three days Jonah spent in the belly of the fish, the brazen serpent in the desert, the manna in the desert and also in his descriptions of himself as “son of man,” the light of the world, etc. He used these types to describe something about himself. He used it also on the road to Emmaus in his Resurrection appearance to two of the disciples who were sad in discussing the events of the Passion and death of Jesus of Nazareth. He appeared to them as described in Luke 24, but they were prevented from recognizing him. He preceded to give them a Bible study like no other. As Verbum Domini, the recent post-synodal exhortation on the Word of God explains it, He:
“‘interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself (24:27). The two disciples began to look at the Scriptures in a new way in the company of this traveler who seemed so surprisingly familiar with their lives. What had taken place in those days no longer appeared to them as failure, but as fulfillment and a new beginning. And yet, apparently not even these words were enough for the two disciples. The Gospel of Luke relates that ‘their eyes were opened and they recognized him’ (24:31) only when Jesus took the bread, said the blessing, broke it and gave it to them, whereas earlier ‘their eyes were kept from recognizing him’ (24:16). The presence of Jesus, first with his words and then with the act of breaking bread, made it possible for the disciples to recognize him. Now they were able to appreciate in a new way all that they had previously experienced with him: ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’ (24:32).”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) says, “The Church, as early as apostolic times, and then constantly in her tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what He accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of His incarnate Son.” (CCC, 128). When the New Covenant superseded the Old Covenant the Fathers of the Church were convicted with the need of discerning the place of the Old Testament. They spent much of their lives in the Word of God reflecting upon typology and other forms of spiritual interpretation of Scripture. They realized as St. Augustine taught in his work on Christian doctrine that God, so to speak, “wrote” creation, and gave us His Word to interpret it. Scripture and history are thus intimately interconnected and God gave us signs in His Word so that we might grasp their redemptive meaning. Thus, in a sense typology rests upon the rock-solid base of the unity of God’s plan reflected in the two testaments of Scripture. Augustine employs typology as a reflection of the coherence of revelation. As Augustine taught, “the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New (CCC,129; paraphrase of St. Augustine). Pope St. Gregory the Great said that the New Testament was the best commentary on the Old.
For the early Christians all of history was Christocentric or centered on Christ. All human history before Christ’s coming pointed to him and all that came thereafter points to his return in glory at the end of time. The early Church Fathers used typology to refute the errors of the Gnostics and the Manicheans and to show how the types of the Old Testament were fulfilled in the Sacraments. Art from early times, for example in the catacombs, reflected this typological interpretation. Origen and the Alexandrian School of Scriptural interpretation especially brought out the spiritual richness of the developing tradition, which goes back to the Jewish scholar Philo. However, even the more literally focused Antioch School spoke of types, though their interpretation differed. For example, the Antiochian school saw the water from the rock in the desert as a type of Eucharist (which comes from the Pauline tradition), while the Alexandrian school saw it as a type of Baptism (from the Johannine tradition).
One scholar argued that the Middle ages could not be understood without understanding their penchant for typological interpretation. St. Bonaventure observes that you could only know the book of creation through the lenses of the book of Scripture. The Fathers and Christians of the Middle Ages took their outlook from St. Augustine and Cassiodorus, realizing with what resources they had, that there was a unity of wisdom between all knowledge and life itself, under the sovereignty of the Bible.
Professor Scott Hahn calls typology “the rhyme scheme of history.” He argues that a typological interpretation of Scripture, using the Quadraca or fourfold sense of Scripture (literal and three spiritual senses) precedes from the divine economy (or plan), the sacramental economy. Cardinal Jean Danielou says typology was used in the preaching of the Apostles “to establish the truth of their message.”[2] The Patriarchs of the Old Testament like Adam and Noah or Abraham and Moses were seen as types of Christ. Thus, St. Irenaeus spoke of Christ as the recapitulation of the first Adam. St. Augustine, using typology to show the coherence of the past with the future, compares the persecution of David before he obtained his kingdom, by explaining, “so that he might prefigure us, that is the body of whose head is Christ.” One example, might be the well-known story of Jonah in the Old Testament, wherein Jonah has been traditionally seen as a type of Christ by Christians, who see in his resurrection from the belly of the great fish, the Resurrection of Christ to come. Jesus himself said in reply to the scribes and Pharisees when they asked for yet another sign from him, that He would give them no sign “except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” He added, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12: 39-40). St. Luke adds to the reply of Jesus, “For as Jonah became a sign to the men of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation” (Luke 11: 30).
The comparisons between Eve and Mary go back at least as far as St. Justin Martyr (105-165 A.D.) who wrote, “For Eve, an undefiled virgin, conceived the word of the serpent and brought forth disobedience. Mary was filled faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced to her the good tidings.”[3] St. Irenaeus carries on the tradition, noting, “as Eve proving disobedient became the cause of death both to herself and to all mankind: so also Mary having a husband fore-appointed and nevertheless a virgin, being obedient, became to herself and all mankind the cause of salvation.”[4] Danielou concludes “Typology is the mouthpiece of theology: the dogma of Christ as the new Adam, and of Mary’s mediation rests on the typological signification of the Genesis account.”[5]
A favorite Patristic theme was the ark of Noah as a type of the Church, “which saves men from divine judgment by means of water.”[6] The idea of a coming judgment by fire is contrasted with the past judgment by water in Isaiah (10:16) and Enoch (91: 9; 102: 1). St. Peter’s first epistles introduces the idea of the Flood as a type of Baptism (1 Peter 3:18-21). Just as Noah was delivered from the waters of death, so the Christian is buried with Christ in the waters of death and will rise with him according to St. Paul (Romans 6: 4).
Yet typology was rejected by the so-called Protestant reformers. As Professor Scott Hahn has observed the Reformation is based upon the rejection of the spiritual exegesis of Scripture, by which we got our Marian doctrine and devotion, by which we understand the sacraments, the structure of the Church, triumphant, militant and suffering, and many other things as well. Before recent times it had become almost a lost art. Even in Catholic exegesis it has been neglected and set aside by the growth of historical-critical scholarship, which only addresses the literal sense. It was revived in the years before the Second Vatican Council of the mid-1960’s by theologians like Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs Von Baltasar and Cardinal Jean Danielou, whose 1956 work, The Bible and the Liturgy, was an attempt to return to the more spiritual interpretation of Scripture practiced by the Church Fathers. He was a part of the resourcement movement before Vatican II, which sought to “return to the sources” namely Scripture and the Fathers, to better understand Catholic theology, especially as it applies to the sacraments and the liturgy.
Vatican II was the beginning of a revival for the spiritual senses of Scripture yet Pope Benedict XVI in his most recent volume on Jesus of Nazareth is still calling for a renewed focus on the hermeneutic of faith. He observes that we rely upon the Holy Spirit to interpret something like John’s Gospel, for example, which is full of typological allusion in terms that evoke images, such as, “word, bread, water, light, shepherd, wine, etc.”
Cardinal Danielou states that “the question of the sacraments as signs is of fundamental importance to pastoral theology.” When the faithful do not understand them and the rites of the sacraments seem artificial or even “shocking,” it is because the faithful have not been trained to see these signs as was done in the early Church. Cardinal Danielou shows, for example, the symbolism of the sacraments was a living reality and this was manifest in the writings of the Early Church Fathers. His book, The Bible and the Liturgy, primarily focuses on the three sacraments of initiation: baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist, and follows the development of the rites of these three sacraments, from their biblical roots to their practice in the first five centuries of Christianity. This is entirely biblical if we remember that St. Paul says of the Old Testament stories, “Now all these things happened to them as a type and they were written to us for our correction” (1 Cor 10: 11).
Sacramental typology is seen when manna is shown as a sign of the Eucharist (John 6: 31ff), crossing the Red Sea as a sign of baptism (1 Corinthians) or the Flood viewed as a baptismal sign (1 Peter). Early Church Fathers illuminated Scripture by showing the Old Testament preparation for the New Testament sacraments. Thus, Gregory of Nazianzen (330-389 A.D.) describes Baptism as Athe participation in the Logos, the destruction of sin, the vehicle to carry us to God, the key of the kingdom of heaven, the robes of incorruptibility, the bath of rebirth, the seal@ (or sphragis, which is the imposition of the Cross on the forehead of the candidate at Baptism). Thus, the real value of this sign-language of the sacraments (typology) is that it is essential for a deeper appreciation of the sacraments and the liturgy. These types are valid if they can be seen clearly in the New Testament fulfillment or in the constant Tradition of the Church.
Time does not permit us to explore the depth and richness of biblical typology, but I cannot resist one more by the founder of “biblical science” himself, Origen (185-253 A.D). The great exegete from the Alexandrian School describes the harlot Rahab, who sheltered the Israelites who had reconnoitered the Promised Land, as a type of the Church. Although there is no typology of her in the New Testament she does appear in the genealogy of Matthew. She is therefore a pagan ancestor of Christ who saved herself and her relatives by her faith. The scarlet cord she was given to put on her door not only saved her and her family, but as St. Clement of Alexandria notes, “this was to show clearly beforehand that the blood of the Lord should bring redemption to all those who believe and hope in God. You see dearly beloved that this woman had not only faith, but the gift of prophecy.”[7]
So, the saving of Rahab is a type of the saving of men through the blood of Christ. The scarlet color of the cord brings to mind the lamb’s blood on the door posts of the Hebrew homes in Egypt necessary to save their first-born. Origen writes, “Rahab means latitudo. What is this breadth save the Church of Christ which is made up of sinners and harlots? It is this breadth which receives the spies of Jesus (Joshua)... There is another type of harlot the prophet Osee [Hosea] is commanded to take to himself, a type no doubt of the Church made up of Gentiles.”[8] Christ is considered to have saved both harlots. Origen says she was a prophet because she told Joshua, “I know that the Lord hath given this land to you.”[9] Rahab’s house is a type of the Church alongside the ark of Noah and the bark of Peter, which is the most often used type of the Church.
Those who are in it escape the judgment to come when our Savior shall overcome Jericho [a type of this world] at the sound of the trumpets. Finally, Origen basing his argument on Romans 11 notes:
If you wish to understand more clearly how Rahab was incorporated into Israel, see how the branch of the wild olive is grafted onto the trunk of the good olive tree, and you will understand how those who are grafted into the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are rightly said to be incorporated into Israel until this day.[10]
In The Bible and the Liturgy, going through all the sacraments, Easter, Pentecost, Tabernacles, Sabbath, Sunday, and shows how all the Early Fathers taught all the new believers, all the catechumen that their faith was to be understood, first and foremost, in terms of salvation history and God’s covenant plan, seen in biblical typology. But we all need to acquire this understanding to enhance our communion with Christ in His holy Word. St. Thomas Aquinas distinguishes three periods of salvation history, namely, the period of nature (when patriarchs like Noah and Abraham fulfill priestly and kingly roles by virtue of their natural paternity (fatherhood); the period of Law (a time of sacrifice of animals, the Mosaic law, a separate sanctuary, the Levitical priesthood and ritual purity with Israel separated from the Gentiles); and finally, the period of Grace, with the coming of Christ, the Son of God, who establishes the Church and the sacraments which will continue until “the consummation of history.”[11]
In the period of nature, St. Thomas sees water as a natural sacrament "suggested in the first production of things, when the Spirit of God hovered over the waters."[12] It is a natural sacrament of cleanness. It cleanses. In the age of law, water imparted a “spiritual regeneration” which, however, was imperfect and symbolic (e.g., parting of the waters of the Red Sea). In the age of grace, the Incarnate Word gives water its full efficacy and thus, through baptism, man is born “of water and the Holy Spirit" (John 3:5). Christ fulfills the types in the Sacraments and thus it is only through Christ that we can search the Bible and find the meaning of types. God taught us as only God can through the use of sensible things to know spiritual things (water and baptism). The sensible signs are sacraments. This will be revealed to full understanding only in glory when the identification of water with the grace of the Holy Spirit will be crystal clear. With the sacraments of the New Law or Covenant, God who has been drawing progressively closer to man, unites himself to man. "Behind Thomas's biblical commentary, then, is one divine economy, two laws or covenants, and three ages of salvation history. It is on this foundation stone, two, three that Thomas can interpret the four senses in a coherent and systematic way."[13] Typology reveals the spiritual meaning of history which is the divine economy (or plan of salvation). The meaning of the New Covenant liturgy and sacraments is not found in Hellenistic culture, but rather in the Judaism of the Old Testament.
When we read the Church Fathers and explore the treasure of “types,” we can see how they open Scripture to greater spiritual discernment. Join Cleopas on the road to Emmaus and your heart will also be burning. Remember that typology is not limited to the spiritual sense:
Typology is not always rooted in spiritual exegesis. Sometimes the historical meaning of the text is typological. When Matthew says, to fulfill Scripture, “out of Egypt I have called my son” looking back on Israel coming out of Egypt in the Exodus, not Jesus coming out when Herod died, and yet the literal-historical meaning of Matthew’s text is a typological interpretation of Hosea. Hosea, in other words, is a type of Christ to come. That’s why the literary-historical study of the text requires not just logic, grammar and rhetoric, looking at events and other relevant historical testimony. It means looking at the entire canon of Scripture! Why stress this? Yet if you lined up a hundred Catholic exegetes and ask them what am I doing when I do a canonical exegesis of Matthew’s text “out of Egypt I have called my son” what would they say? Is this literal-historical exegesis? They would say no, it isn’t. Catholic exegetes don’t include canonical exegesis as a part of the historical-critical task of determining the literal meaning of the text, even though Vatican II and the Catechism says that it is essential! (paraphrase of lecture of Dr. Scott Hahn).
Finally, I would recommend Living the Mysteries: A Guide for Unfinished Christians by Scott Hahn and Mike Aquilina. This book deals with these signs, types, or what we might call the “mystagogy” of the sacraments. The sacrament is itself a reality, wherein heavens touches earth, but they represent divine mysteries, spiritual realities, which human senses cannot see in their deepest reality. “That is what Christ taught His disciples and His disciples taught their disciples, in the Church’s tradition: to read the Bible typologically, to see the events of the Old Testament as a ‘shadow of the good things to come’ in Christ, and so to see the events of the New Testament as a ‘true form of realities that are real and invisible.” Mystagogy[14] teaches the new born Christian how they are to understand the Church as the Kingdom promised in the Old Covenant, to see their baptism in the context of salvation history from the time of Adam. According to the Catechism mystagogy initiates people into the mystery of Christ, “by proceeding from the visible to the invisible, from the sign to the thing signified, from the sacraments to the mysteries” (CCC 1075). By reading short elucidations of this typology in St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Clement of Alexandria, the St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. John Chrysostom and St. Leo the Great you will get a taste of mystagogy that can open up our spiritual mind and heart.
[1] https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/2nd-lenten-sermon-2011-3217
[2] Cardinal Jean Danielou, The Bible and the Liturgy, Notre Dame, In., 1956, p. 5.
[3] St. Irenaeus, Dialogue with Trypho, quoted by Cardinal Jean Danielou, From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers, Westminster, Md., 1960, p.43.
[4] Ibid., p.44.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., p. 69.
[7] Danielou, From Shadows to Reality, p. 244-246.
[8] Ibid., p. 249.
[9] Ibid., p. 250.
[10] Ibid., p. 251.
[11] Scott Hahn, Scripture Matters: Reading the Bible Form the Heart of the Church, Steubenville, Ohio, 2003, p. 58.
[12] Ibid., p. 59.
[13] Ibid., p. 62.
[14] Mystagogy is a consideration of the mysteries of the sacraments most often associated with the stage of RCIA (the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) that comes after the Easter celebration of the sacraments by the catechumen and candidates.
Typology: Tool for Spiritual Discernment of the Mysteries of the Word of God
“The whole Bible does no more than ‘narrate the love of God” said Fr. Cantalamessa in a recent Lenten homily. He also notes:
When this eternal love is spread in time, we have the history of salvation. According to rabbinic theology, endorsed by the Holy Father in his recent book on Jesus, ‘The cosmos was created, not that there might be manifold things in heaven and earth, but that there might be a space for the ‘covenant,’ for the loving ‘yes’ between God and his human respondent’. Creation is ordained to the dialogue of the love of God for his creatures.[1]
This relates directly to our topic which is typology, the study of persons, places or events in the Bible that foreshadow greater realities, especially concerning Christ, His Church and the Sacraments. Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me” (John 5: 39-40) These words assume a “typological” interpretation of the Scriptures. Christ used typology himself when he spoke of the three days Jonah spent in the belly of the fish, the brazen serpent in the desert, the manna in the desert and also in his descriptions of himself as “son of man,” the light of the world, etc. He used these types to describe something about himself. He used it also on the road to Emmaus in his Resurrection appearance to two of the disciples who were sad in discussing the events of the Passion and death of Jesus of Nazareth. He appeared to them as described in Luke 24, but they were prevented from recognizing him. He preceded to give them a Bible study like no other. As Verbum Domini, the recent post-synodal exhortation on the Word of God explains it, He:
“‘interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself (24:27). The two disciples began to look at the Scriptures in a new way in the company of this traveler who seemed so surprisingly familiar with their lives. What had taken place in those days no longer appeared to them as failure, but as fulfillment and a new beginning. And yet, apparently not even these words were enough for the two disciples. The Gospel of Luke relates that ‘their eyes were opened and they recognized him’ (24:31) only when Jesus took the bread, said the blessing, broke it and gave it to them, whereas earlier ‘their eyes were kept from recognizing him’ (24:16). The presence of Jesus, first with his words and then with the act of breaking bread, made it possible for the disciples to recognize him. Now they were able to appreciate in a new way all that they had previously experienced with him: ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?’ (24:32).”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) says, “The Church, as early as apostolic times, and then constantly in her tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what He accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of His incarnate Son.” (CCC, 128). When the New Covenant superseded the Old Covenant the Fathers of the Church were convicted with the need of discerning the place of the Old Testament. They spent much of their lives in the Word of God reflecting upon typology and other forms of spiritual interpretation of Scripture. They realized as St. Augustine taught in his work on Christian doctrine that God, so to speak, “wrote” creation, and gave us His Word to interpret it. Scripture and history are thus intimately interconnected and God gave us signs in His Word so that we might grasp their redemptive meaning. Thus, in a sense typology rests upon the rock-solid base of the unity of God’s plan reflected in the two testaments of Scripture. Augustine employs typology as a reflection of the coherence of revelation. As Augustine taught, “the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New (CCC,129; paraphrase of St. Augustine). Pope St. Gregory the Great said that the New Testament was the best commentary on the Old.
For the early Christians all of history was Christocentric or centered on Christ. All human history before Christ’s coming pointed to him and all that came thereafter points to his return in glory at the end of time. The early Church Fathers used typology to refute the errors of the Gnostics and the Manicheans and to show how the types of the Old Testament were fulfilled in the Sacraments. Art from early times, for example in the catacombs, reflected this typological interpretation. Origen and the Alexandrian School of Scriptural interpretation especially brought out the spiritual richness of the developing tradition, which goes back to the Jewish scholar Philo. However, even the more literally focused Antioch School spoke of types, though their interpretation differed. For example, the Antiochian school saw the water from the rock in the desert as a type of Eucharist (which comes from the Pauline tradition), while the Alexandrian school saw it as a type of Baptism (from the Johannine tradition).
One scholar argued that the Middle ages could not be understood without understanding their penchant for typological interpretation. St. Bonaventure observes that you could only know the book of creation through the lenses of the book of Scripture. The Fathers and Christians of the Middle Ages took their outlook from St. Augustine and Cassiodorus, realizing with what resources they had, that there was a unity of wisdom between all knowledge and life itself, under the sovereignty of the Bible.
Professor Scott Hahn calls typology “the rhyme scheme of history.” He argues that a typological interpretation of Scripture, using the Quadraca or fourfold sense of Scripture (literal and three spiritual senses) precedes from the divine economy (or plan), the sacramental economy. Cardinal Jean Danielou says typology was used in the preaching of the Apostles “to establish the truth of their message.”[2] The Patriarchs of the Old Testament like Adam and Noah or Abraham and Moses were seen as types of Christ. Thus, St. Irenaeus spoke of Christ as the recapitulation of the first Adam. St. Augustine, using typology to show the coherence of the past with the future, compares the persecution of David before he obtained his kingdom, by explaining, “so that he might prefigure us, that is the body of whose head is Christ.” One example, might be the well-known story of Jonah in the Old Testament, wherein Jonah has been traditionally seen as a type of Christ by Christians, who see in his resurrection from the belly of the great fish, the Resurrection of Christ to come. Jesus himself said in reply to the scribes and Pharisees when they asked for yet another sign from him, that He would give them no sign “except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” He added, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12: 39-40). St. Luke adds to the reply of Jesus, “For as Jonah became a sign to the men of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation” (Luke 11: 30).
The comparisons between Eve and Mary go back at least as far as St. Justin Martyr (105-165 A.D.) who wrote, “For Eve, an undefiled virgin, conceived the word of the serpent and brought forth disobedience. Mary was filled faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced to her the good tidings.”[3] St. Irenaeus carries on the tradition, noting, “as Eve proving disobedient became the cause of death both to herself and to all mankind: so also Mary having a husband fore-appointed and nevertheless a virgin, being obedient, became to herself and all mankind the cause of salvation.”[4] Danielou concludes “Typology is the mouthpiece of theology: the dogma of Christ as the new Adam, and of Mary’s mediation rests on the typological signification of the Genesis account.”[5]
A favorite Patristic theme was the ark of Noah as a type of the Church, “which saves men from divine judgment by means of water.”[6] The idea of a coming judgment by fire is contrasted with the past judgment by water in Isaiah (10:16) and Enoch (91: 9; 102: 1). St. Peter’s first epistles introduces the idea of the Flood as a type of Baptism (1 Peter 3:18-21). Just as Noah was delivered from the waters of death, so the Christian is buried with Christ in the waters of death and will rise with him according to St. Paul (Romans 6: 4).
Yet typology was rejected by the so-called Protestant reformers. As Professor Scott Hahn has observed the Reformation is based upon the rejection of the spiritual exegesis of Scripture, by which we got our Marian doctrine and devotion, by which we understand the sacraments, the structure of the Church, triumphant, militant and suffering, and many other things as well. Before recent times it had become almost a lost art. Even in Catholic exegesis it has been neglected and set aside by the growth of historical-critical scholarship, which only addresses the literal sense. It was revived in the years before the Second Vatican Council of the mid-1960’s by theologians like Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs Von Baltasar and Cardinal Jean Danielou, whose 1956 work, The Bible and the Liturgy, was an attempt to return to the more spiritual interpretation of Scripture practiced by the Church Fathers. He was a part of the resourcement movement before Vatican II, which sought to “return to the sources” namely Scripture and the Fathers, to better understand Catholic theology, especially as it applies to the sacraments and the liturgy.
Vatican II was the beginning of a revival for the spiritual senses of Scripture yet Pope Benedict XVI in his most recent volume on Jesus of Nazareth is still calling for a renewed focus on the hermeneutic of faith. He observes that we rely upon the Holy Spirit to interpret something like John’s Gospel, for example, which is full of typological allusion in terms that evoke images, such as, “word, bread, water, light, shepherd, wine, etc.”
Cardinal Danielou states that “the question of the sacraments as signs is of fundamental importance to pastoral theology.” When the faithful do not understand them and the rites of the sacraments seem artificial or even “shocking,” it is because the faithful have not been trained to see these signs as was done in the early Church. Cardinal Danielou shows, for example, the symbolism of the sacraments was a living reality and this was manifest in the writings of the Early Church Fathers. His book, The Bible and the Liturgy, primarily focuses on the three sacraments of initiation: baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist, and follows the development of the rites of these three sacraments, from their biblical roots to their practice in the first five centuries of Christianity. This is entirely biblical if we remember that St. Paul says of the Old Testament stories, “Now all these things happened to them as a type and they were written to us for our correction” (1 Cor 10: 11).
Sacramental typology is seen when manna is shown as a sign of the Eucharist (John 6: 31ff), crossing the Red Sea as a sign of baptism (1 Corinthians) or the Flood viewed as a baptismal sign (1 Peter). Early Church Fathers illuminated Scripture by showing the Old Testament preparation for the New Testament sacraments. Thus, Gregory of Nazianzen (330-389 A.D.) describes Baptism as Athe participation in the Logos, the destruction of sin, the vehicle to carry us to God, the key of the kingdom of heaven, the robes of incorruptibility, the bath of rebirth, the seal@ (or sphragis, which is the imposition of the Cross on the forehead of the candidate at Baptism). Thus, the real value of this sign-language of the sacraments (typology) is that it is essential for a deeper appreciation of the sacraments and the liturgy. These types are valid if they can be seen clearly in the New Testament fulfillment or in the constant Tradition of the Church.
Time does not permit us to explore the depth and richness of biblical typology, but I cannot resist one more by the founder of “biblical science” himself, Origen (185-253 A.D). The great exegete from the Alexandrian School describes the harlot Rahab, who sheltered the Israelites who had reconnoitered the Promised Land, as a type of the Church. Although there is no typology of her in the New Testament she does appear in the genealogy of Matthew. She is therefore a pagan ancestor of Christ who saved herself and her relatives by her faith. The scarlet cord she was given to put on her door not only saved her and her family, but as St. Clement of Alexandria notes, “this was to show clearly beforehand that the blood of the Lord should bring redemption to all those who believe and hope in God. You see dearly beloved that this woman had not only faith, but the gift of prophecy.”[7]
So, the saving of Rahab is a type of the saving of men through the blood of Christ. The scarlet color of the cord brings to mind the lamb’s blood on the door posts of the Hebrew homes in Egypt necessary to save their first-born. Origen writes, “Rahab means latitudo. What is this breadth save the Church of Christ which is made up of sinners and harlots? It is this breadth which receives the spies of Jesus (Joshua)... There is another type of harlot the prophet Osee [Hosea] is commanded to take to himself, a type no doubt of the Church made up of Gentiles.”[8] Christ is considered to have saved both harlots. Origen says she was a prophet because she told Joshua, “I know that the Lord hath given this land to you.”[9] Rahab’s house is a type of the Church alongside the ark of Noah and the bark of Peter, which is the most often used type of the Church.
Those who are in it escape the judgment to come when our Savior shall overcome Jericho [a type of this world] at the sound of the trumpets. Finally, Origen basing his argument on Romans 11 notes:
If you wish to understand more clearly how Rahab was incorporated into Israel, see how the branch of the wild olive is grafted onto the trunk of the good olive tree, and you will understand how those who are grafted into the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are rightly said to be incorporated into Israel until this day.[10]
In The Bible and the Liturgy, going through all the sacraments, Easter, Pentecost, Tabernacles, Sabbath, Sunday, and shows how all the Early Fathers taught all the new believers, all the catechumen that their faith was to be understood, first and foremost, in terms of salvation history and God’s covenant plan, seen in biblical typology. But we all need to acquire this understanding to enhance our communion with Christ in His holy Word. St. Thomas Aquinas distinguishes three periods of salvation history, namely, the period of nature (when patriarchs like Noah and Abraham fulfill priestly and kingly roles by virtue of their natural paternity (fatherhood); the period of Law (a time of sacrifice of animals, the Mosaic law, a separate sanctuary, the Levitical priesthood and ritual purity with Israel separated from the Gentiles); and finally, the period of Grace, with the coming of Christ, the Son of God, who establishes the Church and the sacraments which will continue until “the consummation of history.”[11]
In the period of nature, St. Thomas sees water as a natural sacrament "suggested in the first production of things, when the Spirit of God hovered over the waters."[12] It is a natural sacrament of cleanness. It cleanses. In the age of law, water imparted a “spiritual regeneration” which, however, was imperfect and symbolic (e.g., parting of the waters of the Red Sea). In the age of grace, the Incarnate Word gives water its full efficacy and thus, through baptism, man is born “of water and the Holy Spirit" (John 3:5). Christ fulfills the types in the Sacraments and thus it is only through Christ that we can search the Bible and find the meaning of types. God taught us as only God can through the use of sensible things to know spiritual things (water and baptism). The sensible signs are sacraments. This will be revealed to full understanding only in glory when the identification of water with the grace of the Holy Spirit will be crystal clear. With the sacraments of the New Law or Covenant, God who has been drawing progressively closer to man, unites himself to man. "Behind Thomas's biblical commentary, then, is one divine economy, two laws or covenants, and three ages of salvation history. It is on this foundation stone, two, three that Thomas can interpret the four senses in a coherent and systematic way."[13] Typology reveals the spiritual meaning of history which is the divine economy (or plan of salvation). The meaning of the New Covenant liturgy and sacraments is not found in Hellenistic culture, but rather in the Judaism of the Old Testament.
When we read the Church Fathers and explore the treasure of “types,” we can see how they open Scripture to greater spiritual discernment. Join Cleopas on the road to Emmaus and your heart will also be burning. Remember that typology is not limited to the spiritual sense:
Typology is not always rooted in spiritual exegesis. Sometimes the historical meaning of the text is typological. When Matthew says, to fulfill Scripture, “out of Egypt I have called my son” looking back on Israel coming out of Egypt in the Exodus, not Jesus coming out when Herod died, and yet the literal-historical meaning of Matthew’s text is a typological interpretation of Hosea. Hosea, in other words, is a type of Christ to come. That’s why the literary-historical study of the text requires not just logic, grammar and rhetoric, looking at events and other relevant historical testimony. It means looking at the entire canon of Scripture! Why stress this? Yet if you lined up a hundred Catholic exegetes and ask them what am I doing when I do a canonical exegesis of Matthew’s text “out of Egypt I have called my son” what would they say? Is this literal-historical exegesis? They would say no, it isn’t. Catholic exegetes don’t include canonical exegesis as a part of the historical-critical task of determining the literal meaning of the text, even though Vatican II and the Catechism says that it is essential! (paraphrase of lecture of Dr. Scott Hahn).
Finally, I would recommend Living the Mysteries: A Guide for Unfinished Christians by Scott Hahn and Mike Aquilina. This book deals with these signs, types, or what we might call the “mystagogy” of the sacraments. The sacrament is itself a reality, wherein heavens touches earth, but they represent divine mysteries, spiritual realities, which human senses cannot see in their deepest reality. “That is what Christ taught His disciples and His disciples taught their disciples, in the Church’s tradition: to read the Bible typologically, to see the events of the Old Testament as a ‘shadow of the good things to come’ in Christ, and so to see the events of the New Testament as a ‘true form of realities that are real and invisible.” Mystagogy[14] teaches the new born Christian how they are to understand the Church as the Kingdom promised in the Old Covenant, to see their baptism in the context of salvation history from the time of Adam. According to the Catechism mystagogy initiates people into the mystery of Christ, “by proceeding from the visible to the invisible, from the sign to the thing signified, from the sacraments to the mysteries” (CCC 1075). By reading short elucidations of this typology in St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Clement of Alexandria, the St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. John Chrysostom and St. Leo the Great you will get a taste of mystagogy that can open up our spiritual mind and heart.
[1] https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/2nd-lenten-sermon-2011-3217
[2] Cardinal Jean Danielou, The Bible and the Liturgy, Notre Dame, In., 1956, p. 5.
[3] St. Irenaeus, Dialogue with Trypho, quoted by Cardinal Jean Danielou, From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers, Westminster, Md., 1960, p.43.
[4] Ibid., p.44.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., p. 69.
[7] Danielou, From Shadows to Reality, p. 244-246.
[8] Ibid., p. 249.
[9] Ibid., p. 250.
[10] Ibid., p. 251.
[11] Scott Hahn, Scripture Matters: Reading the Bible Form the Heart of the Church, Steubenville, Ohio, 2003, p. 58.
[12] Ibid., p. 59.
[13] Ibid., p. 62.
[14] Mystagogy is a consideration of the mysteries of the sacraments most often associated with the stage of RCIA (the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) that comes after the Easter celebration of the sacraments by the catechumen and candidates.