The Fourfold Sense of Scripture: Literal, Allegorical, Moral, and Anagogical

Introduction

Among premodern Christian hermeneutics, nothing has loomed larger—or been more widely misunderstood—than the “fourfold sense” of Scripture. Frequently reduced to a mnemonic (the quadriga) and dismissed as fanciful or arbitrary, the fourfold sense in fact names a sophisticated, centuries-long attempt to describe how a single, divinely given text can communicate on multiple, coordinated levels. For doctoral students in Biblical Studies, revisiting this tradition is not antiquarianism. It is an exercise in historiography and method: to understand why the fourfold sense emerged; how it functioned within patristic and medieval exegesis; what theological and philosophical assumptions sustained it; what guardrails constrained it; why it was criticized in the Reformation and Enlightenment; and how elements of it have been retrieved or reimagined in contemporary scholarship.

This chapter offers an extensive account of the fourfold sense. We begin by clarifying terms and tracing historical development from patristic roots through medieval codification. We then work through the four senses in turn, attending to their exegetical logic and to canonical examples that illustrate each. Next we examine the controls that prevented premodern exegesis from collapsing into private fancy. We then consider the Reformers’ critique and later modern reassessments, before proposing ways doctoral students can appropriate insights from the quadriga without surrendering critical rigor. Throughout, the goal is not nostalgia but understanding: to see how a particular hermeneutical framework made deep sense within its own world—and to ask what, if anything, it might still teach us about Scripture’s communicative richness.

Defining the Fourfold Sense

The classic medieval formulation distinguishes the literal (historical) sense from three spiritual senses: the allegorical (often Christological and ecclesial), the moral or tropological (pertaining to the formation of the soul and Christian conduct), and the anagogical (pertaining to ultimate fulfillment and eschatological hope). Medieval schoolmen crystallized the schema in memorable verse: Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria; moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia—“the letter teaches deeds, allegory what you are to believe; the moral sense what you are to do; the anagogical where you are headed.” Yet this mnemonic hides a complex history. The quadriga did not appear overnight; it arose from the confluence of Jewish figural reading, Greco-Roman rhetorical habits, Christian conviction about Christ as the telos of Scripture, and a sacramental ontology in which visible signs truly bear invisible realities (de Lubac, 2000).

Crucially, medievals did not oppose the literal to the spiritual as “true” versus “fanciful.” Rather, the literal was the foundation upon which spiritual senses rested. Thomas Aquinas insisted that “all the senses are founded on one—the literal—from which alone arguments may be drawn, and not from those intended in allegory” (Summa theologiae I, q. 1, a. 10). In other words, spiritual readings presuppose and unfold the literal, not replace it.

Historical Development

Patristic Roots: From Figuration to Spiritual Senses

Early Christian exegesis did not begin with a fourfold taxonomy. What we find in the fathers is a repertoire of practices—typology, allegory, figural reading, and spiritual interpretation—animated by convictions about the unity of God’s action across the Testaments and the Christological climax of that action. Paul’s reading of Adam and Christ (Rom 5:12–21), Israel’s passage through the sea as a “type” of baptism (1 Cor 10:1–4), and the “allegory” (allegoroumena) of Hagar and Sarah (Gal 4:21–31) supplied biblical warrant for multi-level exegesis. Origen systematized the move by distinguishing “body, soul, and spirit” of Scripture, often correlating these with literal, moral, and mystical senses (see On First Principles). Augustine in On Christian Doctrine affirmed the literal while elaborating spiritual readings ordered to the love of God and neighbor; he treated Scriptural signs as divinely intended to lead readers upward in charity.

Medieval Codification: From Practice to Pedagogy

By late antiquity and early medieval monastic culture, the fourfold schema became a didactic tool to teach how the one text can nourish doctrine, moral formation, and hope. John Cassian’s Conferences offered paradigm examples (e.g., Jerusalem as a city in history, a figure of the Church, the soul, and the heavenly city). Scholastic culture then pressed for conceptual clarity. Hugh of St. Victor and the Glossa Ordinaria modeled how to move from letter to spiritual senses within a school setting. Aquinas supplied the metaphysical rationale: because God is the author of Scripture, He can intend multiple senses; unlike human authors, God’s intention can encompass figured fulfillments without contradiction (ST I, q. 1, a. 10). Nicholas of Lyra (d. 1349), while a devoted practitioner of spiritual reading, argued for the primacy of the literal sense—a key medieval adjustment that would influence the Reformers (Smalley, 1983).

Dante as a Lay Theologian of the Quadriga

Dante’s famous letter to Can Grande anchors his Comedy in fourfold exegesis: the literal journey through the afterlife; the allegory of the soul’s pilgrimage; the moral instruction for the reader; and the anagogical ascent toward the beatific vision. While a poetic example, it shows how deeply the quadriga shaped medieval imagination, pedagogy, and theology.

The Literal Sense

What the Literal Is—and Is Not

For medieval exegetes, the literal (sensus litteralis) is what the text asserts in its historical and literary context: the deeds, institutions, or sayings signified by the words. It includes narrative surface, grammar, and authorial intent; in Aquinas and Nicholas of Lyra, it can also encompass figuration internal to the text (e.g., metaphors or types recognized as part of the letter) because these are part of what the words intend (ST I, q. 1, a. 10 ad 3).

Premodern literal sense is broader than a modern “bare facts” historicism. When Psalm 18 speaks of God “riding on the cherubim,” the literal is not a crude picture of divine anatomy but the intended poetic assertion of God’s majestic deliverance. The literal sense already includes genre and rhetoric. That is why medievals could argue that the literal sense itself sometimes contains figures (Grant & Tracy, 1984).

Exegetical Example: Psalm 137

Take Psalm 137’s lament “By the rivers of Babylon.” The literal sense names exilic grief, memory, and the desire for Zion. Premodern readers did not bypass this context; rather, they allowed it to ground later senses. The psalm’s violent imprecation (“blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock,” v. 9) troubled Christian conscience; Augustine admits its scandal, then asks whether the literal can be morally appropriated by naming “the little ones” as nascent vices that must be crushed early against “the Rock,” Christ—thus moving toward the tropological (moral) sense while refusing to deny the literal history of exile.

The Allegorical (Christological/Ecclesial) Sense

Definition and Distinctiveness

In medieval usage, allegory most often denotes a Christological or ecclesial fulfillment of Israel’s history. It overlaps with what many patristic authors called typology: events like the exodus prefigure Christ’s saving work; the temple prefigures Christ’s body and the Church (John 2:19–21). This sense answers “what to believe” by explicating doctrines anchored in Christ’s fulfillment of the Law and Prophets.

Exegetical Example: The Exodus

At the literal level, Exodus narrates God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery through the sea into covenant. Allegorically, Christ is the Paschal Lamb; the passage through the waters figures baptism; Pharaoh’s defeat anticipates Christ’s triumph over the powers; the manna and water from the rock foreshadow the Eucharist and the Spirit (1 Cor 10:1–4). In patristic preaching, these identifications are not arbitrary; they are guided by the New Testament’s own figural patterns and by the Church’s sacramental practice.

Theological Rationale

The allegorical sense presupposes the unity of the divine economy: the same God who acted in Israel acts definitively in Christ. Because Scripture’s divine author intends that unity, historical events can signify future realities without forfeiting their own integrity (Aquinas, ST I, q. 1, a. 10). The allegorical sense is not a flight from history but a claim about history’s coherence under divine providence.

The Moral (Tropological) Sense

Definition

The moral or tropological sense asks how the text instructs the reader’s life in Christ. It is not mere application; it is a reading of how Scriptural realities form virtues, habits, and practices.

Exegetical Example: Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22)

The literal sense narrates Abraham’s testing and the sparing of Isaac. Allegorically, many fathers saw the ram caught in the thicket as a type of Christ’s substitution. Tropologically, the story calls the believer to obedient trust and to relinquish idols of the heart. Medieval writers often aligned the patriarchs with virtues: Abraham as faith, Jacob as hope, Joseph as chastity. Such alignments aimed not to replace history but to draw ethical formation from it.

Pastoral Orientation

The moral sense reflects Scripture’s use within catechesis, monastic formation, and homiletics. Augustine’s controlling criterion was charity: readings that do not conduce to the love of God and neighbor are misreadings, however clever (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine I.36.40).

The Anagogical Sense

Definition

The anagogical sense (from anagoge, “ascent”) discerns how Scriptural realities point to ultimate fulfillment—communion with God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the eschaton. It is the sense of hope, sustaining the Church’s orientation toward its end.

Exegetical Example: Jerusalem

Cassian’s famous illustration: “Jerusalem” in Scripture can name (1) the historical city (literal), (2) the Church (allegorical), (3) the believing soul (moral), and (4) the heavenly city (anagogical). The last is not vague edification; it gathers prophetic promises (Isa 2; Ps 122), Pauline citizenship in heaven (Phil 3:20), and Revelation’s new Jerusalem (Rev 21–22) into a single arc. Medieval liturgy then rehearsed this hope, so that exegesis and worship mutually reinforced one another.

Controls and Guardrails: Why It Wasn’t Anything Goes

A modern caricature supposes that once spiritual senses are admitted, imagination runs wild. In practice, premodern exegesis operated under a set of controls:

1. Primacy of the Literal Sense. By the thirteenth–fourteenth centuries, theologians like Aquinas and Nicholas of Lyra insisted that spiritual senses be founded upon the literal (Smalley, 1983). Arguments in theology should ultimately rest on the literal sense (ST I, q. 1, a. 10 ad 1).

2. Rule of Faith (Regula Fidei). Spiritual readings must cohere with the Church’s creed and doctrinal consensus. This rule constrained flights of fancy and protected Christological and Trinitarian orthodoxy (Childs, 1979).

3. Canonical Coherence. Because Scripture is one book with God as author, readings must hold together with the whole canon. The spiritual sense often emerged from intertextual relations the canon itself established.

4. Charity as Telos. For Augustine, the goal of reading is love. Interpretations that fail to build charity are suspect, however erudite (Augustine, On Christian Doctrine I.36.40).

5. Ecclesial Testing. Exegesis was a communal practice: sermons, commentaries, and glosses circulated among clergy and in schools; aberrant proposals were contested and refined. Pedagogy, not private speculation, formed readers in the quadriga.

These constraints do not guarantee perfection, but they show how medieval exegesis sought to wed freedom and discipline, imagination and rule.

Reformation and Enlightenment Critiques

Reformers: Recovering the Letter, Retaining Figuration

Luther and Calvin charged that late-medieval preaching sometimes buried the gospel under a proliferation of spiritual meanings. Luther mocked undisciplined allegory, contrasting it with Christ-centered figuration rooted in the plain sense. Yet neither Reformer rejected figural fulfillment. Calvin’s commentaries are replete with typology; his quarrel was with arbitrary multiplication of senses and with neglect of historical-grammatical work. The Reformers effectively reasserted Nicholas of Lyra’s dictum: start with the letter; let figuration arise organically from the text and the canon.

Enlightenment: The Myth of Progress

The Enlightenment retold the history of exegesis as a march from superstition to science. Allegory and tropology became cautionary tales; the “literal sense” shrank to a “nothing-but-the-past” empiricism. Historical criticism’s genuine gains—philology, textual criticism, context—were real and precious. But the progress narrative caricatured premodern practice and forgot that the New Testament itself authorizes figural fulfillment (Grant & Tracy, 1984). In the twentieth century, scholars like Henri de Lubac painstakingly reconstructed the intellectual ecology of medieval exegesis, showing that spiritual senses were not arbitrary inventions but disciplined “growths” from the letter (de Lubac, 2000). Brevard Childs likewise argued that canonical form and ecclesial use rightly belong to mature exegesis alongside historical inquiry (Childs, 1979).

Worked Case Studies Across the Four Senses

Case Study 1: The Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22)

Literal. Abraham is tested; God provides a ram; the covenant promise is reaffirmed. Historical, narrative, and literary features (repetition, dialogue, geography) ground the sense.

Allegorical. Patristic readers see anticipations of Christ: the beloved son, the wood carried up the hill, the vicarious ram. The allegory relies on canonical links (e.g., “only son,” John 3:16; Moriah as temple site) and New Testament patterns (Rom 8:32).

Moral. Abraham’s obedient trust becomes a paradigm for faith formed in hope against hope (Rom 4:18). Medieval moral readings exhort detachment from idols—precisely because the literal narrative dramatizes that detachment.

Anagogical. The scene gestures toward God’s ultimate provision that secures an innumerable seed and worldwide blessing—a horizon that the New Testament unfolds in eschatological inheritance (Heb 11; Rev 7).

Case Study 2: The Temple

Literal. A building central to Israel’s worship, marked by sacrificial rites and priestly mediation.

Allegorical. Christ’s body as the true temple (John 2:19–21); the Church as God’s temple (1 Cor 3:16–17); the temple veil torn at the cross signaling access (Matt 27:51).

Moral. The believer as a temple of the Spirit (1 Cor 6:19): a call to holiness, chastity, and love.

Anagogical. No temple in the New Jerusalem because “its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Rev 21:22): the consummation where God’s presence fills all.

In both cases, the spiritual senses are not layered despite the literal but through it, as canonical relations and ecclesial practices bring the text’s plenitude to speech.

What the Quadriga Presupposed: A Sacramental Ontology

Behind the four senses lies an ontology in which signs truly participate in the realities they signify. The exodus is not a bare ancient event that we “apply”; it is a divinely authored act whose shape already images Christ’s deliverance, so that baptism does not merely recall the sea but draws the Church into that same deliverance sacramentally (1 Cor 10:1–4). This participatory logic explains why medievals could speak of “multiple senses” without imagining competing meanings. One reality “contains” another by divine intention; the same God authors both history and its fulfillment (de Lubac, 2000). You may reject that ontology, but to understand the method you must see how it made their exegesis coherent.

Contemporary Retrievals and Cautions

Retrievals

Several contemporary movements reopen space for multi-level reading:

• Canonical criticism (Childs) honors final form and ecclesial use, implicitly inviting allegorical and anagogical horizons once historical work is done (Childs, 1979).

• Theological interpretation of Scripture revisits patristic habits under present doctrinal and ecclesial constraints, foregrounding the rule of faith and the Church’s reading.

• Reception history tracks how texts have been read, prayed, and pictured, not to canonize every reception but to recognize Scripture’s history of effects as part of its meaning-making.

• Narrative and rhetorical criticism restore literary unity and persuasive design, enabling typological sensitivity within the text’s own patterns.

Cautions

• Arbitrariness. Without the controls noted above, spiritual senses can devolve into cleverness. Modern retrievals must be disciplined by the letter and the canon.

• Supersessionism. Allegorical readings that erase Israel’s ongoing election or flatten Jewish meanings into Christian fulfillments risk theological harm. Figuration must respect Israel’s Scriptures in their own right.

• Confusion of Registers. Soteriological truths do not nullify historical questions; likewise, historical reconstructions do not exhaust theological meaning. Mature exegesis learns to coordinate registers without collapsing them.

Appropriating the Quadriga Today: A Doctoral Framework

How might doctoral exegetes fruitfully engage the quadriga?

1. Begin with robust literal exegesis. Philology, textual criticism, genre, rhetoric, intertextuality, and historical context provide the base. The literal sense is already rich.

2. Let the canon teach its own allegory. Follow New Testament figuration and broader canonical patterns; avoid imposing extraneous systems. Ask: where does this text’s imagery, plot, and promise naturally align with Christ and the Church?

3. Name the moral telos explicitly. How does this passage, as interpreted in Christ, shape virtues, practices, and communal life? Anchor exhortation in the text’s claims, not free-floating moralism.

4. Open the anagogical horizon. Where does this text orient hope? How do liturgy and eschatology gather it into prayer? Resist sentimentality; draw lines through explicit eschatological texts.

5. Test by the rule of faith and by charity. Doctrinal coherence and the upbuilding of love remain crucial checks.

6. Write transparently across levels. Signal when you move from literal to spiritual; justify the move with canonical warrants. Do not smuggle spiritual readings in as if they were historical reconstructions.

7. Stay dialogical. Read patristic and medieval witnesses not as authorities to repeat but as learned conversation partners to test, learn from, and sometimes correct.

Suggested Assignments

1. Quadriga Exegesis Dossier (3,500–4,000 words). Select a passage (e.g., Exodus 14; Psalm 23; Isaiah 55; Luke 24).
(a) Offer a full literal exegesis (textual, literary, historical).
(b) Develop allegorical, moral, and anagogical readings grounded in the letter and canon.
(c) Conclude with a critical reflection on theological gains and risks in each move, naming controls you observed.

2. Comparative Study: Nicholas of Lyra and a Reformer (3,000 words). Analyze Lyra’s insistence on the primacy of the literal alongside Calvin’s commentary on the same passage. Where do they converge/diverge in principle and practice?

3. Case Study in Reception (3,000–3,500 words). Trace the fourfold reading of “Jerusalem” across Cassian, Augustine, Aquinas, and a modern interpreter. Evaluate how each construes the relations among senses and whether the readings remain mutually accountable.

4. Theological Method Essay (2,500 words). Using Aquinas ST I, q.1, a.10 and de Lubac’s analysis, argue for or against the legitimacy of multiple senses in a doctrine of Scripture today. Address authorial intention (divine/human), canon, and ecclesial use.

Conclusion

The fourfold sense of Scripture was not a whimsical multiplication of meanings but a disciplined account of Scripture’s plenitude under God’s authorship. Rooted in the literal sense and guided by the canon, creed, and charity, premodern readers sought to hear in the one text God’s teaching about Christ and the Church, God’s instruction for holy living, and God’s promise of final joy. The Reformers’ call to reorder exegesis around the grammatical-historical sense corrected real abuses, yet it did not exhaust Scripture’s communicative reach. Today, doctoral exegetes who know this history can hold together what modernity too often tore asunder: critical attention to the text in its historical form, and faithful attention to the text in its ecclesial, moral, and eschatological horizons. To study the quadriga is to recover a grammar of Scripture’s depth—a grammar that, when disciplined by charity and the canon, can still teach us how to read Scripture as the Church’s book, true in history and alive in hope.

References

Augustine. (1995). On Christian doctrine (D. W. Robertson, Trans.). Macmillan.

Aquinas, T. (2006). Summa theologiae (Latin/English, Vol. 1). Christian Classics.

Childs, B. S. (1979). Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture. Fortress Press.

De Lubac, H. (2000). Medieval exegesis: The four senses of Scripture (Vol. 1; M. Sebanc, Trans.). Eerdmans.

Grant, R. M., & Tracy, D. (1984). A short history of the interpretation of the Bible (2nd ed.). Fortress Press.

Smalley, B. (1983). The study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (3rd ed.). University of Notre Dame Press.

Soulen, R. K., & Soulen, R. N. (2011). Handbook of biblical criticism (4th ed.). Westminster John Knox.