There are some topics in the study of the ancient world that attract a peculiar sort of dichotomy of

opinion. I don't mean that the disagreement is simply between two main camps; that's true of many
areas of research. But in the case of whether or Hebrew is allegorizing, the two camps part ways in
such an abrupt way as to make one feel like one is on slightly unstable ground when one speaks to
the topic. I want to argue that the Epistle to the Hebrews allegorizes in an Alexandrian fashion. To a
significant portion of the interested audience, that will be such an uncontentious statement as to cast
doubt upon the point of my presentation. To another significant portion of that audience, it will be
such a patently untrue statement as to render the dialogue meaningless without significant further
evidence.

I have not, I confess, done a Bradley and discovered a secret logion of the Epistle to the Hebrews
with a signed confession that our author was practising Alexandrian allegory. But what I hope to
achieve is demonstrate a few relatively modest propositions which will build towards the slightly
more ambitious aims of my PhD thesis. What I hope to do today is:
1) to establish with reasonably high probability that Hebrews has an Alexandrian
provenance, or at least a provenance in Alexandrian-influenced intellectual circles;
2) to demonstrate that Hebrews and Philo share a variety of interpretive techniques,
both Jewish and Hellenistic;
3) to link these practices to their Alexandrian context; and
4) to show why this nexus of practices can reasonably be called “allegory”.
As I say, to some this set of propositions will be entirely uncontroversial. However, from my own
survey of the literature it seems to me that proponents of that view haven't shown their workings
sufficiently, particularly as to why we can safely use the term “allegory” in this connection. Nathan
McDonald said the following a few years ago in the introduction to a volume of papers from the
2006 St Andrews Conference for Scripture and Christian Theology:
“These non-literal modes of interpretation can include what twentieth-century
scholarship sought to distinguish as typological and allegorical modes of reading.
Hebrews knows nothing of this distinction and is happy to move between them”1.
In a sense that's what my 4th proposition claims; but to show why that might be the case a degree of
background must be established.

The intellectual background of Hebrews has long been disputed. In the last 60 years you will find
arguments that our author was a personal disciple of Philo, in a Palestinian apocalyptic setting
arguing with the Essenes, a Samaritan, circulating in pre-Christian Gnostic circles, and more. Hurst
puts it this way:
“During the past century [Hebrews] has been read against perhaps a greater number of
widely differing backgrounds than any other ancient document. By far the most
common view has been to see the epistle as something of an alien presence in the NT,
an intruder from a thought-world which is far from the mainstream of the Christian
tradition. To an amazing degree each of these widely differing backgrounds seems
convincing when it is considered in isolation from the rest. The interpretation of the
epistle is in disarray because scholarly opinion vacillates from background to
background as each new publication appears. It is uncertain at present what the next
step should be.”2
Hurst himself argues against any particular link between Hebrews and Philo. My own argument
FOR some sort of link between them will be, perhaps foolishly, partly based on and responding to
Hurst and fellow sceptic Williamson.

The arguments presented by Williamson and Hurst against a direct Philonic link (as exhaustively

1 Nathan McDonald. “Introduction”. Hebrews and Christian Theology edited by R. Bauckham et al. Grand
Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2009: 7.
2 L.D. Hurst. SNTSMS 65: The Epistle to the Hebrews: Its background of thought. Cambridge: CUP, 1990: 2f.
argued for by Spicq) are twofold: linguistic and thematic. I should say here that in large part their
arguments are convincing; I am not seeking to resurrect as a key plank of my thesis a direct
relationship between Philo and our Author, though indeed I wouldn't be surprised to discover at the
eschaton that the two had known each other.

The linguistic argument relies on two planks – where Philo and Hebrews use the same word, and
where the word is not otherwise in the LXX, either 1) Hebrews might have learned the time from
another source than Philo, or 2) Hebrews uses the term in a different way to Philo. Usually the two
are combined. The thematic argument is similar – either Hebrews could easily have drawn the same
theme from a separate source, or Hebrews is utilising the theme in so different a way to Philo as to
cast doubt upon a link.

Whilst Williamson and Hurst certainly succeed in casting doubt upon Spicq's catalogue of
connections, in the final event their efforts to completely dissociate Hebrews from Philo, or at least
Philo's immediate intellectual milieu, fail. They themselves seem to give this away. For instance,
when Williamson sums up the linguistic situation, he says:
“the area of vocabulary common to Philo and the Writer of Hebrews is really very small
. . . Certainly no calculations based on the number of words common to Philo and
Hebrews can prove that the Writer of Hebrews had augmented his vocabulary to any
strikingly significant degree by reading Philo's works. Such calculations in themselves
contain no proof that the writer of Hebrews used the words he shares with Philo in a
characteristically Philonic way or with Philonic nuances of meaning.”3
All of this is quite correct. But that qualification - “to any strikingly significant degree” - is itself
quite significant. Throughout Williamson and Hurst there is a willingness to admit a tangential link
between the two whilst being vociferous that there need be no significant link.

This is a happy state of affairs for me. Hurst and Williamson sum up and admit into evidence some
of the very strongest arguments for supposing a common geographical and intellectual background
for Hebrews and Philo. For instance, Williamson quotes with approval Hanson's remark that
Hebrews and Philo “were both using a common Alexandrian Jewish stock of vocabulary”4.
Williamson actually goes further than this, saying
“It is quite conceivable that Philo and the Writer of Hebrews both belonged to a circle
of educated Hellenistic Jews, a group embracing many diverse members, all of whom
drew upon the rich and varied Greek vocabulary we find displayed in the works of
Philo, in Hebrews, and in the works of many other writings of the period”5
In seeking to minimize Philo's influence upon Hebrews, Williamson seems to admit the wider point
– they floated in similar circles.

As for the specific vocabulary, let us take a few examples. Williamson grants that Hebrews
probably drew απαυγασμα (Hebrews 1.3, radiance) from its currency in Alexandrian writing6; he
grants the possibility that ακλινης (Hebrews 10.23, unwavering) might have a Philonic source,
though pointedly mentions that the word is used by two Alexandrian mathematicians7; and he
accepts that χαραχτηρ (Hebrews 1.3, imprint) is used in a similar way to the manner in which it is
used in Legum Allegoriae III.95, where God is described as spiritually impressing a nature of
wisdom and knowledge upon Bezaleel like a stamp upon an approved coin8.

Hurst pursues this line of attack to dissociate Hebrews from Philo. He picks specifically upon a
3 R. Williamson. Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews. Leiden: Brill, 1970: 17.
4 R.P.C. Hanson. Allegory and Event. London: SCM, 1959: 94.
5 Williamson, op. cit., 30.
6 Ibid., 40.
7 Ibid., 31 and 37.
8 Ibid., 79f.
series of specialist terms not discussed by Williamson – most notably αντιτυρος, ύποδειγμα and its
cognates, αιωνιος and εικον. Obviously the case Hurst is answering is that these are philosophical or
even Platonic terms. He does make some telling points - for instance, that ύποδειγμα is not in fact a
common term in Philo at all.

However, one again gets the sense that rather too much is being implied. For instance, Hurst argues
that, for instance, αιωνιος is used (in 5.9, 6.2, 9.12, 9.14, 9.15, 13.20) without its Platonic nuances
and is not in fact applied to the heavenly sanctuary, thereby making it some sort of Platonic ideal.
All this is offered as reason to believe the Author of Hebrews had never read Plato9.

But that form of reasoning rings some alarm bells for me. If we were to conclude that an author had
never read any Plato because he understood certain Platonic terms differently to modern
scholarship, at the very least the philosophically syncretistic Antiochus and indeed Philo would be
for the chop. So would some of the Neo-Platonists and the whole of the Timaeus-loving medieval
period.

Indeed, even if we grant Hurst that Hebrews shows no direct sign of Platonic influence, the fact that
he uses such a range of Greek philosophical language with such ease should give us pause for
thought. As Westcott put it, we can easily see “the freedom and power with which the author of the
Epistle dealt with the resources of the Greek language”10. Westcott particularly notes that whilst
“[h]is love for compound words is characteristic of the period at which he wrote, but their number is
largely in excess of the average of their occurrence in the N.T.”11. Indeed, it's a fair bet that one of
the most famous phrases in the Epistle includes a compound word invented by our Author –
αγενεαλογητος.

It is, one supposes, possible that an author so comfortable with literary (arguably Alexandrine)
Greek, and, as Williamson continually reminds us, so creative was completely ignorant of the works
of the lead philosopher of the Greeks, as well as of one of the most noted citizens and leaders of the
largest Hellenistic Jewish community in the world. It seems unlikely, though. To offer a parallel – if
you read a comment piece in a newspaper where the author casually flings the word “existential”
into the mix, you might be justified in suspecting it is nothing other than a lazy use of a word spread
widely abroad in the culture. However, if the writer also used the terms “deconstruction”,
“alienation”, and “authenticity”, we might conclude they had at least half-heartedly sat a module in
modern philosophy as a minor at University. If indeed they used the terms with flair and creativity
and betrayed deep immersion into the thought world of their time, you might go so far as to credit
them with having actually read Sartre or Marcel.

The other area where Williamson and Hurst seek to disentangle Philo and Hebrews (and largely
succeed in doing so) is when it comes to shared themes. I won't labour this any further – that's for
the thesis – aside from to say that the same habit continues of our sceptics slightly sawing their own
branch from beneath them12. Interestingly enough, Hurst's own suggestion for a better intellectual fit
than Philo and Alexandria is the milieu surrounding the Stephen traditions of Acts 6 and 7. Hanson,
in fact, quite attractively links Stephen's speech with Alexandria on the basis of interpretive
techniques13.

By taking the strongest arguments of the most robust critics of an allegorizing Alexandrian milieu, it
seems to me we already have a cumulative argument – of words used, of writing style, of some
thematic content – that might lead us to suspect not only an Alexandrian intellectual context for
9 Hurst, op. cit., 34.
10 B.F. Westcott. The Epistle to the Hebrews (Third Edition). London: Macmillan, 1903: xlv&xlvi.
11 Ibid., xlvi.
12 As for instance when discussing Logos theology – e.g. Williamson, op. cit., 430.
13 Hanson, op. cit., 95.
Hebrews, but an Alexandrian context where our author would be at least somewhat familiar with
Philo or his works. In the words of our Author, “What more should I say?” There is some other
small tangential evidence pertinent to establishing that the author was either an Alexandrian himself
or at least deeply influenced by the Alexandrian intellectual milieu. Our first direct mention of the
letter is via Clement of Alexandria14 - I take Clement of Rome's obvious knowledge to be due to
being head of the church on the receiving end of the letter – and we can perhaps trace that
Alexandrian knowledge back to Pantaenus15 slightly earlier. Of course, that is still a relatively late
date, and could naturally be explained by the fact that Alexandria and Alexandrians naturally
collated literature. But again, it adds to the cumulative argument, as does the observation that there
are 2 LXX readings which are only attested in Philo and Hebrews16.

The most decisive category of evidence aside from linguistic and thematic matters is, naturally, the
interpretive sphere. This brings us to our second proposition – having seen from the idea's greatest
critics that there might well be a link between Hebrews and Philo, we turn to examine their
interpretive techniques. Are they similar? If they are, they both further the idea of an Alexandrian
intellectual provenance for the Epistle, and begin to give us a spectrum of techniques “allegorists”
might use.

Both authors are sceptical as to whether Hebrews allegorizes meaningfully at any point; Williamson
especially emphasizes the presence of typology. We'll return to that distinction soon, but we should
briefly consider the one example any reader would agree was allegory – Melchizedek's name
explained as “King of Righteousness and Peace” in Hebrews 7.2. Philo operates similarly in Legum
Allegoriae III.79. Williamson dismisses the allegory as too simple and too obvious to be a
significant link17. Not so obvious, of course, as to be used by 11QMelchizedek, which apparently
eschews allegory where Hebrews uses it. That Hebrews etymologizes at all in this way is telling. It
is without parallel in the New Testament. Whilst one can hardly say that the Hebrew Bible is
uninterested in the meanings of names, what Hebrews and Philo do with the name of Melchizedek
is far more like the work of a Cornutus or Heracleitus18. In Hebrews 7.2 the meaning of the name of
Melchizedek, communicated via Holy Scripture, is an additional evidence in and of itself that there
was a fitting forebear to Christ superior to the Aaronic priesthood.

Whilst Hebrews and Philo etymologize Melchizedek's name to achieve different aims, their motives
and method are the same. Both believe what most Hellenistic allegorists would have believed – that
there might be hidden meaning in names. Where Greeks might have believed that because either the
ancient namers of things were peculiarly wise, or because the poets communicated mysteries via
symbols, Philo and the Author of Hebrews far more likely believed that etymology was possible
because the LXX was an entirely reliable version of God's inspired Written Word and full of
additional spiritual meaning.

In the very same section, we have another example of common exegesis – the application of
αματωρ (along with two other terms in Hebrews) to an ideal figure. In De Ebrietate 59-62, Sarah is
presented as being without mother on the basis of Genesis 20.12; this is allegorized as her stemming
only from wisdom, the paternal inheritance, and not from the things of the sensible world, which
form and dissolve – that being the maternal inheritance. Hebrews seems to conclude that
Melchizedek is without forebears (at least in an allegorical sense) on the basis of Scripture's silence.
Bruce, indeed, suggests that both these instances represent the Rabbinic principle of quod non in

14 In Eusebius, H.E. VI.14.

15 Thus Westcott, op. cit., lxiii-lxiv.
16 Of Genesis 2.2 (in Post. 64 and Heb. 4.4) and Joshua 1.5 (Conf. 166 and Heb. 13.5). S.G. Sowers. Hermeneutics of
Philo and Hebrews. Zurich: EVZ Verlag, 1965: 66.
17 Williamson, op. cit., 443.
18 e.g. Proteus' daughter Eidotheia being the vision [thea] of every form [eidos] (Homeric Problems 66), being the
plan for the primordial chaos that Proteus represents, forming him into many forms.
Thora non in mundo19. He is incorrect as to Philo reading from silence; Philo is, rather, reading
directly from the text, though there is evidently a similar instinct in play. Philo certainly does use
the argument from silence, most notably as to Cain's death never being recorded20. As to the
argument from silence, we may well conclude that this is a Jewish rather than Hellenistic pattern;
but with both Melchizedek and Cain, the Jewish technique is turned towards Hellenizing ends. Cain
becomes an object figure of God's punishment of the philosophically unwise; Melchizedek is
described in what Bauckham calls “hellenistic true-god language” - that is, “the kind of language
philosophically inclined writers used to define what it is to be a true deity, as distinct from, for
example, a deified hero”21. The exegesis of Sarah's parents renders much the same result.

And indeed, whilst it seems most likely that here we are dealing with a native Jewish exegetical
technique, we should remark that a concern for the order of a text, and what is contained in it and
what is allegedly implied by it, is also a concern of the only complete Hellenistic allegorical work
we have from the era of our two authors. Heraclitus of Alexandria painstakingly uses word order
and the flow of the Homeric text to justify the natural philosophy he reads in Homer, as for instance
in his lengthy chronological survey of the scientific progress of a natural plague, which is the true
explanation given of Apollo's attack upon the Greeks for the plundering of his temple22.

So though probably the argument from silence is a Jewish inheritance, in both our authors it is
turned to Hellenistic philosophical or demi-philosophical ends, and may well have seen the same
sort of exegesis in Hellenistic writers. Equally, the shared use of a Hellenistic true-god epithet is
telling.

That will need to suffice for now in terms of shared habits of exegesis, though we might also
fruitfully discuss Hebrews chapter 11, where Sowers argues that “the exegetical conclusions
reached by the Alexandrian school of Jewish allegorists are firmly in the writer's mind”23, or again
we might consider the minimalising rhetoric used by Hebrews in relation to the Law.

It seems to me that the cumulative argument for an Alexandrian context is significantly

strengthened by this discussion. Jews of various stripe using Hellenistic true god language as a
summary of their exegesis, assuming etymology can uncover relevant hidden truth, and turning
Rabbinic methods to Hellenizing ends are all especially comfortable in Alexandria. Certainly the
interest in etymology and philosophy, as well as the matter of allegorically informed paranesis that
we have glided over today, all seem most comfortably – in the first century AD, at least – to be
identified as Alexandrian techniques.

But there is one technique key to Hebrews that Philo never uses – typology. There are various
breeds of typology in Hebrews – where historical figures foreshadow Christ, as in the case of
Melchizedek; a sort of prophetic typology, whereby Moses sees the eschatological sanctuary and
bases his own inferior Tabernacle on it; and a sort of ethical typology in chapter 11, where the
faithful heroes of Israel are seen as forerunners of Christ, upon who indeed their faith is based.

A traditional definition of typology is one where an Old Testament figure is seen to prefigure Christ
in some respect: Adam is the head of the human family, as Christ will become head of the family of
the spiritually resurrect; David is the anointed King of Israel, like his descendant Christ; and so
forth. Melchizedek is adduced by Hebrews as a type of priest-king, particularly one whose
priesthood is superior to the Aaronic priesthood. But if typology is a case of historical
19 F.F. Bruce. NICNT: The Epistle to the Hebrews. Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 1964: 136.
20 e.g. Praem. 68-70, Det. 178, Virt. 200, Fug. 60, Conf. 12.
21 Bauckham, R. “The Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Epistle to the Hebrews”. Hebrews and Christian Theology
edited by R. Bauckham et al. Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 2009: 29.
22 Homeric Problems 10-16.
23 Sowers, op. cit., 137.
prefigurement and fulfilment – as, for instance, Spicq assumed24 - then how do we explain
Melchizedek? Are we really to believe that there was a second eternal priest-king, or indeed – as
Ellingworth self-consistently argues – did the author of Hebrews believe Genesis witnesses to an
appearance of the pre-existent Christ?25

Calvin, as so often, saw to the heart of the matter. “But hence we also learn how much reverence
and sobriety is required as to the spiritual mysteries of God”, he says, continuing, “for what is not
found read in Scripture [i.e., a genealogy] the Apostle is not only willing to be ignorant of, but also
would have us not to seek to know”26. But if it is a case of respect for the form of written word of
God over and above the historical fact of Melchizedek's parentage, then typology is no longer a
respectable, historically grounded form of interpretation. It is just as spiritualizing as allegory, if
perhaps within tighter parameters; and indeed, as Hanson observes of the typology in Acts 7, which
I've already mentioned: “The fact is that the whole of Stephen's Speech is full of typology which is
just ready to slip over into allegory, that is to say move from representing 'similar situation'
typology to an identification of an object or a person in the Old Testament as prefiguring Christ,
arbitrarily made without any attention to historical situation”27. He incidentally suggests the
presence of spiritualizing etymologies in Acts 7.

This is a wise observation as to typology. He more broadly observes that typology is not
oppositional to allegory; it is on a spectrum. It is a “spiritualizing” move to find additional meaning
in your source text, accessible only via the right techniques or philosophy or knowledge of the right
Messianic comparison. As a similar example we might look at the so-called allegory of Sarah and
Hagar in Galatians 4. Paul is the only author in the New Testament to use the phrase, and he uses it
of an exegesis that is equally as hard to define as Hebrews 7. It begins as prophetic allegory – the
two children really represent the two covenants (Galatians 4.24). But even that sounds a lot like a
typological prefigurement of the Messianic event. Paul then turns to solid similar-situation typology
– Isaac's persecution both mirrors and foreshadows the persecution of his Christian hearers.

The two places that are most obviously “allegorical” in the New Testament are neither of them
simply instances of spiritual replacement or reading philosophy into the source text. Though it is the
habit of Philo and Heraclitus to see their allegory in those terms, at least St Paul shows that the term
can be used more flexibly. Philo does not use typology because it is a spiritualizing method inspired
by Messianic expectation; that does not mean typology is not a spiritualizing method. And our
earliest definitions of allegory do not require us to limit it to direct substitution of meaning. Cicero
and Quintillian talk of allegory as a sustained metaphor in rhetoric28, whilst Demetrius the Stylist
says that allegory is a way of communicating meaning darkly or in a round about manner29.
Heraclitus of Alexandria defines allegory as “the trope which says one thing but signifies something
other than what it says receive the name 'allegory' precisely from this”30. Tellingly his examples are
poets and others utilising sustained metaphors, so we need not see Heraclitus as defining it in a
special sense as an exegetical device (which is what Hanson suggests). Metaphors, of course, are
not always completely reducible, and may indeed – as Demetrius says – be more a suggestive idea
than a simple list of items to be translated.

If, then, we take the term allegory – in its ancient context – to mean a way an author can represent
meaning metaphorically or suggestively, then when a reader came to a text they assumed was
written allegorically – as Heraclitus assumed of Homer and Philo assumed of the Hebrew Bible –

24 Ceslas Spicq. L'Epitre aux Hebreux I. Paris: Librairie Lecoffre, 1952. 61.
25 Paul Ellingworth. NIGTC: The Epistle to the Hebrews. Grand Rapids, Mi.: Eerdmans, 1993.
26 J. Calvin. Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews (Calvin Translation Society). 158.
27 Hanson, op. cit., 95.
28 Cicero, Orat. 94, and Quintillian VIII.6.44 and IX.2.46
29 Demetrius, On Style, 99-102.
30 Homeric Questions, 5.
we might well expect them to use a variety of techniques to understand the author's intention. Those
techniques might very easily include etymology and direct substitution, as well as – for the
Messianically inclined – typology.

I hope this rather basic discussion has gone some way to proving McDonald's point quoted at the
outset. In the sense of its ancient meaning, both Philo and Hebrews were using allegory, an allegory
learned from their shared Alexandrian intellectual context; they would not have seen a distinction
between typology and allegory in our modern sense.

Bibliography
Anonymous. The Epistle to the Hebrews.
Eusebius of Caesarea. Historia Ecclesia.
Heraclitus of Alexandria. Homeric Problems.
Paul of Tarsus. The Epistle to the Galatians.
Philo of Alexandria.
De Confusione Linguarum.
De Ebrietate.
De Fuga et Inventione.
De Praemiis et Poenis.
De Virtutibus.
Legum Allegoriae.
Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiari Soleat.

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