There are people who take great pains to twist the sense of the divine scriptures," wrote the fourth-century biblical scholar, Theodore of Mopsuestia, a prominent voice of the exegetical school centered at Antioch, "and make everything written therein serve their own ends. They dream up silly fables in their own heads and give their folly the name of allegory. They misuse the apostle's term as a blank authorization to abolish all meanings of divine scripture."

At the beginning of the third century, Origen of Alexandria introduced to the church an exegetical method that searched for the hidden, spiritual meanings of Old Testament passages, treating the Old Testament as a great allegory of Christ. Most biblical interpreters who followed him worked in this tradition.

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As Paul once said of Tarsus, Antioch was "no mean city." We know it as the place where Jesus' followers were first called "Christians," but its secular fame was also well-established. Founded three hundred ...

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