the Alexandrian school, where hermeneutics came from [thanks to
Origen], you can see the root of this way of interpretation -
"Concerning theological terms, the Alexandrian School uses Greek
philosophical terms to explain Christian doctrines, because of
the existing world-wide Greek culture, and in order to deal with
the philosophers and heretics. But the Alexandrians were not
enslaved to these terms. This is what St. Athanasius explains
when he states that
disputes merely about words must not be suffered to divide those
who think alike."
1700 years ago, people debated over words just like today, and
forget about the meaning _behind_ the words. The Alexandrian
school attempted to alleviate that issue by interpreting
allegorically, "symbolically", and most importantly, looking
into the context within which the writings were written, in an
attempt to "see through the author's eyes". We think of this as
very modern but it's not, which is something I think is
marvelous.
