Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from mount Sinai, which brings forth to bondage, which is Hagar.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
These women represent the two covenants. Moses, taking the blood of a calf in a vessel, sprinkled the people, saying “this is the blood of the covenant, etc.” … The law was given on Mount Sinai. In reciting it to the people, Moses called this the book of the testament. He then sprinkled the people with blood, as I have said. This law held sinners as offenders. They soon began to be slaves of sin, as if they had been made sons of Hagar, as if returning to slavery. –.
Under the sure guidance of the apostle we see how clearly he shows that these two are to be taken allegorically. One may also consider the sons of Keturah under some figure of things to come. The fact that such people did these things is recorded not without purpose but under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We will perhaps find that heresies and schisms are signified in this allegory. For these are sons of the free woman, that is, of the church, and yet they again revert to life according to the flesh, not spiritually according to a promise.
Which things are an allegory. An allegory with rhetoricians is a continued metaphor. With ecclesiastical writers it is identical with a type or figure in which things and events of the Old Testament represented their parallels in the New.
For these are the two covenants. Sarah and Hagar signify respectively the two covenants, the New and the Old. There are four senses of Scripture: (1.) The literal, as e.g, when it is said that Abraham begat Ishmael of Hagar naturally, and Isaac of Sarah supernaturally; (2.) the allegorical, as when it is said, "These are the two covenants;" (3.) the tropological, of which we find an example in verse29; (4.) the anagogical, which is used in verse26.
The first covenant referred to here is that made by God with Moses on Mount Sinai, in which God promised to be the God of the Hebrews , and to give them the land of Canaan, and the Hebrews on their part promised to keep the law of their God, whether moral, judicial, or ceremonial. The second covenant is t...
Allegory is properly a term in the art of grammar. How it differs from metaphor and other figures of speech we learn as children. It presents one thing in words and signifies another in sense. … Understanding this, Paul (who had a certain knowledge of secular literature also) used the name of the figure of speech and called it allegory according to the usage of his own circle. .
Allegory is used improperly for typology. His meaning is this: “This story does not say only what is evident but relates other things as well; hence it is called allegory.”
For these women, he says, are two covenants; one from mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar.
These: who? The mothers of those children, Sarah and Hagar; and what are they? Two covenants, two laws. As the names of the women were given in the history, he abides by this designation of the two races, showing how much follows from the very names. How from the names?
Which things contain an allegory.
Contrary to usage, he calls a type an allegory; his meaning is as follows; this history not only declares that which appears on the face of it, but announces somewhat farther, whence it is called an allegory. And what has it announced? No less than all the things now present.
