Hidden in plain sight

Both [Antiochene and Alexandrian] expected a deeper sense, and neither was concerned with the reference to the events behind the text or the human author’s intended meaning. The Antiochene (ikonic) approach expects a mirroring or imaging of the deeper meaning in the text as a whole, while the Alexandrian (symbolic) approach was seen by the Antiochenes as destroying the story, or coherence, of the text because it involved using words as symbols or tokens. “What is different is the [Antiochene] assumption that the narrative provides a kind of ‘mirror’ which images the true understanding, rather than the words of the text providing a code to be cracked.” [Young, Biblical Exegesis, 123] The issue is much deeper than the simple conclusion that the Antiochene insistence on typology was the result of its historical anchoring in events, while Alexandrians preferred allegory because of their disdain for history.“ The fact is that all early Christian reading of Scripture is, in some sense, figural.—Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, pages 139-40