The hermeneutic of the early apostolic fathers was greatly influenced by their environment and culture. We must realize the difficult situation that they faced. Dwight Pentecost, of Dallas Seminary, summarizes:
They were without an established canon of either the Old or New Testaments. They were dependent upon a faulty translation of the Scriptures "The Septuagint". They had known only the rules of interpretation laid down by the rabbinical schools and, thus, had to free themselves from the erroneous application of the principle of interpretation. They were surrounded by paganism, Judaism, and heresy of every kind. (11)
By the third century, there were basically three schools of diverse hermeneutical positions which had arisen. F.W. Farrar, biblical scholar and an Anglican clergyman, explains:
"The Fathers of the third and later centuries may be divided into three exegetical schools. Those schools are the Literal and Realistic as represented predominantly by Tertullian; the Allegorical, of which Origen is the foremost exponent; and the Historical and Grammatical, which flourished chiefly in Antioch, and of which Theodore of Mopsuestia was the acknowledged chief." (12)
Not surprisingly, we find that as the allegorical method of interpretation began to take hold, the view of an earthly millennial reign of Christ began to wane. It was the biblical school in Alexandria, Egypt that fostered and promoted the allegorical method of interpretation. It was the methods of this school that provided one reason for the eventual abandonment of a literal thousand-year kingdom on earth within the church.
