Unlike allegory, typology requires a unique situational parallel, so that, properly speaking, Samson is not a type of Christ, but "Samson sacrificing his life for God's people" is a type of "Christ sacrificing his life for God's people." Nonetheless, in their love of discovering elaborate resemblances, many nineteenth-century exegetes frequently became allegorists without being aware of the fact. For example, when commentators took the incense of the levitical sacrifice as a prefiguration of Christ' s holiness, they used the incense allegorically to symbolize an abstract quality something which exists throughout all time, and not a unique event or act. Such mixture of allegorical images with a primarily typological scheme also occurs in Flemish painting.
Links to Related Material on Biblical Typology
Bibliography
Landow, George P. Victorian Types, Victorian Shadows: Biblical Typology in Victorian Literature, Art, and Thought. Routledge: 1980. [Full text]
Created December 2001
Last modified 13 January 2022