TYPOLOGICAL SENSE. — biblical senses (v.) which, beyond the literal sense, expresses a reality (person, event, institution) signified by another reality that is its image (τύπος). The typological sense, also called “spiritual” or “real,” occurs when a person or thing (institution, action, event) of the Old Testament, expressed by the word (litterà), is, in the intention of God, the primary author of Sacred Scripture, ordered to signify a more sublime truth in the New Testament, something higher and still to come in the order of salvation. Thus Adam is a type of Christ (Rom. 5:14), and the Flood a type of Baptism (I Pt. 3:21).
The name is strictly biblical: “type” (Rom. 5:14; I Cor. 10:6), τυπικῶς “typically” (I Cor. 10:11); corresponding to it is the antitype (ἀντίτυπος; I Pt. 3:21: Baptism is the antitype of the Flood, which is the reality signified by the type). While typological sense is the technical and classical expression, there are also similar terms, which must nevertheless be used with great caution, because they can give rise to misunderstandings: “parable” (Hebr. 9:9), “allegory” (Gal. 4:24), “spiritual” (I Cor. 10:3 ff.).
In the encyclical Humani generis (12 Aug. 1950), Pius XII speaks on this point in a predominantly apologetic manner, targeting systems that not infrequently introduce strange fantasies into Sacred Scripture; for this reason he does not use the technical term typological sense, but rather that of “spiritual” sense. Similarly, the Instructio of the Pontifical Biblical Commission of 13 May 1950: “Spiritualem quoque verborum significationem, dummodo eam a Deo intendi secundum sapientissimas normas a Summis Pontificibus identidem statutas rite constet, debito modo explicare curet...” (AAS, 42 [1950], p. 501).
A threefold species of typological sense is customarily distinguished: dogmatic or allegorical, which prefigures and illustrates the history of Redemption and of the kingdom of God on earth (Christ and the Church); moral or tropological, which has the conduct of the faithful as its object; anagogical or eschatological, which “leads upward,” having future life as its object. The classic example both of this threefold typological sense and of the literal sense is the city of Jerusalem. In the Middle Ages, Dacia (v.) on the fourfold sense of Sacred Scripture was widespread: “Littera gesta docet; quid credas allegoria - Moralis quid agas; quo tendas anagogia” (cf. H. de Lubac, Sur un vieux distique, in Mélanges offerts au r. p. Ferdinand Cavallera, Tolosa 1948, pp. 347-66). Personal types (e.g., Adam, Melchisedech, David), real types (e.g., the paschal lamb, the bronze serpent), and legal types (e.g., the prohibition against breaking the bones of the paschal lamb) are further distinguished. Like the literal sense, the typological sense may likewise be either proper or improper.
The existence of the typological sense is frequently affirmed in the writings of the New Testament. “This sense is shown and taught to us by the Divine Savior himself in the holy Gospels; the Apostles profess it in their speech and writing, following the example of the Master; the constant tradition of the Church points it out; and finally the most ancient usage of the liturgy declares it...” (Pius XII, Divino affl. Spiritu, AAS, 35 [1943], p. 339). The sole criterion for knowing that the typological sense exists is Revelation in its twofold source, Scripture and Tradition (the Fathers, the liturgy, Christian archaeology). The existence of the typological sense was denied in antiquity by the Marcionites, in the sixteenth century by some Protestants, and today generally by “liberal” exegetes.
The scope of the typological sense was improperly defined by two extreme currents: the “figurists” (J. Coccejus, C. Vitringa), following in the footsteps of Origen, sought to find types throughout the Old Testament, down to the smallest details; the “antifigurists,” on the other hand, admitted no types other than those explicitly established by the hagiographers of the New Testament.
The typological sense in the strict meaning is demonstrated by the sources of faith—that is, it is revealed by God in any explicit form. One may, however, go a step further and discern a spiritual sense also where this Revelation is only implicit. Every interpretation of a fact or person in the Old Testament that presents an inner resemblance to a truth of salvation in the New Testament, according to the principle of St. Paul that in the Old Testament “all things happened to them figuratively (rumorile)” (I Cor. 10:11), could be considered typological or spiritual sense; and the greater this resemblance, the more probable the spiritual sense. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that, in exploiting the typological sense in its broad meaning, where there is no express dogmatic testimony to it, great restraint is required (cf. A. Miller, Zur Typologie des Alten Testamentes, in Antonianum, 25 [1950], p. 431 ff.).
“Let Catholic exegetes, therefore, discover and expound this spiritual sense, intended and ordained by God, with that diligence which the dignity of the divine word demands; but let them scrupulously beware of presenting as the genuine sense of Sacred Scripture other figurative meanings of things...” (Divino affl. Spiritu, loc. cit., p. 339).