However, the literal interpretation does not always apply. Why? As has already been clarified, the meaning of the Holy Scriptures often does not lie on the surface. There are places that cannot be understood literally. For example, the appearance of God to Moses on Sinai, when God places Moses in a cleft, covers him with his "palm", then Moses sees "the back of God". From the point of view of what we know about God, this is a kind of absurdity. There is no doubt that there is an allegory here, which is connected with the fact that our thinking, our language is not quite suitable for the divine mysteries to be transmitted and understood so easily. And then the spiritual (allegorical, or allegorical; see Galatians 4:24) interpretation is applied, when the literal meaning is replaced by another meaning – the spiritual one, since it is more in line with the true idea of God. Sometimes the same thing happens in the transmission of moral teachings. For example, the Gospel phrase about cutting off a tempting hand and plucking out an eye has never been considered to imply literal fulfillment.

Thus, in his commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, St. Basil the Great says: "Based on general concepts, it is necessary to agree that contradictory expressions about God should not be understood literally. Thus, for example, according to the generally accepted understanding, it must be recognized that God's nature is good, does not participate in anger and is just. Therefore, if the Scriptures say that God is angry, or grieving, or repenting, or giving someone an answer that is not according to his worth, then it is necessary to consider the purpose of the utterance and carefully consider how the true meaning can be restored, and not to pervert respectable thoughts about God. Thus, let us not encounter stumbling blocks in the Scriptures, benefiting for ourselves from places that are understandable and not suffering harm from obscure passages" [12, part 2, p. 11].

Such an interpretation, which departs from the letter of Scripture and gives a deeper understanding, is accessible only to people enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Without this, it becomes just the fruit of human speculation. Therefore, the 19th canon of the Trullo Council determined that the Holy Scriptures should be interpreted only in accordance with the writings of the Church Fathers.

As a rule, spiritual interpretation does not reject the literal meaning of Scripture, but supplements it, builds it up with new levels of meaning. After all, the reality around us is not reduced only to the visible, and often the visible is a symbolic reflection of the invisible, which determines the existence of different levels of disclosure of the meaning of the sacred text. St. Theophan the Recluse, speaking of the fact that not all knowledge about things can be obtained only by reason, explains that "in addition to the factual, there is also in every thing that is conceivable, understood only and contemplated, its innermost being, imprinted and expressed by its factual aspect<... >For all that, however, it is not something dreamed, but a thought really inherent in it" [76: p. 237].

In accordance with different meanings, three types of spiritual interpretation can be distinguished. The first type is called allegorical (from the Greek allegory – allegory) in the narrow sense of the term. This is a dogmatic interpretation concerning doctrinal truths. According to the definition of St. Demetrius of Rostov, when "under simple utterances there is something befitting the faith or the Church at war on earth" [cited by 9, vol. 1, p. 95], that is, it refers to what has already been revealed and revealed to us. Thus, St. Basil the Great, explaining the prophecy of Isaiah about the mountain of the House of the Lord (Isaiah 2:2), says: "Woe is likened to the descent of the Lord to earth, because the mountain is an earthly elevation. But the Lord's flesh, being earth by our common nature, is exalted through union with God" [12, part 2, p. 79]. In the same way he explains the words of the prophecy about the Nativity (Isaiah 7:10): "The Scripture calls a sign that which is unusual and serves to express some mysterious word. What is more miraculous and divine to the ear and sight than the birth of our God from a Virgin? Therefore "you shall ask of the Lord your God" (for no one else can give) "a sign in the depths or in the heights." In the position of the world, which by its nature occupies an inferior country, it is earth; and the highest of all visible things is heaven. Since "the Word was made flesh" (John 1:14), the prophecy by saying "in the depths" means the earth and the flesh received from it, and by saying "on high" – the most heavenly Word – the One Who is above all principality and authority, Who "was in the beginning with the Father, and is God the Word" (John 1:1)" [12, part 2, p. 224].

The second type is called tropological (from the Greek tropos – disposition). This interpretation is aimed at revealing moral truths relating to the spiritual life.

And the third type of interpretation is anagogy (from the Greek anago – I raise). The anagogical interpretation reveals the mysteries of the coming Kingdom. According to the definition of St. Demetrius, it is "something befitting eternal life, which we hope for, or the Church, in the highest triumphant, to which we desire and hope to pass" [quoted by 9, vol. 1, p. 95], that is, to that which has not yet been revealed to us.

It can be noted that in terms of content, the third type of interpretation is very close to the first.

St. John Cassian of Rome illustrates the above types of interpretation as follows: "One and the same Jerusalem can be understood in a fourfold sense: – in the historical sense, it is the city of the Jews; in the allegorical – there is the church of Christ; in the anagogical, there is the city of the heavenly God, who is the mother of us all; in the tropological sense, there is the soul of man, which is often condemned or praised by the Lord under this name. Of these four kinds of interpretation, the Apostle says: "Now, if I come to you, brethren, and speak with unknown tongues, what shall I profit you, if I do not make myself known to you, either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophecy, or by teaching?" (1 Corinthians 14:6). Revelation belongs to the allegory by which what is contained in the historical narrative is explained in a spiritual sense... And knowledge, which is also mentioned by the Apostle, is a tropology, according to which everything that pertains to active prudence, what is useful or honest, we distinguish by prudent investigation... Also, prophecy, which the Apostle placed in the third place, means anagogy, which refers to the invisible and the future... And teaching means a simple order of presentation of history, which does not contain any more intimate meaning, except for that which is meant by words" [31, p. 425].

The first type of interpretation can also include typological interpretation [53; 64, p. 52], which reveals the types contained in the Old Testament history. In this interpretation, individual Old Testament persons or events are interpreted as prototypes of persons or events in New Testament history. A classic example is the prophet Jonah, who foreshadowed the burial of the Savior (Matt. 12:40), the construction of a brazen serpent by the prophet Moses (John 3:14), the story of the patriarch Joseph, in which we see a prophecy about the circumstances of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Typology is widely used both in the works of the Holy Fathers and in liturgical texts.

The Concept of Old Testament Biblical Criticism. At present, many students of the Holy Scriptures ignore the allegorical interpretation in the broad sense, and in its place they put the so-called biblical criticism. Biblical criticism is understood as an approach to the Holy Scriptures in which the same scientific means and methods (historical, archaeological, linguistic, etc.) are applied to its study as are used in relation to any other historical document and literary text, in order to clarify its origin, the original intention of the author, as well as its true meaning.

Unfortunately, this approach is becoming more and more widespread among Orthodox biblical scholars. Some of them directly assert that in our time there can be no other exegesis than biblical-critical: not a single modern educated person will interpret the Holy Scriptures in the way that St. Basil the Great did.

The origin of biblical criticism should be attributed to the sixteenth century. At its origins were European humanists: Lorenzo Valla, Johann Reuchlin, who, as we know, often gravitated towards ancient culture. It is known that one of the incentives for the study of the ancient Hebrew language was the desire to get acquainted with Kabbalah. The Hebrew language and the method of commentary were learned from the rabbis. Gradually, biblical criticism gained recognition first among the Protestants (and this is natural, since, having rejected the remnants of church tradition, they had to create their own), and then among the Catholics [see 91, Book 1, pp. 10-17]. At the end of the 19th century, supporters of this approach to the study of the Holy Scriptures also appeared among the Orthodox. However, a poisoned stream flows from the poisoned source. The fact is that "people approach Scripture not from the Church, not from faith and spirit, but from outside, from a purely personal intellectual sphere, with the usual critical methods of external science, which have at the basis of all their research the method of distrust and doubt. This is the fundamental lie. The Scriptures are given only to the faith and love of the Church, and only in her and by her faithful sons can they be interpreted" [50, p. 63].

The described methods undoubtedly bear the imprint of the worldview of their creators. We will soon be convinced of this. Without going into details, I will try to give a general idea of biblical criticism, drawn from Orthodox authors.