Patristic Exegesis

Allegorizing is a technique in which the concrete details of a text represent abstract ideas and doctrines; this technique embodies a more spiritual sense of the text, and makes the text more relevant and applicable. Literal can either refer to the meaning intended by the author or the “way the words run.” The plain sense is inherently pluralistic because it incorporates different reading strategies. However, some found the two-fold categorization of grammatical and figurative to be more simple and useful than literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical categorization.