The “figura” (prophetic signification), between natural illumination and diabolic imitation
It seems reasonable to ask how the idea of such a double scenario with, in turn God and the Devil as protagonist, might have formed within Christianity (I leave aside Islam, for lack of expertise). The answer to this question may be found in the way the Christians regarded the Jews, which was eminently ambiguous. From the start this was so amongst in the Gospels, even before the parting of ways between Christianity and Judaism. It relates to a view of Israel's past, a view predicated on an understanding of the prophesies announcing the Messiah. The pronouncements of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible are interpreted, by Jesus and by his disciples, as in the cryptic pronouncements of Jesus himself.
In the language of the historian, it must be said that the great majority of the ‘Jewish people', in contrast to the small minority of ‘Christian sectarians', refused to interpret these prophesies as announcing Jesus and his Passion. It is one of the reasons why the Christians (for the most part), decided to depart from the Law and to open their Church to gentiles[1] .
These prophesies, for Christians, soon acquired a Latin name, that of figura, ‘figure'. This meant that to Tertullian, Adam becomes the ‘figura' of Jesus (Of the Soul, 43), while Eve is the ‘figura' of Mary; it is about what Erich Auerbach, in his little book on Figura, was to call a ‘real prophesy', a figure written into history, a symbol of what the future will bring. This prophetic figure must be accomplished, fulfilled, confirmed (in Latin, figuram implere, or confirmare). It is not simply about an image, a reflection, to be seen as a shadow, but indeed a thing in itself, that must be understood (first, before its accomplishment), literally. The figura is more than a matter of language, more than simply an allegorical image. It is a contingent reality, both historical and allegorical. Augustine developed a major theory of figuration. For him, the entire Old Testament became an object of figurative interpretation. “Everything we read in the Old Testament, before the coming of Our Lord, was written only to shed light on his coming and foretell the Church, which is but the People of God scattered through the nations and forming the body of Jesus Christ.”
As it is related in the Hebrew Bible, the history of the people of Israel is a foundation populated with omens. We are concerned, therefore, with signifiers in Israel's past envisaging a future which can only be realised with Jesus. This is, in effect, a history of providence, guided by an eternal God not bound by time, and where consequently allusions to the future may easily slip into events of the past. There is accord between divine synchronicity and historical diachronicity.
This paradox of the past mimicking the future is closely linked to the paradox represented by the coincidence between ‘natural revelation' and ‘diabolic imitation'. The ‘figura' appears to be something other than what it truly represents, according to Justin Martyr's typology of this fundamentally negative doctrine of ‘diabolic imitation'. The Devil, who is aware (at least in part), of divine intent, is able to create delusions, misleading images of the truth, regardless of chronology. Socrates[2] was there before Jesus was born, which makes the Christian message a great deal less original. This explanation of resemblance through ‘diabolic imitation' goes together with Justin's other explanation, influenced by Stoicism, which argues that all human intelligence, Christian or heathen, shares the seeds of reason (the logoi spermatikoi).
One might suppose, therefore, from a purely theoretical point of view, that it may be believed by some that the Devil is also the origin of the Old Testament figuras. But this, which would reveal at best a gnostic type of heresy, was not envisaged by any of the Church Fathers[3] , for the simple and unique reason that the ‘People of Israel', in the Catholic tradition, are well and truly the ‘Chosen People', from which Christ came. The Jews, the descendants of these people, are indeed abhorred as the assassins of Christ (especially according to John Chrysostom[4] ). But these beings, who are increasingly considered as vile, are nevertheless witnesses and precious guardians of the prophesies .
Thus what was to become the fundamental paradox of the Christian view of all other religions began with the Jews. Other religions are false, even diabolic, but may be vehicles of traces, shadows, fragments of truth. This, as is all too well known, is a leitmotiv which runs through the history of Christianity. The Christian practice of ‘figurative reading' has seen its application extended beyond the Hebrew Bible.
