Ambrosiaster : These women represent the two covenants. Moses, taking the blood of a calf in a vessel, sprinkled the people, saying "this is the blood of the covenant, etc." … The law was given on Mount Sinai. In reciting it to the people, Moses called this the book of the testament. He then sprinkled the people with blood, as I have said. This law held sinners as offenders. They soon began to be slaves of sin, as if they had been made sons of Hagar, as if returning to slavery. — EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 4.24.1-2 Augustine of Hippo : Under the sure guidance of the apostle we see how clearly he shows that these two are to be taken allegorically. One may also consider the sons of Keturah under some figure of things to come. The fact that such people did these things is recorded not without purpose but under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We will perhaps find that heresies and schisms are signified in this allegory. For these are sons of the free woman, that is, of the church, and yet they again revert to life according to the flesh, not spiritually according to a promise. — EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 40 [1B.4.21-31] Irenaeus : Thus, after their simplicity and innocence, did these daughters [of Lot] so speak, imagining that all mankind had perished, even as the Sodomites had done, and that the anger of God had come down upon the whole earth. Wherefore also they are to be held excusable, since they supposed that they only, along with their father, were left for the preservation of the human race; and for this reason it was that they deceived their father. Moreover, by the words they used this fact was pointed out-that there is no other one who can confer upon the elder and younger church the [power of] giving birth to children, besides our Father. Now the father of the human race is the Word of God, as Moses points out when he says, "Is not He thy father who hath obtained thee [by generation], and formed thee, and created thee?" At what time, then, did He pour out upon the human race the life-giving seed-that is, the Spirit of the remission of sins, through means of whom we are quickened? Was it not then, when He was eating with men, and drinking wine upon the earth? For it is said, "The Son of man came eating and drinking;" and when He had lain down, He fell asleep, and took repose. As He does Himself say in David, "I slept, and took repose." And because He used thus to act while He dwelt and lived among us, He says again, "And my sleep became sweet unto me." Now this whole matter was indicated through Lot, that the seed of the Father of all-that is, of the Spirit of God, by whom all things were made-was commingled and united with flesh-that is, with His own workmanship; by which commixture and unity the two synagogues-that is, the two churches-produced from their own father living sons to the living God. — Against Heresies Book IV Jerome : Allegory is properly a term in the art of grammar. How it differs from metaphor and other figures of speech we learn as children. It presents one thing in words and signifies another in sense. … Understanding this, Paul (who had a certain knowledge of secular literature also) used the name of the figure of speech and called it allegory according to the usage of his own circle. — EPISTLE TO THE Galatians 2.4.24 Jerome : (Verse 24.) These things are spoken in allegory. Allegory properly belongs to the art of grammar, and we learn in elementary schools how it differs from metaphor or other figures of speech. One thing is presented in words, another thing is signified in meaning. The books of orators (Sup. in allegories) and poets are full of them. The divine scripture is also, to a considerable extent, woven together by this. Which understanding the Apostle Paul (who also had some contact with secular literature) used the very word "figure" in order to call it allegory, as it is said among his own people: in order to show, namely, the misuse of this Greek expression in a more meaningful way. But Paul, although not perfectly, knew secular literature, as his own words attest: "One of them, a prophet of their own, said, 'Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.'" (Titus 1:12). This is a heroic verse of the poet Epimenides, which both Plato and other ancient writers mention. Also, when he was speaking in the Areopagus in Athens, he added this: "For we are indeed his offspring" as certain of your poets have said. (Acts 17:28). This hemistich is attributed to Aratus, who wrote about the sky and the stars. Also this: Bad company corrupts good morals (1 Cor. XV, 33); it is written in trimeter iambic from Menander's comedy. From these and other examples, it is evident that Paul was not ignorant of secular literature, and what he called allegory here, he called spiritual understanding elsewhere. Like here: For we know that the Law is spiritual (Rom. VII, 14), meaning allegory, or allegorically expressed. And elsewhere: All ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink. They drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ (I Cor. X, 34). That the manna here, and the sudden gushing forth of the spring, and the rock itself that followed, must be understood allegorically, no one doubts. I know what objection can be made on the other side: Brothers, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness (Gal. 6, 1). And in another place: But the spiritual man judges all things; yet he himself is judged by no one (1 Corinthians 2:15); so that, what we said above may be clearly understood as a spiritual word. But we call him a spiritual man, who, understanding all the sacraments of the Scriptures, interprets them in a sublime manner, and seeing Christ in the divine books, admits nothing of the Jewish tradition in them. — Commentary on Galatians John Chrysostom : Contrary to usage, he calls a type an allegory; his meaning is as follows; this history not only declares that which appears on the face of it, but announces somewhat farther, whence it is called an allegory. And what hath it announced? no less than all the things now present. For these women are two covenants; one from mount Sinai, bearing children unto bondage, which is Hagar. "These:" who? the mothers of those children, Sarah and Hagar; and what are they? Two covenants, two laws. As the names of the women were given in the history, he abides by this designation of the two races, showing how much follows from the very names. How from the names? — Homily on Galatians 4 Oecumenius : "which things are spoken allegorically." That is, they were types of the future covenants: the births of these two children. For not only the visible things, but also other matters are signified by the births. "which things are spoken allegorically." Instead of what is otherwise meant. For it does not recount the history, but teaches the things foreshadowed in the history. For he introduces: "She is born into slavery." That of the law. "or is someone named Hagar." He says: "someone" is a covenant, which has the form of Hagar. And therefore: for the mountain Sinai in the language of the Arabs is called Hagar. — Commentary on Galatians Theodore of Mopsuestia : Those who are at great pains to pervert the meaning of the divine Scriptures … abuse this saying of the apostle's, as though they thought that they could derive from it the power to suppress the entire sense of holy Scripture in their aspirations to speak "allegorically," as if in the manner of the apostle. They fail to see how great a difference there is between their own position and that of the apostle in this passage. For the apostle does not deny the history or pick apart the events of the distant past, but he has stated them as they happened at the time, while using for his own purpose the interpretation of these events.… He would not have said "referred to one who was born" if he had not believed that person had really existed. There cannot be a simile if one takes away the historical reality itself. — COMMENTARY