The Lion and the Lamb

Tibor Fabiny takes up Northrop Frye's idea of typology in "The Great Code" and develops it in a hermeneutical context of language-meaning-reading. Based on the new insights of reader-response criticism, this book is an attempt to approach biblical typology in a comprehensive and interdisciplinary way - Fabiny discusses his material as "Reading Scripture", "Reading Pictures" and "Reading Literature". In his chapter on iconography he pursues the possibilities of a visual exegesis or a hermeneutics of visual images. Then he chooses to read three medieval typological programmes: the "Klosterneuburg Altar", the "Biblia Pauperum" and the "Speculum Humanae Salvationis". In this chapter on literature he discusses typology as postfiguration rather than prefiguration and selects three dramas for the figurative readings: a medieval mystery play, Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" and T.S.Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral".