something mysterious or allegorical.

Some of the commentators on the sacred writings, besides a literal find also a mystical meaning. The sense of scripture, say they, is either that immediately signified by the words and expressions in the common use of language; or it is mediate, sublime, typical, and mystical. The literal sense they again divide into proper literal, which is contained in the words taken simply and properly; and metaphorical literal, where the words are to be taken in a figurative and metaphorical sense. The mystical sense of scripture they divide into three kinds: the first corresponding to faith, and called allegorical; the second to hope, called anagogical; and the third to charity, called the tropological sense. And sometimes they take the same word in scripture in all the four senses: thus the word Jerusalem, literally signifies the capital of Judea; allegorically, the church militant; tropologically, a believer; and anagogically, heaven. So that passage in Genesis, let there be light, and there was light, literally signifies corporeal light; by an allegory, the Messiah; in the tropological sense, grace; and anagogically, beatitude, or the light of glory.