The Bible provided the narrative framework in which Christians of late antiquity interpreted their world, and was the script by which they carried forward their own performance, or continuation, of the salvation story. A history of early scholarly commentary on scripture simply cannot give a full account, since this interpretive performance played out in diverse contexts in which Christians enacted their faith. Mapping the correspondences between prophetic events or figures (typoi) in the Old Testament and their fulfilments or antitypes under the Christian dispensation had long served to confute Jewish and pagan criticism of the novelty of Christianity, establishing a sacred past and credible identity for the Christian movement. Theôria, contemplation, an embracing spiritual vision of divine revelation, is the principal key to understanding scriptural interpretation in late antiquity. Theôria was the cultivated intuition of the church, at once shaping and shaped by exegesis, developing in constant tandem with the lived performance of the scriptures.