Catholic Theology

Sine dominico non possumus! - We cannot live without "Dominicum".

Mon, 14 May 2007 01:23:52 GMT

From goldhands on May 08. 2007

This is the testimony that the 49 Abitene's martyrs (in Tunisia) gave to Christ during the persecution of Diocletianus (304). Without our Eucharistic Sunday's celebration we cannot live. The "Dominicum" - that means all together: "The day of Lord" - "The Risen" - "The site of the celebration", is their unique reason to live; and having celebrated the "Dominicum" they will experience the martyrdom and the death. St. Restituta was one of these, that Sunday on 304. She is the Patron Saint of Ischia we celebrate every year on May 17. Today the beginning of the novena with a procession in Lacco Ameno, the most ancient Christian site of Ischia, where during the 5th century already existed a Christian community and her cult, in the place where St. Restituta was buried.

La testimonianza che i 49 martiri della cittadina africana di Abitene (nell’odierna Tunisia) resero a Cristo durante la persecuzione di Diocleziano nel 304, si può ricondurre tutta a questa confessione di fede: senza la celebrazione eucaristica domenicale non possiamo vivere. Il "Dominicum" - che significa insieme“il Risorto” - il Giorno del Signore” - “la celebrazione dell’Eucaristia” - “il luogo della celebrazione” - è l’unica loro ragion d’essere; e per averlo celebrato vengono torturati e messi a morte. Santa Restituta fu una di loro, quella domenica del 304. È la Patrona di Ischia e noi celebriamo ogni anno il 17 maggio. Oggi è iniziata la novena con una processione in Lacco Ameno, il più antico sito Cristiano di Ischia, dove, durante il V sec. già esisteva una comunità cristiana nel posto dove S. Restituta fu sepolta.

(The start of the Procession, I'm on the center with the reliquary)

(The brass-band conducted by Claudio Matarese on the right)

(In the Church - Scenes from the martyrdom)

(During the Mass)

(I'm playing the Church-organ with my wife and the Choir singing)

(The Church-organ)

(The Saint in the Church)

Italian Family Day - May 12. 2007

Sat, 05 May 2007 15:28:41 GMT

EUCHOLOGIUM of the cathedral of Otranto (Italy) with a most interesting Italian-Greek text concerning the ceremony of wedding. Puglia, XII c.

St. Margaret with Scenes from Her Life.
XIII c. Italy, Bari

Can I find an Ecumenical way in your way?

Sat, 05 May 2007 12:52:04 GMT

http://www.aomin.org/index.php?itemid=1961

St. Francis de Paula.

Tue, 01 May 2007 00:42:54 GMT

Founder of the Order of Minims; b. in 1416, at Paula, in Calabria, Italy; d. 2 April, 1507, at Plessis, France. His parents were remarkable for the holiness of their lives. Remaining childless for some years after their marriage they had recourse to prayer, especially commending themselves to the intercession of St. Francis of Assisi. Three children were eventually born to them, eldest of whom was Francis. When still in the cradle he suffered from a swelling which endangered the sight of one of his eyes. His parents again had recourse to Francis of Assisi, and made a vow that their son should pass an entire year in the "little habit" of St Francis in one of the convents of his order, a not uncommon practice in the Middle Ages. The child was immediately cured. From his early years Francis showed signs of extraordinary sanctity, and at the age of thirteen, being admonished by a vision of a Franciscan friar, he entered a convent of the Franciscan Order in order to fullfil the vow made by his parents. Here he gave great edification by his love of prayer and mortification, his profound humility, and his prompt obedience. At the completion of the year he went with his parents on a pilgrimage to Assisi, Rome, and other places of devotion. Returning to Paula he selected a retired spot on his father's estate, and there lived in solitude; but later on he found a more retired dwelling in a cave on the sea coast. Here he remained alone for about six years giving himself to prayer and mortification.

In 1435 two companions joined him in his retreat, and to accommodate them Francis caused three cells and a chapel to be built: in this way the new order was begun. The number of his disciples gradually increased, and about 1454, with the permission of Pyrrhus, Archbishop of Cosenza, Francis built a large monastery and church. The building of this monastery was the occasion of a great outburst of enthusiasm and devotion on the part of the people towards Francis: even the nobles carried stones and joined in the work. Their devotion was increased by the many miracles which the saint wrought in answer to their prayers. The rule of life adopted by Francis and his religious was one of extraordinary severity. They observed perpetual abstinence and lived in great poverty, but the distinguishing mark of the order was humility. They were to seek to live unknown and hidden from the world. To express this character which he would have his disciples cultivate, Francis eventually obtained from the Holy See that they should be styled Minims, the least of all religious. In 1474 Sixtus IV gave him permission to write a rule for his community, and to assume the title of Hermits of St. Francis: this rule was formally approved by Alexander VI, who, however, changed their title into that of Minims. After the approbation of the order, Francis founded several new monasteries in Calabria and Sicily. He also established convents of nuns, and a third order for people living in the world, after the example of St. Francis of Assisi.

He had an extraordinary gift of prophecy: thus he foretold the capture of Otranto by the Turks in 1480, and its subsequent recovery by the King of Naples. Also he was gifted with discernment of consciences. He was no respecter of persons of whatever rank or position. He rebuked the King of Naples for his ill-doing and in consequence suffered much persecution. When Louis XI was in his last illness he sent an embassy to Calabria to beg the saint to visit him. Francis refused to come nor could he be prevailed upon until the pope ordered him to go. He then went to the king at Plessis-les-Tours and was with him at his death. Charles VIII, Louis's successor, much admired the saint and during his reign kept him near the court and frequently consulted him. This king built a monastery for Minims at Plessis and another at Rome on the Pincian Hill. The regard in which Charles VIII held the saint was shared by Louis XII, who succeeded to the throne in 1498. Francis was now anxious to return to Italy, but the king would not permit him, not wishing to lose his counsels and direction. The last three mouths of his life he spent in entire solitude, preparing for death. On Maundy Thursday he gathered his community around him and exhorted them especially to have mutual charity amongst themselves and to maintain the rigour of their life and in particular perpetual abstinence. The next day, Good Friday, he again called them together and gave them his last instructions and appointed a vicar-general. He then received the last sacraments and asked to have the Passion according to St. John read out to him, and whilst this was being read, his soul passed away. Leo X canonized him in 1519. In 1562 the Huguenots broke open his tomb and found his body incorrupt. They dragged it forth and burnt it, but some of the bones were preserved by the Catholics and enshrined in various churches of his order. The Order of Minims does not seem at any time to have been very extensive, but they had houses in many countries. The definitive rule was approved in 1506 by Julius II, who also approved a rule for the nuns of the order. The feast of St. Francis of Paula is kept by the universal Church on 2 April, the day on which he died.

Reading on internet - Orthodox/Catholic Ecumenism and Mount Athos.

Sat, 28 Apr 2007 23:31:14 GMT

Over at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, EPPC senior fellow George Weigel examines the dismay of Orthodox monks on Mount Athos in northern Greece at recent overtures toward conversation by Pope Benedict XVI to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. The issue for the monk, Weigel notes, was not any papal statement or initiative but the Ecumenical Patriarch's reception of them as though the Pope actually were "the canonical Bishop of Rome." In this, Weigel sees an illustration of Orthodox/Catholic tensions that are not as easily overcome as it might seem to some Catholics, and certainly to some of us who are on watching from the outside of both groups.

Weigel writes:

I very much doubt that there are more than a handful of Catholics around the world whose confession of Catholic faith includes, as a key component, "I am not in communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople."
The truth of the matter is that, outside historically Orthodox countries and certain ethnic communities, the thought of how one stands vis-à-vis the Patriarch of Constantinople simply doesn't enter Catholic heads. Perhaps that's a problem, but it's nowhere near as great an obstacle to ecumenical progress as the conviction in some Orthodox quarters that non-communion with Rome is a defining characteristic of what it means to be "Orthodox."
1054, it now seems clear, was not a date-in-a-vacuum. Rather, the mutual excommunications of 1054 were the cash-out, so to speak, of a drifting-apart that had been going on for centuries, driven by language and politics, to be sure, but also by different theological sensibilities. Are those two sensibilities necessarily Church-dividing? The Catholic answer is, "No." But that is emphatically not the answer of Mount Athos, and of those Orthodox for whom the Athonite monks are essentially right, if a bit over-the-top.
All of which suggests that John Paul II's dream of a Church breathing once again with both of its lungs is unlikely of fulfillment anytime soon. Unless, that is, Islamist pressures compel are examination within Orthodoxy of what a life-line to Rome might mean.

Anniversary - Council of Nicea.

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 01:21:04 GMT

At The First Council of Nicea: The first council of Nicea (Nicaea) came to an end on August 25, 325 A.D. Lasting two months (perhaps having begun on May 20), and held in Bithynia, the First Council of Nicea was attended by 318 Church Fathers.

Opposing Images of God: Trinitarian Church fathers, Bishop Alexander of Alexandria and his deacon Athanasius, believed there were three persons in one god. The Trinitarians were pitted against the Monarchianists, who believed in only one indivisible god. These included Arius, Presbyter in Alexandria, and Eusebius, Bishop of Nicomedia.

Homo Ousion (same substance) vs. Homoi Ousion (like substance): The sticking point at the Nicene Council was a concept found nowhere in the Bible: homoousion. According to the concept of homo-ousion, Christ the Son was con-substantial (sharing the same substance) with the Father. Arius and Eusebius disagreed. Arius thought the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were materially separate from each other, and that the Father created the Son.

Arius and his followers, the Arians, believed if the Son were equal to the Father, there would be more than one God. The opposing Trinitarians believed it diminished the importance of the Son to make him subordinate to the Father.

Wavering Decision of Constantine: The Trinitarian bishops prevailed. Emperor Constantine was not himself a Christian. Despite this, he had recently made Christianity free religion of the Roman Empire. This made heresy akin to revolt, so Constantine exiled the excommunicated Arius to Illyria.

Constantine's friend Eusebius, who eventually withdrew his objection, but still wouldn't sign the statement of faith, and a neighboring bishop, Theognis, were also exiled -- to Gaul. Constantine reversed his opinion about the Arian heresy, and had both exiled bishops reinstated three years later (in 328). At the same time, Arius was recalled from exile.

Constantine's sister and Eusebius worked on the emperor to obtain reinstatement for Arius, and they would have succeeded, if Arius hadn't suddenly died - by poisoning, probably, or, as some prefer to believe, by divine intervention.
Arianism regained momentum and survived until the reigns of Gratian and Theodosius, at which time, St. Ambrose set to work stamping it out.

St. Athanasius - Four Discourses Against the Arians: 'The essences of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, are separate in nature, and estranged, and disconnected, and alien.'

Catholic Traditional Mass

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 07:32:33 GMT

Thanks to naqerj to share the video, I post it to show you the traditional Catholic Mass, before the Pius XII's reform, and before the VCII. There is something that in the next future we'll find again with the Catholic liturgy. I'll explain it, after an analysis of the recents Vatican Liturgical Orders, meanwhile enjoy the solemnity of the Easter Ritual.

It needs several minutes to watch it entirely (lenght 54:00), but during the download you'll be able to enjoy it.

"Also Friend of" list...

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 06:36:51 GMT

For the most part of my friends on this LJ who are in the "Also friend of" list:

If you see your username in the "Also Friend of" list on this site, this is because my management of the friends is on goldhands, the main site, where I check daily the friends' posts. I'm unable to manage two friends lists at the same time, so I decided to view only the goldhands' friends list, and there will be your partecipation to catheolog, too. You will be welcome to add the goldhands journal to your friends list, so you will be Friend of both the journals, but mentioned only on the main site. Thank you.

August 6th, 258.

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 06:01:31 GMT

August 6, 258 is the date on which Pope Sixtus II is said to have been beheaded by soldiers sent to the cemetery of Prætextatus, on the Appian Way, Rome, to apprehend Sixtus and his four deacons (one of them, St. Laurence). His execution was part of the persecution of Christians under Emperor Valerian. Valerian had issued an edict against Christians assembling in cemeteries, that also ordered them to participate in the cults of the Roman gods, and then he had issued another edict ordering the execution of Christian priests. The execution of Sixtus II is described in a letter of Cyprian, who was shortly therafter also executed.

Pope Sixtus II had helped reconcile the churches of Rome with those of North Africa and Asia Minor over the issue of re-baptizing of heretics.

(Sixtus II is ordering the deacon Laurence)

What Did The First Four "Ecumenical" or Universal Councils of the Christian Church Teach About Jesus

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 22:46:26 GMT

Nearly all Christian, of whatever church, acknowledge the authority and truth of the teachings of the first four "great councils" (also called "ecumenical" or worldwide councils) of early Christianity. This is because these Councils clarified (and, for some, defined) what the Christian scriptures taught and what the early church believed about God, Jesus and Mary. Some of the great leaders of early Christianity affirmed the importance of these councils, such as St. Augustine (354-430) who compared the authority of the ecumenical councils with that of the apostles, and St. Gregory the Great (540-604) who said: "I confess that I accept and reverence the four Councils as I do the four Gospels… for they are founded on universal consent."

What did these councils teach? The Council of Nicaea in 325 AD responded to the claim of a priest of Alexandria, Arius, that the Word or Son of God (who "became flesh and dwelt among us" as Jesus – Jn 1:14) was not God and hence was not eternal; he did not always exist. Arius argued on the basis of some Gospel passages that Jesus never claimed that he was God, as when he says in the Gospel of John (14:28) that "the Father is greater than I."

The bishops at Nicaea considered all the pertinent texts of the Gospels (such as Jn 10:30: "I and the Father are one") and concluded that Arius was wrong. The Son or Word of God is God (see Jn 1:1) and always existed. To clarify this they proclaimed a creed (the "Nicene creed") which included a key Greek word, homoousios, which meant that the Word or Son is of the same "being" as God the Father. If the Father is God, so is the Son. If the Father is eternal, almighty (and so on), so is the Son or Word of God.

Tragically, a few bishops after the Council of Nicaea questioned the decision of the Council (saying, for instance, that homoousios is an unscriptural word), and convinced the Roman emperor and his sons that Arius and his beliefs had been wrongly condemned. It took over fifty more years of controversy before the First Council of Constantinople (381 AD) reaffirmed the teaching and the creed of Nicaea. This ecumenical council also added a phrase to the Nicene Creed to affirm the divinity or Godhead of the Holy Spirit, the "Lord and Giver of Life" who with the Father and the Son "is worshiped and glorified". Thus by the end of the fourth century the Christian belief in God as a Trinity of three equal divine persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, was formally recognized by Christians.

In the fifth century there were two more ecumencal councils that addressed questions about Jesus. In the early 5th century a prominent bishop, Nestorius, rejected the title "theotokos" or "God-bearer" to refer to Mary. Christians believed that the mother of /Jesus could rightly be called the "Mother of God" or "God-bearer" because the Gospel clearly teaches that Jesus was conceived in Mary, not by any human being, but by the Holy Spirit. This was what the angel Gabriel announced to Mary one day in Nazareth (the "Annunciation") and Mary consented (see Lk 1:26-38). Nestorius thought that to call Mary "Mother of God" would confuse people into thinking that the eternal God came into being through a human. The Council of Ephesus met in 431AD to consider Nestorius’ opinion. The Council decided that it was right and good to honor Mary as "Mother of God" because she is the mother of God in his human nature. The Council clarified that Mary "contributed" to Jesus his true and full humanity, while God the Holy Spirit "overshadowed" Mary so that the child born to her was truly God, the Son or Word of God (Lk 1:30-35).

This belief that Jesus is both human and divine, man and God, led to much debate and speculation after the Council of Ephesus about how this mystery could be expressed. A monk, Eutyches, living in Constantinople claimed that before Jesus took flesh in Mary there were two "natures" (a divine and human nature), but after the union of the two natures in Mary’s womb there was only one nature in Jesus – the divine nature. In a sense Eutyches proposed that the nature of God is so great that it overshadows and "swallows up" the humanity of Jesus. For Eutyches, Jesus took on human appearance, but the only full and true nature remaining in Jesus after taking on "flesh" (the outward human appearance) is the nature of God. To put it simply, Eutyches’ claim is that Jesus was truly God, but not truly or fully human.

The bishop of Constantinople, Flavian, objected to this. He wrote a letter to the bishop of Rome, Pope Leo I, to get this opinion, as well. Unfortunately, due to Church politics a council was called with the emperor Theodosius II’s consent in 449 AD that proclaimed Eutyches’ position (called "Monophysitism") correct, and deposed Bishop Flavian. The letter of Pope Leo in response to Flavian was ignored by this council. But things changed quickly. Theodosius II died suddenly (he fell off his horse) and his sister, Pulcheria, prevailed upon her husband, the new emperor Marcian, to call another council to reconsider the issue. The Council of Chalcedon was called in 451 AD. This time Pope Leo’s letter was read and all positions were fairly considered. The result was the formulation of a creed of the Council of Chalcedon that declared that Jesus Christ is one person who exists "in two natures" – a divine nature and a human nature - which are neither confused ("blended together" into a third nature) nor divided or separated (so Jesus is not "schizophrenic" – sometimes acting like God, sometimes like a man). Jesus is one person who is truly and fully God and truly and fully human. How this can occur is beyond our comprehension. It is truly what Christians mean by the term "mystery": not something unreasonable; just something beyond human capacity to understand fully. Hence it must be accepted not by reason alone, but also by faith.

The first four ecumenical Councils defined the meaning of the basic Christian beliefs about God and Jesus Christ that were proclaimed by the Church in her teaching, tradition (beliefs "handed down"), and sacred writings. They are necessary even today to know what most Christians believe about these central issues.

THE FIRST FOUR ECUMENUCAL COUNCILS The first four ecumenical (general) councils of the Church have a special place in the Christian tradition. This table summarizes some basic facts about them.
LOCATION & SUMMONED BY	DATE	ATTENDANCE	MAJOR ISSUE	OTHER ISSUES	RESULTS
Nicaea (in modern Turkey); Emperor Constantine I (the Great)	325	Traditionally 318 bishops but probably closer to 220-250; the elderly Pope Sylvester was represented by several priests.	Is the Son who became flesh in Jesus Christ divine in the same sense as the Father? This was denied by the priest Arius of Alexandria and his followers.	How to set the date of Easter and some issues relating to Church discipline.	The bishops formulated a creed affirming the belief that the Son is God in the same sense as the Father. All but two bishops approved the creed. However, after the Council, supporters of Arius with influence at the imperial court engineered his rehabilitation which guaranteed the continued dissemination of his teaching.
Constantinople (modern Istanbul); Emperors Theodosius I and Gratian	381	About 150 bishops, all from the East (but the Council was later accepted in the West) Pope Damasus was unrepresented.	Continuing heresies of the Arians and semi-Arians, including the denial of the full divinity of the Holy Spirit.	Precedence of the Patriarch of Constantinople over all other Patriarchs except the Bishop of Rome.	The rejection of all Arian opinions and the affirmation of the divinity of the Holy Spirit as reflected in the creed now known as the Niceno-Constaninoplitan Creed which is the one used in the liturgy to this day.
Ephesus (in modern Turkey); Emperor Theodosius II	431	About 150 bishops; Pope Celestine I was represented by 3 legates.	Relation of Christ’s divine and human natures provoked by a debate whether Mary should be called Mother of God (Theotokos) or only Mother of Christ (Christokos).		The affirmation that the one person of the Son of God exists in two natures, as God and as man. This is called the hypostatic/personal union - the union of the two natures in the one hypastasis/person of the Son. The Council confirmed that the title "Theotokos" is appropriate for the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Chalcedon (in modern Turkey); Emperor Marcian (who, with his wife, the Empress Pulcheria, presided at the crucial sixth session)	451	Possibly as many as 600 bishops but probably closer to 350; Pope Leo the Great was represented by two bishops and a priest	Christ’s divine and human natures, in particular over against those who claimed that his divine nature absorbed his human nature.	Matters of church discipline relating to clergy and the jurisdiction of bishops, etc.	The creedal formulation which declares in part, "we all unanimously teach that … our Lord Jesus Christ is one and the same Son, the same perfect in Godhead and the same perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man…. made known in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, the difference of the natures being by no means removed because of the union…"

Tradition and Living Magisterium: 3

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 12:58:51 GMT

II. The relation of Scripture to the living magisterium, and of the living magisterium to Scripture.

This relation is the same as that between the Gospel and the Apostolic preaching. Christ made use of the Bible, He appealed to it as to an irrefragable authority, He explained and interpreted it and furnished the key to it, with it he shed light on His own doctrine and mission. The Apostles did in like manner when they spoke to the Jews. Both sides had access to the Scriptures in a text admitted by all, both recognized in them a Divine authority, as in the very word of God. This was also the way of the faithful in their studies and discussions; but with pagans and unbelievers it was necessary to begin with presenting the Bible and guaranteeing its authority -- the Christian doctrine concerning the Bible had to be explained to the faithful themselves, and the guarantee of this doctrine demonstrated. The Bible had been committed to the care of the living magisterium. It was the Church's part to guard the Bible, to present it to the faithful in authorized editions or accurate translations, it was for her to make known the nature and value of the Divine Book by declaring what she knew regarding its inspiration and inerrancy, it was for her to supply the key by explaining why and how it had been inspired, how it contained Revelation, how the proper object of that Revelation was not purely human instruction but a religious and moral doctrine with a view to our supernatural destiny and the means to attain it, how, the Old Testament being a preparation and annunciation of the Messias and the new dispensation, there might be found beneath the husk of the letter typical meanings, figures, and prophecies. It was for the Church in consequence to determine the authentic canon, to specify the special rules and conditions for interpretation, to pronounce in case of doubt as to the exact sense of a given book or text, and even when necessary to safeguard the historical, prophetical, or apologetic value of a given text or passage, to pronounce in certain questions of authenticity, chronology, exegesis, or translation, either to reject an opinion compromising the authority of the book or the veracity of its doctrine or to maintain a given body of revealed truth contained in a given text. It was above all for the Church to circulate the Divine Book by minting its doctrine, adapting and explaining it, by offering it and drawing from it nourishment wherewith to nourish souls, briefly by supplementing the book, making use of it, and assisting others to make use of it. This is the debt of Scripture to the living magisterium.

On the other hand the living magisterium owes much to Scripture. There it finds the word of God, new-blown so to speak, as it was expressed under Divine agency by the inspired author; while oral tradition, although faithfully transmitting revealed truth with the Divine assistance, nevertheless transmits it only in human formulas. Scripture gives us beyond doubt to a certain extent a human expression of the truth which it presents, since this truth is developed in and by a human brain acting in a human manner, but also to a certain extent Divine, since this human development takes place wholly under the action of God. So also with due proportion it may be said of the inspired word what Christ said of His: It is spirit and life. In a sense differing from the Protestant sense which sometimes goes so far as to deify the Bible, but, in a true sense, we admit that God speaks to us in the Bible more directly than in oral teaching. The latter, moreover, ever faithful to the recommendations which St. Paul made to his disciple Timothy, does not fail to have recourse to Biblical sources for its instruction and to draw thence the heavenly doctrine, to take thence with the doctrine a sure, ever-young, and ever-living expression of this doctrine, one more adequate than any other despite the inevitable inadaptability of human formulas to divine realities In the hands of masters Scripture may become a sharp defensive and offensive weapon against error and heresy. When a controversy arises recourse is had first to the Bible. Frequently when decisive texts are found masters wield them skilfully and in such a way as to demonstrate their irresistible force. If none are found of the necessary clearness the assistance of Scripture is not thereby abandoned. Guided by the clear sense of the living and luminous truth, which it bears within itself, by its likeness to faith defended at need against error by the Divine assistance, the living magisterium strives, explains, argues, and occasionally subtilizes in order to bring forward texts which, if they lack an independent and absolute value, have an ad hominem force, or value, through the authority of the authentic interpreter, whose very thought, if it is not, or is not clearly, in Scripture, nevertheless stands forth with a distinctness or new clearness in this manipulation of Scripture, by this contact with it.

Manifestly there is no question here of a meaning which is not in Scripture and which the magisterium reads into it by imposing it as the Biblical meaning. This individual writers may do and have sometimes done, for they are not infallible as individuals, but not the authentic magisterium. There is question only of the advantage which the living magisterium draws from Scripture whether to attain a clearer consciousness of its own thought, to formulate it in hieratic terms, or to triumphantly reject an opinion favourable to error or heresy. As regards Biblical interpretation properly so called the Church is infallible in the sense that, whether by authentic decision of pope or council, or by its current teaching that a given passage of Scripture has a certain meaning, this meaning must be regarded as the true sense of the passage in question. It claims this power of infallible interpretation only in matters of faith and morals, that is where religious or moral truth is in danger, directly, if the text or passage belongs to the moral and religious order; indirectly, if in assigning a meaning to a text or book the veracity of the Bible, its moral value, or the dogma of its inspiration or inerrancy is imperilled. Without going further into the manifold services which the Bible renders to the living magisterium mention must nevertheless be made as particularly important of its services in the apologetic order. In fact Scripture by its historic value, which is indisputable and undisputed on many points, furnishes the apologist with irrefragable arguments in support of supernatural religion. It contains for example miracles whose reality is impressed on the historian with the same certainty as the most acknowledged facts. This is true and perhaps more strikingly so of the argument from the prophecies, for the Scriptures, the Old as well as the New Testament, contain manifest prophecies, the fulfilment of which we behold either in Christ and His Apostles or in the later development of the Christian religion.

In view of all this it will be readily understood that since the time of St. Paul the Church has urgently recommended to her ministers the study of Holy Scripture, that she has watched with a jealous authority over its integral transmission, its exact translation, and its faithful interpretation If occasionally she has seemed to restrict its use or its diffusion this too was through an easily comprehensible love and a particular esteem for the Bible, that the sacred Book might not like a profane book be made a ground for curiosity, endless discussions, and abuses of every kind. In short, since the Church at last proves to be the best safeguard for human reason against the excesses of an unbridled reason, so by the very avowal of sincere Protestants does she show herself at the present day the best defender of the Bible against an unrestrained Biblicism or an unchecked criticism.

Tradition and Living Magisterium: 2

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 20:52:44 GMT

I. Divine Traditions not contained in Holy Scripture; institution of the living magisterium; its prerogatives.

Luther's attacks on the Church were at first directed only against doctrinal details, but the very authority of the Church was involved in the dispute, and this soon became evident to both sides. However the controversy continued for many years to turn on particular points of traditional teaching rather than on the teaching authority and the chief weapons were Biblical texts. The Council of Trent, even while implying in its decisions and anathemas the authority of the living magisterium (which the Protestants themselves dared not explicitly deny), while appealing to ecclesiastical tradition and the sense of the Church either for the determination of the canon or for the interpretation of some passages of Holy Scripture, even while making a rule of interpretation in Biblical matters, did not pronounce explicitly concerning the teaching authority, contenting itself with saying that revealed truth is found in the sacred books and in the unwritten traditions coming from God through the Apostles; these were the sources from which it would draw. The Council, as is evident, held that there are Divine traditions not contained in Holy Scripture, revelations made to the Apostles either orally by Jesus Christ or by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and transmitted by the Apostles to the Church.

Holy Scripture is therefore not the only theological source of the Revelation made by God to His Church. Side by side with Scripture there is tradition, side by side with the written revelation there is the oral revelation. This granted, it is impossible to be satisfied with the Bible alone for the solution of all dogmatic questions. Such was the first field of controversy between Catholic theologians and the Reformers. The designation of unwritten Divine traditions was not always given all the clearness desirable especially in early times; however Catholic controversialists soon proved to the Protestants that to be logical and consistent they must admit unwritten traditions as revealed. Otherwise by what right did they rest on Sunday and not on Saturday? How could they regard infant baptism as valid, or baptism by infusion? How could they permit the taking of an oath, since Christ had commanded that we swear not at all? The Quakers were more logical in refusing all oaths, the Anabaptists in re-baptizing adults, the Sabbatarians in resting on Saturday. But none were so consistent as not to be open to criticism on some point. Where is it indicated in the Bible that the Bible is the sole source of faith? Going further, the Catholic controversialists showed their opponents that of this very Bible, to which alone they wished to refer, they could not have the authentic canon nor even a sufficient guarantee without an authority other than that of the Bible. Calvin parried the blow by having recourse to a certain taste to which the Divine word would manifest itself as such in the same way that honey is recognized by the palate. And this in fact was the only loophole, for Calvin recognized that no human authority was acceptable in this matter. But this was a very subjective criterion and one calling for caution. The Protestants dared not adhere to it. They came eventually, after rejecting the Divine tradition received from the Apostles by the infallible Church, to rest their faith in the Bible only as a human authority, which moreover was especially insufficient under the circumstances, since it opened up all manner of doubts and prepared the way for Biblical rationalism. There is not, in fact, any sufficient guarantee for the canon of the Scriptures, for the total inspiration or inerrancy of the Bible, save in a Divine testimony which, not being contained in the Holy Books with sufficient clearness and amplitude, nor being sufficiently recognizable to the scrutiny of a scholar who is only a scholar, does not reach us with the necessary warrant it would bear if brought by a Divinely assisted authority, as is, according to Catholics, the authority of the living magisterium of the Church. Such is the way in which Catholics demonstrate to Protestants that there should be and that there are in fact Divine traditions not contained in Holy Writ.

In a similar way they show that they cannot dispense with a teaching authority, a Divinely authorized living magistracy for the solution of controversies arising among themselves and of which the Bible itself was often the occasion. Indeed experience proved that each man found in the Bible his own ideas, as was said by one of the earliest reforming sectarians: "Hic liber est in quo quaerit sua dogmata quisque, invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua." One man found the Real Presence, another a purely symbolic presence, another some sort of efficacious presence. The exercise of free inquiry with regard to Biblical texts led to endless disputes, to doctrinal anarchy, and eventually to the denial of all dogma. These disputes, anarchy, and denial could not be according to the Divine intention. Hence the necessity of a competent authority to solve controversies and interpret the Bible. To say that the Bible was perfectly clear and sufficient to all was obviously a retort born of desperation, a defiance of experience and common sense. Catholics refuted it without difficulty, and their position was amply justified when the Protestants began compromising themselves with the civil power, rejecting the doctrinal authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium only to fall under that of princes.

Moreover it was enough to look at the Bible, to read it without prejudice to see that the economy of the Christian preaching was above all one of oral teaching. Christ preached, He did not write. In His preaching He appealed to the Bible, but He was not satisfied with the mere reading of it, He explained and interpreted it, He made use of it in His teaching, but He did not substitute it for His teaching. There is the example of the mysterious traveller who explained to the disciples of Emmaus what had reference to Him in the Scriptures to convince them that Christ had to suffer and thus enter into His glory. And as He preached Himself so He sent His Apostles to preach; He did not commission them to write but to teach, and it was by oral teaching and preaching that they instructed the nations and brought them to the Faith. If some of them wrote and did so under Divine inspiration it is manifest that this was as it were incidentally. They did not write for the sake of writing, but to supplement their oral teaching when they could not go themselves to recall or explain it, to solve practical questions, etc. St. Paul, who of all the Apostles wrote the most, did not dream of writing everything nor of replacing his oral teaching by his writings. Finally, the same texts which show us Christ instituting His Church and the Apostles founding Churches and spreading Christ's doctrine throughout the world show us at the same time the Church instituted as a teaching authority; the Apostles claimed for themselves this authority, sending others as they had been sent by Christ and as Christ had been sent by God, always with power to teach and to impose doctrine as well as to govern the Church and to baptize. Whoever believed them would be saved; whoever refused to believe them would be condemned. It is the living Church and not Scripture that St. Paul indicates as the pillar and the unshakable ground of truth. And the inference of texts and facts is only what is exacted by the nature of things. A book although Divine and inspired is not intended to support itself. If it is obscure (and what unprejudiced person will deny that there are obscurities in the Bible?) it must be interpreted. And even if it is clear it does not carry with it the guarantee of its Divinity, its authenticity, or its value. Someone must bring it within reach and no matter what be done the believer cannot believe in the Bible nor find in it the object of his faith until he has previously made an act of faith in the intermediary authorities between the word of God and his reading. Now, authority for authority, is it not better to have recourse to that of the Church than to that of the first comer? Liberal Protestants, such as M. Auguste Sabatier, have been the first to recognize that, if there must be a religion of authority, the Catholic system with the splendid organization of its living magisterium is far superior to the Protestant system, which rests everything on the authority of a book.

The prerogatives of this teaching authority are made sufficiently clear by the texts and they are to a certain extent implied in the very institution. The Church, according to St. Paul's Epistle to Timothy, is the pillar and ground of truth; the Apostles and consequently their successors have the right to impose their doctrine; whosoever refuses to believe them shall be condemned, whosoever rejects anything is shipwrecked in the Faith. This authority is therefore infallible. And this infallibility is guaranteed implicitly but directly by the promise of the Saviour: "Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world." Briefly the Church continues Christ in its mission to teach as in its mission to sanctify; its power is the same as that which He received from His Father and, as He came full of truth no less than of grace, the Church is likewise an institution of truth as it is an institution of grace. This doctrine was intended to be spread throughout the world despite so many obstacles of every kind, and the accomplishment of the task required miracles. So did Christ give to his Apostles the miraculous power which guaranteed their teaching. As He Himself confirmed His words by His works He wished that they also should present with their doctrine unexceptionable motives for credibility. Their miracles were the Divine seals of their mission and their Apostolate. The Divine seal has always been stamped on the teaching authority. It is not necessary that every missionary should work miracles, the Church herself is an ever-living miracle, bearing always on her brow the unexceptionable witness that God is with her.

For forioscribe: The original sin.

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 14:16:40 GMT

(Michelangelo's original sin - Why did he represent the snake by a feminine figure???)

As I promised you this noon at Elio's, here an explanation about the "original sin". Note that original sin and concupiscence cannot be one and the same thing, as was held by the early Protestants and as I affirmed searching a good English translation to my reasoning this noon. Thus I understand the difficulty to separate both the concepts, because you lived in a Country, the USA, where the influence of the Protestant's thought doesn't give the possibility to have a reasoning exempt from a common and (so called) traditional point of view. In the recent years, in Europe, a lot of theologians, either catholics or protestants, meditated about the meaning and how voluntary is the "original sin". (Before start reading, you must consider Adam and Eve as prototypes of the humanity and not like real and individual persons. The sense of the Adam and Eve's story must be found in the more general sense of a tale that must explain something of over-natural, with human literal categories of that time. The deep theological meaning is to understand as faith's truth, the story, as real story, is to reject). After the LJ's cut I give you some information about. I hope you'll enjoy reading it.

I. MEANING

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Original sin may be taken to mean:
(1) the sin that Adam committed;
(2) a consequence of this first sin, the hereditary stain with which we are born on account of our origin or descent from Adam.

From the earliest times the latter sense of the word was more common, as may be seen by St. Augustine's statement: "the deliberate sin of the first man is the cause of original sin". It is the hereditary stain that is dealt with here. As to the sin of Adam we have not to examine the circumstances in which it was committed nor make the exegesis of the third chapter of Genesis.

II. PRINCIPAL ADVERSARIES

Theodorus of Mopsuestia opened this controversy by denying that the sin of Adam was the origin of death. Celestius, a friend of Pelagius, was the first in the West to hold these propositions, borrowed from Theodorus: "Adam was to die in every hypothesis, whether he sinned or did not sin. His sin injured himself only and not the human race". This, the first position held by the Pelagians, was also the first point condemned at Carthage. Against this fundamental error Catholics cited especially Rom., 5, 12, where Adam is shown as transmitting death with sin. After some time the Pelagians admitted the transmission of death -- this being more easily understood as we see that parents transmit to their children hereditary diseases- but they still violently attacked the transmission of sin. And when St. Paul speaks of the transmission of sin they understood by this the transmission of death. This was their second position, condemned by the Council of Orange, and again later on with the first by the Council of Trent. To take the word sin to mean death was an evident falsification of the text, so the Pelagians soon abandoned the interpretation and admitted that Adam caused sin in us. They did not, however, understand by sin the hereditary stain contracted at our birth, but the sin that adults commit in imitation of Adam. This was their third position, to which is opposed the definition of Trent that sin is transmitted to all by generation (propagatione), not by imitation. Moreover, in the following canon are cited the words of the Council of Carthage, in which there is question of a sin contracted by generation and effaced by generation. The leaders of the Reformation admitted the dogma of original sin, but at present there are many Protestants imbued with Socinian doctrines whose theory is a revival of Pelagianism.

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III. ORIGINAL SIN IN SCRIPTURE

The classical text is Rom., v, 12 sqq. In the preceding part the apostle treats of justification by Jesus Christ, and to put in evidence the fact of His being the one Saviour, he contrasts with this Divine Head of mankind the human head who caused its ruin. The question of original sin, therefore, comes in only incidentally. St. Paul supposes the idea that the faithful have of it from his oral instructions, and he speaks of it to make them understand the work of Redemption. This explains the brevity of the development and the obscurity of some verses. We shall now show what, in the text, is opposed to the three Pelagian positions:

The sin of Adam has injured the human race at least in the sense that it has introduced death -- "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into this world and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men". Here there is question of physical death. first, the literal meaning of the word ought to be presumed unless there be some reason to the contrary. Second, there is an allusion in this verse to a passage in the Book of Wisdom in which, as may be seen from the context, there is question of physical death. Wis.,2, 24: "But by the envy of the devil death came into the world". Cf. Gen., 2, 17; 3, 3, 19; and another parallel passage in St. Paul himself, I Cor., 15, 21: "For by a man came death and by a man the resurrection of the dead". Here there can be question only of physical death, since it is opposed to corporal resurrection, which is the subject of the whole chapter.
Adam by his fault transmitted to us not only death but also sin, "for as by the disobedience of one man many [i.e., all men] were made sinners" (Romans 5:19). How then could the Pelagians, and at a later period Zwingli, say that St. Paul speaks only of the transmission of physical death? If according to them we must read death where the Apostle wrote sin, we should also read that the disobedience of Adam has made us mortal where the Apostle writes that it has made us sinners. But the word sinner has never meant mortal, nor has sin ever meant death. Also in verse 12, which corresponds to verse 19, we see that by one man two things have been brought on all men, sin and death, the one being the consequence of the other and therefore not identical with it.
Since Adam transmits death to his children by way of generation when he begets them mortal, it is by generation also that he transmits to them sin, for the Apostle presents these two effects as produced at the same time and by the same causality. The explanation of the Pelagians differs from that of St. Paul. According to them the child who receives mortality at his birth receives sin from Adam only at a later period when he knows the sin of the first man and is inclined to imitate it. The causality of Adam as regards mortality would, therefore, be completely different from his causality as regards sin. Moreover, this supposed influence of the bad example of Adam is almost chimerical; even the faithful when they sin do not sin on account of Adam's bad example, a fortiori infidels who are completely ignorant of the history of the first man. And yet all men are, by the influence of Adam, sinners and condemned (Romans 5:18, 19). The influence of Adam cannot, therefore, be the influence of his bad example which we imitate (Augustine, "Contra julian.", VI, 24, 75).

On this account, several recent Protestants have thus modified the Pelagian explanation: "Even without being aware of it all men imitate Adam inasmuch as they merit death as the punishment of their own sins just as Adam merited it as the punishment for his sin." This is going farther and farther from the text of St. Paul. Adam would be no more than the term of a comparison, he would no longer have any influence or causality as regards original sin or death. Moreover, the Apostle did not affirm that all men, in imitation of Adam, are mortal on account of their actual sins; since children who die before coming to the use of reason have never committed such sins; but he expressly affirms the contrary in the fourteenth verse: "But death reigned", not only over those who imitated Adam, but "even over them also who have not sinned after the similitude of the transgression of Adam." Adam's sin, therefore, is the sole cause of death for the entire human race. Moreover, we can discern no natural connexion between any sin and death. In order that a determined sin entail death there is need of a positive law, but before the Law of Moses there was no positive law of God appointing death as a punishment except the law given to Adam (Genesis 2:17). It is, therefore, his disobedience only that could have merited and brought it into the world Romans 5:13, 14). These Protestant writers lay much stress on the last words of the twelfth verse. We know that several of the Latin Fathers understood the words "in whom all have sinned", to mean, all have sinned in Adam. This interpretation would be an extra proof of the thesis of original sin, but it is not necessary. Modern exegesis, as well as the Greek Fathers, prefer to translate "and so death passed upon all men because all have sinned". We accept this second translation which shows us death as an effect of sin. But of what sin? "The personal sins of each one", answer our adversaries, "this is the natural sense of the words `all have sinned.'" It would be the natural sense if the context was not absolutely opposed to it. The words "all have sinned" of the twelfth verse, which are obscure on account of their brevity, are thus developed in the nineteenth verse: "for as by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners." There is no question here of personal sins, differing in species and number, committed by each one during his life, but of one first sin which was enough to transmit equally to all men a state of sin and the title of sinners. Similarly in the twelfth verse the words "all have sinned" must mean, "all have participated in the sin of Adam", "all have contracted its stain". This interpretation too removes the seeming contradiction between the twelfth verse, "all have sinned", and the fourteenth, "who have not sinned", for in the former there is question of original sin, in the latter of personal sin. Those who say that in both cases there is question of personal sin are unable to reconcile these two verses.

IV. ORIGINAL SIN IN TRADITION

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On account of a superficial resemblance between the doctrine of original sin and and the Manichaean theory of our nature being evil, the Pelagians accused the Catholics and St. Augustine of Manichaeism. In our own times this charge has been reiterated by several critics and historians of dogma who have been influenced by the fact that before his conversion St. Augustine was a Manichaean. They do not identify Manichaeism with the doctrine of original sin, but they say that St. Augustine, with the remains of his former Manichaean prejudices, created the doctrine of original sin unknown before his time. It is not true that the doctrine of original sin does not appear in the works of the pre-Augustinian Fathers. On the contrary, their testimony is found in special works on the subject. Nor can it be said, as Harnack maintains, that St. Augustine himself acknowledges the absence of this doctrine in the writings of the Fathers. St. Augustine invokes the testimony of eleven Fathers, Greek as well as Latin (Contra Jul., II, 10, 33). Baseless also is the assertion that before St. Augustine this doctrine was unknown to the Jews and to the Christians; as we have already shown, it was taught by St. Paul. It is found in the fourth Book of Esdras, a work written by a Jew in the first century after Christ and widely read by the Christians. This book represents Adam as the author of the fall of the human race (7, 48), as having transmitted to all his posterity the permanent infirmity, the malignity, the bad seed of sin (3, 21, 22; 4, 30). Protestants themselves admit the doctrine of original sin in this book and others of the same period. It is therefore impossible to make St. Augustine, who is of a much later date, the inventor of original sin.

That this doctrine existed in Christian tradition before St. Augustine's time is shown by the practice of the Church in the baptism of children. The Pelagians held that baptism was given to children, not to remit their sin, but to make them better, to give them supernatural life, to make them adoptive sons of God, and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Catholics answered by citing the Nicene Creed, "Confiteor unum baptisma in remissiomen peccatorum". They reproached the Pelagians with introducing two baptisms, one for adults to remit sins, the other for children with no such purpose. Catholics argued, too, from the ceremonies of baptism, which suppose the child to be under the power of evil, i.e., exorcisms, abjuration of Satan made by the sponsor in the name of the child.

V. ORIGINAL SIN IN FACE OF THE OBJECTIONS FROM REASON

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We do not pretend to prove the existence of original sin by arguments from reason only. St. Thomas makes use of a philosophical proof which proves the existence rather of some kind of decadence than of sin, and he considers his proof as probable only, satis probabiliter probari potest (Contra Gent., IV,53). Many Protestants and Jansenists and some Catholics hold the doctrine of original sin to be necessary in philosophy, and the only means of solving the problem of the existence of evil. This is exaggerated and impossible to prove. It suffices to show that human reason has no serious objection against this doctrine which is founded on Revelation. The objections of Rationalists usually spring from a false concept of our dogma. They attack either the transmission of a sin or the idea of an injury inflicted on his race by the first man, of a decadence of the human race. Here we shall answer only the second category of objections, the others will be considered under a later head .

(1) The law of progress is opposed to the hypothesis of a decadence. Yes, if the progress was necessarily continuous, but history proves the contrary. The line representing progress has its ups and downs, there are periods of decadence and of retrogression, and such was the period, Revelation tells us, that followed the first sin. The human race, however, began to rise again little by little, for neither intelligence nor free will had been destroyed by original sin and, consequently, there still remained the possibility of material progress, whilst in the spiritual order God did not abandon man, to whom He had promised redemption. This theory of decadence has no connexion with our Revelation. The Bible, on the contrary, shows us even spiritual progress in the people it treats of; the vocation of Abraham, the law of Moses, the mission of the Prophets, the coming of the Messias, a revelation which becomes clearer and clearer, ending in the Gospel, its diffusion amongst all nations, its fruits of holiness, and the progress of the Church.

(2) It is unjust, says another objection, that from the sin of one man should result the decadence of the whole human race. This would have weight if we took this decadence in the same sense that Luther took it, i.e. human reason incapable of understanding even moral truths, free will destroyed, the very substance of man changed into evil. But according to Catholic theology man has not lost his natural faculties: by the sin of Adam he has been deprived only of the Divine gifts to which his nature had no strict right, the complete mastery of his passions, exemption from death, sanctifying grace, the vision of God in the next life. The Creator, whose gifts were not due to the human race, had the right to bestow them on such conditions as He wished and to make their conservation depend on the fidelity of the head of the family. A prince can confer a hereditary dignity on condition that the recipient remains loyal, and that, in case of his rebelling, this dignity shall be taken from him and, in consequence, from his descendants. It is not, however, intelligible that the prince, on account of a fault committed by a father, should order the hands and feet of all the descendants of the guilty man to be cut off immediately after their birth. This comparison represents the doctrine of Luther which we in no way defend. The doctrine of the Church supposes no sensible or afflictive punishment in the next world for children who die with nothing but original sin on their souls, but only the privation of the sight of God.

VI. NATURE OF ORIGINAL SIN

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This is a difficult point and many systems have been invented to explain it: it will suffice to give the theological explanation now commonly received. Original sin is the privation of sanctifying grace in consequence of the sin of Adam. This solution, which is that of St. Thomas, goes back to St. Anselm and even to the traditions of the early Church, as we see by the declaration of the Second Council of Orange (A.D. 529): one man has transmitted to the whole human race not only the death of the body, which is the punishment of sin, but even sin itself, which is the death of the soul. As death is the privation of the principle of life, the death of the soul is the privation of sanctifying grace which according to all theologians is the principle of supernatural life. Therefore, if original sin is "the death of the soul", it is the privation of sanctifying grace.

The Council of Trent, although it did not make this solution obligatory by a definition, regarded it with favour and authorized its use. Original sin is described not only as the death of the soul, but as a "privation of justice that each child contracts at its conception". But the Council calls "justice" what we call sanctifying grace, and as each child should have had personally his own justice so now after the fall he suffers his own privation of justice. We may add an argument based on the principle of St. Augustine already cited, "the deliberate sin of the first man is the cause of original sin". This principle is developed by St. Anselm: "the sin of Adam was one thing but the sin of children at their birth is quite another, the former was the cause, the latter is the effect". In a child original sin is distinct from the fault of Adam, it is one of its effects. But which of these effects is it? We shall examine the several effects of Adam's fault and reject those which cannot be original sin:

Death and Suffering.- These are purely physical evils and cannot be called sin. Moreover St. Paul, and after him the councils, regarded death and original sin as two distinct things transmitted by Adam.
Concupiscence.- This rebellion of the lower appetite transmitted to us by Adam is an occasion of sin and in that sense comes nearer to moral evil. However, the occasion of a fault is not necessarily a fault, and whilst original sin is effaced by baptism concupiscence still remains in the person baptized; therefore original sin and concupiscence cannot be one and the same thing, as was held by the early Protestants.
The absence of sanctifying grace in the new-born child is also an effect of the first sin, for Adam, having received holiness and justice from God, lost it not only for himself but also for us. If he has lost it for us we were to have received it from him at our birth with the other prerogatives of our race. Therefore the absence of sanctifying grace in a child is a real privation, it is the want of something that should have been in him according to the Divine plan. If this favour is not merely something physical but is something in the moral order, if it is holiness, its privation may be called a sin. But sanctifying grace is holiness and is so called by the Council of Trent, because holiness consists in union with God, and grace unites us intimately with God. Moral goodness consists in this that our action is according to the moral law, but grace is a deification, as the Fathers say, a perfect conformity with God who is the first rule of all morality. Sanctifying grace therefore enters into the moral order, not as an act that passes but as a permanent tendency which exists even when the subject who possesses it does not act; it is a turning towards God, conversio ad Deum. Consequently the privation of this grace, even without any other act, would be a stain, a moral deformity, a turning away from God, aversio a Deo, and this character is not found in any other effect of the fault of Adam. This privation, therefore, is the hereditary stain.

VII. HOW VOLUNTARY

"There can be no sin that is not voluntary, the learned and the ignorant admit this evident truth", writes St. Augustine. The Church has condemned the opposite solution given by Baius. Original sin is not an act but, as already explained, a state, a permanent privation, and this can be voluntary indirectly- just as a drunken man is deprived of his reason and incapable of using his liberty, yet it is by his free fault that he is in this state and hence his drunkenness, his privation of reason is voluntary and can be imputed to him. But how can original sin be even indirectly voluntary for a child that has never used its personal free will? Certain Protestants hold that a child on coming to the use of reason will consent to its original sin; but in reality no one ever thought of giving this consent. Besides, even before the use of reason, sin is already in the soul, according to the data of Tradition regarding the baptism of children and the sin contracted by generation. Some theosophists and spiritists admit the pre-existence of souls that have sinned in a former life which they now forget; but apart from the absurdity of this metempsychosis, it contradicts the doctrine of original sin, it substitutes a number of particular sins for the one sin of a common father transmitting sin and death to all (Romans 5:12 sqq.). The whole Christian religion, says St. Augustine, may be summed up in the intervention of two men, the one to ruin us, the other to save us. The right solution is to be sought in the free will of Adam in his sin, and this free will was ours: "we were all in Adam", says St. Ambrose, cited by St. Augustine. St. Basil attributes to us the act of the first man: "Because we did not fast (when Adam ate the forbidden fruit) we have been turned out of the garden of Paradise". Earlier still is the testimony of St. Irenaeus; "In the person of the first Adam we offend God, disobeying His precept".

St. Thomas thus explains this moral unity of our will with the will of Adam. "An individual can be considered either as an individual or as part of a whole, a member of a society.....Considered in the second way an act can be his although he has not done it himself, nor has it been done by his free will but by the rest of the society or by its head, the nation being considered as doing what the prince does. For a society is considered as a single man of whom the individuals are the different members (St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 12). Thus the multitude of men who receive their human nature from Adam is to be considered as a single community or rather as a single body....If the man, whose privation of original justice is due to Adam, is considered as a private person, this privation is not his `fault', for a fault is essentially voluntary. If, however, we consider him as a member of the family of Adam, as if all men were only one man, then his privation partakes of the nature of sin on account of its voluntary origin, which is the actual sin of Adam". It is this law of solidarity, admitted by common sentiment, which attributes to children a part of the shame resulting from the father's crime. It is not a personal crime, objected the Pelagians. "No", answered St. Augustine, " but it is paternal crime". Being a distinct person I am not strictly responsible for the crime of another, the act is not mine. Yet, as a member of the human family, I am supposed to have acted with its head who represented it with regard to the conservation or the loss of grace. I am, therefore, responsible for my privation of grace, taking responsibility in the largest sense of the word. This, however, is enough to make the state of privation of grace in a certain degree voluntary, and, therefore, "without absurdity it may be said to be voluntary".

Thus the principal difficulties of non-believers against the transmission of sin are answered. "Free will is essentially incommunicable." Physically, yes; morally, no; the will of the father being considered as that of his children. "It is unjust to make us responsible for an act committed before our birth." Strictly responsible, yes; responsible in a wide sense of the word, no; the crime of a father brands his yet unborn children with shame, and entails upon them a share of his own responsibility. "Your dogma makes us strictly responsible for the fault of Adam." That is a misconception of our doctrine. Our dogma does not attribute to the children of Adam any properly so-called responsibility for the act of their father, nor do we say that original sin is voluntary in the strict sense of the word. It is true that, considered as "a moral deformity", "a separation from God", as "the death of the soul", original sin is a real sin which deprives the soul of sanctifying grace. It has the same claim to be a sin as has habitual sin, which is the state in which an adult is placed by a grave and personal fault, the "stain" which St. Thomas defines as "the privation of grace"; and it is from this point of view that baptism, putting an end to the privation of grace, "takes away all that is really and properly sin", for concupiscence which remains "is not really and properly sin", although its transmission was equally voluntary. Considered precisely as voluntary, original sin is only the shadow of sin properly so-called. According to St. Thomas, it is not called sin in the same sense, but only in an analogous sense.

Several theologians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, neglecting the importance of the privation of grace in the explanation of original sin, and explaining it only by the participation we are supposed to have in the act of Adam, exaggerate this participation. They exaggerate the idea of voluntary in original sin, thinking that it is the only way to explain how it is a sin properly so-called. Their opinion, differing from that of St. Thomas, gave rise to uncalled-for and insoluble difficulties. At present it is altogether abandoned.

Tradition and Living Magisterium: 1

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 22:25:22 GMT

The word "tradition" (Greek paradosis in the ecclesiastical sense; which is the only one in which it is used here; refers sometimes to the thing (doctrine, account, or custom) transmitted from one generation to another sometimes to the organ or mode of the transmission (kerigma ekklisiastikon, predicatio ecclesiastica). In the first sense it is an old tradition that Jesus Christ was born on 25 December, in the second sense tradition relates that on the road to Calvary a pious woman wiped the face of Jesus. In theological language, which in many circumstances has become current, there is still greater precision and this in countless directions. At first there was question only of traditions claiming a Divine origin, but subsequently there arose questions of oral as distinct from written tradition, in the sense that a given doctrine or institution is not directly dependent on Holy Scripture as its source but only on the oral teaching of Christ or the Apostles. Finally with regard to the organ of tradition it must be an official organ, a magisterium, or teaching authority.

Now in this respect there are several points of controversy between Catholics and every body of Protestants. Is all revealed truth consigned to Holy Scripture? or can it, must it, be admitted that Christ gave to His Apostles to be transmitted to His Church, that the Apostles received either from the very lips of Jesus or from inspiration or Revelation, Divine instructions which they transmitted to the Church and which were not committed to the inspired writings? Must it be admitted that Christ instituted His Church as the official and authentic organ to transmit and explain in virtue of Divine authority the Revelation made to men? The Protestant principle is: The Bible and nothing but the Bible; the Bible, according to them, is the sole theological source; there are no revealed truths save the truths contained in the Bible; according to them the Bible is the sole rule of faith: by it and by it alone should all dogmatic questions be solved; it is the only binding authority. Catholics, on the other hand, hold that there may be, that there is in fact, and that there must of necessity be certain revealed truths apart from those contained in the Bible; they hold furthermore that Jesus Christ has established in fact, and that to adapt the means to the end He should have established, a living organ as much to transmit Scripture and written Revelation as to place revealed truth within reach of everyone always and everywhere. Such are in this respect the two main points of controversy between Catholics and so-called orthodox Protestants (as distinguished from liberal Protestants, who admit neither supernatural Revelation nor the authority of the Bible). The other differences are connected with these or follow from them, as also the differences between different Protestant sects--according as they are more or less faithful to the Protestant principle, they recede from or approach the Catholic position.

Between Catholics and the Christian sects of the East there are not the same fundamental differences, since both sides admit the Divine institution and Divine authority of the Church with the more or less living and explicit sense of its infallibility and indefectibility and its other teaching prerogatives, but there are contentions concerning the bearers of the authority, the organic unity of the teaching body, the infallibility of the pope, and the existence and nature of dogmatic development in the transmission of revealed truth. Nevertheless the theology of tradition does not consist altogether in controversy and discussions with adversaries. Many questions arise in this respect for every Catholic who wishes to give an exact account of his belief and the principles he professes: What is the precise relation between oral tradition and the revealed truths in the Bible and that between the living magisterium and the inspired Scriptures? May new truths enter the current of tradition, and what is the part of the magisterium with regard to revelations which God may yet make? How is this official magisterium organized, and how is it to recognize a Divine tradition or revealed truth? What is its proper rôle with regard to tradition? Where and how are revealed truths preserved and transmitted? What befalls the deposit of tradition in its transmission through the ages?

The following are the points to be treated:

I. The existence of Divine traditions not contained in Holy Scripture, and the Divine institution of the living magisterium to defend and transmit revealed truth and the prerogative of this magisterium;
II. The relation of Scripture to the living magisterium, and of the living magisterium to Scripture;
III. The proper mode of existence of revealed truth in the mind of the Church and the way to recognize this truth;
IV. The organization and exercise of the living magisterium; its precise rôle in the defence and transmission of revealed truth; its limits, and modes of action;
V. The identity of revealed truth in the varieties of formulas, systematization, and dogmatic development; the identity of faith in the Church and through the variations of theology.

A full treatment of these questions would require a lengthy development; here only a brief outline can be given.

The inspiration of the Bible: Protestant Views on the Inspiration of the Bible.

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 19:14:43 GMT

A. At the Beginning of the Reformation

(1) As a necessary consequence of their attitude towards the Bible, which they had taken as their only rule of Faith, the Protestants were led at the very outset to go beyond the ideas of a merely passive inspiration, which was commonly received in the first half of the sixteenth century. Not only did they make no distinction between inspiration and revelation, but Scripture, both in its matter and style, was considered as revelation itself. In it God spoke to the reader just as He did to the Israelites of old from the mercy-seat. Hence that kind of cult which some protestants of today call "Bibliolatry." In the midst of the incertitude, vagueness, and antinomies of those early times, when the Reformation like Luther himself, was trying to find a way and a symbol, one can discern a constant preoccupation, that of indissolubly joining religious belief to the very truth of God by means of His written Word. The Lutherans who devoted themselves to composing the Protestant theory of inspiration were Melanchthon, Chemzitz, Quenstedt, Calov. Soon, to the inspiration of the words was added that of the vowel points of the present Hebrew text. This was not a mere opinion held by the two Buxtorfs, but a doctrine defined, and imposed under pain of imprisonment, and exile, by the Confession of the Swiss Churches, promulgated in 1675. These dispositions were abrogated in 1724. The Purists held that in the Bible there are neither barbarisms nor solecisms; that the Greek of the New Testament is as pure as that of the classical authors. It was said, with a certain amount of truth, that the Bible had become a sacrament for the Reformers.

(2) In the seventeenth century began the controversies which, in course of time, were to end in the theory of inspiration now generally accepted by Protestants. The two principles which brought about the Reformation were precisely the instruments of this revolution; on the one side, the claim for every human soul of a teaching of the Holy Ghost, which was immediate and independent of of every exterior rule; on the other, the right of private judgment, or autonomy of individual reasoning, in reading and studying the Bible. In the name of the first principle, on which Zwingli had insisted more than Luther and Calvin, the Pietists thought to free themselves from the letter of the Bible which fettered the action of the Spirit. A French Huguenot, Seb. Castellion (d. 1563), had already been bold enough to distinguish between the letter and the spirit; according to him the spirit only came from God, the letter was no more than a "case, husk, or shell of the spirit."

The Quakers, the followers of Swedenborg, and the Irvingites were to force this theory to its utmost limits; real revealation -- the only one which instructs and sanctifies -- was that produced under the immediate influence of the Holy Ghost. While the Pietists read their Bible with the help of interior illumination alone, others, in even greater numbers, tried to get some light from philological and historical researches which had received their decisive impulse from the Renaissance. Every facility was assured to their investigations by the principle of freedom of private judgment; and of this they took advantage. The conclusions obtained by this method could not be fatal to the theory of inspiration by revelation. In vain did its partisans say that God's will had been to reveal to the Evangelists in four different ways the words which, in reality, Christ had uattered only once; that the Holy Ghost varied His style accoring as he was dictation to Isaias or to Amos -- such an explanation was nothing short of an avowal of the ability to meet the facts alleged against them. As a matter of fact, Faustus Socinus (d. 1562) had already held that the words and, in general, the style of Scripture were not inspired. Soon afterwards, George Calixtus, Episcopius, and Grotinus made a clear distinction between inspiration and revelation. According to the last-named, nothing was revealed but the prophecies and the words of Jesus Christ, everything else was only inspired. Still further, he reduces inspiration to a pious motion of the soul. The Dutch Arminian school then represented by J. LeClerc, and, in France, by L. Capelle, Daillé, Blondel, and other, followed the same course. Although they kept current terminology, they made it apparent, nevertheless, that the formula, "The Bible is the Word of God," was already about to be replaced by "The Bible contains the Word of God." Morever, the term word was to be taken in an equivocal sense.

B. Biblical Rationalism

In spite of all, the Bible was still held as the criterion of religious belief. To rob it of this prerogative was the work which the eighteenth century set itself to accomplish. In the attack then made on the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures three classes of assailants are to be distinguished.

(1) The Naturalist philosophers, who were the forerunners of modern unbelief; the English Deists (Toland, Collins, Woolston, Tindal, Morgan); the German Rationalists (Reimarus, Lessing); the French Encyclopedists (Voltaire, Bayle) strove by every means, not forgetting abuse and sarcasm, to prove how absurd it was to claim a Divine origin for a book in which all the blemishes and errors of human writings are to be found.

(2) The critics applied to the Bible, the methods adopted for the study of profane authors. They, from the literary and historic point of view, reached the same conclusion as the infidel philosophers; but they thought they could remain believers by distinguishing in the Bible between the religious and the profane element. The latter they gave up to the free judgment of historical criticism; the former they pretended to uphold, but not without restrictions, which profoundly changed its import. According to Semler, the father of Biblical Rationalism, Christ and the Apostles accommodated themselves to the false opinions of their contemporaries; according to Kant and Eichborn, everything which does not agree with sane reason must be regarded as Jewish invention. Religion restricted within the limits of reason -- that was the point which the critical movement initiated by Grotius and LeClerc had in common with the philosophy of Kant and the theology of Wegscheider. The dogma of plenary inspiration dragged down with it, in its final ruin, the very notion of revelation.

(3) These philosophical historical controversiers about Scriptural authority caused great anxiety in religious minds. There were many who then sought their salvation in one of the principles put forward by the early Reformers, notably by Calvin: to wit, that truly Christian certitude came from the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Man had but to sound his own soul in order to find the essence of religion, which was not a science, but a life, a sentiment. Such was the verdict of the Kantian philosophy then in vogue. It was useless, from the religious point of view, to discuss the extrinsic claims of the Bible; far better was the moral experience of its intrinsic worth. The Bible itself was nothing but a history of the religious experiences of the Prophets, of Christ and His Apostles, of the Synagogue and of the Church. Truth and Faith came not from without, but sprang from the Christian conscience as their source. Now this conscience was awakened and sustained by the narration of the religious experiences of those who had gone before. What mattered, then, the judgment passed by criticism on the historical truth of this narration, if it only evoked a salutary emotion in the soul? Here the useful alone was true. Not the text, but the reader was inspired. Such, in its broad outlines, was the final stage of a movement which Spener, Wesley, the Moravian Brethren, and, generally, the Pietists initiated, but of which Schleiermacher (1768-1834) was to be the theologian and the propagator in the nineteenth century.

C. Present Conditions

(1) The traditional views, however, were not abandoned without resistance. A movement back to the old idea of the theopneustia, including verbal inspiration, set in nearly everywhere in the first half of the nineteenth century. This reaction was called the Réveil. Among its principal promoters must be mentioned the Swiss L. Gaussen, W. Lee, in England, A. Dlorner in Germany, and, more recently, W. Rohnert. their labours at first evoked interest and sympathy, but were destined to fail before the efforts of a counter-reaction which sought to complete the work of Schleiermacher. it was led by Alex, Vinet, Edm. Scherer, and E. Rabaud in France; Rich. Rothe and especially Ritschl in Germany; S.T. Coleridge, F.D. Maurice, and Matthew Arnold in England. According to them, the ancient dogma of the theopneustia is not to be reformed, but given up altogether. In the heat of the struggle, however, university professors like E. Reuss, freely used the historical method; without denying inspiration they ignored it.

(2) Abstracting from accidental differences, the present opinion of the so-called progressive Protestants (who profess, nevertheless, to remain sufficiently orthodox), as represented in Germany by B. Weiss, R.F. Grau, and H Cremer, in England by W. Sanday, C. Gore, and most Anglican scholars, may be reduced to the following heads:
(a) the purely passive, mechanical theopneustia, extending to the very words, is no longer tenable.
(b) Inspiration had degrees: suggestion, direction, elevation, and superintendency. All the sacred writers have not been equally inspired.
(c) Inspiration is personal that is, given directly to the sacred writer to enlighten, stimulate, and purify his faculties. This religious enthusiasm, like every great passion, exalts the powers of the soul; it belongs, therefore, to the spiritual order, and is not merely a help given immediately to the intellect. Biblical inspiration, being a seizure of the ntire man by the Divine virtue, does not differ essentially from the gift of the Holy Spirit imparted to all the faithful.
(d) It is, to say the least, an improper use of language to call the sacred text itself inspired. At any rate, this text can, and actually does, err not only in profane matters, but also in those appertaining more or less to religion, since the Prophets and Christ Himself, notwithstanding His Divinity, did not possess absolute infallibility. The Bible is a historical document which taken in its entirety contains the authentic narrative of revelation, the tidings of salvation.
(e) Revealed truth, and, consequently, the Faith we derive from it are not founded on the Bible, but on Christ himself; it is from Him and through Him that the written text acquires definitely all its worth. But how are we to reach the historical reality of Jesus -- His teaching, His institutions -- if Scripture, as well as Tradition, offers us no faithful picture? The question is a painful one. To establish the inspiration and Divine authority of the Bible the early Reformers had substituted for the teaching of the Church internal criteria, notably the interior testimony of the Holy Spirit and the spiritual efficacy of the text. Most Protestant theologians of the present day agree in declaring these criteria neither scientific nor traditional; and at any rate they consider them insufficient. They profess, consequently, to supplement them, if not to replace them altogether, by a rational demonstration of the autheticity and substantial trustworthiness of the Biblical text. The new method may well provide a starting-point for the fundamental theology of Revelation, but it cannot supply a complete justification of the Canon, as it has been so far maintained in the Churches of the Reformation. Anglican theologians, too, like Gore and Sanday, gladly appeal tot he dogmatic testimony of the collective conscience of the universal Church; but, in so doing, they break with one of the first principles of the Reformation, the autonomy of the individual conscience.

(3) The position of liberal Protestants (i.e. those who are independent of all dogma) may be easily defined. The Bible is just like other texts, neither inspired nor the rule of Faith. Religious belief is quite subjective. So far is it from depending on the dogmatic or even historical authority of a book that it gives to it, itself, its real worth. When religious texts, the Bible included, are in question, history -- or, at least, what people generally believe to historical -- is largely a product of faith, which has transfigured the facts. The authors of the Bible may be called inspired, that is endowed with a superior perception of religious matters; but this religious enthusiasm does not differ essentially from that which animated Homer and Plato. This is the denial of everything supernatural, in the ordinary sense of the word, as well in the Bible as in religion in general. Nevertheless, those who hold this theory defend themselves from the charge of infidelity, especially repudiating the cold Rationalism of the last century, which was made up exclusively of negations. They think that they remain sufficiently Christian by adhering to the religious sentiment to which Christ has given the most perfect expression yet known. Following Kant, Schleiermacher, and Ritschl, they profess a religion freed from all philosophical intellectualism and from every historical proof. Facts and formulae of the past have, in their eyes, only a symbolic and a transient value. Such is the new theology spread by the best-known professors and writers especially in Germany -- historians, exegetes, philologists, or even pastors of souls. We need only mention Harnack, H.J. Holtzmann, Fried. Delitzsch, Cheyne, Campbell, A. Sabatier, Albert and John Réville. it is to this transformation of Christianity that "Modernism", condemned by the Encyclical Pascendi Gregis, owes its origin.

In modern Protestantism the Bible has decidedly fallen from the primacy which the Reformation had so loudly conferred upon it. The fall is a fatal one, becoming deeper from day to day; and without remedy, since it is the logical consequence of the fundamental principle put forward by Luther and Calvin. Freedom of examination was destined sooner or later to produce freedom of thought.

The Inspiration of the Bible: Extent of Inspiration

Wed, 31 May 2006 16:00:37 GMT

The question now is not whether all the Biblical books are inspired in every part, even in the fragments called deuterocanonical: this point, which concerns the integrity of the Canon, has been solved by the Council of Tent. but are we bound to admit that, in the books or parts of books which are canonical, there is absolutely nothing, either as regards the matter or the form, which does not fall under the Divine inspiration?

A. Inspiration of the Whole Subject Matter

For the last three centuries there have been author-theologians, exegetes, and especially aplogists -- such as Holden, Rohling, Lenormant, di Bartolo, and others -- who maintained, with more or less confidence, that inspiration was limited to moral and dogmatic teaching, excluding everything in the Bible relating to history and the natural sciences. They think that, in this way, a whole mass of difficulties against the inerrancy of the bible would be removed. but the Church has never ceased to protest against this attempt to restrict the inspiration of the sacred books. This is what took place when Mgr d Hulst, Rector of the Institut Catholique of paris, gave a sympathetic account of this opinion in "Le Correspondant" of 25 Jan., 1893. The reply was quickly forthcoming in the Encyclical Providentissimus Deus of the same year. In that Encyclical Leo XIII said:

"It will never be lawful to restrict inspiration merely to certain parts of the Holy Scriptures, or to grant that the sacred writer could have made a mistake. Nor may the opinion of those be tolerated, who, in order to get out of these difficulties, do not hesitate to suppose that Divine inspiration extends only to what touches faith and morals, on the false plea that the true meaning is sought for less in what God has said than in the motive for which He has said it."

In fact, a limited inspiration contradicts Christian tradition and theological teaching.

B. Verbal Inspiration

Theologians discuss the question, whether inspiration controlled the choice of the words used or operated only in what concerned the sense of the assertions made in the Bible. In the sixteenth century verbal inspiratiion was the current teaching. The Jesuits of Louvain were the first to react against this opinion. They held "that it is not necessary in order that a text be Holy Scripture, for the Holy Ghost to have inspired the very material words used." The protests against this new opinion were so violent that Bellarmine and Suarez thought it their duty to tone down the formula by declaring "that all the words of the text have been dictated by the Holy Ghost in what concerns the substance, but differently according to the diverse conditiions of the instruments." This opinion went on gaining in precision, and little by little it disentangled itself from the terminology which it had borrowed from the adverse opinion, notably from the word "dictation." Its progress was so rapid that at the beginning of the nineteenth century it was more commonly taught than the theory of verbal inspiration. Cardinal Franzelin seems to have given it its definite form. During the last quarter of a century verbal inspiration has again found partisans, and they become more numerous every day. However, the theologians of today, whilst retaining the terminology of the older school, have profoundly modified the theory itself. They no longer speak of a material dictation of words to the ear of the writer, nor of an interior revelation of the term to be employed, but of a Divine motion extending to every faculty and even to the powers of execution to the writer, and in consequence influencing the whole work, even its editing. Thus the sacred text is wholly the work of God and wholly the work of man, of the latter, by way of instrument, of the former by way of principal cause. Under this rejuvenated form the theory of verbal inspiration shows a marked advance towards reconcilation with the rival opinion. From an exegetical and apologetical point of view it is indifferent which of these two opinions we adopt. All agree that the characteristics of style as well as the imperfections affecting the subject matter itself, belong to the inspired writer. As for the inerrancy of the inspired text it is to the Inspirer that it must be finally attributed, and it matters little if God has insured the truth of His Scripture by the grace of inspiration itself, as the adherents of verbal inspiration teach, rather than by a providential assistance.

The Inspiration of the Bible: Nature of Inspiration.

Tue, 30 May 2006 22:06:22 GMT

A. Method to be followed

(1) To determine the nature of Biblical inspiration the theologian has at his disposal a three fold source of information: the data of tradition, the concept of inspiration, and the concrete state of the inspired text. If he wishes to obtain acceptable results he will take into account all of these elements of solution. Pure speculation might easily end in a theory incompatible with the texts. On the other hand, the literary or historical analysis of these same texts, if left to its own resources, ignores their Divine origin. Finally, if the data of tradition attest the fact of inspiration, they do not furnish us with a complete analysis of its nature. Hence, theology, philosophy, and exegesis have each a word to say on this subject. Positive theology furnishes a starting point in its traditional formulae: viz., God is the author of Scripture, the inspired writer is the organ of the Holy Ghost, Scripture is the Word of God. Speculative theology takes these formulæ, analyses their contents and from them draws its conclusions. In this way St. Thomas, starting from the traditional concept which makes the sacred writer an organ of the Holy Ghost, explains the subordination of his faculties to the action of the Inspirer by the philosophical theory of the instrumental cause. However, to avoid all risk of going astray, speculation must pay constant attention to the indications furnished by exegesis.

(2) The Catholic who wishes to make a correct analysis of Biblical inspiration maust have before his eyes the following ecclesiastical documents:
(a) "These books are held by the Church as sacred and canonical, not as having been composed by merely human labour and afterwards approved by her authority, nor merely because they contain revelation without error, but because, written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author, and have been transmitted to the Church as such."
(b) "The Holy Ghost Himself, by His supernatural power, stirred up and impelled the Biblical writers to write, and assisted them while writing in such a manner that they conceived in their minds exactly, and determined to commit to writing faithfully, and render in exact language, with infallible truth, all that God commanded and nothing else; without that, God would not be the author of Scripture in its entirety".

B. Catholic View

Inspiration can be considered in God, who produces it; in man, who is its object; and in the text, which is its term.

(1) In God inspiration is one of those actions which are ad extra as theologians say; and thus it is common to the three Divine Persons. However, it is attributed by appropriation to the Holy Ghost. it is not one of those graces which have for their immediate and essential object the sanctification of the man who received them, but one of those called antonomastically charismata, or gratis datae, because they are given primarily for the good of thers. Besides, inspiration has this in common with every actual grace, that it si a transitory participation of the Divine power; the inspired wirter finding himself invested with it only at the very moment of writing or when thinking about writing.

(2) Considered in the man on whom is bestowed this favour, inspiration affects the will, the intelligence and all the executive faculties of the writer.
(a) Without an impulsion given to the will of the writer, it cannot be conceived how God could still remain the principal cause of Scripture, for, in that case, the man would have taken the initiative. Besides that the text of St. Peter is peremptory: "For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost" (2 Peter 1:21). The context shows that there is question of all Scripture, which is a prophecy in the broad sense of the word (pasa propheteia graphes). According to the Encyclical Prov. Deus, "God stirred up and impelled the sacred writers to determine to write all that God meant them to write". Theologians discuss the question whether, in order to impart this motion, God moves the will of the writer directly or decides it by proposing maotvies of an intellectual order. At any rate, everybody admits that the Holy Ghost can arouse or simply utilize external influences capable of acting on the will of the sacred writer. According to an ancient tradition, St. Mark and St. John wrote their Gospels at the instance of the faithful.
What becomes of human liberty under the influence of Divine inspiration? In principle, it is agreed that the Inspirer can take away from man the power of refusal. In point of fact, it is commonly admitted that the Inspirer, Who does not lack means of obtaining our consent, has respected the freedom of His instruments. An inspiration which is not accompanied by a revelation, which is adapted to the normal play of the faculties of the human soul, which can determine the will of the inspired writer by motives of a human order, does not necessarily suppose that he who is its object is himself conscious of it. If the prophet and the author of the Apcoalypse know and say that their pen is guided by the Spirit of God, other Biblical authors seem rather to have been led by "some mysterious influence whose origin was either unknown or not clearly discerned by them." However, most theologians admit that ordinarily the writer was conscious of his ow inspiration. From waht we have just said it follows that inspiration does not necessarily imply exstasy, as Philo and, later, the Montanists thought. It is true that some of the orthodox apologists of the second century (Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, St. Justin) have, in the description which they give of Biblical inspiration, been somehat influenced by the ideas of divination then current amongst the pagans. They are too prone to represent the Biblical writer as a purely passive intermediary, something after the style of the Pythia. Nevertheless, they did not make him out to be an energumen for all that. The Divine intervention, if one is conscious of it, can certainly fill the human soul with a certain awe; but it does not throw it into a state of delirum.

(b) To induce a person to write is not to take on oneself the responsibility of that writing, more especially it is not to become the author of that writing. If God can claim the Scripture as His own work, it is because He has brought even the intellect of the inspired writer under His command. However, we must not represent the Inspirer as putting a ready amde book in the mind of the inspired person. Nor has He necessarily to reveal the contens of the work to be produced. No matter where the knowledge of the writer on this point comes from, whether it be acquired naturally or due to Divine revelation, inspiration has not essentially for its object to teach somethin new to the sacred writer, but to render him capable of writing with Divine authority. Thus the author of the Acts of the Apostles narrates events in which he himself took part, or which were related to him. It is highly probable that most of the sayings of the Book of Proverbs were familiar to the sages of the East, before being set down in an inspired writing. God, inasmuch as he is the principal cause, when he inspires a writer, subordinates all that writer's cognitive faculties so as to make him accomplish the different actions which would be naturally gone through by a man who, first of all, has the design of composing a book, then gets together his materials, subjects them to a critical examination, arranges them, makes them enter into his plan, and finally brands them with the mark of his personality -- i.e. his own pecualiar style. The grace of inspiration does not exempt the writer from personal effort, nor does it insure the perfection of his work from an artistic point of view. The author of the Second Book of Machabeees and St. Luke tell the reader of the pains they took to document their work (2 Maccabees 2:24-33; Luke 1:1-4). The imperfections of the work are to be attributed to the instrument. God can, of course, prepare this instrument beforehand, but, a the time of using it, He does not ordinarily make any change in its conditions. When the Creator applies His power to the faculties of a creature outside of the ordinary way, he does so in a manner in keeping with the natural activity of these faculties. Now, in all languages recourse is had to the comparison of light to explain the nature of the human intelligence. That is why St. Thomas gives the name of light or illumination to the intellectual motion communicated by God to the sacred wirter. After him, then, we may say that this motion is a pecualir supernatural participation of the Divine light, in virtue of which the writer conceives exactly the work that the Holy Ghost wants him to write. Thanks to this help given to his intellect, the inspired writer judges, with a certitude of Divene order, not only of the opportuneness of the book to be written, but also of the truth of the details and of the whole. However, all theologians do not analyse exactly in the same manner the influence of this light of inspiration.

(c) The influence of the Holy Ghost had to extend also to all the executive faculties of the sacred writer -- to his memory, his imagination, and even to the hand with which he formed the letters. Whether this influence proceed immediatley from the action of the Inspirer or be a simple assistance, and, again, whether this assistance be positive or merely negative, in any case everyone admits that its object is to remove all error from the inspired text. Those who hold that even the words are inspired believe that it also forms an integral part of the grace of inspiration itself. However that may be, there is no denying that the inspiration extends, in one way or aother, and as far as needful, to all those who have really cooperated in the composition of the sacred test, especially to the secretaries, if the inspired person had any. Seen in this light, the hagiographer no longer appears a passive and inert instrument, abased as it were, by an exterior impulsion; on the contrary, his faculties are elevated to the service of a superior power, whihc, although distinct, is none the less intimately present and interior. Without losing anything of his personal life, or of his liberty, or even of his spontaneity (since it may happen that he is not conscious of the power which leads him on), man becomes thus the interpreter of God. Such, then is the most comprehensive notion of Divine inspiration. St. Thomas reduces it to the grace of prophecy, in the broad sense of the word.

(3) Considered in its term, inspiration is nothing else but the biblical text itself. This text was destined by God, Who inspired it, for the universal Church, in order that it might be authentically recognized as His written word. This destination is essential. Without it a book, even if it had been inspired by God, could not become canonical; it would have no more value than a private revelation. That is why any writing dated from a later period than the Apostolical age is condemned ipso facto to be excluded from the canon. The reason of this is that the deposit of the public revelation was complete in the time of the Apostles. they alone had the mission to give to the teaching of Christ the development which was to be opportunely suggested to them by the Paraclete, John 14, 26. Since the Bible is the Word of God, it can be said that every canonical text is for us a Divine lesson, a revelation, even though it may have been written with the aid of inspiration only, and without a revelation properly so called. For this cause, also, it is clear that an inspired text cannot err. That the Bible is free from error is beyond all doubt, the teaching of Tradition. The whole of Scriptural apologetics consists precisley in accounting for this exceptional prerogative. Exegetes and apologists have recourse here to considerations which may be reduced to the following heads:

the original unchanged text, as it left the pen of the sacred writers, is alone in question.
As truth and error are properties of judgment, only the assertiions of the sacred writer have to be dealt with. If he makes any affirmation, it is the exegete s duty to discover its meaning and extent; whether he expresses his own views or those of others; whether in quoting another he approves, disapproves, or keeps a silent reserve, etc.
The intention of the writer is to be found out according to the laws of the language in which he writes, and consequently we must take into account the style of literatur he wished to use. All styles are compatible with inspiration, because they are all legitimate expressions of human thought, and also, as St. Augustine says, "God, getting books written by men, did not wish them to be composed in a form differing from that used by them." Therefore, a distinciton is to be made between the assertion and the expression; it is by means of the latter that we arrive at the former.
These general principles are to be applied to the different books of the Bible, mutatis mutandis, according to the nature of the matter contained in them,the special purpose for which their author wrote them, the traditional explanation which is given of them, the traditional explanation which is given of them, and also according to the decisions of the Church.

C. Erroneous Views Proposed by Catholic Authors

Those which are wrong because insufficient.

(a) The approbation given by the Church to a merely human writing cannot, by itself, make it inspired Scripture. The contrary opinion hazarded by Sixtus of Siena (1566), renewed by Movers and Haneberg, in the nineteenth centruy, was condemned by the Vatican Council.

(b) Biblical inspiration even where it seems to be at its minimum -- e.g., in the historical books -- is not a simple assistance given to the inspired writers to prevent him from erring, as was thought by Jahn (1793), who followed Holden and perhaps Richard Simon. In order that a text may be Scripture, it is not enough "that it contain revelation without error".

(c) A book composed from merely human resources would not become an inspired text, even if approved of, afterwards, by the Holy Ghost. This subsequent approbation might make the truth contained in the book as credible as if it were an article of the Divine Faith, but it would not give a Divine origin to the book itself. Every inspiration properly so called is antecedent, so much so that it is a contradiciton in terms to speak of a subsequent inspiration. This truth seems to have been lost sight of by those moderns who thought they could revive-at the same time making it still less acceptable -- a vague hypothesis of Lessius (1585) and of his disciple Bonfrère.

Those which err by excess

A view which errs by excess confounds inspiration with revelation. We have just said that these two Divine operations are not only distinct but may take place separately, although they may also be found together. As a matter of fact, this is what happens whenever God moves the sacred writer to express thoughts or sentiments of which he cannot have acquired knowledge in the ordinary way. There has been some exaggeration in the accusation brought against early writers of having confounded inspiration with revelation; however, it must be admitted that the explicit distinction between these two graces has become more and more emphasized since the time of St. Thomas. This is a very real progress and allows us to make a more exact psychological analysis of inspiration.

The Inspiration of the Bible: Belief in inspired books.

Mon, 29 May 2006 22:16:06 GMT

I'll treat the subject under the four heads:

I. Belief in Inspired books;
II. Nature of Inspiration;
III. Extent of Inspiration;
IV. Protestant Views on the Inspiration of the Bible.

A. Among the Jews

The belief in the sacred character of certain books is as old as the Hebrew literature. Moses and the prophets had committed to writing a part of the message they were to deliver to Israel from God. Now the naby (prophet), whether he spoke or wrote, was considered by the Hebrews the authorized interpreter of the thoughts and wishes of Yahweh. He was called, likewise, "the man of God," "the man of the Spirit" (Hosea 9:7). It was around the Temple and the Book that the religious and national restoratiion of the Jewish people was effected after their exile (see 2 Maccabees 2:13-14, and the prologue of Sirach in the Septuagint). Philo (from 20 B.C. to A.D. 40) speaks of the "sacred books", "sacred word", and of "most holy scripture". The testimony of Flavius Josephus (A.D. 37-95) is still more characteristic; it is in his writings that the word inspiration (epipnoia) is met for the first time. He speaks of twenty-two books which the Jews with good reason consider Divine, and for which, in case of need, they are ready to die. The belief of the Jews is the inspiration of the Scriptures did not diminsh from the time in which they were dispersed throughout the world, without temple, without altar, without priests; on the contrary this faith increased so much that it took the place of everything else.

B. Among the Christians

The gospel contains no express declaration about the origin and value of the Scriptures, but in it we see that Jesus Christ used them in conformity with the general belief, i.e. as the Word of God. The most decisive texts in this respect are found in the Fourth Gospel, 5, 39; 10, 35. The words scripture, Word of God, Spirit of God, God, in the sayings and writings of the Apostles are used indifferently (Romans 4:3; 9:17). St. Paul alone appeals expressly more than eighty times to those Divine oracles of which Israel was made the guardian (cf. Romans 3:2). This persuasion of the early Christians was not merely the effect of a Jewish tradition blindly accepted and never understood. St. Peter and St. Paul give the reason why it was accepted: it is that all Scripture is inspired of God (theopneustos) (2 Timothy 2:16; cf. 2 Peter 1:20 21). It would be superfluous to spend any time in proving that Tradition has faithfully kept the Apostolic belief in the inspiratiion of Scripture. Moreover, this demonstaration forms the subject-matter of a great number of works. It is enough for us to add that on several occasions the Church has defined the inspiration of the canonical books as an article of faith. Every Christian sect still deserving that name believes in the inspiration of the Scriptures, although several have more or less altered the idea of inspiration.

C. Value of this Belief

History alone allows us to establish the fact that Jews and Christians have always believed in the inspiration of the Bible. But what is this belief worth? Proofs of the rational as well as of the dogmatic order unite in justifying it. Those who first recognized in the Bible a superhuman work had as foundation of their opinion the testimony of the Prophets, of Christ, and of the Apostles, whose Divine mission was sufficiently established by immediate experience or by history. To this purely rational argument can be added the authentic teaching of the Church. A Catholic may claim this additional certitude without falling into a vicious circle, because the infallibility of the Church in its teaching is proved independently of the inspiration of Scripture; the historical value, belonging to Scripture in common with every other authentic and truthful writing, is enough to prove this.

The Method/7: Historical Criticism.

Sun, 28 May 2006 19:50:15 GMT

Historical criticism is the art of distinguishing the true from the false concerning facts of the past. It has for its object both the documents which have been handed down to us and the facts themselves. We may distinguish three kinds of historical sources: written documents, unwritten evidence; and tradition. As further means of reaching a knowledge of the facts there are three processes of indirect research, viz.: negative argument, conjecture, and a priori argument.

It may be said at once that the study of sources and the use of indirect processes will avail little for proper criticism if one is not guided chiefly by an ardent love of truth such as will prevent him from turning aside from the object in view through any prejudice, religious, national, or domestic, that might trouble his judgment. The rôle of the critic differs much from that of an advocate. He must, moreover, consider that he has to fulfil at once the duties of an examining magistrate and an expert juryman, for whom elementary probity, to say nothing of their oath, makes it a conscientious duty to decide only on the fullest possible knowledge of the details of the matter submitted to their examination, and in keeping with the conclusion which they have drawn from these details; guarding themselves at the same time against all personal feeling either of affection or of hatred respecting the litigants. But inexorable impartiality is not enough; the critic should also possess a fund of that natural logic known as common sense, which enables us to estimate correctly, neither more nor less, the value of a conclusion in strict keeping with given premises. If, moreover, the investigator be acute and shrewd, so that he discerns at a glance the elements of evidence offered by the various kinds of information before him, which elements often appear quite meaningless to the untrained observer, we may consider him thoroughly fitted for the task of critic. He must now proceed to familiarize himself with the historical method, i. e. with the rules of the art of historical criticism. In the remainder of this article we shall present a brief résumé of these rules apropos of the various kinds of documents and processes which the historian employs in determining the relative degree of certainty which attaches to the facts that engage his attention.

There are two kinds of written documents. Some are drawn up by ecclesiastical or civil authority, and are known as public documents; others, emanating from private individuals and possessing no official guarantee, are known as private documents. Public or private, however, all such documents raise at once three preliminary questions:

(1) authenticity and integrity;
(2) meaning;
(3) authority.

Authenticity and Integrity

Does the document which confronts us as a source of information really belong to the time and the author claimed for it, and do we possess it in the shape in which it left that author's hand? There is little or no difficulty in the case of a document printed during the author's lifetime, and given at once a wide distribution. It is otherwise when, as often happens, the document is both ancient and in manuscript. The so-called auxiliary sciences of history, i. e. palæography, diplomatics, epigraphy, numismatics, sigillography, or sphragistics, furnish practical rules that generally suffice to determine approximately the age of a manuscript. In this preliminary stage of research we are greatly aided by the nature of the material on which the manuscript is written, e. g. papyrus, parchment, cotton or rag paper; by the system of abbreviations employed, character of the hand-writing, ornamentation, and other details that vary according to countries and epochs. It is rare that a document claiming to be an original or an autograph, when submitted to such a series of tests, leaves room for reasonable doubt regarding its authenticity or non-authenticity. More frequently, however, ancient documents survive only in the form of copies, or copies of copies, and their verification thus becomes more complicated. We must pass judgment on each manuscript and compare the manuscripts with one another. This comparison enables us, on the one hand, to fix their age (approximately) by the rules of palæography; on the other, it reveals a number of variant readings. In this way it becomes possible to designate some as belonging to one "family", i. e. as transcribed from one original model, and thus eventually to reconstruct, more or less perfectly, the primitive text as it left the author's hand. Such labour (merely preliminary, after all, to the question of authenticity), were every one forced to perform it, would deter most students of historical science at the very outset. It becomes, however, daily less necessary. Men specially devoted to this important and arduous branch of criticism, and of a literary probity beyond suspicion, have published and continue to publish, with the generous aid of their governments and of learned societies, more or less extensive editions of ancient historical sources which place at our disposal, one might almost say more advantageously, the manuscripts themselves. In the prefaces of these scholarly publications all the known manuscripts of each document are carefully described, classified, and often partially represented in facsimile, thereby enabling us to verify the palæographic features of the manuscript in question. The edition itself is usually made after one of the principal manuscripts; moreover, on each page we find an exact summary (sometimes in apparently excessive detail) of all the variant readings found in the other manuscripts of the text. With such helps the authenticity of a work or of a text may be discussed without searching all the libraries of Europe or tiring one's eyes in deciphering the more or less legible handwriting of the Middle Ages.

The manuscripts once counted and classified, we must examine whether all, even the most ancient, bear the name of the author to whom the work is generally attributed. If it be lacking in the oldest, and be found only in those of a later date, especially if the name offered by the earlier manuscripts differ from that given by later copyists, we may rightly doubt the fidelity of the transcription. Such doubt will often occur apropos of a passage not met in the oldest manuscripts, but only in the more recent, or vice versa. Unless we can otherwise explain this divergency, we are naturally justified in suspecting an interpolation or a mutilation in the later manuscripts. While the authenticity of a work may be proved by the agreement of all its manuscripts, it is possible further to confirm it by the testimony of ancient writers who quote the work under the same title, and as a work of the same author; such quotations are especially helpful if they are rather extensive and correspond well to the text as found in the manuscripts. On the other hand, if one or several of such quoted passages are not met with in the manuscript, or if they be not reproduced in identical terms, there is reason to believe that we have not before us the document quoted by ancient writers or at least that our copy has suffered notably from the negligence or bad faith of those who transcribed it. To these signs of authenticity, called extrinsic because they are based on testimony foreign to the author's own work, may be added certain intrinsic signs based on an examination of the work itself. When dealing with official and public acts care must be taken to see that not only the handwriting, but also the opening and closing formulæ, the titles of persons, the manner of noting dates, and other similar corroborative indications conform to the known customs of the age to which the document is attributed. Amid so many means of verification it is extremely difficult for a forgery to escape detection. Words and phraseology furnish another test. Each century possesses its own peculiar diction, and amid so many pitfalls of this nature it is scarcely possible for the forger to cloak successfully his misdeed. This is also true for the style of each particular author. In general, especially in the case of the great writers, each one has his own peculiar stamp by which he is easily recognized, or which at least prevents us from attributing to the same pen compositions quite unequal in style. In the application of this rule, no doubt, care should be taken not to exaggerate. A writer varies his tone and his language according to the subject of which be treats, the nature of his literary composition, and the class of readers whom he addresses. Nevertheless an acute and practised mind will have little difficulty in recognizing among the various works of a given author certain qualities which betray at once the character of the writer and his style or habitual manner of writing. Another and a surer means for the detection of positive forgery or the alteration of a document is the commission of anachronisms in facts or dates, the mention in a work of persons, institutions, or customs that are certainly of a later date than the period to which it claims to belong; akin to this are plagiarism and the servile imitation of more recent writers.

Meaning

The critic must now make the best possible use of the written sources at his disposal, i. e. he must understand them well, which is not always an easy matter. His difficulty may arise from the obscurity of certain words, from their grammatical form, or from their grouping in the phrase he seeks to interpret. As to the sense of the individual words it is supremely important that the critic should be able to read the documents in the language in which they were written rather than in translations. Doubtless there are excellent translations, and they may he very helpful; but it is always dangerous to trust them blindly. The scholar who enters conscientiously upon the work of critic will always feel it a strict duty to warn his readers whenever he quotes a text from a translation. It is well known that to interpret a term correctly it is not enough to know its meaning at a particular epoch, which we are accustomed to regard as classic, in the language to which it belongs. We need only open any large Latin lexicon, e. g. Forcellini's or Freund's, to appreciate at once the very remarkable modifications of meaning undergone by Latin terms in different periods of the language, either from the substitution of new meanings for older ones or by the concurrent use of both old and new. In his efforts to fix the age of a text the critic will, therefore, be occasionally obliged to exclude a meaning that had not yet arisen, or had ceased to be in use when the text in question was composed; sometimes he will be left in a condition of uncertainty or suspense, and obliged to abstain from conclusions agreeable enough but unsafe. Again, in order to grasp correctly the sense of a text it becomes necessary to understand the political or religious opinions of the author, the peculiar institutions of his age and country, the general character of his style, the matters which he treats, and the circumstances under which he speaks. These things considered a general expression may take on quite a particular sense which it would be disastrous for the critic to overlook. Often these details can only be understood from the context of the passage under discussion. In general, whenever there is occasion to verify the exactness of a quotation made in support of a thesis, it is prudent to read the entire chapter whence it is taken, sometimes even to read the whole work. An individual testimony, isolated from all its surroundings in an author's work, seems often quite decisive, yet when we read the work itself our faith in the value of the argument based on such partial quotation is either very much shaken or else disappears entirely.

Authority

What is now the value of a text rightly understood? Every historical statement or testimony naturally suggests two questions: Has the witness in question a proper knowledge of the fact concerning which he is called to testify? And if so, is he altogether sincere in his deposition? On an impartial answer to these questions depends the degree of confidence to be accorded to his testimony.

Concerning the knowledge of the witness we may ask: Did he live at the time when, and in the place where, the fact occurred, and was he so circumstanced that he could know it? Or, at least, are we sure that he obtained his information from a good source? The more guarantees he gives in this respect the more, all else being equal, does he prove himself trustworthy. As to the question of sincerity it is not enough to be satisfied that the witness did not wish to utter a deliberate lie; if it could be reasonably shown that he had a personal interest in warping the truth, grave suspicions would be raised as to the veracity of all his statements. Cases of formal and wilful mendacity in historical sources may be regarded as rare. Much more frequently prejudice or passion secretly pervert the natural sincerity of a man who really respects himself and esteems the respect of others. It is possible, and that with a certain good faith, to deceive both one's self and others. It is the duty of the critic to enumerate and weigh all the influences which may have altered more or less the sincerity of a witness -- personal likes or dislikes, social or oratorical proprieties, self-esteem or vanity, as well as the influences which may affect the clearness of a writer's memory or the uprightness of his will. It by no means follows that the authority of a witness is always weakened by the process described above; often quite the contrary happens. When a witness has overcome influences that usually powerfully affect a man's mind and dissuade him from yielding to the natural love of truth, there is no longer any reason to doubt his veracity. Moreover, when he asserts a fact unfavourable to the religious or political cause which he otherwise defends with ardour; when he thus gains no particular advantage, but on the contrary subjects himself to serious disadvantage; in a word, whenever his statements or avowals are in manifest opposition to his interests, his prejudices, and his inclinations, it is clear that his evidence is far weightier than that of a perfectly disinterested man. Again, the preceding considerations apply not only to the immediate witnesses of the fact in question, but also to all the intermediaries through whom their evidence is transmitted to us. The trustworthiness of the latter must be established as well as that of the authorities to which they appeal.

Given the necessity of observing so much caution in the use of historical texts, it may appear very difficult to reach complete certainty regarding the facts of history. How may we be sure, especially in dealing with ancient times, that our witness presents every desirable guarantee? Often he is scarcely known to us, or quite anonymous. How many facts, once held to be established, have been eliminated from the pages of history. And for how many more must we indefinitely suspend our judgment for lack of sufficiently convincing authority. Historical certitude would indeed be difficult to reach if for each fact we had but one isolated piece of evidence. Full certainty would then be possible only when it could be shown that the character and position of a witness were such as to preclude any reasonable doubt as to the exactness of his statements. But if the veracity of the witness is guaranteed only by negative data, i. e. if we are merely aware no known circumstances warrant us in suspecting carelessness or bad faith, there arises in us a more or less vague belief, such as we easily accord to any quite unknown person who seriously relates an event which he says he has seen, while on our part we have no reason to suppose either that he himself is deceived or that he is deceiving us. Strictly speaking, our belief in such a witness cannot be called a halting faith. On the other hand it differs considerably from a belief that is based on more solid foundations. We shall not, therefore, be much surprised if the occurrence be later described in an entirely different manner, nor shall we object to abandoning our former belief when better informed by more reliable witnesses. Were it otherwise, our passions would be to blame for causing us to hold to a belief, flattering perhaps, but unsupported by sufficient evidence. We frankly admit, therefore, the possibility of a more or less wavering mental adhesion to facts that rest on a single testimony and whose value we are unable properly to appreciate. It is otherwise in the case of facts confirmed by several witnesses placed in entirely different conditions. It is very difficult, nay generally speaking morally impossible, that three, four, or even more persons, not subject to any common influence, should be deceived in the same manner, or should be parties to the same deception. When, therefore, we find a fact established by several statements or narratives taken from different sources, yet all concordant, there is scarcely any further room for reasonable doubt as to the entire truth of the fact. At this stage, however, we must be very certain that the historical sources are truly different. Ten or twenty writers who copy the narrative of an ancient author, without any new source of knowledge at their disposal, in general add nothing to the authority of him from whom they have gleaned their information. They are but echoes of an original testimony, already well known. It may happen, however, and the case is by no means rare, that narratives based on different sources exhibit more or less disagreement. How then shall we form our judgment?

Right here an important distinction is necessary. The various narratives of a fact often exhibit a perfect harmony as to substance, their divergence appearing only in matters of detail upon which information was had with greater difficulty. In such cases the partial disagreement of the witnesses, far from lessening their authority regarding the principal fact serves to confirm it; disagreement of this kind shows on the one hand an absence of collusion, and on the other a reliance of witnesses on certain sources of information common to all. There is, however, an exception. It may happen that several writers, whose veracity we are otherwise justified in suspecting, agree in narrating with much precision of detail a fact favourable to their common likes and dislikes. They either report it as eye-witnesses or they declare that they reproduce faithfully the narrative of such witnesses. In dealing with writers of this character the critic must examine carefully all their statements, down to the minutest detail; often a very insignificant circumstance will reveal the deception. We may recall here the ingenious questioning by which Daniel saved the life and reputation of Susanna (Dan., 13, 52-60). Similar means are often employed with success in the law courts to overthrow clever systems of defence built up by culprits, or to convict a party who has suborned false witnesses in the interest of a bad cause. Occasionally such measures might be advantageously applied in the conduct of historical examinations. Let us suppose that there exists a conflict of opinion about the substance of a fact, and that it has been found impossible to reconcile the witnesses. it is clear that they disagree. At this point, evidently, we must cease to insist on their absolute value and weigh them one against the other. Keeping always in view the circumstances of time, place, and personal position of the different witnesses, we must seek to ascertain in which of them the conditions of knowledge and veracity appear to predominate; this examination will determine the measure of confidence to be reposed in them, and, consequently, the degree of certainty or probability that attaches to the fact they narrate. Frequently, though no indispensable preliminary of mental conviction, a careful comparison of more or less discordant versions of a fact or an event will reveal in the rejected witnesses the very sources or causes of their errors, and thereby exhibit in much clearer light the complete solution of problems whose data seemed at first sight confused and contradictory.

UNWRITTEN TESTIMONY

To hang a man, a clever examining magistrate does not always need one line of his writing. Silent witnesses have often convicted a criminal more efficaciously than positive accusers. The most insignificant object left by him on the scene of his crime, another found in his possession, an uncommon degree of prodigality, a hundred other equally trifling tokens, lay bare very often the most ingeniously planned schemes for avoiding detection by the law. Even so in the science of history. Here nothing is negligible or unimportant. Monuments of architecture, objects of plastic art, coins, weapons, implements of labour, household utensils, material objects of every kind may in one way or another furnish us precious information. Certain classes of historical sources have long since attained the dignity of special auxiliary sciences. Such are heraldry, or armorial science; glyptics, which deals with engraved stones; ceramics, or the study of pottery in all its epochs. To these we may add numismatics, sigillography, and especially linguistics, not so much for a surer interpretation of the texts as for procuring data from which may be conclusively established the origins of peoples and their migrations. Archæology, in its broadest sense, comprises all these sciences; in its most restricted sense it is confined to objects which are beyond their scope. Truly it is a vast province that here spreads out before the historical pioneer, and he needs much erudition, acumen, and tact to venture therein. Fortunately, as with manuscripts and inscriptions, it is no longer necessary for the historical student to possess a thorough knowledge of all these auxiliary sciences before entering on his proper task. For most of them there exist excellent special works in which we may easily find any archæological details needful in the discussion of an historical question. It is to these works and to the advice of men learned in such matters that we must have recourse in order to solve the two preliminary questions regarding all evidence, written and unwritten: that of authenticity or provenance, and that of meaning, i. e., in archæological remains, the use to which the objects discovered were once put. In dealing with unwritten evidence these questions are more delicate; similarly the rules for our guidance are much more difficult, both to formulate and to apply. It is here, particularly, that shrewdness and acumen, and the prophetic insight that comes of long practice, offer help more important by far than the most exact rules. It is only by dint of observation and comparison that we learn eventually to distinguish with accuracy. These preliminaries once satisfied, we enter on the task of historical criticism properly speaking. Through it these precious relics of the past are called to shed light on certain writings, to confirm their evidence, to reveal a fact not committed to them; more frequently they furnish a sure basis of conjecture whence eventually follow discoveries of great importance. Here, however, and it cannot be repeated too often, the path of the historical student is perilous indeed. The misadventures of amateur archæologists, whether in the matter of pretended discoveries or in dissertations based on them, have provoked no little raillery, not only among severely just professional critics, but also among romancers and dramatic writers. As already stated, it is especially by the judicious use of conjecture that we obtain from these silent witnesses such information as it is in their power to furnish.

TRADITION

Every student of history must eventually face a problem very embarrassing for a conscientious scholar. Facts appear which have left no trace in any writing or contemporary monument. Buried in obscurity for centuries they suddenly appear in full publicity and are accepted as incontrovertible. Everyone repeats the story, often with minute detail, though no one is able to offer any credible evidence of the trustworthiness of the current statement or narrative. It is then said that such facts rest on the evidence known as oral or popular tradition. What degree of confidence is due to this popular tradition? Its originators are quite unknown to us as are also the many intermediaries who have passed it down to the time when we are first cognizant of it. How may we obtain a guarantee of the veracity of the original witnesses and then of their successors? Perhaps a rather natural comparison will help us to a clear solution of this question. We may note at once a striking analogy between tradition concerning the past and public rumour about present events. There are in both cases numberless intermediary and anonymous witnesses, concordant as to the substance of the facts, but as to the details often quite contradictory of one another; in both cases also there is an identical ignorance concerning the original witnesses; in both cases, finally, many instances in which the current information was verified and many others in which it was found to be altogether false. Let us suppose the case of a prudent man deeply interested in knowing precisely what is happening in a distant country; one who, moreover, takes much pains to be well informed. What does he do when he learns by public rumour of an important event said to have occurred in the place in which he is interested? Does he accept blindly every detail thus bruited abroad? On the other hand, does he pay no attention whatever to rumour? He does neither. He gathers eagerly the various narratives current and compares them with one another, notes their points of agreement, and their elements of divergence. Nor does he conclude in haste. He suspends his judgment, seeks to procure official reports, writes to his friends who are on the spot to learn from them reliable news, i. e. confirmation of the facts on which men agree, solutions of the difficulties which arise from discordant versions of the event. Possibly he has no confidence in the persons charged with drawing up the official reports; possibly, too, he cannot correspond with his friends, owing to the interruption of communications by reason of war or other causes. In a word, if such a man found himself dependent on public rumour alone he would remain indefinitely in a state of doubt, content with a more or less probable knowledge until some more certain source of information offered.

Why should we not deal similarly with popular tradition? It appeals in just this way to our attention and we have the same motives for mistrusting it. More than once it has been helpful to judicious critics and pointed the way to important discoveries which they would never have made with the sole aid of written documents or monuments. Let us look at the matter in another way. Have not all students of historical documents come frequently across the same peculiar, one might say capricious admixture of true and false which meets us at every step in the case of popular traditions? It would be equally rash on the one hand to reject all tradition and place faith only in written testimony or contemporary monuments, and on the other to accord to tradition an implicit confidence merely because it was not formally contradicted by other historical data, though it received from them no confirmation. The historian should collect with care the popular traditions of the countries and epochs he is treating, compare them with one another, and determine their value in the light of other information scientifically acquired. Should this light, too, eventually fail him, he must wait patiently until fresh discoveries renew it, content in the meantime with such measure of probability as tradition affords. In this way the already acquired historical wealth will be retained, yet no danger run of exaggerating its value, or, finally, of casting suspicion on its trustworthiness by incorporating with it false or doubtful statements.

THE NEGATIVE ARGUMENT

The negative argument in history is that which is drawn from the silence of contemporary or quasi-contemporary documents concerning a given fact. The great masters of historical science have often used it with success in their refutation of historical errors, sometimes long intrenched in popular belief. It is to be noted that on such occasions they have always held firmly to two principles: first, that the author whose silence is invoked as a proof of the falsity of a given fact, could not have been ignorant of it had it really occurred as related; second, that if he were not ignorant of the fact, he would not have failed to speak of it in the work before us. The greater the certainty of these two points, the stronger is the negative argument. Whenever all doubt in regard to them is removed, we are quite right in holding that a writer's silence concerning a fact in question is equivalent to a formal denial of its truth. There is nothing more rational than this process of reasoning; it is daily employed in our courts of justice. How often is a legal line of attack or defence broken by purely negative evidence. Honourable men are brought before a judicial tribunal who would certainly, in the hypothesis of their truth, have knowledge of the facts alleged by one of the contending parties. If they affirm that they have no knowledge of them, their depositions are rightly considered positive proofs of the falsity of the allegations. Now, evidence of this kind does not differ substantially from the negative argument in the above conditions. In one case, it is true, the witnesses formally state that they know nothing, while in the other we learn as much from their silence. Nevertheless this silence, in the given circumstances, is as significant as a positive assertion.

There are, nevertheless, some who claim that a negative argument can never prevail against a formal text. But this assertion is not even admissible respecting a contemporary text. If the writer to whom it belongs does not offer an absolute and incontestable guarantee of knowledge and veracity, his authority may be very much weakened or even destroyed by the silence of a more reliable and more prudent writer. It often happens in courts of law that the deposition of an eye or ear-witness is questioned, or even rejected, in view of the deposition of some other witness, equally well-placed to see and hear all that occurred, but who yet declares that he neither saw anything nor heard anything. Mabillon was certainly wrong in maintaining that the negative argument could never be used unless one had before him all the works of all the authors of the time when the event happened. On the contrary, a single work of a single author may in certain cases furnish a very sound negative argument. Launoy, on the other hand, is equally wrong in maintaining that the universal silence of writers for a period of about two centuries furnishes a sufficient proof of the falsity of facts not mentioned by them; it is quite possible that no author of this period was morally bound by the nature of his subject-matter to state such facts. In this case the silence of such authors is by no means equivalent to a denial. But, it is objected, in order to raise a doubt as to a fact related by later writers, have not the best critics often relied on this universal silence of historians for some considerable time? This is true, but the epoch in question was one already carefully studied and conscientiously described by several historians. Moreover, the disputed fact, if true, would necessarily have been so public, and such, in kind and importance, that neither ignorance nor wilful omission could be posited for all these historians. We have here, therefore, the two conditions needed to make inexplicable the silence of these authors; consequently, the negative argument loses none of its strength, and is powerful in proportion to the number of silent witnesses. Of course, this line of argument does not apply in the case of some obscure detail, which may easily have been unknown to, or little remarked by some contemporary authors and quite neglected by others; nor, more particularly, does it apply to an epoch of which few monuments are extant, especially few historical writings. In the latter case, the fact of a universal silence on the part of all writers for a considerable period, may, indeed, weaken the certainty of a fact; in reality we do no more than ascertain thereby the absence of all positive evidence in its favour, other than a tradition of uncertain origin. However, once the lack of information is admitted, it is not permissible to advance a step further and present the silence of documents as proof of the falsity of the fact. Their silence in this case is not the negative argument as described above.

The rule laid down in the preceding paragraphs seems to lack no element of precision and practical advantage. But in applying it to ancient times some caution is necessary. In an age of widespread publicity like our own, no important event can occur in any part of the civilized world without being immediately known everywhere and to all. Its principal details, indeed, are at once so fixed in the memory of all interested parties that they will not easily be effaced within a long period. It is astonishing to see how easily some modern writers forget that the former conditions of mankind were very different. They seek to establish an irrefutable negative argument on the hypothesis that a given public fact of importance could not have been unknown to a certain person of education and refinement who lived shortly afterwards. Such writers might learn to be more cautious by recalling a series of curious historical facts. It is enough to remind our readers that when St. Augustine was created auxiliary Bishop of Hippo (391) he did not know, on his own avowal, that the sixth canon of the Council of Nice (325) forbade any consecration of this kind.

CONJECTURE IN HISTORY

Conjecture or hypothesis occurs in history when the study of documents leads us to suspect, beyond the facts which they directly reveal, other facts, so closely related to them that from a knowledge of the former we may proceed to that of the latter. Such facts are most frequently related as cause and effect. Let an important event happen. How shall we explain it? How was it brought about? Evidently by another fact or a group of other facts which constitute its cause or sufficient reason. These new facts are revealed in no historical documents, or at least no one has hitherto perceived them. At once the investigator sees that here it is possible to discover more than is known from the extant documents. With this hope he begins to read extensively, to set afoot various researches, to interrogate in every sense a great many works and all the monuments relating to the fact with which he has been keenly impressed, to study the persons concerned in it, or the age in which it took place; all this in order to recover the often almost invisible thread which connects this fact with details that were originally unnoticed or set aside as unimportant. Absorbed in intense meditation, sometimes made needless through a sudden illuminating insight which reveals at once the right path, he seeks with earnestness the truth that the positive evidence before him still withholds; he passes from one hypothesis to another; he calls to his aid all the treasures of his memory; thus reinforced he turns again to the study of the documents, and collects with minute care every hint or indication that may avail to demonstrate their accuracy or falsity. From such close verification it sometimes appears that the path first struck out was misleading and must be abandoned; often the investigator is led by this hard toil to modify more or less his original ideas; on the other hand, he sometimes meets with striking confirmation of them. Feeble rays which seemed at first quite uncertain grow in power and number until they seem a torch that pours a flood of light before which all uncertainty must vanish. In this way, also, many new aspects are revealed to the enraptured eyes of the investigator and make known to him a vast field of knowledge of the highest interest.

As already stated conjecture enables us to conclude from effect to cause, but it may also follow an inverse method and help us to conclude from cause to effect. This process, however, is generally less reliable in historical research, and calls for more caution and reserve than when it is applied to physical facts. In the latter case the agents are necessary causes; once their mode of operation is known it is possible to predict with almost absolute certainty their results in given conditions, and conjecture avails us merely to arouse the idea of an effect certain to follow, but which we have not yet seen produced. Moreover, generally speaking, in the physical sciences it is easy to imagine a variety of methods by which an hypothesis may be tried and its accuracy verified. In historical science the situation is not quite the same. It deals largely with the moral laws that regulate the actions of free beings, and these are far from being as invariable in their application as physical laws. Much caution is therefore requisite before risking any judgment as to what a man must have done in given circumstances, all the more as his acts may have been influenced by the free acts of others, or by a number of accidental circumstances now unknown to us, but which may have notably modified in a given case the ideas and ordinary sentiments of the person in question. Prudence is not less necessary when the hypothesis is principally based on analogy; i. e. when, to complete our knowledge concerning a fact, certain details of which are not known to us from historical documents, we have recourse to another fact strikingly similar to the one under consideration and conclude thence, in favour of the first, to a similarity of details that are known to us with certainty only in respect of the second fact. Nevertheless we must not reject absolutely this method of investigation; skilfully treated it may render valuable service. A conjecture appeals to the mind all the more convincingly when it solves at once a number of problems hitherto obscure and lacking correlation. Frequently enough, a given hypothesis, taken separately, yields only slight probability. On the other hand, full certitude often results from the moral convergence of several plausible solutions, all of which point in the same direction. Let it be added that in historical research we shall not easily obtain too many hints nor exceed the limit in verification; also that we must be ever watchful against our own preconceptions that easily tempt us to exaggerate the strength of a conclusion favourable to our hypothesis. Nor must we refuse to consider the arguments that tend to weaken or eliminate the latter. On the contrary, it is precisely these arguments that we must study with most care and sift in every sense so that, given their truth, we may abandon opportunely our too seductive conjecture, or at least modify it, again and again if needful, until eventually it acquire such accuracy and precision as to satisfy the most exacting, and be admitted by all as a scientific acquisition both new and solid. A final recommendation, meant to forewarn against the seductions of historical conjecture certain adventurous and inexperienced writers, will not be out of place here. Let them not yield to an illusion only too common among their kind, namely that by their imaginative power and their genius they are destined to advance notably the cause of historical science without acquiring by hard and painful schooling that large and varied and accurate knowledge which men call erudition. Not every learned historian makes brilliant discoveries on the basis of lucky hypotheses; but learning is generally requisite for such discoveries. In historical scholarship, as in all other walks of life, toil and patience are the usual price of success.

THE A PRIORI ARGUMENT

Historical criticism has at its disposition one other source of truth, the a priori argument, a delicate weapon, indeed, but very useful when confided to a well-trained hand. As used in history, this argument is based on the intrinsic nature of a fact, leaving aside for the time being all evidence for or against it. In presence of the fact thus bared of all extrinsic relations the a priori process undertakes to show that it does or does not conform to the general laws which regulate the world. These laws fall into three principal classes. The first comprises fundamental or metaphysical laws, e. g. the principle of contradiction, according to which there cannot co-exist in the same subject elements absolutely contradictory of one another, also the principle of causality, according to which no being exists without a cause or sufficient reason for its existence. The second class includes physical laws which govern the phenomena of the world of nature and the activity of the beings which compose it. To this class also belong the laws which govern spiritual natures and faculties that are independent, or in as far as they are independent, of the action of free will. The third class, finally, comprises the moral laws that govern the activity of free beings, considered as such. No one who has acquired, under good guidance, a little experience of the human heart, will deny the existence of this class of laws, i. e. that in given conditions and under certain influences we can forecast in free beings certain habitual activities. Thus, one well-ascertained moral law is that no man will love and follow evil for itself, save only when it appears to him in the guise of good; another such law is that a man, unless he be a monster of perversity, will naturally tell the truth if he have absolutely no interest in lying.

In what way, now, can these three classes of laws, rightly considered, help us to pronounce on the truth of an historic fact? First, if the fact in question present absolutely contradictory and irreconcilable details it must evidently be rejected without further examination. However, it must be clearly proved that there really is such absolute and irreconcilable contradiction between details presented for simultaneous acceptance. It is important, moreover, to ascertain with certainty whether the contradiction affects the substance of the fact, or only accidental circumstances wrongly connected with it in the imagination of the witness, as frequently happens with popular traditions. In such cases it is only details that need to be rejected, precisely as is done when dealing with more or less conflicting testimonies. Physical impossibility, i. e. manifest opposition between well known laws of nature and an historical statement, is also a conclusive argument against the acceptance of such a statement. Non-believers to the contrary notwithstanding, the possibility of miraculous intervention never seriously troubles at this point the judgment of Catholic critics. They know quite well when to admit, in a particular case, such a possibility. Nor are these cases very frequent. They are also aware that for the acceptance of miracles they must require a far greater amount of evidence than when it is question of purely natural facts. We have in the Catholic process of canonizationan excellent example of the manner in which the proof of miracles is handled by the tribunal which Catholics most respect. It may not be superfluous to add that prudence suggests a certain hesitation or reserve when the physical impossibility of a fact is in question. The laws of nature are not all so thoroughly understood that we run no danger of confounding a strange or new fact with one utterly impossible. The treatment of moral laws is something more delicate, since they are less absolute in application than physical laws. The mysteries of liberty are even more hidden than those of material nature. Consequently, before asserting the moral impossibility of a fact it is well to consider attentively whether there be not some circumstance, however trivial, which may have accidentally exercised on a given person an influence capable of making him act in a manner opposed to the habitual current of his ideas and sentiments. Such exceptions to moral laws, very rare in the multitude, appear more frequently among individuals. Care must be taken, however, not to admit them without grave reason. It is in support of, or in opposition to a conjecture that the a priori argument is mostly used; frequently enough conjecture is confounded with it. Indeed, it is often through the effort to reproduce mentally what certain persons in given conditions must have done, that we finally hit on what they did do; the next step is the collection of more precise evidence such as may confirm and establish quite satisfactorily the truth that we first saw with the eye of the imagination. We should always remember, however, that mere possibility or non-repugnance must not be considered the equivalent of positive probability, any more than mere ignorance of the causes of a fact is equivalent to its improbability, still less its impossibility, when it is sufficiently attested by direct evidence. Superficial or passionate minds are very much exposed to this kind of confusion.

In formulating, as has been done above, the proper rules for the guidance of the mind in its search after historical truth, it should be repeated that the mind must bring to this pursuit certain preliminary qualities and dispositions indicated at the beginning of this article, the first and most essential of which is a sincere and constant love of truth. Nothing can take the place of this sentiment. It is the rule of rules, the vital and efficient principle in all the processes of criticism. Without it they are quite sterile.

The Method/6: History of exegesis.

Sat, 27 May 2006 15:53:15 GMT

The history of exegesis shows its first beginnings, its growth, its decay, and its restoration. It points out the methods which may be safely recommended, and warns against those which rather corrupt than explain the Sacred Scriptures. In general, we may distinguish between Jewish and Christian exegesis.

JEWISH EXEGESIS

The Jewish interpretation of the Scriptures began almost at the time of Moses, as may be inferred from traces found both in the more recent canonical and the apocryphal books. But in their method of interpretation the Palestinian Jews differed from the Hellenistic.

(I) Palestinian Exegesis

All Jewish interpreters agree in admitting a double sense of Scripture, a literal and a mystical, though we must not understand these terms in their strictly technical sense.

(a) The literal exposition is mainly represented by the so-called Chaldee paraphrases or Targumim, which came into use after the Captivity, because few of the returning exiles understood the reading of the Sacred Books in their original Hebrew. The first place among these paraphrases must be given to the Targum Onkelos, which appears to have been in use as early as the first century after Christ, though it attained its present form only about A.D. 300-400. It explains the Pentateuch, adhering in its historical and legal parts to a Hebrew text which is, at times, nearer to the original of the Septuagint than the Massoretic, but straying in the prophetic and poetical portions so far from the original as to leave it hardly recognizable.
- Another paraphrase of the Pentateuch is the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, or the Jerusalem Targum. Written after the seventh century of our era, it is valueless both from a critical and an exegetical point of view, since its explanations are wholly arbitrary.
- The Targum Jonathan, or the paraphrase of the Prophets, began to be written in the first century, at Jerusalem; but it owes its present form to the Jerusalem rabbis of the fourth century. The historical books are a fairly faithful translation from the original text; in the poetical portions and the later Prophets, the paraphrase often presents fiction rather than truth.
- The paraphrase of the Hagiographa deals with the Book of Job, the Psalms, the Canticle of Canticles, Proverbs, Ruth, the Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, and Paralipomena. It was not written before the seventh century, and is so replete with rabbinic fiction that it hardly deserves the notice of the serious interpreter. The notes on Cant., Ruth, Lam., Eccles., and Esth. rest on public tradition; those on the other Hagiographa express the opinions of one or more private teachers; the paraphrase of Par. is the most recent and the least reliable.

(b) The method of arguing employed in the First Gospel and the Epistle to the Hebrews shows that the Jews before the coming of Christ admitted a mystical sense of Scripture; the same may be inferred from the letter of Pseudo-Aristeas and the fragment of Aristobulus. The Gospel narrative, e.g., Matt., 23, 16 sqq., testifies that the Pharisees endeavoured to derive their arbitrary traditions from the Law by way of the most extraordinary contortions of its real meaning. The mystic interpretation of Scripture practised by the Jewish scholars who lived after the time of Christ, may be reduced to the following systems.

(aa) The Talmudists ascribed to every text several thousand legitimate meanings belonging either to the Halakhah or the Haggadah. The Halakhah contained the legal inferences derived from the Mosaic Law, all of which the Talmudists referred back to Moses himself; the Haggadah was the collection of all the material gathered by the Talmudists from history, archæology, geography, grammar, and other extra-Scriptural sources, not excluding the most fictitious ones. In their commentaries, these writers distinguished a twofold sense, the proper, or primitive, and the derivative. The former was subdivided into the plain and the recondite sense; the latter, into logical deductions, and inferences based on the way in which the Hebrew words were written or on association of ideas. As to the hermeneutical rules followed by the Talmudists, they were reduced to seven by Hillel, to thirteen by Ismael, and to thirty-two by R. Jose of Galilee. In substance, many of these principles do not differ from those prevalent in our day. The interpreter is to be guided by the relation of the genus to the species, of what is clear to what is obscure, of verbal and real parallelisms to their respective counterparts, of the example to the exemplified, of what is logically coherent to what appears to be contradictory, of the scope of the writer to his literary production. The commentaries written according to these principles are called Midrashim (plural of Midrash); the following must be mentioned: Mekhilta (measure, rule, law) explains Ex., 12, 1-23, 30; 31, 12-17; 35, 1-4, and is variously assigned to the second or third century, or even to more recent times; it gives the Halakhah of the ceremonial rites and laws, but contains also material belonging to the Haggadah.
- Siphra explains the Book of Leviticus; Siphri, the Books of Numbers and Deuteronomy; Pesiqta, the Sabbatical sections. - Rabboth (plural of Rabba) is a series of Midrashim explaining the single books of the Pentateuch and the five Megilloth or the five Hagiographa which were read in the synagogues; the allegorical, anagogical, and moral sense is preferred to the literal, and the fables and sayings of the rabbis are highly valued.
- Tanchuma is the first continuous commentary on the Pentateuch; it contains some valuable traditions, especially of Palestinian origin.
- Yalqut Simoni contains annotations on all the books of the Old Testament.

(bb) The Caraites are related to the Talmudists, as the Sadducees were related to the Pharisees. They rejected the Talmudic traditions, just as the Sadducees refused to acknowledge the authority of the Pharisaic teaching. The Caraites derive their origin from Anan, born about A.D. 700, who founded this sect out of spite, because he had not obtained the headship of the Jews outside Palestine. From Bagdad, the place of its birth, the sect soon spread into Palestine and especially into the Crimea, so that about A.D. 750 it occasioned what is practically a schism among the Jews. The Caraites reject all tradition, and admit only the Mosaic Law. By means of Ismael's thirteen hermeneutical rules, they establish the literal sense of Scripture, and this they supplement by means of the syllogism and the consensus of the Synagogue. Owing to their rejection of authentic interpretation and their claim of private judgment, they have been called by some writers "Jewish Protestants".

(II) Hellenistic Exegesis

Generally speaking, the Alexandrian Jews were favourable to the allegorical explanation of Scripture, thus endeavouring to harmonize the inspired records with the principles of Greek philosophy. Eusebius has preserved specimens of this Hellenistic exegesis in the fragments of Aristobulus and in the letter of Pseudo-Aristeas, both of whom wrote in the second century B.C. Philo attests that the Essenes adhered to the same exegetical principles ; but Philo (died A.D. 39) himself is the principal representative of this manner of interpretation. According to Philo, Abraham symbolizes virtue acquired by doctrine; Isaac, inborn virtue; Jacob, virtue acquired by practice and meditation; Egypt denotes the body; Chanaan, piety; the dove, Divine wisdom, etc.

The Cabbalists exceeded the preceding interpreters in their allegorical explanation of Scripture. Traces of their system are found in the last pre-Christian centuries, but its full development did not take place till the end of the first millennium B.C. In accordance with their name, which is derived from a word meaning "to receive", the Cabbalists claimed to possess a secret doctrine received by way of tradition from Moses, to whom it had been revealed on Mount Sinai. They maintained that all earthly things had their heavenly prototypes or ideals; they believed that the literal sense of Scripture included the allegorical sense, as the body includes the soul, though only the initiated could reach this veiled meaning. Three methods helped to attain it: Gematria takes the numerical value of all the letters which make up a word or an expression and derives the hidden meaning from the resultant number; Notaricon forms new entire words out of the single letters of a word, or it forms a word out of the initial letters of the several words of a phrase; Temura consists in the transposition of the letters which make up a word, or in the systematic substitution of other letters. Thus they transpose the consonants of mal'akhi (my angel; Exodus 23:23) into Mikha'el (Michael). There is a twofold system of substitution: the first, Athbash, substitutes the last letter of the alphabet for the first, the second last for the second, etc.; the second system substitutes the letters of the second half of the alphabet for the corresponding letters of the first half. The Cabbalistic doctrine has been gathered in two principal books, one of which is called "Yeçirah", the other "Zohar".

We may add the names of the more prominent Jewish commentators: Saadya Gaon (b. 892; d. 942), in the Fayûm, Egypt, translated the whole of the Old Testament into Arabic and wrote commentaries on the same.
- Moses ben Samuel ibn Chiqitilla, of Cordova, explained the whole of the Old Testament in Arabic, between A.D. 1050 and 1080; only fragments of his work remain. - Rabbi Solomon ben Isaac, known also under the names Rashi and Yarchi (b. about 1040, at Troyes; d. 1105), explained the whole of the Old Testament, except Par. and Esd., according to its literal sense, though he did not neglect the allegorical; he shows an anti-Christian tendency.
- Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra, often called Aben Ezra (b. about 1093 at Toledo, Spain; d. 1167 on the Island of Rhodes). Among his many other works he left an incomplete commentary on the Pentateuch and other parts of the Old Testament; he renders the literal sense faithfully without excluding the allegorical, e.g. in Cant.
- Rabbi David Kimchi, called also Radak (b. 1170 at Narbonne; d. 1230), explained nearly all the books of the Old Testament in the literal sense, without excluding the spiritual; his anti-Christian feeling shows itself in his treatment of the Messianic prophecies.
- Rabbi Moyses ben Maimon, commonly called Maimonides or Rambam (b. 1135 at Cordova, Spain; d. 1204 in Egypt), became a convert to Mohammedanism in order to escape persecution, then fled to Egypt, where he lived as a Jew, and where, for the guidance of those who could not harmonize their philosophical principles with the teaching of Sacred Scripture, he wrote his celebrated "Guide of the Perplexed", a work in which he presents some of the Biblical stories as mere literary expressions of certain ideas.
- Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel (d. 1508), explained the Pentateuch, the prophetical books, and Daniel, adding often irrelevant matter and arguments against Christian revelation. - Rabbi Elias Levita (d. after 1542), is known as one of the best Jewish grammarians, and as the author of the work "Tradition of Tradition" in which he gives the history of Massoretic criticism.
- Among the Caraite interpreters we must mention: Rabbi Jacob ben Ruben (twelfth century), who wrote brief scholia on all the books of Scripture; Rabbi Aaron ben Joseph (d. 1294), author of a literal commentary on the Pentateuch, the earlier Prophets, Isaias, the Psalms, and the Book of Job; Rabbi Aaron ben Elia (fourteenth century), who explained the Pentateuch.
- Among the Cabbalists, Rabbi Moyses Nachmanides, also known as Ramban (d.about 1280), deserves mention on account of his explanation of the Pentateuch, which is several times quoted by Paul of Burgos.
- The principal Jewish commentaries have been reprinted in the so-called Rabbinic Bibles which appeared at Venice, 1517; Venice, 1525, 1548, 1568, 1617; Basle, 1618; Amsterdam, 1724.

CHRISTIAN EXEGESIS

For the sake of clearness we may distinguish three great periods in Christian exegesis: the first ends about A.D. 604; the second brings us up to the Council of Trent; the third embraces the time after the Council of Trent.

(I) The Patristic Period

The patristic period embraces three distinct classes of exegetes, the Apostolic and apologetical writers, the Greek Fathers, the Latin Fathers. The amount of exegetical literature produced by these three classes varies greatly; but its character is so distinctively proper to each of the three classes that we can hardly consider them under the same heading.

(a) The Apostolic Fathers and Apologists

The early Christians made use of the Scriptures in their religious meetings as the Jews employed them in the synagogues, adding however the writings of the New Testament more or less completely to those of the Old. The Apostolic Fathers did not write any professional commentaries; their use of Scripture was incidental and casual rather than technical; but their citations and allusions show unmistakably their acceptance of some of the New-Testament writings. Neither do we find among the apologists' writings of the second century any professional treatises on Sacred Scripture. St. Justin and St. Irenæus are noted for their able defence of Christianity, and their arguments are often based on texts of Scripture. St. Hippolytus appears to have been the first Christian theologian who attempted an explanation of the whole of Scripture; his method we learn from the remaining fragments of his writings, especially of his commentary on Daniel. It may be said in general that these earliest Christian writers admitted both the literal and the allegorical sense of Scripture. The latter sense appears to have been favoured by St. Clement of Rome, Barnabas, St. Justin, St. Irenæus, while the literal seems to prevail in the writings of St. Hippolytus, Tertullian, the Clementine Recognitions, and among the Gnostics.

(b) The Greek Fathers

The Encyclical "Providentissimus Deus" refers mainly to the Greek Fathers when it says: "When there arose, in various sees, catechetical and theological schools, of which the most celebrated were those of Alexandria and of Antioch, there was little taught in those schools but what was contained in the reading, the interpretation, and the defence of the Divine written word. From them came forth numbers of Fathers and writers whose laborious studies and admirable writings have justly merited for the three following centuries the appellation of the golden age of Biblical exegesis.

The School of Alexandria.
Tradition loves to trace the origin of the Alexandrian School back to the Evangelist St. Mark. Be that as it may, towards the end of the second century we find St. Pantænus president of the school; none of his writings are extant, but Eusebius and St. Jerome testify that he explained Sacred Scripture. Clement of Alexandria ranks him among those who did not write any book; he died before 200. His successor was Clement of Alexandria, who had first been his disciple, and after 190 his colleague. Of his writings are extant "Cohortatio ad Gentiles", "Pædagogus", and "Stromata"; also the Latin translation of part of his eight exegetical books. Clement was followed by Origen (b. 185; d. 254), the principal glory of the whole school. Among his works, the greater part of which is lost, his "Hexapla" and his threefold explanation of Scripture, by way of scholia, homilies, and commentaries, deserve special notice. It was Origen, too, who fully developed the hermeneutical principles which distinguish the Alexandrian School, though they are not applied in their entirety by any other Father. He applied Plato's distinction of body, soul, and spirit to the Scriptures, admitting in them a literal, a moral, and a mystical or spiritual sense. Not that the whole of Scripture has this triple sense. In some parts the literal sense may be neglected, in others the allegorical may be lacking, while in others again the three senses may be found. Origen believes that the apparent discrepancies of the Evangelists can be explained only by means of the spiritual sense, that the whole ceremonial and ritual law must be explained mystically, and that all the prophetic utterances about Judea, Jerusalem, Israel, etc., are to be referred to the Kingdom of Heaven and its citizens, to the good and bad angels, etc. Among the eminent writers of the Alexandrian School must be classed Julius Africanus (c. 215), St. Dionysius the Great (d. 265), St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (d. 270), Eusebius of Cæsarea (d. 340), St. Athanasius (d. 373), Didymus of Alexandria (d. 397), St. Epiphanius (d. 403), St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444), and finally also the celebrated Cappadocian Fathers, St. Basil the Great (d. 379), St. Gregory Nazianzen (d. 389), and St. Gregory of Nyssa (d. 394). The last three, however, have many points in common with the School of Antioch.

The School of Antioch.
The Fathers of Antioch adhered to hermeneutical principles which insist more on the so-called grammatico-historical sense of the Sacred Books than on their moral and allegorical meaning. It is true that Theodore of Mopsuestia urged the literal sense to the detriment of the typical, believing that the New Testament applies some of the prophecies to the Messias only by way of accommodation, and that on account of their allegories the Canticle of Canticles, together with a few other books, should not be admitted into the Canon. But generally speaking, the Fathers of Antioch and Eastern Syria, the latter of whom formed the School of Nisibis or Edessa, steered a course midway between Origen and Theodore, avoiding the excesses of both, and thus laying the foundation of the hermeneutical principles which the Catholic exegete ought to follow. The principal representatives of the School of Antioch are St. John Chrysostom (d. 407); Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 429), condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Synod on account of his explanation of Job and the Canticle of Canticles, and in certain respects the forerunner of Nestorius; St. Isidore of Pelusium, in Egypt (d. 434), numbered among the Antiochene commentators on account of his Biblical explanations inserted in about two thousand of his letters; Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus in Syria (d. 458), known for his Questions on the Octateuch, the Books of Kings and Par., and for his Commentaries on the Psalms, the Cant., the Prophets, and the Epistles of St. Paul. The School of Edessa glories in the names of Aphraates who flourished in the first half of the fourth century, St. Ephraem (d. 373), Cyrillonas, Balæus, Rabulas, Isaac the Great, etc.

(c) The Latin Fathers.

The Latin Fathers, too, admitted a twofold sense of Scripture, insisting variously now on the one, now on the other. We can only enumerate their names: Tertullian (b. 160), St. Cyprian (d. 258), St. Victorinus (d. 297), St. Hilary (d. 367), Marius Victorinus (d. 370), St. Ambrose (d. 397), Rufinus (d. 410), St. Jerome (d. 420), St. Augustine (d. 430), Primasius (d. 550), Cassiodorus (d. 562), St. Gregory the Great (d. 604). St. Hilary, Marius Victorinus, and St. Ambrose depend, to a certain extent, on Origen and the Alexandrian School; St. Jerome and St. Augustine are the two great lights of the Latin Church on whom depend most of the Latin writers of the Middle Ages; at the end of the works of St. Ambrose is inserted a commentary on the Pauline Epistles which is now ascribed to Ps.-Ambrose or Ambrosiaster.

(II) Second Period of Exegesis, A.D. 604-1546

We consider the following nine centuries as one period of exegesis, not on account of their uniform productiveness or barrenness in the field of Biblical study, nor on account of their uniform tendency of developing any particular branch of exegesis, but rather on account of their characteristic dependence on the work of the Fathers. Whether they synopsized or amplified, whether they analysed or derived new conclusions from old premises, they always started from the patristic results as their basis of operation. Though during this period the labours of the Greek writers can in no way compare with those of the Latin, still it will be found convenient to consider them apart.

(a) The Greek Writers

The Greek writers who lived between the sixth and the thirteenth centuries composed partly commentaries, partly compilations. The Bishops of Cæsarea, Andreas and Arethas, who are variously assigned to the fifth and sixth, or to the eighth and ninth centuries, explained the Apocalypse; Procopius of Gaza (524) wrote on the Octateuch, Is., and Prov.; Hesychius of Jerusalem wrote probably about the end of the sixth century on Lev., Pss., Is., the Minor Prophets, and the concordance of the Gospels; Anastasius Sinaita (d. 599) left twelve books of allegorical comments on the hexaemeron; Olympiodorus (d. 620) and St. Maximus (d. 662) left more sober explanations than Anastasius, though they are not free from allegorism; St. John Damascene (d. 760) has many Scriptural explanations in his dogmatic and polemical works, besides writing a commentary on the Pauline Epistles, in which he follows Theodoret and St. Cyril of Alexandria, but especially St. Chrysostom. Photius (d. 891), cumenius (tenth century), Theophylactus (d. 1107), and Euthymius (d. 1118) were adherents of the Greek Schism, but their exegetical works deserve attention.
- The above-named compilations are technically called catenæ. They furnish continuous explanations of various books of Scripture in such a way that they give after each text the various patristic explanations either in full or by way of a synopsis, usually adding the name of the particular Father whose opinion they had copied. Several of these catenæ have been printed, such as Nicephorus, on the Octateuch (Leipzig, 1772); B. Corderius, on the Pss. (Antwerp, 1643-1646); A. Schottius, on Prov. (Lyons, 1633); Angelo Mai, on Dan. (Rome, 1831); Cramer, on the New Testament (Oxford, 1638-1640).

(b) The Latin Writers

The Latin writers of this epoch may be divided into two classes: the pre-Scholastic and the Scholastic. The two are not of equal importance, but they are too different to be treated under the same heading.

The Pre-Scholastic Period.
Among the many writers of this age who were instrumental in spreading the Biblical expositions of the Fathers, the following are deserving of notice: St. Isidore of Seville (d. 636), the Venerable Bede (d. 735), Alcuin (d. 804), Haymo of Halberstadt (d. 855), Rhabanus Maurus (d. 856), Walafrid Strabo (d. 849), who compiled the glossa ordinaria, Anselm of Laon (d. 1117), author of the glossa interlinearis, Rupert of Deutz (d. 1135), Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141), Peter Abelard (d. 1142), and St. Bernard (d. 1153). The particular writings of each of these great men will be found under their respective names.

The Scholastics.
Without drawing a mathematical line of distinction between the writers of this period, we may say that the works which appeared in its beginning are remarkable for their logical and theological explanations; the subsequent works showed more philological erudition; and the final ones began to offer material for textual criticism. The first of these groups of writings coincides with the so-called golden age of scholastic theology which prevailed about the thirteenth century. Its principal representatives are so well known that we need only mention their names. Peter Lombard rightly heads the list (d. 1164), for he appears to be the first who fully introduced into his exegetical work the scholastic divisions, distinctions, definitions, and method of argumentation. Next follow Card. Stephen Langton (d. 1228), author of the chapter-divisions as they exist to-day in our Bibles; Card. Hugh of Saint-Cher (d. 1260), author of the so-called "Dominican Correctory", and of the first Biblical concordance; Blessed Albertus Magnus (d. 1280); St. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274); St. Bonaventure (d. 1274); Raimondo Martini (d. 1290), who wrote the polemical work known as "Pugio Fidei" against the Moors and Jews; a number of other names might be added, but they are of less importance.

In 1311 Pope Clement V ordained, in the Council of Vienne, that chairs of the Oriental languages were to be erected in the principal universities, so that the Jews and Mohammedans might be refuted from their own sources. The philological results of this enactment may be seen in the celebrated "Postilla" of Nicholas of Lyra (d. 1340), a work which received notable additions by Paul of Burgos (d. 1435). Alphonsus Tostatus, called also Abulensis (d. 1455), and Denys the Carthusian (d. 1471), returned to the more scholastic method of interpretation; Laurentius Valla (d. 1457) applied the results of his Greek studies to the explanation of the New Testament, though he is unduly opposed to the Latin Vulgate.

Not to insist on the less illustrious exegetes of this period, we may pass on to those who applied to Scripture not merely their philological erudition, but also their acumen for textual criticism in its incipient state. Aug. Justiniani edited an Octapla of the Psalter (Genoa, 1516); Card. Ximenez finished his Complutensian Polyglot (1517); Erasmus published the first edition of his Greek New Testament (1517); Card. Cajetan (d. 1535) attempted an explanation of the Scriptures according to the original texts; Santes Pagninus (d. 1541) translated the Old and the New Testament anew from their original texts; a number of other scholars worked in the same field, publishing either new translations, or scholia, or again commentaries in which new light was shed on one or more books of the Sacred Scriptures.

(III) Third Period of Exegesis

A few decades before the Council of Trent, Protestantism began to make its inroads into various parts of the Church, and its results were felt not merely in the field of dogmatic theology, but also in Biblical literature. We shall, therefore, have to distinguish after this between Catholic and Protestant exegetes.

(a) Catholic Exegetes

Catholic exegesis subsequent to the Council of Trent may be divided into three stages: the first may be regarded as the terminus of the Scholastic period; the second forms the transition from the old to the new exegesis; and the third comprises the exegetical work of recent times. The first stage begins about the time of the Council of Trent, and ends about 1660; the second reaches to the beginning of the nineteenth century; and the third deals with our own times.

The Golden Age of Catholic Exegesis, 1546-1660.
We have spoken above of the golden age of Christian exegesis, as distinct from the exegesis of the Jews; the following period is by some writers called the golden age of Catholic exegesis, as distinct from the Biblical work done by Protestants. During this period more than 350 Catholic writers were engaged in Biblical study; we can only classify the work done, and indicate some of the principal writers engaged in it. The revised Clementine edition of the Vulgate appeared in 1592; the Antwerp Polyglot, in the years 1569-1572; the Paris Polyglot, in the years 1629-1645.
- The introductory questions were treated by Sixtus Senensis (d. 1569), Christ. Adrichomius (d. 1585), Flaminius Nobilius (d. 1590), Ben. Arias Montanus (d. 1598), Petrus Morinus (d. 1608), Lucas Brugensis (d. 1619), de Tena (d. 1622), Joannes Morinus d. 1659), and Franc. Quaresmius (d. 1660).
- All or most of the books of Scripture were interpreted by Sa (d. 1596), Mariana (d. 1624), Tirinus (d. 1636), a Lapide (d. 1637), Gordon (d. 1641), Menochius (d. 1655), de la Haye (1661).
- Select books of both the Old and the New Testament were commented upon by Jansenius Gandavensis (d. 1575), Maldonatus (d. 1583), Ribera (d. 1591), Serarius (d. 1609), and Lorinus (d. 1634).
- Certain books of the Old Testament were explained by Andreas Masius (d. 1573), Forerius (d. 1581), Pradus (d. 1595), Villalpandus (d. 1608), Genebrardus (d. 1597), Agellius (d. 1608), Pererius (d. 1610), Card. Bellarmine (d. 1621), Sanctius (d. 1628), Malvenda (d. 1628), de Pineda (d. 1637), Bonfrerius (d. 1642), de Muis (d. 1644), Ghislerius (d. 1646), de Salazar (d. 1646), and Corderius (d. 1655).
- Finally, all or part of the books of the New Testament found interpreters in Salmeron (d. 1585), Card. Toletus (d. 1596), Estius (d. 1613), de Alcasar (d. 1613), and Ben. Justiniani (d. 1622). It must be noted here that several of the foregoing writers admit a multiple literal sense; hence they represent various explanations of the same words as equally true.

The Transition Period, 1660-1800.
During this period, historical studies were more cultivated than scholastic. It is here that we meet with the father of the historical and critical introduction, Richard Simon (d. 1712). Frassen (d. 1711) adopts more of the scholastic method, but there is a return to the historical in the case of Bern. Lamy (d. 1715), Daniel Huet (d. 1721), and Nat. Alexander (d. 1722). The bibliography of exegesis was treated by Bartolocci (d. 1687), Imbonatus (d. 1694), Dupin (d. 1719), Lelong (d. 1721), and Desmolets (d. 1760). Old documents belonging to Scriptural studies were edited by B. de Montfaucon (d. 1741), P. Sabatier (d. 1742), and Jos. Blanchinus (d. 1764), while Calmet (d. 1757) and Bossuet (d. 1704) are noted for their exegetical work. Bukentop (d. 1710) has recourse to the original texts in order to explain doubtful or obscure readings in the Vulgate. If one compares this period with the preceding, one is struck with its poverty in great Biblical scholars; but textual criticism is fairly well represented by Houbigant (d. 1784) and de Rossi (d. 1831).

Recent Times.
The perturbed state of the Church at the beginning of the nineteenth century interfered with the peaceful pursuance of any kind of ecclesiastical study. After peace had returned, the study of Sacred Scripture flourished more lustily than ever. In three respects, the modern commentary surpasses that of any past age: First, the interpreter attends in our times not merely to the immediate context of a phrase or a verse, but to the whole literary form of the book, and to the purpose for which it was written; secondly, he is assisted by a most abundant wealth of historical information practically unknown in former days; thirdly, the philology of the sacred tongues has been highly cultivated during the last century, and its rich results are laid under contribution by the modern commentator. It would lead us too far here were we to rehearse the history of all the recent excavations and discoveries, the contents of the various tablets, papyri, and ostraka, the results of literary criticism, archæology , and history of religion; it must suffice to say that the modern commentator can leave none of these various sources of information unnoticed in so far as they bear on his special subject of investigation. It would be invidious to mention only some names of modern scholars, excluding others; still, they cannot all be enumerated. We may draw attention, however, to the French series of commentaries entitled "La Sainte Bible avec Commentaires"; the Latin "Cursus" published by Fathers Cornely, Knabenbauer, and von Hummelauer; the "Revue biblique" published by the Dominican Fathers; the "Biblische Zeitschrift"; the "Biblische Studien"; and the "Dictionnaire de la Bible". While the two series of commentaries offer the main points of information on each particular book of the Bible, as far as it could be ascertained at the time of their respective publication, the periodicals keep the reader informed concerning any new investigation or result worth knowing.

(b) Protestant Exegetes

It will be found convenient to divide Protestant exegesis into three periods. The first embraces the age of the so-called Reformers, 1517-1600; the second reaches down to the beginning of rationalism, 1600-1750; the third embraces the subsequent time.

Early Reformers.
The early Reformers did not introduce any new principles of interpretation. They may speak, at times, as if they admitted only the literal sense, but Melanchthon and Flacius Illyricus insist also on the importance of the allegorical. Their teaching concerning the multiplicity of the literal sense finds practical expression in their interpretation. The principle of free inquiry is claimed by the Reformers themselves, but neither theoretically nor practically granted to their followers. Both Luther's (d. 1546) and Calvin's (d. 1564) principles rest in the end on subjective considerations.

From the Reformers to the Rationalists.
In order to secure some unity of interpretation, the first followers of the Reformers introduced the "analogy of faith" as the supreme hermeneutic rule. But since they claimed that Scripture was their rule of faith, they experienced difficulty in properly applying their canon of hermeneutics. Finally, they were forced to regard the contents of their symbols as first principles which needed no proof. But the writers of this period produced some noteworthy treatises on Biblical antiquities. Thus Lightfoot (d. 1675) and Schöttgen (d. 1751) illustrated New Testament questions from rabbinic sources; Reland (d. 1718) wrote on sacred geography; Bochart (d. 1667), on natural history; the two Buxtorfs, father (d. 1629) and son (d. 1664), Goodwin (d. 1665), and Spencer (d. 1695) investigated certain civil and religious questions of the Jews. Among those who explained the sacred text, the following are worthy of mention: Drusius (d. 1616), de Dieu (d. 1642), Grotius (d. 1645), Vitringa (d. 1722), Cocceius (Koch, d. 1669), and Clericus (d. 1736). Brian Walton (d. 1658) is celebrated for the edition of the London Polyglot, which easily surpasses all previous works of the same kind. The "Critici sacri" (London, 1660; Frankfort, 1696; Amsterdam, 1698), collected by John and Richard Pearsons, and the "Synopsis criticorum" (London, 1669; Frankfort, 1709), edited by Matt. Polus, may be regarded as fairly good summaries of the exegetical work of the seventeenth century.

After the Rise of Rationalism.
The Arminians, Socinians, the English Deists, and the French Encyclopedists refused to be bound by the "analogy of faith" as their supreme hermeneutic rule. They followed the principle of private judgment to its last consequences. The first to adhere to the principle of Biblical rationalism was Semler (d. 1791), who denied the Divine character of the Old Testament, and explained away the New by his "system of accommodation", according to which Christ and the Apostles only conformed to the views of the Jews. To discover the true teaching of Christ, we must first eliminate the Jewish doctrines, which may be learned from the books of Josephus, Philo, and other Jewish writers.
- Kant (d. 1804) destroyed the small remnant of supernatural revelation by his system of "authentic interpretation"; we must not seek to find what the Biblical writers said, but what they should have said in order to remain within the range of the natural Kantian religion.
- But this did violence to the historical character of the Biblical records; H. E. G. Paulus (d. 1851) apparently does justice to the historicity of the Bible, but removes from it all miracles by means of his "notiologico-philological" or "psychological" system of interpretation. He distinguishes between the fact or the occurrence to which the witnesses testify, and the judgment of the fact or the particular view which the witnesses took of the occurrence. In the New Testament, e.g., we have a record of the views of the Disciples concerning the events in Christ's life.
- This explanation left too much of Christ's history and doctrine intact. Hence David F. Strauss (d. 1875) applied to the New Testament the system of Biblical mythicism, which Semler, Eichhorn, Vater, and de Wette had employed in their explanation of part of the Old Testament; about thirty years after its first appearance, Strauss's system was popularized by E. Renan. A great many Protestant commentators now began to grant the existence of myths in the Sacred Scriptures, though they might adhere to the general outlines of the Jewish and the Gospel history. The principles which are at least implicitly maintained by the mythicists, are the following: First, miracles and prophecies are impossible; secondly, our religious sources are not really historical; thirdly, the history and religion of all nations begin with myths, the Christian religion not excluded; fourthly, the Messianic idea of the New Testament was adopted from the Old, and all the traditional traits of the Messias were attributed to Jesus of Nazareth by a really myth-forming process.
- But as it was hard to explain the growth of this whole Christian mythology within the narrow space of forty or fifty years, Ferd. Christ. Baur (d. 1860) reconstructed the origin of the Christian Church, making it a compromise between judaizing and universalistic Christians, or between the Petrine and the Pauline parties. Only Rom., I and II Cor., Gal. are authentic; the other books of the New Testament were written during or after the amalgamation of the two parties, which occurred in the second century. The adherents of this opinion form the New Tübingen or the Critical School.
- It is true that Baur's theory of the late origin of the New Testament has been abandoned by the great majority of Protestant commentators who have ranked themselves among the followers of Harnack; but the opinion that the Sacred Books of the New Testament lack historicity in its true sense, is more common than ever.

In the light of this fact, we have to distinguish between the various classes of exegetical works in order to give a true estimate of the value possessed by the numberless recent Protestant contributions to Biblical literature: their philological and historical studies are, as a general rule, of great assistance to the commentator; the same must be said of their work done in textual criticism; but their commentaries are not sound enough to elicit commendation. Some of them adhere professedly to the principles of the most advanced criticism; others belong to the ranks of the conservatives; others again are more concerned with grammatical and philological than theological questions; others, finally, try to do the impossible by combining the conservative with the advanced critical principles.

When we are asked what attitude the Catholic reader ought to maintain with regard to these numerous Protestant commentaries, we answer in the words of Leo XIII, found in the Encyclical "Providentissimus Deus": "Though the studies of non-Catholics, used with prudence, may sometimes be of use to the Catholic student, he should, nevertheless, bear well in mind - as the Fathers also teach in numerous passages - that the sense of Holy Scripture can nowhere be found incorrupt outside of the Church, and cannot be expected to be found in writers who, being without the true faith, only gnaw the bark of the Sacred Scripture, and never attain its pith."

The Method/5: SACRED RHETORIC

Sat, 27 May 2006 00:26:31 GMT

The genuine teaching of Sacred Scripture is useful to all, but few have the time necessary to investigate it. It is for this reason that Scripture students express their results in writing so as to share their light with as many as possible. Sixtus Senensis enumerates twenty-four various forms in which such Scriptural explanations may be expressed. But some of these methods are no longer in use; others may be reduced to fewer and more general heads. According to the end which the writer has in view, they may be divided into theoretical and practical or historico-dogmatic and moral treatises; considering the persons for whom they were written, they are either popular or learned expositions; but if their literary form be made the basis of division, which is the common and more rational principle of division, there are five kinds of Biblical exegesis: the version, the paraphrase, the gloss and scholion, the dissertation, and the commentary.

(1) THE VERSION

The version is the translation of the Bible from one language into another, especially from its original into the vernacular language. A version made directly from the original text is called immediate, while it is mediate if it be based directly on another version. It is verbal if it renders the very words; in ease it renders the meaning rather than the words, it is a free version. A good version must be faithful and clear, i.e. it must express the thought without any alteration; it must reproduce the literary form, whether it be prosaic or poetic, figurative or proper; and it must be easily intelligible, as far as the character of the two languages in question permits this. This shows the difficulty of making a good translation; for it implies not merely a thorough knowledge of the two languages, but also an accurate insight into the genuine meaning of Sacred Scripture.

(2) THE PARAPHRASE

The paraphrase expresses the genuine sense of Scripture in continuous and more expansive form. The version removes the difficulties which arise from the fact that the Bible is written in a foreign language; the paraphrase elucidates also the difficulties of thought. For it supplies the transitions and middle terms omitted by the author; it changes the foreign and involved phraseology of the original into idiomatic sentences; it amplifies the brief statements of the original by adding definitions, indicating causes and reasons, and illustrating the text by reference to parallel passages. A good paraphrase must render the thought of the original most accurately, and must at the same time be brief and clear; there is danger, in this form of exposition, of rendering obscure what has been clearly said in the original text.

3) THE GLOSS AND SCHOLION

The version removes from the Scripture text the difficulties connected with the foreign language, the paraphrase elucidates the difficulties of thought; but there are still other difficulties connected with the Bible, which must be removed by means of notes. One kind of brief notes, called glosses, explains the difficulties connected with the words; another kind, called scholia, deals with variant readings, verbal difficulties, unknown persons, countries, and things, and with the connection of thought. Two celebrated series of glosses deserve special mention: the glossa ordinaria by Walafrid Strabo, and the glossa interlinearis by Anselm of Laon.

(4) THE DISSERTATION

Origen, Eusebius, and St. Jerome were asked by their contemporaries concerning certain difficult texts of Scripture; a similar need of special elucidations of particular passages has been felt by the faithful of all ages. The answers to such questions we may call dissertations or treatises. It is understood that only really important texts ought to be made the subject of such scholarly explanations. In order to satisfy the inquisitive reader, the essayist should examine the text critically; he should state its various explanations given by other writers and weigh them in the light of the principles of hermeneutics; finally, he should give the true solution of the difficulty, prove it by solid arguments, and defend it against the principal exceptions.

(5) THE COMMENTARY

The commentary is a continuous, full, learned, well-reasoned, and complete explanation, touching upon not merely the more difficult passages, but everything that stands in need of elucidation. Hence the commentator must discuss all the variants, state and prove the genuine sense of the book he explains, add all the necessary personal, geographical, historical, ethnical information, and indicate the sources whence it is drawn, harmonize the single sentences with each other and with the scope of the entire book, consider its apparent contradictions, and explain the sense in which its quotations from the Old Testament must be understood. With a view of securing an orderly exposition, the author should premise the various historico-critical studies belonging to the whole book; he should divide and subdivide the book into its principal and subordinate parts, clearly stating the special subject of each; he should, finally, arrange the various opinions concerning disputed questions in a neatly distributed list, so as to lighten the work of the reader. What has been said sufficiently shows the qualities which a well-written commentary ought to possess; it must be faithful in presenting the genuine sense of Scripture; it must be clear, complete, and brief; and it ought to show the private work of the commentator by the light it throws on the more complicated questions. The commentaries which consist of mere lists of the patristic views on the successive texts of Scripture are called catenæ (q.v.).

Perhaps the homily may be added to the foregoing methods of Biblical exposition. It is written in a popular way, and is of a practical tendency. It is not concerned with the subtile and more difficult questions of Scripture, but explains the words of a Biblical section in the order in which they occur. A more elevated kind of homily seizes the fundamental idea of a Scriptural section, and considers the rest in relation to it. The Church has always encouraged such homiletic discourses, and the Fathers have left a great number of them in their writings.

The Method/4: HERMENEUTICS.

Thu, 25 May 2006 22:45:05 GMT

The interpretation of a writing has for its object to find the ideas which the author intended to express. We do not consider here the so-called authentic interpretation or the writer's own statement as to the thought he intended to convey. In interpreting the Bible scientifically, its twofold character must always be kept in view: it is a Divine book, in as far as it has God for its author; it is a human book, in as far as it is written by men for men. In its human character, the Bible is subject to the same rules of interpretation as profane books; but in its Divine character, it is given into the custody of the Church to be kept and explained, so that it needs special rules of hermeneutics. Under the former aspect, it is subject to the laws of the grammatico-historical interpretation; under the latter, it is bound by the precepts of what we may call the Catholic explanation.

(1) HISTORICO-GRAMMATICAL INTERPRETATION

The grammatico-historical interpretation implies three elements: first, a knowledge of the various significations of the literary expression to be interpreted; secondly, the determination of the precise sense in which the literary expression is employed in any given passage; thirdly, the historical description of the idea thus determined. What has been said in the preceding paragraphs sufficiently shows the difference between the signification and the sense of a word or a sentence. The importance of describing an idea historically may be exemplified by the successive shades of meaning attaching to the concept of Messias, or of Kingdom of God.

(I) Significations of the Literary Expression

The signification of the literary expression of the Bible is best learned by a thorough knowledge of the so-called sacred languages in which the original text of Scripture was written, and by a familiar acquaintance with the Scriptural way of speaking.

(a) Sacred Languages

St. Augustine warns us that "the knowledge of languages is the great remedy against unknown signs. Men of the Latin tongue need two others for a thorough knowledge of the Divine Scriptures, viz, the Hebrew and the Greek, so that recourse may be had to the older copies, if the infinite variety of the Latin translators occasions any doubt." Pope Leo XIII, in the Encyclical "Providentissimus Deus", agrees with the great African Doctor in urging the study of the sacred languages. "It is most proper", he writes, "that professors of Sacred Scripture and theologians should master those tongues in which the Sacred Books were originally written; and it would be well that church students also should cultivate them, more especially those who aspire to academic degrees. And endeavours should be made to establish in all academic institutions -- as has already been laudably done in many -- chairs of the other ancient languages, especially the Semitic, and of other subjects connected therewith, for the benefit principally of those who are intended to profess sacred literature." Nor can it be urged that for the Catholic interpreter the Vulgate is the authentic text, which can be understood by any Latin scholar. The pontiff considers this exception in the Encyclical quoted: "Although the meaning of the Hebrew and Greek is substantially rendered by the Vulgate, nevertheless wherever there may be ambiguity or want of clearness, the 'examination of older tongues,' to quote St. Augustine, will be useful and advantageous." Recourse to the original text is considered the only scholarly approach to any great work of literature. A translation is never a perfect reproduction of the original; no language can fully express the thoughts conveyed in another tongue, no translator is capable of seizing the exact shades of all the truths contained in any work, and in case of Biblical versions, we have often good reason for doubt as to the genuineness of their readings.

(b) Scriptural Language

The Scriptural language presents several difficulties peculiar to itself. First, the Bible is not written by one author, but presents in almost every book the style of a different writer. Secondly, the Bible was not written at a single period; the Old Testament covers the time between Moses and the last Old-Testament writer, i.e. more than one thousand years, so that many words must have changed their meaning during this interval. Thirdly, the Biblical Greek is not the classical language of the Greek authors with whom we are acquainted; up to about fifteen years ago, Biblical scholars used to speak about New-Testament Greek, they compiled New-Testament lexicons, and wrote New-Testament grammars. The discovery of the Egyptian papyri and other literary remains has broken down this wall of separation between the language of the New Testament and that of the time in which it was written; with regard to this point, our present time may be considered as a period of transition, leading up to the composition of lexicons and grammars that will rightly express the relation of the Biblical Greek to the Greek employed in profane writings. Fourthly, the Bible deals with the greatest variety of topics, requiring a corresponding variety of vocabulary; moreover, its expressions are often figurative, and therefore subject to more frequent changes of meaning than the language of profane writers. How are we to become acquainted with the Scriptural language in spite of the foregoing difficulties? St.Augustine suggests the continual reading of the Bible as the first remedy, so that we may acquire "a familiarity with the language of the Scriptures", He adds to this a careful comparing of the Bible text with the language of the ancient versions, a process calculated to remove some of the native ambiguities of the original text. A third help is found, according to the same great Doctor, in the diligent reading of the works of the Fathers, since many of them formed their style by a constant reading of Holy Scripture. Nor must we omit to study the writings of Philo and Josephus, the contemporaries of the Apostles and the historians of their nation. They are helpful illustrations of the cultured language of the Apostolic time. The study of the etymology of the sacred languages is another means of becoming acquainted with the languages themselves. For a proper understanding of the etymology of Hebrew words, the knowledge of the cognate languages is requisite; but here it must be kept in mind that many derivatives have a meaning quite different from the signification of their respective radicals, so that an argument based on etymology alone is open to suspicion.

(II) Sense of the Literary Expression

After the foregoing rules have aided the interpreter to know the various significations of the words of the sacred text, he must next endeavour to investigate in what precise sense the inspired writer employed his expressions. He will be assisted in this study by attending to the subject-matter of the book or chapter, to its occasion and purpose, to the grammatical and logical context, and to the parallel passages. Whatever meaning of the literary expressions is not in keeping with the subject-matter of the book, cannot be the sense in which the writer employed it. The same criterion directs us in the choice of any particular shade of meaning and in the limitation of its extent. The subject-matter of the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, e.g., shows in what sense St. Paul used the expressions law and works of the law; the sense of the expressions spirit of God, wisdom and understanding, which occur in Ex., 31, 3, must be determined in the same way. The occasion and purpose of a book or of a passage will often determine whether certain expressions must be taken in their proper or figurative sense, whether in a limited or an unlimited extent. Attention to this point will aid us in explaining aright such passages as John, 6, 53 sqq.; Matt., 10, 5; Heb., 1, 5, 7; etc. Thus we shall understand the first of these passages of the real flesh and blood of Christ, not of their figure; we shall see the true import of Christ's command contained in the second passage, "Go ye not into the way of the Gentiles, and into the city of the Samaritans enter ye not"; again we shall appreciate the full weight of the theological argument in favour of the eternal generation of the Son as stated in the third passage, contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

The context is the third aid in determining the precise sense in which each single word is used by the writer. We need not insist on the necessity of explaining an expression in accordance with its grammatical environment. The commentator must make sure of the grammatical connection of an expression, so as not to do violence to the rules of inflection or of syntax. The so-called poetical parallelism may be considered as constituting part of grammar taken in a wider sense. But the logical context, too, requires attention; a commentator must not explain any expression in such a sense as to make the author contradict himself, being careful to assign to each word a meaning that will best agree with the thought of the sentence of the chapter, and even of the book. Still, it must not be overlooked that the context is sometimes psychological rather than logical; in lyric poetry, in the words of the Prophets, or in animated dialogues, thoughts and sentiments are at times brought into juxtaposition, the logical connection of which is not apparent. Finally, there is a so-called optical context which is found in the visions of the Prophets. The inspired seer may perceive grouped together in the same vision events which are widely separated from each other in time and space.

The so-called real or verbal parallelisms will aid the commentator in determining the precise sense in which the inspired writer employed his words. In case of verbal parallelism, or in the recurrence of the same literary expressions in different parts of the inspired books, it is better to explain the language of Paul by that of Paul, the expressions of John by those of John, than to explain Paul by Matthew, and John by Luke. Again, it is more natural to explain an expression occurring in the Fourth Gospel by another found in the same book than by a parallel passage taken from the Apocalypse. Finally, it should be kept in mind that parallelism of thought, or real parallelism, is a more reliable aid in finding the exact sense of a passage than a mere material recurrence of a sentence or a phrase.

(III) Historical Setting

The inspired writers connected with their words the ideas which they themselves possessed, and which they knew to be intelligible to their contemporaries. When they spoke of a house, they expressed a habitation to which their contemporaries were accustomed, not a contrivance in use among the barbarians. In order to arrive at the precise sense of a passage, we must therefore bear in mind its historical setting, we must consult the testimony of history. The true sense of the Bible cannot be found in an idea or a thought historically untrue. The commentator must therefore be well acquainted with sacred history and sacred archæology, in order to know, to a certain extent at least, the various customs, laws, habits, national prejudices, etc. under the influence of which the inspired writers composed their respective books. Otherwise it will be impossible for him to understand the allusions, the metaphors, the language, and the style of the sacred writers. What has been said about the historico-grammatical interpretation of Scripture is synopsized, as it were, in the Encyclical already quoted: "The more our adversaries contend to the contrary, so much the more solicitously should we adhere to the received and approved canons of interpretation. Hence, while weighing the meanings of words, the connection of ideas, the parallelism of passages, and the like, we should by all means make use of such illustrations as can be drawn from opposite erudition of an external sort."

(2) CATHOLIC INTERPRETATION

Since the Church is the official custodian and interpreter of the Bible, her teaching concerning the Sacred Scriptures and their genuine sense must be the supreme guide of the commentator. The inferences which flow from this principle are partly negative, partly positive.

(I) Negative Directions

The following directions are called negative not because they do not imply a positive attitude of mind or because they do not lead to positive results, but because they appear to emphasize at first sight the avoidance of certain methods of proceeding which would be legitimate in the exegesis of profane books. They are based on what the Church teaches concerning the sacred character of the Bible.

(a) Avoid Irreverence

Since the Bible is God's own book, its study must be begun and prosecuted with a spirit of reverence and prayer. The Fathers insist on this need in many passages. St. Athanasius calls the Scriptures the fountain that quenches our thirst for justice and supplies us with the doctrine of piety; St. Augustine wishes them to be read for a memorial of our faith, for the consolation of our hope, and for an exhortation to charity; Origen considers pious prayer as the most essential means for the understanding of the Divine Scriptures; but he wishes to see humility joined with prayer; St. Jerome agrees with St. Augustine in regarding prayer as the principal and most necessary aid for the understanding of the Scriptures. We might add the words of other patristic writers, if the alleged references were not clear and explicit enough to remove all doubt on the subject.

(b) No Error in Scripture

Since God is the principal Author of Sacred Scripture, it can contain no error, no self-contradiction, nothing contrary to scientific or historical truth. The Encyclical "Providentissimus Deus" is most explicit in its statement of this prerogative of the Bible: "All the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can coexist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily, as it is impossible that God Himself, the Supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true." The Fathers agree with this teaching almost unanimously; we may refer the reader to St. Jerome, St. Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great. The great African Doctor suggests a simple and radical remedy against apparent errors in the Bible: "Either my codex is wrong, or the translator has blundered, or I do not understand."

But inerrancy is not the prerogative of everything that happens to be found in the Bible; it is restricted to what the inspired writers state as their own, unless they quote the words of a speaker who is infallible in his utterances, the words of an Apostle, e.g., or of a Divinely authorized speaker, whether angel or man (cf. Luke 1:42, 67; 2:25; 2 Maccabees 7:21), or again words regarded as having Divine authority either by Scripture (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:19; Galatians 4:30) or by the Church (e.g., the Magnificat). Biblical words that do not fall under any of these classes carry merely the authority of the speaker, the weight of which must be studied from other sources. Here is the place to take notice of a decision issued by the Biblical Commission, 13 Feb., 1905, according to which certain Scriptural statements may be treated as quotations, though they appear on the surface to be the utterances of the inspired writer. But this can be done only when there is certain and independent proof that the inspired writer really quotes the words of another without intending to make them his own. Recent writers call such passages "tacit" or "implicit" citations.

The inerrancy of Scripture does not allow us to admit contradictions in its statements. This is understood of the genuine or primitive text of the Bible. Owing to textual corruptions, we must be prepared to meet contradictions in details of minor importance; in weightier matters such discrepancies have been avoided even in our present text. Discrepancies which may appear to obtain in matters of faith or morals should put the commentator on his guard that the same Biblical expressions are not everywhere taken in the same sense, that various passages may differ from each other as the complete statement of a doctrine differs from its incomplete expression, as a clear presentation differs from its obscure delineation. Thus "works" has one meaning in James, 2, 24, another in Rom., 3, 28; "brothers" denotes one kind of relationship in Matt., 12, 46, quite a different kind in most other passages; John, 14, 28, and x, 30, Acts, 8, 12, and Matt., 28, 19, are respectively opposed to each other as a clear statement is opposed to an obscure one, as an explicit one to a mere implication. In apparent Biblical discrepancies found in historical passages, the commentator must distinguish between statements made by the inspired writer and those merely quoted by him (cf. 1 Samuel 31:9, and 2 Samuel 1:6 sqq.), between a double account of the same fact and the narrative of two similar incidents, between chronologies which begin with different starting-points, finally between a compendious and a detailed report of an event. Lastly, apparent discrepancies which occur in prophetical passages necessitate an investigation, whether the respective texts emanate from the Prophets as Prophets (cf. 2 Samuel 7:3-17), whether they refer to the same or to similar subjects (the destruction of Jerusalem, e.g., and the end of the world), whether they consider their subject from the same point of view (e.g. the suffering and the glorious Messias), whether they use proper or figurative language. Thus the Prophet Nathan in his private capacity encourages David to build the Temple (2 Samuel 7:3), but as Prophet he foretells that Solomon will build the house of God (ibid., 13).

The inerrancy of Scripture excludes also any contradiction between the Bible and the certain tenets of science. It cannot be supposed that the inspired writers should agree with all the various hypotheses which scientists assume to-day and reject tomorrow; but the commentator will be required to harmonize the teaching of the Bible with the scientific results which rest on solid proof. This rule is clearly laid down by the Encyclical in the words of St. Augustine: "Whatever they can really demonstrate to be true of physical nature, we must show to he capable of reconciliation with our Scriptures, and whatever they assert in their treatises which is contrary to these Scriptures of ours, that is to Catholic faith, we must either prove as well as we can to be entirely false, or at all events we must, without the smallest hesitation, believe it to be so". But the commentator must also be careful "not to make rash assertions, or to assert what is not known as known". The Encyclical appeals here again to the words of the great African Doctor : "[The Holy Ghost] who spoke by them [the inspired writers], did not intend to teach men these things [i.e., the essential nature of the things of the visible universe], things in no way profitable unto salvation." The pontiff continues: "Hence they . . . described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science. Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way, the sacred writers - as the Angelic Doctor reminds us - 'went by what visibly appeared', or put down what God, speaking to men, signified in a way men could understand and were accustomed to." In Gen., 1, 16, e.g., the sun and the moon are called two great lights; in Jos., 10, 12, the sun is commanded to stand still; in Eccl.,1, 5, the sun returns to its place; in Job, 26, 11, the firmament appears solid and brazen; in other passages the heavens are upheld by columns, and God rides on the clouds of heaven.

Finally, the commentator must be prepared to deal with the seeming discrepancies between Biblical and profane history. The considerations to be kept in mind here are similar to those laid down in the preceding paragraph. First, not all statements found in profane sources can be regarded a priori as Gospel truth; some of them refer to subjects with which the writers were imperfectly acquainted, others proceed from party-feeling and national vanity, others again are based on imperfectly or only partially translated ancient documents. Secondly, the Bible does not ex professo teach profane history or chronology. These topics are treated only incidentally, in as far as they are connected with sacred subjects. Hence it would be wrong to regard Scripture as containing a complete course of history and chronology, or to consider the text of its historical portions above suspicion of corruption. Thirdly, we must keep in mind the words of St. Jerome (in Jer., 28, 10): "Many things in Sacred Scripture are related according to the opinion of the time in which they are said to have happened, and not according to objective truth"; and again (in Matt., 14, 8): "According to the custom of Scripture, the historian relates the opinion concerning many things in accordance with the general belief at that time." Father Delattre maintains (Le Criterium à l'usage de la Nouvelle Exégèse Biblique, Liège, 1907) that according to St. Jerome the inspired writers report the public opinion prevalent at the time of the events related, not the public opinion prevalent when the narrative was written. This distinction is of greater practical importance than it, at first, seems to be. For Father Delattre only grants that the inspired historian may write according to sensible appearances, while his opponents contend that he may follow also the so-called historic appearances. Finally, the first two decisions of the Biblical Commission must be mentioned in this connection. Some Catholic writers had attempted to remove certain historical difficulties from the sacred text either by considering the respective passages as tacit or implied quotations from other authors, for which the inspired writers did not in any way vouch; or by denying that the sacred writers vouch, in any way, for the historical accuracy of the facts they narrate, since they use these apparent facts merely as pegs on which to hang some moral teaching. The Biblical Commission rejected these two methods by decrees issued respectively 13 Feb. and 23 June, 1905, adding, however, that either of them may he admitted in the case when, due regard being paid to the sense and judgment of the Church, it can be proved by solid argument that the sacred writer either really quoted the sayings or documents of another without speaking in his own name, or did not really intend to write history, but only to propose a parable, an allegory, or another non-historical literary concept.

(II) Positive Directions

St. Irenæus represents the teaching of the early Church, when he writes that the truth is to be learned where the charismata of God are, and that Holy Scripture is safely interpreted by those who have the Apostolic succession. Vincent of Lérins appears to sum up the teaching of the Fathers on this subject when he writes that on account of the great intricacies of various errors it is necessary that the line of Prophetic and Apostolic interpretation be directed according to the rule of ecclesiastical and Catholic teaching. The Vatican Council emphasizes the decree of the Council of Trent when it teaches that "in things of faith and morals belonging to the building up of Christian doctrine, that is to be considered the true sense of Holy Scripture which has been held and is held by our Holy Mother the Church, whose place it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Scriptures; and therefore that it is permitted to no one to interpret Holy Scripture against such sense or also against the unanimous agreement of the Fathers". Hence flow the following principles.

(a) Defined Texts

The Catholic commentator is bound to adhere to the interpretation of texts which the Church has defined either expressly or implicitly. The number of these texts is small, so that the commentator can easily avoid any transgression of this principle. The Council of Trent teaches that Rom., 5, 12, refers to original sin, that John, 3, 5, teaches the absolute necessity of the baptism of water, that Matt., 26, 26 sq. is to be understood in the proper sense; the Vatican Council gives a direct definition of the texts, Matt., 16, 16 sqq. and John, 21, 15 sqq. Many more Scripture texts are indirectly defined by the definition of certain doctrines and the condemnation of certain errors. The Council of Nicæa, e.g., showed how those passages ought to be interpreted on which the Arians relied in their contention that the Word was a creature; the Fifth Ecumenical Council (II Constantinople) teaches the right meaning of many prophecies by condemning the interpretation of Theodore of Mopsuestia.

(b) Patristic Interpretation

Pope Leo XIII, in his Encyclical "Providentissimus Deus", repeats the principles concerning the authority of the Fathers laid down by the Vatican and Tridentine Councils: "The Holy Fathers, 'to whom, after the Apostles, the Church owes its growth - who have planted, watered, built, governed, and cherished it' - the Holy Fathers, we say, are of supreme authority whenever they all interpret in one and the same manner any text of the Bible, as pertaining to the doctrine of faith or morals; for their unanimity clearly evinces that such interpretation has come down from the Apostles as a matter of Catholic faith." Three conditions are, therefore, required in order that the patristic authority may be absolutely decisive: first, they must interpret texts referring to matters of faith or morals; secondly, they must speak as witnesses of Catholic tradition, not merely as private theologians; thirdly, there must be a moral unanimity in their interpretation. This unanimity is not destroyed by the silence of some of the foremost Fathers, and is sufficiently guaranteed by the consentient voice of the principal patristic writers living at any critical period, or by the agreement of commentators living at various times; but the unanimity is destroyed if some of the Fathers openly deny the correctness of the interpretation given by the others, or if they explain the passage in such a way as to render impossible the explanation given by others. But the Encyclical warns us to treat the opinion of the Fathers with reverence, even if there is no unanimity: "The opinion of the Fathers", says the holy pontiff, "is also of very great weight when they treat of these matters in their capacity of doctors, unofficially; not only because they excel in their knowledge of revealed doctrine and in their acquaintance with many things which are useful in understanding the Apostolic books, but because they are men of eminent sanctity and of ardent zeal for the truth, on whom God has bestowed a more ample measure of his light."

(c) The Analogy of Faith

Here again the Encyclical "Providentissimus Deus" is our guide: "In the other passages" it reads, "the analogy of faith should be followed and Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for, seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church, it is clearly impossible that any teaching can by legitimate means be extracted from the former, which shall in any respect be at variance with the latter." This principle has a double influence on the interpretation of Scripture, a negative and a positive influence. First, the commentator cannot admit in Scripture a statement contrary to the teaching of the Church; on the other hand, the agreement of an explanation with the doctrine of the Church does not prove its correctness, since more than one explanation may agree with the ecclesiastical teaching. Secondly, the Catholic interpreter must explain the obscure and partial teaching of the Scriptures by the clear and complete teaching of the Church; the passages, e.g., which refer to the Divine and human nature of Christ, and to the power of binding and loosing, find their explanation and their complement in Catholic tradition and the conciliar definitions. And here we must keep in mind what the Encyclical adds concerning doctrine which comes down to us in a less authoritative channel: "The authority of other Catholic interpreters is not so great; but the study of Scripture has always continued to advance in the Church, and, therefore, these commentaries also have their own honourable place, and are serviceable in many ways for the refutation of assailants and the explanation of difficulties."

The Method/3: Typical Sense.

Thu, 25 May 2006 00:36:15 GMT

The typical sense has its name from the fact that it is based on the figurative or typical relation of Biblical persons, or objects, or events, to a new truth. This latter is called the antitype, while its Biblical correspondent is named the type. The typical sense is also called the spiritual, or mystical, sense: mystical, because of its more recondite nature; spiritual, because it is related to the literal, as the spirit is related to the body. What we call type is called shadow, allegory, parable, by St. Paul (cf. Romans 5:14; 1 Corinthians 10:6; Hebrews 8:5; Galatians 4:24; Hebrews 9:9); once he refers to it as antitype (Hebrews 9:24), though St. Peter applies this term to the truth signified (1 Peter 3:21). Various other designations for the typical sense have been used by the Fathers of the Church; but the following questions are of more vital importance.

(I) Nature of the Typical Sense

The typical sense is the Scriptural truth which the Holy Ghost intends to convey really, actually, but not immediately. Inasmuch as its meaning is really conveyed, the typical sense differs from accommodation; inasmuch as its meaning is actually expressed, it differs from the consequent sense; inasmuch as its meaning is not immediately signified, it differs from the literal sense. While we arrive at the latter immediately by way of the literary expression, we come to know the typical sense only by way of the literal. The text is the sign conveying the literal sense, but the literal sense is the sign expressing the typical. The literal sense is the type which by a special design of God is directed to signify its antitype. Three conditions are necessary to constitute a type:

It must have its own true and historical existence independently of the antitype; e.g., the intended immolation of Isaac would be an historical fact, even if Jesus Christ had not died.
It must not be referred to the antitype by its very nature. This prohibits the similitude from serving as a type, on account of its antecedent likeness to its object.
God himself must have established the reference of the type to its antitype; this excludes objects which are naturally related to others.

The necessity of these three conditions explains why a type cannot be confounded with a parable, or an example, or a symbol, or a similitude, or a comparison, or a metaphor, or a symbolic prophecy - e.g., the statue seen in the dream of Nabuchodonosor. It should be added, however, that at times the type may be expressed by the Scriptural representation of a subject rather than by the strict literal sense of Scripture. Gen., 14, 18, e.g., introduces Melchisedech without reference to his genealogy; hence Heb., 7, 3, represents him "without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life", and makes him as such a type of Jesus Christ. Thus far we have spoken about the typical sense in its strict sense. In a wider sense, all persons, events, or objects of the Old Testament are sometimes considered as types, provided they resemble persons, events, or objects in the New Testament, whether the Holy Ghost has intended such a relationship or not. The Egyptian Joseph is in this way frequently represented as a type of St. Joseph, the foster-father of Christ.

(II) Division of the Typical Sense

The division of the typical sense is based on the character of the type and the antitype. The antitype is either a truth to be believed, or a boon to be hoped for, or again a virtue to be practised. This gives us a triple sense -- the allegorical, the anagogical, and the tropological, or moral. The objects of faith in the Old Testament centred mainly around the future Messias and his Church. The allegorical sense may, therefore, be said to refer to the future or to be prophetic. The allegory here is not to be sought in the literary expression, but in the persons or things expressed. This division of the typical sense was expressed by the Scholastics in two lines:

Littera gesta docet; quid credas, allegoria;
Moralis quid agas; quo tendas, anagogia.

Jerusalem, e.g., according to its literal sense, is the Holy City; taken allegorically, it denotes the Church Militant; understood tropologically, it stands for the just soul; finally, in its anagogical sense, it stands for the Church Triumphant. If the division of the typical sense be based on the type rather than the antitype, we may distinguish personal, real, and legal types. They are personal if a person is chosen by the Holy Ghost as the sign of the truth to be conveyed. Adam, Noe, Melchisedech, Moses, Josue, David, Solomon, and Jonas are types of Jesus Christ; Agar with Ismael, and Sara with Isaac are respectively the types of the Old and the New Testament. The real types are certain historical events or objects mentioned in the Old Testament, such as the paschal lamb, the manna, the water flowing from the rock, the brazen serpent, Sion, and Jerusalem. Legal types are chosen from among the institutions of the Mosaic liturgy, e.g., the tabernacle, the sacred implements, the sacraments and sacrifices of the Old Law, its priests and Levites.

(III) The Existence of the Typical Sense

Scripture and tradition agree in their testimony for the occurrence of the typical sense in certain passages of the Old Testament. Among the Scriptural texts which establish the typical sense, we may appeal to Col., 2, 16-17; Heb., 8, 5; 9, 8-9; Rom., 5, 14; Gal., 4, 24; Matt., 2, 15 (cf. Hosea 11:1); Heb., 1, 5 (cf. 2 Samuel 7:14). The testimony of tradition concerning this subject may be gathered from Barnabas, St. Clement of Rome (1 Corinthians 12), St. Justin, St. Irenæus, Tertullian; St. Jerome, St. Thomas, and a number of other patristic writers and Scholastic theologians. That the Jews agree with the Christian writers on this point, may be inferred from Josephus, the Talmud, and the writings of Philo, though this latter writer goes to excess in the allegorical interpretation. The foregoing tradition may be confirmed by the language of the liturgy and by the remains of Christian archæology. Striking instances of the liturgical proof may be seen in the Preface of the Mass for Easter, in the Blessing of the Paschal Candle, and in the Divine Office recited on the feast of Corpus Christi. All Catholic interpreters readily grant that in some passages of the Old Testament we have a typical sense besides the literal; but this does not appear to be granted with regard to the New Testament, at least not subsequently to the death of Jesus Christ. Distinguishing between the New Testament as it signifies a collection of books, and the New Testament as it denotes the Christian economy, they grant that there are types in the New-Testament books, but only as far as they refer to the pre-Christian economy. For the New Testament has brought us the reality in place of the figure, light in place of darkness, truth in place of shadow. On the other hand, it is urged that the New Testament is the figure of glory, as the Old Testament was the figure of the New. Again, in Scripture the literal sense applies to what precedes, the typical to what follows. Now, even in the New Testament Christ and His Body precedes the Church and its members; hence, what is said literally of Christ or His Body, may be interpreted allegorically of the Church, the mystical body of Christ, tropologically of the virtuous acts of the Church's members, anagogically of their future glory. Similar views are expressed by St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. John Damascene; besides, the bark of Peter is usually regarded as a type of the Church, the destruction of Jerusalem as a type of the final catastrophe.

(IV) Has Everything in the Old Testament a Typical Sense?

If such passages as Luke, 24, 44, I Cor.,10, 11, be taken out of their context, they suggest the ubiquity of the typical sense in the Old Testament; the context limits these texts to their proper range. If some of the Fathers, e.g. St. Augustine and St. Jerome, appear to assert the ubiquity of the typical sense, their language refers rather to the figurative than the spiritual sense. On the other hand, Tertullian, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. Thomas, explicitly reject the opinion which maintains that the whole of the Old Testament has a typical sense. The opposite opinion does not appeal to reason; what could be the typical sense, e.g., of the command to love the Lord our God (Deuteronomy 6:5)?

(V) How Can the Typical Sense be Known?

In the typical sense God does not merely select an existing person or object as the sign of a future person or object, but he directs the course of nature in such a way that the very existence of the type, however independent it may be in itself, refers to the antitype. Man, too, can, in one or another particular case, perform an action in order to typify what he will do in the future. But as the future is not under his complete control, such a way of acting would be ludicrous rather than instructive. The typical sense is, therefore, properly speaking, confined to God's own book. Hence the criteria which serve for the interpretation of profane literature will not be sufficient to detect the typical sense. The latter is a supernatural fact depending entirely on the free will of God; nothing but revelation can make it known to us, so that Scripture or tradition must be regarded as the source of any solid argument in favour of the existence of the typical sense in any particular passage. Where the typical sense really exists, it expresses the mind of God as truly as the literal sense; but we must be careful against excess in this regard. St. Augustine is guilty of this fault in his spiritual interpretation of the thirty-eight years in John, 5, 5, and of the one hundred and fifty-three fishes in John, 21, 11. Besides, it must be kept in mind that not all the minutiæ connected with the type have a definite and distinct meaning in the antitype. It would be useless labour to search for the spiritual meaning of every detail connected with the paschal lamb, e.g., or with the first Adam. The exegete ought to be especially careful in the admission of typical prophecies, and of anything that would resemble the method of the Jewish Cabbalists.

(VI) The Theological Value of the Typical Sense

Father Perrone believes it is the common opinion of theologians and commentators that no theological argument can be based on the typical sense. But if we speak of the typical sense which has been revealed as such, or which has been proved as such from either Scripture or tradition, it conveys the meaning intended by God not less veraciously than the literal sense. Hence it furnishes solid and reliable premises for theological conclusions. The inspired writers themselves do not hesitate to argue from the typical sense, as may be seen in Matt., 2, 15 (cf. Hosea 11:1), and Heb., 1, 5 (cf. II K, 7, 14). Texts whose typical sense is only probable yield only probable theological conclusions; such is the argument for the Immaculate Conception based on Est., 15, 13. If St. Thomas and other theologians differ from our position on this question, their view is based on the fact that the existence of the types themselves must first be theologically proved, before they can serve as premises in a theological argument.

The Method/2: Sense of Sacred Scripture.

Mon, 22 May 2006 21:59:30 GMT

In general, the sense of Sacred Scripture is the truth actually conveyed by it. We must well distinguish between the sense and the signification of a word. A good dictionary will give us, in the case of most words, a list of their various possible meanings or significations; but no reader will be tempted to believe that a word has all these meanings wherever it occurs. The context or some other restrictive element will determine the meaning in which each word is used in any given passage, and this meaning is the sense of the word. The signification of the word is its possible meaning; the sense of a word is its actual meaning in any given context. A sentence, like a word, may have several possible significations, but it has only one sense or meaning intended by the author. Here, again, the signification denotes the possible meaning of the sentence, while the sense is the meaning which the sentence here and now conveys. In the case of the Bible, it must be kept in mind that God is its author, and that God, the Sovereign Lord of all things, can manifest truth not merely by the use of words, but also by disposing outward things in such a way that one is the figure of the other. In the former case we have the literal sense; in the latter, the typical.

(I) What is the Literal Sense?

The literal sense of Sacred Scripture is the truth really, actually, and immediately intended by its author. The fact that the literal sense must be really intended by the author distinguishes it from the truth conveyed by any mere accommodation. This latter applies a writer's language, on the ground of analogy, to something not originally meant by him. Again, since the literal sense is actually intended by the writer, it differs from the meaning conveyed only virtually by the text. Thus the reader may come to know the literary capacity of the author from the style of his writing; or he may draw a number of logical inferences from the writer's direct statements; the resultant information is in neither case actually intended by the writer, but it constitutes the so-called derivative or consequent sense. Finally, the literal sense is limited to the meaning immediately intended by the writer, so that the truth mediately expressed by him does not fall within the range of the literal sense. It is precisely in this point that the literal sense differs from the typical. To repeat briefly, the literal sense is not an accommodation based on similitude or analogy; it is not a mere inference drawn by the reader; it is not an antitype corresponding to the immediate contents of the text as its type; but it is the meaning which the author intends to convey really, not by a stretch of the imagination; actually, not as a syllogistic potency; and immediately, i.e., by means of the language, not by means of the truth conveyed by the language.

(II) Division of the Literal Sense

What has been said about the immediate character of the literal sense must not be misconstrued in such a way as to exclude figurative language from its range. Figurative language is really a single, not a double, sign of the truth it conveys. When we speak of "the arm of God", we do not imply that God really is endowed with such a bodily member, but we directly denote his power of action (St. Thomas, Summa, I, Q. i, a. 10, ad 3um). This principle applies not merely in the metaphor, the synecdoche, the metonymy, or the irony, but also in those cases in which the figure extends through a whole sentence or even an entire chapter or book. The very name allegory implies that the real sense of the expression differs from its usual verbal meaning. In Matt., v, 13 sqq., e.g., the sentence, "You are the salt of the earth" etc., is not first to be understood in its nonfigurative sense, and then in the figurative; it does not first class the Apostles among the mineral kingdom, and then among the social and religious reformers of the world, but the literal meaning of the passage coincides with the truth conveyed in the allegory. It follows, therefore, that the literal sense comprises both the proper and the figurative. The fable, the parable, and the example must also be classed among the allegorical expressions which signify the intended truth immediately. It is true that in the passage according to which the trees elect a king (Judges 9:6-21), in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11 sqq.), and in the history of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) a number of words and sentences are required in order to construct the fable, the parable, and the example respectively; but this does not interfere with the literal or immediate sense of the literary devices. As such they have no meaning independent of, or prior to, the moral lesson which the author intends to convey by their means. It is easily granted that the mechanical contrivance we call a watch immediately indicates the time in spite of the subordinate action of its spring and wheels; why, then, should we question the truth that the literary device called fable, or parable, or example, immediately points out its moral lesson, though the very existence of such a device presupposes the use of a number of words and even sentences?

(III) Ubiquity of the Literal Sense

The Fathers of the Church were not blind to the fact that the literal sense in some Scripture passages appears to imply great incongruities, not to say insuperable difficulties. On the other hand, they regarded the language of the Bible as truly human language, and therefore always endowed with a literal sense, whether proper or figurative. Moreover, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Gregory agree with St. Thomas in his conviction that the typical sense is always based on the literal and springs from it. Hence if these Fathers had denied the existence of a literal sense in any passage of Scripture, they would have left the passage meaningless. Where the patristic writers appear to reject the literal sense, they really exclude only the proper sense, leaving the figurative. Origen may be regarded as the only exception to this rule; since he considers some of the Mosaic laws as either absurd or impossible to keep, he denies that they must be taken in their literal sense. But even in his case, attempts have been made to give to his words a more acceptable meaning. The great Alexandrian Doctor distinguishes between the body, the soul, and the spirit of Scripture. His defendants believe that he understands by these three elements its proper, its figurative, and its typical sense respectively. He may, therefore, with impunity deny the existence of any bodily sense in a passage of Scripture without injury to its literal sense. But it is more generally admitted that Origen went astray on this point, because he followed Philo's opinion too faithfully.

(IV) Is the Literal Sense One or Multiple?

There is more solid ground for a diversity of opinion concerning the unicity of the literal sense contained in each passage of Sacred Scripture. This brings us face to face with a double question: (a) Is it possible that a Scripture passage has more than one literal sense? (b) Is there any Biblical text which actually has more than one literal meaning? It must be kept in mind that the literal sense is taken here in the strict meaning of the word. It is agreed on all sides that a multiple consequent sense or a multiple accommodation may be regarded as the rule rather than the exception. Nor is there any difficulty about the multiple literal sense found in various readings or in different versions of the same text; we ask here whether one and the same genuine Scripture text may have more than one literal sense.

(a) Possibility of a Multiple Literal Sense

Since a word, and a sentence too, may have more meanings than one, there is no a priori impossibility in the idea that a Scriptural text should have more than one literal sense. If the author of Scripture really intends to convey the truth contained in the various possible meanings of a text, the multiple literal sense will be the natural resultant. Some of the expressions found in the writings of the Fathers seem to emphasize the possibility of having a multiple literal sense in Sacred Scripture.

(b) Actual Occurrence of a Multiple Literal Sense

The subject becomes more complicated if we ask whether a multiple literal sense is not merely possible, but is actually found anywhere in Scripture. There is no good authority for its frequent occurrence; but does it really exist even in the few Scriptural passages which seem to contain it, such as Ps. 2, 7; Is., 53, 4, 8; Dan., 9, 27; John, 11, 51; 2, 19? Did God wish in these texts to convey a multiple literal sense? Revelation, as coming down to us in Scripture and tradition, furnishes the only clue to the solution of the question.

Arguments for the Multiple Literal Sense. The advocates of a multiple literal sense advance the following arguments for their view: First, Sacred Scripture supposes its existence in several passages. Thus Heb.,1, 5, understands Ps. 2, 7 (this day have I begotten thee), of the Divine generation of the Son; Acts, 13, 33, understands the text of the Resurrection; Heb., 5, 5, of the eternal priesthood of Christ. Again, the Latin Vulgate and the Septuagint, together with I Pet., 2, 24, understand Is. 53, 4 (he hath borne our infirmities), of our sins; Matt., 8, 17, understands the words of our bodily ailments. And again, I Mach., 1, 57, applies some words of Dan., 9, 27, to his own subject, while Matt., 24, 15, represents them as a prophecy to be fulfilled in the destruction of the Holy City. Finally, John, 2, 19, was understood by the Jews in a sense different from that intended by Jesus Christ; and John, xi, 51, expresses two disparate meanings, one intended by Caiphas and the other by the Holy Ghost. The second argument is, that tradition too upholds the existence of a multiple sense in several passages of the Bible. Its witnesses are St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, St. Jerome, and others.

Reasons against the Multiple Literal Sense. Patrizi, Beelen, Lamy, Cornely, Knabenbauer, Reitmayr, and the greater number of recent writers deny the actual existence of a multiple literal sense in the Bible; they urge the following reasons for their opinion: First, the Bible is written in human language; now, the language of other books usually presents only one literal sense. Second, the genuine sense of Sacred Scripture must be discovered by means of the rules of hermeneutics. A commentator would render these rules meaningless, if he were to look for a second literal sense of a passage after discovering one true meaning by their means. Third, commentators implicitly assume that any given text of Scripture has only one literal sense; for after finding out the various meanings which are philologically probable, they endeavour to ascertain which of them was intended by the Holy Ghost. Fourth, a multiple literal sense would create equivocation and confusion in the Bible. Finally, the multiple sense in Scripture would be a supernatural fact wholly depending on the free will of God. We cannot know it independently of revelation; its actual occurrence must be solidly proved from Scripture or tradition. The patrons of the multiple literal sense have not thus far advanced any such proof.

(1) Where Scripture appeals to disparate meanings of the same passage, it does not necessarily consider each of them as the literal sense. Thus Heb.,1, 5, may represent Ps. 2, 7, as referring literally to the eternal generation, but Acts, 13, 33, may consider the Resurrection, and Hebr., 5, 5, the eternal priesthood of Christ as necessary consequences. Matt., 8, 17, applies the consequent sense of Is., 53, 4, to the cure of bodily ailments; I Mach., 1, 57, merely accommodates some words of Dan., 9, 27, to the writer's own time; in John, 2, 19, and 11, 51, only the meaning intended by the Holy Ghost is the literal sense, though this may not have been understood when the words in question were spoken.

(2) The testimony of the Fathers and the Scholastic theologians is not sufficient in our case to prove the existence of a dogmatic tradition as to the actual occurrence of the multiple literal sense in Scripture. There is no trace of it before the time of St. Augustine; this great Doctor proposes his view not as the teaching of tradition, but as a pious and probable opinion. The expressions of the other Fathers, excepting perhaps St. Gregory the Great, urge the depth and wealth of thought contained in Scripture, or they refer to meanings which we technically call its typical, derivative, or consequent sense, and perhaps even to mere accommodations of certain passages. Among the Scholastics, St. Thomas follows the opinion of St. Augustine, at least in one of the alleged passages, and a number of the later Scholastics follow the opinion of St. Thomas. The other early Scholastics maintain rather the opposite view, as may be seen in St. Bonaventure and Alexander of Hales.

(V) The Derivative or Consequent Sense

The consequent or derivative sense of Scripture is the truth legitimately inferred from its genuine meaning. It would be wrong to identify the consequent sense with the more latent literal sense. This depth of the literal sense may spring from the fact that the predicate changes somewhat in its meaning if it be applied to totally different subjects. The word wise has one meaning if predicated of God, and quite another if predicated of created beings. Such a variety of meaning belongs to the literal meaning in the strict sense of the word. The conseguent sense may be said to be the conclusion of a syllogism one of whose premises is a truth contained in the Bible. Such inferences can hardly be called the sense of a book written by a human author; but God has foreseen all the legitimate conclusions derived from Biblical truths, so that they may be said, in a certain way, to be His intended meaning. The Bible itself makes use of such inferences as if they were based on Divine authority. St. Paul (1 Corinthians 1:31) quotes such an inference based on Jer., 9, 23, 24, with the express addition, "as it is written"; in I Cor., 9, 10, 11, he derived the consequent sense of Deut., 25, 4, indicating the second premise, while in I Tim., 5, 18, he states the consequent sense of the same passage without adding the second premise. Theologians and ascetical writers have, therefore, a right to utilize dogmatic and moral inferences from the genuine sense of Sacred Scripture. The writings of the Fathers illustrate this principle most copiously.

(VI) Accommodation

By accommodation the writer's words are applied, on the ground of analogy, to something not originally meant by him. If there be no analogy between the original and the imposed meaning, there is no accommodation of the passage, but rather a violent perversion of its true meaning; such a contorted meaning is not merely outside, but against, the genuine sense. Accommodation is usually divided into two classes: extensive and allusive. Extensive accommodation takes the words of the Bible in their genuine sense, but applies them to a new subject. Thus the words, he "was found perfect, just, and in the time of wrath he was made a reconciliation", which Ecclus., 44, 17, predicates of Noe, are often applied to other saints. Allusive accommodation does not employ the words of Scripture in their genuine sense, but gives them an entirely different meaning; here the analogy does not exist between the objects, but between the verbal expressions. Ps. 17, 26, 27, " With the holy, thou wilt be holy; and with the innocent man thou wilt be innocent; and with the elect thou wilt be elect: and with the perverse thou wilt be perverted", expresses originally the attitude of God to the good and the wicked; but by accommodation these words are often used to show the influence of companionship. That the use of accommodation is legitimate, may be inferred from its occurrence in Scripture, in the writings of the Fathers, and from its very nature. Examples of accommodation in Scripture may be found in Matt., 7, 23 (cf. Ps. 6, 9), Rom., 10, 18 (cf. Ps.18, 5), II Cor., 8, 15 (cf. Exodus 16:18), Heb., 13, 5 (cf. Joshua 1:5), Apoc., 11, 4 (cf. Zechariah 4:14). The liturgical books and the writings of the Fathers are so replete with the use of accommodation that it is needless to refer to any special instances. Finally, there is no good reason for interdicting the proper use of accommodation, seeing that it is not wrong in itself and that its use does not involve any inconvenience as far as faith and morals are concerned. But two excesses are to be avoided: first, it cannot be maintained, that all the citations from the Old Testament which are found in the New are mere accommodations. Similar contentions are found in the writings of those who endeavour to destroy the value of the Messianic prophecies; they are not confined to our days, but date back to Theodore of Mopsuestia and the Socinians. The Fifth Ecumenical Synod rejected the error of Theodore; besides, Christ Himself (Matthew 22:41 sq.; cf. Psalm 109:1), St. Peter (Acts 3:25 sq.; cf. Genesis 12:3; 18:18; 22:18), and St. Paul (Hebrews 1:5; 5:5; Acts 13:33; cf. Psalm 2:7) base theological arguments on Old-Testament citations, so that these latter cannot be regarded as mere accommodations. Secondly, we must not exceed the proper limits in the use of accommodation. This we should do, if we were to present the meaning derived from accommodation as the genuine sense of Scripture, or if we were to use it as the premise in an argument, or again if we were to accommodate the words of Scripture to ridiculous, absurd, or wholly disparate subjects. The fourth session of the Council of Trent warns most earnestly against such an abuse of Sacred Scripture.

Next entry: TYPICAL SENSE.

The Method: Biblical Exegesis - Intro.

Mon, 22 May 2006 19:28:26 GMT

At this point it is very important to explain something about my method, the RC Exegetic method, which includes Form critic but isn't only Form critic.
What's Exegesis?
Exegesis is the branch of theology which investigates and expresses the true sense of Sacred Scripture.

The exegete does not inquire which books constitute Sacred Scripture, nor does he investigate their genuine text, nor, again, does he study their double authorship. He accepts the books which, according to the concurrent testimony of history and ecclesiastical authority, belong to the Canon of Sacred Scripture. Obedient to the decree of the Council of Trento, he regards the Vulgate as the authentic Latin version, without neglecting the results of sober Formgeschichte, based on the readings found in the other versions approved by Christian antiquity, in the Scriptural citations of the Fathers, and in the more ancient manuscripts. With regard to the authorship of the Sacred Books, too, the exegete follows the authoritative teaching of the Church and the prevalent opinions of her theologians on the question of Biblical inspiration. Not that these three questions concerning the Canon, the genuine text, and the inspiration of Sacred Scriptures exert no influence on Biblical exegesis: unless a book forms part of the Canon, it will not be the subject of exegesis at all; only the best supported readings of its text will be made the basis of its theological explanation; and the doctrine of inspiration with its logical corollaries will be found to have a constant bearing on the results of exegesis. Still, exegesis, as such, does not deal with these three subjects: Canon, Form critic and Inspiration.

The early Reformers were wont to claim that the genuine text of the inspired and canonical books is self-sufficient and clear. This contention does not owe its origin to the sixteenth century. The words of Origen (De princip., IV), St. Augustine (De doctr. christ., I-III), and St. Jerome (ad Paulin., ep. liii, 6, 7) show that similar views existed among the sciolists in the early age of the Church. The exegetical results flowing from the supposed clearness of the Bible may be inferred from the fact that one century after the rise of the Reformation Bossuet could give to the world two volumes entitled, "A History of the Variations of the Protestant Churches". A Protestant theologian, S. Werenfels, sets forth the same truth in a telling epigram:

Hic liber est in quo sua quærit dogmata quisque,
Invenit et pariter dogmata quisque sua,

which may be rendered in an English paraphrase:

Men open this book, their favourite creed in mind;
Each seeks his own, and each his own doth find.

Agreeing with the warning of the Fathers, Pope Leo XIII, in his Encyclical "Providentissimus Deus", insisted on the difficulty of rightly interpreting the Bible. "It must be observed", he wrote,

that in addition to the usual reasons which make ancient writings more or less difficult to understand, there are some which are peculiar to the Bible. For the language of the Bible is employed to express, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, many things which are beyond the power and scope of the reason of man -- that is to say, Divine mysteries and all that is related to them. There is sometimes in such passages a fullness and a hidden depth of meaning which the letter hardly expresses and which the laws of grammatical interpretation hardly warrant. Moreover, the literal sense itself frequently admits other senses, adapted to illustrate dogma or to confirm morality. Wherefore, it must be recognized that the Sacred Writings are wrapt in a certain religious obscurity, and that no one can enter into their interior without a guide; God so disposing, as the Holy Fathers commonly teach, in order that men may investigate them with greater ardour and earnestness, and that what is attained with difficulty may sink more deeply into the mind and heart; and, most of all, that they may understand that God has delivered the Holy Scriptures to the Church, and that in reading and making use of His word, they must follow the Church as their guide and their teacher.

But it is not my purpose so much to prove the need of Biblical exegesis as to explain its aim, describe its methods, indicate the various forms of its results, and outline its history. Exegesis aims at investigating the sense of Sacred Scripture; its method is contained in the rules of interpretation; its results are expressed in the various ways in which the sense of the Bible is wont to be communicated; its history comprises the work done by Christian and Jewish interpreters, by Catholics and Protestants. We shall endeavour to consider these various elements under the four heads:

I. Sense of Sacred Scripture;
II. Hermeneutics;
III. Sacred Rhetoric;
IV. History of Exegesis.

The next entry: SENSE OF SACRED SCRIPTURE.

Catholic Theology

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THE FIRST FOUR ECUMENUCAL COUNCILS

Tradition and Living Magisterium: 3

Tradition and Living Magisterium: 2

For forioscribe: The original sin.

Tradition and Living Magisterium: 1

The inspiration of the Bible: Protestant Views on the Inspiration of the Bible.

The Inspiration of the Bible: Extent of Inspiration

The Inspiration of the Bible: Nature of Inspiration.

The Inspiration of the Bible: Belief in inspired books.

The Method/7: Historical Criticism.

The Method/6: History of exegesis.

The Method/5: SACRED RHETORIC

The Method/4: HERMENEUTICS.

The Method/3: Typical Sense.

The Method/2: Sense of Sacred Scripture.

The Method: Biblical Exegesis - Intro.