Demonical Possession

Man is in various ways subject to the influence of evil spirits. By original sin he brought himself into "captivity under the power of him who thence [from the time of Adam's transgression] had the empire of death, that is to say, the Devil" (Council of Trent, Sess. V, de pecc. orig., 1), and was through the fear of death all his lifetime subject to servitude (Heb., ii, 15). Even though redeemed by Christ, he is subject to violent temptation: "for our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places" (Eph., vi, 12). But the influence of the demon, as we know from Scripture and the history of the Church, goes further still. He may attack man's body from without (obsession), or assume control of it from within (possession). As we gather from the Fathers and the theologians, the soul itself can never be "possessed" nor deprived of liberty, though its ordinary control over the members of the body may be hindered by the obsessing spirit (cf. St. Aug., "De sp. et an.", 27; St. Thomas, "In II Sent.", d. VIII, Q. i; Ribet, "La mystique divine", Paris, 1883, pp. 190 sqq.).

I. CASES OF POSSESSION

Among the ancient pagan nations diabolical possession was frequent (Maspero, "Hist. anc. des peuples de l'Orient", 41; Lenormant, "La magie chez les Chaldéens"), as it is still among their successors (Ward, "History of the Hindoos", v., I, 2; Roberts, "Oriental Illustrations of the Scriptures"; Doolittle, "Social Life of the Chinese"). In the Old Testament we have only one instance, and even that is not very certain. We are told that "an evil spirit from the Lord troubled" Saul (I Kings, xvi, 14). The Hebrew word r=FBah need not imply a personal influence, though, if we may judge from Josephus (Ant. Jud., VI, viii, 2; ii, 2), the Jews were inclined to give the word that meaning in this very case. In New-Testament times, however, the phenomenon had become very common. The victims were sometimes deprived of sight and speech (Matt., xii, 22), sometimes of speech alone (Matt., ix, 32; Luke, xi, 14), sometimes afflicted in ways not clearly specified (Luke, viii, 2), while, in the greater number of cases, there is no mention of any bodily affliction beyond the possession itself (Matt., iv, 24; viii, 16; xv, 22; Mark, i, 32, 34, 39; iii, 11; vii, 25; Luke, iv, 41; vi, 18; vii, 21; viii, 2). The effects are described in various passages. A young man is possessed of a spirit "who, wheresoever he taketh him, dasheth him, and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away, . . . and oftentimes hath he [the spirit] cast him into the fire and into waters to destroy him" (Mark, ix, 17, 21). The possessed are sometimes gifted with superhuman powers: "a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling in the tombs, and no man now could bind him, not even with chains. For having been often bound with fetters and chains, he had burst the chains, and broken the fetters in pieces, and no one could tame him" (Mark, v, 2-4). Some of the unfortunate victims were controlled by several demons (Matt., xii, 43, 45; Mark, xvi, 9; Luke, xi, 24-26); in one case by so many that their name was Legion (Mark, v, 9; Luke, viii, 30). Yet, evil as the possessing spirits were, they could not help testifying to Christ's Divine mission (Matt., viii, 29; Mark, i, 24, 34; iii, 12; v, 7; Luke, iv, 34, 41; viii, 28). And they continued to do so after His Ascension (Acts, xvi, 16-18).

The history of the early Church is filled with instances of similar diabolical agency. A quotation from Tertullian will suffice to bring before us the prevalent conviction. Treating of true and false divinity he addresses the pagans of his time: "Let a person be brought before your tribunals who is plainly under demoniacal possession. The wicked spirit, bidden speak by the followers of Christ will as readily make the truthful confession that he is a demon as elsewhere he has falsely asserted that he is a god" (Apolog., tr. Edinburgh, p. 23). The facts associated with possession prove, he says, beyond question the diabolical source of the influence — "What clearer proof than a work like that? What more trustworthy than such a proof? The simplicity of truth is thus set forth: its own worth sustains it; no ground remains for the least suspicion. Do you say that it is done by magic or by some trick of the sort? You will not say anything of the sort if you have been allowed the use of your ears and eyes. For what argument can you bring against a thing that is exhibited to the eye in its naked reality?" And the Christians expel by a word: "All the authority and power we have over them is from our naming of the name of Christ and recalling to their memories the woes with which God threatens them at the hands of Christ as Judge and which they expect one day to overtake them. Fearing Christ in God and God in Christ, they become subject to the servants of God and Christ. So at our touch and breathing, overwhelmed by the thought and realization of those judgment fires, they leave at our command the bodies they have entered." Statements of this kind embody the views of the Church as a whole, as is evident from the facts, that various councils legislated on the proper treatment of the possessed, that parallel with the public penance for catechumens and fallen Christians there was a course of discipline for the energumens also, and, finally, that the Church established a special order of exorcists (cf. Martigny, "Dict. des antiq. chrét.", Paris, 1877, p. 312).

All through the Middle Ages councils continued to discuss the matter: laws were passed, and penalties decreed, against all who invited the influence of the Devil or utilized it to inflict injury on their fellowmen (cf. the Bulls of Innocent VIII, 1484; Julius II, 1504; and Adrian VI, 1523); and powers of exorcism were conferred on every priest of the Church. The phenomenon was accepted as real by all Christians. The records of criminal investigations alone in which charges of witchcraft or diabolical possession formed a prominent part would fill volumes. The curious may consult such works as Des Mousseaux, "Pratiques des démons" (Paris, 1854), or Thiers, "Superstitions" I, or, from the Rationalistic point of view, Lecky, "Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe", I, 1-138, and, for later instances, Constans, "Relation sur une épidemie d'hystéro-démonopathie" (Paris, 1863). And though at the present day among civilized races the cases of diabolical possession are few, the phenomena of Spiritism, which offer many striking points of resemblance, have come to take their place (cf. Pauvert, "La vie de N. S. Jésus-Christ", I, p. 226; Raupert, "The Dangers of Spiritualism", London, 1906; Lepicier, "The Unseen World", London, 1906; Miller, "Sermons on Modern Spiritualism", London, 1908). And if we may judge from the accounts furnished by the pioneers of the Faith in missionary countries, the evidences of diabolical agency there are almost as clear and defined as they were in Galilee in the time of Christ (cf. Wilson, "Western Africa", 217; Waffelaert in the "Dict. apol. de Ia foi cath.", Paris, 1889, s. v. Possession diabol.).

II. REALITY OF THE PHENOMENON

The infidel policy on the question is to deny the possibility of possession in any circumstances, either on the supposition, that there are no evil spirits in existence, or that they are powerless to influence the human body in the manner described. It was on this principle that, according to Lecky the world came to disbelieve in witchcraft: men did not trouble to analyse the evidence that could be produced in its favour; they simply decided that the testimony must be mistaken because "they came gradually to look upon it as absurd" (op. cit., p. 12). And it is by this same a priori principle, we believe, that Christians who try to explain away the facts of possession are unconsciously influenced. Though put forward once as a commonplace by leaders of materialistic thought, there is a noticeable tendency of late years not to insist upon it so strongly in view of the admission made by competent scientific inquirers that many of the manifestations of Spiritism cannot be explained by human agency (cf. Miller, op. cit., 7-9). But whatever view Rationalists may ultimately adopt, for a sincere believer in the Scriptures there can be no doubt that there is such a thing as possession possible. And if he is optimistic enough to hold that in the present order of things God would not allow the evil spirits to exercise the powers they naturally possess, he might open his eyes to the presence of sin and sorrow in the world, and recognize that God causes the sun to shine on the just and the unjust and uses the powers of evil to promote His own wise and mysterious purposes (cf. Job, passim; Mark v, 19).

That mistakes were often made in the diagnosis of cases, and results attributed to diabolical agency that were really due to natural causes, we need have no hesitation in admitting. But it would be illogical to conclude that the whole theory of possession rests on imposture or ignorance. The abuse of a system gives us no warrant to denounce the system itself. Strange phenomena of nature have been wrongly regarded as miraculous, but the detection of the error has left our belief in real miracles intact. Men have been wrongly convicted of murder, but that does not prove that our reliance on evidence is essentially unreasonable or that no murder has ever been committed. A Catholic is not asked to accept all the cases of diabolical possession recorded in the history of the Church, nor even to form any definite opinion on the historical evidence in favour of any particular case. That is primarily a matter for historical and medical science (cf. Delrio, "Disq. mag. libri sex", 1747; Alexander, "Demon. Possession in the N. T.", Edinburgh, 1902). As far as theory goes, the real question is whether possession has ever occurred in the past, and whether it is not, therefore, possible that it may occur again. And while the cumulative force of centuries of experience is not to be lightly disregarded, the main evidence will be found in the action and teaching of Christ Himself as revealed in the inspired pages of the New Testament, from which it is clear that any attempt to identify possession with natural disease is doomed to failure.

In classical Greek daimonan, it is true, means "to be mad" (cf. Eurip., "Phœn." 888; Xenophon, "Memor.", I, i, ix; Plutarch, "Marc.", xxiii), and a similar meaning is conveyed by the Gospel phrase daimonion echein, when the Pharisees use it of Christ (Matt., xi, 18; John, vii, 20; viii, 48), especially in John, x, 20, where they say "He hath a devil, and is mad" (daimonion echei, kai mainetai); daimonan, however, is not the word used by the sacred writers. Their word is daimonizesthai, and the meanings given to it previously by profane writers ("to be subject to an appointed fate"; Philemon, "Incert.", 981; "to be deified"; Sophocles, "Fr.", 180) are manifestly excluded by the context and the facts. The demoniacs were often afflicted with other maladies as well, but there is surely nothing improbable in the view of Catholic theologians that the demons often afflicted those who were already diseased, or that the very fact of obsession or possession produced these diseases as a natural consequence (cf. Job, ii, 7; G=F6rres "Die christ. mystik", iv; Les=EAtre in "Dict. de la bible" s. v. Démoniaques). Natural disease and possession are in fact clearly distinguished by the Evangelists: "He cast out the spirits with his word: and all that were sick he healed" (Matt., viii, 16). "They brought to him all that were ill and that were possessed with devils . . . and he healed many that were troubled with divers diseases; and he cast out many devils" (Mark i, 32, 34); and the distinction is shown more clearly in the Greek: pantas tous kakos echontas kai tous daimonizomenous.

A favourite assertion of the Rationalists is that lunacy and paralysis were often mistaken for possession. St. Matthew did not think so, for he tells us that "they presented to him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases [poikilais nosois] and torments [Basanois], and such as were possessed by devils [daimonizomenous], and lunatics [seleniazomenous], and those who had the palsy [paralytikous], and he cured them" (iv, 24). And the circumstances that attended the cures point in the same direction. In the case of ordinary diseases they were effected quietly and without violence. Not so always with the possessed. The evil spirits passed into lower animals with dire results (Matt., viii, 32), or cast their victim on the ground (Luke, iv, 35) or, "crying out, and greatly tearing him, went out of him, and he became as dead, so that many said: He is dead" (Mark, ix, 25; cf. Vigouroux, "Les livres saints et la crit. rationaliste", Paris, 1891).

Abstracting altogether from the fact that these passages are themselves inspired, they prove that the Jews of the time regarded these particular manifestations as due to a diabolical source. This was surely a matter too closely connected with Christ's own Divine mission to be lightly passed over as one on which men might, without much inconvenience from the religious point of view, be allowed to hold erroneous opinions. If, therefore, possession were merely a natural disease and the general opinion of the time based on a delusion, we might expect that Christ would have proclaimed the correct doctrine as He did when His followers spoke of the sin of the man born blind (John, ix, 2, 3), or when Nicodemus misunderstood His teaching on the necessity of being born again in Baptism (ibid., iii, 3, 4). So far from correcting the prevalent conviction, He approved and encouraged it by word and action. He addressed the evil spirits, not their victims; told His disciples how the evil spirit acted when cast out (Matt., xii, 44, 45; Luke, xi, 24-26), taught them why they had failed to exorcize (Matt., xvii, 19); warned the seventy-two disciples against glorying in the fact that the demons were subject to them (Luke, x, 17-20). He even conferred express powers on the Apostles "over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of diseases, and all manner of infirmities" (Matt., x, 1; Mark, vi, 7; Luke, ix, 1), and, immediately before His Ascension, enumerated the signs that would proclaim the truth of the revelation His followers were to preach to the world: "In my name they shall cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover" (Mark, xvi, 17-18). Thus does the expulsion of demons become so closely bound up with other miracles of the Christian dispensation as to hardly permit of separation.

The problem, therefore, that confronts us is this: If a belief so intimately connected in Christ's own mind with the mission He came to accomplish was based on a delusion, why did He not correct it? Why rather encourage it? Only two answers appear possible. Either He was ignorant of a religious truth, or He deliberately gave instructions that He knew to be false — instructions that misled His followers, and that were eminently calculated, as indeed the issue proved, to have very serious consequences, often of a most painful and deplorable kind, in the whole subsequent history of the Church He founded. No Catholic can dream of admitting either of the explanations. The theory of accommodation formulated by Winer ("Biblisches Realw=F6rterbuch", Leipzig, 1833) may at once be dismissed (see DEMONIACS). Accommodation understood as the toleration of harmless illusions having little or no connexion with religion might perhaps be allowed; in the sense of deliberate inculcation of religious error, we find it very hard to associate it with high moral principle, and entirely impossible to reconcile it with the sanctity of Christ.

Why possession should manifest itself in one country rather than another, why it should have been so common in the time of Christ and so comparatively rare in our own, why even in Palestine it should have been confined almost entirely to the province of Galilee are questions on which theologians have speculated but on which no sure conclusion can ever be reached (cf. Delitzch, "Sys. der biblis. Psychol.", Leipzig, 1861; Lesétre, op. cit.; Jeiler in "Kirchenlexikon", II, s. v. "Besessene"; St. Aug., X, xxii, De civ. Dei, 10, 22). The phenomenon itself is preternatural; a humanly scientific explanation is, therefore, impossible. But it might fairly be expected, we think, that since Christ came to overthrow the empire of Satan, the efforts of the powers of darkness should have been concentrated at the period of His earthly life, and should have been felt especially in the province where, with the exception of a few brief visits to neighbouring lands, His private and public life was passed. (See EXORCISM, EXORCIST.)

Inspiration of the Bible

The subject will be treated in this article 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.
I. BELIEF IN INSPIRED BOOKS
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" (Osee, ix, 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 II Mach., ii, 13, 14, and the prologue of Ecclesiasticus in the Septuagint). Philo (from 20 B.C. to A.D. 40) speaks of the "sacred books", "sacred word", and of "most holy scripture" (De vita Moysis, iii, no. 23). 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 (Contra Apion., I, 8). 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, v, 39; x, 35. The words scripture, Word of God, Spirit of God, God, in the sayings and writings of the Apostles are used indifferently (Rom.,iv, 3; ix, 17). St. Paul alone appeals expressly more than eighty times to those Divine oracles of which Israel was made the guardian (cf. Rom., iii, 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) (II Tim., ii, 16; cf. II Pet., i, 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 (see especially Chr. pesch, "De inspiratione Sacrae Scripturae", 1906, p. 40-379). 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 (see Denzinger, Enchiridion, 10th ed., n. 1787, 1809). 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.
II. NATURE OF INSPIRATION
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 (Quodl., VII, Q. vi, a. 14, ad 5um). 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." (Concil. Vatic., Sess. III, const. dogm, de Fide, cap. ii, in Denz., 1787). (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" (Encycl. Provid. Deus, in Dena., 1952).
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" (II Pet., i, 21). The context shows that there is question of all Scripture, which is a prophecy in the broad sense of the 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" (Denz., 1952). 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." (St. Aug., De Gen. ad litt. , II, xvii, 37; St. Thomas II-II, Q. clxxi, a. 5; Q. cixxiii, a.4). 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 the Second Book of Machabeees and St. Luke tell the reader of the pains they took to document their work (II mach., ii, 24-33; Luke, i, 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 (II-II, Q. clxxi, a. 2; Q. clxxiv, a. 2, ad 3um) 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 (II-II, Q., cixxi) 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 xiv, 26 (see Franzelin, De divina Traditione et Scriptura (Rome, 1870), thesis xxii). 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 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 (De Trinitate, I, 12), "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
(1) 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. (See Denz., 1787).
(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" (Conc. Vatic., Denz., 1787).
(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.
(1) 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.
III. EXTENT OF INSPIRATION
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 (Denz., 784). 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. (Denz., 1950) 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 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.
IV. PROTESTANT VIEWS ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE BIBLE
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 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 sould {see "Votum pro pace Ecclesiae" in his complete works, III (1679), 672}. 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 (Hobbes, Spinoza, Wolf); 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 (A. Sabatier, Les religions d'autorité et la religion de l'espirit, 2nd ed., 1904, p. 331).
(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 earlly 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 intrinisc worth. The Bible itself was nothing but a hostory 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. (Cf. Denney, A Dict. of Christ and the Gospels, I, 148-49.) The Bible is a historical document which taken in its entirety contains the authentic narrative of revelation, the tidings of salvation. (c) 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. (On the true criterion of inspiration see CANON OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.) 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, whcih 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 ahs 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 decidely 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. (Cf. A. Sabatier, Les religions d'autorite et la religion de l'espirité, 2nd ed., 1904, pp. 399-403.)

Sacred Scripture

Sacred Scripture is one of the several names denoting the inspired writings which make up the Old and New Testament.
I. USE OF THE WORD
The corresponding Latin word scriptura occurs in some passages of the Vulgate in the general sense of "writing"; e.g., Ex., xxxii, 16: "the writing also of God was graven in the tables"; again, II Par., xxxvi, 22: "who [Cyrus] commanded it to be proclaimed through all his kingdom, and by writing also". In other passages of the Vulgate the word denotes a private (Tob., viii, 24) or public (Esdr., ii, 62; Neh., vii, 64) written document, a catalogue or index (Ps. lxxxvi, 6), or finally portions of Scripture, such as the canticle of Ezechias (Is., xxxviii, 5), and the sayings of the wise men (Ecclus., xliv, 5). The writer of II Par., xxx, 5, 18, refers to prescriptions of the Law by the formula "as it is written", which is rendered by the Septuagint translators kata ten graphen; para ten graphen, "according to Scripture". The same expression is found in I Esdr., iii, 4, and II Esdr., viii, 15; here we have the beginning of the later form of appeal to the authority of the inspired books gegraptai (Matt., iv, 4, 6, 10; xxi, 13; etc.), or kathos gegraptai (Rom., i, 11; ii, 24, etc.), "it is written", "as it is written".
As the verb graphein was thus employed to denote passages of the sacred writings, so the corresponding noun he graphe gradually came to signify what is pre-eminently the writing, or the inspired writing. This use of the word may be seen in John, vii, 38; x, 35; Acts, viii, 32; Rom., iv, 3; ix, 17; Gal., iii, 8; iv, 30; II Tim., iii, 16; James, ii, 8; I Pet., ii, 6; II Pet., i, 20; the plural form of the noun, ai graphai, is used in the same sense in Matt., xxi, 42; xxii, 29; xxvi, 54; Mark, xii, 24; xiv, 49; Luke, xxiv, 27, 45; John, v, 39; Acts, xvii, 2, 17; xviii, 24, 28; I Cor., xv, 3, 4. In a similar sense are employed the expressions graphai hagiai (Rom., i, 2), ai graphai ton propheton (Matt., xxvi, 56), graphai prophetikai (Rom., xvi, 26). The word has a somewhat modified sense in Christ's question, "and have you not read this scripture" (Mark, xii, 10). In the language of Christ and the Apostles the expression "scripture" or "scriptures" denotes the sacred books of the Jews. The New Testament uses the expressions in this sense about fifty times; but they occur more frequently in the Fourth Gospel and the Epistles than in the synoptic Gospels. At times, the contents of Scripture are indicated more accurately as comprising the Law and the Prophets (Rom., iii, 21; Acts xxviii, 23), or the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luke, xxiv, 44). The Apostle St. Peter extends the designation Scripture also to tas loipas graphas (II Pet., iii, 16), denoting the Pauline Epistles; St. Paul (I Tim., v, 18) seems to refer by the same expression to both Deut., xxv, 4, and Luke, x, 7.
It is disputed whether the word graphe in the singular is ever used of the Old Testament as a whole. Lightfoot (Gal., iii, 22) expresses the opinion that the singular graphe in the New Testament always means a particular passage of Scripture. But in Rom., iv, 3, he modifies his view, appealing to Dr. Vaughan's statement of the case. He believes that the usage of St. John may admit a doubt, though he does not think so, personally; but St. Paul's practice is absolute and uniform. Mr. Hort says (I Pet., ii, 6) that in St. John and St. Paul he graphe is capable of being understood as approximating to the collective sense (cf. Westcott. "Hebr.", pp. 474 sqq.; Deissmann, "Bibelstudien", pp. 108 sqq., Eng. tr., pp. 112 sqq., Warfield, "Pres. and Reform. Review", X, July, 1899, pp. 472 sqq.). Here arises the question whether the expression of St. Peter (II, Pet., iii, 16) tas loipas graphas refers to a collection of St. Paul's Epistles. Spitta contends that the term graphai is used in a general non-technical meaning, denoting only writings of St. Paul's associates (Spitta, "Der zweite Brief des Petrus und der Brief des Judas", 1885, p. 294). Zahn refers the term to writings of a religious character which could claim respect in Christian circles either on account of their authors or on account of their use in public worship (Einleitung, pp. 98 sqq., 108). But Mr. F.H. Chase adheres to the principle that the phrase ai graphai used absolutely points to a definite and recognized collection of writings, i.e., Scriptures. The accompanying words, kai, tas loipas, and the verb streblousin in the context confirm Mr. Chase in his conviction (cf. Dict. of the Bible, III, p. 810b).
II. NATURE OF SCRIPTURE
A. According to the Jews
Whether the terms graphe, graphai, and their synonymous expressions to biblion (II Esdr., viii, 8), ta biblia (Dan., ix, 2), kephalis bibliou (Ps., xxxix, 8), he iera biblos (II Mach., viii, 23), ta biblia ta hagia (I Mach., xii, 9), ta iera grammata (II Tim., iii, 15) refer to particular writings or to a collection of books, they at least show the existence of a number of written documents the authority of which was generally accepted as supreme. The nature of this authority may be inferred from a number of other passages. According to Deut., xxxi, 9-13, Moses wrote the Book of the Law (of the Lord), and delivered it to the priests that they might keep it and read it to the people; see also Ex., xvii, 14; Deut., xvii, 18-19; xxvii, 1; xxviii, 1; 58-61; xxix, 20; xxx, 10; xxxi, 26; I Kings, x, 25; III Kings, ii, 3; IV Kings, xxii, 8. It is clear from IV Kings, xxiii, 1-3, that towards the end of the Jewish kingdom the Book of the Law of the Lord was held in the highest honour as containing the precepts of the Lord Himself. That this was also the case after the Captivity, may be inferred from II Esdr., viii, 1-9, 13,14, 18; the book here mentioned contained the injuctions concerning the Feast of Tabernacles found in Lev., xxiii, 34 sq.; Deut., xvi, 13 sq., and is therefore identical with the pre-Exilic Sacred Books. According to I Mach., i, 57-59, Antiochus commanded the Books of the Law of the Lord to be burned and their retainers to slain. We learn from II Mach., ii, 13, that at the time of Nehemias there existed a collection of books containing historical, prophetical, and psalmodic writings; since the collection is represented as unifrom, and since the portions were considered as certainly of Divine authority, we may infer that this characteristic was ascribed to all, at least in some degree. Coming down to the time of Christ, we find that Flavius Josephus attributes to the twenty-two protocanonical books of the Old Testament Divine authority, maintaining that they had been written under Divine inspiration and that they contain God's teachings (Contra Appion., I, vi-viii). The Hellenist Philo too is acquainted with the three parts of the sacred Jewish books to which he ascribes an irrefragable authority, because they contain God's oracles expressed through the instrumentality of the sacred writers ("De vit. Mosis", pp. 469, 658 sq.; "De monarchia", p. 564).
B. According to Christian Living This concept of Scripture is fully upheld by the Christian teaching. Jesus Christ Himself appeals to the authority of Scripture, "Search the scriptures" (John, v, 39); He maintains that "one jot, or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled" (Matt., v, 18); He regards it as a principle that "the Scripture cannot be broken" (John, x, 35); He presents the word of Scripture as the word of the eternal Father (John, v, 33-41), as the word of a writer inspired by the Holy Ghost (Matt., xxii, 43), as the word of God (Matt., xix, 4-5; xxii, 31); He declares that "all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me (Luke, xxiv, 44). The Apostles knew that "prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost" (II Pet., i, 21); they regarded "all scripture, inspired of God" as "profitable to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in justice" (II Tim., iii, 16). They considered the words of Scripture as the words of God speaking in the inspired writer or by the mouth of the inspired writer (Heb., iv, 7; Acts, i, 15-16; iv, 25). Finally, they appealed to Scripture as to an irresistible authority (Rom., passim), they supposed that parts of Scripture have a typical sense such as only God can employ (John, xix, 36; Heb., i, 5; vii, 3 sqq.), and they derived most important conclusions even from a few words or certain grammatical forms of Scripture (Gal., iii, 16; Heb., xii, 26-27). It is not surprising, then, that the earliest Christian writers speak in the same strain of the Scriptures. St. Clement of Rome (I Cor., xlv) tells his readers to search the Scriptures for the truthful expressions of the Holy Ghost. St. Irenaeus (Adv. haer., II, xxxviii, 2) considers the Scriptures as uttered by the Word of God and His Spirit. Origen testifies that it is granted by both Jews and Christians that the Bible was written under (the influence of) the Holy Ghost (Contra Cels., V, x); again, he considers it as proven by Christ's dwelling in the flesh that the Law and the Prophets were written by a heavenly charisma, and that the writings believed to be the words of God are not men's work (De princ., iv, vi). St. Clement of Alexandria receives the voice of God who has given the Scriptures, as a reliable proof (Strom., ii).
C. According to Ecclesiastical Documents
Not to multiply patristic testimony for the Divine authority of Scripture, we may add the official doctrine of the Church on the nature of Sacred Scripture. The fifth ecumenical council condemned Theodore of Mopsuestia for his opposition against the Divine authority of the books of Solomon, the Book of Job, and the Canticle of Canticles. Since the fourth century the teaching of the Church concerning the nature of the Bible is practically summed up in the dogmatic formula that God is the author of Sacred Scripture. According to the first chapter of the Council of Carthage (A.D. 398), bishops before being consecrated must express their belief in this formula, and this profession of faith is exacted of them even today. In the thirteenth century, Innocent III imposed this formula on the Waldensians; Clement IV exacted its acceptance from Michael Palaeologus, and the emperor actually accepted it in his letter to the Second Council of Lyons (1272). The same formula was repeated in the fifteenth century by Eugenius IV in his Decree for the Jacobites, in the sixteenth century by the Council of Trent (Sess. IV, decr. de can. Script.), and in the nineteenth century by the Vatican Council. What is implied in this Divine authorship of Sacred Scripture, and how it is to be explained, has been set forth in the article INSPIRATION.
III. COLLECTION OF SACRED BOOKS
What has been said implies that Scripture does not refer to any single book, but comprises a number of books written at different times and by different writers working under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Hence the question, how could such a collection be made, and how was it made in point of fact?
A. Question of Right
The main difficulty as to the first question (quoestio juris) arises from the fact that a book must be Divinely inspired in order to lay claim to the dignity of being regarded as Scripture. Various methods have been suggested for ascertaining the fact of inspiration. It has been claimed that so-called internal criteria are sufficient to lead us to the knowledge of this fact. But on closer investigation they prove inadequate.
Miracles and prophecies require a Divine intervention in order that they may happen, not in order that they may be recorded; hence a work relating miracles or prophecies is not necessarily inspired.
The so-called ethico-aesthetic criterium is inadequate. It fails to establish that certain portions of Scripture are inspired writings, e.g., the genealogical tables, and the summary accounts of the kings of Juda, while it favours the inspiration of several post-Apostolic works, e.g., of the "Imitation of Christ", and of the "Epistles" of St. Ignatius Martyr.
The same must be said of the psychological criterium, or the effect which the perusal of Scripture produces in the heart of the reader. Such emotions are subjective, and vary in different readers. The Epistle of St. James appeared strawlike to Luther, divine to Calvin.
These internal criteria are inadequate even if they be taken collectively. Wrong keys are unable to open a lock whether they be used singly or collectively. Other students of this subject have endeavored to establish Apostolic authorship as a criterium of inspiration. But this answer does not give us a criterium for the inspiration of the Old Testament books, nor does it touch the inspiration of the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke, neither of whom was an Apostle. Besides, the Apostles were endowed with the gift of infallibility in their teaching, and in their writing as far as it formed part of their teaching; but infallibility in writing does not imply inspiration. Certain writings of the Roman pontiff may be infallible, but they are not inspired; God is not their author. Nor can the criterium of inspiration be placed in the testimony of history. For inspiration is a supernatural fact, known only to God and probably to the inspired writer. Hence human testimony concerning inspiration is based, at best, on the testimony of one person who is, naturally speaking, an interested party in the matter concerning which he testifies. The history of the the false prophets of former times as well as of our own day teaches us the futility of such testimony. It is true that miracles and prophecy may, at times, confirm such human testimony as to the inspiration of a work. But, in the first place, not all inspired writers have been prophets or workers of miracles; in the second place, in order that prophecies or miracles may serve as proof of inspiration, it must be clear that the miracles were performed, and the prophecies were uttered, to establish the fact in question; in the third place, if this condition be verified, the testimony for inspiration is no longer merely human, but it has become Divine. No one will doubt the sufficiency of Divine testimony to establish the fact of inspiration; on the other hand, no one can deny the need of such testimony in order that we may distinguish with certainty between an inspired and a non-inspired book.
B. Question of Fact
It is a rather difficult problem to state with certainty, how and when the several books of the Old and the New Testament were received as sacred by the religious community. Deut., xxxi, 9, 24 sqq., informs us that Moses delivered the Book of the Law to the Levites and the ancients of Israel to be deposited "in the side of the ark of the covenant"; according to Deut., xvii, 18, the king had to procure for himself a copy of at least a part of the book, so as to "read it all the days of his life". Josue (xxiv, 26) added his portion to the law-book of Israel, and this may be regarded as the second step in the collection of the Old Testament writings. According to Is., xxxiv, 16, and Jer., xxxvi, 4, the prophets Isaias and Jeremias collected their respective prophetic utterances. The words of II Par., xxix, 30, lead us to suppose that in the days of King Ezechias there either existed or originated a collection of the Psalms of David and of Asaph. From Prov., xxv, 1, one may infer that about the same time there was made a collection of the Solomonic writings, which may have been added to the collection of psalms. In the second century B.C. the Minor Prophets had been collected into one work (Ecclus., xlix, 12) which is cited in Acts, vii, 42, as "the books of the prophets". The expressions found in Dan., ix, 2, and I Mach., xii, 9, suggest that even these smaller collections had been gathered into a larger body of sacred books. Such a larger collection is certainly implied in the words II Mach., ii, 13, and the prologue of Ecclesiasticus. Since these two passages mention the main divisions of the Old-Testament canon, this latter must have been completed, at least with regard to the earlier books, during the course of the second century B.C.
It is generally granted that the Jews in the time of Jesus Christ acknowledged as canonical or included in their collection of sacred writings all the so-called protocanonical books of the Old Testament. Christ and the Apostles endorsed this faith of the Jews, so that we have Divine authority for their Scriptural character. As there are solid reasons for maintaining that some of the New-Testament writers made use of the Septuagint version which contained the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, these latter too are in so far attested as part of Sacred Scripture. Again, II Pet., iii, 15-16, ranks all the Epistles of St. Paul with the "other scriptures", and I Tim., v, 18, seems to quote Luke, x, 7, and to place it on a level with Deut., xxv, 4. But these arguments for the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, of the Pauline Epistles, and of the Gospel of St. Luke do not exclude all reasonable doubt. Only the Church, the infallible bearer of tradition, can furnish us invincible certainty as to the number of the Divinely inspired books of both the Old and the New Testament. See CANON OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.
IV. DIVISION OF SCRIPTURE
A. Old and New Testaments
As the two dispensations of grace separated from each other by the advent of Jesus are called the Old and the New Testament (Matt., xxvi, 28; II Cor., iii, 14), so were the inspired writings belonging to either economy of grace from the earliest times called books of the Old or of the New Testament, or simply the Old or the New Testament. This name of the two great divisions of the inspired writings has been practically common among Latin Christians from the time of Tertullian, though Tertullian himself frequently employs the name "Instrumentum" or legally authentic document; Cassiodorus uses the title "Sacred Pandects", or sacred digest of law.
B. Protocanonical and Deuterocanonical
The word "canon" denoted at first the material rule, or instrument, employed in various trades; in a metaphorical sense it signified the form of perfection that had to be attained in the various arts or trades. In this metaphorical sense some of the early Fathers urged the canon of truth, the canon of tradition, the canon of faith, the canon of the Church against the erroneous tenets of the early heretics (St. Clem., "I Cor.", vii; Clem. of Alex., "Strom.", xvi; Orig., "De princip.", IV, ix; etc.). St. Irenaeus employed another metaphor, calling the Fourth Gospel the canon of truth (Adv. haer., III, xi); St. Isidore of Pelusium applies the name to all the inspired writings (Epist., iv, 14). About the time of St. Augustine (Contra Crescent., II, xxxix) and St. Jerome (Prolog. gal.), the word "canon" began to denote the collection of Sacred Scriptures; among later writers it is used practically in the sense of catalogue of inspired books. In the sixteenth century, Sixtus Senensis, O.P., distinguished between protocanonical and deuterocanonical books. This distinction does not indicate a difference of authority, but only a difference of time at which the books were recognized by the whole Church as Divinely inspired. Deuterocanonical, therefore, are those books concerning the inspiration of which some Churches doubted more or less seriously for a time, but which were accepted by the whole Church as really inspired, after the question had been thoroughly investigated. As to the Old Testament, the Books of Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, I, II, Machabees, and alos Esther, x, 4- xvi, 24, Daniel, iii, 24-90, xiii, 1-xiv, 42, are in this sense deuterocanonical; the same must be said of the following New- Testament books and portions: Hebrews, James, II Peter, II, III John, Jude, Apocalypse, Mark, xiii, 9-20, Luke, xxii, 43-44, John, vii, 53-viii, 11. Protestant writers often call the deuterocanonical Books of the Old Testament the Apocrypha.
C. Tripartite Division of Testaments The prologue of Ecclesiasticus shows that the Old-Testament books were divided into three parts, the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings (the Hagiographa). The same division is mentioned in Luke, xxiv, 44, and has been kept by the later Jews. The Law or the Torah comprises only the Pentateuch. The second part contains two sections: the former Prophets (Josue, Judges, Samuel, and Kings), and the latter Prophets (Isaias, Jeremias, Ezechiel, and the Minor Prophets, called the Twelve, and counted as one book). The third division embraces three kinds of books: first poetical books (Psalms, Proverbs, Job); secondly, the five Megilloth or Rolls (Canticle of Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther); thirdly, the three remaining books (Daniel, Esdras, Paralipomenon). Hence, adding the five books of the first division to the eight of the second, and the eleven of the third, the entire Canon of the Jewish Scriptures embraces twenty-four books. Another arrangement connects Ruth with the Book of Judges, and Lamentations with Jeremias, and thus reduces the number of the books in the Canon to twenty-two. The division of the New-Testament books into the Gospel and the Apostle (Evangelium et Apostolus, Evangelia et Apostoli, Evangelica et Apostolica) began in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers (St. Ignatius, "Ad Philad.", v; "Epist. ad Diogn., xi) and was commonly adopted about the end of the second century (St. Iren., "Adv. haer.", I, iii; Tert., "De praescr.", xxxiv; St. Clem. of Alex., "Strom.", VII, iii; etc.); but the more recent Fathers did not adhere to it. It has been found more convenient to divide both the Old Testament and the New into four, or still better into three parts. The four parts distinguish between legal, historical, didactic or doctrinal, and prophetic books, while the tripartite division adds the legal books (the Pentateuch and the Gospels) to the historical, and retains the other two classes, i.e., the didactic and the prophetic books.
D. Arrangement of Books
The catalogue of the Council of Trent arranges the inspired books partly in a topological, partly in a chronological order. In the Old Testament, we have first all the historical books, excepting the two books of the Machabees which were supposed to have been written last of all. These historical books are arranged according to the order of time of which they treat; the books of Tobias, Judith, and Ester, however, occupy the last place because they relate personal history. The body of didactic works occupies the second place in the Canon, being arranged in the order of time at which the writers are supposed to have lived. The third place is assigned to the Prophets, first the four Major and then the twelve Minor Prophets, according to their respective chronological order. The Council follows a similar method in the arrangement of the New- Testament books. The first place is given to the historical books, i.e., the Gospels and the Book of Acts; the Gospels follow the order of their reputed composition. The second place is occupied by the didactic books, the Pauline Epistles preceding the Catholic. The former are enumerated according to the order of dignity of the addresses and according to the importance of the matter treated. Hence results the series: Romans; I, II Corinthians; Galatians; Ephesians; Philippians; Colossians; I, II, Thessalonians; I, II Timothy; Titus; Philemon; the Epistle to the Hebrews occupies the last place on account of its late reception into the canon. In its disposition of the Catholic Epistles the Council follows the so- called western order: I, II Peter; I, II, III John; James; Jude; our Vulgate edition follows the oriental order (James; I, II, III, John; Jude) which seems to be based on Gal., ii, 9. The Apocalypse occupies in the New Testament the place corresponding to that of the Prophets in the Old Testament.
E. Liturgical Division
The needs of liturgy occasioned a division of the inspired books into smaller parts. At the time of the Apostles it was a received custom to read in the synagogue service of the sabbath-day a portion of the Pentateuch (Acts, xv, 21) and a part of the Prophets (Luke, iv, 16; Acts, xiii, 15, 27). Hence the Pentateuch has been divided into fifty-four "parashas" according to the number of sabbaths in the intercalary lunar year. To each parasha corresponds a division of the prophetic writings, called haphtara. The Talmud speaks of more minute divisions, pesukim, which almost resemble our verses. The Church transferred to the Christian Sunday the Jewish custom of reading part of the Scriptures in the assemblies of the faithful, but soon added to, or replaced, the Jewish lessons by parts of the New Testament (St. Just., "I Apol.", lxvii; Tert., "De praescr.", xxxvi, etc.). Since the particular churches differed in the selection of the Sunday readings, this custom did not occasion any generally received division in the books of the New Testament. Besides, from the end of the fifth century, these Sunday lessons were no longer taken in order, but the sections were chosen as they fitted in with the ecclesiastical feasts and seasons.
F. Divisions to facilitate reference
For the convenience of readers and students the text had to be divided more uniformly than we have hitherto seen. Such divisions are traced back to Tatian, in the second century. Ammonius, in the third, divided the Gospel text into 1162 kephalaia in order to facilitate a Gospel harmony. Eusebius, Euthalius, and others carried on this work of division in the following centuries, so that in the fifth or sixth the Gospels were divided into 318 parts (tituli), the Epistles into 254 (capitula), and the Apocalypse into 96 (24 sermones, 72 capitula). Cassiodorus relates that the Old Testament text was divided into various parts (De inst. div. lit., I, ii). But all these various partitions were too imperfect and too uneven for practical use, especially when in the thirteenth century concordances (see CONCORDANCES) began to be constructed. About this time, Card. Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who died 1228, divided all the books of Scripture uniformly into chapters, a division which found its way almost immediately into the codices of the Vulgate version and even into some codices of the original texts, and passed into all the printed editions after the invention of printing. As the chapters were too long for ready reference, Cardinal Hugh of St. Cher divided them into smaller sections which he indicated by the capital letters A, B, etc. Robert Stephens, probably imitating R. Nathan (1437) divided the chapters into verses, and published his complete division into chapters and verses first in the Vulgate text (1548), and later on also in the Greek original of the New Testament (1551).
V. SCRIPTURE
Since Scripture is the written word of God, its contents are Divinely guaranteed truths, revealed either in the strict or the wider sense of the word. Again, since the inspiration of a writing cannot be known without Divine testimony, God must have revealed which are the books that constitute Sacred Scripture. Moreover, theologians teach that Christian Revelation was complete in the Apostles, and that its deposit was entrusted to the Apostles to guard and to promulgate. Hence the apostolic deposit of Revelation contained no merely Sacred Scripture in the abstract, but also the knowledge as to its constituent books. Scripture, then, is an Apostolic deposit entrusted to the Church, and to the Church belongs its lawful administration. This position of Sacred Scripture in the Church implies the following consequences:
(1) The Apostles promulgated both the Old and New Testament as a document received from God. It is antecedently probable that God should not cast his written Word upon men as a mere windfall, coming from no known authority, but that he should entrust its publication to the care of those whom he was sending to preach the Gospel to all nations, and with whom he had promised to be for all days, even to the consummation of the world. In conformity woth this principle, St. Jerome (De script. eccl.) says of the Gospel of St. Mark: "When Peter had heard it, he both approved of it and ordered it to be read in the churches". The Fathers testify to the promulgation of Scripture by the Apostles where they treat of the transmission of the inspired writings.
(2) The transmission of the inspired writings consists in the delivery of Scripture by the Apostles to their successors with the right, the duty, and the power to continue its promulgation, to preserve its integrity and identity, to explain its meaning, to use it in proving and illustrating Catholic teaching, to oppose and condemn any attack upon its doctrine, or any abuse of its meaning. We may infer all this from the character of the inspired writings and the nature of the Apostolate; but it is also attested by some of the weightiest writers of the early Church. St. Irenaeus insists upon these points against the Gnostics, who appealed to Scripture as to private historical documents. He excludes this Gnostic view, first by insisting on the mission of the Apostles and upon the succession in the Apostolate, especially as seen in the Church of Rome (Haer., III, 3-4); secondly, by showing that the preaching of the Apostles continued by their successors contains a supernatural guarantee of infallibility through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost (Haer., III, 24); thirdly, by combining the Apostolic succession and the supernatural guarantee of the Holy Ghost (Haer., IV, 26). It seems plain that, if Scripture cannot be regarded as a private historical document on account of the official mission of the Apostles, on account of the official succession in the Apostolate of their successors, on account of the assistance of the Holy Ghost promised to the Apostles and their successors, the promulgation of Scripture, the preservation of its integrity and identity, and the explanation of its meaning must belong to the Apostles and their legitimate successors. The same principles are advocated by the great Alexandrian doctor, Origen (De princ., Praef.). "That alone", he says, "is to be believed to be the truth which in nothing differs from the ecclesiastical and and Apostolical tradition". In another passage (in Matth. tr. XXIX, n. 46-47), he rejects the contention urged by the heretics "as often as they bring forward canonical Scriptures in which every Christian agrees and believes", that "in the houses is the word of truth"; "for from it (the Church) alone the sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world". That the African Church agrees with the Alexandrian, is clear from the words of Tertullian (De praescript., nn, 15, 19). He protests against the admission of heretics "to any discussion whatever touching the Scriptures". "This question should be first proposed, which is now the only one to be discussed, `To whom belongs the faith itself: whose are the Scriptures'?. . .For the true Scriptures and the true expositions and all the true Christian traditions will be wherever both the true Christian rule and faith shall be shown to be". St. Augustine endorses the same position when he says: "I should not believe the Gospel except on the authority of the Catholic Church" (Con. epist. Manichaei, fundam., n. 6).
(3) By virtue of its official and permanent promulgation, Scripture is a public document, the Divine authority of which is evident to all the members of the Church.
(4) The Church necessarily possesses a text of Scripture, which is internally authentic, or substantially identical with the original. Any form or version of the text, the internal authenticity of which the Church has approved either by its universal and constant use, or by a formal declaration, enjoys the character of external or public authenticity, i.e., its conformity with the original must not merely be presumed juridically, but must be admitted as certain on account of the infallibility of the Church.
(5) The authentic text, legitimately promulgated, is a source and rule of faith, though it remains only a means or instrument in the hands of the teaching body of the Church, which alone has the right of authoritatively interpreting Scripture.
(6) The administration and custody of Scripture is not entrusted directly to the whole Church, but to its teaching body, though Scripture itself is the common property of the members of the whole Church. While the private handling of Scripture is opposed to the fact that it is common property, its administrators are bound to communicate its contents to all the members of the Church.
(7) Though Scripture is the property of the Church alone, those outside her pale may use it as a means of discovering or entering the Church. But Tertullian shows that they have no right to apply Scripture to their own purposes or to turn it against the Church. He also teaches Catholics how to contest the right of heretics to appeal to Scripture at all (by a kind of demurrer), before arguing with them on single points of Scriptural doctrine.
(8) The rights of the teaching body of the Church include also that of issuing and enforcing decrees for promoting the right use, or preventing the abuse of Scripture. Not to mention the definition of the Canon (see CANON), the Council of Trent issued two decrees concerning the Vulgate (see VULGATE), and a decree concerning the interpretation of Scripture (see EXEGESIS, HERMENEUTICS), and this last enactment was repeated in a more stringent form by the Vatican Council (sess. III, Conc. Trid., sess. IV). The various decisions of the Biblical Commission derive their binding force from this same right of the teaching body of the Church. (Cf. Stapleton, Princ. Fid. Demonstr., X-XI; Wilhelm and Scannell, "Manual of Catholic Theology", London, 1890, I, 61 sqq.; Scheeben, "Handbuch der katholischen Dogmatik", Freiburg, 1873, I, 126 sqq.).
VI. ATTITUDE OF THE CHURCH TOWARDS THE READING OF THE BIBLE IN THE VERNACULAR
The attitude of the Church as to the reading of the Bible in the vernacular may be inferred from the Church's practice and legislation. It has been the practice of the Church to provide newly-converted nations, as soon as possible, with vernacular versions of the Scriptures; hence the early Latin and oriental translations, the versions existing among the Armenians, the Slavonians, the Goths, the Italians, the French, and the partial renderings into English. As to the legislation of the Church on this subject, we may divide its history into three large periods:
(1) During the course of the first millennium of her existence, the Church did not promulgate any law concerning the reading of Scripture in the vernacular. The faithful were rather encouraged to read the Sacred Books according to their spiritual needs (cf. St. Irenaeus, "Adv. haer.", III, iv).
(2) The next five hundred years show only local regulations concerning the use of the Bible in the vernacular. On 2 January, 1080, Gregory VII wrote to the Duke of Bohemia that he could not allow the publication of the Scriptures in the language of the country. The letter was written chiefly to refuse the petition of the Bohemians for permission to conduct Divine service in the Slavic language. The pontiff feared that the reading of the Bible in the vernacular would lead to irreverence and wrong interpretation of the inspired text (St. Gregory VII, "Epist.", vii, xi). The second document belongs to the time of the Waldensian and Albigensian heresies. The Bishop of Metz had written to Innocent III that there existed in his diocese a perfect frenzy for the Bible in the vernacular. In 1199 the pope replied that in general the desire to read the Scriptures was praiseworthy, but that the practice was dangerous for the simple and unlearned ("Epist., II, cxli; Hurter, "Gesch. des. Papstes Innocent III", Hamburg, 1842, IV, 501 sqq.). After the death of Innocent III, the Synod of Toulouse directed in 1229 its fourteenth canon against the misuse of Sacred Scripture on the part of the Cathari: "prohibemus, ne libros Veteris et Novi Testamenti laicis permittatur habere" (Hefele, "Concilgesch", Freiburg, 1863, V, 875). In 1233 the Synod of Tarragona issued a similar prohibition in its second canon, but both these laws are intended only for the countries subject to the jurisdiction of the respective synods (Hefele, ibid., 918). The Third Synod of Oxford, in 1408, owing to the disorders of the Lollards, who in addition to their crimes of violence and anarchy had introduced virulent interpolations into the vernacular sacred text, issued a law in virtue of which only the versions approved by the local ordinary or the provincial council were allowed to be read by the laity (Hefele, op. cit., VI, 817).
(3) It is only in the beginning of the last five hundred years that we meet with a general law of the Church concerning the reading of the Bible in the vernacular. On 24 March, 1564, Pius IV promulgated in his Constitution, "Dominici gregis", the Index of Prohibited Books. According to the third rule, the Old Testament may be read in the vernacular by pious and learned men, according to the judgment of the bishop, as a help to the better understanding of the Vulgate. The fourth rule places in the hands of the bishop or the inquisitor the power of allowing the reading of the New Testament in the vernacular to laymen who according to the judgment of their confessor or their pastor can profit by this practice. Sixtus V reserved this power to himself or the Sacred Congregation of the Index, and Clement VIII added this restriction to the fourth rule of the Index, by way of appendix. Benedict XIV required that the vernacular version read by laymen should be either approved by the Holy See or provided with notes taken from the writings of the Fathers or of learned and pious authors. It then became an open question whether this order of Benedict XIV was intended to supersede the former legislation or to further restrict it. This doubt was not removed by the next three documents: the condemnation of certain errors of the Jansenist Quesnel as to the necessity of reading the Bible, by the Bull "Unigenitus" issued by Clement XI on 8 Sept., 1713 (cf. Denzinger, "Enchir.", nn. 1294-1300); the condemnation of the same teaching maintained in the Synod of Pistoia, by the Bull "Auctorem fidei" issued on 28 Aug., 1794, by Pius VI; the warning against allowing the laity indiscriminately to read the Scriptures in the vernacular, addressed to the Bishop of Mohileff by Pius VII, on 3 Sept., 1816. But the Decree issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Index on 7 Jan., 1836, seems to render it clear that henceforth the laity may read vernacular versions of the Scriptures, if they be either approved by the Holy See, or provided with notes taken from the writings of the Fathers or of learned Catholic authors. The same regulation was repeated by Gregory XVI in his Encyclical of 8 May, 1844. In general, the Church has always allowed the reading of the Bible in the vernacular, if it was desirable for the spiritual needs of her children; she has forbidden it only when it was almost certain to cause serious spiritual harm.
VII. OTHER SCRIPTURAL QUESTIONS
The history of the preservation and the propagation of the Scripture-text is told in the articles MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE; CODEX ALEXANDRINUS (etc.); VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE; EDITIONS OF THE BIBLE; CRITICISM (TEXTUAL); the interpretation of Scripture is dealt with in the articles HERMENEUTICS; EXEGESIS; COMMENTARIES ON THE BIBLE; and CRITICISM (BIBLICAL). Additional information on the foregoing questions is contained in the articles INTRODUCTION; TESTAMENT, THE OLD; TESTAMENT, THE NEW. The history of our English Version is treated in the article VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE.