De locis theologicis

WHERE IT IS SHOWN THAT EVERY PASSAGE OF THE CANONICAL BOOKS WAS WRITTEN WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

St. Jerome attests that there were people who adopted that former position in this question and controversy, not only in the passage we mentioned a little earlier but also in his commentaries on Micah, chapter 5. The mark of this error has also been laid on Erasmus, to pass over others. I show first by this argument how impious the error is: if this opinion is true, the authority of Sacred Scripture is undermined to a great extent. For, as Augustine says, if any falsehood whatsoever is found in any sacred book, the certainty of the whole book perishes. With this one argument, Augustine believes in book 2 of On the Harmony of the Gospels, ch. 12, that it has been sufficiently shown and made plain that the writings of the prophets and apostles contain absolutely no falsehood—not only falsehood spoken by lying, but even falsehood caused by forgetfulness. “In trivial matters,” they say, “and in things that have no bearing on our salvation, the sacred authors are both mistaken and misleading. We may therefore call into question those things that are most important and weighty.” “The cases are not the same,” they reply, “because if the Spirit himself abandoned the Church in small things, for whose instruction the sacred authors had the Spirit, he would not immediately abandon it in great things. For the most serious theologians agree that the Church can err in minor matters but not in major ones.” “What then prevents us,” they ask, “from reasoning in the same way also”

that we should assert that the apostles and Evangelists sometimes erred in matters of little importance, though they did not err in necessary matters? If so, God forbid, they acknowledge errors of this kind above all in the apostles and Evangelists. But if we say, “The Spirit suggested everything to the apostles and Evangelists,” they reply, “Not absolutely everything, but only what Christ had told them”—and those things were of the greatest importance. If we add, “The Spirit taught them all truth,” they answer, “Not absolutely all truth, but what was necessary for salvation.” Such is how they try to escape. But their efforts are in vain. To begin with, I ask, what will they do if someone should argue that many miracles in the Gospels are fictitious and that the Evangelists, following the example of Herodotus, Xenophon, and Plato, used fabricated accounts, either to glorify Christ or to stir up the faithful's affection for him? Surely they would say that human beings could do this without the Spirit of God. Next, how easy it will be for anyone to judge serious or trivial matters according to his own preference and ingenuity! One will tell you that it is a trifling matter, and one not pertaining to our salvation, to preach that the three Persons are of one substance. Another will contend that the two operations and wills in Christ are matters of no great importance. Someone will even consider contemptible as a trifling matter the teaching that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as one principle. Someone will also think nothing of the question whether Christ rose on the third or fourth day, since it does not greatly concern salvation. In these matters, then, the Evangelists, apostles, and prophets might have erred, slipped, or been mistaken. Moreover, even if we pass over the other parts of Scripture, in sacred histories it would be impossible to distinguish and discern what comes from God and what from a human being, what the author says by divine revelation and what he brings forth instead from a human spirit and ingenuity. Consequently, the faith of readers and hearers would everywhere waver, since they would not know whether each passage in the Chronicles of the Saints had been written by the human spirit or by the Spirit of God. Who, however, is so brazen (to speak somewhat in the human manner on behalf of the Evangelists) that, if he wished to publish something about events whose memory is very recent and which readers have not merely heard with their own ears but have nearly seen with their own eyes, he would willingly insert things that contribute nothing to the matter but make the whole account false and uncertain? Were the Evangelists so foolish as to invent things they could safely have omitted, or even assert them as certain at the manifest risk of the cause they had undertaken to persuade people of? If they had been such men, the Jews, whom they greatly detested, would certainly have contended with all their force and skill—and would even have succeeded—in exposing such fictions or errors. But I speak in human terms. For if the Holy Spirit guided the apostles' tongues in their spontaneous preaching, how much more in writings that were to endure forever? And if the apostles and Evangelists were made fit ministers of the New Testament, their sufficiency surely comes not from themselves but from God; therefore their error would be God's, not theirs. For we received Christ's Testament from the apostles; when we hear them, we hear Christ; when we read their Gospel, we read Christ's Gospel. But since the law of Moses, which is a ministry of death, was written with such exact care that not one jot or one stroke of it could be omitted, how much more will the Gospel of Christ, which is a ministry of the Spirit and of life, be written with such care and the inspiration of God who assists it, ¹

that not only every word but even every stroke will have been supplied by the divine Spirit. Moreover, the Apostle utterly recoils from a pious lie, one that might seem especially to serve God's glory, when he says: “But if Christ has not risen, our preaching is empty, and your faith is empty as well. We are also found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if the dead do not rise.” If this falsehood is excluded by the sacred authors, although it would commend God's power and keep the people obedient, every other falsehood will certainly be rejected, all the more so. For no falsehood in Sacred Scripture could be trivial; it would gravely diminish the authority of Scripture. If we now wish to bring forward passages from the hidden writings to confirm this point, we must certainly fear that those who wish to defend the opposing error will defend themselves by saying that the author of Sacred Scripture in that passage too, which we cite, spoke not by the divine Spirit but from himself. It would follow that scarcely any testimony from Sacred Scripture would be firm against heretics. Let us therefore remove from this discussion those who, by their erroneous opinion, diminish both the force of Scripture and its authority. Let us ourselves acknowledge that every single thing, great or small, was published by the sacred authors at the dictation of the Holy Spirit. We received this from the Fathers; it has been impressed and, as it were, engraved on the hearts of the faithful. We too, and especially the Church herself as our teacher and guide, must therefore hold to it.