De inspiratione sacrae Scripturae: theologica disquisitio

That there are certain sacred and divine books whose authority is supreme and irrefragable has always been believed by Jews and Christians alike. Josephus bears witness to the faith of the Jews in book 1 of Against Apion, no. 8, in these words: « Among us there is by no means an innumerable multitude of books, differing from one another and fighting among themselves; there are only twenty-two books, containing the account of all time, which are rightly believed to be divine ». And a little later: « From the fact itself it is manifest with what veneration we regard our books. For though so many ages have now passed, no one has dared either to add anything, or to take away or change anything from them. But it is innate in all Jews from their very birth to believe that these writings are the doctrines of God, and to cling to them and, if need be, gladly to undergo death for them ». Moreover, Christ in the Gospel most openly confirms this faith of the Jewish people by His authority, everywhere appealing to the books of the Jews as to Scriptures that stand at the summit of authority, which can in no way be broken¹, which must infallibly be fulfilled², and from which He Himself had testimony, not as from man, but from God³. The apostles too, in their own writings, commend these same books in precisely the same way, by their very use and frequent citation: It is written, Scripture says, it was said through the prophet, and by that very fact an authority that cannot be set aside is adduced. Finally: All Scripture divinely inspired is useful for teaching, says Paul, 2 Tim. III-16. And Peter in his second epistle, I-20: No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private interpretation. For prophecy was never brought by human will, but holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

But there is no doubt whatsoever that many other books, especially from the New Testament, are to be placed on an equal level of authority alongside those books which the Jews venerated as sacred. Certainly Peter, in the passage cited above, III-16, numbers Paul's epistles among the other Scriptures, saying: As also our most beloved brother Paul wrote to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of matters in which there are some things difficult to understand, which the unlearned and unstable distort, as they do also the other Scriptures. But the chief point is this: the universal, constant and authentic tradition of the Church assures us not only about the epistles of Paul, but also about the Gospels, the Acts, the seven canonical epistles, and the Apocalypse of John. All these books, as so many priestly trumpets at whose blast the walls of Jericho—that is, the strength and fortifications of the pagan world—fell, and the worldly heights are overthrown even now, Origen most elegantly gathered into a single list and a single catalogue: « For the strength and fortifications on which this world leaned as on walls were the worship of idols, the deceits of divination administered by the art of demons, the contrivances of augurs and soothsayers and magicians; by all these this world was encircled as by the strongest walls. Moreover, it was also strengthened by the various doctrines of the philosophers and by their most eminent assertions and disputations, as by certain lofty and sturdy towers. But when our Lord Jesus Christ came, whose advent that earlier son of Nun prefigured, He sends His apostles as priests bearing trumpets of beaten metal, the magnificent and heavenly doctrine of preaching. Matthew was the first to sound the priestly trumpet in his Gospel. Mark too, and Luke and John, sounded each his own priestly trumpet. Peter also sounds forth on the two trumpets of his epistles. James too, and Jude. John also adds still further, blowing the trumpet through his epistles and the Apocalypse, and Luke as well, in describing the acts of the apostles. But last of all came (Paul), thundering on the fourteen trumpets of his epistles, and he cast down to the foundations the walls of Jericho, and all the engines of idolatry, and the doctrines of the philosophers » ⁴.

Moreover, our purpose here is not to undertake any demonstration concerning the existence of the sacred Scriptures, or their canon, or the manner in which the demonstration of either matter is accomplished, and much less concerning the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament, or those books of the New Testament about which doubt has sometimes arisen. For these matters are presupposed as examined, discussed and established elsewhere. Also presupposed are all the theological loci as demonstrated, both in themselves and in the harmonious relationship by which they cohere with one another. In sum, and indeed wholly, the conclusions of what is called fundamental theology are presupposed, and thereby all the sources, rules and resources proper to theological discipline. With these matters thus presupposed and established beforehand as the principles of the whole disputation, the question now is: on what precise ground are the books listed in the Tridentine canon to be regarded as sacred and divine? And, insofar as this is by reason of the inspiration through which God became the author of these books, what is the notion, nature, quiddity and mode of that inspiration? In this matter, indeed, that we may proceed in due order, we must begin from the notion of inspiration as it shines forth in the authentic documents of the Church; and it is to the investigation of this matter that the following chapter is prefixed.