De inspiratione sacrae Scripturae: theologica disquisitio

« The author of Sacred Scripture is God, in whose power it lies to adapt not only words to signify, which a man can also do, but also the things themselves. And therefore, whereas in all sciences words signify, this science has this proper feature, that the things signified by the words also signify something. That first signification, then, by which words signify things, pertains to the first sense, which is the historical or literal sense. But that signification by which the things signified by the words in turn signify other things is called the spiritual sense, which is founded upon the literal sense and presupposes it ». Thus St. Thomas in the First Part, Q. 1, a. 10. There he first lays down the general principle, then draws out the conclusion flowing from the general principle, and thirdly explains the proper notion of the spiritual sense as divided off from the literal.

I. — But from the general principle a doubt at once arises, since it does not appear so at first sight how it is true that man cannot adapt things to signify. For poets and orators and all those to whom allegories are permitted constantly employ things for the purpose of signification. Nor only in word but also in deed, as, for example, the histories narrate of that ancient worthy who, when he had asked to be admitted into a certain company of silent men, and a vessel full of water to the brim had been set before him, and he had been answered that the number of the academicians was already complete, did not on that account desist from his undertaking. But plucking a rose petal, he carefully laid it on the surface of the water, and with such dexterity that the vessel did not overflow, elegantly expressing in this way that as in the full vessel there had still been room for a little rose petal, so too in the full academy there was room for a tiny little man. In a word, then, it is all over with symbolism, all over with metaphors and allegories, if the principle be once admitted that it belongs to God alone to adapt things to signify something.

But it is to be considered that words here are not only words properly so called, but also all those things which are either artificially composed or imaginatively feigned for the purpose of signifying, so namely that under the very form by which they signify they are ordered to nothing else; as appears in the aforementioned rose petal placed on the surface of the water, or in the feigned similitudes by which the poetic art is wont to present the truth of things. Accordingly, things here means only those which pursue their course under God's providence; which are not disposed to the end of signifying by any adventitious artifice, but are understood to have their connatural form wholly in themselves, independently of any further relation or purpose of representation. Think, for example, of the people of Israel captive in Egypt, led out of captivity by Moses in signs and wonders, passing through the Red Sea, walking forty years in the desert, eating bread sent from heaven, drinking water that miraculously flowed from the rock, and at last, after countless vicissitudes, reaching the promised land. There certainly there is nothing of artificial composition, but the pure and simple unfolding of a historical event; and if a certain figurative signification is in it, it will be in it not after the manner of a word, but after the manner of a thing¹.

In this way, then, it appears evidently that it belongs to God alone to adapt things to signify something. For since God alone is the orderer of all events through His infallible providence, and alone has the events themselves subject to His disposal as the letters of the alphabet are subject to the arrangement of the printer, He alone can also so temper and moderate their course at times as to place in them, in relation to other things, the relation of sign to thing signified and of figure to thing figured. And for this reason St. Thomas infers most rightly, Quodl. 7, a. 16: « For just as man can employ certain words or feigned similitudes to signify something, so God employs the very course of things subject to His providence for the signification of certain things ». No room for doubt, then, is left concerning the general principle.

II. — There follows now the conclusion of the principle. And first indeed, that in the other writings of human origin no other signification is to be sought besides that which is in the words, if nevertheless you take words in that adequate sense which was declared above, according to which all the figures of speech or feigned similitudes that men are wont to employ for the purpose of signification are included under words. It follows secondly, that in the divine writings, besides the signification that underlies the words, another signification can also be present, given to the things signified by the words. And I say only that it can be present, because from an a priori principle nothing more may be concluded. But that in fact this is so is most certainly gathered, both from the express assertions of the Scriptures themselves and from the concordant testimony of the whole of tradition.

And indeed, in Gal. IV-22, the Apostle says: It is written that Abraham had two sons... These things are said by way of allegory. For these are the two testaments. And note here that there are two kinds of allegory. One is the common allegory, namely in words, which Sacred Scripture also uses, as appears in the parables of Christ, in Nathan's parable to David, 2 Reg. XII, and very often elsewhere. The other is the allegory in things, which agrees with the former only by analogy and is proper to Sacred Scripture alone: inasmuch as a history is narrated that is true according to the immediate sense of the words, but in the thing narrated a certain more hidden signification of another thing lies concealed. And this is the allegory of which the Apostle speaks now, because that history of the two sons of Abraham truly happened as it is narrated, but the event had a further signification of another thing, namely of the two testaments, the old and the new. — Again, 1 Cor. X, 1-14, when he had first recalled the things that happened to the ancient Israelites in the desert, he concluded saying: But these things were done in figure for us. And below: But all these things happened to them in figure. As if he had said: Whatever I have recalled as having happened to those ancients were types, figures, or certain fore-announcing tablets of the things that were to be in the Church of Christ. And therefore Augustine, l. 22 c. Faust. c. 24: « I say, he says, that not only the tongue of those men but even their life was prophetic, and that whole kingdom of the Hebrew people was a kind of great prophet, because it was the prophet of a kind of great thing ».

Tradition's authority in this matter is so conspicuous that you would not know what to choose above all amid such abundance and such richness. Thus Hilary says, in Psalm. 134, n. 1: « According to the Apostle, the things that are in the law are a shadow of things to come. The things that were done in it are allegorumena; they are not to be heard negligently, because under the faith of bodily deeds they were established as an example of spiritual works ». — Thus Jerome says, Prolog. in Isaiam: « After the truth of the history, all things are to be taken spiritually. And so Judaea and Jerusalem, Babylon and the Philistines, Moab and Damascus... are to be understood, so that we seek all things in the sense; and in all these things, as a wise architect, the Apostle Paul lays the foundation, which is none other than Christ Jesus ». — Thus Gregory of Nazianzus says, l. 2 Carm. VII ad Nemesium: « There is also among us a twofold sense of divine Scripture, the one inward and spiritual, the other outward. Each sense is of a wonderful structure. The one is perceived by few, the other by many ». — Thus Cyril says, Glaphyr. in Genes. l. 6, n. 1: « In various and manifold ways Sacred Scripture foretells the types of salvation through Christ... For just as the masters of the art of painting, laying the various figures of colors on with shadows, bring them to a more pleasant appearance and confer much grace and beauty on the picture, so too God subtly fore-shows the beauty of the mystery (of the incarnation) by very many types, so that those who understand, using them as it were in figures, and as it were as preludes or preparatory exercises, may become candidates of sacred learning more ready to receive the truth... Furthermore, let anyone see Jacob, as it were in shadows, signifying what I have said; and whatever things have been written about him, and whatever will seem more obscure in the history, we shall explain ». — Thus Augustine says, l. 22 c. Faust. c. 24: « As regards those indeed who there (in the Hebrew people) were instructed in heart in the wisdom of God, not only in the things they did; but as regards the rest and at the same time all the men of that people, in the things that were done divinely in them or concerning them, the prophecy of the coming Christ and Church is to be searched out ». — Thus Ambrose says, l. 1 de Abraham c. 4: « The things that Abraham did so as to receive offspring from the handmaid were done in figure, and are said according to allegory. Allegory is when one thing is done and another is figured. As the Apostle himself also teaches..., showing that two peoples flow from Abraham's generation: the one of the Jews, which serves the syllables of the law, because it seems to have been born of the handmaid unto servitude; the other of the Christians, which has received the freedom of heavenly grace unto the remission of sins ». — Thus Chrysostom says, Hom. in illud Pauli: Nolo vos ignorare, n. 3-4: « That he may show (the apostle) that the knowledge of the old Law together with the New is great, and that those things were the figure of these, and a shadow of things to come... See the knowledge of the figure together with the truth, and the excellence of the truth above the type. For the type ought not to be altogether alien from the truth, otherwise it would not be a type. Nor again is it right for the type to be equated with the truth... Therefore do not require the whole from me in the old (testament), but if you have received some small and obscure riddles, think that you have been well dealt with ». — Thus Cassiodorus says, praef. in Psalt. c. 1: « Prophecy is a divine inspiration which pronounces the outcomes of things, either through the deeds or through the words of certain men, with immovable truth... But the gifts of that grace were bestowed in many ways. But to embrace a few out of many: it was wrought through the actions of men, as was Noah's ark, and Abraham's sacrifice, and the crossing of the Red Sea; also through the birth of the twins Esau and Jacob, who bore the sacraments of things to come ». — Thus Gregory says, l. 1 in Ezech. Hom. 9, n. 29: « The book of sacred eloquence is written within by allegory, without by history. Within by the spiritual understanding, without however by the simple sense of the letter, suited to those still weak ». — And these things, related from the doctrine of the Fathers by way of sample, will suffice.

III. — These things being now premised, we may receive the true notion of the sense, both literal and spiritual.

That first signification, then, by which words signify things, pertains to the first sense, which is the historical or literal sense. — But note here again that the terms are to be taken formally, according to the distinction made above between words and things, as we now speak of words and things. And so to the literal sense belong plainly also all those things that are said in the Scriptures through simple figures of speech or verbal allegories. For verbal figures or allegories by no means terminate signification as things do, because they are not enclosed within the course of historical events, but are employed only as an artificial instrument of signifying. Hence, if you adhere to the traditional interpretation of the Song of Songs, you will conclude that the Song is altogether literally about Christ and the Church. And the reason is that, according to the traditional and most firmly grounded understanding of this book, there is no historical event there, for instance the marriage of Solomon to the daughter of Pharaoh (3 Reg. III-1), that is narrated historically; no real fact of human loves immediately reported through words, to which fact nevertheless a further signification of the spiritual union of Christ and the Church would be attached. But it is a poetic allegory, and therefore purely verbal, in which under the form of a nuptial drama the sentiments of the heavenly bridegroom toward the faithful soul, and of the faithful soul toward the heavenly bridegroom Christ, are directly expressed². « Solomon, divinely inspired, sang the praises of Christ and the Church, the grace of sacred love, and the sacraments of the eternal marriage; and at the same time he expressed the longing of the holy soul, and, exulting in spirit, composed a nuptial song in a pleasant eulogy, yet a figured one. For he too, like Moses, veiled his face, perhaps no less radiant in this matter, because at that time no one, or but rarely one, was able to behold that glory with unveiled face. Therefore, in view of its excellence, I think that this nuptial song was fore-signified by a title of this kind, so that it is deservedly called singularly the Song of Songs, just as He also to whom it is sung is singularly called: King of kings and Lord of lords »³. — And these are the things that occurred as carefully to be noted concerning the literal sense. Now the things that pertain to the spiritual sense can no longer be of any difficulty.

But that signification by which the things signified by words in turn signify other things is called the spiritual sense, which is founded upon the literal sense and presupposes it. — In this you will observe a beautiful analogy between the written word of God and the sacraments of the New Law. For in the sacraments of the New Law, besides the signification of the outward rite, which is called the sacrament only, there is attended the signification of the thing immediately signified by the outward rite, which is wont to be called the thing and the sacrament. And so it is also in the present case. For those things signified by the words which in turn signify other things stand in some way as the thing and the sacrament. And according as by their typical signification they are referred either to Christ and the Church, or to the rule of the Christian life, or to the mysteries of future glory, they bring a threefold division of the spiritual sense, into allegorical, tropological, and anagogical. « For as the Apostle says to the Hebrews, VII, the old law is a figure of the new law, and the new law itself, as Dionysius says in the book On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, is a figure of future glory. In the new law too, the things that were done in the head (Christ) are signs of the things we ought to do. According, then, as the things of the old law signify the things of the new law, there is the allegorical sense. But according as the things done in Christ, or in the things that signify Christ, are signs of the things we ought to do, there is the moral sense. And as they signify the things that are in eternal glory, there is the anagogical sense »⁴.

The most proper place of spiritual interpretation, then, is the Old Testament, which is known to have been wholly typical, as Augustine shows with a splendid example in the whole twelfth book against Faustus, beginning from the beginning in which God created heaven and earth, and leading the series of prophetic events down to the times of the return of the people of Israel from the Babylonian captivity. Yet I have said that the most proper place of spiritual interpretation is the Old Testament, not the only one. For certainly the Gospels, while they narrate the deeds of Christ before the completion of His passion, by which the old testament was abrogated and the new dedicated—the Apostle saying: for a testament is confirmed in the dead, otherwise it has not yet force while he who made it lives—the Gospels, I say, agree in some respect with the books of the ancient law, and therefore receive not only a tropological or anagogical sense but even an allegorical one⁵. But from the completed passion onward, the difference is this, that the things that belong to the new testament ought no longer to be prefigured typically. Nevertheless a place is still left for the anagogical or tropological sense. For the anagogical indeed, according as the things that pertain to future beatitude were figured for us in the circumstances of Christ's resurrection and appearances. But for the tropological, according as in Christ's passage from mortal to immortal life a sensible example was given to which our moral life is to be conformed, according to that word of Rom. VI-9: Christ rising from the dead dies now no more... For in that he died to sin, he died once; but in that he lives, he lives to God. So do you also reckon that you are indeed dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

But what St. Thomas says in the passage cited above, in the reply to the first objection, that an argument can be drawn from the literal sense alone, is not on account of its greater intrinsic authority, but because the spiritual sense cannot become known except through those passages in which the truth, elsewhere lying hidden under the allegories of things, is literally stated; and therefore the force of the argument is always reduced to the literal sense.

Moreover, although the spiritual sense is of very little service for demonstrating dogmas, it is of the greatest value for confirming them; for the harmony of so many figures, by which the things of the new testament are so vividly delineated and expressed, is no slight argument for confirming the faith, which we can use even against unbelievers. Whence Augustine, l. 12 c. Faust. c. 7: « From those things that are wrapped in figures, if certain of them are set out as it were woven together under one view, they so join their voices in the testimony of Christ that the deafness of even the dullest man must blush ».