De inspiratione sacrae Scripturae: theologica disquisitio

It remains to draw certain conclusions from that Catholic doctrine of the spiritual sense of Sacred Scripture against the broad school of biblical scholars.

Let the first conclusion be that the truth declared thus far in this chapter can in no way be reconciled with the mythical character which those innovators generally attribute to the Old Testament. Hence even if this monstrous opinion of theirs did not conflict with other heads, so many and so great, it would already have to be exploded on this ground alone, that it removes from the midst that sense proper to Scripture alone, which our forefathers, the authentic witnesses of the apostolic tradition, acknowledged in it with unanimous consent. For if the spiritual sense is nothing other than the signification by which the things signified by words in turn signify other things, it must necessarily be founded upon a true and real history. And if the signification of parables or verbal allegories does not go beyond the mode of the literal sense, as was shown above, much less, I think, does the signification of those childish productions of popular imagination which are called myths. Finally, that divine element which shines forth as a sign in the spiritual sense is placed precisely in this, that God alone, as being alone able to dispose and order the events of the world as a scribe orders and disposes the letters to be written on a page, can also signify something, not now through vocal signs or feigned similitudes, but through the very real course of things subject to His providence. And therefore the Fathers unanimously maintain the historical truth as the sole and necessary foundation of the spiritual sense. « After the truth of the history all things are to be taken spiritually », says Jerome, Prolog. in Isaiam. And Gregory, l. 1 Moral. n. 56: « Let him who raises his mind to spiritual understanding not depart from the veneration of the history ». And Hilary, in Psalm. 123, n. 5: « The faith of the history is not endangered if we judge that the things have their reality, and a signification connected with them from without ». And among the other erroneous things that Epiphanius, Jerome, and others note in Origen, this too is found, that he is always an allegorical interpreter, fleeing the truth of the history: « That he so allegorizes paradise as to take away the truth of the history; understanding angels in place of the trees, heavenly powers in place of the rivers, and subverting the whole extent of paradise by tropological interpretation... Depart from the heresy of Origen, and from all heresies, most beloved » ¹.

Let the second conclusion also be that, if the spiritual sense, all of it, has its foundation in history, then conversely it not rarely strengthens and safeguards the belief in the true history, inasmuch as it supplies the key for understanding the reason of certain circumstances which otherwise would seem either fictitious, or idle, or less worthy of the commendation of a divinely inspired narrative. And Augustine pursues this at length in many words, l. 12 c. Faustum, c. 39: « If Ishmael and Isaac, born as men, signify the two testaments, what is to be believed of so many facts which were done with no natural use, no necessity of business? ... For the sake of the word, I ask, if a woman had to be made as a help for the man, did any necessity compel this too, or any utility persuade it, that she should be made from the side of the sleeping man? If for the sake of escaping the flood there was need to build an ark, what need was there of its measurements, either that they should be made just so, or even that they should be commemorated in writings to propagate religion to posterity? If on account of restoring the race animals had to be shut in, what need was there of that precise number, seven of the clean, two of the unclean? That an entrance to the ark should be made, necessity surely compelled; but that it should be made in the side, or even be commended to memory in writing, what compelled? Abraham is commanded to sacrifice his son; he was so commanded in order that his obedience, proved by such a test, might become known to posterity; more fittingly the son carried the wood, so that the aged father should not carry it; he was not afterwards permitted to strike his son, lest he should strike himself with the most grievous bereavement: would Abraham have been less approved even if it had been brought about with no bloodshed? Or if the sacrifice now had to be completed, did it contribute any increase to the victim that that ram should appear caught by its horns in the bramble? Thus when all things are considered, and superfluous things are found as it were woven in with necessary ones, they admonish the human mind first that something is signified, and then to ask what they signify. And so even the Jews themselves, who are unwilling that Christ should be seen to have been fore-announced by such figures of things, not only of things said but also of things done, are compelled to learn from us what those things signify. Unless they grant that they signify something, they do not defend the books of divine authority from the shame of inept fables ».

Let the last conclusion, finally, be that, since the spiritual senses contribute so much to the splendor of the Catholic faith, there are many historical narratives in the Scriptures which, though they might seem on other grounds altogether indifferent and of no profit, are nevertheless, by reason of the aforesaid senses, to be said to belong altogether to those matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, from wresting which to their own opinions all human criticism has long since been ordered by the decree of the Council of Trent to abstain. But concerning these very things, thus called matters of faith and morals, it is right, because of the gravity of the question, that special consideration be given. To this end, then, the following chapter will look.