De inspiratione sacrae Scripturae: theologica disquisitio

As a principle they lay down: That although God is truly the author of the sacred books, yet He is not the only author, but only the principal one. That the biblical writers, as being by no means to be reduced to the condition of amanuenses, were also true authors, and authors neither more nor less than any other profane writers whatsoever. That it therefore pertained to them to adopt for themselves certain literary forms, or certain genres of composition, suited indeed both to the usages of their time and to the inclination of their own genius, and to be preserved whole and intact under divine inspiration, to which no manner of writing is repugnant among those which the usage of men has consecrated. And since from the literary genre adopted there must always be taken the indication of the species of truth which is proposed in each book, the whole question is at last reduced to the literary genres assumed by the biblical writers, and also to the rules by which those genres were governed according to the various circumstances of times and places.

But speaking specifically of the books which bear a historical form, they say that a distinction is needed. For sometimes that form is nothing more than a pure instrument for more efficaciously inculcating some truth, whether philosophical or moral, and then the sense of the book is not to be sought in the order and line of history. Sometimes, on the contrary, the intention is borne toward history as such, and then, but then only, the book is deceptive if it does not agree with the facts, and truthful if otherwise. Although anyone would err grievously who believed that this division is adequate, as if nothing intermediate fell between the two members of the division. Nay, the intermediate genres are almost infinite, and you will take a suitable example from those which in our days are called historical novels. Furthermore, since it can never be sufficiently inculcated that no genre is unworthy of inspired authors, because in all of them there is found an equal aptitude for teaching, for arguing, for instructing in justice, there is surely no reason why the literary genres assumed by the hagiographers should be said to be an exception. They must therefore be reduced to the common categories.

I. — But now the matter is very well known, that among all peoples primitive history is far, far distant from rigorous history. For there is no people that has ever penetrated the mystery of its own origins, but only there are traditions spread among the people, there are legends, there are myths whose real value no one can exactly delimit. The historian, therefore, reporting the narratives which circulate in his time in order to preserve them for perpetual memory, will set them forth neither more nor less according as they are worth, and hence there will be produced in the order of history a certain special genre of writing, an excellent specimen of which Livy supplies when he describes the beginnings of the Roman people.

But if divine inspiration, as has often been said, knows nothing human to be alien to itself, why, I ask, should that very genre have no place in sacred literature too? Why should it not be found in Genesis, where are narrated the beginnings not of one people only, but of the world and of humanity itself? Surely even reason alone a priori would already strongly urge this, because if the primitive history of all peoples belongs to a semi-mythical and semi-historical genre, how much more will that narration be judged to belong to the same genre which, more deeply than all others, ascends into that dense and mysterious darkness of origins! Moreover, the argument a posteriori will scarcely leave you in doubt on this point. For although it must be confessed that there is an infinite distance between Genesis and the other cosmogonies as regards theological and moral doctrine, and that the mythical element dominates much more in pagan literature, and under forms even altogether ridiculous and plainly monstrous, yet the affinities of the narratives are more evident than that they could be denied by anyone. Therefore in Genesis too there are myths and legends, while the perfect truthfulness of this book remains safe, because, with attention to the literary genre, all the facts related in it are set forth under the benefit, as is commonly said, of an inventory; all things also, whether historical or not, are the vestment of a most true and most pure religious idea¹.

II. — But now from the prehistoric genre, which everywhere bears a singular mixture of fable and reality, one must come to another genre which is occupied with what they call historical times. In which indeed, if account be taken of the custom universally received among any writers whatsoever, the intention of narrating events as absolutely real and true in themselves will appear evident. Therefore someone will conclude that the historical books of Scripture, at least from Exodus onward, must be regarded as corresponding exactly to the concrete reality of the facts, lest otherwise they be found lying or deceptive, which God forbid. And yet, eppure! how many distinctions must be made here too!

For it occurs to us to consider that the biblical historians lived some centuries before us, and no one is ignorant how dangerous it is to judge ancient matters according to modern criteria. For who, I ask, even but slightly versed in Greek and Latin literature, does not notice how great is the distance between the ancients and us as regards the concept of history? Among us history is a science; among the ancients, however, an art. We are photographers, they painters. Hence they assumed for themselves that liberty which no modern would think lawful, as when Livy constructs from scratch speeches and discourses never uttered by those in whose mouths they are placed. And yet no one hitherto has judged those historians to be blamed for falsity on that account, just as no one blames Raphael because he clothed the Blessed Virgin in the garments which Roman women used in his century. But will there perhaps be some theological principle for denying to the biblical historians the faculty of treating history according to the norms which were in force when they wrote? Indeed their books are true. But the truth of a book is not precisely a thing about which one can judge in the abstract. It is a relative thing which depends on the character of the work, and on the laws which for the time govern the literary genre adopted by the author.

But not yet enough. For two things must always be kept before our eyes. First, that the biblical authors wrote in Hebrew, and second, that they were Orientals. First, I say, they wrote in Hebrew. Now the Hebrew language is of such a kind that, if it is not thoroughly known, it easily gives occasion for believing that there is a categorical affirmation where there is not even a shadow. And this comes from its rigidity. Modern languages have many inflections, by whose aid a discriminating doubt is spread over the whole narrative. But the Semitic languages lack these inflections. Moreover, the sacred authors were Orientals. And how shall we judge the literary genres of Orientals by Western criteria? But if a vast distance separates the conception which moderns have of history from the conception which the ancient classics had formed for themselves, anyone will not deviate from the truth who says that in this respect an abyss lies between us and the Orientals. To narrate things as they were accustomed to be handed down from father to son through long conversations protracted into the late night, or as they were found recorded in the first book that came to hand, this was neither more nor less the norm prescribed to the Oriental historian, without his thinking that further investigation or critical examination was needed. And you have a clear proof in what those who have long dwelt in the East testify: namely, that all Oriental histories are concluded with the clause: God knows better than we! Therefore again, with attention to the literary genre, the Oriental historian, even when he relates things which are materially false, does not err or deceive, because he does not make himself a guarantor of the things he relates, but always leaves to be understood the restriction which among our classics repeatedly occurs expressly: they say, they say, they report. Besides: God knows better than we. But let it never, I ask, slip from memory that, by the testimony of Ernest Renan in the passage cited above, it is Muslim historiography in which one must seek the analogy of the process of sacred historiography among the Hebrews.

And the argument is not weakened, but rather grows, if we inspect the internal character of the Bible. For whoever is not altogether a stranger in biblical studies cannot be ignorant that the sacred historians ought to be called compilers of documents, rather than writers of books in the modern sense of the word. See for example the books of Paralipomenon, of which at least a third part is textually transcribed from the books of Kings, or certainly from some common source. Hence you will rightly call the books of Paralipomenon a certain collection of implicit citations. But there can be no reason why we should not say that the Pentateuch and the other historical books depend on the same method.

Now therefore the question spontaneously arises, whether in citing or transcribing their documents the hagiographers intended to make themselves guarantors of the assertions contained in them. Yes, plainly, some most resolute doctor will answer at once, because according to the fundamental laws of history, whoever affirms a fact, with no declaration or restriction added, whether by implicitly citing or not, by that very fact constitutes himself a guarantor of the truth of the fact. But, my good man, while you bring forward the fundamental laws of history, let me for a moment ask which history it is whose laws you are now appealing to. Is it history as we conceive it, or history as the Orientals conceived it? In the first case, there will be no disagreement between us, but we are now outside the question. In the second case, the considerations brought forward above return, and they will receive new confirmation from the following comparison. For certainly in modern historical works the author is accustomed to add an appendix in which he collects all the documents pertaining to the subject of the book. And would it perhaps occur to someone that by the very fact of insertion the author intends to make himself a guarantor of the truth of each individual document? Not even in a dream, especially if, as usually happens, several things are placed in the collection which were expressly rejected and studiously refuted in the body of the book. But now consider one of those appendices separated from what among us is the substance or body of the work, and you will have a sufficiently faithful image of the historical literary genre among the Orientals. For when it is a question of an Oriental historian, there is no reason why you should ever presume in him the intention of asserting facts in his own name and by his own authority. He is accustomed to understand: God knows better than we. He, altogether a stranger in the critical art, reports indiscriminately the things he heard, as he heard them. He therefore has this privilege, that by narrating false things he does not err, and by affirming things he does not know he does not lie.

Accordingly, there is no fact whose historical truth can be established from this alone that it is narrated in the Bible, but for demonstration one must proceed by other ways: Either by the exegetical way, as when there are detected in the context special indications of an intention that is terminated at a categorical affirmation. Or by the critical-historical way, as when the nature and age of the documents, comparison with other certain historical facts, and other such things persuade the truth of the fact. Or finally by the dogmatic way, as when faith in original sin makes us certain that the fact of the fall described in Genesis, if not in its circumstances, at least certainly in its substance, is truly historical. In sum, you will always especially beware of interpreting the books of antiquity, especially Oriental ones, according to the literary conventions of the moderns, not attending to the fact that other laws and other conventions were then in force².

III. — Finally there remains the last consideration, drawn from the fact that the biblical writers did not write for scientific instruction, but for religious instruction. For the Bible is a religious code, and not a manual of history, as the Apostle says, 1 Cor. XIV-3: He who prophesies speaks to men for edification, and exhortation, and consolation. Moreover, if the hagiographers cared nothing for history except insofar as it contributed to the end set before them, what prevents them from having treated history rather freely, even apart from the case of implicit citations, by inventing, adding, amplifying, and artificially accommodating many things for the purpose of dogmatic instruction? Which indeed is greatly confirmed by the manner in which they foretold future things. For events separated by a long interval they often see in the same vision as if consecutive, and with no delay interposed they pass from the type to the antitype, and from the figure to the figured. Cornely himself, where he discusses the diction of the prophetic books, teaches: « That the prophets often set forth future things as present or even as past. That all prophecies are like fragments, which must all be arranged and composed in fitting order, so that the complete image of the matter may arise. That in prophetic prediction the clarity which is sought in historical narration is not to be sought, and that the greatest care must be taken lest the same accurate distinction of times which is expected from historians be demanded of the prophets, etc. etc. » ³ But we now ask for what reason it was lawful for the prophets to use this liberty in describing the future, and not lawful in describing the past. Or why divine truthfulness would be at stake when the priestly code sets forth the distinction of priests and Levites, the unity of the sanctuary, and other similar things, as of Mosaic institution, although they had a much later origin, and is no longer at stake when Isaiah addresses Cyrus as present, when Jeremiah prophesies that Jerusalem will be forever the center of religion, when the angel foretells that the son to be born of Mary will reign in the house of Jacob forever, and will occupy the throne of David his father, when Christ Himself in the Gospel sets forth and mingles under one view both the things that pertained to the ruin of Jerusalem and the things that pertained to the end of the world.

Let the conclusion therefore be that there are myths in Scripture, also implicit citations of false documents, and finally fictions and artificial accommodations of historical events ⁴. This, however, without prejudice to truthfulness and inerrancy, if account be taken of the special literary form proper to those ancient books, according to the varying condition of times and of other circumstances in which they were written. — Thus far the ingenious invention of our biblical scholars.